Maureen McKade

by A Dime Novel Hero

  Johnny’s dark eyes danced. “Yep. Pete teached me how to sneak up behind bad men and scalp ’em cleanlike.”

  Kit groaned. “He was just having fun with you, Johnny. People don’t take scalps anymore.”

  “But Pete said when he was my age, he practiced all the time. He said that if I want to count coup, I have to practice. Pete says that back in his time, I coulda been a great warrior.”

  Kit made a mental note to talk to the old Indian about his “lessons.” “That was a long time ago, sweetheart. Now we’re civilized.”

  Johnny screwed up his young face. “What does civlized mean?”

  “It means we can’t have any more fun,” answered a growling voice.

  Kit smiled wryly at the ancient Indian. Coarse gray hair flowed down his back, but Pete Two Ponies’ eyes were those of a young man.

  “No, it means now we can all have fun without worrying about outlaws,” Kit said.

  “It ain’t the outlaws you have to worry about, it’s the railroad and the banks and them politicians.” Two Ponies spat a stream of tobacco to the brown soil.

  “Maybe, but it also means Johnny doesn’t have to grow up wearing a gun for protection. By the way, thanks for watching him while I went into town.”

  Pete waved a gnarled hand. “Nothing else for an old Injun to do but watch the young’uns growin’ up to take their place.”

  Kit ignored his standard gloom and doom. “Has Charlie been working with the yearlings this morning?”

  Pete nodded. “Looks like you’ll be havin’ some more of them gray men comin’ here and lookin’ you over.”

  “Those ‘gray men’ are businessmen, and they’re looking over my horses.”

  “In my day, you woulda been married and borne a whole lot of papooses by now.”

  “In your day, I’d have lost my scalp to an overzealous warrior,” Kit shot back with a grin.

  “It wouldn’t have been your scalp you’da lost.” Pete Two Ponies winked and turned to walk away with an arthritic gait.

  Watching his departure, Kit shook her head fondly. Pete had shown up two days after she’d bought the ranch, and he came and went as he pleased. She respected his privacy, and through the years a friendship had grown between them.

  Kit brought her attention back to her son. “Have you fed the animals yet?”

  Johnny shook his head. “Me and Pete were just getting to it.”

  “Pete and I,” Kit corrected automatically. “How about you and I go take care of them?”

  “Okay.”

  With Toby dancing at his heels, Johnny skipped ahead to the smaller of the two barns. Kit followed, her disappointment with Jake Cordell evaporating beneath the tranquillity of her home. Toby lay on the ground outside the shed, waiting patiently for Johnny to come back out. Inside the building, Kit spotted Johnny on his knees in front of the first cage.

  “Looks like Jasper’s getting better. He’s standing up,” Johnny said, his voice low so he wouldn’t disturb the injured raccoon.

  Kit joined him and leaned over to peer inside. She smiled, laying her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He does look better. You’ve done a good job caring for him.”

  Johnny turned, grinning up at her. “Remember how he was at first? He wouldn’t let me get near him.”

  “And you got him to trust you.”

  “Can I keep him even after he’s all healed?”

  Kit knelt beside him and shook her head. “It wouldn’t be right, sweetheart. Jasper’s a wild animal. He’d be sad locked away in a small cage. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Johnny was silent for a moment. “What about Satan? He was wild.”

  Kit stared at Jasper’s bandaged leg a moment, trying to come up with an explanation of why the stallion was different. “That’s true, but horses are meant to be tamed and used by people, just like cattle. But Jasper and all his friends weren’t. They belong in the wild.”

  “I guess so,” Johnny said reluctantly. He got to his feet and fed and watered the creatures in the five cages. Besides Jasper, there were two rabbits, a squirrel, two kittens who’d been orphaned, and a possum who’d been cut by a tin can.

  While Johnny carried out his tasks, Kit went to the house to retrieve two baby bottles filled with milk. She passed one to Johnny and kept the other.

  Opening the wire door of the kittens’ pen, she lifted one of the young animals off the cloth-covered floor and gave it to her son. Taking the other one in her palm, she sat beside Johnny on a wooden bench.

  Kit glanced at him, noting how he gently cradled the kitten in his lap. She’d known ever since he was an infant that he had an affinity with animals. Johnny had been less than a year old when she’d found Toby, a starving young puppy in Chaney. She’d brought him home to care for, and from the moment they’d set eyes on one another, her son and the gawky hound dog had been inseparable.

  The peace and quiet in the barn usually soothed Kit, but her meeting with Mr. Mundy had left her troubled. If she hadn’t taken a second mortgage out on the ranch to purchase some mares, the loan would’ve been paid in full. But she’d taken the risk, and now she might lose everything she’d worked for.

  “Can we keep them, Ma?” Johnny asked, startling Kit out of her somber thoughts. “Salty and Pepper aren’t wild.” He turned his wide, pleading brown eyes to her. “Can I, Ma? Please?”

  She lifted Pepper, the black kitten, to her cheek, its soft fur tickling her skin. “I don’t see why not.”

  Johnny’s wide grin sent a shaft of brilliant sunlight to her heart. “Thanks.”

  She swallowed the fragile emotion. If only the ranch were that easy to keep.

  After putting the drowsy kittens back in their cage, Kit and Johnny went outside. Toby met them at the door.

  “Race you to the house,” Johnny challenged Kit.

  For a moment, she wondered what the townsfolk would think if they saw her running across the yard for the sole purpose of having fun. It would definitely be an interesting addition to the rest of the rumors circulating about the eccentric Kit Thornton.

  “You’re on,” Kit replied, and broke into a long-legged stride.

  Johnny streaked past her and Kit took off after him. She laughed at the sheer folly of it and caught up with her son. Side by side, with Toby barking excitedly beside them, Kit and Johnny raced across the bare yard, their breath coming out in white wisps. Falling back a few feet, Kit allowed him to beat her to the porch. She bent over at the waist to breathe in deep draughts of air.

  “Looks like you beat me this time,” she gasped.

  Johnny nodded jubilantly. “Maybe next time, Ma.”

  Kit glanced at her son. In that instant she saw his father’s face, and dread gripped her heart. If Jake found out about Johnny, he might try to take him away from her. She blinked back moisture in her eyes. He had no right to Johnny. He hadn’t nursed Johnny through the chicken pox, or patched him up when he hurt himself. Johnny was her son, and nobody, not even his father, would ever take him away from her.

  The following morning, after having slept fourteen hours straight, Jake gazed at his image in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes peered back accusingly. His pallid complexion was colored only by slightly ruddy cheeks covered with dark bristles. Scooping up cool water in his cupped palms, he washed his face, then shaved with an unsteady hand.

  He glanced around and was surprised to find his saddlebags and rifle sitting on the chair. He didn’t remember retrieving them. Tugging on a clean set of clothes, he left the room.

  “Good morning, Mr. Cordell.”

  Freda Finster was placing two settings of silverware on the dining room table.

  “Morning, Mrs. Finster.”

  “Feeling better, you are?”

  “Hell—heckuva lot better, thanks,” Jake replied. “Who brought my saddlebags and rifle in?”

  “Sergeant O’Hara.” She turned toward the kitchen. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

  Jake followed her into the
oven-warmed room and sniffed appreciatively at fresh coffee and baking bread.

  “If some coffee you would like, there is a fresh pot,” Freda said.

  Jake flashed her one of his most charming smiles. “That sounds real good, Mrs. Finster.”

  She poured him a cup and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You are welcome. Now sit down by the table and drink it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He did as she ordered, lowering himself to a sturdy wooden chair. The hot brew was strong, just the way he liked it.

  He glanced at Freda and caught her studying him. “What is it? Did I forget to wash my face? Or maybe you want to check behind my ears?”

  She almost smiled. “No. I was only thinking that you might not be as bad as I had thought.”

  Feeling like he was back in short pants and his teacher Miss Evans had scolded him, Jake squirmed in his chair. “I guess I owe you an apology for the way I acted yesterday.”

  Freda laughed, startling him, and bringing a reluctant grin to his lips. “That was not so hard, was it?”

  “I never was too good at saying I was sorry,” Jake said with a sheepish grin.

  “Why Kit helped you, now I understand,” she commented, as she stirred cooking oats.

  Puzzled as to why a woman he didn’t even know would go out of her way to help him, he asked, “Why’s that?”

  “She knew there was good in you. Sees things, she does, that other people do not even notice.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like anybody reading him too well, because then they expected something from him. And he’d long ago given up trying to live up to others’ expectations. “Who is this Kit, anyhow?”

  Freda paused. “When I came here four years ago, I had just lost my Hans. He left me with only a few dollars. Here I was, new to this America and all alone. Kit, she introduces herself and knowing nothing about me, helps me buy this house and start a bakery. Without her, I do not know what I would have done.”

  Jake digested the information. “Did you say she’s lived in Chaney all her life?”

  A frown furrowed her brow. “That’s right. Yet some people in this town approve of her not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kit is not like other people. She…” Freda puckered her lips as if searching for the right words. “Those who need, she helps. Color of their skin or what language they speak, she cares not. And it is not just people but animals she takes in and cares for. Most in this town do not understand her, so they make up horrible things about her. Kit pretends she does not care, but it hurts her.”

  He searched his memory, trying to remember a girl named Kit. Hadn’t she said she’d known a Jake Cordell a long time ago? Usually he had no trouble remembering a pretty woman, and Kit definitely was someone he should’ve had no trouble recalling. He shrugged aside his musings.

  “Would you happen to know of any offices in town that I might be able to rent?” Jake asked.

  “A room above the doctor’s office, there is. Dr. Lewis is looking for someone to rent it.”

  “So old Doc Haney isn’t here anymore, huh?”

  “No. Such a terrible thing. Late one night he fell in a horse trough and drowned.”

  Jake shook his head in a mixture of amusement and pity. “Probably drunk again. I’ll talk to Dr. Lewis later.”

  “Are you planning on staying in Chaney?”

  “For now.”

  “What about your family?”

  “My father’s dead. My mother lives back East.” Jake quelled the familiar hurt with a forced nonchalance. “She didn’t like living in the middle of nowhere.”

  Freda’s hazel eyes clouded with sympathy, but she didn’t comment. “Breakfast is ready.” She motioned to a plate piled with biscuits and a bowl filled with gravy. “Could you bring those?”

  Jake picked them up and followed Freda into the dining room.

  She sat at the head of the table while Jake took the seat to her right. Filling his plate, he hoped the food tasted as good as it smelled. The first mouthful told him it tasted better.

  Finishing breakfast, he wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed back his plate. “That hit the spot, especially those biscuits. Thanks, Mrs. Finster.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Cordell. Is good to cook for someone who appreciates it. And call me Freda. I think you are talking to Hans’s mother when you call me Mrs. Finster.” Fondness glimmered in her eyes. “Kit’s son also likes my biscuits.”

  “She has a son?”

  Freda nodded. “Yes, but no husband.”

  The information about Kit intrigued him. “What happened to the boy’s father?”

  Freda stood and began to gather the dishes, keeping her gaze averted from Jake. “About him Kit does not talk.” She left the dining room.

  Puzzled by his landlady’s evasiveness, he frowned. Freda obviously liked Kit but didn’t seem to approve of her son’s father. He wondered if Kit had been married.

  Jake pushed back his chair, and carried the remaining dishes into the kitchen. “Do Kit and her son live in town?”

  Freda shook her head. “On a ranch, southwest of town.”

  “Just her and the boy?”

  “Curious you are about a woman you do not even know,” Freda said suspiciously.

  Jake shrugged. “I just want to figure out how she knows me. I think I’ll go for a little ride.”

  “Where is it you will go?”

  “Unfinished business.”

  Though puzzled, Freda didn’t pry. “Dress warm, Mr. Cordell. Cold it is this morning.”

  Jake nodded in acknowledgment and grabbed his tan jacket off the coat rack in the foyer. He donned it, then slapped on his hat, pulling the brim down on his forehead. The morning was crisp, but he welcomed the fresh air.

  As he strode toward the livery barn, he was hailed by a steady stream of old acquaintances. An hour later, he finally made it into the stable.

  “Zeus!” Jake called out.

  An answering neigh led him to a middle stall, where his horse munched contentedly on oats.

  “It looks like you’ve really had a rough time of it,” Jake remarked, running a hand fondly along Zeus’s muscled neck.

  Zeus continued to crunch his grain, as if ignoring Jake.

  “Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t come see you yesterday,” Jake apologized. “What do you say we go for a little ride?”

  Zeus didn’t look enthused at venturing out into the dismal morning.

  A few minutes later, Jake led the reluctant horse out of the stable and mounted up. Indecision made him pause a moment, then he tapped the palomino’s withers with his boot heels and Zeus jumped into a trot.

  The cemetery was set on a hill overlooking the town. In the late spring and summer it was lush with green grass, but now it looked as dead as its inhabitants. Jake halted Zeus in front of the two-foot-high weathered fence surrounding the small graveyard. He dismounted and stepped over the slight barrier.

  His gaze went first to his father’s tombstone, which had a light blanket of snow on it. He brushed the flakes off and placed his hand on the cold stone. He had been at this grave only one other time: nearly six years before, when he had said good-bye to his father.

  Jonathan Cordell had started out as a lawman, then become a judge. He’d been away from home often, leaving young Jake with various families. Later Jake had stayed alone, becoming independent at an early age, as well as rebellious. Yet a part of Jake had never given up trying to please his father, and though he’d failed at that, he hoped bringing in Jonathan Cordell’s killer had counted for something.

  He gripped the tombstone tightly as his gaze swept across the inscribed stones and crude wooden crosses. He walked around until he discovered what he sought in the far corner.

  MAGGIE SUMMERFIELD

  BORN 1865, DIED 1889

  WE WILL MISS HER

  Jake concentrated on a bluejay’s raucous call and the answering chatter of a
squirrel. The silence following their argument forced Jake to acknowledge the grief within him.

  Jake stared down at the sod that covered her grave and curled his fingers into tight fists. “I hope you didn’t die alone, Maggie. If I’d have known, I’d have come back.”

  He reread the words on the headstone. “I’m sorry things couldn’t have been different between us, but you were a good friend, Maggie. I hope you’re in a better place.”

  Taking a deep breath, he walked back to Zeus and mounted. About to turn the palomino toward town, he noticed the trail running through the trees above the cemetery. The path led to his former home—-the ranch that should’ve been his, that he was still determined to possess. And now was as good a time as any to find out who he was up against.

  He urged Zeus up the narrow trail and into the woods. The path continued for nearly a mile before the ranch came into view. He whistled low in admiration of the horses that pranced about in the corrals.

  As he approached the house, a nondescript mutt raced out to greet him. Zeus shied nervously at the yapping dog and Jake kept a firm hold on the reins. He dismounted by the porch, tying Zeus to a pole. The dog sniffed Jake’s boots, then licked his hand.

  Jake grinned and scratched behind the animal’s ears. “You like that, don’t you, fella?”

  The dog raced back to the barn, and Jake shook his head at the animal’s antics.

  He knocked on the door and it was opened almost immediately, as if by itself. Then Jake glanced down and saw the young boy who stared up at him inquisitively.

  “You’re not Charlie,” the boy accused.

  Jake squelched a smile. “Last time I looked, I wasn’t. My name’s Jake.” The kid’s guileless stare didn’t waver, and Jake cleared his throat. “Jake Cordell.”

  The boy’s dark eyes widened. “You’re the one the books are about!”

  Jake groaned. “Don’t tell me you’ve read them, too.”

  “No, my ma reads them to me now, but someday I’ll be able to read them all by myself. Ma’s teaching me how. And how to spell and do ciphers. Ask me what two and three is.”