Logan's Promise

by Nancy Howard

  She looks over to the high back chair and sees that her clothes have been folded and laid out neatly by Zelda. She picks them up and holds them up to her nose and smells them. They are for once clean, not smelly, which causes Logan to smile. She gets her clothes on and picks up the hair brush on the vanity, that she used the night before and begins to brush out the tangles in her hair. She pulls it back in a ponytail, which she usually does. Hangs her hat on her back then straps on her gun, and ties the holster to her leg, and opens bedroom door and goes out into the hallway. Logan descends the stairs slowly, walking into the dinning room where John is already up. He has been since an hour before sunrise, which is his usual schedule. He is sitting at the table, when Logan enters the dining room. He has already consumed two large eggs, steak, and fried potatoes and gravy, and is drinking his third cup of coffee. He looks up and sees Logan walk into the dinning room.

  “Well, good morning, Missy. Did you sleep well?” Sanderson says greeting Logan with a big smile.

  Missy seems to be John's favorite name to call her, when he addresses her.

  “Morning sir, and yes, yes, I did. I slept, very well.” Logan responds, still not fully awake. But smiling back at him nonetheless.

  “Have some coffee, it'll wake ya up.”

  She sets down at the far end of the table opposite of John and pours herself a cup. It's piping hot, just what she needs she thinks. She sets there and sips it, at the same time quietly watches John, who is busy figuring something on a piece of paper.

  Both are quiet for a few seconds before John looks up from his paperwork and says, “Logan, after breakfast I'll have George saddle our horses, as promised. I want you and I to ride out to where my cattle are being stolen. You should probably eat something before we go. It's a long ride out there and back, and we won't be back until mid-afternoon.

  Before Logan could answer saying she's not hungry. She hears Catherine's voice, as she walks into the dinning room behind her, “yes, dear, eat. You need your nourishment.”

  Logan looks at her, smiles, and jokingly says, “yes mother.”

  Catherine looks at Logan, and smiles back, shaking her finger at Logan in a teasing manner, admonishing her in fun, “yes, you know, mother knows best.”

  “So, I've heard,” Logan responds, still smiling.

  Even though she wasn't that hungry, Logan took the Sanderson’s advice and ate an egg and some bacon, and drank another cup of coffee. Which she knows is not a good idea, because it will make her want to pee, once she starts to ride.

  11

  Back in Folsom, the sheriff and his posse arrived in town at two a. m. The men who rode with him are exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. They are still in deep distress over the tasks they had performed the day before. Having to bury not only adults, but little children, too. That seemed to be what bothered all of them the most, having to bury little kids. It has shaken all of them to the core of their souls, and has taken a huge emotional toll on all of them.

  After returning to town they quickly dispersed and began to return to their homes. Each of them one by one returning to whoever it is, to hug, and to be with. Knowing full well that the carnage they had just witnessed could have been them, and their loved ones.

  All of them are unnerved by the fact that Hogg and his gang of murdering thugs are still out there. Still on the loose and will kill again, when they get the chance. And each and every man in the posse, hopes that it is not them that Hogg and his gang chooses to murder next.

  Gavin came back with the posse and like the others he is spent mentally and emotionally, too. Unlike the rest of the men in the posse, he has seen the handy work of Hogg and his gang too many times before. Each and every time he is witness to the horror and destruction they leave behind, it makes him more and more angry. More and more determined to catch them and kill each and everyone of them.

  Normally Gavin would be hunting Hogg just for the money, half of the reward. That may have been true when he first started to track and hunt the gang five months ago. But now, it's not just about money. It's about all of the helpless, defenseless people they have sinfully massacred. It is for the little children he had to help bury. Hogg is the lowest of low, killing kids. He is the devil incarnate. For Gavin hunting Hogg and wanting to kill him, is eating away at him, and he knows it.

  He hates Hogg. He's making it a personal vendetta to kill him and his gang, and that makes it dangerous for him. He, like Logan is a professional. He knows that every bounty is business. No feelings. It's just about making a living. But with Hogg and his horrible acts against the innocent, that has caused a change his perspective. Gavin knows that once a bounty becomes personal, and your emotions are involved it could get you killed. He wants to see them dead, and he is the one who wants to kill them. Very badly.

  This all weighs heavily on Gavin he's very tired as he stables his horse at the livery. It is late and very dark as he begins to walk to the hotel, a walk that is long and lonely. And the fact that he is so spent emotionally the walk seems like a mile, when in reality it's just a couple hundred yards.

  He enters the hotel lobby, and sees the night clerk slumped over and sleeping behind the desk. Gavin really didn't want to disturb the man suddenly, so he clears his throat loud enough so that he hopes it wakes the clerk up. But it doesn't. So Gavin clears his throat loudly again. No luck. Then he taps the desk bell as lightly as he can. The man nearly jumps out of his skin and to his feet like a jack rabbit. The clerk shakes his head several times—so hard it rattles his jowls. Then he snaps, too, realizing that he has been sleeping. He turns quickly and sees Gavin standing there on the other side of the desk.

  “Help you sir,” he says, through a wide yawn and wide eyed.

  “Yes, I'd like a room,” Gavin said. Trying not to burst out laughing, even in his exhausted state of mind. “Can you tell me something? Do you have a Logan Kincaid registered here tonight, by chance?”

  “Nope. Nobody by that name is here. You can check the sign in book yourself.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might be? I mean you do know who she is, don't you?”

  “Yes, I know who she is. I heard that she shot some guy today, that was trying to harm some saloon girl. Last I heard, she was seen headed out of town with John and Catherine Sanderson—out to their ranch. That's all I know, mister.”

  “Thanks,” Gavin said. Confused at what the clerk just told him about Logan. He signed into the hotel, and went upstairs for a nights sleep. Thinking that tomorrow he would ride out to the Sanderson ranch and find Logan. Why, he wonders did she go with them? Because he remembers what Sanderson said the day before, about not liking bounty hunters. What made her change her mind about him? He knows Logan, and he figures she had a good reason to go with them, but still he wonders. He thought she wanted to hunt Hogg with him, now hearing this he's not so sure what she's doing.

  Gavin decides he'll deal with Logan and the Sandersons tomorrow, right now he is very tired. He's still dealing with brutal carnage he saw at the Blakes, and Tanners. The deaths of those little kids, will make it very hard to get to sleep.

  JAY CANTER, THE SANDERSON's ranch foreman also came back with the posse, making the long ride back to the ranch, not arriving until after three in the morning. Like Gavin and the others he, too, is on empty. He unsaddles his horse before making his way to the bunkhouse to sleep. He is unaware of Logan's presence on the ranch, and the fact that Sanderson has hired her for range security to try to help stop the rustling of his cattle. He knows that he will only get a couple hours sleep, and it will be hard to do that with the images of the death he saw earlier.

  12

  Logan and John arrive at the mesa, on the north side of Sanderson's Hill Ranch at mid morning. It's where he's been having trouble with cattle rustling. When they stop their horses, they are atop a butte that slopes away and is where they are looking down on a creek and the acreage on the other side. That's Henry Baker's property, John tells Logan.

&
nbsp; Logan asks John why the mesa has not deterred the rustlers, and he said that he'd show her why. He points to his right and tells Logan to ride that way. They ride a hundred yards or so Logan sees that the butte slopes very gradually downhill, and to the east. Making the climb to steal John's cattle very easy. Logan also observes, that once the rustlers have the cows at the bottom of the mesa, they can quickly herd them off to the east along the creek and onto the Baker Ranch. Where they likely re-brand them, to look like they're Henry's cows.

  John tells Logan that he had planned on fencing off this area, but had not gotten to it. He wanted to buy the land down to the river. Obviously that will not happen now, he tells Logan, because Henry has bought it. He tells her that it's going to be up to her and Gavin to stop the rustlers.

  John shows Logan his property boundaries. He wants to make sure she understands where they are. He tells her that she has his blessing to chase after them and catch them wherever they try to run, too.

  “So, are they stealin' your cows in broad daylight?”

  “Apparently so, it's because there ain't nobody out here to stop em from doing it, Logan. Like I said, I don't have the manpower to keep men out here all the time.”

  Logan listens, then asks, “What about at night?”

  “Well, their stealin’ them at night, too. I will have to send a couple of my ranch hands out here th I guess. But understand, I don't want you out here at night.”

  “Gavin will be here with me sir. And I've camped out alone on the trail all the time.”

  “I know you have, Logan, but that's going to change here. This is a day job for you. And stop callin' me sir. It's John.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Sanderson,” she responds, and smiles at him. Shaking her head and causing him to smile back at her.

  Logan was quiet, thinking about what she just heard him say, he didn't want her out here at night. Even with Gavin, and she and didn't argue with him about it.

  “How many head have you lost,” she asked him?

  “Almost half of the herd out here. I used to have over two hundred head out here, now it's about half that. It's costin' me a hell of a lot of money, Logan.”

  “I hope we can help.”

  “I do, too.”

  “So another question. What happens if Gavin doesn't want to help me do this? Even after I try to convince him.”

  “Then I'll just have to have a couple of the boys come out here with you. But I hope we won't have to resort to that. Like I told you in town yesterday, they're cowpokes, not policemen. I hope Sloan takes me up on my offer, like you've done. What do you think he'll do?”

  “I'm not real sure. He's got his heart set on me and him catchin' Hogg and his gang.”

  “Do you think you can help convince him? To do this, I mean.”

  “I'll try my best, I can't guarantee he'll listen, even to me though.”

  John talks to Logan, and tells her about the history of how he bought and acquired all of this land. How it took hard work and toil to have a ranch as big as Sanderson's Hill. And how it has cost him and Catherine dearly. John opens up to Logan, that he and Catherine lost their only daughter to smallpox four years ago and that she was about the same age as Logan. As he told her about losing his daughter, she could hear the sadness in his voice and the faraway look in his eyes.

  Now, Logan understands the void she's already filling in their lives, that she overheard Jane Chatfield talking to Catherine about the evening before.

  “What was your daughters name, if you don't mind me asking,” Logan questions?

  “No, I don't mind. It's... was,” he pauses. “Jennifer.”

  “I'm sorry for your loss sir. I truly am.”

  “Thank you, Logan.”

  John is curious about Logan, wanting to know more about her. She told him her mother died when she was seven. Then she opened up to John about how her dad abused her growing up, though she chose not to tell him everything.

  He was a mean sadistic drunk she said. She told him how he'd strip her naked, and beat her with his belt when she was a little girl. She told John he did it when she refused to clean up his messy bed, that he'd puked and peed in the night before. She told him the abuse went on until she was eighteen.

  She told him that at eighteen, she was sick of his abuse and ran away from home after she got out of school. John listens and is saddened by what she tells him. He knew she probably wasn't telling him everything, that she was holding some things back. She's keeping that part to herself. It makes him sad to hear what her dad did to her.

  John looks at Logan and thinks about what she just told him. He knows that those must be painful memories for her. He wishes he would have been around for her back then he tells her. He would have beat the hell out of Cal Kincaid, for his sins against her.

  She was quiet for a minute then told him about the army sergeant she killed, that tried to rape her when she was nineteen. She told him that he was the first person she killed. John told Logan that the sergeant deserved it.

  But what most intrigues him about Logan, is her ability to fight back from all of the adversity of her childhood and terrible upbringing. He likes Logan and is connecting to her already. He knows she has trouble trusting anyone, right now. But he admires her in-spite of what she does for a living. She's tough, and smart, not afraid of getting into the mix of things. He thinks that she truly has integrity, a quality he most admires in people. And he knows that behind that mask of a bounty hunter with a reputation, there lies a sweet and very lovely young woman. Who has the poise and confidence that his Jenny possessed. He knows this, because he and Catherine along with the Chatfields witnessed it the evening before.

  “Logan like I told you yesterday, I don't have much use for bounty hunters. But I just can't understand why you do it? And you don't have to tell me now, if you don't want, too. But young lady, you do know how dangerous it is for you being a bounty hunter. Don't you? You ever think of just settling down and getting married, and perhaps having a family?”

  Logan paused, before she answered him. “Yeah, I do, all the time. I know it's dangerous for me. Funny that you would bring this up, because I been wanting to quit doin' this for a longtime now. I mean, before I get killed. I want to settle down, and just be a normal twenty-six year old girl. You know with a real home.

  “I've agreed to help Gavin with Bailey Hogg, and I've told him that it's my last bounty. But like I also told you in town yesterday, I ain’t goin’ out and chasin’ em all over hell’s half acre like he’s been doin’, either. The real reason I'm gonna help him, is because I don't want him to do it alone. I don't want to see him get himself killed, because I wouldn't help him. I could never forgive myself if that were to happen to him. But yeah, I want to settle down, and stay put.”

  “So, you do care about him?”

  “Yes I do, a whole lot.”

  “Do you know how he feels about you?”

  “Yeah, he loves me.”

  “Do you love him, Logan?”

  “Yes I do,” she says seriously. Looking at him.

  “How long have the two of you known each other?”

  “About four years. We met in Las Cruces and rode together until last year, when he decided he wanted to go to West Texas.”

  “And you, didn't want to go?”

  “No, I decided to stay here, but I sure missed him. I'd been thinkin' about him a lot lately. Wonderin' if he's okay, I wasn't sure at all, until he rode into my camp the other night. He said he'd been looking for me.”

  “You sound like you're glad he found you.”

  “I am,” she said, looking at him, with a smile on her face.

  “You know, Logan, I misjudged you yesterday, and I want to apologize for that,” John says.

  “Mr. Sanderson you don't....”

  “No hear me out. You may be a bounty hunter and I know now that you've had your share of trouble, cause you just told me. But girl I want you to know this. Ever since you walked through our door yesterday aftern
oon, I have not seen my wife's mood change like it has since before Jenny died. You are....” His voice trailed off, then he said, “you're already a breath of fresh air in our house for her, I want you to know that.”

  “John, I could never replace your daughter, and I've only been here since yesterday.”

  “I know you can't replace Jennifer, Logan, I don't want you to do that. And yes you’ve only been her since yesterday, but while you’re here will you do something for us? For me anyway.”

  Logan looks at him, knowing there's something he wants to say to her. “Sure, you name it.”

  “Just stay around for awhile, if you want, too, and be that regular girl you were talking about being a few minutes ago. Will you do that? Not just for me and for Catherine. But more importantly for yourself. Give yourself the chance to settle down like you just talked about. Catherine and I want you to know that you can stay here as long as you like.”

  “I will, I promise. I'll do those things,” Logan says. Realizing the kind of effect that she's already having on them. But also the effect he's having on her.

  They are quiet for a few seconds, then Logan asks John, “can I ask you something?”

  “Sure Logan. What is it?”

  “Have you ever killed anyone before?” At first, the look on John's face made Logan wonder if she should have asked him that question.

  Then, he said, thoughtfully, “yes, Logan. Yes, I have. I've killed men before. I ain't proud of that fact. I ain't perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, either. I always did it though to defend myself and my family, which was the right reason. Or so I thought. I want you to know right here and now, that there are a lot of things I've done during my lifetime that I'm not proud of. And while we're on this subject, young lady. How many men have you actually killed? Word has it, that you've killed a half dozen men bein' a bounty hunter.”