Eagles Legacy: The Killing

Chapter Four

Chugwater

There was no bridge across Chugwater Creek, but there was a ford, and Elmer rode through it on his way into town. The swift-running creek broke white over rocks that had been polished smooth by centuries of running water. It was less than ten feet wide, but it provided enough water to give its name not only to the town of Chugwater, but to the entire Chugwater Valley.

Fred Matthews was standing out on the front porch of his mercantile store, seeing to the offloading of some groceries he had bought, and he waved at Elmer as Elmer rode by.

“You heading for Fiddler’s Green?” Fred called out to him.

“I’ll be by in a bit,” Elmer replied. “I’m runnin’ an errand for Duff.”

Elmer acknowledged the greetings of a few others as he continued his ride toward Meghan’s Ladies’ Emporium.

Meghan Parker was twenty-three years old, quite pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes. At the moment she was in the Ladies’ Emporium, a dress shop that she owned, on her knees, with her mouth full of pins as she pinned up the hem of the dress she was making for Mrs. Abernathy.

“We’re going to Philadelphia,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “My sister-in-law thinks that all the women out here wear dresses made of buckskin and flour sacks. I simply must have a dress that will make her pea green with envy. My niece is getting married next month.”

“Turn to the left,” Meghan said, and Mrs. Abernathy complied. “You look beautiful in this dress. You’ll be the belle of the wedding. Next to the bride, of course. Turn a little more to your left.”

Again, Mrs. Abernathy complied. “So when are you?”

“I beg your pardon? When am I what?” Meghan replied.

“When are you getting married?”

Meghan laughed. “I don’t know. But shouldn’t I be engaged first, before I start thinking about such a thing?”

“You mean Duff MacCallister hasn’t asked you to marry him?”

“No, whatever gave you that idea? Mr. MacCallister and I are just good friends, that’s all.”

“Uh, huh, just good friends. Or so you say,” Mrs. Abernathy said with a smile.

“There,” Meghan said. “I’ve got it all pinned up. Now, go back into the dressing room and take it off, but be very careful that you don’t lose any of the pins.”

“You don’t want to talk about it, do you?” Mrs. Abernathy said.

“Talk about what?”

Mrs. Abernathy laughed. “Never mind, if you don’t want to talk about it we won’t. But you know that I am right.”

The melodic tinkling of the bell on the front door got Meghan’s attention, and she walked into the front with a smile to greet her customer. When she saw Elmer Gleason standing there, the smile left her face, and she gasped.

“Elmer! Is something wrong? Did something happen to Duff?”

Elmer began shaking his head and he held his hand out, palm forward. “No, ma’am, no ma’am, ain’t nothin’ a’ tall like that. I’m sorry if I put a fear into you, Miss Meghan.”

Meghan relaxed, then forced a little laugh. “No, I’m the one who should apologize. I have no idea what might have made me think such a thing.”

“What it is, is I brung you a letter from Duff. He bein’ in Cheyenne for a couple of days, he asked me to bring it to you.”

Elmer pulled the letter from his shirt pocket and held it out toward her. “I tried to keep it clean as best I could,” he said. “But what with the ride ’n all, well, it might ’a got a little smudged up.”

“It’s fine,” Meghan said. “Thank you very much. Oh, would you like some coffee and cookies? I have some made for my customers.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am, but bein’ as they are for your customers, why, I wouldn’t want to get in to ’em. Besides which, I done promised Mr. Matthews I’d meet him down at Fiddler’s Green.”

“All right. Thank you, Elmer. Thank you very much for bringing Duff’s letter to me.”

“Yes’m, you’re welcome,” Elmer said as he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat. Just as he reached the door, he turned back toward Meghan. “You know, ma’am, he puts a great deal of store in you.” The doorbell tinkled again, as he left without waiting for a reply.

“So, you are just friends, huh?” Mrs. Abernathy said.

The words gave Meghan a start, because she had no idea that Mrs. Abernathy had come up behind her.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Mrs. Abernathy said. She was holding the carefully pinned-up dress in her hands, and she extended it toward Meghan. “I was real careful with the pins.”

“Good,” Meghan said. She purposely avoided commenting on Mrs. Abernathy’s observation about Meghan and Duff being “just friends.”

“So, what is in the letter? Will he be coming to the Firemen’s Ball this Saturday?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

“I’ll have your dress ready before four tomorrow,” Meghan said.

“Thank you dear, that will be very nice,” Mrs. Abernathy said. Knowing that she wasn’t going to get an answer, she smiled again and departed.

Meghan waited until she was absolutely certain Mrs. Abernathy was gone before she opened Duff’s letter.

Dear Miss Parker,

It may seem strange to have a missive from me presented to you by Elmer Gleason, but he has generously offered to act as a means of posting this letter. By the time you read this I shall be in Cheyenne. While in Cheyenne, I intend to make arrangements to bring cattle onto my land so that, after a year of preparation, Sky Meadow will truly become a cattle ranch. I am sure that the news of my establishing a ranch is important to you only as a matter of the friendship that exists between the two of us. However, there may come a time when this information would be of much greater interest to you.

I am told that there is to be a dance on the evening of Saturday next, the purpose of which is to raise funds for the volunteer fire brigade. Because I deem this a worthy purpose, I have every intention of attending the function, and I hope that you do as well. If so, I would be delighted to share a few dances with you, should you grant me that opportunity.

Sincerely,

Duff Tavish MacCallister

After Mrs. Abernathy left, Meghan sat at her sewing machine, working the treadle with her foot as the needle plunged in and out of the bright blue material of Mrs. Abernathy’s dress. Was Mrs. Abernathy correct in her appraisal of Duff MacCallister’s regard for her? It was certainly no secret to her friends—though Meghan had not told anyone—that she had feelings for Duff. But her sense of propriety dictated that she say nothing to him before he declared himself to her. And her sense of self-preservation prevented her from investing too much of herself in the relationship until she knew that there could actually be such a thing.

She had seen him only briefly since he’d returned from his trip to Scotland. He had stopped in her shop the next day to visit with her. And what made the visit particularly pleasant was that he had brought her something from Scotland. It was a souvenir plate with a traditional Scotsman playing the pipes in front of Edinburgh Castle, with “Edinburgh” at the top of the plate. She treasured it, not so much for what it was as for the fact that he had thought to bring her something.

She had been pleased to get the letter today, but it had seemed oddly impersonal. Though, there was one intriguing part of the letter, a couple of sentences that she had been playing and replaying in her head all day. She stopped sewing for a moment, then picked up the letter and reread the sentences that had particularly caught her attention.

I am sure that the news of my establishing a ranch is important to you only as a matter of the friendship that exists between the two of us. However, there may come a time when this information would be of much greater interest to you.

What did that mean? Why would there ever be a time when information about his ranch would be of much greater interest to her? Could it possibly mean that Duff might think of her as a part of his future?

Meghan was fully aware that such a relationship might never develop between them. There was much about Duff MacCallister to admire. He was handsome, yes, and in less than one year he had earned the respect and esteem of just about everyone in the valley.

But there was something else about him too, something deep and dark. It took a while before Duff was comfortable enough with Meghan to tell him about the love he had lost in Scotland. That had left this otherwise very powerful man with a wounded and vulnerable soul. And as much as she wanted to have a deeper relationship, the thought of doing further emotional damage to him was more than she wanted to deal with.

She would have to go slow.

Meghan finished the hem, then hung the dress up so it would be ready for Mrs. Abernathy tomorrow. After that, she went upstairs to her apartment, which was over her shop. She had baked cookies today, as she did every day, to provide a treat for her customers. She took one of them, then walked out onto the front balcony. The sky was filled with stars, from those so bright that she felt almost as if she could reach up and pluck one down from the sky to those of lesser and lesser brilliance, to those that could not be seen as individual stars but provided a blue haze against the black velvet vault of night.

From across the street, she could hear Mrs. McVey’s baby crying. From down the street she could hear the piano and laughter coming from Fiddler’s Green. She could also hear choir practice from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which was right next door.

What did he mean by “there may come a time when this information would be of much greater interest?”

After Elmer delivered Duff’s letter to Meghan Parker, he stepped into Fiddler’s Green. He was feeling pretty good about things because, while he hadn’t read the letter, he knew from their conversation that Duff was going to ask her about the dance.

Sky Meadow needed a woman on the place, and Duff needed a wife. Elmer knew about Skye McGregor, and he could understand a man grieving over the loss of a true love, but Duff needed to get on with his life. Otherwise he would wind up wasting it away, the way Elmer had.

He had not started out to waste his life. When he was young, he’d had plans like every other young man. All he wanted to do was have a farm, marry Alma Dumey, and raise a family.

But all that changed with the war.

“Alma’s dead, Elmer,” Jesse James told him. “A bunch of red-legged bastards from Kansas killed her and her whole family.”

Elmer gripped the handles of the plow so hard that he could feel the blisters forming.

“Was it Doc Jennison?”

“Worse,” Jesse said. “They were led by one of our own. Crack Kingsley.”

“Kingsley? Kingsley did this?”

“I heard it from Alma’s dying lips.”

So far, Elmer had managed to avoid the war. He was in Missouri and he knew that there were men of good conscience fighting on both sides. But avoiding the war did not mean he was avoiding its price. He had already lost a brother, two cousins, and several friends. And now Alma Dumey, the girl he had intended to marry, was dead.

Elmer pinched the bridge of his nose to keep himself from crying in front of this man, who had been his boyhood friend and was now an experienced warrior.

“I know you haven’t ever had any trouble with him before, but never did like the son of a bitch,” Jesse James said. “So, to be truthful with you, I wasn’t all that surprised when he crossed the border to join up with the Kansans. But I never thought he would do anything like this to one of his own.”

“It’s my fault. She wanted to marry this spring, but I wanted to put it off ’til after the crops were out. If she had been here with me, she would still be alive.”

Jesse James reached out and put his hand on Elmer’s shoulder. “You can ride with us, Elmer,” he offered. “I guarantee you, we’ll find the sons of bitches who did this, and we’ll make them pay.”

Elmer did ride with Frank and Jesse James, and with Quantrill, and they did find some, but not all, of the men who had murdered the Dumey family. Crack Kingsley, the one who had led the Jayhawkers, got away.

When the war ended, most of the soldiers were able to go home again to pick up their lives from before. But Elmer couldn’t, because he and many of the men who had ridden with Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson were not considered soldiers.

It didn’t seem right. The men who rode with Doc Jennison, whose personal depravities equaled anything anyone who ever rode with Quantrill did, were regarded as heroes. But Elmer became a wanted man, unable to reenter society. As a result, he continued to ride with Jesse and Frank James. Then, after the debacle of the Northfield Raid, Elmer, who was nursing a bullet wound in the thigh, left the outlaw trail so he could heal up. Once he was healed, he decided not to go back on the trail. Instead, he went west.

Elmer became a wanderer after that. He spent a year with the Brule Sioux, where he took a squaw, and then left after she died. Then he went to San Francisco and, trying to rescue a Chinese prostitute, ran afoul of the Tong. He killed two Tong members and, to escape retribution, found his way to a sailor’s hall. There, though he had never been to sea in his life, he signed on to the Harriet Sutton, a clipper ship bound for the Orient.

It had been quite a ride for Elmer since then, including a long period where he had lost his soul and nearly his life, only to be rescued by Duff MacCallister. He had been a loner for as long as he could remember, and it was good to have a friend like Duff.