The Last Cahill Cowboy Read online

  At the middle of the yard, he took a last look at his home.

  “Don’t think I’ll beg you to come back, because I won’t!” hollered Quin.

  That would be a cold day in hell, thought Chance as he saddled up and rode out.

  Chapter One

  Two years later

  Chance Cahill returned to Deadwood, South Dakota, with another body tied to the dead man’s horse. The jail had been among the first structures rebuilt after the May floods, brick and mortar this time, but much of the rest of the town was in shambles. Still, rebuilding was underway.

  Chance glanced toward the saloon where his sister, Leanna, dealt cards, half expecting her to come out to greet him as she often did. She didn’t like the sight of blood and disapproved of Chance’s current profession, although why she thought killing murderers was beneath him, he had no idea. The pay was good, real good, and shooting was the one thing that Chance did well.

  The new Deadwood Dick, Richard Bullock, stepped into the street to meet him. The man had the kind of toughness necessary for a lawman out here and did not hesitate to flip back the stained oiled canvas.

  “Another head shot?”

  The hole where Chance’s bullet had exited the back of Meyler’s head seemed to speak to that question.

  “Find they spend less time escaping that way.”

  Bullock gave a snort that might have been a laugh.

  “Looks like he saw you coming. You do know that you don’t have to give outlaws a chance to draw, don’t you?”

  He knew. But he always gave a man a chance, not out of some sense of fair play but with the hope that one day he’d meet someone faster. He was dead inside already, but somehow he remained aboveground. Meyler had been too damn slow and so Chance was here collecting another bounty.

  “Come in and I’ll fill out the paperwork. What’s the pay on this one?”

  “Only five hundred dollars. Give it to Annie. I’ll bring him over to Hannon.” The undertaker paid Chance twenty-five dollars for the body and then charged folks a dime to see the outlaws Chance brought in.

  “Yeah, about that.”

  Chance’s gaze flicked to Bullock and read his expression. Something had happened to Leanna. Cold terror washed over him. He knew it, knew that working in a bar was no place for her, but damned if he could talk her out of it.

  “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing. Well, something, I imagine, but I’m not privy to it. She left a letter for you with Mrs. Jameston, her landlady.”

  Chance glanced back at the saloon and then narrowed his eyes on Bullock. “What’s going on?”

  “All I know is that she pulled out, lock, stock and barrel. Took the girls with her and that baby, too.”

  Chance pushed back his gray Stetson, trying to sort out what was happening. Leanna wouldn’t just go without telling him. Something had happened. Something bad.

  “Where to?”

  “Home, she said. Texas. That where you’re from?”

  Chance’s stomach flipped. Leanna had said she’d never go back there and he’d sworn the same. Nothing on this earth could compel him. If she expected him to trail after her again, she was dead wrong. He had followed her to Deadwood, but that was where it ended. Chance stared bleakly across the street knowing that he’d lost the last thing on earth he cared about. Leanna had left him.

  Why would she ever go back there? And then it hit him like hot lead in his guts. Something had happened to his brothers. Bowie came to mind first. Had his position as the new town marshal of Cahill Crossing placed him in harm’s way? Chance’s knees buckled and he sat hard on the stoop. But Quin worked with stock and all beeves were stupid and unpredictable. Were they dead, too?

  “Cahill?” said Bullock. “You okay?”

  “My brothers? Are they alive?”

  Bullock peered down at him. “Didn’t know you had brothers. Damn, man, you look white as a bedsheet. Come out of the sun.”

  Bullock swung into the office and Chance followed, spotting Mrs. Jameston, Leanna’s landlady, clutching a pristine white envelope before her in gloved hands.

  Chance glanced to Bullock.

  “Called her when we saw you coming.”

  She scowled up at him, or rather at his battered gray Stetson. He dragged it off belatedly, holding it before him.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Cahill. I trust you are well?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Your sister left me with this letter for you. I promised that I would put it in your hands personally upon your return.” She did just that.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Least I can do. You’re still cleaning up the territory single-handedly, I see.” She waved a hand at the pig-eyed appaloosa holding the remains of Meyler before shifting her gaze to him again. “Did that young man find your sister?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Well dressed, extremely handsome and charming, oh, my. Cleve Holden was his name. Said he was a friend of your sister. I told him she headed home to Cahill Crossing in Texas and he lit out after her.”

  Chance scowled. He didn’t know the man and thought it likely that Leanna didn’t, either. Who was he and what did he want? Chance had that bad feeling. The one he got before gunplay.

  “Why, what is it, Mr. Cahill?”

  “Did it occur to you, Mrs. Jameston, that he might not be a friend and that telling him exactly where to find Annie might have put her in danger?”

  “Well, he seemed such a gentleman.”

  “Not everyone in this world is what they seem, ma’am.”

  “My gracious. I would be positively beside myself if difficulty befell her on my account. Mercy, I shall write her this very day. Please do come by for supper, Mr. Cahill. You need filling up.” With that Mrs. Jameston scurried off, looking like a fast-moving lumpy sofa.

  He replaced his hat and accepted the chair Bullock offered. Seated, he spun the envelope in a circle, knowing he didn’t want to see what was in there. Leanna had written his name on the front with a blue fountain pen, her looping handwriting as familiar to him as his own.

  Chance tapped the envelope to send the letter in the other direction and then tore the side seam, reached into the gap and pulled out a page and a telegram, both neatly folded in two. He knew that Annie and Bowie were in touch, that she had let him know where they had landed after the fight that had broken the family apart.

  So Bowie was alive. Chance found he could breathe again. But what about Quin? His oldest brother, the boy he’d wanted to become, the man who he’d grown to hate.

  Chance flipped open the telegram and read the words carefully printed on the form.

  WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM COMPANY

  Sent by: JM

  Rec’d by: NH

  Check: paid

  Dated: August 3, 1882

  Received at: 1:08 p.m.

  To: Leanna Cahill, Deadwood, SD

  Parents’ death no accident.

  Come home.

  Quin

  Chance rose like a phoenix. For two years he’d blamed himself for the deaths of his parents. Two years of hell on earth, trying to find his way in the dark, blaming himself for a mistake he could never set right, knowing that if he’d driven that wagon to Wolf Grove he never would have lost control of that team. But if it hadn’t been an accident… A tiny pinprick of light appeared, a reason to go on.

  He scanned the words again. Parents’ death not accident. Murder, that was what Quin meant. His parents had been murdered.

  By whom?

  Chance dearly hoped they hadn’t caught him yet, because he needed to be there to put a bullet in the man who had taken his parents from them.

  Chance read the next line again—an order, how typical of Quin to issue an edict. The remarkable thing was that Annie had done as he had demanded.

  He wondered if Quin would be surprised to see him. One thing was sure. Chance wouldn’t be welcomed back with open arms, not after leaving the family ranch, not after turning his
back on them all.

  Chance flicked open Annie’s letter.

  August 4, 1882

  Dear Chance,

  I hope that when you read this you will forgive my haste. I am leaving for Cahill Crossing to help our brothers discover who is responsible and see they are brought to justice.

  Your loving sister,

  Annie

  He checked the dates. Leanna had written this the day after she’d received the telegram. What day was it now, September 26 or the 27? She had nearly two months’ head start. Bullock said she’d taken the girls along with that baby she’d decided to raise. She’d gone by rail, would have had to, of course.

  Chance slipped the letter into the breast pocket of his black oiled duster and turned to Bullock.

  “You leaving?” asked Bullock.

  Chance nodded.

  “Money will be here in a day or two,” said the sheriff.

  “Can’t wait.” He turned to Bullock. “Will you wire it to Cahill Crossing, Texas, care of Leanna Cahill?”

  His gaze turned icy. “I’m not your errand boy.”

  “Keep it, then.”

  Bullock’s scowl deepened, dragging down the corners of his bushy mustache. “I’ll send it.”

  “I’m obliged.” Chance left the office, untied the appaloosa holding his bounty, leaving the body on Bullock’s doorstep. Then he swung up into his saddle, lifted his reins and pointed Rip south, back to the land of his birth. Back to a town named after his folks, a town he had never expected to see again.

  Chance arrived in Cahill Crossing by rail on the second Friday of October, dirty and sorer than he’d ever been from riding. He wondered if his horse had fared better as he stared out the passenger car window at the familiar landscape, not realizing until now how much he’d missed the green rolling hills of his boyhood home. It was strange to ride through the 4C in a passenger car.

  The engine slowed and Chance peered at the town that had arisen where once there had been only ropes and stakes.

  The very first building he spotted was three stories tall with a sign above the porch roof reading Leanna’s Place, all capital letters.

  Chance smiled. He’d found his sister without even getting off the train. The locomotive rolled slowly past a string of impressive new businesses lining the tracks, blasting steam across the platform. Beyond the gaming hall stood Stokes’s general store, then a boutique, a bakery, Steven’s Restaurant and then the biggest damned hotel he’d seen since Dodge City. Château Royale said the sign in flowing gilded script. He gave a low whistle. Things sure had changed.

  He disembarked, checked on Rip, paying the porter to take his horse to the livery. Then he stepped along the new planks that still smelled of sawdust and into the hotel, pausing to stare at the glittering interior, taking in the huge crystal chandelier, sweeping staircase and opulent furnishings set before a fireplace upon a large oriental rug. Generally you had to be in a high-class whorehouse to see this much flash.

  But why was it so empty?

  The answer came an instant later when a gunshot cracked somewhere beyond the grand staircase.

  Chance drew both pistols and stepped into the lobby. A thin man in a black suit and dark hair slicked to his head cowered behind one of the red velvet sofas. To the left was a reception desk behind which crouched another man with a brown goatee, raised pistol and a nervous expression. He glanced toward Chance, revealing the silver star pinned on the front of his hatband. It made a fine target.

  He turned to the man behind the sofa.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A gambler’s trying to kill his wife.”

  “Where’s Bowie?”

  “He’s not back yet. But Glen Whitaker’s pinned by the stairs.”

  “That his deputy?”

  The man nodded. “The gambler is shooting at anything that moves.”

  Chance made it to the deputy without another shot fired, but he heard someone pounding on a door.

  “Whitaker! His wife still alive?”

  “Don’t know. Ellie Jenkins locked herself in a room with her and he can’t get at them.”

  Ellie Jenkins was Leanna’s best friend.

  Chance recalled a girl in pigtails tied with yellow ribbons. She’d lived in Wolf Grove with her folks in the hotel they owned, but had spent a lot of time at the 4C with Leanna over the years. Chance didn’t mind Leanna’s company, but he cleared out when there were other females about. Except for Ellie. That girl interested him. When Ellie was around, she and Leanna could disappear in broad daylight and he never could find them unless they wanted to be found. She didn’t seem a stupid girl but locking oneself in a room with a woman whose husband is bent on murder didn’t seem wise.

  Chance made it to the stairs, peering through the gaps in the balusters, seeing nothing.

  “Don’t go up there,” whispered Whitaker as he flopped his empty hand at Chance.

  Chance ignored him and headed around the newel post and up the stairs two at a time, guns out, chin down. Someone fired a shot from the dark hallway above. Chance started shooting, aiming for the barrel flash. Someone yelped and then ran. Chance pursued, running now.

  The gunman must have knocked out every lamp on the floor and drawn the heavy curtains over the window at the end of the hall. A beam of light knifed between the two drapes, sending a ray across one wall. Chance searched for the shooter as his eyes tried to adjust to the gloom.

  Next came the sound of splintering wood as a door crashed open and light spilled into the hall.

  Two women screamed.

  The gambler had reached his target. Chance ran down the hall and into the room.

  He took in the scene at a glance. There stood a beefy man holding a Colt repeater aimed at Chance and a derringer aimed at the two women huddled in the corner of the room. If he shot the gambler, the man might still pull the trigger as he fell.

  His gaze flicked to the women. The braver of the two was small but slim as a willow branch, wearing an ordinary navy blue skirt with a small fitted jacket. Her white starched blouse had an unfortunate cascade of ruffles that tumbled like a waterfall down the front of her bodice, completely obscuring her shape. Her dark brown hair was gathered in a functional little bun that made her neck look long and slim. Chance stared into big hazel eyes. Ellie? The other woman cowered behind her, clinging and shivering in a fitted pink jacket, skirt of the same garish color and a hat rimmed with ostrich feathers dyed to match. She looked like an entertainer. His gaze flicked back to the husband.

  Chance stepped forward.

  “She cheated on me,” he said.

  Chance looked past the barrel of the raised pistol leveled at his guts to the man who stood no more than eighteen inches away. “Don’t care.”

  “Another step and I’ll shoot.”

  Would he? He was sweating like a long-distance runner.

  “You gonna shoot me? Then aim here.” Chance tapped his chest with one of his pistols. “Not my guts. I can still kill you with a belly wound.”

  Ellie gasped. He didn’t look at her.

  The man’s hands shook like an old drunk on Sunday morning. “I got no quarrel with you, mister. Clear out, now.”

  Chance shook his head, waiting for the bullet. Waiting for the peace that would come afterward. But the shooter swung both weapons toward the women.

  Chance fired. The bullet passed through the man’s forehead and out the back, leaving a hell of a mess on the bed coverlet and rug. He crumpled to the ground as the wife started screaming.

  “Bobby!” She fell across his chest, then glared at Chance. “You killed him!”

  “You’re welcome,” said Chance. He turned toward the hall. “Deputy! Come up.”

  Ellie stepped forward as Chance holstered his gun. Her brow descended over her hazel eyes. She looked different from how he recalled. Taller certainly, and the sunlight pouring in the open window gave her brown hair a reddish cast. Her upper lip was full and the corners of her mouth tipped down in disap
proval. Likely he’d catch hell over the blood and such.

  “Chance?” she whispered.

  He nodded, holstering his repeaters, surprised she could recognize him under the dust and stubble.

  “Oh, Chance!” She threw herself into his arms.

  Now this was more like it. He tucked Ellie close, feeling her curves pressed to him as he held her tight. She clutched the lapel of his rumpled duster and made a choking sound. His hand swept down the velvet of her nape and down her narrow back, feeling a wellspring of unexpected tenderness for the woman who was his sister’s best friend. What was happening here?

  Ellie straightened and her hazel eyes narrowed as she stepped back. Chance didn’t want to let her go but he did.

  “That was a crazy thing to do.”

  Why had he expected thanks?

  “No crazier than locking yourself in here. Why didn’t you head the other way?”

  She raised her chin. “Why didn’t you?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. He still liked her. She had more spunk than he remembered and was a damn sight prettier. Her pale skin positively glowed in the sunlight, revealing the lovely pink color dusting her cheekbones.

  “Sorry about the carpet.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. A moment later Bowie cleared the doorway, pistol drawn, looking mean and deadly as hell.

  Chance raised his hands. Bowie holstered his weapon.

  “Hells bells, Chance.”

  “Nice to see you, too, big brother.”

  Bowie’s clear blue eyes flicked about the room and settled on Ellie. “You two all right?”

  The woman on the floor wailed. “He killed my Bobby.”

  “What took you so long?” asked Chance.