Linda Castle by The Return of Chase Cordell

Author:The Return of Chase Cordell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chase was waiting outside the jail when dawn broke. Rancy didn’t seem to be in the least bit surprised. He silently unlocked the front door and stepped aside. He mo-tioned Chase toward a door at the back of the office.

He found his grandfather sitting on a crude iron cot with his manacled leg attached to a chain and ring in the center of the rough mortar floor. It sickened him to see the gentle soul in such dire circumstances.

“Can I be alone with him?” Chase asked Thompson.

“Sure, I can’t see no harm in letting you talk with him alone for a few minutes. He never said a word all the way in last night. Hope he hasn’t slipped further—well, you know—further away.” The sheriff cast a sympathetic look at Captain Cordell before he turned and walked to the outer office and closed the door behind him.

The minute Thompson was gone, the Captain rose from the cot and stepped as close to the iron bars as his leg chain would allow. He gestured for Chase to come near while he leaned far enough to wrap his fingers around the vertical iron bars.

“It’s about time you got here, Chase. I was beginning to wonder.”

Chase was taken aback. In all the time he had been home, his grandfather had never acknowledged his identity by using his given name. He put his face against the bars and listened intently.

“These fools have got some trumped-up charges about that Ferrin County killing a couple of years back. I heard Thompson talking to the mayor and some of those other idiots that call themselves the Businessman’s Association, last night after he put me in here.”

“What?” Chase was having a hard time absorbing the lucid way in which his grandfather was speaking. The vacant, out-of-focus look in his eyes had evaporated like dew on a hot morning the moment the outer door had slammed shut.

“I had never planned for you to learn the truth this way.” The old man grinned sheepishly. He ran his fingers along the silver mustache that hung beside his mouth. “But I guess there never would’ve been any good time to tell you. I ain’t quite as touched as everyone thinks. I never wanted to bring you in on this, but it looks like I got no choice.”

“You—you’re—not mad?”

“Not any crazier than any other fool that settled this country. Hell, we had to be a little insane to come to a place where we had to fight Santa Anna, Comanche, and the weather all at once.” The Captain’s grin widened.

Chase felt the color drain from his face. He tightened his grip on the bars when his knees went liquid.

“Well, don’t look so damned happy about having a sane relative instead of a crazy one, boy.”

Chase shook his head and blinked. “Sorry, it’s not that. Of course, I’m glad you are sane.”

A million thoughts swam through his head at once. He could not manage to grasp one single idea and sort it from all the others in the face of this information.

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