Linda Castle - The Return Of Chase Cordell

There was a curiosity within him. A need to know her, not just to remember her, but to know the mystery that made her so special. He forced himself to focus on the mayor’s words.

“…we want you to write a series of articles about the way the prominent citizens of Mainfield have handled this conflict. We have managed to come out of this with a little profit, there is no reason why other people in this community can’t do the same thing.” The mayor looked at Chase with an excited expectancy shining in his face. “It could mean real power to Mainfield—and you—if you get my meaning.”

Chase’s belly flip-flopped. He didn’t understand the mayor’s meaning. “I’m not sure I do.”

Kerney looked at him with narrowed eyes. “As long as we remain neutral and don’t get involved with abolitionists or secessionists, as long as we remember that prosperity can come out of war, we can turn this to our advantage. It’s up to you, Chase. The people of Mainfield will listen to the Gazette. You could make a real difference to them. If you speak out and tell them to refuse to go with either side, they can all profit from this. Besides, do we care who wins? The real issue is how much profit we can make during the conflict.”

Chase felt his gut plummet to the bottom of his boots. What he had seen reflected in the eyes of the men in the infirmary while he was healing were memories he would carry forever. Those men, both Unionist and Rebel, had given all they had for their ideals. Now Mayor Kerney was telling him that as long as men could forget having ideals, and think only about profit, they could benefit from the war. His mind rebelled against the notion.

Chase didn’t remember the kind of man he was before he rode away two years ago. But the person he was now didn’t care about becoming powerful, or rich. He could not lie and say a man’s convictions didn’t matter—because in the end they were about the only things that did matter.

Silence stretched on while the men looked at Chase. There was something in their faces, something dark and familiar and almost expectant. The chaos in Chase’s soul was matched by the windstorm in his mind. He glanced at Lin-ese and saw nothing but innocence and trust shining in her eyes. He didn’t know what his association had been with these men in the past, but he knew where his responsibility lay today.

It was with Linese. She was saddled with a husband who could not remember her. She had lost so much in the war, perhaps even more than he had himself.

He wanted to see her smile. He wanted to do something that would take away the sting of guilt he felt each time he thought of her waiting for a man who had not returned to her.

“That is a mighty great responsibility, Mayor.” Chase slipped his arm around Linese and drew her close to him, partly for effect, partly because he wanted to feel her warmth against him. Even through the heavy-boned corset he felt her start at the unexpected contact of his hip against her. “All I want to do right now is get reacquainted with my wife.”

Linese’s head snapped up to stare gape-mouthed at Chase. The men in the room murmured with surprise. She fought to control her reaction. She had been raised to be a lady, and a lady never betrayed her feelings in public, but Chase had shocked her down to her high-buttoned shoes.

Last night he had sent her from their bedroom. Now he looked at her as if there were no place he’d rather be than beside her. The arm wrapped around her waist felt possessive.

“I know you gentlemen will understand. I just want to live quietly and put the war behind me. I can’t take the responsibility of trying to sway other men’s opinions.” Sincerity rang in Chase’s voice. He realized those were the first truthful words he had uttered since waking in the field hospital.

Linese watched the mayor’s flabby jowls quiver. Anger flashed in his small round eyes. “You can’t do this, Chase. We’ve been counting on you. We’ve had certain expectations. We had an agreement….”

Something in the man’s tone sent a warning through Chase’s mind. A flash of memory hit him like a cold rush of water.

He remembered the mayor’s smiling face reflected in the glow of torchlight. It was a time long ago, perhaps two years ago.

“Don’t you worry, Chase, we’ll keep your secret.”

The memory flashed brilliant like a strike of lightning, then it was gone. The fading image and the sound of the man’s voice remained lodged in Chase’s mind. He tried to remember more, but it was useless. Only that one small fragment had crystallized.

Now when he looked into the angry face of the mayor, he wondered what secret they had shared before he left Main-field. He felt as if a noose were tightening around his neck. Each day brought only more questions and suspicions about who he was. He found himself pulling Linese closer to his body. He wanted her near him so he could protect her. But from whom? Himself?

Chase limped off the porch and into the hot dusky evening. The mayor’s words rattled around inside his head like a stone in an empty bucket. His temples throbbed and his stomach twisted from trying to bring forth hard facts, when nothing but smoke and doubt filled his mind.

The Texas thicket was alive with night sounds. Chase found his eyes traveling toward an overgrown path that disappeared into the tangled overgrown foliage. Something about the almost invisible path beckoned to him. He walked to it and stared while a strange feeling of déjà vu sluiced over him. Without knowing quite why, he pushed his way through the plants and went onward, stopping occasionally to let his instinct take him on a journey his mind had forgotten but his gut still knew. He had to move branches out of his way, yet some forgotten part of his brain knew that a path did indeed lie beneath the thick growth, whether he could see it or not.

The verdant foliage trapped the heat beneath a canopy of leaves. Chase unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the long tail from his trousers in the hope it would be cooler. The farther he went into the unknown thicket, the darker the night became, but still some feral intuition showed him the way. He neither stumbled nor faltered while he pushed on.

He stopped and looked back. The glow from Cordel-lane’s lamps was far behind him now. He was alone, with vague sensations of having traveled the path before.

The pain radiating from his hip forced him to halt sometime later. Flying insects fed on every exposed inch of his skin, but it was too sticky to consider rebuttoning the shirt that hung open and loose. He slapped a mosquito on his neck and saw a flicker of light through hanging vines clinging to the willow and hickory.

“Will-o’-the-wisp,” he muttered, but he found himself watching the uneven trail of illumination dancing through the trees with keen interest. Some buried part of him knew those flickering lights were his destination and not some mystical trick of swamp gas or flitting winged critter.

Chase walked, slower and more deliberately now, toward the source of the flame. When he was no more than a stone’s toss away, he saw a group of men in ribald discussion. They turned and recognition flooded him, along with a large measure of dread.

“It’s about time, Chase, we were beginning to think you weren’t going to show up,” The mayor’s voice boomed out. “But I was pretty sure you would after our talk today.”

Chase stepped into the circle of orange torchlight and found himself in the company of the same men who had come to see him at the Gazette. He now realized what the man’s exaggerated wink signified. The splintered recollection he had at the Gazette, of the mayor’s face in the same eerie glow of light, came back to haunt Chase.