Chad WHN

 Chad WHN

What’s in a name?  

 

 

Chad was sitting on a hay bale in the barn trying to write something when Scott walked his horse in and passed the reins on to one of the hands.

“Anything I can help with?” Scott asked, settling himself down in the shade and taking off his gloves. 

“Just writin’ a letter.  I can write but I can’t seem to find the words.”

“Who’s the intended recipient?”

“Writin’ to the congregation back home.  Back where I used to live,” Chad amended quickly.  “I owe them some explanation.  And the Deacons.  They were generous in their givin’ to me and my sis – my aunt Callie.  Mebbe if they’d known why we needed that money, mebbe they wouldn’t have been so charitable.  I’m reckonin’ to send them my wages until it’s all settled.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Scott offered, not sure he should be part of the decision Chad seemed to be making. 

“Scott.”  Chad looked across at his new-found relation.  “Do you think Johnny would mind if I …”

“Johnny would mind if you what?”  Johnny said.  He was muddied to the knees, sweaty and evidently tired out, and trailing an even sorrier-looking horse. 

“What happened?” Scott asked, settling back for a long tale of woe.

“Hole,” said Johnny.  That was going to be it after all.  “Jelly!  Leg here needs doctoring!”

The old man came grumbling out of his room.  “Your leg still plaguin’ you, Johnny?  You know I don’t have any more of that potion I was using on you.  What you been doing anyways to get all muddied up like that?”

“Not me.  The horse.”  Johnny seemed in no mood to explain anything, which led to more long-winded complaining from Jelly.  Johnny began to take off the saddle but Jelly even managed to find fault with him for doing that until Johnny snapped something not very complimentary back at him, then stumped out of the barn.

“Well there’s no need for that kind of language!  I was just tryin’ to be helpful.”

“Perhaps leave it a couple of hours before you ask what Johnny might mind,” Scott said grinning.  “I don’t think he’s of a mind to not mind whatever it is you want him not to mind about.” 

Chad smiled back, slowly.  “It can wait.  I think I should find myself quieter place to write this.” 

Scott nodded.  “If you need me, I’ll be – no, I think I’ll be in the great room.  I want to ask Murdoch something and I saw him headed in there not long ago.”

“All right.  I’ll finish my chores in a while.  If I’m goin’ to be here I’m goin’ to pull my weight.”

Scott nodded and left his – Cousin?  Second cousin?  Third cousin four times removed?  He followed in his brother’s tracks even though he didn’t feel like coming too close to the dynamite that was his brother every once in a long while.

xxxxx

In the great room, Murdoch was sitting at his desk with some old documents and a large book, possibly a Bible, spread out in front of him.

“Ah!  Scott!” he said, as if he’d not seen Scott for days. 

“Sir?” Scott responded, drifting across to the desk.  He very much didn’t want to be dragged into complex paperwork again. 

“Look at this!  I don’t want to question Chad’s aunt, or speak ill of the dead – but I can’t find any reference to …”

And for the next hour, father and son trawled through ancient papers, trying to solve the mystery of Lancer and Lancre. 

“I’ll write to Angus, see what he can find – but I have a suspicion that …”

“I think you may be right.  Who’s going to tell him?  And what about Johnny?”

“What about me?”  The jingle of spurs announced Johnny, who seemed to have a knack of hearing his name just as people didn’t want him to hear it.

So Scott and Murdoch took it in turns to explain their theory, while waiting for the dynamite to go off.  But apparently the dynamite was feeling too damp and exhausted to bother to explode, and ended up on the sofa with his arm over his eyes.  At least he’d brushed some of the mud off his pants and taken his mud-caked boots off, though he’d had to go outside and come back in to do that.

“And I suppose I get to tell him?” Johnny said eventually. 

Murdoch and Scott practically fell over each other to agree with Johnny’s supposition. 

“But not until you get a reply from Angus, right?”

“That’s right, son.  We have to be sure about this.  Now, how about a drink before dinner?” 

“Sounds good to me, sir,” Scott said, going to the new bottle of whisky he’d been eyeing.

The only response from Johnny was a gentle snore.

 

xxxxx

 

After much thought, Johnny decided to prepare the ground for the news that might be coming down the turnpike for Chad. 

He went on the hunt for a man who had turned out to be more interested in watching the world than in doing any chores.  It was wearing on Johnny’s nerves – well, it was wearing on
Jelly’s nerves and Jelly was never one to keep his complaining to himself.

He found Chad staring at the water in a water trough.  He might have been detailed off to check if it was leaking. 

“Looking at something interesting?”  Johnny asked, joining Chad and trying to see what it was that had Chad so fascinated.

“I found this book,” Chad said, indicating an open page in a large book.  He reached into the water and moved his fingers, sending ripples across its surface.  “Man called Da Vinci.  He drew the way water moves and it got me thinkin’.”

“It would,” Johnny said, picking up the leather-bound volume and looking at the drawings.  He read the accompanying paragraph and agreed with the writer.  The pictures did indeed combine beauty and science in equal measure.  He’d tell Scott later if he remembered.

“So – how are you liking ranch life then?”

Chad sighed.  “You tryin’ to say I need to get on with repairin’ this trough?” 

“No, no.  Stopping to look and think is important.  Did you have time for that back in Cumberland County?”

Chad went very quiet.  He continued to dabble his fingers in the trough for a minute before speaking again.

“I finished the letter I was writing to the Congregation of my church.”

“Yeah?  We can send it tomorrow when we go into town.”  Johnny wondered what Chad had said about the events that had led to another grave on Lancer property. 

“You want to read it?” Chad offered, catching Johnny off guard.

“Sure, if you want me to.”

Chad reached into the back pocket of his jeans and fetched out a rather crumpled piece of paper.

 

Dear friends,

I hope you are all well and harvest is good this year. 

I am sorry I have not sent news for several months now but we travelled a long way and I am now in California. 

Some of the old folks and Deacon McTavish will know that what I am about to tell you is true.  Callie has gone beyond the veil and is now with her family in Heaven.  Before she left us, she told me that she is my aunt, not my sister, and that I am part Buford and part Lancre.  I do not know if I am more one than the other but with her dying breaths she told the story which means the end of the feudin.

Too many people died in that feud.  I know now it was wrong and I am sorry for the hurt our families have caused to all the hill folks.  I am even sorrier to say she died at my hand.  It was a pure accident but it was my shot that killt her.  We had an inquest and they said none of the blame was on me but I feel it all the same.  But out of that evil I reckon there’s good, as I have found a place to stay where I can be useful, although I miss you all and the hills of home.

I shall send money as I make it to pay back your generosity.  We could never have made it here without it. 

My thoughts and prayers

Chad Buford Lancre.

 

“I guess that covers it,” Johnny said, handing back the note. 

“I thought mebbe I wouldn’t say where I was.  I guess I don’t have to say why.” 

“Past has a way of catching up sometimes.  I was Johnny Madrid.  I don’t keep that secret but sometimes, you know?  Sometimes it’s useful to be Madrid, sometimes it’s better to be Lancer.”

“I can see that.  I can.  I don’t know if I’m a Lancre or a Buford, with a Ma who’s one and a Pa who’s the other.  Only the old folks back home could untie that knot.”

“Home, Chad?” 

Chad looked back down into the water.  “I guess I’d better get this chore done.  Post the letter tomorrow, you say?”

Johnny stood, spotting Jelly on the way over and needing to be somewhere, anywhere else.  Jelly was a good friend but that didn’t mean he had to listen to him in that mood. 

“Sure.  I guess you have some thinking to do but maybe not just right now,” Johnny said, taking several backward paces.

“Chad!  Johnny!  Stop your lallygaggin’ right now and get back to work, the pair of you!  You may be the boss’s son, Johnny Lancer, but …” 

Johnny walked away, saying, “I’m goin’, I’m goin’!” as he went. 

The subject of homes and names had been broached.  He was glad he didn’t have to do any more thinking about that.  Johnny Madrid Lancer was his name.  Or John Lancer.  Well, whatever it was, Lancer was his home and he thanked his lucky stars for that.  

Whether it would continue to be Chad’s home, he was not so sure.