It Ain't Me

Chapter 1 – Mistaken Identity

So here I sat, in another jail cell, in another town, for another thing I didn't do. Sometimes all I have to do is walk into a saloon and I get accused of something and, because I'm what others might call a gambler, I'm automatically assumed to be guilty. I don't drink and I don't cheat at cards – that ain't the way I was raised. Me or my brother Bret. My name's Bart Maverick, and Bret is my older brother, by a whole seventeen months. Pappy raised us both to be honest poker players, just like he was, and that's the rule we abide by. Unless we're bein' cheated, that is.

So when I walked into the saloon in Longworth, Kansas, all I wanted to do was drink some coffee and play some poker. I had just gotten to the bar and ordered the coffee when I felt a gun barrel in my back and heard a voice tell me to turn around slow and not reach for my gun. I was not gonna argue with a loaded Colt so I did as told. The man holding the pistol wore a sheriff's badge and a grim expression. "Burt Jenkins, you're under arrest."

"Sorry to disappoint you, sheriff, but my names Bart Maverick. I have no idea who Burt Jenkins is." My standard answer, and the truth.

The sheriff shook his head. "I just got a wire from Topeka with a description. You fit it perfectly. Held up the bank there and killed a teller. Hand me your gun – with your left hand."

"Sheriff, I'm tellin' you my name's Bart Maverick. I haven't been in Topeka for more than a year. If you'll just let me . . . " I was reaching in my inside coat pocket to produce some identification as I spoke.

"Put your hand down, Jenkins, and give me the gun before I shoot you."

That was all the arguing I was about to do. I've been shot enough times that I had no intention of getting shot again, and I reached with my left hand and passed my gun to the lawman standing in front of me. "You're makin' a mistake, sheriff . . . ?"

"Randal. Jim Randal. Let's go." The gun wiggled and pointed out the door, back the way I'd just come in, and I followed the way it was pointing. Sheriff Randal looked a little too eager to pull the trigger, and a mistaken identity apology wouldn't do me much good after I was dead. I found my way back through the batwing doors of the saloon and out onto the boardwalk and looked up the street. I'd seen the sheriff's office up that way as I rode into town, and headed towards it now. No sense doin' any more disagreeing with the man as long as he was determined that I was Burt Jenkins. In just a few minutes I was sitting in one of his jail cells.

"Now can I prove to you who I am?" I asked him as he sat down at his desk. I pulled my wallet out of my coat, the one that Pappy had engraved 'Bart Maverick' on the outside when I turned eighteen, and handed it through the bars. Inside was a picture of Bret and me that Pappy had taken when we were drafted into the Confederate army, and a letter from Bret that I'd carried since the day I thought he'd been killed in Dodge City.

Reluctantly Sheriff Randal got up and came over to take the wallet. He walked back to his desk, sat down and looked it over, pulling out the picture and the letter both, then spent almost a full minute staring at my name on the outside. He studied the photo before unfolding the letter and reading it, finally replacing both where he'd gotten them from. The wallet was deposited carefully on his desk before he picked up what might have been the wire he'd received and looked it over one more time. Then he turned his attention to me. "Tall. Slim. Thirtyish. Brown hair and eyes. Dresses like a gambler." He got out of his chair and came over to the cell. "Let me see the back of your right hand."

I got up from the cot in the cell and stuck my hand out between the bars. "Whatta you lookin' for?"

He looked over every square inch of my hand – front, back, fingers, wrist, until he knew it better than I did. Exasperated, he let out a sigh and let go of my hand, walking back to his desk for the keys to the cell. He gave me a sheepish look as he unlocked the door. "Alright, I give up. Everything you showed me could have been faked, but there's no way to get rid of a scar from a bullet that went through your hand. Sorry . . . Maverick, was it? I was sure you were Jenkins."

I must have been in a forgiving mood – or maybe it was just the idea that all it had taken to convince the sheriff was a scar I didn't have. But now as I put my hat back on my head and walked out of the cell, I wanted to know . . . who was this Burt Jenkins?

"That's all you know about him, sheriff? No wanted poster? Ever heard anything about him before?" I'd just been arrested because I matched a description that could have fit a thousand men – and I wanted more information. I sat down next to Randal's desk and waited.

"Yeah, I heard of him, but that's about all. I wired back for a better description but haven't heard anything so far. Why the sudden interest?" He looked at me skeptically, like I'd developed a second head or something.

"Why wouldn't I be interested? I just got arrested because you thought I was him. That's a good enough reason for me."

"Uh . . . yeah." Randal seemed to be looking for a place to hide when a young boy ran in the front door of the jail.

"Just got an answer to your wire, sheriff. Thought you'd want it right away," and the boy was gone as fast as he'd arrived, leaving the telegram in Randal's hands. He read it over and then handed it to me. 'Gun-hand. Good looking. No further description available. Headed your way. One-thousand-dollar reward, dead or alive.'

"Well," I commented, shaking my head. "Sure leaves me out. Nobody on this earth would call me a gun-hand."

That made the sheriff chuckle. "Guess I didn't get a chance to find out. Sorry about the mistaken identity, but I think you can see why I figured you were Jenkins."

"Yeah, I guess so. Whatta ya gonna do now?" I was more than just curious – I was in Kansas, and if Jim Randal had mistaken me for Burt Jenkins, the next sheriff or marshal I ran across before I could get outta this state was liable to do the same – maybe with more damaging results the next time.

"What I do every day. And keep on the lookout for this Jenkins fella. You stayin' in town, Mr. Maverick?"

"I am now, sheriff. At least you know I'm not Jenkins. I'm safer here than somewhere else, for a while." At least I hoped I was. With that I stood up. "Can I have my Colt back now?"

"Huh? Oh, sure. Here it is." He handed me the gun he'd taken from me earlier, and I returned it to its holster. I headed for the office door and almost got run over by a pretty little thing with red hair and blue eyes that I'd spotted for just an instant earlier in the saloon. She looked at me and smiled, then continued over to Randal's desk. Normally she might have gotten my complete and undivided attention, but I was rather happily involved with a real beauty named Doralice Donovan back in Little Bend. We had a pretty solid relationship goin' and, while I wouldn't qualify for sainthood, I had no intention of messin' it up for a small-town roll-in-the-hay. That did not prevent me from appreciating and admiring a fine looking woman, and I smiled back and paused. I had nowhere I had to be at the moment, and the scenery here was not at all bad.

"Sheriff, I came to tell you something, but it looks like you've already figured it out," the redhead announced. She glanced back at me and smiled.

"That Maverick wasn't Burt Jenkins? You coulda told me before we left Lilybelle's," Randal remarked with a note of annoyance in his voice.

"No, Jim, I couldn't tell you. Someone might have overheard me and asked how I knew he wasn't Burt, and I couldn't take that chance." The smile had faded and all that was left was a sad, forlorn look on her face.

Meanwhile, Jim Randal and I were both confused. "What do you mean about taking a chance? Taking a chance on what?" The sheriff asked the question, but both of us wanted the answer.

"That someone would find out what I've been hiding ever since Burt Jenkins started robbin' banks."

"Excuse me, Miss . . . ?" I interrupted. The girl turned towards me.

"My name's Trinity," she answered, and a wan smile appeared in place of the forlorn look.

"Miss Trinity, I got arrested because I matched Jenkins description. What have you been hiding that was so important that no one know?" I thought I had a right to know the truth.

She sighed then, and sort of collapsed into the chair next to Randal's desk. "This has to remain a secret, Mr. Maverick. My full name is Trinity Dumond . . . Jenkins. Burt Jenkins is my brother."

I don't know who was the most surprised, me or the sheriff. We looked at each other, and then back at the girl who suddenly looked so small, before anyone spoke. Randal recovered first.

"But . . . but . . . Dumond. You said your name was Dumond. Why . . . ?"

"It should be obvious, sheriff," I finally spoke up. "From your reaction to the news. How do you think the rest of the town would react?"

"Exactly," Trinity nodded as she turned her full attention to me. "I came here to start a new life after I got run out of Salina. I didn't want the same thing to happen here. That's why I didn't say anything in the saloon. I like it here; I want to stay. You understand what it's like to get run out of town, don't you, Mr. Maverick?" Her eyes grew enormous with pleading.

"My name's Bart, Trinity," I told her. "And I can't begin to tell you how many towns I've been run out of. I see no reason for it to happen to you here." Now I took a good look at the sheriff, actually for the first time.

Jim Randal was about my height, a little heavier than me, with light, curly hair and a mustache. He was younger than he'd appeared at first, and it was evident from the expression on his face that he had feelings of some kind for the pretty redhead. It didn't take him long to make up his mind. "No, nobody needs to know. It's yer brother robbin' banks, not you." He shook his head and turned his chair to face Trinity Dumond. "Can I ask you some questions, Trinity?"

"About Burt?" There was just a tinge of fear in the girl's voice.

"Yes, ma'am. It might help bring him in alive." Not that it would make a whole lot of difference. If Trinity's brother had killed a bank teller in Topeka he'd hang, and last time I checked dead by hangin' was just as dead by any other means. It wasn't my decision to make, though, and the saloon girl had decided she'd take the chance. You just never know with juries and trials. I was living proof of that very fact.

"Alright, Jim, what do you wanna know?"

Randal didn't hesitate. He asked her the question that I would have asked her. "Just how much does Maverick really look like your brother?"

She turned her head back towards me. "Could you stand up, please, Mr. . . . Bart?"

Sometime during the discussion going on I'd sat down on the far side of Randal's desk. "Sure, Trinity," I grinned. "Anything for a lady." I gathered myself and stood up, removing my coat in the process. Just to give her a better idea of how I was built; coats can hide a multitude of sins and they served to play down how thin I actually was. She looked me over from head to foot and I felt my cheeks redden. I'm not sure I've ever been quite so thoroughly studied before. At least, not with my clothes on.

Trinity seemed to inspect me with a critical eye at first, but slowly a smile spread across her face. "Just about the same height. Burt's got more weight on him, but spread out kind of even. Not much, but enough you'd notice. And his hair's lighter. Sometimes he wears a mustache, but a real thin one. All in all I'd say they're both good-lookin', and if you stood 'em side by side they could probably pass for brothers." It gave me pause, saying we could pass for brothers. Made me think of Geoff and Henry Radson and the trouble we'd had in Laredo. I was brought back to the present when the girl nodded her head, almost as if agreeing with herself. "Same kinda clothes, but Burt's always been a little flashier. He likes bright colors – and he'd never wear a vest as elegant as that one." She stopped then and looked me in the eyes. "And his eyes are blue – and nowhere near as expressive." Her gaze seemed locked on mine, then suddenly she broke it off and blushed herself. "I'm sorry. I've never done anything like that before. No offense meant."

She'd just called me good-looking, and she was the one blushing. "No offense taken. What about guns?"

"Guns?"

"Single rig? Double rig? Left-handed?" The sheriff clarified.

"Oh," Trinity responded. "Two guns. Would you call that a double rig? But he's right handed."

"Shot in his gun-hand?" I asked, even though the answer to the question was obvious.

"When he was a boy," the girl replied and didn't elaborate.

"Anything else you can tell us, Trinity?" Jim Randal questioned. "Anything we should know?"

Her eyes strayed from the sheriff to me and back again. She was confused, and unhappy, and just about the saddest person I'd ever seen. But I saw her shoulders straighten just a bit, and then her chin lifted and she looked at Randal with determination. "He used to be a good man," she clarified. "I don't know what happened to change that, but somethin' did. If he's a killer, somethin' made him that way. The brother I grew up with would never have shot someone he didn't have to."

That was my cue to get her out of there before she started to cry. "Come on, Miss Trinity, let's go back to the saloon and have some coffee. See if we can take your mind off everything. That all right with you, sheriff?" I didn't expect any resistance and Randal didn't give me any.

"Sounds like a good idea. I'll be over in a few minutes, Trinity. Go on over with Maverick."

I offered the redhead my arm, and she took it. At that moment she looked small and vulnerable, and I felt that old urge to protect another member of the fairer sex. As my brother would probably ask if he were here, 'What is wrong with you, Brother Bart? You don't even know the girl!' Somehow I could always hear Bret in my head askin' questions that I couldn't answer. I smiled down at her and she brightened up just a bit, and we walked back across the street to Lilybelle's.