Three Days Later

Chapter 25: Cass

Cass sat quietly by Caleb's side holding his hand. Doc said he was out of the woods now, and Cass could see he was breathing easier and his color was back. Either he or Jeb had sat by him since the doctor had taken the bullet out. He was stable enough that they'd be heading to Dodge in the morning.

Caleb had been awake quite a bit today. He'd told Cass what really happened the day Harold died and what happened in the cave during those last hours before he and Jeb returned with the ransom money. It had been hard for Cass to hear how wrong he'd been, but he was glad to know that Harold hadn't died alone. He owed Dillon for that. He wished Agnes could have known. It would have soothed her some.

Chester was over near the entrance to the chamber. He had his rifle in his lap and was keeping a close watch on him and Jeb. Jeb was sitting back against the cave wall now. Jeb hadn't had much to say since they'd come back and found Floyd dead and Caleb shot. Cass knew Jeb was worried about his young family and what was going to happen to them when he went to prison…or worse.

Cass had thought Caleb was dead, and whatever else happened, he was grateful that his youngest boy was going to live, that he hadn't died at the hands of his damaged brother. Caleb was special to him. He was the future, untouched by the horrors of the war.

The doctor was asleep in the outer cave getting some well-earned rest. Cass owed him a debt that he couldn't repay and wasn't likely to ever have the opportunity to repay. He'd saved Caleb, had even tended him before his friends. Seemed to Cass he owed everybody.

Cass figured there was a good chance he might hang for all this. He was responsible for a long list of crimes, shooting and beating a U.S. Marshal with the plainly-spoken intent to murder him, shooting a woman, kidnapping, and collecting ransom. He deserved hanging. He just hoped he could keep his boys from the gallows. He'd failed as a father. Jeb with his new family and Caleb on the brink of manhood, and he'd brought them both to this.

When Floyd came home from the war, he'd been so different. The carefree young man had come home bitter and hate filled, suffered from uncontrolled rages. He'd told him and his Ma his twisted version of what had happened to Harold, and Cass always figured that Harold's horrible death, dying alone and impaled by a tree had somehow broken Floyd, and he guessed it had. Floyd had cracked that day in Tennessee when the tree impaled Harold. Cass figured he lost two sons on that battlefield. He just hoped his own stupid behavior wasn't going to cost him his remaining two sons.

Agnes tried so hard to mother Floyd, to fix him, but he just got worse and worse. The more they tried to love him, the more the hate in him grew, the less he was connected to reality. It wore on Agnes, and she had terrible nightmares about Harold, about him dying alone and in horrible pain. She would wake up screaming that she had to get to Harold, that he was hurting, and he needed his mother to comfort him, that he was all alone. Cass would find her crying all the time, and she just stopped caring. Eventually, she just withered away.

After she died, Cass tried to look out for Floyd, got him out of scrape after scrape. He brought Caleb and Jeb to Kansas to keep Floyd from hanging only to find out it was Matt Dillon that had brought his boy in to hang.

Cass had come to hate the name Matthew Dillon almost as much as Floyd did. He blamed him for everything he lost. That misplaced hate brought him and his two remaining sons to this sad point in their lives. Now he knew that all the hate that poisoned his mind had been planted by a lie, and he had nurtured it, let it grow into something he couldn't control. Maybe, if Floyd had faced the truth, things would have been different for Floyd, for Agnes, for all of them. It was too late for that now. That lie had festered in the boy.

Floyd was dead now, free of all that pain, guilt, and hate he had been carrying since the war. In the end, Dillon had fired the shot that killed Floyd, but Cass realized that the war really killed his boy. Dillon had just finished the job. He was grateful that Floyd hadn't managed to kill anyone else, especially the woman. Cass wouldn't have been able to bear the guilt of that.

Cass glanced surreptitiously over at the young lawman. Now that he looked at him as a man, instead of a monster, he saw how young he was to be carrying the heavy responsibilities of a U.S. Marshal. He didn't even look to be as old as Floyd. He could see that he was talking quietly with Miss Russell. Well, the lady was mostly talking, and the Marshal was listening, but the smile on his face told Cass that the young Marshal was quite smitten with the beautiful redhead.

It was hard for Cass to understand how the man came to fight for the union. He, himself, had opposed seceding from the union and going to war, but he never could have brought himself to fight against Texas. He guessed making that decision probably took its own special kind of courage. He still didn't know a lot about Dillon, but a man with the kind of friends he had, surely had good in him.

He thought about the Marshal's friends. There was Chester with his kind eyes. It was easy to see he idolized the lawman. Cass didn't think there was much doubt that Chester would follow that man into a hail of bullets with no chance of survival. Then there was Kitty, brave, kind, and beautiful. As far as Cass was concerned, she was perfect. And the Doc, he had a mighty sharp tongue, and he'd used it on all of them, except Kitty. But no matter how sharp his tongue, his hands were always kind. Doc cared about people. He tried to hide behind a gruff exterior, but Cass had a way of seeing a man for who he was. He scoffed to himself. Too bad he was so blinded by hate that he hadn't even been able to see Matt Dillon as human.

When Dillon first came around and was cognizant of his surrounding, Cass had seen that his first concern had been for the young woman. Cass had been surprised that once he had assured himself she was safe and well, or at least healing, his second voiced concern had been for Caleb, seemed to genuinely care about the boy. Then, when his eyes found Chester, he'd asked him to find his gun and gun belt. Chester had found it in Floyd's saddlebags and brought it to him. It now rested near his shoulder, within easy reach.

The doctor had shaken his head when he heard the request but kept his peace. Cass figured that he didn't approve but understood it gave the young lawman some peace to have it close.

Kitty had been the first of Doc's patients to wake up. Doc had propped her up with one of the saddles and some blankets. If the way she looked at Dillon was any indication, she was definitely in love with that man. Cass had seen her reach over to hold his hand or run her fingers through his hair. Sometimes she just seemed to be touching him to assure herself he was there.

Cass couldn't look at her without thinking of his beloved Agnes. Both had that flaming red hair, but where Agnes had been fragile, this woman had an iron core. He'd been shocked when he picked up the ransom, and there was only $500. That woman bluffed him. It was a terrible weight on him that he involved her in his terrible revenge scheme, and that Floyd shot her.

He also wouldn't soon forget looking down the barrel of that colt she had clutched in her two small hands. Her shirt covered in blood, but her hands steady as a rock and her eyes cold as ice. He would never have believed a woman to be capable of killing a man until he'd seen the look in her eyes, but at that point, nothing, not even death, could have kept him from putting a bullet in Dillon's brain… nothing except Caleb calling out to him. Thank God Caleb had stopped him from murder.

Caleb was asleep, and Cass figured he should go over and tell the lawman how sorry he was for everything. It was hard to find the words for it though. Looking back, it seemed he should have had better sense. When he heard the reaction of the townspeople when that big buckskin came into town, he should known that the Marshal wasn't the monster he thought. He had been a blind fool. Well, the words weren't likely to ever come to him, and he needed to get it done. He rose and walked over to the lawman.

Cass saw Chester lift the rifle as he approached the lawman and he raised his hands slightly and nodded towards the young jailer, letting him know he meant no harm. He dropped down to one knee to be more on eye level with the injured man. "Dillon…uh, Marshal Dillon?"

Matt looked up, curious as to what brought Cass over to him.

Cass took a deep breath. "I want to apologize to you for everything me and my sons did to you. Well, mostly me and Floyd. I got no excuse. I'm just terrible sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I am sorry. I was a damn fool."

Matt's eyes shifted first to Kitty, then back to Cass. "You coulda got Kitty killed. I just can't forgive you that. But, I'll try to understand your reasons."

"I thank you for that, and I understand. I just wanted to let you know, I feel ashamed." Caleb shifted his gaze to the beautiful red-headed woman. "Miss Russell, I want to apologize to you too. I'm real sorry about bringing you into all this. I was raised to treat women with respect and to protect them, and I didn't do that, and I'm sorry."

Kitty appeared confused by the apology and unsure of what to say, finally responding, "Thank you, Cass. I know you were thinking different when you did all that."

Cass stood and mumbled, "Thank you, Ma'am."

To be continued…