A/N: Originally a story from my Lancer Advent Calendar, Day 18—which can be found on this site—this version is just a smidge expanded. Happy Holidays!
The Christmas Chicken
Johnny flipped his cards over and dropped out of the pot. "You can't be serious, Scott. The man is offering a chicken as collateral."
Sam Clancy was a stagecoach driver and a would-be cardsharp, that is if his luck was anything less than fatal to his winning. Yet he'd given Scott a run for his money in the cutthroat poker game and Johnny gave him a nod of respect for that alone.
Scott gathered his cards and glanced at them.
Johnny let out a soft groan. Wherever he had learned the game—and from Scott's account it was in a tent in Virginia somewhere during the war—his brother was like a horse with the bit in its teeth. No cajoling could pull him away. No tells either, just a curious light that came into his eyes and a dead-on focus. It was something really, that quiet intensity.
Clancy called. He was holding four queens and a trey when he lay out his hand.
Hesitating only briefly, Scott put his cards down, bunched together. He spread them nice and slow. Four aces and a six.
Clancy's eyes bulged.
Carefully, Scott stacked the coins from the center of the table then looked across at the man who smelled like gingerbread and was old enough to be someone's grandfather. "Where's the chicken, Mr. Clancy?"
"Um. Well. I believe in paying my debts. I truly do."
"But?"
"I never offered Merry as collateral, Mr. Lancer. Lord knows I would never do that."
"Mary?"
Clancy stroked his full white beard. "No. Merry. As in Merry Christmas. That's the name of my chicken. But you can have some of her eggs. They're worth their weight in gold."
"Weight in gold, hm?"
Clancy nodded so enthusiastically his full belly shook beneath his seen-better-days dark red coat. "You must be careful, however. They're very special eggs."
Scott cocked his head and tapped the table.
"Don't spend too much time thinking, young man." Clancy winked at Johnny. "I have a long trip to attend to in a few days."
"Johnny, what do you think?"
"I think Murdoch will kill us once he finds out we're in town and not at the ranch doing chores."
"I think you're right." Scott stood. "Those eggs must be outstanding, Mr. Clancy. Let's go get them."
Since Johnny had two handfuls of reins driving the team, he could only look over Scott's elbow into the basket. "What did Clancy mean when he said to be careful about those eggs? And why did he call them knowing eggs?"
Scott held up a perfectly good speckled brown egg. "It looks like a regular one to me. Remember what he said? We have to be sure we want to know because there would be no unknowing." He put it back in with the others. "Pure gibberish. They'll be good for breakfast and nothing else."
The next morning, both brothers stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and rumpled after a poor night's sleep.
Scott looked at Johnny over his coffee cup. "What's your excuse?"
"Dreams. Mostly about chasing chickens around a fat man in a red coat." He tipped up his own cup. "You?"
"Same. The gentleman did leave an impression."
After hasty coffee and biscuits, they were on their way to finish up the chores left over from their visit into town yesterday. Maria shook her head, scolding them, and with a decided frown handed them their lunches for the day at the door.
They split up at the road promising to meet there again in the early afternoon.
Scott wiped his brow. It was almost Christmas, and he was sweating like it was mid-summer. They should have never stopped in town yesterday, let alone take the time to play a game of poker. After putting in a questionable row of fencing, it was time to eat his midday meal. A shady spot under the pine looked good, so he sat against the tree and shook off his yellow gloves.
Opening the sack, he pulled out a sandwich and two hard-boiled eggs. The eggs were the easiest because Maria had already peeled them. He took one bite and settled back, closing his eyes.
The green pasture dropped away into a dust-ridden border town. The bright day faded to evening dusky twilight.
Voices yelled behind him, "Run, Juanito! It's the only thing you're good for!"
A young slim boy in a torn and bloodied shirt slipped past him, dirt smudging his face under a mop of unruly black hair. Startling blue eyes were wide with panic. Scott tried to reach out to him, but his hand went right through the boy's injured shoulder.
The bullies pounded around the corner, keeping up their jibes, but the boy had crept through a doorway and into a run-down shack.
Suddenly, Scott was inside. He caught his breath when he looked—really looked. The boy was Johnny. And he was weeping.
Scott shuffled a few steps, heart big. Unpleasantly big, expanding into places it wasn't supposed to be. He sat on the cot as Johnny scrambled to an uncoordinated sit, legs and arms at dodgy angles, uncontrolled as an armload of kindling. Then he heard a few whispered words in Spanish. Eyes streaming, Johnny lifted his head in prayer before a crudely whittled nativity scene on the close by table. Something about wanting…a hermano? A brother?
Scott didn't know what to say, so he stood, the room too small and his heart too big.
Darkness seeped in around him.
~o~o~o~
Johnny shook the sweat away and pulled the rest of the stump out of the ground. It was a scorcher out today and time for a break. He peeled his gloves off and grabbed his lunch. A cool grassy spot had grabbed his eye earlier in the morning, so he sat down and opened the bag Maria had handed him earlier, taking a quick bite of egg.
The green around him disappeared and in its stead was a cold, snowy field between two fine-looking brick houses. Someone called out.
"Lancer!"
Johnny twisted around as a skinny young boy with a thatch of blond hair raced past him, then pulled up and turned at the shout. His freckles were stark against skin too pale, yet he didn't look uncared for as much as wild and determined.
Three other boys ran towards him and pitched something.
"Look out!" Johnny yelled. The rock hit the boy in the head, and he fell into the snow. Johnny tried to turn him over, but his hand went right through the boy's arm. The youngster shook himself and came up to his knees. Something in his round blue eyes shifted to…Johnny didn't know what it was, not exactly, but the confidence of this boy had fled. Not beaten, not by a long shot, but scared.
The boy staggered to the door and slipped inside.
A moment later, Johnny was in a fancy parlor decorated with fir boughs, red bows, and a Christmas tree full of ornaments. The boy sat cross-legged on the floor beside it, his head in his hands. He wasn't just a boy—it was Scott, he knew that now.
Blood-splattered, Scott was crying. Not from the pain, from something else. Johnny knelt and through the hiccups and snuffles he heard a prayer of sorts.
"Please…send me a brother…"
Instinctively, Johnny raised his right hand to Scott's shoulder, but the lamps winked out and the room swirled into darkness.
~o~o~o~
Johnny was the first to get to the road and he dismounted. The vision, or whatever it was, left him antsy and agitated. Scott finally came over the rise, his horse set in a gallop. He swung to a stop, nearly colliding with Barranca.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Johnny.
"Something happened this afternoon." Scott dropped from the saddle to pace, hands on hips. "Maybe it was just a dream. I can't explain the how of it, but you were very young and running from a group of boys looking to hurt you. It was very real." Scott whirled around. Sadness was etched across his features. "I couldn't help you."
Johnny bowed his head, one hand snaking up to the shoulder that was injured so many years ago. "Well, I couldn't help you, either. Even after you got that rock pitched at you. I don't ever want to feel like that again."
Scott briefly touched the side of his head where there was a small scar. "I've never told anyone about that," he said softly.
Johnny stared. "Or that you wanted a brother?"
"You, too, Johnny."
A little sound escaped him, from the back of his throat. Denial maybe, but more like recognition. "Yeah, me, too. Would've made things a lot easier."
Scott snapped his fingers. "Merry Christmas."
"What?"
"The chicken."
"Are you saying it was the eggs that caused this? You're loco."
The sound of bells made them turn around. A low rumble started out slow then gathered speed as the stagecoach approached. A deep, throaty "ho, ho, ho" called the team of six to a stamping, blowing halt. Two more horses were tied behind.
"Hullo boys!" cried Sam Clancy.
Scott arranged his face to bland interest. A look that usually fooled nobody. "Mr. Clancy, what are you doing out this way?" His eyebrows clamped together when the chicken popped her head out of Clancy's coat, tilted it to one side and stared them down with a beady black eye.
"Thought I'd stop by on my way out of town." He nodded. "My long trip, you know. Plenty of baggage this time around, that's why I have the extra horses." He winked as if he just cleared everything up.
"Say, boys, how is everything? Did you like Merry's eggs?" She took that time to b'cah loudly. Clancy chuckled and gently pushed her head back inside his coat.
Johnny stepped forward. "What's this all about, Mister?"
"So, you didn't see anything?"
"Oh, we both saw plenty."
Clancy cocked his head and stroked his beard. "Was it something you'd rather not have known?"
Johnny looked to Scott. "No. No, I can't say that. It was more of a surprise is all." His brother gave a curt nod in agreement. "It's just…why? Why bring all those things in the past up again?"
Clancy's face softened. "Perhaps it was just a reminder. Of what you both have now. Wishes are heard, you know." He put his finger beside his nose and said to them, "Make the best of it, eh?"
And with that, he gave the reins a hearty slap and the team leaped forward. "Merry Christmas!" he shouted.
A muffled b'cah answered from the inside of his coat.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the departing stagecoach then at each other, shocked maybe. Full. Too full. A lifetime of wanting, sometimes—most times—without even realizing, brought back into sharp focus by Sam Clancy. Or his chicken. Johnny shook his head. It was too much, for the both of them. He tried to smooth it over with a half-grin.
Scott let out a small huff of breath, while he looked at the ground like he just found a new interest in dirt.
Barranca nickered and the silence was broken. Both men looked up.
"Ah…" Scott began.
"So…" Johnny interrupted.
"I just want to say I remember that wish, Johnny. Fervently." Scott took time to adjust his hat forward from the back of his head. "I couldn't ask for a better outcome."
"I meant my wish, too." That Christmas was awful, the urgency of the prayer had been very real. "And I'm grateful for how it turned out."
"If you didn't finish clearing out the stumps, maybe I can help. What do you say, brother? Shall we make the best of it?"
Johnny's fingers tapped against his leg. "And I can help you plug up the rest of those holes in the fence line."
"Deal." Scott held out his hand.
Johnny gave a smile, a real one this time, and shook his brother's hand. "You know, making the best of it…"
Scott's eyebrows rose. "Won't be so difficult?"
"Exactly." Being related on paper, didn't really mean a thing because what Clancy didn't know was that he and Scott were already brothers. In blood, and everything else that mattered. The fact they were real kin was just a big gold bow on top. Or maybe the fat man did know, it was hard to say.
He grabbed Scott's elbow. "No more poker games, huh? Or chickens. At least until after the holiday."
His brother grinned. "Merry Christmas, Johnny."
"Merry Christmas, Scott."
The End