Set Fire to the Rain 2, Ch. 26 "Chester Saves the Day"

This fanfiction is intended for mature readers due to the vivid depiction of a consensual adult relationship.  The setting is First Season, post-The Preacher.   I am not legally responsible for any of Chester’s actions whatsoever in the following chapter.

ljljljljlj

“Chester!” Kitty cried excitedly, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing him tight, making him turn beet red and giggle senselessly in delighted embarrassment.    Kitty happily grabbed his hand and tugged him inside the parlor, making him hop-step to keep up with her.  “Hey, everybody, Chester’s here!” Kitty called.

Chester limped over to the settee where he would have more room to get his awkward, stiff leg situated as Doc and Matt entered from the kitchen where they’d been drinking coffee with Isom.

“Why, Chester!  I’ve missed you,” Doc grinned as he shook his hand eagerly.  “You young scoundrel, you!”

“Well, thank ya’ kindly, Doc.”  Chester ducked his head and grinned shyly.  “Truth be told, things ain’t been the same round Dodge with you all gone.  I’ve been feelin’ purty lonesome lately.”

Matt clapped Chester on the shoulder and gripped his hand so tightly that Chester winced a little bit.   “Thanks for comin’, Chester.  We need your help around here so we can get this place ready for sale.” 

Chester asked, “So, you really are a’gonna sell it, Miss Kitty?”

“Yeah, Chester, I do hate to let go of something that was a part of my family’s history.”  Kitty sighed and raked a curl behind her ear, “but I don’t belong out here.  I don’t know the first thing about runnin’ a ranch, and I can use the money from the sale to make a brand new start for myself in Dodge.”

Chester’s eyes widened.  “A new start?”

“Yeah, I might be making a little investment in my future with this money.”  Kitty glanced at Matt and gave a small, secretive smile.  “But it’s too early to tell yet, so I’ll let ya’ know…” 

Doc squinted at her.  “More intrigue?  I don’t know if I can stand anymore of that.  We’ve had enough mystery and secrets around here lately to last a lifetime.”  He shook his head and looked at Chester.  “At least for me, anyways.  I’m too old for this kinda’ thing.”

Chester’s forehead wrinkled.  “Mystery?  Now, I’ll tell ya’, I don’t know what in Sam Hill ‘intrigue’ is, but I shore know what a mystery is.  You got mysterious goin’s on way out here, Miss Kitty?”

Kitty admonished, “Now, Doc…”

“Don’t you ‘Now, Doc’ me, young lady…”  Doc scrubbed his mustache furiously.  “Chester, somebody tried to kill Kitty not once, mind you, but twice.”  Doc hesitated and looked in the air, then amended his calculations, “No!  Three!  Three times!  By thunder…!”

Chester’s eyes became round as saucers.  “Oh no, Miss Kitty, what happened?”

Matt interrupted, grimacing.  “Chester, it’s a long story.  But there was a hotel fire set on purpose, and then when that didn’t work, they tried to poison her.”

“Fire?  Poison?”  Chester was slack-jawed.  “Why, heavens to Betsy…  Miss Kitty, are you alright?”

Kitty tried to get a word in edgewise, “Yes, Chester, I’m just fine, really…”

Doc was wound up though.  He spluttered, “She’s only alright thanks to Sheriff Ware.  He’d been investigating around town after the fire.  He knew it wasn’t accidental.  Ware heard through the grapevine that a man who worked for Kitty’s lawyer was seen purchasing arsenic.  He put two and two together.  Came out here and warned us.”

“We were ready for them,” Matt explained.  “At dinner, we watched and waited and they made their move.  I never saw the poison, but Kitty took her cue and acted up a storm like a poisoning victim.”

“I had told her the symptoms of arsenic poisoning,” Doc supplied, pleased that he’d been a part of the conspiracy.  “She’s quite a little actress, Chester.”

Matt’s chest puffed out as he exclaimed, “She’s a regular Lily Langtry, I tell ya’!”

Kitty chided self-consciously, “Oh, Matt…  You two, just hush and tell the story.”

Chester jumped up from the settee and started pacing the room anxiously in his hippity-hop gait.  “My, oh, my, Miss Kitty…  That’s just terrible, all you been through.”

Matt continued, “Well, that’s not the worst of it.”

Chester stopped dead in his tracks, dark eyebrows reaching for the sky. 

Doc thundered indignantly, “They tried to smother her in her bed!”

Chester gasped, “No!”  He took off his hat, fanned himself with it a bit, then set it on the fireplace mantel.  “You don’t say…”

Doc retorted, “Yes!  Yes, they did, Chester!  But Sheriff Ware and Matt were waiting for them.  It was a beautiful setup, I must say.  I was worried to death, but it worked.  Even Kitty had a gun, hidden under her blankets.  She wasn’t taking any chances.”  Doc shook his head and chuckled.  “Irving Hepley was shaking in his shoes with Kitty Russell pointing her gun at him.  She was a mighty brave girl.”

“Irving Hepley?  Ain’t that Miss Kitty’s own lawyer??”

Matt grumbled, “Yeah, Chester, and the rest we haven’t quite figured out yet.  Those two aren’t talking.  Maybe they’re hoping to avoid prosecution if there’s no motive for their crime.  But we don’t know why on earth they were trying to kill Kitty.”

“Oh fer goodness sakes, Miss Kitty, I just don’t know what to think…”  Chester shook his head and tiredly leaned back with an elbow placed on the built-in bookshelf on the wall next to the fireplace.  His arm knocked over the beautiful vase that once belonged to Océane.

“Oh, Chester!” Kitty cried.

Chester scrambled to grab the vase as it rolled off the shelf, juggling it a few times back and forth.  Papers flew out as he clutched it desperately to his chest and grinned weakly.  “Got it…heh…”

Kitty sighed in relief, but then went to retrieve the wad of papers that had flown out when Chester was doing his juggling act.  Matt and Doc squeezed in on either side of her on the small settee as she unfolded the yellowed documents.  They read aloud, looking over her shoulder, “Last Will and Testament.”

Chester gingerly set the china vase back on the shelf, adjusting it just so, then crossed his arms and finally chose to jam his hands securely in his pockets.  He blew out a relieved breath and finally asked, “What’s it say, Miss Kitty?  Whose will is it?”

Doc shushed him with a finger raised in the air as the three read silently for a while.

Kitty finally declared, “Matt, this leaves Solomon’s entire estate to his lawyer.”

Matt and Doc spoke together, “Irving Hepley.”

Doc pointed to the will.  “This one is dated several years ago.  Solomon Pierce didn’t have any family to leave his estate to at the time.”

Kitty explained, “So he left it to his friend and lawyer, Hepley.”

Matt added ominously, “And then you came along, Kitty.”

Kitty frowned, “I sure was the fly in his ointment.”

“Thanks, Chester!”  Matt grinned from ear to ear.

Chester blinked.  “What in tarnation for?”

Matt stood up and put his arm around Chester’s relatively small shoulders.  “You found my motive!”

“I did?”

Doc crowed, “Who’da thunk he had it in ‘im?!”

Kitty rose and merrily kissed an astonished Chester on his cheek, “I knew Chester had it in him all along.” 

tbc

ljljljljlj