Distant Cousins
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Year 1897
Margit McLean-Caine was dying. Her life had been a full one but not often a happy one. She often thought of the day her life had changed so much that she thought that it had been a dream. Then she would pull out the old yellowing poster and knew that time had not been a dream. It had been more like a nightmare. She often thought of the Shaolin priest and wondered what had happened to him. Did he survive to live to a ripe old age or did the Chinese Consulate finally send someone whom he could not defeat. She hoped the latter wasn't true and he had survived to live a long life.
Margit thought about the day that she learned some startling news. The Shaolin turned out to be her cousin through a man who loved her grandmother, Sara Kingsley. The man could not marry her. He was considered a lowly commoner while she had wealth and breeding. In one wild fling Sara Kingsley's life changed. She bore a child, Margit's mother. Though her mother married Robert McLean, a wealthy landowner, both of them drowned in a boating accident soon after Margit had been born. All that remained of her family as Sara and her brother, Johnny. At least that is what she and her brother had been told. Sara raised her grandchildren in the life that she had been accustomed to, but kept secret the shame that she felt would destroy her way of life. In the end, she could not keep the secret that they were the grandchildren of Henry Rafael Caine.
Margit thought on the day that she first met the priest. She did not know her relationship to the man at that time, and he was not what she expected. He was a quiet and simple man. Though her brother tried to fight the Shaolin, Caine seemed reluctant to even defend himself. It was only when her brother became hurt that her feelings toward Caine became confused, and when she saw the poster that proclaimed he was wanted for murder, she feared for her brother's life. Caine, a murderer? Would he seek her brother's death later that night?
Rather than confront Caine about the poster and his intent, she sent a telegram to San Francisco to the Chinese Consulate, letting them know where Caine could be found. It was later when Margit told Caine what she had done, did she regret her decision. Though Caine was able to defeat those who came against him, her brother was not so lucky. Bound by honor and Sara's will, Johnny sought Caine's life at the urging of Sara, not knowing or even caring why Caine had come. Upon learning that Henry Raphael Caine was his grandfather which in turn made Kwai Chang his relative, Johnny tried to defend Caine from those who would take his life, only to lose his own life in the process.
Margit also became a pawn to be used to try to destroy the Shaolin, but Caine would not be destroyed so easily. Even when Sara came to the camp along the beach, bent on killing Caine, her life would end that day, not by Caine, but by the illusion of her own grandson and from her own hatred. Though Caine would eventually defeat those who came against him, after all these years, Margit still wondered and feared for a cousin she knew little about.
If only she knew that Caine was alive, she would tell him what had happened in her life. She would often think of him when the days would get long after taking over her grandmother's ranch. The ranch remained in her family, but the name no longer reflected it's previous owner. Though she never married, like her grandmother, she bore a child from one wild fling with a man she never knew more out of desperation and loneliness. In order so that child had a name, she added the name of Caine to her own and called him Henry to reflect back on her true heritage, a heritage that had been denied her by a bitter and long dead woman. She then drafted up a will so the ranch would always be taken care of. The ranch would be his some day. But Henry would not be its only benefactor.
With her last dying breath she called her son to her bedside. She clutched the yellowed folded paper to her breast. "Henry, my son. You must do one thing for me."
"What is it, Mom?" Henry asked.
"You must find the man who is on this poster," Margaret stated as she handed him the folded paper.
"Who is he? Is he my father?" Henry asked as he unfolded the sheet and stared at the drawing.
"No. He is your cousin."
"My cousin?"
"You must find him and tell him about my death. And to let him know that he still has family. And you must tell him about the will."
"But this poster says he's wanted for murder," Henry stated. "Surely he's been caught or even dead by now."
"I never believed that he committed murder. Your cousin is a priest. He could not commit such an act. Please, find him. Promise me that you will."
"I will."
Within a few short hours, Margit McLean-Caine died peacefully in her sleep. Her son would face a journey that would not be finished in his lifetime. But upon his deathbed, he would ask his son to continue the search, to seek a man named Caine, if that man still lived, and to tell him that he was no longer alone.
Continues with Part 1
Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2003.
This story cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from
the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.
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