Trail Drive (The McCabes Book 5)

by Brad Dennison

  A man was standing there and Johnny could see his face in the orange glow from the hearth. Longish hair. A juniper bush of a beard. A floppy, dark hat.

  It was his brother Josiah.

  9

  Johnny and Josiah grabbed each other in bear hugs. Josiah was the biggest of the McCabe boys and he lifted Johnny clear off the porch floor.

  “You old grizzly bear,” Johnny said. “Come on in.”

  Zack Johnson was with him. And Addison Travis.

  Johnny said, “Bree, go get your Aunt Ginny.”

  Addison Travis was a man Johnny had met in California a year ago, but back then he had gone by the name Sam Middleton. When Johnny had known him, he had been well-groomed and moved with an air of sophistication. Now he looked like something that had ridden out of the mountains. His handlebar mustache had grown wild and whiskers decorated his jaw, and his hair flew every which way. But despite the dusty, worn clothes he stood in, it was with style and elegance that he watched Ginny emerge from her room.

  Ginny was sixty-one and Addison had to be about the same age, but once they saw each other they were Bree’s age again. Ginny ran to him and he took her in his arms and there was a kiss that made Johnny turn away. Wouldn’t do for a gunhawk to blush.

  “Addison,” she said. “Oh, Addison.”

  There were tears streaming down her face. Johnny noticed tears were cutting rivulets through the dust on Addison’s face, too.

  “Is your name cleared?” she said.

  He shook his head. “I just couldn’t stay away from you any longer.”

  Jessica and Temperence got plates of food for them, and Josh filled glasses of scotch. The whole household was roused at the commotion, and the kitchen was filled with folks while Addison, Zack and Joe sat down to eat.

  They talked about living on the run. Living in the mountains and hunting their supper and living in a small lean-to they had made.

  Joe said, “We tried looking for work using assumed names. Didn’t work out too well. We looked like saddle bums. And the law was always hot on our trail.”

  Addison said, “That was my fault. Apparently the Mexican government has doubled the reward for me.”

  “Why?” Bree said. “So you had to kill a man. There are outright murderers out there who don’t cause this much commotion.”

  “It’s politics. I killed the son of a general. And now it’s becoming a matter of political pride.”

  Zack said, “We stayed quite a long time with a band of Cheyenne living in the mountains, off the reservation. But we were runnin’ the risk of bringing trouble to them, so we decided to light out. It was my idea to come back here. Poor old Travis, here, was just pinin’ for you somethin’ fierce,” he looked at Ginny and she smiled. “And I figured if he goes by the name of Sam Middleton and no one asks questions, we might be able to hide him right here in plain sight.”

  The three slept the night wrapped in blankets on the parlor floor. The following morning, Zack rode out to check on his ranch. When Sam—his name was Addison but Johnny would always think of him as Sam—came downstairs, he was cleanly shaven except for his handlebar mustache. Ginny had cut his hair, and he was in a clean shirt of Johnny’s. His formerly steel gray mustache was now nearly white, but otherwise he looked much like the Sam Middleton who had been fleecing miners at cards in that saloon back in Greenville, California, and who had come to the rescue when he was needed.

  Breakfast was finished and Johnny was standing out back on the porch with a cup of coffee in his hand when Taggart came riding in.

  “’Mornin,” Johnny said, and called to Josh.

  Josh came out and Taggart announced he was looking for work.

  Josh said, “Looks like you been on the trail a while.”

  “I have,” he said. “Been doing some traveling.”

  “You look like you’ve done some work on a ranch, before.”

  “Yessir. I’ve pretty much done it all. Line boss, hay waddy, hasher, cow prod, jingler. You name it. I've done it.”

  Joe came walking out from the parlor. Where Sam was now once again his sophisticated-looking self, Joe still looked like he had just come from the mountains, chasing the wind and howling at the moon.

  Joe said, “Taggart.”

  Taggart looked at him a moment and blinked with surprise, and said, “Joe Smith.”

  Johnny looked at them both.

  Joe said, “Smith is what I’m known by, down Texas way.”

  Johnny said, “You two know each other?”

  Joe nodded. “He’s an old friend. Done me a real good turn, a while back. If not for him, I’d prob’ly be in the ground. The marshal I work for down there, too. Give him the job, if you can.”

  “Well,” Josh said, looking at Taggart. “That’s about as good a recommendation as a man can have. We’re planning a trail drive.”

  Taggart said, “You don’t hire drovers? You do it yourself?”

  “That we do. You up to it?”

  Taggart nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then head on down to the bunkhouse. Tell Charles that I done hired you.”

  After breakfast, Johnny saddled up Thunder and rode out. He headed to the back trail that would take him out behind Hunter’s. Nothing that would seem unusual to anyone watching the ranch.

  But then, about two hundred feet into the wooded pass out beyond the valley floor, he turned north and cut up and over one ridge, and then up and onto the ridge they called McCabe Mountain.

  He left Thunder ground-hitched partway up the mountain. Johnny knew the horse wouldn’t wander far, and would come when he whistled.

  Johnny pulled his buckskin moccasin boots from his saddlebags. His riding boots were tight and didn’t want to come off, but he tugged for a bit and they gave up the ghost, and then he slipped on the buckskin boots and pulled them up to where they tied just below the knee. Now he could walk in almost complete silence.

  With his Sharps in one hand, he started down the mountain. He took his time, stepping lightly on the pine straw and making sure to avoid any dried sticks. There were many of those, as they fell from the pine boughs overhead.

  The Shoshone had taught him how to walk silently. You don’t tip-toe along, the way a lot of folks would think. You step down slowly, in a controlled motion, heel first. Then you let your foot roll forward and your toe is the last thing to touch the ground.

  Johnny found the man who had been watching the ranch was back in place, by the large pine at the edge of the valley floor.

  The man didn’t strike Johnny as an outlaw or gunfighter type. He was in a gray Sunday-go-to-meetin’ suit and a short-brimmed bowler. Johnny could tell by the way the right side of his jacket was wrinkling up that he probably had a gun under there.

  The man was holding binoculars up to his face and aiming them toward the ranch house, and that’s where his full attention was.

  Johnny came up behind him, and the man had no idea Johnny was even there until he felt the cold steel of Johnny’s Colt pushing into his neck, and heard the hammer cock back.

  “‘Mornin’,” Johnny said.

  10

  Josh and Johnny headed to town for the meeting at Johansen’s, as requested in the letter from Bertram Reed. Johnny was in a white shirt and put on a string tie. But otherwise, he was dressed the way he usually was. Jeans and boots, and was wearing his gun. Josh was dressed the same.

  They walked into Johansen’s, and walking in front of them was the man who had been spying on the ranch. They hadn’t roughed him up, but had scared him a bit and they now had his hands tied behind him.

  Reed was at a corner table and saw them come in. They marched their prisoner over to him.

  Reed said, “I’m so glad you could be here.”

  People had stared at Johnny and Josh as they rode down the street with a man whose hands were tied behind him. Out of the corner of Johnny’s eye he could see Marshal Falcone on the boardwalk. Falcone followed them into the restaurant and stood in the doorway, watch
ing.

  Reed looked at the man. “Chandler, what are you doing here?”

  Johnny said, “I caught him watching our ranch from a distance, with a pair of binoculars.”

  Reed was a man of about forty. He had a hairline that had receded about as far as it could go, and brown sideburns that wrapped their way around to the front of his face to meet his mustache. He was in a three-piece-suit and had a gold chain stretched from his vest pocket to his jacket.

  He said, “It’s quite all right. Mister Chandler works for me. He meant no harm.”

  Johnny said, “No, it ain’t all right. In this country, that sort of behavior can get a man shot. We’ll let him go, this time. Next man you send out to spy on our ranch, we’ll be bringing him to town draped over a saddle.”

  Josh pulled a bowie knife from a sheath at his belt. Its blade was about eight inches long. Reed’s eyes went wide when he saw it. With the knife, Josh sliced the rawhide strip that was holding Chandler’s hands together.

  Josh said, “You’re free to go. If we ever see you on our land again, we’ll leave you hanging from a tree.”

  Chandler swallowed hard. He said nothing, but looked at his boss.

  Reed said, “It’s okay, Chandler. You can go, now.”

  Chandler didn’t waste any time getting across the restaurant floor and out the door.

  Falcone grinned and left.

  Johnny said, “I wasn’t joking. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  Josh said, “What reason could you possibly have for having a man spy on us?”

  “Not you,” Reed said. “Your ranch.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Not really. Please sit down.”

  Josh looked at Johnny. Johnny gave a nod of his head, and they sat.

  “Coffee?” Reed said.

  Josh said, “Long as you’re payin’.”

  Reed chuckled. Johnny had the feeling Reed was probably more accustomed to business meetings in places like St. Louis or Chicago, with men who did their business with a ledger rather than a gun.

  Reed said, “But of course,” and waved the waitress over.

  He said, “Gentlemen, I would like to make you an offer. How much acreage would you say you own?”

  Josh glanced at his father again, and then said, “About five thousand.”

  “Not more? Mister Chandler has been scoping out your ranch for a few days, and from what he has seen, you have perhaps fifty thousand acres out beyond the valley.”

  Josh shook his head. “That’s open range. What we actually own is in our end of the valley, only.”

  “I would estimate your end of the valley is closer to fifty-five hundred acres.”

  Johnny shrugged. He had never been good at estimating such things. When they filed their claim years ago, he had estimated the acreage at five thousand.

  Before either of the McCabe men could say another word, Reed said, “I invited you here today, gentlemen, because I would like to buy your ranch.”

  “It’s not for sale,” Josh said.

  “A dollar an acre would be a fair price. I’m willing to go a dollar twenty-five. And also a fair price for your herd. And another ten thousand for the ranch house itself. That will make you all very rich.”

  Johnny was about to say something, to explain there are different ways of looking at value. But before he could, Josh said, “We’re already rich, Mister Reed. Rich in the ways that really count.”

  “As I understand it, the ranch ownership is actually divided by a number of people. Do you both speak for them all?”

  Josh looked at Johnny. They both knew that they did not.

  Reed said, “I’ll go a dollar thirty an acre, and not a penny more. Mister Chandler estimates your herd at nearly four thousand head, including breeding stock. I’ll offer two dollars a head for the whole herd. Including breed stock.”

  “Two dollars?” Josh said. “We’d get more than that in Cheyenne.”

  “But you’re not in Cheyenne. If I am to make any profit from them, I would have to get them there. The cost of doing business reduces what I could offer per head. But add ten thousand for the house, and I believe we’re looking at more than twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Josh looked at Johnny again.

  Reed said, “Take the offer home. Discuss it with everyone who has a stake in the ranch. I’ll be here. I have a room at the hotel. I’ll be awaiting your answer.”

  11

  Temperence was at the stove, pouring hot tea into two porcelain cups.

  She said, “I’m still taken aback about that offer for the ranch. Twenty-five thousand is more than most cowhands see in a lifetime. ”

  Haley was at the table. Little Jonathan was in a wooden high chair, and she was holding a spoon in front of him.

  Haley said, “Even so, we all said no pretty fast, didn’t we?”

  Haley brought the spoon to Jonathan, and made a whooshing, whispering sound with her mouth. Jonathan broke into laughter and she slid the spoon in.

  Temperance set the cups onto saucers and brought them over to the table. When she had first come to this family three years earlier, she had never been able to balance a cup on a saucer without spilling half of the tea. But after three years of training at Aunt Ginny’s hand, it was as though she had been balancing teacups all of her life.

  “What makes me wonder,” she said, setting a cup of tea in front of Haley, “is why a land developer would want a cattle ranch like this. You look at Mister Reed, he doesn’t know which end of a horse is which. He’ll have to hire someone to run the ranch for him.”

  “Maybe he wants the land for something else. Dusty and I were talking about that last night.”

  Temperance sat down. “Like what?”

  “Like maybe selling it all off as farmland. With irrigation becoming more and more common, Reed could have potentially five thousand acres of corn fields, or whatever he wants to grow.”

  Temperance’s thoughts were not really of land, though. Her and Josh’s big day was coming up, and it was never long before her thoughts strayed back to it.

  She said, “Do you wish you and Dusty had a big wedding?”

  Haley’s and Dusty’s wedding had been in a small grove of maples that grew out behind the house, at the edge of the clearing. It had been mid-September, and the leaves of the maples were alive with the red of autumn.

  Three weeks had passed since Dusty had convinced her not to take little Jonathan back east. The wedding had been put together quickly.

  Josh served as Dusty’s best man. Dusty had to admit to himself that as often as he poked fun at Josh, and even though Josh sometimes aggravated him to distraction, Josh was not only his brother but, aside from Haley, the closest friend Dusty had ever had.

  Dusty had bought a broadcloth suit for the ceremony and left his gun at the house.

  He had told Haley he was going to do this. Not wear a gun with his suit.

  “A McCabe?” she said. “Without a gun?”

  “I’m not like Pa,” he said. “I don’t have to wear a gun every waking moment.”

  Josh had a broadcloth suit, though he hadn’t worn it in a while. Three years, in fact. It had been hanging in his closet but somehow was still rumpled, and Temperance ironed it flat for him and put a crease in it.

  He had watched her do it and said, “I don’t see how you do that without burning a big black patch in the cloth.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t see how you boys handle a gun the way you do without shooting yourself in the foot.”

  Their cousin Tom officiated at the ceremony. Dusty stood waiting for his bride with his preacher cousin at one side and Josh at the other.

  A small crowd had shown up for the ceremony. Granny Tate stood leaning on her cane and all bent at the shoulders. Her grandson Henry and his family were with her. Hunter was there, and Chen. Tom’s wife Lettie and their daughter Mercy. And of course, Pa was there with Jessica and Cora. Aunt Ginny stood with them, wiping away tears. Bree stood beside her, beami
ng a big smile.

  Bree had consented to wearing a civilized dress for the ceremony, and her hair was done up in some sort of fashion Aunt Ginny had seen in a magazine from New York.

  Jack was there with Nina. They were to be married within a few weeks and then would be on their way to Cheyenne to catch an east-bound train. Jack was to begin Harvard’s eighteen-month law school program in January.

  Also in the crowd were Matt and Peddie. They had been married by Tom in a private ceremony a few weeks earlier. Only Johnny and Jessica had been on hand.

  The men from the ranch were there, too. Charles was standing with Bree. He had no fine suit of clothes, but he wore a clean shirt buttoned at the neck and a string tie Josh loaned him. Old Ches was there, and the mysterious man known only as Kennedy.

  The farmers from down in the center of the valley had come. The Brewsters. The Fords. Harland Carter was there, now known as Carter Harding. The former raider, probably still wanted by the law in several states. His wife was standing with him.

  Vic Falcone had come out from town and brought Flossie. They hung back from the crowd a little, looking like they weren’t sure if they should really be there or not. But Tom had been doing a lot of talking with everyone about second chances. Hunter had even used the concept as a new name for his and Aunt Ginny’s saloon. In the spirit of second chances, Dusty stepped away from Josh for a moment and walked over to Vic and Flossie. Dusty extended his hand to Vic and said, “Glad you could make it.”

  After a short wait, the crowd parted. Pa had slipped away through the crowd and now he stood there with Haley. Her father was gone and there was no one to deliver her. Pa had said a fine gal like Haley needed someone to walk down the aisle with her. Pa had a dark broad cloth suit on and a string tie at his neck.

  Haley hadn’t asked, but she was sure he had a pistol tucked into his jacket.

  Old Ches pulled out a harmonica and to everyone’s surprise, he was right good with it. He played the wedding march, and Haley took Pa’s arm and they walked in.