Trail Drive (The McCabes Book 5)

by Brad Dennison

  Granny Tate said to Fred, “Now let’s see you stand up.”

  Fred was sitting in a rocker, and he was dressed in jeans and a range shirt. His boots were on his feet.

  He placed both hands on the arms of the chair and gave it a try. Rising to his feet was slow and painful. When he was finally standing, he had to take a moment to catch his breath.

  “Can you walk?”

  Fred said, “Not by myself. I get dizzy. Charles helped me downstairs a couple of times. But getting back upstairs, you’d think I was climbing a mountain.”

  Haley was there, on hand to assist Granny.

  He sat back down and said, “I’d like to go to California and see my son. I sent him a letter and I’m waiting for a response.”

  Granny said, “Well, waiting won’t hurt you none. You’re not ready for travel yet, anyway.”

  Fred had a book Aunt Ginny had picked up for him at Franklin’s. Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus. There was also a copy of Robinson Crusoe that was Aunt Ginny’s, and she had loaned it to him.

  Fred said, “I’ve taken to reading. Never had much time for it, before. But the days are long up here with nothing to do but stare at the walls. The people in this book, they got troubles that make mine look mild.”

  Granny and Haley headed down to the parlor. Granny was having a good day and her knees weren’t creaking too badly, but even still she held firmly to the railing and Haley held her by her other elbow.

  “Granny,” Haley said. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Well, sure, child.”

  They sat by the hearth. The day was warm, and the hearth was blackened with soot and devoid of fire.

  Haley said, “Would you teach me? I want to be your student. I want to learn everything you know about healing.”

  Granny chuckled. “Well, everything I know has required a lifetime of learning.”

  Granny thought for a moment. “You know, I’m not getting any younger. It would be good to have someone I can pass on my knowledge to. Them city doctors, they’re good for what they’re good for. Jack showed me how he could repair a blood vessel. Saved Harlan Carter’s leg doing that. But there are things a city doctor just plain can’t do. Or can’t do well enough. Child-birthin’ is one of ‘em.”

  She nodded her head with a sense of authority. “A community needs a granny doctor.”

  Haley said, “I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’d like to be a granny doctor.”

  “Then, child, you shall be. We can start tomorrow morning.”

  62

  Charles was in the barn. A horse was in a stall, and Charles had a brush in his hand and was giving him a good brushing down. Some appaloosa heritage had led to some dappling along the horse’s rump and Bree had given him the name Spot.

  It had been a few days since Charles’s run-in with the two gunmen on the trail to town, and the wound on his arm was healing nicely. Granny Tate had assured him it would leave a scar, though.

  He had told Aunt Ginny and Bree and the others all about it. He didn’t want to worry them, and yet he wasn’t one who believed in withholding truth. These women had been held at gunpoint by a man aiming to gun Charles down, and he figured they had a right to know. Especially Bree.

  She had hugged him long, her head against his chest. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach his shoulder.

  Then she said, “I didn’t want this for you. This is the life Pa leads. This is the way he was the whole time I was growing up. Then when Josh was old enough, he started following Pa’s trail. And Dusty is like this. Even Jack. He might be a scholar, but he’s every bit the gunfighter the rest of them are. I so didn’t want this for you. I wanted us to have a life on a horse ranch. That’s what I want to do. I want us to build a little cabin up in the ridges, and to go mustanging and break them the Shoshone way, and sell them to ranches and the Army and whoever. I don’t want the gunhawk life for us.”

  “But you live that lifestyle, too. Almost as much as your brothers.”

  She nodded. “I guess I do. I guess I was hoping if you were just a rancher, maybe I could be just a rancher, too.”

  He reached a hand up and stroked her hair. “Bree, I don’t think anyone is just anything. I think everyone of us is all sorts of things.”

  She nodded silently. His shirt felt a little wet. He thought maybe she was crying.

  He said, “Here’s a way to think about it. Those men were sent to kill me by someone. Could be my brother—I don’t know. I hope not. But they’re being sent by someone, and it has nothing to do with the training Mister Carter gave me. But his training saved my life. If they had come gunnin’ for me a couple months ago, I’d be dead right now.”

  She looked up at him. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  He let his fingers trace down the side of her face. He said, “If you want that cabin up in the ridges, then that’s what we’ll have. We’ll have us a little horse ranch. But I have to ask you to marry me.”

  “Well, go ahead.”

  He shook his head. “I have to ask you proper.”

  As he brushed down Spot in the barn, he thought about his talk with Bree and wanting to marry her. He thought about a place to put a cabin and a barn and a corral. He thought he might know the spot. A little grassy shelf a half mile or so north of the valley, just beyond Zack Johnson’s ranch. Not far from the canyon where Mister McCabe wanted to build a home for himself, Miss Jessica and Cora.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of horse shoes and steel rims clattering on the covered bridge, down by the stream.

  He hung the brush on a nail on the wall, and started for the barn door. He looked down to the gun at his left side and pulled it with his right. He quickly checked the loads, and then thumbed in a sixth cartridge. He was going to be prepared this time.

  He stepped out of the barn and saw Bree skipping down the porch steps, her hair tied into a long, dark pony tail that swung back and forth as she moved. She was wearing a skirt and riding boots, and her pistol was belted about her hips.

  “We got company,” she said.

  He nodded. “Could be nothing, but let’s be ready.”

  They saw a buggy working its way up the trail that led to the house from the bridge. A man had the reins in his hands. He was a little heavy set, and was in a tie and jacket and wearing a short-brimmed bowler.

  “It’s Mister Wellington,” Charles said. “The man from town who was looking for me a few weeks back.”

  Wellington gave the reins a tug and the buggy came to a stop in front of the porch.

  “Howdy,” Charles said. “Didn’t expect to see you again.”

  Wellington said, “Neither did I. I just came in on the noon stage and rented a buggy to come out here. I’m glad I caught you. I have news to tell you and it isn’t good.”

  Wellington sat at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee in front of him. Fred was downstairs and sitting across the table from him. Today was the first time Fred had attempted the stairs and he had managed them better than he had expected. Though Charles was fresh from the barn, he also took a seat at the table and Bree was beside him.

  “It’s your brother,” Wellington said. “I’ve come to warn you. I resigned as his lawyer, and I’m legally bound by attorney-client privilege, but I decided to throw that all to the wind. You need to be warned. Your brother’s dangerous, and he wants you dead.”

  “Why?” Bree said.

  “Because as long as Jehosaphat is alive, then the entire family fortune will never be entirely Adolphus’s.”

  Wellington looked at Charles. “Like I said to you in town, you can never fully sign away your rights to an inheritance. Not one of that size. If you chose to challenge it years down the road, there would always be a lawyer willing to represent you. And judges willing to listen. He will never have one-hundred-percent claim on that money as long as you live.”

  Charles sat back in the chair. He had suspected this, but to have it confirmed made him feel a little defeate
d.

  He said, “I remember growing up with Dolph. He was always a little harsh. Willing to win regardless of the cost. He would cheat at card games. Father saw nothing wrong with it, because he said life isn’t about playing the game, it’s about winning. But I never thought he would be capable of murder.”

  Wellington took a sip of coffee. “You’ve been gone a long time. He’s grown up, and he’s changed. Or maybe qualities in him have become more pronounced. Dark qualities. He’s staying in St. Louis right now. He said he wants to be closer to the action. He sent the two who shot at you a few days ago. I last saw him the day before yesterday, and he was waiting for them to come back. He was going to give them another week and then look into hiring someone else.”

  “Why’d you quit on him?” Fred said.

  “I’ll be honest, Mister Mitchum. I’m a corporate attorney, and I’m willing to bend the law sometimes. I worked for their father for a lot of years. But I just can’t be involved in any more of this. I resigned yesterday and was heading back to New York, but then I thought I should talk with Charles first. So I hopped a train to Cheyenne, then a stage coach north from there.”

  “What hotel is he staying at?” Charles said.

  Bree looked at Charles. He could tell this question concerned her a little.

  Wellington said, “The Missouri.”

  Charles nodded. He said nothing more.

  When the coffee was done, Wellington went back out to his buggy. He was going to get a room at hotel in town. The stage came through Jubilee daily now, so he was going to grab tomorrow’s and head back to Cheyenne.

  “Then I’m grabbing the first train to New York, and I don’t plan to be this far west, ever again. Some people might find comfort in these remote areas, but I want cobblestones underfoot and gaslights on the streets.”

  Charles extended his hand. “I want you to know I’m beholden to you for coming all the way out here to warn me.”

  Bree and Charles watched Wellington drive the buggy down the trail and across the wooden bridge.

  Bree said to him, “You’re planning on going to St. Louis, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “It’s something I have to do.”

  She wanted to tell him he was wrong. He didn’t have to go confront his brother. But she knew he had to. So she said nothing more and just took his hand and they stood silently watching Wellington ride away.

  63

  Charles threw a loop around an appaloosa named Chance, and led it to the barn. He didn’t bring it into the barn because he knew these horses, and he knew Chance didn’t like to be indoors. When Fred was doing the wrangling duties, he brushed Chance down outside. Chance had been a wild one Charles, Josh and Dusty had caught a year ago, and they had broken him Shoshone style.

  “Problem with breaking a horse this way,” Mister McCabe had said, “a horse is never truly broken. They only get used to you. Some say it’s a problem, but I think it’s actually a good thing. A horse is a creature of God and has a spirit, just like anything else. A creature’s spirit should never be broken.”

  Charles slipped a bridle over Chance’s head, and then gave the rein a couple of turns around the iron ring of a hitching post outside the barn. He then went into the tack room to grab his saddle. It had an empty scabbard, and it would remain empty. Charles owned the pistol he wore, but had no rifle. He had been intending to go into town and see if Franklin had any for an affordable price, but now it would have to wait. He needed to get to St. Louis before his brother gave it up and headed back to New York. Charles wanted to confront Dolph, to hear Dolph admit he was actually hiring men to kill him, but Charles had no intention of riding all the way to New York.

  Once Chance was saddled, he went to the bunkhouse to grab his bedroll and a canteen. When he came back out, Chance was waiting for him and so was Bree. She had a Winchester carbine in her hands.

  “You’ll need this,” she said. “You have a long ride ahead of you, and you’ll need a rifle.”

  He was reluctant to take it. “It’s bad enough I’m borrowing a horse that belongs to the ranch. But to take a rifle from your father’s rifle rack...”

  “Nonsense. You’re family.” She handed him the rifle.

  It was a .44-40, just like his pistol. It would take the same cartridges. He slid it into the scabbard.

  “You all should be safe,” Charles said. “I’ve talked to Mister Carter, and he’ll be checking on you regularly. And I’ve talked to Hunter and Mister Chen. And your father and brothers should be back in a few days.”

  The long project of stringing telegraph wires from Bozeman to Jubilee had been finished, and Josh had wired them a day ago. They were in Cheyenne and would be leaving for home soon.

  Bree said, “You’ll probably meet them on the trail down to Cheyenne.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t be following the trail. I’m going to go overland, cutting my own path southeast. I’ll pick up the main trail that goes east somewhere east of Cheyenne.”

  “Going overland. Not taking a trail. I’m thinking you’re more and more like Pa all the time.”

  “That’s a comparison I never thought anyone would make.”

  “I don’t want you to go. But I know you have to.”

  He took her in his arms. They fell into a long kiss.

  She said, “Come back to me. Come back safe.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  He pushed his foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

  He turned Chance toward the edge of the woods, and the trail that would come out behind the Second Chance.

  Bree stood and watched him ride away, and then once he disappeared into the line of trees, she turned back toward the house. She had to reach up and wipe away a tear.

  Aunt Ginny and Jessica were both standing on the porch watching. Bree hadn’t been aware they were there.

  Aunt Ginny said, “Are you all right?”

  Bree nodded. “I will be.”

  She climbed the stairs and stood there with them, looking off toward the trees where Charles had disappeared.

  “It’s hard,” Aunt Ginny said. “Watching them ride off like that.”

  Jessica said, “When you belong to this family, apparently there’s a lot of waiting.”

  “Indeed. Waiting and hoping for their safe return.”

  Bree said, “What happens when someday, one of them doesn’t return?”

  “We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  64

  Charles was no stranger to nights alone, out in the wild.

  Before he had gone west, his life had been cobble stone streets illuminated with gas lights by night, and tall buildings that blocked out much of the sky. His introduction to the west had been driving a freight wagon along the Santa Fe Trail, and he had become accustomed to the emptiness, and to the dark nights where there were no gaslights. Only the stars overhead.

  At first he had found nights out here a little frightening. Then he learned to find a certain peace in a western night. By the time he reached Texas, he found the darkness and the lack of gaslights comforting. He found wonder in the way there were no buildings to block out the sky. He would stand and look off at the long stretches of prairie, with rocks and scrub brush, and a sky that seemed to reach all the way down to the touch the earth.

  He had now been out here eight years. New York seemed like another lifetime, and he supposed it was. A lifetime he had left behind. He was now comfortable in the grasslands and the mountains, as though he had been born here. He could track a deer and clean a carcass and roast it over a campfire. He knew how to find water where to the untrained eye, there would appear to be none about. He had never sat in a saddle before he had come west, but now he rode along on Chance as though riding were second nature to him. He moved with the horse, not bouncing along in the saddle as he had when he was first learning to ride.

  He left Jubilee and turned Chance southeast. By noon, they were out of the ridges, and surrounded by grassy hills dot
ted with junipers and short pines. By evening, he was in longer, flattened-out hills that were mostly grass with occasional outcroppings of bedrock.

  He found a low hill that cut off sharply on one side, and it was beside this hill that he made his camp. Before he had left the ridges, he had broken up some dead pine branches and tied them in a bundle, and tied the bundle to the back of his saddle. He now used them to build a small fire and heat a can of beans.

  He rolled up in his blankets while the fire burned low. The fire would soon be out but he knew he would be safe. Chance was picketed within a small stone’s throw, and a horse was as good as a watch dog at night.

  When the sun began to peek above the eastern horizon, Charles and Chance had been on the move for half an hour.

  He reached the main trail east of Cheyenne after three long days of riding. The very same trail wagon trains had used a generation earlier, crossing from Missouri to Oregon or California. Some still called it the Oregon Trail.

  Three days, he thought. He was making good time.

  He stopped at a farmhouse late in the afternoon, split up some firewood in exchange for a meal, and slept in a barn. The next night, he found a small creek off the side of the trail and slept near it.

  The trail picked up the Platte River after a while. Not really what he thought of as a river. It was more like God had taken a lake and spilled it across the land. It was made up of sluices and streams that crisscrossed their way across the land. A couple feet deep in some places, and no more than inches deep in others.

  As he rode along, he saw a rabbit burst into a run off to his right. He brought Chance to a stop and pulled his rifle and jacked in a cartridge. The rabbit had come to a stop and was standing still, facing sideways to Charles, about two hundred feet off. Charles brought the rifle to his shoulder and sighted in on the rabbit and fired, and the rabbit ran off.

  Charles shook his head and couldn’t help but laugh at himself. Bree would have made that shot.