The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1)

by Brad Dennison

  A voice spoke from the parlor doorway. A woman’s. Low and a little throaty. “I thought I heard someone out here.”

  It was Miss Brackston.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dusty said quickly, rising to his feet. “I’m sure you ain’t accustomed to folks rummaging around your kitchen at night. But I couldn’t sleep, and I was hungry, and your stew smelled so good.”

  “I had a feeling you hadn’t eaten, so I left a low fire in the stove to keep the left-over stew warm.”

  Dusty’s brows knit with puzzlement. “You expected me to come sneaking’ in here?”

  “This is the McCabe home, and you’re a McCabe, aren’t you? I could hardly call it sneaking.”

  “You definitely do believe me, then.”

  A brow rose. “And why shouldn’t I?”

  “Most folks wouldn’t. The old man doesn’t. Josh doesn’t.” Dusty shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t either, in their places.”

  “Sit, Dusty. Finish eating. I’ll put on some water for coffee.”

  Ginny lifted a kettle and carried it to the iron pump mounted on a shelf on the same wall as the stove. She worked the handle until water gushed forth, and filled the kettle. She then set it on the stove and dumped in a proportionate amount of loose coffee.

  She said to Dusty, “I normally crack an egg too, as the egg will catch most of the grounds, but you western men don’t seem to mind the grounds.”

  Dusty shrugged. “Never really thought much about it. Just spit ‘em out if I get ‘em caught in my teeth.”

  Dusty was suddenly embarrassed, realizing what he had said might seem inappropriate in front of this civilized lady, but she burst out laughing.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t realize where I am. I’m used to sittin’ with cowhands in bunk houses.”

  “Think nothing of it. I like your candor. I know most ladies like to pretend to be shocked and offended by the realities of the world, but I make no such pretense.”

  Dusty looked at her curiously. She was an odd one, but he found he liked her.

  She settled into a chair across the table from him. “Where are you from, Dusty? I mean, you were born in that mining town, but were you raised there?”

  He had begun to lift his spoon from the stew, then stopped in mid-motion. How to tell her? How to tell her he had been raised by Sam Patterson, whose notoriety wasn’t quite on the level of Jesse James, but close enough. How would she react to learn the very survival tactics he had used to prepare this household for possible attack had been taught him by an outlaw? And she was now sharing her table with a product of that outlaw? Because, though Patterson had not fathered Dusty, he had raised him.

  He did not like keeping his background secret, especially from this woman. For some reason, her opinion of him was becoming very important to him. And he also longed to be accepted simply for who he was, without hiding his background. However, he did not quite dare tell her.

  It was more than he could have hoped for this evening to go as well as it had. After all, he hadn’t been told to leave. Not yet, at least. Old man McCabe had taken the news better than Dusty would have thought. Josh wasn’t overly pleased to learn he had a new brother, but Dusty did not really blame him. And here he was, sitting at the McCabe table. He didn’t want to push his luck, and so he decided to keep his connections to Sam Patterson a secret. At least for now.

  She had asked where he was from. He let the spoon continue its way to his mouth, slurped down the stew, and said casually, “Oh, I’m from everywhere, I guess.” The standard lie. “I was raised by drifters, folks passin’ through.”

  Ginny looked at him curiously. She had lived long enough and had learned enough about people to know when something was being held back. She wasn’t accustomed to being lied to, and if anyone was foolish enough to try it on her, she would quickly cut them down to size. But her instinct told her to go easy on this boy. At least for now.

  She watched as he, without another word, drained his bowl, spoonful by spoonful.

  She said, “You haven’t eaten regularly for a while, have you?”

  “Not until I took the job with Hunter. Between Nevada and Montana, well, that’s a lot of miles. A lot of nights eating rabbit, or digging for roots. Or, a couple of times, I stopped by campfires and got a plate of beans and a cup of coffee. By the time I got to Montana, I had tightened my belt a couple of notches.”

  She served the coffee and they chatted about the weather, about how Hunter was doing and what business was like at the saloon, now that Dusty was doing the cooking and they were serving meals. Miss Brackston asked him where he learned to cook, and he said from folks here and there. Not entirely a lie. He was just leaving a lot of the truth out.

  Finally, he pushed away from the table and rose to his feet. He felt the heaviness of sleep now creeping into his eyes, as though it were finally ready to take him. “Well, I guess I’d best be getting back to the bunkhouse.”

  “Nonsense. Family doesn’t sleep in the bunkhouse.”

  “Well, that’s where I was told to bed down for the night.”

  “Your father does not run this household. He operates the ranch, but the household is my territory.”

  “What will he say if he finds me sleeping under his roof?”

  “He’d better say nothing, if he knows what’s good for him. We made an agreement long ago. We never cross into each other’s territory. We have a guest room upstairs, second door on your right. You can have it.”

  “I’m much obliged, Miss Brackston.”

  “A few things. First, no hats are worn in the house. Ever. I don’t care about the cowboy rules of etiquette, that a cowboy wears his hat everywhere. Not in this house. Baths are taken regularly, and you wear clean clothes and are freshly shaven for meals. For Sunday dinners, a white shirt and tie are expected. You are allowed to wear a gun in the house at any time, however, even for Sunday dinner. Your father long ago convinced me of the impracticality of not having a gun handy in this land. And what did I tell you about calling me ‘Miss Brackston?’ Any child of his calls me ‘Aunt Ginny.’ Any questions?”

  “Yes’m. I’m wearing about all that I have. Hunter paid for a couple shirts and a new pair of levis for me, but nothing fit for Sunday dinner.”

  “You look to be about you father’s size. I’ll see that some of his are ready for you.”

  Dusty raised his brows with uncertainty. “I don’t know. I think if I sleep upstairs, things are really gonna heat up here tomorrow.”

  “You let me take care of that.”

  NINETEEN

  Ginny’s room was not upstairs, but an addition to the first floor, off the parlor. She had always been a light sleeper, heard footsteps coming down the stairs shortly after the mantel clock chimed three times. She knew every sound in the house, and recognized the foot falls as belonging to John. It was not unusual for him to sleep but a few hours, then get up and pace about for a while. Smoke his pipe. Stand at the back porch, gazing off into the night. Zack Johnson had said once that Johnny’s light sleeping came from having been shot at once too often, but it had become worse after Lura was shot.

  She heard the tapping of John’s riding boot heels on the pine wood floorboards as he crossed the parlor. She thought she heard a creak of leather, and figured he was probably wearing his guns. He did not even go to the outhouse without those things buckled about his hips. Again, from having been shot at once too often.

  She heard the squeak of one hinge as he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She remembered when the door first developed its squeak, and she had been about to ask one of the men to fetch a can of oil, but John dissuaded her. A squeaky door hinge tells you when the door is being opened, he said. Ginny wasn’t known for her patience, and little things like a squeaky door hinge can drive her to distraction, but she had to admit he had a point so she let it go. The door had now been squeaking for more than seven years.

  She also had no doubt John now
knew Dusty was sleeping in the guest room. To get to the stairs, John would have had to pass the doorway to the guest room. Oh, well. Now Ginny didn’t have to worry about how she would bring it to John’s attention at breakfast in the morning.

  Bree was slipping a spatula under a slab of sirloin from a skillet and dropping it onto a plate when her Pa stepped into the kitchen. She scooped some scrambled eggs onto the plate also and set it in front of him as he took his customary chair at the head of the table.

  “Good morning, Pa,” she said, and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

  “Good morning, Pumpkin,” he said. An old nickname he reserved for her, and only Pa could get away with it. Josh would call her that sometimes, just to get her dander up. Worked every time.

  She poured a cup of steaming black trail coffee and set it by his plate. Ginny was sitting at her chair across the table from him, a cup of golden tea before her.

  “Bree,” she said. “Could you please leave us?”

  Bree looked at her curiously. Partly, she supposed from the odd request, but also because Ginny used the shortened version of her name. “But I haven’t had breakfast, yet.”

  “You’ll have your chance to eat. But your father and I have something to discuss.”

  She rolled her eyes, as if to say, okay, don’t tell me what’s going on. I don’t care, and she strode away into the parlor.

  John said nothing as he took a sip of that vile muck he called coffee. His graying hair was tied back in a tail, and he was cleanly shaven. He wore a brown range shirt under a worn leather vest, and his pistols were in place.

  Ginny waited for him to say what he had to say. She lifted her cup for a sip, then returned it to its saucer. A waiting game. She knew he could wait her out, but he also knew she was capable of the same. She hoped it didn’t go on too long, because Bree was hungry.

  Finally he spoke. “You go too far some times, you know that?”

  “I could say the same about you,” she said calmly. “Telling your own son to sleep out in the bunkhouse.”

  Johnny sighed slowly, his gaze fixed on the plate before him. “I’m not in the mood for an argument. But we don’t know for sure he’s my son.”

  “John, the truth is obvious. Just look at him. I mean, Zack sees it. And so does Mister Hunter.”

  “Regardless, I’m not convinced. And I don’t want him sleeping in this house until I am. If I ever am.”

  “And what are you looking for? Absolute, concrete proof?”

  He looked up at her. His eyes were tired. He hadn’t slept much the night before. “A birth certificate would be nice. Or some sort of legal document.”

  “Now, John. You know a child born like that would probably have no such record.”

  “I’ve already made my decision. He can stay until we figure this out, but not in the house.”

  “John, sometimes you just have to look into your heart, and see what your heart already knows.”

  He shook his head. “Now is not the time.”

  She was about to ask why now was not the time, but Josh stepped into the kitchen. “Mornin’, everyone.”

  “Morning,” John said.

  Ginny said nothing.

  Josh shrugged, and went to the coffee pot. He didn’t know what the trouble was between Pa and Aunt Ginny. He had heard their voices as he came down the stairs but couldn’t make out the words. Bree was sitting in the parlor and said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but you might not want to go in there.” But Josh needed his first cup of coffee too badly too take her advice.

  “Josh,” Pa said. “Get your coffee and breakfast, and get ready to ride. We’ve got a day ahead of us.”

  Josh looked at him curiously. “We going to the line shack?”

  “No.”

  But before he could say further, Dusty stepped into the doorway. He was freshly bathed, his hair still wet from the washing, and the scraggly beginnings of a beard that had begun at his chin and each side of his jaw were now gone. He wore a freshly laundered shirt that was a faded blue, and clean levis. Clothes he had bought at Franklin’s, on Hunter’s tab.

  “Mornin’,” Dusty said a little sheepishly. He had heard the sound of harsh words coming from the kitchen, and now was uncomfortably aware of the silence.

  Josh looked from Aunt Ginny to his father, his own ire beginning to rise. “What’s he doin’ here? I thought he was sleeping in the bunkhouse. He should be eating with the men.”

  Johnny said, “You’re aunt and I were just discussing this.”

  Dusty cast his gaze downward, hoping by not looking at anyone, his discomfort at being talked about would diminish. It didn’t.

  “He’s a guest in this house, and he’s here for breakfast,” Aunt Ginny said. To John, she said, “You’re forgetting something. You and I made an agreement long ago. This household is mine to run.”

  “Not in this house!” Josh roared.

  “I don’t recall you ever having a say about who stays in this house, and who doesn’t,” Ginny replied.

  Johnny leveled his gaze at Josh. “And we don’t shout at each other in this house.”

  Josh slammed his cup on the counter top, black coffee slopping over the rim, and he turned and stormed to the door.

  “Joshua,” Ginny said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll have my coffee elsewhere,” and he was out the door.

  Dusty said, “I’m really sorry. This is all my fault. I didn’t mean to cause this kind of thing.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Ginny said. “Sit and have some breakfast.”

  “No, I’d better not.”

  Johnny nodded. “Yes, you should. Go ahead and have some breakfast. Regardless of how anyone feels, you were invited to stay in this house, and this family is not going to forget its manners.”

  Dusty didn’t feel any more at ease. Regardless, he sat.

  “Dusty,” the old man said. “I have to admit, I don’t know what to think. I mean, I can’t find any holes in your story. But I need more than that. Some sort of real proof.”

  Dusty said, an idea occurring to him, “If you were to prove that you’re your father’s son, could you do it? I mean, if, say, in a court of law, could you actually prove it?”

  Johnny cast a glance at Ginny. “What kind of nonsense is this?”

  But Ginny was intrigued. “Could you, John? Answer the question.”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  Dusty said, “If a judge ordered you to present real proof that you’re your father’s son, could you do it?”

  Johnny’s brows dropped questioningly, reflecting that he was not sure if found this perplexing, or simply absurd. He glanced to Ginny again, who was clearly enjoying this, then back to the boy who was claiming to be his son.

  “Well,” he said. “I had a birth certificate, back in Pennsylvania. It was in my mother’s things. It was mailed to me when she died, but it got lost in the mail, which is not surprising, traveling all the way from Pennsylvania, most of the way by stagecoach. But my brothers know. If I had to prove I was my father’s son, their testimonies would be enough.”

  “Where are your brothers now?”

  “Well, two are in California. And one, Josiah, I haven’t seen in years.”

  “If you had to prove to me, right now, as we sit here, that you’re your father’s son, could you do it?”

  “Well..,” he looked to Ginny, who was smirking. Then he looked back to the boy again. “All right. You’ve made your point. You can’t really prove you’re my son, but I can’t prove you aren’t. That doesn’t make you my son, but it means maybe we should all take a harder look at all of this before we make a decision. But it’ll have to wait for now. We have bigger problems on hand. You’re welcome to stay for the time being, and you can have the guest room, like Aunt Ginny said. But you’re to be considered a working member of the ranch. Working right alongside Josh and me, and the men.”

  Dusty said, “I’d have it no other way.”

/>   Aunt Ginny was looking at Johnny curiously, waiting for him to address the bigger problems he had mentioned.

  He knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. In response to her unasked question, he said, “Last night, after you were all asleep, I suppose after Dusty had come back in and was given the guest room, I found myself awake and unable to get back to sleep, and I went down to the front porch to smoke my pipe.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I heard you. I was having trouble sleeping.”

  “I don’t wonder. Anyway, I saw in the distance, maybe eight miles away, a campfire. A big one.”

  “The raiders?” Dusty asked. “They’re back?”

  “I don’t think they went too far away in the first place. They had ridden out beyond the valley for a while, probably scouting the area. Checking the size of each ranch and farm. They’ll be after livestock, horses and cattle, and ammunition. They’ll want to hit the biggest spread in the area.”

  “And that would be this place,” Ginny said.

  Dusty nodded. “With a place this size, a group of their number should be able to take all they need in one strike.”

  Johnny said, “I think our problems have just begun.”

  TWENTY

  Josh went to the stable, grabbed a rope, then strode out to the remuda and dropped a loop over Rabbit’s neck, and led the horse back to the stable. From there, his jaw set tightly, he dropped his saddle onto Rabbit’s back, pulled the cinch tightly, and led the horse out into the ranch yard.

  “Mornin’, Josh,” Fred called from the bunkhouse door. “Hey, where you off to in such a hurry? I could have fetched a horse for you.”

  Without a word, Josh curled the fingers of his left hand about the saddle horn, leaped into the saddle, and with a quick snap of his heels to Rabbit’s ribs, tore out of the ranch yard in a gallop.

  He had stormed out of the kitchen without even taking the time to fetch his hat. The wind caught his long hair, straightening it out behind him as he rode. Rabbit wasn’t to balk at the opportunity to stretch his legs. He reached with his long stride into a mile eating gallop, and soon the meadow at the valley floor was behind them, and they were cutting through the back trail that began at the southwest corner of the valley, and would come out behind Hunter’s saloon.