The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1)

by Brad Dennison

  “No, I’m afraid all we can do is wait. With injuries like this, you never know. I’ve seen some hurt much worse pull through, and I’ve seen others hurt much less suddenly die.”

  “Well,” Aunt Ginny said. “I appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

  “No trouble at all. I just wish there was something I could do. Johnny McCabe is one of the finest men I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ll have Dusty take you home.”

  “No, I’d rather stay with you. Until this is over, whichever way it goes.”

  Aunt Ginny managed a smile of gratitude, despite her weariness and her worry.

  Granny said, “You’re all exhausted. You get some rest. I’ll set with him for a while.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Ginny went down to her room to lie down, and sleep took her quickly. but it was a light, restless sleep.

  She was in the past, watching the young gunhawk who wore his guns too naturally stepping through her doorway for the first time, to be reunited with Lura and meet his infant son Joshua.

  Then she was sitting in the parlor at the little ranch house he, his brother Josiah, and Zack Johnson had built. He was standing in front of a casket, looking down at the pretty face, with the classic bone structure about her cheekbones and the straw colored hair gathering in almost ethereal ringlets about her shoulders. John’s hair, pure auburn with no traces of gray yet, was pulled back in a tail falling between his shoulder blades, Indian-style, and he was wearing his Sunday-best broad cloth jacket and trousers, and a white shirt and tie. And about his waist were those infernal, ever-present guns. She watched him stand strong, no shudder that might betray internal sobs. Just standing stoically. But when she looked closer, she saw a tiny tear streaming its way down the side of his nose.

  The dream shifted, and she was on the seat of a conestoga wagon, holding the reins in her hands. The four-year-old Joshua and his brother Jackson, barely three, ran alongside the wagon, bouncing a ball against the side as it moved slowly along, the team of oxen moving at the speed a man could walk. Sleeping on a pallet of blankets in the wagon behind her was Sabrina, eighteen-months old. John pulled up beside her, his wide stetson covered with a layer of dust, his chin and jaw sprouting two months worth of an auburn beard. And there were the guns, riding at his hips. Behind them was another wagon, driven by Fred Mitchum, which served as the chuck wagon. Behind them all was the herd. Five thousand head of cattle, with Josiah, Zack and Hunter serving as drovers. A mile to her left was a spectacular ridge line, carpeted with dark green pines toward the base, and reaching to the sky with craggy, rocky fingers. To her right the land fell away into the distance in waving ripples of grass. Absolutely breathtaking, no matter which direction she looked in.

  The scene faded, and she found herself in the root cellar, standing alongside Sabrina, now nearly fully grown. Their ears were ringing with the roar of the gunbattle raging above. She was suddenly struck with the feeling she should be upstairs. Something dreadful had happened. She had somehow heard Dusty’s cry, above the gunfire. And she knew in her heart it had finally happened to John. After all these years of living so dangerously but somehow evading death, it had finally caught up with him.

  She relived her climb up the stairs, pushing open that damned heavy trap door, and running into the parlor doorway, where she saw John on the floor, Dusty at his side.

  And she was startled awake to find herself in her room.

  The window was alight with the grayness of early morning. Still fully dressed, she swung her feet to the floor and walked out to the kitchen, where she found Bree sitting with a cup of tea.

  “That’s just what I had in mind,” Ginny said. “It turns out sleep was not such a good idea, after all.”

  The day wore on, and somehow, John didn’t die. He didn’t not improve, either. He simply lay there, gray, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunken in. His breathing was even, but Ginny thought it was growing a little more shallow.

  “Could be building fluid in his lungs,” Granny said. “Hard to tell.”

  Granny checked his pulse, found it rather high at eight-four per minute, and he was a bit warmer than normal. “Running a fever. The heartbeat picks up its speed when your body temperature goes up.”

  “What could that mean?” Ginny asked. She and Granny Tate were standing alone in the room, so she said, “Be truthful with me.”

  “Infection,” Granny said. “The fever’s because his body’s fighting it. But the shallow breathing might mean his lungs are filling with fluid.”

  “He’s losing the fight.”

  Granny nodded. “It does look that way, child.”

  Ginny turned, and paced absently toward the window. “How do I tell the children?”

  “I wouldn’t. At least, not just yet. Like I said, I’ve seen some strange things. Men hurt worse than this who have full recoveries. Others hurt much less who die anyway.”

  Ginny nodded. “Then, we will simply have to wait.”

  The men tried to go about their work. Fred tended to the remuda. The horses had mostly scattered during the gun fight, so with the help of Dusty and Josh, he spent most of the day rounding them up. Every hour or so, Dusty and Josh would ride back to the house and check on their father. A bandage was tied about Josh’s shoulder under his shirt where the bullet had grazed him, and he had difficulty climbing into the saddle with his injured knee, but he refused to spend any time resting, despite Aunt Ginny’s and Granny Tate’s recommendations. He simply needed to work. To keep busy.

  Bree, Aunt Ginny and Granny took turns sitting with Johnny. Staring, praying, but all the time feeling helpless as he waged his war against death.

  “Lord, don’t take him now,” Ginny found herself saying, as she sat by his bedside. “Lord, don’t take him now.”

  From the doorway, Granny Tate said, “Child, the Lord will take him when the time is right, and not a moment sooner or later.”

  “But he’s still a young man. He’s got so many years ahead of him. His children may be mostly grown up, but they still need him. And Dusty has barely met him. A boy should have the chance to get to know his own father. To have finally found out who his father is, and to have ridden all this way to find him, just to have him snatched away like this..,”

  “Life and death are two parts of a greater whole, child. Praying to change the way things are is a waste of your breath, and the Lord’s time. Everything is born, it grows, it lives, then it passes on to a higher existence. The trees, the grass, the animals of the woods, and us. We all take the same path. If it’s your time to pass, the greatest doctors in all the world won’t be able to stop it. And if it’s not your time, then all the bullets in the world won’t be able to change it.

  “Don’t pray for more years, child. Pray for better years. Don’t pray for good times, or easy times. Pray for strength.”

  Ginny nodded. She understood what Granny was saying. She would have given that same advice were she in Granny’s place. But sitting here, watching this man wage what appeared to be a losing battle, she found her faith and philosophies seemed a bit abstract, maybe not strong enough to stand when struck with hard reality.

  “And pray for guidance,” Granny said. “From the Good Lord, and from those who have gone before you. No matter how old we may get, or how smart we think we’ve become, we’re all still in need of it.”

  Once the horses were rounded up, Josh and Dusty busied themselves helping Zack load the bodies of the dead raiders into a buckboard. Fred hitched a team, and Josh and Dusty drove the wagon into town.

  One of the dead men was Long.

  “Poetic justice,” Josh said.

  A short distance beyond the single street of McCabe Town was a cemetery with seven graves, each marked with a wooden plank standing upright. One read: UNKNOWN. SHOT TO DEATH AT HUNTER’S SALOON. 1877.

  “This is our boot hill,” Josh said. “That one there died in a gunfight in Hunter’s, one Saturday night last fall.”

  Another read: UN
KNOWN. FOUND FROZE ON McCABE MTN 1872.

  “Pa found that one in the spring of seventy-two. Every-so-often, Pa rides through the mountains that line our section of the valley, or he sends a rider to do it. To make certain no squatters are settling in. That spring, Pa found an old man dressed in buckskins laying dead on the side of the mountain. He had a broken leg. Pa figured he got caught in a snow slide, broke the leg, and froze to death. Couldn’t get back to camp. Pa found a few beaver traps. He must have been an old trapper.”

  Another read: THREE FINGER JACK. HANGED BY MOB 1873.

  “Lynched,” Josh said. “from the branch of a big old maple, just outside of town. We call it the hangin’ tree, now.”

  “Who lynched him?”

  “Some of the town folks, and a few cowhands from ranches in the area. He was accused of shooting a cowhand over a card game on the Watson spread. He was brought into town and was supposed to be held in Hunter’s tool shed for a territorial marshal, but the crowd got liquored-up one night, and hanged him.”

  “Did he actually do the shooting?”

  Josh nodded. “He claimed the man he shot was reaching for his gun. But the man he shot was well known and liked, and Three-finger was a stranger. We never even knew his full name. But what do you expect in a town with no law?”

  “The town’s too small,” Dusty said. “They wouldn’t be able to pay a marshal. A lot of little communities are in the same fix.”

  Josh grabbed two shovels from the buckboard, and handed one to Dusty. “Come on, let’s bury them and get back to the ranch. I want to check on Pa.”

  He stepped onto the blade of the shovel, and pushed it into the sod, beginning a grave. After a few shovel-fulls, he looked to Dusty, who was digging away beside him.

  Josh said, “Do you think Pa will make it?”

  Dusty looked at him, was about to say something, then thought better of it, and continued digging.

  They returned to the ranch as the afternoon was progressing into dusk. Josh asked if he or Dusty could take a turn sitting with Pa while the women got some rest, but Granny Tate scoffed. “Men-folk don’t know anything about tending the sick. You wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened. Never did know a man who was any use when it came to tending the sick.”

  Bree had prepared a supper of steak, green beans and potatoes – she had not much felt like cooking, but Granny Tate had said they needed to eat to keep up their strength. The McCabes sat at the kitchen table with Zack, while Granny sat upstairs with Pa. But they found their appetites lacking, and simply stared at their food, or occasionally nibbled.

  Zack built a small fire in the hearth, using only his right hand as his left shoulder was tightly bandaged and his arm was still in a sling. Once the fire was crackling away, he paced about impatiently as the windows darkened with nightfall. The fire cast orange light that flickered against the walls, and shadows danced and contorted. Josh sat in the chair usually reserved for Pa. Bree sat in Aunt Ginny’s rocker, and Dusty on the sofa.

  Granny Tate and Aunt Ginny were with Johnny. Ginny had instructed Zack and the kids to remain downstairs. Even though they all wanted to be at Johnny’s bedside, she thought a crowded room would do no good for the patient.

  Granny Tate leaned over the bed, pressing a finger against the inside of Johnny’s wrist while she watched the second hand on her pocket watch wind its way slowly around the face. “Ninety-one. And he’s warmer to the touch.”

  “And” Ginny added from the wooden straight-back chair in which she sat, “his breathing’s more shallow.”

  Granny put an ear to his chest. Oh, but for a stethoscope, she thought, but those things cost money she did not have. Yet, with only her unaided ear, she thought she could hear a rumbling as he inhaled. “Not good.”

  “Will he live the night?”

  Granny looked at her gravely. “I wouldn’t bet on it, child.”

  The night wore on. Josh nodded off in his father’s chair. Dusty stretched out on the sofa. Zack went outside to take a walk, but gave instructions to call to him if anything happened.

  Bree went upstairs to bring a cup of tea to Aunt Ginny, and she leaned over her father to give a light kiss to his forehead. “Good night, Daddy. See you in the morning,” and she went to her room to lie down. She didn’t want to sleep, but her body was forcing her to give in to the demand.

  Granny Tate was in Dusty’s room sleeping lightly. Ginny was alone with Johnny.

  She sipped her tea. “Oh, John. How could you have let this happen? You just have to pull through this. You just have to.”

  She set the empty cup and saucer on a stand by the bed. The clock downstairs chimed ten. Her shift was over, and Bree’s was about to begin. But she did not want to leave his bedside.

  Sleep, however, soon won its way with her, and her head began to drop forward, and she drifted away.

  Johnny McCabe realized he was standing. He was in the middle of his bedroom, and Aunt Ginny was sitting in a chair before him. Her back was to him, and she was slumped forward. He could tell by her slow, rhythmic breathing that she was asleep.

  His hair was tied behind his head, and he was fully dressed, in a gray shirt and trousers. Though, he didn’t remember owning clothes of exactly this color.

  Odd, he thought. And he felt a little groggy. He couldn’t quite remember how he came to be standing in his room, or why Aunt Ginny was sitting in here, sleeping.

  The window was dark. It must be late. Then, the clock downstairs chimed eleven, confirming this.

  He realized his bed wasn’t empty. There was a man in it. Gaunt, his skin a sort of gray color in the pale light of the lamp mounted on the wall.

  He realized with a start the man was himself. He was lying in the bed.

  “What the hell?” he muttered aloud.

  He approached the bed, and pulled back a cover to see the man – himself, bare chested, and with a bandage wrapped about his ribs and upper stomach.

  Yes, he thought. He remembered. Gunshot wound. Two, in fact. One from the side, another from the front. Downstairs. The raiders attacked the house.

  My God, he thought. What is going on here?

  It did not look like the sick, wounded version of himself lying in the bed was breathing much at all.

  Must be a nightmare, he thought. He had grown accustomed to them, since Lura died. Even though years had passed since she was shot, he still relived it in his dreams. Returning to the ranch house after a long day in the saddle, swinging out of the saddle, Lura waiting for him by the front door, the bullet seeming to come out of nowhere and striking her just below the collar bone. He catches her as she falls, and she looks at him with puzzlement and surprise, then with one final exhale she’s gone. The love of his life is gone, and he looks up at the heavens to scream, and jumps suddenly awake, finding himself in bed.

  And yet, those nightmares had never been anything like this. Here, he was reliving nothing. It was as if he were witnessing a scene, a scene in which he himself was a participant.

  He was quickly reminded of a book Ginny had brought with her from San Francisco, and which he had read during a series of cold December evenings a couple of years ago, written by some Englishman by the name of Dickens. He felt like Scrooge, looking at himself while escorted by the ghost of Christmas Present.

  It had been a stupid book, he thought. Ginny, of course, disagreed. It was destined to be a classic. Johnny couldn’t see how. He thought the whole concept was preposterous. Real life is not like that.

  And yet, here he was, looking down on himself like in that book.

  A dream. It had to be a dream. He hoped it would end soon. He was starting to find the whole thing unnerving.

  He became faintly aware of the scent of peach blossoms in the air. And then, a presence at his side. He turned to see the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on in his life.

  She stood five-one, with hair falling to her shoulders in ringlets the color of straw. She was in her early twenties, the age when sh
e had been shot.

  “My God,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “Lura.”

  She smiled, her head leaning gently to one side as it always did when she smiled. She was dressed in a flowing gown, of the same gray he wore.

  “My love,” she said.

  “This is a dream. It has to be a dream. Or, am I going mad?”

  She stepped toward him. “It’s no dream, my love. And you’re not going mad. I’m here, and you’re here.”

  She reached a hand up to let her finger tips gently slide down one cheekbone, and he reached his hands to take her by the shoulders. She was real. Flesh and blood.

  He said, “But you’re dead. I saw you die.”

  “No one ever dies, Johnny. I was shot, and my body died away, but I have never been far from your side. I have been with you all the way, as you and Aunt Ginny raised the children.”

  He was going to ask how, but somehow, in his heart, he knew. It was like the old Shoshone shaman had said.

  He pulled her closer, wrapping her in his arms, and her lips were on his, her arms reaching around to his back and pulling him to her. His fingers were stroking her hair, and he was drowning in the scent of peach blossom she so frequently wore.

  After all these years, he could at last be with her. After all this waiting.

  “It’s just the same as when we first met,” he said. “I said it then, and I say it now. A man could drown in you.”

  “And I want you to drown in me for all eternity.”

  She then pulled away, taking a deep breath. “But Johnny, we can’t. I know we’ve been apart for a lot of years, but we can’t.”

  He found his brows dropping into a sort of half-frown out of puzzlement. “What? Why? Why can’t we..?”