One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2)

by Brad Dennison

  She smiled. “And raise children.”

  He returned the smile. “With the right woman.”

  “Do another one,” she said. “Recite from another book.”

  He had to think a moment. “Well, there was one by Dickens.”

  “Who?”

  “Charles Dickens. A writer out of England.”

  “Is he any good?”

  Jack shrugged. “A matter of opinion, I suppose. He wrote one called Dombey and Son. It starts something like this..,

  “Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin. Or, something like that. It was kind of a stupid book, really. I don’t really like Dickens. Now Mark Twain – he can write.”

  “So, how will you know the right woman when you meet her?”

  “It could be possible I’ve already met her. Only the future can tell. And the future is an open book. A tapestry not yet woven.”

  She raised her brows. “My. You’re getting poetic.”

  He nodded. “I took a class in that, too. The analysis of poetry. Got an A.”

  “But let me guess. You don’t like poetry much, either.”

  “Well, at least not the kind written on paper by intellectual stuffed shirts.”

  “What kind of poetry do you like?” She took a sip of coffee. “This is very good, by the way.”

  He glanced upward, to a scattering of stars above them and a crescent moon hugging the horizon. “There. Above us.”

  She followed his gaze. “It’s a beautiful sky.”

  “You’ve never experienced anything until you’ve stood on a mountainside at night and looked up at those stars. They seem so close, somehow. It almost takes your breath away.”

  “And you never told anyone that you don’t like reading poetry? Your father or your aunt, or any of your professors?”

  He shook his head. “Never. They all just assumed because of this so-called gift, my supposedly high level of intelligence, that I would just naturally like that kind of thing. I wanted so badly to make Pa proud of me, I just went along with all of it.

  “I’ve been schooled in Mozart and Beethoven. I’ve never told anyone, but I don’t like that, either. To me, music is a harmonica being played by a campfire. Or a banjo or a fiddle. That’s music.”

  “Or Swing Low, Sweet Chariot being sung by a rich baritone.”

  He smiled. “Indeed.”

  He took another sip of coffee. She did the same.

  He said, “I’ve come to think education is really little more than a glorified parlor trick. All these university professors who are held in such high esteem are really doing is repeating things they’ve read, as though it’s all their own idea. I learned to play that game early. Since I have this strange ability to remember so thoroughly what I read, I found I could play the game easily.

  “Did you know I don’t even like to read?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. I love to read.”

  “I’ve read all of Hawthorne’s works. All of Shakespeare’s. I have a couple shelves filled with volumes of their work, back at the school. Aunt Ginny has given me a couple novels by a British author named Dickens. She loves to sit and read in the evening. She assumes I do, too. I really don’t care if I ever read another book.”

  “What do you like to do to relax?”

  He shrugged. “I can play a harmonica. Not very well, but I play. I like to go to Gap Town. And I like baseball.”

  This got a surprised chuckle from her. “Baseball?”

  He nodded. “My friend Darby and I would go into Boston for games. There’s a professional league set up.”

  “You mean, they get paid for playing baseball?”

  He nodded again. “The National League. The local team is called the Boston Red Stockings. It can be a rowdy time. Fights break out and the beer flows. The highbrow professors at Harvard look down on it, and it’s no place you’d take a lady, but a bunch of us would sneak off to games. It can be a rollicking good time.”

  “So, life at school wasn’t all bad.”

  He shook his head. “No. There were some good times. And I met some good people.”

  “And then you got that letter.”

  He grew a little somber, his smile fading. “Then I got that letter. This brother I never knew even existed simply rode in, and took his place beside Pa. The place I always wanted, but was denied.”

  She nodded. “That’s the crux of it.”

  “Indeed. I suppose it is. My brother Dusty has everything I always wanted, and he has it so easily. He doesn’t have to aspire toward it. He simply is it. Josh too, really, but I’ve learned to accept it with Josh. But Dusty is even more than that. He’s the spitting image of Pa. From what Aunt Ginny says, he’s almost a younger version of Pa.”

  “Josh doesn’t look like your father?”

  “No. He looks more like Ma. He has kind of a wiry build, and hair that’s really light colored. Bree and me, we look sort of like a blend of Ma and Pa.”

  “So, where do you go from here?”

  “I don’t really know. I suppose, after we get these wagons to Montana, I’ll have to finally meet my brother. One thing I do know, though. I’m not going back to school.”

  “Would it be brazen of me to say if my family is going to settle near this McCabe Gap of yours and build a farm, that I hope you’re there too?”

  He looked at her silently for a moment. Such a feeling of warmth flooded through him. He had never felt like this before.

  He said, “I don’t think I could ever think you brazen.”

  “What does cowboy etiquette say about a cattleman courting a farm girl? Or is that allowed?”

  “I have found I have little interest in what people think.”

  “You daringly break the rules.”

  He nodded with a smile. “Sort of a family tradition, I guess.”

  He finished his coffee and then reached for her hand. “Come. It’s late. I should walk you back to your tent.”

  She took his hand and rose to her feet. “You said something about finding the right girl and raising a family. Will you know this girl when you see her?”

  He smiled. “I’ll know because she’ll be able to look at me and really see me.”

  And they kissed again. Like the night before, but a little longer. A little deeper.

  He took her hand in his and they started for the Harding tent.

  They stepped beyond the Brewsters’ wagon and away from the flickering light of the fire. The moonlight touched the canvas of the Hardings’ tent, giving it a pale glow.

  And then a man then spoke from the darkness to one side. A voice low and gravely. “Don’t make a move, boy.”

  And Jack heard the unmistakable click of a gun’s hammer being hauled back.

  14

  Jack did make a move, however. He released Nina’s hand and stepped between her and the man in the shadows, to use himself as a shield should bullets start flying.

  The man casually walked into the firelight. Long hair fell to his shoulders from beneath a dark, wide brimmed hat. A patch covered one eye. In his left hand was a revolver, cocked and aimed toward Jack.

  “Two-finger,” Jack said.

  “That’s been my name for a lot of years now, thanks to your daddy.”

  “And so, you figure shooting me down will bring back your fingers? Or your eye?”

  “Maybe not, but it’ll sure make me feel better.”

  “Why not holster that gun and then we can square off man-to-man? But you can’t do that because you might get beaten by the son of the man who beat you. You don’t dare face me man-to-man, so you have to sneak up on me.”

  “I’d be quiet, boy.”

  “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? Admit it. You’re afraid to face me.”

  “I ain’t afraid
of nothin’. But I have my orders. As long as I’m bein’ paid, I do what the man says.”

  There was motion behind Two-Finger, and Cade stepped into view, followed by Jessica Brewster.

  “Jessica!” Nina said.

  “Throw down your gun,” Cade said with a smile. “You’re coming with us. The girls, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica said, “but you better do as they say.”

  It suddenly dawned on Nina. “You’re not their prisoner. You’re with them.”

  “Yes. I’m going with them. I’m sure not going to rot away as a farmer’s wife in some remote, God-forsaken patch of wilderness. I’m sorry, Nina. I didn’t mean for any of this to involve you.”

  Cade said to Jack, “It was sure easy to sneak up on you, boy. You with your eyes on the girl. You made this too easy.”

  “That’s enough talk,” Two-Finger said. “Boy, drop that rifle to the ground, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  Jack released the grip on his rifle and let it fall to the grass.

  Jack said, “If I go with you, Nina stays here.”

  “No deals. Her being with us will keep you honest. Now, unbuckle that gunbelt.”

  It occurred to Jack that they hadn’t realized his gunbelt was empty. He had given his pistol to Brewster.

  That was when things suddenly began happening fast.

  Brewster stepped out from behind the family wagon, maybe thirty feet from where they stood, and he fired. The bullet missed, but both Walker and Cade turned in that direction. Two-Finger fired, his bullet missing Brewster by inches and tearing into the wood of the wagon box. Cade was drawing his gun.

  Jack dove for his rifle, grabbing it as he hit the ground and rolled, coming up to knees. Jack worked the lever action and fired form his hip One shot and then another. His first bullet went off somewhere into the night but his second caught Cade and sent him staggering back.

  Two-Finger Walker turned toward Jack and fired. Jack was spun around by the impact of the bullet, and landed in the grass. The rifle slid away from his grasp.

  “Jack!” Nina screamed.

  The flap to the Harding tent opened, and Harding charged out, shotgun in hand.

  Two-Finger ran toward Nina and pushed his revolver into her temple.

  He yelled, “Don’t nobody move or I’ll blow her head clean off’n her shoulders!”

  Harding stopped to stand still, shotgun in hand. “You harm a hair on her head and I’ll hunt you down and skin you alive.”

  Walker blinked with surprise. “You don’t talk like no farmer I’ve ever met.”

  “Don’t hurt her,” Emily Harding said, from behind her husband.

  “Tell your husband not to make me have to.”

  Brewster stepped out from behind his wagon, holding the pistol high to indicate surrender. Jack was lying in the grass not moving.

  “Jack,” Nina said, her eyes on him.

  Cade was on still on his feet. He was holding onto the side of his ribs.

  Two-Finger said, “Now, I want you two farmers to drop them shootin’ irons. Right now.”

  Brewster let Jack’s pistol drop to the grass. Harding gave Walker a long glare, but then eased the shotgun’s hammer off, and dropped the weapon. Two-Finger said, “Now, we’re leaving, and we’re taking both girls. Anyone tries to stop us, they’ll wind up as dead as the hero, there.”

  Cade said, “Falcone is gonna be r’iled. He wanted the McCabe boy, too.”

  “Well, we had to kill him. No choice. Come on. Let’s get goin’”

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica said, looking to her father.

  Two-Finger grabbed Nina by one arm. “Come on.”

  She walked along with him, but she was looking over her shoulder at Jack’s lifeless form lying in the grass.

  Brewster and Harding stood helplessly while the two outlaws slipped away into the night with their daughters.

  15

  Elizabeth Ford knelt in the grass by the side of Jack McCabe. She had a kerchief tied lightly about her hair. She looked up at her husband and said, “He’s breathing. He’s still alive.”

  Harding snatched his shotgun from where he had dropped it to the ground. “I don’t care. A lot of good it did us having him along.”

  Ford had a shotgun in his hands. He and his wife had come running at the sound of gunfire, but had gotten there just moments after the outlaws had left.

  “They took both girls?” Ford said.

  Harding nodded. “I’m gonna go get ‘em back.”

  Brewster retrieved the pistol from the grass. He said to Ford, “I’ll go with you.”

  Mildred grasped her husband by the arm “You’ll only get yourselves killed.”

  “We have to do something,” Harding said.

  Elizabeth said, “Someone fetch me a lantern.”

  “I’ll get one,” Age Brewster said, and ran to his tent and brought one back.

  With the lantern standing on the ground, Elizabeth Ford could see Jack’s sleeve torn at the left shoulder. She could see where the bullet had caught his shoulder and torn into the skin and he was bleeding, but she didn’t think the furrow was very deep.

  “I don’t understand why he’s not awake,” she said.

  “Look,” Age said. By Jack’s head was a stone. It looked like a small piece of bedrock that emerged from ground.

  Ford walked over. “His head hit that when he got spun around by the bullet.”

  His wife pulled a kerchief from her head and began tying it around the side of Jack’s shoulder. “Doesn’t look like the bullet’s in there. And I don’t think it hit any muscle.”

  Brewster walked over to where Ford stood by Harding. Brewster said, “Do you really think we can catch them?”

  “We got no choice,” Harding said. “They have our daughters. I’m going, even if no one goes with me.”

  “You’ll not go alone,” Ford said. “We’ll all go.”

  Jack looked up at them, a little groggy but conscious. “No. None of you is going. They’ll just shoot you down before you even get close to their camp.”

  Harding said, “I don’t see as how you have a say in this at all. Despite your reputation as a big, bad gunfighter, you proved completely useless. Those men wouldn’t even have been here at all if not for you. I was against having you along from the start.”

  Mildred Brewster had drifted over to help Elizabeth. She said to Jack, “You have to lie still so we can get control of that bleeding.”

  But Jack shrugged both women off and pushed himself to sit up, despite the pounding in his head. “Useless is right. I let myself get distracted. I wasn’t paying attention. They shouldn’t have been able to come into our camp like that. But none of you is going after them. Getting yourselves killed won’t help the girls, or anyone here.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Brewster said.

  “I’ll be the one going. It’s what I’m here for. It’s why I came along.” He pushed himself to his feet, staggered a bit and then got his balance.

  “Look at you,” Harding said. “You can hardly stand.”

  Age grabbed Jack’s rifle and handed it to him.

  Jack looked down at his torn sleeve, and the kerchief tied about the side of his shoulder. It was already soaking with blood. He said to the women, “Can you wrap this any tighter?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I can tear up a bed sheet for a bandage.”

  She got to her feet.

  Mildred said, “I’ll help.” Both women hurried off to the Ford tent.

  Ford said to Jack, “What’ll you do? How will you even find them? You’re just one man alone. And you’re wounded.”

  “I’ll find them. And I’ll bring them back, or die trying.”

  Harding said, “You’d better. If you don’t come back with the girls, don’t come back at all.”

  His wife said, “Carter.”

  Mildred and Elizabeth came scurrying back. Elizabeth had a white bedsheet balled up in her arms.

  “Sit,
” Mildred said.

  Jack nodded. He sat in the grass, setting the rifle beside him.

  Age held the lantern high while his mother tore away more of the sleeve. She removed the kerchief that was now sopping with blood.

  Mildred said, “You lose much more blood, you won’t be of any good to anyone.”

  Jack said, “Can you patch me up? At least so I can ride?”

  She nodded. “I worked as a nurse during the war. It’s how Abel and I met. I’ve worked with worse than this. The only problem is infection could set in.”

  “It won’t set in yet. I’ll be able to get the girls back first,” Jack said. “Besides. There’s a way to handle infection.”

  “No, there’s really not. Modern medicine has no way to stop one, once it sets in. All we can do is clean the wound thoroughly and wrap it up and hope for the best.”

  Jack said, “I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am. Really, I don’t. But there is a treatment. My father taught it to me. Have your son go to my saddle bags. Inside is a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Mister McCabe,” she said.

  “I’ll show you a new use for it.”

  The boy ran to Jack’s saddle bags.

  “Does the arm hurt?” Mildred said.

  Actually, Jack thought, the arm didn’t hurt at all, which he knew could be a bad sign. The more severe the wound, Pa had said, the less the immediate pain. But there would be in a few minutes, Jack knew. As soon as Age returned with the bottle.

  “Found it!” the boy called out.

  The boy ran back to Jack and handed the bottle to him.

  Jack said, “Kentucky whiskey.

  Mildred Brewster said, “You can drink some of that to numb your pain, but then you won’t be in any condition to go after the girls.”

  Harding said, “Enough of this nonsense. The longer we wait, the further away those men will be taking our girls. We need to get moving.”

  “Hold on,” Brewster said, looking to Jack.

  Jack said to Mildred, “I want you to pour this directly into the wound.”

  “Gracious, no,” she said.

  “My father has found this actually prevents infection. He learned it when rode with the Texas Rangers. He saw a friend take an arrowhead in the leg, and kept the leg because of this.”