One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2)

by Brad Dennison

  A small rectangular corral was set up near the barn and it was here the riders reined up and swung out of their saddles. Fred met them with handshakes and a wide grin.

  “Glad to have you back, Jack.”

  Jack found himself smiling widely. He had always liked Fred. “Good to be back, Fred. How have you been?”

  Fred nodded. “No complaints. No complaints.”

  Jack and his brother and father began the short walk to the house. Jack couldn’t help but notice how all three of them walked with wide, sort of bowing steps, and he had to repress a little grin. After being in the saddle so many hours, combined with the extreme tightness of riding boots, it was kind of hard to step along with a normal gait. Jack never walked this way at school, but now as he followed Pa and Dusty to the house, he found himself falling into pace.

  The front door opened and Jack’s sister Bree came bounding out. “Pa! Dusty! Jack!”

  She was sixteen, with long dark hair tied up in a bun behind her head. Despite a cumbersome ankle-length skirt, she skipped down the stairs with almost the grace of a dancer and took Pa in a hug, then followed with Dusty.

  “Jack,” she said. “We’ve all missed you so much. It’s good to have you home.”

  He nodded and forced a smile. It was indeed good to see his sister again. But would they be so happy to see him once they discovered the Jack they thought they knew didn’t really exist? He put all of that aside as he pulled his sister in for a hug.

  He then looked up at the porch and saw Aunt Ginny standing and looking toward them, a book closed in one hand. Not a tall woman, she stood with an almost regal quality. She had too much stately dignity to run to them, but a smile lighted her face.

  “Jackson,” she said as he approached the porch. “It is so good to see you again.”

  He climbed the steps and gave her a small peck on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you again, too, ma’am.”

  Standing beside Aunt Ginny was a girl about Nina’s age. Hair too light to be called brown but not quite blonde. Her hair was in a bun and she had a smattering of freckles across her face. Like God had been tossing freckles wildly and she had gotten in the way.

  “Jackson,” Aunt Ginny said. “Allow me to introduce you to Temperance.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said.

  “Likewise,” he said, taking her hand gently. Aunt Ginny had mentioned Temperance in her letters. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  She suddenly flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, no.”

  “Only good, I assure you.”

  Aunt Ginny gave him a look up and down through spectacles perched on her nose. He stood nearly as tall as Pa and Dusty. His shoulders filled out his shirt with muscle he had gained from much time boxing in the gym and working with the college rowing team. He had seen little on Earth that could tax your muscles like being on the rowing team.

  “My,” she said. “We sent you off to school a boy, and every year you return more and more a man.”

  The others came up the steps behind him. Aunt Ginny took his arm and they started into the house.

  “Come,” she said. “Dinner’s almost ready. You’ll have to tell me all about school. It must be so exciting.”

  He managed a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Aunt Ginny had a rule about dining at the McCabe ranch house, and she was not about to overlook it now, despite how happy she was to see Johnny and Dusty back. And how elated she was to see Jack home for a few weeks of vacation. He had not been home the summer before, so she had not seen him in two years. The rule was that you don’t come to the dinner table covered with dust and sweat. You washed, and if you couldn’t find the time to sit in a tub you at least did a thorough scrubbing in front of a water basin. She allowed a man to wear a gun at the table – a siege on the ranch house by renegade Sioux warriors a few years earlier had helped convince her of the practicality of keeping a gun close to hand, and Jack was sure the attack by Falcone and his men the summer before reinforced it. But you washed, you shaved, and you wore a clean shirt.

  Jack climbed the stairs wearily and stepped into the bedroom he had shared with Josh when they were growing up. Bunk beds were at one wall, and against the other was a bureau upon which stood a pitcher and a basin. Jack noticed the pitcher was filled with water, ready for use.

  His rifle was still in his saddle, and his bedroll was still tied behind the cantle. Fred was probably pulling the saddle off of the tired horse at the moment and depositing it all in the tack room. Jack would go down to get it all later. He had bought his horse in Cheyenne, and it would be the only animal in the remuda not bearing the Circle M brand of the McCabe ranch, or the Bar J Brand of Zack Johnson’s spread.

  He took a moment to sit on the bottom bunk and simply breath the air, taking in the scents of the old house. A waft of leather came by, from a set of Josh’s chaps rolled up and dropped onto the bureau. Gun oil, from a rag on the bureau that Josh had probably used recently to clean his pistol with. There was also the smell of dried wood, from the boards underfoot and the pine logs the walls were made with.

  Josh went to the window and unlatched it and swung the panes open. Down below he had a view of the ranch yard. He leaned over to one side and looked off toward the corral, and he could see the horses were no longer tethered to the rail. Fred was indeed taking care of them.

  He decided he could wait no longer to begin preparations for dinner. The smell of fried steak and onions was wafting its way up from the kitchen. Aunt Ginny had a way of taking the steak and the onions and blending them together so the end product was greater than the sum of its parts. Jack lifted the pitcher and filled the wash basin. In the top drawer on the left side of the bureau had always been wash cloths and towels, and so he pulled the drawer open and found this tradition had not changed. He went to work on scrubbing away the trail dust, and then he found a straight razor in the drawer and went about shaving.

  He decided to raid Josh’s closet. They had been about the same height the last time Jack had been home, two summers ago. Jack found a white broadcloth shirt and shouldered into it, and found it fit reasonably well.

  Now wearing Josh’s white shirt, and with the dust brushed away from his gunbelt and his boots, and with his face freshly shaved and his hair wetted and combed, he climbed down the stairs to the kitchen.

  He found Bree was there, setting the table. He decided to pitch in and placed water glasses at each setting. A bottle of red wine was on the table and had already been opened, and was breathing.

  He lifted it and looked at the label.

  “Cabernet,” he said. “eighteen sixty-four.”

  Bree began dropping silverware at each setting. “Aunt Ginny had some wines delivered last spring, as soon as the snow was melted.”

  “Cabernet sauvignon. Should go well with the steak I’ve been smelling since we got home.”

  “You say that well. Sauvignon. You know your wines. Part of that education you’re getting, huh?”

  He shrugged and gave a laugh that was more rueful than he had intended. “I guess Aunt Ginny’s money’s not going totally to waste.”

  That got a curious glance from Bree, but she said nothing.

  Jack said, “So, where’s Josh?”

  “He’s out at the line cabin. The one at the northeastern range. A thunder storm last week scattered almost five hundred head. He and some of the men are out there trying round ‘em up.”

  Dusty entered the room. His buckskin shirt had been replaced by one of blue broadcloth. His shoulder-length hair was combed and swept back, and his chin now smoothly shaved. He still wore his .44 Peacemaker riding low at his right leg and tied down. Pa soon followed, along with Aunt Ginny. Pa’s beard was now gone, but his hair was still tied back in a tail. He wore a buckskin vest and a russet colored shirt. His guns were also in place.

  They sat to eat, and Jack’s first mouthful of steak sent a rush of flavor clean down to his boots.

  He didn’t realize he had given a si
ghing moan as he chewed until he realized everyone was looking at him. He said, “You just don’t get cooking like this at school. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  He then decided to put on a little literary flair, which he knew Aunt Ginny would appreciate, and said, “Aunt Ginny, of all of the meals you have so incredibly graced my palate with over the years, fried steak and onions is my favorite.”

  She nodded with a smile. “I remember.”

  “How did you know we would be here today, though? Coming in on horseback with some covered wagons in tow, you must have figured we would be here sometime within the next few days, but..,”

  She said, “Intuition. I had a feeling. Like I’ve always said, go with your intuition.”

  “Your gut feeling,” Pa said, tossing a glance at her.

  She glanced back, trying to put on a scowl but not managing to hide the delight in her eyes. “If you must put it in such barbaric terms.”

  “What can I say, Ginny? I am what I am.”

  Jack and Bree exchanged quick smiling glances, and Jack shook his head. The game was on. The never-ending battle for one-upsmanship that had been going on between Pa and Aunt Ginny for as long as he could remember. When it came to such a thing, Aunt Ginny was the only one Jack had ever known who could go toe-to-toe with Pa and come out unscathed.

  “So,” Jack said, as he lifted his glass of wine for a sip. “I was thinking maybe of riding out to the line camp tomorrow and giving Josh a little help.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Pa said.

  “Not at all,” Aunt Ginny chimed in. “This is your vacation, Jackson. You’ve worked hard all year at medical school. And I’m sure the ride in from Cheyenne on horseback was not easy. Take this time to relax. Read a book. Maybe take a leisurely ride through the ridges.”

  Bree said, “I can join you. It’d be fun. Give us a chance to get caught up.”

  Jack nodded. “Maybe we can do that.” And he returned to his food.

  After dinner, they retired to the parlor, as Aunt Ginny liked to put it. Meaning they left the kitchen and went to sit down by the hearth. Pa stirred a fire to life, then he took a burning twig from the fire and lit his pipe, and took his favorite chair.

  Pa’s chair was one he had built himself years ago using oak wood for the frame, and a large piece of leather for the seat and the back. Aunt Ginny sat in a rocker that had been shipped from her home in San Francisco. She sat with a glass of lighter colored wine, sort of a faded yellowish color. Pinot Grigio, which Jack knew was one of her favorites. One of the more full-bodied white wines. She would do a red wine with beef, but generally preferred a white wine.

  As Jack sat on the sofa facing the fire, he thought what he could really use was a good belt of Kentucky whiskey. But such a thing might have made Aunt Ginny widen her eyes with surprise. Kentucky whiskey was essentially made from corn squeezings, and it would have contradicted the sophisticated college man image everyone here seemed to have of Jack.

  As the family sat in the parlor, they chatted about ranch business. And household business. Bree and Aunt Ginny told Pa of the storm that had scattered part of the herd. If Josh was not back within a couple of days, Pa was planning to ride out and see if he could lend a hand. Also, along with the lightning storm had come hail the size of eggs, which had torn up a couple of shingles on the barn roof. Josh had climbed up and found some boards were in the process of rotting and could use replacing, too, which he intended to do once he got back from the line cabin.

  “I can take care of that,” Jack said. “It would do me good to do some manual labor.”

  “No, I can take care of that,” Dusty said.

  Pa said, “I’d hate to think you came all the way out here to see your family and the first thing we did was put you to work. Take some time and just enjoy your vacation.”

  Jack nodded and looked back to the fire. He could surely go for a taste of corn whiskey.

  Aunt Ginny was looking at him curiously, but she said nothing. She took a sip of wine.

  Dusty said, “I’d best go out and check on things. Walk the rounds.”

  Pa nodded. Walking the rounds was sort of a family term for taking a walk about the ranch house and the out buildings and just making sure everything was secure for the night. Checking in on Fred and getting his verbal report of the state of the horses. If any of them had developed a gimpy leg or needed a shoe replaced. Jack thought about offering to go with him, but decided not to bother.

  After a time, everyone turned in. Everyone except for Jack. He stretched out on the bottom bunk in his clothes and waited while the household quieted down for the night.

  Eventually, he got to his feet. His gunbelt was still in place and his boots were on his feet. He stepped out into the hallway and found it quiet. Pa’s door was ajar. Bree’s was shut. The door to Dusty’s room was hanging open.

  Jack walked quietly along. He knew Pa probably heard him, as Pa could awaken at the slightest noise. Jack never remembered his father sleeping so soundly you had to jostle him to wake him up. Not like Josh. That boy could shake the rafters with his snoring, and you had to almost kick him in the ribs to wake him up. But Pa could be awakened by the slightest creak of a floorboard. Part of being shot at once too often, Jack figured.

  Jack descended the stairs and crossed the parlor floor. The hearth was now dark and silent, but he could still catch the gentle smell of the night’s wood fire lingering in the air.

  He stepped out on the porch and found Dusty standing there. He still had his gun in place, and a wine glass was in his hand.

  “Just finishin’ off that wine,” Dusty said.

  “Shame for it to go to waste,” Jack said.

  Dusty smiled. “Exactly what I was thinkin’. I never thought I’d develop a taste for it. An old, uncivilized gunhawk like myself.”

  Jack didn’t know quite what to say. He was hoping the entire family was asleep so he could slip away into the night unobserved.

  “Trouble sleeping?” Dusty said.

  “Not really. Just something I’ve gotta do.”

  Dusty smiled. “You’re heading into town. To see that girl. Nina.”

  Jack let out a sigh of defeat. “Is it that obvious?”

  “It is to me. I saw how you two were looking at each other. Been there myself, so I know how it feels.”

  “You have a girl?”

  Dusty shrugged. “Did have. A girl named Haley I met down in Nevada. More than a year ago, now.”

  “Nevada’s where you’re from?”

  “Arizona, before that. But the long trail that led me finally here began in Nevada. That’s where I met Haley. Mahalia Anderson. I didn’t know her long. But the time we had together was something I’ll always remember.”

  “What happened?”

  “When I went back to see her, before I began the ride north to Montana, she was gone. Her only family was her father, and the two of them lit out for Oregon. She left me a letter. Last year, after the fall roundup, me and Josh headed out to Oregon to find her. We were gone three months. We spent Christmas over a drizzly campfire. But we never did find her. We finally decided to come back because Pa would need help with the spring roundup.”

  “What do you suppose happened?”

  Dusty was looking off into the darkness. “Hard to say. A young girl like that. She was about Nina’s age. Maybe she met another man. I wonder if I’ll ever know.”

  “I kind of figured you and Temperance had some sort of romance going on.”

  Dusty chuckled. “Temperance and me? No. All she can see is Josh. Those two are so hopelessly in love. When they’re in the room together, you can almost feel it in the air. Kind of like you and Nina.”

  “It’s that obvious?”

  Dusty nodded.

  “Well, I’m going to go saddle up. But I’d appreciate if you don’t tell Pa. After he cautioned us about her father, he might not think it’s a good idea for me to go riding in to see her.”

  Pa had told Jack and Du
sty about the threat Harlan Carter made when they were still a few days out of McCabe Gap.

  Jack said, “Pa told me to have Fred leave your horse in the stable. He figured you’d probably be saddling up tonight.”

  Jack grinned. “No kidding.”

  “One thing I’ve learned about both Pa and Aunt Ginny. You can’t put much past them.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Want some company for the ride in? Just in case her old man takes it into his head to revert back to his former ways?”

  So, that was why Dusty was out here. He was waiting for Jack.

  Dusty said, “Actually, I have to admit, I have both horses saddled and waiting.”

  Jack said, “So you don’t think I could handle Harlan Carter?”

  “From what I’ve seen of you on the trail, you could handle him even if your arm was still in a sling. I gotta tell you, the picture everyone painted of you ain’t exactly what I see when I look at you.”

  “What kind of picture did they paint?”

  “A college boy. Soft hands but a sharp mind. Refined. A sophisticated gentleman who’s at home in a tie and jacket. Not that you don’t have a sharp mind, but what I see when I look at you is hard muscle and the eye of a gunhawk. You can talk a gentleman’s talk, but it’s like a role you play. It’s not who you really are.”

  Jack didn’t know quite what to say.

  Dusty said, “Remember, I told you I was raised by Sam Patterson. He taught me about survival. And one thing he thought important toward survival is learning how to read people. You got refinement on the surface, maybe. But you’re no one I’d want to tangle with. But Pa figured maybe if I went along, if Carter saw there were two of us, he’d feel a little less brave.”

  Jack said, “All right. I guess I wouldn’t mind the company on the ride in. Let’s go mount up.”

  28

  They rode alongside one another, taking the main trail to town. It was a mile longer than the shortcut that would come out behind Hunter’s, but the shorter trail went through patches of woods and narrow ravines, and at night was too dangerous to ride. A horse could step into a hole or trip over a rock. The main trail, however, cut through the middle of the valley. The land was open to either side of them, and in the light of the half moon overhead, Jack found he could see for a fair distance.