And he noticed the cash register drawer was hanging open. It was empty. He usually left ten dollars in the drawer in ones and coins, to make change with the following day. He fully remembered doing that before he sat down at his desk, to finish his coffee.
Then a man stepped into the room, through the door leading to the storeroom. He wasn’t much older than Johnny or Trip. He wore a battered bowler over his head and a tattered jacket. His face was boyishly smooth, with only some fine fur at the chin, and his eyes were wide and scared. A short-barreled revolver was in one hand.
The face was familiar. Where had Hector seen him before? Then he remembered. In the store earlier in the week. The boy had drifted in while Hector was assisting other customers. The boy had milled about for a few minutes, then drifted back out.
He aimed the pistol at Drummond, and Drummond noticed the hammer was cocked. The barrel of the pistol was shaking a little.
The boy said, “Where do you keep the money? There was only ten dollars in that there register.”
Hector Drummond should have been afraid. He realized he was probably going to die.
He had never been in battle before. He had never joined the Army or gone to war. He didn’t really know how you were supposed to feel in a situation like this. He figured maybe he should be terrified and start begging for his life. But what he felt was a strange calmness. Like he was somehow removed from the scene and was watching it like a spectator.
“That’s all there is,” Hector said. “I took the day’s take down to the bank a half hour before I left.”
“You lie.” There was the sound of desperation in the boy’s voice. He was the one who was scared. How odd, Hector thought.
Hector shook his head. “It’s the truth. I don’t leave the day’s take just laying around in the store. There was more than fifty dollars there. More than most men make in a full week. We had a good day. I’m not going to just leave that laying around.”
“You gotta have something. A safe. Somewhere to keep extra cash.”
“No need to. The bank’s just down the street. I drop all the money there. I start each day with only ten dollars.”
The boy said nothing. His eyes were wide, and a drop of sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eye. He reached up to wipe it away.
“How’d you get in here?” Hector said. “Did you break in the back door?”
“You hesh up,” the boy said. “You just hesh up while I think.”
Hector held out his hand. “You don’t want to do this. Why don’t you give me the gun?”
The gun went off, and the bullet caught Hector in the chest.
The shot slammed him back a few steps, like being hit with a hammer. But he stayed on his feet, and he found the strange calmness was still there. He opened his jacket and looked down at his white shirt. A hole had been ripped into it just above where his vest was buttoned, and it was already starting to soak with blood.
“You shot me,” Drummond said.
The boy stared at the gun wide-eyed, like he was surprised. Like he hadn’t meant to fire it.
He took a step backward. Then another. His heel caught against the toe of his other foot, and he fell and landed on his butt. He sat and stared at the man he had just shot.
Hector turned toward the counter. What were you supposed to do if you were shot? The doctor, he supposed. Go fetch the doctor. There was no one here to do it, so he would have to do it himself. The doctor’s office was just across the street, and the doctor and his wife lived on the second floor above it.
Drummond was starting to feel a little light headed. He looked down at his shirt again and saw the entire front was now soaking in red. But he didn’t think about dying. He thought that Mavis was going to have to find some way to get all that blood out. That was, if she could patch the bullet hole effectively.
Then his knees buckled. He was losing strength and he was finding it hard to breathe. He grabbed hold of the counter to try and hold himself upright, and then he went down to the floor.
24
The morning air was brisk. A thin layer of frost caused strands of grass near the barn door to take on an ice-like quality. Johnny could see a cloud of white when he exhaled.
He hitched the team to the buckboard. By the time he was finished, Pa and his brothers were coming out of the house.
They were all heading out to the woods. In the back of the buckboard were axes and two cross-cut saws. By evening, Johnny expected they would be returning with a wagon full of four-foot lengths. Pa had seen a couple of oaks he wanted to bring down. Oak was good for burning because it burned slow and hot.
They headed out. Pa had the reins, but Johnny and his brothers walked. They didn’t want the cold to start biting into their toes like it might if they sat in the wagon.
They followed a logging trail Pa and Luke had cut over the past three years. After a half mile, Pa pulled the reins and brought the team to a stop.
Pa said, “Only a little ways in there,” indicating with a nod of his head the woods to the right of the trail.
“Lead the way,” Matt said.
Johnny walked with a double-edged axe over his shoulder. Joe carried an axe the same way, and Matt carried one of the long crosscut saws. Luke carried a kettle of steaming coffee and a stack of tin coffee cups.
They followed Pa along and came to the trees. Two giants, now almost leafless, reaching their bony fingers to the sky. What few leaves remained were brown and curled.
Johnny had always been amazed by the different character these hills would take on, as the seasons changed. In the summer, the woods had seemed thick and closed-in. Now, with the leaves gone, they seemed open. He could see a low hill a few hundred feet away, but he doubted the hill would be visible from this spot in summer.
“There they are, boys,” Pa said. “Let’s bring ‘em down.”
Johnny pulled off his jacket and dropped it to the ground, and leaving his gray hat in place to keep some of the cold away from his head, he began to have at one of the oaks with the axe. Joe did the same.
First Johnny cut a wedge in the front of the tree. The idea was to make the tree fall in the direction of the front wedge. Then Johnny and Joe both stood behind the tree, Johnny at one side and Joe at the other, and they went to work on it.
The sound of the axes rang out. Wood chips flew. Pa lit his pipe and Matt had poured himself a cup of coffee. Once the tree was down, Pa, Matt and Luke would limb it, then start with the crosscut, reducing the tree to four-foot lengths, while Joe and Johnny attacked the second oak.
Joe stopped at one point and straightened up to stretch his back muscles a little.
He said, “It’s almost a shame in a way to take down this big old oak. Been here a lot of years. The Cheyenne believe every living thing has a spirit, even plants and trees. And by taking a tree down, you’re killing it.”
Pa said, “Well, them Cheyennes, or whoever, can have their beliefs, but I’ve gotta keep my family warm at winter.”
Luke said, “What do the Indians use for firewood?”
“They take wood from deadfalls,” Joe said. “Or they break off low-hanging branches that have died. In the mountains out West, there’s some hardwood in the lower valleys, but along the slopes and ridges it’s mostly pine.”
“Different land,” Pa said. “Different people, different ways.”
Johnny wondered what Pa would say if he knew Joe had lived among them and adopted many of their ways and even almost married one.
Matt said, “There was a time when the entire east coast was covered by a grand pine forest, probably not much different than the one Joe is talking about in the mountains out West. It is said there was little underbrush because the ground itself was usually covered in shade, and a man could ride a horse through.”
Pa chuckled. “That’s what they say, but it was a long time ago.”
Johnny’s shoulders and back felt warm from swinging the axe. He liked using his muscles and seeing the result of his wo
rk. He found himself smiling as he and Joe delivered their last strikes to the tree, and the giant old oak began to fall.
It started going over slowly, then picked up speed and hit the ground with a crashing sound, actually bouncing a little. Leaves flew up, and the branches waved wildly for a moment.
Pa said, “Well done, boys.”
Joe said nothing. He just looked at the tree a moment. Johnny figured Joe was thinking about how something they had done so often and taken pride in when they were growing up was now something he didn’t entirely approve of.
Joe didn’t say much, but if you spent enough time with him and were observant, you could figure him out.
Joe’s hair was getting longish again. The haircut he had gotten from Fred Whipple a couple days after they first arrived was now growing out. The tops of his ears were covered, and hair was once again touching his collar in back. Pa would ask Joe when he was getting another haircut, and Joe would characteristically shrug but say nothing.
Johnny and Joe hadn’t yet told Ma and Pa of their plans to go west. Matt had been pestering Johnny and Joe to tell them, and sooner would be better. Give them time to get used to the idea of two of their sons being gone again.
Pa, Luke and Matt used axes to limb the tree, then set to work with the crosscut, and Johnny and Joe took their axes to the second oak.
Johnny’s hair was now soaking with sweat, so he tossed his sombrero to the leaves and then raised his axe to drive it into the tree.
After a time, they took a break. Johnny poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Joe.
Pa wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “This work sure does go faster when there are five of us.”
The boy ran. He had lost his tattered bowler somewhere during the night, when he had run out of the store, down the dark street and off into the farmland surrounding the town. Now he was in a thick patch of woods.
His old coat was hanging open, and he still clutched the revolver in his hand. In his coat was the ten dollars he had taken from the general store register.
He was running almost in a blind panic. Not watching where he was going. One foot caught an exposed root, and he went sprawling onto the wet leaves on the ground.
The pistol’s hammer still rested in front of the empty chamber from when he had fired at the store keeper. Otherwise the gun might have gone off when he fell, and he might have shot himself.
He pushed himself to his feet. He was exhausted from running, but he was too filled with fear to stop. He had shot a man.
He was hungry, too. He had stored some food. He just had to get to it without getting caught. Then he would eat, and figure what to do next.
He started running again.
Johnny finished off his coffee and dropped the cup to the ground by the fire. The coffee had been made by Ma. It wasn’t the coffee he had grown used to during his years in Texas, but it was hot.
Johnny felt a chill along his back. He had worked up a sweat while cutting the tree, and now the sweat was catching the cold morning air. Time to go back to work.
The sound of footsteps crunching on dried leaves caught his ear. It came from the direction of the hill yonder.
Johnny caught sight of a man come running up and over the soft, rounded crest. He wore an old, battered coat and had something in his hand. He looked like he was about Johnny’s age. Johnny noticed the youthful face. The peach fuzz on the chin. And then he realized the something in the boy’s hand was a gun.
The boy ran with a look of fear in his eyes, and he was running straight toward Johnny and the others. Johnny didn’t think the boy saw them. He ran with his head a little to one side and his mouth hanging on, like he had been running forever and was near the breaking point.
“Hey!” Pa called to the boy. “You, there!”
The boy came to a stop, sliding a couple feet on the frosty leaves. He seemed to notice Johnny and Pa and the others for the first time.
His eyes darted off to the side, then back to Pa. He glanced over his shoulder, then back to Pa again. The boy was now maybe a hundred feet away.
“Who are you?” Matt said. “Do you need help?”
The sound of Matt’s voice seemed to bring the boy out of his trance. His eyes darted to Matt with a look of confusion.
Pa said, “Are you all right? Who are you?”
The boy then raised his gun, hauling back the hammer, and he fired directly at Pa. The crack of the gunshot echoed through the woods.
“No!” Johnny roared.
He reached for his own guns, but they weren’t there. He had left them in his room at the farmhouse. The only time he wore them anymore was when he and the boys were target practicing.
Pa was lying on the ground on his back.
“Pa!” Luke cried out, his voice breaking. “Pa!”
Johnny started toward the man at a dead run, his axe in his hand. Johnny knew guns. If he could cross that hundred feet before the gun could be cocked for another shot, he had a chance to take the man down with his axe. Johnny was no farmer. He was a gunfighter, and the man with the gun had picked the wrong people to shoot at.
But the man got the gun cocked again and fired. A bullet creased Johnny’s temple. Not badly, but enough to make him stop running. He felt disoriented for a second, and realized he had fallen to his knees. He reached up his temple, and he found his hair was wet with warm blood.
His vision steadied, and he and the gunman stared at each other.
The boy aimed the gun at Johnny again. He fired. But Johnny had been shot at a lot and had caught lead more than once. He was able to estimate the trajectory of the bullet and began twisting away from it as the gun was being fired. The bullet ripped away the sleeve at the shoulder, but didn’t cut into him.
The boy then turned and ran, back the way he had come.
Johnny, still on his knees, called out, “I’m coming after you! Nothing will stop me!”
He watched as the boy ran up over another low hill and was gone from sight. His crunching footsteps faded into the distance.
Johnny got to his feet, a little unsteady at first. He kept one hand pressed to his temple. His hair was wet, but there wasn’t a whole lot of blood. He knew he wasn’t hurt bad. He hurried back to Pa and his brothers.
Pa was still on his back, in the leaves. The front of his shirt was all ripped up from the bullet, but there was little blood. Not a good thing, Johnny knew. Dead men don’t bleed.
Matt kneeled over Pa and pressed his head to his chest.
Tears were streaming down Luke’s face. “Pa. No. Pa.”
Johnny looked to Joe. “Get Luke out of here.”
Joe grabbed Luke’s arms and pulled him away, toward where the buckboard waited. Luke was calling out, “No! Pa!”
Johnny pulled a bandana from his pocket and pressed it to his temple, and he knelt beside Matt. Pa’s eyes were staring toward the sky, no life in them.
“He was dead before he hit the ground,” Matt said.
Johnny stared at Pa. He felt like the bottom had dropped out of him.
“Hey,” Matt said. “You’ve been hit, too.”
Johnny shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’ve been shot worse. I’ll be all right.”
Matt decided not to pursue it further, at least for the moment. “Did you get a good look at him?”
Johnny nodded. “Saw his face real good.”
“Is he anyone we know?”
“Nope. Never saw him before. But he’ll be seeing me again. That’s a promise.”
Matt lowered a hand to Pa’s face, and shut Pa’s eyes.
25
The Reverend Wilson was tall and willowy, and his age was impossible to guess. He had been the Baptist minister in town for as far back as Johnny could remember, and he had always seemed old.
He shut his Bible and said, “Amen.”
A chorus of murmured amens rose from the crowd gathered around.
Behind the preacher was an open grave, and in the grave was
a rectangular pine box.
A wind picked up and bare tree limbs clattered like noisy skeletons. A brown leaf, one of the last stragglers, blew past Ma. She reached up to wipe a tear from her face.
Johnny stood at Ma’s side. He was in his gray suit again, and his sombrero was in one hand. The doctor in town had washed out the gash on Johnny’s temple and then stitched it shut. The doctor had wanted to tie a bandage around Johnny’s head, but Johnny had said no. Said he wouldn’t need it.
To Ma’s other side was Matt, in the suit he had brought with him when he came home. Standing nearby were Joe and Luke. Joe had one hand across Luke’s shoulders.
Luke stared at the grave and was doing his best not to cry.
“I’m not gonna cry,” he said. “You never see a real man cry.”
“Ain’t true,” Joe said.
The preacher walked over and said a few hushed words to Ma. Johnny wasn’t really listening. His own gaze was fixed on the grave, too.
Then the preacher moved on, first to Matt and then to Johnny. The preacher shook Johnny’s hand, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said something preacherly. Johnny still wasn’t really listening. Then the preacher moved on to Joe.
The crowd began to break up, each person going their own way. A couple of men who picked up extra money maintaining the cemetery would cover up the casket.
Matt fetched the wagon. He was going to take Ma and Luke home, but Johnny intended to stay until the grave was fully covered over. Just something he felt he had to do. Joe was going to stay with him.
Becky Drummond and Trip Hawley were still there, and they walked over. Becky’s father had been buried the day before.
Becky gave Johnny a hug but said nothing. There were no words for a moment like this.
Trip tried anyway. He shook hands with first Johnny and then Joe, and said, “I’m so sorry. Both of you.”
“Are you all right?” Becky said to Johnny.
He nodded. “I will be. How about you?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know if I ever will be.”
Johnny McCabe (The McCabes Book 6) Page 12
