The constable looked over at the sound and swung his shotgun around. But he was no gunman and hadn’t cocked either barrel.
Johnny called out, “No!” But it was too late.
Thad fired, and the lawman staggered back a step. Thad fired again, and the constable took another step backward and the shotgun fell to the floor.
Thad fired a third time. The constable’s knees folded and he went down.
“Thad,” Matt said. “Are you out of your mind?”
Thad said, “I’m not going to any jail.”
Johnny ran over to the constable. The man was on his back, Johnny put an ear down to the man’s chest.
“He’s not breathing.”
Thad called out, “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”
He went through the window much faster than he had the first time.
“He’s right,” Matt said. “The whole town’s going to come running.”
Johnny snatched up the sack of canned goods.
Joe was at the window again. “What in tarnation is goin’ on in there?”
Johnny handed the sack out to him, and then climbed out the window. Matt was next.
“Where’s Thad?” Matt said.
“He ran to the alley and jumped on his horse.”
“Always thinking of himself first,” Johnny said.
He looked back at the store through the window, but it was too dark in there to see the constable’s body through the window.
It shouldn’t have happened this way, he thought. He and his brothers never should have agreed with Thad’s harebrained idea. The townsfolk had been afraid of them, thinking they were some sort of outlaws, and now they had proven the townsfolk right.
The horses were waiting for them, all except Thad’s. A blanket was now tied to the back of each saddle.
Johnny tied the sack to his saddle horn, and they all mounted up.
Johnny said, “We gotta ride, fast and hard.”
They rode a mile with the horses at a gallop, and by the end of the mile, they caught up with Thad. He had reined up to wait for them.
At the sight of him, Johnny pulled up and the others did so, too.
“Come on,” Thad said. “We’ve got to ride.”
Johnny said, “We keep this pace up and we’ll kill the horses. A lot of good it’ll do for us to be on foot.”
“So, what next?” Joe said. “Ride back to that old barn?”
Johnny shook his head. “We rest the horses, then we keep on going.”
“Not me,” Thad said. “I’m cold, and I’m hungry, and we’ve got ourselves a whole sack full of food.”
“We killed a man back there.”
Matt said, “If I remember right, it was Thad that killed a man.”
Johnny shook his head. “It was us who was there. We’ll be blamed.”
Thad looked at Johnny like he thought Johnny was an idiot. “The only one who could point a finger at us is the constable back there, and I put three bullets in him. He ain’t talking to no one.”
Matt looked at Johnny. “Are you sure he was dead?”
Johnny said, “I don’t think he was breathing. But it was hard to tell with his coat on.”
Thad said, “Sure he’s dead. And it’s a good thing. Otherwise, we’d be facing a noose.”
“Thad,” Johnny said. “It’s never a good thing to have to kill a man.”
Matt said, “And you didn’t have to kill him. If you hadn’t fired that gun to break open the register, we might have gotten out of there with no one hurt.”
“Firing the gun had nothing to do with it,” Thad said. “He had already seen our horses. The man had to be shot.”
Johnny shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.
Matt, however, who was seldom at a loss for words, said, “I can’t believe we’ve sunk this low.”
Thad said, “We haven’t sunk anywhere. We’re doing what we have to do to survive. That’s all. There’s no one back there to identify us. All we have to do is rest these horses a little while and then keep riding.”
Johnny stepped out of the saddle to rest Bravo, and he took the opportunity to better tie the sack to the saddle horn. Then he walked off away from them all, to stand alone a few yards out on the dried, winter grass.
Thad shook his head, like he couldn’t believe his cousin’s limited view on this. Thad walked away too, in the other direction, and reached inside his coat to his vest to pull out some fixings, and he rolled himself a cigarette.
Joe said to Matt, “Stay with the horses,” and walked out to where Johnny was standing.
Johnny said to him, “There was a man back there in town. Across the street from the general store. I saw him when we were riding out. I don’t know who he was, but he had to have gotten a look at us.”
Joe nodded. “I seen him too.”
The man on the boardwalk was the bartender from the saloon. He lived in a small room above the grain store. He had been woken up by the gunshot and hurried down a flight of wooden steps along the side of the building.
He had been standing on the boardwalk in front of the grain store when three more shots were fired, and they came from the general store. In the moonlight, he could see the front door to the store was open.
He watched one rider charge out of the alley and down the street, and the three more that followed. He thought it looked like the wild boys from earlier in the day. The ones that looked like a cross between saddle bums and outlaws. They had looked like what the newspapers were starting to call border ruffians, and apparently that’s what they were. One of them had asked him for a job, earlier in the day. What had they said their name was? He wasn’t so good with names.
He ran across the street.
Milt Evans ran the general store and lived upstairs. By the time the bartender had crossed the street and was in through the front door, Evans was already kneeling by the constable.
The bartender said, “Milt, what happened?”
Milt looked up at him. “The store was robbed. They shot Eb.”
But Eb the constable wasn’t quite dead.
Milt said, “Get a doctor.”
But Eb shook his head. He got out the words, “Won’t do no good.”
“Did you see who done it?”
Eb nodded.
The bartender said, “It was those hooligans from earlier.”
Eb nodded again.
The bartender said, “I forget their names.”
“McCabe,” Milt said. “I remember their names. Their first names are from the Bible. Matt, John, Josiah. The fourth one was...I forget.”
Eb got the word out, barely more than a whisper. “Thaddeus.”
Milt said, “That’s it.”
Eb then sucked in a rasping breath, and his eyes closed.
Milt looked over at the bartender. “He’s dead, Walt.”
Walt the bartender said, “In the morning, we’ll send a wire for the federal marshal. Those boys won’t get far.”
38
They rode most of the night. Patches of snow almost glowed in the moonlight, but mostly the open grassland and occasional patches of trees looked like dark emptiness.
After a time, Johnny saw the stars beginning to disappear toward the northwest. He knew this meant a cloud cover was coming in.
Joe had seen it, too. When they stopped to rest the horses, Joe said, “We’ve got some weather comin’ in. Maybe snow.”
By daylight, the entire sky was covered with a grayish white overcast, and a cold wind was coming from the north.
Johnny thought it might be best to turn away from the trail. There was a creek that seemed to meander its way along, and small patches of woods surrounded it. Looked like mostly alder and ash.
Thad said, “I thought I was in charge, now. I say we keep riding.”
Matt shook his head. “You were in charge last night, and look where it got us.”
“None of that was my fault. Things just went wrong. It could have happened to anyone.”
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Matt looked at Johnny with disbelief, then said to Thad, “It was all your fault.”
Joe said, “Fightin’ amongst ourselves won’t get us anywhere.”
Joe looked at Johnny, as if waiting for instructions.
Johnny said, “We’re turning off the trail. Find us a good place to hole up for a bit. Rest the horses, and start a small fire. Grab something to eat.”
Thad said, “No one’s gonna find us. No one knows it was us, last night.”
“Like Matt said,” Johnny looked to Matt, “how’d you put it?”
Matt said, “Err on the side of caution.”
“That’s it. Joe, want to lead the way?”
When it came to working their way through a patch of woods, he figured Joe had the most experience.
Joe turned his horse off the trail, keeping it to a slow walk. Matt followed. Johnny said to Thad, “Come along or keep on riding. Don’t matter much to me.”
And he turned Bravo off the trail to follow Joe and Matt.
Thad shook his head. “You boys are too much to believe. You know that?”
He sat in the saddle and watched the three moving through the trees.
“Oh, all right,” he said, and turned his horse to follow them.
Once a fire was burning, Johnny set to making coffee. Matt dumped a can of beans into Johnny’s skillet and set it in the fire.
Thad held his hands out to the flames to warm them.
He said, “I hope the smoke from your fire isn’t seen from the road. Then these hordes of lawmen you seem to think will be coming after us might see it.”
Joe was standing off a bit. He had stripped the saddle from his horse and spread a blanket over its back.
He said, “Fire from this kind of wood shouldn’t throw off too much smoke. And it won’t stand out at a distance because it’s about the same color as the sky.”
Thad gave a snort of disgust and said, “More Injun wisdom?”
Johnny said, “Your pa is a good man, Thad. But somehow, he never managed to teach you it’s sometimes best to just keep your mouth quiet.”
“Why? Afraid the Injun-boy over there’ll take my scalp?”
Johnny shook his head. Johnny had to admit to himself he didn’t quite know what Joe was capable of. Johnny wasn’t afraid of him, but thought it was downright foolish of Thad to try and goad him.
But Joe said, “Your scalp wouldn’t be worth the effort.”
And he turned and walked away.
Johnny looked at Matt and they shared a grin.
Thad said, “You all blame me, is that it? Since it was my idea, things went wrong and so you blame me.”
Johnny said, “Things didn’t go wrong, Thad. You brought them on by firing that gun.”
“Well, I couldn’t get into the cash drawer, otherwise.”
Matt said, “We didn’t say anything about taking money. We were there to take only what we needed.”
Thad looked at Matt like he thought Matt was stupid. “Well, we need money, don’t we? Whether we turn back to home or we keep on going, I’m not sleeping out in the cold, anymore.”
“Thad,” Johnny said. “You killed a man.”
“I had to. How’s it different from all of them men you claim to have killed out in Texas? Five Comanches with five shots, and all of that. Sounds really grand when you’re bragging to a bunch of hick farmers. But now that we’re out here in the real world and you have to put your money where your mouth is, it’s a whole different thing, ain’t it?”
“Thad,” Matt said. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Don’t go challenging him.”
Johnny said, “I’ve never shot a man that didn’t need it. You want to add yourself to the list of the ones who needed it?”
Thad said, “I thought we were family.”
“Then start acting like it.”
Matt said, “Back off, Thad.”
Thad turned and walked away, into the trees.
Johnny said to Matt, “There’s going to be lawmen on our trail. Maybe a posse coming after us.”
“How can you be sure?”
Johnny told Matt what he and Joe had seen. A man standing on the boardwalk across from the general store as they rode away.
“Are you sure?” Matt said.
Johnny nodded.
Matt said, “Could you see who it was, in the darkness? Any of the men we had seen in town, that day?”
“No. It was too dark.”
“Then, maybe he couldn’t see us clearly enough to recognize us.”
“Who else would it be? Four riders driven out of town because they were afraid we were outlaws. Then four riders break into the general store and shoot their constable.”
Matt nodded. “And even though it was Thad who killed the constable, we’ll all be looked at as murderers. Guilt by association.”
Matt went back to tending the beans, and Johnny stood a while, waiting for the coffee to boil up. And he thought about this predicament and how he had let himself get caught up in it.
A snowflake came down. It was small and thin and came shooting down and past them on the wind. Then came more.
“Sleet,” Matt said.
Johnny nodded.
After a time, Thad came back. “Are those beans ready? I’m starved.”
“Just about,” Matt said.
Thad reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. Mostly ones, but a couple of fives.
“There’s fifty dollars here, in paper money. Should last us a long time. I didn’t have the time to grab coins.”
Fifty dollars was a lot to have in a cash drawer, Johnny thought. He had been around the Drummond store enough as a kid to know Mr. Drummond kept much less.
“Just think,” Thad said. “If we had done things my way, we’d be riding on to the nearest town. Maybe take a week in a boarding house just to rest up. But now we’re doing things your way,” he glanced at Johnny, “and we’re standing out here in the sleet that’s coming down, waiting to share a can of beans.”
Johnny said, “You want to ride on and find a boarding house, you go ahead and do it. But you’ll be in a jail cell before the day’s through.”
Thad shook his head and smiled in his disbelief.
Johnny said, “Someone saw us, Thad. Back in town. There was a man standing in front of the saloon when we road out.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“I did. And so did Joe.”
“And you left him just standing there? You didn’t put a bullet in him?”
Johnny didn’t know what to say to that.
Thad turned his back to them and threw his arms in the air in frustration. “I can’t believe you boys. It’s like you’re asking to be caught.”
Joe came back and said nothing to Thad, and Thad said nothing to him.
Once the beans were gone, Joe said, “I seen a silo standing in the distance, out beyond the trees. Let’s put this fire out and ride on over. Maybe we can wait out this snow in the barn.”
“Sounds like it could be dangerous,” Matt said.
Johnny nodded. “But maybe not so dangerous as it would be in a town. You’ve got to figure, the town officials in Mansfield are probably sending wires out with our descriptions. But a farm this far out may not have word, yet. Might be worth the risk.”
“What if we get the same reception we did in town?” Thad said. “You willing to make the hard decision and do what has to be done?”
“We’re not shooting anyone. No more killing. I mean it.”
They rode single file, with Joe leading the way and Matt and then Thad following. Johnny was last, and as they rode, he would throw occasional glances back over his shoulder to see if there was any sign of riders behind them.
The sleet tapped against the brim of Johnny’s hat and created a small layer of ice along the brim. He watched Thad hunching his shoulders against the cold and the sleet. And he thought about the look in Thad’s eye back at the fire, talking about doing what had to
be done.
Johnny had always thought Thad was something of a wind bag, but now he had seen something he found even more disturbing in Thad’s eye. Thad seemed to feel no remorse because of last night’s killing. Even worse, Johnny thought Thad might have enjoyed it.
39
The farmhouse was two-floors high, with white clapboards and a front porch. Common in Pennsylvania, but not so much out here in Missouri. Some farmhouses were nothing more than sod huts.
When the boys reined up in front of the farmhouse, the sleet was coming down so thick they could scarcely see the silo standing out behind the barn.
Matt climbed down from the saddle, then stood a moment with the reins in his hand like he didn’t know quite what to do with them. Even after three months on the trail, he was still more of a seaman than a horseman. Finally he handed them to Joe and stepped up onto the porch.
Johnny handed the reins of Bravo to Joe, also.
Johnny said to Joe and Thad, but more to Thad, “Wait here.”
Matt knocked on the door. A man spoke from behind them.
“What can I do for yuh?”
Johnny saw a man carrying a heavy-looking bucket in each hand. Johnny squinted against the sleet, which was now blowing sideways. He couldn’t make the man out all that well, but he figured the man had been in the barn milking the cows. A cow’s need to be milked didn’t change with the weather.
Matt left the door and stepped toward him. Johnny heard Matt over the wind. “My name’s Matthew McCabe, and I’m here with my brothers John and Josiah, and our cousin Thaddeus. We’re just passing through, and would appreciate the chance to wait out the storm in your barn.”
“I’ve gotta get these buckets in the house,” the man said.
“Let me help you.” Matt took one bucket, and Johnny took the other.
They followed the farmer to the door, and Johnny glanced to Joe and Thad. Joe sat tall in the saddle, regardless of the sleet. Thad sat hunched over.
Johnny and Matt followed the farmer around to a side door and into what was a small kitchen. An iron stove was burning away, and Johnny thought it felt almighty good.
A woman was at the stove. She was a bit heavyset, in the matronly way Johnny had seen so many women take on as the years passed. Especially after children.
Johnny McCabe (The McCabes Book 6) Page 18
