Johnny McCabe (The McCabes Book 6)

by Brad Dennison

  Johnny said, “What about Coleman?”

  “I’ve raised Coleman as my son, and there’ll always be a place for him. He knows business, but he doesn’t know cattle or horses, or men. I’ve shown him all I can, but there’s a certain aspect of leadership that you have to be born with. I believe you were.

  “We’ve talked about the other operations I own, other than cattle. I’ve been trying to manage all of that while Coleman ran the ranch itself. I’m instead going to put Coleman in charge of the other businesses, but the cattle part of the operation will be yours to run. Then maybe what I’ll do is retire. Take long rides during the day with my lovely Maria. What do you say?”

  “Well, I do have to talk it over with my brothers. We had been planning on riding on.”

  “When can you give me your answer?”

  “Maybe a couple hours.”

  “How about tonight, over dinner?”

  Word on a ranch traveled fast. Faster than Johnny would have thought possible. Johnny was walking from the house back to the bunkhouse, intending to talk with Matt and Joe about Grant’s offer, and he saw Ciego leading a horse from the corral to his anvil.

  Ciego called out, “I just heard. That’s great news.”

  As Johnny stepped into the bunkhouse, Frenchie was there and slapped him on the back and said, “I guess we gotta start callin’ you Boss.”

  Goullie was pouring a cup of coffee. He said, “We all just heard. I can’t think of a better man for the job.”

  Johnny said, “But you’ve been here so much longer. It seems like the job should go to you.”

  Goullie shook his head. “It’s going to the right man. O’Brien, after what you showed out there on the range, I’d follow you anywhere.”

  58

  Johnny had sat for a while in a hot bath and had shaved, and now he stood in the doorway of Breaker Grant’s office in a clean shirt and canvas pants.

  “You’re a little early for dinner,” Grant said. “But come on in.”

  Johnny said, “My brothers will be here in a while. I just wanted to talk to you myself, first.”

  Grant motioned for Johnny to take one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  Grant said, “Have you had a chance to talk with your brothers about my offer?”

  Johnny nodded. “I have. And I’d like to accept. If you’re really sure you want me.”

  “Absolutely, McCabe. You’re the best choice for the job. I’ll have to make a serious effort not to call you that, though. I’ll have to remember it’s O’Brien.”

  “Why don’t you just call me Johnny?”

  “Johnny it is, then. Tell you what. Now that you’re here, how about we share a glass of bourbon?”

  “One question,” Johnny said, as Grant placed two glasses on his desk and filled them each with a couple of fingers of bourbon from a decanter. “What about Coleman? Does he know?”

  Grant nodded. “I had a talk with him. Explained things to him.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  Grant handed a glass to Johnny. “He wasn’t happy. But he’ll be all right. Sometimes, when running a business, you have to make a hard decision. I did. I’m sure he’ll respect it.”

  Johnny had his doubts.

  As they sat at the table and enjoyed a dinner of porterhouse steaks, frijoles and red wine, Coleman said little. When a joke was made, he would grin half-heartedly.

  Maria was elegant in a green gown with a wide, lacy neckline, and her hair was all done up in some fancy fashion. It looked to Johnny like it was just all piled together on the top of her head, but knowing women, she had probably spent hours on it.

  She was laughing and a couple of times raised her glass to Grant and called him, “My love.” But there were times her eye would catch Johnny’s and linger longer than Johnny was comfortable with.

  After dinner they all moved to the parlor. A fire was burning low, even though it was mid-spring and Johnny didn’t find the night cool enough to require a fire.

  Maria was holding a glass of white wine in a way that struck Johnny as regal. Breaker Grant had a glass of bourbon and so did Johnny and Joe. Grant had offered brandy, which Matt had accepted. Even though Matt’s suit and tie had been left behind in Pennsylvania, he managed to look somehow dapper in his range shirt. The top button was fastened, and his hair was neatly combed and he had shaved. He stood erect with one hand behind his back and a brandy snifter in one hand, and he spoke in a way that made every word sound like it was weighted with thought.

  Joe’s beard was now so thick and long you couldn’t even see the top button on his shirt. His hair was covering his collar in back and on the sides. He held to the edge of the small crowd, sipping his bourbon.

  Joe was saying nothing, but Johnny thought Joe also missed nothing.

  Coleman was also silent. Standing off to one side, he had a brandy snifter in one hand, and he seemed to be brooding.

  Johnny had a cigar in one hand, and he set his drink on the mantel. He had left his guns at the bunkhouse. He thought they might be out of place at a fancy dinner like the ones served in this household. He had put on a clean shirt and shaved, and he buttoned his top button.

  Grant started talking about cattle prices. He said, “Johnny, we’re going to need a hundred head pushed on to Jefferson next week.”

  “I’ll take care of it, sir.”

  Grant grinned. “I have no doubt.”

  Talk of cattle prices led to talk of politics, and Matt made a joke about northern Democrats that got Grant laughing.

  Coleman strolled over to Johnny and said, keeping his voice low so only Johnny could hear, “You might think you’ve won, O’Brien. But you haven’t. I guarantee you that.”

  Then Coleman walked away.

  After dinner, when their guests had left and the house had quieted, Maria stepped out of her room. She was in slippers that were soft and quiet on the floorboards. Her gown had been replaced by a satin robe.

  Breaker was sleeping quietly in their bed. She shut the door gently and started down the corridor.

  The house had two sets of stairs. The grand staircase that began at the entryway and a back stairway that led down to the kitchen. It was the second set that she took.

  She found Coleman in the kitchen. His jacket and tie were gone and his collar was unbuttoned. His vest was hanging open.

  He said, “You’re going to him, aren’t you?”

  “What I am doing is none of your business.”

  “I knew it. As soon as Mister Grant fired me as ramrod, you would no longer be in my arms.”

  “You always call him Mister Grant. You are his son. Why do you not call him father? I have always wondered.”

  Coleman turned away. “He’s not my father. Yes, he adopted me, but I’m not his blood.”

  “I don’t think that makes a difference to him.”

  Coleman began pacing. “Of course it does. A young orphan. My parents were killed by Comanches in a wagon train. I wasn’t his. How could it not make a difference?”

  She said, “Breaker has said more than once it’s not blood that makes a family, but love. I believe him.”

  Coleman’s pacing had taken him to an island in the center of the kitchen floor. A work station, with a wooden chopping block. The cook had left a butcher knife there, and he wrapped his fingers around the hilt and lifted it.

  He said, “Well, it makes a difference to me.”

  He drove the knife down into the chopping block.

  She said, “Maybe it shouldn’t.”

  He shrugged.

  “Breaker didn’t fire you. He promoted you. You’ll be overseeing the shipping business and the plantation. The gold mines out west, too. All Johnny will be overseeing is the cattle business.”

  Coleman looked over his shoulder at her. “Johnny, is it now?”

  “You know as well as I that those other businesses account for easily three-quarters of the family income. Breaker has been handling it, but now he is handing it to you. He
is giving you quite a responsibility. But handling all of that with the cattle is just too much for one man.”

  Coleman shook his head. “He handled all of it at one time. I should be handling all of it. Not some wandering saddlebum gunfighter who made a lucky shot when you were stupid enough to let yourself be captured by banditos.”

  “That was no lucky shot. I have been around guns all of my life. He sighted in like he was fully confident in what he was doing. He sighted in with his pistol the way you do with a rifle. I had never seen such a thing before.”

  He walked toward her. He grabbed her by the chin, harder than she liked, and said, “And now you go to him instead of me?”

  She pulled back, away from him. He let her go and said, “What’s to keep me from telling the old man? He finds out, and you’ll be out the door.”

  “If he finds out, I’ll also tell him about you. Sampling the goods behind Breaker’s back. You’ll be out the door, too.”

  Coleman gave a sigh that left him looking a little deflated. She had made her point.

  He said, “Go to him, if that’s what you feel you have to do. But remember,” he pushed past her and started for the stairway. “This place will be mine, one day. All of it. I have a plan.”

  “And what do you mean by that?”

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at her. “I have always had a plan, and that plan is in motion. With or without you.”

  She stood looking at him, waiting for more explanation. He smiled, apparently liking the look of uncertainty on her face.

  He said, “Good night, Maria. Go enjoy your nighttime repast.”

  He turned and started up the stairs.

  59

  Matt and Joe climbed into their bunks. Grant had given Johnny a cigar for later, and Johnny thought he might smoke it now. He was bone-weary but somehow not sleepy. Too much on his mind, he supposed.

  He buckled on his guns. It felt good to have them back in place. Then he stepped outside and lit the cigar.

  One of his concerns was about Coleman Grant. The man was going to be trouble, and Johnny wanted as little trouble as possible. He wanted nothing that would draw attention to him and his brothers.

  As long as only Breaker knew the truth, then Johnny wasn’t concerned. Johnny thought Breaker was a man of his word. But if it became known that Johnny and his brothers were wanted men, Johnny doubted Breaker could protect them from the law. Breaker had a lot of money, and with money comes power, but even Breaker wasn’t that powerful.

  Another concern was Maria. All through the evening, she had given Johnny little smiles. She was discrete about it, but that didn’t make it any less unsettling.

  Riding out of here as soon as they were paid made sense. Yet, Breaker Grant had ridden a trail similar to Johnny’s, and Johnny thought there was a lot he could learn from him.

  Johnny strolled a bit while he let all of this roll around in his mind. He held the cigar in his left hand, so his right could be near his right-hand gun.

  He thought about Ma and Luke. He hoped they were well. He figured they would probably be starting the spring planting soon. Luke still a boy but was stepping into the role of a man.

  Johnny and his brothers had set out to find Pa’s killer. They had been so determined. Or, at least, Johnny and Joe had been. Matt hadn’t been sure they were doing the right thing. Now, all these months later, they had a price on their head. He wondered what Ma would think about what had happened back in Missouri. Would she be ashamed of her boys?

  And he thought about Becky Drummond. Married to Trip by now. Maybe on their way to having their first child. Running the family store.

  You never heard of something as drastic as murder in the little town of Sheffield, Pennsylvania. In the entire time Johnny had grown up on the farm, the only crime he had ever remembered hearing about was a cow that got stolen once.

  Murder was fairly common in the south Texas border towns Johnny had been frequenting a year ago, though. In some of those towns, it wasn’t unusual on a Saturday night to find a man face-down in an alley with a knife wound in his back. Johnny thought he had been leaving that behind when he returned home.

  What was the word Matt had used for Sheffield? Tranquil. Another time he had called it placid. And yet a man with a gun had shot both Hector Drummond and Pa, and he had gotten away. There would be no trial. No conviction. No one even knew the name of the killer. Just like in those border towns.

  Johnny’s strolling brought him toward the barn, and he became aware of a touch of perfume on the night air. The breeze was working its way from the side of the barn toward him. He looked in that direction and saw Maria standing in the moonlight.

  Her dress had been replaced by a robe that fell to her slippers. The robe looked gray but might have been a sky blue by day. Hard to tell in the moonlight.

  “Miss Maria,” Johnny said. “Didn’t expect to find you out and about this time of night.”

  She walked toward him. “Or, is it that you didn’t expect to find me alone this time of night?”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about, so he said nothing.

  She said, “I know you saw us, that night. I know you saw Coleman and me outside, by the kitchen door. He didn’t see you there, but I did.”

  Johnny hadn’t realized either one of them had seen him. Now he felt a little embarrassed.

  She said, “Coleman is no longer a factor.”

  She reached up and touched the side of his face. He had to admit, he liked her touch. She seemed to radiate sensuality, and Johnny figured a man could easily get lost in it.

  But she was married.

  He said, “How can you do this to Mister Grant?”

  She let her hand slide away.

  She said, “Breaker is an old man. Yes, he provides a beautiful home for me. But he is old and a time will come when he’s no longer here. Probably quite soon. Where I am a young woman and have my whole life to live.”

  “So, you see a relationship with Coleman as a way of providing for your future.”

  “It sounds so cold when you say it that way.” She turned and faced away, not in anger but as though she was turning away from the distaste of what he had said.

  “How would you put it?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you have me on that.”

  She turned back to face him. “Breaker has long wanted a son to run this place when he’s gone. He took Coleman in as an orphan and adopted him. But Coleman is not a strong man. Not the kind of man Breaker would feel comfortable running the family business. It’s a sizable estate, you know. Much more than what you see here.”

  Johnny nodded. “He’s talked to me of it.”

  “I am no fool. Breaker talks of love, but part of what he and I have is a thing of circumstance. He will leave part of the estate to Coleman, but he wants an heir to run the place. I come from good stock. My father runs a large ranch off down in Victoria County. Vincente Carrera. But a child has not come.”

  Johnny didn’t really know what to say. Matt could pull words out of the air and wax poetical about practically anything. But when Johnny didn’t know what to say, he decided to follow Joe’s way and just say nothing. He took another draw on his cigar and waited for Maria to continue.

  She started walking a bit, and looked up at the night sky.

  She said, “You are very quickly becoming like a son to Breaker. The son he wanted but never had. If you play your cards right, you can wind up inheriting part of this place. And running all of it.”

  Johnny blinked with surprise. He saw himself as nothing more than a former farm boy from Pennsylvania, who was too good with a gun and became a bit of a hell-raiser along the southern border. A young man who drank a little too much tequila and cavorted a little too much with border-town senoritas. Now Maria was talking about him as a future owner of a huge estate like this.

  He had to admit, things were happening fast and making his head spin a little.

  He didn’t know what to
say. But then he thought of what Pa had taught him. Always speak honest and from the heart. So that’s what Johnny decided to do.

  He said, “I’m not playing cards. I took the job Mister Grant offered because he seems to be a man something like myself. I think there’s a lot I can learn from him. I have no hidden motives.”

  She said, “So much like Breaker. Like the way he probably was when he was younger. And like he still is, in so many ways.”

  She took a step toward him. “It’s not that I don’t love Breaker. I do. But just not in the way a woman is supposed to love her husband. He is so much older than I am. Almost old enough to be my grandfather. I am a young woman, and I want to love the way a young woman does.”

  She placed a hand alongside Johnny’s face again. “And when he is gone, I will still be here. And so will you, if you want to be. We can raise children together right here. I am the sole heir of my father’s ranch. Breaker will likely leave controlling interest in this place to you. That will make us one of the most powerful couples in all of Texas. The children we raise will be leaders of society. A governor. A senator. Who knows, maybe even a president.”

  Her hand felt good and her lips looked inviting. A lifetime of kissing his way down her neck every night was not something to turn away from lightly.

  But his Pa had taught him that the journey is as important as the destination. And while in this case the destination might be mighty danged desirable, he didn’t think the journey was something he could live with.

  He reached up to her hand and removed it from his face.

  He said, “You’re an intelligent woman, Maria. You sound educated.”

  She nodded. “I attended the finest boarding schools. One in New York. Another in Madrid.”

  “You probably understand business as well as Mister Grant. Maybe even better. You strike me as capable. You don’t need to throw yourself at a man. You can build your own future, yourself. From what you’ve said, you’ll inherit your father’s ranch. Mister Grant will likely leave you part of the estate. Half, if I’m not involved. You can take all of that and build a sizable future for yourself.”