Johnny McCabe (The McCabes Book 6)

by Brad Dennison

  Matt said, “You know, I think I could stay here forever.”

  Johnny nodded. “I feel the same. I know we can’t, though. We’ll run out of supplies. The coffee’s running low. And sooner or later, we’ll thin out the game too much, so we’ll have to move on.”

  “Are you still thinking California?”

  Johnny shrugged. “I suppose. They have cattle there, and we can get jobs. They even have a seaport in San Francisco, or so I’ve heard. You could go back to sea if you want.”

  “I don’t really know what I want. Do you?”

  “I think I do. Or, at least, I know what I want eventually. A small ranch near mountains like these. A solid cabin to keep the cold out at night. And I want children. A family.”

  “But to do all that, you need the right woman.”

  Johnny nodded. “Ma said once that God will provide, in His own time. Pa said once that God can see the whole picture. We can’t. We have to rely on His judgment.”

  “Do you believe all of that?”

  Johnny shrugged. “No reason not to.”

  “I’ll admit, over the years I’ve wondered about all of that. The God stuff. Is it real, or just a myth? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed not to make a whole lot of sense. But when I stood on deck and looked out at the open ocean, or I stand on a ridge here and look off at this land, you can feel God in your heart.”

  “Pa said once that a man can think himself out of a good idea and get himself all turned around, but he can feel in his heart what’s right. That old scout I talk about, Apache Jim, said the same thing. Except he said gut and not heart. He said, always trust your gut. What’s your gut telling you, now?”

  “It’s telling me I don’t know nearly as much as I once thought I did.”

  Johnny looked off at the night, and at the stars overhead. “Maybe that’s what education is really all about. Realizing you don’t know as much as you thought you did.”

  Matt said, “Do you know what the date it is?”

  Johnny shook his head. “I couldn’t even tell you what day of the week it is, now. When one day is pretty much like another, it’s easy to lose track. I mentioned it to Joe yesterday, and he said none of that matters out here. Marking time isn’t as important to the Indians. They mark the seasons, but the exact day of the week is a white man concept that the Cheyenne often laugh at.”

  “I suppose I understand that. I wouldn’t have, back in Pennsylvania or even in Texas, but now I think I do.”

  Johnny said, “I wonder what Ma and Luke are doing.”

  “Probably in bed, this time of night. They probably still have a foot of snow on the ground.”

  “You know, I think we missed Christmas. It was just before Thanksgiving when we left Texas.”

  Matt looked at Johnny. “I hadn’t thought about that. We might have been somewhere on the trail between Texas and here. I’ve never missed a Christmas before. Even last winter on the trail, we knew when it was Christmas.”

  “Hold on.” Johnny went to his saddle bags and came back with the bottle of tequila. It was still a third full. He took a swallow and handed it to Matt. “Merry belated Christmas.”

  Matt took a mouthful of it, and said, “And Merry Christmas to you.”

  Matt then said, “Do you suppose we’re being sacrilegious?”

  Johnny shrugged. “I suppose it’s in how you look at it. The way I see it, if Christmas is alive in your heart, then it’s Christmas.”

  “Is Christmas alive in your heart, or is it just the tequila talking?”

  “You think about all that Christmas means. I would say, yeah, it’s alive in my heart. Part of what Jesus was talking about, I think, is second chances. And here we are, standing in a land that could be called a paradise. Heading off to California, where maybe no one has heard the name McCabe. Maybe the wanted posters didn’t make it that far west.”

  “I suppose you could call California a third chance, really. I had been kind of thinking of Texas as a second chance.”

  Johnny took another swig of tequila. “I’d like it if we act smarter, this time. Don’t make enemies. Avoid the likes of Coleman Grant.”

  Johnny handed the bottle back to Matt. Matt raised the bottle to the night sky, and said, “Here’s to second chances.”

  72

  Matt took a swig from the bottle and said, “Do you ever think of Maria Carerra?”

  “Hard not to.”

  “The way she looked at you. Every man wants a woman like that to look at him that way.”

  Matt handed the bottle back to Johnny.

  Matt said, “And then there’s Becky Drummond, back home. I suppose her name’s Becky Hawley, now. Married, and probably has a child.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Any man would consider himself lucky to have the attention of even one woman like Becky or Maria in a lifetime. And yet, they’re both behind you now. You’re looking for the right woman to build a life with, and yet you rode away from both of them.”

  Johnny was silent a moment, looking up at the sky. The stars were so big and bright, up here in the mountains.

  He said, “Pa said something once. He said for everything, there is the right time. With both Becky and Maria, the timing wasn’t right. My gut feeling is I still have more living to do before I can settle down.

  “Becky said she wanted to stay right where she was, to raise a family in Sheffield. She said if I could promise her not to be always looking off at the western horizon and wondering what might have been, then she would marry me. But I couldn’t promise that.

  “It’s kind of the same thing with Maria. Her destiny seems to be to take her father’s ranch and build it into something even greater. I suppose I could have found some happiness at her side, being the ramrod of that ranch. Maybe a lot of happiness. But I wouldn’t have been content.”

  “So, you rode away from both of them because it didn’t feel one hundred percent right.”

  Johnny nodded. “Something like that.”

  “But how can you be sure?”

  Johnny shrugged his shoulders.

  He said, “I suppose you’re never one hundred percent sure. But it comes back to what Pa and Apache Jim said. Trust your gut.”

  They were silent for a while. Crickets chirped in the darkness, out beyond the firelight. Further out, a coyote called out. Johnny glanced at the line of horses. They didn’t seem bothered by it, so Johnny figured the coyote wasn’t close enough to worry about.

  Matt said, “I had a girl, once. In a seaport in Singapore. You ever hear of that place?”

  Johnny said, “Can’t say that I have.”

  “It’s off in the South Seas. That’s where I met her. She was from the Philippines.”

  Johnny grinned. “Can’t say I’ve heard of that place, either.”

  “Filipino people look a little Chinese. But there’s something exotic about them. At least, there was with this girl. Her name was Ligaya. It means happiness in her language. From the first moment I looked in her eyes, I was in love. Raven black hair. Skin that was a beautiful bronze and so smooth to the touch. Eyes that were a deep brown, almost black. And she had a smile that could light up my heart.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “We were in port a few weeks. We had sustained some damage in a pirate attack.”

  Johnny took one more pull of the tequila, and he listened.

  With words, Matt painted a picture of his ship sailing near the southern coast of India. Sails filling with the wind, and porpoises leaping and frolicking in the water off to one side.

  They happened upon a ship that seemed to be hung up on a reef near the shore. The ship was listing a bit to its side, and when Matt looked through his spyglass, the ship looked to be abandoned.

  Matt was the first mate. The captain, a man with a thick black beard and who wore a red sash tied about his middle and a revolver tucked into the front of the sash, asked Matt what he thought.

  Matt was in a black Mediterran
ean cap, the one he had been wearing when he returned to Pennsylvania. He had no sash, but he tucked a gun into the front of his belt.

  He said, “It’s a frigate. Looks to be Portuguese.”

  “Should we take a look?”

  Matt said to Johnny, “We weren’t thieves, but we weren’t going to let a cargo just set there unattended. If we didn’t take it, someone else would come along and do so.”

  Johnny said, “You don’t have to justify anything to me. I know our father didn’t raise any thieves.”

  “It’s just that the people back home might not have understood.”

  Matt told how they worked their way toward the ship.

  “Quite an art, really,” Matt said. “I’m no expert on sailing. I picked up a general knowledge of it while I was at sea. But every ship has a pilot. Ours was a Swede named Andersonn. We all called him Andy. Tall brute. He had a square jaw and features that looked like they were carved out of granite. He had a scar that ran from under one eye, across his nose, and down along the other cheekbone. It was said he got it in a swordfight. But he could sure pilot a ship. I’d swear he could put that ship anywhere he wanted. He could slide it between two rocks with but a foot to spare on either side.”

  Matt and the captain stood looking off at the derelict as Andy brought them in closer.

  When they were about three cables’ lengths from the derelict, the captain said, “I don’t like the look of this, boys. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  Andy said from the wheel, “Want me to turn us back, Cap’n?”

  The captain shook his head. “No. McCabe’s right. If there’s a cargo here, it’d be a shame to just let it rot away or let someone else have it. But let’s hold up here.”

  The second mate was an Irishman they called Blarney.

  The captain said, “Blarney, go down and get my blunderbuss. And get McCabe’s sword.”

  Johnny interrupted the story to ask what a cable’s length was.

  Matt said, “A nautical measurement. A way of measuring distance at sea. One cable’s length would be about six hundred feet.”

  “So you were eighteen hundred feet from that ship.”

  Matt nodded. “Closer to two thousand, but I’m rounding down.”

  Johnny grinned.

  Matt continued. “We wanted to see if there was cargo aboard. It wasn’t a military ship, which meant it was either a cargo ship, or it had been seized by pirates. Either way, we had to check it out. But our captain was forever given to caution.”

  “Not a bad thing.”

  “No, indeed.”

  Blarney returned to the quarter deck with a double-barrel shotgun, which the captain referred to as his blunderbuss, and Matt’s cutlass.

  “McCabe,” the captain said, looking off toward the derelict and squinting into the sun. “I want you to take a boat over there. But be careful. Something don’t feel right about ‘er.”

  Matt nodded to the captain. “I know what you mean, Cap’n.”

  The captain stroked his beard with two fingers while he thought. “Blarney, I want two guns trained on the derelict. Just in case.”

  Blarney said, “Aye, Cap’n.”

  Matt said to Johnny, “And of course, what he meant by guns was cannons.”

  “So,” Johnny said. “When you took a boat over there, you found pirates?”

  “Never got the chance. While we were lowering a boat over the side, one port was opened on the derelict and the muzzle of a cannon was pushed out. There was nothing we could do. Since we weren’t anchored, the captain called out, Hard to starboard! But it was too late. The cannon fired, and our main mast was cut in two.”

  The captain gave the order for return fire. Andy swung the ship to the starboard side, and once they were broadside, a cannon boomed from the gun deck below. Matt’s ship was rocked toward the side, and the cannon ball took out the quarter deck on the derelict. Boards splintered and flew into the air, but there were no casualties. No one standing there. Any men had apparently been hidden below decks.

  Then a boat came around from behind the derelict. A single sail, and carrying men who were armed with swords and pistols.

  Matt’s ship fired at them, but missed. The cannon ball splashed into the water and the men on the boat were bathed with salt spray, but they kept on coming.

  The wind was in their favor. The crew of Matt’s ship fired again, but the shot went a little high. It missed the single sail by mere feet.

  Then the boat was alongside the ship, and men were climbing up and boarding. It was hand-to-hand.

  Matt said, “I’ve never experienced anything like it. The rush. The excitement. I’m ashamed to admit, it was almost fun. That was the battle when I found myself face-to-face with the pirate captain, and that deadly calm we talked about overcame me.”

  “How long did the battle last?”

  “It felt like hours, but when it was done I checked my pocket watch. Twelve minutes.”

  Johnny nodded. “That’s the way it often is in a battle. Time seems to somehow slow down.”

  Matt said, “Blarney was killed. Andy took a blow to the head, and it was a day before he was ready to man the wheel again. But everyone who boarded us was killed. There were two men left on the derelict, on the gun deck. They surrendered and the captain shot them both. It sounds kind of cruel, but out there at sea, there is no law. There was no constable to turn them over to. The closest we had to law was our ship’s captain.”

  “Not that much different in the West.”

  “The cargo was silks from China. And tea, and gunpowder.”

  “Sounds like quite a haul.”

  “Indeed. The captain took a quarter of it and gave me a quarter, and the men got to split the rest.

  “The captain didn’t want us to dally, though. He didn’t want us to still be there if another ship came along, so we loaded the cargo quickly.

  “We were a day out of Singapore, under normal conditions. But using the foremast and mizzenmast only, we figured it would take us three. We didn’t want to sail by night because the area was given to reefs. But the following morning, we were underway. I was a capable enough pilot for smooth waters, which we had that day, and by the next day, Andy was back at the wheel.”

  Johnny said, “And it was in Singapore that you met the girl. What’d you say her name was?”

  “Ligaya. Like I said, I fell in love the moment I first looked into those eyes. And she fell in love with me. For a few weeks, it was like heaven-on-Earth, and we found happiness together. Which I suppose was some sort of poetical justice, because that’s what her name meant.

  “She was an indentured servant, and I eventually used most of my money from the pirate haul to buy her freedom.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “She wanted to go home to the Philippines. They’re a small group of islands a few days out of Singapore, if the wind’s right. She wanted to build a life there. Her father ran a small farm. Her destiny was there, just like I suppose Becky’s is back home and Maria’s is at her father’s ranch.

  “Once the ship was repaired, I paid the captain a fee to transport her, and we brought her back to her home. I remember standing on the deck as we sailed out. She was on the shore, waving to me.”

  Matt was then silent for a bit.

  Johnny said, “Do you think about her much?”

  “Sometimes. But it’s like you said. It wasn’t entirely meant to be. Almost, but almost doesn’t count.”

  Johnny had to say it. “Except in horseshoes.”

  Matt smiled, then he and Johnny stood in silence and looked at the fire, each thinking his own thoughts about what their lives might have been like had things been a little different.

  73

  One day blended into another. Some days were warm and almost summer-like. Then would come freezing winter winds and snow would fall. At times Johnny would find himself knee-deep in snow, hunting for an elk or a mule deer. Other times, the weather would warm up and the snow would be gon
e. The stream cutting through their little valley would be rushing with current.

  Joe made a trap to catch fish with, something he had learned from the Cheyenne, and more than once he brought back some trout.

  Johnny continued to show Matt how to track an animal. Matt had no rifle, but using Joe’s Enfield, he brought down an elk one day.

  The following day, more snow fell, and the boys settled in for a cold patch that went on day after day.

  They had wood, though. Matt had brought in enough from dead-falls.

  The boys built a fire with flames that rose two feet into the air. Johnny put on some coffee, and they put some of Matt’s elk on a spit to roast. Joe sat cross-legged on the ground, his blankets over his shoulders.

  He chewed on a root he had dug by the stream a few days earlier. Tasted something like a carrot.

  He said, “Boys, this is the life. I can see how them old fur-trappers were drawn to the mountains.”

  Johnny nodded. “Me too. With the right woman at his side, a man could build a cabin in these mountains and never have a care for the outside world.”

  After a week, the weather warmed a bit, and the ground lost some of its snow cover. Johnny and Joe decided to saddle up and have a look about.

  Out beyond their valley, they descended a slope and came out of the pine forest and into a large, flat area that stretched on for a few miles. The ground was gravely, and scattered here and there were junipers and occasional short, fat pines.

  Johnny saw motion up ahead. Two riders. He was about to say something, but Joe saw them too.

  They were Indian. As they drew closer, Joe said, “Are they the two we saw before? The ones you gave the elk to?”

  “I think so.”

  Johnny and Joe reined up. The two Arapahoes rode up to them.

  Johnny sat while Joe and the two Arapaho warriors exchanged hand signals.

  Joe said to Johnny, “They’ve been looking for us.”

  One man then looked at Johnny and held out a pair of deerskin boot-length moccasins. He said something that sounded to Johnny like, “Neeceenohoo.”

  Then he made the hand-sign that Johnny had learned meant gift.