The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1) by Brad Dennison (microsoft ebook reader .TXT) 📗

with a smile, placing a hand on Johnny’s shoulder much as Johnny had with Josh a few days earlier, “try a little harder to stay out of the way of bullets.”

Johnny burst out laughing. Lura was, too. Johnny found his stomach hurting as the laughter rocked him – tears flowed again and he couldn’t stop them, but they were no longer tears of grief. He felt like all the years of pain that had settled deeply into his bones, the pain of believing he had not protected the woman he loved, and she had caught a death intended for him, seemed to drain away with the laughter, like a sponge being squeezed.

He struggled for a few gasping breaths, and finally straightened to find his wife and the old shaman still there.

The old man had a deep smile. “Live your life, my son. And when it is indeed your time one day, we will meet again.”

And the Shoshone turned, and stepped away into a wall of mist Johnny had somehow not even noticed until that very moment.

Lura again brought her hand to Johnny’s face. He hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but that was a trait of hers and she would do many times in a day.

She said, “I have to go too, my love.”

Johnny nodded. “I figured as much.”

“Do one thing for me?” she asked, glancing to Ginny, who was still sleeping in the chair by the bed. “Tell her and the children that I love them?”

He nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“I will be seeing you, when your time comes. And then we can be together forever. Until then, always remember, I love you dearly. And even though I am gone, I am never really far away. I never have been.”

She turned, and Johnny watched her step away and into the mist, but he found that he wasn’t crying. The pain he had lived with so continually, and had actually grown accustomed to, was no longer there. For the first time in years, he actually felt young. He realized he was smiling.

Johnny suddenly realized he was no longer standing, but was lying in bed. His head was on his pillow. And he was still smiling.

He took a deep breath, and winced with sudden pain. The two bullets. He had almost forgotten. And damn, they hurt. Yet, he felt so light, so free, so...young. The guilt, and the weariness that came with it, were indeed gone.

He opened his eyes, and found himself staring at the rough hewn timbers of the ceiling in his bedroom. Ginny was sleeping gently in the chair beside the bed.

He pulled one arm up to the covers. He was going to pull them down and climb out of bed. He felt wonderful. He felt alive. And yet, his arm felt like it was made of lead. He was as weak as a kitten. He was sticky with old perspiration. Fever, he figured. He had been wracked with infection from the wounds, and he had lost a lot of blood. He had seen a lot of men on various battlefields die of infection from less serious wounds.

Good old Zack, he thought. The son-of-a-bitch must have used their old battlefield treatment. Dumping raw corn squeezings into the wound. Johnny had done the same to Zack once when Zack had caught an arrow head in his leg, before sealing the wound shut with a hot iron. The old army doctor stationed at the fort was amazed that not only did Zack live, but he kept his leg.

Johnny glanced to the bedpost to find his guns hanging. Good. He didn’t like them far away.

“Ginny,” he said, his voice not much more than a whisper despite his best effort.

But she heard it, awaking with a start. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened.

“John. You’re awake. Thank God!”

He and Ginny never missed an opportunity to give each other hell, and he was not going to now. “Here I am, laying here dying, and you fall asleep.”

“Thank God,” she said again, her eyes welling. “Granny Tate. I’ve got to get Granny Tate.”

She rose from the chair, and hurried to the door. “Granny Tate!” she called out quickly. “Come quickly! He’s awake!”

In the parlor, Dusty awoke with such a start at Aunt Ginny’s cry that he rolled from the sofa onto the floor. Josh sprang out of the chair and found his injured knee had stiffened considerably as he dozed, and it was all he could manage to hobble across the floor.

Granny hurried into Johnny’s room, her cane tapping along as she moved, and looked down at Johnny, her nose wrinkling with a smile. “Glory be. Welcome back.”

“Granny Tate,” Johnny said. “I hope I haven’t been much trouble.”

She chuckled. “Not at all, child,” and she glanced to Ginny. “Like I said, child, sometimes you just don’t know.”

Bree was suddenly at the doorway, squealing, “Daddy!”

“I’m all right,” he managed to say, with a voice he found exasperatingly weak.

Ginny said, “He’s going to be all right. Now, all of you, off to bed. Leave him some room to breathe.”

Bree had to drop a kiss onto her father’s cheek before she scurried back to her own bed. Josh and Dusty gave a final goodnight and then were gone, Josh saying, “We’ve got to go tell Zack.”

“Now that things have calmed down a little in here,” Granny Tate said, “how are you feeling?”

“Tired. My chest hurts when I breathe. But I feel alive. Really alive,” and he realized he was smiling again.

Ginny looked at him curiously, but Granny simply said, “Is there anything you’d like?”

“Yeah. I’d kill for a cup of coffee.”

He was alive. He was going to live. Ginny was grateful, but now the game was on, once again. The game between them.

“Coffee?” she said. “At a time like this? And do you want real coffee, do I dare ask, or that dreadful sludge you men call trail coffee?”

“Don’t make me laugh, Ginny. It hurts too much.”

With a smile, Ginny said, “I’ll go down and