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

up and claim to be your brother. I don’t blame anyone for being skeptical, I guess. If you weren’t, it would mean you’re touched in the head.”

“Aunt Ginny’s not skeptical.”

“But Aunt Ginny’s not the one who I’m claiming is my father. And I’m not claiming to be her brother. She might be able to see the situation a little more clearly because she’s not as close to it.”

Josh let out a sigh, his shoulders sagging a little. “I have to admit, I didn’t want to believe you at first. Maybe I still don’t – I don’t know. A brother I never knew about, because Pa got drunk in a saloon one night.”

“How do you think I feel?”

Josh looked from the skillet to Dusty. He had never considered that.

Dusty said, “I never thought I’d find either of my parents. But when I learned my mother was a saloon woman,” Dusty could never quite get himself to say saloon whore, not when talking about his mother, “I felt anger at my father even though I didn’t know who he was. Anger that he could just ride in, whelp a child, and ride on without ever looking back. But then, I found out he never knew about me. And after I got to know him a little, I’ve come to really believe he would have come back for me, had he known about me.”

“That’s the kind of man Pa is.”

They were silent for a few moments. Josh continued to stir the beans. Dusty thought the coffee smelled ready, and poured a cup.

“Y’know,” Josh said, “I never really knew my mother, either. She was killed when I was only four. Pa said she was a good woman, though. A good mother, and a good wife.”

“I can’t imagine Pa with any other kind of woman.”

“Pa has grieved over her loss every day since. I guess he’s never really gotten over it.”

“Josh, Aunt Ginny asked me to ride out after you. She wanted me to bring you back.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“She asked me to bring you back, but that’s not what I’m going to try to do. I’ve been having similar ideas about going after them raiders. This ain’t only your problem, Josh. It’s ours. I mean to ride with you.”

Josh supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have a second gun along. And Dusty had proven his loyalty. “All right. As long as you don’t get in the way.”

“Thanks. I’ll try not to,” Dusty said, with a little sarcasm and a half-grin. He took another sip of his coffee. “There’s one more thing I’ve got to tell you. Something that’s been eating at me since the day after that gunfight. Something about them raiders I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Josh’s brows knit out of curiosity. “Like what?”

“I recognized three of them that we buried. They used to ride with the Sam Patterson gang.”

Josh asked slowly, “Just how do you know any members of the Patterson gang?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got a lot of time.” The beans were starting to burn, but Josh no longer cared.

And so, Dusty told him the story of how Sam Patterson had taken a small boy from a farm house he and his men had attacked and set on fire. Patterson had intention to deliver him somewhere, anywhere, that a child could be cared for, but never found the opportune moment. Maybe out of circumstance, and maybe out of choice. Maybe the old raider had always wanted a normal life, a family, and knew Dusty was the closest he would ever come to any of that. Either way, he raised the orphan boy, teaching him how to survive, how to shoot. How to trail a man when there was no outwardly visible sign. How to make a fire that would not be seen from a distance. How to find water. And most importantly, Patterson taught him values he himself had not been able to adhere to.

And now, Dusty had found some of the men who had ridden on the McCabe Ranch were Patterson’s men.

“Why didn’t you mention any of this earlier?” Josh asked.

“I was trying to win the trust of the family. I didn’t think it would be possible if you all knew I had been raised by an outlaw.”

“And you don’t think the best place to begin earning trust is by telling the whole truth?”

“I guess I was wrong.”

Josh nodded. This might explain the nagging feeling he had that there was more to Dusty than was readily apparent. He returned to stirring the beans. “The word making the rounds was that Sam Patterson has disappeared, maybe been killed, and that his gang had broken up. Does this mean they’re back together?”

“I don’t know what it means,” Dusty said. “But I intend to find out.”

“If Patterson is still alive, and has reformed his gang, where do you stand?”

“I stand where I am, alongside my brother.”

“You claimed that man raised you. You don’t feel any loyalty to him?”

“He didn’t really raise me. I raised myself. He fed me when I was too young to hunt my own supper, and gave me the tools I need to survive in life, and to live a better life than he did. But I was always aware I had come to be with him because he killed the family I had been living with, and burned their home, and he could have given me to a family to be raised properly, but had chosen not to. I never really considered him my father. A friend, maybe, who I am grateful to because of all he taught me, but never quite a father. When it came time to ride away, I was able to do it without looking back.”

“So, even if you have known that was Patterson up in the ridges, you still would have stood by us?”

Dusty nodded. “I might have ridden out to them to try and talk him out of hitting the ranch, but if push came to shove, I would have stood by my family,