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

Josh said. “I had two chances to avoid eating beans, and missed both of ‘em.”

“How far away do you think he is?”

Josh shrugged. “Maybe a hundred feet. You’d better get the rifle. He’s close enough for a good head shot.”

“Nope. He’s looking right at me. If I move, he’s gonna skitter away.”

“You’re gonna try a pistol shot?”

Dusty nodded.

Josh snorted a chuckle. “Like I said, good luck.”

Dusty drew a breath and slowly let it out, trying to remember everything Pa had told him a few days ago about pistol shooting. To try for a smooth motion more than speed, cocking the pistol as you grab it, to bring your arm to full extension, to use one well-placed shot rather than scattering three or four.

Dusty’s pistol leaped into his hand. The rabbit bolted. With his arm at full extension, he fired. The rabbit dropped.

“I don’t believe it!” Josh exclaimed with a grin.

Dusty holstered the smoking pistol, and he and Josh ran into the grass beyond the spring. They found the bullet had shattered the rabbit’s skull, but spared all of the meat.

“What a shot!” Josh said.

“Not many men can say they outdrew a rabbit.”

They camped in a wooded ravine ten miles southwest of the valley where Dusty had shot the rabbit. The horses were picketed where they could graze, but still be within the glow of firelight. Josh reclined against an old lightning struck trunk, chewing a roasted rabbit leg to the bone. Dusty rested back on his rolled out bedding, his saddle used as a pillow.

“Roasted rabbit,” Josh said with relish, “does indeed beat a can of beans.”

“Pretty good shooting, eh?”

Josh tossed the rabbit bone over his shoulder. That was the last of the rabbit meat, and his belly, like Dusty’s, was full. “I’ve got to admit, you’re faster’n I’ll ever be.”

“You’ve got to be fast,” Dusty said, suddenly serious, “if you plan on shooting Patterson. I don’t believe bushwacking a man is your style, which means you’ll have to face him if you’re going to shoot him. I’ve seen him draw on a man before, and he’s mighty fast.”

“Faster’n you?”

Dusty shook his head. “No.” He said it not like he was bragging, but simply stating a fact. “I’ve met only one man faster’n me, and that’s Pa. Even though Pa doesn’t want to admit it. That shooting he did when we were target practicing, that border shift he pulled off, it was the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Is Patterson faster than me?” Josh asked.

Dusty nodded. “I ain’t seen him in a few years, and a lot can happen in that time, but he was really fast with a gun.”

Josh shrugged. “Well, I’ve still got’ta face him. No matter how fast he is.”

“No, you don’t. Let me face him. I want to take him down for this as much as you do. Maybe even more.”

Josh shook his head. “Nope. He’s mine. It’s something I’ve got’ta do. I understand how you feel, but this goes deeper than just being mad at him.”

Dusty sat up. “What is it, then?”

“You don’t know what it was like growing up in that man’s shadow. I’m not just anyone’s son, I’m Johnny McCabe’s. The man was as well known as Wild Bill Hickok even before I was old enough to walk. How can I ever expect to match up to a legend that’s even bigger than the man himself?”

“Why do you feel you have to?”

“Because if I’m ever going to be anything in this life, if I’m ever going to be my own man, then I’ve got to come out from the shadow. And he casts a mighty big one.”

“How about our other brother? Jack? Does he feel the same way?”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t think so. Jack always had a sort of independent streak in him. He took to book learning like a natural. His world will be back east, in a big city. Boston, or somewhere. He’ll be a doctor. He’ll marry, and raise kids in a town house, or somewhere like that. Nothing that happens out here will probably seem all that relevant to him.”

“I hope to meet him too, someday.”

“You’ll probably get your chance this summer. That is, presuming you and I live through this to return home. He usually visits for two or three weeks in July or August, before the new semester starts.”

Dusty was silent a moment. Then he said, “You know, in trying to get out from Pa’s shadow, you might get yourself killed.”

“Then, I’ll die like a man.”

“You’ll still be just as dead.”

Dusty lied back down on the bedroll, his head resting on the saddle. “It seems to me a man has enough to do in life just trying to be himself, without trying to compare himself to anyone else.”

“Sometimes, I guess I feel like I can’t be myself, like just having the name means so much more is expected of me. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m up to it.”

“Maybe it’s time to stop trying to be what everyone expects, and start being what you want.”

Josh sighed. “Maybe I just don’t know what that is.”

Shortly after sunrise, they rode down a rocky barren slope, following the trail left by the raiders. Dusty’s hat hung from the chin strap, bouncing against his shoulder blades.

He asked, “What’s it like growing up in the McCabe household? Last night you made it sound like it wasn’t very pleasant. Like you had a lot of pressure on you as a child.”

“No. At least, not from Pa and Aunt Ginny. I’ll never forget the look of dread on her face the first time I strapped on a gun. She knows Pa has ridden a rough trail, and knows it’s only natural for his son to do the same, but I think she was still hoping for something different for me. Like maybe school back east, like Jack. She used to talk about me maybe studying law.”

A chuckle burst from Dusty. “You? Law?”

Josh was smiling. He nodded.

“With your temper? I could just see you in court,