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

With no money. Ma and Pa had worked hard all their lives, but like most folks I ever saw, they had very little to show for it.”

She got to her feet. “I’ve got to be going. Flossy and I have work to do. Clothes to wash, and we got a small garden we tend.”

“Thanks for sitting with me. It isn’t often I get to chat with a pretty girl.”

She tried to suppress a smile, but her eyes betrayed her.

Before she could speak, Josh said, “Doesn’t Loggins ever tell you you’re beautiful?”

“He doesn’t need to. He knows I’m his.”

“When I tell a girl she’s pretty, it’s not because I have to, it’s because I want to. It’s because she is.”

She did know what to say about that. She let her gaze drop to her toes while she searched for the words, then said simply, “I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll be seeing you. Temperance.”

She looked at him again, this time the smile fully escaping. Then she turned and started up the grassy hill toward the cabin.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Dusty had just finished his venison and was procrastinating on the brown slop, when Kiowa Haynes came ambling his way down from the cabin. “Boss wants to see you.”

Dusty glanced at Josh. “I don’t think I could have brought myself to eat this brown stuff, anyway.”

He set his plate down in the grass.

Josh still had a couple bites of deer steak left, but set his plate down too.

“Not you,” Kiowa said to Josh. “Him only.”

Falcone sat at the table – Flossy was nowhere to be seen. A whiskey bottle stood on the table before him, half filled. With a nod of his head, he indicated an empty chair across from him. Dusty spun the chair backward, then straddled it.

“You can go,” Falcone said to Kiowa.

“You sure, boss?”

Falcone simply stared at him, with eyes that reminded Dusty of a hawk.

Kiowa said, “I’ll wait outside, boss.”

When the door had shut, Falcone slid a glass toward Dusty. “Would you like a drink?”

Dusty had never really liked the taste of raw whiskey, but his gut feeling was to play along, so he reached for the bottle.

Falcone said, “So, you two are here looking for a job?”

Dusty nodded, and took a sip.

“Tell me about this partner of yours.”

And so, Dusty spun a tale of fiction about how he and the gunfighter, Josh Brackston, had signed on as hired guns at the McCabe Ranch. They had stayed for a while, punching cattle, but after the attack on the ranch, they moved on. The pay wasn’t good enough for that kind of risk, and besides, they had grown tired of cows. When Dusty realized it might have been Patterson and Falcone’s men who had attacked the ranch, they decided to try to find them.

“All right.” Falcone knocked back the remainder of his glass, then reached for the bottle for a refill. “What do you think you have to offer me that any of the men I already have couldn’t?”

“The McCabe Ranch,” Dusty said simply, and took another sip of whiskey while he let the words sink in.

“I lost a lot of men when I tried that the first time. Barely got away with my own hide intact. The place is too well guarded. Like a small fort.”

“You tried it the wrong way.”

“And what would be the right way?”

“Hiring me as your scout.”

“I already have one. Kiowa Haynes.”

“And look what that scout got you. How many men were killed?”

“All right. I’ll play along. What would that ranch have that would be worth risking a second strike, which might not go any better than the first? Horses? Supplies?”

Dusty decided to stretch his fabrication further – as far as it might take to sell himself to Falcone. “How about twenty thousand dollars?”

That got Falcone’s attention. That was more than most men in the west saw in a lifetime. “I’m listening.”

“They have a strongbox filled with cash. Dividing it up among us, it would still be a lot more per man than McCabe was willing to pay Josh and me for risking our necks as hired guns. And that ranch wouldn’t be very hard to take if you went about it the right way.”

“I never would have thought a rancher would have as much as twenty thousand dollars. Where could he have gotten that kind of money?”

“A couple cattle drives were more successful than they had planned. And he had a price on his head when he was younger. He didn’t get that being a choir boy. I didn’t ask specific questions, but it was kind of obvious. He also has business interests in California. You know how men like that are, when everything they touch turns to gold. There’s no bank in that little town, so he keeps it in a strongbox right in the house.”

“So, you think that ranch can be taken? If we went about it the right way? What did we do wrong?”

Dusty took a swig of whiskey. “You and your men rode into that valley bold as brass, checking out the area and deciding which spread to take. And in doing this, you gave McCabe time to find out you were there, and prepare for the attack. Keep in mind, that’s Johnny McCabe we’re talking about. He was a former Texas Ranger and a gunfighter, not just a stupid cowboy. I worked for him for a few weeks. The stories they tell about him are mostly true.”

Falcone filled Dusty’s glass again. “Please continue.”

“You split into two groups, which wasn’t really a bad idea. Against anyone else, it should have done the trick. But his men attacked the flank of one group, and caught the other in a crossfire. Like I say, he’s good. But he lost some men, too. And he took a bullet himself. He has a son about my age who’s trying to run things while the old man is laid up. But he’s not a gunfighter. He’s a cattleman.

“This time, when you attack, it should be