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

were now confined to reservations and gradually coming to take on the ways of he white man, but few rode shod horses.

Josh nudged Rabbit forward, keeping the horse to a slow walk as he examined the tracks a little further along. He had ridden but one hundred yards when he found a chunk of sod that had been torn completely free, and in the loose exposed earth was a track much more clear than those in the springy sod. An unshod hoof, and not that of a horse. The print of a cow. He also found, as he rode along further, not only horse droppings but some from cows, too.

These men were running cattle, and this was McCabe range. Eighteen hundred head of cattle grazed this range, along with about two hundred head of Zack Johnson’s herd. Since Pa and Zack were considered themselves more brothers than friends, they charged no cost for sharing each other’s range. More than three hundred head of McCabe cattle were on Johnson range at this moment, and had been since spring roundup. They had not been separated, because what was the point?

Josh could think of no good reason for this many riders out here in the remote hills. He wished he had brought a rifle along, but you normally don’t when you’re planning on working. A rifle sticking in the front of a saddle could easily snag a lariat. Josh decided he would follow the trail, but not come too close to those he followed. If it looked like trouble, he would fetch Reno and the boys before engaging the riders. There were a couple of rifles at the line camp.

He estimated the tracks to be a day old. Partly by the condition of the tracks, and partly by the look of the droppings. He figured if he rode at a leisurely pace, he would run no risk of accidentally catching up with them.

The trail moved north for a couple of miles, then swung northwest, and then directly west and into the low wooded ridges. Further west within these hills was the valley Josh called home.

He had not been long in the ridges when another trail from off to the northeast merged with the main one. Two riders, and two or three more cows.

Shortly, he found the remains of a camp. In a depression between two low ridges were the blackened remnants of a large campfire. Off to one side, below a small pine, were the remains of a steer. Most of the choice cuts were gone, and what was left had been picked over by a mountain lion. And on the hide he found the brand of a letter M inside a roughly defined circle.

This was definitely a McCabe steer.

He turned his horse away, and he let him go at a shambling trot back along the trail. He would go to the line camp, get Reno and the boys, grab the rifles, and get those steers back. Reno was a large man, good with his fists, and though not fast with a pistol, he was a reasonably good shot. And more importantly, he had the kind of nerve that allowed him to keep his gunhand steady during a fight. A veteran of the late War Between the States, he had seen action. The other two, Tarley and Whitey, Josh knew less about, but they were good workers, and out here, you gave your loyalty to your employer, even if it meant taking up arms to defend the land or the herd. You rode for the brand.

Now that Zack Johnson had his own spread, Reno was the McCabes’ best hand. When he was sober. Pa did not allow drinking on the job, and a couple years earlier he had found Reno with an open bottle in the bunkhouse during working hours. Whiskey tended to make Reno’s temper flare, but he discovered while he was physically stronger than Pa, and was an excellent scrapper, Pa could punch faster and was a smarter fighter. Pa left Reno on the bunkhouse floor with his face battered and bloody, one eye swollen shut, his nose broken. Reno had not allowed whiskey to interfere with his job since.

As Josh let Rabbit negotiate his own way down a slope to the base of a ridge, a question occurred to him – how was a group of riders able to rustle this many animals and not even be noticed by the floaters? It was the job of Reno and the boys to prevent just this sort of thing. Had something happened to them? Had this group of riders – probably gunmen, though Josh had no way of knowing for certain – killed Reno, Whitey and Tarley? When you were a line rider, you tended to ride alone for the most part, each man riding in a different direction to patrol and round up strays and watch for rustlers or squatters, only to reunite with the others at the line camp at night. Picking the floaters off one-by-one would not prove difficult.

Once the ridges were behind him, Josh held onto his hat and let Rabbit stretch his legs into a mile-eating gallop, quickly narrowing the distance between himself and the line camp. Josh stood in the saddle and leaned forward, to reduce the wind resistance and make Rabbit’s job easier.

As he rode, he found himself filled alternately with feelings of urgency and dread. Dread that he might find Reno and the boys dead.

After a few miles, he reined up and let Rabbit blow. The horse was now greatly lathered at the shoulders and neck. Josh knew Rabbit still wanted to run, and he thought the horse had enough sense to ease off on his own before he ran himself to death, but it was imperative Rabbit have enough wind left to get Josh to the line camp.

After a few moments, Rabbit was pounding his hooves, dancing a bit to one side and snapping his head back and forth. He wanted to run.

“Damn,