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

Josh gave his horse a nudge, and started down the slope. Reno was the first to see Josh approaching.

Reno was a man of thirty, but was considered old by cowhand reckoning. The range of ages on most ranches was usually eighteen to twenty-two. Reno’s jaw was covered with short, stubbly whiskers, and his face was lined from having lived most of his life exposed to the raw elements. And Josh thought, Reno liked his whiskey and such a thing can age a man. He wore his gun high on his belt, where he could get to it if need be, but he had no pretense about speed.

“Hey, boys,” Reno called to the other two. “We have company.”

Tarley had just reloaded his pistol, and was sighting in on a branch. He and Whitey now turned as Josh reined up a few yards from Reno.

“What’s going on here?” Josh asked.

Reno smiled, squinting into the sun. “What do you think is going on here, boy? My two compadres, here, are havin a little target practice. And I’m washin down the trail dust.”

“It’s pretty obvious what you’re doing. It’s also pretty obvious you’re not doing your job. Some riders have been cutting through here, helping themselves to our herd. Now I see how they’ve been getting away with it so easy.”

Reno shrugged, looking up at Josh, squinting a little into the sun. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

“It’s not what I’m gonna do about it. It’s what we’re gonna do about it. We’re going to grab the rifles, and go after those cows.”

Reno looked at the other two, who had ambled over. Reno said, “This here feller wants us to chase after some rustlers.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Whitey said nonchalantly, almost conversationally.

Reno returned his gaze to Josh. “No thanks, Mister Boss-man. We’re cowhands, not gunhawks. If you’re your daddy’s son, why don’t you take that big ol’ hawg-leg you’re wearin’ at your side, and go run down them rustlers yourself?”

Josh said through his teeth, “When my Pa rode out, he left me in charge, and I’m giving you an order.”

“If the boss wants an order given, he can come and give it himself. He don’t have to send no runt to do it.”

“Look, Reno..,”

“No, you look, boy!” Reno shouted, raising his fist and aiming a pointed index finger at Josh. “When Johnson done quit this outfit and started his own place, that made me top hand. Whenever the boss is gone, he always leaves his top hand in charge. And now, that’s me.”

“You think I’m too young to be giving orders to a cowhand who’s been around as long as you?” Josh’s voice was climbing to a roar as he felt anger swelling inside. “Age should have nothing to do with it. Pa left me in charge, and if you work for Pa, you ride for the brand. It’s a simple as that.”

“No it ain’t, boy. How do we know you got the sand for the job? Out here, you don’t get nothin’ just because of whose kin you are.”

Whitey put in, “You ain’t proved yourself, boy. You got the job only because you’re the boss’s son.”

“That’s right,” Reno said, leaning back against the tree. “Respect ain’t somethin’ that’s given to you. You gotta earn it.”

“Reno,” Josh said. “You’re fired.”

Reno raised the bottle to Josh as a sort of salute, and took another drink.

“Reno, I want you off this range. You’ve got just long enough to go back to the line shack and pack up your gear.”

“You’re gonna have to climb down from that horse and toss me off’n this range yourself.”

Tarley said, “You’re gonna have to toss us all off, boy.”

Tarley was in his early twenties, and wore a black handle-bar mustache under a long nose, and his front teeth had long since been knocked out in a saloon brawl. Whitey had hair the color of Josh’s, and it fell shaggily to his brow and over his ears. At his chin was a fuzzy promise of a beard.

Josh wanted sorely to step down from the saddle, yank that bottle from Reno’s grip, and drive his knuckles into the big man’s face. Josh’s temper was a mean one, and he was athletic and gifted with his fists. Pa, who was as good a scrapper as Josh had ever seen, knew a bit about boxing, and he had filled a grainbag with gravel and hung it from a rafter in the barn, and coached Josh in the art of fisticuffs. Pa had taught him how to punch intelligently, from a solid stance, turning his shoulders and hips into it, rather than simply throwing wild hay-makers and hoping they connect. Pa had also learned something about wrestling tricks from the Shoshone, and Josh was wiry enough to be quite effective with them, also.

Pa had beaten Reno, perhaps the only man to have ever done so, and Josh found himself desiring the opportunity to become the second, but he knew to accept Reno’s challenge would not be the right the to do. Pa had said many times to think things through. Don’t let you’re temper do your thinking for you, and send you charging blindly into a situation.

Josh held a tight rein on his anger as he sat in the saddle, his gaze meeting levelly with Reno’s. “No, Reno, that’s just what you’d like me to do, but it wouldn’t prove a thing. No matter which one of us whupped the other, you’re still fired. You got half an hour to get your things packed and start ridin’.”

Josh’s glance then darted to the other two. “And you two can either mount up and ride after them cows with me, or join your partner. Which is it gonna be?”

Tarley let his hand fall until it hovered just above his holstered pistol. “You gonna make us, boy?”

“Leave that gun where it is, Tarley,” Josh said.

Whitey looked nervously to Tarley. “Yeah. They say he learned how to shoot from his old