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

Josh ran toward him, leaped, and drove both heels into Reno’s chest. Reno’s legs went out from under him, and he landed hard on the floor again.

Josh scrambled to his feet. Reno rolled over into a sitting position, began to push himself upward, then his strength seemed to suddenly drain from him, and he collapsed to the floor to lie, huffing for breath.

Josh turned to face Whitey, who still stood at the bar with Hunter’s knife to his throat.

Josh’s chest was heaving for air, and sweat trickled down his cheekbones. “All right, Hunter. Turn him loose.”

Hunter pulled back the knife, freeing Whitey.

“How about it?” Josh said. “You next?”

Whitey shook his head.

Hunter said, “Then I suggest you pick your friend off the floor, and get out of here.”

Hunter looked to the table where Tarley still sat. “That goes for you, too.”

Whitey grabbed Reno by one arm and helped him to his feet, and half-carrying his old friend, out the door. Tarley followed them, never once even tossing a glance toward Josh.

Josh retrieved his hat and gun, and leaned one elbow against the bar again.

“Here’s that beer you asked for,” Hunter said, reaching for a full mug he had placed on a shelf behind the bar.

His knuckles torn and bruised, Josh lifted the mug and tipped it, draining half of it. He then set the mug back to the bar, wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and brought a hand gingerly to a lump rising on his temple where Whitey’s fist had connected.

“That was mighty good fighting,” a man said from behind him.

Josh turned to see a clean-shaven man of about his age. Probably the one who had chuckled from the doorway when Reno fell flat during the fight. His hair was cropped short, a flat-brimmed sombrero was tipped back on his head, and he wore a big bandanna folded in a triangle over a double-breasted shirt.

Josh said, “Don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.”

“Name’s Long.” The stranger extended his hand.

“McCabe. Josh McCabe.” The grip of the stranger’s handshake was a little tight on Josh’s battered hand.

Hunter said, “He’s new in these parts. Been in town a couple days, looking’ for work.”

“Well,” Josh said with a smile, “it turns out I’m hiring.”

Long chuckled. “I kind’a figured you were. Word’s been traveling pretty fast about how you fired those three, and one of ‘em drew on you. I was hoping to bump into you in town sometime before the night was over.”

“Where’s the last outfit you worked for?”

“Russell Hall’s spread, down in Wyoming.”

“I’m looking for a couple of men to ride line with me. We got a few hundred steers to roundup. Them three I fired were letting them roam free over half the territory, and letting strangers passing through help themselves to them. Pay’s twelve dollars a month, and keep. The job’s yours, if you want it. We ride at sun-up.”

“You done hired yourself a hand.”

PART THREEMcCABE TOWN SEVEN

Dusty sat in the saddle at the edge of a grove of alders and ash, and gazed toward a house almost a quarter mile away, across a grassy meadow. The building was two floors high and made of logs, with a front door shaded by a small sloping roof upheld by pine poles. Smoke drifted lazily from a chimney made of stones. Horses frolicked in the meadow behind the house. A ranch hand moved about the stable.

The McCabe Ranch. Home of Johnny McCabe. The man who was his father.

Dusty knew little of the family. He knew of the many exploits attributed to Johnny McCabe, like when he was with the Texas Rangers and took down five Comanche raiders with as many shots, before switching guns in a border shift, and bringing down five more. All the while with an arrowhead in his leg, and riding a galloping horse. Another story had McCabe squaring off against three opponents in a gunfight, drawing and fanning a shot into each of them before they could even clear leather. They claim he once took two men in one shot, firing a rifle through one and into another, during a skirmish between the Texas Rangers and some Mexican border raiders. Dusty was sure most of them were gross exaggerations, and others absolute bunk. News traveled quickly on the frontier, especially exciting news, but it tended to grow as it moved along. After a time, it scarcely resembled the actual event.

As for the man himself, Dusty knew little. He had learned a little form Lewis and Annie in Baker’s Crossing, and had asked more questions at a couple cattle camps he had passed through on his long ride from Nevada. McCabe and two of his brothers had ridden with an outlaw gang for a time when they were younger. Before that, McCabe had been a Texas Ranger. Eventually, he took a wife and started a ranch in California, near ‘Frisco. His wife was shot - some folks claimed by a bounty hunter who was aiming for McCabe himself but got his wife by mistake. McCabe then took his young children and a few loyal hands to the Montana wilderness to start anew. Actually, much of this struck Dusty as a little farfetched, too.

As for the family, he had heard there were two sons who were fully grown, and a daughter. Their names, Dusty did not know. But they were his relatives. A couple of brothers and a sister.

Dusty watched as the ranch hand stepped into the stable, then emerged with a rope in his grip. The man ambled to the open meadow behind the house and dropped a loop on a palomino. The man led the horse to the corral, and then went back into the stable to emerge moments later with a saddle. Once the saddle was firmly strapped to the back of the palomino, the man led the horse to a hitching rail, then a dark-haired girl stepped out the front door of the house, flitted down