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

was on his own, he paid for a short haircut, but after so many years of hair falling to his shoulders, he found he didn’t like the feeling of a draft on his neck. While Dusty sat in a wooden upright chair that served as a barber’s chair, Franklin slid a straight razor through soapy foam he had applied to Dusty’s face.

“I used to be a barber, back east,” Franklin said, while he lathered Dusty’s face and sharpened the razor on a leather strap. “What seems like a lifetime ago.”

“A barber? How’d you find yourself running a general store? And doing gunsmithing?”

“Out here, a man does anything and everything to survive. Last summer, I earned a few dollars putting a new roof on Miss Summers’... shall we say...establishment. And I’ve helped Hunter move a shipment of freight, more than once.”

“A jack of all trades, eh?”

Hunter had told Dusty to buy some clothes, too, so after the shave, Dusty did some shopping.

“The way things are going,” Dusty had said to Hunter, “I’ll have such a big debt to you that I’ll be a whole year working it off.”

“That’s the idea,” Hunter said with a smirk. “I’m thinkin’ seriously about Franklin’s breakfast idea. I want to keep you around as long as I can, considering what you can do to a steak.”

Dusty had to admit, he needed the clothes. He walked out of Franklin’s store in a new pair of levis, a white shirt, and with a second pair of levis and another shirt in boxes under one arm, and his buckskin shirt rolled under the other.

Before he left the store, his gaze had fallen upon a rack of rifles and shotguns standing behind the counter. Mostly weapons Franklin had acquired in trade, from customers who had no cash, and Franklin did not know them well enough to extend credit.

One weapon in particular caught Dusty’s eye. A Spencer lever-action rifle.

Franklin handed it to Dusty, who brought it to his shoulder and sighted in on an imaginary target. A Spencer was loaded through a tubular magazine in the center of the stock, and the trigger guard acted as a lever that could be jacked, like a Winchester, to eject a spent cartridge and chamber a fresh one.

“This is a beauty,” Dusty said. He also thought, but did not say, this would be the perfect rifle to have on his ride to Oregon. “What are you asking for it?”

Franklin shrugged. “I haven’t put a price on it, yet. Spencers are out of production, and everyone is using Winchesters and Springfields these days. I doubt I could get much for it.”

“It’s in almost new condition. Not a scratch on it. I bet it hasn’t been fired more’n a couple dozen times.” Dusty jacked open the chamber, and was admiring the clean, slightly oiled steel.

“Don’t matter. The market isn’t defined by quality. It’s defined by people’s wants. It cost me three sacks of coffee and a can of beans. I didn’t really want it, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get rid of it, but the customer really needed the coffee and the beans. What can you offer?”

“Not a thing. All I have is my horse, my saddle, my six-shooter, and my clothes. And most of my clothes were paid for by Hunter. I spent my last cent down in Nevada, many miles ago.”

“Well, not to worry. This thing has been here a year already. I’m sure it’s not going anywhere soon.”

The idea of hiring a professional cook had never occurred to Hunter. But on Wednesday morning, a couple of hours before the noon stage was due to arrive, Hunter said, “Dusty, if I ran down to Franklin’s and got us a couple big pots and a load of potatoes, how fast do you suppose you could put together potato and steak dinners for the passengers?”

“Are you thinking on getting into the restaurant business?”

“Why not? Them passengers, they have real cash, like Franklin said. Start with dinner today, and maybe tomorrow morning we’ll open for breakfast.”

“But I already have a noon job. Hostler, at the livery stable.”

“I can take care of that. Old Arthur, who runs that stable, he owes me for so many beers he’ll never be able to pay up.”

Sam Patterson had said once folks just take naturally to some things more than others. With some it’s business, like running a store. With others it’s working with livestock. With some, it’s painting or sculpting, or singing. With Dusty, it seemed to be two things - shooting a gun, and cooking.

Dusty had never considered himself to be more than a simple trail cook, throwing together whatever ingredients were available and trying not to poison anyone. But people did seem to rave about his cooking, so what the hell? A little time out of the saddle might make for a welcome change, he thought.

When Wednesday’s customers boarded the stage, they did so with full, happy bellies. As the stage pulled out of town, Hunter sat in a back room counting his newly acquired cash, and Dusty found himself permanently relieved of his hostler duties.

“Hey, Hunter,” Dusty called out, while he sat at a table enjoying a cold beer Hunter had told him to pour for himself. “How about we expand the menu a bit? Add Texas toast, maybe, and some homemade bread? And I can do a thing or two with a frijole, if I can find the ingredients.”

Hunter called from the back room, “A frijole? Hell, I haven’t tasted one in years. You can make those?”

“If I can find what I need. When this beer’s gone, I’ll take me a walk down to Franklin’s.”

Hunter stepped into the doorway. “How’d you learn to make ‘em?”

“Just somethin’ I picked up along the way.”

Dusty did not want to tell him the actual way he had learned to make Mexican food. When he was nine, the Patterson gang had holed up in a canyon a few miles south of the Mexican border, and they