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

stealth to save your life, especially as a Texas Ranger, and the time required to unbuckle your spurs might be costly.

And at the moment, as he followed these riders through the mountains, he was no longer a ranch owner. He was once again, at least for the moment, a Texas Ranger.

The riders apparently milled about atop this ridge for a time. Cigarette butts littered the earth, some of them ground beneath bootheels, others had been left to smolder their way into oblivion. Then, they had ridden on, winding their way northwest, now moving in single file.

Riding single file was an old trick used when you didn’t want anyone who might happen across your trail to be able to estimate how many of you there were. Many a Comanche raiding party had done this back in Texas in the old days, and Zack and Johnny and their band of Rangers had done the same. And there was only two reasons for a party this size not to want their number known. Either they were running from something, probably the law, or they were here to cause trouble.

Zack noticed some of the cigarette butts were still smoldering, but some were cold. Also, there were horse droppings not even a half hour old, yet others that had been made at least a day earlier, he would guess. These riders hadn’t actually met the larger party and rode on with them. They had simply ridden along until they came to the trail made by the larger party, waited a few minutes while their horses blew, and then they continued on, probably following the larger party to an established camp.

Zack followed the trail up the slope of a small mountain. There were pines growing a few yards apart and standing tall, and in places there were openings and large outcroppings of rock. The trail then turned southwest as it descended the other side of the mountain. Zack’s horse was mountain bred, like Josh’s horse Rabbit, and it found its footing easily, but he could see tracks that were scuffed and kind of stretched out, indicating some of the riders were on horses that were slipping and sliding a bit.

On a small plateau atop a ridge, Zack found a deserted camp. The blackened remains of a campfire, a handful of empty cans of beans tossed about. An empty whiskey bottle. The tracks were too confusing to decipher, as the ground was littered with too many bootprints, though Zack found where the horses had been staked out for the night and where the riders had apparently bedded down. Oddly, he found one clear bootprint that was smaller than the others, and with a sharp, narrow heel. A woman, he realized.

From the looks of the charred chunks of firewood and the heap of more fully burned, powdered ash beneath them, they had not cared about keeping their presence a secret. From this ridge, a large enough fire would be clearly visible from town.

Zack had seen enough. To follow further might be dangerous, as he was only one man, and would be surely outgunned. He decided to return to the McCabe Ranch. If trouble was afoot, the safety of Aunt Ginny and Bree would be in question. With Johnny not yet returned, and Josh away with the line riders, Fred was the only hand at the house. He thought he might send Fred into town to bring Hunter back, and then Zack and Hunter would hold the ranch while Fred rode out to the line camp to get Josh and the boys and tell them to high-tail it back to the house.

Zack cut directly down the slope and emerged onto a trail that wound its way through the pine forest, the trail that led from the town, through the pass the town was named after, and into the valley. He rode through thick stands of birch and aspen. As he came out of the woods he saw, just ahead, a buckboard loaded with cargo, the seat protected from the sun by a small canopy. Two women were on the seat. One was Aunt Ginny, and the other, holding the reins, was Bree.

He touched his heels to the appaloosa’s ribs, and the animal broke into a quick-stepping trot and caught up with the wagon.

“Ah, Zack,” Ginny said. “It’s good to see you on this fine, summer day.”

He touched the brim of his hat. “Ladies. I was just heading back to your house.”

“Now, that’s odd. You came up behind us, but we didn’t see you in town.”

Leave it to Aunt Ginny to never miss a thing. Zack had often though she would be hell on wheels at a poker table. “Well, ma’am, there could be trouble afoot.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Zack told her about the tracks he had seen, and the camp he had found. “Have you seen any strangers around? Like, in town, maybe?”

“No,” Ginny said.

Bree piped up. “Just the one, at Franklin’s store. Looked like he could handle a gun. Mighty pleasing on the eyes, too.”

Ginny cast Bree a sidelong glance. “Concentrate on your driving.”

Bree returned her gaze to the trail ahead. “Yes’m.”

“What stranger?” Zack asked.

“Oh, he has no connection with the riders you trailed,” Ginny said. “Of that, I’m sure.”

“How? Did you talk to him? Who is he?”

Without responding to his question, or maybe responding in a way he couldn’t figure, she said, “I would be pleased if you could join us for lunch this afternoon.”

Aunt Ginny served a lunch of fried chicken, potato salad and rolls. She also served a glass of white wine. Chablis, she called it. Whatever that was. Zack did not know wines. A cold beer at Hunter’s, or a glass of whiskey or even maybe a brandy, was more his speed. Aunt Ginny came from money, down in San Francisco. Her father, grandfather to Johnny’s late wife, had done well as a merchant seaman, at one time owning a small fleet of ships. Aunt Ginny had brought some reminders of her wealthy lifestyle in