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

The barkeep shook his head. “You look a little familiar, that’s all.”

“Ain’t never been through these parts before.”

“Never said you had. You just remind me of someone, that’s all.”

The barkeep went back to wiping glasses and straightening behind the bar, but as he worked he would steal an occasional glance at Dusty.

When the beer was finished, Dusty said, “Since I can’t afford a second one, how about some information instead.”

The barkeep raised his brows in sort of a half-shrug. “I’ll do what I can.”

“I’m looking for a particular woman. Might be about your age. I don’t rightly know. Name of Rose Callahan.”

The barkeep’s good humor drained from his face. He eyed Dusty levelly. “I might. Who is she to you.”

“Now, that’s none of your damn business. I take it you know her?”

The barkeep said nothing.

“Do you know where I can find her?”

The barkeep was silent for a long moment, as though he were weighing the situation in his mind. He reminded Dusty of a card shark, deliberating over a hand.

Finally, the man said, “Up those stairs. First door on the right.”

“Much obliged.” Dusty turned and strode across the barroom floor.

He took the stairs one at a time, not in twos like he normally might. He found himself suddenly...he was not sure...scared? Maybe.

This was Rose Callahan he was about to see. The woman who had brought him into the world. She had given him up for reasons he did not know – reasons he hoped to learn. What he really wanted, he had to admit to himself, was to connect with her, to form a parent-child bond. He wanted his mother in his life.

A thought struck him – what if this Rose Callahan was not the one he was seeking? But he immediately dismissed this as irrational. The name was not that common. And in the west, there were so few women in general. It was so unlikely there would be two with the same name, working saloons in the same area.

Even though he had never met his mother, and had never known anything about her, he had learned a year earlier what her name was and what she did for a living. The last anyone had known, she was living in or near Carson City, Nevada.

His mother was a saloon whore, and that did not rest easily with him. How could it? But as the year ticked away, he had let the news gradually settle. Mister Cantrell had helped.

“It doesn’t matter who your parents were, or what they did,” he had said. “What matters is who you are. What kind of man you make yourself into.”

This had helped. A little. In time, Dusty found a sort of acceptance of what his mother was, and it was then he decided to find her, with the first stop in his journey being Carson City, where he began asking questions. Questions that eventually led him to this saloon.

And now, he was climbing the stairs that would take him to her. First door on the right.

He did not know what he expected to gain from this, really. He knew what he wanted, but was he being realistic? After all, he and his mother were strangers. You cannot expect to gain an entire lifetime of bonding in one visit. And maybe they would have nothing at all in common. Maybe they would not even like each other.

As the boy climbed the stairs and moved beyond the barkeep’s line of sight, a woman stepped from a doorway behind the bar. Her hair was sandy colored, and piled atop her head in an assortment of curls. Her face was painted to hide the lines of hard living.

“It’s him,” the barkeep said, his eyes on the now vacant staircase.

She followed his gaze. “Who? I don’t see anyone.”

“Him. A boy who was just in here. Had a beer. Just went up the stairs. He looked familiar, I thought. I didn’t think much of it, at first. After you’ve tended bar for so many years, you see more cowboys and miners than there are stars in the heavens, and it’s not unusual for a customer to strike me as looking a little familiar. But the more I looked at him, the more I figured it out. He’s about the right age. Then, when he asked for Rosie, I knew it had to be him.

“And the way he walks, the way he carries himself. The way he wears his gun like it’s a part of him. The spitting image of his father.”

“After all these years,” she said with a sort of hushed wonder.

The barkeep sighed. “We knew he’d come looking for her someday.”

The woman shook her head, her gaze fixed on the empty staircase. “I hope he’s ready for what he’s going to find.”

THREE

Dusty stood before the door. He raised a fist to rap on it, to announce his presence, then he pulled his hand away. Here he stood, his face streaked with trail dust and sweat, his jaw covered with a half-inch of whiskers – he had bathed the night before, but not shaved since he had left Arizona. He was wearing his buckskin shirt, which was stained with grease and campfire smoke. He suddenly felt he should have been in a white shirt and tie. Maybe a jacket. After all, he was about to meet his mother. If the woman in the next room, answering to the correct name, was indeed his mother.

But he had spent his final nickel downstairs. His only options were to meet her looking like this, or not meet her at all. And he had ridden too far for the second choice.

He raised his fist again, hesitating for only a moment while he pulled his hat from his head, then knocked on the door.

There was no answer. No one was in there. Maybe she had gone out. No, that could not be. The barkeep downstairs had said she was here.

He knocked again. Still no answer.

He stood uncertainly for a few