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

“You may not want to accept me as family, and maybe it’s unfair of me to ask. But I’m your brother, like it or not, and nothing can change that. And here, defending this place, is where I belong. After this is over, I’ll ride on if you want, but not until then.”

“How do we know you can be trusted?” Josh said. “How do we know you wouldn’t shoot us all in the back if the raiders attack?”

“Because if I was scouting for the raiders, I wouldn’t have been here with Hunter and Fred, ready to defend the place before you got back. I would have ridden out to the raiders’ camp, told them the situation, and they would have struck that night.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because of how short handed we were that night. Raiders aren’t fools, and they’re not in this for the thrill of a contest. Their goal is to take as much as they can, with as little harm to themselves as possible.”

Josh was silent. He stared at Dusty for a moment, then turned to the porch, and to Pa.

Pa and Zack were both looking at Dusty silently. They both knew more about warfare and raiding than Josh would ever know. They had seen more men killed, some of them by their own hand, than they would ever be able to count. Josh saw it in their eyes sometimes, when they were sitting by a fire, sharing a glass of whiskey. There would be a mention of the old days, and their gazes would meet for an instant, and then they would be silent and there would be a sort of heaviness in the air, and the lines on Pa’s face would seem deeper than ever, and the dance in Zack’s eyes would fade. Josh saw it now, and felt that strange heaviness in the air, as Pa and Zack looked at Dusty. They were seeing him as if for the first time, seeing something in him that they understood. They were seeing a kindred spirit, Josh knew, and realizing he was no outlaw. Suddenly, Josh felt small and impossibly young.

Pa nodded at Dusty with understanding, and said, “I was wrong, Dusty. I was short-sighted. Welcome back. We’ll be pleased to have you fight alongside us, if it comes to that.”

Josh nodded, and turned back to his brother. “Pa speaks for me too.”

And he pulled the Peacemaker from his belt and handed it to Dusty.

Dusty gave his brother a small grin, and tucked the pistol into his holster. “Come on. Let’s see if Aunt Ginny can rustle us up some grub. It’s gonna be a long night.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

That evening, preparations began for the defense of the McCabe house, because Johnny was starting to feel this might be the night the raiders would strike. Dusty felt it, too.

“How do you know?” Bree asked.

“They came back for a reason,” Johnny said. “And now that they’re back, they’re not going to wait any longer than they need to. The longer they’re out there in the mountains, the longer we’ll have to prepare.”

“Not only that,” Dusty said. “There’s a feeling in the air.”

Josh nodded. Though he didn’t have the experience at this sort of thing Pa and Zack had, and apparently Dusty had too, and maybe he would never be able to fully wear the label of gunhawk himself, he had to agree. There was some sort of intangible feeling in the air. Almost an eerie sort of stillness. A sort of hush had fallen on the land.

Johnny McCabe went to the porch, looking off toward the darkness of the valley floor before him. The sun had now fully set, but the moon had not yet risen, though he knew it would soon. And that would be when they could expect trouble. It would take a foolhardy rider to try to cross the valley floor in darkness this thick. A horse could trip over an uneven clump of grass and send its rider sprawling. The sky was heavily laden with stars, which cast off their own meager light, in which Johnny could make out a dark formless mass to his left, which he knew was the barn. But you wouldn’t want to ride a horse in this.

He had positioned Zack and some men in a small stand of trees in a low spot, off beyond the corral. Occasionally spring run-off caused a small pond to form there, and a stand of alders stood at its rim. The night was cold, so he had told Zack to dig a fire pit and build a small fire for warmth, but to make certain the flames didn’t rise above the edge of the pit. Otherwise they would be visible from a distance.

Johnny stepped down from the porch, his pipe smoldering in his right hand his pistols riding at his hips, He walked to the edge of the ranch yard, which by day gave you the best view of that stand of alders. He could catch an occasional draft of wood smoke as the breeze turned his way, but he could see no sign of fire. Good.

He returned to the house, hearing the hinges squeak a bit as he did so, and found Aunt Ginny waiting for him on the porch. He climbed the steps to stand beside her in the cold.

“It’s cold tonight,” she said. “I have a shawl wrapped about me, and I’m still cold.”

In the darkness Johnny could barely make out her form. He had known it was her because of her height, and the scent of her perfume. A sort of lilac fragrance she had shipped in from ‘Frisco every spring, once the snows had receded and the stage routes were again passable.

Johnny stood in his shirt and vest only. He wore no jacket. The cold was indeed penetrating his shirt, sending its biting fingers into his flesh, but he did not shiver. He forced himself to simply relax, and experience the cold of the evening as it reached out to him. He