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

approached, not knowing if this horse was indeed a gelding, as in the darkness he could make out only its rough silhouette. It could very well have been a mare, but most men rode geldings.

The horse was skittish, raising its head as Dusty approached. Dusty stopped moving, but continued to speak in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Easy, boy. Easy. Ain’t gonna hurt you, boy.”

The horse lowered its head again, and Dusty started forward. He began spinning the rope in a wide, slow loop. At the sound of the rope whispering in the night air, the horse raised its head again.

“Easy, boy, easy.”

The horse turned suddenly. After all of the noise earlier in the night, he wasn’t going to stick around, but Dusty threw the loop and dropped it over its head.

The horse pulled a bit, then reared back, clawing at the air with its fore hooves.

Dusty pulled the rope tightly. “Easy, boy.”

The horse dropped back to all fours, and Dusty walked over and stroked its nose with one hand. “See, boy? Ain’t no one going to hurt you.”

He led the horse back to the stable, where in the light of an oil lamp he discovered it to be a buckskin with one white stocking and a white mane, and it was indeed a gelding. He quickly strapped his own saddle to its back, and with the bridle in place, led it back outside where he stepped into the saddle and was gone into the night.

Ginny was no stranger to treating bullet wounds. One time, Johnny had been in a skirmish with rustlers who had attempted to take some of the herd at night, and the men had found him lying in the grass with a bullet crease at one temple. Another time, she had dug a bullet from his shoulder. But it had not been buried very deeply. Nothing like now.

She sat in a rocker, her eyes fixed on him. A lamp on a stand by the bed was casting a yellow glow to the room, and in this lighting she thought he seemed so gaunt. His cheeks looked hollow, his eyes sunken in. His color was taking on a grayish hue. She had taken a needle and thread to both wounds to close them, and the bleeding had almost entirely stopped. Tied into place were bed sheets she and Bree had ripped into makeshift bandages. But she knew he was far from out of the proverbial woods. She had not said anything with Bree present, but there was a good chance he was still bleeding internally, and stopping something like that was beyond her expertise.

The first bullet had struck his ribcage, cracking one rib and probably fragmenting in the process. She was certain none of the fragments had pierced a lung, because his breathing was even and nothing bubbled from the wound – thank God for small favors. The second bullet had actually entered at the base of his chest, just below the rib cage, where she knew the esophagus, stomach and the tail end of the liver came together in a sort of three-corners country. For the bullet to have not torn through at least one of them would probably be hoping for too much.

Bree materialized at the doorway. Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes and the color had drained from her face. A combination of fear and weariness. But she had not wavered. Had not broken into tears. Her father’s strength was in her.

“Aunt Ginny, why don’t you go down to the kitchen and have something to eat? I can sit with Pa.”

Ginny shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I’ll stay here.”

Bree stepped into the room. “Aunt Ginny, we’re going to need you to be strong, and you have to take care of yourself in order to be strong. I’ll sit with Pa.”

“Where’s Josh?”

“He went outside to help the men.”

“In his condition? He can barely walk.”

“He needed to be doing something. He thought he would go crazy just sitting downstairs, waiting.”

Ginny nodded, then sat in silence for a moment. Bree stood her ground at the doorway. She was not moving, not giving an inch. Maybe she had a little of her maternal grandfather in her, too.

With a sigh, Ginny decided to concede, and rose to her feet. As she passed Bree, she stopped and gave her niece a kiss on the cheek. “If anything happens, anything at all, you call for me.”

“I won’t hesitate.”

Aunt Ginny stepped from the room, weariness more present in her sagging shoulders than she realized was visible, and a certain authority normally in her step was now missing.

Bree was going to sit down in the rocker, but then saw Pa’s pistol belt was lying in one corner.

“Well, we can’t have that,” she said aloud. “If you wake up and your guns aren’t within reach, you’ll raise the roof.”

She fetched the belt, marveling at the weight of it and how her father not only carried it effortlessly, but seemed to feel more natural with this cumbersome thing buckled about his hips than not.

She buckled the belt together, then slung it over a bedpost at the head of the bed. Then she sat at the bed’s edge, and brought one hand to Pa’s face. He did not flinch as she touched him, and she noticed how warm he was. Fever. Infection from the wounds.

“Oh, Pa,” she said softly, and felt a tear making its was down her cheek. She quickly reached up to wipe it away. Can’t have any of that. Not now. We all have to be strong for each other.

She stood and walked to the open doorway, and looked across the corridor and through another open doorway. The guest room, which Dusty was using. Through the doorway, she could see the window that looked down onto the front yard.

“Dusty,” she said, as though her brother could hear her. “Hurry.”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Ginny went to the wooden bread box John had made for her, and took a muffin left