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

the trail. Henry had offered Dusty some stable space for the buckskin, and to tend it while it rested up. The old woman looked like she had the durability of a dried and brittle leaf shaking in a autumn wind, but she held to the seat with a steadiness that belied her years, the number of which Dusty would not even dare venture a guess at.

“You folks live here long, Mrs. Tate?”

“Ain’t no need to call me Mrs. I’m Granny to everyone. Been so since I was about your age. Been a granny doctor most of my life. But in answer to your question, we been here about two years, now.”

“What’s a granny doctor?”

“Someone who treats the ills of folks what can’t afford some college-trained white man to come and do the same thing and charge ‘em money for it. Why, I’ve birthed more babies than I could ever count. Set broken bones, fed medicine to the sick. Even dug out a bullet or two. And never charged a cent for it.”

“What brought you folks here? This is pretty good cattle country, but you folks don’t look like ranchers. And the gold fields are east of here, and you don’t see too many farmers in these parts.”

She chuckled. “You young folks always think of gold as though it can move mountains or change the weather. It’s nothing more than a rock, and neither Henry nor I are going to waste our time digging it out of the ground, where the Good Lord put it.”

“But why here? Why McCabe Town?”

“Because I’m needed here. A granny doctor goes where she’s needed. Henry, he’s my grandson. We was born into slavery, working for Mas’sa Tate until the war ended and Mista’ Lincoln set us all free. That’s when Henry changed his name to Freeman, ‘cause that’s what he be. A free man. He’s proud, and wanted me to change mine, too, but I been Granny Tate for too long. Granny Tate’s who I still be.

“We come west to get away from the white sheets. Henry thought we could start over here, where they ain’t a lot of folks, and everyone is too concerned with just surviving too care much about who’s colored and who’s white.

“Your Pa, he’s a good man. He does a lot of good for Henry. Brings him a lot of business. Henry does all the smithy work for your Pa’s ranch. But you know what means more to Henry than all the work?”

Dusty shook his head.

“Your Pa looks him square in the eye, and never calls him ‘boy.’ And when your Pa looks at him, he doesn’t see color. He just sees a man.”

Josh stood on the porch alone, one hand resting on the railing. The eastern sky was awash with a gray glow, obliterating the stars. The night birds had stopped their calling, but the birds of morning hadn’t yet taken flight. A silence fell upon the land as though all were waiting with a hushed reverence for the rising of the sun.

This was Josh’s favorite time of day. And yet, this morning, he was unable to appreciate it. Upstairs, his father lied in bed, unconscious, two bullet holes in his chest. Despite Josh’s best attempts at optimism, he had to admit to himself that his father was dying.

Josh felt cold. The mountain air bore a chill, but that was not the cold he was thinking of. He felt cold inside.

He thought of Jack, for the first time tonight. Jack, back east, in medical school. Jack was a year younger, and though his life was taking him in a different direction than Josh’s, they had been raised in this house, alongside Bree. Raised by Pa and Aunt Ginny. Jack usually managed to return home every year, for a few weeks every summer. But otherwise, Josh seldom saw him anymore.

Josh figured he had the responsibility of writing the letter to Jack – the letter telling him that their father was dead. Of course, he was putting the proverbial cart before the horse, as Aunt Ginny would have said, and right now, optimistic thinking was necessary. And yet, he couldn’t keep his mind from drifting down a path he didn’t want it to go. How do you even write such a letter?

Josh didn’t know how this family would survive without Pa. He didn’t know how he would survive without Pa.

Just yesterday, the most important problems in Josh’s life had been that he seriously doubted his ability to live up to Pa’s growing legend. And he was having trouble trying to choke down the thought that a drifter riding onto the ranch, bearing a resemblance to Pa and claiming to be the son of a woman Pa could not even remember being with, could live up to Pa’s legend so much more easily than Josh could. Today, those problems seemed so insignificant.

The mountain breeze brought to him a sound, a distant rattling, like iron shaking against wood in a staccato rhythm. He looked off toward the wooden bridge and saw motion. A dark shape. A wagon, crossing the bridge. It was Dusty, hopefully returning with Granny Tate.

Josh pushed away from the railing, and went to the doorway, and called out, “Dusty’s back!”

Josh then hobbled down from the porch, his knee-cap feeling afloat, and a strange numbness present immediately below it. Dusty pulled the team to a stop, and Josh hurried to the side of the wagon to help Granny Tate down.

“Must have been quite a fracas here,” she said. “I can still smell the powder smoke in the air.”

Bree appeared at the doorway. She had been busying herself dusting, which had been done just two days earlier, and would not need to be for another week, but she had to do something while she waited. Aunt Ginny had returned to Pa’s bedside.

Josh escorted Granny Tate to the porch, looping one arm so Granny could hang onto it like a handle, and she climbed the steps slowly, lifting one foot gingerly