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

to the next step, and bringing the other up behind her. She steadied herself all the way using a hand-cut hickory stick as a cane. She climbed the stairs to the second floor as such, and Aunt Ginny stepped aside as the old woman examined Johnny.

“Has he woken up at all?” the granny doctor asked.

“No,” Ginny said. “He hasn’t even stirred.”

“He’s bleedin’ inside, is what he’s doing. You have a good tight bandage here, but he’s still bleedin’ inside.”

Bree asked, “What can be done?”

Granny shook her head slowly. “Not much, child. Oh, them big-city doctors back east, in places like New York or Boston, they could cut him open, find the blood vessels that are torn, and maybe sew them up. And if he didn’t die from infection or the blood loss he’s already suffered, he would be all right. But out here, there ain’t much you can do. I’m awful sorry.”

Ginny stood silently, looking at the hollow-cheeked form of Johnny McCabe.

“Can you do the operation?” Josh asked.

“No, child,” Granny said. “There’s a lot I can do that them big-city doctors can’t. I can look at a patch of woods and see all sorts of roots and herbs that can ease pain, or do other things. I doubt there’s all that many who know as much about bringin’ a child into the world as I do. And I can set a broken bone with the best of them. But to cut into a person, that’s beyond me. The nearest doctor is in Helena, and I doubt even he could do anything, in these conditions.

“No, I’m afraid all we can do is wait. With injuries like this, you never know. I’ve seen some hurt much worse pull through, and I’ve seen others hurt much less suddenly die.”

“Well,” Aunt Ginny said. “I appreciate you coming all the way out here.”

“No trouble at all. I just wish there was something I could do. Johnny McCabe is one of the finest men I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll have Dusty take you home.”

“No, I’d rather stay with you. Until this is over, whichever way it goes.”

Aunt Ginny managed a smile of gratitude, despite her weariness and her worry.

Granny said, “You’re all exhausted. You get some rest. I’ll set with him for a while.”

THIRTY-ONE

Ginny went down to her room to lie down, and sleep took her quickly. but it was a light, restless sleep.

She was in the past, watching the young gunhawk who wore his guns too naturally stepping through her doorway for the first time, to be reunited with Lura and meet his infant son Joshua.

Then she was sitting in the parlor at the little ranch house he, his brother Josiah, and Zack Johnson had built. He was standing in front of a casket, looking down at the pretty face, with the classic bone structure about her cheekbones and the straw colored hair gathering in almost ethereal ringlets about her shoulders. John’s hair, pure auburn with no traces of gray yet, was pulled back in a tail falling between his shoulder blades, Indian-style, and he was wearing his Sunday-best broad cloth jacket and trousers, and a white shirt and tie. And about his waist were those infernal, ever-present guns. She watched him stand strong, no shudder that might betray internal sobs. Just standing stoically. But when she looked closer, she saw a tiny tear streaming its way down the side of his nose.

The dream shifted, and she was on the seat of a conestoga wagon, holding the reins in her hands. The four-year-old Joshua and his brother Jackson, barely three, ran alongside the wagon, bouncing a ball against the side as it moved slowly along, the team of oxen moving at the speed a man could walk. Sleeping on a pallet of blankets in the wagon behind her was Sabrina, eighteen-months old. John pulled up beside her, his wide stetson covered with a layer of dust, his chin and jaw sprouting two months worth of an auburn beard. And there were the guns, riding at his hips. Behind them was another wagon, driven by Fred Mitchum, which served as the chuck wagon. Behind them all was the herd. Five thousand head of cattle, with Josiah, Zack and Hunter serving as drovers. A mile to her left was a spectacular ridge line, carpeted with dark green pines toward the base, and reaching to the sky with craggy, rocky fingers. To her right the land fell away into the distance in waving ripples of grass. Absolutely breathtaking, no matter which direction she looked in.

The scene faded, and she found herself in the root cellar, standing alongside Sabrina, now nearly fully grown. Their ears were ringing with the roar of the gunbattle raging above. She was suddenly struck with the feeling she should be upstairs. Something dreadful had happened. She had somehow heard Dusty’s cry, above the gunfire. And she knew in her heart it had finally happened to John. After all these years of living so dangerously but somehow evading death, it had finally caught up with him.

She relived her climb up the stairs, pushing open that damned heavy trap door, and running into the parlor doorway, where she saw John on the floor, Dusty at his side.

And she was startled awake to find herself in her room.

The window was alight with the grayness of early morning. Still fully dressed, she swung her feet to the floor and walked out to the kitchen, where she found Bree sitting with a cup of tea.

“That’s just what I had in mind,” Ginny said. “It turns out sleep was not such a good idea, after all.”

The day wore on, and somehow, John didn’t die. He didn’t not improve, either. He simply lay there, gray, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunken in. His breathing was even, but Ginny thought it was growing a little more shallow.

“Could be building fluid in his lungs,” Granny said. “Hard to tell.”

Granny checked his pulse, found it rather high at eight-four per minute, and he