The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1) by Brad Dennison (books that read to you .txt) 📕

when she glanced into the room a half hour later to check on his progress, she found him gone. He was out back, leaning against the fence, watching a stallion his father had caught frolic in the corral.

She was about to reprimand him, when she had a sudden change of heart. Calmly, she said, “What is it about that horse that has you mesmerized so?”

“Someday, I want to catch horses just like him. I want to break ‘em like Pa does, and I want to ride ‘em.”

She was silent for a moment, observing the look in his eye, the intensity with which he watched the horse, and realized she had seen the same in look in his father.

“Joshua, what do you want to do with your life? When you are grown?”

“I want to be just like Pa,” he said without hesitation. “I want to ride like him. I want to know all there is about cattle and horses. I want to build a ranch like this. I want to work sun-up to sundown in the saddle, and when the day is done, to be able to look at my home and know I did a little more that day toward building it. I want to know any ache in my body from all that hard work counts for somethin’.”

That night, after the children were in bed, Ginny sat with John by the fire, as they often did, and she told him of what the boy had said.

“He does not belong at law school or some such place,” she said. “That was my dream for him, but it’s not his dream for himself. What he wants is to be riding alongside you. His future is not law school. This land is his future. And so, I’m turning the responsibility for his education over to you. Teach him, John. He needs to know how to survive if he is to stand as a man among those who make their home out here. And there is no better teacher.”

John said, “I wanted so much more for him than fifteen hours a day of back-breaking work in a saddle. I wanted him to make something of himself.”

“I wouldn’t say you have not made something of yourself. You’re a good father, and you were a good husband to Lura. Your hair is at least a foot too long ..,” she said this with a twinkle of fun in her eye, and he chuckled, “but you work hard to make a home for us out here. And you have to admit, though the work is hard, you like it. You find it fulfilling. There is no other work in the world for you.”

He nodded with a smile. “I guess you’re right. There probably isn’t.”

“So, teach him, John. I taught him to read literature. You teach him to read sign, to be a good judge of horseflesh. Teach him how to find water when there seems to be none about. Teach him to survive in this land.”

Joshua’s education, the one he really needed or ever wanted, began the following morning, with Pa waking him up to tell him to get dressed and saddle-up. He was riding out with the men today. And he would be every day. He would be trading in his jacket and tie for levis and boots. And to Joshua’s credit, he worked nights to finish that book report, his last one, because his Pa had always taught him to finish a job he started.

In retrospect, Ginny could see why Joshua found Ivanhoe dull. The boy was in the presence of a real-life adventure hero – his father.

And now, Joshua was twenty, a top cowhand and well on his way to being his father’s right-hand-man. Jackson was off in medical school in Boston. And Sabrina...oh, hell, Bree - everyone called her that, why shouldn’t Ginny? After all, Ginny was Ginny, not Virginia. My, but I’m getting pompous in my old age, Ginny thought. Bree was fifteen, and turning into a lady. One with a rambunctious nature, but still a lady.

Actually, the girl’s name was Virginia Sabrina, after the aunt who was like a mother to Lura, and after Lura’s actual mother. John and Lura had called her Little Ginny when she was an infant. John still did sometimes. But after Lura’s death and Ginny moved in to help John with the children, having two Ginny’s in the household might seem a little confusing, so they started encouraging the use of her middle name. And Sabrina eventually worked its way into Bree.

Now both Bree and Joshua, hardly children any longer, were upstairs asleep, and Ginny was sitting on the porch in a rocker, with a now empty tea cup.

Ginny thought Johnny McCabe must be the strongest man in spirit she had ever known. Even moreso than her father. Yet, she found herself worried about him. Despite how fulfilling he found operating this ranch to be, it was always dampened a bit because he missed Lura so much. And now, though she had passed more than sixteen years earlier, it seemed to be getting worse for him. He had mentioned tonight that, come spring, he would be riding down to California to visit her grave, and she believed he really did not know if he would be coming back.

He had also said he hoped for an easy winter. Ginny let that roll about in her mind for a moment. She thought about the young man staying with Hunter, and how not so easy things were going to be around here, shortly.

SEVENTEEN

The following day, Fred Mitchum rode into town to indulge in a mug of cold beer at Hunter’s, and he announced Johnny had returned the previous afternoon. And Johnny and Josh had taken a ride into the hills and determined the riders had cleared out.

And so, Dusty found he finally had to make a decision. He had been putting this off, because he had grown to sort of like this sleepy little town,