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

and Joe told me of a woman I spent a night with. It was in a little mining town. I don’t remember what it was called.”

“Her name was Rose,” Dusty said. “Rose Callahan.”

Josh charged from the kitchen. “Oh, come on, now!” his voice boomed. “Pa, we can’t just stand here and listen to this nonsense. He’s no more your son than, than...I don’t know. But he’s not your son.”

“Joshua,” Ginny said. “Is that mess in the kitchen cleaned up?”

But he ignored her, continuing, “I’ve never heard such a cock-and-bull story in my life.”

Dusty rose to his feet, feeling a touch of anger now rising within himself, as well. “It ain’t a lie. My Ma always believed he was my father. And those who knew her knew it to be true.”

“Oh, come on, now! How could she know? She was a saloon whore, for God’s sake! There’s no way she could know.”

“She did. Somehow, she knew.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. There’s no way she could have.”

“Joshua,” Ginny said. “Sometimes, a woman knows.”

“Ginny,” Johnny said to her. “You seem awfully ready to accept this.”

“I’ve had some time to think about it. I met Dusty while you were away, and the resemblance struck me as too much to be coincidental. So I had a talk with Zack. He remembers this woman much more clearly than you, because he was not filling himself with enough whiskey to drown a horse. She was dark-haired, he said, and looked like she might have had some Indian heritage.”

Dusty said, “She was part Ute.”

“Pa!” Josh protested. “We can’t just accept this. It’s such a long shot. And who’s to say he’s even telling the truth?”

“What’s his motivation?” Ginny asked. “It can’t be money. While this family is comfortable, due to years of hard work on the part of your father, and some of my holdings in San Francisco, we are by no means living in opulence.”

Dusty didn’t know what opulence meant, but it sounded quite nice.

McCabe held his hands up. “It’s too late to go any further with this. My head’s spinning. I need some time to let all of this settle.”

“Agreed,” Ginny said.

“Dusty,” McCabe said. “There are some empty bunks in the bunk house. Go grab one, and we’ll continue this in the morning.”

Josh was glaring at Dusty. “You bet we will.”

Dusty tried to let sleep take him, but found it wouldn’t cooperate. It was not that the bunkhouse was uncomfortable. It was fine, as bunks go. Dusty had slept in many a flea-ridden bunk house, and he had seen some so infested with lice the men preferred to sleep outside even during the winter, huddled by a fire. But the only other he had seen as clean as this was Ben Cantrell’s. The mattresses were free of bugs, and the floor neatly swept.

After he had stared at the shadowy rafters overhead for as long as he could tolerate, he climbed out of the bunk and pulled on his levis and buckskin shirt. He forced his feet into his riding boots, buckled on his gunbelt, and stepped down as quietly as possible on the sometimes squeaky floorboards so as not to awaken the other occupants. Fred Mitchum, a hand named Long, and another named Hardy. There were six other empty bunks.

Once outside, Dusty strolled about in the night, crossing the yard between the bunk house and the corral. He stood for a while, leaning against the fence and enjoying the brisk night wind whisking down from the ridges. Then he strolled on.

Before he really realized it, he was standing by the back door to the main house. The kitchen door. He tried the door knob and found it unlocked, which was no surprise. This was an age when the need to lock a door was a rarity. The knowledge than an uninvited guest might be shot on sight, with full approval of what little law actually existed on the frontier, was an effective deterrent.

Dusty found a lamp mounted on one wall over the stove. He struck a match, touched the flame to the wick, and a soft golden glow filled the room.

He found the stove warm, and a pot setting on it. He lifted the lid and found enough beef stew remaining to fill a couple of bowls. He hadn’t eaten since noon at Hunter’s, and found the sight and smell of the stew nearly set him to drooling.

A quick search of the cupboards turned up a wooden bowl and a ladle, and from one drawer he took a spoon.

He pulled a chair out from the table, dropped into it, set the bowl before him and commenced slurping.

The bowl was emptied quickly. He took it back to the stove for a second helping, and as he returned to the table, he took a moment to glance about the room a second time. The stove stood beside the inner wall, the stove pipe plugged into the back of the stone chimney. Across the room from it was a row of cupboards and a long counter top. On the wall over the stove were two lamps, one of which was now burning. White curtains framed the windows.

An atmosphere of home seemed to glow from this house, and Dusty found himself envious of those who belonged here.

A voice spoke from the parlor doorway. A woman’s. Low and a little throaty. “I thought I heard someone out here.”

It was Miss Brackston.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dusty said quickly, rising to his feet. “I’m sure you ain’t accustomed to folks rummaging around your kitchen at night. But I couldn’t sleep, and I was hungry, and your stew smelled so good.”

“I had a feeling you hadn’t eaten, so I left a low fire in the stove to keep the left-over stew warm.”

Dusty’s brows knit with puzzlement. “You expected me to come sneaking’ in here?”

“This is the McCabe home, and you’re a McCabe, aren’t you? I could hardly call it sneaking.”

“You definitely do believe me, then.”

A brow rose. “And why shouldn’t I?”

“Most folks wouldn’t. The