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

washing, and the scraggly beginnings of a beard that had begun at his chin and each side of his jaw were now gone. He wore a freshly laundered shirt that was a faded blue, and clean levis. Clothes he had bought at Franklin’s, on Hunter’s tab.

“Mornin’,” Dusty said a little sheepishly. He had heard the sound of harsh words coming from the kitchen, and now was uncomfortably aware of the silence.

Josh looked from Aunt Ginny to his father, his own ire beginning to rise. “What’s he doin’ here? I thought he was sleeping in the bunkhouse. He should be eating with the men.”

Johnny said, “You’re aunt and I were just discussing this.”

Dusty cast his gaze downward, hoping by not looking at anyone, his discomfort at being talked about would diminish. It didn’t.

“He’s a guest in this house, and he’s here for breakfast,” Aunt Ginny said. To John, she said, “You’re forgetting something. You and I made an agreement long ago. This household is mine to run.”

“Not in this house!” Josh roared.

“I don’t recall you ever having a say about who stays in this house, and who doesn’t,” Ginny replied.

Johnny leveled his gaze at Josh. “And we don’t shout at each other in this house.”

Josh slammed his cup on the counter top, black coffee slopping over the rim, and he turned and stormed to the door.

“Joshua,” Ginny said. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll have my coffee elsewhere,” and he was out the door.

Dusty said, “I’m really sorry. This is all my fault. I didn’t mean to cause this kind of thing.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ginny said. “Sit and have some breakfast.”

“No, I’d better not.”

Johnny nodded. “Yes, you should. Go ahead and have some breakfast. Regardless of how anyone feels, you were invited to stay in this house, and this family is not going to forget its manners.”

Dusty didn’t feel any more at ease. Regardless, he sat.

“Dusty,” the old man said. “I have to admit, I don’t know what to think. I mean, I can’t find any holes in your story. But I need more than that. Some sort of real proof.”

Dusty said, an idea occurring to him, “If you were to prove that you’re your father’s son, could you do it? I mean, if, say, in a court of law, could you actually prove it?”

Johnny cast a glance at Ginny. “What kind of nonsense is this?”

But Ginny was intrigued. “Could you, John? Answer the question.”

“What kind of question is that?”

Dusty said, “If a judge ordered you to present real proof that you’re your father’s son, could you do it?”

Johnny’s brows dropped questioningly, reflecting that he was not sure if found this perplexing, or simply absurd. He glanced to Ginny again, who was clearly enjoying this, then back to the boy who was claiming to be his son.

“Well,” he said. “I had a birth certificate, back in Pennsylvania. It was in my mother’s things. It was mailed to me when she died, but it got lost in the mail, which is not surprising, traveling all the way from Pennsylvania, most of the way by stagecoach. But my brothers know. If I had to prove I was my father’s son, their testimonies would be enough.”

“Where are your brothers now?”

“Well, two are in California. And one, Josiah, I haven’t seen in years.”

“If you had to prove to me, right now, as we sit here, that you’re your father’s son, could you do it?”

“Well..,” he looked to Ginny, who was smirking. Then he looked back to the boy again. “All right. You’ve made your point. You can’t really prove you’re my son, but I can’t prove you aren’t. That doesn’t make you my son, but it means maybe we should all take a harder look at all of this before we make a decision. But it’ll have to wait for now. We have bigger problems on hand. You’re welcome to stay for the time being, and you can have the guest room, like Aunt Ginny said. But you’re to be considered a working member of the ranch. Working right alongside Josh and me, and the men.”

Dusty said, “I’d have it no other way.”

Aunt Ginny was looking at Johnny curiously, waiting for him to address the bigger problems he had mentioned.

He knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. In response to her unasked question, he said, “Last night, after you were all asleep, I suppose after Dusty had come back in and was given the guest room, I found myself awake and unable to get back to sleep, and I went down to the front porch to smoke my pipe.”

“Yes,” she said, “I heard you. I was having trouble sleeping.”

“I don’t wonder. Anyway, I saw in the distance, maybe eight miles away, a campfire. A big one.”

“The raiders?” Dusty asked. “They’re back?”

“I don’t think they went too far away in the first place. They had ridden out beyond the valley for a while, probably scouting the area. Checking the size of each ranch and farm. They’ll be after livestock, horses and cattle, and ammunition. They’ll want to hit the biggest spread in the area.”

“And that would be this place,” Ginny said.

Dusty nodded. “With a place this size, a group of their number should be able to take all they need in one strike.”

Johnny said, “I think our problems have just begun.”

TWENTY

Josh went to the stable, grabbed a rope, then strode out to the remuda and dropped a loop over Rabbit’s neck, and led the horse back to the stable. From there, his jaw set tightly, he dropped his saddle onto Rabbit’s back, pulled the cinch tightly, and led the horse out into the ranch yard.

“Mornin’, Josh,” Fred called from the bunkhouse door. “Hey, where you off to in such a hurry? I could have fetched a horse for you.”

Without a word, Josh curled the fingers of his left hand about the saddle horn, leaped into the saddle, and with a quick snap of his heels to Rabbit’s ribs, tore out of the ranch