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

He had stormed out of the kitchen without even taking the time to fetch his hat. The wind caught his long hair, straightening it out behind him as he rode. Rabbit wasn’t to balk at the opportunity to stretch his legs. He reached with his long stride into a mile eating gallop, and soon the meadow at the valley floor was behind them, and they were cutting through the back trail that began at the southwest corner of the valley, and would come out behind Hunter’s saloon.

At first, Josh wasn’t sure where he would go, as long as it was far from the McCabe kitchen. But then, as he rode, he felt a craving, a gnawing inside him, and realized he still had not yet had his morning coffee. Hunter’s, he thought. Hunter could make good trail coffee and should have a pot going.

Damn, was he mad! He could not believe Aunt Ginny would not only invite a total stranger to sleep in the house, without even so much as consulting any of them. Sure, the house was her domain, which she was constantly throwing in everyone’s face every time anyone disagreed with her. But there was such a thing as common courtesy.

Hell. If that gunhawk ain’t going to sleep in the bunkhouse, Josh thought, then I am. I’m not going to sleep in that house until he is out of there.

He followed the narrow trail, at times no larger than a game trail, between two steep ridges, and then the land fell away at either side, and he found himself in McCabe Gap, the back wall of Hunter’s saloon two hundred yards before him. Josh rode around to the front of the building, dismounted, and tethered the animal to the front hitching rail.

He strode into the barroom, pushing aside the swinging doors with his shoulders, driving his heels into the floor. He found Hunter behind the bar, wiping the dust from dry glasses with a white cloth. He looked up at the sound of the swinging doors bursting open, then did a small double-take when he found it was Josh.

“Good morning, Josh,” he said. “I don’t usually see you or your father at this time of the morning.”

“Any coffee left?” Josh asked.

Hunter nodded. “Let me get you a cup.”

He set the glass and cloth down on the bar, grabbed a couple mugs, then stepped out and to the stove at the center of the room, where the coffee pot waited. He filled the cups, and handed one to Josh.

Josh knew Hunter realized something was wrong. Here Josh was, no hat. You almost never saw a cattleman with no hat. And the angry way he burst into the barroom. But far be it for Hunter to ask probing questions. He seemed to like approaching an issue from the side, and he did so now. “So, how’d it go, last night?”

“What do you mean?” Josh took a sip of coffee.

“You know what I mean.”

“He came directly to our place from here, didn’t he?”

Hunter nodded. “He’s a good kid, Josh.”

Josh leveled a gaze at him as though he wanted to bore holes through Hunter with his eyes. “How can you say that? He rides in here, out of nowhere, he’s got ‘gunhawk’ written all over him, and he claims, out of the blue, to be Pa’s son.”

“He’s also got ‘McCabe’ written all over him. Did you take a good look at him, Josh? He’s the spitting image of your father. The way he walks, even the way he carries that gun at his side.”

Josh winced as Hunter spoke. Why did this anger him so?

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I guess so. Maybe. But you can find people who might resemble someone you know. Doesn’t mean they’re related.”

Hunter shook his head. “No. Don’t necessarily mean that. But too many coincidences, I guess. The way he talks. The look in his eye. The fact that your Pa could have conceived a child at about that time, in the very town, with the very kind of woman Dusty claims to be his mother. An awful lot of coincidences, don’t you think?”

“No. He’s just an opportunist, trying to cash in on a name. If Pa wasn’t famous, and didn’t have the biggest spread in the area, I doubt we’d ever have heard of this drifter. He would have gone somewheres else, and tried some other game.”

“I don’t think you really believe that. He didn’t have to risk his life that night, helping Fred and me protect Aunt Ginny and Bree.”

“And just where did he learn all that? From what I understand he seems to know an awful lot about that sort of thing.”

“I never asked. Just like your Pa never asked me no questions.” Hunter took a swig of coffee. “What’s bothering you, Josh? Aunt Ginny’s convinced, and so is Zack and me. Take a good look at him.”

Josh leaned against the bar, his eyes aiming straight ahead, but not really seeing. He took a swallow of coffee.

“Even better, Josh, take a good look at yourself.”

Now Josh turned his gaze to Hunter. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Is it that you don’t believe him, or you don’t want to believe him?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Hunter.”

“Don’t I?”

Josh drained the cup, and set the cup down on the bar. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“It’s on the house, like always.”

“Thanks for that, at least.”

“Look, Josh. You’re like a son to me. How could you not be, after all we’ve been through? Your family and me? I don’t look lightly at any of this. I had a chance to work with him for a while, and I got to know him. Take the time to get to know him, yourself.”

Josh wanted to inform Hunter just how wrong the big man was. But he found the words eluded him. Instead, he just turned, and walked out.

TWENTY-ONE

Johnny McCabe stood on the porch, his stetson now pulled tightly down over his temples. The chocolate colored stallion was