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

Aunt Ginny and Dusty stood beside him.

“I still wish you’d let me ride with you, sir,” Dusty said. “Two’s better than one, considering the number of them raiders.”

“Someone has to stay here with Aunt Ginny and Bree. Fred’s a good man, but he’s no gunhawk.”

“And I am.”

“It’s no insult. That word applies to me, too. And to Zack.”

Johnny stepped down from the porch, and swung into the saddle. “When Josh comes back, don’t let him come riding after me. If I don’t come back, don’t come looking for me. Stay here, defend this place, and keep the women safe.”

“I’ll take care of things, sir.”

Johnny sat in the saddle, looking at him. Really looking at him. It was unbelievable, but the way he stood, the way he wore his gun. Even the look on his face. The set of his jaw. And there was no denying he believed what he said, Johnny realized. He had been ready to defend this place with Hunter and Fred – if the raiders had struck, this place would have been transformed into a battlefield. No con man would risk his life like that, considering that Johnny had so little to offer him materially. This ranch was the largest in the immediate area, and they were comfortable, but they were by no means wealthy. There were cattle barons in Texas and California that made the McCabes look like pikers.

My son, Johnny thought. The son I never got a chance to know. And here I am, riding off into the mountains to scout those raiders. One man, one tired old man, against all of them. I may not come back.

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’” Johnny found himself saying. “Any son of mine calls me Pa.”

“Yessir,” Dusty said, then amended that. “Yes, Pa.”

Ginny was smiling, and her eyes were glistening a bit. “Be safe, John. And do come back.”

He said, “Keep tonight’s coffee hot for me.”

And he turned Thunder and was away.

On the return ride from Hunter’s, Josh had found himself still not ready to confront anyone at the house. So, he had turned off the trail, and through the woods toward a little creek he knew of. Rabbit now grazed contentedly in the tall grass growing beside the water. Josh had picked a few handfuls of raspberries, as he had had no breakfast, and now, judging by the almost overhead position of the sun above, he was overdue for lunch. However, filling your belly with only wild fruit can have an unsettling effect. A few cramps just below his rib cage had told him to slow down, so he followed the berries with a couple mouthfuls of cold mountain water, then lied down in the grass.

He had discovered this little creek when he was eleven years old, out riding about when he could escape from Aunt Ginny and her studies. Pa probably knew about it. Pa knew every square foot of this valley. But Josh had never mentioned it to anyone because he wanted it to be his secret place. Back then, he had sat in the grass overlooking the water and talked to Ma, and imagined in his mind maybe she could hear him. And who knew? Maybe it was like Pa said, the body can die away, but the spirit continues. Maybe she really did hear him.

As the years went by, and Aunt Ginny turned the responsibilities of his education over to Pa, Josh found less time to visit this little creek, and he began to dismiss his visits with Ma as little more than sentiment and imagination.

He had brought a girl here once, when he was seventeen. The daughter of one of the farmers who were plowing the earth on the other side of McCabe Gap. May Beth Harrington. She was fifteen, and knew how to ride a horse well, which surprised Josh. He had little respect for farming as a rule, or any work you couldn’t do from the back of a horse, but she rode almost as well as Bree.

There had been other girls before May Beth, daughters of ranchers from the area who might attend a barn dance, and Josh would do-se-do with them, and then maybe receive a kiss before the night was over. But May Beth was his first he had taken things beyond a kiss with. He smiled at the memory. They had spent the afternoon in this tall grass, two young lovers under the warmth of a late spring sun.

As they lied in each other’s arms, Josh felt like all the world was filled with wonder, and he had never felt more centered or calm inside. This business of carrying on his shoulders the weight of being Pa’s son, for a while, seemed somehow kind of minimal. He could imagine maybe building a small cabin up here, he and May Beth, and giving Pa lots of grandchildren. And operating the ranch side-by-side with Pa, until Pa began to get on in years, then Josh would take over the operation, and this cabin he had built for May Beth and himself would become the ranch’s headquarters.

But oddly, after that afternoon, he found his affections for May Beth began to oddly dissipate. He would think of that memorable afternoon, but he increasingly more seldom actually thought of May Beth herself. And at the next barn dance, he found her affections for him were less than might be expected, too. She was dancing with another cowboy, laughing, with eyes only for him, and Josh found he did not mind too much. He did manage one dance with her, but all she would do was smile with a hint of blush, talk about the price of corn and he talked about the price of beef, and then when the song ended, she was back with her new cowboy, and Josh’s only concern was joining some of the other men in a ride to Hunter’s for some cold beer.

There hadn’t