The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1)

by Brad Dennison

  No, if he was to ride to Montana, he had to do it now. Then, once he had met Johnny McCabe, there would be Oregon. He supposed he could he could catch up to Haley and explain the situation, so she would know how he felt and not be left wondering, but he knew if he looked into those eyes one more time, he would never be able to ride away from her, and he would always be left wondering about his father.

  He decided he would ride to Montana first. He would cut overland, avoiding trails. This would give him a more direct route, and get him to Montana sooner so he could meet his father, and then be on to Oregon.

  He considered writing her a letter. Leave it here at the way station for the next stage bound eastward. It would eventually get to her, probably, though it might take months. Mail delivery in the west was extremely slow, and he did not even have her address. Miss Haley Anderson, Oregon, was all he had. He could add, in care of her father. Dusty had not gotten the man’s first name, but he was sure he could get it from Timmons.

  But then he dismissed the idea of doing this. Even though Patterson had taught Dusty how to read well enough that he could decipher the flowing script of Haley’s letter, his own handwriting was awkward, like a child’s compared to her own. He would be embarrassed for her to see how limited his education was.

  No, he decided. He would not write a letter. He would ride to Montana as quickly as he could. He would leave this afternoon. As soon as his horse was rested. And then, once he had met his father, and maybe spent a few days and got to know him a little bit, he would be off to Oregon.

  Was he a fool? Probably. After all, what might be developing between him and Haley came along rarely. Once in a lifetime, and that was if you were lucky. Would his decision leave him with regrets? Maybe. Only time would tell. But he knew what he had to do.

  He accepted a free meal of beans, bread and hot coffee from Timmons, then rode out, bound for Montana.

  PART TWO

  JOSH

  FIVE

  Pa had ridden out two weeks earlier. A cattle auction was being held in eastern Montana on a large spread near Virginia City, and he intended to look over the stock. If he found any that might be a good addition to the McCabe herd, he would offer a bid. If his bid was good, he would hire some hands and bring the new stock back to the McCabe range.

  Pa never traveled by stage coach. He would instead saddle up and light out on horseback, seldom even taking established trails. He would often shoot his supper and roast it over a small fire. He would sleep under the open sky, almost never in a hotel room. Aunt Ginny, with her tiny spectacles riding low on her nose, and her brows dropped in a perpetual frown, a reprimand always cocked and ready to go, told him he would get himself killed doing fool stunts like this. Civilized people rode stage coaches when doing extensive traveling, and trains if they were available. But Pa told her riding through the wilderness, free of the trails and roads and all of the trappings of civilization, made him feel truly alive. It was the way man was intended to live, he would say. This would usually get a reaction of, “Oh, poppy-cock,” and Pa would laugh.

  This discussion had been replayed more times than Josh could ever count. It had been going on when he was a small kid, and now he was twenty and it was still going on.

  Pa was a calm man, seldom speaking sternly, but instead had a sort of quiet power about him. Presence, Aunt Ginny called it. Leading came naturally to him, and people seemed to spontaneously flock about him, almost looking to him for guidance. The more demanding a situation, the more they turned to him. But when he was riding in the wilderness, a sort of serenity fell over him. He still had the presence Aunt Ginny spoke of, but his eyes got a faraway look. Almost like he was in some sort of quiet communion with the mountains, the forests, the rolling grasslands. Josh did not quite understand this, but he wanted to. Yet, he also somehow knew it could not be learned. It was something he had to let come to him.

  This was a big time for Josh, this time of Pa’s absence. For the previous five years, Josh had been taking an active role in the operation of the family’s ranch, working alongside Pa and the men. But this time, for the first time, Pa had left Josh in command.

  Usually Josh accompanied Pa on business trips, meeting with prospective buyers such as mining company owners or sometimes the U.S. Army, or occasionally attending a livestock auction. Pa’s right-hand-man, Zack Johnson, who had ridden alongside Pa in the Texas Rangers many years earlier, would take care of the ranch while Pa and Josh were away. But a year earlier, Zack had decided he would like to start his own spread, and so he had staked out a claim at the other side of the valley and began his own cattle operation.

  Pa had not taken any of his journeys during the past year, but Josh knew he eventually would, and wondered who he would entrust the ranch to while he was gone. It had been at the supper table a few nights ago that Pa had announced his plan.

  “You won’t be goin’ with me this time, Josh. With Zack gone, I need someone here to look after things. You’re doing the work of a man. That makes you, in my eyes, a man. The ranch will be yours until I get back.”

  The fork had almost fallen out of Josh’s hands. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  Josh reflected on all of this as he rode along. He had informed Aunt Ginny the evening before that he would be riding out to visit the cabin where the ranch’s line riders were based. Pa sometimes referred to them as the floating outfit. Josh told her he would probably be spending the night at the cabin.

  The floaters were ramrodded by a cowhand who had ridden for Pa maybe nine or ten years, and who went by the name of Reno. On the frontier, you did not question a man’s name. He told you what he was called. You accepted it, and never inquired further. Reno was a good man, but even so, Pa would ride out once a week to check on things. He felt it served to reinforce the fact that this ranch was a hands-on operation. The owner was also the main ramrod.

  Reno was a good man, but he was known to drink a little too much. And when he was drinking, he was not such a good man. Get some whiskey into him, and he tended to throw responsibility out the window. This was maybe in the back of Pa’s mind when he rode out to check on Reno and the boys, but he never voiced the concern. When Josh mentioned it to him once, all Pa said was he and Reno had an understanding.

  Josh tended to ride out to the line cabin, make the customary appearance. Reinforce the fact that this was a hands-on operation. Maybe share in the work for a day or two, then return to the house. Nothing less than Pa would have done.

  The night before Pa had ridden out, he stood with Josh on the front porch, overlooking five miles of meadow stretching out before them, forming the valley floor.

  “This ranch will be yours one day,” Pa had said, a smoldering pipe in one hand. “I want you to treat it like it’s yours while I’m gone.”

  “What’s the secret to being a good leader, Pa?”

  Pa shrugged. “I don’t know. Most of it is something you’re born with, I guess. I’ve always seemed to fall into that role without even trying. I think you have those qualities, too. But the captain I rode under when I was with the Texas Rangers gave me some advice. Treat your men with respect, be honest with them, never talk down to them, and never ask them to do something you wouldn’t do yourself. I was the ramrod of two other cow outfits before I started my own, and I’ve always applied those rules to my men. And I’ve done well.”

  Josh was about Pa’s height, though more slightly built. He could move more quickly, but his wrists and forearms were more slender, and his shoulders didn’t have as much spread. He had never been able to muster the bull-strength of Pa, and doubted he ever would.

  Josh’s hair was the color of corn silk, which he had gotten from his mother, and he wore it long, falling to his shoulders, like Pa did. Pa, Zack Johnson, and Josh’s Uncle Josiah had once wintered in the valley with a band of Shoshones, a year or so before Pa had married Ma and long before Pa had moved the family here. It was from them Pa acquired his preference for longer hair, wearing it pulled back away
from his face, and letting it fall to his shoulders, and sometimes tying it in a tail Indian-style.

  Aunt Ginny was usually ready to go off on a scolding frenzy, and Pa’s hair had been the subject a number of times throughout the years.

  “Good God, John, you look like some sort of half-civilized mountain man.”

  “That’s what I am, Ginny,” he would reply, which always drew a chuckle from Josh and his sister Bree.

  Aunt Ginny’s consternation had settled on Josh more than once after he had started growing his hair long – at first it was to be like Pa, and now he had simply gotten used to it. Aunt Ginny was forced to admit, though, there were worse things than for a boy to try to be like his father.

  Like Pa, Josh was clean-shaven. The Shoshone had a name for a man with a beard. Dog-face. Pa and the others had ridden into their camp with a couple months worth of whiskers decorating their jaws, but once he had found himself on the receiving end of that name, he sharpened his bowie knife to a razor’s edge and shaved away his beard. Though, Josh found that with his own light hair and complexion, not much grew along his jaw to shave, except for some light fuzz.

  Josh wore a flat crowned hat with a brim that was becoming floppy with wear, and at his right side was holstered a Navy Colt.

  Colt was the more popular brand of pistol, but among the old cap-and-ball revolvers, anyone who knew anything about shooting preferred a Remington for its superior balance and aim. Pa carried two of them, one holstered at either side. Josh had been intending to save his money for a Remington, but a couple years earlier Colt had introduced a new pistol, the Peacemaker, which was equal to the Remington in balance and accuracy, but quicker and easier to load. To buy one of those was now his goal. Yet, no matter what he used for a pistol, he doubted his draw or marksmanship would ever be the match of Pa’s.

  When Pa drew, his gun seemed to almost leap into his hand, and his bullet would find his target almost like it had eyes and was seeking it out. Pa’s skills with a gun seemed like he was putting no effort into it at all, as though the gun was simply his to command. He had said it felt more like simply letting his draw or his shooting happen, rather than making it happen.

  Josh found being the son of Johnny McCabe wasn’t easy. Not because of anything Pa ever said or done. But without even seeming to know it, the man cast a rather large shadow.

  As Josh rode along, he let his gaze travel slowly over the terrain ahead and to each side, and turned periodically to survey the ground he had just covered. He was not expecting trouble, but Pa had taught him to always be alert. This was wild land. Remote. The nearest law was days away by horseback. And even then, the lawman had local authority only, his jurisdiction ending at the edge of town.

  Josh had left behind the little valley they called home. He was now riding through long grassy hills that each covered a quarter mile of area, in a gradual rise to a rounded summit. Ahead, the land fell away to an even lower, longer series of hills. Behind him, visible when at the top of a grassy rise, were the foothills, now hazy with distance, and appearing dark due to the junipers and pines covering. Further back, the foothills would rise into forested ridges. It was in a valley amongst those ridges that the McCabe house stood.

  Josh rode a chestnut colored mustang with a blonde mane and two blonde stockings. The horse was small, not more than fourteen hands, but was mountain bred and could run all day. It was Josh’s first choice when going mustanging. The animal took naturally to pulling against a rope, which was beneficial when you were trying to hold a wild one at the other end of that rope after dropping a loop over its neck.

  Josh had been letting the horse have its head, and for this horse, having its head meant running. The horse loved to pound its hooves into the earth and let the miles roll by. Josh had not named the horse, but his sister, Bree, called it Rabbit because of its speed. Josh thought this was a stupid name, and his sister tended to be annoyingly cutesy too much of the time. Never-the-less, the name seemed to stick, and even Josh found himself, much to his own dismay, thinking of the horse by that damned name.

  Rabbit had been moving at almost a full gallop for the previous three miles, and wanted to do more, but Josh reined up at the top of a grassy rise. Rabbit pounded his hooves a bit in protest, and let out a snort, but Josh held the reins firmly and Rabbit acquiesced. Despite the dumb name, this horse had brass.

  Pa had said a good horse was often the difference between life and death out here on the remote frontier. Josh was more than willing to put his confidence in Rabbit.

  Rabbit was lathered from running, so Josh let him blow. As he sat in the saddle, Josh let his gaze drift across the countryside below. It was just beyond the base of the long hill that a patch of earth looked somehow disturbed. Torn up. Like the earth can sometimes be after a herd is driven through, or a large group of riders has passed by.

  Josh let Rabbit catch his wind for a few minutes more, then touched his heels to the horse’s ribs to start forward, but kept the horse to a walk. As he approached the base of the hill, he could see clearly the sod had indeed been torn up by hooves. Riders, many of them, had passed through recently.

  Before Josh had even learned how to read, he had been taught by Pa how to read sign. Pa claimed Josh had become one of the best trackers he had ever seen, though Josh knew Pa and Zack Johnson were still a few steps ahead of him.

  Josh gave a tug on the reins to stop Rabbit by the torn-up sod, and allowed himself time to study these tracks. Many riders, indeed. Exactly how many, he could not tell, as the tracks of one would cross over those of another, and obliterate part of the trail.

  Whenever he and Pa followed the trail of an animal, - they had trailed many an elk through the mountains simply for the practice - Pa would ask, “What can you tell me about the animal, just by looking at the tracks?”

  Josh asked himself this now. What could he learn about these riders, simply by looking at their trail?

  Well, they were not in a hurry. The horses were kept to a walk as they passed through – the hoofprints were too close together to have been made by running horses. At the very best, some of them might have been moving at a light trot. And they were all shod.

  Josh found himself curious. A large body of riders traveling through the grasslands a few miles east of the ranch house. There were no trails to follow out here; the nearest would be the stage route, which was eight or ten miles south. Sioux renegades maybe, but not too damned likely. The Sioux, who had been living freely when Pa first brought his family to Montana, were now confined to reservations and gradually coming to take on the ways of he white man, but few rode shod horses.

  Josh nudged Rabbit forward, keeping the horse to a slow walk as he examined the tracks a little further along. He had ridden but one hundred yards when he found a chunk of sod that had been torn completely free, and in the loose exposed earth was a track much more clear than those in the springy sod. An unshod hoof, and not that of a horse. The print of a cow. He also found, as he rode along further, not only horse droppings but some from cows, too.

  These men were running cattle, and this was McCabe range. Eighteen hundred head of cattle grazed this range, along with about two hundred head of Zack Johnson’s herd. Since Pa and Zack were considered themselves more brothers than friends, they charged no cost for sharing each other’s range. More than three hundred head of McCabe cattle were on Johnson range at this moment, and had been since spring round-up. They had not been separated, because what was the point?

  Josh could think of no good reason for this many riders out here in the remote hills. He wished he had brought a rifle along, but you normally don’t when you’re planning on working. A rifle sticking in the front of a saddle could easily snag a lariat. Josh decided he would follow the trail, but not come too close to those he followed. If it looked like trouble, he would fetch Reno and the boys before engaging the riders. There were a couple of rifles at the line camp.

  He estimated the tracks to be a day old. Partly by the condition of
the tracks, and partly by the look of the droppings. He figured if he rode at a leisurely pace, he would run no risk of accidentally catching up with them.

  The trail moved north for a couple of miles, then swung northwest, and then directly west and into the low wooded ridges. Further west within these hills was the valley Josh called home.

  He had not been long in the ridges when another trail from off to the northeast merged with the main one. Two riders, and two or three more cows.

  Shortly, he found the remains of a camp. In a depression between two low ridges were the blackened remnants of a large campfire. Off to one side, below a small pine, were the remains of a steer. Most of the choice cuts were gone, and what was left had been picked over by a mountain lion. And on the hide he found the brand of a letter M inside a roughly defined circle.

  This was definitely a McCabe steer.

  He turned his horse away, and he let him go at a shambling trot back along the trail. He would go to the line camp, get Reno and the boys, grab the rifles, and get those steers back. Reno was a large man, good with his fists, and though not fast with a pistol, he was a reasonably good shot. And more importantly, he had the kind of nerve that allowed him to keep his gunhand steady during a fight. A veteran of the late War Between the States, he had seen action. The other two, Tarley and Whitey, Josh knew less about, but they were good workers, and out here, you gave your loyalty to your employer, even if it meant taking up arms to defend the land or the herd. You rode for the brand.

  Now that Zack Johnson had his own spread, Reno was the McCabes’ best hand. When he was sober. Pa did not allow drinking on the job, and a couple years earlier he had found Reno with an open bottle in the bunkhouse during working hours. Whiskey tended to make Reno’s temper flare, but he discovered while he was physically stronger than Pa, and was an excellent scrapper, Pa could punch faster and was a smarter fighter. Pa left Reno on the bunkhouse floor with his face battered and bloody, one eye swollen shut, his nose broken. Reno had not allowed whiskey to interfere with his job since.