The Long Trail (The McCabes Book 1)

by Brad Dennison

  Once behind corner of the house, he flattened his back against the wall and drew his pistol. He peered back from around the corner at the battle. A rider had apparently seen him afoot and was riding toward the corner of the house. Josh brought his arm to full extension, and with one shot from his Colt Navy dislodged the man from the saddle.

  From his window, Dusty had seen Josh fall, but could do nothing to help without charging face-first into the raiders. One rider charged after Josh, but then was knocked from his saddle from a bullet that came from Josh’s direction, so Dusty figured Josh must have survived the fall.

  Three riders galloped off to the right beyond Dusty’s sight, and Dusty thought they might be trying for the east side of the house to see if it was unprotected, which it was.

  “The east side!” Johnny called out, showing his thinking was moving along the same path as Dusty’s. “Cover it while I cover the front!”

  Dusty went to the window nearest Pa’s desk at the wall to his right. He had no time to open it. Raising his rifle like a club, he drove the stock through the glass, then readied the gun for firing as the three riders outside completed their ride along the east side of the house, whirled their horses around, and charged at the windows.

  One raised a torch, and Dusty knew the intention was to throw it through a window and start the house burning. Dusty squeezed off a shot from his Spencer, and caught the rider in the stomach. The man folded and fell from the saddle, the torch going with him.

  A second rider fired a shot toward Dusty’s window, which sent Dusty ducking.

  The bullet caught Johnny in the ribcage, spinning him around. Before he could fully regain his footing, another bullet from the ranch yard caught him in the chest, and he dropped to his knees.

  “Pa!” Dusty called out, and ran to his father’s side.

  Zack fired until his pistol was empty. He tossed it aside and pulled his second hand gun, when his horse was shot out from under him. He managed to roll free as the horse hit the ground – had one foot been caught in a stirrup, he might have been trapped beneath the animal. He scrambled to his feet, surrounded by chaos, men swinging empty rifles like clubs. One man standing beside Ramon caught a bullet in the chest. The bullet exited through his back and took a spurt of blood with it. Zack fired at the man he thought had done the shooting, though in this bedlam, he couldn’t be sure.

  A bullet caught Zack behind the left shoulder. It felt like a club had struck him, and it spun him around so he faced the rider who had shot him. Zack squeezed the trigger of his pistol and emptied the man’s saddle.

  Ginny stood with Bree in the flickering light of a lantern that stood on a small table in the root cellar. She could not possibly hear Dusty’s shout over the roar of the gunfire, but somehow - she could not explain how - she had.

  “Wait here,” she said to Bree, and climbed the ladder.

  Ginny Brackston had never been a physically strong woman, but she put her back against the trap door and pushed. It lifted slowly, and she felt her knees wobble, but she did not relent. She forced the door upward. The table slid away as the door rose. She climbed out and into the kitchen, and let the door slam down behind her.

  Fred was at the back door, firing. He did not see her, and could not even hear the slam of the trap door over the deafening gunfire.

  She hurried into parlor. Johnny was lying on his back, with Dusty kneeling at his side.

  Dusty had forgotten about the third rider, who was now at the window by Johnny’s desk, a pistol in his hand.

  “Dusty!” Ginny called. “Behind you!”

  Dusty wheeled, gripping his rifle at hip level, and the rifle barked, and the man’s head snapped back, his head split as though it had been struck with an ax.

  A man leaped from his horse onto Zack, pulling him to the ground. Zack’s pistol came free of his grip, and his left arm would no longer move from the bullet it had taken, but he raised a foot and kicked the man away.

  The man leaped to his feet and faced Zack with a bowie knife in his hand. And the man was smiling, his big white teeth catching the moonlight. His hat had fallen away and long shaggy hair tossed about in the mountain winds. He was smiling! To him, this battle was nothing more than sport. One of the most dangerous men, Johnny had always said, was the man who killed simply because he enjoyed it.

  The man lunged at Zack, who could do nothing more than jump back to avoid the blade.

  Then, a man called out, “Let’s get out of here!”

  The man with the knife turned and ran, until he was met by another rider who gripped his hand and swung him up and behind him on the horse, and they galloped away with the other fleeing riders. Of the fifteen who had attacked the house, Zack counted only six riding away.

  Zack groped along the ground in the darkness until he found his pistol, which contained only two more shots. He let both go in the direction of the retreating raiders, and hoped at least one found its mark, but did not think it had.

  Of the men who had been positioned at the stand of alders with Zack, one had been shot in the head and was lying on his back in the grass, with unseeing eyes staring toward the stars. Another was down with a leg he had sprained when his horse had been shot out from under him. A third had been shot clean through the chest and was dead. Only Zack and Ramon were on their feet.

  The nine raiders who had not ridden away were lying in the grass, some twisted as though they had gone writhing and kicking into death, others lying as though they were merely asleep.

  Zack remembered a trick he had seen a Comanche warrior pull back in Texas. The warrior had hidden among the bodies of his fellow warriors who had been shot in battle. He remained still and pretended to be dead so he could escape later. Zack wanted to make sure all of these raiders were dead and not playing possum. His gun was empty, and with his left arm now losing all sensation, he knew he wouldn’t be able to reload the gun, so he looked to one of the men from his ranch, who was walking over. A man he knew only as Koller.

  Zack said, “Do you have any shots left?”

  “Yeah. I just reloaded.”

  “Give me your gun.”

  Koller handed over a Colt forty-four, and with it in his right hand, Zack went to the downed raiders, driving the toe of a boot firmly into the ribs of each man.

  “Boss,” Ramon said. “You’re bleeding all down your back.”

  “Yeah. I’ll tend to it.”

  When Zack was satisfied all the raiders were dead, he handed the pistol back to Koller.

  Ramon said, “Hey, Zack. There’s someone running out from the house.”

  Zack looked toward the house to see the running man, a Winchester in his hand. His face was darkened by the night, but his white shirt was clearly visible, and a vertical stripe at each shoulder indicated suspenders.

  “Fred?” Zack asked.

  “Zack! Johnny’s been hit. Bad.”

  Zack felt the breath catch in his chest. He had always known the moment would come for him and Johnny, when one of them would have to look down on the dead body of the other. He found himself suddenly almost weak-kneed at the question he had to ask. “Is he still alive?”

  Fred nodded gravely. “But I don’t think he’ll live the night.”

  Despite the weariness that was now creeping into Zack’s muscles and bones, and the weakness he was starting to feel as blood leaked from the bullet wound in his shoulder and soaked his shirt down his back, he burst into a sprint for the house.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “We’ve got to get him upstairs to his bedroom,” Aunt Ginny said, and instructed Josh to take his father by the shoulders and Dusty to take the feet, and they lifted him and started up the stairs.

  “Gently, boys,” she said.

  Once he was in bed, Hunter managed to work Johnny’s shirt free while Ginny pushed a handkerchief against the two wounds in an attempt to suppress the bleeding. Zack stood by the bed, unable to help because his left arm was now entirely useless.

  Bree stood beside h
im, pleading. “Zack, you’ve got to come downstairs and let someone look at your shoulder. You’re bleeding all down your shirt.”

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  “Listen,” she said firmly, letting the sound of her voice make it known she was a McCabe, “we can’t have you keeling over from a loss of blood. We got too much to handle right now.”

  Her gray eyes were glaring at him. He couldn’t help but let a snicker escape. He said, “You’re your father’s daughter, all right. Okay, I’ll go downstairs and get my shoulder looked at. But keep me posted.”

  She nodded.

  “He’s shot badly,” Ginny muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “I’ve seen him take a bullet before, more than once, but never like this.”

  Bree’s fussing at Zack had given her a distraction, but now she simply stood and looked at her father lying in the bed. His eyes were shut, and his face had taken on a grayish color.

  Bree said, “Has he woken up at all?”

  Ginny shook her head. “Dusty was at his side first. He said his eyes fluttered a couple of times, then he was out.”

  Ginny tossed the blood soaked cloth to the floor, then untied her apron and began using it to push against the bullet hole in the front of his chest. It was low, just below the ribs. This seemed to be the one bleeding the most profusely. The front of her dress was streaked with blood. Bree was pushing a cloth into the bullet hole in the side of her father’s ribcage. Her sleeve was soaked with blood from the wrist to the elbow.

  Dusty and Josh were standing at the doorway. One of Josh’s shoulders was spotted with blood and his shirt sleeve had been cut by a bullet, but the bleeding had stopped. His face was smeared with dust.

  “This isn’t working,” Ginny said. “He’s bleeding too damned fast.”

  “We’re going to need a doctor,” Hunter said.

  Dusty asked, “Is there one in town?”

  “No,” Josh said. “There’s one in Helena, I guess, but it’s too far away. We won’t be able to get him back here in time.”

  “There is Granny Tate,” Ginny said.

  “I’ll go get her,” and Josh left the doorway.

  “Sabrina, I’ll need you to tear up some sheets for use as bandages. We have to control this bleeding.”

  Bree hesitated a moment, staring at her father, then in a quiet voice said, “Yes, ma’am,” and headed for the linen closet at the end of the corridor.

  Josh strode for the stairway, the knee he had injured now feeling numb and strangely afloat. He had also wrenched his right shoulder. Must have been in the fall, he figured. He could barely lift his hand above his gunbelt. And his shoulder smarted from where the bullet had grazed it. But none of this mattered. He had a job to do, to ride into town and bring Granny Tate back. Any son of Johnny McCabe should be able to do what was needed, regardless of any personal pain. It was no less than Pa himself would have done.

  But as he started down the stairs, his knee buckled. He could not bring his right hand up to grasp the railing and keep himself from falling and he went down, driving his cheekbone into the railing.

  Dusty was at his side. “Josh, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Leave me alone.”

  Josh tried to push himself to his feet, but his knee wouldn’t support any weight.

  “You can’t go after that granny woman,” Dusty said. “You can’t even stand up.”

  “I have to,” Josh growled.

  “You fell off the roof, Josh. Stay here and rest up. I’ll go.”

  “No!”

  “There ain’t no choice. We have to get that granny woman here, before Pa bleeds to death. And you can’t even get into a saddle.”

  Josh hated to admit it, but Dusty was right. Josh nearly trembled with fury at himself for not being able to get the job done.

  “All right,” he said. “Go. Her son-in-law does some blacksmithing in town, and some farming. They have a small cabin not a half mile north of town.”

  “Let me help you down the stairs,” Dusty said, hooking an arm around Josh’s back.

  “No. I’ll be all right. Go get Granny Tate.”

  Dusty hurried down the stairs out through the kitchen, and found Fred and the men were carrying off the bodies of the fallen raiders.

  Fred said, “Don’t really know what to do with ‘em right now, but we can’t leave ‘em laying around in the front yard.”

  “Maybe in the morning, we can search the bodies for any identification,” Dusty said. “And if there ain’t none, McCabe Town must have some sort of boot hill.”

  “How’s your Pa?” Fred asked.

  “Not well. They’ve sent me to go get Granny Tate.”

  “Want me to round up a mount?”

  “No. I can do it. But thanks.”

  Dusty found a rope in the stable, and went out to the edge of the woods beyond the meadow where a horse was standing in the moonlight. The entire remuda was awake, having been scattered by the noise of the battle. Fred and the men would probably be days rounding them all up, but this animal hadn’t roamed far.

  “Easy, boy,” Dusty said as he approached, not knowing if this horse was indeed a gelding, as in the darkness he could make out only its rough silhouette. It could very well have been a mare, but most men rode geldings.

  The horse was skittish, raising its head as Dusty approached. Dusty stopped moving, but continued to speak in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Easy, boy. Easy. Ain’t gonna hurt you, boy.”

  The horse lowered its head again, and Dusty started forward. He began spinning the rope in a wide, slow loop. At the sound of the rope whispering in the night air, the horse raised its head again.

  “Easy, boy, easy.”

  The horse turned suddenly. After all of the noise earlier in the night, he wasn’t going to stick around, but Dusty threw the loop and dropped it over its head.

  The horse pulled a bit, then reared back, clawing at the air with its fore hooves.

  Dusty pulled the rope tightly. “Easy, boy.”

  The horse dropped back to all fours, and Dusty walked over and stroked its nose with one hand. “See, boy? Ain’t no one going to hurt you.”

  He led the horse back to the stable, where in the light of an oil lamp he discovered it to be a buckskin with one white stocking and a white mane, and it was indeed a gelding. He quickly strapped his own saddle to its back, and with the bridle in place, led it back outside where he stepped into the saddle and was gone into the night.

  Ginny was no stranger to treating bullet wounds. One time, Johnny had been in a skirmish with rustlers who had attempted to take some of the herd at night, and the men had found him lying in the grass with a bullet crease at one temple. Another time, she had dug a bullet from his shoulder. But it had not been buried very deeply. Nothing like now.

  She sat in a rocker, her eyes fixed on him. A lamp on a stand by the bed was casting a yellow glow to the room, and in this lighting she thought he seemed so gaunt. His cheeks looked hollow, his eyes sunken in. His color was taking on a grayish hue. She had taken a needle and thread to both wounds to close them, and the bleeding had almost entirely stopped. Tied into place were bed sheets she and Bree had ripped into makeshift bandages. But she knew he was far from out of the proverbial woods. She had not said anything with Bree present, but there was a good chance he was still bleeding internally, and stopping something like that was beyond her expertise.

  The first bullet had struck his ribcage, cracking one rib and probably fragmenting in the process. She was certain none of the fragments had pierced a lung, because his breathing was even and nothing bubbled from the wound – thank God for small favors. The second bullet had actually entered at the base of his chest, just below the rib cage, where she knew the esophagus, stomach and the tail end of the liver came together in a sort of three-corners country. For the bullet to have not torn through at least one of them would probably be hoping for too much.

  Bree materialized at the doorway. Dark circles had
formed beneath her eyes and the color had drained from her face. A combination of fear and weariness. But she had not wavered. Had not broken into tears. Her father’s strength was in her.

  “Aunt Ginny, why don’t you go down to the kitchen and have something to eat? I can sit with Pa.”

  Ginny shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I’ll stay here.”

  Bree stepped into the room. “Aunt Ginny, we’re going to need you to be strong, and you have to take care of yourself in order to be strong. I’ll sit with Pa.”

  “Where’s Josh?”

  “He went outside to help the men.”

  “In his condition? He can barely walk.”

  “He needed to be doing something. He thought he would go crazy just sitting downstairs, waiting.”

  Ginny nodded, then sat in silence for a moment. Bree stood her ground at the doorway. She was not moving, not giving an inch. Maybe she had a little of her maternal grandfather in her, too.

  With a sigh, Ginny decided to concede, and rose to her feet. As she passed Bree, she stopped and gave her niece a kiss on the cheek. “If anything happens, anything at all, you call for me.”

  “I won’t hesitate.”

  Aunt Ginny stepped from the room, weariness more present in her sagging shoulders than she realized was visible, and a certain authority normally in her step was now missing.

  Bree was going to sit down in the rocker, but then saw Pa’s pistol belt was lying in one corner.

  “Well, we can’t have that,” she said aloud. “If you wake up and your guns aren’t within reach, you’ll raise the roof.”

  She fetched the belt, marveling at the weight of it and how her father not only carried it effortlessly, but seemed to feel more natural with this cumbersome thing buckled about his hips than not.

  She buckled the belt together, then slung it over a bedpost at the head of the bed. Then she sat at the bed’s edge, and brought one hand to Pa’s face. He did not flinch as she touched him, and she noticed how warm he was. Fever. Infection from the wounds.