Jack knew, however, Cade was not going to back off. Jack didn’t really want him to.
“Listen, boy,” Cade said. “You might think I’m afraid you because of who your daddy is, but I ain’t.”
“I don’t blame you,” Jack said. “If I were you, I would be afraid of me because of who I am.”
Cade hesitated a moment, not sure what to say.
Jack set down his glass, then turned suddenly and shot a fist out, his knuckles bouncing off of Cade’s cheekbone. Cade’s head rocked back and he fell backwards and into his friend.
Jack stepped away from the bar calmly, shouldering out of his jacket and flipping his cap to the floor. Cade regained his footing, and sputtered a bit while he tried to shake off the punch.
Colleges were not simply places of learning, which this would-be gunfighter was going to learn the hard way, Jack thought. They had rowing teams. Cross-country running teams. Boxing teams. Wrestling teams. All of which Jack had partaken in. And before he had gone to school, he had been trained in the school of Johnny McCabe, which also involved boxing, and wrestling tricks he had learned from the Shoshone.
Cade, his balance fully regained, his vision now clear, pulled his gun.
Jack stepped into him, grabbing Cade by the wrist of his gun hand with a grip more firm than Cade was expecting, and shot a short hook punch into the side of Cade’s head. He then took Cade’s wrist with both hands and drove his knee up and into it as though he were breaking a stick over his knee, and the gun fell away.
Cade swung a fist at him, putting his weight into it. A mistake, Jack knew. Using skills his father had learned from the Shoshone, how to move efficiently and use an opponent’s weight and momentum against himself, Jack grabbed the arm of the incoming punch, turned, and pulled Cade over his shoulder and slammed him down hard on the barroom floor.
The Shoshone had taught Pa how to fall. Pa had taught Jake and his brother Josh. Cade, however, didn’t have this knowledge and took the brunt of the fall with his back. He remained where he had fallen on the beer-stained floorboards, gasping for breath.
Jack then turned to the man who had walked in with Cade. The man held up both hands in a stopping motion.
“Hold on,” he said. “I ain’t involved in this.”
“Yeah, you are,” Jack said, and shot a right cross into the man’s face.
The man was driven backward and into the bar. Jack stepped in, following the right cross with short, uppercutting punches to the man’s midsection, then rocked a hook punch into the man’s head, and the man’s knees buckled and he slid to the floor.
Jack picked up Cade’s pistol from the floor. He turned it upright, flipped open the loading gate and rotated the cylinder, letting the cartridges fall to the bar.
“A man like Cade can’t be trusted with one of these,” Jack said. “He might hurt himself.”
The bartender, smiling broadly, filled Jack’s whiskey glass to the rim. “I seen your old man in a fist fight, once. Cleaned out the saloon. You’re a chip off the old block, all right.”
“Maybe,” Jack said.
There had been a time when Jack would have beamed with pride to be compared to his father. Not that his father wasn’t a good man. It was just that Jack realized he had had enough of living in this man’s shadow.
He took the glass and downed a mouthful of whiskey. Then he returned the cap to his head and slung the jacket over one shoulder and hefted his trunk over the other, and turned and walked out into the street.
3
The marshal of Cheyenne was a man named Kincaid. Tall, with black hair and a matching mustache. A badge the shape of a shield with the name Cheyenne imprinted on it was pinned to his shirt, and a gun was tied down low at his right side.
Jack stood behind the marshal. His jacket was once again in place. Though most men wore a tie and jacket when they traveled, Jack had removed his tie the day he left Harvard, and had not put one on since. He wore a tie every day of the year while at school, and enough was enough. He stood with his shirt collar open.
He knew disorderly conduct like fighting in public was against the city ordinances of Cheyenne, and he wanted no trouble that might delay his trip home, so he had gone to get the marshal himself.
“You done nothing wrong,” Kincaid said to Jack, as he locked the cell door. Inside the cell were Cade and his partner, sitting on the bunk. “They had it coming. I wish I was there to see it, though.”
The faces of Cade and his friend were cut up and bruised. Amazing what a fist can do to a man’s face, Jack McCabe thought.
The marshal said, “I’ve seen your old man in action a couple of times. Not so much fast on the draw, as he is smooth. Fluid. And his aim is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Takes a lot of nerve to hold your hand steady when you’re being shot at, but your old man - you would have thought he was just target practicing. And I’ve seen him with his fists. You’re apparently a chip off the old block, all right.”
“Marshal,” Jack said, “all I really want is to be left alone.”
Kincaid tossed the cell keys on his desk. “That’s all the great ones really want. Hickok. Doc Holliday. Zack Johnson. Your father. They don’t go looking for trouble. That’s for small-time scum like Cade. Challenging the great ones, looking to build up his name. Cade’s lucky you weren’t carrying a gun, but I doubt he’s smart enough to know that.
“But be careful, son. I can’t hold him here forever, and my jurisdiction ends at the last building in town. Cade’s not one to forgive and forget. You should watch your back. Friendly warning, that’s all.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Jack hefted his trunk onto his shoulder and stepped out onto the boardwalk. What he wanted was to simply get a hotel room and maybe grab a little sleep.
No, he realized. What he really wanted was to change into his levis and a range shirt, and find a good horse.
There was nothing as relaxing, as cleansing to his mind, as sitting on the back of a running horse and feeling the wind strike him in the face. It was like the wind washed away his troubles.
And yet, the thought of one more whiskey was kind of appealing to him at the moment. He had downed a couple of them already, one really full, but that was a good two hours ago. With his cap in place, he strode toward the saloon down by the train station.
“Back for more?” the bartender said.
“One more.”
“On the house,” the bartender filled the glass, and Jack set his trunk on the floor.
“Excuse me,” a man said from behind him.
Oh no, Jack thought. Not again. But as he turned, he saw the man was no gunfighter.
The man was fifty-ish, and about Jack’s height. A thick mustache accentuated the thinness of his face. And where his left hand might have been once was an empty sleeve.
“Can I have a word with you?” the man asked.
He was not wearing a gun, Jack noticed quickly. He was wearing no vest, which meant he was not a horseman. If you rode a horse a lot, you wore a vest to carry your wallet, and your tobacco and rolling paper if you smoked. Maybe a pocket watch. Carrying such things in your trouser pockets could be a might uncomfortable as you rode.
The man’s face was deeply tanned and lined, as though he spent much time outdoors. This, along with the fact that he was not a horseman, told Jack the man was probably a farmer.
“What can I do for you?” Jack asked, impatiently.
“You’re the son of Johnny McCabe, am I correct?”
“So they say.”
“Well, if you are, then I have a job proposal for you.”
“Not interested in work. Now, if you’ll please excuse me..,” Jack turned back to the bar.
“If you’ll just give me five minutes of your time.”
Jack didn’t really have the patience for this, but he decided to listen to the man out of simple courtesy. And it was not as though he had anywhere he actually had to be.
They took a table. The man sai
d, “Let me introduce myself. My name is Abel Brewster.”
“Jack McCabe.”
Brewster grinned as they shook hands. “I know who you are, sir.”
“Mister Brewster, I don’t mean to be rude. Really, I don’t. But..,”
“Yes, I’ll get to the point. When you were coming into town on the noon train, you might have noticed three covered wagons just outside of town.”
Jack had absently noticed them, but thought little of it. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
“One belongs to me and my family, and there are two other families traveling with us. We are bound north.”
“Looking to strike it rich in the gold fields?”
Brewster chuckled. “Oh, no, Mister McCabe. We’re farmers. We have no delusions of riches. We seek only an honest living, from the earth God provided for us.”
“Well, there’s not much farming country north of here. Lots of open grassland. What they sometimes call the high plains. Good cattle country, but a little dry for farming.”
“There is good farming country further west, though, in the foothills. Or so I’ve heard.”
Jack nodded. The land in the valley where he was raised was fertile, and in the ridges surrounding the valley. “In places, yes. It’s a long haul, though, and it’s pretty remote country.”
“Let me cut right to the point. The trains don’t go that far north yet. The only way to go is by wagon. But we don’t know anything about the territory. We’re looking to hire a guide.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not looking for work. I’m heading out on the stage day after tomorrow.”
“Is there any way you could be persuaded? Your reputation speaks for you. We don’t have much money, but I’m sure we could put together a fee that would make it worth your while.”
“You mean, my father’s reputation speaks for itself.” Jack felt his ire rising. “People look at me and they see him. They hear the name and they make assumptions they shouldn’t make. You see, Mister Brewster, I am not my father. Never have been. And my services are not for hire.”
“I didn’t mean any offense, son. It’s just that I have three families with me, and I’m real reluctant to head out with them over country I know nothing about.”
“You should have thought about that before you headed west to begin with.” Jack got to his feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really am not feeling very sociable.”
Jack strode from the saloon, trunk held on one shoulder.
He walked down the street and to a small hotel he had stayed at before. He thought he would check in, then maybe head to the livery to rent a horse.
The man at the desk said, “Oh, yes sir, we have a room for you, Mister McCabe. Absolutely.”
Jack thought the man seemed almost giddy at having the son of Johnny McCabe under his roof. It might be a selling point he could use for future customers.
Jack dropped his trunk on the floor of his room and then stretched out on the bed. Not very comfortable. It couldn’t compare to his bed in the room at Harvard he had shared with Darby Yates, or his bed at the ranch. But it sure beat being jostled about on a train.
The train was a marvel of modern science, reaching speeds previously unheard of in any other method of travel. And yet, all the jostling and bouncing about did not appeal to Jack. He found trains cramped and uncomfortable. His preferred method of travel was by horseback, moving at whatever speed best suited him and the horse. And to have the open range about him and the sky overhead.
His father, in his younger years, had traveled throughout Texas by horseback. He had spent a couple years with the Texas Rangers, then returned home to Pennsylvania in the saddle. Later on, he and his brothers had ridden clear to California on horseback. Even now, when Pa went on a business trip, he did so by saddling up and riding out. Trains and stagecoaches were not for him. He often rode overland, and took established trails only when they were convenient. He seldom stayed in a hotel, preferring to camp under the open sky.
Jack got to his feet and looked out his window at the street below, and decided he had enough daylight hours left to take a ride.
He dug into his trunk and found a pair of levis and his riding boots. Not that he had much need for them at Harvard, but it felt good having them on hand. They were reminders of what he was coming to think of as his previous life on the ranch as a young cowhand and frontiersman, learning at his father’s side.
He tossed aside his jacket, and then exchanged his trousers for the stiffer fabric of his levis, and pulled on the tattered, tight-fitting boots. A cowhand always wants his boots tight so his foot won’t slip in the boot while the boot is in the stirrup.
Many frontiersman and cowboys wore their trouser legs tucked into their boots, but some were starting to pull the cuff down over the boot, which seemed to work better with levis. Jack did so, and then stood in his boots, appreciating the fit of the levis. Now he felt more like his old self.
Rolled up in the trunk was his gunbelt. He reached for it. Hello, old friend. He unrolled it, and then buckled it on. He pulled the pistol and checked the loads, and then slapped it back into its holster.
He then pulled out the hatbox, and lifted the cover. In it was a brown sombrero. It had rounded crown, and a flat brim that had lost some of its stiffness. He pulled the sombrero down over his temples.
This felt right, he thought. He had gotten used to wearing a flat cap, but it had never really felt natural.
He decided he wouldn’t need the hatbox anymore, because he had no plans to put the sombrero in storage again. He tossed the hatbox onto the small trash can beside the bed. The box was too big for the can and bounced off and landed on the floor.
He then grabbed the tweed flat cap he had set on an end table, and decided he would need this no more, either. He had worn it when he and Darby went into Boston looking to find some fun. It had been perched on his head as he and Darby hit taverns on Boston’s waterfront and downed whiskey and sometimes got into fights with the locals. But it represented a life Jack was leaving behind. He tossed it into the trash can.
With his sombrero pulled down over his temples, he left his room and headed for the livery.
Word was spreading quickly. The son of Johnny McCabe was in town.
The hostler who ran the livery, an older man with a squeaky voice and thin, white hair, almost fell over himself finding just the right horse for the son of Johnny McCabe.
“Is it true?” the man asked. “About that gunbattle at your daddy’s ranch a year ago? Word’s spreading like wildfire. Fifty men rode on the ranch. Sam Patterson’s men. And your daddy and his men just shot the stuffin’ out of all of ‘em.”
Aunt Ginny had told Jack about it in her most recent letter.
“That’s what they say,” Jack said. “I wasn’t there.”
“His legend just grows and grows. Yessir.”
“Seems to.”
The man saddled a sorrel gelding for him, and when Jack asked the cost for an afternoon, the man said, “Oh, it’s on the house, sir.”
Jack shook his head with bewilderment, and stepped into the saddle.
The horse was long-legged and liked to run. At the edge of town, Jack let it have its head, and the horse broke into a mile-eating gallop, its mane fluttering in the wind. Jack leaned forward to provide less wind resistance, and the brim of his hat shook in the wind. Jack found he was smiling.
Two miles later, he reined up to let the horse blow, and he stepped out of saddle and loosened the cinch.
“That felt good, didn’t it?” Jack said to the horse, as though the horse could understand him.
On either side of the trail were low, grassy hills stretching away toward the horizon, with an occasional stunted tree attempting to hang on. In the far distance was a low line of gravely looking ridges.
Jack tightened the cinch and swung back into the saddle, and they were off at a spirited trot. Jack turned the horse from the trail and over one hill.
He eventually turned the hors
e so they would make a wide circle about town. He thought how much he would like to simply turn the horse north and make the rest of the journey on horseback, like his father. But he dismissed the thought as whimsical.
Aunt Ginny had sent him money for the train and the stagecoach, and the family would be waiting for him in McCabe Gap. The little town in a pass outside of the valley they called home. And yet, as he brought the horse to a stop atop a low grassy rise and looked off toward the sun that was now trailing low over the western horizon, the wind from the northwest catching him in the face, he found himself longing to forget the stage and simply ride on.
He dismissed this in the face of reality and turned his horse, and soon the buildings of Cheyenne were standing in front of him in the distance, maybe a half mile away.
Between him and the town were the three covered wagons he had seen earlier, belonging to Brewster and his party. The sun, now setting, was casting a soft, rosy light against the canvas of the wagons.
Campfires were being brought to life, and people were puttering about the wagons. Oxen were grazing lazily.
Jack suddenly felt a pang of guilt over the way he had talked to Brewster earlier in the day. He had been raised by Pa and Aunt Ginny to be courteous, and to assist people when he could. He had dismissed Brewster rudely.
He gave his horse’s ribs a little nudge with the heels of his boots and started toward the wagons.
A man was kneeling before a fire and adding chunks of wood to it. He looked up at the sound of the approaching rider. He had a wide, floppy black hat, and a full, dark beard gave his face a fierce look. He glared at Jack, and when Jack nodded to him, the man simply returned his attention to his fire.
I guess I had that coming, Jack thought.
At the second fire, a woman had set up a pot with some sort of stew cooking, and a coffee kettle was heating. She had a round, matronly shape and her hair was hidden by a bonnet. She glanced toward Jack, and when he touched the tip of his that to her, she gave a polite smile and nodded.
A girl was there, walking up toward the woman. Maybe Jack’s age, maybe a little younger. She stepped through the tall grass with a sort of lithe grace. She glanced toward Jack, her hair also hidden by a bonnet, but in the fading light of the day, he caught the light gray color of her eyes, and a face that was gently freckled.
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 2