One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2)

by Brad Dennison

  The men rounded up the oxen so they could get the wagons moving.

  Jack said to Barrow, “We’ve been told there’s a way station just a few miles down the trail. One of our wagons has a cracked axle. We’re hoping to make the way station within a few hours.”

  “Maybe we’ll ride along with you,” Barrow said. “Just to make sure you get there all right. This business of them riders trying to kidnap a woman just don’t set well with us. I’m sure you’re a good enough scout, and you wear that gun like you know how to use it. But you look like you’ve been rode hard and hung up wet, so maybe we’ll ride along to make sure you all get to that way station safe.”

  “Much obliged,” Jack said, trying to mask the outright relief he felt at the idea of having four Texas boys riding along with them. Not that any of them looked like gunhawks, but he had never met a Texas cowhand who couldn’t hold his own in a fight. And now that four more capable men were with them, Falcone and his crew were outnumbered.

  “That girl you was talking to. She the one they tried to kidnap?”

  Jack nodded.

  Barrow smiled and shook his head. “I saw the way she was looking at you. I’d hang onto her and never let go, if’n I was you.”

  19

  The way station was a long cabin made of large upright planks. The barn had walls made of sod stacked like bricks, and a peaked wooden roof. In a corral attached to the barn eight large horses stood about, ripping grass from the earth with their teeth and munching contentedly.

  A man with a bushy white beard came to the door when Jack knocked.

  “I was told by a stage that came through a couple days ago to be expecting some wagons,” he said.

  “One of our wagons has a cracked axle. I was hoping you might be able to help us with that.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The man’s name was Malden, and he opened the way station’s facilities, such as they were, to the settlers. There was a large steel tub, not built for comfort, but the water was hot.

  After Jack had a fresh bath and a shave, Mildred Brewster tied a sling around his neck.

  She said, “Keep your arm in there. It’ll be best for your shoulder not to have to support weight.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Jack saw little of Nina. She and the other women were busy taking advantage of the fact that there was a well with plentiful water, and doing laundry and taking their turns in the tub. They had managed some light bathing in their tents, but there was nothing like a tub of hot water.

  At one point in the afternoon, Jack was standing on the rickety front porch with a cup of coffee in his hand, and Nina suddenly was at his side.

  “I only have a moment,” she said.

  “You don’t want to anger your father.”

  “That, and I’m trying to help Mother. Mister Brewster wants to be on the trail again by tomorrow morning.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. He said, “Even a moment with you is like a treasure.”

  That brought a light blush for a moment.

  She said, “I hope you don’t mind I took the liberty of doing your laundry. I got the blood out of your shirt and I sewed up the sleeve. It’s still a sight because I’m not a master with a needle and thread, and there’s not much you can do with a rip like that, anyway.”

  “I don’t mind at all. In fact, I’m greatly pleased.”

  She beamed a smile at him. “I’d best be getting back to Mother.”

  He nodded. “It’s great seeing you.”

  She scurried back into the cabin.

  Barrow and the other three drovers decided to stay on for the night, but would sleep outside.

  Malden said, “I don’t really have a lot of accommodations, and I have to keep the rooms for stage passengers, but you’re more than welcome to the kitchen floor.”

  “Thanks,” Barrow said, “but we’ll sleep outside. We haven’t slept under a roof in longer than we can remember and don’t want to start now.”

  The fourth cowhand said, “It’d make us outright nervous to act like civilized folk.”

  He was a black man of maybe twenty with a toothy smile but eyes that said he had already seen a world of pain in his short life.

  They unrolled their bedding a hundred yards from the cabin, and in a section of clear open dirt they built a fire. They sat about the fire as the sun set and the sky overhead darkened, and they invited Jack to join them.

  Knowing how hard drovers worked, and that they tended to play as hard as they worked, he was not surprised to find a whiskey bottle being handed back and forth. And this was why he brought something to share with them.

  He took a place on the ground by the fire and then pulled from his sling his pint bottle.

  He said, “Any of you boys have a taste for Kentucky whiskey?”

  Barrow’s face spread into a broad smile. “I’m from Kentucky. Ain’t had a taste of it since I don’t remember when.”

  Jack handed it to him and he pulled the cork and knocked back a mouthful. He sat in silence, enjoying the taste and the feeling of it burning its way down.

  “Now that’s whiskey,” he said.

  “Help yourself,” Jack said. “All of you.”

  They sat, three of the men taking pulls from the bottle that was already there, which Jack figured was probably some sort of rotgut they picked up in a saloon somewhere along the trail, and Barrow and Jack drinking the bourbon.

  Barrow said, “They’re talking about you, you know. Back in Cheyenne. The son of Johnny McCabe. About how you fought a couple gunfighters, beating ‘em both with nothing but your bare hands. Tore up the saloon in the process.”

  “We didn’t really tear up the saloon. It wasn’t much, really. Hardly worth anyone talking about.”

  “The thing is, it’s because of who your father is. It creates interest. People want to hear about anything you do like that. The bartender actually has the section of bar you were standing at marked off in chalk. He says, ‘This here is where Johnny McCabe’s son stood right before he whupped the tar out of them two gunhawks.’”

  Jack shook his head with disbelief. “Well, one of them is one of the riders I mentioned. That’s how I got on their bad side.”

  Barrow said, “According to the scuttlebutt around Cheyenne, Vic Falcone was camped outside of town a few days. He rode with Sam Patterson. And Two-Finger Walker was there. Sam Patterson and Two-Finger Walker are names well known to Texas boys.”

  From what Barrow and the others said, news about the attack Falcone had made on the McCabe ranch the year before was being talked about in saloons all the way to Texas. And they were talking about how Johnny McCabe’s sons rode after the outlaws to their hideout and killed most of them in a massive shoot out.

  “Was one of ‘em you?” Barrow said.

  Jack shook his head. “No, that was my brothers. I was east at the time.”

  Jack took a mouthful of whiskey and handed the bottle back to Barrow. Jack said, “You know, I never really wanted any of this. For my name to be known like this. My father – he’s been a living legend in the making for as far back as I can remember. But me, I just want to make my way in the world. To make my own name. I have absolutely no interest of being talked about in saloons like that.”

  “Well, sometimes we don’t have any choice in how we’re talked about. Them settlers, Brewster and Ford, they’re talking in the cabin about how you went after the Harding girl alone and brought her back safe, and did it with a bullet in your shoulder.”

  “It was just a graze.”

  “Don’t matter. You don’t think that hostler Malden is going to keep that to himself? Working a way station can be a lonely business, and I never did meet a hostler who could keep his mouth shut once folks arrived. He’ll be telling the story to every stage passenger he sees. And you can bet the story is gonna grow with the retelling. Jack McCabe, you’re on your way to being a legend, yourself.”

  Jack sighed. “God help me.”

>   The following sunrise, the drovers stepped into the cabin for a cup of coffee and then were on their way. Jack stood on the porch, a tin cup filled with coffee in his hand, as he watched them ride off along the trail.

  Harding and Brewster and Age drifted out of the cabin onto the porch. The air was filled with the smell of bacon. The old hostler could surely cook. The farmers had filled themselves with breakfast.

  Jack figured the men were about to go hitch the teams, but Brewster said, “We’ve decided to stay and rest one more day. The teams need it. We need it.”

  Jack nodded his head. “That might be wise. I know I could use the rest.”

  Harding said, “I disagree.”

  Brewster rolled his eyes. “No surprise there.”

  Harding shot him a look, then said, “I think we should get going as soon as possible. We still have many miles to cover.”

  “And we will cover them, with freshly rested oxen.”

  Harding looked away. “I was outvoted two-to-one.”

  Malden had a couple axles stored in his barn for stage coach repair, but they were too wide for Harding’s wagon. However, Malden had a buckboard beside the barn, and agreed to a swap. The buckboard was a little narrower than the wagon, but longer. There would be no arches for a canvas canopy, but Harding could drape a tarp over the cargo. It had not been a straight-up swap, though, because of the broken axle. Malden would need to purchase an axle and have one shipped in.

  Harding was saying to Brewster, “We didn’t bring much cash with us, and after the cost of that wagon, we’re going to have very little even for supplies once we get to where we’re going.”

  Jack wasn’t really part of the conversation, but he said, “I wouldn’t worry about buying supplies. I know the owner of the general store in McCabe Gap. A man named Franklin. I’ll put in a word for you.”

  Harding glared at him. “I want no help from you. None. Do you understand?”

  Jack shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Harding said to Brewster, “Why don’t we all just stop right here? There’s miles of open land all around us.”

  “What about water, Harding?” Brewster said, a little impatiently.

  “We can dig. I’ve never been afraid of a little work. The well here’s got good water.”

  “We’ll need more than one well if we’re going to try to put in a crop.”

  Jack said, “There’s plenty of water in the valley where my home is. And even outside the valley, in the foothills to the east, there are plenty of streams. The land is rich and fertile.”

  Harding said, “We don’t want nothing from you.”

  “It won’t be from me. It’s open land. Thousands of acres available for homesteading.”

  “If it’s so great, why are those acres still available?”

  “It’s kind of remote. There’s a stage that comes through only once a week or so. But people are moving west. The little town is going to grow. The land around the town was just made for both ranching and farming. And there is timber. I wouldn’t even dare to venture a guess as to the board feet available. Probably millions. And they’re finding gold in Montana. It won’t be long before someone has homesteaded the acres I speak of. It might as well be you folks.”

  Harding said to Brewster, “I say we consider it.”

  The cabin door was opening and Ford was stepping out. He said, “Consider what?”

  “Homesteading right here.”

  Jack said, “Out here, you can dig for days and not hit water. The land I’m speaking of has mountain streams. And there are trees. Timber. The hills and ridges are covered with pine. You’ll be able to put your family in a cabin. Out here, the best you’re looking at would be a sod house until you’re able to afford lumber.”

  Brewster said, “You can do what you like, Harding. But I’m come morning I’m moving on. I’m going to check out this valley Jack’s talking about.”

  Jack said, “And I’m going to go in and refresh this coffee.”

  He stepped in and closed the door behind him, and then just stood for a moment, drawing a breath and trying to let the exasperation he felt toward Nina’s father wash away.

  Through the door, he could hear Ford say, “Why do you have to be so stubborn, Carter? Sometimes you are stubborn to an absolute fault. Why turn away from the land McCabe is talking about?”

  “Do you really think we’re going to find land that’s as good as he says?”

  “What do you really have against him?”

  They were silent for a moment, then Brewster said, “I know what you have against him, Harding. You might not think he’s a good man, but..,”

  Harding cut him off. “I think he’s little better than the men your Jessica ran off with.”

  Bastard, Jack thought. To say something like that to Abel Brewster, considering the hurt and worry he and his wife were living with.

  Brewster said, “It’s precisely because of Jessica that I’m telling you to ease off on the boy. I know what it feels like to lose a daughter. We all know how Nina looks at him. You’ve seen it.”

  “I can control my daughter.”

  “Can you? Can you really? She’s of marrying age, Harding. She’ll make up her own mind.”

  “Don’t talk to me about my daughter.”

  “I found out the hard way that a man can’t control his daughter. Don’t be so stubborn that you have to find out the hard way, too.”

  There was silence, then.

  Jack walked over to the stove. The morning was a little cool outside, but the stove made the kitchen nearly sweltering. The kitchen was large, and the table long so it could accommodate a full stage worth of passengers. The walls were simply the reverse side of the planks visible from the outside, with a small wooden pantry that looked like it had been slapped together.

  Jack filled his cup from the kettle on the stove and then stepped outside again.

  He found the porch now deserted. He stood and took in the cool morning air, and took a sip of Malden’s coffee. Not quite as strong as the trail coffee he liked, but it would do.

  His head felt a little better this morning. He had slept on the kitchen floor rolled in his blankets, but he had been so tired he didn’t even notice any discomfort from the stiff floorboards. Sleep was what he needed, and the whiskey he had consumed with Barrow and the boys had worked like a sedative. His shoulder was still sore, and he now felt a solid bruise on one side of his head, but he was in much better shape than he had been the morning before.

  The door opened and Nina stepped out, glancing about quickly before fully stepping onto the porch.

  “Well, you’re looking better,” she said.

  “Nothing a good night’s sleep couldn’t cure.”

  “Is Father with the wagons?”

  Jack nodded. “I would hate to get you into any trouble with him. In fact, I really don’t want to come between a father and his daughter.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not your fault, really. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something else. Every time I disagree with him, or Mother does, he refuses to bend.”

  “I’m sure he wants what he feels is best for his family.”

  “Maybe. I hope so. But sometimes I think what he’s actually doing is trying to reshape the world to the way he wants it to be, by his own force of will.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say to that.

  She said, changing the subject, “I’m glad Missus Brewster asked me to come out and ask how you were feeling. I was looking for an excuse.”

  He stepped closer, and touched the side of her face where there was a scrape from when she pitched headfirst into the grass two nights earlier.

  He said, “Does this hurt much?”

  “Not much. I must look a dreadful sight.”

  He shook his head with a smile. “Not at all. Is it even possible for you to look dreadful?”

  She laughed. “Oh, yes.”

  “I don’t believe it. It would take more than a bruise and a
scrape to make you look anything less than beautiful.”

  “Why, Mister McCabe,” she said with a playful smile. “I do believe you’re being quite forward.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  He kissed her. Lightly at first, and then more deeply.

  One arm was in a sling, but with the other he pulled her to him, and her arms were about his shoulders and behind his neck.

  She then said, “I had better get inside. I could justify to Father coming out here because Missus Brewster wanted to know how you were feeling, but this is going a little beyond.”

  “You’re just trying to make Missus Brewster’s patient more comfortable, that’s all. You have a fantastic bedside manner.”

  She was smiling. “I don’t think that would hold up in court.”

  She stepped back into the house, but not before flashing him one final smile.

  After a dinner that cut even further into the meager cash supply of the three families, Mildred Brewster cleaned and redressed Jack’s wound.

  She found it healing nicely. There was no bleeding and no sign of infection.

  She said, “Once we reach that valley of yours, I want to look up this mountain doctor you speak of.”

  “She knows things my professors told me couldn’t possibly work, but I have seen them work with my own eyes.”

  There were three bedrooms to be used by stage passengers. Since there was no stage due this night, Malden let the settlers have the rooms free of charge. Jack slept on the floor in the kitchen again, fully dressed and wrapped in his bedroll. Malden found an extra pillow, so Jack didn’t have to go out to the barn and haul in his saddle for use as a pillow.

  Jack slept lightly, despite his fatigue. Though the drovers had seen the tracks of Falcone and his men heading west, Jack was not about to let his guard down. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Words of his father.

  Finally, he climbed out of the blankets and pulled his boots on. With his gunbelt buckled into place, he went to the stove to add some wood and put on some coffee.

  A bedroom door opened, its hinges squeaking a little, and Harding stepped out.