“Ain’t a man alive that can take me down.”
“That’s the whiskey talking.”
“I suppose you told her all about me.”
Jack shook his head. “I haven’t said anything. I don’t think I’m going to. That’s your place.”
“I tried to take her out of here. I wanted to take Emily and Nina to Oregon. But they won’t have none of it. Nina chose you over me. And Emily’s backin’ her play. So stand there and gloat all you want, boy. But leave me alone.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. He stood and looked at Carter Harding, or Harlan Carter, sitting at the table with his whiskey. Harding dropped his gaze from Jack back to his whiskey.
Jack said, “At least do yourself a favor and when you leave, use the back door. I don’t want them to have to see you like this.”
He turned and strode away from him. Dusty was behind the bar, pouring a beer for a cowhand who had just bellied-up.
Jack said, “Keep an eye on him, will you? Come get me if you need to.”
Dusty nodded.
Jack stepped out and stood a moment on the boardwalk just breathing the air and letting his ire calm down. He turned toward the patch of earth to the side of the saloon where Nina and her mother were sitting, and found Nina was watching him. She had been since he stepped out of the building.
He returned to the chair he had vacated and gave her a smile. She said, “Is everything all right?”
He nodded. He was about to say it was just a cowhand from the Circle M who had a little too much to drink, but then he thought better of it. He was not going to lie to this girl. So he said, “Everything’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing important.” He took her hand and looked off at the crowd.
The cowhand who had been rearing his horse in the air slid from the saddle and landed hard on the ground. But he got up laughing. Too drunk to feel pain, Jack figured.
Nina said to him, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Not right now. Later. I promise.”
She nodded, apparently deciding to let it go for now.
The crowd eventually cleared for a horse race. Josh and Dusty took part in that, along with men from the McCabe’s ranch, and others. Josh was on the horse Bree had playfully named Rabbit, the fastest horse Jack had ever seen. Until today. Jack came in second to a man from the Bar W.
Then there was a pie-eating contest. Come dark, torches were set up to provide light and a small band began playing. A cowboy from the Bar W could pay a fiddle. Fat Cole, a cowhand from the McCabe’s ranch, could pluck a banjo reasonably well. Fat was a little older than Jack and stood tall and thin. Jack didn’t know if the name was a play on the way he was built, or short for the cowboy’s full name of Jehosaphat. Or both. Franklin, it turned out, could play a harmonica. They did their best to improvise the Vienna Waltz, which Jack wouldn’t have recognized if he hadn’t been told what it was supposed to be, then they started in with square-dance music.
After a time, folks began to head out. Families with children, especially.
Age Brewster had offered to drive Nina and her mother back to the land that was to become their farm because Jack had been asked by Hunter to stay and help out at the saloon.
“How will you get home?” Nina said.
“I’ll rent a horse from Jeb Arthur at the livery.”
Jack, with his jacket removed and his sleeves rolled up, began to work behind the bar, filling mugs from the kegs.
The room was full. Card games were in progress, and Jack guessed as many as fifteen were standing at the bar and three times that were milling about on the floor watching the games in progress.
Dusty was behind the counter also, pouring beers and filling shot glasses of whiskey.
“Cash only tonight,” Hunter announced to Jack and Dusty. “No way to keep track of any tabs.”
An order came from one card game for four mugs of cold beer. For this, Jack had to climb a ladder down to the root cellar and fill the mugs and then climb back out, balancing the tray. He decided to pour five.
Once the beer was served, he took a moment behind the bar and took a big gulp. “Been waiting for that all day.”
Josh was there, working his way through the crowd. He was taking orders for drinks, and also being a presence to help remind people to behave themselves. Hunter was doing the same.
Around ten o’clock, the peace was broken at one card table. One of the players was in a tie and jacket and neither of Jack’s brothers recognized him. Jack figured he was a gambler, trying out the area. One of the cowhands at the table accused him of cheating. The cowhand rose to his feet and made like he was going to for his pistol. The card shark produced a derringer – Jack didn’t see where it came from – and a shot was fired nicking the cowhand on the arm. The table was then overturned on the card shark and punches were being thrown and money was flying about on the floor.
The fight soon spread, the way fights will, and the entire room exploded in mayhem. Two cowhands crashed into the bar, which was nothing more than two planks laid across upended beer kegs. The planks were jarred and slid away, and a beer keg went over, and Jack was knocked backward by one of the planks. Dusty was slammed into a shelf on the wall behind the bar, a shelf that contained bottles of whiskey and vodka. The shelf collapsed and the bottles landed on the floor.
Dusty got to his feet and grabbed the two cowhands, who were now grappling on the floor, but before he could do more another cowhand who had taken a punch was driven into him and both went crashing to the floor.
Josh was punching one man and then two grabbed him from behind. Jack grabbed both men, pulling them from Josh. Jack stood at least an inch taller than Josh and was heavily muscled from his time on the boxing team and the rowing team at school, and he used this muscle to slam both cowhands into each other.
Hunter was in the middle of the fray, grabbing one man and throwing him into another, a wide grin on his face. He was enjoying this, Jack knew.
Josh was about to swing a fist at a man, when his attention suddenly was drawn to the doorway. Jack tried to follow his gaze but there were men in the way and then two were tackling him to pull him down. Josh was then punched by a man from the side, and he was down. And then Jack was up and swinging fists. He realized he was smiling, too.
After a time, things calmed down. A number of cowhands were ejected from the place bodily. Hunter’s door was off the hinges again. A bottle of whiskey was shattered on the floor, and a beer keg had been cracked and half the brew had drained away.
Jack was sitting on one of the kegs that had supported the planks that made up the bar. He was laughing. His hair was flying wild and his shirt was soaked with sweat and his tie was crooked. A couple buttons had been lost from his shirt and there were a couple of blood stains. His knuckles were skinned and bruised and one was bleeding, and the side of his face was numb from a punch he had taken and he was tasting blood.
“Damn,” he said with a smile. “I haven’t had so much fun in a long time.”
Dusty was holding a bandanna to his nose, which had pretty much stopped bleeding, and a bruise was rising on one cheekbone.
Dusty said, “I love this place on a Saturday night.”
Hunter was talking with the remaining customers. Card games had resumed, and some were milling about chatting or nursing wounds. Hunter had given everyone a round on the house, the best way to heal wounds.
He was righting some tables that had been tipped over. Two chairs had been broken and their pieces were lying on the floor.
“What a night!” Hunter was still smiling.
Dusty said, “You lost an entire bottle of whiskey and half a keg of beer.”
“Yes, but I made up from it.” He pulled from his pants a fistful of dollar bills. “I took this from the floor. The money on that table was going everywhere. No way to tell who it belonged to. Some of it might as well go to the damages.”
Jack laughed. “I could us
e a cold beer.”
“Me too,” Hunter said.
Josh had taken a couple of punches to the face and one eye was swollen shut. Aunt Ginny was going to give them the lecture of their lives, Jack thought.
But Josh wasn’t smiling. He said to Dusty, “I saw someone. In the middle of that fracas. He was standing by the door.”
Now he had the attention of Dusty and Jack. Dusty said, “Who?”
“A man from that canyon, last summer. One of Falcone’s men. The one with the blind eye. It’s all milky white.”
Dusty nodded. “White-Eye. He was here?”
“I only saw him for a second. He was standing by the door. Then I was hit and there was a crowd around me, and when I got a clear look at the door again, he was gone.”
Jack was looking at both of them curiously.
Dusty said to him, “One of Sam Patterson’s men. Lost the eye when a knife slashed down his face. It was long before I knew him. They called him White-Eye.”
Jack said, “A long knife scar starts above the eye, and goes down through it to his cheek?”
Dusty nodded.
“I think I know the man. He was with Falcone outside of Cheyenne.”
Dusty said to Josh, “Are you sure it was him?”
“I only saw him for a second. I wouldn’t stake my life on it.”
Dusty headed out the door. Josh and Jack followed. Hunter followed them.
Dusty stepped down from the boardwalk and walked out maybe fifty feet from the building. The torches had long been taken down and the town was now dark and empty. Lamps were on at the first floor of the hotel and they could hear a piano. And the front room down at Miss Alisha’s was lighted. But otherwise, all was dark. The ridges beyond the town were lost in the night.
“What are you looking for?” Jack said.
“Campfires.”
Jack nodded. Aunt Ginny had written how the raiders had lit a huge bonfire every night, almost announcing their presence in a show of daring and arrogance.
“I doubt they would be that brazen again,” Josh said. “If Falcone’s back, he would know better.”
But the hills and ridges were all dark.
“It may not have been him,” Josh said.
Dusty said, “Sam Patterson taught me never to take chances. I think we should assume it was, until we can prove otherwise.”
Jack said, “Should we tell Pa?”
“Not yet. He’s leaving in a week to go and visit your mother’s grave. If he thinks something’s wrong, he won’t leave. And he’s been needing to do this.”
Josh said to Dusty, “Come morning, maybe you and I can go into the ridges and cut for sign. Look for any tracks made by a lone rider. Any cowhands coming from the ranches in the area will be using one of the trails. Let’s hold off on telling Pa anything unless we need to.”
33
Breakfast at the McCabe house was a mixture of Aunt Ginny scowling and scolding the boys for reckless behavior, Pa laughing at the way they looked, Bree eagerly wanting to know all of the details, and Temperance fussing over Josh and his black eye.
Pa told them to take the day off. Jack found a punch he had taken to the ribs that hadn’t hurt much at the time now hurt, and he had to be careful and not take in too deep a breath. If it wasn’t a lot better by morning he would have Granny Tate had a look at it to make sure it wasn’t broken. Josh’s eye had darkened and swollen and a bruise on his cheekbone had darkened so much of one side of his face was purple. The bridge of Dusty’s nose had swollen and when he rose from a chair he did so gingerly. He had at one point flipped backward over a table, but said he was fine as long as he didn’t move too quickly.
They made their way outside. Jack announced he was thinking of riding out to check on the settlers. Josh mentioned maybe riding into town to help Hunter fix his saloon back up. Repair tables, and put the door back on its hinges. Dusty said he should really lend a hand, too.
They had Fred saddle some horses for them, and then began a ride toward town.
Josh said to Jack, “You handled yourself pretty well last night. You left a lot of those boys in worse shape than they left you. How’s a city boy from college learn to scrap like that?”
“The boxing team. And I’m on the rowing team. And some friends and I hit some taverns on the Boston waterfront more than once.”
Josh’s brows rose with surprise. “Really? My little brother brawling in waterfront taverns? Do Pa and Aunt Ginny know this?”
Jack shook his head. “And I’d rather they didn’t.”
Josh nodded. “So, you gonna ride down the valley to see your girl?”
“Not this morning. I’m riding with you two.”
Josh shook his head. “I don’t know, Jack. We’ve gotta cover some ground, and if we find this White-Eye man, it could get a little rough. It’s likely he won’t be alone.”
Dusty said, “He can stand alongside us. He has what it takes.”
Josh gave him a curious look.
They rode onto the trail that cut from the valley floor out and to the small town, coming out behind Hunter’s.
“All right,” Josh said to Dusty. “Since you know how they think, where would you be hiding out in these hills if you didn’t want to be found?”
“Since they made such a show with those bonfires last year, I think I’d be in the ridges on the other side of town. Send lone riders out to scout about, but do it a lot quieter. A lot more low-key. Which is what Sam Patterson would have done in the first place.”
Jack said, “From what Aunt Ginny told me of it in her letter, it sounded almost like they were posturing. Like a bully does before he strikes.”
Dusty nodded. “Not a whole lot of difference. Vic Falcone made a good right-hand-man for Sam, but he was never really a leader. He showed it last summer. He was trying to intimidate everyone. Trying to show how strong he was, and that he could just ride in and take what he wanted whenever he wanted. All he did was give us time to prepare. And he greatly underestimated his opponent, being Pa.”
Josh said, “It’s amazing he’s lived this long.”
“Vic always had a knack for survival. Notice how he was one of the few who got out of that canyon alive.”
“Well, if we find them out there, we end it. Now.”
Dusty nodded. “That’s my line of thinkin’.”
Jack said, “Agreed.”
They stopped in at Hunter’s and explained what they were going to do. They asked him not to tell Pa, should Pa come riding in. Pa was due to leave for California in a week or so, and they didn’t want him burdened with this.
Then they rode out to the ridge beyond town. A ridge visible from Hunter’s front porch but was actually five miles away.
At this point, the mountains form a sort of series of long lines. Jack always thought from a bird’s-eye-view they might look like the kind of ripples ocean waves can make in sand. Some of the ridges extended for miles. The valley Jack and his brothers called home was really an extra wide spacing between two series of ridges. He had taken a geology class once as an elective, and the professor had explained about the theory of the ice age, and how glaciers had carved out valleys that once might have been V shaped and made them more U shaped, and gave them floors that were almost flat. Jack didn’t know if he really believed all of that theoretical stuff – sometimes he thought its only value was to give bored scholarly types something to think about – but if it was true, then glaciers would have carved the valley by digging out the ten mile long gulch between ridges.
Once they were beyond town, they began cutting for sign. Riding sideways along the ridge, watching for any tracks that might have been made by a lone rider, or a small group of riders on their way to town, or away from it.
They rode with their pistols loose in their holsters. Josh had an old Navy .36 which he hoped to eventually replace with a Peacemaker. Dusty had the Peacemaker he had taken off the gunfighter he had been forced to kill back in Nevada over a year ago. And Jack had the Pe
acemaker he had brought west with him.
Josh was in the lead, with Jack immediately behind him, and Dusty bringing up the rear. Until Dusty rode up beside Jack.
“That’s quite a gun you have there. I’ve been meaning to ask you about it.”
He nodded. “I bought it in New York, last year. Five inch barrel for a quicker draw. I’m not like you and Pa. I’ll take whatever advantage I can get.”
Dusty gave a nod and a grin. “I get the impression you don’t need much of an advantage in anything.”
They rode along the ridge for a couple of miles, then stopped to let the horses rest a bit.
Josh said, “I don’t know these ridges outside the valley near good enough. Don’t get out here nearly enough.”
They took some water from their canteens, then mounted up and continued on. After a time they doubled back and then tried a ridge line south of the valley. They found some bear tracks a day or so old. They found deer droppings and moose droppings. But nothing to indicate any riders had been through here.
They returned to Hunter’s late in the afternoon and had a cold beer. They had been in the saddle all day and so they opted to stand at the bar.
Hunter climbed down to the cellar and emerged with four mugs of cold beer. He handed one to each of them, and took the fourth one himself.
He said, “Did you boys find anything at all out in them ridges?”
Josh shook his head. “Maybe it wasn’t the same man I saw. I just thought I did. It was only a glimpse, for maybe a second or two.”
Jack said, “Well, at least we looked.”
Dusty took a sip of cold beer. “There’s a lot of ground to cover, though. If I didn’t want to be found, then I could find a way to do it.”
Josh said to Jack, “Was there anyone with him that good? Back in Cheyenne?”
“There was one gunhawk by the name of Two-Finger Walker.”
“Two-Finger. Pa’s mentioned him once or twice.”
Dusty said, “I’ve heard the name a few times over the years. He’s a killer. Fierce. Deadly. But I’ve never heard anything about him being any kind of a scout. And White-Eye was dependable and a little cold-blooded, but Sam never relied on him for scouting or tracking.”
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 29