That evening, Josh and Dusty returned from the line cabin, and Jack gave them the news. “I might have won that fight, but Harlan Carter won the war. He has his daughter, and I’m out of his life.”
Josh said, “I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with the thought of an outlaw the caliber of Harlan Carter living this close to the ranch.”
He rode out the next morning. Aunt Ginny said to Dusty, “I don’t like the idea of him just riding out there, alone.”
Dusty said, “Sometimes a man just needs to be alone. Work things out for himself.”
Jack had been intending to simply ride the ridges again, but found himself at Hunter’s. As he stood at the bar with a glass of whiskey in front of him, finding this stuff compared poorly to Kentucky bourbon, he found himself missing Darby for the first time since leaving school. Maybe it was time to write him a letter. Explain everything that had happened. One person he had always been able to talk to was Darby.
“Hunter, do you have a pen and paper? I’d like to write a letter.”
Hunter got him a couple sheets of paper from the back room he used as a bedroom, and a pen and bottle of ink. Jack sat down at a table with his glass of whiskey and put pen to paper. At first he didn’t know how to begin, but once he had, he found the words flowed. He told of how it felt to be home, and how he had found the girl of his dreams, and then lost her. And how when his visit was finished here, he didn’t know where he was going.
Darby had never been one to take much seriously. He had always said Jack took things way too seriously, which was why they made such a good team. Maybe old Darby was right.
When it was finished, Hunter found an envelope and Jack addressed it to Darby Yates, Cooperstown, New York. Jack figured the way the mail moved, Darby should get the letter in maybe three weeks.
Jack said to Hunter, “Will you make sure to put this letter on the next stage?”
Hunter nodded. “It’s due in tomorrow. I’ll make sure.”
Hunter set the letter behind the bar, then returned with a glass and the whiskey bottle. He set the glass in front of him and filled it, then refilled Jack’s glass.
“I can tell the look,” Hunter said. “Trouble with your girl.”
Jack looked at him with surprise. “Am I that easy to read?”
Hunter nodded with a small grin. “Anyone who’s been there knows the look. I had me a girl once. A couple different ones, over the years. And yet here I am. Alone, running this saloon. Believe me, I know the look.”
Hunter’s saloon didn’t have swinging doors like some of the establishments in bigger towns like Bozeman or Virginia City did, so he just left his door open so business could walk in. He heard footsteps at the doorway. “Got me a customer. Be right back.”
Jack sort of half-interestedly watched the big man walk across the floor to the bar.
“Welcome to Hunter’s,” Hunter said. “What can I get you?”
It was a Tuesday afternoon. The town that had been so alive on the Fourth was now almost dead. Jack, Hunter and the new customer were the only three in the barroom.
Jack idly thought he recognized the man. Black suit jacket, a checkered tie. He wore a short-brimmed black hat, and a gun on his hip. The man had a black mustache that covered his upper lip, and his jaw was gray with a few days’ worth of whiskers.
“You Hunter?” the man asked.
“That I am.” Hunter was stepping behind the bar. “What can I get you?”
Then, Jack recognized the man. He was the gambler from the night of the Fourth. The one who had been in the card game and was accused of cheating, and pulled a derringer on the man accusing him, which had sent the barroom exploding into a brawl that almost tore apart the place.
As Jack was realizing he knew him, the gambler pulled his pistol. The gambler said, “I’ll tell you what you can give me. I had two hundred and twenty dollars worth of winnings on the table on the night of the Fourth, before all hell broke loose. That’s a lot of money. I’m here for it.”
It was indeed a lot of money, Jack thought, especially out here on the frontier. Some ranches paid their cowhands twelve dollars a month and keep. Two hundred and twenty dollars was almost two years’ pay.
Hunter said, “I’m not looking for trouble. But your money’s gone. There was money all over the floor and everyone was grabbing at it. No way to tell whose money it was, or where it went.”
“Well, now, that’s your problem, not mine. I want two hundred and twenty dollars. And I want it now.”
Jack rose to his feet, and the gambler swung his gun toward him. “Hold it right there, cowboy. Don’t make a move, or I’ll cut you down.”
Jack said, “Takes a brave man to come in here at gunpoint and start giving orders. Put that gun away and let’s see how brave you are.”
Jack still had his glass in his hand. It was in his left hand, so his right was free to go for his gun.
The gambler walked toward him, his gun aimed at a point between Jack’s eyes. “How good do you think you are with that gun, cowboy? I see how you wear it. Low and tied down. Do you think you can draw that gun before I can shoot? What kind of odds do you think you have?”
Hunter said, “Your gripe’s with me, not him.”
The man turned to look at Hunter. “If I was you, big man, I’d be getting me my money.”
Jack tossed his drink into the man’s face. Jack had gotten a face full of whiskey, once. Back at school, too drunk to walk steadily, he had fallen with a glass of bourbon in his hand. He had landed on the floor, and the bourbon in his eyes. He didn’t forget it. And he was not surprised when the man screamed and took a step back, clawing at his face with his free hand.
Jack reached down and grabbed the table by the edge with both hands and flipped it over on the gambler, who went down under it. His gun fired, the bullet tearing into the table.
Jack then pulled the table away and landed with astride the gambler. With one hand he grabbed the gambler’s gunhand by the wrist, and he drove the other fist into his face. Hard. He put his shoulders into it, using the muscle he had gained rowing and boxing. He pulled his fist back and let it go again. A second punch was all that was needed, and the gambler went limp.
Jack rose to his feet, and pulled the gun from his grip.
Jack said to Hunter, “We don’t have a jail here, do we?”
Hunter shook his head. “Franklin’s got a tool shed, but that’s about it.”
Franklin, almost on cue, came running in. “I saw that man ride in. I thought he looked like he was no-good, and then I heard the gun go off.”
The gambler was stirring, and rolling over. He would be awake in a few moments, Jack thought. But it would be his turn for a concussion.
Hunter came over and Jack handed him the gambler’s pistol, and then reached into the man’s coat and vest for any papers that might identify him. He found none.
The gambler groaned a bit, then tried to sit up.
“What’s your name?” Jack said.
The gambler didn’t answer.
“All right. Then,” he looked at Franklin, “if we could borrow your tool shed. You might want to empty out anything sharp like saws.”
“I’ll be just a minute,” and Franklin hurried out.
The gambler said, “You’re gonna lock me in a tool shed?”
“Best jail we got,” Jack said. “We’ll be sending for the territorial marshal in the morning. Hopefully you won’t have to sit in there more than a week.”
“That ain’t humane.”
“Best we got. You should have thought of that before you came in here trying to rob the place.”
“I wasn’t trying to rob anyone. Just trying to get what’s mine.”
“Tell it to the judge.” Jack grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s move.”
Once he was locked in the shed, Franklin and Jack and Hunter reconvened at Hunter’s for a cold beer.
Franklin said, “This is exactly what I’ve been saying. We n
eed a lawman. You could have been killed, Hunter.”
Shapleigh stepped in, and joined them. He asked what the fracas had been about, and they told him.
“I fully agree, Charlie,” he said to Franklin. “We need to hire some sort of lawman for our town. You saw how wild things got the night of the Fourth. They get fairly wild almost every Saturday night. Especially the Saturday after the cowhands all get paid.”
Hunter said to Jack, “How long do you really think we can keep him in a tool shed?”
Jack shrugged. “Not long, I wouldn’t think. The ground’s not all that hard. He will probably dig himself out tonight. Besides, I don’t even know where he would have been taken for court. There’s no circuit judge who comes through here.”
“Bozeman, I suppose.”
Shapleigh said, “This place is growing. Mark my words. If we’re going to attract the right kind of people here – more people like those settlers down in the valley - then we’re going to have to have some sort of way of enforcing law and keeping the peace.”
Come morning, Jack sat down to a plate of steak and eggs. It was Bree’s turn to fix breakfast, for which he was grateful. Not that Temperance didn’t cook well, but Bree did a little something with the steak that made it extra good.
She sat beside Josh at the table. Conversation drifted casually about as they ate, but when Josh and Temperance thought no one was looking, they would steal a glance at each other. Just the way Nina and I were, Jack thought.
He started thinking maybe it was time he cut his visit here short. He had told them he would be here until the end of July, but he was suddenly feeling a restlessness.
Dusty said, “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Think it’ll be wild in town?”
“Could be,” Josh said. “The Bar W pays on the third Saturday of the month. Their hands’ll be in, shooting up the place.”
“Nothing Hunter can’t handle, I suppose.”
Josh cracked a grin. “Well, maybe we should ride in. Just to check things out.”
Jack said nothing. His steak and eggs were untouched.
Aunt Ginny said, “Are you not hungry this morning, Jackson?”
“No, for some reason I’m not,” he said, rising to his feet. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll take my coffee on the porch.”
With his coffee cup in hand, he strode from the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” Bree said.
“I don’t know,” Aunt Ginny said, staring after him. “He has not seemed quite his normal self to me since he got home.”
Josh said, “Could just be Nina. I remember how hard it was for you,” he looked over at Dusty, “when we couldn’t find Haley last winter, in Oregon.”
Dusty nodded. “It still is hard.”
“Maybe,” Aunt Ginny said. “But he’s seemed somehow different since he got home.”
She stood, and with her tea cup in hand, she said, “Maybe it’s time I had a talk with him.”
Dusty said, “With all due respect, sometimes a man just needs to be by himself. To work things out.”
She gave him a look that told him she was suddenly aware that he knew more than he was letting on. He found it uncanny how this woman could seem to look inside your mind.
She said, “Excuse me,” and followed Jack out to the front porch.
She found him standing by the porch railing, cup in hand, gazing off toward the ridges at the far side of the valley. The sky was lightening with the coming of morning, but was still a steel gray, the way it is right before the sun shows itself. Overhead the sky was clear, but there were clouds drifting far to the north.
He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening. He said to his aunt, “I remember when I was younger, growing up here. Seeing Pa every morning, standing out here with his coffee.’”
Ginny stood beside him, and took a sip of tea. “It is time for you to talk to me, Jackson. Since you have been home, you have been evasive, restless, and at times even reckless. None of the qualities I normally see in you.”
“I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
She shook her head. “No, Jack. Not to me. You’ve always been able to talk to me.”
Jack took a sip of coffee. “I had to write a paper, a few years ago. It had to be about the most influential person in my life. Of course, everyone who knows me knows how much Pa means to me. The entire class was looking forward to me writing about Johnny McCabe, the gunfighter, the former Texas Ranger. I think even the professor was. But that would have been too easy.”
“So, who did you write about?”
“I wrote about you. And I found describing you to be less than easy. You’re a complicated woman.”
“I think we are all complicated in our own way.”
“Perhaps. But everything that Josh is, you can see in him plainly. There’s nothing hidden about him. He simply is what he seems to be. I’m finding Dusty the same way. And it’s never a secret how Bree feels about anything. You, however, seem to make an art form out of being complicated.”
She chuckled. “So, how did you finally describe me.”
“I summed it all up with two words. Caring, for one. Caring, and yet caustic.”
That drew a smile from her. “I have been called a lot of things over the years. A witch, and something that rhymes with witch. But caustic? I think I like it.”
He returned the smile. “I thought you might.”
“You must understand, Jackson, that I worked many years at being caustic.”
“Most young women growing up in a wealthy family in San Francisco would try for charming, I would think.”
“Most of them did. Charm can open doors for you. But I found I didn’t want doors opened for me. I wanted to open them for myself. Besides that, my father was caustic by nature. I had to be able to hold my own with him.”
“That’s what you taught Bree, Josh and me, too.”
“You see, Jackson, this is a man’s world, but there is plenty of room for a woman who relies on charm. Such a woman can even attain power, after fashion, pulling strings from the background if she has a strong husband to stand in the foreground. There is little room, however, for a woman who wants to stand in the foreground herself. I found that if I were to attain this, I would have to learn to push my way into that foreground.
“That is why I developed what your father calls the Gaze. A firm stare that can turn a man’s knees to rubber and his spine to butter. Actually, I learned that from my father, too.”
She took a sip of tea. “Do you know what it was about your father that first impressed me?”
Jack had heard this story before, but he liked to hear it so he let her continue.
She said, “Your father did not wither away under the Gaze, as did so many men. He shot it right back at me. Right then, I knew your mother had picked a good man.”
She took another sip of tea. “OF course, we are drifting from the matter at hand, which I suppose could be your intention.”
He shook his head and tossed her a smile. “I’m not that good a politician. Besides, I don’t believe there’s a person alive who could manipulate you.”
“Some have tried, God help them.” She smiled. “Though, it is clear you don’t want to talk about what is troubling you, so I will begin. You, Jackson, are a terrible housekeeper.”
This caught him a little by surprise, but he couldn’t deny it. “You should see the room I share with Darby. No, on the other hand, maybe you should not.”
“Darby is your friend from school. You’ve mentioned him in letters.”
Jack nodded. “Probably my best friend in the world. Strange, because we sometimes seem to have such little in common.”
“It is because of your terrible housekeeping skills that I was in your room yesterday morning, gathering up dirty socks and preparing to give the room an over-all straightening, and the floor a good sweeping. How you man can live with gravel underfoot and never seem to notice it is beyond me. Anyway, this was when I accidentally kno
cked over your saddlebags. You had left them perched rather precariously at the side of your bed, and they were unlatched. All of the contents spilled on the floor.
“I won’t even comment on the bottle of whiskey. But as I picked up the mess from the floor, returning it all to your saddlebags for you to sort through later, I found your train ticket. Jackson, it is a one-way ticket.”
There, he thought. Finally. The proverbial cat was out of the bag. Not to mention the train ticket.
Aunt Ginny said, “Jackson, are you in some sort of trouble at school?”
That brought a surprised chuckle to the surface. “No. I’m in no trouble, believe me. Or, at least, I’m in no trouble at school?”
“Then, where are you in trouble?”
“Well, I’m going to be in trouble here, if this conversation continues much longer.”
She took another sip of tea. The cup was pretty much empty, now. “I’m waiting.”
“Aunt Ginny, please don’t think me ungrateful for all you have done for me. For all of the money you have put forth for my schooling.”
“But you’re not going back.” It was more of a statement than a question. “Is it because of the girl?”
“She would have been a very good reason not to go back. But no, I had already decided before I met her. I bought that one-way ticket a month before I met her.”
“And you didn’t think you could talk to your father or me about it?”
“How could I? I so do not want to disappoint either of you. After all you have done for me, and Pa is so proud of me. How do I tell him I don’t want to be a doctor?”
“What do you want to be?”
And so he told her. For the first time, he explained to her all he had ever wanted was to ride beside his father, to be like his father. To raise cattle, and help him build this ranch. And maybe, if he should meet the right girl, to build a home with her in this valley, and to raise children with her.
“I thought I had met the right girl with Nina. I thought at least that part of the equation had been fulfilled. But apparently not.”
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 33