Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3)

by Brad Dennison

  “Still got that long Indian hair,” Matt said. “You haven’t changed much, really.”

  He glanced downward to Johnny’s legs. “Carrying only one gun, now.”

  Johnny nodded. “These newfangled Peacemakers. So easy to reload a man doesn’t need two guns.”

  “You haven’t changed much at all,” Matt said. He reached up and stoked his mustache. “It’s like looking into the past. Like the way things were when we first rode in here, all those years ago.”

  Johnny wished he could say the same about Matt. Even the man’s voice was different. Matt had always a strong baritone, and spoke like an actor projecting to the back of the theater. At the old farmhouse in Pennsylvania, he could be talking with someone in the kitchen and you’d hear him all the way upstairs. Now his voice was thin and reedy.

  Johnny shrugged. “I’ve changed a little, Matt. A little white in my hair. More lines on my face.”

  Matt called out, “Diego!”

  A young Mexican boy of maybe fifteen had already rounded the side of the house and was approaching. “Mister McCabe,” he said. “They said you had a guest.”

  “Take care of his horse, please, Diego.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Johnny said to Diego, “Don’t try to ride him. Just lead him along. If he stops for any reason, don’t try to pull him along.”

  Matt slapped Johnny’s shoulder with a smile. “Diego knows how to handle a horse, Johnny. Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  “I’m serious,” Johnny said. “He could get hurt. He doesn’t know this horse. It was born and raised in the mountains and is only half-broken.”

  Diego said, “I’ll be careful.”

  “Come on inside,” Matt said. “You in the mood for a scotch?”

  The interior of the house showed some reflection of the way it had been in the McCarty days, but had been seriously refurbished. Johnny caught a glimpse of the dining room through a doorway as he followed Matt down a corridor. The dining room now had dark maple floorboards where before they had been pine. An elaborate crystal chandelier was hanging suspended over a deep mahogany table. Against one wall was a cabinet containing three shelves of china.

  “You’ve done some work on the place,” Johnny said.

  Matt nodded. “We’ve been lucky. Had some success.”

  Johnny followed Matt to a doorway at the end of the hall. In the days of old Frank McCarty, the hallway had just ended at this point. But now there was a doorway that Matt opened, and Johnny followed him into a study. An oak desk filled one corner. A rifle rack was against a wall. A pool table stood in the center of the room, and against the far wall was a marble fireplace. A small sofa and a stuffed chair faced it, and a fire was already going in the hearth.

  On a small table in one corner were two decanters. Matt tossed his hat on the desk and then took a decanter and filled two glasses and handed one to Johnny.

  Matt raised his glass to his brother. “To old times.”

  Johnny nodded. “To old times.”

  They both took a drink. Matt then sat on the edge of the desk and shook his head. “Johnny. I can’t believe you’re actually here. It’s been so long. What brings you out here?”

  “Lura,” Johnny said.

  Matt nodded sadly. “I shouldn’t have had to ask.”

  “The folks who live there take good care of the grave.”

  Matt grabbed the whiskey decanter and they went to the fireplace. Matt set another piece of wood on the fire, and took the stuffed chair. Johnny sat on the sofa.

  They then heard some noise outside. A horse braying.

  “What in tarnation?” Matt said.

  Johnny grinned. “That’s Thunder. He’s letting Diego know he doesn’t like to be led.”

  “A half-broke horse,” Matt said. “Wild. Untamed. Kind of like my brother. I guess I admire that.”

  Their talk drifted to the old times, which was to be expected. Their adventures in Texas, when they were on the run from the law. Their travels had eventually brought them to California. Johnny met and married Lura. Matt married Frank McCarty’s daughter Verna.

  “How is Verna?” Johnny asked.

  Matt shrugged a little uncertainly. “Oh, I don’t know. Fine, I suppose. She’s upstairs. She always rests, this time of day. She’ll be glad to see you.”

  Johnny doubted that. There was always something about Verna McCarty that made Johnny a little uneasy. Something about the way she smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes. Something about the way she looked at a man as though she were sizing him up.

  She’s just shy, Matt used to say. She’s a great girl.

  Matt said, “Do you ever hear from Joe?”

  Johnny shook his head. “He rode with us when we brought the herd to Montana, years ago. Zack Johnson was there, too. We built our home in that little valley I’ve spoken of. Where we wintered with the Shoshone. Then the next year, he just said it was time he moved on.”

  “Joe always was a loner.”

  “Never seen him again. I’ve never even heard anything about him. It’s like he disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  Matt paused a little sadly. His gaze grew distant. “Maybe something happened. Remember those old bones we found that time in the mountains?”

  Johnny nodded. He remembered. In the early days, Johnny and Matt and some of the other hands from the McCarty ranch had gone mustanging in the Sierra Nevadas. One ridge was covered with pines, and sticking out of the pine straw were the remains of an old Flintlock rifle. Looked to be a Hawken. The stock was all rotted and the barrel rusted.

  Odd thing to be left lying around, Johnny said. They rode about, checking the side of the ridge and eventually finding what was left of a man. Mostly bones. The upper leg bone had been broken nearly in half. The skeleton had been tossed about. Probably feasted on by a pack of wolves.

  There was a bowie knife, rusted beyond any hope of repair, lying with a couple rotted strips of material around it. What Johnny figured was left of an old buckskin sheath.

  Matt had watched from the back of his horse while Johnny checked out the remains. Matt sat tall in those days. No bend to his shoulders. He said, What do you suppose happened?

  Johnny said, An old fur trapper, I’d bet. Got thrown from his horse and broke his leg. His rifle got tossed over yonder, or maybe it got dragged by wolves after he died.

  Matt looked at him with a little horror. You mean he just laid here and died? Starved to death, or attacked by wolves?

  Their brother Joe had been with them. Long haired and with a full beard. He was the silent one among them. Seldom spoke, but when he did it was usually loaded with meaning. He was never one to waste words.

  It happens, he said. Man alone, out on a mountainside. Gets hurt. No one to hear his cries for help. Judgin’ by that gun, it was probably more’n forty years ago.

  Matt sat in his stuffed chair and looked at Johnny with eyes that were sad and maybe a little afraid. “You think that’s what happened to Joe? Got in trouble somewhere? On some mountainside, or off in a desert somewhere? Died alone?”

  Johnny shrugged. “I hope not. But we have no way of knowing.”

  They were silent a moment, then Matt snorted a chuckle. “No. You wait and see. Some day, Joe will just ride in. He’s all right.”

  Johnny nodded. He hoped so.

  They talked of the farm back in Pennsylvania. How they still missed Ma and Pa. How their younger brother Luke was now running the farm. Living there with his wife and raising a passel of children. They wondered if the farm still looked like it did. Would they still recognize it if they were to just show up one day.

  Johnny talked of the ranch in Montana, and how the children had all grownup.

  Matt said, “It’s mighty big of you, taking in Dusty like he was one of your own, the way you did.”

  This struck Johnny as a strange comment. “He is one of my own, Matt.”

  “Well, Verna and I were talking about it. She said a lot of people wo
uld be reluctant to just let a child like that into their family.”

  A child like that. The sound of it struck Johnny as wrong. As something the Matt of old wouldn’t have said. Johnny wasn’t the least bit surprised at Verna’s comment. He could easily imagine her saying that. But somehow he just couldn’t imagine the Matt he had grown up with, the Matt he had ridden with in the old days, saying something like a child like that. Johnny felt Dusty was as much his as any of the others. It was the way he had been raised. It was also the way Matt had been raised.

  Matt went on to talk of building the ranch to what it is now. Buying some additional range. Investing in the railroad. Buying a couple of gold mines. Not that Matt knew anything about mining, but Hiram thought it was a good idea. Hiram had grown into quite a young man and was taking the initiative in many of the family’s business ventures.

  Johnny said, “There are some strange things going on in town, Matt.”

  “Where? In Greenville? I don’t get in there much, nowadays. I’ve turned a lot of the operations over to Hiram. He handles the entire mining side of the operation. I still keep a hand in the cattle, though.”

  Johnny said, “People are scared, Matt. There are thugs running the town, calling themselves lawmen. They say your son Hiram hired them. Two of them almost drew down on me while I was there.”

  Matt laughed. “Would have been their funeral, eh?”

  Johnny wasn’t laughing. “Matt, I’m serious. I would have had to kill them.”

  “Johnny, I don’t think it’s all that bad. I’ll talk to Hiram about it.”

  A man walked into the room. “Talk to me about what?”

  He was maybe a little older than Josh and Dusty. He had dark wavy hair, like his mother. He wore a jacket and tie in the natural way of a man who seemed born to wear them.

  Matt rose to his feet. “Hiram. Come here. I want you to meet your Uncle Johnny.”

  Johnny also rose to his feet. Hiram shook his hand. He had a firm handshake. “Pleased to meet you, Uncle Johnny.”

  Johnny looked for a sign of Matt in him and had to admit he saw little. Matt’s face was kind of long and angular. Hiram’s was squarely cut, and with a cleft in his chin. But there was a lot of Verna. Hiram was smiling, but in his eyes there was no smile. He looked like he was sizing Johnny up. Noting the way he stood and the way he wore his gun. What it would take to bring him down.

  Johnny said, “There’s some trouble in town.”

  Hiram raised his brows with surprise. “Oh?”

  Johnny said, “A couple thugs passing for lawmen almost drew on me. I was told by two different people there that these lawmen have the town running scared.”

  Hiram shrugged, and looked helplessly to his father. “That sounds terrible. First I’ve heard of it, though. I ride out to the mine once a week, but I can’t say I get involved with the goings on in town, much.”

  “Hiram,” Matt said. “Tell Mabel we’re having a guest for dinner. And have the guest room made ready.”

  Johnny said, “That’s not necessary.”

  “Nonsense.” Matt clapped a hand to Johnny’s shoulder. “I insist you stay here.”

  Johnny was introduced to a hot bath, the first he had since he left Montana. He had washed in mountain streams, but it wasn’t quite the same. He shaved the beard away, and in his bedroll was a folded broadcloth shirt, and some jeans he had last washed in cold mountain water a couple weeks ago. He put those on, and brushed the dust from his vest and boots.

  The room he was given was elaborate by the standards he was accustomed to. The walls were plaster, the ceiling fairly high. In Montana, where the winters were icy and snow would sometimes drift up against the windows, ceilings were kept low to conserve heat. But here in California, the dead of winter was little more than late autumn by comparison, and the ceilings in this ranch rose to nearly ten feet. The head of the bed was made of dark wood and was scrolled into designs that reminded Johnny of ocean waves.

  He fastened the top button of his collar and then reached for a string tie Matt had loaned him. He had slung his gunbelt over a chair, and he reached for it next, but then hesitated. He doubted Matt sat down to dinner loaded for bear. Matt had been wearing a tie and jacket, and this was probably his usual way of dressing. Johnny noticed Matt had not been armed. Johnny was about to leave his gun here. To go down to the dining room without it. But then thought better of it. Like Zack had said, Johnny had been shot at one time too many. His gut feeling said to bring the gun. When it came down to the brass tacks, his gut feeling said to always bring his gun. So he grabbed it and buckled it on and tied the holster down to his leg with the rawhide thong.

  When he joined the family in the parlor, he found the simple hearth made of bricks that had been there years ago had been replaced by one of marble. Like the one in Matt’s study but bigger. A crystal chandelier was suspended overhead. A sofa and three stuffed chairs were upholstered in a burgundy colored velvet that even Ginny would have thought elaborate.

  Johnny was introduced to Matt’s younger son, Dan. He was a couple of inches shorter than Hiram. If Johnny remembered right, Dan was two or three years younger. Johnny shook the boy’s hand and found the grip firm. Nothing different than what he would have expected from a McCabe.

  “Scotch?” Matt said.

  Johnny nodded. Matt went to the wet bar and came back with two tumblers of scotch, and handed one to Johnny. Matt also had a cigar going, and offered one to Johnny. Never say no to a good cigar, Johnny thought.

  “So,” Johnny said. “Are Tom and his family joining us tonight?”

  Matt glanced down at his feet. Dan looked away, and Hiram raised his brows in a sort of implied shrug, and turned to tend the fire. Johnny realized he had apparently struck a tender nerve.

  Matt looked up to meet Johnny’s gaze. “Tom doesn’t come to the ranch much. There have been disagreements. I hope to work them out. Family means much to us and I hate to have a rift between me and any of my boys.”

  “Indeed,” a woman said from the open doorway.

  Johnny looked over to see Verna striding in. Again, he was struck by the changes over the years. She had been relatively pretty in her late teens. But now her face was hardened, and there were the type of stern lines you get around your mouth from not smiling. At seventeen she would stride into the room with arrogance, expecting all eyes to be on her. Johnny never understood what Matt saw in her, other than physically. But now she had a sort of commanding, regal way about her. And yet she seemed to be aging beyond her years. Deep lines were carved into her face, and her eyes had a bleary look to them.

  She said, smiling with her mouth but not with her eyes—that much about her hadn’t changed, “Johnny. So good to see you again, after all these years.”

  She extended her hand and grasped his gently.

  Before he could say anything, she said, “Of course, it breaks my heart for there to be a rift between Matthew and Thomas. But sometimes one has to simply wait these things out.”

  Johnny nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “Hiram,” she said. “Would you get me a glass of sherry?”

  Johnny noticed a man standing in the parlor doorway. He was about Johnny’s age, with white hair cut short. He wore a black suit jacket and trousers, a checkered vest, and not a tie but a cravat. He simply stood and waited. Johnny made eye contact with him and the man nodded but said nothing.

  It took Johnny a moment to realize he knew him. The man had been a skinny young kid when Johnny first met the McCartys. His father had been the blacksmith for the ranch, and his mother the maid. Johnny couldn’t recall his name, but he remembered how the boy would stare at Verna from a distance. Probably thought he was being discrete, but it’s hard to be discrete when you’re staring at a girl.

  Looked like the young skinny kid had grown up and was still following her around, but now as the family butler.

  Johnny wasn’t good with names, but after a few moments the name came to him. Timmons. Moses Timmons had been
his father. Johnny didn’t know if he had ever heard the younger one’s name.

  Hiram fetched his mother a sherry, and then she sat on the sofa and they all joined her. Matt milled about, idly puttering about the fireplace mantel or grabbing a wrought iron poker and prodding at the fire. The conversation was mostly Verna and Hiram, talking about the goings on at the ranch or their other business ventures. Dan listened in but offered little comment.

  At one point, Verna said, “So, Johnny, how is Miss Brackston?”

  “Fine,” Johnny said. His gut feeling said to keep anything he offered to a minimum. Always follow your gut. “She runs the household, like she always has.”

  “Is there any chance of her coming home, and rejoining us in civilization?”

  Johnny hadn’t given this any real thought. The house without Ginny. They had never really discussed it, but with the children grown, he realized he wouldn’t be all that surprised if she did return to San Francisco. What he did was give a shrug of his shoulders and said, “You never know, I suppose.”

  The light-hearted chat continued as they made their way to the dining room. Dinner was roasted duck served with some sort of sauce. Had a French name, but Johnny had never been into such niceties. He wanted nothing more than good old home cooking. Though Ginny could walk in this pompous world where Matt had seemed to make his home, she seemed perfectly happy to indulge in Johnny’s simpler tastes.

  In fact, Johnny really wanted nothing more than an open campfire and some deer meat roasting on a wooden spit he had whittled himself. A wolf or a coyote howling from somewhere off in the darkness. The gentle scent of balsam on the air.

  Verna asked Timmons fetch a bottle from their wine cellar. Again, some sort of French name.

  He said, “The eighteen forty vintage, madam?”

  She gave it a moment’s thought. “Bring the eighteen twenty-two. We have a special guest tonight.”

  She was trying hard to show off for a guest who was not the slightest bit impressed. When the wine arrived, he held the bottle in front of her while she glanced at the label. He didn’t actually allow his bare hands to touch it, but held it with a white cloth. She nodded and he pulled out a corkscrew and once the bottle was open he poured an splash into a glass which she then held to her nose and swirled the wine about and sniffed the ambiance. She then took a sip and nodded to Timmons, who began filling glasses. Johnny had seen this show before, but had never been really impressed.