Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3)

by Brad Dennison

Matt was on one knee in front of the sofa, checking the side of Dan’s head.

  Ben Harris said, “That one ain’t a bullet wound. He got shot out of the saddle, and hit his head on a rock when he landed.”

  Matt found there was a lump on Dan’s head, just above the temple. He had seen worse. Dan would have a serious headache for a couple of days, but the main problem was the bullet wound. Matt began to unbutton Dan’s blood-soaked shirt.

  Verna said, “How bad is it?”

  “Hard to tell. There’s a lot of blood. We need a doctor.”

  Verna said, “Hiram. Send Timmons into town to fetch the doctor. Hurry!”

  Dan’s wound seemed to be on the lower right side of his ribcage. Matt had seen gunshot wounds, and he knew what had to be done. Matt began pressing down on the wound with both hands, and told Verna to get some sheets to use as bandages. They had to slow down this bleeding. For years, Matt hadn’t thought Verna could wipe her nose without Timmons there to do it for her, but she hurried to a linen closet and came back with two folded sheets.

  Matt had Hiram press down on the wound while he tore a sheet into strips, and then placed a folded strip over the wound.

  “Get a bucket of water,” Matt said.

  No one moved.

  Matt looked to Hiram. For too long, he had taken a back seat to Verna and Hiram. For too long he had held back. He didn’t know why and now was not the time to try to figure it out. He growled the words at Hiram, “Go and get a bucket of water!”

  Hiram took off at a run, and was back within minutes with the bucket. Matt worked at cleaning some of the blood off of Dan.

  Dan began to stir, and then opened his eyes. “Mother?”

  Verna went to his side and took his hand. “I’m here, son.”

  “Mother. It’s like they were waiting for us. They started shooting at us from two sides.”

  Verna glanced quickly at Hiram, who gravely returned the gaze. They had thought they were being discreet, but they weren’t. Matt saw it.

  Matt said, “Rest easy, son. You got a bullet in your ribs, and you hit your head when they shot you out of the saddle. Timmons has gone for the doctor.”

  Dan nodded, and closed his eyes. He fell back into a light sleep.

  “Oh, Dan,” Verna said.

  Matt placed a hand on her shoulder. “He’s made of strong stuff, Verna.”

  Greenville was only four miles from the ranch, and within less than an hour, Hiram was returning with Doc Benson. Young, for a doctor, maybe thirty-five, but Matt had found he seemed to be knowledgeable in all of the new medical theories.

  He was tall and thin and with a thick mustache waxed into curls at both ends. He wore a dark colored bowler that he tossed into a chair, and went to work, poking about Dan’s bullet wound. He then closed the wound with four stitches and bandaged it tightly, to close off the bleeding and to hold the broken rib in place.

  When it was done, he met the family in the parlor.

  “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “Looks like the bullet cracked the rib but didn’t go through. Must have ricocheted off.”

  Hiram looked a little confused. “Can a bullet do that? Actually bounce off a rib?”

  Matt nodded. “Depends on how far away the shooter is. A bullet loses its force the further it travels.”

  The doctor said, “He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s going to be sore. I wouldn’t let him back in the saddle again for at least three weeks. But barring infection, he should be all right.”

  Verna said, “What are the chances of infection?”

  The doctor looked at her, and shrugged. “It’s a hard thing to predict. I don’t want to give you false hope, but I don’t want to scare you, either. But in the late War Between the States, the number one cause of death was from infection.”

  Matt nodded. He had seen men die of infection. He fully believed it. But he knew it could be prevented. He said as much.

  Doc Benson shook his head. “No, Mister McCabe. I wish there were. But there’s no way of preventing infection. Maybe someday, but I fear that day’s a long ways away.”

  Matt was also shaking his head. “I’ve seen it work. Something an old Texas Ranger showed my brother.”

  “Johnny McCabe,” Benson said, weariness in his voice, like he had heard the stories of Matt’s legendary brother more often than he cared to.

  Matt said, “I’ve seen it work.”

  “This is no time for old home remedies. What he needs now is rest. When he wakes up, try to get food and water into him. I’d recommend red meat to build his blood up. Beef stew, perhaps.”

  Verna nodded. “I’ll have Timmons pay you, and escort you back to town.”

  He nodded with a smile. “I can get back to town myself, Mrs. McCabe. But thank you.”

  When the doctor was gone, Verna gave Matt a long look. She said, “You’ve actually seen this remedy work?”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen gunshot wounds treated with it. And a boy working for the ranch here got gored with an antler once. Treated him with it, too. No infection at all. It was back when Johnny was ramrodding. Back when your father was still here.”

  She said, “Billy Hall. I remember that. I never knew anything was given to him to prevent infection.”

  Hiram said, “What remedy is it? How is it possible a fully trained doctor wouldn’t know of it?”

  Matt said to Verna, “Do you want me to try? I think we should.”

  He could see the wheels turning in her mind. Finally, she nodded.

  Matt looked from Hiram to Timmons, to Ben Harris who was still there. “You boys are gonna have to hold him down.”

  Verna said, “What are you going to need to put this potion of Johnny’s together?”

  Matt looked over to the wet bar, and the whiskey decanter. “All we’re going to need is right here.”

  Dan kicked and bucked like a wild man when the whiskey hit his wound, but once he settled down he fell into a comfortable sleep.

  Matt returned to his office. The upholstery on the sofa was stained with blood. So was a braided rug under the sofa. Bloody strips of sheet were still on the floor where he had thrown them carelessly. He was in a gray satin smoking jacket which now also had random smears of blood on it.

  He glanced at the clock on the mantel. Ten past three. He didn’t realize how late it was. He had lost track of time when Dan was brought in.

  He went to the bar and grabbed a glass and filled it with scotch. He then stood and looked at it. His son had almost died tonight. Matt should have been out there with him. Ben Harris was a good man but he was a cowboy, not a gunfighter. None of the men were gunfighters. Though Matt hardly considered himself one, both of his brothers qualified for the title and he had ridden with them for a long time. If Matt had been out there tonight, maybe he would have suspected the trap the rustlers had set for them.

  He threw the glass against the wall. It shattered, and scotch splattered against the plaster.

  I’ve had enough scotch, Matt thought. Too much scotch. If he had been out there on a horse instead of home with a glass in his hand, none of this might have happened. He should have grabbed his gun and saddled up and rode out after them. But Verna said for him to stay, so he stayed.

  “What the hell has happened to me?” he shouted.

  With one hand, he grabbed the small table that served as a wet bar and sent it cartwheeling across the room. The decanter of scotch landed on the floor and didn’t shatter, but the scotch emptied itself onto the floorboards. The decanter of Verna’s sherry did shatter.

  Papers and a quill pen and a bottle of ink were on the desk top. With a swipe of both hands, the desk top was cleared and the papers flew across the room, and the bottle of ink shattered and there was one more stain on the floor.

  Matt went outside into the night. He needed to breathe. He wiped away tears, and he strode off the porch to the ground. He looked off into the darkness and wanted to raise his voice and scream to the heavens. But instead he stood, huffi
ng for breath, his fists clenched.

  From somewhere off in the distance, he heard a wolf howl. And he felt something come alive inside him. Something he had let die over the years. One step at a time. But now it was over, and he was back.

  Come sunrise, he was in his office once again. Verna stepped in and said, “There you are. We were wondering where you had gone?”

  Then her gaze traveled about the room. It looked like it had been ransacked. “Good God, Matt. What happened here?”

  He didn’t answer. She then realized how he was dressed. He was in a range shirt and a tattered old leather vest. The one he had worn when he first met her. He was in jeans and riding boots, and a pistol was at his side. A wide-brimmed brown sombrero was on his desk. The men on the ranch used the term sombrero loosely. Sort of a cowboy colloquialism. The hat was worn and tattered, with a brim that was wide and flat and a crown that was rounded. The hat he had worn when he and his brothers first rode into Verna’s life.

  Matt was standing by the gun rack, thumbing cartridges into a Winchester carbine.

  “Matt,” she said, “what on Earth are you doing?”

  “I’m going after those men. The ones that shot Dan.”

  As he said this, Hiram stepped into the room behind his mother.

  “Father,” he said, “you can’t be serious. You’ll be killed.”

  “I should have been there with him in the first place.”

  Verna said nothing. She merely tossed a glance at Hiram. Her son stepped past her, and placed a hand on his father’s shoulder.

  “Father, put the gun away.” He spoke gently, almost like a parent would to a child. “You’ll just get yourself killed out there.”

  Matt shrugged off Hiram’s hand. “It’s time to take matters into my own hands. It’s my own fault I let myself get talked out of riding with Dan. I’ve told Ben to saddle a horse for me.”

  “Well, I’ll go and tell him to stop.”

  Matt had a strong voice, which Hiram had forgotten. Matt let it roar now. “This is my ranch! I gave my ramrod an order, and he’s carrying it out. Either ride with me, or stay out of my way.”

  Hiram stepped back.

  Matt said, “Before I go after those men, I’m going to go and bring back the one man we need for something like this. He shouldn’t have too much of a lead on me. I should be able to follow his trail pretty easy.”

  Good God, Verna thought. He’s going to bring back his brother.

  Matt said to Hiram, “Are you gonna ride with me?”

  Hiram looked at him but said nothing.

  “That’s what I thought.” Matt grabbed his sombrero from the desk. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  He strode out onto the porch behind the house, and to the stable out back.

  Verna looked to her son. “We have a problem.”

  9

  Johnny knew he was being followed. When you’ve ridden enough trails, you know how to become aware of something like this. Little things, like a flock of birds a quarter mile back suddenly taking to the air. When he stopped Thunder and climbed out of the saddle and loosened the girth to let him blow for a while, the horse threw a glance toward their back trail. But mostly it was a gut feeling. Johnny tightened the girth and swung back into the saddle, cast one more backward glance, and continued on.

  Johnny carried no time piece, but he guessed by the position of the sun overhead that it was late morning. Ahead was a small grouping of short, fat oaks, so he turned his horse into the grove and stepped out of the saddle.

  He pulled his pistol and checked the loads. There were five. He usually rode with an empty chamber in front of the firing pin so if the gun got bumped it wouldn’t shoot him in the leg. He thumbed in a sixth cartridge and then stood, gun in his hand, in the shade of an oak.

  “We’re going to have some company,” he said to Thunder.

  Thunder grazed contentedly. Didn’t seem all that bothered.

  Johnny was closer to the mountains now, and the land was rising into low, rounded hills, though they were still grassy with scattered oaks. From where he stood, he had a good view of a hill he had just descended, maybe a quarter mile behind him. Johnny waited what he guessed was over half an hour when a rider topped the hill and then began riding down.

  Johnny recognized the rider, even though he hadn’t seen him in a saddle in almost twenty years. Every rider has a distinct way of sitting on a horse, just like everyone has a distinct way of walking. This man rode erect, his head bowed a little as his eyes scanned the ground in front of him. He wore his gun high on his belt, and wasn’t fast or flashy with it, but Johnny knew he could shoot straight. Johnny had expected he would probably never see him again, and couldn’t help smiling as he watched him ride up.

  The man could track, and he knew Johnny was waiting for him in the grove of oaks. He reined up by the grove and wasn’t at all surprised when Johnny stepped out of the trees.

  “Matt,” Johnny said, dropping the sixth round from his gun and sliding the pistol back into its holster. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I am a little surprised.”

  Matt decided to get to the point. “Johnny, we need you. I need you. Dan’s been shot. Ambushed by cattle rustlers last night. The fool boy went out with the men. I guess he thought he had something to prove.”

  Johnny said, “You’re going after them.”

  Matt nodded.

  “I’ll get my horse.”

  As they rode back toward the ranch, Matt said, “You covered a lot of miles.”

  Johnny didn’t know quite how to say this. In the past, he and Matt had never minced words with each other, but this was no longer the Matt he had known. But he decided to follow the old policy and just say what had to be said.

  “I really wanted to put as many miles as I could behind me.”

  Matt nodded. “It’s not what you would have thought, is it? The kind of life I lead. Back in the day, when we were just three young men with a price on our heads, you never thought I’d wind up in a house like that, with servants.”

  “I have to admit, I’m not surprised by that part of it. If any of the four sons of our parents were to succeed, I’d put my money on you. But it’s the way you seem to be going about it.”

  Matt nodded again. He knew what Johnny meant. “I don’t know what’s happened to me, Johnny. Somehow, I guess I just let myself slip away from myself. You know what I mean?”

  Johnny’s turn to nod.

  Matt said, “I was so taken with Verna when I first saw her, standing on the front porch, all those years ago. She was so beautiful. I really did love her, at least in the beginning.”

  He sighed. “I know what she is. I began to realize, over the years. Love’s blinders began to fall off, bit by bit, and I began to see what she is. But I couldn’t just ride away. We had the boys, and they needed their father in the household. So I stayed, and just got used to turning a blind eye to the things she would do, and hiding in whiskey.

  “And I know what my sons are. Hiram is just like her. Pains me to say that. Tom, he’s a good man. There’s no real rift between us. It’s just that he had the good sense to get out. And Danny, he doesn’t know what he wants. He looks up to Hiram almost like a hero. Wants to be just like him, but doesn’t yet realize what Hiram is. Danny has heart. And gumption.”

  They rode in silence for a moment. Then Matt said, “I guess it got to be too easy to just lose myself in a bottle of scotch, and let Verna be Verna and Hiram be Hiram. And look where it got me. Danny was almost killed last night.”

  Matt told Johnny about the way Dan was brought home, and the extent of the wound.

  Johnny said, “You might have been losing yourself in a bottle of scotch. I came close to that myself a time or two. But you’re here now. Let’s go find those men.”

  It was early afternoon when they arrived at the ranch. Hiram met them in the entryway. Timmons was with him. Hiram glanced at Johnny and said nothing, but his eyes said it all. Johnny knew he wasn’t
welcome here.

  “How’s your brother?” Matt said to Hiram.

  “He’s asleep. He’s sleeping well. No sign of fever.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She’s resting, like she always does this time of day.”

  “She rests a lot,” Matt said to Johnny. “I’m starting to wonder if she’s ill. She hasn’t looked well in a long time.”

  Johnny wanted to say, all that rottenness is bound to wear a body out. He wanted to say it, but didn’t.

  Timmons ignored Matt and said to Hiram, “Should I get her?”

  But Matt answered, not giving Hiram a chance to. “No. Get Ben Harris and have him meet me in my office.”

  Without another word, Matt strode down the corridor that would lead to his office. Johnny noticed Matt hadn’t asked, he had ordered. Johnny fell into place behind him.

  Timmons gave a questioning look to Hiram, who shrugged and said, “I suppose you should go get Harris.”

  “What do you think is happening?”

  “I have no idea, but it can’t be good.”

  The door to Matt’s office was closed, so he opened it and stepped in. To his surprise, the room had been cleaned. The blood stained strips of bed sheet were gone. The braided rug had been cleaned, and the entire sofa had been replaced. He wasn’t surprised. The sofa had velvet upholstery, and blood wouldn’t clean easily from it. What he was surprised about was how quickly it had been done. Even the small table that served as a wet bar was back in place, with two decanters and a small supply of tumblers and the tulip-shaped wine glasses Verna drank sherry from. The papers were back on his desk, with a new ink bottle.

  He could just imagine Verna snapping orders to the poor crew who had the misfortune to work for her.

  “I worked hard to build this place up,” he said to Johnny.

  “You built an empire. That’s for sure.”

  “But somehow I let it get away from me. I’m starting to wonder if Verna had this planned all along. Manipulate me into making the business deals I needed to, and then gradually sweep me aside. Maybe I needed something like this, my son getting shot, as a rude awakening. Make me open my eyes and see just what the hell’s going on. God help me.”