Eventually, it was just the three brothers in the room.
Johnny said, “I suppose I should get out there and spell Wolf.”
Matt said, “No, I’ll do it. You get some rest.”
“I want you both to know,” Joe said, “that I’m here now. You have one more gun in this fight. I heard in town what was going on from a bartender named Artie.”
Johnny nodded with a chuckle. “He’s a good man.”
“Well, I had to be away. But now I’m here.”
Johnny laid a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. We’re bedding down in the barn. There’s plenty of room.”
Matt found Wolf by the stone wall at the edge of the small plateau, and told him he would take over. Wolf headed to the small bunkhouse behind the main house. He and Ches both had bunks there. Matt had thought about seeing if there was an extra bunk he might use, but Johnny had chosen the barn because he always seemed to want the most open-air sleeping conditions he could find. Matt joined him in the barn in case they had a chance to talk before going to sleep. After so many years apart, Matt wanted to spend as much time with his brother as possible. Matt had a practical reason, too. Johnny was hell-on-wheels in a fight, either with his fists or his guns. More so than any other man Matt had ever known. If Matt was to wake up to the sound of gunfire, which was a real possibility considering the situation they were in, he wanted Johnny close by.
Once Wolf was gone, Matt stood alone by the stone wall. Cigar smoke would taste good about now, he thought, but the drawing of cigar smoke tended to make the end of the cigar glow a bit. Nothing you’d notice by daylight, but in the dark such a thing could give away your position.
Matt had a Winchester in one hand, and he raised one foot to the stone wall and bent his knee and leaned on it, and looked down to the canyon floor. The sky was clear and the moon bright, and a sort of silvery light flooded the canyon. There were dark spots below, some of which were trees and others were cows. There seemed to be no motion, and he wondered how much motion he would be able to see from up here in the darkness.
He listened, too. If the cows suddenly seemed agitated, it might indicate something was down there that shouldn’t be.
He then remembered something Johnny had said once. A horse in the night is as good as a watch dog. Better, maybe. It would let you know if something was out there that shouldn’t be, but it would be quiet about it. He thought about maybe going to the corral and bringing out his horse and keeping it with him.
He then became aware of motion behind him. Something maybe heard like the soft sliding of a boot sole on the sand, or the rustle of trousers as a man stepped. Matt took no time to think about it, but whirled and pulled his gun as he moved. He had never managed a draw as smooth and quick as Johnny’s, but he had his gun out and the hammer cocked.
“Easy, there.” It was Joe. He had stepped out of the house and was coming up behind him with a cup of coffee in each hand. Cradled in the crook of one arm was his shotgun.
“Sorry,” Matt said, and released the hammer of his gun and slid it back into his holster.
“Brung you a coffee. Just brewed a pot. None of that coffee Miss Swan was serving. Not that it’s bad coffee, but I like mine a might stronger.”
Matt took a sip. Black and strong and thick. Just like he used to drink on the trail with his brothers. “Haven’t had coffee like this in a long time.”
“In town, Artie said your house burned down and there was some folks thinkin’ you were kilt in the fire. What happened?”
Matt told him the story, scanning the canyon below with his eyes as he did so, and taking an occasional sip of coffee. He told about how he had let himself become lulled into a state of complacency, living on scotch and memories of his younger days. And how Johnny’s arrival had sort of jolted him back into rediscovering himself. He told of the ambush that got his son Dan shot, and then the attempt on his own life. And he told Joe that his wife had been behind it.
Joe said, “Maybe I should have stuck around. Maybe when I left Montana I should have ridden here, and worked for you on the ranch. Maybe we could’ve prevented some of that from happening.”
Matt shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It was all my own fault. If a man’s going to make a mess out of his life, he’ll find a way to do it one way or another.”
Joe was quiet a moment. Then he said, “The reason I stayed away...”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. Johnny and I are just glad you’re here now.”
“No, I do want to talk about it. Just not to Johnny, because he’s the reason. Sort of.”
This caught Matt by surprise. “Johnny is?”
Joe toed the dirt a little with one boot, then said, “Matt, I found Lura’s killer.”
Matt blinked with even more surprise. “After all these years?”
Joe shook his head. “Nope. It was all them years ago. When we were riding with Johnny, following the killer’s trail. I found out who done it, but I didn’t say anything.”
He then told the story he had told Tremain a few weeks earlier. Finding the brass button in the dirt, and then once Johnny and Aunt Ginny and the children were safely relocated to Montana, Joe headed to Texas to confront Coleman Grant.
Joe said, “I hated leaving them, but Zack was with them and there’s no one more capable than Johnny, so I knew they’d be all right.”
He told about his confrontation with Coleman Grant, and the shooting.
“I done it so Johnny wouldn’t have to. I thought one day he’d figure it out and go shoot the man himself. I wanted to save him from prison or the noose, because his children needed him.”
They didn’t realize Johnny was standing by the barn door. He said, “Joe, I don’t know what to say.”
Joe muttered a curse word, and Matt said, “Johnny, how long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” Johnny walked over to them. “Joe, I’ve thought about who could have killed Lura. I always figured it was some bounty hunter who hadn’t got the word that our names were cleared. I gave up on ever being able to find his trail again after those tracks were washed away.”
“I knew if you saw that button layin’ there in the dirt you’d right off think of Coleman Grant, so I stepped on it so you wouldn’t see it.”
“Joe.” Words escaped him. He just stood there and shook his head and then placed a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “To take a burden like that onto yourself. I just don’t have the words.”
“Ain’t no words needed. You’d have done it for me.”
Matt said, “We all would have done it for each other.”
Thunder was loose in the corral, and had been lounging idly. Dozing on his feet the way a horse will. But then his head snapped up and he gave a snort, and a couple of prancing steps backward.
Johnny heard the horse, looking over to the corral. “Something’s down there that doesn’t belong. That’s the only thing that would rile Thunder like that.”
Joe said, “Maybe we should go down and take a look-see.”
20
Matt went to the bunkhouse and called to Wolf and Ches. Wolf appeared at the door, a rifle in his hands. Matt quickly told him they thought something was going on down at the canyon floor, and that Wolf and Ches were to go to the main house and be ready. Matt and his brothers were going to head down and see what was happening.
While they were waiting for Matt, Johnny went into the barn to his gear and pulled out a pair of buckskin boots. Joe stood watch while Johnny hauled his skin-tight riding boots off and slipped his feet into the others. These were a design he learned from the Shoshone. They pulled up almost to the knee and then tied together at the top with a strip of rawhide. Johnny then stood watch while Joe went to get his own pair.
Johnny was standing by the stone wall, scouring the canyon with his eyes when Matt returned.
Matt said, “Do you see anything down there?”
Johnny shook his head.
Matt said, “Could be
nothing, you know.”
“I hope it’s nothing. And it could just be something like a coyote wandering in. But I want to make sure. Thunder has saved my life a couple of times like this.”
Once Joe was in his buckskin boots, they began down the long sloping ledge that would lead them to the canyon floor. Matt stepped as quietly as he could, but his hard leather boot soles caught rocks a couple of times and sent them skittering along, and made scraping sounds as he stepped along.
Johnny stopped and looked at Matt in the moonlight.
“I’m making too much noise,” Matt said. “I’ll hang back. If there’s trouble, I’ll come running.”
Johnny nodded, and he and Joe continued on.
The slope was dotted with junipers and a few short, fat pines. Matt crouched behind one of the pines and waited.
Johnny and Joe moved cautiously along. They were crouched, taking slow, careful steps. Even in their buckskin boots, a toe could accidentally catch a small stone and send it careening into another. Such a sound would carry in the night air.
Johnny had left his rifle back at the barn. There would be no call for long-distance shooting at night. Johnny was hoping it was just a wandering coyote that Thunder was reacting to, but he was prepared for the worst. And the worst would mean Wells and some of his men from town trying to make their way into the canyon and launch an attack. Johnny held his revolver in his right hand and Joe gripped his scattergun with both hands, ready for action.
After a couple hundred feet, Joe held up his hand to signal Johnny to stop. They could see each other clearly in the moonlight, and Joe cradled his shotgun in the crook of one arm and made a hand gesture using the sign language of the plains Indians. Johnny understood the language. Joe had made the sign for horse.
There were many tribes spread out from Texas to the Canadian border and each spoke their own language, but they also shared a universal hand-sign language. Johnny had no idea how this had developed, but it enabled a Lakota from Montana to converse with a Kiowa from Colorado. Johnny and learned some of this language during their winter with the Shoshone, and Joe had learned it some years before that, when he had spent time with the Cheyenne.
Joe thought he had heard a horse, out there in the night. They stood still and listened, and after a few moments Johnny heard a sound. A steel shod hoof scraping on gravel. It wasn’t loud, but Johnny had logged enough hours in the saddle over the years to recognize it as the sound of a horse walking. It was on the rising slope, not far from them.
Johnny pointed from himself to a short pine to the right, and then to Joe and an outcropping of bedrock that was maybe three feet high, to the left. Joe nodded and headed to the rock. Johnny got behind the tree. And they waited.
The horse came into view. One lone rider, keeping his horse to a walk. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and his face was lost in the darkness. He rode bent at the shoulders and hanging a little over the saddle horn, like he had ridden far and was bone weary.
Johnny cocked his pistol and said, “Don’t make another move.”
Joe said from the other side of the rider, “You’re surrounded.”
The rider’s horse came to a stop, and the man raised his hands. “Don’t shoot. I’m here to see my father.”
Johnny stepped out from behind the tree. “What’s your name?”
“Dan. Dan McCabe.”
“You come alone?”
He nodded. “They’re both gone. Mother and Hiram. He’s gone to the mine and she’s out of town. I was alone at the house, so I saddled up and rode out here.”
Joe went to get Matt. He could have called out to him, but they were willing to err on the side of caution. They weren’t sure which side of the fence Dan was on.
Matt came running, and said, “Danny. What’re you doing? You shouldn’t be in the saddle. You just got shot a few days ago.”
“I had to see you, Father.” Dan swung his leg around to swing out of the saddle, but he was weak and began to fall more than dismount, and Matt caught him.
Matt said, “Let’s get him to the house.”
They got Dan to one of the spare bunks in the bunkhouse. He had managed not to re-open his wound, but was exhausted. Ches said what the boy needed were fluids and food. While Dan sat in his bunk and ate some eggs and steak Jessica fixed in her kitchen, he brought his father and two uncles up to date on what his mother and Hiram were up to.
They were now living in the farmhouse Verna had purchased. The house was fully stocked and they had moved Dan there the night of the fire that took the main house. Dan told Matt his mother felt safe at the farmhouse because the purchase and upkeep of the house was done without Matt’s knowledge.
Matt said, “Oh, I know about that house.”
Dan blinked with surprise.
Matt said, “I knew more of what was going on around there than they realize. Maybe I tried to turn a blind eye to a lot of it, but I know about that house.”
Dan told them Mother fully intended to rebuild the main house. Bigger and grander even than the first. Ben Harris and the men were working at hauling off the debris. Hiram had just come back from San Francisco, where he had met with an architect.
Matt said, “I’m surprised no one tried to stop you from riding out.”
“Mother’s asleep. And Hiram’s in town.”
Johnny nodded. He inferred from the way Dan said it that Hiram was visiting the brothel. He remembered what Belle had said about it. But he didn’t know if Matt was aware, and so decided to remain silent.
Dan looked at Johnny, “They’ve posted a reward for you, for the murder of Belle, the saloon whore. You’re wanted dead or alive. One thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Johnny said. “More than the average cowhand makes in five years.”
Matt said, “Been a long time since one of us was on a reward poster.”
“You’ve got trouble too, Father,” Dan said. “Everyone knows you didn’t die in that fire. Wells saw you that night after the fire, and there was only one body found at the house. They’ve determined you murdered Timmons, and there’s a poster for you now, too. Also a thousand dollars.”
Johnny said, “I’m amazed at how they can just issue these posters. There have been no formal charges levied.”
Dan nodded. “Yes, there have. They had two formal inquests yesterday, even though neither of you were there. Mother and Hiram have a judge in their pocket, and so the inquests were held without you because you are fugitives.”
Matt said, “This goes from bad to worse, doesn’t it?”
Johnny meandered into the kitchen in search of more coffee. Dawn wasn’t far away and the eastern sky was starting to lighten up a little, and the shelf where the ranch house stood was now being bathed in a gray light.
Wolf and Ches had taken over guard duty while the brothers talked with Dan, both of them positioned at the stone wall. Now that daylight was coming, Wolf mounted up and rode down to the pass to stand guard duty there.
Johnny found Jessica at the stove scrambling eggs and frying up some more steak.
“Well,” he said, “just so you know, you now have two official fugitives here. Reward posters have been issued for both Matt and me. They’re trying to pin the murder of Belle on me.”
“Belle was a friend of mine. As is Peddie. Peddie says you didn’t kill Belle, and that’s good enough for me.”
Johnny refilled his cup, emptying the pot. “What makes Peddie so sure?”
“Because Sam Middleton told her you didn’t do it. She trusts Sam with her life, and to me Peddie is family. As was Belle.”
Johnny took a sip of the coffee. The last of the trail coffee. The next batch would be made by Jessica, and would probably be more civilized. Thinner. Brown, not jet black.
He said, “What makes Middleton so sure?”
“He says men like you and your brothers are like the knights of old. He says if you can’t trust the three of you, you can’t trust anyone.”
“Yeah. He gav
e me a speech like that, too. With a man like him, you have to wonder what his angle is.”
Jessica said to him, “She believes him, and she’s no fool . She has trusted her life to him more than once, and he has never let her down. This is largely why I’m trusting my life to him. And to you and your brothers. Even though up until a couple of days ago I looked at Matt McCabe as my enemy.”
Johnny said, “Matt’s not a bad man. He made some bad choice, but now he’s trying to make up for them.”
Jessica scooped a pile of scrambled eggs from the skillet into a wooden bowl. “I’m glad his son is all right. But we’re going to have a problem. Supplies are running mighty low around here. The store owners in town have been told not to do business with me. Part of Matt’s wife’s way of driving me out, I suppose. We have enough beef, and I have a small chicken house out back so we shouldn’t run out of eggs, but that’s about it. We’re going to need flour and coffee. I don’t have a butter churn.”
“How are we fixed for water?”
“There’s a natural spring out back that runs from a crack in the rocks. It feeds the stream that runs through the canyon. Cold, fresh water. Like a mountain spring. Better than any well water I’ve ever tasted.”
“So, we just have to figure out an answer to the supply problem.” Johnny took a sip of coffee. He was again, for more times than he could now count since riding into this canyon, taken with her beauty. Even though she had a bandana tied in a triangle over her hair and her face was a little flushed from the heat of the stove.
She said, “You haven’t asked why I would consider two saloon whores from town to be almost family. Peddie and Belle.”
“Not my place to ask,” he said. “But one question I do have is why you stay here. How long can you hope to make a stand here?”
“Indefinitely, if I have to.” She looked at Johnny. “According to Wolf and Ches, because of the nature of the pass leading into this canyon, two men could defend it against a small army. And have you seen the shape of the rim of the canyon? It’s impossible to climb, from the inside or out. The only way in here is through the front pass.”
Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3) Page 19