Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3)

by Brad Dennison

  She smiled and a touch of pink suddenly lit up her cheeks, and she looked down to her shoes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was so very inappropriate.”

  She looked up with surprising shyness in her eyes. “It’s just that no one has ever said that before. Not and meant it.”

  A few strands of hair had come free and the brisk morning wind had brought them around and across her cheek and nose. He reached with his free hand to brush them back, and then allowed his fingers to remain where they were and touch her cheek and trail it along to the side of her face. She closed her eyes, liking his touch.

  “Matt,” she said. “You know what I am. What I’ve had to do for a living.”

  “I don’t judge people by what they’ve had to do. I judge by what’s in their heart.”

  She smiled. “That’s what Jessica said your brother said to her.”

  Matt nodded. “We McCabes think alike.”

  “You know what my name stands for?”

  He shook his head.

  “Experience. Isn’t that funny?” She snorted a bitter chuckle. “My parents named me Experience. If only they knew what they were condemning me to with that name. I’ve experienced more of the hard side of life than they would have ever imagined. My father ran off when I was too young to remember. My mother died of consumption when I was ten. I lived on the streets of St. Louis at one time. Then when I was old enough I took to the only way I could think of to stay alive.”

  “How did Sam Middleton play into all of this?”

  She glanced away. Talking with him about the life she had led was a little uncomfortable. “One man who wanted things more rough than I allowed started hitting me and then he had his hands around my throat. We were in an alley. This was in Abilene. A railhead.”

  Matt nodded. He had heard of the place.

  “Sam came along and stopped him. The man made the mistake of pulling a knife on him. Sam dispatched of him quickly and made it look easy. I was beaten-up bad. He took me back to his room and let me stay there until I recovered. Never laid a hand on me. He nursed me back to health. It took weeks. I had a broken collar bone, and that man hit me in the left eye so hard I still can’t see right out of it. Sam paid for the doctor’s bills. He said I was quickly becoming like the daughter he never had.

  “He wanted me to stay with him and he would take care of me until I could find some work. But I knew the way things were. Once you’re a whore, you can’t find honest work. The label of whore just stays with you. But I couldn’t accept charity, either. That’s something I’ve just never been able to do.

  “But wherever I go, whichever town I find myself in, he always seems to end up there. Like he’s keeping an eye on me. I wound up in Greenville and met Jessica and Belle. And there was Sam. He goes away for a while, but he always comes back.”

  She was silent a moment, gathering her thoughts. “There’s so much more to Sam than meets the eye. There’s a lot about him I don’t know. He’s a gentleman, but he’s also a killer if he needs to be. He’s the most capable fighter I’ve ever seen, except for maybe your brother. If he had been here last night, that man never would have gotten as far as he did.”

  “But, Sam ran off. He abandoned you. All of us.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where he went, but he didn’t run off.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know Sam. He left for a reason. Even if he hadn’t left that note, I would know it because I know him. We haven’t seen the last of him.”

  “Well...” Matt turned from her and looked off at the trees. He took a sip of the cold coffee and dumped the rest of it to the ground. “What happened last night shouldn’t have happened at all. And it’s all my fault.”

  “Now, how do you see that?”

  “Because,” he turned back to face her. “Because of what I allowed to happen for all those years.”

  Matt was silent a moment. He reached into his vest for a cigar, and found they were gone. “I’m all out of cigars. Kind of symbolic, wouldn’t you say?”

  Peddie walked up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “How did it happen? All those years with her?”

  “Truth is, I don’t really know. When I met her,” he shook his head. “She struck me as so pretty back then. A rancher’s daughter. Maybe the prettiest girl I had ever seen. Up till then, at least. I was young, not much older than Dusty is now. I rode into California with Johnny and Joe. Dusty looks a lot like Johnny did back then. We were all dusty and whiskers and shaggy hair that hadn’t been cut in months. That was before Johnny grew his long, Shoshone hair. Three young gunfighters running from the law, covered with dust and with our guns hanging low. But I met Verna and it was almost love at first sight.

  “I married her, not knowing what she possibly saw in me but grateful for it. Eventually we inherited the ranch and began expanding it. She had a great head for business and I deferred to her judgment.”

  He reached up to his shoulder to place a hand over hers. “I don’t know what happened, really. I guess I was just an out-of-place country boy, grateful that this girl saw something in me. I could always speak well and I suppose I seemed so confident to others. But I wasn’t. It’s hard to be confident when one of your brothers was even at that young age on his way to becoming a legendary gunfighter, and the other was one of the best trackers and scouts you’ll ever see anywhere. Even then, you could throw a quarter in the air and Johnny could shoot the center out of it before it hit the ground. And you could place Joe in the middle of a desert and somehow he would find water. I swear, he could track a jackrabbit over solid rock.

  “So I let Verna run things. More and more I just sort of faded into the background. It didn’t happen all at once, but a little at a time. At first I was too smitten to see what she really was. Then, as I slipped more and more into the background, the state of being smitten wore off and it was just too easy to stay out of her way. Indulge in whiskey.”

  “I’m glad you’re free of all that. But I don’t want you in the background. If I were to have a man like you to build a life with, I would want him at my side. And me at his. Working together as a team.”

  Matt turned to face her. “I’m a married man, Peddie. At least, legally.”

  She shook her head. “That’s no marriage. It might be legal, on paper. But a real marriage is a thing of the heart.”

  “I’m a lot older than you.”

  “Don’t bother me none, if it don’t bother you.”

  He found himself smiling. “I guess it doesn’t.”

  And then it happened. The first woman other than Verna he had kissed in more than twenty years. In fact, he didn’t think he had kissed Verna in more than ten years. He touched the side of Peddie’s face again with one hand, and she leaned in to him and their lips touched.

  Then he said, “Wait.”

  “For what?”

  “If we are to have a life together, if we and everyone else here is to be safe, then I have to end things with Verna. I have to get her to back off and leave us all alone. Only I can do that.”

  He turned and started for the house.

  Peddie said, “Where are you going?”

  “To set things right.”

  She scurried after him and grabbed him by the arm to stop him. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make a deal with Verna. She can have everything if she gives me a divorce and leaves us alone.” He looked into her eyes. Such a haunting shade of gray. “Will you be here when I’m back?”

  She nodded. “Always.”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her again. Long. He wrapped his arms about her and her hands worked their way up his back. He found the back of her neck and then her hair came loose and fell in waves down over her shoulders.

  He then stepped back, looking into what he realized were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, and then he turned and was once again striding toward the house.

  He stepped aro
und the house and off to the corral. Johnny and Jessica were standing by the stone wall and Matt moved past them, driving the heels of his boots into the gravel, not seeing them at all.

  Peddie did see them, however, and ran to them.

  “Peddie,” Jessica said. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s going to ride out and see Verna.”

  Johnny said, “He can’t go alone. She’s putting together a small army of gunfighters. They’ll cut him down before he can even speak to her.”

  Jessica said, “That’s probably what she wants. With him out of the way, she would have full title to all of their holdings.”

  Peddie said, “Oh, Jess.”

  Johnny turned and started toward Matt. “You two wait here. I’ll see if I can talk some sense into him.”

  Matt was already saddling his horse. The saddle had been found in the ruins of the barn, one stirrup seriously charred but otherwise the saddle was usable.

  “Matt,” Johnny said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to offer Verna whatever she wants, if she’ll leave us all alone.”

  “And what if she won’t?”

  He pulled the cinch tight. “Then I’ll handle it.”

  Johnny grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. “What do you mean by that?”

  “It means I’ll do what I have to, to end this. What happened last night, it can’t happen again.”

  “What happened last night wasn’t your fault.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Matt didn’t wait for the answer. He pushed a foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

  Johnny didn’t bother to argue anymore. McCabes were known for stubbornness and Matt was not lacking in that department. He quickly grabbed a rope and dropped a loop over Thunder’s head. Matt would have a head start, but the way Thunder could go into a mile-eating gallop, Johnny would catch up to him quickly.

  Matt rode down the ledge at nearly a full gallop. He saw Dusty on a horse riding back up the ledge.

  “Hey, Uncle Matt,” Dusty said, but Matt blew past him, Dusty’s horse rearing up in protest.

  “Easy, boy,” Dusty said. “Easy.”

  The horse settled down and Dusty rode on up to the house. Pa had Thunder saddled and was mounting up.

  “Where’s Uncle Matt going?” Dusty said.

  “He’s heading off to confront his wife. End this all once and for all.”

  “He can’t. There’s a whole passel of riders approaching. I saw ‘em from the pass. I was just riding up here to tell you.”

  Johnny turned Thunder hard and started down the ledge at a full gallop. But Matt was already on the canyon floor, turning into the rocky pass that served as the entrance. Johnny knew he wouldn’t be able to catch Matt in time.

  Ben Harris, standing guard where the entrance opened to the outside world, saw Matt coming and waved his arms at Matt, trying to get him to stop. But Matt charged past him and out of the canyon.

  Ben heard more hoofbeats and saw Johnny and Dusty riding hard into the entrance, but it was too late. Gunfire began from outside the canyon. More than one gun. Ben knew the difference between the discharge of a pistol and that of a rifle, and he heard both. Matt had ridden face first into a hail of gunfire.

  28

  Matt charged from the canyon, kicking his horse into a full gallop, and didn’t realize there were twenty-five riders waiting for him until they began unloading their rifles at him. Matt’s horse came to a sudden stop, its hooves sliding on the grass, as Matt felt a bullet burn the side of one shoulder and another lifted the hat from his head.

  The horse reared up in panic and Matt fell from the saddle to land hard on his back. First one bullet then caught the horse and then another, and the horse went down and landed on Matt’s leg.

  Johnny and Dusty reined up, their horses turning and prancing frantically with the roar of gunfire. Johnny pulled the Sharps as he leaped from the saddle. Dusty joined him, a Winchester in his hands. He then stood with his feet far apart and the rifle held belt-high and began scattering shots. The Winchester was a long rifle and held eighteen shots. Johnny saw Wells sitting in the saddle in the middle of the line of riders, and decided he must be their leader and any good tactician knows you take out the leader first. So Johnny raised the Sharps and it fired with a roar and Wells was snapped to one side and fell from the saddle.

  It was the riders’ turn to deal with horses panicking from a sudden spray of gunfire. One man was knocked from the saddle. A horse reared and turned and threw its rider. One horse caught a bullet and went down. Wells’ horse, now riderless, reared up and then collided with another horse, and the rider was knocked from the saddle.

  Matt pulled his leg free and drew his pistol and tossed a couple of shots at the riders and began back toward the canyon entrance at a hobbling run.

  Johnny held the Sharps now with his left hand only, and with his right drew his Colt and began firing. Ben ran toward Johnny and Dusty and took his place beside them, rifle in hand, helping lay down cover fire while Matt hobbled back toward the canyon.

  “Fall back!” Johnny called out.

  Some of the riders were now on foot, taking positions behind whatever cover they could find. A small bush, an outcropping of bedrock, a dead horse.

  Johnny and the others ran back to the canyon entrance, throwing shots back at the riders as they did so. Dusty ducked behind a boulder and Matt ran behind the boulder where he had found Wolf and Price, and up onto the rock. Johnny and Ben were right behind him.

  Johnny said, “Is everyone all right?”

  Ben nodded. Matt said, “I twisted my leg when the horse fell.”

  Johnny risked peeking up and over the top of the boulder to see what was happening and was greeted with gunshots. He felt the breeze of a bullet whizzing past his ear, and another kicked up some rock chips in front of his face. He ducked back down.

  Johnny called out, “Dusty! You all right?”

  “I’m okay!” he called back.

  Matt’s shoulder was bleeding from where a bullet had grazed it. He pulled a bandana and pressed it against the wound.

  “I guess I should have done a little thinking before I rode out there like a mad man,” he said.

  “We can talk about that later,” Johnny said. “Presuming we get out of this alive.”

  Ben said, looking back toward the canyon, “More riders comin’.”

  It was Joe and Hatch, riding into the entrance but not too far, reining up and stepping out of the saddle. With rifles in hand they ran to the boulder where Johnny and the others were.

  Joe said, “What’s the situation?”

  “Looks like Verna’s changed tactics,” Johnny said. “There’s maybe fifteen men out there. Probably less now because we dropped a few. Matt ran head on into ‘em. I don’t think they were expecting that. They were probably going to try a charge into the canyon.”

  “Suicide,” Joe said. “They can get ride in only two abreast. They’d be cut down.”

  “Maybe they figured if they caught us by surprise they could get some riders past the sentries.”

  Joe said, “Zack is back at the house with rifles. They’re gonna be the last stand between us and the house if any men get past us.”

  Johnny nodded. He felt better about the safety of Jessica and Cora and the others with Zack there.

  Joe said, “Tom’s got a rifle, too.”

  Johnny wasn’t surprised by this. “He’s Matt’s son.”

  Dusty called out, “Here they come!”

  Gunfire began. Rifles going off from outside the canyon. Johnny and Joe climbed up onto the rock and saw eight men charging at the entrance, holding their rifles the way Dusty had, at the hip and jacking off shots. More men from further back were firing from behind cover.

  Joe unloaded one barrel of his scattergun, followed by the other, and then ducked down to pop open his gun and pull out the cartridges and drop two more in. Johnny fired his pistol, not fanning it but ho
lding it out at arm’s length and cocking, firing and cocking and firing again. When he had fired five shots, his gun was empty and he ducked down to reload, and Joe stood again and fired more buckshot.

  Dusty was holding his Winchester at his shoulder and firing. Bullets kicked up rock chips all around him and he ducked back down. Hatch and Ben went down the small slope from behind the rock to the entrance and began firing.

  Five of the eight men charging at the canyon went down. Three of them got in. Dusty stood up to fire and was jumped by one man. The two others were cut down by Ben and Hatch. But one of them got off a shot while he was folding over from a bullet to the midsection and caught Hatch in the chest.

  Dusty managed to kick off the man who had tackled him and the man swung a fist which Dusty ducked, and Dusty drove a right cross into the man’s face. The man fell back and tripped over a small rock and fell backward. He had lost his rifle but reached for his pistol, but Dusty’s was in his hand faster and he fanned a shot into the man.

  Bullets began kicking up the dirt around Dusty and ricocheting off rocks behind him, so he ducked back behind the small boulder he had been using for cover.

  Ben was dragging Hatch to the safety of the open space behind the larger boulder. Johnny said, “How is he?”

  Matt knelt at Hatch’s side. “Not good. Took one to the chest.”

  The front of the man’s shirt looked like someone had torn at it with something sharp, and blood was starting to soak into the fabric. Matt took the bandana from his own shoulder and opened the man’s shirt and pressed the bandana against the wound.

  He said, “We gotta stop this bleeding.”

  Hatch tried to talk, but then coughed, and then got the words out in hoarse voice, “I’m hit bad, ain’t I?”

  Matt wasn’t going to lie to him. Tell him he had seen worse. He hadn’t. What he did say was, “You hang in there.”

  Ben climbed partway up the rock where Johnny and Joe were perched. He said, “We need a doctor.”

  Joe shook his head.

  Johnny said, “Even if we could get past those men out there, it’s a two-hour ride into town at best. Presuming we could find the doctor fast and get him on a horse, it’d be four hours.”