Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3)

by Brad Dennison

  “Just like that? You thought that through and came to that decision? Just like that?”

  Johnny shook his head. “No. Not just like that. It was something I had to weigh long and hard.”

  “Do you have peace with it?”

  “Not really. I still see their faces at night. I hear a creak in the house timbers at night, the house settling, and I’m instantly wide awake and reaching for my gun. It’ll always be with me, I guess. But to have let that man brutalize Lettie would have weighed even harder on my soul.”

  Tom nodded, but said nothing.

  Johnny said, “Many people try to live by the teachings of the Bible as though they are black-and-white. Turn one way or turn another. But I think what those teachings are meant to be is guidelines. You see, son, often in life we are met with things that happen that fall into a sort of foggy area between right and wrong. Sometimes we have only a few options, and all of them seem wrong. We have to look to the teachings of the Bible and decide, based on their intent, which is the least wrong.”

  “And how do we know what the intent was?”

  Johnny shrugged. “I suppose by looking into our heart.”

  Tom nodded his head and looked at his uncle like he was seeing him for the first time. “Maybe you’re the one who should have been a minister.”

  “No, I think the collar is on the right man.”

  Tom said, “So, you want to marry Miss Jessica.”

  Johnny nodded. “When I met Lura, I couldn’t imagine ever loving a woman as strong as I loved her. When she was killed, I thought it would kill me. I hung on for the children. But you have to let yourself live. That’s what Lura said to me, in a dream. You have to continue living, and you have to let yourself love again. And now I’ve met Jessica. We haven’t known each other three months, but sometimes you just know in your heart when something’s right.”

  “When you met Lura, how long did it take you to know you wanted to marry her?”

  “The first time I looked into her eyes.”

  Tom nodded and grinned. “I would be happy to perform the ceremony.”

  At two in the afternoon, standing under some bare oak trees off to the side of the house, Johnny and Jessica were married. Johnny had no clothes worthy of such an occasion with him, but he put on a clean shirt and shaved. Jessica wore a dress she normally reserved for church. Tom fastened the top button of his shirt and borrowed a string tie that had belonged to Bernard Swan.

  Dusty stood beside Johnny, who could think of no one better suited to serve as the best man. Peddie stood beside Jessica, but Cora was there also, holding her mother’s hand.

  Tom was about to read from the Bible, as he usually did when presiding over a wedding, but then he took a look at the people assembled here and decided to speak his own words instead.

  “Every culture has one thing in common. The marriage ceremony. From the Hebrews of old Israel to the Shoshone, to this land of today. Some of the details might be different, but in the long run, the heart of the ceremony remains the same. One man and one woman wanting to build their lives together. And together they form a union that is, to paraphrase Aristotle, greater than the sum of its parts.”

  He then asked each in turn to repeat after him and they recited the wedding vows. Except when it was Jessica’s turn to say I do, she said, “Absolutely.” And Johnny said, “Without a doubt.”

  Then it was Johnny’s turn to surprise Jessica. Something she didn’t know about.

  The morning before, Matt had asked Peddie if she knew Jessica’s ring size. Women who are good friends tend to know this sort of thing about one another. After making purchases at the gunsmith shop, Matt and the others went to a jewelry store in town. Matt asked Zack and Dusty, who knew Johnny the best, which ring he would probably have picked out for Jessica. Both were in agreement. In the display was a simple gold band with a fine engraving of what looked like lace.

  Dusty and Zack both pointed to it and said, in unison, “That one.”

  Matt had surprised Johnny with the ring, and now it was Johnny’s turn to surprise Jessica. Tom knew what was going on, so he said nothing as Johnny reached into his vest pocket and produced the ring.

  Johnny said, without prompting, “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  Jessica had tears in her eyes as Johnny slipped the ring onto her finger. It was a perfect fit.

  Tom said, “You may now kiss the bride.”

  Standing in the sunlight on an unseasonably warm December day, with leafless oak branches reaching out above them overhead, Johnny kissed his bride.

  Two of Joe’s four bottles of whiskey didn’t survive the festivities of the afternoon and evening. Lettie made a wedding cake, and beef was roasted over an open fire on a wooden spit.

  That night, tents were set up outside. It was decided the house should be left for the newlyweds.

  Peddie said, “They need their privacy.”

  Cora said, “But why can’t I sleep in my own bed?”

  Dusty knelt beside her. “Think of it as practice.”

  She knit her brows like he had just said the craziest thing in the world.

  He said, “We have a long journey ahead of us, all the way to Montana. You’re gonna be sleeping in a tent, on a cot, all the way. Best to try the cot tonight. Break it in a little. It’ll be fun. It’ll be like camping.”

  She grinned. “It’ll be fun?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Will you sleep in there with me?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you really my big brother?”

  He nodded and grinned. “That’s something you can count on.”

  And she gave him a big hug.

  Matt said to him afterward, “You know, you’re going to be a great big brother.”

  “Never had the chance before. I don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s like I’m making it up as I go along.”

  Matt laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s often what being a part of a family is about.”

  Johnny and Jessica awoke early the following morning, and he fired up the stove for her and she put on a pot of coffee.

  She said, “This will be the last pot of coffee I’ll ever make in this house.”

  He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Do you have any regrets?”

  She laid her head back and on his shoulder. “Wherever you and I are, it’ll be home.”

  After breakfast, Johnny stepped out back. He walked past the graves of Hatch, Price and Wolf. Further back was a granite headstone. On it was the name BERNARD SWAN.

  Johnny stood before the grave. He took off his hat and looked at the name.

  “I never met you, but I feel like I have. The house you built, it says a lot about you. And the woman you took for your wife, and the daughter you both produced. I think you’re a man I would have understood well.”

  Johnny paused a moment. The breeze was cool this morning and it touched his Shoshone tail. It had grown long over the months since he had left Montana, and fell between his shoulder blades.

  He said, “I want you to know that I love Jessica. I’ll treat her right. And I’ll treat your daughter like my own. Even though I’m taking them far from this place, they’ll be safe and warm in my home.”

  He stood a moment more, looking at the grave. He didn’t know really why he was here, saying these things. He supposed it was just that he had married this man’s wife and was going raise his daughter as his own. He supposed something had to be said.

  Dusty came walking over. He said, “I thought I saw you walking back here. We’re about to start loading the wagons.”

  Johnny put the hat back on his head. “Let’s go.”

  The beds were disassembled and loaded into wagons. Jessica thought it was especially important that in their new home, Cora have the bed that had always been hers. Most of the furniture wouldn’t fit in the wagons, but they managed to make room for the parlor rocker. It had always been one of Jessica’s favorites.

  At
nine in the morning, with the wagons fully loaded and the teams hitched, Johnny hefted Cora up onto a wagon seat, then took one of Jessica’s hands while she climbed up. Then Johnny took his place beside them.

  Thunder was fully saddled and tied to the back of the wagon. Joe was in his saddle, beside them. Peddie and Lettie and Mercy were in the other wagon. Peddy knew how to handle a team.

  Matt, Ben Harris, Dan and Dusty had already rounded the herd up and got them moving, and the canyon floor was now empty. It had been a few years since Tom had worked as a cowhand, but he had grown up on his father’s ranch and remembered what his father had taught him, so he joined in.

  Ben had decided to stay with them and Matt asked him to become ramrod of the Swan-McCabe Cattle Company.

  Jessica said, “I can think of no better choice.”

  He said, “It’d be truly a pleasure to work for you both.”

  “We can’t pay you anything other than room and meals,” Matt said.

  “Ain’t askin’ for anything else. Sometimes you do something just because it’s the right thing to do.”

  Jessica now cast a glance to the canyon floor, then back to the house. “The whole place looks so empty. So desolate. The house. The canyon. I’ve never seen the canyon without cattle milling about.”

  Johnny said to her, “You ready?”

  She nodded.

  “How about you, Cora? Are you ready to light out for our new home?”

  Cora sat between them on the seat. Her hair was covered in a bonnet and she clung to a Raggety-Ann doll. She nodded. “Yes sir. Head ‘em out.”

  Johnny laughed, and looked to Joe. “You heard the girl. Head ‘em out.”

  And the wagons started down the long decline to the canyon floor, and then to the narrow pass that led them out of the canyon and to the grassy lands beyond.

  PART FOUR

  The Trail

  32

  It was December 21st when they left the canyon behind them. They made their way south, passing within a half hour’s ride of the town of Greenville. Johnny wondered if he would ever see the town again.

  Ahead of them would be the little ranch where Lura’s grave rested. He had come to California to visit the grave, and now he was on his way back home with a wife in tow and a new daughter.

  Johnny wasn’t going to consider Cora a stepchild. He didn’t believe in that sort of thing. A child who belonged to your spouse was your child also. He didn’t know where he had gotten that belief. He supposed it had just developed over the years.

  As they rode, Jessica said, “Do you want to stop and visit Lura’s grave one more time?”

  Johnny shook his head. “She’s not there.”

  Jessica nodded with a smile. She understood.

  They caught up with the herd by early afternoon. Two hundred eighty-one head, based on a count Dusty had taken a few days earlier. The Swan ranch had been a small one in comparison to Johnny’s. And Johnny’s ranch was small compared to the one Matt was leaving behind.

  That night they slept in tents, with a minimal guard on the herd. Two riders were all that was necessary with a herd this size.

  On the first morning, Jessica and Lettie and Peddie worked together to make a breakfast of steak and beans. A farmer had come out to the canyon the day before and bought the chickens from Jessica, as it would be almost impossible to bring chickens along on such a long journey. There would be no more eggs until they arrived in Montana. But on the trail you have a way of developing a hunger like no other, and the beans were welcomed by everyone.

  On the second morning, Johnny stepped out of the tent and found Joe was gone.

  Joe had decided to sleep outside rather than in a tent. “Sleeping under a roof makes me nervous,” he had said. “Even in Texas, in the town where I’m deputy marshal, I often sleep outside.”

  But that morning he was gone.

  Dusty stood scratching his head. “Is it like him to just haul out?”

  Johnny said, “Not without saying goodbye. And not when there’s a job to be done.”

  Johnny and Dusty walked a circumference around the camp, cutting for sign. They found one trail of hoof prints heading away.

  Johnny said, “He led his horse out of camp sometime during the night. Then mounted up and rode on.”

  “I could follow him,” Dusty said. “Find out what’s going on.”

  Johnny gave that some quick thought. “No. I think we need you here. But make sure the men have rifles with them, and be alert. Just in case there’s some sort of trouble developing. I’d like you to be with the herd, today.”

  Everyone else had set themselves to breaking camp while Johnny and Dusty scouted. When they got back to camp, Jessica was waiting for him by the wagon.

  “Is anything wrong?” she said.

  “I don’t really know. It’s not like Joe to do this.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Matt and Peddie had drifted over from their wagon.

  Johnny said, “Let’s get moving. We’ve lost a half hour already. But let’s all be alert.”

  This day, Johnny handed the reins to Jessica and he rode Thunder. He rode with his Sharps held across the saddle.

  The wagons moved a little ahead of the herd, so the dust the cattle kicked up wouldn’t be in their faces. More than once, Johnny rode on ahead as much as a mile, scouting. Watching. Looking for tracks. Looking for anything that might be amiss. Every time, he saw nothing he didn’t expect to see.

  The sun was drawing low in the sky by five o’clock, so they made camp. They were now nearly fifty miles south of Greenville. There was a small stand of leafless alders and a stream, and the water was cold and fresh.

  As it started getting dark and cookfires were started up, Ben called out, “Rider comin’!”

  Johnny let his right hand fall to the pistol at his side. Jessica pulled Cora to her. Matt snatched a Winchester from where he had left it leaning against a wagon wheel and jacked in a round.

  The rider came into camp. It was Joe. Tied to the back of his saddle crossways was a five foot long blue spruce.

  He said, “It wouldn’t do for Cora to have to go without Christmas.”

  Johnny couldn’t help but smile. “You could have said something.”

  “But then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  The following day, they celebrated Christmas. Johnny didn’t have the heart to let Joe know it was only the twenty-fourth. Joe had always seemed to live by his own calendar, which was more about the alignment of the stars and the phase of the moon that anything else. Something he had picked up during his time with the Cheyenne, years go.

  A dead alder had been chopped down the night before for firewood, and the stump was wide, moreso than the trunk of the Christmas tree Joe had cut. Johnny dug a hole into the stump with his bowie knife, and they stood the tree in it. Jessica had brought along a box of Christmas decorations, and soon the tree looked like a proper Christmas tree, complete with a wooden angel on the top.

  Jessica said, “Bernard made that angel for Cora when she was an infant.”

  “Too bad there won’t be any presents,” Johnny said.

  Matt shook his head and placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t do for Santy Claus to forget about the kids, even out here on the trail. The boys and I did a lot of shopping when we were in town.”

  Both girls ended up with new dresses, and each got a little tea set. And they got new dolls and little wooden beds for their dolls.

  They lost an entire day of travel, but everyone felt the delay was worth it.

  The following morning, they packed up to be on their way as the eastern sky began to lighten. The decorations were back in their box.

  Jessica said, “The next time they’re used, it’ll be on our tree in Montana.”

  As Cora took her place on the wagon seat, she looked at the little tree standing empty on the tree stump.

  “It looks so sad and lonely.”

  Johnny said, “No, it�
�s happy. It’s where it needs to be. Out here amongst the other trees.”

  She nodded. That seemed to set comfortably with her.

  Johnny took the reins and they rode on. Ben and Joe were with the herd that day, along with Zack and Tom. Dusty was scouting about, his newly acquired Spencer rifle in his saddle. Johnny had noticed Dusty seemed happiest when he was scouting the land.

  About noon they stopped and were resting the mules. Johnny was taking a drink of water from the canteen he had slung over Thunder’s saddle horn. Everyone was stretching their legs. The girls were running back and forth playing some sort of game, squealing with glee.

  Johnny saw Dusty approaching from behind them. He had left a few hours before, riding away ahead of them. Apparently he had circled around.

  Dusty said, “We could have a problem. There’s a group of maybe ten riders, hanging back a ways. About a mile behind the herd. They been dogging our trail all day.”

  “You get close enough to see who they are?”

  Dusty shook his head. “But they’re staying even with us.”

  Jessica had drifted over. “What does this mean?”

  Johnny said, “It means we haven’t left trouble behind.”

  33

  Hiram said, “You what?”

  His mother sat in a rocker in her bedroom. All of the bedrooms in this farmhouse were small. Each bedroom in the new mansion would be even larger than the parlor downstairs, but for the next few weeks, this farmhouse would still have to suffice.

  At least this bedroom had a small hearth. A fire was crackling, and his mother sat in front of it. She wasn’t looking well, he thought. She had lost weight the last few days, and the lines in her face seemed deeper than ever. Her graying hair looked to have more salt and less pepper than he had noticed. She had started walking with a cane a week or so ago, and when she didn’t have the cane she would have a hand on a table or against a wall. He had asked about her health and she told him she was fine, in the way she had that meant if he didn’t drop the subject he would be sorry.

  She sat with a quilt draped over her lap, and a cup of tea rested on a small end table within reach.