Matt said, “She’s too old to do any bucking.”
Turned out he was right.
He couldn’t ride like Johnny and Joe. They moved with the horse, like they were one with their horse. Matt bounced along in the saddle and Johnny figured Matt would have a bruised back-side before the day was through. But to Matt’s credit, he never fell out of the saddle.
They swung out of their saddles in front of the saloon. Of course, this wasn’t really a saloon, not as Johnny understood the word. It was a drinking establishment. Kinsey’s Tavern. Once they were inside, they were greeted by a mahogany bar, and there were no whores waiting to try to sell their wares. No card sharks waiting to start a faro game and cheat you out of your money.
They bellied up to the bar, and Matt ordered a shot of rum.
Johnny said, “You don’t have tequila, by chance?”
The bartender shook his head. Johnny didn’t know him. Apparently another newcomer to town.
Johnny said, “Southern bourbon? Corn squeezings?”
The bartender shook his head.
“Scotch, I suppose.”
The bartender nodded. “That, we have.”
Joe ordered a beer.
“So, here we stand,” Matt said. “We went off to see the world, to learn more about what lay beyond the confines of Sheffield, Pennsylvania, so when we returned we would have worldly knowledge. Pa didn’t want us to build a life for ourselves here because it was all we knew. He wanted us to do so because we chose to, after having seen some of the world.”
Johnny looked to Joe. “Give him just a taste of rum, and he gets more wind than those sails on his ship.”
Joe chuckled.
Matt ignored them. “I suppose what I’m getting at is that the intention was for us to serve in the military for a little while and then come back here and find wives and have children. And push a plow into the earth and attend church on Sunday.”
Johnny nodded. “That seems to be the way of it.”
“But what happened was the world changed us. Johnny, you became a gunfighter. Me, I sailed the seven seas and fought pirates. At times, I have to admit, I was little better than a pirate myself. And you..,” Matt looked to Joe.
Joe shrugged. “What can I say?”
Joe took a sip of beer, and said to Matt, “They talked about our brother, you know. His name is mentioned in saloons and around campfires.”
Matt said, “You mentioned that once.”
Johnny shut his eyes. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“What’re they saying about him?”
Joe said, “They say he drinks hard, lives hard, and shoots hard. They say he shot the gun clean out of a man’s hand.”
Matt looked at Johnny. “That true?”
Johnny nodded. “Yes. But it’s not what they say.”
They waited while Johnny took a sip of scotch. Not bad, he thought, but it sure wasn’t tequila.
Johnny said, “The man challenged me to a gunfight. This was last winter, sometime. It’s hard to tell, south of the border. They don’t really have winter down there. I was in a cantina, that’s what the Mexicans call a saloon. I was in there, and there was a senorita who worked there that I had taken a shine to. A little too much tequila, and Sheffield starts to feel like it’s a long ways away, and the values you might have learned tend to go out the window.”
Joe and Matt were both waiting for him to continue. He noticed the bartender was, too.
“Well,” Johnny said, “there was this man by the name of Walker. Never did get his first name. He decided to challenge me to a gunfight. Was calling me all sorts of names. Well, you can’t just let a man get away with something like that. Folks’ll think you’re a coward, and then you’re reputation will be no good. If you want to build a life in the West, you have to have respect. And you can’t have respect if folks think you’re a coward.
“Walker stood out in the street calling to me. I left the cantina, and stepped out to meet him.”
The bartender, enthralled with the story, took a bottle and refilled Johnny’s glass.
Matt said, “So, you just met him out on the street to have a gun duel?”
Johnny nodded. “Now, keep in mind, I had too much tequila in me. Walker—he’s standing there shouting to me. Calling me a coward and other names. I said, Put your money where your mouth is, and go for your guns.”
“Did he?” the bartender said.
Johnny nodded. “Oh, yeah. He went for his, and I went for mine. Now, he was standing maybe fifty feet away. A shot I could make almost every time. But not after all that tequila.”
He looked at his audience. He said, “Walker reached for his gun first but I was faster. We got both of our guns out at about the same time. He fired first and missed. Just barely. I felt the wind of the bullet as it went past my ear.
“I fired next, and I was aiming dead center on his chest. But I was too filled with tequila to make the shot. My bullet caught his hand and knocked the gun clean out of his grip.”
“No kidding,” Matt said.
“The bullet ruined his gun. Broke the handle and knocked the cylinder clean out. It also took three fingers off his hand.”
Joe was grinning. “You’re making that up.”
“No I’m not. Swear to God. The last I knew, they’ve started calling him Two-Finger.”
Matt was shaking his head. “Incredible.”
Johnny said, “That’s the way it happened.”
Joe said, “They say you outdrew Monkey Bob Donovan, in a town south of the border. They say he drew on you and got off one shot but missed, and you put one between his eyes.”
Johnny nodded. “That really happened, too. Just like they said. I was down there with Zack. Monkey Bob, he challenged me. I had a little too much tequila in me then too, but not enough that I couldn’t shoot straight.”
Johnny glanced at the bartender, then at Matt. “They called him Monkey Bob because he had a face only a mother could love.”
Matt said, “Johnny, you really are a desperado.”
Johnny looked to Joe, who had again taken to staring off into a distance only he could see. Johnny noticed Joe seemed to do that a lot, these days.
Johnny said, “All three of us have done some hard living these past three years, I think. Done some things I don’t think any of us would want Ma and Pa to know about, or the people here in Sheffield. They just wouldn’t understand.”
Matt said, “I killed a pirate captain with a knife once. We were being boarded. He had a cutlass in his hand, and I had lost mine. I pulled a knife I wore on my belt. He swiped at me and I ducked, and then I cut him from his belt to his jaw. One long, fast and hard swipe. I kept that knife sharp. I have it with me. It’s in my duffel bag at the house. Won it off a Persian sailor in a card game. I didn’t want to show up with it on my belt, but I don’t like to be far from it.”
Johnny said, “Like me and my guns.”
Matt nodded. “Something like that, I suppose.”
Joe said, still looking distant, “I lived among the Cheyenne. Two years.”
Matt and Johnny both looked at him. They remained silent while they waited for him to continue.
Johnny drained his shot glass. Funny thing about scotch, he thought. The more of it you drank, the better it seemed to taste. Matt finished his rum, and the bartender refilled both glasses.
Joe said, “I was with the Army when they rode down on a small village of Lakota. What the white men call the Sioux. I was the scout. There weren’t no warriors there. Just women and children, and a few old men. I didn’t know the Army was going to do that. I was told to scout the village, so I did. It was the Army. They gave orders and I followed ‘em. But these soldiers, they rode down on ‘em. They shot and killed every one of ‘em. There was one girl, maybe no more’n fifteen. Three of the soldiers surrounded her, and they were intending to have their way with her. I pulled my gun and told ‘em the first one who touches her will get one right betwixt the eyes. They shot her instead. Then
they burned all the lodges.”
A tear was running down the side of Joe’s face. “I just rode away. I never looked back. I guess I’m officially a deserter. But I rode away. Found myself up in the mountains, in Nebraska Territory. I passed myself off as a hunter and a trapper. Pretty easy to do, after a few weeks on the trail. I gave my name as Joe Reynolds. I took the name from Taffy Reynolds. The first girl I ever...let’s say the first girl I ever knowed.”
Johnny smiled. He remembered Taffy Reynolds. A girl who was kind of short and had dark hair. She had been maybe a year behind Joe in school, and shyness had never been one of her problems. By the time Johnny and his brothers had left Sheffield, Taffy and her family had moved out to Ohio, but her legacy still remained.
Joe continued, “I met some Cheyenne warriors and began spending time at their village. They had set up their village for the winter in a valley. There’s a river runs through there, they’re startin’ to call the Salmon River. Stayed there two years, and while I was there, I met me a Cheyenne woman. Fell in love. But then she chose to marry another warrior. That was when I decided to maybe ride east.
“I swung into Fort Laramie, figuring they probably wouldn’t remember me, or know me. I looked a lot different than I did in my Army days. That’s when I found the letter from Ma, at a trading post waiting for me.”
The bartender said, “You three all left here probably not much different than any of the other farm boys around here. But your life’s experiences changed you. You came back different men than when you left.”
Johnny nodded. He said, “I think we’re seeing that, more and more, the longer we’re here.”
The discussion didn’t go any further, because Trip Hawley walked in.
Trip was a couple inches taller than Johnny, but longer and thinner. He had a shock of hair the color of mud and a nose that was a little too long. But he was an honest boy who worked hard and was greatly respected for it, and now he was madder’n all get out because he thought the woman he loved had been wronged.
“Johnny McCabe!” he bellowed. “I want a word with you. Right now!”
Johnny shook his head, and said to his brothers, “I guess I should have seen this coming.”
21
Trip Hawley strode across the empty barroom floor to stand behind Johnny.
He said, “I know you was with Becky Drummond Saturday night. I know what you was doing.”
Johnny turned to face him. “Slow down, Trip. I don’t want to fight you.”
Trip said, “You got no right being with my woman. I asked her to marry me. You got no right touching her.”
Johnny said, “Have you talked with Becky?”
“I ain’t. There’s nothing she can say.”
“Trip, she loves you. Go talk to her.”
Trip said, “Not till I have defended her honor.”
Johnny sighed with resignation. He knew where this was going.
Trip stepped back to build momentum, the way a country boy will do before he throws a punch, and then he let loose with a blow he figured would lay Johnny out on the floor.
Johnny stepped to one side and Trip’s fist found nothing but air. Johnny grabbed Trip by the shoulder and belt and gave him a shove toward the bar. Trip lost his footing in the process and the mahogany bar caught him on the chin, snapping his head back. Trip dropped to the floor and stayed there for a moment or two, blinking his eyes and shaking out the cobwebs. Then he got to his knees, but rose no further. A purplish bruise was already rising on his chin.
Joe said to Johnny, “That was slick.”
Matt said to Johnny, “That Chinaman teach you that?”
Johnny nodded. “Sometimes it’s best not to meet an attack head on, but to sidestep it and help it along its way.”
Joe said, “Looks a lot like Indian wrestling I seen among the Cheyenne.”
Trip tried to get to his feet, but stumbled back to his knees.
Johnny said, “Trip, you gotta relax. You asked Becky to marry you, and I think she’s gonna say yes.”
Johnny and Joe each grabbed Trip by an arm and helped him to his feet. Johnny said to the bartender, “Can you fetch him a whiskey? It’ll help with the pain.”
“Rum,” Matt said.
Johnny said, “Whichever’s cheapest.”
The bartender set a shot glass on the bar in front of Trip and poured a mouthful of whiskey into it.
Johnny said, “Drink that down. It’ll make your chin not hurt so bad.”
Trip downed the shot, and then his eyes widened and Johnny thought Trip was going to spew the whiskey right across the floor. Johnny realized it was probably the first time Trip had ever tasted whiskey. Probably would be the last, too. Trip was coughing like his throat was on fire. Johnny slapped the boy’s back a couple of times.
Funny that Johnny thought of Trip as a boy. Trip was Johnny’s age. Trip was a little taller than he had been three years ago, and his shoulders filled out his shirt a little more. But otherwise he was still the same farm boy he had been. Whereas Johnny and his brothers were so different from they had been when they first left Sheffield.
Trip leaned his elbows on the bar. “You done broke my jaw.”
“No, I didn’t,” Johnny said.
Johnny turned his back to the bar and leaned his elbows on it.
“I love Becky,” Trip said. “For the longest time, all us boys stayed away from her. We knew she was just waiting for you. But time went by and she didn’t hear from you. So I got brave and I asked her to a dance. She’s a great girl, you know.”
“The catch of a lifetime,” Johnny said.
“But then you come back, and you take her right out from under me.”
“Listen to me, Trip. Becky’s a good girl. I don’t want you to ever think different. And she loves you. She knows you’re a good man. We talked long about that. I think if you rode over there right now, she’ll tell you yes. She’s gonna marry you.”
Trip looked at Johnny. “You think so?”
Johnny shrugged. “I’m not a gambling man. Well, not too much. But if I was to lay odds, I’d say, yes. I think she’s gonna marry you.”
Trip smiled, but the smile hurt his jaw, and he winced and brought a hand up to it.
“Listen, Trip.” Johnny gripped him by the shoulder. “I need you to promise me something. Always take good care of her. Make her happy. Build a good life with her. Bring children into the world, and raise ‘em right.”
Trip nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“Have you thought about the Wheeler farm? I hear it’s available. If you offered the Wheeler widow the right price, she’d probably sell it to you.”
He nodded. “I’ll admit, I’ve thought about that place.”
“Your family is well respected in town. I’m sure the bank would be willing to work with you. Now, if you think your jaw will hold together, go on over there and see Becky. Right now.”
“But, I ain’t had a bath. I’m still in my farmin’ clothes.”
“Trip, just go over there. She’s gonna see you in your farming clothes a lot, over the years.”
Trip’s eyes lighted up. “I’m heading over there right now.”
Johnny said, “Treat a girl like that right, Trip, and you’ll never regret it.”
Trip nodded. He turned and headed out the door.
Matt said, “I think that’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen a man do.”
Johnny said nothing. He turned back to the bar and waved one hand toward his empty whiskey glass. With a big smile, the bartender filled it.
22
It was toward the end of September. The corn in Pa’s fields now stood tall and was ready to be harvested. The humidity of summer had died away, and there was a smell of dryness to the air, meaning autumn was just around the corner.
A gunshot cracked sharply and an empty can leaped away from a fence rail. The shot died away into the distance like a roll of thunder as the can landed in the grass. Thad McCabe held a pistol, and smo
ke drifted from the muzzle.
Thad was grinning wide and looked at Johnny.
“Not bad,” Johnny said. “A hundred feet. Not bad shooting at all.”
“Not bad?” Thad snorted a chuckle. “Pretty good shooting is what it is.”
Johnny stood behind Thad, and Matt and Joe stood alongside Johnny. They waited while Thad drew a bead on a second can and plucked it off with another shot.
Thad was using a Colt .44 he had acquired during his short time in the Army. His Army-issue holster was buckled around his waist.
Johnny was wearing his guns. Dang, but it felt good to have them back where they belonged. He hadn’t worn them in the three months he had been home. He still slept with a pistol on a chair beside the bed, but this was the first day he had actually buckled his gunbelt on.
Thad had come over and they decided to do some target practice. Joe had his gun tucked in front of his belt, and Matt had his Navy Colt in one hand.
Luke was there also. “Let’s see you take two, now. Shoot one and then the other, without stopping.”
Thad gave Luke a look as if to say, watch this, and fired two shots. One can leaped away and the other went spinning and dropped to the ground.
“You only nicked one,” Johnny said.
Thad looked at him. “I’d like to see you do better.”
Matt smiled. “Show him what you can do, Johnny.”
“It’ll be hard to beat that,” Thad said, nodding with his head toward the fence rail. “I been practicing every day out behind the house. Ma hates the shooting. The noise and all. But I have to do it.”
Matt said, “Why?”
“Because I’m going back. West, that is. I’m going west.”
“Have you conned the cavalry into taking you back?”
Thad gave him a look that said he didn’t appreciate the comment.
He said, “The cavalry is behind me. I’m going west, anyway. I’m staying home for Christmas, then come spring, I’ll be gone.”
Johnny said, “What’ll you do out there, if you’re not in the Army anymore?”
Thad shrugged. “I can work cattle. Or maybe look for gold. There’s a ton of it out there, you know. A fortune waiting to be dug up. There’s prospectors out in western Utah Territory, working a piece of land they call the Washoe. And there’s other places. The gold’s just waiting to be found.”
Johnny McCabe (The McCabes Book 6) Page 10