A big thank you to Brad Dennison for sharing a book excerpt about his strong heroine Bree McCabe from One Man’s Shadow, and also offering an incredible giveaway to my readers! Thanks Brad!!!
Please check out the other giveaways going on at my site ———————————->
She rode at first aimlessly through the pine forest that covered the ridge on the western side of the valley, and then got a hankering to visit Jack. So she turned her horse down toward the pass and the small trail that cut through it, and came out behind Hunter’s. She rode toward the jail, and swung out of the saddle. There was no hitching rail yet, so she left the horse ground hitched – which is to say with the rein trailing – and stepped in.
She found the place empty. Both bunks were in disarray. One of the cowhands working for the Circle M had told her a friend of Jack’s from school had come west and Jack had hired him on as a deputy. Apparently he was as inept as housekeeping as Jack was.
She saw a Winchester leaning in a corner and picked it up. It was one of the rifles from the ranch. She thought maybe when the boys got back from the roundup she would ask Josh to build him a gun rack. Josh was not a finished carpenter, but she thought he could put together a reasonably functional rifle rack. Bree had seen the town marshal’s office in Bozeman once, and he had a rack filled with rifles.
She heard footsteps at the door and turned expecting it to be Jack, or maybe his deputy friend. But this man looked like no one who would belong at Harvard. He looked like he had been on the trail a long time. He was a little taller than Jack, and his shirt was darkened from one sweat stain on top of another. His face had a bushy beard, and his hair was long and stringy. He wore a battered looking sombrero, and one eye was milky white with a long scar that ran from above his brow to his cheekbone.
“Anything I can do for you?” she said.
He grinned. But it was not a pleasant one. She was reminded of a cat about to pounce on a mouse.
“Yeah, missy. You can come with me.”
“And what, on Earth, would make you think I would want to go with you?”
“I been watching your house for a while. I trailed you into town. I’m to fetch you and bring you back. Then when your Pa comes to get you, we’ll be waitin’ for him.”
“You’re dreaming if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
His grin got wider. “Don’t make it hard on yourself.”
He began walking toward her, and reached a hand to her. “Why don’t you just give me that there gun.”
She realized she was still holding the rifle. She had to think quickly. He was too close, and approaching too quickly, for her to jack a cartridge into the chamber and have any hopes of getting off a shot. She didn’t really want to kill anyone, anyway.
She had to think quickly. Pa had never actually trained her the way he had Josh and Jack, but she had watched him train them. And he had given her a lot of advice on how to survive, as well as showing her how to shoot and ride.
This man had only one eye that worked. She quickly lunged forward, driving the muzzle of the rifle into the other eye. She didn’t hit the eye but caught his brow, but it was enough.
“Hey!” he called out, pulling back and away, squinting his eye shut and reaching up with one hand.
She then swung upward with the rife stock, catching him in the groin. His eyes widened and he went down on one knee. She then jammed the muzzle of the gun into his ear.
He yelped and folded downward to the floor, one hand covering his ear and the other at his eye. Blood was seeping through his fingers from the gash above his eye. His knees were locked tight.
She pulled the pistol from his holster and set it on the desk, then jacked a round into the chamber.
“All right, get into the cell,” she said. “The back room.”
He got to his knees, then pushed himself to his feet. He was wiping blood away from the gash over his one good eye, and with the other hand still hanging onto his ear.
He turned to make a break for the door, but she fired and a section of wood at the doorway tore up and splintered, and he jumped back. She jacked the gun again, and made certain she was back far enough that he couldn’t lunge at her.
She said, “Get in that cell, or the next one takes out the one good eye you have left. Your choice.”
He stared at her a minute, then turned and walked into the cell. She shut the door, and slid into place the two-by-four Jack used as a bar. The man with the white eye wasn’t getting out.
Jack came running, bursting through the door. Another man about his age was behind him, and wearing a tin star. Must be his friend from back east.
“I heard the gunshot,” Jack said. “We were over at Hunter’s.”
“A man was here, threatening to kidnap me. I arrested him.”
Jack looked through the window into the cell. “White-Eye?”
White-Eye said, “I need me a doctor. That wildcat out there near killed me.”
Jack looked at her with amazement. “You arrested White-Eye?”
She gave him a smug smile. “I am a McCabe.”
First in the best-selling series, THE McCABES. The story of a family building a ranch in the rugged wilderness of post Civil War Montana, and of a young man seeking his family and his destiny. If you liked the movie OPEN RANGE or the TV shows BIG VALLEY and LANCER, or the novels of Louis L’Amour and Ralph Compton, then this might be for you.
Sequel to THE LONG TRAIL. Jack McCabe returns home to Montana from medical school, but the family finds he is not exactly who they thought he was. A story of one man attempting to find himself while living in the shadow of a father who is a living legend. And an old enemy of Johnny McCabe returns, looking for blood. A story of family, love and revenge, and of the redemption of the human spirit.
You can find Brad at his website here http://www.braddennison.net/ or join him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/McCabeNovel
The Giveaway
One lucky winner will receive e-copies of both The Long Trail and One Man’s Shadow and this giveaway is open internationally. The giveaway will run through 2/14/17. Enter through the Rafflecopter link below: