Wanted: A Western Story Collection

by Robert J. Thomas

  Wanted

  A Western Story Collection

  By

  James D. Best

  Duane Boehm

  Lou Bradshaw

  Tell Cotten

  WL Cox

  Brad Dennison

  Robert J. Thomas

  Dedication

  To all our faithful readers. Thank you for keeping the spirit of the West alive.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Cover Art:

  Marcy Meinke/Converse Printing & Design

  www.ConversePrinting.com

  mike@converseprinting.com

  Publisher’s Note:

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the authors’ imagination.

  Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.

  Solstice Publishing - www.solsticepublishing.com

  Copyright 2016

  Solstice Publishing

  Contents

  The Grizzly by Brad Dennison

  Fourteen-year-old Josh McCabe finds himself wounded and lost after facing a mad grizzly. Is it going to fall to his sister Bree to save him? She is only ten, but she is the daughter of Johnny McCabe, and is not going to let her brother die. An early tale of the McCabes.

  Cain Finds A Princess by Lou Bradshaw

  Shad Cain finds a young girl lost, stranded, and desperate. A man who’d wade through hell to right a wrong, he’d show no mercy for those who caused her tears.

  The Mirror by Tell Cotten

  Lee Mattingly and Brian Clark are attempting to transport the biggest mirror ever built in Texas to their newly built hotel. Along the way, they run into unmerciful outlaws, a woman with bitter memories, and a green, eager sheriff.

  The Shepherd by Robert J. Thomas

  Jess finds himself between a cattle rancher and a sheep rancher, whose son turns out to be a handful. When Jess picks a side, things heat up quickly.

  The Vigilante by WL Cox

  Hunt-U.S. Marshal of Denver sends a crew of his hardened deputy marshals to the small town of La Veta, Colorado to find and arrest a vigilante killer that is searching for his brother’s killer and kills innocent people mistaken for his brother’s killer.

  Snake In The Grass by James D. Best

  A lone wrangler with a fine herd of horses goes berserk in the middle of nowhere. Steve Dancy and Joseph McAllen must decide—help the crazed boy or ride off.

  A Step Ahead by Duane Boehm

  Gideon Johann is a man on the run - not from the law but his conscience and that's a hard thing to outrun.

  THE GRIZZLY

  By

  Brad Dennison

  Chapter one

  Montana Territory, 1873

  No boy of fourteen wants to hear he’s not yet a man, even if he knows in his heart he still has a ways to go before he’s there. And yet, if anyone says he’s not a man, it’s bound to get his dander up.

  Especially if that boy is Josh McCabe—folks say he got his temper from his father.

  Even more so when he has grown up in the shadow of a father who is a living legend, whose exploits are talked about in saloons and cattle camps across the country.

  And much more so if those words came from Josh’s father, himself.

  So, Josh saddled up and just rode. That was what he did when he was angry.

  He was on a bay that was fourteen hands tall. A mountain horse Pa and the men had caught a couple of years ago.

  Josh didn’t have a rifle with him. He hadn’t bothered to fetch one from the gun rack. He had just stormed out of the house and off to the tack shed to grab himself a rope. Then out to the remuda that ran free in the meadow behind the house. Dropped a loop on the first horse he found. Then threw a saddle on him, and Josh was off and riding.

  When he was mad this way, he didn’t care if he ever saw home again. He knew he would cool off after a while and turn his horse back toward the ranch house. But for the moment, he just wanted distance.

  The small valley was surrounded by ridges covered with pines. He headed for the one they called McCabe Mountain. Northwest of the ranch house. It was the tallest of the ridges.

  Josh knew Pa didn’t want him riding outside the valley on his own. But Josh didn’t care. Pa and the men were off mustanging. And they had gone without him. Josh figured this meant he was on his own.

  He had an old Colt .36 holstered at his right hip. He had seen one of them newfangled Peacemakers at a gun shop when he and Pa went down to Bozeman a month earlier. A beautiful gun, but nothing they could afford at the moment.

  Josh didn’t even have a hat. His was on the hat rack by the front door at the house. He hadn’t taken time to grab it as he stormed out. He was in just his range shirt, canvas pants, and riding boots. And his gunbelt.

  Part of him wished he had a bedroll with him, and saddlebags full of supplies. And a rifle in his saddle. He would turn west, he thought. Maybe try Oregon. He was near grown enough that he could get a job as a cowhand. They had cattle in Oregon. Or maybe head southwest to California. Uncle Matt owned a ranch a day’s ride out of Stockton.

  But he knew once he cooled down he would be heading back to the ranch. It would happen like it always did. He would feel a little sheepish for riding off, and Aunt Ginny would give him a stern lecture about maturity and responsibility. And then within a day or two, it would be like it had never happened.

  The thought of it all made him even madder. It somehow invalidated his anger, and at the moment his anger felt pretty danged real.

  The valley floor was made up of long, rolling hills that were covered with grass, but the ridges surrounding the valley were covered with pines. The ranch house was about two miles from McCabe Mountain, and the horse Josh was riding liked to run. They covered the distance in about fifteen minutes.

  Josh turned the horse up the slope. Pines stood tall about him, and they grew a few yards apart, wide enough to ride a horse between them. There was little underbrush, because sunlight rarely touched the ground.

  He reached for the revolver at his side, making sure it was snug in his holster. A good gunhawk is aware of his gun at all times.

  He was not as good a shot as his Pa, and not nearly as fast on the draw. This rankled him, too. No one was as good as Pa with a gun, but Josh wasn’t just no one. He was Pa’s son. It seemed to him the son of Johnny McCabe should be hell-on-wheels with a gun.

  He got to the top of the ridge. Not far away was an outcropping of bedrock, and from it you could stand and look off at the valley. The family called it the look-out. The bedrock extended out like a small cliff, and you could see the entire southern quarter of the valley. Josh had been there many a time. But at the moment, he didn’t want to see the house. He wanted to just ride.

  He kept on going, over the summit, down the other side. Pa wouldn’t like it, but at the moment, Josh didn’t care.

  After a time, he realized in his anger he wasn’t giving the horse enough attention. You can’t just ride a horse forever. A horse is a living thing and needs rest.

  He swung out of the saddle and loosened the cinch.

  “Sorry about that, boy,” he said.

  There was a little opening in the trees where some grass grew. The ho
rse lowered its head and began grazing.

  Josh walked a bit. Not walking anywhere in particular, just pacing aimlessly.

  It was early July, and the day had been warm down on the valley floor, but up here in the ridges it was a little cooler.

  Without warning, the horse turned and bolted. Off into the woods, and it was gone.

  Josh started running after it, but by the time he got up some good speed, the horse was already gone from sight. He could hear it off in the woods, sticks cracking under its hooves at it ran.

  “What in tarnation,” he said.

  He had no desire to walk back to the ranch house. Here it was, about noon, and he was easily three miles from the house. And the first part of it would not be easy. It would involve walking up one side of McCabe Mountain and down the other.

  He kicked at a piece of tree root that was visible. “Well, if this don’t beat all.”

  Then he saw what the horse was running from. Stepping into the small clearing was a full-grown grizzly bear. Big, and lumbering along.

  Josh stopped breathing for a moment, staring at the bear with wide eyes. His anger was gone, like it had never been there.

  Bears are unpredictable, Pa had said more than once. Don’t take chances with them. Avoid them if you can.

  Hard to avoid this one, Josh thought. It was walking right toward him.

  He glanced to the woods off to one side. Should he run? If he did, he had the feeling the bear would chase him. A bear can move faster than you might think.

  Then he remembered he was armed. It wasn’t a rifle—he could sure use Pa’s big caliber Sharps right now. Or even that old Hawken Pa kept in the gun rack. All he had was his Colt .36, but it would have to be enough.

  He drew the gun and looked at the bear.

  The animal was twenty feet away now. It stopped and stared at him.

  Josh held the gun out, and realized his hand was shaking.

  He tried to command his hand to be still. Pa’s hand never shook when he held a gun, and Pa had been in dozens of gunfights. Probably hundreds. Pa seldom talked about it, but Josh had heard the stories.

  He said to the bear, “Go away, now. Shoo.”

  The bear swung its head back and forth. Josh didn’t know what it meant, but he had the feeling the bear wasn’t going anywhere.

  Maybe if I just walk away good and slow, he thought.

  He took a backwards step. Then another.

  Then the bear came after him.

  It rose up on its hind feet, and started walking at him.

  Josh pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He realized he hadn’t cocked the gun yet, so he hauled the hammer back, and pulled the trigger again.

  The bear was almost on him now. But the gun went off and the bear let out a deep-throated roar and went back down onto all fours. It started swinging its head back and forth and made the roaring sound again.

  Josh didn’t know how bad he had hit the bear. He didn’t know if he had even hit the bear at all. But he wasn’t waiting around to find out. He turned and ran.

  He didn’t know if the bear was behind him, but he didn’t want to chance looking back. Doing so when you were at a dead run always cut into your speed, a little.

  He left the clearing behind him and was back in the woods.

  Then he came out to another clearing, and he thought it looked like the remains of an old shack ahead of him. Two walls standing. The wood looked old and rotted. There were some rocks partly tumbled down beside one wall and what was left of a chimney.

  He stopped, wondering how it could be that he hadn’t known about this place. He had ridden these ridges before with Pa. He had never seen this place before.

  He realized he had let the remains of the shack distract him from matters at hand. The bear. It might be right behind him.

  He turned, holding his gun ready. The bear wasn’t there. Maybe it hadn’t followed him.

  He let out air he hadn’t realized he was holding. That was when he realized he wasn’t actually standing on the ground. Underfoot was what felt like boards. And the boards had a hollow feel, like he was on a sort of floor or elevated platform. Yet, it wasn’t elevated. Whatever he was standing on was level with the ground and covered with leaves.

  Then it gave way. Old boards, rotting for years. They broke apart under his weight, and he fell.

  He hit the bottom of whatever he had fallen into, and he hit it hard. Knocked the wind out of him.

  All was dark around him. He thought his eyes were shut, but then he realized they weren’t. He was in darkness. He looked up and saw a patch of daylight overhead, and some trees.

  He was maybe ten feet down, he figured. The hole smelled like damp earth. He felt around with his hands, and saw it wasn’t flat, like a cellar. It had the unevenness of a hole that had been dug with a shovel.

  It seemed to be maybe four feet wide, though the walls were uneven, too.

  A shaft of some sort, he thought. Or a well.

  Gold had been discovered here in Montana Territory twenty years ago, but gold wasn’t just discovered overnight. Prospectors often probed about the hills and mountains for years.

  This hole was either a shaft some prospector had dug and long ago abandoned, or it was the result of an attempt to dig a well. Maybe a fur trapper was here, long before Pa brought the family to the valley.

  Either way, Josh had to get out of this hole.

  First, he realized, his gun wasn’t in his hand. It had been in his right hand when he fell. But now it wasn’t there.

  He felt about in the darkness and found it on the ground. He slid it back into his holster. A gunhawk has to take care of his gun.

  Then he got to his feet. Which didn’t last long, because there was a sharp pain in his left ankle.

  It was too dark to see his leg, but he realized it was numb-feeling. His ankle hurt like a son-of-a-gun.

  He looked up at the daylight coming through the broken boards he had fallen through. Ten feet up. With his ankle maybe broken, it might as well have been a hundred feet up.

  Chapter two

  The sun was down and the valley was gradually darkening into twilight. Ginny stood on the front porch and looked off toward the valley. She was hoping to see a rider, but she saw none. Joshua had ridden off in a huff earlier in the day and was still not back.

  Ginny was truly afraid. Joshua had never been off in the mountains alone. She understood he needed to feel like a man, but he wasn’t one yet. The ridges that surrounded this valley could look quite tame from a distance, but she knew they weren’t.

  Jackson was with her. He was almost fourteen, Joshua’s younger brother. He was as tall as Joshua, but his hair was darker. More like his father’s.

  He said, “Josh will be back, Aunt Ginny. He’s gone off in a huff like this before. He always comes back.”

  Ginny nodded. “But he’s never been gone this long.”

  Bree stepped out onto the porch. Ten years old and almost as tall as Ginny. Which wasn’t very tall, really. She was slender and small-boned, with a dark braid that fell down her back.

  The girl’s name was actually Sabrina Virginia, after Ginny’s sister, the girl’s grandmother.

  She said, “What’re you doing, Aunt Ginny?”

  “Just watching for your brother.” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice, but couldn’t quite manage. “He should be back by now.”

  “What’re we going to do?”

  The men were gone, off mustanging somewhere in the mountains. That was what the argument had been about between Joshua and his father. Josh wanted to go with them, but Johnny had said no. Not this time. He could join the men when he was older.

  Joshua had stormed off. Johnny had said, “He’ll be all right.”

  Johnny and the men had ridden off to the mountains. The only man still at the ranch was the wrangler.

  Ginny said, “If he’s not home by morning, I’m going to send Fred off to find your father.”

  ***

  Bre
e went to bed but she just couldn’t get to sleep. Her head was sinking into her pillow and she looked up at the dark rafters overhead.

  She hadn’t felt much fear in her life. When your father was a gunfighter who was practically a living legend, you felt mighty safe in your house. But tonight she felt fear. Fear that she might never see her brother Josh again.

  Jack was in the next room, the one he shared with Josh. Bree could hear him snoring. Jack didn’t seem to be worried, but Bree couldn’t keep her own worry away.

  Then she realized she had fallen asleep, because one moment she was looking at the rafters and the next she was on her side.

  She sprang out of bed and ran to Josh’s room. Maybe he was home. Maybe he had ridden up while she was sleeping.

  But his bed was empty.

  She went back to her room and stared at the rafters some more. She heard the patter of rain start up on the roof.

  After a while, she heard some chiming downstairs from the mantel clock. It was a sea captain’s clock Aunt Ginny had brought with her from San Francisco. Aunt Ginny had lots of money and the house was furnished with fancier things than you usually saw in a ranch house.

  Bree lay there and counted the chimes. Three. It was three in the morning.

  She got up and went to Josh’s room again. Just in case she had fallen asleep again. His bed was still empty.

  She wondered if Aunt Ginny was having trouble sleeping. Bree didn’t bother to grab a robe, and she was in her bare feet as she walked to the stairs and looked down to the first floor. She expected it be all dark down there, but to her surprise, she saw the glow of firelight.

  She went downstairs and found Aunt Ginny in her rocker. There was a small fire going in the stone hearth.

  “Sabrina,” Aunt Ginny said. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

  “I can’t sleep. I’m so afraid about Josh.”