Shane and Jonah 3

by Cole Shelton

  The noon sun declined in the afternoon sky. Shadows lengthened over the mesquite and sage, and gradually the wind freshened as the riders climbed to the beckoning high country.

  Jonah didn’t raise his doubts again, because he knew that once Shane Preston made up his mind, that was the end of the argument.

  It was an hour before sundown when Shane Preston reined in Snowfire and called a halt.

  They rested their horses in a pine-needled hollow on the verge of the high country, and Jonah built a small fire so they could drink hot coffee, while Shane gave their mounts a rub down. The fading day provided a blue-gray canvas behind the towering peaks that the riders would have to cross in the darkness. This was wild, untamed country, and two hours back the trail had ended at a tiny outpost where Shane and Jonah had replenished their supplies.

  “Don’t recall hearin’ about that saloon fight before,” Jonah remarked as he lit the dry twigs. “The one Harding and you was in.”

  Shane rolled a cigarette.

  “Coupla hellions were teasing an Indian,” Shane Preston recalled. “They figured the redskin shouldn’t be allowed to drink hard liquor in the saloon, but I horned in. The Indian wore a cavalry uniform with campaign medals pinned on the front of his tunic, so I figured that made him a bigger man than the hellions. Fact is, though, I almost bit off more than I could chew. I shot one of the hellions, and then the other ranny plugged me in the arm. I dropped my gun, and the next minute, the hellion was standing over me with his gun ready to blast me to Boot Hill. The whole damn saloon just stood there and watched! Then this lean streak gunned down the hellion.”

  “Slim Harding?”

  “We became good friends,” Shane said grimly. “Slim and Marcia and me.” He added: “And Grace.”

  Shane’s voice had died to almost a whisper when he mentioned his wife’s name, and Jonah looked around at him sharply. The tall gunfighter finished rubbing down Snowfire and turned his attention to the cantankerous old mare that Jonah chose to ride.

  Jonah placed the coffee pot on the logs and watched the flames lick its blackened sides.

  “That must have been some time back,” the oldster remarked, stirring the fire.

  “Yeah.” The tall gunfighter flicked the ash from his cigarette, staring out at the gathering grayness as memories flooded back on a dark tide. “A long time back.”

  Two – Two Guns to Wolf Valley

  Anyone could see that Lodestone was a cattlemen’s town.

  The Cattlemen’s Bank was the first building you came to when you rode in. Just past the bank was an old adobe building which had become the headquarters for the Cattlemen’s Association. Right opposite this hall, the general store had a notice nailed to its front wall for all to see: NO DOGS OR NESTERS ALLOWED IN. Added to all this was the smell of beeves which came from the acre of holding corrals that fringed the town limits.

  Shane Preston and Jonah Jones reined in outside an eating house. They tramped inside to sit at the window table.

  The proprietor surveyed them with caution.

  “You hombres cattlemen?” He was a squat, red-faced man wearing a dirty apron over his blue britches.

  “Nope,” Shane said.

  The man’s eyes narrowed.

  “Nesters?”

  “Nope,” Shane assured him. “Now if you’ve finished asking questions, we want two cups of coffee and a plate of hot biscuits.”

  There was a smile on the proprietor’s face now. “Sure.”

  Jonah watched him waddle behind the bar.

  “Hell,” the old-timer said, rolling a cigarette. “I’ve been in towns that don’t exactly love nesters, but this place sure beats them all.”

  Shane took off his black Stetson and placed it on the table. The gunfighter’s dark hair fringed a gaunt, rugged face highlighted by piercing, deep-set eyes.

  “Right now there are a lot of towns like Lodestone,” Shane Preston reflected.

  “Yeah?”

  “There ain’t many places where the welcome mat’s laid out for nesters,” Shane said. “Not surprising. The cattleman’s been king in this territory for a long time.”

  “That was before this new law come in,” Jonah stated, lighting his cigarette.

  Shane nodded. “Reckon the Homesteader Act’s gonna change a lot of things out here, Jonah. Ranchers with overflow herds came to look on open range as belonging to them. It let ’em own more beeves than their titled land could really carry. But that’s all changin’. The settlers are floodin’ west, carvin’ up as much open range as the law allows them, fencin’ it off, buildin’ homesteads.”

  “All legal,” Jonah nodded.

  “Maybe so,” Shane Preston agreed. “But all over the territory the cattlemen ain’t exactly takin’ this nester invasion lyin’ down. And certainly not the polecat who ordered Slim Harding’s murder.”

  The proprietor came around with a tray.

  “Mister,” Shane said as the coffee and biscuits were placed on the table in front of them, “you asked us a coupla questions when we came in. Now it’s our turn.”

  The proprietor looked alarmed. “Huh?”

  “We’re headed for Wolf Valley—where is it?”

  “You take the western trail out of town. You hombres headed for the Circle B?”

  “Why d’you ask?” Shane wanted to know as he stirred his thick black coffee.

  “Well—ah—I was just lookin’ at that—ah—gun of yours, mister,” he stammered, his eyes glued to the black handle of Shane’s six-shooter. “Figured you might be a coupla riders hired by Mr. Boormann.”

  Shane recalled that Boormann had been mentioned as the Circle B’s owner in Marcia’s letter.

  “This Boormann hiring men?”

  “Men who know how to handle guns,” the fat man said. “It ain’t exactly a Sunday camp meetin’ in Wolf Valley now those damn nesters have moved in.”

  Jonah Jones noisily sipped his coffee. “But ain’t homesteadin’ legal?”

  The proprietor grinned. “When a man goes to stomp out vermin, does he ask whether it’s legal or not?”

  The gunfighters regarded him stonily as he guffawed at his own quip. Shane downed his coffee and paid the man, who ambled back behind the counter. They didn’t need any more proof of the sourness of the situation here in town and in the valley. What Marcia had described was certainly no exaggeration. The nesters were hated and this poisonous attitude had spread over most of the community. The gunslingers paced outside into the heat.

  Shane mounted up, tall and lean, a somber figure in black. At a guess, his age might have been something just over thirty, but at times Shane Preston looked older than his actual years. His gaunt face reflected the toll taken by the biting winds and blasting heat of many trails, and his eyes were those of a man who rode with death. In contrast, Shane’s pard was stocky, even plump. His wizened old face was virtually covered by white whiskers and his head was topped by a big mop of hair that flopped over his furrowed forehead. Folks often said that Shane and Jonah were strange saddlepards, totally unalike. And yet there was a bond which bound their destinies together.

  They took the western trail out of Lodestone.

  At first the trail slanted upwards to a long, curving rim where the hot wind was like a furnace. Then the track dropped through a sheer-walled pass where redwood pines reached for the thin aperture of sky. Shane and Jonah rode right down through this narrow pass, suddenly finding themselves heading into the gateway to the valley. Here, the two walls of the pass seemed to lean over and embrace each other in a rock archway, and the two riders had to proceed in single file onto the low ridge which jutted over Wolf Valley.

  They reined in, letting their gaze take in the huge basin scooped out beneath them. At first sight, it looked like a massive valley filled with trees, one green roof that spread to the far western wall. But then they glimpsed a creek, patches of bald rock, and broken ridges that crisscrossed the valley floor. Here and there, wisps of wood smoke rose in thin columns
to the sky.

  Shane lifted his eyes to the dominant ridge beneath the western wall. There, a white ranch house was perched on the crest and below, green grass spilled down into the valley.

  The riders plunged away from the pass and headed into the valley. Their horses moved swiftly through the pine needles, reaching a thin track that wound deeper into the basin. The view from the ridge had been deceptive. From that elevation, it had appeared that Wolf Valley was a maze of forest, but right now the gunfighters were riding past long stretches of verdant grassland. Here and there they glimpsed nester spreads. Hastily-erected fences hemmed in small holdings, and log cabins stood among plots of maize and truck gardens. Once they saw a brawny homesteader hammering in fence posts, and when they approached, his hand moved tentatively for the rifle that leaned nearby.

  They rode even deeper into the basin, and it was Jonah Jones who first spotted the burnt-out cabin. The gunfighters turned off the trail and kicked their horses through the brush, heading beneath the towering cedars for the blackened skeleton which had once been a home.

  They drew in their horses.

  A ghostly silence pervaded the charred walls. The house was a hollow shell. The roof had caved in, windows had been blown out by the heat and a blackened, splintered door hung on a single hinge. Shane’s lips tightened as he surveyed the scene of desolation. Burned furniture lay strewn around. A rifle, distorted by the heat, had been dropped beside the door. And just out front, a little girl’s rag doll had a searing burn across its face.

  “Shane!” Jonah’s voice was hoarse. “Look at that cedar!”

  The tall gunfighter swiveled around in his saddle and stared to where Jonah’s quivering finger pointed. Two strands of rope were dangling from a high branch.

  Shane took Marcia’s letter from his pocket. A rough sketch of her cabin’s location in the valley had been penned on the back of the second page. The gunfighter scrutinized it briefly and turned to Jonah.

  “This isn’t the place. Let’s ride.”

  They drew away from the charred cabin and took the trail. Soon they were urging their mounts through a gushing creek. They stopped to allow their horses to drink. Then they climbed the opposite bank and made for a higher ridge.

  Just as they topped the crest, the distant sounds of gunfire came to them. Shane reined in Snowfire, waiting as Jonah came alongside. There was a long silence, then a staccato burst echoed out over the valley. A golden eagle soared into the sun. There was a frantic scream followed by more rifle fire.

  “Reckon we’ll take a look-see, Jonah,” Shane Preston said.

  The gunfighters urged their horses down the long slope, drawn by the gun thunder which was now becoming louder.

  They spurred their mounts into a gallop, whipping past a startled nester who was shepherding his family into his cabin for safety. By now, closer, they could hear the wicked whine of bullets, the dull thud of lead smacking into wood. Coarse commands were ringing out, followed by three distinct rifle blasts as the gunfighters rode into a spread of young trees. Shane led the way, his head bowed low as Snowfire twisted and turned among the lean trunks. As the trees became more dense the horses had to slow to weave a tortuous path between them. Then Shane reined in sharply. The clearing was right ahead, the ground falling away in a steep slope.

  They slid from their saddles and stalked towards the clearing on foot. They could see puffs of gunsmoke. Shane motioned his partner to duck low. He parted a low branch. Right below them was a pine log cabin scarred by bullet holes. The front door had been blasted right off its hinges, and standing there with his rifle blazing was a small, red-haired rake of a man. Behind him, hastily reloading another Winchester, was a white-faced woman. A dead dog, splattered with blood, lay at the man’s feet. Shane’s eyes whipped away from the cabin to where four riders were closing in on the man and his wife. One of the men had lit a torch of dry brush and he was surging towards the cabin, whooping like an Indian.

  Shane’s six-shooter was in his hand.

  He aimed swiftly, squeezing the trigger as the rider with the torch thundered past. The ranny screamed as the slug smashed into the back of his shoulder, and his companions wheeled their horses around to face Shane’s smoking gun.

  The shooting died. The wounded rider was slumped forward in his saddle, his flaming torch disintegrating on the ground.

  The gunfighters stood up, their six-shooters leveled.

  “Who in hell are you?” the dark-haired hulk astride the rearing gelding screeched furiously.

  “Names don’t matter,” Shane told him. “Fact is, mister, we don’t like the odds. Four men against a nester and his wife ain’t quite as even as it could be, so we’ve decided to even things up some.”

  The wounded rider was moaning in agony, twisting his body around as the blood flowed darkly down from his shattered shoulder. One of his companions was steadying him.

  “It so happens, mister,” the hulk snarled, “you’ve horned in on Circle B business. I’m Matt Klaus, ramrod of the outfit, and I’ve one good suggestion to make. Get the hell outa here and leave us with our chore!”

  “Which is?” Shane asked coldly.

  “I’ll tell you what their chore is, mister,” the nester spoke up from the doorway. He was brandishing his rifle, and there was raw hatred on his face. “They’re here to burn us out and murder us because we wouldn’t quit our spread!”

  “Stay outa this, stranger!” Klaus warned. “Maybe you’ve got the drop on us, but we’ll take you as easy as we’ll take these fool nesters if you don’t ride on out!”

  Shane thumbed back the hammer of his six-shooter. The riders still clutched their rifles, but the gunfighters had the drop. Two gaping muzzles were poised and pointed right at the Circle B riders, and two men would die in a split-second of time if any shooting broke out.

  “I’ve got a better suggestion,” Shane stated harshly. “You and your boys can ride clear out and leave these folks alone.”

  “Leave them alone?” the thin rider beside Klaus echoed incredulously. “Mister—ain’t you got eyes? This is cattle country! These damn nesters have horned in on our land!”

  “That why you call ’em vermin?” Shane asked dryly.

  “Intruders and vermin,” Klaus snapped.

  “Whoever and whatever they are makes no difference,” Shane told them. “Fact is, they’re within the law.”

  Klaus leaned forward in his saddle. “Mister, I sure hope you and that old-timer are just passing through.”

  “Oh?” Jonah raised his eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

  “Because if you stayed around here for long, you’d have to change your thinking to keep alive,” the ramrod smirked. “You see, we herd nesters and nester-lovers together in these parts. Now why don’t you boys just lower your hardware and ride on nice and peaceable and leave us to finish what we came to do?”

  “Please, mister,” the nester’s wife pleaded frantically. “Please don’t ride off! Know what they plan for us? They’ll burn our home and—and look at the cedar beside you!”

  Shane nudged his pard. “You look while I watch these polecats.”

  Jonah Jones glanced up at the two nooses swinging in the slight breeze, two ropes dangling from a thick branch in readiness for a double hanging.

  “A neck-tie party,” Jonah muttered.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Shane Preston assured her. “When we horn in on a fracas, we don’t back out no how.”

  Simmering fury showed on the Circle B ramrod’s face. His big hand was quivering on his rifle as he glanced around at his men. He opened his mouth to spit out a command, but the word died in his throat as he perceived the reluctance of his riders. No one wanted to be the first to test the trigger speed of these two strangers.

  “Listen,” Klaus said to Shane and Jonah, “we’ll be riding out, chore unfinished. But before we leave, here’s a friendly word of warning for you both.”

  “We’re listenin’,” Shane Preston said wryly.

 
“Ride on out of this valley.” Matt Klaus was still trembling with rage. “Or someone will be carrying you out—in two pine boxes. Savvy?”

  “Ride!” snapped Shane. “Or we start blastin’!”

  The ramrod turned his horse. “And the same goes for you, O’Reilly,” he yelled to the homesteader.

  “You heard him, Klaus,” the nester leveled his rifle. “Get!”

  “Sure,” Klaus purred. “We’ll be riding, O’Reilly. But we’ll be back, and if you’re still around, what I told these two jaspers goes for you and your woman. Two pine boxes!”

  The Circle B riders surged away, taking the wounded man with them, and Shane watched them plunge into the thickly-growing trees down the trail before he finally slipped his six-shooter back into its holster.

  “Name’s Evan O’Reilly,” the nester introduced himself. “I reckon Andrea and me owe you our lives.”

  Shane turned to face them. Evan O’Reilly was a raw-boned little man, small in stature, with an unkempt mop of red hair which sprawled down the sides of his freckled face. His wife bore an uncanny resemblance to him. She too was small, homely-looking, but unlike most women on the western frontier, her complexion was not bleached by the sun.

  Controlling her voice, the woman named Andrea backed up her husband. “Words don’t mean much. But we’re thankful.”

  She looked up to where Jonah was climbing to slice down the ropes.

  “It’s their style, mister,” O’Reilly informed Shane. “They hang us homesteaders like criminals. First they warn us to move on, then they call back in a coupla days to check. If the nesters are still around, they burn the cabins and there’s a hanging party. There have been half a dozen hangings in the past week.”

  “This place was called Wolf Valley,” Andrea O’Reilly said. “But we nesters have renamed it Hanging Tree Valley.”

  The ropes dropped to the ground and Jonah clambered down again.

  “The least we can do for these gents is to offer ’em some hospitality,” Evan O’Reilly prompted his wife.