Shane and Jonah 6

by Cole Shelton

  “Maybe you want to be left alone, Sampson,” Shane conceded. “But what’s the use of living if you can’t live with yourself?”

  The oldster frowned at this piece of philosophy from the gunslinger. “What do you mean?”

  “Tomorrow, about this time, a man’s gonna die. He’s an innocent man, but he’ll hang for a murder he didn’t commit, all because someone who knows the truth is keeping silent.”

  “Meanin’ me?”

  “Meaning you,” Shane stated.

  “That damn female! I knew I shouldn’t have blabbed to her!”

  “Sherry only told me because a man’s life is at stake, Sampson,” Shane said. “You can save that life by telling the truth.”

  Sampson filled his coffee cup and added a slug of redeye. “And what’ll happen to me?” the old-timer snarled. “I’d be buzzard bait if I talked!”

  “Nope.”

  “I’d have spoken up earlier, to Sheriff Harper maybe, but that would have been signin’ my death warrant. I’d have had to talk up in court.”

  “I don’t want you to say a thing in public, or to any sheriff,” the gunfighter assured him.

  “Huh?”

  “All I want is information I can act on,” Shane said forcefully. “No one will ever know where that information came from.”

  Sampson reached for the bottle and poured another shot into his coffee mug. “How can I be sure of that?” he growled.

  “You’ll have to trust me,” Shane Preston said coldly.

  Judd Sampson was pensive for a long while, and Shane could sense that he was fighting with himself and his fears. The oldster stared into his mug, and the gun hawk let him keep on thinking and wrestling.

  “A man will hang unless you tell me what happened,” Shane said finally.

  Still there was no reply from Sampson, but beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Then Shane decided on a gamble. He turned around and deliberately walked to the door.

  “Preston!” The old man called him back.

  Shane turned back.

  “My name won’t be mentioned?” Sampson quavered.

  “Never.”

  “If you tried to make me attend court and repeat what I’m going to say to you ... I’d deny I ever spoke to you,” Judd Sampson warned.

  “What did you see in Moose Canyon?” Shane demanded.

  “I heard shootin’,” Sampson murmured, “and I looked down from the eastern rim. There was a man ridin’ away with a gun in his hand, heading towards an arroyo. Three riders were bunched together just watching him, doing nothing! They must have been in with him because they saw everything and sat saddle! Just as the rider reached the arroyo, Wainwright the trapper happened along and he headed over to the body. Wainwright had a gun in his hand, and if I hadn’t seen everything, then I might have thought he was the murderer.”

  “Then?”

  “I saw Gowrie and his riders come out of cover and ride up to Wainwright. It was a frame-up, mister.”

  “Who was the man who rode over to the arroyo—the man who killed King?”

  “I never saw his face, but there’s something I noticed which I didn’t tell Sherry about. He rode an appaloosa, and there ain’t many such horses in the territory.”

  Shane mentally digested this information. What the oldster had said was true. There were not many appaloosas in this territory. The breed had originally been introduced by the Spaniards and bred by the Nez Percé Indians around Palouse River, and Shane had seldom seen these horses, with their distinctive dark spots on a roan background, in this territory.

  “Do you know who rides an appaloosa around here?” the tall gun hawk demanded.

  Sampson shook his head.

  “I don’t, Preston, but in any case, I reckon I’ve said enough. Now you know why—why I couldn’t come out in the open. Brent Gowrie’s in on this frame-up, and if he found out I blabbed, then—then he’d kill me for sure!”

  Shane headed outside and Sampson followed.

  “What’ll you do now?” the oldster asked tentatively.

  Shane climbed into the saddle. “Somewhere around here is a man who rides an appaloosa, and I aim to find him.”

  Seven – Bullet for a Gunfighter

  The Rolling Wheel Ranch was wreathed in darkness.

  Reined in on the pumice ridge, Shane let his eyes move over the void below him, but he could distinguish nothing except the stark outline of a distant rim caught by the rising moon.

  He jogged his mount off the ridge and headed down to the stage-trail. By the time he was following the rutted track to the huge gateway leading to the ranch, the moon had climbed high and a strange yellow glow bathed the grassy range.

  Shane rode swiftly. Every minute which fled was a minute closer to the next sundown when Luke Wainwright was scheduled to keep that last appointment with the town’s official hangman. He simply had to find the mystery man who rode the appaloosa. He was grateful to the old-timer, Sampson, and he wouldn’t betray the source of his information to anyone. The recluse had proved invaluable. For a while, Shane had believed that Gowrie himself might possibly be the killer, having doubled back after the shooting to frame Luke Wainwright, but Sampson had supplied him with the vital information. There were four riders involved in the whole affair of murder and frame-up: Gowrie, his sidekicks and the faceless killer who rode the spotted thoroughbred.

  Shane opened the white gates and rode onto Rolling Wheel grass. He headed down the dark slope and the eyes of bedded-down beeves flicked at him as he steered his way past a big herd. Tall grass whispered against his stirrups. As he reached the foot of the slope and reined in, he saw the lights of the Rolling Wheel ranch house.

  He’d decided to ride here because the next person he intended to question was Celia King. In court, he’d had to blunt his verbal onslaught, but tonight would be different. King’s widow had lied, and he intended to find out why. Earlier on, he’d been inclined to accept that a grief-stricken widow had committed perjury to make sure that her beloved husband’s death was avenged and his killer hanged. But evidently the public image of Celia King could well be a false one. Granted, Sherry was jealous and disliked Celia for personal reasons,

  but she’d said enough to warrant Shane asking the widow a few pertinent questions out of court. Besides, Celia King was the one who’d benefit most from Jacob King’s death. There was no heir; the Rolling Wheel would be hers.

  He rode towards the homestead, passing another vast sea of fenced in longhorns.

  The ranch house which King had built was a sprawling two-storey structure and there were many outbuildings scattered around.

  Shane reined in near the barn. He could smell hay and horses. For a while he sat saddle, surveying the house. Most of the rooms were lamp lit and he could see figures moving against the drapes of one of the rooms on the ground floor. He jogged his mount forward, and suddenly his searching eyes were attracted by a horse tied near the big corral. He felt coldness creep over him. He saw the blurred outlines of a roan with blotched coloring on its rump.

  An appaloosa—here on the Rolling Wheel!

  He eased himself out of the saddle, and with his eyes on the appaloosa, he began to move towards it to make sure. The horse was still saddled, and Shane’s gaze took in the fancy Mexican stirrups. It cost a week’s wages to buy stirrups of that sort, held by hand-decorated leather.

  Piano music came wafting out to him, not mournful, quiet music such as he’d expect at a time of mourning, but light, almost gay, notes. Frowning, Shane halted by the horse.

  “Reach!”

  A gun muzzle stabbed hard into his back.

  Shane froze with his hands on the appaloosa’s saddle.

  “Been watching you for some time now, Preston,” the voice said behind him. “Now get those hands up!”

  “You’re a long way out of your stamping grounds, Gowrie,” Shane remarked tersely, without turning around. “Or have you changed spreads?”

  The ramrod thumbed back the hamme
r of his six-gun and Shane slowly raised his hands.

  “Now, Preston,” Brent Gowrie grated, “just turn around and walk back to your horse.”

  “Who owns this appaloosa?” Shane demanded, ignoring the ramrod’s command.

  “Walk!” Gowrie repeated. “Or I’ll blow a hole clean through your spine!”

  Shane obeyed, moving slowly back across the shadowy yard with Brent Gowrie’s gun muzzle grinding into his spine. Right beside Snowfire were two riders, and Shane recognized the men he’d seen with Gowrie after the trial.

  “Who owns the appaloosa?” Shane asked again. “Does it belong to someone on the Rolling Wheel?”

  “What do you want to know for?” Gowrie growled.

  Shane ignored the question, halting where Gowrie’s sidekicks were waiting for him with drawn guns.

  “You were right, Brent,” Lindsay Clegg said. “The trespasser was Preston.”

  “I’m not trespassing,” Shane snapped. “I came to have a talk with Mrs. King.”

  “Well, Preston,” Gowrie grinned, “I can assure you that Mrs. King doesn’t want you around.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “Let’s say we know Mrs. King much better than you do,” Brent Gowrie snickered. “She’s kinda choosy who comes onto the Rolling Wheel, specially as now she’s the owner.”

  “You seem to be doing a hell of a lot of talking on Mrs. King’s behalf,” the gunfighter remarked. “Makes me wonder what the connection is between you and the Rolling Wheel.”

  The ramrod’s gun butt smashed into his mouth, and Shane fell back against his horse. Blood oozed from his lips as he faced the man from the Diamond C.

  “That’s to help you button up, Preston!” Gowrie snarled.

  “What do you aim to do with him, Brent?” Yuldara demanded with a sly grin.

  Gowrie smiled, then hatred began to blaze from his slitted eyes as he contemplated the gunfighter.

  “Know something, boys? Ever since this bastard rode in, he’s been nothing but trouble. He plugged me in the arm, he stood in the way of the citizens of Destiny Creek when they wanted a hangin’, he spoke up for a back-shooter in court, and now—”

  “And now he’s snoopin’ around,” Clegg sneered. “Like you said—trespassin’ on a widow’s property.”

  “And I reckon he intends to go on snooping and causing trouble,” Brent Gowrie predicted.

  “In other words,” Shane supplied, the blood trickling down his chin, “there are a few things you don’t want me to find out. Like who owns that appaloosa, for instance?”

  “Boys,” Gowrie said casually, “I suggest you take Preston for a little ride.”

  Yuldara grinned and stroked his gun butt. “Sure!”

  “I’d come myself, you understand,” the ramrod said mockingly to the gun hawk, “but I’m due inside the house. Widow King needs some consoling and company in her hour of grief, and a man has to do the right thing.”

  “Mount up, Preston!” Clegg grated.

  “And keep your paws high,” Yuldara added.

  Shane climbed into the saddle and kneed his horse into a walk. The two Diamond C riders jostled him as they headed out of the yard and moved into the grass. Shane kept his hands stretched high and Clegg and Yuldara were on either side of him, guns poised. Slowly the lights of the ranch house receded, and the riders jogged to the crest of a long rise.

  “Keep moving,” Clegg ordered him.

  “Where to?” Yuldara asked Clegg.

  “I’d say right off the Rolling Wheel,” Clegg answered him. “I figure that little pass by Devil’s Rock.”

  “What’s it to be?” Shane goaded them. “In the back—like King got it?”

  The men didn’t answer him. They topped a crest, then dropped down into a dark, steep-walled canyon dotted with towering pines. The trail narrowed.

  Suddenly Lindsay Clegg’s horse slid on the soft ground, and Shane seized his opportunity.

  The gunfighter’s hand streaked downwards, fastening on his gun butt. Desperately, he whipped the gun clear, angling around in his saddle. There was a deafening roar from Yuldara’s gun and the bullet smashed into Shane Preston’s side. The tall gunfighter swayed as terrible pain surged over him like a tide. He managed to fire his own gun, but the slug winged harmlessly wide across the canyon. He glimpsed the cruel smile on Clegg’s face and for a moment he stared down the barrel of the man’s gun. The six-gun belched at almost point-blank range and Shane felt the searing knife of the slug high in his body. The jaws of darkness opened wide to swallow him. He tumbled out of the saddle and hit the ground. His bloodied body rolled until it came up against the gnarled trunk of a tree. And then Shane Preston lay as still as a stone.

  Yuldara was about to fire another slug into the gunfighter’s motionless body, then figured it would be a waste of a bullet.

  “Well now,” Clegg laughed as he holstered his gun. “I reckon that’s the end of Shane Preston.”

  The hard cases turned their horses and headed back up the canyon trail. A moaning wind sprang up and a cloud passed over the moon. Away on the canyon rim, a timber wolf howled, and once again, dark clouds obscured the wan moon. Presently, big drops of rain began to fall, soaking the silent, sprawled body under the trees.

  By midnight, the main street of Destiny Creek was a quagmire. Rig wheels slid and skidded in the muddy softness, horses floundered helplessly, and the long water trough overflowed. Water cascaded from nearly every roof, some of it gurgling down pipes into storage tanks, the overflow forming dark pools under the walls.

  A lone rider was coming slowly through the mud, his head bowed against the wind. He was a dapper little man with a beak nose and sharp features. Slightly built, he wore an old army tunic and an oversize Stetson shadowed his face. Riding at a walk, he passed the almost empty Ace of Diamonds and steered his stumbling horse towards the law office.

  He dismounted and the rain lashed him relentlessly as he squelched up to the slippery boardwalk and rapped hard on Sheriff’s Harper’s door.

  “Who is it?” The voice inside was weary.

  “Mortimer,” the thin man wheezed.

  There was the dull thud of boots, then Harper jerked open the door. Mortimer pushed past him and the lawman slammed the door on the rain and the driving wind.

  “Good to see you, Mortimer,” Harper greeted him without much enthusiasm. “Glad you got my message.”

  “I was out of town,” Mortimer said, standing hunched over the stove for warmth. “Had to pick up a new rig in Silver City. Mary told me I was wanted when I got home.”

  “You’re here—that’s the main thing,” Sheriff Harper growled thankfully. “I didn’t exactly relish doing the damn chore myself.”

  “That him?” Mortimer nodded towards the center cell.

  “Luke Wainwright,” Harper introduced him, sipping his coffee.

  The prisoner had been slumped on his bunk, but when he heard his name mentioned, he got to his feet. Mortimer turned his way, bleak eyes running over him.

  “You probably don’t Know each other,” Harper said dryly. “This here’s Rupert Mortimer. Now Mortimer hasn’t been living in town for very long, but he managed to get the special job we advertised a couple of months ago.”

  Wainwright grasped the iron bars.

  “He’s the town hangman, Wainwright.”

  The bars felt like twin slabs of ice under the condemned man’s hands.

  Mortimer moved away from the stove and went to stand beside the white-faced prisoner in the cell.

  “Nothing personal, Wainwright,” Rupert Mortimer assured him. “To me, it’s just a job that pays five bucks. It’s part-time only, you understand.”

  “Actually,” Charles Harper said wryly, “the town nearly saved itself your pay dirt. Wainwright was almost lynched.”

  Mortimer looked shocked. “Hell—that’s bad! A hanging should be done properly!”

  The hangman was sizing the prisoner up, for weight.

  “I’m supposed
to ask you several questions, Wainwright,” he said.

  “Ask away.” Luke’s voice was hollow.

  “You’ll want a preacher?”

  “I’m not exactly a religious man.”

  “Everyone’s religious just before they go,” Mortimer remarked soberly.

  Luke make no comment.

  “I’ll make sure the preacher’s there,” Mortimer said after a pause. “You want a hood over your head?”

  “No,” Luke Wainwright said fiercely. “I can look this town in the face because I’m not guilty. I didn’t kill Jacob King!”

  Mortimer frowned. “As yet, this town hasn’t a real gallows, Wainwright,” he said regretfully, “so you probably know what will happen. You’ll be led out on a horse with your hands tied behind your back. I’ll be meeting you at the hanging tree and I’ll put a rope around your neck. Then, after the preacher’s spoken with you, I’ll lead the horse away and—”

  “And I’ll be left dangling,” Wainwright supplied.

  “That’s correct,” Mortimer said pleasantly.

  Luke turned away from him.

  Mortimer consulted his watch. “Mary said the job’s to be done at sunset tomorrow. Well, Wainwright, I’ll be seeing you then.”

  “Have some coffee, Mortimer,” the lawman invited.

  The town hangman walked over to the stove and Harper handed him a cup. Outside, the storm increased and rain pounded on the windows like hail.

  Eight – Midnight Ride

  It was like coming out of a black tunnel.

  At first Shane saw only darkness but gradually, painfully, he made out the glistening bark of a tree. His body felt numb, but when he moved, agony tore at him. He groped with his left hand and grasped grass. His right hand still clutched his cold gun.

  His vision was clearing and he was conscious of the falling rain. Water was sheeting out of the blackness, but suddenly the stark rims and the tall trees were outlined vividly as forked lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder roared and it seemed to Shane Preston that the very ground he lay on shook beneath him.