by Paul Lederer
‘I think I will hang you after all, Clanahan. You’re just a—’
At that moment the front door banged open and Ned Webb appeared. He crouched and fired as Jake swung his pistol’s muzzle toward the kid. Shockley got off the first shot, but his bullet flew wild, singing off into the night distances. Ned’s shot was true. It took Jake high on the chest, stopping his heart and the bad man slumped to the floor, blood gurgling from his mouth.
Beth screamed and belatedly decided to fire her weapon at Ned, but I was near enough to grab her wrist and the barrel of her gun, twisting it out of her grasp. Ned’s eyes were wide and he was trembling a little. Now I saw his eyes shift and the muzzle of his gun lift again. Behind me I heard the scuttling as Vallejo launched himself up off the floor toward me.
‘Not him!’ I shouted at a confused Ned Webb. Vallejo collided with me, fists swinging wildly. I threw a short hard left into his wind and then smashed my forearm into his face, and he staggered back, hit the wall and slid to the floor, blood streaming from his broken nose.
Ned had stepped behind me and knelt now beside Trish, concern obvious in his eyes.
‘I’m glad I killed him,’ he murmured to me. ‘Shooting a woman … shooting Trish!’
‘Where did you come from, Ned? I thought you were on your way to the fort.’
‘Blasted horse stepped in a squirrel hole, broke its leg.’ He looked again at Trish and added sadly. ‘I’m glad it did. Horse wasn’t no good anyway.’
I returned my attention to Beth Cole, but the heart seemed to have gone out of her. She sat on the sofa, hands clasped between her knees, staring at her dead father. I wondered—
‘Why did you really come here, Beth?’
‘To warn Father, to let him know that Cole was after him.’
‘But why?’
‘Because he was my father, damnit! Is that so hard to understand?’
No, I supposed it wasn’t.
Ned Webb paid no attention as I tied up Beth – loosely, but well enough to prevent further shenanigans. He was too busy keeping a mournful watch over Trish. I went to him and suggested, ‘Let’s put her in on her bed, shall we?’
Beth, seated on the yellow sofa, her head lolling back on her fine ivory neck stared at the ceiling, uninterested in anything about her. Jake lay dead; Vallejo had managed to sit up groggily, his hands now tied behind him.
‘Why did you keep me from plugging him?’ Ned asked, as we re-entered the living room, leaving Trish, unconscious but with a strong pulse, on her bed. He indicated the battered Vallejo who lifted his miserable eyes to us.
‘He,’ I told Ned, ‘is the only witness to the killing back in Mesa Grande. You’d know nothing about it, but Jake Shockley shot a man and blamed it on me. I need Vallejo alive. He and I are going to be taking a little ride together when matters are settled here.’
Ned nodded and then lifted his head alertly, ‘There’s a rider coming in,’ he said. Listening, I could hear the sound of a single horse being ridden hard, approaching the house.
‘Stay ready,’ I said, and Ned took up a position at a loop in one of the front window shutters. Beth’s eyes were excited now, perhaps hoping for rescue. I dashed cold water on her hopes.
‘You’d better hope it’s not Cole,’ I told her. ‘I have a word or two to say to him.’
‘He won’t believe you,’ she hissed.
‘Won’t he? How else are you going to explain your being here, Beth? He’ll know that you turned traitor on him.’
‘He won’t—’ But she was interrupted by Ned’s shout.
‘It’s Ollie!’
After peering out to make sure no one was following, I swung the front door open to admit Ned’s trail-dusty brother. He stamped in, looked around in puzzlement and told us, ‘Father’s dead. It’s all over for us.’
‘What happened?’ Ned asked, his excitement brimming over.
‘Let me sit down,’ Ollie said wearily, ‘and I’ll tell you.’
Dragging a wooden chair from the kitchen, I offered it to Oliver Webb who sat down heavily, briefly buried his face in his hands and told us, ‘Father, Wes King and their riders ambushed Cole on the western road. Then, outnumbered, they had to flee across country. Cole’s men rode them down. The fighting was intense – could hear it from a distance – but short-lived. When I reached the battle site, I found Father just clinging to life. I sat him up and he said, “I got him. Tell Jake Shockley that I killed Cole.”’
Beth released a muffled, desperate cry. Oliver glanced that way and then continued.
‘It was true, I found Cole’s body not a quarter of a mile on. I found Wes King as well, also dead.’
‘What happened to Cole’s army, Oliver?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Either they’re regrouping somewhere or they just gave it up, what with Cole not there to urge them on. I don’t think any of them wanted to fight much.’
‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘They didn’t sign up for a fight. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. And I imagine they had all seen enough of war to last them a lifetime.’
‘Maybe,’ Oliver agreed. ‘But we’ll be ready for them if they have second thoughts and decide to come back.’ He nodded at the dead man, ‘That’s Shockley, isn’t it? Where is the rest of his gang?’
‘I don’t know. Vallejo?’
The battered outlaw raised his head. ‘Rode off,’ he muttered through swollen lips. ‘Latham, Quill – all of them. When this … person,’ he said savagely, staring at Beth Cole, ‘came in and told Jake that we would have to face an army if we wanted the land. There wasn’t nobody that wanted a patch of dirt that bad.’
‘Except you.’
‘I rode with Jake, not for land. It was always me, Jake and Curt.’
‘Where’s Curt?’
‘He was the first one out the door,’ Vallejo said with savage bitterness. Then he closed his eyes and fell silent.
Trish’s moan from the other room caught our attention. ‘Anyone feel like risking a ride?’ I asked. ‘Trish needs better nursing than I can offer.’
‘I’ll go,’ Ned volunteered. ‘My mother used to work for a doctor. She knows a lot about medicine.’
His brother stopped him on his way to the door, ‘No need to say anything about Father yet,’ Ollie cautioned him. Ned nodded his understanding and went out. The door was barred behind him. We still had no way of knowing who might be prowling the night.
Leaving Oliver to watch Beth and Vallejo, I went to Trish’s bedside. I sat next to her, holding her hand. She was pale, very pale and her blouse was stained to deep crimson. She would be all right, I told myself.
She had to be.
I didn’t glance at the clock, but hours passed and the stars swam slowly past beyond the cabin confines. It was in the early morning that I felt Trish stir, and when I looked at her, I saw the sparkle in those deep blue eyes.
‘Giles,’ was all she said, and that with effort, but she squeezed my hand and smiled before falling back into a deep sleep, and it was enough to satisfy me.
EPILOGUE
By the time I got back from Mesa Grande, taking the long way around to skirt the sand dunes, Trish was on her feet and busy. Her right arm was still in a sling, but she thought that another week would eliminate the need for that contraption. The army from Fort Grant had arrived in my absence. Trish told me about it as we sat on her front porch, watching the soft orange glow of sunset above the distant hills.
The army had rounded up a few of Cole’s men who had lingered on the Canoga and also captured Curt who they had more than a passing interest in. It seems that he and several other Shockley gang members had attempted to waylay an army payroll a few months back.
‘Beth Cole will go free,’ Trish guessed. ‘They really have no crime to charge her with. She will make out; women like her always find a way to survive.’
Trish went on to say that Beth had been flirting shamelessly with the lieutenant commanding the army force and that he hadn’t been shy in
his attentions to her either. ‘If it is up to him, they’ll probably pin a medal on her!’ Trish laughed. I liked her laugh – merry, deep-throated. I hadn’t really heard it until recently. It made a charming counter-point to the singing of the night birds as they gathered in the oaks.
‘What about you?’ Trish asked. ‘You’re here. They must have listened to Vallejo.’
‘Yes, yes, they did,’ I replied, and went on to tell her about the hearing in Mesa Grande which had required me to spend two days in the town jail while a judge reviewed the matter. ‘I am a free man,’ I concluded.
‘Are you?’ Trish asked slyly.
‘I think so, yes. Look,’ I said, holding up my feet. ‘New boots – the right size this time. I’ve heard that some girls don’t like big feet.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ she asked, leaning her head against my shoulder as the last light of sunset smoldered in the darkening skies.
‘Here and there,’ I said, running my palm over her frizzy blond hair before letting it rest on her arm.
‘What else do you hear – here and there?’ she asked, turning those deep blue eyes up to me.
‘Oh, that I’m kind of a funny-looking guy.’
‘Yes, what else?’ she prompted, her smile deepening.
‘That I’m a fine-looking specimen,’ I said, and she turned her lips up to be kissed, murmuring:
‘That you are, Giles Clanahan, that you are.’
About the Author
Paul Lederer spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Texas. He worked for years in Asia and the Middle East for a military intelligence arm. Under his own name, he is best known for Tecumseh and the Indian Heritage Series, which focuses on American Indian life. He believes that the finest Westerns reflect ordinary people caught in unusual and dangerous circumstances, trying their best to act with honor.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Logan Winters
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-4804-8843-4
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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