Return to Sundown Valley

by Cole Shelton

  ‘Steady, boy,’ Luke spoke softly and reassuringly to the horse.

  Red Jack stayed right where he was, enabling Luke to find the saddle horn. Still talking in low tones to the chestnut, Luke managed to lift his left boot into the stirrup. Sweat beaded his brow and his wound was a cesspool of agony, but Luke summoned every ounce of strength and levered himself up into the saddle where he sat fighting the waves of pain flowing like a surging flood through his body.

  Finally, he ordered the chestnut. ‘Home, Red Jack, home.’

  Leaning forward, Luke Dawson started riding at walking pace back across the valley. Leaving three bodies to the buzzards, he retraced his trail to the valley rim and then followed his tracks to the banks of the slow-moving river. Pain gnawed at his back. At times the dizziness almost claimed him and darkness overhung him like a cloud, but he was determined not to die out here in the wilderness. There were important things he had to do.

  First, Honani’s Medal of Honour needed to find its rightful home and Luke had already resolved to take it to the Navajo’s family, hopefully in Na Dené Canyon. Many men would ask why he’d bother to do this. But they hadn’t served alongside one of the bravest, most loyal soldiers to fight for the Union. If they had, they wouldn’t even think of asking that question.

  However, there were questions Luke wanted answers to. Was Honani murdered just for his medal? He thought that was unlikely. And if robbery was the only motive, why had Heck Halliday ridden with this bunch of outlaws? Halliday was on the Triple Z payroll. Surely he earned enough punching Zimmer’s beeves? Or maybe Zimmer was somehow bound up with them? That was more likely, Luke considered grimly. Zimmer probably used these outlaws to do his dirtiest work.

  He began to ford the river. It ran slowly but was deep and the water crept higher than his boots in their stirrups. The river’s coldness was in direct contrast to the fire in his back, a fire that was spreading down his spine and seeping through into his chest. Blood was still flowing, smudging the saddle and dripping into the river.

  He felt tired, a dangerous kind of weariness because he had to stay in the saddle. Reeds brushed Luke’s body as Red Jack reached the western bank.

  Noon saw him cross the rye grass flats. By mid-afternoon, he rode into the shadows of the twin mountain peaks, heading for the creek that threaded through Whispering Pass. The bullet in his back felt like a heavy stone and his shirt was now soaked with blood. He knew he couldn’t dismount, even to give Red Jack a rest, because he no longer had the strength to get back into the saddle. So he just kept riding, even slower now. Trees, rocks, ferns, running water all merged together.

  After crossing the creek, he felt as if his life was ebbing away. Dusk settled over the high country. He saw hungry white eyes in the darkness, then the howling of wolf packs. They could smell the blood and he knew they were closing in. He simply had to cling to Red Jack’s head as the horse stumbled. Luke was no longer sure of the trail and his eyes were so blurred he’d have trouble seeing it anyway, so he just let the big chestnut drift through the forest.

  Two hours fled.

  He gripped his Peacemaker in case the savage wolves were bold enough to close around old Red Jack.

  It was almost midnight when clouds cloaked the moon. One by one the stars disappeared, but when the night was darkest he caught the glimpse of a distant light. Suddenly a pine branch lashed him, lifting him clean from his saddle and dumping him over the tree’s protruding roots.

  Luke just managed to pull the trigger of his Peacemaker and fire a single shot into the sky.

  Then he blacked out.

  When Luke Dawson finally opened his eyes he saw Annie’s face.

  She was perched on the side of his bunk and smiling down at him.

  ‘I knew you’d make it, Luke Dawson,’ she said happily. Her deep blue eyes sparkled like diamonds. ‘Pa figured you would, too.’ She winked at him. ‘He said you were a tough old . . . Well, Pa said I needed to learn to be a lady so I won’t say the cuss word he used.’

  For a long moment Luke just stared at her, hardly believing he was alive and looking at Wishbone’s daughter.

  ‘How long . . . have I been . . . here?’ Luke asked in a husky voice.

  ‘Two nights ago Pa heard a gunshot,’ Annie told him. ‘It was real close by Widow Rose’s place.’ Luke recalled the light he’d seen just before he’d ridden into that tree. Annie explained, ‘When Pa and the widow went looking, they saw Red Jack and then you on the ground. They brought you back here and . . . and then Pa told me to sharpen a knife.’

  ‘So Wishbone cut my bullet out?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope, I did.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Pa and the widow had too much whiskey in their bellies to have steady hands so they gave me the chore,’ Annie said, smiling. ‘Wasn’t real difficult. They turned you over for me, I said my first prayer for years and slipped the knifepoint in. Wasn’t easy because the blood gushed. Managed to find the bullet and flick it out. If you want the bullet for a keepsake, it’s in Pa’s ashtray.’

  ‘Then I owe you my life, Annie,’ Luke said gratefully.

  Using his elbows, Luke started to lever himself up so he could sit with his back propped against a pillow. He took his time because every fibre of his body protested.

  ‘Careful, Luke! You’re not fit and well yet!’ she warned.

  All the same, he managed to sit up. Pain drummed from his back but it was nowhere near as sharp and strong as when he’d ridden back here. It was steady but muted, the pain a man feels when he’s on the mend. And yet, Luke knew he was weakened, drained of energy and he ought to have rest. It was then, quite suddenly, he realized he was naked under the blanket that covered him.

  It was as if she read his thoughts.

  Her cheeks reddening, she said, ‘I washed the spare clothes you had in your saddle pack. I’ll fetch them for you. Uh, Luke, you might need some help to put them on. Pa only went out to check his traps so he won’t be long.’

  ‘I can get dressed myself.’

  ‘I doubt it, Luke,’ she argued, hands on hips.

  ‘My clothes, Annie,’ he reminded her.

  She swept out of the room, quickly returning with his neatly folded, faded blue shirt and Levis. He noted approvingly that new wooden buttons had been sewn on the shirt where previously two were missing. And a certain tear in the left leg of his pants had been stitched up. He glanced at her again. In that moment he caught her eyes looking wistfully at his bare chest that showed above the blanket.

  ‘I guess you can manage,’ Annie relented, a hint of disappointment in her voice. ‘I’ll brew some coffee while you put your clothes on.’ She paused at the door and said sternly, ‘But stay right here, on your bed.’

  ‘Sure, Doc Annie,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘And you’re still my patient,’ she reminded him.

  Annie was a fine young woman, he told himself once again as she went to the parlour. She’d certainly done a fine job of patching him up. He felt behind his back. The wound was still swollen but he knew it was already healing. It took him a full minute but he managed to ignore the jabs of pain and put on his shirt, followed by the pants. He stood up and took three paces to the window.

  ‘Luke!’ she scolded him from the doorway. Then she laughed. ‘If I was your woman I’d—’ Suddenly embarrassed at uttering those hasty words, she stopped short and said softly, ‘Sorry for that! Don’t take any notice of what I said, Luke Dawson. Please join me in the parlour.’

  He walked unaided to the table by her wood stove.

  They talked over coffee and her home-baked cookies until Wishbone barged his way inside with two dead squirrels slung over his left shoulder.

  ‘The saints be praised! You made it!’ Wishbone welcomed him.

  ‘Thanks to both of you,’ Luke said gratefully.

  ‘Tell me all about what happened, Luke,’ Wishbone insisted, straddling the chair on the opposite side of the table. ‘And before you ask, your frie
nd Honani is under the clay on your land, close to your brother and his wife. Widow Rose read some words from her mother’s prayer book and I dug the grave. Not sure if the Navajo was a believer, but I planted a cross anyway.’

  Luke told them both what had happened to him: how he’d tracked the killers to the outlaw canyon and shot them. Wishbone raised his craggy eyebrows when he mentioned Heck Halliday being there. Drinking his coffee, Luke then recalled the bullet in his back and his desperate ride back.

  ‘When Pa found you, the medal was hanging from your shirt pocket,’ Annie said when he’d finished. ‘It’s here, safe, in Pa’s room with your guns.’

  ‘Which you won’t be needing for a while,’ Wishbone said.

  ‘Pa’s right,’ Annie backed him. ‘Rest is what you need.’

  ‘A week, maybe more,’ her father said firmly.

  ‘I’m obliged to you both,’ Luke said, drinking her coffee, ‘but I can’t stay for a week. I have a chore that can’t wait.’

  ‘Such as?’ Wishbone asked.

  ‘First, I intend to take that medal to Na Dené Canyon.’

  ‘That’s two days’ ride, probably three or four in your condition,’ Wishbone protested. ‘And the trail goes plumb through Apache territory.’

  ‘While I was away at the war, the Navajos left their land in Sundown Valley. No one seems to know where they went, but before we parted, Honani said their tribe originally hailed from Na Dené. He figured that’s the only place they could be. That Medal of Honour belongs with them.’

  Wishbone shook his head disapprovingly. ‘I’ve heard the Apaches have a new renegade chief. They call him Blood Knife; dresses like a Mexican but he’s Apache through and through. By all accounts, he’s a real scalp-hunter when it comes to raiding white folks.’

  ‘Reckon we had a passing acquaintance with him on the trail to Spanish Wells.’ Luke recalled the running gunfight with an Apache in Mexican garb and his riders.

  ‘He’s slippery as a snake,’ Wishbone warned. ‘Don’t tangle with him.’

  ‘Please, Luke, Pa’s right,’ Annie pleaded fervently.

  Luke rested for that whole day, feeling his strength returning with every hour. Later that afternoon he took a short walk outside in the forest. Annie joined him as he checked his bay horse in the stable and then cleaned his rifle. When she saw him with his gun she knew further talk was useless. He’d made up his mind.

  When morning came Luke felt stiff, but the wound was healing and the pain had been reduced to a distant throb. He dressed, strapped on his gun belt and slid the Peacemaker into his holster. Annie rose early too, donning her dressing gown so she could light the stove and fry salted bacon for his breakfast while he saddled Buck. They shared a meal together. Then Luke slipped the Navajo’s medal back into his shirt pocket and made ready to leave.

  It was cloudy outside and the wind coming down from the mountains was cold enough to chill a man’s bones. Annie handed him a bag packed with jerky, hardtack, fried beans and half a dozen sugar cookies she’d baked especially the previous night. Luke was about to mount up as Annie took a quick glance at the track to the widow’s cabin. Her father was still up there but he’d be back any minute, so what she yearned all night to do had to be done very quickly.

  She walked right up to Luke, stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him long and hard. And he kissed her back. Trembling at her own boldness but meaning every passionate moment of that kiss, she stepped away so he could mount his bay horse.

  She blurted, ‘Come back to me, Luke Dawson! Please come back!’

  Luke picked up his reins and rode north for the distant mountains.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Luke Dawson rode through Whispering Pass, slowing, then lingering for a long moment at the scene of Honani’s brutal slaying. The moaning wind had already blown fallen leaves over the charred remains of his campfire. It was justice that most of the Navajo’s sneaky murderers were now dead. He had no time for back-shooters. To blast a man in the back was a low, cowardly act and Scurlock’s outlaws only got what was coming to them. As for Halliday, he’d keep.

  He nudged Buck and rode higher into the lonely pass. Here the twin peaks looked down on him as he followed the creek to its source, a rock-rimmed lake being ruffled by the rising wind. Rounding the dark, deep water, Luke headed down out of the pass towards canyon country. The motion of riding a horse made his wound stretch and he could smell the small trickle of blood that oozed under Annie’s bandage. But he kept riding, right through to dusk when he found a sheltered hollow inside a copse of towering cottonwoods.

  Heeding Wishbone’s warning about this being dangerous Apache country, he decided not to light a fire, instead eating Annie’s cooked meat cold and drinking water instead of coffee. He’d been used to such fare during the war so it brought back memories he hoped to forget one day when he settled down. And he certainly wanted to start life over again.

  In the past, when he considered the future, Sierra naturally came into his mind, but tonight, sitting here with his back to a rough-barked pine tree, she wasn’t in his thoughts. Instead, a rare smile cracked his lips as he remembered Annie’s kiss. It might have been impulsive but she certainly meant it.

  The night wore on, a midnight moon glimmered and a wolf pack howled behind him. Luke didn’t sleep. He merely rested and watched the darkness.

  First light saw him eat more of Annie’s food and saddle Buck. He was hardly out of the canyon when he saw smoke. Drawing his bay horse under a rock ledge, he watched small puffs of grey smoke drift into the new light of day. They were coming from a timbered ridge south of the canyon trail he was taking. Even as he watched, more smoke rose, this second signal coming from a rim that protruded over the trail itself.

  Waiting under this ledge, Luke raised his eyes to the distant west where the ancient, majestic red butte Honani often spoke of stood tall and lonely, presiding over Na Dené canyon. If he kept on this trail that led straight towards the butte, it would take him about two days to ride there. To circle north and keep well clear of the Indians sending these smoke signals, he’d add an extra day, maybe longer, to his journey. Even then, there was still a risk he’d be spotted by Apache hunters. Of course, he might have been seen already. He decided to stay on the trail he was following.

  Keeping to the shadows of the canyon wall, he rode slowly and quietly towards the rim where the nearest smoke signal was rising. When he was much closer, he drew Buck into a cleft in the grey granite rock.

  Smelling the smoke, he waited.

  Lifting his Peacemaker from its leather, he eased himself from the saddle, edged out of the cleft and saw the Indian on the rim. The Apache was an older man, lean as a rake, wearing a cavalry tunic and pants he’d doubtless taken from a dead trooper.

  Luke knew he couldn’t just stay holed up here. He had to make his move, so he climbed a narrow track that steeped up to the rim. Once he levered his body onto the crest, he was able to look over the canyon country stretching west and see the much loftier timbered ridge where the other smoke was rising from. Luke figured that this other Apache, now concealed in the timber, had spotted the lone white man riding and sent a smoke signal to the wrinkled warrior who was just a few feet from him now.

  The Apache warrior cast a shadow over his small fire. He was watching the trail below like a bird of prey, watching and waiting, anticipating that the unsuspecting white man would ride beneath him. He might be old but he could still fire his rifle and kill.

  Luke lifted his gun from its leather. He didn’t want to shoot the Indian. Apart from his reluctance to kill any man of his advancing years, the thunder of his gun could most likely bring other hostile Apaches to this canyon. Accordingly, Luke kept his head low and walked slowly and noiselessly towards the old Indian crouched next to his small fire.

  He was less than half a dozen paces away when the Apache turned his head. Instinctively, the Indian reached for his knife but a split moment later Luke was on him. The Apache grabbed his knife but
before he could use it, Luke’s Peacemaker flashed in the early sunlight and cracked into the side of his head. The Indian stumbled, dropped to the flat rock, out like a snuffed light.

  Luke took the knife from the Indian’s clenched fist, stamped out the fire until only wisps of smoke remained, then dragged the unconscious man back from the rim’s edge. Leaving the would-be ambusher on the ground, Luke climbed down and mounted his waiting horse.

  Riding under the rim, he passed the place where he could well have been gunned down, then pushed west towards the red butte. Emerging from a shallow canyon, he started across a high mesa.

  High noon saw him well clear of the timbered ridge where smoke signals had ceased to rise two hours ago, but just when he’d stopped to rest Buck, he saw the rising cloud of dust in his wake. He was being followed, most likely by that other Apache warrior who’d been sending up smoke signals.

  Luke kept riding the mesa, a sloping tableland cluttered with cottonwoods. He found a clump of trees and halted Buck in their shade. Disturbed, two angry fat sidewinders slid slowly away into a rocky crevice. He heard their rattle, then silence as he flattened himself to a cottonwood and waited.

  Within minutes the Apache came into sight. This one, although stumpy, was much younger than the warrior he’d knocked unconscious earlier this morning. His sharp eyes were reading Buck’s clear tracks as he headed across the mesa. Luke had hoped to slip into Navajo country without a hostile encounter, but this earnest warrior had latched onto his tracks and was unlikely to give up this opportunity to kill a paleface intruder and bring himself accolades and honour.

  Luke watched as the rider came closer. He was bronze-skinned, longhaired, and naked to the waist. There was a chain of white animal bones around his muscular neck and he clutched a long rifle that gleamed in the hot sun.