by Cole Shelton
“I don’t get it,” Woolrich shook his head. “From what I heard, you two are only interested in chores with big money on the end. Why bother yourself over a damn breed girl—unless you’ve got other things in mind?”
Shane ignored the insinuation, merely holding his gun on Woolrich until the oldster stalked back into the clearing.
“Reckon those horses will be still going like bats outa hell at sundown,” Jonah said proudly.
The branches parted and Juanita stepped into view. Shane held back a grin as his eyes took in the unglamorous black shirt that was several sizes too big for her. It flopped shapelessly where she’d tucked it in the waistband of her skirt, but even so, the garment failed to conceal the soft curves of her breasts.
Not so discreet as his younger pard, Jonah Jones failed to hold back a gleeful guffaw. Juanita glared at him momentarily, then she obeyed Shane’s soft command and walked with the old-timer to the horses.
Shane stooped down and took the guns from the dead men. He backed to the edge of the clearing. Cold sweat was beading Woolrich’s brow as he glanced around him at the friendless rocks and the towering trees of the wilderness. Shane took one of the guns and emptied the chamber. He tossed the gun into the ferns, leaving Woolrich at least a slim chance of survival. Moments later, Shane was in the saddle and riding away with Jonah and the breed girl.
The campfire was like a big yellow tongue leaping into the night and throwing out a flickering glow. Shane had heaped three hefty logs onto the fire and now its warmth spread over the travelers as they sat around drinking the coffee Juanita had just brewed.
“So you’re heading to Conchita,” she said.
“And that’s where we’ll drop you off, ma’am,” Shane informed her. “Reckon you can make your own way from there.”
Juanita looked at him over the rim of her coffee mug. He’d be in his early thirties, she decided, a decade older than herself. She wouldn’t exactly call him handsome, but there was something about his rugged face and strong shoulders that stirred an elemental emotion deep within her. She’d never quite had this feeling when she looked at her husband and instinctively, she tried to suppress it.
“Thank you both for horning in,” she said gratefully.
“And thank you for preparing chow and coffee, ma’am,” Shane grinned. “It’s not often Jonah and me enjoy a woman’s touch around the cooking pot.”
“Cooking’s one of the chores I’ve been used to for many years,” she said. “Even before I met Matt. You see, I was raised at San Carla Mission, taken in as a baby by the sisters, and when I was twelve, I was made to help in the kitchen.”
“Your parents both dead?” Shane rolled a cigarette.
Her face was in shadow. “My father was a Mexican bandido—I never knew him. Ma died at Sand Creek.”
“In the massacre?” Shane recalled old history as he struck his match.
“My brother told me about it when I was old enough to understand,” she said. “The troopers swooped on our camp and burned the teepees to the ground as a reprisal for a war-party attack on Fort William. Ma was butchered with a hundred other women and old men, just shot down with rifles. Suma, my brother, hid me until the soldiers left, and next day Father Rameres found us both and took us in. I stayed at the mission until I was nineteen. They were good to me at San Carla, Mr. Preston. Taught me your language, and your ways, and all about your God.”
Maybe there was just a hint of sarcasm in that last statement, but Shane let it pass.
“And Suma?”
“He was eight years old when I was a baby,” Juanita said. “It was Suma who told me about both my parents.”
“Did he leave with you?” Shane ashed his cigarette.
A faint smile crossed her bronze face. “No, Mr. Preston. Suma became a priest.”
Shane drew on his cigarette, aware that Juanita was scrutinizing him across the fire.
“My husband said you were both gunslingers,” the half-breed girl ventured.
“Uh-huh.”
“And—and that means …?”
“We hire out our guns to the highest bidder, ma’am,” Shane Preston said bluntly. He picked up his canteen and stood up, a towering figure in the fire glow. “There’s a creek down-trail. Reckon I’ll fill this up ready for the ride. We’ll mosey out in about one hour.”
“Huh?” Juanita gulped. “You mean, we’re not resting for the night here?”
“No, ma’am,” Shane growled. “This is just a two-hour rest for chow and coffee—and for our horses. Could be the last long rest till we make Conchita.”
He strode away into the darkness, and the girl heard his heavy boots crunch the pine needles. Beside her, Jonah was leaning forward to pour himself another coffee.
“Mr. Jones,” she prompted him, “it must be a real important appointment you have in Conchita.”
Jonah stirred his coffee. “He might be ridin’ there to kill a man, ma’am.”
“For cash?” She shivered.
“Not this time,” Jonah murmured. “If Scarface is the man he’s lookin’ for, then this will be on Shane’s own account.”
“Scarface?” she frowned, bewildered.
Jonah Jones sipped his coffee, relishing the hot brew.
“It ain’t exactly a secret, ma’am,” the old-timer shrugged, “so you might as well know about Shane Preston. Once he used to be a rancher. Not so long ago he had a small spread and a lovely wife, Grace. One day he came home to find his home busted into and Grace dead—murdered by a coupla hard cases who came to rob.”
“How terrible!” Juanita whispered.
“He trailed them to a border saloon.” Jonah cleared his throat. “Killed one of them but before he could level his gun on the second hardcase, the outlaw shot him in the belly. I happened to be around a coupla minutes later, and since there wasn’t a doc for miles, I took Shane out to my camp and cut the slug outa him. We’ve kinda rode together ever since, ma’am, riding on the trail of the one hardcase Shane didn’t manage to kill in that saloon.”
“Scarface?” she asked.
“Yeah. Shane had a good look at him just before he was shot. He had a long scar down his left cheek, and funny kinda—well, crazy eyes. We don’t know his name, but every time Shane hears of a man with a scar, he rides in just in case it’s the killer who murdered his wife.”
Juanita shuddered as she thought about the kind of life Shane Preston must lead. Even while she’d been talking to him by the campfire, she’d noticed the restlessness in his eyes, the aloofness of his manner.
“Sometimes we don’t get a lead for months,” Jonah grunted. “So while we’re searchin’ and askin’ around, we hire out our guns. Sorta helps pay for food and ammunition, and also keeps us riding in the kinda circles Scarface could be in. He’s an outlaw, and Shane figures that while we keep tangling with such there’s a good chance we’ll meet up with Scarface—somewhere.”
“And if he finds this Scarface and kills him?” Juanita whispered. “What then?”
She felt a presence near her and glanced up fearfully. The tall gunslinger had returned silently to the edge of the fire glow. The dancing light was playing over the hardness of his chiseled face and the dark line of the sideburns that curved down to his firm jaw.
“What then?” Shane repeated her question. “Why, then I’ll hang up my guns, ma’am.” His voice sounded hollow in the night.
Two – Westward the Wagons!
“Scarface Scammell?” Sheriff Lew Hodder grinned proudly as he surveyed the lean stranger standing before his desk. “You’re a mite late, mister. Scammell’s dead. Shot him myself, I did—and not before time!”
Shane stared at the stocky little sheriff leaning back in his chair. Hodder was a red-faced, balding man with a one-day beard sprouting on his chin.
“When was this?” Shane demanded.
“Yesterday afternoon,” the lawman grinned. “I’d just about had my fill of the buzzard! He’d gunned down Pete McQuird, then wounded Kid
Porteous, and that’s when I went over to the saloon to bring the hardcase in. He chose to pull a damn gun on me, and then, mister, I blasted him.”
“Anyway,” Hodder’s lanky deputy, Dowley, asked, “what’s it to you, mister?”
“I’m looking for a Scarface who killed my wife,” Shane Preston said. “If this Scammell is the man, I’ll know it’s time to stop searching. Where’s his grave?”
“Ain’t dug yet,” Deputy Dowley grunted. “Funeral’s this afternoon. Not that it’ll be much of a funeral because Scammell wasn’t exactly the most popular man in Conchita. However, I suppose even a hardcase is entitled to a Christian burial.”
“I want to see him,” the gunfighter said quietly. It wasn’t a command, but the way Shane said it made the two lawmen exchange wary glances. “I suppose he’s over at the undertaker’s.”
“Just who are you, mister?” Sheriff Hodder wanted to know.
“The name’s Shane Preston.”
The deputy’s eyes narrowed. He whispered something to Sheriff Hodder, then nodded to Shane.
“I’ll take you over there, Preston.”
Shane strode out onto the boardwalk, waiting for Deputy Sam Dowley to join him in the mid-morning sunlight. Conchita was a town spawned by the cattlemen who came to buy supplies, sell their beeves, eat, drink and cavort with the percentage girls in the street’s seven saloons. It was a town which had swelled overnight from a collection of shacks to a thriving business community, and now Shane Preston stood watching as riders and shoppers thronged Front Street.
The deputy ambled outside.
The parlor’s just past the Black Deuce,” he mumbled.
The two men paced together up the center of the street. Farther down from the saloons, a lone wagon was being backed across the street, scattering shoppers as its skidding wheels splattered thick red mud over the boardwalks. Finally, the wagon was positioned out front of Conchita’s main general store, leaving deep ruts.
“Emigrants,” Deputy Dowley muttered. “Reckon they’ve come in for supplies before setting out for Gun Creek.”
“Noticed a circle of wagons just outside town as we rode in,” the gunfighter said, as they passed the first saloon.
“Been here for nearly a week now,” Dowley told him. “Heard they had some sorta trouble out on the trail.”
“It’s a helluva trek to Gun Creek,” Shane said.
“There’s cheap land out there,” the lawman shrugged. “That’s if they ever make it.”
“How do you mean?”
“A big bunch of Cheyennes jumped the Reservation last month,” Dowley stated. “They’re out there in the prairie country, sure enough, and a small wagon train like this’n might be a big temptation.”
“Have they got hardware?”
“Probably only a few old army carbines,” the law officer guessed. “But God help us if those Cheyennes ever get hold of anything more powerful!”
A row of garish saloons greeted Shane Preston with tinny music and the aroma of cheap rotgut. Right now, they shared only a handful of patrons, but Shane figured that come sundown these liquor houses would be bulging at the seams.
Wesley P. Wolf was the town’s mortician, and his colorful establishment was on the corner past the Black Deuce Saloon. Outside, a blue notice board nailed over his door announced that in addition to supplying a dignified burial service, Wesley P. Wolf also hand-carved headstones, crosses and made the best coffins in Wyoming.
Deputy Sam Dowley pushed open the door, and a round face popped up from behind a stack of pine boxes.
“’Mornin’, Sam,” Wolf said, his face glowing in anticipation. “You’ve come to bring me some business?”
Wesley P. Wolf was as colorful as his parlor’s exterior. He wore a frilly white shirt, with a dandy’s string tie dangling beneath his double chin, and apart from the undertaker’s traditional pin-striped pants, one might easily mistake him for a tinhorn gambler.
“Not today, Wesley,” Dowley grinned. “Don’t forget we brought you some yesterday afternoon.”
“Scammell!” Wesley P. Wolf spat in disgust. “I sure wouldn’t get rich on the likes of him! No kin, no money—a pauper’s funeral paid for by the town!”
“It’s about Scammell that we’re here,” Dowley said. “This gent wants to see him.”
Wolf afforded Shane a hopeful glance. “You’re a relative maybe, or a friend of Mr. Scammell? Well, perhaps you’d like to pay for a very special funeral for him. Now, a really good Wesley P. Wolf special funeral with all the trimmings costs only twenty dollars but if you can’t afford that, there’s another one at fifteen dollars—”
“I didn’t come to pay for Scammell’s funeral,” Shane said, pushing his way past the stacked coffins.
“Oh,” Wolf’s smile vanished.
“Where is he?” Shane demanded.
Wolf frowned. “Well, he’s out back, of course.”
“I’ll follow you, Mr. Wolf,” the gunfighter said. “I want the coffin opened up.”
“But—but that’s hardly ethical,” the undertaker gulped his protest.
Shane fumbled in his hip pocket and withdrew a leather wallet. He counted five one-dollar bills and placed them on top of Wolf’s deluxe model coffin.
“Would these make it a mite more ethical?”
Wesley P. Wolf smiled, his principles suddenly gone. “Well, I daresay you’ve a right to view the deceased.”
The mortician stuffed the money into his fob pocket and led the way through the pine box maze. He unlocked a door, and a musty aroma greeted Shane as he ducked low and followed Wolf into the gloom. Wolf reached for a candle and handed it to the gunslinger.
A match flared in the darkness and found the wick.
A solitary casket reposed along the far wall. It was a plain, unpainted box made of crude pine, and Shane felt coldness creep over him as he held the light for the mortician. This could be the end of the trail, the culmination of years of hate. The man who killed Grace could be right here at his feet.
Wesley P. Wolf stooped down and the flickering flame made weird shadows on the drab walls. He began to prise open the lid and Shane heard the creak of protesting nails.
“Here, take a look for yourself,” Wolf said when the lid was raised.
Shane squatted down and thrust the candle into the coffin.
The body lay long and still beneath him. Arms and legs were as straight as pegs, and as Shane pushed the candle farther into the casket, he saw the dead man’s face. It was white and sallow, and the eyes were open and staring sightlessly up at the flame. A long, deep scar marred his face, curling right to the corner of lips that had turned blue. Shane gave him a cursory glance before he stood up.
“Well?” Wesley P. Wolf asked expectantly.
“Thanks for opening the coffin,” Shane grunted.
He stood back as Wolf lowered the lid.
Shane blew out the candle and handed it back to the mortician. He gave the deputy a brief nod and weaved his way among the coffins back onto the street. Leaving the smell of death behind, he took a pace into the sunlight.
“You ain’t saying much,” Deputy Dowley commented, as he caught up.
“There’s not much to say,” Shane said, his voice even. “Scammell’s not my man.”
Shane Preston left the lawman frowning on the street as he strode away. He felt a strange relief within him, a burden suddenly lifted as he realized that Scarface was still alive and free. He hadn’t wanted Scammell to be his man. It would have been a sour ending to years of sweat and gunfire, of long trails and false leads, to find his quarry killed by another man! Because Shane himself had to fire the bullet that killed Scarface—that was the only way he could find rest.
He spotted the horses down-street.
He had left the old-timer about to venture into the French Palace, and he figured right now on joining him.
Opposite their two horses, tethered to another tie-rail outside a rooming house, was Juanita’s pinto pony. This was
the parting of the ways as far as Juanita and the gunfighters were concerned, and Shane smiled to himself as he recalled how the half-breed girl had planted a wet kiss on Jonah’s beard, then leaned over to give him a kiss of gratitude. It could have easily developed into the kind of kiss that might have persuaded most men to stay around for more, but Shane had gently pushed her away.
Leaving the deputy still scratching his head, Shane parted the batwings of the French Palace. The town’s biggest saloon was a converted barn, with a high rafter-crossed ceiling from which hung six oil lamps. Most of the floor was taken up with poker tables, and as Shane made for the bar, he saw two games in progress. A pouting percentage girl smiled at him, then shrugged as he ignored her charms and walked to where the old-timer was drinking with another man. Even as he approached, Shane figured there was something familiar about Jonah’s companion, despite the fact that he could see only the back of his head.
Hearing the crunch of Shane’s boots, Jonah Jones angled his head around.
“His name was Scammell,” Shane Preston announced as he stood beside the bar counter next to the oldster. “He’s dead, Jonah, just some hardcase shot by the town lawman—not the buzzard I’m looking for.”
For a long moment, Jonah Jones digested this piece of information.
Right then, the old-timer’s drinking companion slowly turned his head.
“I don’t reckon there’s any need to introduce you two.” Jonah lifted his glass of redeye.
“Huss Whittaker!” Shane grinned. “I knew I’d seen that woolly hair somewhere!”
The gaunt, smiling man extended a hand which the gunfighter gripped warmly.
“Been a long time, Shane,” Whittaker stated. “And I’d have missed you but for that horse of yours. Knew Snowfire the moment I came outa the general store, and when I crossed over to stand by the horse, Jonah here saw me and came out to ask questions.”
“Figured he might be tryin’ to rustle your cayuse right on the street!” the old-timer said to Shane. “When Huss here convinced me he’d only good intentions, we decided on a friendly drink until you showed!”