Last Chance Saloon

by Cole Shelton

  ‘I’m glad you’re staying tonight,’ she said. ‘Makes me feel safe.’ Her eyes met his over the table. Her voice turned husky. ‘Sorry this cabin is so small, Brett. There’s just this parlour and – and my bed. Tom said if we had a family, he’d have to build an extra room.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Brett said softly. ‘I’ll sleep in the stable.’

  One hour later Harmony undressed and slipped into her blue nightgown.

  Tom’s framed picture was nailed to the wall. One of the men who travelled with them on the wagon train fancied himself as an artist and most nights he sat with paints, brushes and easel offering to sketch any man, woman or child who agreed to sit for him. At Harmony’s urging, Tom agreed and she was glad. Since his untimely death, that picture had brought back many cherished memories.

  It hadn’t been easy being a woman alone here in Lonesome Valley.

  Men had come calling soon after Tom was buried.

  Mostly they were fellow-homesteaders who’d lost their wives and were looking to remarry. One man in particular, Bart Boone, a brash pioneer from Pennsylvania, had been most persistent and finally Harmony had found it necessary to rebuff him and actually tell him not to pay her any more visits. Many men simply hadn’t realised she needed to be alone with her grief.

  Lately, however, she had felt lonely and with the passing of time, few homesteaders, men or women, came calling to spend time with her. The exception had been the Quades. They were good people. She liked and trusted them.

  She walked to the window and parted the curtains.

  Her eyes drifted to the stable and she found herself thinking about the tall gunfighter bedded down there. She wondered whether Brett Cassidy was asleep or keeping watch? Somehow she imagined him fully awake, like a sentry at his post. She felt a stirring within, the kind of womanly stirring that had remained dormant since Tom’s death.

  Harmony crossed the floor to her bed.

  She turned down the lamp wick and placed it next to her locket on the small bedside table. She slipped between the blankets and rested her head on the pillow.

  There she lay awake for a long, long time and her last thoughts before surrendering to sleep were of the stranger in her stable.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Harmony rose while it was still dark, brushed her hair and hastily donned a dressing gown over her nightshirt. She fried eggs and bacon and called her guest inside for a quick breakfast before he left. Brett already had his roan saddled and, just as he finished his coffee, first light showed and Will Quade, true to his word, came riding in. The homesteader remained in the saddle, ready to leave.

  ‘Thanks for the hospitality, Harmony,’ Brett said.

  ‘It was the least I could do,’ she told him.

  With Harmony watching in the doorway, Brett Cassidy and Will Quade rode together across her land. They joined the main valley trail. As the new day’s sun poked over the far away ridges, the riders reached a cleft in the valley’s southern wall. Here the trail was narrow, uneven, just wide enough for riders to travel single file. They rode slowly in the shadows until the passage widened into a ravine that in turn emptied into a long, wide basin hewn out of sandstone by countless years of burning suns, fierce winds and winter floods. It stretched almost as far as Brett could see, from towering mountains in the east to a rugged pass in the west.

  ‘This is it,’ Quade announced. ‘Rattler Canyon.’

  ‘The Valley of Snakes, according to a couple of Cheyenne visitors last night,’ Brett said as they rested their horses.

  ‘Last night!’ Quade flared. ‘After I left?’

  ‘They won’t be back,’ Brett calmed him down.

  He gave Will Quade a brief account of his encounter with Leaning Bear and Yellow Wolf.

  ‘Thank God you were there,’ the settler said, relieved. ‘Harmony shouldn’t be alone! My wife’s been hinting again and again to Harmony that she needs a good man.’ Quade’s trembling fingers built a cigarette as he looked out over the canyon. ‘The stories about snakes are certainly true. When settlers first arrived in this canyon they soon noticed there were more than usual here. Big ugly sidewinders, specially down by the creek where folks pan for gold. Only last week Jed McConaughey’s youngest daughter, Emma, was bitten by a fat rattler sunning itself in the reeds right where she went paddling. Unfortunately she couldn’t be saved. Poor kid died in less than an hour.’

  ‘Let’s look for those wagon wheel tracks.’

  The homesteaders’ leader took a quick drag on his cigarette and led the way down into Rattler Canyon. Its sheer walls were crumbling and half a dozen trails spilled through shadowy gaps. Cabins made mostly of stone stood like sentinels by those narrow passes. Smoke wisped from a few iron chimneys. The terrain was harsh although Brett saw patches of grass and the occasional arrowhead pine. The creek that wound through the middle tumbled over rocks and made a dozen pools.

  Looking beyond this creek, Brett made out a well-worn, dusty trail.

  With the new day’s sun rising above the bare rims, the riders headed together across the canyon floor. They started to ford the creek when Brett saw a sidewinder curled arrogantly on the bank, right where they were headed. It didn’t even look like it would slither out of the way. Riding his roan through the shallows, Brett lifted his right side Colt. A gunfighter needs to keep in practice and without seeming to aim, Brett fired at the deadly snake, blasting a hole an inch back from its head. The rattlesnake jerked, then lay still as a stone.

  The riders mounted the eastern bank, rode through some high grass and came upon the main canyon trail that was pocked by hundreds of hoof prints and boot marks, testimony to its use by the settlers who lived here.

  ‘This is where I met up with Preacher O’Toole,’ Will Quade recalled as they halted their horses. ‘I’d just come down from selling the milking goat to Billy Blight and his fancy senora who live in that hole in the canyon wall you can see straight ahead. Just a cave but there’s furniture inside, all they need.’ He sensed that Brett Cassidy wasn’t particularly interested in the Blights’ living arrangements, so he resumed, ‘When I reached the trail here, right where we are now, I saw O’Toole on his horse, and like I told you, he was drunk as a crazy skunk.’

  Brett asked, ‘Which way did he say the wagon was headed?’

  ‘West,’ Quade recalled.

  ‘Travelling along this canyon trail?’

  ‘The preacher didn’t say, but when I looked around after he’d gone, I couldn’t see any wheel marks there.’

  ‘We’ll ride around and look for sign,’ Brett decided.

  They crossed over the trail and rode a grassy slope dotted with sage bushes.

  Now Brett had never trained as an army scout, but when he’d stayed in that Cheyenne village, he’d learned plenty from his Indian friends. It was time to call upon that Cheyenne wisdom. Patiently, slowly, he allowed his roan just to drift over the grassy flat. Noticing some stalks of grass bent over and others flattened, he rode his horse closer. Reaching the disturbed grass, he halted his mount in the shadow of the canyon wall, dismounted and beckoned the settler to him.

  ‘Wheel marks,’ Brett pointed out.

  ‘You’ve got an eye like a flaming hawk!’

  ‘Tracks are about a week old, I reckon.’

  ‘About the time I saw Preacher O’Toole,’ Will Quade recalled.

  Leaving the homesteader to swig water from his canteen, Brett crouched low and examined the wheel marks in more detail. At length, he pronounced, ‘Tracks are deep. The wagon that made these tracks was carrying a load.’

  ‘Like half a dozen Indian girls?’ Quade asked pointedly.

  ‘It fits.’

  ‘Well, now! Seems the preacher had more than just a vision.’

  ‘We’ll see where these tracks lead.’

  Brett swung back into the saddle and, with Will Quade riding alongside him, he followed the wheel marks west. The wagon tracks kept their distance from the well-used trail but went in the same di
rection. Twice the rim tracks swung around small sage-draped hillocks but each time they returned to keep heading west adjacent to, but not joining, the canyon trail. It was as if the men driving the wagon wanted to be far enough away from the main trail so a passing rider couldn’t identify them. Possibly Preacher O’Toole had told the truth when he said they were too far away for him to see precisely who they were.

  It was close to high noon when sheer sandstone walls squeezed the canyon floor into a narrow pass. The riders saw three willows shadowing the ford where the main trail crossed the creek. The wagon tracks too led to this same ford. Brett and Quade dismounted to let their horses drink the cold creek water. The homesteader built a cigarette, but Brett’s attention was drawn to a piece of material trapped against a stone under the largest willow. Leaving his roan, Brett parted the willow’s sweeping branches and picked up the torn material. It was light brown, decorated with elk eye teeth, its edges frayed like it had been ripped from a garment. Brett examined it more closely, remembering what the squaws used to wear in the Cheyenne village he’d spent time in. Then he saw another piece. It was smaller, hanging from a branch. He probed further into the willows, finding a third piece of brown material, caked with mud and wrapped around a protruding tree root.

  Suddenly his boots sank into a bed of freshly turned clay.

  ‘Will – come here,’ he called.

  ‘Something’s wrong?’

  ‘Bring that shovel you carry.’

  There was urgency in the gunfighter’s tone so Will Quade wasted no time. With his cigarette drooping from his cracked lips, he unstrapped his short-handled shovel, parted the trailing willow branches and tramped over to where Brett was standing. The gunfighter took the shovel and began digging. The shovel only went down six inches before striking two small human feet. The left foot was bare, the other still covered by a brown moccasin. Rooted to the ground, staring in sheer horror, the homesteader was white-faced and shaking as Brett lifted more earth from the makeshift grave. Within five minutes, they both looked down upon a brown-skinned Indian maiden whose ruthlessly shredded dress barely covered her decomposing body. Brett carefully scraped soil from her face. There was an obvious knife wound in what was left of her breasts. She was young, probably only sixteen. Her eyes, still preserved, were wide open, frozen in utter terror as she breathed her last.

  ‘Bastards,’ Brett said softly.

  ‘Why – why did they kill her?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to figure that out.’

  Brett shovelled clay back over her corpse. When the young woman’s body was covered once more, he handed the shovel back to Quade. ‘You go to church, Will?’

  ‘Well, uh, only sometimes.’

  ‘If you know some words to say, then say them.’

  Quade frowned. ‘She’s not a white woman. . . .’

  ‘Still say the words, Will,’ Brett insisted firmly.

  Brett Cassidy was angry. No woman, whether she was a white settler or an Indian maiden, deserved to die like this and be dumped in a wilderness grave. While Brett stood by under the willow in silence, Quade took off his hat and in a hoarse voice recited the first three verses of the Good Shepherd psalm. They were all he could remember.

  When Quade had finished, Brett said, ‘I noticed some flat stones by the creek. We’ll pack them over the grave so the coyotes don’t get to her.’

  As they walked together to the creek, Quade told himself that Brett Cassidy was no ordinary gunslinger. He was tough and deadly with the gun, but there was another side to him. He liked the man and he had an idea the widow felt the same. However, Cassidy was a gunfighter. It was a pity he wouldn’t be staying around.

  With the grave protected by stones, the two men made their way back through the willows where they remounted their horses. They forded the creek and resumed following the wagon tracks which now ran much closer to the trail. By the time the riders reached the mouth of the canyon, the wheel marks had joined the trail itself.

  The trail left the shadowy Rattler Canyon and followed the widening creek down across a boulder-strewn plain. They passed two cattle ranches, signed Bar Y and Rolling B, both well-established, here well before the homesteaders had arrived. The second ranch had its owner’s name crossed out and in its place were the hastily-scrawled words:

  NOW OWNED BY GARTH DELANEY

  Not content with just owning the Lazy F Ranch and having his sights on the whole of Lonesome Valley, Delaney was extending his empire this side of town too. They rode by an old abandoned trading post and a sheepherder’s hovel, both crumbling by the side of the trail. Cresting the next ridge, they saw the town of Red Butte sprawled below them. Here they were not only on a ridge top, but at a fork in the trail. There were two signs nailed to a post. One was freshly painted, indicating the obvious trail to Red Butte, the other was faded, like it was of no account. This sign pointed to a very narrow track that curved around a lonely butte to Lonesome Valley.

  ‘I’m obliged to you for taking me to Rattler Canyon, Will,’ Brett thanked the homesteader. ‘Saved me a lot of time.’

  ‘I can stay with you,’ Quade offered.

  ‘No, Will,’ Brett said firmly. ‘You ride back to your wife. Take care of her, look after your land.’ There was a coldness in his eyes as he looked down at Red Butte. He said slowly, ‘This is my game from now on.’

  ‘Been a pleasure to ride with you.’

  ‘So long, Will.’

  Leaving the homesteader leader to take the track home, Brett set his face for Red Butte. Harmony had told him the town was originally an army outpost built under the almost sheer red slopes of a small hill. The outpost, put together hastily, had long been deserted by the cavalry and a town had been born where once bluecoat soldiers practised their marching drills across the parade ground. The town had prospered, its citizens living in peace – until the day Garth Delaney had ridden in.

  Brett rode closer to Red Butte. He could still plainly see the wagon marks in the dust until the tracks from Rattler Canyon met two other trails, one used by stagecoaches from the east, the other heading away to the south. The three trails converged right on town limits and the wheel tracks Brett had followed all the way from Rattler Canyon suddenly merged and mingled with a dozen others and a hundred boot marks. Besides all this, the flat was churned up by cattle and horse hoofs. This then was trail’s end as far as the wagon tracks were concerned.

  So where had the Cheyenne maidens been taken? Could they be in Red Butte, which lay just ahead? If so, surely someone would have seen them. Or could they be in one of the other towns where Delaney had ‘business interests’? It was highly unlikely the kidnappers had taken their captives along a major stagecoach road to another town. Wells Fargo drivers and passengers might see what they shouldn’t. If they weren’t in Red Butte, they would surely have been taken somewhere else along back-trails. There was no way of knowing for sure where the wagon and its human cargo had gone from here. But he was going to find out and he’d start with the town that spread before him.

  And so Brett Cassidy rode in, slowly, just as he’d ridden into many other frontier towns in the past – on a mission to kill. He rode past cattle yards and sheep pens, then headed his roan into First Street, the town’s spine, from which alleys sprouted like small bones. Distant hymn singing reminded him this was the Sabbath and the faithful would be gathered in their churches. In fact, the first building he came to was the Red Butte Tabernacle Chapel, a small stone building with a bell tower. The singing had ceased and instead the preacher’s sermon rumbled like thunder out over the street. The bright blue sign out the front told passers-by that the Reverend Jason Micah O’Toole was the church’s minister and all were welcome to worship at 3pm every Sunday.

  O’Toole’s booming exhortation to righteousness assailed the gunfighter as he drew adjacent to the chapel. He sounded extremely sober this afternoon! Brett decided it was a good time to have a friendly chat to the man who had visions, but he wasn’t inclined to attend his church
.

  Instead, he drew his horse under the shade of a juniper and waited.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Brett stayed in the saddle for more than half an hour while Preacher O’Toole admonished his congregation about the sins of the flesh. In strident, forceful tones, he warned about the evils of gambling, drinking, cussing and in particular the sin of fornication. His fist-thumping of the pulpit almost raised the roof. Mercifully, his sermon came to an end as the sun began to retreat over Red Butte. The robust singing of the final hymn followed by the benediction rang out over the town, then the porch door was pushed open. The Reverend O’Toole, a large black-bound Bible tucked under his arm, emerged first, followed by his smiling wife.

  They positioned themselves to shake hands with the faithful.

  O’Toole was tall and lanky, towering over his petite wife. His neat, barber-cut hair was the colour of ripened corn, well clear of the collar of his starched white shirt. A spotted blue bow tie sat below his bobbing Adam’s apple. He wore a sombre black suit and matching boots. Mrs Tabitha O’Toole, already chatting dutifully with two Temperance Union members from her husband’s congregation, had red hair poking out from her Sunday bonnet, just stroking her long, home-sewn blue dress. Her face wore a perpetual smile.

  It was Tabitha who saw the rider first.

  Nudging her husband who was delivering an embarrassingly loud second sermon on the evils of ‘living in sin’ to a young couple who were yet to be married, she pointed out the stranger under the juniper tree. Sensing another possible recruit for his growing church, Jason O’Toole smiled in eager anticipation, left the faithful and marched like a soldier across the street.

  ‘You’re a bit late for church, brother,’ he boomed.

  ‘Actually, I heard most of your sermon,’ Brett said wryly.

  ‘I preached a little longer than usual today,’ O’Toole said. He explained sanctimoniously, ‘Many sinners needed to be brought to repentance.’