Shane and Jonah 3

by Cole Shelton

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  The Homestead Act allowed nesters to move onto open range and build new lives for themselves. But for the cattlemen—and Linc Boormann in particular—it meant giving up land he had previously used, free of charge, to feed and house his vast herds. Boormann’s answer was simple … to run off the nesters by any means necessary, no matter how brutal.

  The merciless execution of one such nester brought wandering gunfighters Shane Preston and Jonah Jones to Wolf Valley, and the minute they arrived, open war was declared in no uncertain terms. But all the odds were stacked against them. They were two men against an army of gun-toughs. The local sheriff was in Boormann’s pocket, so they couldn’t expect any help from him.

  But that was the thing about Shane and Jonah. No matter how impossible things looked, there was just no quit in them.

  No quit at all.

  SHANE AND JONAH 3: VALLEY OF THE LAWLESS

  By Cole Shelton

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Piccadilly Publishing

  First Digital Edition

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  One – Noose for a Nester

  The nester’s axe flashed downwards in the late afternoon sun, cleaving the log cleanly. Slim Harding bent over, picked up the two pieces and tossed them onto the woodheap. He measured up another cedar log and wearily lifted his axe to the sky. The dying sun glistened on the rivers of sweat which streamed down his naked chest and beaded his bronzed brow. He was breathing heavily, tired from a day’s hard grind on the small spread he was carving out of this slice of the valley, and already he could smell the aroma of stew which he’d be sharing with Marcia once he’d finished this chore. The axe chopped downwards again, splitting the wood, but this time Harding didn’t lift his blade for another blow.

  “Get your paws high, Harding!”

  The nester stared at the shadows on the ground, then slowly looked around. Three guns were leveled right at him, and the riders sat saddle just a few feet away.

  “Get them up!” Matt Klaus snarled again.

  Harding’s outstretched fingers gradually groped above his head and his eyes betrayed a flicker of fear as he surveyed the Circle B trio.

  “What the hell’s up, Klaus?” the nester demanded, his voice hoarse.

  He knew them all of course. Every settler in Wolf Valley had been paid a visit by the Circle B riders at some time or another during the past month. Klaus was the ramrod, a bearded, black-haired rider with stooped shoulders and chunky body. Next to him, leaning back in the saddle, was Ridge Martin, the little rat-face who’d spent half of his life in prison and who now worked for the Circle B. The trio was completed by the ranch’s latest recruit, Reb Faulkland, a lean streak who hailed from Arizona. And this was the second visit Harding had received from them in a week.

  “Well, Harding,” Martin snickered, “let’s put it this way. It ain’t exactly a social call.”

  “Didn’t figure it was.” Slim Harding saw a wide grin forming on the ramrod’s face.

  “Nester,” said Klaus, “I reckon you know damn well why we’re over here. Maybe I’ll refresh your memory about our last visit. We came over with a message from Mr. Boormann, telling you he was giving you three days to pack up and move out. Three days, Harding! That was almost a week ago!”

  Harding’s sweat-soaked chest heaved.

  “You had my answer then, Klaus,” he snapped. “I staked out this spread, and here I stay. There’s a new Homesteader Act which gives me and thousands of other settlers the right to stake out on open range—it’s happening all over the territory.”

  Faulkland’s eyes narrowed above his hook nose. “And all over the territory, cattlemen like Boormann are smoking-out nester-vermin like you!”

  “I reckon we’re wasting time just talking to this polecat,” Martin snarled, uncoiling his rope.

  “Hold it!” Klaus restrained him. “If I kill a man, I like him to know why.”

  “He knows,” the rat-faced Martin rasped. “He was told to quit and he didn’t. What’s gonna happen to him will be an example to any other fool nester who figures on playin’ hero.”

  “Slim!” The nester’s wife was calling to him from inside the cabin. “Slim! Have we got callers?”

  Matt Klaus turned to Faulkland. “Look out for her, Reb.” The snub-nosed, balding rider smiled mirthlessly and slithered like a snake from his saddle.

  “Marcia!” Harding yelled as the gunslinger from Arizona started for the front porch. “Marcia! The back door! Run like hell!”

  Klaus spurred his gelding forward, crashing into the shouting nester like a battering ram. Harding was knocked off his feet and plastered into the woodheap. Desperately, he tried to grope for the axe he’d dropped but moments later the ramrod’s rifle-butt cracked into the back of his head. The nester gasped and crumpled to the soft ground. Dazed, but not quite unconscious, Slim Harding was vaguely aware of rough hands lashing his wrists together. He could hear Marcia’s screams as Reb Faulkland caught up with her, frantic screams mingling with his raucous laughter.

  The nester flopped helplessly forward as the riders heaved him onto a horse’s back. He swayed in the saddle, his blurred vision making out the two struggling figures on the front porch. His senses swam wildly, he blurted out an oath when he saw how Faulkland’s hands had ripped the front of his wife’s blouse away. Harding wrenched desperately at his rawhide bonds as his tortured gaze saw the rider’s ugly bronze claw claim Marcia’s creamy breast. Marcia lashed out at him with her free hand, pummeling his lust-filled face, and then Slim Harding was jerked forward as Klaus walked the horse towards the tall cedar. The nester swiveled around in the saddle.

  It was all ready for him. Martin’s rope had been secured to a high branch and the noose was swinging against the graying sky. Ignoring the nester’s hoarse protests, Klaus led the gelding right beneath the towering cedar. The noose was dropped over his head and he felt the naked rawhide tighten around the muscles of his neck. Marcia screamed again, and whimpering like an animal, Harding tried to twist his neck around. Martin obliged him by dragging Marcia right up to the cedar. The woman was pleading with them, weeping now, falling limp against Ridge Martin’s chest.

  “Harding,” Matt Klaus said, holding the nervy horse, “you’re dancing rope because you’ve been a loco fool! Now I reckon it’s time to start prayin’!”

  Harding’s eyes bulged. The gelding was shifting uneasily beneath him, and Klaus only had to let go of the bridle for the spooked animal to dash forward.

  “Please—” Slim Harding whispered, “please don’t harm my wife! Oh, God—please—”

  He could just see the grin on Faulkland’s lips, the way his greedy hands were pawing Marcia’s vulnerable flesh. He glanced at the ramrod’s face, but saw no pity there. To this cattleman’s warped mind, the Hardings were simply vermin to be destroyed for the good of the valley.

  “So long, nester!” Klaus shrugged.

  Marcia whipped her face around and a hysterical scream tore from her lips as Klaus ruthlessly slapped at the gelding’s flanks. The h
orse plunged forward, and suddenly Slim Harding was jerking in a violent dance on the quivering rope. The nester’s neck went blue, and Marcia moaned deep in her throat as her husband convulsed and finally went limp. The rope began to twist around and the body slowly described a circle in the gathering dusk.

  Her world shattered, Marcia stood stunned with grief and terror as she stared with glassy eyes at the lifeless corpse. She was almost unaware of Reb Faulkland’s relentless hands stripping the remnants of her clothes away as he prepared his prize for the final, degrading act he had in mind. Numbly, she merely groaned and wept, and she hardly heard the ramrod’s sharp command.

  “Reb—leave her alone.”

  “What the hell?” Faulkland’s voice was brittle.

  “I said leave her alone, Reb,” Klaus said. “We’ve a coupla other nesters to visit before sundown.”

  “The hell with it!” Faulkland thrust Marcia Harding aside like a discarded shirt.

  “Besides,” Ridge Martin’s face wore a strange expression as he looked at the body, “I—I reckon we owe it to him to answer his last prayer—about not harming his woman.”

  Klaus strode over and grabbed his gelding’s rein. He swung into the saddle.

  “No, Ridge,” the ramrod corrected Martin’s statement, “we don’t owe this damn nester a thing. It’s just like I told Reb. We ain’t got the time to hang around for fun and games.”

  The other two saddled up, but Marcia Harding didn’t even see them ride away. Frozen with shock, she lay in the grass with her naked body bathed crimson by sundown. At last she raised her eyes. The long rope had stopped twisting, and her husband’s body was a stark, motionless shadow. With her heart throbbing like a drumbeat, she clambered to her feet and looked hard and long at Slim’s face. The skin was contorted, almost black, but his eyes were open and strangely peaceful in the sleep of death.

  “Oh, God!” she whispered as tears flooded her eyes and she clutched at the stiffening body. “Oh, God—I’m alone!”

  The cold eyes of Shane Preston roved over the thin figure at the far end of the bar, finally coming to rest on the smooth pearl handle of the gun that rested in its leather holster.

  “So!” The Mexican’s nicotine-stained teeth showed as he forced a grin. “You are Señor Preston, si? You are the one this miserable town of peasants has hired to kill Rodriguez Amarto!”

  The tall gunslinger placed one elbow on the cantina bar.

  “Amarto.” Shane surveyed him with his gunfighter’s professional stare. “The folks of this town say you’re a killer, one hombre who’s murdered a half-dozen innocent folks in cold blood. They say you’re a back-shooting polecat.”

  Rodriguez Amarto snickered as the last of the cantina’s patrons fled out into the sun-baked street. The killer pushed back the wide brim of his black sombrero and shrugged at the empty cantina.

  “How do you Americanos say it? They are gutless!”

  “Amarto,” Shane said softly, “you’ve already told me why I’m here. Any time you’re ready!”

  “But first, before I kill you, Señor Preston, tell me how much they paid you.”

  Shane kept his gaze on the Mexican’s glittering eyes. Experience had taught him that in a showdown you watched your opponent’s eyes like a hawk.

  “We came here for three hundred American dollars,” Shane informed him.

  “We?” The killer’s smile was oily. “Ah! Now I understand! You came with that pardner of yours, the fat goat they call … What is the name they call him?”

  “Jonah,” Shane said gently. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of getting riled-up over Amarto’s insult to his friend. “Jonah Jones is his full name. Actually, he’s outside, Amarto. You see, we figured it would only take one of us to take care of a two-bit Mexican bastard like you.”

  Rodriguez Amarto bristled hotly and his right hand began to drift lower. The smile was gone now, and all Shane could see was the deadpan face with stubby nose and angry eyes.

  Suddenly the Mexican’s eyes lit up. It was the moment of anticipation before the kill, and a split-second later Amarto’s hand streaked for the fancy gun. Shane’s draw was a single swoop and lift, one lightning movement that preceded the boom of his six-shooter. The gunslinger’s bullet smashed into Amarto’s chest, ripping through to his heart, and the killer made no sound as he pitched forward to sprawl in the sawdust of the cantina floor.

  The town’s long siesta was over. Doors crashed wide. Shutters slid open. Men and women ran towards the swinging batwings of the cantina as Shane holstered his smoking gun and strode for the street. The towners were everywhere, congratulating him, clapping him, thanking him for ridding El Peso of the man who’d terrorized the community for over four years. Shane grinned as an over-zealous, rather fat señorita grabbed his partner’s whiskery face and planted a wet kiss on his protesting lips. It was almost like fiesta time as whisky barrels were rolled along the boardwalk and señoritas in long, sweeping dresses began to dance in celebration of their liberation. It took Shane fully five minutes to free himself from the crowd and walk towards his palomino, Snowfire. And even then, a young, raven-haired cantina girl clutched at his arm and whispered the kind of invitation most men would have given a month’s paydirt to hear. At length, though, Shane managed to swing into the saddle. Jonah Jones’ horse, old Tessie, stood patiently at the rail awaiting the other gunhawk. The oldster was under considerable difficulties, especially as a glass of brimming whisky had been thrust into his hand. Jonah gulped it down and ran. Showing surprising agility, the old-timer vaulted onto Tessie’s back and bent forward to unloop his rein.

  “We’ll head for north of the border,” Shane said.

  “Hell, yes!” Jonah said with feeling, as the fat señorita made smacking noises with her lips.

  “You got their check?” Shane reminded him.

  “Right in my hip pocket,” Jonah Jones assured him. “Guess we both earned it, at that.”

  The gunfighters headed up the street to the accompaniment of rousing cheers. All of a sudden, a podgy little Mexican came rushing out of a building. He was loping furiously in their wake, yelling and brandishing something in his fat hand. Shane reined in his horse, swiveling around in the saddle as the puffing Mexican came sputtering up to him.

  “This,” he held aloft the envelope, waving it like a flag, “has just come with the mail-rider. It’s been forwarded here from San Diego. You gave El Peso as your forwarding address, señor?”

  “Sure did,” Shane said, taking the envelope from the Mexican’s hand.

  Jonah leaned over to squint at the writing on the front of the envelope, and a broad grin spread over his lips.

  “Well, well!” he quipped. “Addressed to Mr. Shane Preston—and I reckon that’s a woman’s handwriting!”

  “Looks like it,” Shane said, ripping open the letter.

  The tall gunfighter’s eyes scrutinized the letter briefly, a coldness creeping over him as he digested the contents. Jonah perceived the change on Shane’s face as he was reading, and suddenly the oldster became very serious.

  “Who’s it from?”

  “Marcia,” Shane said softly, reading the second page.

  “Slim Harding’s wife?”

  Shane glanced over to his pard. “Slim’s dead.”

  “Hell!”

  “Murdered by three galoots who’ve been trying to force nesters out of Wolf Valley,” Shane Preston stated bluntly. “They hanged him right in front of her.”

  Jonah ripped out an oath, and the little Mexican who’d brought them the letter beat a hasty retreat. Behind them, the celebrations were mounting to a crescendo, but right now Shane Preston couldn’t hear the music. He was thinking about a lean, rangy nester, an earthy settler with a beautiful wife who’d pushed west to carve out a new life for them both. He was recalling the man he counted as a friend, the man who’d once saved his life in a saloon fight many years ago.

  “Jonah,” Shane said, “Marcia needs our help. They killed Slim, and s
oon they’ll ride back to murder her if she doesn’t move on.”

  “It’s a long trail to Wolf Valley,” Jonah reminded him.

  “Three days and nights in the saddle with a few rest-ups,” the tall gunfighter murmured. “We’ll start right away, Jonah.”

  “I ain’t exactly smart at reading, Shane,” the old gunslinger mumbled. “So you tell me. What else does Marcia say?”

  Shane folded the letter and slid the envelope into his vest pocket. He jogged Snowfire forward.

  “She said the day after Slim was killed, there were other hangings,” Shane said. “Three nesters danced rope because they’d refused to quit their spreads, and after those neck-tie parties, some of the settlers packed up to leave the valley.”

  The gunslingers turned their horses off Main Street and moved down a long, dusty alley fringed by rows of tin shacks.

  “Seems that before Marcia wrote, she told some of the nesters she was contacting us,” the gunslinger continued. “They reckoned they’d like to hire our services, but there was one problem. No money. They’re just nesters trying to scratch a livin’ and their finances don’t run to hirin’ guns to help their cause.”

  They reached the trail that rounded El Peso and rode north for the high country.

  “So?” Jonah asked at length.

  “So we do this chore for nothing,” Shane said.

  “Figured you’d say that!” Jonah Jones said ruefully. “We get involved in a cattleman-nester range war out of the goodness of our hearts!”

  “Nope,” Shane said as they guided their horses onto the trail, “this is one I owe Slim Harding.”

  “Maybe,” Jonah agreed with a shrug. “But getting mixed in a fracas between ranchers and nesters ain’t all that smart.”

  “The moment we ride in and start helpin’ Marcia, we’ll be mixed up in the feud, like it or not,” Shane concluded.

  They let their horses break into a fast run, and soon El Peso was just a tiny sprawl below them. Finally, as they mounted a crest and plunged down into a pumice basin, it was only a memory.