by Cole Shelton
“Crawford!” she echoed.
“Uh-huh.” Shane was buttoning up his shirt.
“But, hell!” exclaimed Jonah. “You aim to ask a yeller lawman to help?”
“Jonah,” Shane chided him, “you oughta know me by now. I’m not riding in to ask the badge-toter for help. I’m riding in to tell him he’s gonna help.”
“Best of luck,” the Widow Harding smiled.
“Jonah will look after you till I get back,” Shane said, and strode out. His horse, Snowfire, was waiting for him.
The late afternoon sun was pale, tingeing the gathering clouds a vague crimson. The wind was springing up, sweeping the wide expanse of Main Street as the gunslinger in black garb rode slowly up its length.
Lodestone was quiet, as townsmen hurried home for supper and storekeepers barred their doors. The bank was closing, and the manager threw Shane Preston a wary look as he rode past. Shane headed along the row of saloons and gambling houses, glanced at the saloon that dominated the others with its huge, gaudy sign announcing: THE LAST DEUCE. Even these liquor houses were quiet, and looking through their big, red-draped windows, Shane spotted only a handful of patrons. Tonight, he surmised, the scene would change as cowpokes from the wide circle of ranches rode in for liquor, cards and women.
He found the sheriff’s office. Most towns displayed their law offices and jailhouses prominently on Main Street, but Lodestone concealed its building dedicated to law and order down a side alley. Right next to the office stood a redbrick courthouse and, dismounting, Shane noted that its windows were dusty and its door hinges bore the signs of rust.
He headed for the front door of the sheriff’s office.
It was ajar, and Shane pushed it wide open. An oldster sitting behind the desk looked up, startled, as Shane entered.
“What’s wrong?” the wizened little man gulped, jumping to his feet with surprising agility.
Shane glanced around the bare office. There was an absence of reward dodgers on the pin board, the gun cupboard was empty and at the far end, the doors to the two cells yawned wide.
“Sheriff Crawford?” Shane frowned at the shirt which sported no badge.
“Hell, no!” the old-timer ejaculated. He had a mournful, silvery moustache and his face was lined with care. “I’m Osbert Grindle.”
“Where’s Crawford?” Shane demanded.
“Search me,” shrugged Osbert Grindle.
“You his deputy?”
“Hell, no,” Grindle said again. “Fact is, mister, I just set here and look out for things when Sheriff Crawford’s outa town—like he probably is right now. He pays me enough to buy food and whisky, and that’s all I crave.”
“You said Crawford’s probably outa town,” Shane prompted him.
“Could be most any place.”
Shane turned for the door.
“Hey, stranger?” Grindle was scratching the few hairs he had on his balding head. “What day is it?”
Shane folded his arms. “Friday.”
“Ah!” Osbert Grindle lifted his hands. “Friday! Now I recall! Friday’s the day he rides out to call on Linc Boormann."
“Yeah?”
“You’re a stranger in these parts,” nodded Grindle. “I’m here to tell yuh, Linc Boormann’s a mighty important man around here.”
“Must be to rate a regular call from the lawman,” the gunfighter said dryly.
Grindle stared at Shane. “By the way, mister, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I didn’t give it,” said Shane.
Grindle looked uneasy. “What—er—what did you want the sheriff for?”
“I’ve a little chore for him to do,” Shane said.
“Huh?”
“So I’ll wait outside till he rides in from seeing Boormann.”
“Not much good waitin’ there,” Grindle resumed his seat and drew out a battered pipe. “He won’t be comin’ back to the office. He’ll be heading straight home. Y’see, this office don’t open nights. There’s never much trouble in Lodestone after dark, ’specially since those durn nesters have learnt to stay outa town.”
“Then I’ll wait at his home,” Shane said curtly.
“First past the church,” the oldster grunted.
Shane mounted Snowfire and rode back into Main. He headed past the Last Deuce again, turning left at the fork on Main Street. Right in the V of the fork was an old wooden building with a white signboard nailed over the front door: LODESTONE CLARION—THE PAPER THAT CAMPAIGNS FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE. The long window that fronted the street had been smashed by a well-directed rock, and spidery cracks spread to the far corners of the pane. Shane Preston peered in the window and saw the dark outline of a printing press in the pallid lamplight. Right outside the front door was a squat table piled high with the latest edition of the newspaper and a hand-scrawled notice directed folks to put their dimes in the tin and take a copy. The gunslinger dropped a coin in the tin, reached down for a copy and unfolded it as he sat saddle. His eyes fastened on the editorial and he read it carefully before slipping the newspaper into his saddle roll.
The shadows were lengthening as Shane urged Snowfire towards the chapel.
He was just passing the freshly-painted sign which told all and sundry that services were held every Sabbath at ten when two riders surged around an alley bend and came towards him. Shane’s eyes narrowed as he recognized the one farthest away from him and he reined in Snowfire as the man he thought of as ‘Rat-face’ veered his horse away at the last moment. Rat-face’s companion, sallow-skinned Bart Boormann, had ridden past, and now the youth sat saddle as his pard surveyed the gunfighter with an insolent stare.
“Why, howdy, nester-lover!” the wiry little ranny sneered. “Didn’t you hear what Klaus said? He said for you to move on!”
“Who the hell is this, Ridge?” Bart demanded.
“One of the nester-lovers we was tellin’ your pa about,” Ridge Martin appraised Shane. “The one who winged Dace.”
Bart Boormann surveyed the gunfighter with a cold smile.
“This ain’t exactly a healthy place for nester-lovers,” he told Shane.
“Where are you two boys headed?” Shane Preston asked them, his voice quiet.
Taken aback by the deceptive softness of Shane’s tone, Martin frowned.
“The Last Deuce. Why?”
“I suggest you keep riding,” Shane murmured, his piercing eyes boring right through Ridge Martin. “The saloon’s up-street.”
There was something about the cold, deliberate tone of Shane Preston’s voice that froze the Circle B rider. The smirk vanished from his face and all his brash bravado was replaced by uncertainty. He deliberately edged his hand well clear of his holster and his fingers fidgeted with the reins. Young Bart gaped foolishly.
Martin turned in the saddle and dug in his spurs. Shane sat saddle and watched them ride away. Bart was joking and guffawing while his companion maintained a poker-faced silence. Shane’s whisper sent Snowfire ambling towards the white picket fence which fronted the garden on the far side of the church. Sheriff Crawford’s home.
Four – The Wanton and the Coward
The door opened almost immediately at his knock, and the slim woman’s smile was full of interest.
“I’m looking for Sheriff Crawford, ma’am,” Shane Preston said.
“My husband’s not back yet,” she told him, her blue eyes summing him up. “What do you want him for?”
“I’ve a chore for him to do,” Shane announced. “When do you expect him?”
“Soon,” she murmured.
“Then I’ll wait.”
The sheriff’s wife let her eyes linger on the rugged face of the gunslinger.
“Why not come inside and I’ll make you some coffee?” She stood aside for him, and with a shrug, Shane Preston stepped inside. She glided ahead of him into the parlor, where she indicated a chair. The lamplight touched her as she turned to carry the coffee pot to the wood stove, and Shane’s cursory glance took
in the slim curves of a well-preserved figure. He figured she’d be touching her late thirties, but might have been younger.
“I’m Susan Crawford,” she introduced herself.
“Shane Preston.”
“I was watching you through the front window, Mr. Preston,” Susan said. “You seemed to be arguing with those Circle B men. Not friends of yours?”
“Friends of your husband I’m told,” he said dryly.
Susan said nothing for a moment. She reached into the closet and her slender fingers fetched down crockery. Most of the furnishings and adornments in Susan Crawford’s parlor indicated she was a woman who liked the good things in life.
“I suppose you could put it this way,” Susan told him with a toss of her blonde hair. “Around here most men feel they have to be friendly with the Circle B, and more particularly with Linc Boormann. And that includes my husband.”
“Did Boormann pin the badge on him?” the gunfighter asked.
“I suppose he did,” the sheriff’s wife replied after a long pause.
“And so Boormann owns him,” Shane stated, his smile taking the edge off his words. Surprisingly, Susan Crawford took no apparent offence.
“Cream in your coffee?”
“As it comes,” Shane straddled a chair. “I’d like to clear up two-three things, ma’am—”
“Susan,” she corrected him.
“This is a fine home, Susan,” Shane observed. “Did Boormann pay for this, too?”
“Know something?” she mused. “I ought to ask you to leave—right now!”
“Then why don’t you?” Shane demanded. “I’m not in the habit of fighting women. If you want me out, then I’ll wait for your husband on the street.”
“I won’t ask you to leave, Shane Preston,” Susan confessed. She raised her hand to his shoulder and let it linger there. “Know the kind of scum who usually visit me and drink my coffee? Boormann’s men! They come over with messages for Len—my husband, and they sit here and leer at me like I’m some sort of saloon whore. Fact is, I wouldn’t want any of them at any price! I like real men. Decent men. And when one’s here, I’m not about to ask him to leave.”
Shane smiled. “You don’t know me from a crow.”
“I can judge a man pretty well.”
“Even a nester-lover?” queried Shane, quoting the Circle B men’s expression.
Her hand left his shoulder. “The nesters have every right to be here.”
It was the first time he’d heard this statement from anyone apart from a nester himself, and he smiled as Susan began to pour his coffee.
“You’re quite some woman, Susan.”
“I’m a bored one,” she flashed back. “Bored and miserable!”
“Yeah?” his tone was noncommittal.
“We’ve been frank with each other, Shane,” the sheriff’s wife said, “so what I’m goin’ to tell you isn’t exactly out of place. I’m bored with being the stay-home wife of a small-town sheriff who takes his orders from the king of the valley. I’m weary of the folks I meet when I do go out—the ladies of the church guild, the mayor and his wife, all the rest of them. And I’m bored with Boormann’s liquor-soaked cronies who want to paw me all the time.”
He looked up at her and saw the despair in her eyes. She looked away, suddenly.
“Maybe that’s why I like a man who’s not spooked by Linc Boormann. I want to make him welcome.” She sat down close to Shane, and the gunfighter felt the brush of her warm leg against his. “And specially a man like you.”
Shane sipped his coffee, deadpan.
“You’re not a nester yourself,” she insisted. “Right?”
“Right,” said Shane. “Just say—I’m neutral.”
They heard the sharp clatter of hooves out back and Susan leaned forward and placed her hand over his.
“That’ll be Len,” she whispered. Her fingers stroked the back of his hand. “Shane—you’re welcome to call by any time.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said, gravely.
They waited for the door to grate open. The wind made the lamp flicker as a thick-set figure stood in the doorway with his coat flapping around his legs. The little pig eyes of Sheriff Crawford swept past his wife and fixed themselves on the man who sat there drinking coffee.
“Come inside, Len,” Susan said pleasantly. “You’re letting in the cold.”
“Who’re you, mister?” Crawford’s voice had a rasping edge as he kicked the door shut behind him.
“Shane Preston.”
Sheriff Crawford stared at him with bleak eyes. Wordlessly, he shrugged out of his coat and tossed the garment unceremoniously over a chair. The lawman’s badge gleamed on the front of his blue check shirt.
“Called around to your office,” Shane explained. “The old-timer directed me here.”
“I was out a spell.”
“So I heard,” Shane said, adding more sugar to his coffee. “At Boormann’s.”
Crawford stared at him, his eyes narrowing to twin slits. His face was rotund, stubbled, and unkempt graying hair hung past his big ears.
“Since you’ve been out to Boormann’s,” Shane said, “you’d have been told about me.”
“What d’you mean?” Crawford growled.
“I was one of the riders who horned in on Boormann’s rannies when they were about to hang O’Reilly and his wife,” Shane stated.
Crawford didn’t say anything for a moment. His silence betrayed him. Then he said, “So what are you doing here, Preston?”
“Had a look over your office, Crawford,” snapped Shane. “Sure needs a few things done to it.”
Crawford planted his hands on his hips. “Such as what?”
“For one thing, you need a few firearms in that gun cupboard and some reward dodgers on your empty pin board to show you’re in business,” Shane suggested. “I reckon a law office should look like one. Right now, yours looks like a church office.”
“Now, see here, Preston!” Len Crawford was shaking with rage, but while his wife’s face wore a discreet smile, he stayed where he was as Shane went on:
“And another thing. Those durn cells look like they haven’t been used in months. There’s dust every place and that’s gonna have to be swept off for what I have in mind.”
The lawman’s face was a study. “Like what?”
Shane said, deliberately, “Boormann’s men are breakin’ the law. So I aim to bring ’em in—as law-busters.”
Crawford licked dry lips. He managed to jerk out, “Who in hell do you think you are? I don’t need a deputy!”
“Who said anythin’ about me pinnin’ on a badge?” Shane Preston grinned. “I’m just gonna act like a normal, law-abidin’ citizen when I catch Boormann’s men breakin’ the laws of our land. And, Sheriff, I expect you to act like a normal, elected lawman. Get it?”
“Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it, Len?” Susan asked sweetly.
“Button up, woman!” Crawford croaked. He swung around on the gunfighter. “You think you’re smart, eh? Well, it so happens I’ve never seen any of Boormann’s men break the law in Lodestone.”
“But if you did?” Shane insisted.
Crawford swallowed. “Get out of here!”
“I’ll do your answering for you.” Shane stood up. He towered over the beefy lawman. “You’re wearin’ the badge and you’ve sworn to uphold the law. If you see Circle B rannies breakin’ that law, or if I do and bring them in, then you’ll lock them up and charge ’em and hold ’em for trial.”
“You’re crazy!” snarled Sheriff Crawford.
“Remember what I said.” Shane picked up his Stetson. “Clean those cells up because I figure they’ll be needed soon.”
Stunned, Crawford stood motionless by the stove as the gunfighter strode to the door.
“So long, Sheriff.” He nodded to the blonde woman. “Ma’am.”
Then he was gone.
Len Crawford lashed out with his boot, kicked the front door shut, then slu
mped down into a chair. Susan placed a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of him, but the law officer ignored it.
Finally he lifted accusing eyes to his wife.
“A real nice cozy little scene, huh?” he sneered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Susan retorted.
“You know damn well what I’m talkin’ about,” the badge-toter blazed back. “You and Shane Preston sittin’ close!”
“He wanted to see you, so I invited him in.” Susan’s tone was sugar-sweet.
“Invite him in, huh?” mused Crawford. “Just like you invited in that tinhorn from Wichita? And that fool army captain who was stopping off for the night in Lodestone?”
“Why don’t you mention Mike McDeer, too?” she taunted him. “You remember—the cattle buyer?”
Needled, Crawford erupted to his feet. His big, fleshy hand lashed out, slapping his wife hard across the left cheek. Susan staggered back, thudding against the wall, her shoulder dislodging a picture which crashed to the floor. She turned her reddened face away from him.
Breathing heavily, he lumbered towards her.
“You filthy whore!” he accused.
“Len,” Her voice was softer now, punctuated by deep sobs, “if I had a real man as a husband, I wouldn’t even want to look at anyone else.”
His fingers clutched her shoulder like the jaws of a vice.
He wrenched her around so she was crushed violently against his body. His right hand fastened around her chin, and the lawman jerked her face upwards. Helpless, she closed her eyes as his hot mouth clamped down over her lips. Savagely, crudely, he prised her lips wide as he sought the fire inside. But the fire wasn’t burning or even flickering for him, and all Susan did was to lie motionless and unresisting against his demanding body.
He thrust her away with a deep grunt of sheer disgust.
“Come back to me when you’re a man,” Susan breathed. Crawford stamped over to his coat and shrugged into it. He groped for his Stetson and marched to the door.
“Where are you going?” Susan asked him, picking up the fallen picture.
“You know damn well where I have to go,” Sheriff Len Crawford said harshly.
