Return to Sundown Valley

by Cole Shelton

  Deciding he’d best change the subject, Major Wallace observed, ‘Your Indian friend doesn’t say much.’

  Honani cracked a rare smile. ‘Not much to say. My friend Luke Dawson went to war. I rode with him and they gave me a blue shirt.’

  ‘He’s not a man to boast,’ Luke explained, ‘but he was one of the few Indians to become a lance corporal. And he earned the promotion. He was braver than most. In fact, he has a medal to prove it. Show them, Honani.’

  The Navajo hesitated but finally he relented and opened the top two buttons of his Union uniform. Hanging from the rawhide looped around his neck was a shiny gold star framed in a circle.

  ‘Holy Moses,’ Major Wallace exclaimed in awe.

  Even his wife Elizabeth knew what it was. ‘Praise be! The United States Medal of Honour!’

  ‘We were under siege,’ Luke recalled as they both stared at the Navajo’s medal resting proudly against his bronze skin. ‘Your Confederate soldiers had us trapped at the mouth of Grey Coyote Pass. Remember that battle? You had two Gatling guns pumping lead at us. We had twenty, maybe thirty wounded men to carry through that narrow pass to safety. Corporal Honani volunteered to stake out behind a clump of rocks with half a dozen loaded rifles beside him to hold off the Johnny Rebs. We all thought he was crazy, but he was the officer in charge so we let him do it. He held his post for a full hour, allowing us to get our wounded through the pass. He received the Medal of Honour for his bravery.’

  ‘You did not mention that once the wounded were safe, you came back to help me,’ the Indian said. He added, ‘However, they gave you no medal.’

  ‘You were the one who deserved it,’ Luke stated.

  ‘We are now blood brothers,’ Honani said proudly.

  They had in fact been friends for many years.

  When Luke and his older brother Caleb had first arrived in Spanish Wells with their wagon, they’d made their way across Sundown Valley. It was open range and the Navajos lived in their village on the bank of a swiftly flowing creek. Caleb’s wife wanted to buy a Navajo shawl and they were made welcome in the village, staying the night in one of the lodges. It was there Luke met Honani, the chief’s eldest son who told him about the best places to hunt in the mountains that overlooked the Indian village. Thus a friendship began. Honani was a welcome guest in the cabin Luke built and in turn the white man was treated as a brother in the village. Luke went on to build a horse wrangling spread high on Old Wolf Ridge that overlooked the valley, and more than once Honani had helped him rope and break in some mustangs. Then they went to war together, and now they were riding home.

  They finished the meal Elizabeth Wallace had cooked.

  ‘You can all get some shuteye,’ Luke told them. He returned the coffee pot to the potbelly stove, looked at the outlaws and patted his holstered gun. ‘I’ll keep watch over these buzzards.’

  It was later, when they were all asleep, that Luke Dawson made another mug of coffee. He was still thinking of the beautiful Sierra and ultimately her being with him in his home on the edge of the mountains.

  They left the way station as the new sun painted the far eastern rims in dazzling golden light.

  Luke rode ahead of the Wells Fargo stagecoach, with Wallace and his wife seated together on the driving seat. It had taken the major all of five minutes to painstakingly climb up there, but he was a proud man and insisted on doing it without any assistance. Wallace had the reins while Elizabeth, wedged close to her husband, had a rifle resting over her lap. The major assured Luke that Elizabeth knew how to use it and she’d relish doing so if Thompson and West tried to escape. The Navajo brought up the rear, with the horses ridden by the two outlaw prisoners roped behind the stagecoach. The bandits, Thompson and West, cussing, grumbling and eating dust, had their wrists tied to their saddle horns.

  The trail snaked west, deeper into Utah. Luke knew the trail well. It was one he’d ridden many times before going to war, and had even driven horses along its dusty length. Today it was still a ribbon of deep dust, used by stagecoaches, pony express riders and pioneer wagon trains alike. Ultimately it would reach Spanish Wells, curl around Sundown Valley and probe even further west into canyon country.

  Right now as they followed this winding trail, they entered a lonely pass where vultures circled high in the morning sun. Emerging from the pass, they squeezed between two red buttes, then swung southwest past an old mine shaft that was no longer in use.

  By late morning they reached a shallow valley. It was then that Honani left the prisoners and joined Luke ahead of the swaying stagecoach.

  ‘We have company,’ the Navajo said as they rode side by side. ‘By those cottonwoods on that ridge.’

  Luke’s eyes narrowed as he slowed his horse. ‘I see them.’

  Half a dozen riders were making a motionless line on the crest of a wooded ridge that protruded like an ancient balcony just ahead over the valley trail. They were close enough for Luke to see that most of the silent riders wore leather shirts and breechcloths with high moccasin boots and headbands. One of them, the oldest, was clothed in a white Mexican tunic and cavalry pants.

  ‘Apaches,’ Honani said, confirming what he thought.

  ‘All with rifles,’ Luke observed.

  ‘Supplied by gunrunners, that’s for sure,’ the Navajo said.

  ‘Nothing has changed then,’ Luke remarked.

  This wasn’t Apache territory. Before white settlement this had all been Navajo country, but even then Apache renegades had ridden down from their mountain strongholds – rarely to hunt, usually to raid and kill. Many a young Navajo maiden had been snatched from her village by warlike Apache bucks, and Honani’s youngest brother, Moki, out hunting alone a few years ago, had been butchered on the bank of a river by the raiders. There was no love lost between the Navajos and the Apaches.

  ‘Reckon they’ll attack us?’ Luke asked.

  The Navajo switched his eyes from the ridge top to a wisp of dust arising from an arroyo that crossed the valley like a vein. ‘They’ve set an ambush,’ Honani said. As he lifted his Springfield rifle, he uttered a warning. ‘Dust, just ahead past that sagebrush.’

  ‘So they’re on both sides,’ Luke said.

  By now Wallace had seen the Apaches on the ridge. Seated behind the reins on the driver’s seat, he grabbed the rifle his wife had been holding. Elizabeth stifled a gasp of fear. She’d survived a terrifying ordeal at the hands of those outlaws but she felt even more fearful when she saw that line of Apache warriors too. The six-shooters surrendered by Thompson and West lay at her feet so she scooped them up, ready if need be to fight alongside her husband.

  Luke and Honani kept riding together in front of the slowing stagecoach. They were in open country, soon to pass a looming clump of sandstone rocks. In less than a minute they would be between the wooded ridge and an unknown number of Apaches that Honani knew were staked out in the arroyo.

  ‘We’re sitting ducks here,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll run the gauntlet.’

  ‘Dawson!’ Sam West yelled from behind the stagecoach. Both the captured outlaws were now aware of the Apaches on the ridge. He demanded frantically, ‘Cut our ropes! Give us our guns back!’

  ‘We’re white men!’ Abe Thompson hollered desperately. ‘We have the right to defend ourselves!’

  Luke ignored their squealing protests. He was more interested in getting Wallace and his wife to safety. Turning in the saddle, he motioned to the major and the terrified Elizabeth.

  He told them, ‘Keep your heads low, and when I give the signal get those horses moving as fast as they’ll go. I want dust raised, a helluva lot of dust, then some more.’

  ‘Good strategy, Bluecoat,’ the Confederate officer complimented him, declaring loudly, ‘We’re ready.’

  ‘Now!’ Luke ordered.

  One wiry Apache, impatient for a kill, fired his rifle from the ridge top.

  The bullet thudded into the side door of the Wells Fargo stagecoach as Major Timothy Wallace flicked hi
s whip, prodding the four wide-eyed horses into a frenzied lope that threw yellow dust into the rising sun. Apache slugs sprayed from the ridge as Luke, Honani, the Wells Fargo stage and two outlaw prisoners gathered speed and thundered down the trail. Three hostile bullets burned past Honani, two smacked into the swaying stagecoach and one splintered into the driver’s seat, less than an inch from Elizabeth’s hip.

  The stagecoach horses gathered more speed, making thick dust billow into a swirling cloud. Eating dust at the rear, Thompson and West clung to their saddle horns as their horses were forced to gallop harder to keep up with the stage. A stray Apache bullet ripped flesh from Thompson’s left arm, making him yelp like a whipped dog as flecks of blood flew from his torn shirt.

  Riding just ahead of the Navajo, whose Springfield rifle had already downed one ridge ambusher, Luke glimpsed two mounted Apaches emerging from the arroyo. Both had rifles levelled. Luke shot one out of his cloth saddle and he tumbled to the ground, dead as he crashed into the dust.

  The other, naked except for his breechcloth, managed to fire a single bullet that whined harmlessly between Luke and Honani and ricocheted off a bald boulder. He levelled his rifle again as he was joined by another brave who had remained staked out in the arroyo until now. This Indian, plump and scarred from many battles, urged his pony on to the trail. The two of them began pumping lead.

  With his bay horse surging forward, Luke fired twice, winging the scar-faced Apache who turned his pony and fled. Wallace took care of the other one with a single shot from the stage driver’s rifle.

  By now the swaying stagecoach was directly under the ridge. Riding hard alongside Luke, Honani used his Springfield to shoot a bold Apache urging his pinto pony down the ridge slope, leaving four others half-hidden by the cottonwoods on the crest. Their leader, the one dressed in the Mexican tunic, took a long, hard look at the Navajo before pumping lead. Two bullets whistled past Honani, then kicked dust on the far side of the trail. Glancing up, Honani caught a fleeting glimpse of the Apache leader’s dark, angry face, a mask of bitter hatred. Firing swiftly, the Navajo soldier’s bullet smacked into a cottonwood trunk inches from the Apache’s skittish pony that began plunging in terror.

  Then booming dust came between them. The gunfire died as Luke led the bouncing stagecoach further down the trail, out of rifle range. Reaching the mouth of Sidewinder Pass, Luke reined his horse, turned in the saddle and looked back at the ridge.

  They had indeed run the gauntlet: the Apaches had gone. Accordingly, Luke gave the signal to slow down, waiting as Honani joined him. The Wells Fargo stage rolled alongside next, closely followed by the prisoners who were roped behind them. Thompson was bellowing his fury and West choking on dust that he’d swallowed. They were all coated with thick red dust that clung to their skins and clothes.

  Luke knew they were now less than two hours away from Spanish Wells. All they had to do was ride through the pass, cross a bare mesa and then head down a steep slope to town.

  Luke thought wryly that he and Honani had travelled around two thousand miles without hearing a shot fired in anger, yet now, almost home, they’d tangled with outlaws and had a running gunfight with hostile Apaches.

  It wasn’t the kind of homecoming he’d looked forward to. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.

  They headed into Sidewinder Pass.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The town of Spanish Wells sprawled below them as they rode out of the grey shadows of Sidewinder Pass. The settlement had been given its name by half a dozen Spanish Franciscan missionaries who’d travelled east from California several generations ago, trekked through canyon country, dug two wells and built a mission. They’d come to convert the Navajos and the Apaches but with limited success. Now the Spaniards had long gone, the adobe mission had become a Mormon tabernacle but their two deep, stonewalled wells still provided enough water for Main Street’s horse troughs. Mostly, though, the town’s water was now carted from the shallow river that spilled out of the mountains, flowed through Sundown Valley and twisted south into the canyon country.

  Having emerged from the pass, Luke and Honani still rode ahead of the dust-caked Wells Fargo stagecoach as the trail crossed a crumbling mesa and began its slow decent. They headed past Pa Whittaker’s trading post, noting the whiskery old timer was still sitting out front smoking a pipe, just as he had been the day they headed east to join the Union army. Old Mr Whittaker raised the same thin arm he’d farewelled them with, greeting them with a casual wave as if they’d only been away for a day.

  Leaving the trading post, the riders reached the stockyards, six of them stacked with prime beef cattle. A glance at the branded hides told him most if not all these fat beeves had come from Dallas Zimmer’s Triple Z ranch, the big spread that bordered on Sundown Valley. Luke had never taken to the Zimmer crew. He’d heard that Dallas Zimmer, who’d come from Tombstone City where he’d owned a gambling den in partnership with his brother Cain, had bullied the O’Meara family into selling their land to him well below the market value. As for Zimmer’s lazy, obese son, George, Luke had little regard for him either. From what he recalled, George Zimmer almost lived in the Lucky Deuce saloon and wasted most of his time there playing poker with tinhorn gamblers. His father might be a rancher, but folks used to remark that George had never punched a steer in all his twenty-nine years of life.

  The dust-caked cavalcade reached town limits and started down Main Street. It was a quiet Friday afternoon. It must be music lesson time because Luke heard singing from the school and he imagined Sierra Cooper standing out the front of her class. She was an accomplished musician, playing the pedal organ for hymns every Sunday afternoon in the Spanish Wells Gospel Chapel. Luke could hardly wait to see her but he knew she’d be busy at school teaching, then tidying up after the children had left for home. He needed to give her almost an hour at least. He could wait a few extra minutes after four long, lonely years.

  With the Navajo riding alongside him, Luke headed further down Main Street. They passed the town’s general store. According to the faded sign over his open doorway, Quaker Dale Fenwick still owned the business. Scrupulously honest, dour Fenwick and his dainty wife, who always wore a grey bonnet, were both well respected. Fenwick would probably be elected mayor one day. Next door to the general store was a clapboard building. Black curtains hung in the front window, the door was shut and a sign told all and sundry that Mister Uriah Kemp, the town undertaker, was open for business. After securing his horse to a hitching rail, Luke knocked on his door.

  Kemp opened the door wide, recognizing Luke immediately. Hefty and built like a buffalo, Uriah Kemp was a former lumberman from the northern mountains who’d been enticed to become a mortician when the town undertaker, Clement D. McPherson, offered him a deal he couldn’t resist. ‘Go fetch some logs, build me a cabin and my undertaking business is yours.’ The result was that McPherson had retired out of town, taking with him a sprightly but elderly widow whose husband he’d recently buried. Their brand new log cabin was on Wild Wolf Ridge, an hour’s ride from Luke’s horse wrangling spread. Now Kemp was growing a healthy bank balance as the town’s sole undertaker.

  ‘If it ain’t Luke Dawson!’ Kemp bellowed his welcome. ‘Back from that dang crazy war!’

  A lot of folks thought the Civil War had been futile and crazy: Americans killing their fellow Americans. Some men joined the Quakers in refusing to enlist. There were times when Luke had to admit they had a point.

  ‘Howdy, Uriah,’ Luke returned his greeting. ‘It’s good to be home.’

  The mortician glanced up at Major Wallace and his wife huddled together on the driving seat of the stagecoach. He frowned. ‘Where’s Jones? He’s been driving this stage for ten years.’

  ‘Jones is inside the stagecoach, Uriah,’ Luke informed him. ‘There are others in there too. There’s the way station owner. According to his books, his name is Brett Behan. Then we’ve brought in an ornery outlaw skunk who, we believe, used to answer to the name of Clanton.
’

  ‘Three cadavers for you to take care of, Mr Kemp,’ the major said soberly.

  Uriah Kemp stomped to the stagecoach, wrenched open its right-side door and saw three blanket-clad bodies stacked between the seats. Their stench would make most folks recoil but Kemp was used to it.

  ‘We’ll help you carry them inside,’ Luke offered.

  ‘No, it’s my job to look after the deceased until earth covers their pine boxes and headstones are carved and planted,’ Uriah Kemp recited what he’d told countless folk who’d sought his professional services. He bent over and lifted the first body out. It was Jones, the usual stage driver. Shouldering the body, Kemp informed Luke, ‘I know Nat Jones has family. Two brothers, three sisters, and a father who’s still breathing. Live just south of town.’ He announced confidently, ‘They’ll pay me my usual fee.’ He carried the driver inside and returned for the other two. He paused by the parlour’s open door and scrutinised them. ‘As for Behan and Clanton, well, reckon the town committee will fix me up.’

  When Undertaker Kemp had finished carrying the corpses into his funeral parlour, Luke remounted his bay horse.

  ‘I’ll start measuring them for coffins,’ the grim-faced mortician said, rubbing his long hands together.

  ‘We’ll be riding on now,’ Luke told him.

  Uriah Kemp had his front door partly closed as he said, ‘Thanks for bringing them in.’ He added warmly, ‘And like I said, good to see you home.’

  ‘I’ll be really home later in the day,’ Luke said. He added, ‘Probably catch up with our mutual friend, Old Clem McPherson, tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Luke,’ Kemp said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been away at the war, so you wouldn’t have heard about Mr McPherson. Fact is he’s residing in the Spanish Wells cemetery. Third row back from the big pine. Been resting there next to his woman, Mrs Constance McPherson, for two and a half years. Helluva sad day when I buried them both the same hour, side by side. Constance first, then him, both in the best pine boxes I had. It was the least I could do.’ He recalled mournfully, ‘I remember it was teeming with rain too. Everyone got drenched, preacher included.’