Return to Sundown Valley

by Cole Shelton

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not fit and proper,’ she said, a sharp edge to her voice.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  There were tears brimming in her eyes now, tears of regret and sadness but then she pressed her lips firmly together before telling him, ‘Luke Dawson, when I didn’t hear from you, I feared the worst. You can’t blame me for that.’ She sobbed, ‘I knew I had to put you right out of my mind.’

  ‘Say it straight, Sierra,’ he prompted gently.

  ‘I’m about to be married, Luke.’ Sierra’s words hung in the silence between them. She added softly, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  Sierra’s announcement hit him like a bullet. He remembered battlefield campfires where pessimistic soldiers had often lamented the probability that their womenfolk wouldn’t wait for them. At the time, he hadn’t given that possibility any thought. Sierra Cooper had stated she’d be there when he came home and he trusted her.

  He felt an icy lump in his chest. He felt a blast of anger that his letters had not been delivered. In one sense he couldn’t blame her because she’d thought he was dead, but even so, there was a bitter taste in his mouth knowing now she belonged to another man.

  ‘Who is he?’ Luke demanded.

  Sierra hesitated before answering, ‘Mister Zimmer.’

  ‘Zimmer the sheriff!’ he exclaimed incredulously.

  ‘No, not George,’ Sierra said hastily. ‘I’m marrying his father, Mister Dallas Zimmer. I’m to be a rancher’s wife, Luke.’ She hesitated before elaborating, ‘In less than two weeks from now.’ After a long moment, she said, ‘While you were away, Mrs Penelope Zimmer died. It was a hunting accident. Her horse reared suddenly and the rifle she held exploded. Bullet ploughed into her breast. They did what they could for her but she died before they could get her to Doc Worthington’s surgery. That meant Dallas became a widower . . . again.’

  There was silence between them.

  Finally, Sierra continued. ‘After a while, he began calling on me. I didn’t encourage his attentions, Luke, but he was most insistent. At first it was once a week, then almost once a day. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then one evening – exactly a month ago, in fact – he asked me to marry him.’

  ‘He’s about thirty years older than you, Sierra.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ she said sharply, looking down at the floor.

  ‘So you’re getting hitched to Rancher Zimmer in a few days time?’

  ‘Yes, Luke,’ Sierra replied, still averting his eyes.

  Turning, Luke said, ‘I’ll leave you to your preparations.’

  ‘Dallas is a good man, Luke,’ she said defensively as he began walking. ‘I know he’s older than me but as Mrs Zimmer I won’t just be the town school-ma’am scraping a living, but a rich cattle baron’s wife.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  Sierra blurted out, ‘Yes, rich, Luke. I’ll be someone! I’ll live in the finest ranch house in the territory; I’ll wear the best clothes money can buy. If Dallas gives me kids, and I’m sure he will, I’ll be able to bring them up in luxury.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said at the gate.

  ‘Luke . . . wait,’ she pleaded.

  ‘There’s nothing more to say,’ he said, untying his bay gelding.

  Sierra took half a dozen steps into the garden as Luke swung back into his saddle. She said regretfully, ‘I’m sorry I can’t invite you to the wedding. Please understand it just wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ he agreed, nudging his horse away from the fence.

  He rode away in anger, sheer disbelief and disappointment.

  A couple of whiskery old timers he used to know called out to him, welcoming him home, but he didn’t hear them. He just rode straight ahead, putting distance between himself and Sierra’s house. Like most men on the battlefields, he’d seen death and dying. He’d sometimes felt sick in the pit of his stomach at the sight of mutilated bodies being feasted on by vultures. But what he’d just been told had given him the biggest jolt of all.

  He kept riding up the alley to Main Street.

  He couldn’t feel the throb of his heartbeat. His heart was like a stone and he was cold all over.

  Right now he needed a drink.

  Reaching Main Street, he saw Honani waiting in the saddle for him outside Fenwick’s general store. The Indian had rugs slung over his horse and a sack of flour roped to his saddle horn.

  ‘I’m ready to ride,’ the Navajo said.

  Luke needed to confide in his Indian friend but that would come later. Instead, he said, ‘First, we’ll pay a visit to the Lucky Deuce.’

  The Navajo raised his eyebrows. ‘We?’

  Luke declared, ‘We’ve fought together, ridden halfway across America together. Now it’s trail’s end, so if you’re agreeable, we’ll have a drink together.’ He added, ‘I’m paying.’

  Honani smiled. ‘In that case, I’m agreeable.’

  They rode together across the street where they hitched their mounts to the Lucky Deuce’s tie-rail.

  Luke parted the batwing doors first. The saloon hadn’t changed much in four years. Originally a barn, the saloon spanned a whole block between two alleys. A bar counter in need of a paint stretched along the far wall. Two dozen card players and drinkers occupied the tables. Behind the bar was a long mirror and a row of whiskey and brandy bottles on a display shelf. Luke didn’t know the man behind the bar counter. Maybe Crawley had retired. After all, he was over eighty when the war started. This new bartender was burly, bearded, with corn-coloured hair flopping over ears that needed a wash. The sign hanging over the bar said his name was Blundell.

  Alongside the bar counter were two rooms, Blue Room and Red Room. They both had the same sign on their doors: ‘IN USE. DO NOT ENTER.’

  Luke headed directly for the bar, with Honani on his heels. It was a relatively quiet saloon, with no one at the piano right now – just quiet conversations between drinkers. A solitary saloon girl giggled as she wriggled on a cowhand’s lap. Luke and the Navajo made their way through the tables to where Blundell the bearded bartender, who wore a dirty apron over his check shirt and black pants, glanced up from his copy of the Spanish Wells Clarion.

  Eyebrows arching, Blundell looked first at Honani, spat into the sawdust beside his feet behind the counter, then fixed his red eyes on Luke.

  Slowly, like a big, lazy bear, he rose from his stool. He kept his eyes on Luke as he said, ‘Name your poison.’

  ‘We’ll have two beers.’

  The bartender frowned. ‘So you’re going to drink two beers?’

  ‘No,’ Luke replied. ‘One for me, one for my friend.’

  ‘Your friend’s an Injun,’ Blundell pointed out.

  ‘You’re very observant,’ Luke said coldly, fronting the bar.

  ‘Listen, mister, we have a rule in here,’ the barman proclaimed. He recited slowly and loudly, ‘We don’t serve niggers, greasers and Injuns.’

  The saloon sounds faded into silence. The girl stopped giggling, poker players looked up from their cards and two tables full of cowhands stopped drinking and yarning.

  ‘Since when?’ Luke challenged.

  ‘Listen, stranger—’ the bartender said wearily.

  ‘I’m no stranger.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I lived in these parts and drank in this saloon for ten years before I signed on to fight for the Union,’ Luke declared.

  ‘OK, OK, soldier-boy, so you’re a hero! Keep your shirt on.’

  ‘I’ll ask you again and you’ll give me a straight answer,’ Luke warned. Right now he was in no mood to be trifled with. His tone hardened even more as he repeated, ‘Since when?’

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed. ‘Since Mr Dallas Zimmer bought this Lucky Deuce saloon.’

  After what Sierra had told him, the very mention of Zimmer made Luke bristle. ‘I don’t usually ask twice but I’ll make an exception in your case,’ Luke said, his t
one loaded with angry menace. He lifted his six-shooter from its leather and placed the gun on the bar counter. Then he repeated, ‘Two beers, bartender. One for me. One for my friend. Pronto!’

  The whole saloon froze.

  ‘Listen, mister, even if Mr Zimmer hadn’t given his order, I still wouldn’t serve a goddamn Injun,’ Blundell announced belligerently, his nostrils flaring. ‘My family was murdered in their beds by skulking Apaches.’

  ‘Lance Corporal Honani is a Navajo.’

  The barman sneered, ‘I don’t give a damn – he’s a filthy, stinking Injun.’

  ‘Luke,’ Honani counselled quietly beside him, ‘forget about the drink. It’s not important.’

  ‘I say it is,’ Luke disagreed. He spoke loudly now, so the whole saloon could hear. ‘This man fought for the Union. He was awarded the Medal of Honour. He deserves a drink and he’s going to get one.’

  The mirror behind the bar betrayed Blundell’s slow, furtive reach for a rifle concealed under the counter. Luke saw Blundell’s fat fingers find the metal barrel of the gun neatly concealed between a spare apron and half a dozen glasses. Those fingers crept to the stock and closed around it.

  ‘Go to hell, both of you,’ the barman said, lifting the rifle.

  Luke Dawson had never contemplated being a professional gunfighter but he could easily have been one because he was no slouch. His right hand swooped like greased lightning to grab the gun he’d laid on the counter.

  Even as the bartender’s finger found his rifle trigger, Luke aimed and fired. The bullet bored into the bartender’s upper left arm, shattering a bone. Howling like a whipped wolf, Blundell dropped his rifle and crashed back against the mirror with blood spilling from his wound. There he stood, fighting the waves of pain swamping his senses.

  ‘Our beers, Blundell,’ Luke reminded him quietly.

  Swearing, whining, the bartender complied, pulling the drinks and placing them on the bar counter. Then he slumped back on his stool and clamped his right hand over the wound to stem the flow of blood.

  Luke placed his money on the bar. ‘Next time, don’t argue.’

  They drank together as the saloon slowly returned to normal.

  Finally, they strode back outside. Someone had summoned the town medico, and Doc Worthington and his black medical bag came bustling into the saloon to tend the wounded Blundell.

  The sun was low in the fading sky and the shadows were lengthening as Luke and Honani rode past Sienna’s home, an old dilapidated barn that hadn’t been used for years, then Wallace’s place where the Confederate flag had just been hoisted on a tall pole and fluttered in the evening breeze.

  They reached town limits and took the western trail out of Spanish Wells.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Once out of town, Luke and Honani headed between the crumbling granite walls of Sagebrush Pass and then took a wide, wheel-rutted trail that followed the Triple Z fence line. Dallas Zimmer’s vast empire of rolling grass slewed away from the fence and then rose slowly again to a long, timbered, windswept ridge that presided over his spread like a regal balcony. Built right under this ridge was a large, imposing stone ranch house that dwarfed a pine-log bunkhouse, three barns and a line of cabins in which the domestic servants slept. Smoke curled languidly from the ranch house’s two chimneys into the fading sky.

  This was where Sierra would be living soon.

  She would be queen of the biggest ranch in Utah, Mr Dallas Zimmer’s wife, supervising the cooks and cleaning staff, in charge of entertaining his well-heeled friends – and sleeping in his bed. Her body would be his. But as Zimmer’s wife she would be set up for life. Who would blame Sierra for agreeing to marry the rich cattle baron?

  Once again Luke felt disappointment mingled with hot anger return to churn him up. The fury would pass in time but right now he was in no mood to be trifled with, as that bartender back in the Lucky Deuce saloon had found out.

  Riding together, they saw half a dozen riders drifting amongst hundreds of prime beeves grazing on the lush grass. Every shorthorn was branded Triple Z. They were all in prime condition, some even fat, at least half of them ready to be rounded up for market. Further away from the fence were stockyards full of calves and one corral was packed with spare horses. Seeing this corral reminded Luke again he was riding home to his own Bar LD horse ranch, where wild horses were broken in to be sold in the Spanish Wells stockyards.

  He was looking forward to seeing Caleb, his brother, and Caleb’s wife Susan. When he’d left them in charge, he promised that on his return the ranch would become a joint venture and they could build their own cabin and live on his land into the future. He’d received no letter from Caleb, but he hadn’t expected any. Caleb was no letter writer, and when Luke had left for the war, Susan was hoping for a baby. If kids were tugging at her apron strings, Susan would have had no time to write.

  The riders came to a fork in the road.

  One trail led north, skirting Zimmer’s ranch, leading into mountain country. The other trail twisted around an ancient butte and dropped west towards the big basin the early settlers had named Sundown Valley. It had earned this name when those first pioneers in covered wagons beheld the awesome spectacle of sunset over the valley, when western rims were painted deep crimson and mysterious, darkening shadows crept like giant fingers over the trees and grass. Those early emigrants and their wagons had moved on westwards, leaving the Navajo tribe to live in peace in the valley they’d claimed hundreds of years ago.

  Knowing he was close to home, there was jubilation written over Honani’s bronze face. He was aching for the first glimpse of his valley. Tonight he would be reunited with his family and sit by the village fire. He would eat and drink with his friends. Out of respect, he would talk long into the night with the tribal elders. He would see the young maidens he’d left behind. He remembered White Lily and the headstrong Runs-Like-Deer.

  Then there was Nizhoni, the name meaning ‘Beautiful’ in the Navajo tongue. Hopefully she would still be available, but maybe, like Luke’s woman, she would be taken by now. He would soon find out.

  The main thing was that tonight he would sleep in a Navajo lodge. Honani would offer hospitality to Luke, of course, and invite him to stay the night, but he knew what his white friend’s answer would be. Like him, after four long years, Luke wanted to get to his log home, which he had raised himself on the tree-clad Old Wolf Ridge that overlooked the valley.

  Unable to hold back, Honani urged his shaggy pony past Luke.

  The white man was content to keep riding at the same pace and let his Indian friend surge ahead of him. Luke watched the Indian’s pony break into an easy lope. He just kept riding, thinking of his brother and his wife, of home cooking and a warm, comfortable bed.

  Five minutes later, the Navajo halted his mount on the next crest.

  Luke expected to hear a loud whoop of jubilation from his soldier friend, but instead, Honani remained strangely silent. Maybe he was meditating, resting his pony before riding down-slope into the valley of his forefathers.

  It was close to sundown and the Navajo rider made a stark, lean silhouette against the blood-red western skies. He was motionless, just sitting saddle, staring down over the valley.

  Luke reined his horse alongside his friend and saw why he was frozen to his saddle.

  Sundown Valley was in deep shadow but even from this lofty crest, the two riders could make out not just hundreds but thousands of steers below them. They roamed the valley, masses of them, munching on its grass. Their sounds of mooing and bawling drifted up to the crest. In fact, the slight westerly wind even carried their cattle smell to Luke and Honani.

  The Navajo raised his eyes to the deep shadows masking the far end of the valley. This was where his village was, although he couldn’t see any lodges from this distance. His heart felt like ice. Had some cattleman taken over this valley and left his Navajo people to squeeze into a mere corner?

  The herd and the gathering darkness obscured his v
ision.

  All the two riders could see were steers and shadows.

  ‘What has happened to the land of the Navajo?’ Honani asked, his tone loaded with trembling anguish and rising trepidation.

  ‘This valley was always open range, regarded for years by all as Navajo country,’ Luke said, shaking his head in disbelief at what he was seeing. He frowned as he suggested, without any conviction, ‘Maybe your people made a deal with some ranchers?’

  Honani replied harshly, ‘No! That would not happen! We have remained friends with your people but we would never, never trade our land.’ His fury was rising now like a dark tide. ‘I will ride down to my village and talk to my people!’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘It is not necessary,’ the Navajo said.

  ‘We’ve been together through hell,’ Luke reminded him. ‘I’m not going to ride out on you now.’

  Honani digested Luke’s reply for a long moment.

  ‘We ride together,’ the Indian conceded gratefully.

  They headed down from the crest as the last vivid red glow of sunset showed in the west and the chilly whispering wind rose to meet them. Luke strained his eyes to try and catch a glimpse of the Navajo village, even just a cooking fire, but he saw only darkness. They reached the valley floor and pushed their way between the milling steers. The only brand Luke saw was Triple Z. They pushed further into the herd. Luke looked for other brands but by the time they reached the river that flowed right through the valley, this was the only one he could make out. So far, the cattle baron Dallas Zimmer owned them all.

  The riders forded the shallow river, horses’ hoofs churning the cold water into white foam, then slashed through tall reeds to mount the far bank.

  Again, they were confronted by vast herds of Triple Z cattle.

  They kept riding, headed towards the small triangle of land bordered by a winding creek that fed the main river.

  It was here, many, many years ago, that the Navajo village had been planted. Yet all Luke and his Indian companion could see was ominous darkness, not even the faintest glimmer of a cooking fire.