Shane and Jonah 4 Read online

  “Tell me something, Shane,” Jonah said at length. “Have you ever thought of quitting?”

  At first, the lean gunfighter said nothing. Then:

  “Any time you want to ride on out, that’s okay with me,” Shane shrugged.

  “I mean,” Jonah ventured, watching the tall man drag deeply on his cigarette, “we’ve often been offered reg’lar jobs where we could settle down and make ourselves steady paydirt.”

  Shane’s eyes turned his way, and Jonah saw the fire that smoldered in them.

  “Like I said, ride on out any time you want, Jonah,” Shane told him softly. “But you know damn well why I have to keep on riding.”

  Jonah Jones swallowed.

  “Maybe,” the oldster whispered, “you’ll never find Scarface. It’s on the cards, Shane.”

  “I’ll find him, Jonah.” There was coldness in Shane Preston’s voice. “And after I’ve killed him, then I’ll be ready to quit.”

  Right then, Shane’s hand dropped to the notched gun in his holster. The gunslinger’s left hand flicked his cigarette into the flames, and his soft-toned comment made Jonah squat lower on his haunches.

  “Rider.” Shane’s voice was low. “Coming up-trail.”

  Jonah sat like a stone image.

  Shane drew his six-gun and raised it slowly. His searching eyes stayed on the gap in the pines below the crest of the ridge. It was through this narrow opening they’d come to make camp. Now, Jonah could hear the approaching horse, and his right hand groped for his holster and the gun which nestled there. The rider might just be a passing traveler, but the gunfighters had learned from experience that it paid to exercise caution out in the wilderness.

  Night was drawing in, but even in the gloom, Shane’s sharp eyes made out the lone rider headed through the gap. The horseman made straight for the campfire.

  “He’s not exactly sneaking up on us,” Jonah Jones observed. “He’s plumb in the center of the trail and coming our way.”

  “Could be just some saddle bum,” Shane conceded. “But we won’t take chances.”

  He placed his six-shooter close beside his saddle and stood up, a towering silhouette against the firelight. Gaunt, leathery, square-jawed, his face betrayed not a flicker of emotion as he waited for the rider to approach. On the other side of the fire, Jonah sat on his saddle blanket, his fingers hovering over his drawn gun.

  Gradually, the faceless shape resolved itself into a youngish man astride a sorrel, and as Shane watched, the rider kept on coming, right to the edge of the fire glow before reining in.

  “I’m looking for two men,” the stranger said. “And I reckon by all the descriptions I’ve had, you’ll be them. I’m looking for Shane Preston and Jonah Jones.”

  Shane scrutinized the stranger’s youthful features, taking in the freckles and the red hair which sprouted under his Stetson. The rider wouldn’t yet be out of his teens, Shane judged, but given a couple of years, this youth would be a tough customer.

  “That’s us,” Shane said finally. “Now who the hell are you, son?”

  “Praise be I found you!” The young rider swung lithely out of his saddle, his face glowing with elation. “They were right about you, down in Tangle Creek—they said you were up on the ridge!”

  “Tangle Creek?” Shane asked. “How in hell did the town know we was here?”

  “It ain’t so easy for two hombres carrying your reputations to hide,” the kid complimented them. “Couple prospectors saw you out hunting and the news got around to Tangle Creek. Hell, am I glad! Came all the way from Lodge City to find you.”

  “All the way from Lodge City!” Jonah echoed. He’d taken his hand from his gun now. “Son—you must have one helluva good reason!”

  “I have,” the kid said. The fire-shadows flickered over his freckled face. “I’ve been sent by my pa to ask you to help him—for a fee!”

  Shane and Jonah exchanged glances.

  “Just who are you, son?” Shane repeated in a milder tone.

  The young man moved away from his sorrel, right into the firelit circle. Beyond him, the dusk crowded in and the wind started to moan in the pines.

  “The name’s Cleve Eckert,” the kid told them.

  Shane crouched down and flipped the trout over again in the pan. It sizzled furiously.

  “Pa made enquiries about you, Mr. Preston.” The youth addressed the tall gunfighter. “Heard you were last at Lodge City. I rode over there, and the lady who owned the rooming house you stayed at said you’d gone to the high country. Rode through two towns before the folks in Tangle Creek told me you were on the ridge—”

  “Cleve,” Shane broke in, standing up, “are you Dan Eckert’s boy?”

  Cleve swallowed. “How—how did you guess?”

  “You look like your old man, Cleve.” Shane turned to Jonah. “Well, don’t just sit there. We’re hungry. Get a knife and cut that trout into three pieces.”

  Jonah needed no second prompting. Beside the pan, the coffee pot was bubbling quietly.

  “You know my pa?” Cleve Eckert asked incredulously.

  “Well,” Shane drawled, a broad grin forming on his face. “I know him as well as I know any sheriff. Let’s say, I once saw him and your ma at a distance when we passed through Sweetwater. Your pa is lawman of Sweetwater, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Mr. Preston,” Cleve gulped.

  “You see, son,” Shane shrugged, “Jonah and me don’t exactly always work within the law, so you could say not many badge-toters are our friends. But we make it our business to know just who wears the tin star in any particular town.”

  “You know anything about my pa?” Cleve Eckert asked, nervously.

  “They used to call Dan Eckert the ‘outlaw sheriff’,” Shane Preston recalled.

  “Wasn’t he the galoot who used to ride with McCabe?” Jonah scratched his white hair.

  “That was twenty years ago,” Shane Preston told his older pard. “He decided to go straight and turn State’s evidence. In exchange for a pardon, he betrayed the McCabe bunch. Later, Dan Eckert was made sheriff of Sweetwater. Folks knew about his past, but they figured he was reformed.”

  “And the gang—they were hanged?” Jonah wanted to know.

  “Hell, Jonah!” Shane chided him good-naturedly. “You sure ought to remember, at your age! Me, I was just coming into my teens when it happened.”

  “Well, what happened?” the oldster demanded.

  “It was in the papers at the time,” Shane Preston said. “McCabe’s bunch came to trial, indicted for murder, robbery and rape—just about everything in the book. In fact, the law had even picked the hangman for the execution. But the County Judge took ill and they had to bring in Judge Sayers.”

  “So?” Jonah still looked blank.

  “Judge Sayers didn’t believe in hanging,” Shane said. “The jury pronounced them guilty on all counts, but Sayers wouldn’t pass the death sentence.”

  “Huh?” Jonah Jones gulped, slicing the fish on a tin plate.

  “He was a Quaker,” Shane explained. “He sentenced the entire gang to life imprisonment in the State Penitentiary. There was one helluva outcry at the time, but the sentence stood. Life imprisonment—they were to rot in jail.”

  “That was the sentence, sure enough,” Cleve Eckert agreed. “And until a week ago, McCabe and his crew were in the penitentiary.”

  “What do you mean—till a week ago?” Shane Preston frowned.

  “They busted out,” Cleve Eckert murmured. “All three of ’em climbed the walls and jumped down after killing a guard, and they escaped with another prisoner.”

  “So why are you here?” Jonah asked.

  “My pa needs help!” Cleve Eckert’s tone was one of desperation. He might be doing a man’s job riding all that way, but right now his eyes were the pleading eyes of a kid. “Mr. Preston, McCabe swore he’d get pa, swore he’d kill him for betraying the gang to the law! And just because pa’s a badge-toter won’t stop him! Know what’s happened
already, Mr. Preston? Three posses have combed the country around the penitentiary, and they haven’t been able to track them down. But one thing’s for sure. Their trail led south—right in the direction of Sweetwater. They’re coming to kill my pa! They’re coming for revenge!”

  “Just calm down, son,” Shane Preston said gently. Cleve was red-faced, trembling. “From what I recall, Sweetwater’s a reasonable-sized town. Surely your pa can get together some deputies to guard him?”

  Cleve shook his head. “He’s tried, Mr. Preston. God knows, he’s tried. But Sweetwater’s like most other towns when it comes to real trouble. It’s the badge man’s problem, and even more so in this case. Pa betrayed the gang for his pardon—and the town figures he ought to face the outfit. Hell, Mr. Preston, pa’s served Sweetwater for nearly seven years, been a damn good sheriff! Now the towners are turning their backs on him because he’s in trouble. And he’s gonna be in big trouble, believe me, when McCabe finds him.”

  Shane sniffed the aroma of freshly-fried trout. “Join us for supper, Cleve.”

  Eckert hunkered down beside Shane. He drew a large envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “Open it, Mr. Preston—please.”

  The gunfighter tore open the envelope and felt inside. His fingers found a wad of paper money.

  “Five hundred dollars, Mr. Preston,” said Cleve. “Pa’s life savings. He’s offering you all that to come to Sweetwater and protect him!”

  Shane played with the envelope in his fingers. He said, “Jonah—pour the coffee. Looks like we start travellin’ again, right soon.”

  Shane Preston reined in Snowfire and surveyed the vast basin that stretched below them in the heat-haze. It was a lonely, desolate terrain, a sprawl of jumbled rocks and dry washes where once water had carved its way into lakes which now had become salt flats. Here, hardly any vegetation grew, and from his ledge of rock, Shane could make out only the occasional stunted tree and patches of flowering sage. And yet, somewhere beyond the desert-rim was a town, a community built around a well sunk decades ago by Spanish missionaries—the town of Sweetwater.

  Cleve Eckert drew alongside him.

  “By sundown, we’ll be there,” the boy informed him.

  Shane drew on his cigarette, waiting while Jonah lashed and goaded old Tessie to the rim. He’d given up trying to make the oldster trade the mare for another horse, and now all he did was simply place his hands on his hips and grin at the struggling Jonah.

  “All right!” challenged Jonah Jones. “Say it!”

  Shane nodded at Tessie. “Been saying it for some time.”

  “I hope we’re in time,” Cleve said.

  “The penitentiary’s ten days’ hard ride from Sweetwater,” Shane calculated. “Even if those outlaws ride directly south—which I doubt because they’ll not be using known trails. They’re on the dodge. We’re not. And that gives us the edge.”

  “Mr. Preston,” Cleve Eckert said fervently. “I want to thank you for takin’ on this assignment.”

  Shane patted the bulge in his hip pocket. He could feel the five hundred dollars against his skin.

  “Well, I can’t exactly say this is a normal chore for Jonah and me. First time we’ve ever been paid to look after a lawman!”

  “But we could earn ourselves more,” Jonah pointed out. “There’ll be a reward out on those escapees.”

  Shane flicked the ash from his cigarette. He jogged Snowfire off the rim, heading down into the crucible of dust and heat. The others followed, and the shadows began to lengthen as they cut southwest across the barren wilderness. The wind dropped and an uncanny stillness lay over the dead canyon. About mid-afternoon, they glimpsed the rutted ribbon that wound like a snake around buttes and ridges, and reaching the stage-trail, they rested their horses.

  Soon they were heading along the trail, and as the sun slowly dipped, a cool breeze from the north stirred the sagebrush. The trail climbed upwards, squeezed between two solitary peaks and leveled out on a wide mesa. Right ahead of them, the wooden walls of a way-station cast a long shadow over sand and pumice. The riders urged their horses on, and as the sound of their hooves echoed around the way-station, a rifle-barrel scraped over the front window-sill.

  Shane reined in sharply as the dying sun glinted on the cold steel. The others pulled their horses to a halt and it was Cleve Eckert who leaned forward in the saddle and raised his right hand.

  “Mr. Quinn!” the kid yelled. “You can put that gun away—it’s me, Cleve!”

  A bald head showed behind the rifle. Two wide eyes surveyed the group and Shane heard their owner grunt a command to someone behind. The rifle slid out of sight, the door creaked open, and Lacey Quinn’s wife stood on the porch. Shane murmured to Snowfire and the palomino surged forward along the trail. Mrs. Quinn shielded her eyes from the westering sun as they approached, and Cleve spurred his mount ahead of the others.

  “Sorry about the rifle, Cleve,” Lacey Quinn said as he walked out to join his wife. “But when I heard riders, I just naturally reached for my gun. You see, most everyone’s mighty jumpy in these parts, with that bunch of coyotes still on the loose.”

  “Any news of McCabe?” Shane asked him.

  Quinn glanced up at the tall gunslinger. Cleve Eckert said quickly, “Mr. Quinn—this is Shane Preston, and his pard’s Jonah Jones. They’re riding in to help pa.” Cleve Eckert wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You might have heard of them.”

  Quinn surveyed the two gunfighters with a blank stare, neither welcoming nor exactly hostile.

  “McCabe?” Shane prompted him.

  “Word came that the gang was seen at Apache Wells,” the way-station owner said. “That was two days ago. The stage stopped here and the passengers were full of stories. Seems McCabe killed a rancher out of Apache Wells when he caught them taking food. The outlaws are on their way south, Preston.”

  Shane said, “What’s happening in town? Sweetwater’s not over-far from here, is it?”

  “Sweetwater’s spooked,” Mrs. Quinn told them. “Like a fort expecting an Indian attack.”

  Right at that moment there was a rustle of skirts, and when he saw the girl gliding out, Cleve Eckert slid from his saddle.

  “My daughter, April,” Lacey Quinn informed the gunfighters.

  Shane glanced down at the slightly-built girl who had run to meet young Cleve. She had long ringlets tumbling in a blonde cascade over her slim shoulders. Petite and slender, April Quinn had small firm breasts that pushed hard against the thin blue fabric of her shirt, and shapely legs that the Levis could not conceal. Cleve wrapped his right arm around her waist, and looking shyly up at her parents, April guided him inside. There was a twinkle in the portly Mrs. Quinn’s eyes.

  “Cleve’s been April’s beau for some time now,” she said proudly. “It’ll be nice to have our daughter married to the sheriff’s son.”

  Shane grinned. The kid had briefly mentioned his girlfriend while they were on the trail, and Shane realized now that Cleve Eckert had nurtured more than one motive for calling at the way-station prior to striking out on the last stretch to Sweetwater.

  “If McCabe was at Apache Wells two days ago, he could get to Sweetwater in another day if he rides hard,” Shane Preston mused.

  “Reckon we oughta be heading in now,” Jonah advised. “Or mebbe we’ve time for a whisky?”

  Shane turned to Quinn. “Better keep that rifle handy—just in case.”

  Cleve appeared in the doorway. April stood alongside him, her blonde head only coming as high as his shoulders.

  “So long, April,” the kid murmured. “Shane wants to ride.”

  “You’ll be staying here, son,” Shane Preston said.

  “Huh?” Cleve Eckert was bewildered but pleasantly surprised.

  “From what Quinn’s just told us, this way-station gets to hear news fast. Quinn probably knew about the Apache Wells incident long before the folks at Sweetwater because the southbound stage stopped here on the way through.
I want you to hang around here, and if there’s any more news of McCabe, ride like hell to town.”

  “Sure. But how about—”

  “Don’t argue, son,” Shane grinned, as April nestled up to the kid.

  “Preston.” It was old man Quinn.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve heard of you, Preston. In fact, I’ve heard a damn lot. You’re gunfighters, aren’t you? Hired guns! Well, I’ll say this here and now. I’ve never exactly agreed with the way your kind operates, but—”

  “But what?” Jonah Jones wheezed.

  “I sure hope you can help Dan Eckert. He’s a good man, Preston, a decent man. I know all about him, of course. Who doesn’t around here? Once he was one of McCabe’s breed, an owlhoot. But he changed, Preston, and he’s made Sweetwater a respectable town, cleaned it up and got rid of all the hard cases. He deserves help!”

  “We’ll do what we can, Quinn,” Shane said, impressed by the way-station man’s obvious sincerity. But he couldn’t help adding, “Like you said, we’re hired guns. We do what we have to—for cash!”

  The tall gunfighter urged his stallion away from the porch, and Jonah joined him on the trail. Shane didn’t look back at the little group out front of the way-station. He merely set his face south for Sweetwater, knowing full well that somewhere out there another four riders were closing in relentlessly on the desert town, men with a mission to kill.

  Three – A Sour Note in Sweetwater

  They rode in off the salt flats and headed up the long, wide main street which sliced Sweetwater into two parts. The town was quiet in the dusk, and already a few lamps were burning. The riders rode past the business section of Sweetwater. There was a one-storey bank clothed in darkness, a huge, untidy sprawl of a saloon which spanned half the block. Farther along, just past the line of small stores, stood the flour-mill and a printing business with CLOSED on the door. At the far end of the street, two churches stood side by side, proclaiming rival gospels on their signboards. There were quite a few people who saw the arrival of the gunslingers, and those towners gathered in groups to discuss the tall, black-garbed rider on the palomino with his older, bearded sidekick. Shane and Jonah were surveyed uneasily in the gathering gloom. Right now, Sweetwater was edgy, and any strangers could expect a cool reception. Shane headed past the saloon and nodded towards the law office which stood opposite the newly-painted schoolhouse.