The Loner 21, page 1
part #22 of The Loner Series
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When Blake Durant rode into town that day, two men had already been shot dead. Within a matter of hours, a bunch of back-shooters tried to turn Durant into victim number three. They wrongly assumed he was in cahoots with a man called Moriarty, who planned to bring sheep into what had always been cattle country. But there was more to the town’s trouble than a building range war.
The Farrar clan, old Carver and his worthless sons Chris and Lom, planned to claim the territory for themselves, and they’d started with the cold-blooded murder of their neighbors, Ord Mann and his son Lee.
That left Ord’s daughter, Sally, all by herself … and both Carver and Chris had plans for that pretty little filly.
But something about Sally reminded Durant of the woman he’d loved and lost, and that made him want to protect her at any cost. Though he stood accused of murder himself, he decided to stick around until every last threat was neutralized.
THE LONER 21: THE VENGEANCE MAN
By Sheldon B. Cole
First published by Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia
© 2019 by Piccadilly Publishing
First Electronic Edition: February 2023
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
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Father and Son
Chapter Two – “Keep Out of it, Drifter”
Chapter Three – No Deal
Chapter Four – How Many Will Die?
Chapter Five –Land for the Taking
Chapter Six – Count the Dead
Chapter Seven – Kill Fever
Chapter Eight – Blood Trail
About the Author
Chapter One – Father and Son
ALL THE ANGER that a nineteen year old boy-man could muster stabbed at Lee Mann’s innards as he took the rig from the old trunk. The words of his father seemed to rise from the case with the gun and gunbelt.
‘Wear a gun, boy, and you got to someday kill. We don’t want no killers in this family.’
Lee Mann held the gunbelt across his hands and stared at it. Tears came to his slate-gray eyes. A nerve in his temple jumped. His jowls were locked against the rise of the pent-up rage.
“Lee! Lee, where are you?”
Lee Mann strapped the belt around his slim waist and drew in a deep breath. That was his sister, Sally, calling. Five minutes ago, she had lain unconscious on the floor. Blod Lukas had paid them a visit, bringing the tragic news from town.
‘Your pa’s dead, Miss Sally. Carver Farrar shot him.’
Lucas’ words hammered at Lee’s brain.
‘Your pa’s dead.’
And then Blod Lukas had ridden off. He had a family, he’d said, a good wife, a boy, two girls. Both Lee and Sally knew that. Blod Lukas, like most of the settlers in the valley, was no fighter. He farmed land, he eked out a living. And he let the Farrar crowd ride roughshod over him.
Lee weighed the heavy gun in his hand and his lips tightened. He fought back the tears. Then he drove the gun into the holster and, squaring his shoulders, walked across the room. Sally would try to stop him. But he wouldn’t be dissuaded.
In the other room, which served as kitchen, living room, and his own sleeping quarters, Lee studied his sister solemnly. Sally had been his father’s pride and joy. She was what made living on this mean property at least bearable. She encouraged, she laughed, she bolstered their spirits when things went wrong ... which was most of the time.
“What ... what do you think you’re doing, Lee?” she asked, her soft hair swept back to catch the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the open doorway, and highlighting the misery in her pale blue eyes.
“I’m goin’ to town. What else?”
Sally pointed at the gunbelt. “With that?” she asked, her face pinched and drawn.
“Don’t aim to do any killin’ with my bare hands, Sal. And no arguments, eh? Got to be done.”
Sally hurried to him and held his strong arms at his sides. She stared distraughtly into his young, unlined face.
“No, Lee,” she begged him. “I won’t let you.”
Lee stood staring over her head at the blank wall. “Got to be,” he repeated. “No other way. Them scum killed pa. I can’t go on livin’ knowin’ that and doin’ nothin’ about it.”
“And get yourself killed?” Sally asked.
Lee shook his head. “That ain’t the way I planned it. Mr. Lukas said the bunch of them was in the saloon, so they ain’t likely to light out before sundown.”
Sally Mann withdrew her hands and took a step back from her young brother. A deep sadness filled her eyes. At twenty-five years of age she had seen more than her share of hardships and disappointments. She had inherited a pioneer spirit from her father, and a stubbornness from her mother. Her good looks had come from another source which neither father nor mother, both plain, shy people, could understand. It had been hinted that her grandfather, on her mother’s side, had been dashing and adventurous. Sally hardly cared although she had a natural gratitude that she was pleasing to the eye. Of her two brothers, Lee was the better looking. Jedro, who had left many years ago, had been moody, hard to understand and unapproachable. Sally wished Jedro was home now. He was, despite everything else, the kind who would know what best to do at this time.
Lee moved her aside, left the house and headed for the barn. Sally stood and looked around the room, feeling a deep loneliness. Without her father, what was left? Even with him there had been little else but hard work, the parched land, pressure from the bank, and a miserable herd growing more miserable each year. The land wasn’t good for plowing, scarcely good enough for grazing. Yet it was home, where they had come with such high hopes. Her mother had died here and Jedro had ridden off from here. Now Ord Mann, a frontier man to the teeth, had been killed.
There was just herself and Lee. And Lee was going off to confront the indestructible Farrar outfit; the power-hungry Carver Farrar; the despicable, arrogant, conceited Chris; and the sullen, contemptible Lom.
Sally felt a chill run through her. Suddenly she could bear the place no longer. Hurrying into the room where the old trunk still stood opened, she snatched a shawl from the closet and ran from the room. There was no time to change into black clothes in respect for her father’s death. Even if there had been, Sally wouldn’t have bothered. She had a feeling that there’d be a lot more mourning for her to do later.
Reaching the porch, she found her brother already riding from the barn. One look at his face and Sally knew there was nothing she could say to change his mind.
She called out, “Wait for me, Lee. Don’t go in without me.” Lee reined in, staring moodily along the ribbon of trail leading to town. Somehow he wanted Sally along, not that she would be any help in the fight ahead, but she might be the push he needed to swing the pendulum away from his gnawing fear and keep his desire for revenge at full heat.
A few minutes later Sally came out of the barn and rode to his side. For a long time she looked at him, then said, “I want you to remember that without you, Lee, I will be absolutely alone.”
“I’ve thought about that, Sal,” he said.
“And it doesn’t matter to you?”
“It matters. But I can’t do anything about it.”
“They’ll kill you, Lee,” Sally argued. “If they killed once, why won’t they kill again?”
“Time they was stopped,” was Lee’s final answer. Sally drew the reins through her fingers and looked along the town trail. Then she said,
“Well, so be it.”
And with that, brother and sister headed for Carne’s Crossing.
The dry wind came hot off the barren country. Blake Durant turned his black stallion, Sundown, off the trail-rutted ground and sought refuge from the heat in a dry creek bed. He studied the pebbled ground with disinterest. It had been a long time since water had flowed here. That fact didn’t disturb him, because this was not his territory. He still had water in his canteen and jerky, biscuits and beans in his saddlebag. The trail he was on would lead to somewhere, to another town that wouldn’t matter to him, that would hold nothing for him.
He lifted heat-rawed eyes and looked down at the desolation of the creek bed. The trees around him were stark reminders of this territory’s hard seasons. But though they were solid enough shapes they were but vague and indistinct outlines to Durant. His mind’s eye, as always, was fixed on something else, something with form and color, depth and meaning, something which lived on in his memory alone. Louise Yerby was gone. She was not in this heat-baked territory. She was not in any territory. Time had stopped for her. Eternity had claimed her.
Sundown shifted impatiently under Durant, but the big man paid the horse no heed. The memories thrashed about in his head, bringing back the pain, reminding him that there was no future, no happiness, nothing but the loneliness and the trails reaching ever forward to nowhere.
“You down there! What you lookin’ for?”
Blake Durant lifted his head. As the powerful black stallion moved under him, he leaned forward and stroked its sweat-slicked shoulder. The horse became quiet again, reassured by the man’s gentle touch.
Durant looked into the lined, over-weathered face of a man of middle age. Gray hair grew in unruly thickness from under the brim of a battered range hat. His mouth was tight.
“Water mainly,” Durant told him.
“None in these parts. Not on this section anyway.”
“It’s your section?”
The man made no comment. Durant turned Sundown out of the creek bed and retraced his steps onto the high bank. The newcomer backed his horse a little to give him room. At closer range he didn’t look so old, but the weathering was more pronounced. Also he looked terribly tired.
“What else besides water?” he asked gruffly.
“A town.”
“Carne’s Crossing?”
“If it’s the closest.”
Durant sat easily in the saddle while the other man looked him over. The hand that had so far been held within reach of a side-gun, moved to the saddle horn. Some tension left the tired old eyes and the rutted lips relaxed.
“Driftin’, eh?” he asked.
Durant nodded. “Been doing it for some time. North of here the country is just as bad as this. You people have sure run into hard times.”
“We have at that. Little left. But what is, we mean to hold.”
Durant smiled easily at him. “Back home we have the same feeling for the land. Every clod is worth fighting for. Every tomorrow could be better than today.”
The big man screwed up his mouth. “You don’t talk like no ordinary drifter, mister.”
“Nevertheless that’s what I am,” Durant said dully. “I lost ...” His voice trailed off and he looked into the distance. “I lost everything,” he went on. “Up ahead there might be a new start.”
The big man nodded grimly, fully understanding. Then he pointed to the country ahead. “Quickest way to Carne’s Crossing is westward. Keep to the low country. I hope you find what you’re looking for, stranger.”
“Blake Durant,” Durant told him.
“Blod Lukas,” the other said. “Keep to yourself too. There’s some in these parts ain’t worth the knowing.”
Durant studied him curiously, but Blod Lukas had said his fill. He turned his horse and went on his way. Durant patted Sundown again and then kneed him into a walk. The heat washed over them again, drying the sweat on their skins. For another ten miles man and horse went on, insignificant figures in the harsh desolation of wide country guarded by towering black-rocked hills.
Then suddenly, topping a rise, Blake Durant found a shack and barn before him, a narrow, wind-swept clearing, and a run of horse yards. He held Sundown under tight rein, not wanting to trespass again that day and be made to answer for it. Still, Sundown was thirsty and had come a long way. A rest, some hay, water and then they could continue. It was little enough to ask.
He made up his mind and let the horse pick its way down the rocky slope. The dry wind slapped at them, inhospitable, as was the silence here. Durant carefully let his eyes sweep the ranch. But there was no sound, no movement.
He called out and there was no answer. Hitching at the rail in front of the shack, he walked to the door. His rap on the wood brought no response. Taking off his yellow bandanna, he mopped his brow and scrubbed his neck clean. Then he led Sundown to a trough at the shack’s side and let it water. Meantime, Durant checked around more thoroughly. There was plenty of evidence that the place was being worked and was owned. There was also plenty of evidence that the labor put into it was far from rewarding. He had seen many such places which good people stuck to, because there was nowhere else to go.
When Sundown was finished drinking, Durant swung up. He didn’t want to impose further, even to take water himself. He drank from his canteen as he rode on.
The afternoon dragged on and the austere, forbidding country continued. There was no relief from the heat, but Durant kept Lukas’ advice in mind and stayed in the low, flat country. Then, half an hour before sundown, he followed a trail to a narrow river. He let Sundown water again before he rode through the shallows. As he guessed, when he came out of the river, the town was before him.
Carne’s Crossing.
It stood on both sides of a swinging reach of the river, cottages on the left banks, business houses on the right. In all it was no more than four acres of cluttered buildings bleached bare by endless summers of sun. Dust boiled on streets which ran perpendicularly away from the river banks and disappeared into a thick heat haze behind the town. Blake Durant drew in a ragged breath. He was never a man to expect much and, looking at this town, he realized his expectations would be fulfilled.
He put Sundown into a slow walk and moved along the widest of the four streets which led into the business section. He soon found the livery stable, tucked behind a yard which separated it from a saloon.
Coming out of the saddle, Durant waited until his legs got used to his weight then called out. Within a minute, a dark-haired, shirtless man dragged himself unenthusiastically from the shade of a barn. He looked Durant over disinterestedly.
Durant asked, “You in charge here?”
“Only me,” the man said.
Durant handed him Sundown’s reins. “Treat him right, but don’t try to handle him. He’s a one-man horse. I pay well for good hay, good stabling.”
“In advance,” the man said. “It’s a dollar a day.”
Durant handed him two dollars. “If I pull out in the morning, you gain,” he said.
The man took the money, thanked Durant and then put his hand in front of Sundown’s head. The big black lifted his head away and eyed him suspiciously. Blake Durant stood by, saying nothing.
The stableman then said, “Well, if you don’t want the best hay in the territory, hoss, no matter. Cool water too and plenty of shade to darken that silky skin of yours.”
Sundown turned his head on one side and, without trying to touch him again, the stableman pulled lightly on the reins. He said, quietly, “Come on now, ain’t nobody goin’ to dig no spurs into you, big feller. You’re just goin’ to get to know that old Will Roper ain’t got one spit of meanness in him. Shade, good cool water and plenty of hay and maybe later you can hear the story of my miserable life.”
Blake Durant walked away, confident Sundown was in good hands. He headed straight for the saloon.
“See,” Carver Farrar said, pointing. “Didn’t I tell you? I said that whelp’d come in and he has.”
“Girl, too,” said Lom Farrar.
Carver, a huge man, was powerfully built and thick-lipped. Coarse black hair, which had never known a razor, covered all of his face. He had a long, hooked nose, deep-set black eyes and a deeply rutted forehead. The hair grew down past the collar of his grubby checked shirt and matted with his thick chest-hair. His long barrel-muscled arms were folded as he leant back against the boardwalk post and grinned.
“I got eyes, boy, so can see her. Can see, I reckon, a lot more than puny brats like you and Chris. Man, now ain’t she somethin’.”
“Too young for you, Pa,” said Lom, who despite being called puny by his father, was in fact over six-foot in height and as wide as most doorways. Chris, standing back from them, was in complete contrast to the other two, being tall, lean, and handsome. His clothes were well-worn, but had been carefully looked after. Red curly hair framed a face full of health and arrogance.
“Too young?” Carver croaked, wiping saliva from his thick lips. His eyes devoured Sally Mann as she slid from her horse outside the rooming house, and in doing so exposed part of her thigh to the day’s raw sunlight. “Boy, you just don’t know nothin’, do you?” He tapped his chest and grinned confidently. “I got more urge in me, boy, than you’ll ever see in a river in flood. And the need to set it pumpin’.”
“We goin’ to wait here?” Chris interrupted his father.
“Wait?” Carver asked. “For that brat to strut his stuff, make a fool of himself?”
“It’d be better inside with witnesses,” Chris said.
