A Foot Above Hell

By Bob Close

Dan Shale is a rough breed among rough breeds. Even after hes staggered away from the bloody scene in the desert and into the heart of trouble, he doesnt buckle. Through brushes with death, romance-gunplay, love, and the search for gold, he carries on.

Shale rides out across a landscape of juniper and charit cup and lodgepole pine, tracking trouble off the beaten trail into the rough terrain of secret identities and hidden motives. His search for answers leads him to a snow-filled basin high in the Rockies, where rawboned adversaries are holed up in a remote cabin. Who are these brutal men? Is Fran their captive or accomplice? And what about the old prospector and the rumors of gold?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499062885

Bob Close

Elizabeth Chandler was in her senior year at Western Kentucky. Nick, her high-school fiancé, entered the army. Not long after, Nick’s family was notified that he was missing. Liz finished college, went to work, and did freelance writing. After two years, she was sure that Nick would not return. Liz married and moved to Nashville. Nick was released from a POW camp and came home. Infuriated that Liz was married, he swore that if he couldn’t have her then nobody could. Liz, in shock, had to overcome major obstacles to save her marriage and live a normal life after he arrived.

Book preview

ONE

A

LIZARD DARTING

across the sand was the only living creature that moved on the sun baked land. Shale squinted trying to find relief from the glaring sun and pulled his wide brim Stetson low over his eyes. Both he and his big black were streaked in sweat and dust.

He was dressed in denim. A Peacemaker was strapped around his waist and a Winchester rifle rode in his scabbard.

These and a throwing knife, tucked in a sheaf in his right boot, were his weapons.

Shale gathered up his reins and pulled the black to a halt, stepped to the ground and stretched his six two, two hundred pound frame. His black hair was collar length and a week’s growth of beard covered his long leathery face. His black eyes set wide apart above high cheekbones.

After pulling the oilskin pouch from a shirt pocket, he built a smoke while letting his eyes wander across the barren spaces where boulders, cactus, and dry bunch grass dotted the land. One odd shaped boulder caught Shale’s attention with its side protruding horizontally from the top and angled sharply to the base forming a cave. Shale finished his smoke, mounted, and nudged the black in that direction.

He had gotten within a few yards of the boulder when the black jerked his head up and pointed his ears forward. Shale dismounted, drew his Peacemaker, and led the black slowly around the rock.

Easy boy, said Shale when the black balked. He took a short grip on the reins, pulled the black’s head down, and continued on.

When Shale saw the man facedown in the sand, he dropped the black’s reins, holstered his gun, and took his canteen from the saddle horn. When he knelt by the body, he heard the black whinny, then felt a sharp blow across the back of his neck.

Shale regained consciousness sometime during the night. He felt himself floating out of a deep mist, and the fog drifted from his mind as if on a gentle breeze. Daggers shot through his head, piercing his eyeballs with pinpoints of light. Slowly he realized that he was lying facedown in the sand. He tried to move, but the pain shooting through his neck blinded him.

He rested awhile before somehow struggling up onto his elbows. The pain made him sick to his stomach, and he fell back to the ground. By some instinct he turned his head to the side.

How long he had lain there, he couldn’t answer. An awful odor came to him and he blinked his eyes open. The sun was high in a blue sky. His own vomit was puddled under his nose, and he made a mistake when he jerked his head away, for the sickening pain started all over again. He finally was able to raise one hand and wipe the mixture of sand and vomit from his face.

He felt a lump under his stomach and eased himself over. The bastards hadn’t noticed that he had fallen across his canteen.

He got himself upright and sipped from the canteen. The tepid water made him feel somewhat better, and he crawled to the boulder and slid under the cave-like shelter.

His Peacemaker was gone and so was the big black, but he still had his oilskin pouch and wax-tipped matches. After building a smoke, he leaned against the rock wall and stayed there through the day.

Shale knew the man on the ground didn’t clobber him so there had to be at least two of them. He fumbled through his pockets.

What little money he had was also gone.

The night was turning cold, and he buttoned his jacket tighter around his throat.

Shale decided then and there that he would never trust another son of a bitch as long as he lived.

TWO

S

HALE SLEPT FITFULLY

that cold night. Before daybreak he drank sparingly from his canteen and smoked a cigarette. He got to his feet and started walking while the morning was still cool.

By noon he saw the mesas through the simmering heat. He just might make one of them by nightfall. His lips were cracked and he damn near threw his jacket away once but then thought of the cold nights and changed his mind. He trudged on, stopping only to rest and sip from the canteen.

At one stop he tried to catch a lizard but got only a handful of sand. He got back to his feet and staggered on.

Late in the day the land turned into a living hell. Time after time Shale tried to reach the cool pools of clear water shimmering just out of reach. The sun had disappeared behind a dark cloud, but Shale never knew when its deadly rays left the earth. He was lying at the foot of a mesa when he woke but couldn’t remember when or how he had gotten there. He wet his mouth with the last of his water and sank back into the sand.

The sun cast orange and yellow shadows across the darkening land. He raised his canteen, and one last drop hung on the rim. He opened his mouth wide and the drop hung there, fell, and landed on his nose. Shale threw the canteen away and found his feet. Holding onto the cliff wall, he stood unsteadily.

He thought he was dreaming when the sky turned instantly to night. Thunder boomed and lightning streaked from the heavens in a thousand directions. A bolt hit on top of the mesa and jolted the ground. Shale hugged the cliff as rock shards pelted him. One glanced off of the side of his head and addled him.

A raindrop splattered on the toe of his left boot. A few more struck the rocks around him. Then more. Then the clouds opened up. Shale relished the cold water.

Lightning flashed and the thunder was deafening. Then the storm disappeared just as quickly as it had come. The winds moved the low black clouds westward, and the sun reappeared, sinking fast below the horizon and throwing ghostly shadows across the land.

Nature had carved a bowl in the rocks, and it now held cool, clear water. Shale drank his fill and found the canteen he had prematurely thrown away and filled it, looped the strap around his neck, and set out again across hell. Shale stumbled on through the night, and when his body refused to go farther, he slumped down and slept.

The sun burned down and heat rose from the earth when he got to his feet and struggled on. Shale had been walking a half hour when he saw the slow-flying forms circling through the sky a few miles ahead and his face drew tight. Vultures meant only one thing when they circled like that. Dead animal, Shale thought. Maybe a deer. But he had to be sure. He turned and headed in that direction. The desert distance fooled the eye, and it was only after a couple of hours of steady walking that he came to the ravine. As he drew closer he caught the sickeningly sweet odor. He had smelled that odor before. He could hear the tearing and popping sounds of the birds’ big beaks before he got to the lip of the ravine. He walked to the edge and knelt in the sparse shade of a stunted bush that afforded some relief from the sun.

The vultures swooped low in the wash, and three or four were ripping apart the remains of what looked like a man and a burro. The others circled overhead. Shale slid down the steep bank and beat his hat against his leg and shouted as he stumbled toward the giant birds. The vultures scattered.

Some took wing to join the others overhead, but a couple of them never ventured far from their meal.

A pack was tied around what was left of the bloated burro. The man lay as if gazing at the sky through deep black holes in his head. The only things left unprotected by clothing were bones and sinews. Shale searched the man and found a pocketknife with a broken blade and three good-size gold nuggets in a pocket of his threadbare coat.

When he was cutting the pack loose he noticed a perfect star on the burro’s forehead.

He dragged the pack away from the decaying bodies, and in it Shale found a few meager supplies and cooking utensils.

This is all the poor creature left to show for his existence, Shale muttered. A piece of dried meat and two hard sourdough biscuits.

Shale took these and squatted in the shade of the rise and ate. He washed the meal down with canteen water.

He was sitting there smoking and wondering if he was any better off than the prospector had been, since he had less than the old man. Shadows covered Shale and the ground in front of him and he knew it was a cloudless sky. He looked over his shoulder and saw two men sitting their horses on the lip of the ravine. The sun reflected off shiny objects on their vests.

One man sat his mount while the other circled and rode up the wash from the west.

Whoever they were, Shale was at their mercy. He found his throwing knife in his boot. But what use would it be against two armed men?

THREE

H

OWDY," THE MAN

said and reined in his horse.

Howdy, said Shale. He glanced up.

The other man had left the ridge.

The man motioned to the dead man and burro. Your partner? he asked.

No, Shale answered. I happened along and found him here.

What the hell you doing way out here, anyhow? the man asked. Then the other man rode up.

Shale stood and rubbed his neck. "I stopped a couple days back to help a man and someone clobbered me from behind.

Took my guns and horse and what little money I had."

Nice of ’em to leave ya a canteen, the second man said. His horse stamped in the sandy soil, jerked its head, and reached over to bite at the other horse, playful-like.

Shale gave the man a hard look. They didn’t exactly leave me water. When they hit me I guess I fell across my canteen and they never noticed it. Probably thought the blow had killed me. I had a chance to fill it last night after the cloudburst we had.

Oh, the man said.

By the way. I never saw badges like those before.

Oh, these. The two men laughed.

"I’m Jim