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Author's note:
I've had this story on floppy for many years, and I've fiddled with it from time to time. But Jake and Wiley's adventures ruled. During my recent and seemingly eternal bout with writer's block, these characters (shoved into the background for so long) clamored to come out.
EMERALD VALLEY is not yet completed but will be shortly. These new characters need to be heard for who they are.
Jim, Frank and I have decided to give out a chapter or two a month. That way, I can get back into the picture and ponder the coming events.
EMERALD VALLEY
© By Dave Brown
CHAPTER 1
With the rising sun behind him, he topped a ridge, reined his black stallion and looked down on a long emerald valley divided its entire length by a blue river. Still in shadows, the cliffs on both sides seemed as parched as the land he'd been traveling, but the valley spread out below like a wide, lush reservoir. The sight lifted his dry, dusty spirits. He'd seen nothing but cactus, sagebrush and cracked reddish earth for three days and had wondered how much longer he would have to endure it.
He edged Killer down the steep slope, knowing the horse was comfortable on any terrain since he'd lived the first four years of his life in the wild. When they reached a level spot on the hillside, halfway down and past a large rock outcropping, he stopped the horse and scanned the valley again. It seemed to be almost two miles long and a quarter-mile wide. To the north, a two-story ranch house and barn nestled among enormous cottonwoods. Farther to his right, a wooden bridge spanned the river. Cattle grazed north of the wide bridge and some had migrated across the river to a larger pasture on the far side. He estimated the herd at five or six hundred, the very size spread for which he'd been hoping to work.
Distant gunshots suddenly peppered the silence from the direction of the buildings. He watched four riders gallop away from the house. Three bays rode in the group and also a buckskin with black socks. When the riders reached the reddish-brown ribbon of a road, they headed north.
"Get up, Killer. Let's see what's goin' on down there."
The horse bounded down the hill. Reaching the valley floor, it galloped to the road that led to the ranch house.
Slowing Killer fifty yards from the house, the rider walked the horse forward, raising empty hands in case someone might mistake him for one of the four who had just left. While approaching, he scanned each window of the house, the porch, the barn on the left and the surrounding yard. Even holding his hands high, he knew he could drop his right and draw his pistol faster than most men could get their gun into action, even if they already had it pointed at him.
Ten yards from the house, he noticed wet dirt next to a wooden water trough, but only part way around. As he rode closer, he saw the wetness growing and figured a bullet had pierced the far side of the wooden tub, causing the leak.
As he nudged Killer in an arc around one end of the trough, a pair of boots came into view behind it.
"I'm here to help!" he shouted as he slid from his saddle. He ran toward the boots.
A man in his early twenties, a few years younger than himself, lay in the dirt. The left side of his shirt was soaked with blood.
The man looked dead.
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