Shane: Chapters 1–3

I was on the upper rail of our small corral, soaking in the late afternoon sun, when I saw him far down the road where it swung into the valley from the open plain beyond.

Then I saw a pair of cowhands, loping past him, stop and stare after him with a curious intentness.

One branch turned left across the river ford and on to Luke Fletcher’s big spread.

The other bore ahead along the right bank where we homesteaders had pegged our claims in a row up the valley.

He was clean-shaven and his face was lean and hard and burned from high forehead to firm, tapering chin.

Even rarer, the roof was shingled. I knew what that meant. I had helped father split those shingles.

Father and I watched him dismount in a single flowing tilt of his body and lead the horse over to the trough. He pumped it almost full and let the horse sink its nose in the cool water before he picked up the dipper for himself.

All his movements were deft and sure, and with a quick precision he flipped down his sleeves, reknotted the handkerchief, and picked up his hat.

Everything about him showed the effects of long use and hard use, but showed too the strength of quality and competence.

Something intangible and cold and terrifying was there in the air between us.

Then the warm sunlight was flooding over us, for father was smiling and he was speaking with the drawling emphasis that meant he had made up his mind.

He let me slip the bridle off and the horse, bigger and more powerful than I had thought now that I was close beside it, put its head down patiently for me and stood quietly while I helped him curry away the caked dust.

“He’s dangerous all right.” Father said it in a musing way. Then he chuckled. “But not to us, my dear.”

“You said something about more coffee. But I draw the line on more flannel cakes. I’m plumb full. I’m starting in to conserve space for that pie.”

Only don’t you go giving her fancy notions of new hats so she’ll be sending off to the mail-order house and throwing my money away on silly frippery.

That old stump just jeered at fire. The scorching seemed to make the wood harder than ever.

In a moment we saw it as it cleared the grove of trees and tall bushes about a quarter-mile away, a high-necked sorrel drawing a light buckboard wagon.

Ledyard was a small, thin-featured man, a peddler or trader who came through every couple of months with things you could not get at the general store in town.

His voice held an ugly undertone.

He was looking at Ledyard in a steady, unwavering way.

With it ran a warmth that erased at once and forever the feeling of sudden chill terror that our visitor had evoked in me.

She flounced around and went straight back to the house.

They had eased down to a slow, dogged pace.

I played pretty far afield. But no matter where I went, always I could hear that chopping in the distance.

They stopped, breathing hard, mighty streaked now from the sweat rivulets down their faces.

He flashed one quick glance at father beside and behind him, eyes closed, muscles locked in that great sustained effort, and he dropped into position with the whole terrible weight of the stump poised above nearly half of his body and sent the axe sweeping under in swift powerful strokes.

Father grunted in exasperation.

His side of the upturned stump rocked forward and Shane’s side moved back and the whole stump trembled like it would twist down and into the hole on them at a grotesque new angle.

His side of the stump rocked forward even with father’s and the whole mass of the stump tore loose from the last hold and toppled away to sprawl in ungainly defeat beyond them.

“Joe Starrett, don’t you dare touch a one of these apples.” He was sheepish as he returned to his chair.