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    Justice in Lonesome Valley
    Justice in Lonesome Valley
    Justice in Lonesome Valley
    Ebook132 pages2 hours

    Justice in Lonesome Valley

    By Robert O' Hanlin

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    About this ebook

    Aaron and Mary Shannon came from the East in a time when the country was in turmoil and people were heading west in search of a better life. They found it in Lonesome Valley where they spent the next fifteen years building a successful ranch.
    Then one night it was all taken away from him. Sheriff Dennis O'Connor ran the town of Prescott with an iron fist and whatever he wanted he took. This time he took a man's freedom...a man who vowed he would not spent the rest of his life in prison.
    Vengeance was what he wanted and the only way he could regain that freedom was to find the men who testified against him and get them to tell the truth. A rare second chance of a new trial and a series of events gave him the opportunity he needed...he would be free to exact the revenge the boiled inside of him.
    As a fugitive, he is facing danger from both sides of the law but with the help of his beautiful daughter and a determined US Marshal they turned him off the vengeance trail and set out on a trail of deceit and deception to find the truth. A truth that could get them all killed.
    How long could they ride through the hills filled with dangerous men looking for the one they needed without getting killed. The Sheriff was after them on one side and men like Red Jack Almer were after them on the other. Red Jack was the most notorious outlaw in the area and he was well connected with the outlaw web.
    Not all the outlaws were bad, such was the case of Lorraine Lassiter, the queen of Cherry Creek. She ruled the town with the help of her outlaw brother, but now she was interested in something...or someone else. Aaron was tall and handsome and had brashness, a brashness that turned her head, she held the power to have him killed...but would she do it?
    The truth was not always an easy thing to find and in this case it meant going into a town full of outlaws and misfits, find the one he wanted and convince him to change his testimony...and get out alive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert O' Hanlin
    Release dateJun 7, 2014
    ISBN9780992002558
    Justice in Lonesome Valley
    Author

    Robert O' Hanlin

    I was born in Canada but spend much of my time roaming the Sonora Desert of Arizona, which is truly a place to inspire a writer.I write in the Western genre inspired by the great Western writer Louis L'Amour. My stories are fiction with a mixture of real history and I hope you enjoy reading them.

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      Book preview

      Justice in Lonesome Valley - Robert O' Hanlin

      JUSTICE IN LONESOME VALLEY

      By Robert O'Hanlin

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      PUBLISHED BY

      Robert O'Hanlin on Smashwords

      Justice in Lonesome Valley

      Copyright 2014 by Robert O'Hanlin

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please share it with your friends and family through the source you downloaded it. Please remember that all rights are reserved, and no part of this eBook may be copied or reproduced by any means electronic or mechanical or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critic’s articles or reviews. Your respect for the author is appreciated.

      This is a fictional book and any resemblance of the characters to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

      Books by Robert O’Hanlin

      The Outlaw Series

      The Montana Outlaws

      The Alberta Outlaw

      Last of the Outlaws

      Others

      Windfall

      O'Bannions Return

      Justice in Lonesome Valley

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 1 Preview

      Chapter1

      The tall, raw-boned man stood looking at the large gate as it closed behind him and he swore to himself that he would never go through that gate again...that gate was the Yuma Prison. He looked toward the river flowing beneath the hill where the prison stood, and as he made a complete turn he looked at the desert which was a stark contrast to the river that flowed through it.

      The desert stretched as far as the eye could see to the rugged craggy mountains that poked through it in a jagged mass. The mountains almost beckoned to him to come to them, but he knew the hazards that were between him and them.

      The scene was barren and dry except for the small creosote bushes that dotted the landscape. Many times he had looked at that desert weighing his chances of living through it if he could escape these walls.

      From where he stood, the floor of the desert look relatively smooth, but he knew that it was an illusion because in reality it was cut up by deep washes that carried the summer monsoon waters to the river. The Indians knew of places where there was water in springs, seeps or tanks but a man could not live long in the harsh wilderness unless he could find them.

      A few had tried, but none had made it successfully...but now he was making his escape, even if it might turn out to be only temporary in the eyes of the law, it was going to be final for him.

      Living behind walls and iron bars was no life for a man who had spent the better part of his life riding free under the blue sky, and he vowed to himself that he would live that life again.

      There was plenty of activity on the river and around Fort Yuma, which was a hub for supplying all the forts in the territory, but life stopped existing when you got too far away from the river. There were mining camps and small communities along the Colorado River to the north as well as along the Gila, a smaller river that ran into it from the northeast, and any man on the run would be easily spotted.

      There were roads going east and north following the rivers and the Overland Stagecoach Line passed through the area creating plenty of activity, but the men behind the prison walls could only hear the noise and dream about being outside.

      Much had changed since he first walked through those gates...in fact his whole life changed, he was a successful rancher with a wife and daughter, and now most of that was gone. His wife had died shortly after he was taken away, she was a delicate and sickly woman most of their years together...but now she was dead. Not by a bullet or at the hands of a murderer, but losing her husband killed her just as surely as if she were murdered...and he was going to avenge her death somehow.

      His daughter Kitty was only seventeen when she was suddenly left as the owner of a ranch in Lonesome Valley. The 'Blazing S' was not as large a spread as some in the area but Aaron Shannon had carved it out of the valley himself, and was making a decent living raising cattle and selling them to the miners who populated the area.

      Rustling was a big problem in the area and when the rustlers found out that a young girl was in charge of the ranch alone, they systematically cleaned her out. At seventeen and alone it was impossible for her to run the ranch successfully, so now she was living with their old friend Judge Milton Caldwell.

      As he looked at the prison walls he remembered how hard he had worked under the steady eyes of the prison guards, but that work was the only thing that kept him sane. The prison was new and the prisoners were being used in building much of it themselves. The work was hard but the hours were not as long as he usually spent working on the ranch. It has taken him twenty years to build it up to where he was making a comfortable living, and now it was gone.

      They were long hard years that strengthened him, not only physically but also as a person. Unfortunately it did the opposite to his wife Mary, who after giving birth to their daughter, seemed to be getting weaker and weaker. Now she was gone, and his ranch was gone and most of all, his freedom was gone.

      Although everyone behind the walls claimed they did not belong there, he was one who really did not belong there. He had been railroaded into prison by the sheriff of Prescott, and it took him most of the year he had already spent behind bars to figure out why.

      He had been a whole year behind those walls...a year that he should not have been there but now he was getting a reprieve, or at least a chance of a reprieve. His friend Judge Milton Caldwell had worked tirelessly to get him a second trial. A second chance like this was virtually unheard of, but the Judge had pulled a lot strings and called in a lot of markers to get it done.

      He didn't hold much hope that the outcome would be much different, so he didn't plan to go into Prescott as a prisoner...no matter what happened he would have his time alone with Sheriff O'Connor.

      He turned back to the two Arizona Rangers who were escorting him back to Prescott. They helped him into the wagon and had him sit facing backwards while they cuffed his hands to a metal rod running across the wagon.

      Towards the rear of the wagon, laying between him and the pile of supplies covered with a tarp, lay a big dog he heard them call Rufus, so he assumed it belonged to one of the Rangers.

      As he sat looking at the prison disappearing in the distance his mind went back to the events that took him there. He had simply been walking across the street in Prescott late one evening and the next thing he knew he was in jail.

      He had been in town on business and the hour got late so he decided to stay the night. He was not a drinker and did not frequent any of the many saloons, but he did enjoy a good meal. He was on his way back from the restaurant to the hotel when he was struck from behind.

      He vaguely heard a shot as he fell to the ground, and when he awoke he was behind bars in the small jail run by the town sheriff, Dennis O'Connor. He was told he was facing a murder charge and that the trial would begin right away. Someone had shot a local rancher named Daniel Harold and his body was found in an alley by the hotel.

      He knew Harold slightly as another rancher in the next valley, but he had not seen him in town on this trip. Court was convened the next day and to his good fortune the judge was Milton Caldwell. The evidence was vague and no one had witnessed the actual shooting, but there were two witnesses who said they heard the shot and saw him running out of the alley with a smoking gun still in his hand.

      The sheriff presented Aaron's gun as evidence. There had been one shot fired and the empty shell was still in the chamber. Other witnesses testified that the sheriff had shown them the gun as they gathered around Aaron's limp body on the ground. The sheriff testified that he was making his rounds and was just up the street when he heard the shot.

      He pointed to Aaron as the man he had seen on the street with a gun in his hand and explained he slugged him to keep from getting shot. The sheriff further testified that he had found the body of Daniel Harold in the alley with a bullet wound to the head.

      The jury found the evidence compelling and found him guilty, it was only the fact that his friend was the judge that saved him from the gallows. After the guilty verdict the judge quickly sentenced him to life in prison, which was the only alternative to hanging.

      He knew the judge had saved his life that day and was now trying to get him out of prison, but the odds were overwhelming against having his verdict overturned. Milton Caldwell had been in contact with him by mail throughout the year and had travelled all the way to Yuma to give him the good news.

      However it came a little late as he never had a chance to hold his wife again. He remembered her eyes when they took him away, they were full with pain and sorrow, mixed with the tears that ran down her cheeks. He also remembered looking into the eyes of his beautiful daughter and the anguish in her eyes tortured him every night he spent there. These were the pictures that a man should not have to remember, and he vowed he would see love and happiness once again in her eyes.

      After the news of his wife's death another picture took over his mind...that was the picture of him looking down the barrel of his rifle into the face of Dennis O'Connor. Through letters from Milt Caldwell he learned that O'Connor and Marlee Harold, the widow of Daniel Harold, were now married and living on her ranch.

      Milt told

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