Chapter 17 -- My Ending for "Shane" ( by Jack Schaefer )

Chapter 17 by Kelda

You might think that is all there is tell. The folks in town and the kids at school liked to talk about Shane, to spin tales and speculate about him. I never did. I never bothered, no matter how strange the tales became in the constant retelling. They would not understand what mother had told us. Shane was with us here. He was with me, with me and mother and father.

That morning I awoke to an unusual quiet.There was no sound in the kitchen or smell of mother's biscuits baking. This early, father would be done feeding the stock and started on his second cup of coffee while pinching just a bit of raw dough from the biscuit pan. I sat up and gazed out my window. Something was wrong. I put on my work clothes, and padded outside in my bare feet.

Then I screamed, "Mother! Father!"

They stumbled out of the house. I was already kneeling beside Shane. He had fallen at his horse's feet. The gelding was drinking from the trough, moving his feet carefully around his owner. The reins were still knotted around the horse's neck. Shane was curled on one side. The blood stain now covered almost half of his shirt. One sleeve was covered from elbow to wrist where he had clamped it against the wound.

Mother helped father turn him on to his back.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"Not yet," father growled.

Mother's eyes were slitted and sparkled like a snake set to strike. "Joe Starrett, if you can't think of anything useful to do, carry him in to Bob's room. Then bring me a bucket of water. Bob, bring my shears and that old piece of petticoat."

There was not enough room for all us in my little room. Mother told us to carry two chairs outside beside my window, where we could watch, but not talk. She removed Shane's belt and began to tease the wet shirt away his skin. Sometimes when she lifted another scrap of cloth away, fresh blood trailed with it. It seemed to take forever. Mother looked up at father. "Come help me move him."

Father jumped up - as if he had indeed been bitten by a snake - and hurried in. He lifted Shane carefully by the shoulders while mother washed his back and snipped away the rest of his shirt. Shane looked more frail than ever. He curled up again without uttering a sound. He wasn't long enough to fill my cot.

"Joe, do you still have whiskey?"

Father had it back in a flash. I wondered what on earth they could want with that. I had only seen the bottle passed around when a circle of men were having a palaver, somewhat something like the women did with their cups of tea and a new fashion catalog. Father eased Shane's body out again and Mother began to trickle it over his wound. Then father tried to give him a cup of whisky and water. Shane gave a brief but hard snap and coughed. His eyes opened for the first time, but I did not think he was seeing anything. Mother organized us in shifts so he would not be alone if he woke. Mine was always the daylight shift so I would not be asleep if he needed me.

He occasionally mumbled a few words, or sucked in a painful gasp. Finally on the fourth day, he cried out his first coherent word. "Marian!"

She was in the kitchen snapping peas. She jumped up so quickly that the peas scattered everywhere. She nudged me aside and sat on the edge of my cot. He had both hands clasped over his bandages and trickles of blood threaded through his fingers. His voice was hoarse and faint. His face was flushed, like the men who got into too much whiskey, but he had not done that. I reached around mother to touch his cheek. It radiated heat the way the old coffee pot did on the stove.

"You found me?"

"Your horse found us. We think when you passed out, the horse turned around and came back to us."

"How bad?"

Mother shifted on the edge of the bed and looked over her shoulder at me. "Bob, get your father. Sit by the window."

When everyone was in place, mother took up one of Shane's hands. She gently began to wash the blood from it. "I think all of us, especially Bob, need to hear this. So we know what you want, and don't quarrel about it." She continued to hold his hand. "The bullet is still in there. We cannot remove it. We would need a surgeon. The wound is infected."

He raised his other hand to cup her hands in his. He asked,"Joe, will you allow me to kiss your wife?"

It was an odd question, I thought. I looked at father. Slow streams of tears were coursing down his cheeks. He nodded. Nothing more.

Shane tried to lift his head from the pillow. He was too weak. Mother leaned down. She brushed aside his hair, and kissed his forehead,and finally his lips.Then she beckoned for father to come in.

"Joe, thank you for giving me a long spell of peaceable life. Bobby Bob?"

Now I was crying, all of us were except Shane. "That's a fine horse I have. He even brought me back here so I could say thank you and goodbye. So Bob, he's yours now, and you won't find a better animal in the valley. Marian, how are we going to do this?"

"I only have laudanum. Whisky or sugar?"

He managed to pull one side of his mouth into a crooked grin. "Whisky isn't good for a man's reflexes. I'll take all the sugar you can spare."

I ran outside to the trough to try to wash away my tears. I couldn't. Finally I went back into the house, wondering what was happening. There was an unfamiliar bottle on the table, rounded, dark brown, and the label said 'laudanum.' That was what mother had said. I rolled it my hands in curiosity. Then my breath stopped. Large red letters: POISON.

When I could draw my breath I screamed, "No! No!" I was paralyzed with fear and terror. Father came from Shane's (my) room and scooped me up in his arms. He carried me into the barn and sat me on Shane's bunk.

"Bob, you can't do this. You have to get hold of yourself. Don't interfere with his passing. Shane has had a hard life. We have been blessed to give him some good times."


Two decades have gone by. I did not want to be a farmer. For awhile in my adolescence, I even toyed with being a gunslinger, or a 'legal' variation as a lawman. I married, had two daughters, much to my parents' delight. When my first girl was born, the light went on in my heart and my mind. I wanted to be a doctor to help the living, and more importantly, the dying. Father had been surprised,but told me that Shane had left a roll of cash in his belongings. Father felt Shane would have wanted it go toward my future. It was a substantial payment toward medical school.

On Sundays at church, I always say, "And Lord, thank you for giving us Shane."

Now: Why on earth did I choose these books?

As a kid I loved those Friday night midnight monster movies.When I got a little  older I was amazed to find out that many of these movies began as books! Yay! Now I didn't have to wait for Friday night to get my fix. It took quite some time to track down the books. This was before Amazon, the Internet, and certainly before most of these were available in an elementary school library. If the book was there, I'll bet most of you haven't used a card catalog. But since I'm as old as dirt, you will hear from  me often about my treacherous, villainous  laptop.  

 I stuffed my list with books I have access to, then seasoned it  with several fun books in the Juvenile range, & a few door-stopper, elbow-cracking tomes. I've read perhaps a third of the titles here. Most of those were pre-college, so before 1973. I've only returned to a few of them. Here I'm going back to those neglected volumes to pick up where I left off and continue on through the "Complete Works of _________."

Thanks to Kindle Books I should be able to start accumulating more.  :^)   I might be able to add to my paperless library for a second 50 Classics. You'll notice a few religious works. As I've aged, I've become deeply interested in world religion and world mythology. After I see what sort of interest there is in a ~pleasant~ exchange of ideas and values, I would love to host a blog for that.
KELDA

REVISED READING LIST FOR CLASSICS CLUB

01. SHANE - Schaefer

02. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE - Zane  Grey 

03. THE MAN IN THE FOREST - Zane Grey

04. JANE EYRE - Charlotte Bronte

05. AGNES GREY - Emily Bronte

06.THE  TENANT OF WILDFALL HALL - Anne Bronte

07. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - Jane Austen

08. EMMA - Jane Austin

09. THE SECRET GARDEN -Burrnet

10. 5 CHILDREN AND IT -Nesbit

11. HEIDI - Spryi

12. ANDREW LANG'S COLOR FAIRY BOOKS -(Color TBA :^)

13. THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND - Harriet Beecher Stowe

14. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN - Harriet Beecher Stowe

15. SHORT STORIES - O. Henry

16. RAISING DEMONS -Shirley Jackson

17. LIFE AMONG THE SAVAGES -Shirley Jackson

18. THE SUNDIAL- Shirley Jackson

19. WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE - Shirley Jackson

20. THE INVISIBLE MAN - HG Wells

21. WAR OF THE WORLDS -HG Wells

22. THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU  HG Wells

23. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE -Stevenson

24. FRANKENSTEIN -Mary Shelley

25. DRACULA - Bram Stoker

26. A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR -DeFoe

27.  I AM LEGEND -Matheson

28. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA - HG Wells

29.KING LEAR- Shakespeare

30.MACBETH -Shakespeare
31. JULIUS CAESAR -Shakespeare

 32. GENESIS (HEBREW BIBLE, BOOK 1)

30. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES -Darwin

31. THE SUNFLOWER: ON THE POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF FORGIVENESS -Wisenthal

32. THE PURSUIT OF GOD - AW Tozer

33. THE SOURCE -Michner

34. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

35.                                                THE TWO TOWERS 

36.                                                 THE RETURN OF THE KING

37. - 43 CHRONICLES OF NARDIA

44. DON QUIXOTE - Cervantes

45. A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT - Mark Twain

46. HUCKLEBERRY FINN - Mark Twain

47. TOM SAWYER - Mark Twain

48. (12A)  THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASSING GLASS- Carroll

49. (24 A) THE TIME  MACHINE-Wells

50. THE THREE MUSKETEERS - Dumas