Shadow of the Hangman (11 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Ernest Thistledown stopped his rented buggy on a treed rise, a black silhouette against the amber glow of the lowering sun. The beautiful Hollis and Sheath hung from his shoulder, two red shells in the chambers. The scattergun's hammers were cocked, ready to go, because the little bounty hunter knew that his fight with Lum would be a mighty quick thing.

Thistledown shaded his eyes with his hand and studied the village.

This had to be the place Jacob O'Brien had mentioned, a Mexican settlement on the Pecos River that served as a gateway to the East and miles of nothing. The bounty hunter was not impressed. El Cerrito was a dung heap, an ideal spot for a crowing rooster like the man called Lum to hide out.

Suddenly, Thistledown was alert as he watched a tall man who'd just stepped out the front door of an adobe at the edge of the village. The man stopped, adjusted his gunbelt, and then walked into the barn behind the house.

Thistledown swore under his breath. This was a complication he didn't need. He was willing to bet the farm that the tall, lanky man was Luke Caldwell, the Texas draw fighter. It sure looked like Caldwell, even to the way he wore his gun, high on the waist, horseman style.

Luke was fast on the draw-and-shoot, and there were maybe ten or twelve hard cases planted in Boot Hills across the country that had made him prove it.

Was Caldwell in cahoots with Lum? Thistledown pondered that and reached the logical conclusion: Why would two named killers be in the same flyspeck of a village at the same time if they weren't partnered-up?

Thistledown clucked the Morgan into motion and drove the buggy farther into the cover of the trees. He'd no desire to go against Caldwell to get at Lum. The Texan was not a man to trifle with, and besides, as far as he knew, Caldwell didn't currently have a bounty on him.

Ten minutes passed and Thistledown, by long habit a careful man, kept silent vigil. Then Caldwell left the barn, followed by a volley of curses that bombarded him all the way to the house.

Thistledown waited, watched. Another ten minutes went by, then fifteen, and then twenty. Nothing moved but the wind and the falling sun behind him.

Whoever was in the barn was a cussing man with a real talent for the profane. Could it be Lum?

Thistledown made up his mind. He wasn't about to ride up to the front of the adobe, not with Luke Caldwell around, so a check of the barn was his obvious choice. If it wasn't Lum inside, then he'd silence the man who was there and gain entrance to the adobe from the back. That way, he'd kick for the moon and take the occupants by surprise.

It wasn't a great plan, not even a good one, but right then it was all the little bounty hunter had. But first he needed darkness.

 

 

Thistledown drove the buggy off the rise and into a small meadow surrounded by juniper and a few boxwoods. He didn't intend to be long, so he kept the Morgan in the traces and led it into the trees. The horse was old and apparently didn't mind, because it dropped its head and immediately fell asleep.

Thistledown sat, lit a cigar, and watched the sun, with agonizing slowness, lower over the Manzano Mountains to the west. The coyotes were already out, but the sky was still banded with scarlet and jade, and the night birds were yet to peck at the first stars.

Then, as the daylight faded the air grew cooler, and a drift of sage and pine fleeted in a night breeze that stirred the trees and tied bows in Thistledown's blue cigar smoke.

Finally, as darkness started to crowd close to him and the Morgan and its buggy could no longer be seen among the junipers, Thistledown rose to his feet. He had laid his shotgun aside, and now he again hung the weapon from his right shoulder, barrels down, so when his hand slapped on the stock they would lift up and level on the target.

He hoped that target would be Lum.

 

 

Thistledown made his way back to the rise, stopped on the crest, and looked down at the adobe, where every room showed light. An oil lamp burned in the barn and cast a pale orange glow on the dirt outside. The little bounty hunter thought he heard the faint clank of a chain and a man's muttered curse.

Keeping to shadows, Thistledown scrambled down the slope and then stepped into a patch of darkness as he studied the barn. To his surprise, his heartbeats pounded in his ears and his breath came in short, quick bursts. Thistledown's mouth tightened. The unexpected and unwelcome sight of Luke Caldwell had unnerved him. Angry with himself for what he perceived as cowardice, he strode toward the barn with more purpose.

This was no time to be lily-livered. Timid men were too easy to kill.

“Is there anyone there?” Thistledown said in a low voice. “And be warned, I've got faith in this here scattergun.”

“Yeah, damn it, I'm here,” a man's voice answered.

“And who are you?”

“Sheriff John Moore of Georgetown, and be damned to ye.”

“Hell,” Thistledown said, “I heard you were dead or missing or something.”

“I'm missing all right,” Moore said, his voice edged. “If I ain't in Georgetown, then I'm missing.”

Thistledown walked deeper into the barn and caught sight of Moore, who was chained to a huge slab of rock.

“Just don't stand there gawking, man, help me get loose,” Moore said.

“I'm not, in the main, much inclined to assist lawmen,” Thistledown said.

“Then make an exception, damn your eyes,” Moore said. “I'm to be sacrificed at midnight.”

“To what?”

“Hell, I don't know, maybe some pagan god or something. How the hell should I know?” Moore looked hard at the diminutive bounty hunter, seemingly unimpressed. “What in the name of creation are you?”

“If it's my name you seek, then it's Ernest Thistledown, out of Boston town, if you'll forgive the rhyme.”

“I've heard of you,” Moore said. “The Buggy Bounty Hunter.”

Thistledown gave a little bow. “As ever was.”

“What are you doing here?” Moore said.

“I'm tracking a man I know only as Lum.”

“The burned man?”

“That would be him.”

“Hell,” Moore said, “so am I.”

“And you're making an excellent job of it, I see,” Thistledown said.

“Luke Caldwell—you heard of him?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, he crept up and buffaloed me,” Moore said. “When I woke up, I was chained up in this damned barn. Then they had a Mad Hatter's picnic, right there where you're standing, and the woman, Dora, told me I was to be sacrificed tonight.”

“If I recall the novel correctly, that should be a Mad Hatter's tea party,” Thistledown said.

“I can read as good as you—”

“I doubt it,” Thistledown said.

“But this was a picnic. Every one of them is damned loco, and the woman is the craziest.” Moore yanked on the chains. “Now, see if you can get me loose.”

“I told you,” Thistledown said, “that I don't help peace officers.” He made a face. “And besides, all this is most inconvenient. I'm here to kill a man, not play nursemaid to you.”

Moore's anger flared. “Thistledown, if I get my hands around your scrawny neck, I'll—”

“Sheriff, your hands are shackled to great iron staples,” Thistledown said. “Or haven't you noticed?”

“All right, all right,” Moore said, letting his breath go, “please help me.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I have a man to kill.”

“Hell, you can't go up against those crazies by yourself. A murderer by the name of Shade Shannon is with them, and he's as bad as they come.” Moore looked at the shotgun. “Three bad men, two shells. You're bucking a stacked deck, mister.”

“I've managed before.”

“You've never come up against Luke Caldwell before. He won't stand around and whistle Dixie while you reload.”

Thistledown made a tut-tut sound, then said, “This is most bothersome indeed. I just don't have time for this kind of thing.”

“You mean saving my life?” Moore said, outrage rouging his cheeks.

“Yes,” Thistledown said. “Exactly that, my fettered friend.”

Anger tightened Moore's voice. “Little man, I swear I'll . . .”

But Thistledown was already examining the staples driven into the stone slab, and the sheriff let his threat fade away.

“Can you do anything?” Moore asked.

“I can shoot you,” Thistledown said. “Put you out of my misery.”

“There's a crowbar over there in the empty stall,” Moore said. “Use that to pull the iron rings free.” He couldn't bear it that his words were almost civil, and, as an afterthought, he added, “And be damned to ye for threatening an officer of the law.”

“And the same to you,” Thistledown said. He stepped to the stall and brought back the crowbar, a hefty chunk of steel about three feet long. He looked at Moore. “You know when you're freed you're going to clank like Jacob Marley, don't you?” he said.

“Who's he?”

Thistledown sighed. “No matter. Somebody you don't know.”

“Quit gabbing and get them damn rings out,” Moore said, suspecting that he'd just been slighted.

To the surprise of both parties, when Thistledown used the crowbar as a lever, the iron staples broke free of the stone easily. The rings had been fixed in place with local cement of low quality that crumbled under pressure.

Moore groaned in pain as he brought down his stiff arms. Then, with Thistledown's help, he managed to get to his feet. “Thank you,” he said, grudging each word.

But a split second later Moore dropped to the ground again, felled by the bullet that slammed into him, accompanied by a noise like thunder.

Chapter Twenty

“No thunder, just lightning flashes to the south,” Shawn said. “It's kinda pretty.”

Jacob nodded. “Usually means it'll be a hot one tomorrow.”

“Where you figure Thistledown went?” Shawn said.

“Probably after that Lum character,” Jacob said.

“So why aren't we doing the same thing? Lum is high on our suspect list.”

“I'm not interested in Lum for the moment,” Jacob said. He grunted as he jammed a knee into his horse's belly, then tightened the cinch. “But I do want to talk to Miss Nemesis.”

“We don't even know if she's in El Cerrito,” Shawn said. “And we don't know if she's Nemesis. I do know that if Wentworth's vigilantes catch us sneaking out of town they'll string us up for sure.”

“They're all in bed,” Jacob said, “sleeping like babies.”

“Where we should be,” Shawn said.

He and Jacob led their horses to the door of the livery, and Shawn said, “Brother, I think we're off on a wild-goose chase. You really want to do this?”

Jacob thought for a while before he answered. He took out the makings and without looking up from tobacco and paper, he said, “Remember when I brought John Moore to Dromore with Patrick?”

“Sure, I remember.”

“Moore said that young people, a brother and sister, had moved into a Mex village south of here.”

Shawn said, “Yeah, the brother is a writer or something.”

“Painter.”

“And his sister is a beauty by the name of Dora DeClare.”

Jacob smiled. “You never forget a pretty woman's name, do you, Shawn?”

“No, never.”

“Tell me this,” Jacob said, “why would a woman and her talented brother choose to live in a jerkwater village like El Cerrito?”

Shawn grinned. “To be close to me, of course.”

Jacob was lifting his cigarette to his lips, but his hand froze midway. He turned his head slowly and stared at his brother. “Yes, to be close to you,” he said.

The strange expression on Jacob's face startled Shawn. “Jake, I was only joking,” he said.

Again Jacob lapsed into a taut silence. Then he said, “Here's another suppose.”

“Let me hear it,” Shawn said.

Jacob thumbed match into flame and lit his smoke. “Suppose Lum was headed for El Cerrito to meet the lovely Dora?”

Shawn laughed. “Jake, now you're trying to sweep sunshine off the porch, going from improbable to impossible.”

“Suppose Dora DeClare is Nemesis, and suppose she's the fellow Satanist Lum was sent to help?”

“To help her get revenge on somebody?”

“Exactly.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. But I have a suspicion.”

Shawn held up a hand. “Whoa, Jake, you're not thinking about Dromore?”

“How many men has the colonel hanged?”

“You're talking about Lucas's drawing again.”

“Suppose the hung man was really Dora's father or husband? In that case, she stood under the cottonwood and vowed to be Dromore's nemesis, her and her brother.”

“The crippled artist?”

“Yeah. He's crippled, and that's why she needs Lum's help.”

Shawn blinked slowly a couple of times and then said, “Jake, I'm putting you to bed. You need to rest.”

“Shawn, think about it,” Jacob said. “Tell me it's possible.”

“It's preposterous.”

“Is it possible?”

Shawn hesitated. “Anything is possible,” he said.

Jacob swung into the saddle and looked down at his brother. “And that's why we're headed to El Cerrito.”

“Let's talk to the colonel first,” Shawn said. “Ask him to reason it out for us.”

“We don't have time for that. A few hours from now a hanging posse will be riding out of here to drag Patrick back to jail and the gallows.”

A silence stretched between the two men. A horse kicked its stall, and rats rustled in the shadowed corners of the barn.

Finally, Shawn mounted and then looked at his brother. “God help me,” he said, shaking his head. “I must be as loco as you are.”

 

 

The man who stood in the shadows watched the O'Brien brothers ride out of town, heading south under a black sky shimmering with lightning.

Now he had to hurry.

He crossed the empty street and took the outside staircase that led to the cribs above the General Lee saloon two steps at a time. He opened the half-glass door and stepped into the hallway. There were two rooms on each side, where his men lay with whores and snored off the night's whiskey.

One by one, Joe Aiken woke up his cursing warriors, pulling them out of bed to the distress of their wailing, kicking whores.

When he had all four of his men assembled and dressed, he said to his bleary-eyed crew, “The O'Brien brothers just rode out of town. Get saddled up; we're going after them.”

Hiram Post rubbed his belly and yawned. “Hell, Joe, them two looked like a pair o' thirty-a-month punchers to me. What's the damned hurry?”

“They're O'Briens, you idiot,” Aiken said. “They're sitting three-hundred-dollar saddles on American studs that cost at least six hundred apiece. Throw in their guns and what they have in their pockets, and we'll have enough money to keep us in whiskey and whores until winter.”

“Hey, Joe,” a tough-looking towhead said, his holstered Colt and cartridge belt over his shoulder, “them O'Briens is mighty gun handy.”

“Damn you, Dixie, there's five of us,” Aiken said. “So we lose a couple of men, that means a bigger share o' the spoils for them as are left.” Aiken scowled, his eyebrows meeting on the battered bridge of his twice-broken nose. “I'll smooth it out for you, Dixie. I'm talking better whiskey and prettier whores for them as is still on their feet when the smoke clears.”

“Joe's talking sense,” Post said. “Let's go get them. And I want that arrogant swine they call Jacob.”

“You're welcome to him,” Dixie Foster said.