Shadow of the Hangman (5 page)

Chapter Eight

Shade Shannon rode out of the Manzano Mountains and followed Buffalo Draw west. That night he made cold camp in a mission ruin near Jacinto Mesa and in the morning pushed his tired horse toward the small village of El Cerrito, a cluster of adobe buildings scattered along the south bank of the Pecos River.

El Cerrito was populated solely by Mexicans and the occasional gringo drifter before Joshua DeClare had moved into an empty casa and made it his temporary headquarters.

Shannon figured that DeClare, that damned, twisted cripple, would help him as he'd helped him once before.

Shannon drew rein on the ridge above the village. He was tired, hungry, and gritty, his white eyes scorched by the morning sun. He reached into his shirt pocket and took a pair of round, dark spectacles from a leather pouch and settled them on the bridge of his nose before he hooked them behind his ears. He could smell the village from where he was, a heady mix of spices, chickens, rooting hogs, and burning mesquite. Women were already bustling around, preparing breakfast. A man stepped out of his house, yawned, stretched, and then threw a disinterested glance at the horseman on the ridge. He went back inside and closed the door behind him.

DeClare and his sister lived at the edge of town, in an adobe with a pole corral, outhouse, and small timber barn at back.

Shannon knew the house well. He'd been there once before, the day DeClare hired him to do that uppity witch of a farmer's wife.

“It's all set up, Shade,” DeClare had said. “Just rape the hell out of her and then get out of there without being seen. We'll do the rest.”

Shannon remembered that well. DeClare had sat in his wheelchair all pinched and white and sickly, his wasted legs like dry twigs, ready to break in a strong wind.

Shannon's mouth pulled into a tight line. God, he hated cripples. Until he'd done for him, his father had been one, the high and mighty Captain Miles Shannon. Damn him, his mind was as crippled as his body. He never understood that his son needed to hear the dying gasps of a woman like a Chinaman needed opium. Killing a woman after he'd had her nurture him made him feel whole again. Well again.

Cripple or no, Joshua understood that and had recognized a kindred spirit that day in Georgetown when they'd first met. And so did his sister. Dora DeClare was the most beautiful woman Shannon had seen in his life, even prettier than his own ma, may she rest in peace. He'd do Dora real good one day, but not just yet. Today he needed her. Tomorrow—he smiled—well, so long poor, sweet Dora.

Shannon rode down the rise toward the DeClare cabin. It was time to call in favors of his own.

 

 

“Shade, you look terrible,” Dora DeClare said. “And you've got blood all over your shirt.”

Shannon smiled almost shyly, shuffling his feet like a boy caught stealing apples. “Killed me a whore last night, Dora. Done for my daddy, too.”

Dora's expression didn't change as her brother said, “Shade, that was naughty of you.”

“They were begging for it, Josh,” Shannon said.

“You're a good boy, Shade,” Dora DeClare said. “So I'm sure they were.”

“Hell, I also killed me a woman and her two kids,” Shannon said, a note of pride in his voice.

“When, last night?” Dora said.

“No, the night before that, I think. Father tied me up in the barn afterward, but I escaped, and then I done for him.”

Dora said nothing, but her slender throat moved as she swallowed hard, and she didn't look at her brother or Shannon. The last thing she wanted was to meet Shannon's stare, the one that ripped her clothes off and left her naked, or read the madness in his alabaster eyes.

“Dora,” Shannon said, grinning, “I guess now you'll spank me for being such a bad boy, like you done before, huh?”

“Yes, Shade, after I wash that bloody shirt of yours and fix you something to eat.”

Shannon looked around the cabin. A table lamp that still glowed through the glassy morning light added pinpoints of yellow to his suddenly haunted eyes. “Where is Luke Caldwell?” he said.

“He's out,” DeClare said. “Scouting around, I guess.”

“I don't like him,” Shannon said. “And he doesn't like me.”

“Luke doesn't like anybody,” DeClare said. “Anyway, I hired him for his gun, not to go around liking folks.”

“I will have to kill him one day,” Shannon said.

DeClare smiled. “Wait until he guns Jacob O'Brien. Then you can have at him.”

“What does he look like, this O'Brien feller?” Shannon said.

“Why do you want to know?” DeClare said.

“After I done the whore at Lou Rose's saloon—you know where that is?”

“I've heard of it.”

“Well, a tall, thin feller took a couple of pots at me, then chased me,” Shannon said. “It was dark, but I caught a glimpse of moonlight a couple of times and saw him and another man on my back trail.”

Suddenly, DeClare leaned forward in his chair, his pale, thin face alarmed. “You didn't lead O'Brien here, did you?”

“No, I lost him in the hills.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.”

“Describe the man you saw,” Joshua DeClare said.

“Like I said, a tall, thin man, got a Comanche's face on him except for the blue eyes and big mustache. Wears a puncher's outfit, worn-out and ragged, and totes his gun on his right hip.”

DeClare eased back in his wheelchair. “Could be O'Brien, could be a hundred other men.”

“If it's him, he doesn't scare me none,” Shannon said.

“You ran from him, Shade,” Dora said.

“It was the thing to do at the time. Next time I won't run.”

“Shade,” Dora said, “give me your shirt. Then go outside and wash at the pump. Bacon and eggs all right with you?”

“Anything you cook is all right with me, Dora.” Shannon removed his shirt and passed it to the woman. Their fingers touched, and Dora felt her skin crawl.

After Shannon left, Dora watched him from the window as he stood splashing water on his face and chest at the pump. Without turning she said, “Josh, he's a monster.”

“We need him, Dora.”

“Can you control him?”

“Yes, I can. And if not me, Luke Caldwell will.”

DeClare spoke to his sister's stiff back. “Dora, remember that the real monster here is Shamus O'Brien.”

“That's something I'm not likely to forget.”

DeClare was silent for a while, as though marshaling his thoughts. Then he said, “Dora, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it, brought Shade Shannon back to us. Now we'll use him again, this time to tear the very heart out of Dromore. When it's done, I'll kill him like the mad dog he is.”

Dora turned from the window, blew out the oil lamp on the table that had been competing uselessly against the morning light, and said, “How does a bright young army officer become Shade Shannon?”

DeClare took time to light his pipe. “According to Luke Caldwell, the story goes that he found the bodies of four of his soldiers after they'd been worked over for days by Apache women,” he said. “The soldiers had died real slow, a bit at a time, and their intestines—”

“Josh, I understand,” Dora said. “You don't have to draw me the picture.”

DeClare smiled. “All right, then here's the short version: Something snapped in Second Lieutenant Shannon's mind that day. The way Luke heard it, Shade started screaming, and he didn't stop for three days and two nights. Finally, he went into some kind of deep sleep, and when he woke the man was gone and the monster had taken his place.”

“It was then he raped a woman,” Dora said.

“Yes. As Shade says, he ‘done her good.' He must have done her real good because his father had to call in old favors to get him out of a court-martial and a hanging. He took him back to the Shannon ranch.”

“And then we met him,” Dora said. She glanced out the window where Shannon was toweling his face and hair. “When do we turn him loose on Lorena O'Brien?” she said.

“When the time is right,” DeClare said. “But, never fear, it will be soon.” He frowned in thought. “My inclination is to wait until after Patrick O'Brien swings.” He looked at his sister, his eyes bright. “The hurt to Shamus will be all the greater then.”

“God willing,” Dora said.

DeClare's anger flared, and his skeletal hands slapped the arms of his chair. “What has God got to do with it?” he said. “We serve a far more powerful prince, do we not? Do you want him to destroy you, tear you limb from limb?”

Dora's wide, frightened eyes revealed her alarm. “Joshua, please don't talk like that. It . . . it scares me when you say those things about the master.”

“You think I'm mad to tell you such things, don't you, Dora?”

“I think Father's death nearly drove you to the brink of insanity.” She smiled and laid her hand on her brother's thin shoulder. “But you're better now, Josh, much better.”

“And this wasted body of mine, how do you explain it?”

“Josh, you know how it happened.”

“Tell me.”

“Your horse reared, then fell on top of you.”

“Was it God's will?”

“It was an accident, Josh.”

“No, it was God's will that I be a cripple.” DeClare's eyes burned with black fire, and his mouth tightened into a pale line. “That is why I've turned my back on him.”

Dora glanced at her brother's shriveled legs and the unholy light in his stare, and she shivered as though she'd stepped into an icy breeze. “The master wouldn't turn on us, would he?”

“Of course not, I was merely joking. No need to be afraid, Dora,” DeClare said. “It is Shamus O'Brien's boast that Dromore has stood against rustlers, Apaches, blizzards, droughts, and floods. We'll see how it stands against me and all the dark powers I can summon.”

Dora DeClare felt her stomach spike, from fear or dread or both. Suddenly, she was caught in the terrible twilight shadows that lurk between madness and evil. She glanced outside at Shannon, who stood in the yard beckoning to her, grinning. No, not caught. Dora knew she was no innocent victim. She was part of it, part of the madness, part of the evil, and blood stained her hands. Where and how it would end she had no way of knowing.

She opened the door and stepped outside. Shannon's marble eyes were lost behind dark glasses that glowed red, reflecting the scarlet-rippled sky. Suddenly, she felt sick to her stomach as her mind and body revolted at what she was about to do. Shannon, a mad man at home in a mad world, bent over his knees, groaning, his pants around his ankles as she paddled him.

And the man who caused all this was Shamus O'Brien, and she cursed him, cursed him to the deepest caverns of hell.

Him and all his vile brood.

 

 

“Is that Shade Shannon I hear hollering?” Luke Caldwell said.

“Dora is giving him a beating,” DeClare said.

“He's a freak,” Caldwell said.

“I know, but right now we need him.” He looked at the tall, loose-limbed Texas gunman. “Is it done?”

“It's done.”

“You made sure?”

Caldwell's lean, grim face didn't change expression. “When a man's got the hilt of a Green River knife sticking out of his throat, he don't need much convincing that he's dead.”

DeClare smiled, a humorless grimace that didn't reach his eyes. “So, we wait until Patrick O'Brien swings, then Shannon will bide his time and jump the lovely Lorena first chance he gets.” He clapped together his thin, blue-veined hands. “Our plans proceed apace, do they not?”

For a few moments Caldwell didn't speak, then he said, “All the O'Brien brothers are good with the iron, but the one you have to look out for is Jacob. He could spoil your plans pretty damn quick.”

“I know that he's fast on the draw-and-shoot.”

“Maybe the best there is. And he's as mean as eight acres of rattlesnakes, and he likes to shoot first and talk later.”

“Can you take him, Luke?”

“Maybe. I don't know. But it would be close, and he'd put lead in me, count on that. Jake O'Brien won't die easy.”

“Then we'll have to find a less dangerous way to dispose of him, won't we?” DeClare scowled in thought, then brightened. “I know, we'll talk to Shannon. He'll find a way.”

“Talk to him yourself. If he takes down his pants to show us his
gage d'amour
, I swear I'll put a bullet up his ass.”

DeClare shook his head. “Harsh talk, Luke, harsh talk indeed.”

“Listen,” the gunman said, “you want Shamus O'Brien ruined, right?” He saw DeClare nod and said, “Then let me ruin him for keeps. I can lay up on the mesa with a rifle and scatter his brains as soon as he sticks his head outside.” Caldwell allowed himself a rare smile. “For sure, that'll spoil his day.”

DeClare nodded. “Your suggestion is not without merits, Luke, but it's too easy. Dora and I want to rip O'Brien's heart out, destroy his soul, have him suffer the fires long before he reaches hell.” The cripple's face was vicious. “A dead man can't suffer. I look forward to the day when O'Brien sits amid the ruin of Dromore and all his dreams and ambitions lie in ashes at his feet. Perhaps on that day he'll blow his own brains out, but before he does I will make him whimper the name DeClare. Damn him, he'll rue the day he first heard it.”

“Josh, you and your sister make pretty powerful enemies,” Caldwell said.