The Shadow Trail (An Evan Ryder Western)

by J. W. Bradley

  “Thank you. I will tidy up here when I’m through, the Doctor won’t know I was ever down there.”

  She nodded and was gone without another word. Which I appreciated, as I jumped like a frightened school boy as the water trough loudly gurgled the last of its contents onto the barn floor.

  3

  The trough had turned over soundlessly on well oiled hinges and a steep set of wooden stairs were revealed in the lamplight. I descended with care and found a large open room. A long table with a dozen or so chairs surrounding it, sat at the center. On one wall were maps of all kinds and under closer inspection, turned out to be ones ranging from those showing only individual states to ones showing all of the known continents. Curiously, there were dozens of X marks scattered across them all. I quickly searched for a map key of some kind but found nothing of the like.

  There were several chests in the room and even more bookcases. A cursory glance at the book titles, told me that the main themes were history and the occult, though scattered in were novels of various kinds. I smiled when coming across The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, one of my personal favorites. I tried the handle on what looked like a gun case. It was unlocked, and inside were all manner of weapons: shotguns, pistols, repeaters, and even a miniature Gatling gun. Apparently this group had planned on fighting now and again.

  Next, I planned to turn my attention to the chests, but first I wanted to creep back up the stairs and make certain I was still alone. It was chance really, something I prefer not to rely on, that was responsible for the most startling discovery. My eyes picked up something metal glinting in the lantern light. I squeezed around the angled stair well and ran my hand over the dirt wall. The reflective piece of metal was a handle. I tugged at it, belatedly wary of a trap, and a heavy strongbox pulled free of a hidden cubby. I let the weight of it pull my arm to the ground and I knelt beside it.

  Locked, and it looked sturdy. Undaunted by this, I reached into my suit jacket and pulled out a slim piece of metal I had fashioned and kept on my person for just such an occasion. With sweat dripping down my temples and leery of staying in this secret place too long, I managed to pop the lock open. Pulling the lantern closer I looked through the box’s contents.

  Papers. Dozens of sheets, cut evenly and filed fastidiously. On those papers: names, a great many. Names, some notes and symbols, some I recognized from religious orders and the like. A hiss escaped my lips as I continued to riffle through the papers. Some of the men and women I knew, not personally but by reputation, men of war, men of words, of medicine, of politics, art and more. Of course I found Joshua Burnett’s, and on another sheet, whiter and crisper than the rest, Grant’s. While the people on the front of the papers had little in common, there was a thing connecting them all, an acronym writ in perfect script on the back-W.E.r.d. Strange how the first two letters were uppercase and the second two lower. I doubted it was a mistake as all were written the same way, and in the same handwriting.

  My lips moved without realizing it, sounding out the letters. Word? Weerd? Weird!

  How utterly, magnificently fascinating! Weird! But what was this group’s mysterious purpose? And more importantly, what words did the letters stand for? By God, now I was on to them!

  I heard the barn door open. Hastily, I wrestled the strong box back into its cubby on the wall and slipped out from behind the stairs. I had my foot on the bottom step when I heard my name whispered from above.

  “Ryder, you blasted fool, come up from there!” Carter’s large form blotted out the faint moonlight above.

  “Is Burnett there?” I asked with dread as I mounted the stairs.

  “No, thankfully, but there’s something worse.”

  “Oh?” Reaching ground level I dusted off my hands and swatted at my soiled suit, trying to appear nonplussed, as if I had merely been on an evening stroll.

  “Yes, damitt! The sheriff’s Indian scout is back.” Carter was sweating worse than I.

  “Well, that is excellent! We can question him now.”

  My friend rolled his eyes back in his head as he was inclined to do when I frustrated him for some reason. “Just close up that opening and get outside, Burnett is getting dressed and I want you to see this before anyone touches anything.” He spun and walked back through the barn door.

  Nina was swaying on her hitch a bit. It was the last sign before she became outright skittish. Carter’s Arabian watched her curiously. “Hey girl, what do you smell?” I scratched her neck as she loved me to do when I passed her, but she only whinnied in acknowledgement.

  4

  Outside there was blood in the dust, just a spattering. Oh, and drag marks. I followed this trail to where the scout hung by his left foot from his horse’s stirrup. Half his head was missing, one long, remaining ponytail splayed out from the remains of his skull.

  Carter Maynes was standing over him, a handkerchief pressed to his mouth. Mama Louise was holding the reigns of the scout’s horse, and cooing to it sweetly.

  Without speaking, I knelt and examined the wound. It wasn’t from a gunshot as I first assumed. The missing part of his head looked almost broken away as if dashed on rocks with great force, possibly during a long fall. Yet, that seemed most unlikely as, except for mild nervousness, the horse appeared unhurt. And dead men generally did not rise from a fall and slip their feet into a horse’s stirrup.

  “Ryder?” Maynes wanted me to say something. But as I looked closer at the wound I saw that the brain was gone, and more curiously, the poor man’s tongue and all his throat tissues as well. This was no natural injury. It looked very much as if a demon from hell had bit away the scout’s cranium and sucked out his sweetmeats. I was tempted to torture Carter with just such an observation, but decided to have mercy on him.

  “I believe he was struck dead and must have lain about for some time, the horse standing by while forest critters feasted from the wound.”

  “Perhaps.” Carter moved the handkerchief from his face to speak louder. “But struck by what?”

  Indeed, it must have been a fearsome blow. I could not imagine a killing tool capable of this strange damage. “My question is: where’s the sheriff?”

  “Sheriff Heller is a fighting man!” Burnett had appeared and came quickly toward us from the front porch. “They must have found my boy! The sheriff will bring him home.” He was unsteady on his feet and smelled entirely too much of alcohol. Amazingly he leaned against the scout’s horse and tried to light a cigar. “I’ll head out myself right now!” He dropped the unlit cigar as the horse began shaking uncontrollably.

  “What the devil?” Carter was reaching to pull the doctor away and Mama Louise fought valiantly, struggling with the reigns but with a finally shake and a long bellow the horse toppled onto Burnett. There was a loud crack in the night as one of Burnett’s leg bones snapped with the impact and he was immediately slammed to the ground.

  Red faced and with his eyes streaming tears, the older man screamed partially in pain but mostly in defeat as he lay pinned on his back. “NOOO! Damn it all! Grant!”

  “We’ve got tah get the horse offa’ him!” Mama Louise was pushing on the large, fresh carcass in vain, managing only to rock it back and forth across Burnett’s legs. His screaming rose in pitch, and now it was mostly from the pain

  I bent over Burnett and squeezed his throat just below the jaw line, searching for the artery, found it, squeezed harder and in moments rendered him unconscious.

  “Ryder!” I had expected Mayne’s startled reaction. With great effort he bent and checked Burnett’s breathing. Satisfied, he said, “You jackal! Where did you learn that?”

  “In the orient, along with a glorious recipe for raw fish and rice. I thought this to be the more useful of the two, considering the circumstances.”

  5

  It was well into the morning hours when we finally got Joshua Burnett’s leg set and settled into bed. I used some of the hot water still simmering on the wood stove to shave and wash my face. Flop
ping back into one of the overstuffed chairs furnishing the Doctor’s library, I closed my eyes for a moment’s respite.

  “Ryder!”

  Well, the best laid plans…

  “Ryder, Burnett seems fine for now. Mama Louise is watching over him and she appears competent enough.” Carter Maynes crossed the room and dropped heavily into an identical chair opposite mine. “Unfortunately we still have a dead man lying by an equally dead horse just off the front porch.”

  I sighed heavily and turned towards him. “No disrespect to the dead, but that is of lesser concern to the investigation now.”

  “Well it certainly means we’ve got big trouble. The condition of Sheriff Heller’s man points toward a bad end for Grant Burnett.”

  “Perhaps, but now there’s a fresh trail to follow and I plan to leave at first light.” Carter nodded at this as he would most likely stay at the homestead and deal with the situation here. It was our way.

  Carter pulled himself up from his chair and said, “Very good, let us try to get some rest.” He stopped and turned toward me as he reached the door. “Ryder, I expect a full report on your search of the hidden bunker, I could tell by the look in your eye, that you discovered something rather scandalous.”

  For a moment, I considered feigning sleep, but knew it was just a plan formed by a fatigued mind. “The men we spoke of, the ones Joshua Burnett said were coming around, calling on Grant, it appears they are part of a larger brotherhood. A group immersed in, or at the least acquainted with some rather dark workings. What’s worse, their number includes some very upstanding citizens, alive and dead.”

  My superior sighed heavily. “We’ll have to proceed carefully, there’s always the politics to consider.”

  “I’ll let you worry about that, but something tells me this bunch couldn’t care one wit for the stuff, they’re after results.”

  “Oh? Like you?”

  “Yep.” I leaned back and placed my feet up on Carter’s abandoned chair. Putting my hat over my face, I decided to feign sleep after all.

  With the moonlight gently flowing into the room through a large window, I slept for a time, sitting in the plush leather chair. Deep in the night, with the house quiet except for its natural creaks and groans, an idea slipped dreamlike into my mind. I awoke suddenly. Leaving my hat, coat and boots in the chair, I crept in my socks out of the library and into the hall, up the stairs, and toward Grant Burnett’s empty bedroom.

  The door opened silently and I stood on the threshold. Even from the doorway, I could make out Little Mountain through the window. Rising like a great, dark wave on a sea at night, it was completely covered by bushy oaks, cottonwoods, elms, and tall pines. I walked to the window, careful to stay in the shadows on one side, and searched for the trail Mama Louise had spoken of. It took a moment but I was just able to pick it out, visible intermittently where the vegetation was not so towering and thick. The next town in that direction was Cryer Creek, thirty miles away. There were wide, well used trails on both the north and south sides of the mountain. Why would such a narrow footpath have formed? Perhaps hunters over the years had worn it clear as they delved deep into the woods for game?

  Turning from the window I looked the room over. There appeared to be nothing unusual; a small book case, an armoire, a side table and two closed closet doors. I dropped down and found nothing beneath the bed. Any further searching seemed fruitless as anything out of the ordinary would most likely be kept in the bunker. I decided to lie for a moment upon the bed. With my elbows bent and my hands behind my head, I stretched out on my back. A shadow cross floated on the ceiling above me, cast by the moonlight through the four panes of the window. Taking a deep breath, I tried to imagine the thoughts of a man like Grant Burnett. What on earth had he discovered on the mountain outside? Or what had discovered him?

  My eyes snapped open in surprise, probably because I hadn’t remembered closing them in the first place. I still remained in the same position, but from the angle of the moonlight, it was clear that some time had passed. Then, in the corner of my eye, I picked up a new shadow on the ceiling, cast in the light from the window, my first impression that it was a silhouette of a frazzled head of hair. Without explanation, a cold fear flowed up the muscles of my neck and froze my head in place. Dreamily, I lay immobile, struggling to turn my head toward the window. But something deep inside me did not want to.

  Damn it! I almost screamed aloud. Then with great effort I finally managed to strain my eyes fully to the left and toward the window. There! A shape! Someone looking in at me, I thought. But just like that, it was gone. I felt free to move and I shot out of the bed and raced to the window. Outside, the night was still and empty, however I remained there, searching until I finally saw traces of the morning sun creeping across the lawn from behind the house.

  I was halfway down the stairs when a rooster broke the early dawn’s silence with its daily call.

  6

  I finished threading the fine leather of my gun belt through its buckle just as Mama Louise walked into the library.

  “Well, we can’t have yah runnin’ off without food in your belly.” She held up a fat canvas satchel that I could tell was well provisioned.

  “Thank you Ma’am.” I took it and followed the smell of bacon to the kitchen. Carter was already seated and was forking a wad of fried eggs into his mouth.

  “Ryder! I have the scout bundled up.” He said after a moment’s chewing. “Name was Benjamin Hoot. I found a telegraph from Sheriff Heller in his pocket.”

  Taking a seat, I nodded absently and grabbed a warm biscuit. I heard Mama Louise leave the house through the front door and took the opportunity to speak to Carter candidly. “With Joshua Burnett laid up, I believe you should take the opportunity to do a more thorough search of the bunker.”

  Carter stopped eating and stared at me forlornly. “Shouldn’t we just let sleeping dogs lie?”

  I thought of the head in the window the night before. I was certain I hadn’t dreamed it, but ever since falling asleep in the library, I really did not feel like myself. It was imperative I get on that trail. “It is your decision, of course. We can always address it later. Grant and…well the sheriff now too are the priorities.” I pushed my seat away from the food laden table and walked to the hat rack just as Mama Louise came back inside.

  “Mr. Ryder, I know where you’re headin’ and it can get mighty cold in the evenings, that old duster of yours is not goin’ to be enough.” I followed her into the hall and she prepared to mount the stairs. “There’s a coat with wool inside just waiting in Grant’s armoire. He’s never worn it besides.”

  “Wait, I can get it.” I passed her on the second step, wanting to get a last look out Grant’s window before I left anyway.

  Inside the room again, during the day, I scoffed at myself for the superstitious fear that had threatened to overwhelm me the night before. I opened the armoire and immediately identified the coat Mama Louise intended me to take. Long and made with a soft, brown leather; the wool from the jacket’s interior folded over to make a cozy looking collar. As I reached in to pull it out, I saw a small brown box nestled on the floor of the armoire. I picked it up. It had fastidious green wrapping and a red bow. I could hear Mama Louise conversing with Carter in the kitchen, so I carefully slipped the bow off the box and looked inside. Of all things I expected to see, it surely wasn’t the little child’s doll that stared up at me with meticulously painted eyes. Beautiful auburn hair framed a cherubic, rosy cheeked face and the little figure was dressed in a soft green dress and black shoes with shiny gold buckles.

  I instantly knew this child’s toy was an integral piece of the Grant Burnett puzzle, I had just to find out where it fit. In the mean time, I wrapped it up in a swath of linen from the armoire, secreted it deep in a large pocket of Grant’s duster and brought it down the stairs with me. Sticking my head in the kitchen, I saw Carter Maynes was alone.

  “I’m going to saddle up Nina, and ride out.” />
  He stood up abruptly, his napkin sliding off his lap and unto the floor, sending remnants of biscuit rolling in every direction under the table. “Very good, I‘ll give you a hand. It seems Mama Louise plans to head into town with the wagon and retrieve some items from the doctor’s place. Oh, and inform Miss Gordon at the office of the circumstances, I’m sure.”

  I thought of Penny Gordon and if the doll might be connected to her. I found it unlikely. The doll had smelled rather new, as in only days old. The odor of the fresh glue holding the buckles to the shoes was still fairly prevalent.

  “Yes, then you’ll have the place to yourself and might be able to discover more about this Weird group.” I pointed toward the barn.

  Carter Mayne’s eyes widened ever so slightly as I spoke the name I had believe the strange acronym stood for. Ah my old friend, so you know more than you are letting on after all. “But these men, they could return at anytime, and in fact as word spreads of Dr. Burnett’s injury, it most likely will be soon,” he said.

  Outside, a stable boy surprised us at the house’s hitching post. He had Nina provisioned out and she looked to be freshly groomed. As I came down the porch steps he nodded at me and handed over my Mannlicher Carbine, an Austrian bolt-action rifle with a five round magazine. Frowning, I took it from him and inspected it thoroughly.

  “Who might you be son?” Carter asked him.

  “Leon, sir. Mama Louise, she’s my grammy. I drove Dr. Burnett in last night then walked back into town, I’ve got a girl there.” He looked at the ground shyly during the last part.

  Everything seemed in order with my rifle and Nina’s saddlebags so I unhitched her and walked toward the mountain trail where I immediately found the signs from the Indian’s horse. Carter and Leon followed me silently to the end of Burnett’s managed lawn and the start of where wild things like palmetto plants and cactus began to invade. The land here began to climb gradually and Carter addressed me from behind. “You believe he’s up there on the mountain somewhere? Maybe we should wait and call in the Marshalls?”