Shadow of the Hangman

by J. A. Johnstone

  Lum’s eyes flickered, but he said nothing for several moments. Then he said, “You like them dead, boy, don’t you? Later you’ll tell me about them. All of them, in detail.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shannon said, but his voice was unsteady.

  “Ah, but you do,” Lum said. “Tell me about . . .” he looked at Dora. “What was her name?”

  “Molly Holmes,” Dora answered, her throat tight.

  “Yes, her. Now, boy, tell me about pretty Molly. What did you do to her? Tell it open now, open and square.”

  Josh DeClare pushed his wheelchair toward Lum. “No! We told you Shade murdered her so we could pin the blame on Patrick O’Brien and begin the fall of the house of Dromore. Now let it go at that, Lum. My sister is not used to such talk.”

  “I’m a rough-spoken man,” Lum said, “that’s right enough. But when you invite hell into your home, don’t expect polite conversation over tea and cake.”

  Lum reached out, grabbed Shannon by the shirtfront, and pulled the man’s face close to his own. “You and I will talk later. You will tell me what you know, and I will tell you what I know. We will educate each other in many ways.”

  “Lum!” DeClare’s shout edged on hysteria. “I thought you came to help us.”

  Lum pushed Shannon away from him. “Oh, but I have.”

  “We told you about Shamus O’Brien’s sons. When the time comes, you will help kill them all.”

  “That will not be a difficult task,” Lum said.

  Luke Caldwell snorted. “In a pig’s eye! Jacob O’Brien is a demon with a gun.”

  Lum grinned. “Ah, he’s yet another kindred spirit. For am I not a demon with a gun?”

  Dora gave a little peal of nervous laughter, but her brother’s face was grim. Suddenly, DeClare realized that unleashing dark forces was one thing. Controlling them was quite another.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jacob O’Brien sat in a rocker on the front porch of the Clementine Hotel in Georgetown and studied the street. “Not much moving, Shawn,” he said.

  Shawn brushed beer foam off the tip of his nose and said, “I can’t figure it. I reckoned John Moore would have a posse mounted by this time.”

  “I haven’t seen him since we rode in,” Jacob said. “Where the hell is he?”

  Shawn shrugged a silent answer and went back to his beer.

  The long summer day had finally shaded into night, and a cool north wind off the Santa Fe Mountains strolled around town, smelling of high timber and dry grassland. Lamps glowed in the stores and saloons along the street, and the fashionable young belles who had appeared on the boardwalks looked at Shawn from under the fringes of their eyelashes. The only sound was the soft tap of lace-up boots on timber, the rustle of petticoats, and the high tenor voices of the lovesick beaus who wooed the ladies with snatches of song from Mr. Gilbert and Sullivan’s latest operetta. The sporting crowd had already made the saloons rowdy, but of a hanging posse, there was no sign.

  Jacob and Shawn were on their second beers when a small, thin man rode up on a rawboned mule and dismounted with all the grace of a first-time rider. He took a carpetbag and rectangular leather case from the saddle horn, dropped them at his feet, and vigorously rubbed his butt.

  Shawn, an affable man by nature, smiled and said, “A Missoura mule will do that to you, mister.”

  The little man, dressed in black broadcloth, a derby hat of the same color on his head, said, “It’s a horse.”

  “No, it’s a mule,” Shawn said.

  “The man in Santa Fe who sold it to me told me it was a horse.”

  “Then he lied to you,” Shawn said.

  “Horse . . . mule . . . whatever the cussed animal may be, riding it is not an experience I wish to repeat any time soon,” the little man said.

  He picked up his bag and the leather case, then stepped onto the hotel porch. He looked at Shawn. “There are rooms to be had, I trust?”

  “I reckon,” Shawn said. He looked over the little man, who barely stood five feet tall, from the top of his hat to the soles of his elastic-sided boots. “What brings you to Georgetown?” he said. “Business or pleasure?”

  “Are you a constable?” the man said.

  “Nah,” Shawn said. “In a manner of speaking we’re just passing through.”

  “Well, in answer to your question, I’m here on business. I plan to kill a man.”

  Now the little fellow had the undivided attention of the O’Brien brothers. “Anybody we know?” Jacob said. “He could be kin.”

  “Hmm . . .” the man said. “Have you ever spent any time in an asylum for the criminally insane?”

  “Not recently,” Jacob said.

  “Then you won’t know him and he isn’t kin. His name is Lum.” The small man smiled. “Now, if I can take him into custody alive, then I will.” He shook his head. “But I fear that won’t be the case.”

  “Mister, you ain’t even heeled,” Shawn said. “This is a rough neighborhood.”

  “Oh, you mean my apparent lack of a firearm. Well, I’ve taken care of that.” He lifted the leather case and showed it to Shawn. “In here I have a very fine twelve-gauge Hollis and Sheath shotgun, with the barrels cut back to twenty inches. It’s all the firearm I need.”

  “That feller in Santa Fe who sold you the mule didn’t tell you the scattergun was a Winchester rifle, did he?” Jacob said.

  For a moment the little man seemed confused, then his mild, good-natured face brightened and he smiled. “Oh, I see, you’re making a good joke,” he said. “No, I realize that this is not a rifle. The Hollis and Sheath has been at my side for ten years, and during that time I’ve killed fifteen men with it. As weapons go, the shotgun at close range is a most efficient weapon.”

  A faint alarm bell rang in Jacob’s mind, and with it the hazy remembrance of a man who’d long since passed into Western legend.

  “Do you mind telling us your name, mister?” he said.

  “Not at all,” the little man beamed. “It’s Ernest Thistledown, out of, if you’ll forgive the rhyme, Boston town.”

  Jacob nodded. “I recollect now, you’re called the Buggy Bounty Hunter.”

  “As ever was,” Thistledown said, making a bow. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I must secure a room and a stable for my . . . whatever it is.”

  He moved to the hotel door, then turned and said, “How remiss of me. I didn’t ask you gentlemen your names.”

  “I’m Jacob O’Brien. This is my brother Shawn.”

  Thistledown allowed that he was glad to make the brothers’ acquaintance. “Perhaps we can talk later over a beer,” he said.

  “Fine by us, we’re not going anywhere,” Jacob said.

  Shawn met the coy stare of a pretty girl who just walked past in a cloud of perfume, and he smiled. “Of course, that all depends.”

  “Keep your mind on business, brother,” Jacob said. “We’re here to head off a posse, remember?”

  Shawn nodded. “All right, Jake, so amuse me. Tell how that funny little man became the Buggy Bounty Hunter.”

  Jacob built, and then lit, a cigarette before he talked. “Ernest Thistledown hates riding, so he always travels by train, then horse and buggy.”

  “Or mule and buggy, huh?”

  “I’d say that’s likely,” Jacob said, “since he don’t know the difference.”

  “Has he really killed fifteen men, like he says?”

  “Depends on who you talk to. Some say more, some say less. He only goes after outlaws who are worth at least five thousand dead or alive. They say he won’t leave Boston for a penny less.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of him before?” Shawn said.

  “Thistledown is discreet. Like you said, he’s a funny-looking little man, so he goes unnoticed. But he can track like an Apache, and there’s no backup in him. When Ernest Thistledown is on your trail, you pretty much know that you’re already a dead man. Sooner or later he’ll catch up to yo
u and cut you in half with his scattergun.”

  Shawn smiled. “Jake, I’m not doubting your word, but I don’t believe any of that. I reckon somebody’s been telling you some mighty big windies. Hell, that little man’s about as dangerous as a pug dog in a brothel.”

  “Did you look into his eyes, Shawn?” Jacob said.

  “Of course not. I save that kind of thing for the women I like.”

  “He’s got the eyes of a killer,” Jacob said. “Don’t let his harmless act fool you, he’s a mighty mean little feller.”

  Shawn laughed. “I’d like to see him try to take you, Jake. By the time he unlimbered that scattergun you’d have six bullets in him.”

  “Maybe so, but when he goes into a showdown with a man the shotgun will be in his hands. All he has to do is pull the triggers, and that’s faster than I can draw.”

  “Oh, hell,” Shawn said, looking over his brother’s shoulder, “speak o’ the devil.”

  Thistledown stepped toward the O’Briens, a smile on his lips and a waiter in tow bearing a tray and three steins of beer.

  “My treat,” the little man said.

  “Thank you and take a chair,” Jacob said.

  Thistledown seated himself, and the waiter served the beers. The little man took a sip and said, “Ah, very good. Riding gives a man a thirst.”

  Jacob parked his glass and began to build a cigarette. “Tell us about this man you’re hunting,” he said.

  “Lum? He’s more animal than man, a vile creature spawned in a hell of his own making.”

  “How did he end up in the loco lockup?” Shawn said.

  “He was tried for murder, rape, and robbery, but judged too insane to hang,” Thistledown said. He made a face. “Lum had a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury, and he got a life sentence to a private asylum for the criminally insane.” The little man waved a hand. “He soon escaped, of course, after killing half a dozen of the institution’s staff.”

  “So now he’s on the scout and you’re after him?” Shawn said.

  “That’s not quite the way of it. Lum escaped years ago. He made his way to San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, where he took up with a runner and all-around thug by the name of Tom Scratcher.”

  Shawn’s handsome face was half in shadow, but, with a hunter’s eyesight, Thistledown saw the question in the O’Brien brother’s eyes. The bounty man said, “There are hell ships out of New York City commanded by captains under whom no sailorman in his right mind will sail.” The man smiled. “Thugs like Scratcher shanghai poor drunken sailors and provide those crews.”

  Thistledown watched the flare of Jacob’s match glow red on the hard planes of his face, then said, “For years Lum provided Scratcher’s muscle, and he was reckoned to be the best man with the blackjack, brass knuckles, and slingshot along the whole Barbary Coast. He was also good with a gun and ready to use it. Later he did some prizefighting for Scratcher, winner take all. Lum killed eight men with his bare fists in prizefights and crippled twice as many.”

  “So how come he’s here?” Jacob said.

  “Vigilantes, with the blessing of the San Francisco Police Department, finally said enough was enough and strung up Lum and Scratcher from a walnut tree on the edge of town. Then they poured coal oil over the pair and set them on fire. Somehow Lum survived, and now he thinks he can’t be killed, and that makes him even more dangerous.”

  The evening promenade of the belles and their suitors had ended, but the saloons still prospered, the street ringing with tinny piano music, the roars of men, and the high, false laughter of whores.

  Thistledown looked at Shawn and smiled. “I’m boring you, Mr. O’Brien, and I do apologize.”

  Shawn shook his head. “No, you’re not boring me. Thanks to my brother’s sense of duty I’ve got nothing better to do this evening.”

  “The girls will be back tomorrow night,” Jacob said.

  “And I won’t be here to see them probably,” Shawn said. “By then we might be gunfighting a hanging posse.”

  Jacob saw interest quicken in Thistledown’s face at that remark, but he headed off the little bounty hunter’s question with one of his own.

  “What’s Lum doing in this neck of the woods?” he said. Jacob remembered the man with the burned face he and Moore had met on the trail, but he figured he wouldn’t tip his hand just yet. Let Thistledown do some more talking. Slight as it was, there was always a possibility that all of this could affect Dromore.

  “Lum belongs to a Satan-worshipping cult,” Thistledown said.

  “A what?” Shawn said, leaning forward in his chair.

  “A Satan-worshipping cult,” Thistledown repeated. “It’s based in New York City, but it has chapters in other towns across the nation, and it’s particularly big in San Francisco.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Shawn said. He hurriedly crossed himself. “The colonel would hang every damned one of them.”

  “I’d never heard of it, either,” Thistledown said, “until I was asked to take this job.”

  He drank some beer and then lit a long, thin cheroot, something that Jacob thought was out of character for a man who looked more preacher than bounty hunter. “The cult is run, or I should say was run, since he’s now locked up in a mental institution, by a man who calls himself Doctor William T. March.” Thistledown spoke from behind a blue cloud of smoke. “March, probably in an effort to save his own skin, recently renounced all Satan’s works and made a speedy conversion to Christianity.”

  “Good for him,” Shawn said, grinning.

  “And perhaps one might say, good for the people of the New Mexico Territory.” Thistledown smiled. “You see, March said he’d recently been corresponding with one of his disciples in Fresno, California. He said he’d dispatched Lum to the Territory to help a brother Satanist destroy an enemy.”

  “Who’s the enemy?” Jacob asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thistledown said. “But he or she has got to be around here somewhere.”

  “How do you reckon that?” Jacob said.

  “I’d been tracking Lum for a month when I got a lead in Santa Fe. The newspapers said that a local whore had been murdered by what an eyewitness described as ‘a monster.’ Then a second whore was killed in the same way in a town south of the city. A lawman was shot and killed that same night, and a couple of men were wounded. This time about a hundred people saw the killer, and the man they described could only be Lum. I figured he was heading south to join up with his fellow disciple, so my search brought me here.” Thistledown paused, then continued, “I have a lot of territory to cover.”

  “Maybe I can help you out,” Jacob said. “I met a man answering Lum’s description on the trail west of here. He wanted directions to El Cerrito, a Mexican village on the Pecos.”

  “Is the village close?”

  “Yeah, I reckon about ten miles south of here.”

  “Then that is where I’ll go,” Thistledown said. He leaned forward so his face was close to Jacob’s. “Listen, my friend, you had a narrow escape on the trail, so thank your lucky stars Lum was not in a killing mood. Now, if you see him again, step wide of him and then come tell me. I’ll deal with him. He’s very dangerous, do you understand?”

  Jacob suppressed a smile. “I sure will, Mr. Thistledown. I’ll come right to you.”

  The little man nodded. “You can’t go up against Lum and live. Run from him.” His eyes went from Jacob to Shawn and back again. “Both of you remember that. Your lives could depend on it.”

  “We’ve got it,” Shawn said, but his smile was obvious.

  “Then, gentlemen, I’ll bid you good night,” Thistledown said. “The damned mule horse has worn me out.”

  After the little man left, Shawn turned to his brother and said, “Aren’t you glad that the gallant Mr. Thistledown is around to protect us?”

  “I sure am,” Jacob said with a straight face. He thought for a moment, then said, “I wonder who hired him to get this Lum character?”<
br />
  Shawn shook his head. “Somebody in New York, I guess. Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not,” Jacob said. He glanced up and down the empty street. “Where is John Moore with his damned posse?” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Later, Jacob O’Brien would not wonder if fate brought the two riders to the hotel that night. But Shawn would. And he would marvel at it for the rest of his life.

  Despite Thistledown’s reputation as an efficient and deadly bounty hunter, neither Jacob nor Shawn rated him as a fighting man. Even his strange name worked against him. No one on God’s green earth was called Thistledown except this one little insignificant man.

  So when two tall riders wearing dusters and holstered revolvers drew rein at the Clementine Hotel and asked if a man named Thistledown was staying there, Jacob and Shawn expected the worst.

  One of the men dismounted and entered the lobby. He appeared a short while later and said, “He’s here all right, Dorn. I told the clerk to tell him the Wellstone brothers were calling him out.”

  The man called Dorn swung out of the saddle, and his brother joined him in the dusty street. Rectangles of light from the hotel fell on the Wellstone brothers, tinting the hard, relentlessly grim planes of their faces with an orange glow. Both men pulled their dusters free of their guns . . . and waited.

  Shawn, as always inclined to be sociable, said, “You boys rode far?”

  “Far enough,” Dorn said. His eye sockets were in shadow, but Shawn felt his stare. “You friends of Thistledown?”

  Shawn shook his head. “Had a beer with him. Does that make us friends?”

  “You answer that question your own self,” Dorn said, and his brother, who looked to be still in his teens, nodded.

  “Mr. Thistledown is in bed,” Jacob said.

  “By this time he knows we called him out,” Dorn said. “He’ll get up.”

  “Got a beef with him, huh?” Shawn said, smiling.

  “He killed our brother,” Dorn said. “Killed him for the five thousand bounty on his head.”

  “Must have been a real bad man, your brother,” Jacob said.