Shadow of the Hangman

by J. A. Johnstone

  Sarah fired, and the bullet fountained dirt near Lum’s feet. He kept coming, his unwavering stare black with death.

  “Oh, please, go away,” Sarah said. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

  Lorena sprang to her feet and charged at Sarah. She shouldered into the girl hard and grabbed the revolver before Sarah went sprawling.

  Lum covered the distance between himself and Lorena very fast. But the woman had been taught to shoot by Shawn O’Brien, and well she knew the way of the Colt.

  She slammed a shot into Lum’s chest. The big man slowed, stopped, and looked down at the sudden, blossoming blood. He roared at Lorena, his outstretched hands reaching for her throat like claws. The woman took a split second to steady her aim, and then she fired again.

  This time the bullet crashed into Lum’s skull, right in the middle of his forehead. The man stood there, his eyes wide open, staring into distance. Then he shrieked, a terrible, keening screech, so piercing it echoed its stark terror among the surrounding hills.

  In the ringing silence that followed, Lum stood where he was, dead, but standing upright, his eyes fixed on something only he could see.

  Sarah approached the dead man hesitantly, taking tiny, fearful steps.

  “Lorena, why did he do that?” she said. The girl’s face was drained of color. “Why did he scream like that?”

  Lorena seemed almost calm. “I think he caught his first glimpse of hell,” she said.

  Sarah ran around frantically picking up scraps of Lorena’s clothing. “Put these on,” she said. “No, don’t put them on. Not yet.” She took the smoking Colt from Lorena’s hand. “Did . . . did he . . . ?”

  “No,” Lorena said. “He didn’t.”

  “Wash,” Sarah said. She pointed to the water cascading from the rock wall. “Over there. Wash yourself clean. His stink is on you, and me.”

  Sarah rapidly stripped off her clothes, and the two women stood naked in the clearing. The girl grabbed Lorena’s hand, and they ran to the falling water.

  Sarah let out a little squeal. “Ow, it’s cold!” she said.

  “Freezing,” Lorena said. She turned her face to the tumbling stream. “But it feels good,” she said, her soaked hair falling over her shoulders.

  “Wash,” Sarah said, “down there. Get every bit of him off you.”

  The women stayed under the torrent for ten minutes, laughing, splashing each other like children, the terrors of the morning washing away with every drop of water.

  Finally, numb from cold, they stepped into the warming sun.

  “Look,” Sarah said.

  “I know,” Lorena said. “It’s almost as though he was standing there watching us.”

  Sarah’s voice quavered. “Lorena is . . . is he really dead?”

  “He’s dead all right. And he knows it.”

  “It’s creepy, the way he just stands there and doesn’t fall down,” Sarah said. “He scared me when he was alive, and he’s scaring me now.”

  Stepping carefully, looking out for cactus, Lorena walked to Lum and spat in his face. She looked at Sarah. “He still didn’t fall.” She raised her bare foot and pushed on the man’s belly. This time Lum fell on his back and lay still.

  “Wash your foot, Lorena,” Sarah said.

  Between them, the women salvaged enough clothing to cover their nakedness. Lorena carefully wiped off Lum’s saddle before she led his horse out of the arroyo.

  As they walked to the rise, Lorena said, “Dora DeClare has Patrick and Jacob. We have to rescue them.”

  “She has a man with her, Lorena,” Sarah said. “I’ve seen his kind before. He’s a gunfighter up from Texas.”

  “There’s a rifle in the boot,” Lorena said.

  “Can you hit anything with a rifle?” Sarah said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What if you miss? They’d shoot Patrick and Jacob for sure.”

  Lorena said nothing, and Sarah continued, “I think we should ride straight to Dromore for help. I don’t think either of us is in a fit state to take on a Texas gunfighter. And I’m such a coward.”

  “Sarah, you’re not a coward; you proved that today,” Lorena said.

  “I couldn’t shoot that . . . monster.”

  “Not everyone can kill a man, Sarah.” Lorena let a silence stretch, then she said, “But you’re right. We need Samuel and Shawn and Luther Ironside, as well as the vaqueros.”

  “Yes, we do,” Sarah said. “I don’t think we should try to do it alone. And you’ve got your baby to consider.”

  Lorena said, “I have been thinking about him. Nanny’s probably worried by this time, and little Shamus will want to be fed.”

  Sarah glanced at the other woman’s swollen breasts. “Are you full?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m leaking.”

  “I really don’t think we want to go up against a gunfighter, do you?”

  Lorena smiled. “No, I guess not. But I’m so worried about Patrick and Jacob.”

  “The colonel will take care of things,” Sarah said.

  “Yes, he will,” Lorena said. “He always does.”

  Chapter Forty

  Jacob O’Brien was in a world of pain, and extreme thirst ravaged him. The cave was hot and the air smoky and hard to breathe.

  “How are you holding up, brother?” Patrick asked.

  Jacob managed a smile. “Tip-top, Pat.”

  Patrick saw that his brother’s water-deprived lips were dry and cracked, and his hands were swollen to twice their size as the ropes cut savagely into his wrists.

  Bound hand and foot himself, Patrick could offer little help, but he tried. “Caldwell, you bastard!” he yelled. “We need water in here.”

  The Texan stepped into the cave, bowing his head under the low rock roof. He looked at Jacob and smiled. “Getting thirsty, O’Brien?”

  “Yeah, he’s thirsty,” Patrick said, “and what have you done with my brother’s wife?”

  “Right at the moment, I’d say she’s layin’ with Lum. You know, the big feller with the burned face.” Caldwell grinned. “I bet she’s enjoying it.”

  Patrick tried to kick out at his tormentor. “You sorry piece of trash,” he said, “I’ll kill you.”

  The Texan sidestepped the clumsy attempt and drove his boot hard into Patrick’s side. “You lie still, or I’ll bust all of your ribs,” he said.

  “Caldwell,” Jacob croaked, as he saw his brother double over in pain, “I swear, I’ll gun you for this.”

  “You don’t say?” the Texan said. “Well, I’ll give you your chance. Call it professional courtesy.”

  He grabbed Jacob by his shirtfront and dragged him into the middle of the cave. Quickly he untied the rope around his wrists. Then he pulled his Colt and dropped it in front of him.

  “Pick it up, O’Brien,” he said. “Let’s see how good you are.”

  Jacob reached for the revolver, but he couldn’t open his grotesquely swollen hand. His fingers were purple and dead, and no matter how much he willed them to move, he couldn’t. The gun was just inches away, but it might have well been on the moon.

  “I always took you for a yellowbelly, O’Brien,” he said. “And now you’ve proved it. Look, I’m unarmed; let’s see if you have the guts to pick up the gun and get to your work.”

  Jacob tried again, desperate now. Even the slightest movement of his fingers caused him intense pain. He couldn’t open his hand. It was impossible. He bowed his head. Beaten.

  Caldwell’s boot came up fast, crashed into Jacob’s face, and sent him reeling backward as blood sprayed around his head. “I called you for a damned yellowbelly,” the Texan said, grinning.

  He bound up Jacob’s wrists again and ignored Patrick, who was cursing at him wildly as he tried to pull free of his own bonds.

  Caldwell rose to his feet. “I wonder how your brother’s wife is doing, O’Brien?” he said. “Must be on her tenth or eleventh go-round by now, huh?”

  “If that filthy animal has harm
ed Lorena, I’ll—”

  “Do nothing,” Caldwell said. “You’ll be dead soon, O’Brien, so don’t worry about a thing. Your sister-in-law is Lum’s woman now, and after what she’s tasted today, she’ll never leave him.”

  “Luke, I’m so worried about Lum,” Dora DeClare said. “He should be back by now, don’t you think?”

  Caldwell grinned. “Hell, he could be with the O’Brien gal all night.”

  “I suppose so, but I do worry about him,” Dora said. “He’s so naïve and vulnerable in a way, like an overgrown schoolboy sometimes.”

  Caldwell lifted the pot from the fire and poured coffee into his cup. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He can take care of himself.”

  “Oh, in my heart of hearts I know Lum will be fine.” She shook her head. “I’m acting like a silly, overanxious mother, I guess.”

  After rolling a cigarette, Caldwell lit it with a brand from the fire. Through a cloud of smoke, he said, “We’ve got two of the O’Briens. So where do we go from here?”

  “Well, when Lum gets back, we send Lorena O’Brien back to Dromore.” She smiled. “I wish I could see her husband’s face when he sees the state she’s in. Of course I’m hoping against hope that Lum did enough to drive her completely insane.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we bargain with Dromore, with the O’Brien brothers as pawns.” Dora looked quizzically at Caldwell. “Do you play chess?”

  “I know what pawns are.”

  “Good. Then you know where my plan is taking me.”

  “Not quite. After Lum and me crucify them two on top of the mesa, where does the bargaining come in?”

  “When the time comes I’ll let you know,” Dora said. She pushed a tendril of hair from her forehead. “I’m so hot.”

  Caldwell looked to the north where the hills were gathering shadows around them. “Be dark soon,” he said. “You’ll cool down.”

  “No, Luke, I won’t,” Dora said. “I’m in heat. The thought of that O’Brien slut getting something I’m not is troubling me.”

  Joshua, who’d been dozing by the fire, said, “There you go, Caldwell. An invitation if ever I heard one.”

  The Texan threw away the dregs of his coffee. “She doesn’t have to write it out,” he said. “Not for me.”

  Dora lay on her back, smiling.

  Joshua, idly watching Caldwell on top of his sister, decided that the master was so correct about humans—they were such a worthless bunch of garbage.

  Joshua DeClare fed the fire with twigs and studied the play of light and shade among the hills as the great red ball of the sun sank slowly in the west over the Santa Fe Mountains. He memorized the colors, the shades of crimson, jade, and lilac that he would one day commit to canvas.

  He was alone. Dora had gone to bathe in a stream deeper in the hills, and Caldwell, like a cur dog following a bitch in heat, had gone with her.

  Judging by the shadows of the pine trees, they’d been gone an hour, maybe a little longer. Good riddance to them both. His sister’s single-minded quest for revenge and all the hardship it entailed had tired him. He hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, and before that his only sustenance had been a slice of blackened salt pork, hardly food for an invalid. He felt ill, very weak, and his hands trembled, a bad thing for a painter.

  Joshua fed a twig into the fire, and from inside the cave he heard a man moan, probably that Jacob O’Brien person who was slowly dying of thirst. And his brother with him.

  He stared into the flames, thinking. Unlike Dora, Joshua’s need for revenge on the O’Briens didn’t burn with a white-hot heat. He wished to avenge his father, of course, but he and Dace had never been close, though the old man adored Dora. After Joshua’s accident, Dace had lost what little interest he had in his son. Who could take pride in a cripple?

  But Dace had taken time to teach him about the old religion, much more ancient than Christianity, its simple tenants easy to grasp and understand:

  To do good is evil. To do evil is good.

  “A thing to always remember, Joshua.”

  Love is hate. Hate is love.

  “The most meaningless of all emotions is love, remember that, Joshua.”

  To the best of his ability, Joshua had tried to live by the code, but somewhere along the way he’d failed. His landscapes brought pleasure, maybe even hope and faith, to thousands of people, and that was not the way of the master.

  Beauty is ugliness. Ugliness is beauty.

  Joshua knew that his sense of failure had twisted his mind like the falling horse had twisted his body; yet in truth he lived for his art, and if he ever had to stop painting he’d die a little death each day until life mercifully left him completely.

  Lies are truth. Truth is a lie.

  Well, he was living a lie. A great artist cannot be a true disciple of the ancient religion, and that thought, as darkness crowded around him, tore Joshua DeClare apart.

  Later, Luke Caldwell told Dora that her brother welcomed the bullet that killed him.

  “He just sat there, smiling at me, and took it,” Caldwell said. “I mean, smack! Right between the eyes, and he smiled at me.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it, Luke,” Dora said. “Did you get rid of the body?”

  “Yeah, I took it far.”

  Dora sat by the fire, and her beautiful eyes lifted to the Texan. “We had to kill him, didn’t we?”

  “Of course we did,” Caldwell said. “He was slowing us down, Dora. Once we make our play against Dromore, we’ll need to ride far and fast. We couldn’t do that with a cripple hanging on to our coattails.”

  “He was all right,” Dora said. “A fine oil painter.”

  “He was a crippled piece of dung,” Caldwell said. “We’re better off without him.”

  Dora nodded. “As you say, Luke.”

  She listened, frowning, as Caldwell said, “We better give water to those two in the cave. I don’t want them dying on us. At least just yet, I don’t.”

  “Couldn’t we make them suffer just a little longer?” Dora said.

  “No, we’d kill them, and you’d be tossing away your bargaining chips.”

  “Oh, water them, then,” Dora said. “Then tie their ropes all the tighter.”

  After Caldwell stepped into the cave with a canteen, Dora drew her knees up to her chin and stared at the haloed moon. Coyotes called in the foothills, and night birds rustled in the pines. Beyond the circle of firelight the darkness hung close, like sable drapes closing off a brighter world beyond. The fire cracked sparks, and the lid of the coffeepot bounced as its contents bubbled.

  Dora felt no sense of loss at Josh’s death because she understood the necessity, but he’d been a fine artist and his talents would be missed. Well, at least by those who were interested in that kind of thing.

  More urgently, her brother’s death would leave her without an income for a while until his paintings sold more regularly. The works of dead artists were always in demand, and Joshua’s agent in London had dozens, but it took time.

  When Caldwell sat by the fire again, Dora poured him coffee and said, “Dromore will burn to the ground. We’re agreed on that, are we not?”

  Caldwell nodded. “Yeah, I guess it will.”

  “But we need money, Luke.”

  “I can always sell my gun.”

  “That’s a shrinking market, don’t you think?”

  “Out here in the West, maybe. But there’s always a demand for guns in the cities. I hear New Orleans is hiring.”

  Dora shook her head. “You’re talking pie in the sky, Luke. We need to make a grandstand play to score and score big.”

  “I could rob a bank,” Caldwell said.

  “For once use your brain instead of your gun,” Dora said. “Dromore is the answer.”

  “I don’t catch your drift.”

  “How much would Colonel O’Brien pay to get his sons back alive?”

  Caldwell grinned. “Hell, a lot.”

  �
�Then all we have to do is set our price,” Dora said. “I don’t think fifty thousand would be too high.”

  “We could live high on the hog with that,” Caldwell said, his eyes shining. “Buy us a big house and a carriage and four and—”

  “Well, we could live on it for a while anyway,” Dora said. She didn’t add, “But you won’t be sharing it, idiot.” She said that only to herself.

  “So we get the money, then gun the O’Briens and light a shuck, huh?” Caldwell said.

  “Not quite. We use the O’Briens to burn Dromore to the ground and then we kill them.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that?” Caldwell said.

  And Dora told him.

  Chapter Forty-one

  “How is she?” Shamus O’Brien said.

  “She’ll be fine, Colonel,” Sarah said. “She has the baby with her, and she’s resting. But she wants to talk with you.”

  “Girl, you look all used up yourself,” Shamus said.

  “I’m all right,” Sarah said. “Lorena had it worse than me.”

  Anguish showed on the colonel’s face. “She told me she wasn’t—”

  “She wasn’t,” Sarah said, her face calm.

  “Thank God and all the saints in heaven for their tender mercies,” Shamus said.

  “Lorena?” Sarah said.

  “Ah, yes, I’ll go talk to her. And Sarah, lie down and rest.”

  The girl smiled. “I will, Colonel.”

  Shamus rolled his chair to the back of the house, tapped on Lorena’s door, and made his way inside. The woman sat up in her pillows, baby Shamus asleep beside her.

  “You wanted to see me, Lorena?” Shamus asked.

  “Yes, I have to tell you something.”

  The colonel rolled closer to the bed. “Are Nanny and the others taking good care of you?” he said.

  Lorena smiled. “Spoiling me. I’m a bit tired is all, not sick.”

  “You’ve had a terrifying experience, and you need to rest quietly,” Shamus said. “And I’m sure you’re worried about Patrick and Jacob. We all are.”