Trail of Shadows

by Lauran Paine

  TRAIL OF SHADOWS

  A Western Story

  TRAIL OF SHADOWS

  A Western Story

  LAURAN PAINE

  Copyright © 2015 by Lauran Paine Jr.

  E-book published in 2017 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Sean M. Thomas

  Cover art © Chris Boswell;

  studybos; Vidady; verikanu / Adobe Stock

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher,

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8728-4

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8727-7

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  Chapter One

  Where the sun struck down upon open country out beyond the pines there lay a broad belt of green, but beyond that where the land turned gray and inhospitable was pure desert. The river made that green belt. It ran from east to west. For a full mile on either side was greenery and good foliage where underground seepage fed searching roots.

  It was a land of hard contrasts. Northward, where the forested slopes stair-stepped their way up and over those squatting hills, lay a fragrance and a coolness. Southward, beyond that belt of green, were bitter earth and stark stone buttes, dry riverbeds, and gravelly soil that put up clouds of alkali dust to burn a man’s eyes and sting his throat.

  There was a town down there, easterly in the heartland of that green country. From halfway up a tilted hillside Duncan saw it, caught the bitter reflection of sunlight off rooftops and windows, and looked long in that direction because this was the first town he’d come across in nine days of traveling.

  The pull of that town was strong, and yet Duncan went on around it, southward. He halted once in a fringe of trees to the west to rest his horse, smoke, and assess that onward desert, then he continued on his way as men do who have some purpose in mind. He passed on out of the greenery and down into that other world of grayness and sun scorch and graceful desert paloverdes.

  He rode all day and near evening, with seven miles behind him, sighted two tall cottonwood trees a little to the east, and about a mile southward. He made for those trees. Cottonwoods on the desert meant water, and while seasoned travelers frequently made their nighttime dry camps, they never did this from preference.

  Daytime’s final red ribbons of sunlight lay crimson over the land giving the desert an eerie complexion, as though in all this brooding silence there was nothing but bitterness and sadness. This mood went into Duncan, leaving him restless and anxious to get on across this place, but his spirits lifted a little when, nearing those two cottonwoods, he spied a grazing horse with sweaty saddle stains upon his back. Company would be welcome to Duncan. His spirits lifted a little as he speculated on what kind of a range man he would find up ahead.

  There was a little minute oasis around those cottonwoods with a still water pond in the center of it. It was not yet full summer so that pond did not as yet have the greenish scum around its edges it would acquire later on, when the heat of day and the heat of night kept water temperatures lukewarm twenty-four hours. For a while yet, then, it would be safe for men and animals to drink here.

  Duncan did not consider the roundabout country as he neared the trees, the tough grass, and the cottonwoods. He was instead concentrating upon locating the man who was camped there, the man who owned that grazing bay horse.

  He saw him, finally, when he came out of the last scattering of brush and into the spongy area around the spring. He was near there across the little meadow with his shoulders to one of those cottonwoods, with his head slumped, asleep.

  Duncan was weary himself. He understood how a man could drop off before he’d even built his little fire and had his supper. The stranger’s saddle was over there beside him. His carbine was leaning upon the same tree and the man’s six-gun had been drawn forth and placed close at hand upon the saddle.

  Duncan swung down, turned to offsaddling, and told himself that there was nothing at all wrong with being wary in a strange country. He would get a cooking fire going, cook a pot of coffee, then awaken the strange cowboy.

  He did this, made his twig fire, set the coffee to boil, put on a skillet of side meat to fry, made himself a smoke, and sat there across the pond from the sleeping stranger, feeling comfortable in the dying day. His fire merrily danced, lancing at the oncoming dark with its whipping red blades. The aroma of coffee and meat cooking made Duncan acutely aware of his daylong fast. He sat there, cross-legged, turning drowsy and relaxed and pensive. Regardless of a man’s situation, whether riding into an unknown desert or crawling up a hill under the searching slash of gunfire, at day’s end this quiet time with its good odors made everything else seem worthwhile.

  Duncan put out his smoke, swung to see if the barely discernible stranger over there in the gloom had awakened yet, then got up to cross over because the man hadn’t moved.

  Duncan paused to lie belly down and drink at the pool. Afterward he continued on around to where the other man was, halted in front of him, and wagged his head. This one sure slept. He doubted very much if anyone could walk up on him like this in his sleep. He kneeled, said—“Hey, fellow, the coffee’s hot.”—and when there was no response, he put forth a hand and gently shook the stranger’s shoulder. The cowboy slumped lower, his head rolled aimlessly as he gradually eased over sideways and very slowly, very relaxedly fell over upon his side. His hat dropped off and rolled away. Duncan was looking into a pair of wide-open glazed eyes.

  The shock kept Duncan from moving for nearly thirty seconds. This man was dead, had been dead right from the start when Duncan first saw him over here. Now several other things Duncan had earlier rationalized about came back to jar him with a different, a sinister import. That carbine leaning against the tree. That six-gun lying there within a foot of the dead man’s right hand. That saddle turned up onto its side like that—a man could drop down behind that in a second. And finally, the sweat stains on the tucked-up horse. This man had been riding hard when he came upon the cottonwood spring.

  Duncan rocked back on his heels. He blew out a big breath. He eased down onto one knee and pushed forth a hand to gently lift the dead man’s Levi’s jacket. Even with so little light to see by there was no mistaking that sodden place near the center of the dead man’s chest. He had been shot. Duncan dropped the jacket, drew back his arm, and leaned there totally absorbed in this eerie mystery. He had no idea he was not alone until a voice called over to him, sounding cold and deadly.

  “Stay like you are, fellow! Make one move and you’re dead.”

  Duncan’s shoulders bunched at the suddenness of this voice, and yet his absorption in the mystery in front of him was so complete it took him a moment more to understand that he was under someone’s gun. He did not move. Behind him he heard men moving, muttering back and forth, then one of those men began pacing around the pool. Duncan listened to those soft footfalls, knew exactly when the stranger was behind him, and a second later felt his hip holster go light.

  “Stand up,” ordered his captor. Duncan stood. “Turn around.”

  Duncan turned. He was looking into the gray whisker-stubbled face of a short, heavily muscled man with a small but quite distinct half-moon scar high on his left cheek, and with deep-set uncompromising blue eyes as clear and as cold as ice. Over this man’s shoulder Duncan saw the others on across the pond
where Duncan’s fire was. There were three of them, all as travel-stained as the one in front of him, all as watchful and heavily armed.

  “Well, he made it, didn’t he?” said the short man, holding Duncan’s own gun cocked and ready in his right fist. “We had bets amongst us that he’d never get to you ... not with that slug through his lights from back to front.”

  The short man motioned Duncan aside with the cocked gun, stepped up, flopped the dead man over with his boot toe, bent for a long, close look, then straightened around motioning for Duncan to precede him back around to the little cooking fire.

  “I never underestimated him,” he growled at Duncan as they started away from the dead man, “but I got to hand it to him ... he was tougher even than I thought he was.”

  Duncan got over to his fire. He looked at the others; they were eating his side meat and drinking his coffee. They grinned at him as though amused at something, as though tickled that they should be eating the food he’d prepared.

  Each of these three men was tall. One was thick-shouldered and heavy but the others were typical, lank, leaned-down range riders, tough as an old boot. The short one with the crescent-shaped scar on his left cheek seemed to be the leader. He eased off the hammer of Duncan’s gun, pushed the weapon into his waistband, and accepted a tin cup that he began to sip.

  That was when Duncan finally spoke. “Mind if I have a little of my own coffee?” he dryly asked.

  “Sure not,” said one of the grinning men, who stooped, caught up a full cup, and presented it to Duncan.

  All three of the tall men stood there eyeing Duncan, still grinning. The short man did not smile, although he too kept his unwavering glance upon Duncan.

  “A few other questions. Just who the hell are you fellows? Who the hell is that dead man over there? And what the hell do you think you’re doing ... taking my gun?”

  One of the lank men put a raffish gaze upon Duncan. “The preacher’d be plumb sorrowed to hear you cuss so much,” this man said. “You ought to think of him, y’know. Must be rough on the old fellow havin’ a boy like you.”

  Duncan’s brows rolled together. He considered each of those four men over an interval of silence, fixed the shorter, thicker of these strangers with his gaze and wagged his head.

  “I can tell you one thing, boys. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you figure I’m tied up some way with that dead fellow over there ... you’re about as wrong as mortal men can get.”

  The heavy-set tall man finished his coffee, flung away the dregs, and tossed down his cup near the fire. He was gray over the ears and grizzled in the face. He let his ironic smile atrophy as he solemnly said: “If I’ve heard that once before, I’ve heard it a hundred times. Tell me, Parton, why don’t you fellows ever think up something original?”

  Duncan sipped his coffee, trading stares with this older man. When he finished with the coffee, he said: “You think my name is Parton ... is that it?”

  The big man sighed resignedly. “Yup.”

  Duncan fished in a pocket, brought forth two letters, and handed them to the big man. “See the name there ... Todd Duncan.”

  Those four men crowded up and looked down. The first one to speak was a youngish man, and this one was still half grinning, but his eyes behind the half droop of lids were deadly. This one would kill at the drop of a hat.

  “Who’d you rob on the way down here?”

  Duncan assessed this youngest of the four, saw him for precisely what he was, and did not answer him.

  The short man stepped away. “You got anything else with that Duncan name on it?” he asked.

  “Aw hell, Matt,” laughed the youngest man. “Don’t tell me he’s takin’ you in with those letters? Why, hell ... we followed that other one down here straight as an arrow. We stood out there in the brush watchin’ this one make supper for the pair of ’em ... even lay out two cups and two plates ... then go over and see if he could help that one I shot. I say string him up to one of those cottonwoods.”

  The short man called Matt let all this go by without interruption, then he repeated his earlier question to Duncan and stood there waiting.

  Duncan had nothing else with which to identify himself. In fact it was only by accident that he’d kept those letters. They were from an old friend of his up in Cheyenne, a rider he’d worked with in the north country. He just hadn’t gotten around to throwing them away yet.

  “No,” he said. “That’s all I have.”

  “String him up,” the youngest of his captors growled again. “Never mind all this damned talk.”

  Chapter Two

  “You’re too doggoned quick with your mouth,” the scar-faced, short man growled at the youngest of those four. “Have another cup of coffee and shut up.”

  Duncan thought he sensed indecision in the scar-faced man. “Mind telling me what this is all about?” he asked mildly.

  “Don’t mind at all,” answered up the heaviest of those three tall ones, gazing steadily over into Duncan’s eyes. “That’s your friend Jerry Swindin over there. Right after the pair of you tried robbin’ the express office up in Leesville he got shot. He got this far before he died. We figured the pair of you split up to throw us off your trail. Well, it worked until we figured if we stayed after Swindin he’d eventually lead us to you. And he did.”

  “I guess,” said Duncan, “if I told you I’ve never been in this place you call Leesville in my whole cussed life, you wouldn’t believe me, would you?”

  The big man shook his head. In the same even tone he said: “No, mister, I wouldn’t believe you. And maybe, except for the killin’ of Charley Dudley, I wouldn’t give a damn either. But you see, old Charley was a good friend of mine.”

  “Who was Charley Dudley?”

  “The express clerk, mister. I don’t know whether you or Swindin killed him, but I aim to find out, for, like I said ... Charley was a good friend of mine. We grew up together.”

  “I see,” Duncan murmured, catching the youngest man steadily staring at him from farther back. He added: “One more question ... who is the preacher your friend back there spoke of?”

  “He’s your pa. Now, if you’re through actin’ stupid, suppose we start back.”

  “Back,” snarled the youngest man. “Jack, I say string him up right here. There ain’t another decent tree for the job until we get plumb back to town.”

  Two of the others, although they did not openly agree with this suggestion, looked at Duncan as though they certainly would lend a hand at yanking on the rope. Neither the scar-faced man nor the big, burly, older man who was standing in front of Duncan looked willing to lynch him or let others do it. He decided he’d be wise to make some kind of overture to these two.

  “Listen,” he said to the big, powerful man across from him. “My pa’s no preacher, my name is Todd Duncan, not something-or-other Parton. I never saw that dead man over there before in my life, and I’ve never been in your town.”

  The scar-faced man spoke from over by the little fire where he was squatting. “You’ll get a chance to see our town, Parton. You’ll get a chance to be identified by that doggoned Bible-banger, too. You see, he didn’t get away. We got him locked up in my jailhouse.”

  Duncan squinted. “Your jailhouse, mister?” he said.

  The scar-faced man fished in a shirt pocket, brought forth a well-worn nickel badge, held it palmed so Duncan could see it before returning it to his pocket. “Sheriff Matt Berryhill,” he said. “If I’d been in town when you and Swindin tried that express job, neither of you’d have gotten this far, believe me.”

  Something here troubled Duncan. If these men knew Swindin so well, knew this Preacher Parton, too, then how was it that they mistook him for the third member of that outlaw crew? He asked Sheriff Berryhill about this and his answer was curt.

  “Cut it out, Parton. You’re stalling an
d you’re wasting time. Sure we knew Swindin. He came to town with the preacher and we saw him around the saloons. We also saw you ... some of us anyway ... but never up close ... never in town, but always out at the preacher’s camp at the riverbank.” Sheriff Berryhill looked up, his gaze hard. “If you think that’s going to save you, you’re dead wrong. Circumstantial evidence says you were in on it with Swindin and the preacher, and in this country, Parton, circumstantial evidence has hung its share of men where murder’s been done.”

  Duncan stepped around to the fire. He squatted there and reached for the coffee pot. He had a sick feeling in his guts, and yet, for some reason, he couldn’t altogether absorb what was happening to him. It was too unreal, too smoothly condemning. Sure, he’d laid out two cups and two tin plates when he’d started his cooking fire, but, hell, range etiquette said you always offered folks a meal at mealtime.

  Maybe it did look like he’d purposefully rendezvoused here with Swindin, but he hadn’t at all. That was purest coincidence. The trouble with his reasoning, he knew, was that only he was influenced by it. All he had to do was cast one look around him at those four bitter faces, and he knew just how futile anything he might say would be.

  He finished his coffee, put the cup aside, and went to work fashioning a smoke. As he lit up, blew outward, he considered that lawman sitting over there. Duncan was lucky. If this sheriff hadn’t been with these men—if that youngest rider had been the influencing factor here—a cowboy named Todd Duncan would right this minute be kicking out his last moments at the end of someone’s hard-twist lariat, suspended from a cottonwood limb.

  This kind of thinking made Duncan’s cigarette taste acid. He killed it and looked up to find Berryhill’s level gray gaze upon him.

  “Doesn’t taste so good, does it?” said the lawman. He looked away. “Tom, you and Jack saddle Swindin’s horse and tie him across it. The rest of you bring in our horses from out where we left ’em, and let’s be heading back.”