Trail of Shadows

by Lauran Paine

  Berryhill picked up the basin as though Duncan’s words had not affected him. He stepped over to the next cell, growled at its bearded inmate, picked up that basin, too, then turned back to Duncan. As soon as his face came around though, Duncan saw the rusty dark and angry stain in it.

  “Mind explainin’ that hypocritical remark?” he asked softly.

  “You told me on the way into town your job was enforcing the law, not prejudging people, yet there you stand right now with it plain in your face. In your eyes I’m guilty as hell and you’ll enjoy seeing me hang. That’s what I meant. A man can’t say he believes in one thing, then do the exact opposite without being hypocritical, Berryhill.”

  For a moment the lawman just stood there gazing in at Duncan. He walked up a little closer, balancing those wash basins, said—“You’re a pretty good actor, Parton.”—and walked on out of the cellblock.

  As the door closed, there was a soft cackle from the adjoining cell that grated on Duncan’s nerves. “Boy, I got to hand it to you. Berryhill was mad enough to eat you alive there for a second, but in the next breath you had him doubtin’ his own beliefs.”

  Duncan kept his back to old Parton. He could see where that shaft of sunlight was narrowing a little on the yonder wall outside his cell. It would be about 9:00 a.m., he thought, and wondered what time court would convene.

  In the next cell old Parton shuffled about getting some exercise, then he went to his pallet and stretched out there. “How about some of that tobacco you got,” he drawled.

  Duncan ignored him. He remained motionless against the front of his cage. For some reason he fell to thinking of Marianne Dudley. It was entirely possible that someday she would cross paths with the real murderer of her father and she would never know it.

  Of course by that time Todd Duncan wouldn’t be around to appreciate the subtle irony of such a meeting.

  He turned, paced to the rear wall, stood in that paling sun shaft gazing upward and outward where a sky of enameled, purest blue shone, tried to reconcile himself fatalistically to what was unavoidably going to happen to him. He was shortly interrupted in this by that thick oaken door swinging open again from up by Berryhill’s office. He turned only his head.

  Thorne and Berryhill both came into the cellblock. Duncan’s heart sank. Those two wooden faces had a doomsday look to them. They had come, he was positive, to escort the prisoners to wherever Duncan’s trial was to be held.

  Thorne stopped in front of Duncan’s cell. Berryhill stopped there, also. He did not pass along to old Parton’s cage as Duncan expected him to. Thorne held up a worn cutaway hip holster with a six-gun in it.

  “You recognize this?” he asked, watching Duncan’s face.

  The prisoner crossed over, looked, and nodded. “It’s mine,” he said. “You know that. You fellows took it off me out at that cottonwood spring.”

  Thorne lowered the gun. His brows were down a little, making his unwavering gaze look long and faintly puzzled. “How many shots did you and Swindin fire in that shoot-out at the express office?”

  Duncan’s temper flashed up. “Damn you,” he swore at Thorne, “I wasn’t there. I didn’t shoot any shots, and I’m getting a bellyful of looking at your stupid face and always hearing the same false accusations coming out of it. I haven’t shot that gun in at least three months. I can’t even remember the last time I fired it.”

  “Yeah,” said Berryhill from his position behind and off to one side of Jack Thorne. “That’s what’s so interesting. That gun hasn’t been fired in a long time. Jack and I both thought so, but to make plumb certain we took it to our local gunsmith. He said the same thing.”

  Duncan’s heart began to pound. He looked closely into those two blank faces. In the next cell he heard old Parton scrambling up off his pallet to come closer where he could hear all this.

  “Something else,” Berryhill said. “Every loop in this shell belt has a bullet in it ... an unfired bullet. Of course it’s possible for a fellow to carry a few spares loose in his pocket, but it’s sure not usual for a man to do that, is it?”

  “Those bullets,” said Duncan, fighting to keep the excitement and the resurrected hope out of his voice, “are all the slugs I had in the world. If you doubt me, go look in my saddle pockets.”

  “We already have,” Thorne advised him.

  “Then you got reason to believe me when I say I had no hand in that expressman’s killing.” Duncan gripped the bars. “Maybe you’ll do something else, too, fellows. Maybe you’ll quit standing around here and go out where you told me the trail of those killers parted, forget the one you followed to the cottonwood spring, and make a damned fast ride over the other one. That man you want has a bullet wound in his shoulder. He can’t ride hard. Ask his pa in the next cell if that’s not so. If you work at it, boys, you’ll overtake him. That man is Parton’s son, not me, and he’s the one who killed your expressman.”

  Berryhill and Thorne stood like stone, their glances unmoving for a long time. Thorne finally looked at the sheriff, ruefully wagged his head, and said: “You were sure right, Matt. He’s the smoothest talker of the bunch. Smoother even than his pa.”

  Duncan’s breathing stopped. His jaw dropped. Those two men out there had never for a minute believed one word he’d said to them. “What ... ,” he blurted out. “What ... the hell?”

  Jack Thorne held up the holstered six-gun again. “One thing about murder,” he said, “a man doesn’t get hung any higher for killin’ two men than he does for killin’ one. It’s a lousy shame but that’s the way it is ... Parton, we know where you got this unfired gun and full shell belt.” Thorne gestured toward the outside roadway. “The man you took them off is outside in a rancher’s wagon ... stiff as a poker with your slug through his heart from the back.”

  Duncan hung there on the bars staring at those two. From the adjoining cell he heard a long, bubbly sigh slide past the bearded lips of old Jeremiah Parton.

  “We rode that back trail,” Thorne said quietly. “We met the cowman comin’ along it with his wagon out there. He had this stranger in back, dead like you left him, Parton. We come on back to town with the corpse and that’s when we got an answer to the riddle of that unfired gun and full shell belt.”

  Berryhill’s expression turned a little wry, a little bitter.

  “You almost had me believin’ you this morning, Parton,” he said. “You’re pretty good at play-actin’. That gun and belt had me really beginnin’ to wonder. Jack here, too. There was no place for you to buy fresh shells after you and Swindin lit out of Leesville, and you hardly had time to clean your gun, let alone have the accumulation of dust in its barrel there was in this weapon.”

  Berryhill stopped speaking. He looked blankly over where old Jeremiah Parton was pressing his face against the bars intently, watching and listening. “You ought to be real proud of him, old man, real proud,” he finally continued. “He’s not only a cold-blooded back-shooter, but he’s also as good an actor as you are.”

  Sheriff Berryhill drew up, staring in at Duncan. He growled: “Break it off, Jack. Let’s get out of here and take that body down to Doc’s embalmin’ shed. It makes me sick to my stomach seeing that young one actin’ so plumb speechless. And he had the guts to call me a hypocrite.”

  The two of them walked away. After they’d passed on out of the cellblock, old Parton stepped back, bent double, and nearly choked with restrained laughter. After a moment of this he dashed at the tears in his eyes with a bony fist and gasped out: “Dang it for purest luck. I never seen anything work up against a fellow as neat as all this is workin’ up ag’in’ you, boy. Never in all my borned days.” Parton choked, slapped his leg, and made a little mincing dance step.

  “What a brace of complete simpletons those two are. Followed out the trail they said, until they met some old cow nurse with that body in his rig, then turned plumb around and come straight on
back, sure as shootin’ they knew exactly what happened. Why, good Lord, boy, any lawmen worth their lousy salt would’ve split up ... one comin’ back, the other one followin’ on down that trail. How do you like that for just plain simple-mindedness?”

  Duncan said: “That was your son out there, Parton. He shot that traveler and took his gun and belt.”

  “Sure, boy, sure. But those two idiots thought when they found that dead man without his gun belt, they had the answer to how come your gun and belt look unused.” Parton’s bearded lips flew apart in a massive, silent laugh that showed pink wetness where once there had been teeth. He struck his legs again and rocked back and forth in soundless glee. “By gawd ... damnedest thing I ever heard of. It is for a pure fact, boy.” Suddenly the laughter dried up and the ugly old man’s gaunt, hawkish face tilted, the eyes turned flatly sly again.

  “They’re goin’ to hang you so high the cussed birds’ll be buildin’ nests in your hair.” Those sly, steely old eyes turned saturnine. “Not that I got a thing against you, boy. It ain’t a personal thing at all, you understand. But I’ll be damned if the circumstantial evidence isn’t buildin’ up around you higher’n that gibbet out there. It’s downright uncanny, that’s what it is.”

  Duncan was thinking the same thing, but with a different attitude about it. He hung there upon the front bars of his cell until the little old priest appeared, almost noiselessly.

  At least Duncan didn’t hear him approaching until old Parton said: “You’re sure popular this mornin’, son. Here’s the old bead-roller again.”

  Duncan looked down into that gray, aged face with its deceptively mild glance. He didn’t want to talk to the priest, or to anyone for that matter. He was still numb in his heart and in his mind over what had just occurred between himself and the two lawmen.

  The priest murmured a gentle greeting, then said: “I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until this afternoon before they try you, young man.”

  Duncan’s eyes slowly focused on the old priest. That faint though persevering flicker of hope weakly warmed him.

  “Why?”

  “The judge’s down abed with his heart trouble. He’s being doctored, though, and they say he’ll be well enough later today ... but not this morning. His niece is with him.”

  Something caused a flashing premonition to erupt in Duncan’s mind. “His niece, Father?”

  “Yes. Marianne.”

  “Father, are you telling me Marianne Dudley is the judge’s niece?”

  “Aye, lad, she is. Charley Dudley, the man you’re accused of killing, was her father. He was also the judge’s brother-in-law.”

  Duncan turned numb all over. He swung his head feebly toward Jeremiah Parton in the next cell. The bearded old renegade was standing there looking out of wide-open eyes at the priest, his mouth slack, his face white from upper lip to forehead.

  “Coincidence,” Duncan said from cold lips. “You thought that business about the dead man and the gun was purest coincidence. Parton, what do you think of this?”

  Parton kept staring at the priest. He said nothing.

  “The judge is an honest man, son,” murmured the priest. “He’ll not judge you dishonestly ... brother-in-law or no brother-in-law.”

  “Oh, hell no,” muttered Duncan, turning weakly away. “Oh, hell no, Father.” He crossed over to his pallet and dropped down there all in a heap.

  After a while the priest departed and there was absolute silence in the cellblock. Even old Jeremiah Parton was still.

  Chapter Six

  Duncan’s numbness did not leave him for a long time. He lay there upon his pallet watching that sun shaft climb the forward wall beyond his cell with a kind of apathy holding him tightly in its grip. Even when old Parton asked again for some tobacco he didn’t move.

  Parton said complainingly: “Listen, boy, that’s the way the cards fall. Ain’t much sense in bein’ all hateful-like about it.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Now put yourself in my boots, boy. You’d do as much if it was your son. Y’know you would.”

  “You damned old goat!”

  “So what’s a little tobacco?”

  Duncan rolled his head to see if old Parton was sincere in this. He was. At least his expression was droll and relaxed, as though he were discussing something of no very great importance.

  “Old man,” growled Duncan. “I don’t know what it was the Lord left out when he put you together, but whatever it is, I’m sure thankful he didn’t leave it out of more folks.”

  Parton judged this remark thoughtfully before saying: “Son, you ain’t ever going to use up all that tobacco, anyway. Why, this time tomorrow I could be rollin’ me a smoke out of that sack and sayin’ a little prayer over the freshly turned earth you’ll be under. Now you just try and name me one other person in this whole of the countryside who’d do that much for you. Name me just one.”

  Duncan rolled his head away from Parton. Outside somewhere, he heard some whooping cowboys lope into town. There were other sounds to hear, also. This was all he had to occupy himself with unless he continued morbidly to dwell upon that narrowing slot in time that was his own dwindling lifespan.

  Some men were hammering westerly from the jailhouse. Abruptly a dog fight erupted outside in the back alley and shrill boyish voices broke out in accompaniment.

  Duncan was lying there cataloging all these homely sounds and did not hear the cellblock door open. He was unaware that he and old Parton were not alone until Sheriff Berryhill said from outside: “Parton, I’ve got to warn you. There’s a lot of feeling in town about you.”

  Duncan rose up, saw Berryhill’s uneasy expression, felt something like ice water drip down his spine, and got to his feet as the lawman resumed speaking.

  “Folks are put out because the judge had one of his spells. If we could’ve held the trial like I wanted, early this morning, it’d all be over by now and none of the riders from the outlyin’ cow outfits would be ridin’ in, tankin’ up at the saloons, and talkin’ about a lynch party.”

  Then old Parton got up and padded forward to press his shaggy face against the bars. It was difficult to see expression in his hawkish, hairy face, but Duncan thought Parton had a suddenly alert and concerned expression in his cold eyes.

  “You warnin’ us, Sheriff?” the old man asked, his voice sharp.

  Berryhill nodded, looking dourly from one to the other. “You got a right to know,” he stated.

  Duncan said: “How bad is it?”

  “Not bad yet and I’ve got Thorne out there trying to talk it down, but these things got a way of snowballing. It’s my duty to warn you, just like it’s my duty to do everything a man can to prevent trouble.”

  “How many cowboys, Sheriff?”

  Berryhill wagged his head back and forth. “Enough,” he muttered. “They’re still ridin’ in. That’s what Jack and I don’t like. By afternoon there’ll be a sizeable crowd of ’em.”

  “And the townsmen?” asked Duncan.

  “Yeah, a lot of them, too.”

  “You got a telegraph office in Leesville!” Duncan exclaimed. “What the hell are you waiting for ... send for US marshals or soldiers.”

  Berryhill put his skeptical eyes upon Duncan. “How’d you know we had a telegraph office? You told us you’d never been in Leesville in your life, remember?”

  “That priest told me,” snapped Duncan. He threw a look at old Jeremiah in the next cell. “Didn’t he, Parton?”

  “Well now, son, not that I heard, but then maybe he did and I just wasn’t listening real good.”

  Duncan’s face gradually got brick red. He’d done it again. He’d walked right into another of the old man’s sly traps. He reached forth, gripped the cell bars with both fists, and squeezed until his knuckles showed white from the straining.

  Sheriff Berryhill
saw this fierce anger, ignored it, and swung all their thoughts back to his particular dilemma by saying: “If worst comes to worst, Jack and I’ve worked out a way of slippin’ you two out the back way and over to the next county for safekeeping. But that’s just in case ... I don’t figure we’ll have too much trouble until about three o’clock, and by then the judge ought to be feelin’ well enough to get court convened. If he does, that’ll be the end of this other trouble.”

  “Yeah,” grated Duncan. “It sure will be the end, won’t it? Why didn’t you tell me your ‘sort of’ judge was that dead expressman’s brother-in-law?”

  “I knew what you’d say, that’s why. But I’ll tell you this ... I’ve known Walter Sheay for twenty years. Where the law is concerned, he wouldn’t bat an eye at sentencing his own mother.”

  Duncan let off a big sigh. He kept staring at Berryhill with futility filling him until he could have choked on it. “Why don’t you just let ’em hang me?” he said in a dull tone. “Get this damned farce over with.”

  The husky sheriff nodded faintly with his gaze hardening against Duncan. “If I wasn’t behind this badge, Parton, I almost think I might go along with that suggestion. But since I am behind it ... no lynchings in my town, not even when they deserve it.”

  Berryhill walked away.

  Jeremiah Parton came to Duncan’s separating steel partition. He was no longer in his customary raffish, sly, and vicious mood. He looked in at the younger man from very sober and thoughtful eyes.

  “You ever seen a lynchin’, boy?” he asked. When Duncan neither answered nor faced around, Parton emphatically bobbed his head up and down. “I have, and let me tell you, there’s nothin’ about ’em to joke over.”

  Duncan twisted, saw Parton’s anxiety plain as day, and for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours he smiled. “Care for some of that tobacco now, you were so plumb sure you’d be smoking over my grave tomorrow?”