Trail of Shadows

by Lauran Paine

  “If,” came back the old man’s shrewish reply, “I had a gun, boy, you’d be talkin’ out the other side of your face for that remark.”

  “Sure,” said Duncan. “Sure. But I’d have to turn my back on you first.”

  Berryhill slowed, let Duncan come even with him, then he said: “Tell me something ... why didn’t you just throw down on that traveler instead of shooting him to get his gun and shell belt?”

  Duncan’s weariness made him heave a big sigh over this. “Your skull’s solid stone,” he told Berryhill. “I didn’t kill that man!”

  Berryhill looked tart. “You just found his gun belt floatin’ around in the air,” he said.

  “That was my gun and shell belt, Sheriff. Mine ... m-i-n-e. If you want to find the belt off that dead man, pick up that trail you were following when you came upon the dead stranger, ride it down to its ending, and you’ll not only find the dead man’s gun, you’ll also find the fellow who shot him for it ... old Parton’s son.”

  Berryhill rode along another few feet, staring over at Duncan, wagged his head, and reined back to ride stirrup with Jack Thorne.

  This was the way they were moving along when the land turned gradually rough and eroded with occasional stone spires jutting against the overhead star-speckled heavens.

  Somewhere deep and far out in this wilder country a panther screamed, and, closer, startled deer or antelope rattled over stones in panic at the sound and scent of ridden horses passing through. They bounded away in a frantic rush bringing to Duncan’s mind the agreeable thought of venison steaks.

  They were parallel now with those upthrusts that Duncan had passed around to come down into this country. Dead ahead, due west, he could faintly make out another southward-curving spur of those same hills. Somewhere ahead there would be another pass, this one leading into new land and eventually to a town named Bradley. He was not interested in the town, but he passed the silent time by trying to guess, from land forms, just how much farther they would have to ride.

  Old Parton, drifting along off to Duncan’s left, was constantly swinging his head. Duncan thought he was doing this to keep awake. He had no idea the old man had caught sounds moving ahead of them, back at that stone trough. Neither did Berryhill nor Thorne, who were bringing up the rear, desultorily talking back and forth, until, without any warning whatsoever, and catching every one of those four men totally unprepared, a black-clad figure rose up almost under the hoofs of Duncan’s mount causing the beast to lurch back, stiffen its front legs, and come to an abrupt, faintly snorting halt.

  That blurry onward figure, with its back to a mighty stone spire, was exceedingly difficult to separate from the surrounding night, but one thing was not at all difficult to discern—a Winchester carbine glistened in faint star shine pointing straight at those four bunched-up horsemen.

  Sheriff Berryhill and his deputy were caught with both hands lying idle upon their saddle horns. For the space of a long pent-up breath none of the horsemen moved. Even their animals seemed suddenly turned to stone.

  “You there,” came a muffled voice, indicating Duncan who was foremost, “get down and lead your horse off to the left.”

  Duncan did not move.

  A gloved thumb cocked that Winchester, and Berryhill said quietly: “Do as he says ... get down and walk off to the left.”

  Duncan swung out and down, led his mount away, and halted to watch what must now ensue. He tried to determine whether or not that black wraith was alone, but could not. It was too dark over there by that thick spire to see anything but that cocked saddle gun.

  “The rest of you ... ride on.”

  Sheriff Berryhill started to say something, perhaps to protest, but he never got to complete even his initial sentence. That muffled voice snarled an order and emphasized it with a curt swing of the carbine.

  “I said ride on!”

  Thorne picked up his reins, sighed, shook his head at Berryhill, and growled at old Parton, who sat on his horse looking completely speechless, with his bearded lips parted.

  “Go on, Parton ... do like he says. Move out!”

  Duncan watched the others ride off. He was certain now that he could detect at least two people over in among the boulders, but he remained with his intention fixed upon that tall, black-attired rider with the Winchester.

  It did not seem possible to him that, whatever the purpose behind all this was, he had been selected at random from among his four former companions, and yet he was totally at a loss to understand why he had been cut out of that little riding band.

  The Winchester swung. “Mount up!” its owner ordered Duncan. “Ride at a walk over here.”

  Duncan turned, toed in, and stepped up. He could not now discern those former companions of his at all, out in the night. It occurred to him that they would be halting out there somewhere, perhaps even creeping back. He thought at least Matt Berryhill would try this because he had the sheriff pegged as a stubborn man unlikely to take the loss of a prisoner without a struggle.

  When he got over to the dark spire, two riders were waiting there, one tall, one short and appearing frail. Without a word the taller one gestured with the carbine for Duncan to ride ahead.

  “North,” he said, “and lope. Don’t try to run, just lope. Head out.”

  Duncan tried mightily to see that rider’s face, failed again, reined out, lightly roweled his mount, and went rocketing northward through the hushed and balmy night.

  For an hour Duncan led the other two, until the one with the carbine gestured easterly. Duncan obediently eased off in that direction and another hour passed before the trio of them came to more broken country. Here, with the backdrop mountains close enough to cast their darker shadows over the flat country for a considerable distance, the rifle-bearing rider dressed all in black called a halt.

  “Get down!”

  Duncan alighted. It was beginning to annoy him the way those sharp orders were given. Still, at least for the time being, there was nothing he could do about that. “Lead your horse and head for that first arroyo ahead of you.”

  Once more Duncan led out, this time on foot. His temper was steadily rising. Whoever those two behind him were, they seemed to know this wild foothill country. Or at least the one with the carbine seemed to know it. He couldn’t see much of the other rider.

  A wide dip appeared leading down into a deep, wide erosion gulch. Duncan hiked down here, suspecting the reason for their doing this was to prevent Berryhill—should he follow this far—from being able to skyline them against the paler eastern sky.

  He was correct. As soon as his captors came down into the arroyo, they both dismounted, attempting to go no farther.

  Duncan turned for a closer look but was thwarted again. Down in this place it was pitch dark, almost as totally black as it had been back in Leesville under the jailhouse.

  The frailer, less active of his captors took their three horses, walked on up the arroyo a little distance, and tied them there. He came back afterward, and meanwhile the other one stood across from Duncan with that Winchester cradled, staring over at his prisoner, saying nothing nor moving.

  When the two were together again, the taller one said in that same muffled way: “All right. Let’s have the truth about you. What’s your name?”

  “Duncan. Todd Duncan. And if you think I had a hand in killing that ... ”

  “Be quiet! You answer. I’ll do the asking. Where are you from?”

  “Montana.”

  “Where were you going when you came into this country?”

  “Well, no place exactly. I sort of had an idea of getting a riding job down here some place ... Arizona, New Mexico ... some place where the winters are milder than they are in Montana.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Tell us again.”

  “T
odd Duncan ... dammit.”

  “Matthew Berryhill said you killed that stranger lying at the embalming shed back in town just to steal his guns and shell belt.”

  Duncan’s anger was bubbling. “What the hell,” he said roughly. “I haven’t killed anyone. I just came riding through, is all.”

  “Can you prove any of this?”

  “Prove? What is there to prove? Look, mister whoever-you-are, if you folks hereabouts are convinced I committed these here crimes, it’s up to you to prove that I did. It’s not up to me to prove I didn’t commit ’em.”

  That tall, slender gunman said something now that made Duncan’s jaw sag. “We know you didn’t kill that stranger. What we don’t know is whether or not you are the one who shot Mister Dudley in the express office.”

  Duncan stared for a moment, felt behind him for an earthen barranca, and leaned upon it. “How do you know I didn’t kill that traveler?” he asked.

  “Easy. The doctor in town told us you couldn’t have killed him. He was gunned down at the time when, according to our figures, you were in jail.”

  Duncan ran this through his mind. He reached up, eased his hat back, and said: “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Neither did Matthew Berryhill or Jack Thorne, evidently.”

  “Is that why you took me away from there ... to get at the truth?”

  “Partly that, yes. Partly because we feel that where there has been one bad error, it’s possible there might also be another.”

  Duncan’s long-dead hope revived. “You’re not going to hang me?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me something, mister ... just who the hell are you and what’s your interest in all this?”

  “My interest is elemental. I want the truth about that murder of Charles Dudley. I think you have the key to that, and I don’t want you hanged until I get it. The whole truth.”

  “Mister,” Duncan said, speaking rapidly, “all I can tell you about that, is that when I found Swindin out there on the southward desert, it was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on him. Sure, I made supper for the two of us ... but I thought he was asleep over against that damned tree. Listen, do you think, if I’d known Swindin was dead, I’d have laid out two plates and two cups? Of course not. Neither would you. The next thing I knew Berryhill, Thorne, and some other men had the drop on me from behind. They brought me to Leesville and you probably know the rest of it ... I was tossed into jail, a lynch mob formed, and Berryhill got all of us out of it. From there on it’s your party ... you took me away from Berryhill.”

  When Duncan ceased speaking, those two exchanged a look. The shorter one nodded, shuffled forward where star shine struck his face. He tilted back his hat so that Duncan could see him clearly.

  It was the elderly priest.

  The second one stepped forward, removed the black hat, shook out a tumble of taffy-blonde hair, and Duncan gasped. It was Marianne Dudley.

  Chapter Ten

  The dead expressman’s daughter gave Duncan very little chance to evidence his astonishment at finding she was the one who had held up Sheriff Berryhill with a rifle.

  “There was something else that made us feel you were likely to be hanged before your degree of guilt had been established, Mister Duncan,” she said, standing there tall and slim in her man’s attire. “Father Peter followed the trail of Sheriff Berryhill and Jack Thorne yesterday.”

  “All right,” said Duncan. “What did that prove?”

  “They turned back when they met the man who’d found that dead stranger. Father Peter didn’t ... he kept on following that trail.” Marianne turned, held out her hand, and the priest placed a rumpled cloth in it. She held this out for Duncan to take. He took the thing, held it up, and peered closely at it.

  “This thing is stiff with ... ” Duncan broke off, understanding coming.

  Marianne finished the sentence for him.

  “Blood. Father Peter found that at a water hole up here in the foothills. He also found a camp where one man had rested for what he thought must have been nearly half a day.”

  “Parton’s son,” breathed Duncan. He swung toward the elderly priest. “Did you find him? I mean did you stay on his trail?”

  Father Peter shook his head. “I’m afraid it was much too rough a trail for a man of my years, Mister Duncan. But now you’ll understand why Miss Marianne and I decided we could not stand idly by and see you hanged.”

  Duncan looked from one of them to the other. An old man and a beautiful girl—what an unlikely pair of allies to prevent a man from being hanged. He went for his tobacco sack, dropped his head, and fashioned a smoke. When he lit up and exhaled, Marianne was holding something out toward him. A blue steel six-gun. He looked above this weapon into the girl’s face.

  “You got a little too much trust in you,” he murmured, and took the gun, checked it, found it completely loaded, and pushed it into his waistband. “You could be wrong, you know. I could be something a lot different than you think I am.”

  She shook her head gently at him. “You couldn’t be as different as Matt and Jack think you are.”

  For a moment those two stood there considering each other. She was, in her man’s black shirt and trousers, compellingly desirable, with her full blouse and long legs, and her steady, dead-level eyes.

  “Tell me something,” Duncan said, watching her face closely. “Why didn’t you just take this old bandage to Berryhill?”

  It was the priest who answered this. “We couldn’t, Mister Duncan. I didn’t get back to town until late last night and I was too tired.” Father Peter lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “We had no idea that talk would erupt into actual mob violence today, so I went home and retired with the intention of seeing Sheriff Berryhill this afternoon. Well, you can imagine the rest of it. When Marianne and I got together this afternoon, Sheriff Berryhill was barricaded in his jailhouse and no one could get in to talk to him.”

  “One more question. How did you two manage to get around Berryhill’s party out here and manage to waylay it?”

  “That wasn’t difficult,” spoke up Marianne. “But we weren’t certain which way he would try to escape town after he used the old-time underground passageway out of his jailhouse. So, we saddled up, rode out a little ways from his barn, and simply sat there, waiting. When we saw the four of you ride out, we waited to make certain you would go west, then we tried to keep well north of you and parallel ... which we did ... until we were sure you wouldn’t change course, then all we had to do was get into the rocks and waylay you.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Duncan. “That’s all you had to do. Don’t you know how close you were to being killed, girl? Why, hell’s bells, if either Berryhill or Thorne had happened to have their right hands free, they’d have gone for their guns.”

  “That’s why we dressed in black, Mister Duncan. That’s also why we chose the backdrop we used.” Marianne paused, then said in a fatalistic way: “There had to be some risks taken.”

  “No, ma’am, you could have walked out and handed Berryhill that bandage. You didn’t have to abduct me at gunpoint.”

  “Are you sorry that we did, Mister Duncan?”

  “Well ... no. But ... ”

  “But you’d prefer having men more like yourself with you when you go after my father’s murderer, is that it?”

  Duncan squirmed. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you’re doing, ma’am. But it’s likely to be a long trail and a rough one. Remember, wounded or not, young Parton’s got a long lead. The trail will be hard and probably long, and at the end of it there could be death for someone. Now that just isn’t the environment for a pretty girl and a priest, you got to admit that.”

  Marianne looked around at Father Peter. “I can’t agree with that, can you?”

  The priest ran a blue-veined hand over his jaw. He considered Marianne an
d he considered lank, powerful Todd Duncan, also. Somewhere here, he thought, he’d been passed by. There was something yeasty springing to life between those two.

  “Well,” he said dubiously, “Marianne, at my age a long trail and considerable hardship does not exactly tempt me. Yet on the other hand, I think Mister Duncan is not entirely correct, either. You see, young man, that was Marianne’s father who was murdered. Wouldn’t you say she was entitled to take an active part in finding his killer?”

  Duncan inhaled deeply off his cigarette, exhaled deeply, dropped the thing, and stepped upon it. “Father,” he stated in an exasperated, rough voice, “there likely will be shooting. There’s no way of telling where this trail might go. Now what right has a nice girl got to be traipsing around in a situation like that?”

  The priest, from the corner of his eye, saw Marianne stiffen, draw up erect, and shoot her flashing stare across at Duncan.

  He said quickly: “Mister Duncan, although I somewhat agree with you, I think, too, you should remember that Marianne is not entirely incapable of handling firearms, and that except for her, you would not be in a position to demonstrate your innocence of the murder charge against you. Now then ... under those circumstances, don’t you think she’s entitled to make up her own mind?”

  “You mean make her own mistakes,” Duncan growled, and glared. He turned and said: “Miss Marianne, please ... you’ve done a right smart job of freeing me and I really appreciate that, but won’t you just go on back and tend to your knitting, or whatever you got to do back home in Leesville?”

  “No! If you’re going after young Parton, I’m going with you. He killed my father.”

  Duncan, seeing the obdurate set of her jaw, the tough set of her stance across from him in the soft star shine, recognized the futility of additional argument. He ruefully bobbed his head up and down.

  “All right, ma’am,” he said.

  Marianne did not look away from Duncan. She said: “Father, you can put the saddlebags behind my saddle now, if you will.” At Duncan’s mild look of inquiry she said: “Food and extra ammunition, Mister Duncan. Parton’s trail leads straight up into these northward hills and there are no more towns or ranches once we ride north out of this arroyo.”