Trail of Shadows

by Lauran Paine

  They reversed their course because where that waterfall fell, there was no protecting growth at all. If they had gone directly across the meadow, they would certainly have been sighted.

  Duncan walked with thrusting strides. At first Marianne had no particular difficulty keeping up, but after a while, panting, she asked Duncan to rest a moment. He did so, but with increasing annoyance. It was thinking that Berryhill’s posse could descend into this place while they were a mile away from their horses, and that since the cowboy Duncan had cut loose would undoubtedly tell the lawman which route they were taking, Berryhill’s riders could make even better time getting over here than had Duncan and Marianne.

  He started on again, finally, without a word, leaving it up to Marianne whether or not she would go along with him. She went, but she shot him an indignant look as they started out again.

  It took considerable time, even with the punishing gait Duncan set, to encircle the meadow on foot and get within easy sighting distance of that saddled animal. Duncan finally halted a quarter mile off, grounded his Winchester, and nodded.

  “He’s tied all right, Marianne. Tied to a pine sapling. That wasn’t real smart of Parton, though, tying his critter with its rump out into the meadow.”

  It did not occur to Duncan that this might not have been any accident. That in fact it might have been a definite lure, leaving that saddled horse out where it would be seen, and investigated, by anyone riding through.

  “He must be lying back in the trees over there,” said Marianne, pointing. “There’s a little creek not far from where the horse is. Maybe he’s resting there.”

  Duncan nodded, said—“We’ll edge up a little closer.”—and resumed his advance, but more slowly now, being especially careful to make no sound and to present as little of himself as he could, staying in the deeper shadows of the forest and keeping Marianne always behind him.

  Once, that saddled horse raised its head looking westward, but whether it had heard anything or not, it did not seem particularly disturbed and shortly after this dropped its head and resumed its drowsing stance.

  Duncan got a good look at the beast from three hundred feet off. It did not look very fresh to him. In fact, it looked as ridden down as his own horse. He twisted to murmur to Marianne: “The Flying L cowboy’s got an odd idea of what a fresh horse is.”

  She said nothing back. She was also considering that tethered beast, only she was frowning, looking puzzled and curious. She seemed, after a long moment, to be on the verge of speaking, but at the same moment Duncan put back a rigid arm warning her to stillness. She forgot the horse at once, sensing from Duncan’s stiffening stance that something was wrong. She strained over his shoulder, searching for whatever it was that had alerted him.

  A half-grown black bear came ambling out of the deeper forest, making its grunting, complaining sounds. It shambled along swinging its head unconcernedly from side to side. Once, it halted to tear at the rotting bark of a small deadfall pine, sniffed for grubs, then stepped on over the little tree and shuffled another hundred feet ahead, its weak eyes seeing only what was close but its sensitive nose constantly wrinkling. Then, very suddenly, it stopped, threw up its head, keened the air for a moment, then reared back on its hind legs, coming up off the ground to increase its sniffing height. It was as tall as a man and weighed about six hundred pounds. In itself it was not dangerous, or at least it wasn’t dangerous unless it thought it was threatened. But clearly now, it had caught an alarming scent, for the hair along its back stood straight up.

  Watching with his entire attention, Duncan thought the bear had smelled man. He’d seen his share of wild bears, knew from experience how they reacted to the scent of people, and this one was acting true to form.

  The bear dropped back down on all fours, pointed southward beyond the tethered horse, and Duncan thought he knew about where the owner of that horse was. He bent cautiously, picked up a round stone, threw it, and when it struck the bear’s ribs he gave an astonished grunt, looked fleetingly in Duncan’s direction, then swung around and went running off back the way he had come.

  Parton’s tethered horse, though, was no longer drowsing. He’d unmistakably caught the smell of a bear. He was trembling and fighting his tether. It seemed to Duncan that he would break loose at any moment. It puzzled him that young Parton was not coming out to investigate that stamping and frightened snorting, but he did not appear. For a little while longer this roiled atmosphere went unchanged.

  Marianne put her lips close to Duncan’s ear and said: “He’s south of us the way that bear was looking. You go ahead and I’ll stay back here and cover you.”

  Duncan turned. Their faces were very close. The bear had not frightened her, he could see that, yet she was troubled by something else. He mistakenly thought it was the tension in this gloomy, perilous place, and he smiled at her, his first smile at Marianne Dudley since he’d met her.

  “You’re quite a girl,” he whispered back, and saw surprise widen her eyes. “When we get out of this, I’ll apologize for being mean to you.” His smile broadened, deepened, then he swung away. Over his shoulder he said: “All right ... just remember which one is me, if you have to shoot.”

  He left her, paced a hundred feet onward, swung to look back at her, and discovered that she had dropped down, and because of her dark attire and the gloominess of this place, he could no longer see her at all even though he knew exactly where to look.

  He eased ahead furtively, came abreast of the tethered horse, watched the beast’s diminishing nervousness, and stepped farther to his right so as to be deeper in forest shadows.

  A definite uneasiness began to nag at his awareness. He stopped, rummaged the roundabout places for a man shape, found none, and swung to look out at the horse. There was something definitely wrong. Young Parton had not rushed out when his horse was close to setting him afoot miles from anywhere. He had not even made any attempt to chase the bear away, and now, although he’d obviously come here in a hurry and thought it unwise to offsaddle, he was wasting precious time as though he had no troubles at all.

  It occurred to Duncan that Parton’s shoulder might be weakening him. Perhaps the killer was lying back somewhere near, sleeping.

  Out of nowhere an exultant voice struck Duncan squarely in the back: “Drop that gun and freeze, mister!”

  Duncan jerked up stiffly. His knuckles tightened around the Winchester. He half twisted from the waist to look behind.

  “Mister, you make one more move and I’ll kill you. Now drop that gun!”

  Realization came finally. Duncan had been adroitly trapped. That horse tethered out in the open, instead of back beyond view in the forest, had been Parton’s bait to draw anyone on.

  He did not know young Parton and yet that sharp, menacing voice behind him coming from among the gloomy old trees was familiar. He put out his arm, leaned the Winchester against it, and dropped his arm, waiting. He wanted a good look at his captor. For the moment he had entirely forgotten Marianne.

  A man’s spurred boots came stepping carefully forward, passing warily far out around Duncan from back to front. Once, they halted as though the unseen gunman was carefully inspecting Duncan from a distance for other guns. Then they continued on until, by turning his head the slightest bit, Duncan caught the blur of movement, and, a moment later, the definite lank, lean, easy-moving silhouette of a rider as tall as Duncan came into view. Again, something stirred in Duncan’s mind. This man, whoever he was, was definitely familiar.

  Then Duncan saw him. It was the youngest of those three tall posse men Sheriff Berryhill had brought with him to the cottonwood spring when Duncan had first been arrested. The man who’d argued so fiercely in favor of hanging Duncan. He remembered this one’s name now—Tom Black. He remembered something else, too. This one was a killer!

  Black stepped into full view and he was smiling broadly. “Walked right into it,
didn’t you?” he chortled. “Couldn’t resist investigatin’ a tied horse, could you?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Black’s smile was menacing. The look in his eyes was deadly. “Can’t figure how I got here so fast, can you?” he said to Duncan. “Well, I lit out from the line rider’s cabin without even dismountin’. That’s how. Berryhill and the others’ll be along directly. They was tuckered and in need of some breakfast. Not me, though. When I’m getting close to my prey, I don’t let up a minute.”

  This answered the question in Duncan’s mind concerning that tired-looking tethered horse out there. It also told him something else as well. This man, Tom Black, for all his youthful appearance, was no one to joke with when he had a cocked six-gun in his fist, as he now had.

  “One question,” Duncan said when the other man ceased speaking. “How did Berryhill get up here so fast? The last I saw of him, he was wandering around in the dark, last night, and he was a long way from town.”

  “He didn’t have to go plumb back to Leesville,” Black answered, “because after we got inside the jailhouse, found you fellows was gone, some of us saddled up and headed out. I was with the boys who come onto the sheriff and Jack Thorne comin’ back.”

  “And how did you know to come up in here looking for me?”

  “That warn’t no problem. Sheriff Berryhill had that old preacher in tow. He found him ridin’ back, too.”

  “What did he do with old Parton?”

  “Your pa? Why, we had to fetch him along.” Black’s wide lips lifted wolfishly. “He wouldn’t trust none of us to take the old devil back to town for fear we’d hang him on the way, and you know ... we would’ve.”

  Looking at this lank, sinewy man, it dawned on Duncan that he still believed Duncan was old Jeremiah Parton’s son. “Did you get it out of old Parton that his boy’s got a bullet in his shoulder?” he asked to focus his captor’s attention upon both his own unwounded shoulders. It was a useless question.

  Tom Black wagged his head. “Didn’t talk to the old cuss,” he replied. “Berryhill kept him up front between him and Jack Thorne. Like I already told you, Matt figured if any of us got our hands on him, we’d string him up.”

  Black would not know, then, that Duncan was not the old outlaw’s son. But Duncan had only a slight hope otherwise, so this did not occupy his mind very long. He knew Marianne was behind him somewhere with her six-gun. Although he began fervently to hope that she would not brace Tom Black because he was clearly a man who would shoot at the drop of a hat.

  As it turned out, Marianne was in a position that was safe from a dozen hair-triggered killers. She had gotten around Black and was behind him when Duncan saw her. Only a slice of her was visible around an old fir tree with a huge bole. Nevertheless, Duncan’s heart nearly stopped when she cocked that gun.

  Black straightened up very gradually at that sharp, unpleasant little snippet of sound behind him. Duncan watched his eyes steadily brighten and widen as though he meant to whirl. Duncan diverted him with words.

  “You’ll be a fool to try it,” he cautioned Black. “At that distance you’ll get the big one right between the shoulder blades.” He paused, waited for slack to come into the tall cowboy’s frame, and when it finally came, he said: “Drop the gun. It was a good trap. You best be satisfied that you baited me into it. And by the way, Black, I’m not old man Parton’s son. I’ve told you that before. If you’d asked Jeremiah Parton, you’d know that by now. If he told you the truth, that is.”

  Black listened. He eased off the hammer of his cocked pistol, let the weapon sag from his trigger finger, but he did not drop it.

  Watching Black’s eyes, Duncan saw what was passing through the other man’s mind a second ahead of the violent eruption.

  Black let out a defiant bawl and launched himself straight across the intervening distance at Duncan. He was gambling that whoever was behind would not dare shoot for fear of hitting Duncan. It was a good gamble. Marianne stood there, undecided and helpless, watching what was playing out.

  Duncan had seen Black make his decision and was moving even as the cowboy hurled forward. He was clear of Black, who rushed past, when the cowboy came wide around, fists up, face pale, and his eyes mirroring a primitive lust to battle.

  Marianne rushed forward to hand Duncan the six-gun. He brushed her back with an outflung arm. “Keep it,” he told her. “He wants it this way and I aim to oblige him. He’s one of ’em that wanted to lynch me.”

  Marianne got back but still held her six-gun. She saw Black start forward again, this time moving cattily, upon the pads of his feet with his sinewy body balanced forward to spring.

  Duncan saw this, too, and he smiled over at his enemy.

  “You try that lunging again,” he told Black, “and I’ll tear your jaw off.”

  The cowboy made a death’s-head grin right back. “When I’m through with you, there won’t be enough for the buzzards to quarrel over.”

  They circled, jabbing a little, stepping in and stepping out, neither willing to give the other any advantage, at all. Duncan dropped low, ran a looping blow under Black’s guard that struck him lightly in the middle, jumped back, and avoided a lashing, wild strike that struck only air.

  Twice more Duncan did this, each time stinging his adversary. He also taunted Black with words, bringing the other man’s anger to a high pitch, making Black reckless in his eagerness to get hands upon Duncan.

  Duncan swung away from two strikes, landed a short blow along Black’s face that brought claret to the cowboy’s nostrils, danced away, and continued his taunting.

  Black rushed in, head low, with both arms flailing. Duncan turned sideways to avoid being struck, but Black, anticipating this, swung, also. That was when he caught Duncan flush with a bony fist, making stars burst inside Duncan’s skull.

  Seeing he had scored, Black pressed in, flailing away. He had no science, was not in fact even a very good barroom brawler, but he had courage and strength, and, after hurting Duncan, he kept slamming away, using both hands.

  Duncan jumped left, jumped right. He was struck by only a few of those blows but each one hurt. He sprang back out of range and traded space for time until his head cleared, then, tasting bile and anger in about equal parts, he braced both legs wide, let Black come to him, and met sinew with sinew and bone with bone.

  It was a punishing exchange that no two men could have prolonged, but Duncan was willing to have it this way. He did not propose to give a yard and he didn’t, even though Black’s fists hammered mercilessly at him, causing pain and, after thirty seconds had passed, a kind of numbness to his middle and his upper body.

  But Black, equally as dogged, was not as seasoned at this kind of fighting as was Duncan. He took two savage strikes in the face. More claret sprayed. He took a terrific hammering in the belly, and finally dropped his arms to protect himself. The moment he did that, Duncan caught him flush on the jaw with a blasting right hand. Black staggered, gave ground, stumbled away, and heavily shook his head, both arms temporarily down.

  Duncan went after him. The breathing of these two sounded to Marianne like a whipsaw standing head-on into a high wind. That, and the crunching of their booted feet, was the only sound.

  Duncan tried to catch Black while he was groggy but failed. Black’s instincts told him to run, and he did, back-pedaling, switching positions, swinging sideways, and all the time his mind was clearing. He stopped once to get his right shoulder down behind a cocked fist, but Duncan feinted him into prematurely firing that blow, then got past it to lean fiercely into the barrage of strikes he sunk, wrist-deep, into Black’s bruised belly.

  Marianne clearly heard the meaty sound of these strikes. She put her free hand to her lips in anguish.

  Black started to go slack. He struck out but there was no power left and his timing was off—he’d try for a hit when Duncan was already weaving away. Bl
ack was hurt. Duncan knew this and jumped ahead to finish him. He caught the cowboy coming in uncertainly with a right hand. He nearly toppled him with a jabbing left hand. He stepped in, dropped, and threw his entire weight into a sledge-hammer blow that made Black’s air rush out in a whooshing gasp. Black was doubled over by this one and his eyes were fixed aimlessly upon the ground as though they no longer focused.

  Marianne called out, but Duncan ignored this to take one short step in closer. He tapped Black’s shoulder, and when the gunman twisted his head, Duncan hit him with everything he had left, along the jaw. Black went down as though axed. His face was bloody, his fists were raw, and his frame was limp and raggedly heaving.

  Duncan stood there a moment longer, looking down. He stooped, unbuckled Black’s shell belt, strapped it on himself, and unsteadily made his way toward Marianne.

  She led him deeper into the forest where a little mossy creek ran, and there his legs gave out. He went down on both knees and hung there, sucking the insufficient high-country air into his lungs.

  Marianne used a neckerchief to bathe Duncan’s face. She was pale from throat to hairline but she did not say a single word. Some ten minutes passed, and Duncan pushed upright, flexed his bruised knuckles, swung to gaze out through the tree trunks where Tom Black lay sprawled.

  He said: “I feel better. In fact, I feel a lot better. I’ve had a hankering to do that to someone ever since Berryhill arrested me.”

  Marianne rinsed her neckerchief, stood up, and replied: “You don’t look better, and I think if what he said is true, we’d better get back to our horses.”

  “Yeah,” Duncan growled, shuffling out where the unconscious cowboy lay. “But first I’ve got one more little chore to do.”

  He passed Tom Black, went out to his tethered horse, methodically offsaddled, removed the bridle, and gave the gaunt beast a light pat on the rump.

  Marianne protested. “He’s hurt, Todd. You can’t expect him to walk all the way back to Leesville in his condition, can you?”