Dark Shadow

by Roy F. Chandler

  Punto's planning was simple to work out. If his killers did not stop Josh Logan, Punto would secure himself inside his vault while the horseman who had ridden away went for help. His rescuers might curl their lips at a man who feared one attacker so much that he hid in the ground like a mole, but their disdain would not help Josh Logan.

  The roof offered no way into Punto's strong room. Logan rested against the parapet and thought about it. Of course he would like to just burn Punto out, but the iron doors would not ignite. After a bit he figured a way, but he would need some help.

  He did not have dynamite, but he had Punto's bronze cannon. Logan guessed the cannon's bore to be about three inches in diameter, and a pyramid of balls was neatly stacked nearby. Below roof level a small wooden door let into a wall announced the danger of the cannon powder stored within.

  Logan hefted an iron ball and judged that at pointblank range he ought to be able to blast the door out of the way, but he knew little about cannons, and he could not get the gun down the stairs to the upper door.

  The boys still waited with his horse and mule. They would have to be his gunners. Logan signaled, and they came to attention. He waved them in, and after a brief discussion, the burro and mule boy moved toward the big gate. The horse boy followed.

  When the youths attempted to open the gate to admit the animals a man appeared from a small shack beside the gate and ordered them away. Ah ha, what had the loyal gatekeeper's name been? Logan remembered even as he hoped to heaven there were no others that he had not discovered.

  Logan called, "Paco!"

  The man looked at him.

  Logan made his voice authoritative. "I am Senor Logan. Open the gate."

  The man still hesitated, so Logan raised his Spencer suggestively. Paco helped with the gate bar.

  When they were inside, Logan called, "Close the gate." Paco obeyed the new master's order.

  The animals were brought close under his place on the roof, and Logan decided to identify his helpers.

  "Uno,” he pointed to the burro boy that he had encountered on the road. "Unsaddle the animals. Dos," he named the second, "you and Paco come to the iron door."

  Logan met his helpers. "I wish to seal this door so that whoever is inside cannot open it." He waited for ideas, but none were offered.

  The rooms were filled with heavy furniture. Logan said, "Place the heaviest furniture tightly against the door so that it cannot move. Do you understand?" Nods were swift if not enthusiastic, and Logan left them to it.

  He labored his way back to the gallery, and bent clumsily to recover the empty Winchester rifles. Logan peered over the rail. Dos and Paco were lugging the top half of a sideboard to the sealed door, and he watched them fit it tightly against the iron. A few of those heavy pieces would do it.

  Uno had the saddles and packs off, and Logan ordered him to feed and water the animals. No grass or hay, he demanded, only the best feed. Uno knew where to go. He led the animals away, and Logan went for the dead men's ammunition belts.

  Logan rested on a bench where he could observe Paco's and Dos's progress, and by the time he had filled the ammunition tubes lying beneath each rifle barrel they had put enough weight against the door to resist a platoon of determined men.

  Logan let them rest until Uno returned with the animals, then he led them to the roof. Logan arranged his audience along the parapet and ordered them to sit. Paco was very old. Perhaps as old as he was, Logan suspected. The gatekeeper appeared to have his wits about him, and Logan figured the man would do as he was told. The boys were no worry. They would act as ordered.

  Logan explained. "First we will tip the barrel of this cannon from its mount. We will roll it to the stairs and let it drop to the floor below. If it is so heavy it goes through the floor, I will change my plan and we will use it against the bottom door, but I think it will fall and lay just outside the door below us. Do you understand?" There were three nods.

  When Logan had said we, he had meant they. The three huffed and heaved. A trunnion rose from its cradle, and the huge weight swiveled away. The gun crashed to the roof amid rising dust clouds. The three workers gasped in apparent satisfaction. Good workers, Logan decided.

  Below the tower a woman rushed into view and called frantically. Her speech was Indian and Logan could not understand. His workers looked at him questioningly.

  Logan asked, "What does she say?"

  Dos answered. "It is my mother, Senor Sombra Preta. She is worried for me."

  Sombra Preta! So Punto had told them. Logan imagined what the raider had claimed.

  "Tell her that you are in no danger, and that you will come to her when the door is blown open." Dos explained, or Logan hoped that he did. At least the mother returned to the outbuildings with her voice complaining and her arms waving.

  The cannon slid with some effort. One end a foot ahead, and then the other. The workers tipped the barrel, and it hung for a long moment before falling.

  The crashing was horrendous. A few feet down, the staircase collapsed under the load, and the entire building shuddered when the cannon struck the floor.

  Four pair of eyes peered down the stairwell to see. Logan said, "Good work," and his helpers seemed pleased.

  Next, the iron balls and the cannon powder would have to be brought down. Logan looked at the wrecked staircase and wondered if he too might not have to be lowered to the floor below.

  Beside each door a speaking hole had been built into the adobe keep. The hole was about the size that a brick could have been pushed through, but it had a right angle near the center of the wall so that no one could shoot or see through.

  As the outside action moved about, Seer dashed from hole to hole to listen. Usually, he could not make out words. A mouth had to speak almost directly into a listening hole for effective understanding, but Seer was able to follow some of what was happening.

  The thud of heavy objects being placed against the lower door made him fear fire. He was not certain how the two hundred year old oak would react to great heat, and he hoped he would not find out. Punto was also concerned about who assisted Logan. A number of voices spoke, but he could not identify them. Surely, Logan had no band of followers. Probably Punto's own people were being forced to work against him. Let them struggle. No one would get in.

  It grew quiet outside, and Seer hurried to the upstairs door to discover if that portal was also being blocked. He had never considered a possibility that he might be forever penned in his keep.

  Seer studied his watch by the glow of the single lamp he allowed himself. Only an hour had passed since he had seen Logan at his gate. His man had been riding hard since then, and should be halfway to Guaymos. Relief would arrive well before dark, and Seer hoped that whoever commanded the militia force would be wise enough to surround the hacienda and make sure that Joshua Logan had no escape. With a little foresight, his rescuers could finish Dark Shadow for him.

  Until Tomas and Tomasito had gone down, Seer had kept his upper door ajar, but the last shots he had heard had been from Logan's Spencer which had a deeper boom than the Winchesters.

  The last man still shooting was usually the winner, and Seer did not intend to be the next to face the guns of Sombra Preta. He swung the upper door closed and slammed a cross bar into place. The other two bars could wait. If the door was somehow seriously assaulted he would slide in the others, but one bar alone should hold out hordes from hell.

  The crashing fall of the cannon shook even the mighty keep and startled Punto from his comfortable safety. For long minutes he could not imagine what had torn loose, and his mind pictured his housing wings being ripped apart and falling to the ground. The thought of his hacienda being destroyed tore at his sanity, but Punto could also imagine Joshua Logan waiting patiently just outside the door for Senor Seer to come raging forth to defend his property. Punto's door stayed closed.

  When a cannon fired, it recoiled against its lashings, and usually the gun carriage was made to move and absorb
most of the impact. Punto's gun mount rolled on wheels so that it could be fired in any direction, but the carriage might have been assembled on the roof as it would not fit down the staircase, or perhaps it had been hauled up from the outside. Either way, Logan was not going to be able to use it.

  Instead, Logan directed that the breech of the cannon be placed against the wall directly opposite Punto’s door. His helpers brought tabletops and planks to reinforce the wall, but Logan expected that they would have to rebuild every round or two.

  Loading the cannon raised serious questions. How much powder? A long-rifle load could be crudely measured by pouring powder over a bullet until the bullet was covered. For lack of a better measure, Logan ordered that method.

  The measured powder was dumped into a gourd so that the amount could be repeated without more guessing. The powder went down the barrel and a rammer pushed it to the breech. The ball was seated on top of the powder, and Logan tried to decide whether a patch should be rammed in to hold the ball tightly in place. He had no idea how cannoneers did it, but no patches had been stored so perhaps they were not required.

  Aiming the cannon was simplicity itself. The distance to the door was barely eight feet. Logan had Uno fetch a long clothes pole. He shoved the pole into the barrel, and they jacked and braced the cannon so that the pole's end touched the door exactly over the middle hinge.

  The barrel angled upward, and Logan wondered if the cannon ball would ricochet or penetrate. If the ball bounced off due to the angle, they would have to elevate the entire cannon so that it fired straight ahead. That would require a lot of raising and supporting, but his team could do it.

  The cannon could also explode. Lord only knew how old the thing was, and Logan had heard that bronze guns could be unpredictable. Without knowing the proper powder charge, firing the cannon could be dangerous.

  Logan moved his men to safety. He lit a piece of rag, and when it flamed, he leaned around a corner and tossed it onto powder laid across the touchhole. Then, he ducked back and turned his head away.

  The cannon belched fire and smoke in a hellish blast. There was a monumental crashing of wood, and the cannon spun past Logan's shelter.

  Logan ignored the fervent crossing of breasts by his team of gunners and looked through the smoke to examine any damage to the door.

  By all the gods, there was a hole. A puncture almost exactly the size of the cannon ball. How deep had the ball gone? Logan wished to stick something in the hole to find out, but if it went all the way through, someone inside could shoot out at him. The long pole. Maybe he could angle the thing in and still stay out of any return fire.

  Logan crouched to the side and worried the pole end into the hole in the metal. It stuck for an instant and then went in deep. Sure as the shooting, the ball had gone through and it must have raised the very devil with the strap hinge. Maybe it killed Punto. Doubtful, but Logan could hope.

  25

  Wesley Seer had stood with his ear to the listening hole, attempting to decide what was happening. The cannon blast roared through the hole stunning Seer’s senses. The iron cannon ball smashed through the wrought iron hinge, the two hundred year oak, and the equally old central bar. The ball slammed into the chambers opposite wall and thudded to the floor. Wood and metal splinters flew like arrows, and Seer took a few in his side. The raider shrieked, and hid himself behind a pile of emergency goods.

  Seer calmed as quickly as he had panicked. The cannon. His own damned and blasted cannon! The crashing had been Logan and his helpers dumping the cannon down the stairway.

  Seer knew cannons. He had proudly refurbished his ancient piece, and had Guaymos’s best metal smith shrink-fit extra bronze bands around the cannon's middle to give it added strength. On special occasions he had fired the cannon, and now that he thought about it, he should have trained the piece on Logan as he neared the gate and perhaps destroyed the man. Seer realized that his dependency on others to do the work might cost him dearly.

  The single ball had almost severed the bar he had placed, but Logan could not have yet reloaded. Seer scrambled to the door and quickly added the additional beams. Then he retreated well out of range of flying splinters.

  Damn, each beam was positioned directly over a hinge. If Logan concentrated on the hinges, he might destroy a beam with each shot. Perhaps the damned cannon would explode. Seer cursed his care in strengthening the piece.

  What could he do? Seer decided that after each of Logan’s shots he would quickly move a large piece of furniture into the tunnel formed by the thick walls. In fact, he would barricade both doors. If Logan managed to destroy a door Seer would defend his furniture barricade with his shotguns and rifles. He began to plan his firing points and his future movements inside the keep. If the door did go, he might get an easy shot at Logan as he peered into the darkness of the tunnel. Seer prepared to douse his lamp in an instant.

  Logan examined the cannon carefully. It appeared undamaged. The crashing had been the splintering of the boards placed behind the gun. They would have to be repacked after each shot. He would also have to cover the shot hole in the door with something lest Punto fire out at them. Logan wondered if he might do the same and pump a few hopeful rounds into Punto's strong room. He decided to wait for a few more cannon shots and see what developed.

  The stimulation of getting the cannon firing departed Logan in a rush, and he felt as if he simply had to rest. At his direction, Uno and Dos pulled a gallery bench close, and Logan collapsed onto it. He ordered the youths to bring food and water from the kitchen. When they were gone he had Paco drag the body of the dead Indian from the gallery. The corpse kept his workers nervous, and he did not want their fears to make them flee in the middle of his cannonade.

  He chose a long bed board, and Paco braced it against the iron door effectively sealing the new hole and preventing the door from suddenly opening.

  Logan wondered what Punto was doing inside the vault. Might he have a secret way out and already be long gone while his enemies battered the door of an empty room? Paco might know.

  Logan sat the man down and asked. "Are there other ways to leave Senor Seer's strong room, Paco? I would not be pleased to find that we have wasted many hours breaking into an empty room."

  The gatekeeper was long in answering, but when he did, his opinion was clear. Logan decided Paco was not dull minded; he was just a slow and methodical thinker.

  "There are no other doors, Senor Sombra Preta. I have lived here all of my life, and I knew the Patron before Senor Seer. I have worked in the strong room many times, and there are only these doors."

  The hunger to sleep was strong in Logan. He called for the youths to hurry the food, and in moments they charged the stairs with bowls and jugs.

  Logan ordered them to sit and eat, and after a moment's hesitation the boys dug in as hungry youths might anywhere. Paco too ate with relish, and Logan wondered how well the people of Hacienda Seer fared in their master's service.

  Logan sent Uno to the water Olla to refill his jugs, and found himself swilling water at an astonishing rate. Perhaps water could substitute for the blood he had lost.

  Logan said, "Uno, can you find new clothing for me? Judge my height and weight and bring me pants and a shirt.”

  The boy started away, then paused and said almost apologetically, "We have bandages, Sombra Preta, and the mother of Seto, he bobbed his head at Dos, has salve to help heal wounds."

  Logan's leg wound was a burning and smarting hole through the meat of a thigh. The long cuts along his body and arm also needed treatment. He turned to the boy he called Dos.

  "Will your mother bring her salve for my wounds, Dos?"

  "I do not know, Sombra Preta, I can only ask."

  Perhaps the boy would run, but it was a risk worth taking. "Ask her to come, Dos. Tell her that no harm will befall anyone who does not come against me, except Senor Seer, of course."

  They ate silently until Paco the gate keeper asked, "Who wounded you, Senor S
ombra Preta?'

  Logan considered his answer. Paco might be a brother or even the father of Juan of one eye, but Logan doubted he could produce a mythical enemy that would be believable.

  "He was called Juan of one eye, Paco. I shot his hand off in a desert far to the east. The one eye attacked me last night as I slept, and we fought until I shot him to death. His body is in the hills to the west. By morning the buzzards will take you there."

  Paco was again slow in thought, but eventually he spoke. "I will not miss the one eye, Senor Sombra Preta. He was an evil man who hurt many people." The gatekeeper nodded toward the room with the bodies. "The brothers Tomas and Tomasito were his men, and they were also cruel to many."

  Logan said, "I hope that Senor Seer does not have more like them in his strong room."

  Uno did the answering. "There are no others, Sombra Preta. The brothers were the last of the evil ones."

  Logan liked the answer. No more gun fighters was good, and Uno showed no remorse at the elimination of the last of the shooters.

  He felt the need to move ahead. By now, the rider might have found rescuers and be on his way back to the hacienda, but lethargy held Logan, and he chose to talk instead.

  "What has Senor Seer told you about me?" He threw the question to anyone, and it was again Uno who chose to answer,

  "The Patron explained that you were a killer of many people, Sombra Preta, and that the devil rode with you. Senor Seer said that if you came you would kill all of the people and eat their hearts. Senor Seer said that Juan of one eye would find and kill you, but that we must all warn him if you were seen." Uno shrugged, "I did not hear Senor Seer say those things, but I was told that he did."

  Logan sighed. What else could he have expected? He would tell his side of it, and perhaps blunt some of the hunger to pursue him.

  "Each year Senor Seer left his hacienda for many months. Is that not true?" Paco and Uno nodded as one.