The Shadow of a Noose

by Ralph Compton

  Tim studied Arno Dunne’s face, saying, “We just talked to his blacksmith earlier today. He never mentioned cattle rustlers.”

  “Barney Pitts is lucky he knows his own name.” Arno Dunne shrugged, working his cigar between his lips. “I just got word myself, at a friend’s house on my way here.” He paused and blew out a breath of smoke. “I didn’t catch your last names, boys.”

  Tim started to tell him, but before he could speak, the piano player stopped playing abruptly and dove from his bench onto the sawdust floor, shouting, “Shotguns! Look out!”

  Jed, Tim, and Arno Dunne spun toward the slapping sound of the bat wing doors just in time to see Mose Epps and Randy Farrel spread two feet apart, each of them raising a double-barreled shotgun. “No body makes me a crawfish!” Epps raged. But he’d have better spent his time shooting instead of talking, for Tim and Jed Strange both drew and fired in one blinding swift motion. Arno Dunne barely cleared leather before the sound of the twins pistols roared in unison.

  A blast of buckshot fired up into the ceiling taking down a wagon wheel lantern frame as Randy Farrel slammed backward through the bat wing doors, his shotgun flinging from his hands. At the same time, two slugs from Tim’s Colt drove Mose Epps back against the wall beside the doors, where he slid down to his knees and fell face forward, dead. His shotgun went off, sending a streak of fire and a spray of splinters across the floor. A deathlike silence hung in the air after the blasts. Smoke curled and drifted from the barrels of the twins’ Colts.

  “Lord have mercy,” the bartender whispered, breaking the silence. He looked at the body of Epps, then through the broken doors at Randy Farrel stretched out dead in the street.

  “You all saw it!” Arno Dunne shouted, fanning his unfired pistol back and forth across the stunned onlookers. “Epps and Farrel started it, didn’t they?”

  “That’s right,” said the bartender. “When the sheriff gets here, that’s what we’ll say. Epps and Farrel caused the whole thing.”

  “Sheriff, hell,” said Dunne. He shot Tim and Jed a warning glance. “If you boys are smart, you’ll clear out of here. You want to take your chances with the sheriff? He’s Mose Epps’s cousin.”

  Tim and Jed looked at one another, their last encounter with angry townsfolk still fresh in their memory. “We ain’t staying,” said Tim. He turned to the bartender. “Mister, you saw it. Will you tell the law we were only defending ourselves?”

  “That’s exactly what I’ll tell him,” said the bartender, “but you’d be wise to stay and tell him yourself.”

  “Yeah,” Arno cut in sarcastically, “and take a chance on him jackpotting you for shooting a couple of snakes. Come on, boys, I’m getting you out of here for your own good.” He turned back and forth with his pistol covering the drinking crowd. “Any objections?”

  The crowd cowered back. Jed said to his bother, “Tim, maybe we ought to stay and explain.”

  “No, come on, Dunne’s right.” He backed toward the door, limping slightly as he punched out the two spent cartridges from his Colt. “Why do we need to explain anything? Everybody here knows the truth.”

  Jed backed away with him as Arno Dunne ushered them both out the doors to the hitch rail. Jed stood frozen for a second when he looked down at the body of Randy Farrel lying dead in the dirt. “Come on, Jed, damn it!” Tim shouted, untying both of their reins and pitching Jed’s over to him. “Let’s ride!”

  “Listen to your brother, boy,” Arno Dunne demanded. He’d already stepped atop a buckskin Spanish barb and spun it around in the street. “The sheriff’ll be here any minute!”

  They rode hard and fast out of Mobeetie, Arno Dunne at the lead on a well-beaten road headed south. At a fork two miles out of town, Arno slid his barb horse to a halt and jerked it around, facing the twins as they followed suit. He laughed and slapped his thigh. “Boys, you sure know how to stir up a slow day in Mobeetie,” he said. But Tim and Jed Strange saw no humor in his remark, and their expressions told him so. “Aw, come on now,” Arno said, “those two got what was coming to them, we all know it. Be thankful I was able to warn you before they shot you both in the back. Ease up on yourselves a little. Life goes on.”

  “As I recall, it was the piano player who warned us,” Tim said, still looking solemn.

  “Well, however it went, just be thankful we’re all alive and kicking.” Arno chuckled, taking out a fresh cigar from inside his coat and biting the tip off it. “That’s what it’s all about, ain’t it? Staying alive?” He struck a match, lit it, and flipped the match away. He propped a boot across his saddle fork and relaxed, eyeing the twins and blowing a long stream of smoke.

  Jed spoke, pushing up his sweaty hat brim, “Now we have no way of seeing Jacob Riley about work for sure.”

  “I already told you, there’s no work there for yas,” Arno Dunne said, sounding a bit put out. “Besides, if work’s what you’re after, I know a better bunch to work for than Jacob Riley any day.” He wagged his cigar at the Colts on their hips. “The way you boys swing iron, you’d be foolish eating dust and staring up a longhorn’s rear end from sun to sun. Believe me, there’s better ways to make a living.”

  “You mean gun work, don’t you, Dunne?” Tim said, starting to distrust this smiling stranger and his slick style. “My brother and I ain’t hired guns, and we don’t intend to be. We might be young, but we ain’t stupid.”

  “Of course you’re not,” Arno Dunne said without conviction. “But you’re new out here, and just got a taste of how fast things can happen. There’s two kinds of people in this world—the givers and the takers. This is hard country, boys. If you want to give, it’ll take everything you’ve got, down to the hide on the soles of you feet. When it’s through with you, it’ll spit you in the dirt and let the wind cover you over.” He grinned. “But it don’t have to go that way. Look at me.” He spread his arms, showing his new but dusty clothes, his fine hand-tooled holster, his well-blocked Stetson, and shiny leather riding gloves. “I drive cattle myself when I can’t keep from it, only I don’t do it for a dollar a day and found. No siree. If I mess with longhorns, I make as much as Riley, and don’t have to stand near the expense he does.”

  Jed spat, crossing his wrists on his saddle horn and looking away. Tim stiffened a bit and said to Arno Dunne, “What you’re telling us is that you’re a cattle rustler, no different than the ones who stole from Jacob Riley.”

  “Cattle rustler? A thief? Naw, not me.” Arno Dunne laughed under his breath. “But let’s put this way, it ain’t stealing if they’re just running around loose. Same way with Mexican horses. If the padrones can’t keep their horses on their side of the border, they shouldn’t complain about losing them.”

  “We see what you’re getting at, Dunne,” Tim answered, barely hiding his disgust. “I reckon we’ll just say adios here and go our way.”

  “Boys, you oughta think about it first,” Arno Dunne cautioned them before they had time to turn their horses. “Where you going to go right now? You’re broke and hungry—you said so yourselves.” He reached a gloved hand back and patted his bulging saddlebags. “I’ve got supplies for over a week, and money to buy more once these run out.”

  “We don’t take handouts, Dunne,” Jed Strange said, now turning his bay. “Let’s go, Tim.”

  “Not so fast,” Tim said, reaching a hand out and taking Jed’s bay by its bridle, stopping it. “Dunne, you said you and your bunch handle cattle when you can’t keep from it. What do you do the rest of the time?”

  “Tim, you don’t mean it,” Jed said, stunned by his brother’s interest.

  Dunne spread another slick grin. “At a boy, now you’re starting to use your head.” He tapped his cigar to his temple. “We do whatever comes up the trail to us. Most make enough money that most times we don’t have to do anything at all. Think you could handle that? Learn to take life easy, enjoy the spoils of the land?”

  Tim stared at him for a second, then asked, “And where are your friends? Whe
re are you headed?”

  Arno Dunne pointed southeast with his cigar. “They’re waiting for me right now, boys. Right down there, smack in the heart of Indian Territory.”

  “That’s it for me, I’m leaving, Tim,” Jed murmured, “and you’re leaving with me.” Again Jed tried to turn his bay, but Tim held it firm by its bridle as he spoke to Dunne.

  “Will you excuse me and my brother for a minute, Dunne?” Tim asked.

  Arno Dunne said with a sweeping gesture of his cigar, “Take your time, boys, talk it over real good. We’re in no hurry here.”

  Chapter 8

  Arno Dunne looked on from twenty feet away as Jed and Tim Strange talked between themselves. At first Jed was strongly opposed to riding any farther with a rustler like Arno Dunne. While Dunne watched, he smiled to himself and blew long streams of cigar smoke into the hot passing breeze. He couldn’t make out Jed Strange’s words, but he could tell by the way the boy shook his head that he wasn’t at all interested in Dunne’s proposition.

  “How can you even consider taking up with this man, Tim?” Jed whispered to his twin brother. “If we get tangled up with a bunch like he’s talking about, we’ll never find Danielle. We’ll be lucky if we don’t hang.” As Jed spoke, he took the window shade cord from his pocket that he’d been carrying ever since St. Joseph. Out of habit now, he anxiously coiled it back and forth around his finger.

  “Listen to me, Jed.” Tim spoke in a firm tone, reaching out and clasping his hand down on Jed’s, stopping him from toying with the window shade cord. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since this man opened his mouth about Indian Territory. If Danielle’s down there hunting down killers, this is the kind of men she’ll be after. She could be on their trail right now. For all we know, Dunne could be one of Pa’s killers, or know of them anyway. I can see what he is, but he might have come along at just the right time to be some help to us. He knows the Territory, and we don’t.”

  “Yeah,” Jed interjected, “but remember what Danny Duggin said? There’s men in the Territory who’ll cut your throat just to see how you fall? That’s Dunne, if you want my opinion.” Jed reached into his pocket and took out his small whittling knife. He cut the length of window sash cord in half as he spoke.

  “I know it is, Jed. That’s why I figure nobody will bother us so long as we’re with him. All we got to do is keep an eye on him. We’ll stick with him and his friends until we know our way around. When it comes to taking care of ourselves with a gun, we’ve got no problem. We just have to watch our step. What do you say?”

  “I say, we ain’t going to get started breaking the law, Tim. It’s easy enough to get in dutch out here without going looking for it.”

  “I know,” Tim said, “but we’ve got to make a move of some kind or we’ll never do what we set out to. The job didn’t pan out. Now I say we get to looking for Danielle before that plan goes wrong on us as well. If we ain’t got enough sense to keep from becoming outlaws, we ought not to be out here in the first place. Now, are you with me on this?”

  “Are you going on with him, even if I’m not?” Jed asked, his eyes searching Tim’s.

  Tim let out a breath, then replied, “No, brother, you know better than that. I’m just saying we better get to doing something, or else go on back home and forget it.”

  Jed looked away for a moment, considering it. He took one of the lengths of window shade cord and deftly fashioned a miniature thirteen-knot noose into it. He laid it on his knee, then picked up the other length and formed another small noose. Finally he looked back at Tim and handed him one of the nooses and said, “All right, let’s do it. Just make sure we watch each other’s backs.”

  “That goes without saying,” Tim whispered. “But what’s this for?”

  “Just to remind us we’re riding in the shadow of a noose,” said Jed. He spun his own miniature noose around on his finger and slipped it down around his saddle horn.

  “Good idea,” Tim said, slipping his miniature noose down on his saddle horn the same way. “We’ll always remember that it’s just you and me against the rest of the outlaw world, brother.” When they both turned their bays back around and heeled them toward Arno Dunne, the man smiled even wider than he had before, seeing the looks on their faces.

  “All right then,” Arno Dunne said jovially, jerking his horse around to the thin trail leading off to the southeast toward a stretch of low badlands hills. “Let’s press some saddle leather, boys. We’ve wasted too much time as it is.”

  The Washita River, Indian Territory, July 20, 1871

  Fortunately for Danielle Strange, Duncan Grago had made no more mention of swinging out of their way to rob a bank on their way deeper into Indian Territory. Danielle would not have gone along with it even if he had. She remained ever mindful that her task was to hunt down a band of outlaws, not become one herself. Yet, the farther they traveled without any incident, the more restless and angry Duncan Grago became. He directed none of his anger toward her, for he knew better. But toward everything else, including the land itself, Duncan Grago became seething mad and hard-handed. Even his horse became a victim of his rage, and would have suffered much abuse had it not been for Danielle stopping him. When the poor animal had stumbled coming down a slope of loose rock, Duncan Grago had jumped down from his saddle, picked up a hand-sized stone, and screamed at the helpless animal.

  “You worthless buzzard-bait son of a bitch!” he raged, drawing his arm high and wide, ready to smash the horse between the eyes.

  But Danielle had already seen the attack coming and was down from her saddle in a flash. She caught Duncan’s arm with her left hand, and with her right hand swung her pistol full circle, cracking Grago across the top of his head with the barrel. It was nearly a half hour before Duncan Grago became conscious. During that time, Danielle dragged him into the shade beneath a high wide pine tree, propping him up against it.

  She stood back with her hand near her pistol butt, just in case he awoke and made a move on her. But as he raised his bleary eyes to her, he only asked in dull confusion, “What—what happened?”

  Danielle took a hard tone with him, saying, “I busted your head with a gun barrel, that’s what happened.”

  Duncan Grago’s eyes flashed white hot for a second, but noting her hand near her Colt, and having already seen what that Colt could do, he checked himself, raising a hand to his throbbing head and asking with a groan, “What the hell for? Last I remember, I was going to knock that cayuse’s head off.”

  “That’s right, you were, you damn fool,” Danielle spat, leaning down and lifting him by his shoulder. “Then you’d be afoot the rest of the way, or else I’d be stuck with you against my back.”

  Duncan Grago looked bewildered for a moment, considering it. “I reckon I just saw red when the horse faltered under me.”

  “Well, you best start seeing some other color,” Danielle said, helping him steady himself on his wobbly feet. “This ain’t the kind of country to be in without a horse. Do something that stupid, and I’ll leave you to the coyotes.” She shoved him slightly, guiding his horse.

  “I—I didn’t mean to,” Grago said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  Danielle only watched and shook her head as Duncan struggled up into his saddle and gathered his reins. Then she stepped atop Sundown and heeled the big chestnut forward, keeping Duncan beside her and in her sight. Duncan Grago was like a storm in a clay jar, she thought, aching to bust loose and destroy something at every turn in the trail. Little did she know that his opportunity would come that very evening when they met a small crew of drovers leading a herd from the Texas panhandle toward Fort Smith.

  Had Danielle seen the rising dust of the herd sooner, she would have diverted around them. But by the time she and Duncan rode up a wide rocky basin, the lead rider was already in sight, moving toward them slowly with some forty head of cattle trudging a few yards behind him. “Well,” Duncan said with a grin, “looks like we don’t have to cook toni
ght.”

  “Yeah,” Danielle replied, already getting a bad feeling. “Let’s mind our manners. We don’t need to draw attention to ourselves.” But she could tell by the look on Duncan’s face that he had no idea what she meant. She nudged Sundown forward grudgingly, seeing the lead drover raise a gloved hand toward them from a hundred yards away.

  “Hello, the herd!” Danielle called out as she and Duncan Grago drew nearer and pulled their horses to one side, waiting for an invitation to approach.

  “Hello yourselves,” called out the lead man, waving them toward him. “Come on over, these cattle have no spook in ’em.”

  Danielle and Duncan moved in, sidling up to the young man who had looked more and more familiar as Danielle drew closer. “Dan?” said the young drover, peering at Danielle, “is that you?”

  Danielle recognized him now through the caked dust on his cheeks and a week’s worth of beard stubble. It was Tuck Carlyle, a young man her age with whom she’d worked the past summer running a herd of cattle. Seeing Tuck made Danielle’s heart soar for a second. But then she reminded herself of Duncan Grago being with her, and realized she had to find a way to let Tuck know what she was up to. Luckily for her, Tuck had only called her Dan, and not Daniel Strange as he might have done. Tuck had no idea that the person he knew as Daniel Strange was really a woman. He did know that Daniel Strange had been on the vengeance trail the last time they’d seen one another.

  “Yep, it’s me, Danny Duggin,” Danielle said, staring intensely at Tuck, hoping he’d get the message. He did, and right away.

  “I knew that was you riding in, Danny,” Tuck said without a hitch. “But you do look different, having grown yourself a lip duster. And ya got yourself a scar, I see.”