The Shadow of a Noose

by Ralph Compton

  “Yeah, we heard some shooting earlier,” Duncan said. “What’s going on in there?”

  “It’s the wildest thing you ever saw, Dunc,” said Gibb. “Newt’s got a contest going to see who’s the fastest gun. So far, nobody has beat Chancy Burke. He killed ol’ Marvin Parrish this morning. Shot him right through the heart.”

  At the sound of the name Chancy Burke, Danielle perked up, remembering the name from her list of killers. Duncan looked astonished and asked Gibb, “You mean it’s a contest where they’re really shooting each other?”

  “Yep.” Gibb chuckled. “I told you, it’s the wildest thing ever. A man can either make himself some money or end up dead in the dirt.” His eyes went to Danielle Strange. “What about you, mister? Are you any good with that tied-down Colt, or do you wear it to keep your shirt tucked in?”

  Danielle said from beneath her lowered hat brim, “Don’t concern yourself about my Colt or my shirttail.”

  Duncan Grago cut in, saying, “Chester, I might as well tell you right now, Danny Duggin don’t tolerate much guff off of nobody. As far as his Colt goes, you can take it from me—it does whatever he wants it to. He’s a friend of mine, and I vouch for him.” Duncan’s hand rested on his pistol butt. “Is there any more that needs to be said on the matter?”

  “Hell no, Dunc,” Chester Gibb said quickly. “You know how I am. Sometimes I like to aggravate.” His eyes went to Danielle. “No harm intended, Danny Duggin. Any friend of Dunc’s is a friend of mine, right, Dunc?”

  Duncan Grago stared at him with a tight, fixed grin. Danielle saw the wild look that had been missing for a while come back into his eyes. “Let’s hope so, Chester,” he said, “otherwise I’d put a bullet right where your—”

  Danielle cut him off, saying to Chester Gibb, “How fast is this Chancy Burke?”

  Chester Gibb swallowed a dry knot in his throat, glad to change the subject. “He’s damn fast. Right now he’s the cock of the walk. But there’s others on their way here that are just as fast, if not faster.”

  “Oh? Who’s coming?” Danielle asked, knowing she was on the verge of standing face-to-face with her father’s murderers and barely able to keep from riding in with her Colts blazing. Still, she kept calm, wanting to find out everything she could about these men.

  “Well, let’s see,” said Chester Gibb, scratching his beard-stubbled jaw, thinking about it. “There’s what’s left of the regulars, Rufe Gaddis, Saul Delmano, and Julius Byler, not to mention some others Newt sent for. Arno Dunne’s supposed to be on his way. If I know Arno, he’s gone and got himself a gunslinger he figures is fast enough to make him some money here.”

  “Yeah, that’s Arno Dunne, all right,” said Duncan, “always playing an angle.” He tilted his head slightly and asked, “you mentioned Julius Byler? Hell, I figured Julius would have already arrived by now. We met up with him, but then him and Danny here had a falling-out. When Danny ran him off, I thought he probably came on out here.”

  “Nope, he ain’t here.” Chester Gibb looked from Duncan to Danielle, and asked, “You ran Julius Byler off? I don’t know how you did that unless you shot him.”

  Feeling both Duncan’s and Gibb’s eyes on her, Danielle shrugged, saying calmly, “That’s what I did. I shot him, six times in the chest, then sent him packing. Told him if he came back, I’d shoot him some more.” She stared blankly from beneath her lowered hat brim and waited.

  For a second Chester Gibb only stood with a puzzled look on his face. Then he chuckled, and said to Duncan Grago, “Well, I see your friend Danny Duggin here has a sense of humor. For a minute there he had me believing it.” He waved them past him on up the narrow trail toward Robber’s Rock. “You two go on, Dunc. Tell somebody to come out and relieve us. Me and Eldridge has been out here long enough. Besides, there ain’t no lawmen foolish enough to ride into Robber’s Rock no how.”

  “I’ll tell Newt to send somebody,” said Duncan, straightening the copper barb onto the trail.

  Danielle followed Duncan Grago closely. Hearing Chester Gibb’s words caused a guarded smile to alight on her lips. Just keep believing that, Gibb, she thought to herself as her eyes searched upward around them. In the shadows of rock fifty feet above them, a rifleman stepped forward and waved them along the narrowing pass.

  Danielle hadn’t said a word to Duncan Grago about the posse out of Fort Smith that the old horse thief Hobbs had told her about. She hoped Hobbs was right, but she wasn’t about to mention it to Duncan Grago. As far as she was concerned, the law could have whatever was left of this band of outlaws. She only wanted the ones whose names were on her list. If the law was coming, she needed to get her killing done and clear out of here, for once the posse hit, they wouldn’t know Danny Duggin from the rest of this bunch. Danielle nudged her chestnut mare forward, anxious to bring her vengeance to a head.

  “Once we get to the camp, you stick close to me for a while, Danny,” Duncan Grago said over his shoulder. “Just till everybody sees you’re all right.”

  “Sure, Dunc, no problem,” Danielle said, staring straight ahead, preparing her mind for the killing task that lay ahead.

  Chapter 12

  Standing on the porch above the crowd, Newt Grago and Merlin Haas were the first to see the two horses come into view from the trail leading down to the encampment. “Think it’s your brother Duncan?” Haas asked, still holding a thick stack of dollars in his sweaty hand.

  “I’d bet on it,” Newt Grago replied. He stepped down and elbowed his way through the gathered outlaws who were still milling around the corpse of Ollie Blandford. “Get him away from here before he starts drawing flies,” Newt demanded of the crowd.

  “You heard him, boys,” said Haas, stepping along behind Newt Grago toward the two riders in the distance. “Get Ollie out of here—Curly Lyndell too.” He gestured toward the body of Curly Lyndell lying a few yards away. “We can’t have another round until somebody does some cleaning up here.”

  “What are we supposed to do with them?” a voice called out from amid the crowd.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Haas said in passing, “tie a rope around their ankles and drag them to a gully somewhere, I reckon. Just get them out of here before they turn ripe on us. I’ll tell Lulu to give a free bottle of rye to the man who gets rid of them.”

  “What the hell are we waiting for, boys,” the same voice called out, “somebody get a rope!”

  A few yards past the gathered crowd, Newt Grago and Merlin Haas stopped and stood at the edge of the dusty clearing, looking out at the two approaching riders. “Yep, that’s Dunc on the left,” Newt Grago said, a smile spreading on his sweat-streaked face. “We’ll see some action now. He was meaner than a sack full of rattlesnakes when he went to prison. He’ll be even meaner now, I expect. You never met Dunc, did you, Haas?”

  “Nope, can’t say I ever had the pleasure,” Merlin Haas replied, squinting in the mellow evening sunlight. He saw Duncan Grago lift his hat and run a hand back across his short-cropped hair. “Looks like they sheared him to the bone before they turned him loose. Who’s that with him?”

  “I don’t know who it is,” said Newt, himself squinting in the sunlight. “But it ain’t Julius Byler or Sep Howard either one, that’s for sure. Damn it! I told Sep to make sure he and Dunc stopped by Byler’s hideout and brought him along with them.” He lifted his hat from his head and swung it back and forth, waving at his brother and the rider beside him. “Well, whoever it is, if he’s riding with Dunc, he’s got to be all right.”

  “Yeah,” said Haas, grinning. “If he gets himself killed here, I’ve got first claim on that big chestnut he’s riding.”

  Newt Grago had been so excited to see Dunc riding in that he’d paid no attention to the horse the other man was riding. But now he stiffened a bit at Haas’s words, as a thought dawned on him. “We’ll see,” he said, his tone of voice changing, growing cautious now as he tried peering closer at the face of the other rider. After a moment, he called out
over his shoulder to the men a few yards behind him, “Boys, get on over here. My brother Dunc is riding in. Let’s make him feel welcome!”

  The outlaws moved in closer behind Newt Grago and Merlin Haas, two of them dropping the rope they’d looped around the ankle of Ollie Blanford’s body and leaving him lying in the dirt. “What’s up, boss?” Chancy Burke said, stepping in beside Newt Grago. “You sound worried.”

  “Worried? Naw, not me,” said Newt. “Just keep your eyes skinned on this man riding with Dunc.”

  “I’ve got him covered,” Chancy Burke said, lowering his voice as the two horses cantered in the last few yards and came to a halt. Burke’s right hand rested on the butt of his Colt, jiggling it in his holster.

  “Hot damn, Brother Newt!” Duncan Grago cried out joyously, jumping down from the copper barb’s back and running forward, his hat flying back off of his head.

  Danielle instinctively touched her fingers to her fake mustache, checking it. Then she adjusted her hat brim low and level, crossed her wrists on her saddle horn, and watched the Grago brothers throw their arms around one another as they laughed and cursed between themselves. She swallowed back the bitter taste of anger and fought the urge to swing her Colt from her holster and drop Newt Grago on the spot.

  “Dunc, you don’t look a damn bit different than when I last saw you!” Newt Grago said, shoving his brother back at arm’s length and looking him up and down. “I take it you’ve been properly rehabilitated though? I’d hate to think that in all this time, they failed to teach you the error of your ways.”

  Duncan Grago stepped back laughing and looked all around at the gathered outlaws as he spoke to Newt. “You bet they showed me the errors of my ways. They taught me the most important lesson a man ought to know.” He hesitated for a second, making sure all eyes and ears were upon him. Then he said, laughing even louder, “They taught me to never be taken alive!”

  The outlaws whooped and roared with laughter. Danielle only smiled enough to go along with Duncan Grago’s show. Even as she did so, she noticed Newt Grago and the man on his left cutting their eyes at her, then looking away. She knew they were checking out this stranger on the chestnut mare sitting before them, and she knew why. The man who’d killed some of their friends had been riding a big chestnut mare. But she stayed calm, already knowing the questions would come, already preparing herself for them.

  In a moment, when the laughter and greetings had died down, Newt Grago turned toward her with his left arm looped up around Duncan’s shoulder. His right hand hung loose and natural near the pistol on his hip. “So, Dunc,” Newt Grago asked, his eyes hooded and his thin smile fixing on Danielle, “who is your friend here? Somebody from prison, I reckon?”

  “Naw, this is my pal, Danny Duggin,” Duncan Grago said. “We met on the trail coming here from Fort Smith. Danny saved my bacon. Hadn’t been for him, I’d be dead.”

  “Is that a fact?” Newt Grago asked, eyeing Danielle. “In that case, I’m mighty obliged to you, Danny Duggin.” He jerked a thumb toward Haas on his right, then Burke on his left, saying, “Meet Merlin Haas and Chancy Burke, a couple of the boys. You can meet the rest, providing you’ll be sticking around for a while.”

  Danielle nodded at the two men in turn, careful not to let the white-hot vengeance show in her eyes as she looked upon the face of Chancy Burke. “I plan on staying awhile,” she replied, “if it’s all right by you. Dunc said it would be.”

  “Well, hell yes, it’s all right with him,” Duncan cut in, speaking for his brother. “Right, Newt?”

  Newt Grago only gave a grudging nod, stepping forward, looking closely at the chestnut mare as Duncan Grago continued. “I had the awfulest time getting Danny here to come along with me. He mostly keeps to himself. A real loner, you might say.”

  “A real loner, huh?” Newt said almost to himself, running a hand down Sundown’s muzzle. Sundown shied and pulled her head to one side. “A fine mare you’ve got here, Danny Duggin,” Newt said, inspecting Sundown closely as he spoke. “Had her long?”

  Here goes, Danielle though to herself, knowing she had play this just right. “A few months,” she replied in an offhand manner. “I’ve got no paper on her, but she ain’t stolen, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Danielle pulled the reins, moving Sundown away from Newt’s hand.

  “It wouldn’t matter to me if she was stolen or not,” Newt chuckled. “Hell, most of the horses here are stolen. But I am curious as to where you got her.”

  Danielle took on a testy tone. “You can stay curious then. I came here with Dunc because he said there was money to be made. He forgot to mention that a man had to explain where he gets his riding stock.”

  “Easy, Danny,” Duncan Grago said, trying to keep the air friendly. “Newt’s only making conversation, ain’t you, Newt?”

  “Maybe . . . maybe not,” said Newt, keeping a suspicious gaze on Danielle. “The fact is, there was a young man about your age who rode a big chestnut mare last summer. He killed some pals of mine. Rumor has it he’s riding a vengeance trail—”

  “Save your breath, Grago,” Danielle said, cutting him off with a sigh of exasperation. “I’ve already heard this story.” She allowed herself a slight laugh. “Hell’s fire, you’re the third person that’s brought it up in the past few weeks. If you thought I was that man, why didn’t you just come out and say so in the first place?”

  Newt Grago slid a glance around to Chancy Burke, then looked back at Danielle.

  Danielle noted how Chancy Burke and the others were ready to make a move at Newt Grago’s slightest signal. She stayed calm, not even lifting her wrists from her saddle horn.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “the gunslinger you’re talking about is dead. I know because I found his body. He was cut all to hell. This was his mare.” She reached out a hand and patted Sundown’s neck, then let her hand lie back on her thigh, not near her pistol just yet, but close by should the need suddenly arise. “I found this big chestnut wandering around and took her. That’s as much as I can tell you about it.”

  Newt Grago seemed to be weighing her story. Danielle was unsure if he believed it or not. Finally he said, “You’re sure that gunslinger is dead, huh?”

  Danielle made a relaxed shrug in reply. “He was dead when I found him, he was dead when I left. It ain’t likely his condition has changed since then.”

  Faint laughter rippled across the outlaws. Newt Grago even grinned a little. For a second he seemed satisfied, but then his grin faded somewhat and he said, “Yeah, that’s funny. There’s only one thing that puzzles me.” He raised a finger and feigned a curious expression. “See, this gunslinger’s name was Dan Strange. Your name’s Danny Duggin. You can see the similarity, I’m sure?”

  Danielle let out another breath, this time shaking her head slowly. “Yep, and I’ve been asked that question before by Sep Howard. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I’d have to be a damned fool to change my name from Dan to Danny, now wouldn’t I?”

  Another wave of laughter stirred among the outlaws, until Newt Grago silenced it with a harsh glance backward. Then he said to Danielle, “You mean Sep Howard already asked you about it?”

  “Yep,” Danielle said.

  “By the way, where is Sep?” Newt asked, turning to Duncan Grago.

  But before Duncan could answer, Danielle said in a flat tone, “I shot him dead.”

  The crowd tensed as Newt Grago jerked back toward her with murder in his eyes. “You what? You shot Sep Howard?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But it was a fair fight, Newt,” Duncan cut in. “Danny only did what he had to do. I vouch for him. Sep Howard tried gunning him and bang! Danny put him down.”

  “Sep Howard was no small piece of work,” Newt said, looking back at Danielle.

  “He is now,” Danielle replied quietly.

  “He was a pal of mine too,” Newt said.

  “Well, maybe you ought to pick pals who can keep the
mselves from getting killed,” Danielle offered, knowing it to be the best answer she could possibly give to a man looking for fast and hard gunmen. She spread a flat, mirthless smile. “We both know this is a tough world we live in.”

  “I sure can’t argue that with you.” Newt Grago chuckled, seeming to loosen up. The others followed suit, one passing a bottle of rye to another as the tension seemed to lift. “Where’s Julius Byler?” he asked Duncan Grago. “You were supposed to swing by his place and bring him along.”

  “He bad-mouthed Danny and Danny ran him off,” Duncan Grago said proudly.

  Again, Newt looked surprised and swung his attention back to Danielle. “The hell you say!”

  Danielle shrugged one shoulder, tossing the matter aside. “Like I said about picking pals.”

  Chancy Burke saw that this Danny Duggin was stealing some of the thunder he’d built up among the men, and he didn’t like it. He took a step forward, saying, “Sounds like you’re pretty cocksure of yourself, Duggin. Maybe you need a good lesson in manners.”

  “I’m always willing to learn,” Danielle said, answering him in a way that left no margin for doubt. “How good are you at teaching?”

  “Hold on, boys,” said Merlin Haas, stepping in before Newt Grago got the chance to himself. “This ain’t the place for it. Anybody wants to show their fangs, let’s do it by the rules, like we’ve been doing it.”

  “The rules?” Danielle asked, having used the exchange with Burke as a good reason to drop her hand back to her Colt. “What are you talking about, rules?”

  Newt Grago saw the opportunity to further his shooting contest, and he took it. “Danny Duggin, if you’re a man likes action, my brother Dunc has brought you to the right place.” He poked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing back toward the shack. “Come on, all of yas. Let’s get Dunc and Danny some rye whiskey, make them both feel at home here.”