The Shadow of a Noose

by Ralph Compton

  Newt Grago stood on the boardwalk out front of Bertha Stillwell’s saloon and looked at the stir of passerbys in the morning heat, chewing a cigar. With his thumbs hooked to the lapel of his new swallow-tailed dress coat, he smiled. “Damn, Berth,” he said to the big woman standing beside him, “I do believe you’ve hit the jackpot here.” A shot rang out from the direction of another saloon at the far end of the street. A woman screamed. The crowd outside Bertha’s only looked back over their shoulders and hurried on about their business.

  Bertha and Newt Grago glanced across the top of the moving traffic toward the sound of the shot, then looked away. “I knew you’d like it here, once you arrived,” Bertha replied. She was a hefty woman who carried herself well, and dressed in the latest fashions. She fanned looming dust with a delicate flowered kerchief and smiled at Newt Grago. “As far as anybody bothering you here, leave that to me and the boys. I sent Jake Reed up to Cottonwood Station last night. He’ll be back this evening with Spurlock, Quince, and some of the others by this evening. There should be as many as seven or eight guns in all. Think that’s enough to keep you out of trouble? If not, we’ll hire more. I aim to please,” she added in a coy tone.

  Newt Grago blushed a bit, then said, “I just hope Spurlock and his boys ain’t forgot who’s always in charge when I’m around. I’m the one who’ll be calling the shots.”

  “I told Jake to be sure and make that clear to Spurlock,” Bertha interjected.

  “If I ain’t mistaken,” Grago went on, “there’s a gunslinger on my trail that’s going to require my strictest attention as soon as he gets here.”

  “Whatever you need, Newt,” Bertha replied, reaching over and squeezing his hand. “I already put the word out—anything you want, you get, including the use of my two bodyguards, George Pipp and Star-eye Waller.”

  “You are a jewel, Berth.” Newt Grago smiled. He ran a clean hand down the front of his white boiled shirt, and looked himself up and down, realizing that he hardly resembled the man who’d ridden in here two days ago, dust-streaked, leading a gaunt, spare horse behind him. When he and McNutt arrived at the outskirts of Newton, Grago instructed McNutt to hang back awhile, and then come into town alone. No one had any idea they were together, except for Bertha Stillwell. McNutt had kept close to Grago and watched his back. There was no sheriff in Newton at present, but lawmen came and went on an almost daily basis, hunting wanted fugitives who’d broken the law inside their towns and jurisdictions across Kansas. Newt Grago always liked to play it safe when he could. Willis McNutt was his ace in the hole.

  But neither Newt Grago’s watchful eyes from the boardwalk, nor Willis McNutt standing across the street leaning on a hitch rail, caught sight of the four riders who had slid around the perimeter of Newton and slipped in from the other end of town. Danielle led the way, followed by Merlin Haas, then her brothers Tim and Jed, who had kept a close eye on Haas since they’d found him along the banks of the Canadian River.

  Amid the busy cattle chutes at the far end of town, Danielle reined Sundown to a halt and pressed a hand to the tender, swollen wound throbbing painfully in her side. Tim and Jed both knew what was bothering her as soon as they stopped beside her, and Tim said, “We’ve got to get that looked at before we do anything else, Danielle.”

  “I’m all right.” She looked at each of them in turn, then looked at Merlin Haas and asked, “Are you good for your word, Haas? You said you’d do some scouting around for us. Can we trust you?”

  “Damn right you can,” Haas replied without hesitation. “After what that bastard did to me, left me afoot, took all my money, I’ve got no qualms whatsoever about handing him over to you. Let me get going and see what I can find out.”

  “Go on then,” Danielle said, “check things out. We’ll meet you here this afternoon.” She nodded toward a drover’s shack where saddles hung along a rail fence and blankets and gear lay piled on a plank porch. In a circle of stones, fire licked beneath a tin coffeepot sitting atop a greasy blackened roasting rack. “We’ll stay here. It looks like there’s room for a few more blankets on the ground.”

  “I’ll be back,” Merlin Haas said. “You can count on it.”

  Tim and Jed both turned to her as soon as Merlin Haas drifted away from the chutes and onto the crowded street. “Think we can trust that cur?” Tim asked.

  “Nope, not much,” Danielle replied. “That’s why I want you two to keep an eye on him from a distance. I’m going to take your advice and get this wound looked at. It’s paining me something awful. I just didn’t want to say anything in front of Haas.” She stepped Sundown back from between her brothers, then said as she turned the mare away, “Both of you be careful. I’ll find a doctor and meet you back here.”

  Tim and Jed nodded and watched her ride off toward the busy street.

  Danielle made her way along the rutted dirt street, keeping the mare near the boardwalk, where she hoped to be less noticeable should the eyes of Newt Grago or any of his outlaw friends be searching the crowd for her. Without the fake mustache, and keeping her hat brim low on her forehead, the only thing recognizable about her was Sundown, and even the mare would be hard to spot, all covered with road dust and streaked with sweat. At a hitch rail she pulled the mare in beneath a freshly painted sign which read: DOCTOR LANNAHAN. Casting a glance back and forth along the street, she stepped down from her saddle, hitched Sundown, and walked up the boardwalk and in through the single wooden door.

  Inside the empty office, a thin, young doctor looked up from his desk in a corner and put on his wire-rimmed spectacles as he stood to face her.

  “I’m Dr. Philip Lannahan,” he said, adjusting his vest, “may I help you?” No sooner than he asked, he saw the dark circle of dried blood on her side and moved forward as Danielle swayed a step before catching herself.

  Danielle moved her hand from her side, saying, “I took a bullet a couple of days back, Doctor. It’s still inside me. Got me feeling weak and fevered all over.”

  “Oh my goodness!” Dr. Lannahan said, moving with her, ushering her past the front office into the next room, where a gurney stood covered with a clean white sheet. “You can’t let something like that go unattended, young man. What on earth were you thinking?”

  Before Danielle answered, the doctor pressed her back onto the gurney and began unbuttoning the bib of her shirt. Danielle raised a hand and stopped him. “I’ll tell you why I had to let it go for a while, Doctor,” she said. “I’m in the midst of a manhunt and the men I’m hunting were too close for me to take the time to stop.”

  “I see,” the doctor said. “That’s foolish of you, but I suppose I understand.” His finger went back to the buttons, but again she stopped him.

  “There’s something you’re about to find out that you must promise never to mention to anyone,” she said.

  The doctor looked deep into the serious eyes demanding secrecy of him. “I treat wounds, young man. I don’t harbor fugitives, if that’s what you’re about to tell me.”

  “No, Doctor, that’s not it at all.” She sighed and let him open her shirt, knowing that as soon as he saw the binder around her chest, he would begin to understand.

  As he pulled the open shirt back across her shoulders, he caught sight of the binder and hesitated for a second. Then he continued undressing her, saying, “I see what you’re asking me now. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, Miss . . . ?”

  “I’m Danielle Strange,” she said, letting out a breath and trying to relax. “I go by the name Danny Duggin.” She pointed to the binder around her breasts. “This is also why I couldn’t stop and get the bullet taken out. By the time my brothers and I had a chance to stop and attend my wound, we ran into another man who traveled on with us. I couldn’t risk him knowing I’m a woman.”

  “Well,” said the doctor, stepping over to a metal tray where shiny instruments gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through a window, “I hope you haven’t waited too long. You’re burning up with feve
r.” As he spoke, he reached out and gently pressed her back flat against the gurney and touched a finger to the swollen flesh surrounding the bullet hole. “This is infected,” he said almost to himself, studying the condition of the wound. “It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly not the best either. I hope you have nothing planned for the next few days, Miss Strange. It looks like you’re going to be boarding right here.”

  “Don’t get into the habit of calling me Miss Strange,” Danielle said in a firm tone. “Call me Danny Duggin. And yes, I’m afraid I do have something planned for the day. Something most urgent.”

  “But, Miss—I mean, Danny Duggin,” the doctor said, quickly correcting himself, “you won’t be able to be up and around for a while once I remove this bullet! To attempt it would be insane.”

  “Then what can you give me for the fever and the pain until I finish my business and get back here?”

  “No, that’s out of the question,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “I must insist you stay here right now, get the bullet removed, and then rest and recuperate. Whatever you have to do in Newton will simply have to wait.”

  “It can’t wait, Doctor,” Danielle said, rising slightly onto one elbow, the pain of her wound throbbing deep inside the inflamed flesh. “Give me something to take, and send me on my way.”

  “Anything I give you for the pain is only to put you to sleep. Anything I give you for the fever and infection isn’t going to have a great deal of effect until we get that bullet out of you. I can clean it, soak it in alcohol for now, and dress it in a bandage. But the alcohol is going to burn like the dickens.”

  “Let’s get to it, Doctor,” she said with resolve. “It’ll have to do for now.”

  “Are you certain about this?” Dr. Lannahan asked. “I assure you this will burn like nothing you’ve ever felt.”

  “Stop talking about it and get it done,” she demanded. “I can stand the pain.”

  “As you wish,” said the doctor. He stepped back over to the tray and returned in a moment with a fresh dressing and a bottle of alcohol. Danielle lay clutching the sides of the gurney with both hands as the white-hot liquid seem to sear the flesh from her bones. She kept herself from screaming aloud until finally through the pain came a queasy numbness. As the doctor finished soaking the wound and wrapping it in clean gauze, she lay shivering beneath a clammy patina of sweat.

  “There now,” the doctor said at length, stepping back from her. “If you think that was bad, wait until that infection gets worse. I’ve seen men beg someone to shoot them.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Doctor,” Danielle said, forcing herself to sit up on the gurney and swinging her legs down over the edge. Stiffly she pulled on her shirt, closed the bib shut across her chest, and began buttoning it up. “How long before this fever starts knocking me off my feet, Doctor?” she asked.

  The doctor shook his head in exasperation. “Oh, a couple of hours, a day. Who knows? I’m surprised you’re on your feet right now.”

  Danielle gave him a stern gaze. He relented, saying, “Oh, all right. I’d say by this afternoon, you should expect it to get to its worst stage. But mind you, once you get to that point, I can’t promise you’re going to pull through. Blood poisoning is not a pleasant death.”

  Danielle finished buttoning up her shirt, thinking of her father’s death and saying, “Neither is hanging from a tree in the middle of nowhere, Doctor.” She stood up and took a second to clear her head before taking a step. Then she said, “I’ll be back tonight, I promise,” and walked back across the front office and out the door.

  It was already afternoon when the twins came back to the shack beside the rail chutes. Danielle sat near the rail fence, her face looking ashen and drawn. Tim noticed that she shivered a little as they stepped down from the bays and walked over to her. “What did you find?” Danielle asked them right away.

  Before answering, Tim asked a question of his own. “What’d the doctor say? Are you doing all right?”

  “He said I’m fine,” Danielle replied. “What did you find out? Did you see Newt Grago?”

  “Yep, we saw him from a distance,” said Jed. “Merlin Haas went right up to him. You couldn’t tell anything had ever happened between them. They even shook hands. We saw Grago give him some money. Then they went inside a saloon, and that’s the last we saw of them.”

  “How many men are hanging around Grago?” Danielle asked.

  “None that we saw,” Jed answered.

  “Good,” Danielle said in an expelled breath. “This time it’s just me and him. Then it’s over,” she added, looking up at her brothers. “We can go back home.”

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Tim persisted. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Yes, I feel fine,” Danielle said, a bit testy. “It’s just a graze like I told you before,” she lied. “The doctor cleaned it and bandaged it. Told me to come back tonight, and he’d take a closer look at it.”

  “What for?” asked Tim. “If it’s only a graze, what else is he going to do?” He looked suspicious.

  “How do I know?” Danielle snapped at him. “I told him I had business to take care of. He said I’d be fine, so long as I came back tonight and had him look at it again.”

  “All right,” Tim said, backing off, “take it easy. I’m just worried about you, is all.”

  Danielle took a deep breath, calming herself, then said, “I know, but we don’t have time for your worrying. As soon as Haas gets back, if his story sounds real enough, you two are going to watch my back. I’m going to call Newt Grago out in the street and settle all accounts.”

  Tim and Jed both nodded, but Tim saw the glazed, hollow look in Danielle’s eyes. He knew better than to say anything right then, yet he couldn’t help but wonder if she was really up to doing what she’d come so far to do.

  At the bar inside Bertha Stillwell’s saloon, Merlin Haas wiped foam from his upper lip and sat his mug of beer back down on the bar. He looked at Newt Grago standing beside him and resisted the urge to pull the Uhlinger pistol from inside his coat and put a bullet between Grago’s eyes. But killing Newt Grago was not why he had come here, he reminded himself, managing a smile. That was something Danny Duggin would do, once Haas got back and told him that Newt Grago was here alone, with nobody around but a couple of Bertha’s bodyguards. From what Haas had seen of Danny Duggin’s gun handling, the two bodyguards wouldn’t bother him a bit, especially since he had a couple of helpers of his own.

  “I have to admit, Newt,” Merlin Haas said, still managing a tight smile, “I was pretty damn sore at you, leaving me that way. To tell the truth, I never believed you’d give me my money back even if I made it here.”

  “Well,” Grago responded, “to be honest myself, I never thought you’d make it. I figured there was no sense in that money laying out there in the dirt somewhere while the buzzards picked your bones. But since you did make it, here’s to you.” He raised a shot of rye in salute to Merlin Haas. After he threw it back, smacking his lips with a hiss, he asked, “Now tell me again, how was it you got a hold of one of the Stanley brothers’ horses?”

  Haas shrugged. “Just like I said. I was hiking back along the trail toward the Washita, and first thing you know, there it came trotting up to me. All’s I did was raise my hands, stop it, and step into the saddle.” He raised his beer again, and this time when he sat it down he added, “Of course, I figure it must mean that either Hop or Renfrow, or maybe even both of them, are dead.”

  “But you saw no sign of either the posse or that young gunslinger, Duggin?”

  “Not a trace,” said Haas. “I figure he must’ve got in the wind with everybody else and headed for Texas. That’s the last you’ll see of him, I reckon.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” Newt Grago said, eyeing Haas closely. “So, where are you headed now, Haas?” Grago asked, refilling his shot glass from the bottle on the bar.

  “Wherever the action takes me
.” Merlin Haas shrugged. “I hate losing all the gambling equipment. Sure hate seeing Lulu carted off in handcuffs that way. But she’ll show in Texas before long. They’ve got nothing worth holding her on. I figure me and her’ll be back in business before you know it.” He finished his beer in one last long swallow, then slid the empty glass across the bar top. “Well, it’s been a hell of a spree, Newt. I ’spect I’ll push on now.”

  “Glad you made it, Merlin,” Grago said, slapping Haas on the back with a laugh. “You watch your backside out there.”

  “I’ll do it, Newt Grago,” said Haas, “and you do the same. Thanks for taking care of my money for me.” He patted his coat pocket.

  “My pleasure, amigo,” said Newt Grago. Now that he had heard what Haas had to say, Grago’s hand swept upward with his pistol cocked. “Come to think of it, I might just hang on to it awhile longer.” He spread a nasty grin. “Give it back, Haas, all of it.”

  Haas knew that to resist would bring himself sudden death. “I should of known better,” he murmured, lifting the money and handing it back to Grago.

  “Yep, you should have,” Grago agreed, stuffing the inside of his coat. “Now clear out before I shoot you for the hell of it.”

  As Haas slunk out the door, Bertha Stillwell came up beside Newt Grago as he watched Merlin Haas disappear through the swinging doors. “Is everything all right, Newt?” Bertha asked, slipping a fleshy arm around his waist.

  “Naw, everything is not all right at all,” Grago said, rolling the cigar in his lips, considering things as he stared at the swinging doors. “I don’t believe a word that grifter said. He didn’t get this far on his own, and he didn’t just walk up and find one of the Stanleys’ horses trotting along the trail.”