The Shadow of a Noose

by Ralph Compton

  “Then how did he get here?” Bertha Stillwell asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to,” Grago said, still staring at the doors. “What time did you say those boys will be here from Cottonwood Station?”

  “This evening sometime,” Bertha said. “Why, are you expecting trouble before then? Did you tell Haas that Spurlock and his boys are coming in from Cottonwood Station?”

  “Hell no, I didn’t tell him about Spurlock and his boys. But as far as trouble goes, I’ve been expecting it since the day I was born,” said Newt Grago, tossing back a shot of rye and banging the empty glass down on the bar. “Why would today be any different?”

  Chapter 20

  Saul Delmano slipped into town, using the same trail Danielle, her brothers, and Merlin Haas had ridden in on earlier. When he saw the familiar horses hitched along the rail fence, he quickly ducked his own horse away and stepped it in between two holding pens full of steers. From there he sat watching for a moment until Merlin Haas came riding in from the main street and stepped down from his saddle. Delmano realized that Merlin Haas was the only one of the four who could recognize him. After seeing the way these three young gunmen fought, Delmano debated whether or not to stick here and side with Newt Grago, or get out, hoping that these three thought him dead along with Blade Hogue and Rufe Gaddis. He weighed his decision as he sat watching them talk among themselves.

  “What did you find out?” Danielle asked Haas, listening closely for any waver in his voice or any sign of him lying. “Did you see Newt Grago?”

  “Yep, I saw him, all right. Even drank a beer with him,” said Merlin Haas.

  The twins stood watching his face, listening along with Danielle. “How’d you tell him you got here?” Tim asked.

  “I told him one of the Stanley brothers’ horses came along while I was hiking back toward the Washita. Since I am riding one of their horses, I figured if he saw me on it, the story would match up.” Haas grinned. “I know how to stretch the truth some when I need to. I ought to know how—it’s been my occupation my whole life.”

  “I know,” Danielle said. “Did he mention having any men here? Was there anybody around him? Don’t forget, we followed two sets of hoofprints here. What about this McNutt you told us about?”

  “Didn’t see hide nor hair of McNutt. Maybe he lit out. As far as any others, there’s only a couple of Bertha Stillwell’s bodyguards hanging around. But they’d be around anyway, if Bertha’s nearby.” He paused for a moment, then looked at Danielle and the twins with sincerity, saying, “Listen, I know you’ve got some doubts about me, but I’m talking straight to you. What Newt Grago did to me, leaving me stranded that way. There’s no patching that up, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care what you do to him. You can believe that or not.”

  Danielle considered what he’d told them. It went along with what the twins had seen, Haas and Grago going into the saloon. “If you are lying, Haas, there’s not enough land out here to keep us from finding you.”

  “You think I don’t realize that?” Haas said. “I gave it all some good thinking before I ever went looking for Newt for you. That’s the God-honest truth.”

  Danielle looked at the twins, then back to Merlin Haas. “All right, Haas. You’re free to take off. Keep the horse. But once you leave, don’t come back sticking your nose into things.”

  Stepping back to the horse and collecting the reins from the ground, Merlin Haas said, “Don’t worry, I’m already gone. If you shoot that bastard more than once, tell him the second one is from me.”

  They watched Merlin Haas step into his saddle and turn the horse away toward the trail they had had come in on. Danielle stood up and brushed the dust from her trousers. A feverish shiver wracked her body, but she held firm until it passed. Then she took her Colt from her hip, checked it, and spun it back into her holster. From between the rail chutes, Saul Delmano couldn’t hear what Merlin Haas and the others had been saying, but seeing Haas leave on such friendly terms was all Delmano needed to see. Knowing that went a long way in helping Delmano make up his mind. He leveled his hat brim low on his forehead, then turned his horse and slipped along between the rail chutes until he found a place where he could get past any watching eyes and get onto Merlin Haas’s trail.

  From the northwest, on the trail from Cottonwood Station, Bertha Stillwell’s bartender, Jake Reed, and a group of eight riders moved along at a steady trot. At the head of the riders beside Reed, Mace Spurlock rode with a rifle across his lap. Behind Spurlock rode Quince Evans and six gunmen who’d thrown in with them four months ago, robbing banks and stagecoaches. They were thieves and killers to the man. In riding order behind Quince Evans, they were: Earl Peach, Richard and Embrey Davenport, Duke Sollister, Joe Stokes, and Slim Early. There was no talk among them. They knew why they were headed to Newton when they left Cottonwood Station. They were going there at Bertha Stillwell’s request, to protect Newt Grago. That was good enough for them.

  Coming onto the dirt street as the afternoon traffic had just begun to settle, the riders spread wide and rode abreast slowly, forcing people aside and out of their way. A young boy whose mother pulled him out of the horse’s path picked up a lump of dried horse droppings and hurled it at the riders. Duke Sollister turned in his saddle, his hand on the butt of his pistol, and almost drew and fired before realizing it was only a child. “Teach that kid some manners, woman,” he hissed. “Nobody’s too young to die.”

  The woman gasped, jerked the child away, and ducked inside a mercantile with her kid under her arm. At the far end of the street, Danielle, Tim, and Jed had stopped for only a moment, long enough for Danielle to look around and form a quick plan for them to cover her back in case of a surprise. She nodded at an alley on one side of the street, and Tim veered off toward it without a word. She looked at the rabbit gun in Jed’s hand, then jerked her head toward a stack of nail kegs standing on the boardwalk across the street from Bertha Stillwell’s saloon. “You be careful, sister,” Jed whispered before moving away and leaving her in the middle of the dirt street. Danielle only nodded, knowing the raging fever inside her would not let her speak plainly without her voice wavering in her chest.

  With the twins in position, she stepped to the middle of the street out front of the saloon and planted her feet squarely in the dirt beneath her, a shoulder-width apart. She did not see the riders pushing their way slowly through the traffic along the rutted street, fifty yards away from the other end of town. She saw only in her mind the vision of her pa swaying in the breeze at the end of a hangman’s rope. “Newt Grago!” her voice boomed through the waning afternoon pedestrians toward the swinging doors. “Come out, you murdering son of a bitch! It’s time I put you facedown in the dirt!”

  At the sound of her words, boots shuffled out of the way on the boardwalk, and a lady’s parasol fell to the ground. Buggy and freight wagons squeaked to a halt, both teamsters and businessmen alike abandoning their seats and running for cover. Even at forty yards away, over the street traffic, Mace Spurlock heard the voice and saw the commotion of people getting out of the way. He raised a hand and brought the others to a halt. “Give it a minute,” he said over his shoulder. The horsemen milled in place, pistols coming out of holsters and eyes riveting on the lone figure in the middle of the street.

  From his spot in the alley, Tim Strange saw the riders more clearly as the street emptied. He could tell Danielle hadn’t seen them, her eyes pinned as they were on the saloon doors. He drew in a tense breath, stepped up onto the boardwalk, and moved unseen along the front of the buildings, hoping for a better position before the nine riders made their move. Behind the stack of nail kegs, Jed Strange had seen the riders as well, and knew instantly why they were here. He flashed a glance across the street toward Tim’s alley position, but saw Tim moving forward along the boardwalk. Then his eyes caught sight of McNutt’s red-bearded face venturing a peep from around a tall striped pole in front of a barber shop. “Oh Lord, Tim, look out,” Jed
whispered to himself. For a split second McNutt’s eyes locked on Jed’s from across the street. Then McNutt drew back out of sight behind the barber pole.

  “I’m coming, Danny Duggin!” Newt Grago’s voice shouted out above the saloon doors. But watching the saloon, Danielle didn’t see him. Instead, in the open windows above the saloon, she saw the glint of evening sun flash off of a rifle barrel, and she dove sidelong, whisking out both her Colts, one firing on the window to her left, the other to the right. White lace curtains streamed forward and down as one of Bertha Stillwell’s bodyguards tumbled to the overhang above the boardwalk and fell to the street. At the same time, from the other window, a body slumped forward, a rifle falling from its hand and sliding down the overhang.

  Danielle spun back toward the saloon doors in time to hear the pistol fire from inside. Her fever was playing tricks on her eyes, causing the front of the saloon to sway like reeds in a breeze. As Newt Grago burst through the doors, her shot only clipped his shoulder and sent him spinning along the front of the building. He dove down behind a wooden cigar Indian and fired back at her. Jed Strange saw that McNutt had spotted Tim moving along the boardwalk. “Look out, Tim!” Jed shouted, coming up from his cover. The blast of the short-barreled rabbit gun rattled the store windows along the street, the impact of the heavily loaded buckshot slamming McNutt full in his chest and leaving little of him in its wake. At the saloon, Grago fought hard from behind the wooden Indian, chunks of the thick statue flying in all directions as Danielle’s Colts riddled it with holes.

  “Come on, boys, enough sightseeing,” Spurlock called out, waving the men forward, batting his heels to his horse’s sides. The riders charged forward with a loud yell, their pistols gunning for Danielle in the middle of the dirt street. But coming into the play now were Tim and Jed Strange. Each of them stepped into the fray from their side of the street, centering themselves toward the oncoming riders like statues of iron, their big customized Colts bucking in their hands. As each shot rang out, another rider flew from his saddle. Catching the brunt of their fire, the riders broke rank and dove for cover, leaving their confused, terrified horses to fend for themselves.

  As the riders collected themselves and returned fire from safer positions, Jed and Tim could not withstand that many guns. “Come on, Danielle, run for it!” Tim shouted, stepping forward, one gun empty in his left hand, his right hand pounding out shots as bullets whistled past him. “For God sakes, Danielle!” he screamed. The searing pain of a bullet through his shoulder only caused him to flinch as he continued to cover his sister in the street.

  But Danielle fought on as if in a trance, unhearing, unresponsive to anything save for the sight of Newt Grago lying dead at her feet. And Newt Grago was proving himself to be no easy kill. He’d rolled from behind the wooden Indian and scurried along the boardwalk, blood spewing from his shoulder, his ribs, and his forehead. Still he fought on, pitching down from the boardwalk as Danielle’s bullets kicked up splinters behind him. He hugged the side of a water trough for cover while he hurriedly reloaded his pistol. In the street, a shot had caught Danielle high in the back and spun her to the ground. “You dirty bastards!” Jed Strange screamed in rage, seeing his sister down and his brother Tim propped up on one knee, still firing, blood matting his chest, arm, and one side of his face.

  The blast from Jed’s shotgun didn’t hit any of the men, but it blew away the side of the abandoned freight wagon in which three of them had taken cover. They fled like roaches, Jed’s Colt coming into play, taking two of them down just as a bullet sliced through his side. He fell to the ground, a hand pressed to the wound for a second as his Colt continued firing. He saw one of the men rise up and aim at him, taking his time, getting it right. But just before the man fired, a bullet sailed in above Jed and punched out the man’s right eye, letting Jed know that Tim was still back there, still fighting, helping his brother all he could.

  Jed reached a bloody hand inside his coat pocket and took out two fresh loads and poked them into his rabbit gun. Then he fired both barrels, lifting a cloud of splinters and glass from the front of a store. He heard Tim’s Colts bark behind him in the street, taking two men down in a spray of blood.

  “Pull back, boys!” Mace Spurlock shouted to his men, hurrying backward in a crouch toward where his frightened horse stood in an alley, away from the gunfire. Taking a quick look around, he saw none of the men standing except for Earl Peach, who wandered aimlessly with an empty gun clicking over and over on empty chambers in his right hand. Peach’s left hand clasped tight against his stomach, keeping his innards from spilling out.

  “To hell with this! I’m quits here!” Mace Spurlock shouted, flinging his pistol aside as a bullet whistled past his ear. He ducked his head to one side, his hands held high in the air. “Damn it! I give it up! Don’t shot!” Blood spread down his raised arms and ran in a thin stream from his elbow. “Lord God almighty!” he shouted, looking around at the carnage in the street. “What’s got into you people?”

  Using all her strength, Danielle managed to roll up onto her knees, keeping the Colt in her left hand aimed toward Newt Grago’s position behind the water trough, her right Colt cocking toward Mace Spurlock as he stepped closer. Ten feet behind her, Tim rose up and staggered forward, only to collapse back down onto his knees. “Watch him, Tim,” Danielle warned in a shaky voice, the fever taking its toll on her, getting worse by the minute now, it seemed.

  “I—I can’t,” Tim rasped, trying to raise his pistol, but failing to do so. Jed Strange limped forward using the empty rabbit gun now as a crutch, his right hand raising his pistol toward Spurlock. He, too, was having a hard time keeping it steady in his blood slickened hand.

  Around the edge of the water trough, Newt Grago ventured a look at Danielle, seeing the big Colts weave back and forth in her unsteady hands. He cut a glance to Mace Spurlock. Their eyes only met for an instant, yet at that moment each of them understood the other. They made their move in unison. Spurlock jumped to one side out of Danielle’s aim. His hand went to the hideout pistol behind his back as Newt Grago flung himself up from behind the water trough and fired at Danielle. Grago’s bullet ripped the Colt from her left hand, spinning it high in the air. “Get him, Spurlock! Kill that bastard!” Newt Grago screamed.

  But Danielle’s right Colt exploded just as Spurlock swung his pistol from behind his back. The bullet ripped through his heart and dropped him backward, dead before he hit the ground. Grago fired again, his shot grazing Danielle under her arm, slicing through the binding that held her breasts flattened to her chest. She fell backward to the dirt with the impact, but fired up at Newt Grago as he tried pulling off another round. He let out a loud grunt as the bullet lifted him from behind the water trough and up onto the boardwalk. Danielle collapsed for a moment, then shook her head to make the street stop spinning. Through sheer will alone, she struggled up to her feet and stalked forward toward Newt Grago, one halting step at a time. Tears streamed down her drawn, fevered cheeks.

  “Tim?” she asked over her shoulder. “Jed . . . ?” Her words trailed.

  “Yeah,” Tim said, gasping, “I’m alive . . . so’s Jed. Ain’t you, Jed?”

  “So far,” Jed replied, his words squeezed out through the pain.

  Danielle made it to the water trough, catching a hand to it for support, her other hand raising the Colt toward Newt Grago, who lay trying to catch his failing breath. Along the street, townsfolk began venturing forward from hiding, a hushed murmur of voices rising up as if from the dirt.

  “At last,” Danielle sobbed, “I’ve killed you . . . you and every one of your murdering sonsabitches who killed my pa.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Newt Grago rasped, the hole in his chest stifling his breath, the flowing blood sapping his last moments of life. “You’ve . . . got yourselves . . . killed too. You . . . ain’t going to make it, none of you are.”

  “You’re wrong, Grago. I’ll live. So will my brothers,” Danielle said, the Colt wobbly in h
er hand.

  “Your brothers?” Grago tried to focus on Tim and Jed as they managed to move forward, holding one another up. But by now all Newt Grago could make out were dark images. He heard the gunslinger Danny Duggin go on to say something close to his face, something that didn’t make any sense to him. Danny Duggin was a woman? That couldn’t be right, Grago thought, trying to sort it all out as the darkness circled in closer around him.

  Grago heard Danny Duggin’s voice again, this time faintly above the cocking of the big Colt close to his face. Grago tried to speak, but couldn’t as he caught the smell of burnt powder still curling from the pistol so close to his face. “Dunc,” he finally managed to whisper. “You was . . . all right after all.” Newt Grago’s world stopped as a silver flash rose up and exploded in front of his closed eyelids, then all turned black, black and silent, as Danielle Strange stepped back, faltering, poking out the spent rounds from her Colt and trying with all her strength to replace them.

  Newton, Kansas, August 14, 1871

  A full week had passed before Danielle fully opened her eyes and looked up into the faces of her brothers, Dr. Lannahan, and of all people, Tuck Carlyle. She was still drowsy and weak. The bullet from her side had been removed, and the fever that had nearly killed her had broken only the night before. There were parts of the aftermath of the gun battle that she remembered, but most of what had happened was still a blur. She remembered dropping down on the boardwalk with one Colt still in her right hand, her reloads spilling from her left hand and rolling around on the planks beside her. After that, she recalled the doctor appearing through a gray fog and carefully scooping her up. Then she heard some mention of a bed in a separate room off the doctor’s office. Her last thought had been of how good a soft bed would feel beneath her. She offered a tired smile now as she spoke.