Shadow of the Hangman

by J. A. Johnstone

  “We’re wasting our time, Shawn,” Jacob said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I guess whatever Lucas knew, he kept in his head,” Shawn said.

  “Seems like,” Shawn said.

  Shawn picked up a notepad that had fallen off the desk to the floor. After he studied it for a few moments, he said, “Lucas was quite an artist.”

  “What do you mean?” Jacob said.

  “Take a look for yourself.” Shawn handed his brother the notepad.

  Jacob studied the pad for a few moments, then asked, “What does Nemesis mean?”

  “No idea,” Shawn said. “Is the hanging man supposed to be Patrick?”

  “Georgetown has a gallows,” Jacob said. He tapped the notepad. “This ranny is hanging from a tree.”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “Just . . . some woman, I guess,” Jacob said.

  “Maybe her name is Nemesis.”

  “Maybe. But the word is nowhere near her. It’s under the tree.”

  “Hell, Jake, what does it mean?” Shawn said.

  Jacob looked at him just as the oil lamp fluttered, then died. “It means Lucas liked to draw scary pictures.”

  “Let me have it,” Shawn said. “I want to ask Patrick what that word means.”

  “If he’s well enough.”

  “Yes, of course, only if he’s well enough.” He tore the page from the notepad, folded it, and shoved it into his shirt pocket.

  When the O’Brien brothers stepped out of the law office the rain had come and gone. But the air smelled fresh now that the dust had settled, and to the south heat lightning flashed, illuminating the edges of the retreating clouds with tarnished silver.

  When they reached the hotel, Jacob got pen, ink, and paper from the desk clerk, then he and Shawn sat in the empty parlor and wrote out what they’d witnessed before, during, and after Thistledown’s gunfight.

  “How the hell do you spell Thistledown?” Jacob asked, chewing on the end of his pen.

  Shawn told him, and his brother said, “Heathen name if ever I heard one. What is it—Hindoo?”

  “I don’t know,” Shawn said. “You take O’Brien, now. That’s a good Christian name.”

  “Damn right,” Jacob said.

  “It’s English actually.” Thistledown stepped out of the shadows. “I believe my family was named for a village where thistles grew.”

  “Why are you out of bed?” Jacob said, the late hour making him surly. “The only reason we’re awake is because we’re trying to save your damned neck.”

  “I can’t sleep after I kill a man,” Thistledown said. “I can’t eat, either. But I drink. That’s why you may detect that I’m half-drunk.”

  “Helluva thing to kill a man,” Shawn said.

  “Yes, it is,” Thistledown said.

  “If a man needs killing, it doesn’t bother me too much,” Jacob said. He sat back in his chair, held up his affidavit, and admired the paper at arm’s length. “Perfect,” he said. “Thistledown, this could get you into heaven.”

  The little man smiled. “I reckon it’ll take more than that.” He laid a half-empty bottle of Old Crow on the table and pulled up a chair. “Help yourself to a nightcap, gentlemen,” he said.

  Shawn signed his paper with a flourish, took a long swig from the bottle, and then removed from his pocket the page he’d torn from Dunkley’s notepad.

  He pushed the oil lamp closer to Thistledown and marked the word Nemesis with his thumb. “Know what that means?”

  “Well, the simple answer is that it means an opponent who can’t be beaten or overcome,” Thistledown said. “For example, Sitting Bull was the gallant Custer’s nemesis, as Pat Garrett was Billy the Kid’s.”

  Jacob took the paper. “See this woman watching the hanged man, could her name be Nemesis?”

  “She’s crying over the hanged man,” Thistledown said. “See, those drops falling from her eyes are tears. She’s badly drawn, but those are definitely tears.” The bounty hunter slurred his words slightly. “I doubt her name is Nemesis. Jane or Florence or Martha maybe, but not Nemesis.”

  Jacob grinned. “There, Shawn, I told you that wasn’t her name.”

  “As I remember my reading—” Thistledown began.

  “My brother reads books this thick,” Shawn said, four inches of space between his forefinger and thumb. “He’s real smart.”

  The beer and bourbon were working on Shawn, and Jacob threw him a look.

  “My business often entails long train rides,” Thistledown said to Shawn. “And on those occasions books are a great comfort to me. I’m very fond of Mr. Dickens, and I’ve quite fallen in love with young Mr. Thomas Hardy to be sure.”

  Shawn opened his mouth to speak again, but Jacob shut him down. “What were you about to say before my brother interrupted you?” he said.

  “Ah, yes,” Thistledown said, “about Nemesis.” He picked up the Old Crow bottle, then said, “She was one of the Greek goddesses, and she brought swift and terrible retribution to those who committed crimes without punishment or enjoyed good fortune they didn’t deserve.” The little man took a drink from the bottle. “In other words, Nemesis was an avenger, and her justice was swift and fearful.”

  “Look at the picture,” Jacob said. “What the hell does it mean?” He took the bottle from Thistledown. “I need a drink,” he said.

  The little man stared at the crude drawing for several minutes before he spoke. “Someone was hanged, that much is obvious,” he said. “The woman, possibly his wife, stands under the hanging tree and grieves for the dead man.” He looked into Jacob’s eyes. “As I interpret it, the female is vowing vengeance on those who hanged her loved one. She’s determined to be the nemesis of the guilty party.”

  “Then it’s Patrick in the drawing,” Shawn said. “Maybe the gal is meant to be the ghost of Molly Holmes.”

  “I told you before, Shawn,” Jacob said, “you’ve seen the gallows that was specially built for Patrick. Lucas would’ve sketched that, not a tree.”

  Shawn leaned back in his chair and raised his hands. “Then it’s a mystery.” He smiled. “Hell, maybe Lucas didn’t mean it to be anything but a stupid drawing.”

  “It troubles me,” Jacob said. “Disturbs me a lot.”

  “Is that old Irish sixth sense nagging at you again, brother?” Shawn said.

  Jacob sat in silence for a while and then took a swig of bourbon. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Lucas told Samuel there was a great evil behind Patrick’s getting railroaded for rape and murder.”

  Jacob’s eyes moved to Shawn, but his stare was unfocused, distant. “I believe the woman in the drawing could be the source of the evil Lucas was talking about,” he said.

  Shawn smiled. “A woman doesn’t scare me none.”

  “Right now,” Jacob said, “she scares the hell out of me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sheriff John Moore woke to pain. When he moved, the red-hot spikes that rammed into his skull were worse than anything he remembered, even the morning after the two-whore, two-bottle bender in Denver long ago.

  He opened his eyes a crack, and the morning light sharked into his eyes. He groaned, trying to remember.

  Dora DeClare helped him.

  “Pour soul,” she said, “how are we feeling this morning?”

  “We feel like hell,” Moore said.

  “I’m afraid you took a nasty knock,” Dora said. “You gave all of us a fright, you know.”

  Moore slowly realized two things: that he couldn’t open his eyes without pain and that his wrists were shackled above his head.

  “What the hell have you done to me?” the sheriff said, his furious face displaying the lawman’s traditional outrage at disrespectful treatment.

  Dora smiled. “A minor inconvenience, Sheriff Moore, to one destined for glory.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Moore said, yanking on his chains. “And who hit me?”

  �
�That would be me.”

  The sheriff followed the sound of the words, and his glare came to rest on Luke Caldwell. “Damn you, Caldwell, I always pegged you for a sorry piece of Texas white trash,” Moore said. “I should’ve gunned you that time in Abilene when I had a chance.”

  “You tried,” Caldwell said.

  “Yeah, but I never was one to shoot a running man in the back, especially a no-good yellow dog like you.” Moore tried to kick out at the gunman, but his chains held him back. He settled for, “What did you hit me with, a brick?”

  Caldwell drew with lightning speed. His Colt came out of the leather, spinning, and then the ivory butt thudded into his palm. “With this,” he said. The gunman spun the revolver again, then let it drop into the holster.

  “You’re just full of those cheap, tinhorn tricks, ain’t you, Caldwell?”

  The gunman stepped to Moore and kicked him hard in the ribs. “Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  “Please, Luke, don’t do that,” Dora said. “You’ll spoil the picnic.”

  The woman looked as fresh as a spring morning, blond, brown-eyed, and pretty in a pale pink gingham dress, bows of the same color in her hair. Dora looked nothing like the creature he’d seen through the kitchen window.

  “Lady, we’re in a barn,” Moore said, angry at Caldwell, angry at this strange woman.

  “So what?” Dora said. “I like to have picnics in the barn.”

  “Are you on the menu like you were last night?” Moore said.

  The woman shrugged off the insult. “We all have to do things we think are repugnant, Mr. Moore. I mean, when it’s for the greater good.”

  “Whose good? Yours?”

  “Yes, mine, yours, my brother’s, all of us,” Dora said. She gave Moore a sweet Jane Austen smile that the lawman thought had been practiced. “You’ll see.”

  Moore tugged on his chains again, then saw they were looped through iron rings that had been driven into a huge granite slab. Suffering a world of hurt from his head and the kick Caldwell had given him, he said, “Let me go now and I’ll mention it in your trial.”

  “That’s quite impossible, Sheriff,” Dora said. “You are needed here.”

  “For what?” Moore said.

  The woman ignored him. “Luke, get the picnic hamper and tell Lum to bring my brother.” Now she looked at Moore again. “Then we’ll all settle down and enjoy ourselves.” Dora’s hand flew to her cheek. “Oh, I do hope you like fried chicken and lemonade cake. If not, well, quite frankly, I just don’t know what I’ll do.”

  She’s a lunatic, John, humor her, Moore thought.

  “Sounds just fine,” he said. He hoped that between the fried chicken and cake he might have a chance to grab a gun.

  Caldwell returned with the picnic hamper, followed by Lum pushing Joshua DeClare’s wheelchair. Dora spread a red-and-white-checkered cloth on the dung-encrusted floor of the barn and then told everyone to sit.

  Shade Shannon arrived late and Dora chided him for being tardy, then told him to sit next to Lum.

  Again Moore made a few futile tugs on his chains. Then he retreated into bluster. “Shannon,” he said, “I’m placing you under arrest.”

  “Shade,” Dora said, smiling, “help yourself to food. And pour wine for everyone.”

  “This is good, Dora,” Lum said, chewing on a chicken leg. “You cook as good as you look. Damn right.”

  Dora looked as though she’d been slapped. “Please, Lum, no profanity, and certainly not within the hearing of a lady of breeding.”

  “Sorry, Dora,” Lum said. He elbowed Shannon, winked, and both men smiled.

  “Shannon,” Moore said, “I’m arresting you for the murder of your father, a prostitute, and possibly others. What have you to say for yourself?”

  “Only that you’re a pompous windbag, Moore,” Shannon said. “And if you don’t shut your trap I’ll get up and piss all over your face.”

  Lum thought that hilarious, but Joshua DeClare frowned and said, “Shade, that’s quite enough. As Dora said, there is a lady present.”

  Dora looked at Moore and smiled, revealing white teeth in a pink mouth. “Enjoying the picnic, Sheriff?”

  “Hell, lady, I haven’t been offered anything to eat yet,” Moore said.

  “I’m so glad,” Dora said, as though she hadn’t heard.

  The sheriff watched the giggling picnickers for a while, then closed his eyes and rested his head against the stone slab. He thought there was something familiar about this grotesque feast, as though he’d seen it all before. Then he remembered and, in pain though he was, smiled.

  Back in the fall of 1882 he’d attended an Oscar Wilde lecture at the El Paso Club in Colorado Springs. Wilde, dressed in velvet, mentioned that the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a particular favorite of old Queen Vic. He’d then read a passage from the book about Alice’s visit to the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

  He’d seen it before, when Wilde painted vivid word pictures with his fine Irish lyricism, and now he was seeing its likes again—the Mad Hatter’s picnic.

  After an hour, Dora rose and began to pack the leftovers into the hamper. She folded the cloth and said, “Now, shoo-shoo everyone, back to the house. We have plans to make.”

  She looked at Moore. “Did you enjoy that, Sheriff?”

  Moore said nothing, and the woman smiled at him. “I’m quite sure you did.” She followed the others out of the barn, but stopped in the doorway. “You’ll be sacrificed tonight at midnight. Isn’t that exciting?”

  The lawman’s anger flared. “Crazy lady, you go to hell.”

  Dora’s smile grew almost beatific, and her beautiful hand flew to her slender throat. “Oh, Mr. Moore,” she said, “I do hope so.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ernest Thistledown stopped his rented buggy on a treed rise, a black silhouette against the amber glow of the lowering sun. The beautiful Hollis and Sheath hung from his shoulder, two red shells in the chambers. The scattergun’s hammers were cocked, ready to go, because the little bounty hunter knew that his fight with Lum would be a mighty quick thing.

  Thistledown shaded his eyes with his hand and studied the village.

  This had to be the place Jacob O’Brien had mentioned, a Mexican settlement on the Pecos River that served as a gateway to the East and miles of nothing. The bounty hunter was not impressed. El Cerrito was a dung heap, an ideal spot for a crowing rooster like the man called Lum to hide out.

  Suddenly, Thistledown was alert as he watched a tall man who’d just stepped out the front door of an adobe at the edge of the village. The man stopped, adjusted his gunbelt, and then walked into the barn behind the house.

  Thistledown swore under his breath. This was a complication he didn’t need. He was willing to bet the farm that the tall, lanky man was Luke Caldwell, the Texas draw fighter. It sure looked like Caldwell, even to the way he wore his gun, high on the waist, horseman style.

  Luke was fast on the draw-and-shoot, and there were maybe ten or twelve hard cases planted in Boot Hills across the country that had made him prove it.

  Was Caldwell in cahoots with Lum? Thistledown pondered that and reached the logical conclusion: Why would two named killers be in the same flyspeck of a village at the same time if they weren’t partnered-up?

  Thistledown clucked the Morgan into motion and drove the buggy farther into the cover of the trees. He’d no desire to go against Caldwell to get at Lum. The Texan was not a man to trifle with, and besides, as far as he knew, Caldwell didn’t currently have a bounty on him.

  Ten minutes passed and Thistledown, by long habit a careful man, kept silent vigil. Then Caldwell left the barn, followed by a volley of curses that bombarded him all the way to the house.

  Thistledown waited, watched. Another ten minutes went by, then fifteen, and then twenty. Nothing moved but the wind and the falling sun behind him.

  Whoever was in the barn was a cussing man with a real talent for the profane. Could it be Lum
?

  Thistledown made up his mind. He wasn’t about to ride up to the front of the adobe, not with Luke Caldwell around, so a check of the barn was his obvious choice. If it wasn’t Lum inside, then he’d silence the man who was there and gain entrance to the adobe from the back. That way, he’d kick for the moon and take the occupants by surprise.

  It wasn’t a great plan, not even a good one, but right then it was all the little bounty hunter had. But first he needed darkness.

  Thistledown drove the buggy off the rise and into a small meadow surrounded by juniper and a few boxwoods. He didn’t intend to be long, so he kept the Morgan in the traces and led it into the trees. The horse was old and apparently didn’t mind, because it dropped its head and immediately fell asleep.

  Thistledown sat, lit a cigar, and watched the sun, with agonizing slowness, lower over the Manzano Mountains to the west. The coyotes were already out, but the sky was still banded with scarlet and jade, and the night birds were yet to peck at the first stars.

  Then, as the daylight faded the air grew cooler, and a drift of sage and pine fleeted in a night breeze that stirred the trees and tied bows in Thistledown’s blue cigar smoke.

  Finally, as darkness started to crowd close to him and the Morgan and its buggy could no longer be seen among the junipers, Thistledown rose to his feet. He had laid his shotgun aside, and now he again hung the weapon from his right shoulder, barrels down, so when his hand slapped on the stock they would lift up and level on the target.

  He hoped that target would be Lum.

  Thistledown made his way back to the rise, stopped on the crest, and looked down at the adobe, where every room showed light. An oil lamp burned in the barn and cast a pale orange glow on the dirt outside. The little bounty hunter thought he heard the faint clank of a chain and a man’s muttered curse.