Trail of Shadows

by Lauran Paine

  Both Jack Thorne and the sheriff heard it, turned about, stepped clear of their little window, and swung their shotguns, held low.

  Duncan looked over at them. For a moment these three exchanged a stare. The outside gunfire was swelling again so Duncan made no attempt to explain. He simply pointed to the rifle rack, to the sprawled bundle of old clothing and tough sinew at his feet, and shrugged his shoulders. Then he walked back over to his former position safely along the front wall.

  Thorne and Berryhill exchanged a look. The sheriff spoke, Thorne nodded, and Berryhill swung away from him, approaching along the front wall toward Duncan. Thorne continued to man that wrecked window alone.

  Berryhill paused to peer downward at Parton. The jailhouse was turning gloomy, dusk was settling, and one of those outside lulls added to the gloominess because it provided men with an opportunity to look about them at the wreckage they were responsible for.

  “Hit him hard?” Berryhill asked with a mildly clinical interest. “Because if you did, one of us is going to have to carry him out of here, and that’ll be quite a handicap.”

  “Hard enough,” Duncan said.

  Berryhill looked quickly up. “Why? Why didn’t you let him get a gun?”

  Duncan shook his head. “I’ll probably die tonight, but I’m going to avoid it as long as I can. He’d have shot the three of us.”

  “Not you. Not his own son.”

  Duncan’s anger flared. “I’m not his son, you damned fool. He knows that and I know that. You and Thorne and a few others are the blind ones.”

  Berryhill looked down again. He shook his head wryly. He seemed on the verge of saying more, but Jack Thorne’s soft call from over by the window interrupted.

  “It’s dark enough, Matt. We got to get out of here now.”

  Berryhill nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Duncan had no idea how Matt Berryhill proposed to get out of his jailhouse, and yet when he saw how the sheriff proposed to do this, it was so simple he was ashamed for not having anticipated something like it himself.

  Berryhill went to his wall desk, grabbed the thing, and powerfully heaved it sideways. There, exposed for the first time, was a ring-bolted trap door. Berryhill bent, caught hold, lifted that squeaking old panel, eased it against the wall, and looked over where Duncan was watching.

  “Pick him up,” Berryhill ordered, motioning toward Jeremiah Parton, “and let’s get out of here.”

  Duncan obeyed. Parton, for all his gaunt, tall height, did not weigh as much as Duncan thought he might. He hooked both arms under the old man, straightened up with him, and moved across the room.

  “Easy now,” cautioned Berryhill. “That old stairway hasn’t been used in fifteen years.”

  Duncan shifted his grip, flinging Parton over one shoulder in order to have one hand free. Below him was total darkness and at his feet just below the trap door was a worn old stairway, leading down.

  “What’s down there?” he asked.

  “That used to be where prisoners were kept in the early days. No one’s used it for years. Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you. Now go on.”

  Duncan stepped down, tested the first few steps, found them springy but not brittle, and descended into the clammy darkness, reaching out with his free hand for a wall that was not there.

  This subterranean dungeon-like room was much larger than Duncan thought it would be. It had a graveyard odor to it and a clinging, chill kind of moldy air. He stepped away from the stairs, shifted Parton’s weight a little, and groped off on his right until he eventually contacted an iron-bound cell door. Here he halted, turned about, and peered upward where the trap door’s opening presented the only light at all. It was not enough actually to see much by because dusk was steadily moving in over the town.

  Upstairs, Jack Thorne was still firing at intervals out the window but directly above Duncan, Sheriff Berryhill loomed up and began the descent. He no longer had his shotgun. He paused partway down, looked suspiciously into the lower darkness, and called out to Duncan.

  “Light a match so I’ll know where you are.”

  Duncan obeyed, manipulating this undertaking with one hand and mumbling: “This old devil’s getting heavy. Get a move on, Sheriff.”

  Berryhill started down as soon as Duncan’s match flared. When he got to the bottom, he twisted and called out for Thorne to come along.

  Duncan used his upheld match to view his surroundings. This underground place was surprisingly large and well made, but the moldy atmosphere was everywhere. Along the north wall, exactly as was the case upstairs in the jailhouse, there were individual cells. But these were not barred as were their counterparts overhead. They had been dug out of the solid ground and each one was faced with a massive, steel-wrapped oaken door. Every door had small, barred windows, not much larger than a man’s hand.

  Where Duncan stood, he could see a corridor ran southward beyond sight into the darkness. Then his match went out. He used both hands to shift old Parton to his other shoulder and flex his arms. When Berryhill struck a match, Duncan looked upward.

  Jack Thorne was standing at the top of the stairs looking larger than life in the sooty gloom. Berryhill told Thorne to leave his shotgun behind. Duncan heard Thorne toss the weapon aside and start down. He paused once, bent far out, caught the trap door, and lowered it over his descending head. Now, except for Berryhill’s upheld match, the darkness jumped out all around, forming a solid wall.

  Old Parton groaned and Jack Thorne, just stepping off the stairway, whipped around straining to see. Duncan tightened his hold around the old man’s dangling legs and Berryhill explained to Thorne what the noise was.

  The three of them started off southward with Sheriff Berryhill in the lead, lighting matches along the way. He hiked along as only a man could in this dark place who knew every foot of the ground he was traversing. From time to time they halted when a match went out, but otherwise their progress was steady and swift.

  Duncan was surprised at the length of the corridor Berryhill led them through. He thought it ran well out under the jailhouse proper and under some adjoining buildings. Then it abruptly cut north, narrowed, and the last time Berryhill struck a fresh match, in that first flaring brilliance Duncan saw another stairway.

  Berryhill started up gingerly, testing these old steps as each of them had tested those by the jailhouse entry. Duncan was still at the bottom when Berryhill put out his match, raised both burly arms, and strained mightily. A trap door opened with protest on ancient and rusty springs. Hay and chaff and fresh night air came downward. Berryhill disappeared beyond that opening, and when Duncan would have pushed upward, Thorne growled at him to wait.

  The sheriff returned, jerked upward with his thumb, and helped each of his companions, in turn, up out of the ground.

  Parton began to move weakly, move his feet a little, and mutter. Duncan stepped clear of the black hole behind him, eased over, and slid the old man off his shoulder. A sensation of weightlessness immediately made Duncan feel almost airborne. He rolled his shoulders and moved his arms to restore full circulation.

  They were in a barn. As near as Duncan could tell it had to be one of the barns across the alley from the jailhouse. Berryhill faded out somewhere in the building with only the soft fall of his footsteps audible over the dry hay. When Duncan craned around, Jack Thorne was there looking at old Parton.

  “Gone for the horses,” Thorne murmured, speaking of the lawman. “You sure belted this old gaffer.”

  Duncan bent, caught Parton’s shoulder, and effortlessly hoisted the old outlaw to his feet. He gently shook him.

  “Come on,” he said quietly. “Come out of it, you old devil. You’re not hurt.”

  It was too gloomy to make out Parton’s expression, but both of them watched him put up an arm and move his hand to explore his bearded
jaw very gingerly. He stood unsteadily peering from Duncan to Thorne and back again to Duncan.

  “What happened?” he hoarsely asked. “Where am I?”

  “Safe,” muttered Jack Thorne. “A damned sight safer you got any right to expect to be. What happened? Why, your boy here just cracked you on the jaw is all.”

  Duncan swung, caught burly Jack Thorne by the shirt, and drew the older, thicker man to him. “Gun or no gun!” he exclaimed. “You call me this old devil’s son once more and I’ll whittle you down to size.” He flung Thorne away from him, his face a pale, wrathful blur.

  Thorne acted more astonished than angry. He took one more backward step and he kept staring in a puzzled way, but he said nothing until Berryhill returned leading four saddled horses. Two of those animals had jutting Winchester stocks nearly straight up by the saddle swells. He tossed one set of reins to Thorne, kept one set, and jerked with his head for Duncan and Parton to claim the other two animals.

  “It’s plenty dark outside,” he said, speaking crisply. “They’re still shooting around on Main Street, so we just might make it.” He looked straight at Duncan and old Parton. “One word of warning ... when we ride out of here, you two stay real close to Jack and me. One funny move and you get dropped in your tracks, and if either of us shoots, that mob of cowboys around there will figure out what’s happening, get astride, and be after us like a herd of Apaches, so even if Jack or I miss, you’ll still get run down and lynched.”

  Berryhill nodded for Thorne to mount up first, then stood there until Jack was across leather with his six-gun fisted, before he mounted himself. “Stay behind ’em,” he said to Thorne. “All right you two ... mount up.”

  Duncan could only very faintly hear that continuing gunfire easterly until Berryhill opened one side of a large set of double doors. After that night air rushed in, bringing with it the full thunder of all those guns. He looked around at old Parton who fell into line behind him, saw the old man’s glittering eyes and wild beard, saw Jack Thorne behind Parton, then swung forward, and eased out his horse behind Sheriff Berryhill.

  They left the barn in a walk. In fact, they made no attempt to hasten until they were well clear of Leesville’s westernmost scattered houses, and even then Berryhill, who set the pace, only loped out, he did not run his animal.

  For several hundred yards they rode like this—Berryhill out front, carbine cradled over his lap, loping gently westerly, behind him Duncan, then Parton, and finally burly Jack Thorne. Not a word was said. Each man was alert to deadly peril and constantly raked the star-bright night for movement, for shadows, for anything that might mean danger.

  A mile beyond town Berryhill halted, shifted around, and stared over their back trail. Still none of them spoke. The night was softly lit all around them, but visibility did not exceed a hundred yards in any direction.

  Duncan saw the sheriff’s thick shoulders turn loose and slump a little. Jack Thorne, riding with one hand on that projecting Winchester butt, dropped both hands to the saddle horn.

  “Made it,” he succinctly said. “Don’t mind saying, though, I got more gray hairs now than I had three, four hours ago.” He saw Duncan watching him, started to make a wry little smile, checked himself in this, and looked away from Duncan over to Sheriff Berryhill. “Nice night, Matt,” he murmured with elaborate unconcern.

  Berryhill’s deep set eyes shone ironically. “Beautiful, Jack,” he murmured back. “Now all we got to do is steer clear of riders, head due west over the county line, and deposit our friends here in the jailhouse over at Bradley.”

  Parton spoke for the first time since they’d left Leesville. He looked less apprehensive now and more perplexed. “Tell me, boys,” he asked. “Just how in hell did we get out of that lousy jailhouse and over into that cussed barn?”

  Duncan saw Berryhill’s twinkle deepen as the sheriff replied to this. “It’s an old Indian disappearin’ trick,” he said. “You close your eyes, open your mouth real wide, Parton. Take a big breath and jump down your own throat. It turns you inside out and you become invisible. That’s what we did, then we just plain walked out.”

  Berryhill lifted the reins, turned, and started riding again.

  Down the line Parton swore under his breath at the sheriff and continued to mutter bleakly to himself for almost a full mile farther along before Duncan, wearying of the language, said: “Shut up, Parton.”

  The old man shut up.

  Eventually they could no longer hear gunshots faintly popping behind them. Duncan was not sure that this was entirely due to the widening distance. He thought it was just as possible that those men back there had gotten into the jailhouse and found it empty. For a while after that he rode with his head turned the slightest bit, but after a while, with no running horses to be detected in the surrounding night, Duncan relaxed, looped his reins, fished for his tobacco sack, and worked up a cigarette. When he lit up, he did so behind the shielding brim of his hat. After that he passed along feeling almost jaunty, feeling as though his lease on life had just been renewed.

  Once Berryhill stopped, dismounted, pressed his ear to the ground, remained in that position for quite a while, then got back upright.

  “Anything?” asked Thorne.

  Berryhill shook his head. “Thought I heard something northward and a little onward, but it was probably just some cattle. Nothing from behind us, though.”

  They went on again as far as a stone trough. Here, they halted to water the animals and stretch their legs.

  Here, Duncan asked Berryhill how far this next town of Bradley was.

  “Ought to be there by midday tomorrow,” answered the lawman. “You got any more of that tobacco?” Duncan passed over the makings. Jack Thorne also stepped up to make a smoke.

  As Berryhill passed over the sack and papers, he said to Duncan: “You know, when you’re around men, you sort of get the hang of how their minds work.” Berryhill lit up, stared straight at Duncan over the match’s quick flare, shook his head, and dropped the match when it winked out. “I can’t quite figure you out. Some way or another you just don’t fit the part. Your pa does ... he fits it to a T, but not you. It puzzles me.”

  Thorne also lit up. He snapped his match and said: “Matt, you better not call old Parton his pa. He came within an ace of sluggin’ me back under the jailhouse for sayin’ that.”

  Thorne drawled this, his head up and his thoughtful, skeptical gaze full on Duncan. Old Parton, off to one side of the other three, gradually bent, turning stiff while listening. The others did not observe this. In fact, they paid the old man no attention at all.

  Berryhill dropped his gaze, carefully inspected his cigarette’s glowing tip, and shrugged. “We’ll get it all sorted out one of these days. There’s something here I don’t quite understand yet.” He raised his eyes. “Well, let’s get riding. From here on there’s just a lot of range country to get across. I think the worst is behind us.”

  They mounted. The last man up was old Parton, and if they’d heeded him, they would have noticed the puzzled expression the old man wore, but none of them more than casually glanced at him.

  Thorne pushed back his hat, deeply inhaled, deeply exhaled, and said to no one in particular: “You don’t have to be soft in the brain to wear one of these badges, but it sure helps. Those boys back there are goin’ to be raggin’ me for the next five years about lettin’ myself get deputized tonight, then sneakin’ away like this.”

  “Somebody had to do it,” said Berryhill. “You know that and so do they, Jack.”

  “Yeah, I expect so.”

  Duncan kept still. He did not know the country they were traveling across, but he recognized some of those watery mountain peaks off on his right, having come down that way into this country two days earlier.

  Duncan wagged his head. This had been the wildest two days he’d ever lived through. They didn’t seem like two days;
they seemed like two years. He finished his smoke, broke it on his saddle horn, and dropped it. He looked ahead at Berryhill, looked back at Jack Thorne, looked last at old Jeremiah Parton directly behind him. He looked longest at the older man, too, because Parton, for some inexplicable reason, was riding back there smiling.

  Chapter Nine

  Two things began annoying Duncan after another hour of pacing slowly down this bland, quiet night: hunger and weariness.

  His last meal had been shortly before high noon and it now was, by his estimate, close to 11:00 p.m. As for rest—he hadn’t had any since the day before he’d been picked up by Berryhill’s posse at the cottonwood spring. He’d tried to rest the previous night but that had been a dismal failure.

  Still, even after boredom came to increase his weariness and he had had time to dwell upon his empty stomach, he could accept these discomforts philosophically. After all, he was alive, and that was more than he’d expected to be by this time since the sun had come into his jail cell this same morning.

  But old Parton began nagging for food and rest in his usual raffish, grating tone, as soon as all four of them were passing along drowsily without a thought of danger in any of their minds. He complained, too, about having to keep up this steady riding.

  Duncan, listening to this whining, shook his head wryly. Parton had already forgotten how frightened he’d been back in the Leesville jailhouse when he had been certain that he was going to be lynched. Duncan’s contempt for the old bearded outlaw grew until, when he could stand no more of that bitter complaining, he said: “Parton, if you don’t close your mouth and keep it closed, I’m going to step down and drag you off that horse and gag you.”