Dark Shadow

by Roy F. Chandler

  Logan's fresh clothing hung on him. He had not realized his weight loss. Lordy, he looked like a poor farmer's scarecrow. It was comforting to scrape his face with his razor properly sharpened while peering into the familiar waves of his own mirror, but the sights and scents of Erni and their years together plucked unrelentingly at his awareness.

  As quickly as he could get away he would go to the cemetery. He must have talked things over with her a thousand times since he started after Punto's band, but there was something closer about standing where she had been buried. Logan experienced a sudden return of his all-consuming hatred of Punto and his bandits, and for the instant he wished that they were still out there so that he could kill them all again.

  The sun was lowering when Logan returned from Erni's grave, and the people had gathered in the great room of Emit Baird's new store. He knew that Uno would be among them because the burro waited patiently outside the mercantile entrance.

  When he entered, their talk shut down, and motioning Uno forward with their burdens, Logan chose a place in front of the long service counter. An unopened cracker barrel was at his elbow, and Logan jockeyed it out front to use as a sort of trophy table.

  When he began, Logan shaved many details, but the story was powerful, and most of the listeners might not be interested in small stuff, anyway. If he had to fill in later he could do that.

  "I followed Punto Negra's band to the river. I killed one man there who had been posted to watch for our coming.

  "I overtook the bandits at the Zapata Water a day later, and Julie tells me I killed three there, and I believe one more died a day later.

  "Punto and his trackers came after me. The range was great, but I killed one and blew the hand from another. I did not wish to shoot Punto because I wanted the band to stay together until I could kill more."

  Logan saw astonishment on many faces and satisfaction on others. They had not expected that he had killed so many. Huh, the story had barely begun.

  "When the bandits seemed to abandon Julie, I came down from the mountain because I knew some of them would be waiting. I killed the three that waited, and sent Julie on her way home."

  Logan paused to honor the girl. "Julie called out warning me of one bandit who had buried himself in the dirt. Julie saved my life that day.

  "In the town of Caliente I killed one of the band who wore a huge sombrero. Some of you will remember him." Logan saw nods and tightened lips. Julie Smith covered her face with her hands.

  "In Caliente, Punto raised bounty hunters who drove me into the mountains. I killed one bounty hunter and received minor wounds that needed resting. Long ago I had fought Apache in the southern mountains, and I knew of an Apache well deep underground, so I hid there for a week until the hunt moved on.

  "When I came out, the bandits had scattered. I could not follow everyone, but Punto Negra and two others had ridden west, so I took their trail. I killed one in the mountains and tracked the remaining two all the way to the Pacific Ocean."

  Logan had to pause until exclamations of astonishment died.

  "I killed Punto's companion there, and found Punto in his hacienda. I killed two guards reaching Punto Negra who hid in a thick walled room.

  Logan smiled to himself and chose to embellish a little. "Fortunately, I had encountered Uno, who stands here beside me. Together we placed a cannon from Punto's roof and blew in Punto's iron door. We threw bombs made of cannon powder into the room until the roof fell in. Then I went inside. Punto shot at me with his pistol, but I killed him."

  Logan seemed to be finished, but Uno's high pitched voice demanded more.

  "You did not tell of your wounds, Sombra Preta."

  "A man should not boast of wounds, Uno." Logan was firm, but requests came from his audience.

  "My wounds were small. The first was only a bullet which struck my ammunition box and did not penetrate. I mention it because the ache in my hip was more painful than anything that came after. I was shot before going to the Apache Water, but because it was dark, the bounty hunter did not hit cleanly. Punto's tracker was called Juan of one eye, and he found me while I slept. His knife cut me deeply along the ribs, down a shoulder, and as we struggled his knife point bored a hole into my chest bones." Logan chuckled, "The one eye was a strong fighter." His audience's answering laughter sounded nervous.

  "To enter Punto's hacienda, I had to climb a ladder, and one of his guards shot me through the thigh, but it healed well. My adopted son, Uno Logan, cared for me until I regained strength. Without him, I might have been caught by those who sought revenge for Punto Negra's death."

  Logan turned the conversation.

  He drew Punto's pistol. "To show that Punto is really dead, I give the people of Micah his pistol. Some of you will have seen this gun at Punto's waist." There were more exclamations because many did remember the raider's silver handled Colt.

  From Uno's pile, Logan chose the drawstring bag of jewels. He poured stones into his palm and let them glitter in the lamp light.

  "Some of these may be from this town, and perhaps other owners can be located." Logan raised the strings of wedding bands and other gold rings for them to see. "No doubt, some of yours will be here." Women cried out, and men comforted them.

  "Finally, there is this bag of coins." Logan plumped one of Punto's heavy bags onto the cracker barrel. He spilled a golden hoard for them to see. "We could say that the raider Punto has donated this money for the rebuilding and improvement of Micah. I will turn the money over to Bishop Otis, and the town council can decide how it is to be used."

  The presentation of the small fortune was a powerful climax, and Logan left it there. Uno was surrounded by younger boys who wished to hear more of the young hero's adventures. Logan heard the name Sombra Preta and ground his teeth.

  While the people milled, he took Emit Baird aside. Logan said, "Emit, I have a favor to ask, and it is a large one."

  Logan nodded toward the boy. ”I brought Uno to this town in hope that he could have a better life." Logan explained Uno's short history. "So, I am turning to you to make his future a good one.

  "I will not stay in Micah, but there is no place in my Pennsylvania life for a brown-skinned boy. There he would be a misfit for all of his life. Out here...here he can be whatever his abilities and your help can make him."

  Logan added, "I will pay for his keep, but it will be your task to teach him your trade, and to raise him to be a proper man."

  Logan cleared his throat, in mild embarrassment. "If this town feels it owes me anything, Emit, I would like repayment to be in the raising of this boy."

  Baird studied Logan thoughtfully, "What you ask, Joshua, is that I take this boy into my home and raise him as a son."

  "Well, you do not have to adopt him or anything like that, Emit, but, yes, that is about what I ask."

  Baird sighed, "Joshua, I wish that you would ask something more difficult of me. We owe you for the life of Julie Smith. We owe you for the return of precious possessions. We owe you, this nation owes you, for wiping out those savages who attacked us.

  "Joshua, we are Mormons. We hunger for more children. We will raise Uno, and I expect that in time he will become one of us. I am honored that you choose me to raise Uno, and you can trust me to do the very best that I can."

  Logan found his voice a trifle thick. "Emit, you are a good man. You are all good people. Do all that you have just spoken, and wherever I am I will be grateful."

  Punto's second bag of coins thunked onto the table they shared. "This is more of Punto's gold and silver. I give it to you to use what you need for Uno's raising. Do not give him more than your own children have, but when he is ready, use this money. Take him into your business or set him up in his own."

  Logan smiled, and Emit Baird wondered how long it had been since Logan's face had enjoyed the expression. Logan said, "You see, Emit, I plan long, and you are stuck with that planning. Will you do it?"

  "I have said that I will, and my word has nev
er been questioned, Joshua. Uno will be part of our family, and we will raise him as our son. I will see that he is educated and that he learns the right ways to live. You can depend on that, Joshua."

  Then Logan could relax. He loafed around the town. In the evening cool he rocked in Erni’s old chair on the porch of their cabin. He saw to the re-shoeing of his horse and removal of the mule's shoes. He gave the mule to the village with instructions that the animal that had served him, and therefore them, so well would be cared for and never worked. The mule would be like Uno's burro, a friend to be garlanded on holidays, petted, and brought sugar bits.

  Uno and new friends came to the porch to hear how Sombra Preta had gotten his name. Because he would soon be moving on, and because Uno's stature would be vicariously improved, Logan was willing to develop a fanciful tale.

  He told how the rogue Apaches had moved only in the dark of the moon. He explained how he crept from ridge to ridge sometimes seeing only their silhouettes against lighter stone. Each night he drew closer to the Apaches' secret place, but sometimes they saw him as a distant shadow and so gave him the name Dark Shadow. Soon the Apaches believed they saw Dark Shadow even when he was not near. They spoke of him to traders, and the Spanish name, Sombra Preta, began to be used. Finally, he and other scouts found the Apaches. In a tremendous battle, the telling of which used Logan's best imagining, they killed the last of the Apache devils and made the country safe for the people.

  His listeners' eyes were glued, and as he described the ferocious fighting with knives slashing and pistols blasting, their arms hugged their bodies. In the story, men grappled in desperate struggles, and Apache death cries rose to the heavens. At the end, only he and a few scouts remained standing. Some of the heroic survivors wore valorous wounds, and all were exhausted, their knives dulled and their ammunition consumed. The dead were buried with appropriate ceremony, and the story ended.

  The youths departed with heated discussion over who should play Sombra Preta in their games. Logan feared that with his dark skin and hair Uno was destined to be one of the Indians in most such battles. So be it, he could smooth the boy's way only so far.

  Two weeks was long enough. For that length of time a visitor, especially a heroic one, could be attended to, but about then life had to return to normal, and a visitor's welcome became less enthusiastic.

  Even the short respite from riding had put needed weight on his frame. Logan felt rested and ready. He had a new mule, the old horse was ready, his good-byes had been said, and it was time to travel.

  The town turned out to see him off. Uno stood alone, no doubt suffering the pangs of desertion, but there was no other way. Logan was pleased that the boy was not packed to follow him in some desperate attempt to remain together. As he mounted, Logan saw the burro nuzzle Uno's shoulder, and the boy without awareness hugged the animal's dusty neck.

  At the town's edge a boyish call turned him in the saddle, and Uno's distant wave and shouted words came clearly.

  "Vaya con Dios, Sombra Preta."

  Logan returned the wave, and beyond the sense of leaving behind something important, a thought came clear. At least he would now be done with the Sombra Preta business, and that would be real progress.

  29

  1888

  Until he looked up, the gunsmith had not known his friend was there.

  "Dang you, Josh, you've been back for nearly a year, and you still sneak around like one of them red Injuns. How long have you been watching me?"

  “I’m not watching you, Billy. I just didn't want to startle you when you were doing exacting work."

  "Exacting work? I'm just putting one of these danged repeaters back together. I hate these things, Josh. They ain't real guns like we used to use."

  "I'm not going through that argument again, Billy. Muzzleloaders are as dead as week old fish. Forget 'em. You'll never make another one."

  "They'll be back, Logan, and what brings you over this way? You walk here? I didn't hear a horse."

  "You must be getting deafer. I rode my new mare. I put the old horse out to pasture. I bring him apples and some sugar now and then, scratch him behind the ears and tell him how good he did."

  "You got touched by sun out in that western desert, Joshua. A horse is just a horse. They ain't human, and they don't know what you're saying to them."

  "Doesn't matter, Billy, and I like to think he might realize that somebody believes he's special.

  "I'm heading into the county seat. Thought you might want to come along."

  "Oh, that's just great, Logan. You ride here on a saddle horse, knowing that I've got a buggy. You pasture your animal on my grass, while I get to break out my rig and wear out my animal."

  Logan laughed, enjoying the exchange. "That's how I figured it, Billy. I'll make it up to you by telling you the idea I've got for a gun that will outshoot anything we've seen yet."

  Sweger groaned. "It'll be one of them new smokeless powder guns, Logan, 1 just know it."

  "Of course it will be a smokeless gun, and it will be a breech loader, but you don't hear more until we are on our way."

  The gunsmith laid his tools aside and removed his thick leather apron. "I don't want to hear more, Josh. You've gone back on all that our generation stood for. Breech feeders, they don't even ..." He cut himself off and pointed to a pile of cheap paper magazines.

  "My boy sends me that stuff up from Philadelphia. 1 don't get around to reading much of it, but you sit here and read until I get washed up. You can tell me if there's anything worthwhile. Then we'll hook up the spring wagon and go in. Mary'll have some errands for us in Bloomfield."

  "I'll harness while you're getting ready."

  "Just leave my equipment alone, Logan. I know how to do it right." Sweger stumped away grumbling about peculiar western ways.

  Josh chose a plank bottom chair and leafed through the magazines. Penny tripe mostly, tales of western daring-do that easterners read and mostly believed.

  Logan's eyes froze on a lurid cover showing a figure in a Mexican sombrero with twin pistols strapped on his hips. The figure held a rifle of unidentifiable make equipped with a barrel length telescopic sight.'

  The magazine's title seared Josh Logan's nerve ends.

  Dark Shadow, The Scourge of Old Mexico

  by Tobias Brisbane

  (A widely traveled English Scholar)

  The article's first lines did nothing to ease Logan's distress.

  A gringo gunfighter with a Robin Hood reputation, almost single-handedly brought peace to a large portion of the Mexican desert and mountains. He was called Sombra Preta, meaning Dark Shadow, by grateful Mexican peasants.

  Joshua Logan killed at more than a mile with his special rifle, and no enemy was safe south of the Rio Grande.

  Logan read with disbelief. Brisbane, the Caliente storekeeper, now an "English scholar," writing an unbelievable yarn—with barely a kernel of truth—how could it have happened?

  Logan read how Dark Shadow rarely slept and hunted Apaches and outlaws with a hunger to kill all that dared ride into old Mexico.

  An infamous raider called Punto Negra had led a band of nearly forty outlaws, but once Sombra Preta took their trail they fell like rain before Dark Shadow’s secret weapon until none were left alive.

  At least as miserably, Logan believed, Brisbane filled out his articles by detailing exactly how Dark Shadow had killed nearly every one of Punto's forty. According to the "English Scholar," Joshua Logan had scalped a few. He had met others at high noon and out shot them with his Colt pistols, but mostly Logan had picked them off from incredible ranges as they fled wildly across mountains and deserts.

  Brisbane offered proof in a sketch showing Sombra Preta's personal Spencer ammunition case shot into junk while hung on the hero's hip.

  That was proof? Logan marveled. A drawing of a bullet-torn ammunition pouch was about as much proof as insisting that you had killed a squirrel because you could show the nut it was chewing.

  Log
an heard Sweger returning, and he stuffed the offending magazine inside his shirt and buttoned his coat over it.

  Logan said, "Billy, these magazines are trash. Nothing in them is right. Do many people read them around here?"

  "Don't happen to know, Josh. Some probably get into the barbershops, and there is the pool hall in Newport that might have such reading. I reckon the cities are where this kind of stuff gets looked at.

  "Goes to show that I was right, Logan."

  "Right about what, Billy?"

  "Right that front-end loading rifles were better. Back when we had those good guns we could have patched our bullets with this trash paper my son is sending up."

  Logan could not have agreed more. He could only hope that no one who knew him came across Tobias Brisbane's stupid magazine. He felt like taking the cars out to California where the magazine had come from and shooting Brisbane in his tracks. Logan grinned to himself. That might be difficult because Japanese Jake was probably sitting right at Brisbane's side with his god-awful shotgun ready.

  Fortunately, Logan had another way to put this latest and hopefully the last incarnation of Dark Shadow to rest.

  The size was right, and the paper would be properly absorbent. When he got home, Joshua Logan intended to drop off Brisbane's Sombra Preta story for use in his outhouse.

  The Last Word...

  About Roy Chandler

  Rocky Chandler is now 86 years of age. He remains active and still rides his Harley-Davidson across the continental United States.

  The author divides his time among Nokomis, FL, St Mary’s City, MD, and Perry County, PA,

  Author of more than sixty published books Chandler is writing a final novel titled Blackwater Jack.

  Yep, that Blackwater. The new tale is a zinger.

  Rocky Chandler: Author, Educator, Soldier, Patriot

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