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Authors: J. A. Johnstone

BOOK: Shadow of the Hangman
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The scream cut through Thistledown's brain like a blade and turned his insides to water. A shrieking, screeching, piercing cry of fear and rage, it sounded like nothing he'd ever heard in his life. It was the dreadful, hellish, scream of the newly damned.
And it clawed from the beautiful throat of Dora DeClare.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Where the hell are they?” Shawn O'Brien said. “Be light soon.”
Jacob glanced at the sky. A narrow band of mother-of-pearl sky showed to the east, but the night was still ablaze with stars.
“They'll be here,” Jacob said. “Count on it.”
Frenchy Petite groaned, and his hand went to his battered face.
Jacob shoved the muzzle of his Colt into the middle of the breed's forehead. “You lay still and keep your trap shut or I'll scatter your brains,” he said.
“Frenchy, how many men are with you?” Shawn said.
The breed opened his swollen eyes, and his split lips curled in a smile. “More than you can handle, O'Brien,” he said. “Joe Aiken leads them, and he'll cut your heart out.”
“Is that so?” Jacob said. Way too quiet, a thing Frenchy should've noticed.
“Yeah, it's so, you bastard,” the breed said.
“Good night, Frenchy,” Jacob said. The barrel of his revolver came down hard in the middle of the breed's skull, right where his long hair parted. Frenchy went out as though an anvil had dropped on his head.
“Damn it, Jake, did you have to do that?” Shawn said.
“Yeah, I did,” Jacob said. “Frenchy is a talking man. He could've yelled out to Joe Aiken.”
“Who is he, this Aiken feller?” Shawn asked.
“I've never met him, but I seem to recollect some talk about a small-time outlaw by that name.”
“Why is he after us?”
“Because he wants to be a big-time outlaw.”
The eastern sky was turning from black to lilac when a rider approached the rise. The man sat his horse, stood in the stirrups, and looked around. Shawn, his breath caught in his throat, whispered, the words coming out like an old man's asthmatic wheeze, “He's damned careful.”
Jacob nodded but said nothing.
A long minute passed, then the man turned his horse broadside to the ridge and waved his hat. After a few moments three riders joined him. One of them said, “Where the hell is Frenchy?”
“Scouting ahead, I guess.”
The man who'd spoken last was Joe Aiken, and now he swung his horse around, ready to ride over the ridge.
Jacob knew he was fast running out of room on the dance floor. Gun in hand, he jumped to his feet and charged into the clearing, Shawn following behind.
It had never crossed Joe Aiken's mind, as it had Dixie Foster's, that two gunfighting men are a handful. As fate wrote the last line of the last chapter of his life, Aiken would come to realize it. But by then it was way too late.
There was now enough shooting light, and Jacob and Shawn cut loose.
Bullets cut into Aiken's men, and the first couple of volleys emptied a couple of saddles. All Aiken's sand ran out of him. He tried to swing his horse away from the ridge, but he collided with a riderless mount. His horse reared, and Aiken tumbled over backward and hit the ground hard.
Dixie Foster, showing more backbone than his boss, fought to control his frightened mount, his Colt leveling on Shawn. Both men fired at the same time, and a scarlet rose blossom appeared under Dixie's hat brim. The outlaw toppled off his horse, dead before he hit the ground.
Hiram Post, big-bellied and pig-eyed, the whore smell still on him, kicked his mount toward Aiken. “Get up, Joe,” he yelled.
But Jacob eyed him. He thumbed off two fast shots, and Post took them both in the chest. The outlaw threw up his arms and cartwheeled over the head of his galloping mount. He screamed when he hit the ground, from pain or a glimpse of hell, Jacob didn't know or care.
Aiken tried for Post's horse, but it ran past him, stirrups flying.
He heard footsteps and saw Jacob, Colt in hand, striding toward him. “O'Brien, I'm all through,” he yelled. His fingers opened, and he let go of his gun as though it had suddenly become red hot.
“You Joe Aiken?” Jacob said.
“Yes, yes. Joe Aiken as ever was.”
“You picked the wrong men to rob, Joe.”
Aiken looked contrite, smiling. “I know that now, Mr. O'Brien.”
The outlaw shoved his hands in his pockets in a boyish, “
Aw shucks
,” kind of way, and Jacob shot him between the eyes.
Shawn stepped through a drift of gun smoke and looked from his brother to the dead man. Without a word, Jacob kneeled and searched the man's pockets. He came up with a Remington derringer.
“I figured ol' Joe for a man who'd pull a sneaky gun,” he said.
“Wherever he is, I bet he's regretting it now,” Shawn said.
“That would be my guess,” Jacob said.
Joe Aiken had made one mistake, now Frenchy Petite made another.
On silent feet, the breed stepped out of the trees, a skull-crushing rock raised above his head. He was only a yard from Shawn when the sound of his moccasins shuffling through dry grass betrayed him.
Shawn turned and at spitting distance fanned three fast shots into Frenchy's belly. The man's face twisted in pain, and the rock fell to the ground. The breed tried to walk away, but after a couple of staggering steps he stretched his full length on the ground and lay still.
Jacob smiled at his brother. “Regrets all around, I reckon.”
 
 
“We laid out five dead men on that ridge,” Shawn said. He shook his head. “I find it hard to believe.”
“Helluva thing,” Jacob said, head bent, rolling a cigarette.
“We'll have to see they get buried decent, Jake,” Shawn said.
Jacob lit his cigarette and then said, “Maybe they got an undertaker in El Cerrito.”
“Suppose they don't?”
“Then the coyotes will do the burying for us.”
“You don't care, do you, Jake?” Shawn said, a cool anger building in his eyes.
“When I kill a man who's trying to kill me, no, I don't give a damn.”
“They all had mothers, wives maybe,” Shawn said.
Jacob smiled. “Aiken and that crowd? They probably murdered their mothers for the old ladies' sewing money and spent it on whiskey and whores.”
“Damn it, Jake, when did you get so hard?”
Jacob tapped the Colt on his hip. “Around the time I started to sell this. A soft-natured man doesn't live long in this territory.”
“You think that's what I am, a soft-natured man?” Shawn said.
Jacob inhaled deeply, and then he let the smoke trickle from his nose. “No, I don't. Patrick, now, is a soft-natured man; that's his way. But Shawn, you're like Samuel and the colonel, killers both, and again like them you put a gloss on it.” He stared at the blue morning sky. “I don't.”
“Pa's not a killer, Jake, nor is Samuel,” Shawn said. “They've killed men and hung their share, sure, but it was all for Dromore.”
Jacob turned to his brother and grinned. “Glossing it again, ain't we, Shawn, huh?”
Chapter Twenty-four
The village of El Cerrito lay under a haze of wood smoke as the women lit breakfast-cooking fires. The morning was hot, and the few trees that stood among the casas looked limp and still, as though already exhausted from the heat. The smell of tortillas and strong coffee scented the air, and Shawn said his belly was rumbling.
“We'll get something to eat after we track down Dora DeClare,” Jacob said, “and ask her about the Nemesis drawing.”
“Right, like she'll tell us if she has plans to hurt Dromore,” Shawn said.
“She won't, but we can beat it out of Lum,” Jacob said.
“If he's even here.”
“If not, we'll beat it out of her brother,” Jacob said.
Shawn turned his head, a wan smile on his lips. “Jake, you're one hard-hearted feller.”
“Maybe, but it's for Dromore, remember? So that makes it right.”
 
 
The peon with a hoe over his shoulder listened patiently to Jacob's question, his eyes full of concentration, as though he was translating each word one by one in his head.
Finally he said, “The Americanos have gone, señor.” He crossed himself. “By the grace of God.”
“Do you know where?” Shawn asked.
“No. But in the casa over there, see, with the cactus outside the window?”
“I see it,” Shawn said.
“A boy named Pedro lives there, and he can tell you more, I think.”
The O'Brien brothers nodded their thanks, then dismounted and walked their horses to the cactus house. Immediately, the rug that served as a door pulled back and a woman stepped outside.
“
Buenos días
,
señora
,” Shawn said. “We'd like to speak to Pedro. Is he your son?”
Fear flashed in the woman's black eyes. As the man had done earlier, she crossed herself. “Are you demons?” she said.
Shawn smiled. “Not so you'd notice, ma'am.”
The woman looked baffled, and Jacob said, “We're . . . vaqueros. And we need to talk with Pedro.” Under his mustache, Jacob stretched his lips in what he hoped was a winning smile. “We're trying to find the Americano lady who lived here with her crippled brother. We're friends . . .
amigos.
”
The woman threw Jacob a horrified look, screamed, and ran into the house. A moment later the rug drew back a few inches and she yelled, “
Vayase! Vayase!
”
“What does that mean?” Jacob said.
“It means she wants us to get the hell away from here,” Shawn said.
Jacob sighed. “Damn it, now what?”
“Well, it seems your birds have flown,” Shawn said. “Let's see if we can find a cantina around here.”
“Shawn, I'm convinced Dora DeClare could be Nemesis, and somebody must know where she's gone.”
“I don't think she's Nemesis,” Shawn said. “I figure she's nothing but a pretty girl with a crippled brother.” He looked around him. “Do you see anything that looks like it might be a cantina?”
“We'll go scout,” Jacob said. “Maybe once you get some tortillas and frijoles in your belly you'll be more inclined to listen to reason.”
“Maybe,” Shawn said, “but I still won't believe a slip of a girl and a cripple are trying to bring down the house of Dromore.”
 
 
Jacob looked over the rim of his coffee cup at his brother. “You've eaten a dozen tortillas and two bowls of frijoles, Shawn. Had enough?”
“I reckon.”
“You know what happens to men who eat too many beans, huh?”
“Speak for yourself, Jake. I'm much too refined to fart.”
“We'll see. I recollect the time when—”
Jacob stopped in midspeech as a small Mexican boy with a shock of black hair and huge brown eyes stepped to the table.
“My name is Pedro,” he said. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“We sure do,” Jacob said.
“About the Americanos who lived in the house with the barn?” Pedro said.
“Yeah, I guess that's right,” Jacob said.
“They've gone.”
“We know that, Pedro,” Jacob said. “But where did they go?”
The boy looked over Jacob's patched and threadbare shirt and his scuffed chaps and boots and seemed less than impressed. He stepped to Shawn and gave him the once-over. “You are the one with money, señor?” he said.
“How much money are we talking about, and why?” Shawn said.
“Five dollars American for what I can tell you.”
“Let me see your neck, kid,” Jacob said.
The boy pulled down his poncho, and Jacob said, “I knew it, made for a rope.”
“Five dollars,” Pedro said.
“Shawn, give the boy five dollars,” Jacob said.
“Hell, give it to him yourself, Jake.”
“You know how long it's been since I had five dollars all at the same time?” Jacob said.
“Kid,” Shawn said, “we ran into some of your kind back on the trail.” He reached into his pocket and stacked five silver dollars on the table. The boy grinned and grabbed for the money, but Shawn covered the coins with his hand and said, “Uh-uh, tell us about the Americanos first.”
“A padre came through our village and saved two men from the fiends,” he said.
“What kind of men?” Jacob said.
“One was small and thin, the other big and fat,” Pedro said. “The fat one wore a star on his shirt and was wounded.”
“John Moore,” Shawn said, looking at Jacob.
“Yeah, and I'm willing to bet the farm that the other one was Ernest Thistledown.”
“How did those two meet up?” Shawn said.
Jacob shook his head. “Beats me.” He said to Pedro, “How did the padre save the Americans?”
“They were in the barn and the fiends were shooting at them from the house,” Pedro said. “The padre came and took the two men away. He carried a cross and I led a donkey.” He smiled. “The fat man was on the donkey because he was wounded and bleeding.”
“Did they shoot at the padre?” Shawn said.
“No, they were afraid of him,” Pedro said. “That's why they left.”
“They were afraid of the padre?” Jacob said.
“
Sí,
a holy monk. They were afraid of him, and the woman screamed when she saw the cross he carried.”
Jacob and Shawn exchanged looks. Then Shawn said, “Are you telling us a windy, kid?”
The boy shook his head. “No, señor, what I tell you was what happened. They were afraid of the padre, and they stayed away from him.”
“Jacob, are there any named guns in our neck of the woods?” Shawn said.
“You mean a fast gun could've dressed as a monk, but the DeClare brother and sister recognized him and he scared them off?”
“It's as good an explanation as any.”
“I heard that Pat Garrett was gambling in Santa Fe a month ago, and Roscoe Burrell is around,” Jacob said. “But neither of those gents is the type to dress up as monks and go a-rescuing folks.”
Shawn said to the boy, “Where is the padre now? We'd like to ask him a few questions.”
Pedro shrugged his thin shoulders. “I don't know.”
“Does he live in a mission near here?” Jacob said.
“I don't know,” Pedro said. He saw Jacob hard-eye him and said, “He was never in our village before. The padre came that night, and then he left with the gringos. After we led them to their horse and wagon, the padre told me to take the donkey and the cross back to the village.” The boy spread his hands. “After that, I never saw him again.”
“Where is the cross now?” Shawn said.
“I left it in the chapel, but our village priest told me he'd never seen it before,” Pedro said. “He said it is a very beautiful cross and a great and holy mystery.”
“So where did the gringos go?” Jacob said.
“I don't know, señor. When I got back to the village, they were already gone and the house was empty.”
“You think it's worth looking over the house?” Jacob said to Shawn.
“I doubt it,” his brother said. “The last time we searched a place we found a drawing that sent us on this wild-goose chase. God forbid that we'd find another. We'd end up in China or somewhere.”
“We'll take a look anyhow,” Jacob said. “They might have left a clue about where they're headed.”
“Sure, Jake,” Shawn said. “Anything to get this thing out of your system.”
 
 
“My God, what's that smell?” Shawn said.
He and Jacob stood in the adobe's living room. The furniture was still in place, but wide-open cupboards and desk drawers suggested the DeClares had left in a hurry.
Jacob sniffed his great beak of a nose. “Damned if I know what it is.”
“Like something dead,” Shawn said. “And I mean long dead.”
A search of the house revealed no bodies, animal or human. But the stench pervaded the entire adobe, the sweet, sickly smell of decay. And something else the O'Brien brothers couldn't identify. Something vile.
The air was thick and hard to breathe as though all the oxygen had fled the casa, to be replaced by . . .
“Damn it, Shawn, it's sulfur,” Jacob said. He glared at his brother. “Them frijoles getting to you?”
“Hell no, it isn't me. A man would have to eat a bushel of beans to produce a smell like this.”
“Then where's it coming from?” Jacob said.
“Didn't Ma tell us one time that hell stinks of sulfur?” Shawn said. “She said that it's the smell of the damned.”
“Now how would Ma know that?”
“She said a priest told her that at confession one time.”
Jacob said, “Yeah, probably one of them old Irish priests that try to put the fear of hell into everybody.” He looked into a drawer. “Empty,” he said. Then he asked, “What sin could Ma possibly have committed?”
“I recollect she said she was too lazy to bring the milk in from the byre and it curdled. The priest said it was the sin of sloth, a terrible affront to God and the industrious Blessed Virgin. That's when he told her about sulfur and the damned an' sich.”
Jacob slammed the drawer shut. “What do priests know?”
“Jake, they go to school to study these things,” Shawn said. “A priest knows what hell smells like.”
Shawn did two things that revealed his agitation: he crossed himself, something he hadn't done since he was a kid, and he adjusted the position of his holster on the cartridge belt.
Jacob, an attentive man, noted both actions and said, “Let's get out of here. We'll check the barn.”
“I'm with you,” Shawn said, and hurried to the door.
 
 
“Back here, Jake,” Shawn said. “They tried to get out through the barn wall. Didn't succeed though.”
Jacob stepped beside his brother and studied the chipped boards. “Seems like,” he said. “And there's bloodstains all over the floor.” He held up a spent shotgun shell. “Thistledown was here all right.”
“All we can do now is get back to Dromore,” Shawn said. “We'll be needed there.”
“I want to ride to Georgetown, see if John Moore is still alive,” Jacob said. “You go on to Dromore, and I'll catch up later.”
“You reckon that hanging posse has left yet?” Shawn said.
“I don't know. But Moore's the only one who can stop them, if he's still on his feet.”
Shawn nodded, but his face was troubled. Without looking at Jacob, he said, “In the house, Jake, you think that was really the stink of hell?”
“I think, like you, they ate too many frijoles,” Jacob said.
But he didn't smile. He didn't smile at all.

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