Shadow Man Read online

  He walked and jogged his way through part of the night. Fortunately there was a sky of stars and he pointed himself at the North one. Around midnight he found some flat ground above a long gravel slope, where he couldn’t be sneaked up on easily. There he slept.

  He awoke before dawn and watched the sun come up. When that didn’t reveal any Apaches, he drank from his canteen, chewing the last of his supply of mesquite beans. Then he started walking once more.

  Perhaps, he thought, his luck was turning. About 11 a.m. he found a small water hole, a tank of limpid green water in a cup of rocks, girded by a few cottonwood trees. He drank warm, earthy water, filled his canteen, then climbed into the rocks above the water hole and found shade to sleep in.

  This time it was a troubled sleep. He dreamed of Ethan Evans with a fire smouldering on his belly and Fiona Cameron falling screaming from the cliff face.

  He woke as the afternoon heat was easing. He went down to the water hole and drank some more. Then he saw dust.

  It wisped on the plain to the south, coming towards him, maybe enough dust for half a dozen riders. He waited in cover and watched. There wasn’t much else he could do, armed as he was with only a knife. Squinting into the afternoon glare he missed his field glasses, but when the riders got within a rifle shot of him, he had a pretty good idea of who they were.

  He stepped from cover, waved his hat and shouted. The newcomers saw him and came towards him.

  There were five horsemen, all Anglos. Taylor was surprised to see Jedediah Garth.

  Garth was dressed more or less all in black, from his black shirt to his Borsalino hat, which Taylor imagined would be uncomfortable wear in this fierce heat. The others were nondescript men in trail gear, although they were better dressed than the average cowhand. And better armed.

  Taylor told them: ‘There’s been a massacre!’

  Garth stared at Taylor grimly. ‘We know, son. We come across a survivor …’

  ‘A woman?’

  Garth shook his head. ‘Fellow named Buck Evans.’

  Taylor asked, ‘How come you’re out here, anyway?’

  Garth’s party camped by the water hole, with guards out. A fire was lit and a meal cooked. And Garth told his tale.

  He’d decided to visit Rio Azul to see what the needs of the new settlement were. He’d organized a mule train of goods, and a crew of a dozen muleskinners. Travelling partly by night, and by a parallel route to the north of the Trail of Lost Souls, they’d made good time and had no trouble with Indians. Taylor wasn’t surprised. Garth’s muleskinners looked a tough crew and bristled with weapons.

  Garth’s company had done good business in Rio Azul, even trading their mules for horses so they could make better time on the return trip. Nothing untoward had happened on the return journey until they’d seen smoke climbing against the sky. Then they’d found Buck Evans staggering around afoot in the desert.

  As he listened Taylor sat and ate the food he’d been offered, chewing mechanically, although he had no idea what he was eating. He asked Garth: ‘Did he say what happened to Major Cameron, and his daughter?’

  Garth shook his head. ‘We could get hardly any sense out of him.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe it’s ’cus he was out in the sun too long. Maybe it’s what he saw. And then he had to bury his brother … what was left of him.’

  Taylor remembered Ethan the last time he’d seen him and frowned.

  Garth scowled. ‘Evans took us to where it happened. We buried those poor people. I wish all those bleeding hearts who feel sorry for the poor noble red man had seen … what we had to bury.’

  Taylor said, ‘The dead are dead! There might be five people still alive out here. We should be looking for them!’

  Garth studied Taylor with chilly grey eyes. ‘Some would say that’s a mite callous. As it happens, we are looking. That’s how we found you. I sent a rider to the Morrison ranch to get help. Meantime I got another party out looking. Evans is with ’em.’

  ‘Lend me a horse, I’ll go join ’em.’

  ‘Mister, these horses need to rest. And so do the men. In a little while we’ll get to looking again.’

  Taylor wanted to argue but he knew there was sense in what the merchant said. Garth began to roll a cigarette. ‘One thing: looked like those Indians in Devil’s Pass was damn well-armed. There was Winchester shells all over.’

  Taylor started to speak, to tell Garth about the man with jingle-bobs on his spurs. Then it came to him that if he did so, Garth might ask him: If the Apaches had you prisoner, how’d you manage to escape? He saw himself telling Garth: Loco’s son set me free because I spared his life.

  Garth lit his cigarette. ‘If Loco gets hold of enough repeating rifles, he could take back this whole country.’

  ‘I reckon Loco’s band’ll run for Mexico. After what they’ve done here, every bluecoat in the territory’ll be after them.’

  ‘Soldiers? You don’t see a bluebelly around here from one month to the next.’

  ‘You will now. After this. This country thought the Indian wars were over until Loco reminded ’em!’

  Garth gave him a careful, suspicious look. ‘You seem to know a lot about Indians. I recall now, you had that Apache belt thing—’

  There was a pistol shot. It came from the south. A man standing guard on the south side of the camp said, ‘Looks like more of our boys coming in!’

  Six horsemen rode up to the camp. Amongst them was Buck Evans.

  Evans flinched with shock as he stared at Taylor, as if he saw a ghost. Tonelessly, he said, ‘Taylor.’

  There was a wild cast to his eyes. Taylor could understand that. Less than a day before, Evans had found what the Apaches had left of his brother, tied to a barrelhead cactus … Taylor could only feel pity for this man.

  Evans dismounted. He strode up to Taylor, pausing four or five paces from the other man.

  Taylor asked him: ‘Where’s Cameron, Buck? And his daughter?’

  Evans didn’t seem to hear the questions. In the same toneless voice as before he said, ‘My brother’s dead.’

  ‘Your brother was a brave man.’

  Evans hands went to his wrists, pulling at fringed gloves that weren’t there. Anger came into his face. ‘Why ain’t you dead?’

  He needed to blame someone, Taylor knew, as part of the answer to the pain he felt. Evans went on: ‘Four of you went up the canyon. The others are dead. Why ain’t you?’

  Garth dropped his cigarette to the earth and ground it under foot. He gazed at Taylor. ‘Just come to me now what that belt is. Some kind of safe passage, ain’t it? You show that to Apaches and they let you through.’

  Evans took a pace nearer Taylor. ‘I heard you talking. Apaches are human beings! That’s what you said! Loco got a real bad deal … Apaches have a sense of humour….’ Evans’s voice caught over the last word. His face became hot and he seemed to be blinking back tears. ‘We tossed a coin,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘We tossed a coin and I won, God help me….’

  Most of the faces around Evans were turned towards Taylor, and hostility showed in some of them. A murmuring ran through the onlookers, an ugly sound. Taylor felt a stirring of fear on the back of his arms. He revised his opinion of Garth’s muleskinners. He’d thought they were a tough crew. Now he decided they were a very tough crew. He wondered where Garth found men like these.

  Evans declared: ‘Calvin Taylor, the great scout! Calvin Taylor, the Indian-loving son of a bitch!’ He seemed to have forgotten about the pistol on his right hip. He balled his hands into fists and took another step forward.

  Taylor still felt pity, looking at the anguish in the man’s face. ‘I don’t want to fight you, Buck!’

  Garth said, ‘There was a Calvin Taylor who was an army scout. Squaw man, they say. Led the army into that Apache ambush at Ghost Mountain over in Arizona. I figured he was an older feller, or somebody had killed him recent … Is that you, Taylor?’

  It was, but Taylor didn’t reply. Garth lifted h
is voice. ‘Speak up, damn you!’

  Evans said, ‘Ask him why he ain’t dead. How he got out of the canyon.’

  Garth did so. ‘You fought your way through – that right?’

  Taylor nodded. Some of the muleskinners moved forward, crowding towards him. Taylor took two small steps backwards.

  Garth posed another question. ‘So how come you turn up with no gun? All you had on you was that Apache knife. You get through all them Indians but you lose your guns in the process?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  One of the muleskinners grinned. ‘Maybe we should beat the truth out of him, Jed!’

  Garth said, ‘I’ll tell you what happened, Taylor. They caught you – that’s how you got that dandy bruise on your forehead. But they saw that belt and let you go.’

  Evans made a strange choked sound of anger and breathed through his nose. Garth went on: ‘Let you go and got busy killing the other fellows.’

  Which was pretty close to the truth but Taylor said, ‘You’re goddamned liar!’

  Garth said, ‘We ain’t just got an Indian-lover here, boys. We got us a renegade!’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Taylor said, ‘You son of a bitch!’

  Evans swung.

  His right hook caught Taylor high on his left cheek, staggering him. Taylor went to one knee and Evans charged him. He cried out as he charged.

  Taylor started to rise and Evans met him halfway, bowling him from his feet, spilling over him in a white fog of dust. They rolled under a horse’s belly. The animal shied and whinnied and skittered about. A hoof grazed Taylor’s shoulder as the horse danced around him.

  Both men writhed in the dust. One of Evans’s large, powerful hands grabbed at Taylor’s throat, the thumb of his other hand jabbed towards Taylor’s eye. Taylor rolled clear. Both men scrambled up. Taylor said, ‘I don’t want to fight you, Buck!’ but Evans charged in again. He swung a wild right that would have broken Taylor’s jaw had it connected. He plunged past Taylor, who sprang back, away from his opponent.

  Something struck Taylor across the back, above the left hip, knocking him forward. He went to his knees, gasping with pain, one hand going behind him. Over his shoulder he glimpsed Garth grinning, a rifle in his hands. He must have whacked Taylor across the kidneys with the barrel. Other faces showed behind Garth, other muleskinners, and they seemed to be enjoying the show too. Taylor felt a rush of hot anger. He started to rise; then Evans kicked him in the chest.

  Taylor seemed to be floating and then turning. And then he was face down in the dust, the taste of blood in his mouth and his chest full of flames. It seemed he couldn’t breathe.

  He got to his hands and knees. He shook his head, where church bells pealed. He found some air at last and sucked it into his seared lungs.

  Evans loomed over him. Triumph showed in his face, his teeth bared in a feral grin. Taylor thought: maybe I’ve met my match, maybe I can’t beat this man.

  Evans stepped towards him, suddenly breaking into a run. Taylor found the strength to move. He flung himself across the charging man’s legs and tripped him. They rolled in dust and came to their feet. Evans swung and missed and Taylor caught him with a right he felt through to his shoulder. He was surprised to see Evans spin and go down. But Evans rose almost immediately, blood on his lips.

  Taylor swung a punch, Evans dodged. The swing pulled Taylor forward; as he lunged past Evans the other man looped his arms around Taylor’s middle and hugged him close, trapping his arms to his side. Taylor squirmed against the man behind him. Evans linked his hands over Taylor’s stomach and began to squeeze. Breath grunted out of him; his arms seemed to surge with a new power.

  A band of pain circled Taylor’s ribs; he cried out. The bear hug tightened. There was fire in Taylor’s chest: he thought he heard one of his ribs begin to crack. He didn’t know where Evans found his new strength but titanic force seemed to pour through his arms. Squeezing like that, Evans would snap his spine. Taylor felt the sweat of terror on his face and breath began to whine in his throat.

  Faces of onlookers spun a dizzy circle around him, like sunspots becoming grinning faces and then sunspots again. He glimpsed Garth smiling slightly, watching the fight and carefully picking a sliver of meat from between his teeth.

  As he squeezed, Evans grunted: ‘God damn you, Kolvig!’

  Taylor made a last effort; he threw himself backwards, kicking his legs up into the air. It was an attempt to off-balance Evans; it worked. Taylor drove the man holding him backwards. They fell, Evans underneath. Taylor hooked an elbow into the other’s throat and heard him gasp. Taylor strained, broke free and writhed to his feet. Evans, one hand to his throat, came upright also. He lunged at his enemy. Taylor seized Evans’s head in a necklock, turned and went to one knee, pitching the other man headlong over his shoulder. Evans somersaulted forward, turning once in the air and landed heavily on his back. Air came out of lungs in a long sigh; he lay with limbs outflung.

  Taylor swayed. His jaw throbbed and hot flashes of pain ran through his ribs. He was shaking, slick with sweat and dizzy from heat he hadn’t noticed.

  Evans tried to rise and got as far as lifting his head.

  The half-circle of onlookers had stood frozen as the fight resolved itself. Now they moved. Taylor felt a quick stab of fear as muleskinners stepped towards him.

  In the same instant Taylor noticed a pistol lying in the dust: Evans’s Colt had worked loose from his holster. Taylor snatched it up, cocked and aimed. He put the front sights of the gun on the nearest man.

  He said, ‘Hold it!’

  They halted.

  Taylor’s mind was racing, trying to think of a way out of this. How could he keep at bay the mob in front of him and still get on a horse and escape? In the same moment of thought it came to him that there were men behind him too….

  He heard a sound in the air and turned.

  It was a muleskinner, swinging a rifle by the barrel. The blow missed Taylor’s face by an inch; the rifle butt caught his right shoulder and drove splitting pain through it. Taylor half-spun backwards, seeing Evans’s pistol fall from his nerveless fingers, lost balance and went down on his back. Men were suddenly all around him. He got to his knees and caught a kick in the mouth and went down again. Then he was being dragged upright, his arms pulled behind him and punches rained down on him from all sides. Taylor clung on to dizzy consciousness and then Garth was calling: ‘Hold up, boys! Hold up!’

  The blows ceased.

  The world slowly settled around him. Faces became faces again, not bright revolving orbs. He was aware of where fists and boots had struck him but pain was only beginning there. His main source of hurting was his mouth. A kick had torn his lower lip, which burned fiercely, and had also loosened his teeth. Blood from his split lip had covered the right-hand side of his shirt.

  Someone called: ‘Let’s stomp this fellow!’

  Garth said. ‘No, boys. This is an Indian-loving renegade.’ His voice was calm, reasonable; he might have been discussing the price of flour back in his store. ‘And we know how to deal with renegades.’

  Men stared. Then they seemed to catch the idea at the same time, and turned their faces to the water hole behind them. Taylor looked too. They looked at the trees there. Most of them were too stunted to serve, but one cottonwood, at the eastern end, was tall and sturdy, with several strong boughs arching out. It might have been designed for a hanging.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Taylor thought: If I’m going to die, I don ‘t want to do it on the end of a rope.

  He’d seen hangings that had been botched, where the victim twisted and strangled slowly. So he strained against the three or four men holding him, even though he knew that doing so was futile. A knee rammed into the middle of his back; air went suddenly out of his lungs and his legs melted below him. Whilst he flopped bonelessly, he was dragged over to the bosky. A muleskinner produced a thick rope and fashioned an expert noose
. He slipped the noose over Taylor’s head.

  The other end of the rope was flung over the cottonwood bough and someone led up a horse. The faces around him looked happy; Jed Garth looked particularly happy. Evans was there.

  Garth told him: ‘Maybe you want to do the needful, Evans!’

  Taylor remembered the last poor devil he’d seen hang: the man’s purpling face, his blackened tongue thrusting out between his teeth, his trousers darkening as he voided, a cry juddering out of him like the screeching of an ungreased cartwheel….

  Someone called: ‘Jed! More riders!’

  Garth told the muleskinners: ‘Hold it boys.’ He moved away from the others and studied the distance to the south through his field glasses. A wind was building, lifting fine dust and dimming visibility, so it was a minute before he lowered the glasses. ‘It’s old man Morrison.’ He seemed to sigh a little. Glancing at Taylor he said, ‘Get that noose off him.’

  As Taylor was freed of the rope, he swallowed some of the fear in his throat. It was a fair-sized lump; he decided he feared death by hanging more than any other way of dying.

  Garth held a Winchester carbine, presumably the same rifle he’d whacked Taylor across the back with. He gestured to a spot nearby with the Winchester’s barrel and told Taylor, ‘Sit there.’

  Taylor obeyed.

  Six riders approached. Five men and one woman.

  Taylor saw four of the men were dressed like ordinary cowhands, though again, better-armed. Two were Anglos and two Mexicans. The fifth man was Major Cameron, his left arm in a sling. The woman was his daughter, Fiona.

  Taylor stood, not realizing he was standing. It was as if some invisible string pulled him to his feet. A dizzy wash of relief went through him.

  He was reminded that he was standing when he felt sharp pain behind his left knee and his left leg went from under him. He fell heavily on his left side. Taylor hissed with pain and his hand went to the back of his knee. As he kneaded the sharp aching there, he glared at Garth, who stood over him, smiling. The man shifted the carbine in his hands and said, ‘I told you to sit.’