The Shadow of a Noose Read online

  “Being young don’t mean we’re stupid,” Tim said defensively.

  “I know that, boys.” Elvin Bray found the letter and said, “Here it is,” handing it over to them. “But somebody like Myers who ain’t from here, and has no regard for anybody anyway, just figures you both for a couple of wet-nosed pups.” As Tim and Jed inspected the back of the bank draft envelope, Bray went on talking. “If you boys are headed out on your own for the first time, you’re going to find a lot of Orville Myers along your way, or worse. It don’t matter what you know, or what fine upbringing you’ve had. Out there you’ll meet some unsavory characters who’ll be out to snare you, taking advantage of your inexperience.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Bray, we’ll be careful,” Tim assured him.

  “This letter was mailed from Dallas, Texas,” Jed noted, tapping a finger on the envelope, “but it gives no return address. I reckon Danielle must have known she wasn’t going to be there long when she sent it.” He shook his head. “I swear, it ain’t like Danielle to not keep in touch.”

  “If she’s moving around a lot on her own,” Bray said, “you might be surprised how much she’s changed in the past year. She might not want to say much, for fear it’ll reveal things about herself she might not want known.”

  “What are you saying, Mr. Bray?” Tim asked, seeming to take offense.

  “Now, don’t get your dander up,” Elvin Bray said. “I’m only saying people change once they get out there and get knocked around some. Be prepared, boys. That’s all I meant by it.”

  “Not our sister!” Tim said, irritated. “She’ll be the same as always, once we find her.”

  Jed intervened. “Tim, all Mr. Bray is saying is that a year can make a difference in a person. He’s not saying anything bad about Danielle, are you, Mr. Bray?”

  “No siree. I’ve known you and your folks too long, and we’ve always been good neighbors to one anther. I suppose what I’m trying to do is give you some parting advise. I apologize if it’s been mistaken.”

  Tim cooled off and said, “No, I’m the one who needs to apologize. I’m sorry I took offense. I’ve got a lot on my mind today.” He nodded at Jed. “We both do. Jed just don’t show it as easily.”

  “Well,” said Bray, smiling patiently, “I won’t offer no more advice. The road is the best, yet harshest teacher I know of.” Bray sighed and shook his head slowly. “But as for your taxes, you can see you’re in good shape till next year. Knowing that ought to make you feel some better.”

  “Thanks again, Mr. Bray,” Jed said. “Suppose we can keep this envelope?”

  “Sure.” Elvin Bray shrugged. “In fact, if you’re in need of some traveling money, I can let you have that extra fourteen dollars.”

  “Can you?” said Jed. “We’d sure be obliged!”

  “Be glad to,” Bray replied. “I’ll just need one of you to sign a receipt, for our records.”

  Jed and Tim nodded in unison. Elvin Bray went to the cash box on his desk, counted out fourteen dollars, then picked up a receipt pamphlet and returned to the counter. Once the money changed hands and the receipt was signed, Bray smiled. “There you are. When you find Danielle, you be sure and tell her she’s missed by all of us here.”

  “We will, sir,” Tim said, folding the money and shoving it down into his shirt pocket. “She’ll be glad to hear you said that.”

  Elvin Bray stayed behind the counter and watched them leave. At the door, he called out to them, “Will you do me a favor? One of you pull that sash down on your way out?”

  “I will,” said Jed. But as he took a hold of the long sash cord and pulled down, it broke off in his hand. “Sorry, Mr. Bray,” he said, turning to Bray with the cord dangling from his hand.

  Elvin Bray raised a hand toward him. “It weren’t your fault. That cord was getting old. Just pitch it away for me first chance you get.” He smiled, leaning on the counter, and watched them shuffle out through the door, Jed Strange winding the length of sash cord around his finger. When the door closed behind them, Elvin Bray shook his head, thinking of the long trail that lay before the two young men. Then he went back to his roll-top desk, picked up the metal cash box, and pulled the hood down.

  Across the street from the assessor’s office, in the darkness of a narrow shadowed alley, two outlaws by the name of Duncan Grago and Sep Howard stood watching Tim and Jed Strange as the twins mounted their horses and rode out of sight along the quiet afternoon street. Sep Howard took note of Jed’s short-barreled ten-gauge, the butt stock sticking out from beneath his blanket roll.

  “What do you think, Dunc?” Sep asked. “We’ve been eye-balling this sucker for three days. This is the first time we haven’t seen him lock the door this late in the evening.”

  “I believe we better make our run at him,” said Dunc. “If we do this quiet-like, there’s a good chance the last ones seen leaving the office will be those two.” He nodded his ragged hat brim in the direction of Tim and Jed Strange. “One thing I learnt in prison—anytime you can shift the blame to somebody else, do it.” He spread a thin, wicked grin.

  “Sounds good to me,” said Sep Howard. “But we’ll have to kill that assessor to make it work that way.”

  “So?” Dunc Grago squinted at him. “You got any qualms against killing? If you do, I doubt if my brother Newt would have sent you to look for me. He knows that wherever I’m at, there’s killing aplenty.”

  “I’ve got no qualms against puttin’ anyone under snakes,” said Sep. “Just tell me what you want done.”

  Dunc Grago reached down and drew a long bowie knife from his boot well. He tucked the knife into his waistband, smoothing his vest down over it. “Move these horses closer and be ready in case anything goes wrong. I’ll be coming out of there before you know it, so be ready.”

  Inside the assessor’s office, Elvin Bray counted the dollar bills, stacked them neatly, and laid them down on his desk beside the cash box. It was the first time in seven years that he’d failed to lock the door before making his daily tally and entering the figure into his accounting ledger, as the arrival of Jed and Tim Strange had broken his routine. Just as it dawned on him what he’d done, he heard the door ease open quietly, and he turned toward the stranger with his ledger book in his hand. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re closed for the day. If you’ve come to town to pay your taxes, we’ll be open again early in the morning.”

  “Taxes, huh?” said Dunc Grago. “Never paid any, never will.” As Dunc spoke, his arm went behind his vest. He raised the bowie knife by its handle and flipped it around in his hand to where he held it by the blade. “Catch this for me.” His arm shot forward as if he were cracking of a whip, sending the blade through the air in a shiny streak. The force of the blade striking Elvin Bray in his chest from fifteen feet away sent him staggering back against the oaken desk. Bray stood frozen for a second, staring down wide-eyed in disbelief at the knife handle pinned to his chest, the blade sunk deep in his heart. His face stiffened, then went slack as he sank to the floor.

  “There now, all done,” Duncan Grago said to himself, locking the door and pulling the shade down by its broken stub of a cord. He walked quietly over behind the counter, placed a boot on Elvin Bray’s chest, and pulled the big knife free, wiping it back and forth on Bray’s white shirt. “If you could talk right now,” he said to the wide, dead eyes staring blankly up at him, “you’d have to admit, that’s the fastest thing you ever saw.”

  As Duncan Grago had predicted, nobody noticed him and Sep Howard leave town through the back alley, leading the horse slowly through the afternoon shadows until they were a good quarter of a mile from Elvin Bray’s office. They had both kept quiet, looking back over their shoulders occasionally. Finally Sep Howard raised his lowered hat brim and spoke.

  “I have to tell you,” he said, the two of them finally stepping up onto the horses on the road out of town, “that was slicker than socks on a rooster. No wonder your brother Newt wants you back riding with him. I feared you migh
t be a bit rusty, spending four years in stir.”

  The Colt in the tied-down holster on Duncan’s hip streaked up toward Sep Howard, causing the older gunman’s breath to catch in his throat. “Does that look rusty to you?” Duncan sneered.

  “Lord, Dunc, give a feller a warning!” Sep Howard mopped his gloved hand across his brow, and settled as Duncan spun the Colt back down into his holster. “You know I wasn’t making light of you.”

  “If I thought you was,” said Duncan, “you wouldn’t be sitting there right now.” He offered a thin, tight grin. “Let’s get on down to the Territory, see what Newt and his boys have got cooking for us.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Sep Howard. He heeled his horse forward, yet he purposely kept a few feet back behind Duncan Grago. Sep Howard was getting on in age, and one reason he’d managed to stay alive as long as he had was because he’d learned not to show his back too long or too often to a man like Duncan Grago. When Newt Grago had asked him to ride all the way to Arizona to meet Duncan as he got out of prison, Sep Howard’s first thought was why didn’t Newt go meet his brother himself? But ever since Newt Grago had more or less become the leader of a small gang of cutthroats and cattle rustlers down in Indian Territory, Sep saw Newt grow increasingly full of himself and staying wound pretty tight. Newt Grago had shot one of his own men for sassing him over a cup of coffee, and Sep and some of the others had watched him do it. So Sep hadn’t back-talked him. He’d done as he was told, taking along a spare horse for the young convict. He’d met Duncan Grago as soon as the young man stepped out through the iron gates of the prison with his belongings tied in a bandanna spindle. It took all of about five minutes for Sep Howard to decide that this young man was as wild as a buck, and madder than a slapped hornet. Sep had already given some thought to saddling up and disappearing into the night. But now, seeing how cool and quiet this young man had just breezed in and out of the assessor’s office, bringing back close to five hundred dollars, Sep decided to stick around awhile longer and see how things went from here. As he was thinking about these things, Duncan Grago turned in his saddle, looking back at him as he spoke.

  “Get on up here beside me, Sep,” he said. “I’ve grown edgy about having an hombre shadowing me.”

  “I don’t blame you, I’m the same way, Dunc,” Sep Howard said, nudging his horse up a notch. He took a guarded glance at the tight, grit-streaked face beneath Duncan Grago’s hat brim, seeing the narrowed eyes, the crooked bridge of his nose, the shaved sideburns—prison style—and even the way Duncan sat loose and easy in his saddle. There was an ever-present tension about him like that of a coiled viper.

  “I reckon my brother told you why I was in stir, didn’t he?” Duncan Grago asked.

  “Well, he mentioned a knife fight,” said Sep, not wanting to appear too curious about it. “He didn’t say what you was charged with, just that you was given five years.”

  “A knife fight, huh?” Duncan Grago laughed and slapped his thigh. “Yeah, you could call it a knife fight. But after it was over, you could of called it a quilting bee, it took so much thread to piece him back together. I cut him everywhere but the soles of his feet . . . and that’s only cause he was wearing boots. Lucky for me he was part Mexican, or I’d be in that sweat hole the rest of my life.”

  “You mean the man lived through all that cutting?” Sep Howard asked, feeling a little queasy the way Duncan Grago seemed to relish giving him the gory details.

  “Yeah, he lived, if you call that living. Top of his head looks like an Arkansas road map.” Duncan Grago spit, then kicked his horse up into a canter, liking the feel of the evening breeze on his face. Posting high in his saddle like a kid out on an evening lark, he shot a glance back at Sep Howard and called out, “Keep up with me, ole man, you might learn a thing or two!”

  Under his breath, Sep Howard whispered, “Lord have mercy,” and he spurred his horse forward. Sep was getting tired of all the new faces showing up in Indian Territory of late. These younger outlaws seemed wilder than ever, he thought. Most of them were kill-crazy, out looking to make themselves a reputation with a gun. Many of them were bent on revenge of some sort. Sep Howard had seen them come and go. They came from the prisons, the badlands, and from hell itself, it seemed—all of them hot for spilling blood.

  He thought about the one he’d been hearing a lot about lately, the one who rode a chestnut mare and carried a crossed brace of Colts on his hips. Dan something-or-other was the kid’s name. Sep Howard had never met the young gunman, and couldn’t say he had much of a hankering to do so. But he’d heard talk, the kind of talk that got a person’s attention. Word of the young gunman had sure enough gotten Newt Grago’s attention.

  Apparently everywhere the young gunman showed up, somebody turned up dead—usually somebody close to Newt Grago. In the past year four outlaws that Sep Howard knew of had met their match. Sep wondered if his going to fetch Duncan Grago had anything to do with the fact that Newt Grago was getting a little concerned, wondering why so many men he’d ridden with were dying in their boots.

  Trying to keep up with Duncan Grago, Sep Howard ran names and faces through his mind. Bart Scovill, Snakehead Kalpana, Levi Jasper, Brice Levan. These were all bold, hardened killers. But now these men were dead. Sep thought this was a good time to watch his back real close and be ready to drop out of sight at a minute’s notice. He didn’t know if any of the others had made the connection between these men dying and the young gunman on the chestnut mare, but he sure had, and he was pretty sure Newt had too.

  Sep Howard heeled his horse harder, trying to stay by Duncan Grago’s side. This was a good time to keep his mouth shut, Sep thought. He was getting older and slowing down, unable to handle himself with these young gun slicks like the one with the crossed Colts. He’d heard enough to know that he didn’t want to find himself on some dusty street somewhere, all of a sudden having to look into those icy green eyes he’d heard so much about.

  Chapter 1

  Sheriff Matthew Connally had taken his supper at a small restaurant off the main street and a block from his office. Oil lamps had already begun to glow in windows as he strolled back along the boardwalk with his shotgun under his arm. While he still wore his Colt .45 making his evening rounds, the ten-gauge was his choice of weapons when it came to searching into darkened doorways and alleys. St. Joseph was not a wild, unruly town at present, but it had long been Sheriff Connally’s experience that the only way to keep a town peaceful was with a tight hand and a ready load of buckshot.

  In the darkness, Sheriff Connally saw the one-horse buggy pull up out front of the assessor’s office, and as he walked closer, he saw Elvin Bray’s wife, Cheryl Kay, hurry down from the buggy seat and to the door of the darkened office.

  “Elvin, are you still in there?” Cheryl Kay said, knocking on the glass pane in the door. She tried peeping around the edge of the drawn window-shade, but saw nothing in the silent blackened office. “Do you hear me, Elvin? Are you there?” She reached down to shake the doorknob but, in doing so, felt the door give away and swing open a few inches. She gasped, and stepped back.

  “What’s the problem here, Mrs. Bray?” Sheriff Connally asked, hastening up beside her.

  “Oh, Sheriff,” Cheryl Kay Bray said, looking at Connally with a hand to her cheek, “Elvin wasn’t home for supper. I got worried. I came here and . . .” Her words trailed as she nodded at the partly opened door.

  “I see,” Sheriff Connally said, already on the alert, guiding her to one side of the doorway. “You wait out here, ma’am.” He slowly opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside. Cheryl Kay Bray waited in breathless anticipation. In a moment, she leaned slightly around into the open doorway and spoke.

  “Is everything all right, Sheriff?” She started to step into the dark office, but when Sheriff Connally heard the floor creak beneath her shoes, he spoke to her from within the darkness.

  “Don’t come in here, ma’am. Something terrible has happened.�
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  Within minutes, word had spread up and down the street. The assessor’s office was soon brightly lit by lamps and lanterns, and a couple of young women from the nearest saloon stood comforting Cheryl Kay Bray out front on the boardwalk until the minister arrived. Bystanders milled in the street.

  A town councilman by the name of Carl Hundly, who had been playing poker at the saloon, now stood in the center of the floor of Elvin Bray’s office with his bowler hat in his hand. He rocked up onto his toes and craned a look over the counter to where Sheriff Connally and Doc Soble rolled Elvin Bray’s cold body onto a gurney. Councilman Hundly winced at the sight, shook his head, and spoke to Connally.

  “Sheriff, I hope you’re prepared to act swiftly on this. Hattie McNear said she saw the Strange twins leaving here right about closing time. Said one of them was twirling a length of cord around his finger.”

  “Which one?” Sheriff Connally asked, riffling through the receipt pamphlet and seeing where Tim Strange had signed his name.

  “Which one?” Councilman Hundley blustered. “How the hell could she tell which one? They’re identical!”

  “Oh,” Sheriff Connally said, purposely busying himself with the receipts. He’d only asked the question to slow Hundley down, not wanting to let the councilman step in and try to call the shots. “Do me a favor, Councilman,” he said, without raising his eyes to Hundley. “Send one of those saloon girls for some coffee. I’d ask them myself but you seem to know them so much better.”

  “What?” Hundley fumed. “How dare you imply such a thing!”

  But Sheriff Connally had already moved around the counter and past him to the door. He looked out into the gathering of people and called Hattie McNear into the office. As Hattie scurried forward, Sheriff Connally said under his breath to one of the saloon girls, “Will you fetch us a pot of coffee, Wanda Lee? We’re going to be a while.” He also pointed a finger at two men and motioned them inside to carry Elvin Bray’s body to the mortician’s.