Shadow of the Hangman Read Online Free

up.”
    â€œAh, a little joke,” the man said, his thin face empty. “Those in my profession do appreciate them so.”
    â€œGet him ready,” Samuel said. “I’ll swing by your place and pick up the horse.”
    The undertaker gave another little bow and led away the mustang with its swaying burden.
    After Light was gone, Moore said, “Sam, you really going to talk to the widder woman?”
    â€œYeah, I reckon.”
    â€œShe won’t thank you for it, you being the one who did the killing an’ all.”
    â€œMaybe so, but I can’t kill a man, then walk away from it like he never existed.”
    â€œA lot of men don’t think that way, Sam.”
    â€œThen their way isn’t my way.”
    The sheriff hesitated, about to say something that didn’t set easy with him. Finally he said, “I have to make a report on the death of Arch Harris, Sam. It’s a formality, you understand, but the Vigilance Committee will probably want to talk with you.”
    Samuel smiled. “They going to lock me up, John?”
    â€œHell, no,” Moore said. “Two O’Brien brothers in the same jail are more than this town can handle.”
    A wind had picked up, blowing fair off the Santa Fe Mountains, and across the way the batwings of the Sideboard Saloon rattled like a snare drum. Somewhere a screen door banged open and shut, and a dog barked, then fell silent.
    Moore looked at Samuel for a long time, studying the younger man. He looked as though he wanted to say something but first had to get the words straight in his mind. Finally he said, “See this hand I’m holding up?”
    Samuel smiled. “Yeah, it’s your gun hand; looks like a bear paw.”
    â€œSee the palm right here?” Moore scraped his fingernails back and forth across the hard skin. “It’s been itching like hell since Molly Holmes was murdered. Know what that means, Sam?”
    â€œYou’re going to shoot somebody, maybe?”
    â€œNo, it means hard times are comin’ down, Sam. Killin’ times.”
    â€œI already worked that out for my own self, John.”
    â€œYou be careful, Sam,” Moore said. “Somebody wants you dead real bad, and next time they won’t send an amateur.”
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    The Harris shack, a sagging frame-and-tarpaper structure no bigger than a hatbox, lay on the bank of a dry wash a mile to the east of Apache Canyon. A few cottonwoods and piñon grew close to the cabin, suggesting the wash had an underground stream, and stands of cholla dotted the dusty landscape. Farther east, rugged mountain peaks stood like silent sentinels against the sky.
    It was a pleasant enough spot, Samuel O’Brien decided, but the shack itself was a mean, miserable place, sadly neglected, its only sign of prosperity the few scrawny chickens that scratched in the dirt around the front door.
    As good manners dictated, Samuel sat his horse and called out, “Hello, the cabin.”
    The door opened almost immediately, and a thin, careworn woman stepped outside. Her eyes went to Samuel, then to the mustang he led. Before her visitor could speak, the woman said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
    â€œYes, ma’am, he is,” Samuel said.
    The woman showed no surprise, no grief, only a numb acceptance of a day she’d known would inevitably come. “How did it happen?” she said.
    Samuel shifted his weight in the saddle, dry-mouthed and uneasy.
    The woman saw his discomfort and said, “I see.”
    Samuel finally found his tongue. “I believe someone hired your husband to kill me,” he said. “He bushwhacked me south of Georgetown and—” He stopped, hunting for the right words.
    â€œAnd you defended yourself,” the woman said.
    Samuel nodded. “That’s how it stacks up, ma’am. He left me with no choice.” He held up the mustang’s reins. “I brought