Shadow of the Hangman Read Online Free Page B

him. She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him, and then stepped back, studying his face. “You look tired, Samuel,” she said.
    Samuel gave her a weak smile. “It’s been a long day, Lorena.” He looked over her shoulder. “Pa, are you spoiling my son again?”
    Shamus O’Brien sat in his wheelchair, the white bundle that was his grandson in his arms. “Young Shamus is too young to know I spoil him,” the colonel said.
    Lorena smiled. “He’ll know soon enough, and then watch out. First the pony, then the twenty-two rifle, and then—”
    â€œAnd then whatever he wants,” Shamus said. He lifted his eyes to Samuel. “Son, you’ve been through it.”
    â€œI reckon.”
    â€œMaybe you better tell us about it.”
    Lorena’s pretty face was suddenly concerned. “Samuel, it’s not about Patrick, is it?”
    Samuel nodded. “Patrick’s just fine, but yes, in a way it’s about Patrick, about all of us.”
    He poured himself a drink, sat by the fire, and accepted a cigar from his father.
    â€œTell us what happened, Samuel,” the colonel said. “From the beginning.”
    Using as few words as possible, Samuel recounted his visit with Patrick and then his conversation with Lucas Dunkley. By the time he’d ended his account of the bushwhacking and his meeting with Mrs. Harris, his cigar was half smoked and his whiskey glass was drained.
    In the silence that followed, Lorena noticed her husband’s knee. “Samuel,” she said, “you’ve been wounded.”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” Samuel said. “I got burned by a bullet, is all.”
    But Lorena wouldn’t let it go. She fussed her way out of the study and returned with a basin of warm water, washcloths and bandages, and some brown stuff in a bottle that Samuel knew from bitter experience stung like hell.
    Shawn, looking worried, followed Lorena into the room. “Damn it, Sam, how did you get shot?” he said.
    â€œHardly shot,” Samuel said. “I got burned.”
    Shawn grabbed a chair and sat beside his brother. “How did it happen?” He glanced at the knee that Lorena now exposed when she rolled up Samuel’s pants leg. “That looks ugly,” Shawn said. “Some ranny beat you on the draw-and-shoot?”
    â€œI’ll tell this story one more time, then I’m done,” Samuel said, wincing as Lorena liberally applied the stinging stuff.
    He gave Shawn the same account as he had his father, dwelling longer on Dunkley and his suspicions. Then he said, “And that’s all I’ve got to say.”
    The study door swung open and Luther Ironside, Dromore’s segundo, thudded into the room, his spurs chiming. “Sam,” he said, “tell me how the hell did you get yourself all shot to pieces?”
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    â€œWhat do you reckon, Luther?” Shamus O’Brien said.
    Taking his time, Ironside lifted the baby off Shamus’s knee, kissed the little one on the cheek, and handed him back to Lorena.
    â€œColonel, I say we do as Sam said and get a couple of men into Georgetown to look out fer that lawyer feller,” he said finally.
    â€œShawn?”
    â€œMakes sense to me, Colonel. Whoever wanted Samuel dead is sure as hell targeting Lucas Dunkley.”
    â€œLucas says he’s taken to carrying a revolver,” Samuel said. “He knows he’s a target.”
    Shamus lit a cigar and studied Ironside through a blue haze of smoke.
    Luther had served under him in the late war as a top sergeant and later had helped found Dromore. He’d fought Apaches, rustlers, and bandits up from the Mexico border, and had been wounded in the Estancia Valley War. He was long past the first bloom of middle age, but there was steel in him and his bottom. He was fast on the draw-and-shoot and he’d killed men, but he’d never sought a gunman’s