The Shadow Man (28 page)

The sun climbed to its zenith and the heat became fearful. To lessen the loads on their mounts, the riders dismounted and ran beside the tired beasts.

The river valley widened to nearly half a mile. On the deep, rich soil of the bottomland there were meadows interspersed among the trees. The wild grass was dense and reached to the stirrups of the saddles. A score of reddish-brown cattle jerked their heads up from the grass and stampeded off a quarter of a mile, then turned to watch the men and horses race by. They passed a small flock of sheep. Not one rider was seen.

The hot sun went off to the west and long shadows gathered in the low swales and in the woods. The men's breathing grew labored and once again they climbed astride the horses.

The woods thinned, and a large house, painted bright white, came into view on the far side of the narrow river. Several men were leaving the fields near the river and climbing the slope toward some cabins that were half hidden in the trees to the right of the house.

Jacob and High Walking halted at the fringe of the forest and studied the terrain and the men.

“Negroes, most likely slaves,” Jacob said.

“That means nothing to us,” replied High Walking. He pointed ahead. “The horse tracks we have followed go down to the crossing.”

Jacob ran his eyes over the ford. It was less than a hundred feet across, and the gravely bottom was visible through the shallow water. He could see where the tracks went up the far bank.

“They go straight up to the house. This is the destination of the bandits.” He twisted to look at the Comanche.

The Indian's eyes caught rays of the lowering sun and shined like lights in a skull. He laughed a weird and hollow laugh. “The scalp hunters are in the house. I feel it. Let us go find them.”

“It'd be better if we waited for dark. That won't be long.” Jacob stepped to the ground and squatted with his back resting against the bole of a tree.

High Walking also dismounted. He began to examine the sharp flint tips of his arrows and to sight down the wooden shafts and then bend and straighten them for perfect flight. He often stared off across the slow-moving river at the house.

The river glowed dull silver in the last of the sunlight. The sheen vanished as a wind came along the valley and started to write a mysterious script in swiftly changing patterns on the surface of the water.

The heads of the horses lifted, their nostrils sucked at the air, and their ears thrust forward, listening. A gray hound came in sight at the edge of the trees near the river and lapped at the water. Getting his fill, the dog ambled back into the trees. The horses relaxed and began to crop the grass at their feet.

The men waited through the time between sundown and star shine. Frogs began to croak in the shoaled, green-scummed water below them. A pair of nighthawks lifted up from their daytime roost in the broken snag of a dead walnut tree. They began to dive crazily and cry out in a whimpering tone, and then suddenly they would call shrilly and raucously into the darkening sky. The birds gradually drifted downriver, where a second pair joined them in their queer acrobatics and unearthly screeching.

High Walking stood up. “I go now. Do you come with me?”

“Yes. Let's leave the horses here.”

“You are right. We will make less noise without the cayuses.”

The two men moved to the ford. Their feet went into the water like an animal's, sure and quiet. They crossed to the far side and walked quickly into the edge of the woods. They stopped and let their senses expand, searching to detect other men prowling about or standing silently on guard duty.

A man's voice called out in a conversational tone at the cabins. Someone answered. No sound came from the big house.

“They must feel themselves safe. I don't think they have guards posted,” said Jacob.

“They are very foolish. We are here,” responded High Walking. He raised his bow, and his face twisted into a grim, wolfish smile.

In the murky light among the trees, the gray hound growled low in his chest. The scent of the two men was unknown to him. The strange intruders creeping toward his master's house in the night must be driven away. The dog made a short rush from his hiding place and sprang directly at the smaller man.

High Walking acted instantaneously, dropping his bow and lunging to meet the leaping dog. He reached out to catch the growling beast in midair. One hand grasped the pointed snout and shut off a bark. The other hand caught a front leg. Without hesitation High Walking spun, adding his strength to the momentum of the dog's body. He curved the trajectory of the dog and, with dreadful force, swung the beast into the trunk of a tree with a drum-like thump. Bones broke. The body of the dog went limp. The Indian slung the dead creature away from him.

“Now all shall remain quiet,” High Walking said. He led off without a sound among the trees toward the big house.

****

At the big writing table, the master forger Glen Sansen was weary from the long, arduous journey across the Texas plains. Still, he was confident of his skill and satisfied with the finely formed words of script that flowed from under his quill pen.

Sansen had arrived with Kirker, Flaccus, and Connard at Caverhill's home a few hours before. Caverhill had immediately led them to the library and directed Sansen to prepare several legal-looking documents.

Sansen was nearly finished, but the light was failing. He stopped writing and lit two oil lamps, placing one to the left and the other to the right on his desk so there'd be no shadows on the paper to impair his writing. As he reseated himself, he glanced briefly at the four men talking earnestly on the opposite side of the room. He dipped his quill and began to write again.

Sansen had expected Caverhill would want false deeds prepared for the ranchos on the Rio Pecos. Instead, the documents were mortgages stating that large sums of money had been borrowed from Caverhill by the owners of the ranchos, and the land put up as collateral. Now Sansen knew all the details of the scheme. With New Mexico conquered by the Americans, Caverhill could make his claim for payment. There'd be no one alive to contest the honesty of the mortgages. A damn fine plan.

The quill pen moved swiftly. Sansen wanted to be finished and gone from Caverhill's presence. The man was dangerous, and Sansen was afraid of him.

The forger copied the exact words Caverhill had given him. Since the transactions were supposed to have taken place in New Mexico, the documents were in Spanish words so that they would appear official and legitimate. False dates were affixed, so that it seemed as if the agreements had been made the year before.

Caverhill had told Sansen the names of the landowners on the Rio Pecos, and now the forger researched until he found examples of their signatures on the various papers he had brought from the haciendas. He practiced the handwriting of each a few times, and then, with a flourish, applied precise copies of the signatures to the documents.

* * *

Caverhill listened to Kirker describe the attacks on the ranchos along the Rio Pecos. He didn't like the fact that only a small number of fighting men had defended the haciendas. Perhaps it was as Kirker said, that all the menfolk had been killed in the fight that had occurred on the road leading to Santa Fe. It was logical that they had assembled to ride and join with Armijo's defense of the capital city. Still, he doubted that the raid had been completely successful and that all the people of the ranchos were dead.

Caverhill had anticipated only a partial success and had designed a plan to serve in that event. He'd soon travel to Santa Fe and investigate the situation for himself. With the Americans in control of the country, he could easily find out if any of the owners of the ranchos had survived. He would lodge a claim only against the land that was truly abandoned.

Sansen finished his preparation of the mortgage documents and closely proofread them. He was proud of his handiwork. Nobody would ever be able to detect that they were false. Now he'd collect his pay from Caverhill and leave quickly for Austin.

“I'm through, Senator Caverhill,” Sansen said.

“Very good, Glen,” replied Caverhill. He rose and, taking the sheets of paper from the forger, seated himself near the lamps. Meticulously Caverhill evaluated every detail of the documents. At last he looked up.

“Well done, Glen. Well done. They are perfect.”

Sansen smiled, pleased at the man's praise. “You have a smart plan with these papers. The American army will help you take possession of the Pecos land.”

“You are a talkative fellow,” said Caverhill. He frowned, then grinned at Sansen. “I suppose you're ready to go to Austin. Or will you be traveling to Houston?”

“To Austin at first,” replied Sansen.

“And there you will get drunk and catch up on all the dry days you've had on the trail to New Mexico.”

“I do have some drinking to do,” agreed Sansen.

“In a day or maybe two, you'll be telling stories in your drunken stupor of how you forged some papers for Senator Caverhill.”

The smile left Sansen's face. He sensed the threat in the big man.

“I'd never do that, senator,” Sansen said quickly.

“I agree. You'll never tell what has happened in these last days of your life. Flaccus, Connard, take this gifted forger down to the river and help him drink a barrel of water. Then bury him deep. Get a shovel from the tool shed.”

Sansen stood petrified at the sudden pronouncement of his death. Then he let out a frightened curse and bolted for the door.

The long-legged Kirker caught Sansen halfway across the library. He jerked the smaller man to a halt. “Come and take him,” Kirker said to Flaccus and Connard.

Flaccus and Connard marched Sansen to the tool shed. There Flaccus lit a lantern and he and Connard dragged Sansen down the sloping yard to the river.

“Let me go,” pleaded Sansen, his feet anchored and pushing back from the water's edge. “I'll leave Texas and go to Philadelphia or New York. You'll never see me again. Caverhill won't know.”

“We can't do that, Glen, ol' boy,” Flaccus said, setting the lantern down on the bank near the water's edge. “Caverhill would find out, and he'd plant us in your place. You've got to drink the river dry, just as he said.”

Sansen let out a scream and tried to jerk away. The two men dragged him kicking into the river.

“Down he goes,” said Flaccus.

The man slammed Sansen face first into the water. Connard placed a knee in the center of the man's back, plowing his face into the mud of the river bottom.

“How long does it take for a man to drown?” Connard asked, adding more weight onto the kicking, struggling Sansen.

“I don't know. Two or three minutes,” replied Flaccus.

* * *

High Walking and Jacob went into the river as silently as water snakes. They crept up behind the two men holding a third man under the water. The victim no longer struggled, the water over his body quiet and placid.

Jacob gripped his long knife and stepped forward and drove it savagely into Flaccus's back. Beside him, High Walking thrust twice with his sharp blade into Connard. Both men collapsed into the water.

“Shove the bodies out into the deep water,” said Jacob. He lifted Sansen up from the river and shook him like a large, limp doll. Then, splashing in long strides, Jacob rushed with the body to the bank.

He laid the man on his stomach, stepped astride him, and, grabbing his belt, hoisted him nearly a yard off the ground. Water and mud gushed from the man's lungs. Jacob dropped the body, only to jerk it up forcefully and hold it high while muddy liquid drained out the open mouth.

Jacob worked for several minutes, trying to bring life back into the body he had dragged from the river. Finally he backed away from the sodden figure. “It's no use,” he said to High Walking.

“He's dead?”

“The mud killed him. He sucked too much of it into his lungs. He'll never tell us anything about the bandits and the people at the house.”

“We wasted our time trying to save him,” said High Walking. His eyes swiveled and locked on something past Jacob. He grew as taut as his bowstring at full draw.

Jacob pivoted to look in the same direction. A light-skinned Negro woman stood in the far, weak fringe of the lantern light. She seemed frozen on the tips of her toes, ready for flight.

* * *

Millicent remained alert, poised to run, studying the heathen Indian and gray-bearded white man. They were fierce-looking men, made into ghostlike creatures by the rays of lantern light flickering upon their faces.

She had been stealthily eavesdropping on Caverhill and his cohorts ever since the horsemen had ridden in. When Caverhill had ordered Sansen's death and the two men had hustled the forger from the house, Millicent followed. Anyone who was Caverhill's enemy might be of help to her. But Sansen had died, and now, watching the two strange apparitions before her, men who killed so quickly and showed no remorse, Millicent thought she may have made a mistake in showing herself.

Then her resolve to destroy the terrible Senator Caverhill flared up hotly, and her bravery returned. “I can tell you about the bandits,” Millicent said to the men.

“Speak, woman,” Jacob said. “Tell us all you know.”

“Only if you promise to kill the senator.”

“Senator? What do you mean? Don't waste our time. The Indian will surely kill you. Talk fast. Who is at the house?”

Millicent took a quick breath. “Senator Caverhill and a man he calls Kirker. They are both horrible men. The senator makes the plans and has the money to pay Kirker for carrying them out. I've been listening and know that Kirker has just come back from a place called Rio Pecos. He killed all the people, and now his men are bringing to Texas the sheep those people once owned.

“The senator will be very rich with all the sheep. More than that, this man”—Millicent pointed at the corpse of Sansen—”is what they call a forger. He writes things on paper that will give the ranchos on the Rio Pecos to the senator. He says the American army will help the senator take possession of those lands.”