Shadow of the Hangman by J. A. Johnstone Read Free Book Online

automaton, Linton opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out. Jacob rushed past him into the room . . . and entered a charnel house.
    Amy had been cut from crotch to breastbone, “gutted like a trout,” as Tom Linton would describe it later. She lay spread-eagled on the bed, the sheets she’d fisted in her final agony scarlet with blood. The girl had cried out only once, so it had been quick, Jacob thought. Mighty quick and cruel.
    He looked around, but there was no sign of the knife. The killer had taken it with him.
    Lou Rose pushed past Jacob, then stopped in his tracks. “Oh, my God,” he said. The man swayed and Jacob supported him. “Amy . . . what . . . I mean . . . why . . .”
    â€œShe fell off the edge of the earth,” Jacob said.
    He took a blanket from the bottom of the girl’s iron cot and spread it over the body. “I’ll come back and help you bury her,” he said to Rose.
    The man nodded dumbly, but then said, “Where are you going?”
    â€œAfter the man with the white eyes.”
    â€œHe did it?”
    â€œWho else?”
    â€œI thought he looked like a strange one,” Rose said. “I told him to talk to Amy. I mean, I’m the one to blame, I should’ve—”
    â€œYou’re not to blame, Lou,” Jacob said. “The man who murdered Amy is to blame. No one else.”
    He stepped out the door, only to be stopped by Linton. “Where you headed, young feller?” he said.
    â€œI’m going after him,” Jacob said.
    â€œAnd I’ll jine ye,” Linton said. He read hesitation in the younger man’s eyes and said, “I was an army scout for nigh on thirty years, an’ I can track like an Apache.” He slapped his guns. “And I don’t miss too much with these.”
    Jacob nodded. “Mount up, Tom.”
    â€œHere, what’s your name? You never did give it.”
    â€œJacob.”
    â€œMind if I call you Jake?”
    â€œA lot of people do.”
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    The dugout had been blown out of a rock face in one of the Manzano Peak foothills, a mile west of Priest Canyon. It perched on a wide, sandy ledge that sloped gently on its north side into a series of rolling grass meadows cut through by stands of juniper, piñon, and mesquite, miles of rugged country, little traveled. But Tom Linton read the tracks and said the white-eyed man was headed in that direction.
    Linton stood by his horse’s head in the wind-flung darkness and looked up at Jacob. “And the feller ain’t just running,” he said. “I reckon he knows right where he’s headed.”
    â€œHow do you figure that?” Jacob said.
    â€œHe knows this neck of the woods well enough to cover country pretty fast, and he’s keeping low, being mighty careful not to skyline himself.” Linton spat. “Damn him, Jake, if he heads into the mountains we could lose him.”
    â€œDo you reckon he figures we’re after him?” Jacob said.
    â€œI don’t know. He might.”
    â€œThen mount up. We’ll press him close and hope he makes a mistake.”
    Linton climbed into the saddle, and the two riders headed due north. Ahead of them lay wild country cut through by deep arroyos, high peaks, and the ruins of ancient pueblos laid waste by Apaches. It wasn’t a long-riding land in daylight, and darkness slowed Jacob and Linton to a walk as they allowed their horses to pick the trails.
    After an hour Jacob’s eyes tired from the strain of constantly searching the tunnel of darkness ahead of him. The wind drowned any noise the white-eyed man might make, and to make matters worse, clouds constantly scudded across the face of the moon and turned the night even darker.
    Samuel’s wire resided uneasily in the pocket of Jacob’s shirt, and its brief content, COME QUICK BIG TROUBLE, gave him a world of worry. If the colonel and Samuel needed him at Dromore