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the dark of shadows and dust. They could not bear the light.

Chapter Six
    S INCE HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER with Captain Jesse McQueen aboard the Westward Belle, Enos Clem’s life and fortune had gone to hell in a hand basket. Nothing had turned out right. Lady luck had not only abandoned him, she’d thrown him to the wolves. Unable to win honestly, he’d palmed a couple of face cards in hopes of salvaging a disastrous run of bad fortune at the gaming tables and had been caught with a pair of kings up his coat sleeve. The reaction of the men at the poker game came swift and brutal. He’d tried to elude their grasp, and had lunged from the table and scrambled toward the rear of the Stern Wheeler Saloon only to find his escape route blocked by a crowd of swarthy rivermen anxious to mete out punishment to a card thief. Trickery was something no man could abide.
    It was fast approaching eleven o’clock, and this warm summer’s night was about to become even hotter if Clem’s drunken captors had any say in the matter.
    More than a dozen of the Stern Wheeler’s patrons had formed a circle around the gambler and carried him out of the saloon and down River Street, past other gambling houses, emporiums, and bordellos, attracting revelers from along the boardwalk, men with too much drink and not enough money and looking for something—anything—to take their minds off the hard work of living.
    Marched for three blocks, struggling in vain against his captors, Enos Clem was borne away from the glare of the lantern lights to an empty corral where a bucket of black pitch tar was quickly produced from a lean-to shed. A rum-soaked harlot in a sweat-stained scarlet silk dress fought her way through the throng. She carried a feather pillow overhead for all to see and the men cheered her arrival. Now and then a hand groped for her ample bosom. The woman, Penelope by name, didn’t seem to mind.
    “Now wait!” Enos Clem pleaded to the faces surrounding him. Boston seemed a lifetime away. He drew himself up, his innate sense of superiority giving him the strength to defy his tormentors. “See here. I won’t stand for this.”
    “O’course you won’t, ya bone-headed fool.” One of the mob’s leaders, a muleskinner named Poke Howard, stepped forward. “You’ll be ridin’ a rail!” Crude laughter sprang up from the rough-looking crowd.
    Enos gazed disdainfully across the lot of them, soldiers, freight haulers, trappers, rivermen, and the whores in their warpaint and silks. He hated them all, but none more than the one who soured his luck and brought him to this cruel pass. Enos pictured the dark-haired captain who had faced him down and humiliated him. The faces in the torchlight paled, a mere blur compared to the image in his mind.
    The stench of tar filled the air and a few feathers fluttered past like snowflakes in the warm humid night as Enos was lifted up and over a twelve-foot-long oaken rail. Straddling the timber, he continued to lash out at his tormentors, all to no avail. Poke Howard, the harsh-voiced, heavyset muleskinner, caught the gambler’s wrists and another man quickly bound Enos’s hands. The bucket was passed from man to man until it reached Poke, who made a show of churning the tar with a short heavy paddle. Another cheer rose up when he hoisted the bucket and pillowcase above his head for the crowd to see.
    A couple of shots rang out and bullets cut the handle loose. The bucket fell and dumped tar on the muleskinner. A third shot split open the pillow and gave Poke a faceful of feathers. The mob turned toward the gunman.
    Hud Pardee, astride a blaze-faced bay gelding, led a second horse through the crowd. Poke struggled to clear his vision and cursed his unseen assailant. His fists lashed out at the men around him, striking at friend and foe alike until Hud rode up alongside the muleskinner and rapped him on the skull with the barrel of his Colt revolver. The tar-covered man dropped to the ground. A few men