Shadow of the Hangman Read Online Free PDF

his head and sobbing, like.”
    â€œBring Anders to me. Now!”
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    The man called Anders stepped into the room, hollow-eyed, his hat in his hands.
    â€œTell me,” the man in the bed said.
    â€œIt’s bad, boss.”
    â€œDamn you, tell me.”
    â€œNear as I can put it together . . .” the man stopped, his words balling in his throat.
    â€œTell me.” A hoarse whisper from the darkness.
    â€œNear as I can tell . . . he stripped the woman naked, then done her good. After he was finished, he killed her and the two kids.” The man called Anders hesitated, then said, “That’s as near as I can tell.”
    â€œDid he . . . did he use a poker like he did the last time?”
    â€œRunning iron.”
    â€œOh, my God . . .”
    â€œYou have to kill him, Cap’n,” Anders said. “Shade is an evil thing that ain’t fit to live.”
    â€œHe’s my son.”
    â€œHe’ll ruin all our plans for the ranch, Cap’n.”
    â€œNo, he won’t. By God, I’ll keep him chained for the rest of his life if I have to.”
    â€œHe’s tied up already, Cap’n. Me and Clem got him roped hand and foot in the barn.” A sudden edge to his voice betrayed Anders’s agitation. “Cap’n, when the Georgetown vigilantes discover what happened, they’ll figger out pretty damned quick that they’re fixin’ to hang the wrong man.”
    â€œThey won’t discover it, at least not the way you found it.”
    The unsteady breathing of the man in the bed was loud in the quiet. Then he said, “Go back to the shack and set it on fire. I want those bodies burned unrecognizable. As far as the vigilantes are concerned, the woman set the place ablaze by accident and she and her kids burned to death.”
    Anders pleaded. “This don’t set right with me, Cap’n, I mean Pat O’Brien gettin’ hung for something he didn’t do. Let me kill Shade for you, real easy like.”
    â€œNo! Damn you, no! He’s my son. Now go and do what I told you.”
    â€œLike I said, Cap’n, he may be your son, but he ain’t fit to live,” Anders said.
    â€œI know that,” the man in the bed said. “God help me, don’t you think I know that?”
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    After Anders left, the man in the bed spent thirty minutes in tormented thought. Finally, his face stricken, he rose and slipped on a robe. He opened the drawer of the bedside table and removed a short-barreled Colt. He checked the loads, then slid the revolver into his pocket. A tall, graying man with the erect bearing of a former naval officer, Captain Miles Shannon grabbed a pair of crutches that stood by the door and used them to limp into the hallway.
    The house was dark, and it took the tall man several slow minutes to hobble his way to the front of the house and step outside.
    A haloed moon rode high above Apache Mesa a mile to the north, and around Shannon the wind rustled among cedar and piñon and rippled the blue grama grass. His experienced eye ranged over a couple of yearling steers drinking at the creek, and it pleased him to see that they’d recovered from the hard winter and put on beef.
    Ice and blizzards had killed two-thirds of his herd and pushed him to the wall. Only an interest-free loan from Shamus O’Brien had stood between him and ruin....
    He supported himself on his crutches and turned his face to the star-strewn sky, sudden tears in his eyes, his conscience twisting inside him like a knife. He would repay Shamus’s kindness with betrayal and treachery, and a fine young man would die to save the unspeakable monster he himself had created.
    â€œMy son . . .” he whispered, a man in mortal agony . . . “oh, my son . . .”
    Shannon’s hand slipped into the pocket of his robe and closed on the Colt.
    A woman and her two children dead to satisfy Shade’s perverted