The shadow man, p.23
The Shadow Man, page 23
Jacob realized the Comanche spoke the truth. Some men should be shot like the savage beasts they were. “You did the right thing by shooting him,” Jacob told Millicent.
She smiled, a tentative, fragile curve of her mouth. She brushed at the blood on her lips. “I’ll go tell all the others.” She backed from the room and was gone.
Jacob went to the open safe and raked the contents out on the floor. There was a pouch of gold coins and a packet of paper money. He kicked them aside and scanned the various written documents. His anger boiled anew when he read the false mortgages that had been drawn up against the ranchos on the Rio Pecos.
He took the sheaf of papers to the hearth of the fireplace. Lifting the glass globe from one of the lamps, he lit the papers and watched the black ashes form and curl and then break into fragments as they cooled.
High Walking spoke to Jacob. “Now, my friend, the battle is finished. My enemies are all dead. It is time for me to go and meet with my three good wives and all my children.” He turned the long blade of his knife to his stomach and angled it to point upward at his heart beneath the ribs.
“Don’t do it,” cried Jacob. “There are other women. You can make more children.”
“I have lost my family three times. I believe the same thing would happen should I try again. That would make me a crazed man. It is better that I go where I know they wait for me. There we all will be safe.
“But you are a brave man, Jacob. You must go and try again. I have a feeling you will succeed and die with your wife and children around you.”
High Walking pulled mightily on the knife, driving it inward and upward. The powerful muscles of his body quivered at the horrible injury. For a moment he stood erect. His eyes were locked on Jacob, but his sight was turned inward.
High Walking began to smile. “I was right,” he whispered. “They are there waiting.” His smile broadened to encompass his entire face.
The Comanche warrior fell upon the thick carpet of Caverhill’s library.
Jacob’s heart anguished at the death of High Walking. But he could help the brave Comanche make a proper journey into the next world. Jacob would burn Caverhill’s mansion, that would make a fitting funeral pyre for a friend.
He grabbed one of the lamps and hurled it against a wall, where it broke, splashing oil in every direction. The burning wick ignited the oil and spread outward in a yellow wave of flame. Jacob threw the second lamp into the opposite wall and watched the flames take fiery possession. Jacob took the gold and paper currency and went out to the yard. A group of blacks had gathered in front of the entrance. They shouted out in happy voices to him.
Jacob called the woman Millicent to him and handed her the gold and paper money. “Divide this among you.”
“Thank you very much, but it will do us no good. It will be taken from us by the first white man we meet because we are slaves.”
“Bring me paper, pen, and ink and I’ll write you freedom papers.”
With a joyous laugh, Millicent dashed into the dark end of the house and returned with the requested items. Jacob found a seat. In the flickering flames of the burning mansion he wrote, one by one as the people spoke their names, the declaration of release and freedom for each slave. He signed the documents with his name, and for his place of residence he stated Rancho el Vado, Rio Pecos Valley.
Jacob finished his task and rose. He would return to Rancho el Vado. Perhaps High Walking could see things that other men could not.
September 3, 1846, Colorado River Valley, Texas
The crashing volley of rifle fire exploded in the murky darkness of the morning twilight. A ragged popping of pistols followed. The pistol fire swelled to a crescendo of shots that rapidly blended one into another until they could not be counted.
Jacob sprang from his blanket and stared to the west. He judged that the battle was a mile or so distant. He knew what was happening as if he were there.
Gunfire so early in the morning meant that an attack had been sprung upon a night camp. An enemy had crept close in the darkness and at first light had fired rifles into sleeping men. The defenders not killed by the first volley had replied with their handguns. But only a weak defense had been mounted.
The attacking force, their rifles empty, had replied with many pistols. Even as Jacob drew his conclusions, the firing ceased and the silence of the morning came rushing back.
Jacob hastily rolled his blanket. He tossed the saddle upon his horse and hurried toward the battleground.
He was six days and three hundred miles west of Senator Caverhill’s burned mansion and High Walking’s burial place. He’d been expecting to encounter one or more of the stolen bands of sheep at any time. Someone had beaten him to them.
Jacob slowed as he drew close to the place from which the gunfire had come. He rode the swales and stayed below the low ridge tops. Soon the baaing of many sheep reached him. Buried in the surf of sound were the whistles and calls of men. He walked his mount to a rise of ground and looked ahead into the breaking day.
In the half-light the plains were alive, moving, undulating as thousands of sheep moved to the west toward New Mexico. A score of Mexican vaqueros were pushing and prodding the animals, snapping laggards into faster movement with their quirts. Jacob had expected to see Americans. Mexicans had followed and taken back their sheep.
On a nearby point of land a man shouted a shrill warning and fired his pistol in the air. A rear guard had been posted by the Mexicans.
Immediately the five nearest vaqueros spun their horses and raced toward the lookout. He sped down to join them. In less than a minute the Mexicans were lined up in a shield to protect those men still driving the sheep.
A slender figure on a tall horse circled the north edge of the flock of sheep at a reckless run. The rider slid his mount to a fast stop beside the formation of vaqueros. He spoke to the men, and they pulled their rifles from scabbards and rode forward, ready for another battle.
The slender rider stood up in his stirrups and peered intently ahead at the new arrival. Then the rider cried out, “Jacob,” in a clear, ringing voice.
Petra spurred hard, and the horse leapt forward. She jabbed him hard again, and the steed seemed to fly over the ground.
Jacob’s heart did a drum tattoo high on his ribs. Never could he forget Petra’s beautiful voice. He slapped the neck of his mount with the flat of his hand and ran down to meet her.
Petra swept up to Jacob. A wonderful smile wreathed her face. She began to laugh happily.
Jacob felt his own happiness surging, and he laughed with Petra. God! What a woman. He reached out and lifted her from the saddle and enclosed her in his arms. He pressed Petra tightly against him.
Jacob’s world was once again complete.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
James Kirker is recorded in history as a scalp hunter.
Greg, author of Commerce of the Prairies, has this to say about the Mexican bounty on Indian scalps: “This traffic was not only tolerated but openly encouraged by the civil authorities, as the highest functionaries were interested in its success—the governor himself not excepted.”
In 1840, the governor of Chihuahua engaged the services of one hundred American trappers, freighters, teamsters, hunters, and Shawnee and Delaware Indians who happened to be in the state at the time. Led by a soldier of fortune named James Kirker, the band rode out to “go barberin’,” as they called it. They brought in so many scalps that the governor refused to pay the full bounty.
This nonpayment for scalps seems strange, since it would appear that the greater the number of Indians killed, the more satisfied the governor would be. Kendall, in his Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, may have explained the reluctance of the governor of Chihuahua to pay Kirker for all the scalps he presented.
Kendall says, “... a well known American, named Kirker, had been engaged in the business of scalp hunting, and with a party of his countrymen had been very successful, but it was soon suspected that he was in the practice of bringing in counterfeit scalps—or in other words, that he did not scruple to kill any of the lower order of Mexicans he might meet with where there was slight chance of being discovered, and pass off their topknots for those of true Apaches.”
James Kirker’s death is not recorded in history.
The Shadow Man
Copyright © F. M. Parker, 1988 and 2011
F. M. Parker has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
This digital edition published in 2011 by Fearl M. Parker
ISBN 978-1-908400-79-6
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
eBook Conversion by www.ebookpartnership.com
F. M. Parker, The Shadow Man
