a word as they walked. Ty fell in behind. Halfway down the cliff, he heard the spring bubbling out of a hole in the limestone. That spring’s probably one reason Shine had such good moonshine, he thought. Though he wasn’t given much to drink, Ty did occasionally take a sip and knew good whiskey from poor stillings.
At the end of the trail, Ty could see where the spring gushed from a crack into a small man-made pool. Another fifty feet downstream was Shine’s still. A well-traveled pathway led into a clump of sumac that partially hid a natural cave in the side of the bluff. A copper pot sat on a flat rock inside the shallow cave, but the still was not what caught Ty’s attention. Just inside the cave, three Comanche braves were sprawled on a rock. All three were dead, shot in the head.
“You kill them?”
“Not me.” Dade shrugged his shoulders. Looking around, he said, “Let’s move over in them trees. I’ll tell you all I know.”
Ty stopped and dipped water from the spring with his hand. The water was cold and sweet. When Ty reached for a second handful, Dade nudged him with the toe of his boot.
“I wouldn’t stand out here in the open too long unless you want a bullet in your head like them Indians and Shine.”
Ty didn’t hesitate. He’d learned years ago that when someone told you to look out, you’d better duck. He opened his hands. The water splashed to the ground before they quickly headed for a thick pecan motte upstream from the spring.
Once inside the protection of the trees, Dade seemed to settle down a bit. “Tarnation, Ty, to tell you the truth, I don’t have any idea what’s going on. When I found those Indian tracks out by old lady Connell’s, I assumed it was Mexican vaqueros heading back to Mexico.”
Ty broke a dead branch from one of the trees as he pondered the situation.
“When was this?”
“Yesterday morning. Mrs. Connell sent her oldest grandkid to fetch me. He told me, ‘Granny’s got Indians in her garden,’” Dade answered. “We fell in on their tracks like ducks on a June bug until about noon. We lost them ’bout Mill Creek. Matthew’s got a good eye and thought he saw something upstream, so we rode that way. Sure enough, there was the first dead Indian you just now seen.”
Now Ty had to wait for Dade to take his second chaw. He could easily see that Dade was a little frazzled. The man looked as though he had been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on by an angry longhorn. After Dade rewrapped his plug, he continued.
“I have to tell you, it shook me up a mite. Tarnation, a Comanche brave shot dead center between the eyes. You know as well as I do there ain’t been no Indian raids ‘round here in a spell.”
Ty nodded in agreement. He was anxious for Dade to get on with the story, and he was more than a little worried by the fact he found himself hiding in a pecan motte to talk.
Finally, Dade continued. “Me and Matthew checked ‘round until we found where the shot came from. We could see by their tracks that the other two Comanch’ were in a hard run due north.”
Ty interrupted, “Where’d the shot come from?” He was getting a little impatient with Dade, even though he could tell Dade wasn’t just making a story out of it. Dade was shook up, and that alone bothered Ty, since he knew Dade was double backboned and not afraid of the devil himself.
“Off that ridge over there. I swear to God, Ty, the shot was over five hundred yards. One man, horseback and he drilled the redskin, one shot between the eyes, with a buffalo gun.”
“It’s hard to believe that anyone could make a shot like that on horseback. Five hundred yards? You sure?”
“Sure’s a cat’s got climbing gears. I stepped it off myself, a hundred and seventy-two steps, not one less.”
“What about the other two?” Ty asked.
“We found the first dead Indian’s horse grazing about half a mile from where he fell. Matthew and I wrapped him in that there blanket and put him belly down over his horse. Then we started in on those other two. I started to head back to Medina for more help, but I knew it’d be dark before we could get there, so we came on. Not more than a half-mile this way, we found the second one shot in the back of the head. The shot was dead center, just like the first.”
“He shot from the ridge same as the first one?”
“At first, we couldn’t be sure where the second shot had come from. Then we found where the rifleman’s tracks came off the hill. You could tell by the depth and stride he had his horse in a hard run.”
“He must ride a fast horse to have caught up with them.”
“Real fast,” Dade agreed. “Those two braves kicked their ponies into a gallop when the first one was shot. We never saw the shooter’s tracks until he came off the hill and fell in behind them. He no more than hit level ground before he dropped the second one.”
“Are you saying he shot the second Indian in the head while both riders were horseback and in a run?” Ty asked, shaking his head.
“Well I ain’t lying about it,” Dade said, pulling his long neck down into his scrawny shoulders.
Ty was sure Dade was not lying. “That ain’t all,” Dade continued. “We found the third one less than fifty feet farther north. How in God’s name could anyone shoot, then reload on horseback, and get off a second shot that quick?”
“Practice, I reckon.”
“We only found three shell casings, and all three shots poked a hole in the same spot … well, different heads, but in the same place, dead center.”
“How far from here did you find the last two Indians?” Ty asked, trying to put everything in perspective.
“Maybe two miles, maybe less. Me and Matthew camped about a half-mile downriver last night. We kept a cold camp in case the rifleman was still around.”
Ty thought about the man he’d seen in black.
“About an hour after dark, we heard a shot.”
“The shot that killed Shine?” Ty asked.
“You know how it is along the river. You can never be completely sure which way a sound is coming from.”
“That’s for sure.”
“I’ve never been here before, but I knew the Barrows lived somewhere around here. I’d heard about Shine’s still. I reckon everybody in the county has bought whiskey from him but me. Don’t hold to drinking, so I never had no need to be up here before last night.”
Ty nodded and decided not to mention that he’d been here last Christmas to buy a jug. Dade walked to his mule. He pulled a fired shell case from his saddlebags and handed it to Ty.
“We found this straight across the river,” he said, slinging his head sideways toward a low hill directly across from the Barrows’ front porch. “Matches the other three we found.”
“Forty-four-forty, probably from a Winchester ’73,” Ty said. He took the spent cartridge, rolled it around in his fingers and smelled it. He glanced at the hill and then back to where he estimated the house’s location. “That’s no more than seventy-five yards.”
“An easy shot for someone who can pluck turkeys off a roost half a mile away.”
“Ah, come on, Dade. So the man can shoot. That don’t make him a ghost rider or anything like that,” Ty scoffed.
“I reckon he kilt four people yesterday,” Dade replied. “That makes him pretty scary to me.”
Ty had to admit to himself that Dade had a point. He didn’t answer, but simply handed the cartridge back to Dade who returned it to his bag. They both jumped a little when they heard a twig break on the hill behind them.
“Mr. Holt.” It was Matthew. “There’s a man