Bleached Bones in the Dust, page 1
Bleached Bones in the Dust
I. J. Parnham
Published by Culbin Press, 2024.
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First published in 2010 by Robert Hale Limited
Copyright © 2010, 2024 by I. J. Parnham
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
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Chapter One
The bone had lain there for some time. Wallace Sheckley kneeled and poked at the rib, judging that it was the right size to be human. With his eyes now more attuned to what to look for he found other bones dotted around in the dusty earth.
There was a long bone that had probably been a thigh, and a collection of short, squat bones that could have been a backbone, and then finally a skull, proving that he had come across a dead person. The jawbone wasn’t attached, but he judged it as being large enough to have belonged to an adult male.
Animals had scattered the remains over a wide area so Wallace was sweating profusely by the time he’d located most of the skeleton. He piled up the bones and then sat on a boulder, supping water while he examined the remains, wondering if they helped him in his quest.
He had been ten miles out of Sunrise, his destination, when a bright object had drawn him away toward an outcrop. That thought reminded him that he’d yet to find the bright object, so he put down his water bottle and rooted through the bones again.
He found scraps of clothing, but nothing that would reflect light. Then, around what he took to be a forearm, he found a gnawed length of rope. With this discovery making his heart beat faster, he searched for wooden stakes.
Feeling an odd mixture of hope and sadness he walked back and forth until, thirty feet away from the shade offered by the outcrop, he found confirmation of what had happened here. Blown sand had almost covered them, but he kicked it aside to reveal four stakes set into the unforgiving ground in a square.
Knotted rope was around each stake, the ends having been gnawed away, but the final proof of what had happened here came with the gruesome discovery of an anklebone still trapped within a loop of rotten rope. A man had been staked out on the ground and then been left to die a lingering death.
Animals and time had removed the evidence of who this person had been in life and who had done this to him, but Wallace had a theory about the latter and he still had the shining object to find. He had to return to his horse to get the right angle to locate it again.
He was pleased he’d taken the effort when the object proved to be a knife, only the tip emerging from the sand. He gathered it up and then sat on a prominent boulder to examine the cruel blade and the ornate hilt.
He had seen this knife before. Despite the gruesome find, when he mounted his horse he felt, for the first time in years, cheered that maybe his quest was close to an end. There was a fort a mile away, but it appeared deserted with its stockade rotting and several of the buildings inside having been razed to the ground.
So he rode on to Sunrise. He arrived late in the afternoon at what turned out to be a substantial town with a long main drag, but which showed few signs of life and more signs of the decay he’d seen at the fort.
He investigated the saloon first. Aside from the bartender only two customers were inside, leaning on the bar, their faces beneath their lowered hat hidden in the gloom. Wallace nodded to them, but got no response.
“What do you want, stranger?” the bartender asked.
“Coffee and answers to some questions,” Wallace said.
“I have coffee,” the bartender said as he headed to the stove, the comment gathering a grunt of amusement from the other customers.
Wallace caught the hint that, as was usually the case, strangers who asked questions were unlikely to be greeted warmly.
“I want a room,” Wallace said taking the offered mug.
The bartender nodded approvingly. “I can provide a room if you can provide a name.”
“I’m Wallace Sheckley.”
“Is that all you wanted to ask, Wallace Sheckley?”
“That and whether letters can be sent out from here.”
“The stage passes through once a week and gets news out. It’s due tomorrow.”
“Then you’ve answered my questions.”
Wallace sipped his coffee, and then turned to the customers with a smile on his lips.
“What’s your business here, Wallace?” the nearest man asked.
Wallace took another sip while he considered whether to mention his quest, and then nodded to himself. He put down the mug and moved along the bar to meet them.
“It’s Lomax Rhinehart,” he said.
Chapter Two
Charlie Diggs wasn’t as worried as he ought to be. For the last two days Montgomery Drake had been dragging Charlie back to the law office in Mason Heights. Now he was less than an hour away from handing him over to justice.
Last month Charlie had robbed a mercantile. He’d gunned down the owner, hightailed it out of town and gone to ground. The law couldn’t find him, but Montgomery had had more luck.
He knew of the Diggs brothers and their habits so his hunch had paid off when he’d found him skulking in the nearby town of Small Creek. Montgomery reckoned the $500 reward money was worth a week’s work in finding Charlie, but he had one nagging concern.
For a man who was probably facing the noose Charlie was too relaxed. Ropes trussed him up and secured him to his horse, but he rode with his head held high. Montgomery drew his horse to a halt, tugging back on the rope with which he’d secured Charlie’s mount.
“What now?” Charlie grunted.
“We’re taking a different route to town,” Montgomery said.
Charlie’s eyes flared before he masked his irritation with a sneer.
“Delays don’t concern me.”
Montgomery leaned forward in the saddle and smiled.
“You’ve got nothing to be cheered about. Get down.”
“Why should I . . . ?” Charlie trailed off when Montgomery tapped his holster. Grumbling to himself he clambered down from his mount, after which Montgomery signified that he should kneel.
Then Montgomery dismounted and walked around his prisoner. When he passed behind him he darted in and clubbed his gun butt against the back of Charlie’s head. Charlie collapsed to the ground without a sound.
Montgomery kicked him over and confirmed he was out cold. Then he dragged him to his horse and threw him over it, letting him lie with his head dangling. When Montgomery moved on, he rode with Charlie at his side and his gun drawn and aimed at Charlie’s head.
Even if he didn’t intend to carry out his threat, his intent was clear to anyone planning an ambush: the first person who’d die would be the man they were trying to rescue. Despite changing his route, two miles from town there was a ridge that Montgomery couldn’t avoid without a long detour.
He’d all but passed the craggy mound when a shadow flickered on the ground beside a large boulder on the trail ahead. A moment later a man stepped out from behind the boulder, but by then Montgomery had drawn his horse to a halt thirty yards back from him.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You,” the man said with a confidence that suggested he wasn’t the only one involved in this attempted rescue.
“Try anything and Charlie dies.”
The man shrugged, his hand moving in a gesture that might have been to flick away a fly, but Montgomery didn’t risk waiting to find out if it had a more sinister intent. He swung the gun from Charlie’s form to aim at him.
The man completed the gesture by drawing a concealed gun from under his jacket, but Montgomery’s drawn gun made him take flight toward the safety of the boulder. He’d covered two paces and was throwing up his arms to dive for cover when Montgomery’s single shot to the side sent him spinning to the ground.
As Montgomery spurred his horse to a gallop, three ill-aimed slugs whistled by his head, but that let him identify where the shooters were. He turned in the saddle to pepper gunfire around that spot.
The lead tore chunks from the rocks and made the shooters duck down. Then he turned and concentrated on galloping on ahead. He passed the man he’d shot, noting he wasn’t moving, and then kept going.
When he’d gone 200 yards beyond the boulder he checked behind him. Four men had ambushed him and the three surviving men were scurrying to the horses they’d hobbled in a gully, but by the time they’d reached them and started their pursuit, Montgomery was a quarter-mile ahead.
As he had a substantial lead, Montgomery reckoned they’d never catch him and sure enough, after pursuing him until he was closing on the outskirts of town, they lost heart. With much surly gesturing to each other, they drew their horses to a halt and lined up, their still forms exuding a quiet menace that said this matter wouldn’t end here.
Montgomery still galloped into Mason Heights, only slowing when he reached the law office, where he drew his horse to a halt. He confirmed that his pursuers weren’t visible and that Charlie was still unconscious, and then tugged him from his horse. In short order he dragged his prisoner into the law office and deposited him at the feet of a delighted Sheriff Quinn.
“Charlie Diggs, I do declare,” Quinn said, tipping back his hat and giving a whooping whistle. “Did he give you much trouble?”
“Nope, but some varmints thought he shouldn’t end up in a cell,” Montgomery said.
Quinn blew out his cheeks in exasperation. “Are you talking about the Diggs brothers?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t recognize the one man I shot and the others were too far away.” Montgomery rubbed his chin as he recalled the events. “I’ll bring them in if it’s worth my while.”
“It will be, but first, I’ve got something for you.” Quinn rummaged in his desk and then held out a letter.
The precise lettering of his name on the envelope made Montgomery raise his eyebrows with interest. He took the letter from Quinn, tore it open and read the short message inside, finding that his old friend Wallace Sheckley had sent it, but that it had taken three weeks to find him.
“Damn,” Montgomery said, turning to the door.
“Wait,” Quinn said. “We haven’t discussed the Diggs brothers yet.”
“I’m not interested in them now.” Montgomery waved the letter.
“Is it important business?”
“It’s old business,” Montgomery said. Then he left the law office, his destination Sunrise.
The letter had sat propped up on the table for a week. Although Nick Keating had looked at it every day, he had been reluctant to open it. When Walter Miller had brought out the letter, which had been delivered to his mercantile, he’d been as excitable as a puppy as he waited to find out what it said.
Despite his encouragement Nick had sent him away disappointed. He didn’t want to open the letter. Not when it was addressed to his father and not when his father’s body was lying in the backroom unburied.
Today he felt strong enough to read it. So he took the letter from the table and held it to his chest. Then, in a solemn mood, he headed outside. He walked to the tall pine that his father claimed he’d planted as a child, and lay down beside it. With the back of his head resting against the bark, he let the morning breeze cool his face before he faced the cairn of rocks and asked the question he’d avoided asking for the last week.
“Should I open it, Pa?”
Although no answer came, he took a deep breath. Then he slit open the envelope with a finger and withdrew the single sheet of paper. There were only two sentences, written in a precise style. Nick coughed to clear a throat that had tightened, and then read aloud.
“Jack, I’ve found him. Come to Sunrise and we’ll end this.”
Nick blew out his cheeks in bemusement. He hadn’t known what he’d expected to read, but it wasn’t something this short and this cryptic.
“What do you reckon that means?”
He waited, hoping an answer would pop into his mind. When it didn’t he reread the letter, searching for details he might have missed. Those two short sentences were the extent of the message, but scrawled at the bottom of the letter was the signature of the sender – Wallace Sheckley. Nick whistled, his interest now kindled.
“Three friends served and fought together: Wallace Sheckley, Montgomery Drake and Jack Keating,” he said. “Do you reckon I should write to Wallace to tell him you won’t be coming?”
Somehow that didn’t feel right.
“Then what do you want me to do, Pa?”
This time, the answer did pop into Nick’s mind and for the first time in a week he felt a twinge of excitement.
Chapter Three
The town of Sunrise was as Montgomery Drake had expected it to be from the little he’d learned about it, presenting a few disused buildings along with many in a state of disrepair. It had the look of a town that was struggling to cling hold of life since the military had abandoned the nearby fort.
He drew up outside the saloon and, as nobody was about, he headed inside. Two customers were at the bar; several more were at tables.
“What do you want, stranger?” the bartender asked.
“Whiskey,” Montgomery said, leaning on the bar.
The bartender provided a glass and poured a measure.
“Do you want anything more, stranger?”
“The name’s Montgomery Drake. I may be staying here a while. Where would I get a room?”
“I can provide one.”
The bartender introduced himself as James Benson and then pointed upward, signifying the room would be above the saloon. Montgomery nodded and hunched over his whiskey as he bided his time before he probed for answers.
Wallace’s message had taken a while to find him and if he had gotten close to Lomax Rhinehart it was likely he was long gone. Montgomery’s manhunting experience told him that the urgent need to track him down still didn’t mean he needed to draw attention to himself too quickly. The first chance to press for details naturally came when one of the customers sidled along the bar toward him.
“What’s your business here, Montgomery?” he asked after identifying himself as Dean Scott.
“I’m looking for a friend. I heard he came here recently.”
“Few people come to Sunrise these days. I’m sure if he came in here I’d have seen him.”
“His name’s Wallace Sheckley.”
Dean frowned, giving the impression he was thinking back, and then shook his head.
“That’s an unusual name. I reckon I’d have remembered it.”
Dean was a fresh-faced youth, so Montgomery reckoned he might not come into the saloon too often.
“Then maybe he didn’t have the time to give a name. Did you see anyone go through here in a hurry?”
Dean laughed. “We get plenty of those, but nobody’s stopped here for months.”
Montgomery resolved that he’d make discreet inquiries elsewhere later, but for now he drank up his whiskey, and then asked to be showed his room. It turned out to be the only room James let out, being sandwiched between a store and James’s bedroom.
The room had a bed, a dresser and a chair. It was also stifling and smelled of neglect, suggesting that Dean had been right that nobody had stayed here recently. Montgomery dragged the chair to the window and opened it to let in a cooling breeze.
He sat quietly for an hour as the sun set, but the few people that passed by on the main drag didn’t pay any particular attention to his room. Then he went to the dresser, dragged it away from the wall for far enough to get his arm behind, and then kneeled and ran his hand along the floor.
A sharp pain made him flinch back, but when he raised his hand a match that had been broken and folded at a right angle had stuck into his palm. He smiled.
“So you were here, after all,” he said to himself.
He pocketed the match and went in search of sustenance. He took his horse to the stables and paid in advance for several days of fresh grain. His generosity encouraged the owner to talk, although he hadn’t heard of Wallace, but he did direct him to Elizabeth’s Eatery.
This turned out to be a clean and welcoming establishment at the opposite end of town to the saloon, where he sat alone and enjoyed a thick steak. He talked to no one and nobody paid him attention until he paid Elizabeth.
“It’s nice to see some money for a change,” she said, jingling the coins and offering him a warming smile. “You can come here again.”
“I might well do that. I’m staying above James Benson’s saloon.”
“Not many do that these days.”
“I’d gathered that, but I’m looking for someone who passed through town recently. I reckon he stayed there.”
