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  THE SHADOW MAN

  F. M. Parker

  With an awesome list of stirring Westerns novels, F. M. Parker has won acclaim as a master story teller. In The Shadow Man, he has achieved a new high of bringing alive the high drama and true-grit realities of the Western past.

  The time is 1846 with the United States and Mexico poised for war over the American Southwest. The place is New Mexico, where Jacob Tamarron has come after years as a legendary mountain man. Jacob is weary of mountain loneliness and brutal struggle for survival against Indians and fur thieves and comes to Santa Fe and hoping to find a woman and have a family. He finds the new life he is looking for in Petra, the proud and fiery Mexican woman. He woes and marries her. Then with savage suddenness, his new life is ripped apart by two of the most vicious men ever to ravage the West. James Kirker, a professional Indian killer out to make a fortune in blood money, and Simon Caverhill, a Texas senator, who with a handpicked killing crew and a master forger, is carving out an empire from the land of butchered New Mexico ranchers.

  Thus begins a searing saga of search and vengeance as Jacob turns hunter again, this time hunting the men who destroyed all that he had created. With High Walking, a Comanche warrior whose woman and his children have been slaughtered, he uncovers a trail of murder and terror that leads him to his enemies’ stronghold. With cold savage fury that matches the power and cunning of their enemies, these two unlikely comrades fight to the death to take their revenge against the great odds against him.

  With extraordinary heroes, and with a cast of characters that encompasses the rich mix of men and women - black and white, Indian, Mexican, and American, law-abiding and lawless – who peopled the frontier, The Shadow Man offers a harsh yet heart-stirring vision of the American past. It combines authenticity with non-stop action and suspense into a thrilling reading experience.

  * * *

  To Louise

  Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

  —Andre Maurois

  About the Author

  F. M. PARKER has worked as a sheepherder, lumberman, sailor, geologist, and as a manager of wild horses, buffalo, and livestock grazing. For several years he was the manager of five million acres of public domain land in eastern Oregon.

  His highly acclaimed novels include Skinner, Coldiron, The Searcher, Shadow of the Wolf, The Shanghaiers, The Highbinders, The Far Battleground, The Shadow Man, and The Slavers.

  Visit www.fearlparker.com for more details.

  “SUPERBLY WRITTEN AND DETAILED... PARKER BRINGS THE WEST TO LIFE.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “ABSORBING... SWIFTLY PACED, FILLED WITH ACTION!”

  Library Journal

  “PARKER ALWAYS PRESENTS A LIVELY, CLOSELY PLOTTED STORY.”

  Bookmarks

  “REFRESHING, COMBINES A GOOD STORY WITH FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE.”

  University of Arizona Library

  “RICH, REWARDING... DESERVES A WIDE GENERAL READERSHIP.”

  Booklist

  Also by F.M. Parker

  Novels

  The Highwayman

  Wife Stealer

  Winter Woman

  The Assassins

  Girl in Falling Snow

  ThePredators

  The Far Battleground

  Coldiron – Judge and Executioner

  Coldiron - Shadow of the Wolf

  Coldiron - The Shanghaiers

  Coldiron – Thunder of Cannon

  The Searcher

  The Seeker

  The Highbinders

  The Shadow Man

  The Slavers

  Nighthawk

  Skinner

  Soldiers of Conquest

  Screenplays

  Women for Zion

  Firefly Catcher

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  The Making of the Land

  A Prologue

  The first mountains, ancient beyond imagination, were created so long ago that even the sun forgot it had ever shone upon their birth. They were formed a billion years in the past by a mighty, compressive force that thrust up great blocks of the earth’s crust into a giant east-west mountain range.

  In the last paroxysm of mountain building, molten granite magma welled up from subterranean reservoirs deep in the bowels of the earth and intruded, replacing broad zones of the older rocks of the mountains. Hot mineral-bearing solutions and gases were injected into fractures and ruptures in the rock. In rare, isolated locations, copper, silver, and gold precipitated out in rich concentrations.

  Finally the mountains ceased growing and rested. For six hundred million years only the rain and snow and the sigh of the wind were upon the face of the huge mountains.

  Bit by minute bit, the mountains were eroded away. The high cloud-brushing peaks wore away to low hills. The valleys of the land were invaded by a shallow sea, and the hills became a chain of small islets surrounded by salty brine.

  Seventy million years ago, the seas retreated to the south as a tremendous force again crumpled the mantle of the earth. The rocks arched up in gigantic folds with a north-south axis. The force continued to torture the rocks, overturning them to the east. Then one added inch of movement exceeded their strength, and deep faults of unbounded energy sliced through the layers of stone. In places the earth’s crust was lifted upward, in other locations there were down-warping and subsidence. Stupendous rift valleys were formed.

  One such rift valley was fifty miles wide and hundreds of miles long. A tall range of mountains bordered it on the side where the sun rose. In the depths of the five-mile-deep chasm, a grand river came to life, fed endlessly by the countless streams pouring down from the mountains. The strong current of the river rushed away to the south until it reached a far-off sea.

  Over the aeons the great fault valley began to fill with rubble from the mountains, boulders, and gravel washed down from the highlands. Once a thick lava flow dammed the river, but the prodigious torrent of water hammered a gorge through the tough rock and surged onward.

  On the east side of the mountain range a myriad of streams tumbled with awesome violence down from the high ramparts. As the grade flattened on the lower reaches of the streams, they slowed and wandered in meandering courses, dropping their load of eroded mountain debris. The valleys of the streams became choked with swamps and shallow lakes as thousands of cubic miles of sediment were spread in ever-thickening layers for great distances over the land.

  The millennia passed, score after score, adding to millions of years. During the long epoch a broad plain formed at the base of the mountain and extended to the east for many hundreds of miles. So flat was the land surface that the larger animals could see each other for great distances, to the limits of their vision.

  Twenty million years ago, near the mouth of the grand river of the north, a hungry lizard raced down the bank to capture a fish that was stranded and floundering in a shallow pool of water. The lizard’s tail left a small scratch in the mud. From that tiny scar in the dirt, during the next rainstorm, an incipient streamlet was born.

  The rivulet had inherited the hunger o
f the beast that had created it. Within a foot, the rivulet cut into the course of another trickle of water and beheaded it, adding that miniature flow to its own body. Then it captured another streamlet, and another. Swiftly the rivulet grew to become a creek.

  The new creek greedily ate its way north along the base of the tall mountains, encountering the channels of many streams. A battle was fought each time to determine which stream would die. The hungry offspring of the lizard won every battle and survived.

  The creek grew to become a river, flowing in a wide, swampy valley. Its headwaters lay on the very summit of a high mountain far to the north. Now there were two large rivers, with a mighty mountain range rearing into the sky between them.

  That is the way a tribe of man found the land when they arrived, migrating from a far and distant place in the north. The people liked the land of rivers and mountains, and they stayed, their numbers increasing.

  Thirty thousand years later, barely a tick of time as measured on the geologic clock, a second tribe of men arrived, creeping timidly and cautiously up from the south. They also liked the two rivers and the mountains. The men gave them names, the Rio Grande, the Rio Pecos, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and they settled there with their women and children.

  Time ticked away again, and a third tribe of men came hurrying into the land. They came from the east and their numbers were many. They made savage war upon the first two tribes.

  The events of this story happened during the days of that war.

  CHAPTER 1

  Culebra Mountain, Mexican Territory, February 27, 1846

  The storm came straight from the hunting ground of blizzards. Jacob Tamarron could see the seething dark clouds through breaks in the forest, pouring in a mile-thick avalanche down from the high backbone of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

  A mighty blast of frigid wind roared out ahead of the storm, careening across the mountainside and whipping the giant pine trees like blades of grass.

  The thick mass of clouds, riding upon the back of the frontal winds, charged in to hide the weak winter sun from the earth. The forest was filled with dark, gray shadows, as if the evening dusk were arriving with deep night but minutes behind.

  Jacob increased his pace to a trot. He moved effortlessly with a rolling, spraddle-legged stride to keep his bear-paw snowshoes from tangling together. His .50-caliber Hawken rifle swung easily in his hand. The pack of wolf skins and his buffalo sleeping robe rode lightly upon his back.

  His camp lay an hour away at the base of the tall Culebra Mountain. Already he could catch glimpses of the bottom of the valley lying a thousand feet below him. His partner, Daniel, would be at their bivouac. He would have a hot fire burning and an elk haunch roasting.

  Three days before, the mountain had lost some of its deep freeze, and the pale winter sun now coasted on a cloudless blue sky. Jacob had taken his rifle and tramped around the flank of the mountain to a broad thicket of bitter brush. The browse was the favorite food of deer, and the winter-hungry animals had come for miles across the snowy shoulders of Culebra to congregate there and feed.

  The wolf packs also stole through the forest and gathered. The powerful predators stalked and killed many of the deer. In turn, Jacob stealthily stole up on the wolves and slew five of them. All the pelts were prime, with long luxurious guard hair and a soft, dense undercoat. The fur would bring a premium price.

  Daniel had remained behind at the cabin. He was getting old and did not like camps in the snow. But he was a staunch and hardworking partner. Each day he traveled the long, difficult miles of the trap line and removed the night’s catch of mink, otter, fox, and marten, and reset the crushing steel jaws of the traps.

  Jacob halted abruptly. The short hairs on the back of his neck twisted and rose as some instinct warned him he was not alone in the woods. He stepped sideways to stand against the trunk of a large pine and swiftly scanned ahead toward Saruche Creek, along every snowy aisle among the trees.

  He pivoted slowly to the rear, his eyes probing all the openings. On one of the curving passageways, his fresh tracks lay plain in the white blanket of snow covering the ground. An enemy could track him at a run.

  Jacob waited, pushing the limits of his senses outward, straining to determine consciously what some ancient instinct had detected at a primal level. He didn’t question the feeling that unseen enemies were near. Once he had made that mistake, when he had been very young in the mountains, and a long scar remained from the wound that had almost killed him.

  The forest grew dimmer and the falling temperatures sent cold, probing fingers through his fur coat and buckskins. Still he did not stir, letting the minutes pass, his eyes constantly roaming and his ears straining to pierce the moan of the rising wind.

  The frigid front of the storm overran Jacob. A mighty wind pounded him. All around him, the pines groaned at the onslaught, bucking and bending. A mammoth pine creaked under the strain. One of its high limbs broke and fell crashing to the ground.

  Icy sleet began to fall in long, slanting diagonals from the swollen bellies of the clouds. The hurtling ice pellets stung like fire, and Jacob ducked his head to protect his face.

  The storm intensified. The sleet became a white torrent. Visibility lessened to a few yards. A hissing strumming filled the forest as billions of sleet pellets struck the pines, drummed on the limbs and tree trunks, and bounced down to roll on the ground. The noise was deafening, pressing in upon Jacob from all sides like an invisible force.

  The wall of sleet thinned. In the white curtain, not twenty yards distant, five Arapaho warriors on snow-shoes glided as soundlessly as phantoms along the border of the creek. The leader lifted his hand and the band stopped instantly.

  Jacob moved a few inches to shelter behind the trunk of the tree. He stared past the rough bark and watched the Indians standing motionless, the sleet swiftly collecting on their fur coats. Each man was warily scrutinizing the valley bottom and the mountainsides.

  The warriors were lean and hard, not old, not young, seasoned fighting men. They wasted not a word or motion, as if they had fought together before and each knew what was expected of him. The leader carried a rifle, and the other men strong war bows. The Arapaho would be tough to kill.

  The sharp eyes of the Indians ranged the limits of their vision, searching the forest to detect something that should not be there. The warrior in the rear stared directly up the slope toward Jacob. An arrow was nocked in his bow and half drawn.

  The man raised his face, almost black against the sleet. He pulled in a breath of cold air, testing with his keen nostrils for an alien scent. His tongue ran out, as if he were tasting the wind.

  Jacob knew why the Arapaho were here in the valley. Over the years they had developed a successful tactic for killing and robbing the white trappers that invaded their land. Before the spring arrived and the trappers loaded their pelts on packhorses and left for Saint Joseph or Santa Fe and the fur buyers there, the Indians would leave their winter camps on the low, warmer plains lying to the east and come up into the mountains. Ranging in small war parties along the creeks, the Arapaho would ambush the white men and carry off their winter catch of fur.

  The leader of the band of Indians made an almost imperceptible signal with his hand. The Arapaho moved as if they were all part of one large, hungry hunting animal, disappearing up the creek and into the masking sleet.

  Jacob hastened down the remaining stretch of slope and off along the trail of the Arapaho. His partner would not expect an attack in such foul weather, and Jacob could not call out or shoot to warn him for that would turn the warriors back upon himself. He had to follow close behind and he prepared to join Daniel in the fight, to strike and kill the moment the battle began.

  He hurried faster through the thrashing trees and stinging ice pellets. The cabin was a quarter of a mile up the creek and on a south-facing meadow. It would be easy for the Indians to locate.

  A rifle crashed close ahead. A second boomed an in
stant later.

  “Damnation,” cursed Jacob. The battle had started too soon. He darted forward. As he ran, he untied the leather strap that held his coat shut around him, putting his five-shot Colt revolver and skinning knife ready at hand.

  The dark figures of several men took form in the streaming sleet near the wall of a small log cabin. Two forms lay partially buried in the deep snow. An Indian was leaning over one of the still bodies.

  Jacob recognized the fallen man as Daniel. Before he fell, his tough old partner had shot one of the Indians.

  Jacob lifted his rifle, sighted along the iron barrel, and squeezed the trigger. The long weapon jumped in his hands like a live thing. The Arapaho bending over Daniel was slammed down onto the snowy earth. Jacob swung the rifle into his left hand. His right snatched the revolver from its holster.

  He cocked the gun as he extended it. His finger pressed the trigger.

  With amazing swiftness the Indians had pivoted toward their attackers. One, faster than the others, jerked up his bow and bent it. An arrow sprang toward the trapper.

  Jacob heard the whizzing flight of the shaft and felt the feathers of the fletching brush his cheek. You’re a brave bastard, Jacob thought, but you missed. He fired the revolver.

  The Arapaho stumbled. He caught his balance and started to reach behind his back for a second arrow from the quiver. His fingers fumbled at the arrow. He fell to his knees and collapsed onto the snow-covered ground.

  During Jacob’s short fight with the second Indian the remaining warriors had sprung away into the storm. Now Jacob hastily backed away until he could no longer see the crumpled forms of the men in the snow. The Indians probably thought he’d go and investigate the condition of his partner and they could circle and steal up on him. But he would not make that mistake. Daniel, old friend, if you’re still alive, hold on for a few minutes longer.

  Jacob sheltered his rifle from the falling sleet with his body as he hurriedly poured a measure of powder down the barrel and rammed home the greased patch-and-lead ball. A fresh firing cap was pressed firmly upon the nipple. There were still four rounds in his revolver, and he didn’t take the weapon apart to reload the one empty chamber.