Black Noon Read online

  BLACK NOON

  ANDREW J. FENADY

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PREAMBLE

  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

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  EPILOGUE

  THE WISE OLD MAN OF THE WEST

  Copyright Page

  for

  The Three Mesquiteers

  GARY GOLDSTEIN

  “ol’ Faithful”

  BOB ANDERSON

  “ol’ Trail Duster”

  DUKE FENADY

  “young Trail Compadre”

  and of course

  MARY FRANCES

  PREAMBLE

  As when a misty dream unfolds—out of the darkness of the mind; black, impenetrable, until—the face of a cat appears, lambent, saffron eyes glinting, mouth distended, then twisted.

  The cat screeches.

  An unearthly sound.

  The cat creeps noiselessly on its pads, then stops in front of something burning; the flames fling leaping towers, yellow and blue, behind the hunched feline as it looks at something, or someone, and emits an audible purr of contentment while its gaze travels ever slowly upward—the length of a human figure.

  The figure of a young woman—she wears a gossamer white gown that slithers across her long and sinuous body, and her face is the fulfillment of the promise of the upward journey. Silver-blue eyes illuminated by the flames, flowing flaxen hair, a claret mouth, and sensuous alabaster skin all molded into a living mask of mythic perfection. She watches, fascinated by the trident flames.

  The cat leaps effortlessly, and just as easily, the beautiful young woman catches the purring animal, presses and softly strokes its flanks. The cat purrs even louder as it is stroked by tapering white fingers, while ascending flames, glowing against the chocolate night, reach up to a burning cross atop the tower of a church that is on fire.

  The curling flames turn to sable.

  AND THE BLACK FLAMES RISE INTO THE STARLESS DESERT NIGHT.

  Reverend Jonathon Keyes woke abruptly, stared at the ribbed top of the Conestoga, then at the stirring figure of his wife, Lorna, lying next to him.

  “What is it, Jon?”

  “Nothing, dear.”

  “Nothing?! You’re trembling . . . was it that dream again? The war? The battle of Yellow Tavern? The wound?”

  This was not the first time since he had come home from the war with a head wound that his sleep had been breached by a bad dream. She reached out and gently touched the back of his head as she had done before.

  “No, Lorna. It was a dream, but not about the war. Something different this time,” he tried to smile.

  “Then tell me about it. They say that dreams often have some meaning . . . sometimes about something that’s happened, or even about what’s going to happen . . .”

  “Or,” he said smiling, “as Dickens’s friend, Scrooge, said, ‘the result of an undigested bit of beef, a fragment of underdone potato.’ Let’s just forget about it.”

  “But, Jon . . .”

  “Actually, I thought I heard something, something out there. Probably the cry of a lonesome coyote.”

  “Well, I’ll never be lonesome, Jon . . . so long as we’re together.”

  “That makes two of us.” He moved and kissed her forehead. “Now, go back to sleep. It’s only midnight, and we’ve still got a long way to Saguaro.”

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a long way from Monroe to Saguaro, much longer than they had anticipated as they journeyed by creaking wagon—pulled by a two-up team, through Missouri, southwest into Kansas, across the one hundredth meridian, to the panhandle of Texas, then the desolate New Mexico Territory and its arid, unforgiving terrain.

  There had been a few respites such as Amarillo and Santa Fe, too few and too far between, and they had so far averted sudden, deadly threats from hostile red natives, who resented trespassers coming into their ancient domain.

  This was Dry Tortuga—although they didn’t know it—and no one really knew where it began and ended—a worthless span of earth where God had stomped the dirt and dust off his boots, with little or no water to provide nourishment, no game to provide food, or no fertile fields to provide crops.

  And so they faced the vast emptiness between the winds—grassless, barren, rock hard, boiling windless days under a blistering sun, and relentless freezing nights under the worn canvas of the Conestoga.

  Still, there were forced smiles, mostly from the young bride, unaccustomed to such trials.

  “Jon, tell me more about Saguaro.”

  “There’s not much I can tell except what was in the letter from the retiring reverend that we served together in the war . . .”

  “Served gallantly.”

  “Most of those who served gallantly are dead.”

  “But not all, those medals you . . .”

  “The war’s over, Lorna. That’s all in the past.”

  “But not our honeymoon. That’s just beginning.” She smiled.

  “Some honeymoon.” Keyes barely smiled. “Hundreds of miles in nowhere, to a place we know little about . . .”

  “Except they need a minister named Jon Keyes.”

  She rested a soft white hand on his muscled arm that held the reins.

  After a strained silence, he spoke without looking at her.

  “But, Lorna . . .”

  “What, Jon?”

  “I’ve been thinking . . .”

  “About what?”

  “You and me. You mostly . . . did you make the right choice? You could have had your pick of rich young men in Monroe, of the elite society you were born into, with all the comfort you’re used to, with everything . . .”

  “. . . Everything except the man I love . . .”

  “. . . Maybe your family was right . . .”

  “As you said, Jon, about the war . . . all that’s in the past. Our future’s in Saguaro.”

  “Saguaro . . . you know what’s been said. ‘There’s no God in Saguaro.’”

  “Reverend Jonathan Keyes can do
something about that.”

  “We’ll see.” Then he added, “If we ever get there.”

  “We’ll get there. I have no doubt about that . . . or you.”

  But after what seemed like infinite days and nights, the prospect of Saguaro became less likely and more doubtful—much more doubtful.

  The parched earth of the desert had claimed countless pilgrims wasted into dried-out meatless bones, picked clean by ravenous, far-seeing blackbirds who preyed on those who had prayed in vain—until they could pray and breathe no longer.

  After scores of unnumbered days and nights lost in the no path terrain, with far away mountain peaks that never came closer—but vultures that circled ever nearer, it seemed inevitable that two more bodies and souls would soon surrender to the fate of those who had gone before.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was a burning day with a bald desert sky, cloudless, as if painted, but pierced by the hot circle of sun that sent shimmering waves across jagged, burnished peaks bleached for a million years by the same immemorial sun.

  Nothing moved, until . . .

  For the first time there was motion.

  Circling in the distance, death’s patient sentinels, several black buzzards . . . drifting . . . waiting . . .

  And below, the team of horses, unhitched but with barely enough strength to stand on the desert crust. The Conestoga wagon. A wheel broken off. All its contents emptied. Trunks. Tables. Chairs. The remnants of civilization—and the bent figure of a man.

  Jon Keyes managed to waver toward the side of the wagon where a barrel was tied. He had a red scarf in one hand, and with the other hand he twisted the spigot of the barrel.

  Nothing. It was empty.

  Desperately he placed the scarf under the spigot, hoping for even a single drop. He shook the barrel with fading strength—to no avail.

  With face parched, lips cracked, he breathed heavily and looked off in another direction.

  Lorna lay motionless in the shade he had managed to fashion from some of the wagon’s unloaded contents.

  Keyes staggered back toward the inert figure of his bride. As he did, his stumbling feet inadvertently kicked an empty canteen on the ground—and nearby was the Bible he had carried for years. He picked up the Bible and moved on, then fell to his knees beside Lorna, unconscious and probably much worse. He placed the scarf on her brow, he held the Bible in both hands.

  “Lorna.”

  But there was no answer.

  There had been none for a long while.

  With the Bible still in his grasp, his face tilted upward.

  “Lord in heaven . . . we beg of you . . . deliver us,” he whispered.

  That was all the prayer he could manage.

  He placed the Bible near her, then struggled to his feet. Keyes weaved toward the heavy wheel that was off the wagon. With all the might of his remaining strength, he tried to lift and roll the wheel closer to the Conestoga but lost control and collapsed as the wheel crashed hard on top of him.

  He did not move.

  But something else did and landed on a nearby jagged rock.

  A buzzard, one of the desert sextons, without so much as a blink over its vast graveyard, gazed at the buckled body of Jon Keyes. The gold watch he wore on his vest had fallen out, but was still attached to the button hole by a heavy gold chain.

  Before the vulture moved, as the other blackbirds circled, there appeared, as if out of a mirage, through the undulating heat waves, a large buckboard wagon.

  Cheated, the buzzard flew off.

  CHAPTER 3

  As the squadron of buzzards winged away, the large buckboard drew closer to the crippled Conestoga.

  Three people were aboard the approaching wagon.

  At the reins, Caleb Hobbs, middle-aged, tall, clean featured, with a smooth, almost saintly face.

  On the far side, Joseph, rope-thin, with a long elfin visage, creased by a thin-lipped smile.

  And in between the two men, Deliverance, the young woman out of the dream, and even though her garments now were much less revealing, and her hair was pulled taut from her forehead, there was still a soulful, suasive look about her.

  Caleb Hobbs tugged gently at the reins and the twin white horses obeyed his silent command to stop between the unconscious woman and the man under the fallen wheel.

  All three stepped off of the buckboard, not fast, not slow, with just the right effort for people who knew the desert. Deliverance and Joseph each carried a canteen.

  “From the looks of ’em,” Joseph said, “none too soon.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Caleb replied.

  As they approached, Joseph noticed something on the ground next to the inert woman.

  He picked up the Bible.

  “See here, Caleb.”

  The tall man nodded and bent over Keyes. He looked for just a moment, then reached down and lifted the gold watch on which there was an inscription. He read it with a voice just above a whisper.

  “‘To Reverend Jon Keyes. Mother and Dad.’”

  His voice was still soft, but deeper as he looked at Deliverance and Joseph.

  “Literally sent from heaven. This man is a minister.” Caleb glanced in the direction of Keyes’s wife. “Joseph.”

  Joseph nodded and walked toward Lorna as Caleb put the watch into Keyes’s vest, rose, and moved toward the buckboard.

  Deliverance knelt beside Keyes with the open canteen in one hand and placed her other hand gently on the left side of Keyes’s bruised face.

  Suddenly there was the sound of a nearby rattle, then the warning hiss.

  Deliverance looked up, but not abruptly, at the uncoiled snake about to strike. Her expression remained unchanged, her eyes unafraid. She did not move, except for her eyes ever so slightly, and not really a movement, more a penetration.

  The snake ceased its rattle, recoiled . . . then slithered away.

  Caleb at the buckboard had unhinged a chain and started to lower the tailgate. Joseph was still at Lorna’s side. If they were aware of what had just happened they displayed no reaction.

  And neither did Deliverance.

  She poured water from the canteen into her palm and fingers, then softly pressed her long, milk-white fingers across Keyes’s sun-scorched lips . . . until his face moved tenuously.

  His eyes fluttered and opened out of some bottomless graveyard pit, into the blinding glare of the sun, and finally into focus came the face of Deliverance . . . cool and beatific . . . the haunting face in his dream.

  But this was not a dream.

  Or was it?

  Then he heard a dim voice.

  Not hers.

  “It’s all right, Reverend,” Caleb said, “we’ll take care of you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  There are journeys . . . and journeys.

  Journeys of gladness and joy, even in the long voyage home, with the anticipation of welcoming relatives and friends.

  The downhill journeys of sadness and gloom, to the resting place of those same relatives and friends.

  Journeys of wine and roses—to journeys’ end with lovers meeting.

  Journeys where autumn winds succumb to winter’s wrath.

  For Jon Keyes there had been journeys to and from battlefields with only stone markers left behind for those whose journey in life was closed within death’s dream.

  But he had survived those battlefields and had vowed that his days of killing other men were over . . . and he had taken other vows: to become a minister, and to marry the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  But now he was not certain they had both survived.

  What was real?

  And what was death’s illusion?

  Keyes thought to himself—It’s strange, the things you think of when you’re not really sure if you’re dead or alive.

  And Lorna . . . had she survived?

  With effort he turned his face and saw Lorna lying next to him in the moving buckboard. He managed to lift his arm, pl
ace his hand on her shoulder, and squeeze with what strength he could.

  At first, nothing . . . and then an ever so slight stirring, and a muffled sound came as her lips moved.

  Alive.

  More reassurance that they were still in the realm of the living.

  But as he lay, sometimes barely conscious, on the bed of the buckboard, he remembered that face out of a dream, or nightmare, that now brought salvation.

  He had heard that they had called her “Deliverance,” and they had delivered the two of them from certain death.

  Deliverance had spoken not a word; but those silent lips and beautiful face were what he most remembered.

  Jon Keyes was aware that he and Lorna were on another journey. But to where?

  And to what fate that awaited them?

  CHAPTER 5

  Reverend Jon Keyes had only a hazy, billowing recollection of the journey from death’s doorway on the desert—as a cat sitting on its haunches with its forelegs straight like a statue, neck extended—watched in the large comfortable bedroom appointed in New England décor.

  The feline had placed itself near the foot of the canopied bed and gazed toward the unconscious form of Lorna lying on the bed.

  Keyes sat on a chair, still showing the effects of their ordeal, still weak, but running his fingers through his thick thatch of auburn hair, his present thought only of Lorna’s condition.

  He spoke to the others in the room without looking at them.

  “Have you sent for a doctor, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Hobbs. Caleb Hobbs.” The tall man smiled.

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Hobbs . . . have you . . .”

  “Dr. Moody had a much better offer in North Fork. He and his family moved there just a few weeks ago. We’re still looking for a replacement . . .”

  “Do you think Lorna will be all right?”

  “I’m sure she will, m’boy. Our housekeeper, Bethia, will look after her. Won’t you, Bethia?”

  “Of course, Mr. Hobbs.” Bethia, a middle-aged, dignified woman dressed in New England tradition, was placing a damp cloth on Lorna’s brow.

  “Bethia did quite a bit of nursing,” Caleb said, “in a veteran’s hospital when the war ended.”