Now Playing: The Darkness
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Episode Eight
concluded with:
Dehner smirked. “The town doc has been bought off. He wouldn’t tell me
anything about Adrian’s wound. My questions made him very nervous.”
“As well they should,” Lowrie
replied. “The bullet from a Colt .44 can do terrible things to a man’s head,
but completely blow it away?! I don’t think so. We are close to uncovering a
very evil plot of which Bart McRae is the next intended victim.”
Episode Nine
Wyatt Cummings tossed in his cards
and got up from the table. He smiled at his companions and threw out a few
friendly good-byes, but he didn’t linger.
The bat
wing doors were still swinging from Wyatt’s departure when Rance and his boss
casually got up from their table and walked out of the saloon. “Aren’t you
afraid our whiskey will just sit there and go to waste?” Dehner asked when they
were on the boardwalk in front of the Happy Days.
“Not in the
slightest,” Bertram Lowrie replied.
The two
detectives followed Cummings from a safe distance. They didn’t have to be very
cautious. Dehner noted that Wyatt moved with the assurance of a man with no
concerns, a man who seemed to have plenty of money though he’d been out of work
for almost two years.
Cummings
walked around to the back of the livery where the former jehu began to hitch
four horses to a buckboard. Wyatt Cummings didn’t stop to speak to the owner of
the establishment. All arrangements for the use of the buckboard had obviously
been made ahead of time.
The
detectives took cover behind a small tool shed in front of the livery which, in
the darkness of night, provided them with almost total cover. “We will wait
until our man leaves, then rent two horses from the livery and follow him,”
Lowrie spoke in a low voice. “Are you completely satisfied as to who killed
Adrian Monahan?”
“Adrian
Monahan isn’t dead,” Rance replied confidently. He knew the boss was testing
him. “Monahan faked suicide in order to escape the debts from his failed
stagecoach line.”
Bertram
Lowrie nodded his head. “The actual victim, no doubt, was some unfortunate
drifter who happened to have a build similar to that of Adrian Monahan.”
“Jesse
Monahan assisted his uncle in the deception,” Rance continued. “He owed the old
man for buying off Bart McRae.”
“But who killed
Jesse Monahan, and why?”
The
clattering sound of a buckboard sounded in the night, as Wyatt Cummings pulled
out from behind the livery. For a moment the outline of the wagon, the driver,
and the horses was clearly visible in the light from the lantern that hung
above the door of the livery, then it vanished into the darkness.
“I think
we’re going to have that question answered soon,” Rance Dehner said. Both men
ran toward the livery.
***
The two
detectives trailed the buckboard at a steady pace, going almost completely by
the rattling sound of the wagon. There was no moon. Only a few stars spotted
the sky, their light partially concealed as if hiding from a predator.
Cummings
rode the buckboard to a dilapidated ranch house. He didn’t bother to open the
gate that surrounded the house, but guided the horses around to the right side where
the fence abruptly ended. The steeds actually needed little guidance. They had
made this trip before.
Dehner and
his boss both dismounted and walked their horses to a tree with a large
overhang. From the darkness, they
watched as a man emerged from the house carrying a lantern. He limped and
appeared elderly.
“I believe
we have found our ghost.” Even in a soft whisper, Lowrie’s voice sounded
contemptuous.
Tomorrow: Episode Ten
of The Darkness
