Ralph Compton - West of the Law

Even though he was moving forward at a snail’s pace, the brush tore at his back and sides and once he almost cried out in pain when a sharp thorn dug its way across his swollen eye.

McBride’s head broke through the brush and what he saw appalled him. Here the creek suddenly curved away from him, and the bank was a good twenty feet from where he lay. The land between was flat, covered in short grass dappled with moonlight.

It was a killing ground.

John McBride swallowed hard, his heart hammering in his chest. He set down his gun, wiped a sweaty palm on his pants, then picked the .38 up again. He was scared, more scared than he’d ever been in his life. He felt that the night had eyes, watching him, measuring him, finding him wanting.

Angry at himself for the fear he felt, McBride decided to back out of the brush again and go back to his original plan. He had started to wriggle backward when an idea came to him. Even a blind pig will find an acorn once in a while, he decided, allowing himself a small, grim smile.

He lay on his side and broke open the Smith & Wesson. He extracted three spent shells, held them in his right hand, then rotated the cylinder so that the others would be in line to fall under the hammer.

The skin under McBride’s eye was bleeding where the thorn had raked him and it smarted like a dozen wasp stings, adding to his discomfort and growing rage. He felt like a trapped rat and he directed all his irritation toward the man hidden out there in the darkness. Right then, McBride wanted to put a bullet into him so bad he could taste it.

The brush had closed over McBride, but when he carefully turned his head he saw a break a couple of feet behind him where the sky was visible. He eased back, and froze when a twig snapped under his weight. The noise drew a probing bullet that thudded into a tree several yards away.

A minute passed, then another. He did not dare breathe, staying still, listening to the night. The rifleman did not fire again, and McBride resumed his backward crawl. When he reached the break in the thick brush, he rose up enough to get one foot under him. When the time came, he’d have to run faster than he’d ever done in his life and pushing off on the foot would help.

Swiveling from the waist, a motion that instantly stabbed pain into his tortured lower back, he drew back his arm, then threw the empty shells as far as he could. He heard them rattle into undergrowth a few yards away, immediately drawing fire from the rifleman.

Then he was up and running.

McBride crashed out of the brush and pounded across the grass between him and the creek bank. A bullet cracked spitefully past his head and another burned across his neck. He dived off the bank into the creek, hitting the water hard. His right knee thudded into a submerged rock and he gasped in pain. He fell on his back, the rushing water instantly soaking him, then rose and threw himself against the opposite bank.

Shots hammered into the ground above his head, but McBride stayed where he was. When the firing stopped he crouched low and made his way carefully along the streambed. Twenty yards ahead of him, barely visible in the darkness, the creek curved around a dead cottonwood, its trunk split into a V by some past frost. McBride reached the bend, his gun up and ready. Using the tree for cover, he raised his head and looked around the trunk into the gloom. He saw nothing.

Then something moved, a sudden, jerky motion, a momentary flash of white.

McBride touched his tongue to suddenly dry lips. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Was the bushwhacker wearing a white shirt or hat? It was possible. A man sure of himself and his skill with a rifle might not have bothered to dress in dark clothing.

There it was again. A quick flicker of white. Then slow, steady footfalls coming toward him, soft on the grass. The wind was making a different sound, no longer whispering, sighing through the skeletal limbs of the dead cottonwood like a sailor’s widow.

McBride held his gun in both hands and pushed it out in front of him. Far in the distance the coyotes were talking and from farther away still, he heard the howl of a hunting wolf pack.

‘‘McBride, old son,’’ he whispered to himself, ‘‘you’re a long way from New York.’’

The footsteps came closer. McBride steeled himself, surprised that the Smith & Wesson was steady in his hands. His fear was gone, all his concentration on the gunman walking toward him.

A small paint horse emerged from the gloom. The animal sensed the presence of a human and stopped, tossing its head, the bit jangling. Pent-up breath hissed from between McBride’s teeth and for a moment he rested his head on his outstretched arms, his heart hammering. The horse was saddled and could only be the mount of the man who was trying to kill him.

The paint took a few steps closer. It was standing on the bank beside the cottonwood. McBride had never sat on a horse in his life, but he could use this one. He climbed out of the creek and stepped to the paint, keeping the horse between him and the rifleman out there in the long grass.

The reins were trailing and he gathered them up and swung the horse around so that it was facing the way it had come. The animal would be between him and the bushwhacker and he’d walk the paint into the darkness, trusting that if the man saw his horse, he wouldn’t spot an extra pair of legs until it was too late. McBride figured to walk a good distance and then let the horse go and hide out somewhere in the gloom until the man gave up and left.

He stood at the pony’s shoulder, the reins in his left hand near the animal’s chin. He tried to push the horse forward, but the little paint planted its feet and stubbornly refused to budge.

‘‘Giddyup,’’ McBride whispered urgently. The fear was back and his mouth was dry. The horse shook its head violently, the bit chiming loud in the quiet as it tried to pull away from him.

‘‘Damn it, giddyup,’’ McBride rasped, irritated beyond all measure at the obstinate orneriness of equines.

A long, low whistle came out of the darkness. The horse’s head came up, its ears pricked forward, arcs of white showing in its black eyes. Then the paint started to trot, McBride running at its side.

He knew he was heading right for the hidden rifleman. The man must have heard his mount’s bit jangle and, perhaps fearing wolves, had whistled the animal closer.

The paint began to canter and McBride could no longer keep up. Suddenly the horse was ten yards in front of him and he was completely exposed.

Flame stabbed out of the darkness. Two shots, close together. McBride heard a scream and the horse went down, its rear legs flailing wildly as it collapsed. A moment later a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat, a rifle slanted across his chest, emerged from the moonlight-splashed gloom. He and McBride saw each other at the same time. The man shot from the hip and levered his rifle again. McBride fired. Once, twice, three times, triggering the Smith & Wesson very fast. The rifleman staggered, then went to his knees. He shot at McBride and the bullet cut the air above the big man’s head. The gunman tried to work his rifle again, but the effort was too much of him. He pitched forward onto his face and lay still.

McBride shoved his now empty gun into his pocket and walked warily toward the fallen man. He kneeled beside the man and rolled him on his back—then cursed loud, long and vehemently.

He was looking at the round, freckled face of a boy. A puncher by the look of him, he couldn’t have been any older than sixteen. All three of McBride’s bullets had hit squarely in the middle of the kid’s shirt pocket, very close, like the ace of clubs on a playing card. The boy’s blue eyes were wide open, staring at McBride without expression, and the death shadows were already gathering under his eyes. Quickly McBride searched the kid’s pockets and found what he’d expected to find—a few nickels and dimes and five shiny double eagles.