Ralph Compton - West of the Law

The woman shook her head. ‘‘No, I came here to ask for your help. You’re the only man I can trust in High Hopes and I’m asking for your protection.’’

McBride’s smile was slight. ‘‘I’d be outnumbered. Do you think I’m up to the task?’’

‘‘Yes, I do. I’ve never put my trust in any man before, but I’m doing it now. I need you, John.’’

‘‘And I need you, Shannon,’’ McBride said, his voice husky with desire.

‘‘Your poor eye,’’ Shannon whispered, kissing him lightly again. Her fingers moved through McBride’s hair. ‘‘I’ve never met a man like you. . . . Never . . .’’

Their eyes met and held for a long time. Shannon’s moist lips were parted as though she was finding it hard to breathe and McBride’s entire being cried out for her. He pulled her toward him and felt the swell of her breasts against his chest and he kissed her. Shannon gasped and returned the kiss with an abandoned passion.

‘‘Love me, John,’’ she murmured, her head thrown back as McBride’s lips sought her throat. ‘‘Love me forever.’’

‘‘I will,’’ he said, his head filled with the sweet, woman smell of her. ‘‘Forever . . .’’

An hour later, after they parted ways, McBride lay back on the tumbled bed.

The scent of Shannon Roark’s perfume lingered . . . and he saw her everywhere.

Chapter 11

John McBride woke to a gray dawn. On bare feet he rose and padded across the floor to the window. The wind had died, and sometime during the night a mist had drifted into town from the plains. Now it was lifting, like a wrinkled and ancient Salome removing the last veil, revealing High Hopes in all its shoddy ugliness.

McBride had harbored a hope, all the while knowing how forlorn it was, that he might catch a glimpse of Shannon. But the street was empty of people and only the curling mist was moving.

He moved to the dresser, poured water into the basin from the jug and washed as best he could. He glanced in the mirror, decided to postpone shaving for one more day, then dressed. He shrugged into his high-buttoned coat but left off the uncomfortable celluloid collar and tie.

McBride slid the Smith & Wesson into the shoulder holster and settled his plug hat on his head. He stepped out of the room and walked downstairs into the new day.

The warm glow from the time he’d spent with Shannon was still with McBride as he sat at a bench in the restaurant and ordered steak and eggs. The waitress looked much less pretty in the harsh dawn light—pale hair, pale skin and pale eyes—and McBride could not help but compare her insipid look to Shannon’s vibrant beauty. Mattie poured McBride coffee, showing little inclination for conversation, and walked back to the kitchen, leaving him alone.

At this early hour of the morning, there were few other diners and McBride ate quickly and left.

He stopped for a while on the boardwalk outside the restaurant and breathed the cool morning air. The mist was all but gone and only a few wisps lingered in the alleys like gray ghosts. A train pulled into the station, the locomotive’s bell clanking. Then it hissed to a stop, belching steam.

McBride stepped aside for an unsteady miner who was heading for the restaurant with his head lowered, obviously nursing a hangover. Before he got to the door, McBride stopped him. ‘‘Where does Marshal Clark live?’’ he asked.

The man looked McBride up and down, the stench of whiskey and foul humor on his breath. ‘‘Hell of a thing to ask a man conundrums afore he’s had a cup of coffee.’’

‘‘It’s a civil question and I expect a civil answer.’’

The miner saw something in McBride’s eyes he didn’t like and it took the edge off his surliness. ‘‘Just outside of town, thataway. Yellow house. That is, if’n the old law dog is still alive. He’s got lead in him.’’

McBride nodded his thanks and the miner turned away with a muttered curse and lurched into the restaurant.

The marshal’s house was not hard to find. A hundred yards of open, sandy ground separated the place from the town limits and it stood in a grove of mixed piñon and juniper. A white picket fence surrounded the house, and from its polished brass door knocker to the blooming pink flowers in the window pots, the place had obviously been loved and cared for.

McBride rapped on the door and after a few moments it was opened by a thin, careworn woman who looked to be in her early forties. She pushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead, settled it behind an ear and looked at McBride without speaking.

He touched the brim of his hat. ‘‘Mrs. Clark?’’

The woman shook her head. ‘‘I’m not Mrs. Clark. I’m not ‘Mrs.’ anybody. You here to see the marshal?’’

‘‘Yes. The name’s Smith, John Smith.’’

‘‘He’s met a lot of those.’’ The woman studied McBride for a moment or two, then decided an explanation was warranted. ‘‘Lute and me are not married. We’ve lived together for the past ten years, so I guess you could say that makes me his common-law wife.’’ She smiled without warmth. ‘‘Not that it matters a hill of beans. Lute isn’t going to live much longer. When a man’s set his mind on dying, there ain’t much his woman can do about it.’’ Then, as an afterthought, as though it wasn’t important: ‘‘My name’s Dolly Jakes.’’ She took a step back. ‘‘Come in. Lute doesn’t get many visitors anymore.’’

The house was dark and smelled of wax polish and meat baking in the stove. A grandfather clock stood in the hallway and ticked slow seconds into the quiet, its brassy voice hushed. A small calico cat twined through McBride’s legs and he bent and rubbed its head, smiling.

‘‘Charlie likes you,’’ Dolly said. ‘‘That’s a good sign. There are not many he likes.’’

‘‘Kids and animals seem to like me,’’ McBride said. ‘‘I don’t know why.’’

‘‘You’ve got gentle hands. Small, innocent things want to be treated gentle. So do women.’’ She nodded. ‘‘Room at the end of the hall. Go right in. You’ll be quite safe. Lute doesn’t keep his gun by the bed any longer.’’

McBride rapped on the door of Clark’s room and stuck his head inside. The place smelled of sickness, of damp sheets, of the slow decay of a human being and of the laudanum that kept him numb.

‘‘Marshal Clark?’’

The room was dark, the curtains drawn. A voice came from the heaped shape on the bed, thin and unfriendly. ‘‘What the hell do you want?’’

‘‘Name’s Smith, John Smith. I’d like to talk to you.’’

‘‘I’ve known a lot of men who called themselves John Smith. Ran more than a few of them out of towns from the Pecos to the Picketwire. What do you want with me?’’

McBride stepped to the bed. He looked around in the gloom, found a chair and sat down. Clark’s face was lost in the darkness, but McBride felt the burn of the man’s eyes.

‘‘How are you feeling, Marshal?’’

‘‘As well as any man who can’t move from the neck down feels. Man can’t stand on his own two feet, he ain’t a man any longer. He’s nothing.’’ He was silent for a while, then asked, ‘‘Dolly send you in here?’’

‘‘Yes, she did. I told her I needed to talk with you.’’

‘‘Good woman, Dolly. We used to have a time, her and me, in bed and out of it. Now that’s over, like everything else.’’ A lonely man will often talk freely once he gets past the first few words and Clark did now. ‘‘Dolly was working the line in Abilene when I met her. I killed the man who figured he owned her, then a deputy sheriff who figured on stopping us leaving. Then I brung her here. That was ten years ago and she’s been a good woman to me since.’’