Ralph Compton - West of the Law

‘‘When this is all over and Gamble Trask is dead, you should spend some time in the mountains with your lady. Then you’ll really see something.’’

McBride smiled. ‘‘Trask dead? Right now, that seems almost impossible.’’

Prescott was not smiling and his eyes were cold. ‘‘It’s not impossible. If this little jaunt of ours fails, I’ll still get to him and kill him.’’

‘‘Then we’d better not fail. To save Shannon, I want him to lose all he has. I want him isolated and alone so he looks around and realizes he’s come out on the far end of what he’d once been.’’

The little gunfighter nodded, his hard face grim. ‘‘So be it. Then let’s get it done.’’

McBride’s eyes fell on a hawk riding the air currents in the far distance ahead of him. They rode in that direction.

But McBride had no way of knowing that at the exact moment he’d seen the hawk, the bird’s sharp eyes were looking down on a scene that had transformed a very small part of the enchanted land into a place of unbelievable horror.

For the most part the wagon trail skirted the aspen groves. Only once had trees been hacked down to clear a path over a humpbacked ridge that led down to a broad and pleasant meadow strewn with wildflowers. A stream bordered by cottonwoods and willows angled across the flat, bubbling clear over a bed of pebbles.

McBride and Prescott sat their horses at the top of the ridge and looked down at the valley. ‘‘Good a place as any to stop and boil up coffee and eat,’’ Prescott said. ‘‘There’s some salt pork left, but after that, we’ll have to shoot our own grub.’’

They rode down the slope and reached the creek.

That was when the smell hit them. ‘‘Something dead,’’ Prescott said, his nose lifted to the tainted air. ‘‘Maybe an antelope. Now and then coyotes can pull one down that’s old or sick.’’

‘‘Where the hell is it coming from?’’ McBride asked, talking through pursed lips, the cloying sweetness of death in his nostrils.

‘‘Further ahead of us. I only hope wherever the critter is, it’s not in the water.’’

McBride’s mustang, which up until now had taken little interest in its surroundings, lifted its head, ragged ears pricked forward. Prescott’s big black was up on its toes, tossing its head as it fought the bit.

Prescott’s blue eyes scanned the tree line along the creek, his face showing concern. With a wild animal’s instinct for danger he slid his Winchester out of the scabbard and racked a round into the chamber.

‘‘I think we’ve got a dead man ahead of us,’’ he said, turning to McBride. ‘‘And where’s there a dead man his killer might still be close by.’’

‘‘Indians?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘Only the Apache are still hostile and I doubt they’d come this far north.’’ Prescott fought his nervous horse, then said, ‘‘Keep your rifle ready, but if the work is close, toss it aside and shuck your revolver. Fast.’’

‘‘Could it be Apaches?’’ McBride asked, the words coming dry as sticks from his parched mouth.

‘‘Could be. Sometimes they torture a man so long, his body starts to rot.’’

McBride wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his pants, then levered his rifle. The mustang’s head was still up, but it was standing pat.

‘‘Probably just an animal,’’ McBride said hopefully.

‘‘Probably. But don’t count on it.’’ Prescott smiled. ‘‘You ever fit Injuns before, John?’’

‘‘Never.’’

‘‘Well, I reckon there’s a first time for everything.’’

McBride sighed. ‘‘And this could be the time.’’

‘‘Seems like.’’

Prescott kneed his mount forward and McBride followed. He knew his seat on the mustang was a precarious thing, and he resolved to dismount and fight on foot if he found himself surrounded by hordes of feathered savages. Back in New York he’d once read a dime novel about Apache who massacred a regiment of U.S. Cavalry. Nothing he recalled about the book provided him with the slightest reassurance.

The two riders splashed across the stream to the far bank, then followed its meandering course, keeping close to the sun-dappled cover of the cottonwoods. The afternoon was very still, without a breeze. Crickets made their small sound in the grass and once a marsh rabbit bounded away from them, bouncing across the meadow like a rubber ball.

The stench of death grew stronger.

McBride saw Prescott ease his Colt in the holster, his eyes roaming far, searching for whatever lay ahead. The black reared, attempting to turn away from the nearness of a thing it feared. A skilled horseman, Prescott fought the stud and pushed it forward.

McBride followed. The heat of the day crowded uncomfortably close to him, like the naked body of an unwanted lover, and sweat trickled from under his hat brim. He was surprised that he wasn’t afraid, a city boy about to take on the dreaded Apache, sitting a horse he couldn’t ride, holding a rifle he couldn’t shoot.

The thought, unsettling though it was, made McBride smile . . . until he heard Prescott’s wild curse.

Chapter 17

Luke Prescott swung out of the saddle and started to run, yelling at McBride to come after him.

McBride swung his leg over the mustang, got his foot caught up in the seat-cushion saddle and fell flat on his back. The black cantered past him as he climbed to his feet and pounded after Prescott.

Ahead of him the stream bank formed a sharp arc around a sandbar, a tall cottonwood standing at its center. Close by, a willow trailed its branches into the water, but McBride’s eyes were fixed on the ruined cabin that lay beyond the trees—and the body that hung in the doorway.

Prescott was standing a ways off from the crumbling soddy, the gray bandanna he wore around his neck pulled up over his nose and mouth. When McBride stepped next to him the stench hit him like a fist. Swarms of fat black flies buzzed busily around him, the usual slaughterhouse welcoming committee telling their tale.

‘‘She’s been dead for at least two days, maybe longer,’’ Prescott said, his voice muffled by the bandanna. ‘‘Little gal died hard.’’

A sod brick had eroded above the heavy pine frame of the doorway, leaving just enough space for a rope. The height of the entrance was only about six feet, but the young Chinese girl who hung there had been small and her down-turned toes dangled inches above the ground.

The rope around the girl’s neck had cut deep and it was hard to make out the details of her bloated features. But McBride was detective enough to determine that her neck wasn’t broken— she’d been strangled to death. She was dressed in the traditional knee-length tunic and loose, black pants of the Chinese woman.

Coyotes had tried to pull her down. That was obvious from her ragged pants and the blood on her legs and lower body. They had taken what they could.

The watch in McBride’s pocket was ticking, the world around them turning, but for he and Prescott time stood still as they tried to come to terms with what they were seeing.

A girl, a child really, had been brutally hanged. Why?

McBride laid his rifle on the grass at his feet. ‘‘Stay here, Luke,’’ he told Prescott.

The man nodded. He said, ‘‘Sure thing. I ain’t much inclined to get closer.’’

Last night’s rain had washed away any prints that might have been left by the girl’s killers, but above the doorway a section of the timber and sod roof was still in place.

McBride walked around to the back of the cabin and stepped inside. Half the roof had caved in and he was forced to pick his way through fallen beams and chunks of dry sod toward the door. A pack rat had made a nest in one corner and a scatter of black pellets on the dirt floor revealed where an owl had roosted.