Ralph Compton - West of the Law

‘‘Just as I thought,’’ Prescott whispered. ‘‘They hold the girls here for a spell before taking them to High Hopes.’’

‘‘How can you be sure it’s Trask’s men?’’ McBride asked. ‘‘It could be railroaders.’’

‘‘I’m not sure. That’s why we’ll get closer and take a look around.’’

‘‘Then you’d better take off your spurs, Luke. You make more racket than church bells on Sunday morning.’’

Prescott grinned, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. ‘‘We ain’t going to no prayer meeting, that’s for sure.’’ He bent, unbuckled his spurs and set them atop a tree stump by the trail. ‘‘Ready?’’

‘‘I’m ready.’’

‘‘Then let’s take a stroll.’’

The sky was ablaze with stars and the ascending moon wore a halo as the two men made their way down the slope and onto the flat. A mist wreathed through the silver trunks of the aspen and twined like a great gray snake across the low grassland, soundless as a ghost.

Closer now, McBride could make out the shape of the cabin, even see the smoke from the chimney, tied into bowknots by the wind. The air smelled of trees and the tang of frying bacon and his mouth watered and his stomach rumbled the more.

He followed Prescott as the man, crouching low and keeping his distance, scuttled past the front of the cabin. Two windows showed to the front, rectangles of orange light in the gloom. From inside McBride heard a man laugh loud and harsh and thump a table with the flat of his hand.

To the right of the cabin was a smaller building, a windowless shed with a slanted roof. The door was locked shut by a heavy wooden bolt. Beyond the shed was a pole corral where four horses dozed, and pulled up next to it was a freight wagon. Behind the seat, a massive iron cage took up the entire bed.

Those were Trask’s men in the cabin all right. McBride tightened his grip on the Winchester as he took a knee beside Prescott. He pointed to the cabin and whispered, ‘‘Trask’s boys.’’

The gunfighter nodded. ‘‘Figgered that.’’ He rose to his feet. ‘‘Let’s go be sociable, just like we were visiting kinfolk.’’

Before McBride could protest, Prescott strode toward the cabin, his rifle hanging in his right hand. When he was twenty feet from the door he stopped and yelled, ‘‘Hello the cabin!’’

As McBride joined him he heard the scrape of a chair across a wood floor and a moment later the door swung open. A huge man stood silhouetted in the doorway, what looked to be a shotgun in his hands. ‘‘What the hell do you want?’’

Firing from the hip, Prescott shot him in the belly.

Chapter 18

The man screamed and slammed against the door-frame. His knees buckled and as he started to go down, Prescott shot him again.

Learning nothing from the death of his partner, a second man appeared in the doorway, a Colt flaming in each hand. He was shooting blindly into the darkness, but he was outlined against the greasy yellow glow of kerosene lantern light.

Prescott fired, levered his rifle and fired again.

McBride saw a sudden arc of blood and brain fan above the man’s head. He staggered back out of sight, the staccato thump of his bootheels loud on the pine floor. A grinding crash of metal, then a wild yell from inside as burning logs scattered across the wood floor from the tipped stove.

McBride had been seeking a target. Now he found one. He fired at the lantern hanging just inside the cabin window. A miss. Cursing under his breath, he tossed the rifle aside and drew his Smith & Wesson. He raised the gun to eye level in both hands, aimed and fired again. The lamp exploded and instantly flames shot up behind the window.

A frantic voice came from somewhere near the smoke-filled doorway. ‘‘We’re done! We’re coming out.’’

‘‘Put your mitts up where I can see them,’’ Prescott yelled. ‘‘And make sure they’re empty.’’

Two men tumbled, coughing, out through the cabin door. The one to Prescott’s left was big and bearded, while the other was smaller and younger. The little gunfighter shot the bearded man and he went down shrieking, a bullet smashing into his breastbone a few inches below where his neck met his chest. Prescott fired again, this time a careful belly shot into the younger man.

‘‘I want that one!’’ Prescott hollered at McBride. ‘‘Let him be.’’

For his part, McBride had no intention of shooting. He was stunned by the suddenness of the violence and Prescott’s cool skill with a gun. He’d downed four men in less than a couple of minutes. Nothing McBride had ever experienced had prepared him for that, not even growing up on the tough streets or his years in the New York police, when he’d served with many hard men.

For the first time he appreciated what it had taken for Prescott to enter the top rank of gunfighters and become a named man. Looking around him at the dead men and the youngster screaming and slowly dying, he knew he wanted no part of it. For a few minutes there, Luke Prescott had teetered on the outer rim of madness and no one could have pulled him back from the precipice. McBride never wanted to find himself there. . . . Unless . . . he suddenly thought of Shannon and realized that Prescott’s bloody, insane road was one he might well have to soon travel himself.

The towheaded boy on the ground was speaking, looking up at Prescott with agonized, pleading eyes. ‘‘I’m gutshot. . . . Damn you, end it.’’

‘‘I will. But first I want to ask you a question, for my own satisfaction, like.’’

‘‘Then ask it and be damned to ye. My belly’s on fire.’’

Prescott got down on one knee beside the boy, who looked to be about seventeen or so. Behind Prescott the cabin blazed, sending smoke and flames into the sky, and he was outlined in fire.

‘‘Why did you hang the little Chinese gal?’’

‘‘I . . . I had no part in that. It was Dawson and the others who did it.’’

‘‘Charlie Dawson?’’

The boy bit back his pain until his lip bled. ‘‘Yeah, him an’ Hank Ross an’ Jess Worley.’’

Prescott spoke to McBride from the scarlet-streaked darkness. ‘‘A few years back Charlie Dawson rode with Sam Bass and that wild bunch down Austin way. He was the worst of them.’’

McBride made no answer as the boy yelped, ‘‘You’ve asked your question—now end it.’’

His voice level and matter-of-fact, Prescott said, ‘‘I’m still waiting for an answer. Why did Charlie hang the Celestial?’’

Again the boy bit back a scream. ‘‘She . . . she ran away. When we caught her, Charlie hung her as an example to the others. Made . . . made them look at it.’’

‘‘There are others?’’ McBride asked. ‘‘Where are they?’’

‘‘In the shed. Four . . . four of them.’’

McBride looked at the boy, then said to Prescott, ‘‘Is there anything we can do for him?’’

‘‘Sure there is.’’ The gunfighter rose to his feet, drew his Colt and shot the boy in the head. ‘‘That’s what we can do for him.’’

Prescott read the tightly knotted expression on McBride’s face, a mix of horror and disgust. He punched out the empty shell from the Colt and reloaded from his gun belt. When he spoke his voice was flat, without emotion.

‘‘John, we’re in a hard, merciless business. You want to take down Gamble Trask and so do I. You want to save your woman and so do I. But we can’t do it without killing, a lot of killing. Turning the other cheek is for preachers and them as don’t know any better. Now, you either make up your mind to the killing part or we say adios right here and now and go our own ways.’’

‘‘I’ve killed two men,’’ McBride said, ‘‘and at the time I understood the necessity for it. But you just shot a boy.’’