Ralph Compton - West of the Law

‘‘A false bottom?’’

‘‘Yeah, and when I took out a couple of boards, I found this, and maybe another forty just like it.’’

‘‘It’s raw opium,’’ McBride said. ‘‘Gamble Trask’s opium. We’ll burn it.’’

Prescott used some fallen beams to kindle a blaze in the glowing embers of the cabin. Then he and McBride began to toss the opium bricks into the flames.

Prescott turned to McBride and smiled. ‘‘Hey, John, you know we’re burning money here, don’t you?’’

‘‘Luke, that’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last thirty minutes,’’ McBride said sadly as he threw the last brick into the fire.

Chapter 19

When they reached the railroad siding, Prescott saddled his black and tied McBride’s mustang behind the wagon. The four Chinese girls crowded together inside the cage, mewling like tormented kittens as they suffered the first pangs of heroin withdrawal. When either McBride or Prescott stepped close, the girls thrust their arms through the bars, their eyes pleading.

Prescott made a face at McBride.

‘‘Lord almighty, what’s that smell? Get near the wagon and it stinks like the Chisum ranch bunk-house in summer.’’

‘‘It’s part of leaving heroin behind. Something vile oozes out through the skin. I don’t know what it is, but it will get worse before it gets better.’’

‘‘Glad you’re driving the wagon and not me,’’ Prescott said.

Because of the heavy wagon and McBride’s inexpert driving, it took him and Prescott two days to reach McKenzie’s cabin on the Cucharas.

They’d passed through rough, broken country, a land of red canyons and majestic, aspen-covered ridges. At higher elevations they’d seen wolves move through the ponderosas like gray wraiths, trotting past towering parapets of granite rock where streaks of snow still clung.

At dusk on the first day Prescott had shot an antelope, but the girls refused to eat and took no notice of their surroundings. They clung to one another, alternately sweating and shivering, moaning softly in the grip of a merciless enemy they could neither control nor understand.

Angus McKenzie’s cabin was set back from a sandy bend of the creek, shaded by an ancient cottonwood. A small barn stood behind the house and next to it a pole corral. A vegetable garden grew on one side of the cabin and nearby a well had been dug.

It was, McBride decided, a pleasant enough place, though he withheld judgment until he could determine if Prescott’s description of McKenzie as an irascible, dour old Scotsman rang true.

Watching them come, the man himself stood outside his door, a rifle in one hand, the other shading his eyes. His tense watchfulness drained from him when Prescott rode close enough to be seen.

‘‘Howdy, Luke,’’ he said in a soft Scottish burr when the gunfighter drew rein close to him. ‘‘Still riding the American stud, I see. I recognized him fine when you were still a ways off.’’

‘‘Howdy yourself, Angus,’’ Prescott smiled. ‘‘I’ll get right to it. We’ve come to ask a favor of you.’’

‘‘Are you on the dodge, like?’’

‘‘I’m on the dodge, but I’m not asking a favor for myself.’’ He waved a hand. ‘‘It’s for them.’’

‘‘In the convict wagon?’’

‘‘Yeah, four Chinese girls. They need a place to stay for a while.’’

McKenzie, a long string bean of a man with a gray beard that fell to the top of his canvas pants, walked over to the wagon and looked up at McBride.

‘‘And who might you be?’’

McBride gave his name.

‘‘Would that be the Scots or Irish McBrides?’’

‘‘Irish, I believe.’’

‘‘Ah weel,’’ McKenzie said, ‘‘when all is said and done, is not one much the same as the other?’’

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped to the side of the wagon.

‘‘These lassies are sick,’’ he said. Then, alarm showing on his face: ‘‘It’s not the black plague, is it?’’

‘‘It’s not the plague. They’ll be better in a few more days,’’ McBride said. ‘‘All they need is rest and some good food.’’

McKenzie stuck an arm through the iron bars and placed his hand on the oldest girl’s forehead. She looked at him dully, making no move to pull away.

‘‘She’s got a fever,’’ he said. ‘‘They all have.’’ He withdrew his arm and put his hand to his nose, sniffing. ‘‘They all need a bath in the creek, smells like.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ McBride said, deciding it would not be a good idea to elaborate right then.

‘‘They look far too young to be convicts.’’

‘‘They’re not convicts.’’ McBride hesitated. ‘‘It’s a story long in the telling.’’

‘‘I would fancy it is,’’ McKenzie said. He looked from McBride to Prescott, who had just ridden up to the wagon. ‘‘You two look sharp-set and so do the wee lassies. Come into the hoose and my woman will feed you.’’

The cabin was sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean. The timber floor was swept and covered with buffalo hides, and the table and chairs were polished to an amber glow. There was a stove against one wall and an open cupboard where plates with a blue pattern were displayed. Several of McKenzie’s traps hung near the door and beside them, a rack where he set his Henry rifle.

His woman was tall and slender and she wore her graying black hair loose over her shoulders in the style of the Kiowa. Humor lurked in her dark eyes and she seemed genuinely pleased to have visitors.

‘‘Aye, she’s a good woman right enough,’’ McKenzie said after McBride had thanked her for the bowl of venison stew she’d laid in front of him. ‘‘I paid twenty dollars in gold to the Kiowa for her. That was back in the spring of fifty-six and I’ve never regretted it. Weel, that’s not true. Sometimes I look back on the expense and feel a wee bit of regret, but what’s done is done and there’s an end to it.’’

‘‘What’s your lady’s name?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘Adoette. It means large tree.’’ McKenzie smiled, revealing surprisingly good teeth. ‘‘The Kiowa only have thirty-two female names, so there’s not many for a parent to choose from.’’

Prescott poised a forkful of stew between his bowl and mouth and jutted his chin toward the Chinese girls. ‘‘I wonder what they’re called.’’

‘‘They can’t tell us,’’ McKenzie said. ‘‘Unless a man knows Chinese.’’

The four girls were sitting on the floor and Adoette was spooning stew into their mouths. They opened up dutifully, but their eyes were still in a far place and they shivered uncontrollably.

McBride was relieved. At least they were eating. Not much, certainly, but eating.

After McBride and Prescott sighed their fullness and pushed their bowls away, McKenzie brought out a jug and three glasses. He filled each with whiskey, then said, ‘‘Luke, you asked about a favor, and I’m thinking that I ken what it might be. But I want to hear it from your own mouth.’’

Prescott tried his whiskey, found it good and drank more. He laid his glass back on the table and said, ‘‘Angus, you’ve helped me before when I was on the dodge, and I don’t want to impose on our friendship and your good nature, but—’’

‘‘We want you to keep the girls for a while,’’ McBride interrupted. ‘‘I’ll pay you what you ask.’’

McKenzie absorbed what had just been said and bent his head, looking into his glass. He stayed silent for a long while, the only sound in the room the tick of a clock on the wall and the soft cooing of Adoette as she fed and petted the girls.

Finally the old man looked directly at McBride and said, ‘‘Tell me about them.’’