Ralph Compton - West of the Law

‘‘Yes, you did. More or less.’’

‘‘Well, it’s true enough.’’

The woman left him then. McBride walked to Clark’s door, knocked once and stepped inside. A single lamp beside the marshal’s bed lit the room and he was propped up with pillows. His gray face, etched with shadow, was the face of a cadaver.

‘‘I warned you not to, but I figured you’d be back,’’ Clark said. ‘‘Dolly told me what’s been happening in town. Bucking a stacked deck, ain’t you? I mean taking on Trask and the Allison boys.’’

‘‘I killed Harland Allison earlier tonight,’’ McBride said. ‘‘He didn’t give me any choice.’’

‘‘That boy needed killing. So do the other two, Julius and Clint.’’ The cadaver head moved on the pillow. ‘‘They won’t be so easy.’’

McBride smiled grimly. ‘‘It wasn’t easy. It was damned hard. Harland came close.’’ He thought about telling Clark about the deaths of Ebenezer and the blacksmith, but decided to let it go. Besides, the marshal was talking again.

‘‘Why are you here, McBride? It’s hardly to ask the help of a dead man.’’

‘‘I need a place to hide out,’’ McBride said. ‘‘I need to be close to Shannon Roark.’’

‘‘Still planning on taking down Gamble Trask, huh?’’

‘‘No. Right now my only plan is to get the woman I love out of High Hopes.’’

‘‘That’s good thinking on your part. You can hurt a man like Trask, burn a cabin or free a few Celestials, but you can’t take him down. Not alone, you can’t.’’

‘‘But, how did—’’

‘‘Dolly told me. No big surprise, everybody in town is talking about your little foray into the bad-lands, you and Luke Prescott. A miner rode in on a lathered horse and told everybody that Stryker Allison had been killed.’’

‘‘Luke is dead too. Allison killed him. Did Dolly tell you that?’’

‘‘The word around town is that you shot Allison.’’

‘‘It’s wrong. If I’d taken on Stryker in a revolver fight, I’d be dead right now.’’

Clark absorbed that in silence. The flesh had melted from his face and his temples and cheeks were sunken. It looked to McBride that the man was starving himself to hasten his death.

Finally he waved McBride close and said, ‘‘Suppose I let you stay here. What do you hope to accomplish?’’

‘‘Watch, wait for my chance and when the time is right get Shannon out of town.’’

‘‘Watch?’’ Clark’s laugh was like ancient parchments being rubbed together. ‘‘Watch from where, McBride? My front porch? You have to be able to get around town, man.’’

‘‘I can hardly do that, Marshal. My face is too well-known.’’

‘‘You told me you were a detective, McBride. What the hell kind of shadow do they raise in the big cities?’’

McBride did not want to rankle the man, and his reply was mild. ‘‘Good ones, I’d hope.’’

Clark mimicked him. ‘‘Good ones, I’d hope.’’ He laughed again, a dry, unpleasant sound. ‘‘You claim to be a good detective yet you’ve never heard of a disguise?’’

It was McBride’s turn to laugh. ‘‘Disguise myself as what?’’

The marshal made no answer. He tilted his head back and bellowed, ‘‘Dolly!’’

Almost immediately, as though she’d been listening outside, the door opened and the woman stepped into the room. ‘‘Do you recollect them four Texas cowboys that tried to rob the Mercantile Bank a few years back?’’ Clark asked her.

‘‘I remember you killed two of them,’’ Dolly said. ‘‘I recollect that.’’

‘‘They’d been notified,’’ the marshal said. ‘‘Anyways, they were wearing false theatrical beards and wigs and—’’

‘‘You stashed that stuff in the closet in the spare room,’’ Dolly said.

‘‘Yeah, that’s right. I kept the disguises as trial evidence, except they never got a chance to go before the judge.’’

‘‘What happened to them?’’ McBride asked.

Dolly answered for the marshal.

‘‘Vigilantes did for them. A bank clerk was killed during the robbery, a man with a wife and three kids. Dr. Alan Cox, Theo Leggett, Ned Barlow, the blacksmith, and a bunch of others told Lute to go fishing for a couple of days. Then they dragged those two poor cowboys out of the jail and strung them up. I don’t think either one of them had seen his seventeenth birthday.’’

‘‘They were plenty old enough to hold up a bank,’’ Clark said. His eyes glittered as they moved in their shadowed sockets. ‘‘Dolly, bring them disguises here. Oh, and that old black hat I used to wear for gardening.’’

The woman did as she was told, leaving McBride with a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Cox . . . Leggett . . . Barlow . . . men he’d trusted were vigilantes, in their own way just as ruthless and cold-blooded as Gamble Trask.

Back at the train station when he’d first arrived in High Hopes, the ticket clerk told him nothing in the town was as it seemed. Now McBride was beginning to understand what he’d meant. The question now was, apart from Shannon, whom else could he trust in High Hopes? Even Ebenezer, who had seemed to be a harmless old man, had sold him down the river for thirty pieces of silver. Could he depend on Marshal Clark to keep silent? And what about Dolly? She’d need traveling money and Gamble Trask was a ready and eager source.

McBride had plenty of questions and no answers and he felt like the walls of Clark’s room were closing in on him.

Dolly returned with the disguises and handed them to McBride.

‘‘The gray beard and wig, try those,’’ Clark said.

Feeling foolish, McBride hooked the beard onto his ears. It fell away from him in a frizzy mat, covering most of his chest.

‘‘Now the wig,’’ the marshal said. ‘‘The beard is a big improvement, McBride. Makes you almost look handsome.’’

McBride was irritated, but said nothing. He placed the wig over his head and its ragged gray locks hung to his shoulders, covering the beard’s ear loops.

‘‘Now let’s see you walk,’’ Clark said.

McBride took a few steps up and down the room.

‘‘Hell, man, you’re not in New York! You stand like a copper and walk like one,’’ the marshal said. ‘‘Hunch those shoulders and shuffle. Remember, you’re supposed to be an old codger.’’ He watched McBride for a few moments and said, ‘‘That’s better, but drag your feet a bit more. Now, put on the hat.’’

McBride did as he was told, settling the battered, shapeless old Stetson on his head.

‘‘You look just fine,’’ Clark said. ‘‘Even your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.’’ His eyes moved to Dolly. ‘‘What do you think?’’

‘‘He’ll pass for an old, broken-down prospector at a distance.’’

‘‘What did you say you were, McBride? A detective sergeant?’’

‘‘Yes, that’s my rank.’’

‘‘Then I shouldn’t have had to give a big-city detective sergeant like you a lesson in police work.’’

McBride bit back a sharp reply and said merely, ‘‘I’m obliged to you, Marshal.’’

‘‘Dolly, he’s staying with us for a spell,’’ Clark said.

‘‘I thought as much.’’ She turned to McBride. ‘‘You can sleep in the barn. Nobody will trouble you there. I’ll bring a pillow and blankets, and there’s a stall for your horse. Lute sold his dun a while back.’’

‘‘No need for it now,’’ the marshal said. He looked up at McBride. ‘‘Have you any money?’’

‘‘No, I was robbed of my money belt. I ran into a band of thieves headed by a man called Portugee.’’

Clark was surprised and it showed. ‘‘Portugee Lamego? Where did you run into that damned pirate?’’