Ralph Compton - West of the Law

McBride dragged the protesting girl onto the dance floor and spun her around in what he hoped was a reasonable imitation of a waltz. But his partner was having none of it.

‘‘Hey, watch your big feet, Gramps,’’ she hollered. She twisted out of his arms and stepped away from him, her eyes blazing. ‘‘Go on home to Grandma, you crazy old coot!’’

Around him people laughed and jeered and out of the corner of his eye McBride saw several heads at Trask’s table turned to him. But Donovan grinned and said something that made the others laugh and they went back to their champagne and cigars.

The saloon girl had called him a crazy old coot and now McBride played that role to the hilt. He staggered toward where Shannon usually sat, elbowing men out of his way. One miner, a big man with a broken nose and the spiderwebbed eye scars of a skull and knuckle fighter, took exception to being bumped and stepped close to McBride. The man’s face just inches away from his own, McBride could smell the rank stink of whiskey on his breath.

‘‘Hey, you, scat!’’ the miner said, tight and hard. ‘‘If you don’t, old man or no, I’ll break your damned jaw.’’

People were crowded close around the two of them and McBride brought up his right knee, very fast, into the man’s crotch. The miner gasped and his face instantly changed color from angry red to ashy gray. He bent over and went down slowly, groaning, his hands clutching at his tormented nether regions. McBride took a step back and let the man fall. Beside him a girl and her dance partner looked down with mild curiosity at the writhing miner.

‘‘Heh, heh,’’ McBride cackled. ‘‘I’d say that young feller’s had too much to drink.’’

He stepped over the miner’s recumbent form and made his way to Shannon’s table. He stood behind one of the poker players, looking down at her, willing her to look at him. She did. Shannon’s beautiful eyes lifted to his face, but as O’Hara had done, she dismissed him without interest.

But then she looked back with a spike of startled recognition.

McBride smiled under his false beard and slowly pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. Shannon caught his drift immediately and nodded. She bowed her head to her cards and McBride again faded into the crowd.

The stricken miner was being dragged backward, his booted feet trailing, toward a chair by a couple of his friends. The man’s head was lolling on his shoulders and a thin line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth. As McBride walked past, somebody called out for ice and he grinned. The miner was obviously in a world of hurt.

Served him right for picking on a poor old man.

McBride left the saloon and no one at Trask’s uproarious table saw him go. Girls had arrived shortly after the champagne and Trask and the others were distracted, carousing in a haze of blue cigar smoke and cheap perfume.

That was all to the good and McBride hoped they all got blind drunk. It would give him and Shannon more time to put trail between themselves and Trask.

The moon, as carefree as ever, was sliding lower in the sky as McBride stepped into the alley beside the saloon. There, in slanted, sulking shadow, he waited for Shannon to appear.

McBride’s fingers moved to the grip of the Colt in his waistband. He took comfort in its cool steel for a moment, then moved his hand again, this time to scratch under his chin where the false beard itched.

Marshal Clark’s tiny calico cat, on the prowl, emerged from the darkness and rubbed against his ankles in a friendly greeting. McBride leaned over, stroked the cat’s soft fur and whispered, ‘‘You go on home now.’’

The calico arched its back, made a faint mewing noise and faded again into the night. McBride straightened, his eyes slanting to the door of the Golden Garter.

Slow minutes dragged past, men came and went, the moon dropped lower and the shadows around him darkened. A halfhearted wind wheezed through the alley, teased McBride for a moment, then gave up the effort and died into stillness.

The moon glided lower in the sky. Time moved on—thirty minutes went past, then ten more.

McBride grew worried.

Then Shannon stepped through the door. Against the ashy gray of the saloon’s planking and the dull orange circles cast by the oil lamps, the woman stood as a slender, vivid column of light. Diamonds sparkled in her ears and she wore a satin dress of lustrous yellow, ribbons of the same color in her hair. Her naked shoulders were beautiful, shapely as those of a Greek goddess, and a thin band of black silk encircled her throat.

McBride could only look at her in stunned wonder from the shadows, the breath catching in his chest, his heart pounding.

Shannon stepped to the edge of the boardwalk and looked around her. She pushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead, then turned to her right, walking away from McBride.

‘‘Psst . . . over here.’’

Shannon’s back stiffened and she stood still. She glanced over her shoulder, then slowly walked back in McBride’s direction.

When she was close, McBride whispered again: ‘‘Stay there, don’t look at me.’’

The woman nodded and looked straight ahead into the darkness.

‘‘We’re leaving tonight,’’ McBride said. ‘‘When can you get away without being noticed?’’

He thought he saw a fleeting expression on Shannon’s face that could have been fear or apprehension. But the woman nodded a second time.

‘‘Do you have a horse?’’ McBride asked.

Another nod. Then, without turning her head: ‘‘John, be at the City Transfer livery in an hour. My horse is there.’’

‘‘I’ll be there.’’

‘‘I have to go,’’ Shannon whispered. ‘‘I’ll be missed.’’

Before McBride could say anything further, Shannon turned on her heel and walked into the saloon. The night closed around the place where she’d stood and suddenly all the light was gone.

McBride stepped out of the alley and took to the boardwalk. He had little time. He would saddle the mustang and be ready. One short hour. The thought of leaving with Shannon made his heart beat faster.

Just sixty fleeting minutes from now she’d be his . . . at the beginning of forever.

Chapter 26

McBride was tightening the cinch on the mustang’s saddle when a shuffle of feet made him turn fast, drawing from his waistband.

‘‘Take it easy, gunfighter. It’s only me.’’

Dolly’s voice. She stepped out of the shadows and stopped a few feet from McBride. ‘‘You’re pulling your freight?’’

He shoved the gun back in place. ‘‘Looks like.’’ The woman was silent and he was forced to add, ‘‘I’ve had enough of High Hopes to last me a lifetime.’’

‘‘Did Shannon Roark say she’ll leave with you?’’

‘‘You know about Shannon and I?’’

‘‘Lute told me.’’

‘‘Yes, she’s leaving with me. I’ll meet her at the livery an hour from now, a bit less.’’

McBride saw Dolly’s smile flash in the gloom of the barn. ‘‘Don’t count on it, McBride.’’

He was startled. ‘‘What do you mean, don’t count on it?’’

Dolly took a step toward him. ‘‘Miss Roark has become accustomed to the good life. I haven’t seen her tonight, but I bet the dress she’s wearing cost more than a city policeman makes in three months.’’

‘‘We’ll get by,’’ McBride said defensively, but all at once a strange twinge of unease began tugging at his belly.

‘‘What was she wearing in her ears tonight?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’

‘‘Yes, you do, McBride. What were her earrings like?’’

He hesitated, like a man standing at the edge of a precipice, afraid to take a step into the unknown. ‘‘Diamonds,’’ he said finally. ‘‘She wore diamond earrings.’’