Ralph Compton - West of the Law

Dolly’s head nodded in the darkness. The mustang chomped on his bit and in the distance the mournful coyote chorus was in full voice.

‘‘Then God help you, John McBride,’’ Dolly said. ‘‘From this night until the end of your life you will never again be able to hold up your head in the company of men.’’

The woman’s words hit McBride like blows. He watched in silence as Dolly turned her back on him and walked out of the barn. A sick, empty feeling in his gut, he knew that a piece of him had gone with her . . . and it would never return.

McBride gathered up the reins of the mustang. He would take the long way around to the livery, holding to the darkness. Where he belonged.

Two shots, close together, hammered apart the glassy fabric of the night.

‘‘Oh God, Shannon!’’ McBride whispered, his face wild with fright.

Then he was running . . . running toward the sound.

Chapter 27

A crowd of men was gathered at the entrance to the alley beside the Golden Garter—Sean Donovan, the Allison brothers and Gypsy Jim O’Hara among them.

He slowed to a walk when he got closer, and tapped a miner on the shoulder. ‘‘What happened?’’ McBride waited for an answer, fearing what it might be.

‘‘Gamble Trask,’’ the man said. ‘‘Shot twice in the back.’’ The miner grinned. ‘‘I wouldn’t get any closer, old-timer. The killer is still around and maybe he’ll decide to take a potshot at you.’’

McBride had forgotten that he was wearing the false beard and wig. Now, as relief flooded through him, he was grateful for both.

Hack Burns, wearing his marshal’s star, strolled out of the saloon and roughly pushed men from his path. He had a hurried conference with Donovan, then disappeared from view as he bent to examine the body.

Confident of his disguise, McBride elbowed his way though the excited, chattering crowd. He drew a few annoyed looks, but no one moved to stop him.

Gamble Trask lay on his back, his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. A look of horror and surprise was frozen on his face, as though he’d been unable to understand the manner and reason for his dying. McBride’s practiced eye pieced it together. Hit twice in the back, Trask had tried to turn to face his assailant, drawing from a shoulder holster. His gun was in his hand, but he’d never gotten the chance to use it. He’d collapsed, dead when he hit the ground.

Someone had lured Trask to the alley and then murdered him. Sean Donovan killed like that. He had set up the orphan-train deal and it could be he figured the profits were too thin to be shared. The killing of Trask had Donovan’s slimy paw prints all over it.

But the man’s death had removed his claim to Shannon. A major obstacle had been removed and now McBride’s path out of High Hopes with his future wife was clear. In a few minutes they would be on their way to a new life in a new place well away from the sullen drift of gun smoke.

It had cost just two cents, the price of a couple of cartridges, to end Gamble Trask’s dream of political power forever. The big deal he’d talked about, the sale into sexual slavery of one hundred young girls, had cost him his life and all his ambitions.

McBride considered that dying in a stinking, muddy alley had been a fitting finish for a man who had deserved no better.

‘‘And what kind of finish do you deserve, Detective Sergeant McBride?’’

It was Dolly’s voice in his head, haunting him, taunting him, giving him no peace.

McBride made a tremendous effort of will and pushed the thought away from him. What did Dolly know about anything? He was the best judge of what was best for him, for the woman he loved, not her.

He looked over at Donovan, who was talking with Hack Burns. Then his eyes fell on O’Hara. The man was watching him intently, a fixed, puzzled expression on his dark face, as though he was trying hard to remember something.

Quickly, McBride looked away. He turned and hurriedly retraced his steps along the boardwalk. It was time to pick up his horse and go meet Shannon.

Marshal Clark’s house was in darkness as McBride stepped into the barn and led the mustang outside. The moon was much lower in the sky and a streak of pale blue light showed above the horizon to the east, where the dawn was preparing to boost the sun above the low hills. The plains were still shrouded in darkness and a few sentinel stars remained awake as McBride swung into the saddle and rode out into the gloom.

He shed his beard and wig, then made a wide arc around town and came up on the livery from the west. A tin rooster stirred in a gusty breeze at the peak of the roof above the door, screeching as it swung this way and that, frantically trying to point out the direction of the capricious wind. Darkness clung close to the stable and the open door was a mysterious rectangle of black.

Where was Shannon?

McBride stepped out of the saddle and walked toward the door. He stopped when he was a few steps away and whispered, ‘‘Shannon?’’

There was no sound but the constant shriek . . . shriek . . . shriek of the tin rooster on the roof and the sighing of the wind. A dust devil spun like a dervish a few yards from McBride and collapsed at his feet, sifting mustard-colored sand over the toes of his shoes.

‘‘Shannon?’’ he called again, louder this time.

A man emerged from the door of the stable, small, dapper, grinning. ‘‘She’s not here, McBride. But I am.’’

McBride was stunned. ‘‘O’Hara! How did you—’’

‘‘Know you were coming here? Let’s just say a little bird told me, a pretty little female bird at that.’’

Dolly! He’d said he was meeting Shannon here. This was how she’d gotten back at him for leaving High Hopes—by betraying him to Gypsy Jim.

‘‘You made a big mistake, McBride,’’ O’Hara said. The little assassin was poised, ready, a deadly scorpion about to strike. ‘‘A man can wear a disguise, but he can’t change the color of his eyes. That got me to wondering when I saw you in the saloon, and later when you came to pay your last respects to poor Mr. Trask. See, an old man has faded, milky eyes, but yours are bright blue. Young eyes in a graybeard’s face? It just didn’t ring true. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced I was looking at Detective Sergeant McBride as ever was.’’ O’Hara shook his head. ‘‘A smart shadow like you should have known that.’’

‘‘Donovan send you here?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘No, I came on my own.’’ O’Hara threw a burlap sack at McBride’s feet. ‘‘But I’ll give him your head in that after I kill you.’’ The little man was reaching down to the right pocket of his coat. ‘‘I never liked you, McBride, the stiff-necked copper who couldn’t be bribed. It’s going to be a real pleasure to put a bullet into you.’’

‘‘Where’s Shannon?’’

Was she in the barn, bound and gagged and unable to cry out?

‘‘Like I said, she’s not here, McBride. It’s only me . . . and you.’’

O’Hara had made his intention to kill him clear. The time for talking was over.

If McBride had learned anything in the West, it was not to underestimate the sudden effectiveness of the gunfighter’s fast draw.

‘‘Listen, O’Hara, let’s talk—’’

He drew, very fast from the waistband. O’Hara, smirking, overconfident of his gun skills, was taken completely by surprise. He was still groping for the gun in his coat pocket when McBride’s first bullet hit him.

The man spun halfway to his left. But now he had a gun in his hand. He was bringing it up for an aimed shot when McBride fired again. The bullet hit O’Hara’s collar stud and drove it through the back of his neck, smashing the spine. The man let out a scream and dropped to his knees. He looked at McBride for a few moments, his eyes unbelieving, then fell flat on his face.