Ralph Compton - West of the Law

A crowd of miners saved McBride’s life. Drunk and unaware, they stumbled, singing, their arms around one another’s shoulders, in front of Donovan and the two gunmen.

McBride heard Donovan curse, saw him roughly push a young, redheaded miner aside. Too drunk to realize what was happening, the man angrily yelled something and pushed back. Donovan cursed again, rammed his gun into the man’s belly and fired. The miner staggered a few steps, looking down with shocked, unbelieving eyes at the blossoming scarlet flower that would soon kill him.

Suddenly McBride was running.

A bullet kicked up dust at his feet and a second split the air above his head. He dived into an alley and ran into the darkness. Behind him he heard Donovan’s angry yell. Then feet were pounding after him.

McBride cleared the far end of the alley at a jolting, flat-footed sprint. He did not try to hide because there was nowhere to hide. Ahead of him lay the inky wall of the prairie, deep shadows streaked by moonlight, and he ran on and let the night embrace him.

He knew the Allisons and Donovan were close behind him, but they would not charge blindly into darkness and his waiting gun. The gloom would slow them, make them careful, and that’s exactly what he wanted.

At a walk, McBride headed for the train station. The soft rustle of grass under his feet was lost in the whisper of the wind and the talk of the coyotes out on the plain. If he could lure Donovan and the others to the station, he could make a fight of it there. The station would provide cover and the fast draws of the Allison brothers would not be a factor.

McBride climbed the freight ramp to the platform, keeping to the shadows. A light burned in the ticket office and he opened the door and stepped inside. Silas Knowles, wearing a green eye-shade, was sitting at a desk, a sputtering pen in his hand. The man set the pen down when McBride entered, and looked up, a sour look on his face.

‘‘Hell, are you still alive?’’ he asked. ‘‘I hear you and that gunfighter Luke Prescott played hob.’’

‘‘I may not be alive much longer,’’ McBride said pleasantly. A shrewder man than Knowles would have noticed that his eyes did not match his tone. ‘‘There are men after me.’’

‘‘Then get the hell out of my office. You ain’t dying in here.’’

‘‘Sure, Silas, sure.’’

McBride moved as though to turn away, but he swung back fast and his big right hand grabbed the front of Knowles’ shirt. He dragged the man across the desk. The toes of Knowles’ shoes scraped across the desktop, scattering papers, and the ink-well tipped, spreading like a pool of black blood.

Knowles tried to wrench himself free. McBride held him at arm’s length and backhanded him hard across the face. Knowles yelped in pain, then took refuge in a whimper, his mouth dripping scarlet saliva.

McBride hauled the clerk to the door. He stuck his head outside and looked into the darkness, but there was no movement or sound. He dragged Knowles along the platform to a shadowed recess where a bench stood, and slammed the man’s back against the wall. He smiled. ‘‘So, Silas, how are you?’’

‘‘Damn you, what do you want from me?’’

‘‘Information. And I don’t have much time, so I want it real fast.’’

‘‘I can give you train times. That’s the only information I have.’’

McBride slapped the man again. Knowles shrieked and his head rolled on his shoulders. McBride lifted the man’s chin with a crooked forefinger. ‘‘Silas,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m not very happy with you. That scream could have been heard clear to town. I also don’t like grown men who want to prey on little girls. Now, you either tell me what I want to know or I’ll make sure you’re never able to molest a child again. You know where my bullet will go, don’t you, Silas?’’

McBride drew his gun and pushed the muzzle into the man’s groin. He thumbed back the hammer.

‘‘No, oh please don’t,’’ Knowles wailed. ‘‘What do you want to know? I’ll tell ya, swear to God, I will.’’

McBride nodded. ‘‘That’s better. Now, it’s amazing how clearly a man thinks when he’s running through the dark being shot at. I had this moment of wonderful clarity when I realized that the only way I can safely leave High Hopes with my future bride is to bring your whole rotten town to its knees. I thought, What good is it to have a beautiful wife at your side, John, if you can never again raise your head in the company of men? It took some time, but I also remembered that I’m a police officer, sworn to uphold the law. A woman told me to remember that, but at the time I didn’t heed her. Thinking back now, I should have.’’

McBride smiled. ‘‘Do you understand all that, Silas, or am I talking too fast for you? If I am, I’m sorry, but my time is short.’’

‘‘I understand, I understand,’’ Knowles stammered. There were tears in his eyes. ‘‘What do you want from me, lawman?’’

‘‘Tell me about the orphan train that’s due here tomorrow.’’

‘‘I don’t know anything about that.’’

McBride pushed the gun harder into the man’s groin.

‘‘It will be here at noon. Big train. Maybe three, four passenger coaches. It’s a cannonball, straight through from New York City.’’

‘‘How many girls?’’

‘‘A hundred, maybe more. I don’t know.’’

‘‘Who is Sean Donovan paying?’’

‘‘The engineer, fireman, conductor, a few more.’’

‘‘You, Silas, is he paying you?’’

‘‘Yes . . . to keep my trap shut if any Santa Fe big shots ever get curious.’’

‘‘But you’re talking to me.’’

‘‘I know and if Donovan finds out, he’ll kill me.’’

‘‘How did you meet Mr. Donovan?’’

‘‘I didn’t. The money was all paid through Gamble Trask. I got two hundred dollars.’’

‘‘And you wanted to use it to buy a little girl, right?’’

Knowles’ eyes grew sly and guarded and he made no answer.

McBride asked, ‘‘Trask planned on selling the girls to Portugee Lamego?’’

‘‘Yes, him and another man, a foreigner.’’

‘‘An Arab trader? Goes by the name Ali al-Karim?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’

‘‘How much was Portugee paying Trask?’’

‘‘I don’t know. A thousand a girl, less Donovan’s cut. I heard that, but I don’t know.’’

‘‘Steep price. I heard in some parts you can buy a young girl for the cost of a Missouri mule.’’

‘‘Them Arabs you’re talking about, they’ll pay ten times what Trask was getting at the slave markets in Tangier. They like blue-eyed girls with yeller hair for their harems, and the prettier, the better.’’

‘‘How do you know about slave markets and harems, Silas? You’re a railroad ticket clerk at the nub end of nowhere.’’

‘‘Hack Burns told me. He’d spoken to Gamble Trask a heap of times and from what Trask had let drop, Hack had it all figured out.’’

McBride thought for a few moments.

Even after paying off Donovan, Trask would have had enough money from Portugee and his trade in opium and Chinese girls to head for his new political life in Washington. A hundred thousand dollars and more could buy a lot of friends with influence. Portugee was the middleman, but it would be up to al-Karim to use his dozen ships to get the girls to slave markets at Tangier. The girls could be taken from a train, herded onto some remote beach on the California coast and picked up from there with no one the wiser.

It was a neat setup where everybody involved, even minnows like Silas Knowles, came out ahead. Only now Trask was dead, and it was Sean Donovan who stood to profit.

McBride dropped the hammer of the Colt and shoved the gun into his waistband. He took a step back and said, ‘‘Get the hell away from me, Silas.’’