Ralph Compton - West of the Law

‘‘Shannon, I told Trask that I’m not for sale. That answer still stands.’’ McBride shook his head. ‘‘I just don’t like the man.’’

‘‘Then I can’t convince you to change your mind?’’

‘‘No, Shannon, I won’t change my mind.’’

The woman stood, her back stiff, and McBride knew he was losing her. She was slipping through his fingers like mist.

‘‘Then I can do no more for you,’’ she said, turning to leave.

Desperately McBride tried to keep her there, close to him. ‘‘Shannon!’’

She stared at him, her face a beautiful, porcelain mask. ‘‘Yes?’’

The raucous racket of the crowded revelers was closing in on him so he could hardly hear his own voice above the clamor. ‘‘Earlier tonight I saw Jim Nolan and another man walk into the alley alongside the saloon with four young Chinese girls.’’

That was bad. He knew that much as soon as he said it. It was a policeman’s flat statement, not the soft, winning words of a suitor.

For a single moment of time Shannon Roark’s mask slipped and McBride caught a flicker of surprise in her eyes. ‘‘What is so strange about that?’’

‘‘There was a steel cage on the wagon that brought them here and Nolan had his bullwhip.’’

‘‘They were probably visiting the Chinese fortune-teller’s shack behind the saloon,’’ Shannon said. ‘‘The Celestials do that maybe once or twice a year.’’ Her smile was not as bright as before. ‘‘I suppose they want to know when they’ll meet their future husbands.’’

‘‘Why Nolan and the whip?’’ Keep her talking. Keep her here.

‘‘Those Chinese miners out at the Spanish Peaks are very jealous of their womenfolk,’’ Shannon said easily. ‘‘They often hire men like Nolan to guard . . . ah . . . their virtue. The steel cage is another precaution. It keeps passing cowboys at arm’s length.’’ The woman shook her lovely head. ‘‘I would imagine the other man you spoke of has taken the girls home already.’’

She waited. But when McBride did not speak she said, ‘‘Any other questions, Mr. Smith?’’

He smiled in turn. ‘‘Sorry, Shannon, I’m a questioning man, I guess.’’

‘‘Then ask yourself this—do you still want to be alive at this time tomorrow?’’

McBride opened his mouth to speak, but the woman stopped him. ‘‘You still have time to change your mind about Gamble. If you do, come talk to me. I’ll be here until daybreak.’’

She left then, and only the whispering memory of her perfume remained.

Chapter 6

John McBride stepped out of the Golden Garter and onto the boardwalk. He stood in the shimmering glow of an oil lamp that touched his shoulders and the top of his hat with orange light.

Now, more than ever, Shannon Roark seemed an unattainable prize and her beauty haunted him, causing him more pain than pleasure. Did he have any chance with her? He knew he did not. It would be easier for him to reach up and try to grab a handful of stars.

McBride cupped his swollen eye with a scarred hand, feeling its heat. Well, he’d been punched in the eye a few times before and the swelling would eventually go down of its own accord. He had no need to see a doctor. His back and ribs were aching, but nothing seemed broken. He would live.

At least for a while.

The humor of that thought made him smile and suddenly, to his surprise, he was hungry. He turned to his left and stepped along the crowded boardwalk, past the alley where he’d seen the Chinese girls.

The night was oppressively muggy, damp heat lying over the town like a shroud. The air was thick, hard to breathe, smelling rank from rotten vegetation and the dead dog that lay in the street, its back broken by the wheels of a freight wagon. Fat black flies buzzed everywhere and each oil lamp had its attendant swarm of scorched, tattered moths.

McBride stopped a staggering miner who was sucking on a whiskey bottle, and asked about a restaurant.

‘‘The Bon-Ton,’’ the man slurred. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘‘Thataway.’’

The restaurant was crowded when McBride stepped inside, and he turned some heads. He didn’t know if word of his gunfight with Nolan had gotten around or if it was his battered face, bloody shirt and swollen eye that had drawn their attention.

A little of both, he decided as he found an empty place at one of the four benches in the room. The Bon-Ton was anything but elegant, but McBride guessed that few frontier eateries were. A pretty and clean enough waitress took his order—steak, potatoes and a couple of fried eggs—then returned and poured him coffee.

The clientele was mostly miners, rough, bearded men in woolen shirts, their canvas pants stuffed into scuffed mule-eared boots. All carried knives and a few wore holstered revolvers on their belts. No one looked at McBride directly, but he knew by the excited, whispered talk that he was the focus of much conversation. He had killed a named gunman in a fair fight, and that made him a subject for discussion and speculation wherever Western men gathered. If gunfighters of reputation, the likes of John Wesley Hardin or Ben Thompson, had walked into the Bon-Ton, they would hardly have elicited more interest.

And no doubt all present were aware that Hack Burns had threatened to kill the big man who was now bent to his food if he was still in town after noon tomorrow. That was an event to be eagerly anticipated.

McBride was using a piece of bread to sop up the last of the gravy on his plate when a small, stocky man in a shabby suit of black broadcloth, a soft felt hat on his gray head, walked inside. The newcomer, who looked to be in his early seventies, glanced around the restaurant for a few moments. Then his eyes lit on McBride.

‘‘Mr. Smith, I presume,’’ he said.

McBride nodded. The man tapped a miner who was sitting opposite McBride and said, ‘‘Do you mind?’’

The miner looked up, opened his mouth to speak, then thought the better of it. He shrugged and slid farther up the bench. The gray-haired man took the vacated place and smiled benignly at McBride. ‘‘My name is Theodosius T. Leggett, owner and editor of the High Hopes Tribune. ’’ He stuck out his hand. ‘‘Honored to make your acquaintance, sir.’’

McBride took the proffered hand, then said, ‘‘I don’t talk to the newspapers, Mr. Leggett.’’

‘‘Ah, but that is no longer a problem,’’ Leggett said. ‘‘You see, I don’t have a newspaper anymore, not since’’—he looked around and raised his voice so everybody in the restaurant could hear—‘‘not since Mr. Gamble Trask destroyed my press and shut me down for suggesting that he was behind the shooting of Marshal Lute Clark.’’

A buzz of comment ran around the Bon-Ton, but McBride detected very few voices sympathetic to Leggett.

‘‘What can I do for you, Mr. Leggett?’’ he asked, only half-interested in whatever the man might have to say.

‘‘Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. And, please, call me Theo. Everyone else does, when they call me anything.’’ Leggett waved to the young waitress. ‘‘Mattie, coffee here, if you please.’’

‘‘Hold your horses, Theo,’’ the waitress yelled. ‘‘You’re not the only customer in the place, you know.’’

‘‘A delightful girl, just delightful,’’ Leggett muttered. He waved at Mattie again. ‘‘And bring a raw beefsteak with the coffee.’’

The two men sat in silence for a few minutes, Leggett smiling slightly as he studied McBride’s face. Miners came and went, each one aiming a measuring glance at McBride as he passed.

Mattie brought the coffee and laid a raw steak on the table. Leggett reached into his pocket, produced a pint of bourbon and held it up to McBride, his face framing a question.