Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

Watching Josephine, McBride knew that such a man as he would not surrender power voluntarily. It would have to be taken away from him.

And that, he decided, would be easier said than done.

The pallbearers walked behind Lance Josephine, six silent men shouldering a bier hung with loops of black crepe. They were flanked by a dozen others holding guttering torches, all of them hard-faced men wearing guns.

McBride got up on his toes and strained to see the body. Was it a close relative of Jared Josephine? His wife maybe? Or an honored citizen of Rest and Be Thankful?

It was none of those. It was a dog.

A huge, fawn-colored mastiff lay stretched out on the bier, its eyes closed, pink tongue lolling out of the black mask of its mouth. The dog was as dead as it was ever going to be, and it seemed that Jared Josephine had lost an old and loyal companion. That the whole town had turned out to honor the mayor’s dead mutt was an indication of the man’s power over them.

But what was the source of that power?

McBride recalled Mrs. Evans saying that the mayor had made the town a safe haven for killers and outlaws. Such protection must come at a high price. Money is power, and the free-spending outlaws who paid part of their ill-gotten gains to Josephine had made him a rich man.

Here men on the dodge could indeed rest and be thankful—until their money ran out. Killers, robbers, rapists and other frontier riffraff were safe in a town on the ragged edge of nowhere where few lawmen or bounty hunters ventured. And those that did, well . . . the three bodies hanging from the cottonwoods bore eloquent testimony to the fate that awaited them.

As the dead dog was borne past, McBride smiled without humor. Jared Josephine had a good thing going and he would not let anyone jeopardize it—and McBride knew that would include the man who had smashed his son’s nose and ruined his wedding plans, at least temporarily.

Suddenly, in the dank, stinking darkness of his jail cell, McBride realized with certainty that his life was not worth a plug nickel. He’d hang for sure. If not for lawless violence, namely assaulting Lance Josephine and two other hard cases, then for making himself a general nuisance to the community at large.

Events on the street dragged McBride from his gloomy thoughts. Behind the bier walked a few dozen mourners, then a boy in his mid-teens who staggered and fell into the mud just outside McBride’s window. Thad Harlan dragged the kid to his feet, backhanded him across the face, then pushed him after the others. The boy, who was stripped to the waist, had the jet-black hair and brown skin of a Mexican. His face was almost shapeless from multiple beatings, his eyes swollen shut, and vivid red welts crisscrossed his back, put there, McBride guessed, by the riding crop in the marshal’s hand.

A few Mexican women, black mantillas over their long hair, followed, their anguished wails rising into the air like a writhing mist. One of them was supported by two other women. Her wobbling legs kept giving way and her head was thrown back, tears streaming down her cheeks. She could only be the kid’s mother and McBride’s heart went out to her.

The boy stumbled and fell again, and Harlan laid the crop on his back, swinging, vicious blows that split the skin and drew blood. Shrieking, the boy’s mother broke away from the other women and ran at Harlan, her fingers outstretched like claws. The marshal brushed away the woman’s arms, then cut his riding crop across her face. She staggered back a step, a sudden, scarlet stripe scarring her from cheekbone to chin. The woman sank to her knees in the mud. Her hands joined, tearfully pleading with Harlan in a language McBride did not understand. The marshal ignored her and roughly dragged the Mexican boy to his feet.

White-hot anger scorched through McBride. He pressed his face to the bars of the window and yelled, ‘‘Harlan, let that boy alone!’’ The lawman ignored him and McBride called out again, louder this time. ‘‘Harlan, you no-good son of a—’’

Harlan drew as he swung to face McBride, then fired. The motion was incredibly fast and McBride had no time to react. The marshal’s bullet smashed into the side of the window, close to the big man’s head, gouging out splinters of timber that drove into his cheek.

Across the street, the crowd roared and laughed, and Harlan was grinning. He looked across at McBride and yelled, ‘‘You learn to keep your big mouth shut or the next one goes right between your eyes.’’

Again there was a roar of laughter.

Harlan dragged the Mexican boy to his feet and roughly shoved him forward. The wails of his mother and the other women continued to rise from the street even after the torches of the procession were just moving pinpoints of light among the shadowed cottonwoods.

Chapter 8

As he picked bloody wood splinters from his face, John McBride embraced his anger like an old friend. He’d sought only a meal and a soft bed in the town, but was now locked up in a stinking jail and he had been unable to stop the lynching of a young boy. He was sure the kid had been hanged, but for what crime? Had he killed someone, or was he in some way connected to the death of the mastiff?

No doubt Harlan will tell me, McBride thought. Right before he hangs me.

The street was full of shadows. Men were drifting back from the cottonwoods, and the saloons were doing a roaring business. A dozen tin-panny pianos competed for space, their notes tangling in a jangling cacophony of sound, and the laughter of the saloon girls was loud and harsh, soaring above the bellow of drunken men.

It sounded to McBride like the town was holding a wake for the dead dog. No one was grieving for the Mexican boy, only the veiled women who were now lost in the moon-slanted darkness among the hanging trees by the creek.

An hour passed, then two. The kitten explored the cell and made soft, distressed mewing noises, liking the place no better than McBride. For his part, the big man stood, sleepless, by the window and watched the town ignore the arrival of midnight, hell-bent on sins of the flesh that came easy but never cheap.

He heard the lone horseman before he saw him, the hooves of his mount splashing slowly through the liquid mud of the street. The clouds were breaking apart and the man rode through shifting columns of moonlight. His chin was sunk on his chest and he looked neither to his left nor right. He wore a poncho and a wide-brimmed sombrero and his face was in shadow.

At first McBride thought the man would ride on, but at the last moment he drew rein, standing his big sorrel on the street a few yards from the jail.

Without lifting his head, he said quietly, ‘‘Lance Josephine wants you to hang.’’

McBride said: ‘‘I know. He made that pretty clear.’’

‘‘It is for what you did to his face, and for shaming him in front of his woman.’’

McBride made no reply and the man said, ‘‘My name is Madaleno Vargas Lopez, and I do not wish to see you hang.’’

‘‘Mister, that makes two of us,’’ McBride said.

‘‘Jared Josephine is a powerful man, mucho hombre . He is one of those who wants to see you dangle from a rope, I think.’’

‘‘I guess maybe he does at that.’’

The Mexican’s horse tossed its head, the bit chiming. In one of the saloons, accompanied by a banjo, a baritone was singing ‘‘Bonnie Jennie Lee,’’ and somewhere a dog barked, followed by a yelp, then silence.

‘‘There was a death tonight,’’ Lopez said. ‘‘Jared Josephine and Marshal Harlan think it was a small death, and maybe it was. What is the life of a poor Mexican boy to such important men?’’

McBride looked out at the street. There was no one on the boardwalks but for a bearded man who staggered out of one saloon and into another.