Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

The obvious and simple answers to his questions made the big man smile grimly. The reply to the first was he couldn’t. And as for the second . . . the answer was slim to none.

Towering, stratified walls of rock sloped away on each side of him as McBride followed Garcia into Deadman Canyon. The young Mexican found a dim game trail that angled across flat, desert grassland broken up by scattered boulders and stands of mesquite, ocotillo, saltbush and yucca.

Within the canyon the day was stiflingly hot and humid and McBride rode with his slicker across the back of his saddle. The sun was hidden by a layer of thick cloud and the air smelled of sage and the coming rain.

‘‘We go there,’’ Garcia said, pointing to a narrow arroyo that cut deeply into the base of the cliff. ‘‘And pray the rain starts soon and washes away our tracks.’’

It was ten degrees cooler in the arroyo, its high, rocky sides covered in bunchgrass and struggling spruce. After thirty yards, the gulch made a sharp bend to the north, then opened up on an acre of lush grass and a single cottonwood, fed by water trickling through the canyon wall.

Under a wide granite overhang was a ruined, windowless cabin. Its log roof had long since collapsed, but the rock walls still stood and a warped pine door hung askew on one rawhide hinge.

‘‘You will be safe here,’’ Garcia said. ‘‘When Harlan has called off the chase I will come back for you. Tomorrow maybe, or the day after.’’ He reached behind his saddle and held out a bulging sack. ‘‘Here is food. It is not much, but we gave you what we could spare. There is a small pot for coffee.’’

‘‘I appreciate it,’’ McBride said. He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said, ‘‘Can you leave me your rifle?’’

It was the young Mexican’s turn to look uneasy. ‘‘I am sorry, McBride, but this is the only rifle in my village. We need it to hunt our meat and perhaps defend us from Thad Harlan and his gunmen.’’

Feeling small for asking, McBride smiled and said, ‘‘I understand. It’s unlikely Harlan will find me here in any case.’’

Garcia glanced at the threatening sky. ‘‘It will rain soon, and that will be good for you. Now I must get back to my village. My wife will be worried.’’

‘‘Be careful, Alarico,’’ McBride said. ‘‘Ride wide of Harlan.’’

The young man touched the wide brim of his straw sombrero. ‘‘I will be careful. Adios, mi amigo. ’’

McBride watched Garcia leave, a sense of loss in him. He climbed out of the leather and set the kitten on the grass. As the little animal went off to explore, he unsaddled the mustang and let it graze.

Taking the sack Garcia had given him, McBride pushed the door aside and stepped into the rock house. The roof beams were charred by fire and most had collapsed into the single room in a V shape. Only to his right was there a clear area, a corner above which a couple of logs were still in place.

McBride walked outside and picked up half a dozen heavy rocks. He went back into the cabin, spread his slicker over the corner beams above him and weighed it down with the rocks. Rain was already falling, but if he could start a fire, he figured he’d be cozy enough.

He had not eaten since the night before and was ravenously hungry. He checked the contents of the sack: several corn tortillas, slices of jerked beef and a small paper package of coffee, twisted shut at the top, and another, even smaller, of sugar. It was little enough, but then impoverished Mexicans who lived constantly with hunger had little to give and McBride would not allow himself to feel ungrateful. It was food, freely given, and it would do.

He set the sack in the corner, then looked around for the makings to start a fire, wishful for coffee with his meal. There was dry wood in plenty scattered under the fallen beams and McBride piled these beside the sack. He found an abandoned pack rat’s nest, and though he didn’t recognize it as such, he was pleased. The dry twigs and straw would light easily.

The calico kitten came in from the rain, and under the meager shelter of the slicker McBride fed it tortilla and jerky. He was alarmed at the amount the little cat ate. ‘‘Sammy,’’ he said after the kitten finally quit and curled up near him to sleep, ‘‘I swear, you’ve just eaten enough for two strong men.’’

Throughout the daylight hours, McBride constantly checked the canyon but he saw no sign of Harlan and his posse.

Although this part of the arroyo was hidden from anyone riding through the valley, McBride was uneasy. Restless now as the day shaded into early evening, he stepped out of the cabin and into heavy rain that drummed a tattoo on the top of his plug hat. A surging wind shook the branches of the cottonwood and tugged at the stream that ran from the arroyo wall, spraying fragile fans of water droplets into the cooling air. The sky was iron gray, grimed with black, like the sooty thumbprints of a giant.

McBride reached the mouth of the arroyo and his anxious eyes searched the rain-swept valley. His shoulder holster, lacking the weight of the Smith & Wesson, brought him no comfort, and within him nagged an unquiet fear, the kind that always makes the imagined wolf bigger than he is.

A few minutes later his state of mind did not improve when he saw Thad Harlan ride into the canyon, the gloom crowding close around him.

The lawman was staying near to the north wall of the Deadman, opposite McBride. The marshal rode head up, alert and ready, his Winchester across the saddle horn. The rattling rain raked into him, but Harlan seemed oblivious of the downpour, his eyes scanning the rugged strata of the ridges on both sides of him.

McBride took a step backward, losing himself in the shadows of the arroyo. As he watched, the marshal swung out of the saddle and dropped to a knee. He bent his head to the ground and his fingertips delicately brushed at the grass. After a few moments he lifted his head, gazing speculatively into the flat land ahead of him and then to the soaring rampart of the south wall of the canyon.

Finally Harlan stepped into the saddle, his slicker and hat streaming water. For several minutes he held his mount where it was, man and horse standing perfectly still, like an equestrian statue of iron in the rain.

McBride swallowed hard. A magnifying glass had been a necessary part of his equipment during his time as a detective on the NYPD. But Thad Harlan needed no such help. Despite the rain, the man was reading the clues left by the passage of his and Garcia’s horses and his hunter’s instinct was telling him his prey was close.

Like a mouse mesmerized by a cobra, McBride was fixed to the spot, his scared eyes on the lawman. Did Harlan know he was being watched? Did he know exactly where his quarry was holed-up? Would he soon turn and charge directly at the arroyo, his rifle blazing?

In the end, McBride’s fear saved him from himself. There are two kinds of men, those who get paralyzed by fear and those who are afraid but bite the bullet and go ahead anyway. After an inward struggle, John McBride chose the latter.

His eyes searched the ground around him and found what he was looking for, a couple of fist-sized rocks. He picked them up and stepped back to the entrance to the arroyo, ready to sell his life dearly.

He was just in time to see Thad Harlan ride away. The lawman was heading out of the canyon.

A rock in each hand, McBride watched until horse and rider dissolved into the shimmering, silver veil of the rain and the darkening land became empty again.

Harlan would return. McBride knew that with certainty. The lawman had not known exactly where he was but, like a predatory animal, had been aware of his presence.

He’d be back come the dawn . . . and he’d bring company.