Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

‘‘Hang you? Why would he do a thing like that?’’

‘‘Because I broke Lance Josephine’s nose, that’s why.’’

To McBride’s surprise, Gravett threw back his head and laughed. ‘‘Man, oh man, I would have loved to see that.’’ He squatted on his heels beside McBride, still grinning. ‘‘The day after Hemp was killed and I found you, I shot a deer over to Escondido Creek. I was skinning it out when Harlan, Lance Josephine and his pa rode up on me. They had maybe a dozen men with them. I recognized all of those boys, every man jack of them an outlaw and all of them slick with the iron. At the time I wondered about the plaster across young Lance’s nose, but I didn’t reckon it was my place to ask how it happened.

‘‘Well, anyhoo, Jared Josephine had a new hemp rope hanging from his saddle horn and it was him who did the talking. First he asked me if I’d seen a man answering your description. Then says he, ‘For I mean to hang him before this day is done.’

‘‘Says I, ‘What did this man do, if I come acrost him, like?’ And Jared says, ‘By God, sir, he murdered harmless old Hemp O’Neil and maybe his daughter, my son’s intended.’ ’’

McBride jerked bolt upright. ‘‘Clare is—’’

‘‘Missing. That’s all I know.’’

It took a while for McBride to untangle his conflicting emotions; then he asked, ‘‘Why didn’t you turn me in, Luke?’’

Behind Gravett his woman slowly stirred the bubbling cooking pot with a horn spoon, and the smell of stewing venison made McBride’s stomach rumble.

‘‘For starters, I didn’t think you were going to make it,’’ the man said. ‘‘And I didn’t reckon there was any merit to the idea of dragging a dying man out of a cave and stringing him up. And then there’s the fact that I don’t care too much for Lance Josephine. He killed a man I knew.

‘‘Now, this feller wasn’t what you’d call a pleasant man and he was mean as a snake in drink, but he had sand and saved my life once, helped me fight off a passel of Utes that was after my hair. Mean and ornery he might have been, but he didn’t deserve to die with his beard in the sawdust and Lance Josephine standing over him, a smoking gun in his hand and a grin on his face.’’ Gravett thought about that for a few moments, then added, ‘‘He sure didn’t, no.’’

‘‘Do you think I killed Hemp O’Neil?’’

‘‘I wasn’t sure at first. But then your face told me all I needed to know, especially when I told you what Jared Josephine said about Clare maybe being dead.’’ Gravett rose to his feet. ‘‘No, John McBride, I don’t think you murdered the old man.’’ He smiled. ‘‘For what that’s worth.’’

‘‘Lance wants the O’Neil ranch. After our fight in Deadman Canyon he could have headed for the place, killed Hemp and waited for Clare to arrive.’’ McBride shivered in the cold of the cave. ‘‘That man who saved you from the Utes, well, Clare did that for me. She killed one of Harlan’s men and drove off the rest, including Josephine.’’

‘‘Why did she do that?’’

‘‘She figured she owed me since I stopped Lance abusing her in the dining room of the Kip and Kettle Hotel back in Rest and Be Thankful. He was demanding that she marry him.’’

‘‘That’s when you broke his nose?’’

‘‘Yes. It was then.’’

‘‘Lance is good with a gun—apart from Thad Harlan, maybe the best around. How come you didn’t get yourself shot?’’

‘‘Just lucky, I guess.’’

‘‘With that kind of luck, you’re a man to ride the trail with.’’ Gravett smiled. Then a frown gathered on his forehead. ‘‘At least until it runs out.’’

Chapter 14

The Tonto woman brought McBride a bowl of food, a stew of venison, corn and beans, swimming with wild onions. He ate that bowl, then another and felt stronger. Gravett had been headed for Lincoln and although the man did not voice a word of complaint, McBride knew his presence was keeping him and his woman at the cave. He had to get on his feet and become less of a burden.

The following morning he dressed himself, left the cave while Gravett and the woman were still asleep and filled the coffeepot from a natural tank in the lava that had collected rainwater.

His side was still raw and sore, but he felt better, well enough to ride a horse. At least, so he hoped.

To the west, the cinder cone of Sunset Crater was outlined against a cheerless gray sky, the pines on its lower slopes just visible. Here the lava flow was as tall as a man on a horse, its top crested with piñon, juniper and bunchgrass. The coffeepot in his hand, McBride looked over to the cave, formed, he guessed, when the moving lava cooled, ground to a halt and formed a crust. The red-hot magma underneath continued to flow and had drained away, creating caves of varying depths.

The black, broken lava field seemed a bleak, inhospitable place for animals, but on his short walk to the water tank, McBride saw a lizard, a running jackrabbit and watched blue jays quarrel in the trees.

In a vaguely comforting way, to McBride the flourishing flora and fauna of the hostile malpais were a reaffirmation of life. And with that thought came the notion that all existence is a struggle, a series of crises that have to be faced and overcome.

He had thought to run away, telling himself that what happened in Rest and Be Thankful was no concern of his. He’d been wrong. People were depending on him. Clare O’Neil, if she was still alive, needed him. The soul of the dead Mexican boy cried out to him for vengeance and then there was the future. As of now the future victims of Thad Harlan and Jared and Lance Josephine were nameless, faceless shadows, but didn’t he owe it to them to act and change the direction of their fates so that they lived and did not die?

And what of John McBride?

He had been made to feel small and insignificant, a nonentity who had dared to defy important and powerful men. He had not been welcome in the town and it had been made clear that none would be sad at his leaving. He had been wrongly thrown in jail, warned that his fate would be the rope and then he’d been hounded and shot by a man who held him in no higher esteem than he would the jackrabbit McBride had seen run across the malpais.

He hefted the coffeepot in his hand, a tall, wide-shouldered Yankee in worn, shabby clothes, elastic-sided boots and a battered plug hat. A man who had just made up his mind.

The time for running was over. The time had come to make his stand . . . and fight.

McBride added some sticks to the fire and placed the coffeepot on the coals. Gravett and his woman were still asleep and he went back outside.

His mustang was grazing with Gravett’s riding horses and pack mule and seemed none the worse for wear. He patted the mustang’s neck and said quietly, ‘‘Ready to ride, old feller, huh?’’

The little horse went back to grazing, giving no indication that he was or wasn’t, and McBride smiled and walked to the cave through a sudden, windblown rain.

‘‘Why would Lance Josephine and his father want old Hemp’s place?’’ Gravett asked. He and McBride were squatting by the fire drinking coffee. Outside, the day was gray, the morning shadows long and deep. The man attempted to answer his own question. ‘‘It’s a two-by-twice ranch with a run-down cabin and maybe fifty cows on poor grass. There’s better land for the taking anywhere around here.’’ Gravett’s brow furrowed in thought; then, as though he realized he could find no answer, he admitted, ‘‘I just can’t figure it.’’

‘‘Me neither,’’ McBride said. ‘‘That’s why I intend to ride out that way today. Maybe I can discover what makes the place so damn special.’’