Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

The cross was crudely made and was not jeweled, but showed signs of once having been covered in a thin gold wash. Scratched into its surface the words DIOS ES EL AMOR were still visible and McBride knew enough Spanish to translate the inscription as God is love .

A priest had visited the mine many years back to tend to his flock, probably local Indians used by their Spanish masters as slave labor in the mine. Later the cross had been tossed aside hurriedly, maybe during an attack by the Mescalero Apaches who roamed this area. It was likely the priest and the Spanish soldiers had been killed and the mine had then been lost for many years.

Somehow Lance Josephine had learned of the place and realized the value of the O’Neil ranch. He’d tried to force Clare into marriage, and when that failed had murdered her father to get it.

When would he come to claim his property? And would Clare fight him to keep it? Or were they now in cahoots, agreeing to split the proceeds of their newfound mother lode?

The suppressed anger in him bubbling to the surface, McBride turned his face to the sky and raised the cross in his hand. He yelled his vow that no one would profit from the mine, get rich on murder, as long as he had breath in his body.

‘‘So help me God!’’ he roared.

Alarmed, the jays fluttered out of the junipers and the mustang jerked up its head, arcs of frightened white showing in its eyes.

With no plan of action, McBride’s options were limited. He decided to camp at the mine that night and move on in the morning. Before darkness fell, he managed to build a fire under the overhang, a rare success that brought him considerable joy and lightened his mood.

He had brought bacon from the cabin and enough flour, salt and baking powder to fry up some bannock bread. As cats tend to do, Sammy insisted on being fed first and while he worked on a strip of bacon McBride mixed his bread ingredients with water, lightly browned both sides of the flat, inch-thick cake he’d made in bacon grease, then set the pan next to the coals to bake.

‘‘After a while give the bread a good thump with your fist. If it sounds hollow, it’s ready.’’

Bear Miller had told him that.

As it turned out, McBride scorched the bread, but he was hungry and just ate around the burned bits. He had finished eating and was scouring out the fry pan with a handful of sand when a man’s voice called out from the arroyo.

‘‘Hello the camp!’’

McBride froze. He dropped the pan and pulled the Colt from his pants.

‘‘Come on in, but keep your hands in sight,’’ he said, his voice carrying far in the stillness. ‘‘Be warned, mister, right now I’m scared, and when I get scared I get mean.’’

A laugh from the gloom, then, ‘‘Well, that’s a fair enough caution. I’ll keep my hands where you can see them.’’

The darkness parted and a man with long white hair, sitting astride a beautiful gray horse, rode into the clearing. He carried two Remington .44s in shoulder holsters and a Winchester was booted under his left knee.

He looked dangerous. And he was.

Chapter 19

‘‘Smelled your smoke and coffee,’’ the man said. ‘‘I figured it had to be coming from around this neck of the woods.’’

McBride could not quite place the accent, but it was from back East, a long ways back East.

An errant breeze lifted the rider’s white hair and above his head heat lightning flashed violet in the sky. The gray tossed its head, blowing through its nose, and the bit chimed.

A few moments of silence passed as McBride summed up the rider in his mind. Despite the white hair he was young, probably in his early thirties, dressed in black broadcloth pants, fine boots of soft black leather and a collarless white shirt. The coat that matched the pants was draped over his saddle horn.

‘‘I come up from Texas way,’’ the rider said, an amused smile on his lips under his clipped mustache. ‘‘I’ve traveled far this day and your coffee smelled good.’’

McBride roused himself, like a man waking from sleep. ‘‘Sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. Please, light and set. The coffee’s hot.’’

‘‘Obliged,’’ the rider said. He swung elegantly out of the saddle; then, the large-roweled spurs on his heels jingling, he stepped toward McBride and extended his hand. ‘‘Name’s the Reverend Saul Remorse.’’

‘‘John McBride.’’ He took Remorse’s hand and said, ‘‘I didn’t peg you for a preacher, not carrying those guns.’’ He pointed at the man’s throat. ‘‘And no . . .’’

‘‘Dog collar.’’ Remorse smiled. ‘‘It’s in my saddlebags. Just too dang hot to wear it.’’ The reverend’s eyes, the color of blade steel, lifted to McBride’s. ‘‘Heard your name before, down Laredo way and other places. They say you’re the man who killed Hack Burns.’’

‘‘He didn’t give me much choice. He had a gun in his hand.’’

Remorse nodded. ‘‘Hack wore the mark of Cain on his cheek. He was damned the moment he was born. If you hadn’t gunned him somebody else would. He needed killing, so maybe that somebody would have been me.’’

McBride was shocked. ‘‘That’s strange talk from a reverend.’’

‘‘Are you a reading man, John?’’

‘‘When I get the chance. I’m real fond of the dime novels about stalwart frontiersmen and blushing maidens.’’

‘‘Put those aside and read about the warrior monks of the Crusades and those of Japan and Cathay. Then maybe you will find my talk less strange.’’

McBride realized he was being gently chided and he deeply regretted mentioning the stupid dime novels. If he survived, he resolved to read better books, big fat ones with long words and hard covers. For a moment he thought of mentioning this to Remorse, but in the end settled for ‘‘I’ll get you a cup.’’ Then, ‘‘Are you hungry?’’

The reverend was not hungry, but wishful for coffee. ‘‘I’ll see to my horse first,’’ he said.

Later, as they sat by the fire, Remorse studied McBride over the rim of his cup and said, ‘‘Fair piece off your home range, aren’t you, John? I’d say New York or thereabouts.’’

‘‘New York,’’ McBride said, uncomfortably aware that Remorse had his rifle across his thighs. The reverend was a careful man.

‘‘Tell me about it, John. New York, I mean, and what brought you West.’’

‘‘I was running.’’

‘‘We’re all running from something. What are you running from, John?’’

The sky flamed with silent lightning that lit up the rocky slope of the mesa. McBride smelled ozone and rotting vegetation under the junipers. Remorse was rubbing the kitten’s little round head and was being rewarded with purrs.

‘‘I was exploring the mine back there,’’ McBride said. ‘‘You can’t see the entrance to the drift from here.’’

‘‘Nevertheless, I know it’s there,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘It’s a very old mine.’’ He poured himself more coffee, then surprised McBride again when he took out the makings and began to build a cigarette. Noting McBride’s expression, Remorse grinned. ‘‘A man can allow himself one vice. Smoking is mine.’’ He lit his smoke with a stick from the fire, then said, ‘‘You didn’t answer my question: what are you running from?’’

‘‘It’s a long story.’’

‘‘Ah, but then this night will also be long. God has sent it to us not for slumber, but for talk.’’

McBride looked into the carbon steel of the man’s eyes and felt himself drawn to him, like iron filings to a magnet. He pulled his knees up to his chin and told Reverend Saul Remorse his story. It had its beginnings in New York, moved to his time in Rest and Be Thankful and then to the events of recent days.