Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

And when the story was over, he said, ‘‘If I live through this time, I plan to find work so I can keep my young Chinese wards in finishing school.’’

The fire had burned lower and Remorse threw on a few more sticks, sending a spray of scarlet sparks into the thunderclouds. He lit another smoke and said, ‘‘You wonder if Clare O’Neil and Dora Ryan are now allies and plan to keep this mine to themselves?’’

‘‘Clare sure changed pretty abruptly. One day she saves my life, the next she tries to put a slug in my belly. Also, she and Dora are as different as night and day. Denver Dora Ryan is a woman with a dark past and Clare is a simple, and very poor, ranch girl. How do you explain them ever getting together?’’

‘‘Perhaps I can. I make periodic trips to Boston, and two years ago a poet friend of mine—Walt Whit-man. Have you heard of him?’’

McBride shook his head.

‘‘Well, anyway, he invited me to hear another poet and playwright, a big, burly Irishman named Oscar Wilde, give some readings of his work at a private home. Have you heard of Mr. Wilde?’’

‘‘No. I’m not much on poetry and plays.’’

‘‘Too bad. Well, as I recall, the readings were delightful and afterward the port was passed around rather freely. Soon my friend Walt began a discussion about Mr. Wilde’s beautiful niece Dolly Wilde and her, shall we say—unnatural—affair with the equally beautiful writer Natalie Clifford Barney. As soon as the discussion began, Mr. Wilde smiled and said, ‘Ah yes, Dolly and Natalie . . . and the love that dare not speak its name.’ ’’

Remorse shook the pot, smiled his surprise and poured coffee into his cup. He looked at McBride. ‘‘Pretty Clare and lovely Dora together. Perhaps the reason, as Oscar says, is the love that dare not speak its name.’’ He set the pot on the coals. ‘‘That, and money of course.’’

McBride felt like a drowning man struggling to surface in a whirlpool. Nothing in his experience, even his years as a detective, had prepared him for what Remorse had just said. The very concept was alien to him and no matter how he tried he could not come to terms with it.

‘‘I don’t think . . . I mean . . . not Clare . . .’’

Remorse threw back his head and laughed with genuine humor. ‘‘You mean poor little Clare who tried to put a bullet in your belly would be incapable of such a thing. Or that Dora Ryan, the woman who owned the biggest cathouse in Denver until she had to skip town after she put three .44 slugs into a rowdy deputy marshal, would not even consider forbidden love?’’

McBride tried to still his whirling brain. He exhaled through his nose, then said, his inadequate words falling into the silence like rocks, ‘‘I . . . I guess I have to think about what you said.’’

‘‘It really doesn’t change a thing, you know. Right about now it seems that just about everybody in the New Mexico Territory wants you dead.’’ The reverend shrugged. ‘‘For one reason or another.’’

The fire cast trembling, orange light on the two men, but beyond them the crowding darkness was as black as ink, flaring white when lightning clawed at the sky. Night birds rustled in the junipers and a pair of coyotes were calling back and forth to one another among the foothills.

‘‘Fancy gun,’’ Remorse said. He was looking at the Colt in McBride’s waistband.

‘‘I took it from Boone, the man I shot at the O’Neil cabin.’’

‘‘Glad to hear it. Only a tinhorn cuts notches to remind him of the men he killed.’’

McBride felt he’d been on the losing end of his conversation with Remorse and now he tried to regain the initiative. ‘‘Like me, you’re from back East, huh?’’

The reverend nodded. ‘‘Yes, from Boston town.’’

‘‘Why did you come West?’’

‘‘A Chinese girl. But unlike yours, she wasn’t my ward. She was my wife.’’

McBride smiled. ‘‘It’s going to be a long night, Reverend. Want to tell me about it?’’

To his surprise, Remorse showed no sign of reluctance. His sensitive poet’s face looked transparent in the glow of the fire and his eyes softened, looking back into shades of another place and time.

‘‘What can I tell you about Chenguang? Her name means ‘morning light’ and that is what she did, bring her light into my darkness. And she was beautiful beyond imagining, more beautiful than my words can describe. Yet, was she beautiful only because I loved her? Her light has dimmed with the passing of time and I can no longer tell. Sometimes, in the night when I lie sleepless, I close my eyes and try to see her face again. Usually I fail. Chenguang has gone from me and only her shadow remains.’’

‘‘What happened to her?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘She killed herself.’’

A stick fell in the fire and a heart-shaped flame leaped into the darkness. The coyotes were yipping, hunting the small rodents that scurried and scuttled in the grass, and the eyes of the night looked on, missing nothing.

‘‘I was a successful railroad attorney then.’’ Remorse took up the story again. ‘‘And I often worked late at my office. Five college boys, the sons of rich and powerful men, were passing my house and saw that my wife was alone. They were drunk and decided they wanted her so they broke into my home and took her in turn.

‘‘I tried my best to console Chenguang, to tell her that my love for her had not changed, would never change, but she could not live with what she thought of as her shame. Three days after the attack, she hanged herself from the pear tree in our yard that she loved.

‘‘I brought those five men to trial for the crimes of rape and murder, but they were very quickly acquitted. They belonged to the cream of Boston high society and a jury of their peers declared that such fine young men had obviously been seduced by the cunning Celestial. In summing up, the judge said, ‘Everyone here present knows the Chinese are people of low morals, especially the females. They are animals really, not even remotely akin to humans.’

‘‘He got a hearty round of applause for that.’’

After a while McBride said, ‘‘So you came West. To get away from your hurtful memories.’’

‘‘Not at once. On the night of the trial the five men gathered in the rooms of one of their number to celebrate their acquittal. I followed them there and shot them down. All but one, the oldest and the ring-leader. Him I hanged from Chenguang’s pear tree.

‘‘A few days later my flaming red hair turned white.’’

McBride studied Remorse’s face, watching the fire-light reflect in the man’s eyes and gleam on the blue steel of the matched Remingtons. He asked, ‘‘When did you become a preacher, Saul?’’

‘‘After I left Boston and came West. I ordained myself.’’

‘‘As a warrior monk.’’

‘‘Something like that.’’ Remorse caught and held McBride’s eyes. ‘‘I’m here to help you, John. Your enemies are my enemies.’’

‘‘Have you ever been in Rest and Be Thankful? If you haven’t, you don’t know my enemies.’’

Remorse smiled. ‘‘Try Thad Harlan, for one. He’s been on my list for quite some time.’’

‘‘What list is that?’’ McBride asked.

‘‘The list of men I intend to kill.’’

Chapter 20

John McBride took to his blankets and slept under an electric sky. When he woke in the morning, Saul Remorse still sat by the fire, but coffee bubbled in the pot and the man was cleaning and oiling his Remingtons.

McBride rose on an elbow and shook his head. ‘‘Saul, you’ve got to be the strangest preacher I’ve ever come across in my life.’’

The man didn’t look up, his head bent to his task. ‘‘I don’t preach, John. I do.’’