Ralph Compton - Blood on the Gallows

‘‘I’m calling you, McBride,’’ he said. ‘‘You claim to be the man who killed Hack Burns and I say you’re a damned Yankee liar.’’

A number of diners had left the restaurant and were lining the boardwalk, including a tall, slender man with a flowing dragoon mustache who was watching McBride with interest, a toothpick pinned between his teeth.

It was Remorse who spoke for McBride. ‘‘Shem, we’re in a hurry,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t have time for this.’’

‘‘He’s not talking to you, preacher,’’ Beaudry said. ‘‘Now keep your trap shut.’’

Remorse ignored the gunman. ‘‘Shem Trine,’’ he said, ‘‘be about your business and give us the road. Gun reputations will not be made this day. Now, please, my son, go in peace.’’

Trine grinned. ‘‘I’ve always loved Holy Roller words like that, Reverend. Now step aside. My business is with the no-good liar beside you.’’

Up on the boardwalk, the slender man hitched his gun belt higher, but then let his hands drop to his sides. The morning sky was losing color, shading to fish-scale gray, and the silence was so profound McBride heard dishes rattle in the hotel kitchen.

He knew there was no talking his way out of this, and his hand inched toward the Colt in his waistband. Ten feet way, Trine was grinning, ready, eager, his fingers clawed over the handle of his revolver.

McBride never got a chance to draw.

Shem Trine’s hand blurred and his gun came up, but not high enough or fast enough. Remorse’s Remingtons hammered and the little man was hurled backward, four scarlet roses blossoming on his black shirt. He hit the mud hard, arched his back and his hands reached out to the threatening sky. Then he gasped and all the life that had been in him fled.

McBride grabbed his Colt, eyeing Beaudry and the other man, but they wanted no part of him. The two gunmen backed up, their faces haggard from the shock of Trine’s death.

‘‘We’re out of it,’’ Beaudry screeched. ‘‘Don’t shoot no more, parson.’’

McBride took a few steps toward them. ‘‘You two, get on your horses and ride out of town. If I see you again in Rest and Be Thankful, you’re dead men.’’

The gunmen nodded, their throats moving as they tried to gulp down their fear. They’d listened to McBride but their eyes were on Remorse, who was standing still, guns smoking by his sides.

Beaudry turned to his companion and said, ‘‘You heard the man. C’mon, we’re lighting a shuck.’’ He turned and ran for the livery, the other gunman hard on his heels.

His hands steady, Remorse punched the empty shells from his guns, reloaded and holstered the Remingtons.

The tall man stepped casually off the boardwalk, glanced at Trine, then looked first at McBride, then Remorse. ‘‘He called it,’’ he said, the toothpick bobbing in the corner of his mouth. ‘‘He should have known, but didn’t, that he wasn’t near fast enough.’’ He shook his head, a man acquainted with human frailty in all its forms. ‘‘It’s a pity.’’

The man stepped over Trine’s body, then crossed the street, the jingle bobs on his spurs chiming. McBride watched him go, a feeling in him that the tall, hard-eyed man with the long-barreled revolver on his hip might well be Ranger Pat Dooling.

Remorse glanced up as Beaudry and the other gunman cantered out of the barn and headed west. They didn’t look back. His eyes moved to McBride. ‘‘We go after Josephine and his boys and end this thing. Still want to play it that way?’’

McBride nodded. ‘‘Yes. It’s time.’’

Remorse stepped up to Trine’s sprawled, still form. He took a knee beside the dead man, removed his hat and bowed his head in prayer, his lips moving. After a while he reached into his pants pocket, counted out five silver dollars onto Trine’s chest, then looked up at the men on the boardwalk. ‘‘Bury him decent,’’ he said.

He rose to his feet and his eyes moved to McBride. ‘‘Let’s ride, John,’’ he said. ‘‘Like you say, it’s time.’’

Chapter 29

McBride and Remorse rode east under a brooding sky. Scrub jays rustled and fluttered in the piñon and mesquite, made restless by the heavy, oppressive morning. Overhead ravens scudded, driven by an upper-level wind, irritable and quarrelsome, screeching demented curses. In the distance a small herd of antelope threaded through a stand of juniper, heading higher toward the yellow and silver aspen line of the Capitan peaks.

Remorse followed McBride into the arroyo that led to the silver mine. They rode into the clearing where they’d camped, but found no sign that anyone besides themselves had been there.

‘‘Where to now, John?’’ Remorse asked, looking around him, his suddenly disinterested eyes seeing nothing.

‘‘We’ll head for Julieta’s cabin,’’ McBride said. His saddle creaked as he shifted his weight. ‘‘The Apache Josephine took with him is starting to worry me.’’

A drift of rain, coming down in large drops, kicked up Vs of dust around the two riders, and high on the slopes of the mountains the aspen were shivering in a rising wind.

Remorse shrugged into his slicker. ‘‘Then lead the way to the pass, John, and we’ll see if we can at least put one of your worries to rest.’’

They headed west, staying close to the foothills of the Capitans, riding through brush and cactus country cut through by dry washes and deep arroyos. As they passed under the shadow of Sunset Peak, Remorse looked around him and said, ‘‘Things just don’t seem right today. The wind is driving hard from the east and that’s unusual in this part of the country. I get the feeling that Yaponcha is up there on the peak watching, and he doesn’t approve of us being here.’’

McBride smiled. ‘‘I heard about him from Clare O’Neil. He’s the Hopi wind god, isn’t he?’’

‘‘Yes, and he’s close by.’’

This time McBride laughed. ‘‘I didn’t think you’d believe in superstitions like that, Saul.’’

‘‘God can’t be defined, John,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Who’s to say an infinitesimal part of Him doesn’t dwell on Sunset Peak? Us, the Hopi, so many others, it’s like we look for God in a mirror. The mirror never changes, but each of us sees a different face.’’

McBride shook his head. ‘‘For a man who lives by the gun, I’ve got to admit, you do sound like a reverend sometimes.’’

‘‘The gun is only a means to an end, John. Four, five hundred years ago I would have carried a sword. The result would have been the same.’’

‘‘Maybe after all this is over, you can put your guns away,’’ McBride said.

Remorse looked at him. ‘‘A man follows his destiny. One day, I don’t know when, I’ll be gone. Until then, I’ll continue to do what I do.’’

‘‘Ah yes, the knight errant, forever riding out to right wrongs wherever he finds them.’’

McBride had been teasing, but Remorse took him seriously. ‘‘Not forever. I think I’d go mad if I thought all this was forever.’’

McBride did not answer, his eyes on the trail ahead. He was thinking that at times—no, all of the time—Saul Remorse was a mighty strange person.

Remorse’s uneasiness grew as they neared Capitan Pass. His eyes constantly scanned the rain-lashed country around him, and he turned repeatedly in the saddle to check their back trail. The open brush had given way to timbered country that pressed the trail close on both sides, and they often had to ride around rock slides that blocked the way ahead.

‘‘Thinking about the Apache, huh?’’ McBride asked as he again saw Remorse turn and look behind him.

The reverend shook his head, water running off the flat brim of his hat. ‘‘No, not really. I just have the feeling that something is wrong.’’ He managed a smile. ‘‘Then again, maybe it’s just the east wind that’s troubling me.’’