Ralph Compton Blood on the Gallows

by Joseph A. West

  McBride was horrified. He knew he would have to kill this man to silence him.

  That fear was realized when the fat man reached down for his holstered revolver and his mouth opened. He was going to shout for help! McBride swiftly dropped to a knee and smashed the rock into the gunman’s head. Then again and again, crushing blows that turned the man’s skull into a splintered pulp and scattered his blood and brains.

  An acidic sickness surging into his throat, McBride stood and stared down at the faceless thing that had once been a man. He let the rock drop from his bloodstained hand and lurched against the arroyo wall where he bent over, retching.

  But he could ill afford the luxury of regretting the death of a man he did not know. Nor could he grieve over his moment of insane, brutal violence. He pushed himself upright and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Quickly he stripped the dead man of his Colt, shoved it in his waistband, then picked up the Winchester.

  Without looking at the man again, McBride ran back to the cabin. He found Sammy jumping at butterflies in a patch of yellow wildflowers, shoved the protesting kitten into his slicker, then slid the rifle into his saddle scabbard.

  He climbed into the leather and made his way along the arroyo. The mist was thinning but when McBride glanced at the sky it was like looking at a blue sea through smoked glass. When he was twenty yards from the entrance of the arroyo he reined up the mustang.

  The savage way he’d been forced to kill Harlan’s rider weighed heavy on him, affecting him deeply. He was not a man much given to melancholy, but he gloomily told himself that perhaps the price to bring down Jared Josephine and Thad Harlan might be more than he was willing to pay. If he had any powers left as a police officer, and that was doubtful, his jurisdiction ended at the city limits of New York. The town of Rest and Be Thankful, nest of outlaws though it was, was none of his concern.

  Besides, he had to stay alive to ensure that his young Chinese wards could continue their education. Their welfare had to be his first concern.

  Sick at heart, disgusted with himself and at the mess he’d made of things, McBride made up his mind. He would leave Deadman Canyon and ride far, ride until the new day’s bright young sun turned old and died into darkness, then ride some more.

  He nodded. Yes, that was how it was going to be.

  McBride slid the Winchester from the boot and readied himself. He kicked the mustang into motion and left the arroyo at a dead run.

  Thad Harlan, Lance Josephine and the other two riders were waiting for him.

  Chapter 11

  A man’s actions in a dangerous situation depend very much on the level of his fear, and John McBride had fear in plenty. Four rifles pointed his way scared him, but as he’d once warned Harlan, when he got scared he got violent.

  He made no attempt to swing away from the marshal and his riders but charged straight at them, firing the Winchester from his shoulder.

  McBride was not good with a rifle and shooting off the back of the mustang with its short-coupled, choppy gait did nothing to improve his marksmanship. But his reckless charge had the effect of creating a gap between Harlan and Lance Josephine as the younger man sought to get away from the line of fire.

  McBride rode for the gap, feeling the claws of the kitten dig into his skin as it desperately tried to hang on to his shirt. He was aware of Harlan firing at him and felt a hammer blow on his left side, just above the waistband of his pants. He swayed, stunned by the impact of the bullet and a sudden spike of pain, but kept his seat in the saddle.

  Then he was through them and riding hell-for-leather to the north.

  Behind him, McBride heard Josephine yell, a primitive cry that was almost a scream. ‘‘Get him! I want him alive!’’

  McBride turned in the saddle and held his rifle straight out behind him like a pistol. He fired, missed clean, but made Josephine wary. The man was standing in the stirrups, yanking back on the bit, letting the others get ahead of him.

  It dawned on McBride then that for all his reputation as a fast gun, Josephine was actually a coward. It’s one thing to gun down a clumsy, frightened man in a barroom, quite another to chase through a mist after a known hard case with a rifle and nothing to lose.

  McBride wondered at Lance’s craven action. It was the first crack he’d seen in the Josephine family’s facade of ruthless invincibility. If Jared expected his son to increase his wealth and power, it seemed he was pinning his hopes on the wrong hoss.

  A bullet split the air close to McBride’s head and another burned across his leg, inches above the top of his ankle boot. The mustang was game, but he was slowing and Harlan and his two riders were gaining.

  The devil in him, McBride drew the Colt he’d taken from the man he’d killed. He turned and shot over his left shoulder, aiming at Josephine. He had no hope of hitting the man, but the bullet must have come close because Lance immediately swung his horse behind Harlan and again drew back on the reins.

  McBride left the misty canyon behind and rode into open country that rose in a gradual incline ahead of him. Off to his left was a high, boulder-strewn rise, crowned with a belt of juniper and scattered piñon. Up there among the trees, he could find cover and make his fight. The mustang was faltering and the pain in McBride’s side was a living thing that gnawed at him with fangs. He glanced behind him. Harlan and his men were close and coming on fast.

  The rise was a hundred yards away. The rising ground was making the going harder for the mustang and once it stumbled and almost fell. McBride, a poor horseman, had to frantically clutch for the horn with both hands and lost his rifle in the process. Sammy, frightened, had clung closer to his chest, digging with his claws as the horse faltered, adding a small pain to the greater agony in McBride’s side.

  Grieving for his rifle, McBride headed for the rise, knowing he was not going to make it. Behind him the sound of hammering hooves was much closer and it was only a matter of time before Harlan or one of his men put a bullet in his back.

  A rifle shot!

  But it came from ahead of McBride and he saw a drift of smoke at the top of the ridge. More of Harlan’s men! But a split second later the rifle again made its flat statement and behind him McBride heard a man yelp and then curse.

  Three more shots, close together, dusted into space behind him and McBride slowed the mustang to a trot, then turned his head, looking back.

  Harlan had pulled up, his eyes scanning the ridge. The man who’d been hit slumped in the saddle, blood on his chest, yelling for help. But the marshal did not look at him or seem to care. Lance Josephine and the other rider came alongside Harlan and the three began to argue, angry men with no idea of what to do next. To charge the rise into a hidden rifle wielded by someone who could shoot would be suicide and the always careful Thad Harlan knew it.

  McBride was grinning as he climbed out of the saddle and led his horse up the ridge, keeping to the cover of the tumbled boulders as much as possible. He reached the crest, exhausted by the growing pain in his side, and walked between the junipers. Sammy poked his head out of the slicker, looked up at the trees, then burrowed back inside.

  McBride glanced around and said, ‘‘Show yourself, mister. I’d sure like to shake your hand.’’

  ‘‘Keep your voice down! Do you want them to know exactly where we are?’’

  It was a girl’s voice.

  ‘‘Over here.’’

  A woman’s head and shoulders lifted above a huge boulder that had split down its middle, the sides falling away like an egg that had been cut in half. She had fired from the V in the rock, her position further hidden by a dogwood growing a few feet in front of her.

  McBride recognized her at once. She was the woman called Clare who had been abused by Lance Josephine in the Kip and Kettle Hotel dining room.

  He let the mustang’s reins drop and it immediately walked toward a buckskin mare ground-tied at the base of the rear slope of the ridge. Crouching low, McBride ran to the girl’s side and took a knee b
eside her. ‘‘Thank you,’’ he said. ‘‘You saved my life.’’

  Clare did not look at him, nor did she speak. Her eyes were fixed on the flat where Harlan and the others still sat their horses, staring up at the ridge. Away from the mist of the valley, the sky was an upturned bowl of pale blue and to the east the climbing sun looked like a gold coin.

  Fighting his pain, McBride tried again. ‘‘I surely thought I was done for.’’

  ‘‘Where’s your rifle?’’ Clare asked. She did not turn her head.

  ‘‘Lost it. Down there. My horse nearly fell and I dropped it.’’

  The girl had been born and raised in a land of horseman, and now her beautiful hazel eyes slanted to McBride in surprise. She did not say a word, but the indictment was there.

  For his part, McBride felt he had apologized enough in the past for his lack of riding skills. He asked, ‘‘Why did you help me? Getting Harlan off my back, I mean?’’

  ‘‘You tried to help me at the hotel. I owed you one.’’

  ‘‘I guess Lance Josephine really means to marry you,’’ McBride said. He managed a smile. ‘‘Like I’m telling you something you don’t already know.’’

  ‘‘I know. But he doesn’t want me, he really wants my pa’s ranch.’’ She shook her head; then her eyes went back to the sights of her rifle. ‘‘We have a one-loop spread held together with baling wire and twine and we raise more cactus than cows. There’s land aplenty around here for the taking, so why does Lance and his father want ours?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’ McBride searched his brain but found nothing to add. Finally he said, ‘‘How did you find me?’’

  ‘‘It was easy. I was in town to tell Lance I never wanted to see him again. But Dora Ryan told me he’d ridden out that morning with Thad Harlan and a few other hard cases. She told me you’d broken out of jail and that Lance was vowing to hang you for what you’d done to his face.’’ She looked at McBride. ‘‘I’ve been tracking game since I was old enough to handle a rifle, so you weren’t hard to find.’’

  ‘‘Lucky I came this way.’’

  ‘‘I knew you would. You couldn’t climb out of the valley and there’s too much open country to the east.’’ She looked pensive. ‘‘I wonder what Thad Harlan is planning. Lance will leave it up to him.’’

  ‘‘They’ll talk it over for a while. Harlan isn’t a man to make a bullheaded charge into our fire. And he knows the only one I’ll be shooting at is him.’’ McBride reached into his slicker. ‘‘This is Sammy,’’ he said. ‘‘He’s a kitten.’’

  ‘‘I can see that,’’ Clare said. She laid her rifle aside, reached out and took the little animal, smiling as she held it against her and stroked its soft fur. Sammy purred.

  ‘‘Clare, I don’t even know your last name,’’ McBride said, smiling. Any woman who loved cats was tip-top in his book.

  ‘‘It’s O’Neil. Pa says I’m descended from Irish kings, but I don’t know about that.’’

  ‘‘My pa told me I had an ancestor called St. Brigid who was a famous Irish holy woman. I don’t know about that either. She didn’t rub off on me, that’s for certain,’’ said McBride.

  He winced and put his hand to his side. When he took the hand away again, it looked as if he were wearing a scarlet glove.

  Clare was shocked. McBride could see her breasts rising and falling under her threadbare white shirt. ‘‘You’ve been hit,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Yeah, but I don’t know how bad.’’

  ‘‘Judging by the blood, I’d say pretty bad.’’ The girl bit her lip and looked down the slope. ‘‘They haven’t moved. I can’t take a look at your wound until they leave.’’

  ‘‘If they leave,’’ McBride said. He wiped his bloody hand on a clump of grass and drew the Colt from his waistband. The morning was growing hot and sweat stung his eyes. Suddenly he wanted something to happen, an end to this standoff.

  McBride rose above the boulder and yelled, ‘‘Come and get me, Harlan! I didn’t mean to scare you that bad.’’

  ‘‘McBride, is that you?’’ Harlan called.

  ‘‘You know it’s me, damn you.’’

  ‘‘I know you’re hit, McBride. You got my bullet in you. Best thing for you is to come down from that ridge. I’ll take you back to town and let the doc look you over. Maybe you can stay at the hotel for a few days until you can ride on.’’

  Despite his pain and growing weakness, McBride laughed. ‘‘Harlan?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  ‘‘You go to hell.’’

  There’s was a moment’s pause; then the lawman yelled, ‘‘Who’s up there with you, McBride? He shot one of my deputies.’’

  ‘‘Five United States Marshals, Harlan. All well armed and determined men.’’

  ‘‘Tell me another, McBride.’’

  Harlan wasn’t going to attack. Josephine was close to him, yelling in his ear, his arms waving, but the marshal ignored him. He rode over to the wounded man, who was coughing blood, the front of his slicker black with it. The man raised his head, and even from where he watched, McBride saw sudden hope in his eyes.

  But it was the man’s misfortune that he was astride a beautiful Appaloosa stud.

  Harlan rode closer, took his foot from the stirrup, then kicked out from the hip. His boot hit the wounded man high on the left side of his chest and he screamed and tumbled from the saddle. He lay on his back, his legs twitching, but he made no further sound.

  Harlan gathered up the reins of the Appaloosa and led it back to the ridge. He drew rein and yelled, ‘‘Hey, McBride!’’

  Stunned by what he’d just witnessed, McBride made no answer. Beside him Clare’s face was white.

  ‘‘McBride, if I see you in Rest and Be Thankful again, I’ll kill you!’’

  Harlan kicked his horse into motion, leading the stud. After glaring at the ridge for a few moments, Lance Josephine and the other rider fell in behind him. They disappeared into distance and sunlight, the hills closing around them.

  ‘‘I could have killed him,’’ Clare said. Her eyes were fixed on McBride, clouding, a cold anger wrinkling her forehead. ‘‘I could have knocked Harlan off his horse at this range but I didn’t.’’

  ‘‘And now you don’t have to live with it,’’ McBride said.

  ‘‘There’s already a man dead on the ground, we didn’t need another.’’

  Quick tears started in the woman’s eyes. ‘‘I tried to wing him. I shot to wound him . . . I tried . . .’’

  ‘‘You did wound him, Clare, and maybe with some attention he would have lived. It was Harlan who killed him. He wanted the fancy horse.’’ McBride’s voice was veneered by wonder when he said, ‘‘I could have killed Harlan yesterday. He was lying unconscious at my feet and I let him go.’’

  ‘‘Lance says Thad Harlan can’t be killed, that he sold his soul to the devil.’’

  McBride’s smile was a grimace as pain stabbed at him. ‘‘To a devil by the name of Jared Josephine, maybe.’’

  Clare took a step toward him, holding Sammy to her breast. ‘‘Your wound needs more attention than I can give it here. I’m taking you home with me.’’

  McBride nodded, then said, ‘‘Do you know who the dead man is down there?’’

  ‘‘He’s an outlaw, goes by the name of Jake Streeter. Have you heard of him?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I’ve heard of him. He’s a kitten killer,’’ McBride said.