Ralph Compton Blood on the Gallows

by Joseph A. West

  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.’’

  ‘‘Hell, I can’t even figure what you do.’’

  Now Remorse looked up, his eyes cold in the thin morning light. ‘‘I right wrongs. I go where the rich and powerful murder and rob at will and treat the common people like chattel. I go to places where boys can be hanged for shooting a dog and women go in fear of being abused by men who abide by no law but their own. I protect the weak, John. Where wealthy ranchers leave nesters stretched out dead on the ground and their widows grieve, you will find me. And you’ll find me where vicious outlaws gather to spend their ill-gotten gains on whiskey and women.’’

  Remorse spun his revolvers, flashing blue arcs of steel. After the walnut butts thudded into his palms, he said, ‘‘But wherever I go, I carry these and a Bible. If wicked men don’t listen to one, they listen to the other.’’ He used the cleaning cloth in his hand to lift the lid of the coffeepot. He glanced inside and said, ‘‘Good, almost done.’’

  McBride rose, stretched a kink out of his back and said, ‘‘How do you know all these things, Saul? I mean about the Mexican boy getting hung and about Dora Ryan killing a man in Denver?’’ He smiled, taking any pos
sible sting out of what he was about to say. ‘‘Does God tell you?’’

  If Remorse was offended, he didn’t let it show. ‘‘After Chenguang died, God showed me the path my life must take, then he left me to it. As for what I know, the West is vast, John, but settlements are few and people constantly travel long distances by rail and stage to reach them. For that reason word travels fast, and you can’t keep secrets for long. A town like Rest and Be Thankful, a safe haven for outlaws of all kinds, is sure to be a topic of conversation where traveling men and women gather.’’

  ‘‘You were headed that way when you smelled my smoke,’’ McBride said.

  ‘‘Sure. I planned to read to them from the book. I still do.’’

  McBride grinned as he settled his hat on his head. ‘‘And I thought you were sent to me from God.’’

  ‘‘Maybe I was,’’ the Reverend Saul Remorse said. ‘‘Maybe I was, John.’’

  All McBride’s enemies were in town, and Remorse said that’s where they should go. When McBride objected, the man asked, ‘‘Then how do you want to play it, John? You can’t stay here, so you either come with me or you get on that ugly pony of yours and ride away from it. Is that what you want to do, just turn tail and ride away?’’

  McBride shook his head. ‘‘Rest and Be Thankful is a nest of outlaws and killers who give Jared Josephine money to protect them. There’s still enough of the law officer left in me to want it cleaned out permanently.’’ He was silent for a moment, then said, his voice tight, ‘‘And there are people in town who owe me some payback.’’

  ‘‘And to do that, we go where the action is, and that means the town itself.’’

  McBride’s laugh was bitter. ‘‘Saul, I’ll be gunned on sight.’’

  ‘‘No, you won’t,’’ the reverend said. ‘‘I’ll be with you.’’

  ‘‘You haven’t met Thad Harlan.’’

  ‘‘Not face-to-face, but I know of him. And he knows much of me.’’

  Reluctantly, McBride agreed to Remorse’s plan, mainly because he could not come up with any other.

  Remorse was wearing his black frock coat and clergyman’s collar when he and McBride rode out of the arroyo and onto the sage and juniper flat. They headed southwest toward town under a blue sky, a warm wind that smelled of pine pushing gently on their backs. To the north the higher Capitan peaks were tinged gold by the rising sun and the aspens looked like gilded wreaths circling the brows of colossal gods.

  After a couple of miles a narrow creek bordered by a few scattered cottonwoods came in sight and Remorse turned his head and spoke to McBride. ‘‘There will be good grass among the trees and we should let our horses graze for a while. They had mighty slim pickings around the mine.’’

  McBride nodded his agreement but immediately stiffened and drew rein, his gaze reaching out to the cottonwoods. He opened his mouth to speak but Remorse stilled his words.

  ‘‘I know,’’ he said. ‘‘I see them. I count three men.’’

  ‘‘All I have around these parts are enemies,’’ McBride said. He lifted the kitten and laid it on the saddle behind him. ‘‘Stay,’’ he commanded, knowing it was useless. Sammy never listened to a word he said.

  Remorse smiled, the white hair that fell to his waist tumbling around his face in the wind. ‘‘Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we? We’ll ride in friendly as you please, just like we were visiting kinfolk.’’ He turned his head, his hooded eyes almost lazy. ‘‘However, if words fail and the ball opens, skin that fancy Colt of yours and get your work in fast.’’ He paused for a second or two, then added, ‘‘Do you understand?’’

  ‘‘I think I grasp the concept,’’ McBride said, irritated. At times Saul Remorse was a lecturing man.

  ‘‘Then shall we proceed?’’

  Three men, bearded, shaggy and ready, stood out from the trees and watched them come.

  When he was five feet from the men, Remorse reined up his horse. ‘‘Good morning, gentlemen,’’ he said. ‘‘May we graze our mounts here for a spell and perhaps trouble you for a cup of coffee?’’

  The tallest of the three, a rangy, wide-shouldered man wearing a black and white cowhide vest and shotgun chaps, grinned. His teeth were dark brown, obviously a man much given to chewing tobacco. ‘‘Well, well, well, if’n it ain’t a parson an’ . . .’’ He turned to one of the man standing next to him. ‘‘Hey, Ben, what would you call that?’’ He nodded in McBride’s direction.

  The man called Ben wore two guns in crossed belts and a surly expression. ‘‘Hell if I know. Some kind of dude, I reckon. He’s ridin’ a goat, looks like.’’

  McBride caught Remorse’s warning glance and said nothing.

  ‘‘What’s a preacher doin’ on the back of a two-hundred-dollar hoss?’’ Cowhide Vest asked, a raw challenge in his tone.

  ‘‘Ah, you sell my steed short,’’ Remorse said pleasantly. ‘‘He cost that and more.’’

  ‘‘Well, that’s all to the good, parson, because my grulla just pulled up lame an’ I’ve always fancied a white hoss.’’

  ‘‘Done and done to the man in the elegant vest!’’ Remorse exclaimed. ‘‘Five hundred dollars and this fine American Saddlebred is yours.’’

  The man grinned. ‘‘You got it all wrong, parson. See, I ain’t buying, I’m taking.’’

  Remorse responded with a smile. ‘‘I know what happened. You fine fellows spent all your money in Rest and Be Thankful on women and whiskey and now you’re flat broke and looking for a fresh horse and traveling money. Am I right?’’

  ‘‘Right as rain, parson. I’d say for a hallelujah peddler you got yourself half a brain.’’

  ‘‘Yes, and I’m smart enough to know who you fellows are,’’ Remorse said, smiling like he was enjoying himself. ‘‘The ill-humored chap with the two guns is Happy Ben Carney, murderer, rapist and bank robber. The young towhead who hasn’t said anything yet is Steve Pettigrew, sometimes known as the Red Rock Kid. He has the same detestable vices as his friend Carney, only worse.’’ Remorse’s eyes fell on Cowhide Vest. ‘‘And you, my friend, are vilest of all. Decker Reese, hired gun, killer of women and children, rapist, robber and all-round tinhorn and lowlife.’’ Remorse sat back in the saddle, relaxed, still smiling. ‘‘Am I right or wrong, gentlemen?’’

  Now Reese’s ugly grin was forced and the eyes of Carney and Pettigrew were black with death. ‘‘Right again, preacher.’’ His voice hardened. ‘‘Now you and your sidekick climb down off them hosses and take your medicine standing up like men.’’

  ‘‘What would you know about men, Reese?’’ McBride snapped, his anger flaring.

  The gunman pointed at him. ‘‘For that, you get it right in the guts.’’

  ‘‘Wait!’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Just a single moment of reason, gentlemen, if you please.’’ He took a breath and sat taller in the saddle, like a preacher in a pulpit. ‘‘Ben, Steve . . . Decker, cast aside your lives of sin and return to God. Throw down your guns. End your association with ardent spirits and wild women and from now and forever let the Good Book be your guide along the trail of life. Turn your backs on murder, rape and robbery, and step into the loving and forgiving light of the Lord.’’

  Reese grinned at his companions in turn; then his eyes again lifted to Remorse. ‘‘And what if we don’t plan on doing any of them things, parson?’’

  Remorse shook his head slowly and made a tut-tut sound with his tongue, a man apparently filled with sadness. ‘‘Then I’m very much afraid that I’ll have to kill all of you.’’