Ralph Compton Blood on the Gallows

by Joseph A. West

  Remorse leaned closer to McBride. ‘‘What’s the matter, John?’’

  ‘‘Nothing,’’ McBride said quickly. Too quickly. He shivered.

  It had been a trick of the light, nothing more. It had to have been.

  Chapter 31

  The darkness was above and around them, the wind blowing hard, the rain cold. In the distance glowed the lights of the O’Neil cabin, like dying stars hung in a black sky.

  ‘‘Over there, John,’’ Remorse said, indicating a nearby thicket of juniper and piñon. ‘‘Our horses will be sheltered from the worst of the weather.’’

  The two riders swung out of the saddle and led their mounts into the trees. Here they were protected from the worst of the wind and the rain was less.

  Earlier Remorse had removed his clergyman’s collar. Now he pinned it back in place and opened the top button of his slicker so it could be seen.

  ‘‘We’ve waited awhile for this, John,’’ he said. ‘‘Now the reckoning is at hand.’’

  McBride nodded, the tree branches stirring behind him. He reached into his pocket, found a .45 round and thumbed it into the empty chamber that had been under the hammer of his Colt. He shoved the gun back in his waistband under his slicker.

  Remorse nodded his approval. ‘‘Yes, no rifles this night. We’ll get our work done well with the revolver.’’ He took a step closer to McBride, his eyes penetrating the rain-dripping gloom. ‘‘John, remember this: in the dark, our minds play tricks with us and we imagine all kinds of strange things that are not there. A child remembers these strange things and is afraid, but an adult quickly forgets them, knowing that they were only a figment of his imagination.’’ He smiled. ‘‘Do you understand me?’’

  McBride returned the smile. ‘‘Saul, I’ll say only one thing—you’re a mighty strange reverend.’’

  ‘‘Maybe that’s because God works in mysterious ways.’’

  ‘‘Right. And maybe, just like you say, I’m seeing things.’’

  ‘‘Good, that is an adult talking, not a child,’’ Remorse said. His gaze moved to the lights of the cabin. ‘‘Now, shall we visit destruction on the philistine Jared Josephine and his minions? Are you ready?’’

  ‘‘As I’ll ever be, I guess.’’

  ‘‘Then, John, we cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!’’

  The two men moved through the darkness toward the cabin. The rain had grown even heavier, yammering loudly around them, giving them no peace.

  When they were twenty yards from the cabin, McBride motioned Remorse to stop where he was. He stepped close to the man and whispered, ‘‘I want to take a closer look first.’’

  Remorse nodded and McBride, crouching low, made his way to the most brightly lit window. He removed his hat, and on bent knees rose high enough to look inside.

  What he saw dismayed him.

  Clare O’Neil was suspended from the rafters of the room by ropes knotted around her wrists. Her dress had been stripped from her upper body and fell in tatters around her hips. The skin of her back, cut to shreds by the riding crop in Thad Harlan’s hand, looked like blood-streaked milk.

  Loud enough for McBride to hear, Jared Josephine screamed, ‘‘Now will you sign, you damned slut?’’

  Clare shook her head and whispered something that McBride could not hear. Josephine nodded to Harlan and the crop, wielded with all of the man’s strength, cut into the woman’s back again and again. Blood streamed from the livid welts and stained her white dress scarlet.

  Harlan stopped and cursed loudly. ‘‘She’s fainted,’’ he said, frustration in his tone.

  Lance Josephine stepped in front of Clare, grabbed her hair and lifted her head, looking intently into her face. ‘‘She’s out, Pa,’’ he said. Lance’s eyes were shining with sadistic pleasure. ‘‘Want me to take her down and revive her? Maybe I should cut off one of her—’’

  McBride had heard enough. He faded into the darkness and rejoined Remorse. ‘‘Ready?’’ he said. ‘‘We got it to do. I’ll take the front of the cabin, you the rear.’’

  ‘‘Give me about a minute to get around back,’’ Remorse said. His face was close to McBride’s and his breath smelled of damp earth. ‘‘Then kick in the door and start shooting.’’

  McBride nodded and retraced his steps to the cabin. He straightened up when he reached the door, mentally ticked off sixty seconds, then raised his foot for the kick.

  With a loud crash the door splintered into the cabin. A moment later the window to McBride’s left exploded outward in an earsplitting shower of shattered glass and shivered wood. A man wearing a slicker thumped on the ground, glinting shards of glass all over his back. He rolled and sprang to his feet.

  Taken by surprise, McBride hesitated, unsure of the man’s identity. Only when Thad Harlan glanced over his shoulder, her face twisted in rage and fear, did he recognize him.

  McBride fired at Harlan, fired again, but he was shooting at shadows. The fleeing marshal had disappeared into darkness and rain.

  Panic gripped McBride. What had happened inside? He had heard no shots.

  Aware that the element of surprise was gone, he walked to the door, opened it with his left hand, the Colt in his right, and stepped into the corridor. He walked through the open door to his left, his gun up and ready.

  Saul Remorse stood, straddle-legged in the middle of the room, Remingtons in hand. Jared and Lance Josephine had retreated to the far wall. Jared’s face showed anger, shock, but no fear. Lance’s eyes above his battered nose were cool, calculating, a man waiting his chance. Both men were wearing holstered guns.

  ‘‘Did you get him, John?’’ Remorse asked. He did not take his eyes off Lance, obviously considering him the more dangerous of the two.

  ‘‘Missed,’’ McBride said.

  ‘‘It happens,’’ Remorse said.

  ‘‘What are you going to do with us?’’ Jared asked. He was speaking to Remorse.

  ‘‘That depends on you, Jared. Confess, repent, perform the penance I impose and then I’ll consider your case.’’

  ‘‘You go to hell,’’ Jared said.

  Remorse smiled. ‘‘I’ve been there many times.’’ He said to McBride, ‘‘Better cut the girl down, John. She’s dead, but I can’t bear to look at her hanging there.’’ The reverend holstered one of his guns, reached into a pocket and tossed a folding knife to McBride. He drew the gun again. Pinned to the wall like butterflies in a display case, Josephine, father and son, made no move.

  McBride slashed the ropes that bound Clare’s wrists and let her body fall into his arms.

  ‘‘Lay her on the table over there, John,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Gently, now.’’

  McBride did as he was told. He felt ashamed that he was seeing the girl’s nakedness and he pulled up the top of her tattered dress over her breasts. When he stepped back and opened his hands, they were covered in blood.

  ‘‘Better wash those in the kitchen, John,’’ Remorse said. He smiled. ‘‘Blood does terrible things to the finish of a gun.’’ He saw the big man hesitate and added, ‘‘Go ahead, I’ll be all right until you return.’’

  McBride washed his hands at the kitchen pump, dried them on a scrap of towel, then went back to the room. Nothing had changed. The three men looked as if they were frozen in time.

  The baby was lying on his back in a corner of the room near the door and incredibly he was still asleep. McBride sincerely hoped the kid would stay that way until his business here was done.

  ‘‘You, McBride,’’ Jared said, ‘‘you seem like a sensible man. How much to walk away from this like it never happened? Come now, don’t be shy. How much?’’

  ‘‘Walk away from the murder of Clare O’Neil, you mean?’’

  ‘‘That was Harlan’s doing, not mine. I told him to be careful with the whip.’’ He shrugged, then nodded in the direction of Clare’s body. ‘‘Why get concerned over the death of a woman like that? Back in town any man can buy her kind for two dollars
and a whiskey. I had her for a roast beef dinner.’’

  The man’s words stung McBride, but he let it go. ‘‘Who murdered Dora Ryan?’’

  ‘‘Harlan,’’ Jared said without hesitation. ‘‘Again he went too far. I told him to kidnap the girl, but he didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind.’’

  ‘‘And Clare’s father?’’

  ‘‘I killed him, McBride,’’ Lance said. His eyes were alight with defiance. ‘‘The old fool had discovered the mine and wanted it for Clare. I knew he would never part with it at any price. After we had that fight in the canyon, I rode to his place and he stepped out of the cabin to greet me, a big smile on his face. He quit smiling after I put a .44-40 bullet into his belly.’’

  ‘‘At first you thought you could get your hands on the mine by marrying Clare,’’ McBride said. ‘‘But when that didn’t work out, you killed old Hemp, then tried to get her to sign the mine over to your father.’’

  ‘‘She was stubborn, McBride, very stubborn,’’ Jared said. ‘‘Clare wanted the mine for her child, and she refused to sign the deed to the ranch over to me. What good would a fortune in silver be to a woman like that? A woman whose appetites of the flesh I can only call vile and unnatural. The mine had to come to me by right. I would put it to a fine purpose, perhaps my ascent to the highest office in this fair land of ours.’’ He glared at McBride. ‘‘Yes, I am talking about the presidency of the United States of America.’’

  Jared spread his hands and shrugged. ‘‘I’d made her a good offer, McBride, a fair offer. But she turned me down and that’s why Harlan cut her to ribbons.’’ He spread his hands. ‘‘That was merely an unfortunate mistake. Surely you can’t blame me for her death?’’

  McBride was silent for a few moments. Close to him Remorse was ready, his glowing eyes unblinking. McBride thought he looked like a cat stalking a mouse.

  ‘‘Josephine,’’ the big man said, ‘‘I’m taking you and your son back to Rest and Be Thankful. There are Texas Rangers in town and I’ll see that you are both charged with murder.’’

  ‘‘Damn you, half the mine,’’ Jared said. ‘‘Any sane man would jump at that offer.’’

  McBride shook his head. ‘‘I’ll see you both hang, just like you did the young Mexican sheepherder.’’

  Suddenly the baby squirmed and started to cry, a screeching, high-pitched caterwauling that set McBride’s teeth on edge. He turned to Remorse. ‘‘What’s wrong with him?’’

  ‘‘He’s hungry.’’ Remorse smiled. ‘‘And he’s got a pair of lungs on him.’’

  ‘‘Can we feed him? Find him some bacon or something?’’

  Remorse raised his voice over the racket. ‘‘John, he’s a baby. He needs pap, that’s milk, water and flour mixed together. And we’d need a glass pap boat to feed it to him.’’

  ‘‘I don’t have any of that. What do we do?’’ McBride was panicked. The baby’s screams were shattering the air around him into a million shrieking shards of pain.

  ‘‘Pick him up! Maybe you can soothe him!’’ Remorse hollered.

  McBride turned toward the child, but Jared Josephine brushed past him. ‘‘No! He’s my son!’’ he yelled. ‘‘I’ll see to him.’’

  Distracted as he was by the noise, McBride failed to see the danger until it was too late. Jared grabbed the baby, held him against his chest and retreated back to where Lance was standing. Jared’s hand dropped to his gun and Lance drew at the same time.

  Remorse saw, but made no move, a slight, amused smile on his lips.

  ‘‘You two, stay back,’’ Jared yelled. He shoved the muzzle of his Colt against the baby’s head. ‘‘Drop your guns or I’ll blow this screaming brat’s head clean off its shoulders.’’ Without turning he said to Lance, ‘‘Bring the horses around. I’ll ride Harlan’s Appaloosa.’’

  Before Lance could make a move, Remorse spoke. The words were slow and sounded less than human. They were spaced out, each bare as bone and cold as ice. Despite the baby’s screams they echoed across the room. ‘‘The . . . child . . . means . . . nothing . . . to . . . me.’’

  A few seconds before Jared Josephine died, he looked into Remorse’s eyes and saw something that terrified him.

  The man let out a primitive squeal of horror, as though he had just seen the gates of hell swing open to receive him. ‘‘No!’’ he screeched. ‘‘Not you! Go back, damn you!’’ His gun came up fast but Remorse was faster. Two shots from the Remingtons. Two bullets crashed into Jared Josephine’s skull. The man slammed against the wall, then slid to the floor, his dead eyes fixed on Remorse. The terrible dread he’d felt had not fled them.

  Lance had been stunned into immobility. He stared through the drift of gun smoke at his dead father; then his horrified gaze moved to Remorse. He let his gun slip from his fingers and it thudded onto the wood floor. ‘‘I’m done,’’ he said.

  Remorse said nothing. His revolvers were leveled at Lance’s belly.

  McBride walked across the room and took the baby off Jared’s chest. Simon seemed fine, but the roar of the guns had frightened him into a hiccupping silence.

  ‘‘Saul, let it go,’’ McBride said. ‘‘The Rangers will deal with him.’’

  Remorse’s eyes retreated into distance as he went somewhere, to a place McBride did not know and could not see. When he spoke, his voice was still strange, hollow, stripped of human emotion.

  ‘‘Lance Josephine,’’ he said, ‘‘a few years ago, young men just like you, rich, spoiled and heartless, destroyed the only thing I have ever loved. I pass sentence on you, not because you are like them, but for your own despicable actions, past and present.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘I can do nothing for you. I have searched my soul, seeking goodness in you, mercy in me. But I found no mercy, only damned souls crying out for justice.’’

  Then he said, ‘‘The Lord will never be willing to forgive him. His wrath and zeal will burn against him. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.’’

  The Remingtons bellowed and Lance Josephine took the bullets and died, his face haunted and afraid as he stared into eternity.

  In the ringing silence that followed, Remorse said, ‘‘Deuteronomy twenty-nine, verse twenty.’’

  The baby started to cry again.

  Chapter 32

  ‘‘John,’’ Saul Remorse said, ‘‘I have many and varied duties to perform here, but the child must be fed. Take him to Julieta, then bunk down at the livery stable in town. I’ll join you there.’’

  McBride held the squirming, squealing bundle in his arms. They were in the kitchen of the ranch house, rain pounding on the roof, the coyotes calling close.

  ‘‘Lance Josephine,’’ McBride said. ‘‘There was no other way?’’

  ‘‘He chose his way,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘He and his father took a trail that was destined to end in death. It was my unfortunate task to be the instrument of their fate, and that too was destined.’’

  McBride rocked the baby in his arms. ‘‘So much death, so much killing, and for what?’’

  ‘‘For a mountain lined with silver,’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Men have killed for a lot less.’’

  The silence that stretched between them was fractured by the baby’s cries.