Shadow of the Gun

by West, Joseph A. ; Compton, Ralph

McBride lit all the oil lamps and stepped to the door. He pushed the blanket aside and looked up and down the street. Several horses were standing three-legged at the hitching rail outside the saloon, and rectangles of pale yellow light spilled into the mud from the windows of the shacks and cabins behind the commercial buildings. Icy, stinging sleet slanted like steel needles in the wind and McBride’s breath smoked in the cold air. Lamps had been lit in the Elliot house on the hill, glittering like fireflies in the darkness. McBride imagined Allison in there, perhaps sitting at a fire with a book, tall, elegant and beautiful, lonely for company. Soon he’d take a ride up there and pay his respects….

  His horse!

  Only then, with a pang of conscience, did he realize he’d left the mustang ground-tied outside the cantina. The little horse had moved to the lee of the building, out of the wind, and stood head-down and miserable, its reins trailing.

  Feeling like a man who had just kicked a kitten, McBride caught up the animal and led it toward the livery stable. He had left his coat behind and he shivered as he squelched across the muddy ground, the mustang plodding behind him, taking an interest in nothing.

  McBride screeched open the sagging door of the stable and led the horse inside. A single lamp lit the interior, casting the barred shadows of pinewood stalls onto the dirt floor. Somewhere in the gloom a horse snorted, stamped an irritable hoof and a rat squealed and scurried for safety. The barn smelled of manure, straw and neglect, but because of its tight timber walls it felt marginally warmer than outside.

  McBride stood just inside the doorway with his horse, uncertain of what to do next. Feed the mustang, he supposed. But where was the hay?

  Straw rustled back in the shadows at the rear of the buildings and McBride heard a man groan as he got to his feet.

  “Can I do something for you?”

  The voice from out of the darkness was rough and lacked even a hint of friendliness.

  “I need food for my horse,” McBride said, his eyes searching the gloom. “And a stall.”

  “A stall and hay and oats twice a day for two bits. Grooming, shoeing and anything else is extry.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  “Mister, I don’t give a damn if it’s fair or no. Take it or leave it.”

  The darkness parted as a man emerged into the lamplight. He was no taller than four feet and he had short stubby arms and legs, the latter badly bowed. His head was huge and wisps of straw were sticking to his black, unruly hair. He wore cut-off pants made for a much taller man and suspenders over a dirty red undershirt. His feet were bare.

  “I guess you’re the hostler.” McBride smiled, prepared to be friendly despite his chilly reception. After all, he had to do business in this town.

  “If you mean do I look after the livery stable, the answer is yes.” He lifted humorless, almost hostile, black eyes to McBride’s. “Well, is it a go?”

  “It’s a go. Hay and oats and a stall, and I’ll need the stall for quite some time.” McBride hesitated a moment, choosing his words to make certain the importance of his next statement would not be lost on the little man. “I’m the new proprietor of the El Coyote Azul.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Despite his small size, the man easily stripped the saddle from the mustang and led it to a stall somewhere in the darkness. McBride heard hay forked, then the hiss of oats falling from a scoop.

  The little man returned and held out his hand. “Pay by the week—in advance.”

  Now that his five hundred dollars was gone, McBride’s money supply was dwindling fast. He gloomily started counting coins into the hostler’s palm, but after the last half-dollar clinked beside its fellows he had cheered considerably. When the profits started to pour in from the cantina, a dollar-seventy-five would only be loose change.

  After the little man’s stubby fingers closed on the money and he turned to walk away, McBride’s voice stopped him.

  “My name’s John McBride and I hope you’ll patronize my restaurant.”

  “The El Coyote Azul ain’t your restaurant,” the man said, facing McBride again. “It ain’t your restaurant any more than this is my stable.”

  “You’re mistaken. I paid Manuel Cortez for the place fair and square.”

  “I know. He saddled his mule and took off out of here like the devil himself was after him, heading west. It don’t much matter what direction he took since he’s dead by this time anyhow.”

  McBride frowned. Maybe this man’s mind was as malformed as his body. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  The little man stood in silence for a few moments, sizing up McBride. When he spoke his voice was edged with sarcasm. “Mister, when you walked in here I pegged you for a pilgrim, maybe from back east somewheres. Now I’m sure of it. You don’t know a damn thing, do you?”

  Anger flared in McBride at the insult. “I do know if you talk to me like that again I’ll kick your—”

  Swiftly, the small man’s right hand moved behind him and when it appeared again it was holding a short-barreled revolver aimed right at McBride’s head.

  “You’re like every other giant, thinking you can pound on little people anytime you feel like it.” He was scowling, his eyes hard. “Well, mister, Sammy Colt made all men equal and I’m holding the proof right here in my hand.”

  He was a respectable businessman, all through with guns and gunfighting, and McBride backed off. “Sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t have said that.” He made an effort to sound reasonably contrite. “Now please put the iron away and tell me why I don’t own my cantina.”

  It took the small man a while. His eyes bored into McBride’s and his gun didn’t waver as he figured that the giant had learned his lesson now that he’d been read to from the book. In the end, he lowered the Colt and shoved it back in his pants.

  “She owns it,” he said. “Just like she owns this livery and everything else in Suicide. You’re renting the cantina, McBride. You don’t own it. Get my drift?”

  “Who is she, for God’s sake?”

  “Miss Elliot. Up there in the big house on the bluff.”

  McBride was stricken. “You mean I have to pay Allison, I mean, Miss Elliot, rent?”

  The little man shook his head. “Not a penny. She allows Angel Guerrero to do the collecting and Miss Elliot allows him to hold on to what he takes.”

  “And who the hell is he?”

  “If you don’t know, you’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Miss Elliot holds paper on the El Coyote Azul?”

  “Yup, and every other business in town, including the store and saloon.”

  “How much rent…”

  “You’ll know that soon enough as well. Angel will tell you.”

  McBride suddenly had the urge to sit down. His head was reeling. He’d paid Manuel Cortez five hundred dollars for nothing.

  As though he were reading his mind, the little man said, “Maybe you’ll get your money back after it’s taken from Manuel’s body. But don’t count on it.”

  “Who—who will take the money?”

  “A person who has killed him already, a person you don’t know now and don’t want to know.”

  McBride shook his head, trying to clear his spinning brain. “But why would anyone kill Cortez? He seemed harmless enough.”

  The little man shrugged, his half smile malicious. “Because, Mr. High-and-Mighty McBride, no one is allowed to leave Suicide. And now you’re here, that includes you.”

  Chapter 8

  John McBride walked, head bent against the sleet and wind, in the direction of the cantina. The dwarf had refused to tell him more than that his name was Jim Drago and that he’d lived in Suicide since the town’s founding by Allison Elliot’s father.

  What did Drago mean that no one was allowed to leave Suicide? And had Manuel Cortez been murdered because he’d tried to leave? Who was behind it all? Surely not Allison, a woman both rich and beautiful.

  But McBride realized he knew nothing about the woman, only th
e gorgeous fantasy creature he’d created in his mind. By Bear’s account Allison had killed five men, robbers certainly, but shooting down hard men with a .50-caliber rifle was hardly the act of a blushing young innocent.

  “Damn it, McBride,” he told himself. “You’re a trained detective. Now act like one and get to the bottom of all this. If Cortez was indeed murdered, find out why and see that the guilty are punished.”

  Four orphaned Chinese girls were depending on him to make a success of the cantina. Rent or no rent, he had to make it pay. Solving the mystery of Allison Elliot and making Suicide a safe town to live in must be his first priorities. He didn’t want any potential customers murdered.

  Out in the dark, sleet-lashed plains the real coyotes were yelping their misery as McBride stepped into the El Coyote Azul.

  So far he had avoided Maria and Conchita, leaving them alone to grieve for their former employer. Now he decided to do his best to console them. But he heard giggles from the kitchen, not sobs. He pushed back the curtain and stepped inside.

  An adobe stove ran the length of the opposite wall, covered in pots and fry pans, all of them dirty. There was a shelf to McBride’s left, holding half-empty sacks of flour, beans and salt, and a side of bacon hung from a rafter. A barrel leaked molasses onto the dirt floor, to the obvious delight of a tiny calico cat, its pink tongue busily lapping up the stuff. There was no cooking being done, but wood blazed in the stove, its iron door wide-open, and the place was stifling hot. A table and two chairs completed the furnishings. To McBride’s dismay the table groaned under the weight of stacks of tortillas, rounds of corn bread, bowls of fried beef and onions and mounds of frijoles.

  The fat ladies didn’t get that size by accident. Just keeping them fed would literally eat up a high percentage of his profits.

  Maria and Conchita had risen to their feet when McBride stepped inside. Now they stood close together, looking at him and at each other, giddy giggles making their huge bodies jiggle.

  “Good evening, ladies.” McBride smiled. He figured each woman would dress out at about 350 pounds. Their coal black hair was pulled into buns and their low-cut, embroidered peasant blouses revealed generous Vs of cleavage.

  The women giggled some more behind their cupped hands; then they pulled out their calico skirts and dropped McBride a little curtsy. One of them, Maria or Conchita—McBride never knew who it was, since he was forever unable to tell them apart—grinned and said, “Welcome, boss.”

  “Thank you,” McBride said. “And you are?”

  “Welcome, boss,” the woman said again.

  He understood then. After those two words, obviously rehearsed, the fat ladies’ English was all used up. This was starting to become a chore and McBride regretted coming into the kitchen in the first place.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, backing out. “We’ll probably”—his eyes slid to the huge spread on the table—“have hungry customers later.”

  “Welcome, boss.”

  McBride retreated into the dining room, a fresh burst of giggles showing him the way out.

  Thirty minutes later, during which time McBride had checked his watch six times, his anxious eyes on the door, the blanket swung back and a man stepped inside.

  It was Bear Miller, the shoulders of his buckskins black from wetness, the Henry hanging in his right hand. His eyes slid around the room and stopped at McBride standing behind the bar. He laughed. “What the hell, did they put you to work?”

  “I bought the place,” McBride said, as though he had just been voted president. “It isn’t a hardware store, but it will do for now.” He grinned. “You’re my first customer.”

  “Only I ain’t buying, unless you’ve got something behind the bar other than mescal.”

  McBride’s face fell. “You’re not hungry?”

  “Nah, I ate at the saloon.” Bear stepped to the bar and propped his rifle against a sawhorse. “It’s owned by an Irishman by the name of Clyde Kaleen. He keeps a good spread down there, cheese, crackers, salted sardines, stuff like that.”

  “How much does he charge?” McBride asked glumly. The last thing in the world he needed right now was competition.

  “Nothing. The grub’s free. It’s the drinks that come expensive.” Bear’s eyes wandered over McBride’s chest. “Hey, where’s your gun?”

  “Behind the bar. Later I’ll pack it away. A businessman has no need for a gun.”

  Bear’s glance was skeptical. “Seems to me everybody in Suicide needs a gun with the Apaches out and the town setting astride an outlaw trail into New Mexico.” He shrugged. “But you know best, John. Now, how about that drink?”

  McBride searched around the bar and after a couple of minutes found a bottle of bourbon with about two inches remaining in the bottom. He wiped dust from a glass with his apron and poured Bear his drink.

  “How much does Kaleen charge for this?” he asked.

  “Fifty cents, but that’s for the barrel whiskey he makes himself. I don’t know about the bottled stuff.”

  “Well, that one’s on the house,” McBride said.

  Bear tried the whiskey and declared it good. Then his eyes lifted to McBride’s face. “So, you bought the place.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve got two fat ladies in the kitchen and all I have to do is sit back and rake in the money.”

  The old man’s glance swept around the empty room. “I can see you’re already prospering.”

  “This is a slow night. Come Saturday the El Coyote Azul will be jumping.” Feeling the need to justify his business smarts, McBride puffed a little and added, “Besides, the McAllen Brothers stage stops here three times a week to feed passengers and during spring roundup the cowboys eat here. I’m told the cantina is jammed to the walls with thirsty, hungry men.”

  Bear Miller raised a shaggy eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

  “Sure as I’m standing here.”

  “Well, John, here’s a couple of natural facts: The McAllen stage line went out of business a year ago. They couldn’t make it pay, not enough folks wanting to visit these parts. As for the spring roundup, the punchers eat their bacon and beans on the range. They don’t have time to go gallivanting when there’s work to be done. Sure, a rider will stop by now and then for mescal, but not often. Three, four times a year if you’re lucky.”

  There was a silence before McBride said, “But Cortez told me—”

  “Manuel Cortez would cut his grandmother’s throat for fifty dollars. He saw you coming, John. He sized you up as a pilgrim and unloaded this place on you. How much did you pay him?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Bear almost choked on his drink. He gulped down a breath and said, “He robbed you. He might as well have stuck a gun in your face and taken your money.”

  McBride stood perfectly still, in shock. When he finally spoke it sounded like the words were strangling him. “You’re telling me it doesn’t look good?”

  “I’m telling you to unload the place on the first sap you can find.”

  “There’s worse, Bear. I don’t even own the cantina. The man who runs the livery told me Allison Elliot owns every building in town. I have to pay her rent for the place. The money is collected by a man called Angel Guerrero.”

  “The Poison Dwarf told you that?”

  “His name is Jim Drago.”

  “Yeah, I know, but around these parts he’s the Poison Dwarf. He’s killed more men than you have fingers on your right hand. He’s a back-shooter and bushwhacker who notches his guns. A man can’t sink much lower than that.”

  Piling misery on misery, McBride said, “Drago told me something else. He says Cortez rode out scared and is already dead. He says no one is allowed to leave Suicide. You ever hear that?”

  Bear shook his head. “Never have. Mind you, I’ve only passed through here a few times. Last time I camped by the creek for a week and then moved on without trouble.” The old scout hesitated, thinking. “Of course, I had a colonel, three companies
of blue coat infantry and a mountain howitzer with me. There wasn’t anybody about to tell us we couldn’t leave.”

  Bear laid his glass on the counter and McBride refilled it. “Hell, John,” he said, his eyes searching the tall man’s face, “look at you, you’re standing on your nerves. I just can’t figure you out. The Tenderfoot Kid, the named gunfighter who outdrew and killed Hack Burns shouldn’t be worried about serving frijoles and washing dishes in a cantina.”

  “I didn’t outdraw anybody. Burns had a gun in his hand and so did I. He fired and missed and I didn’t. I was lucky, that’s all.”

  “Luck and pluck bookend a gunfighter. You got both, boy, so don’t throw them away. Ride out of here with me tomorrow and cut your losses. Maybe we’ll rob a nice fat bank along the way and get us a road stake.”

  “No, Bear, I’ll stick. I plan on making the El Coyote Azul prosper. I’ve got four young—”

  “Yeah, I know, four Celestial gals depending on you. You’ve proved your point. Don’t wear it out.” Bear sipped his drink, considering. He said finally, “Well, I guess that’s your decision. Tell you what, John. One of your ladies can look after the cantina tomorrow while we ride out at first light and look for Cortez. If we don’t find him dead, that will take one worry off your mind.” He smiled. “At least you’ll know that you can leave Suicide without getting gunned.”

  McBride thought for a while and decided there was logic in what Bear was suggesting. Suddenly he found himself looking forward to having words with Cortez. He’d demand at least half his money back.

  “The fat ladies don’t speak English,” he said. “How am I going to tell them I’m riding out tomorrow?”

  “I’ll tell them.” Bear’s eyes shifted to the curtain. “Back there?”

  McBride nodded and the old man walked across the room and stepped into the kitchen, letting the curtain drop behind him.

  Immediately McBride heard giggles, followed by Bear speaking in Spanish. More giggles. Then one of the women said something and the old man laughed. He was still laughing, giggles following him, as he parted the curtain and walked to the bar.