Shadow of the Gun

by West, Joseph A. ; Compton, Ralph

  The man, who looked to be around sixty, was smiling, teeth very white against a skin as dark as ebony. His hair was cut short, gray at the sides, and the expression on his broad face was one of benign concern. However, the cocked Greener scattergun pointed at McBride’s belly was much less affable.

  McBride let go of the little man’s ankles and Drago thudded to the ground in a heap. Immediately he got onto his hands and knees and scrabbled in the dirt, searching for his gun. “I’ll kill you, McBride!” he squealed. “I’ll kill you!”

  “That will do, Drago,” the black man said. His voice was deep and pleasant, like the boom of a draped bass drum. “Give the gentleman his fifty dollars and run along.”

  Drago had found his gun. But he had no intention of using it. Whoever the huge black man was, he had intimidated the Poison Dwarf, and that was not an easy thing to do.

  The little man picked up the coins at McBride’s feet and counted two double-eagles into his open hand. Like the ones he’d spent at the general store, the coins looked brand-new. McBride held one of them between his thumb and forefinger and checked the date. It read 1872. That was ten years ago, but the shining gold coin looked like it had never been used.

  “Go now, Drago,” the black man said.

  The dwarf’s glance lifted to McBride’s face. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. Everything he wanted to say to the tall man was writ large in his blazing black eyes: “One day I’ll kill you.” The threat Drago’s glance revealed was as simple as that.

  The black man watched Drago leave. Then he eased down the hammers of his shotgun. “You can never be too careful around that man,” he said. “Jim Drago can be notional.” He smiled. “But then, so can you, Mr. McBride.” He took a couple of steps closer. “My name is Moses. I work for Miz Elliot.”

  McBride stuck out his hand but the man called Moses backed away from it. “No, Mr. McBride, suh. I’m only a humble servant in the big house and it would neither be fitting nor proper for me to shake your hand.”

  There was an echo of remembered slavery in the man’s statement and McBride did not push it. He dropped his hand and asked, “What can I do for you, Moses?”

  “Miz Elliot presents her compliments and says she’ll expect you for dinner tomorrow evening at seven.”

  McBride felt a thrill of excitement. Finally he was going to meet the lovely Miss Elliot. If the evening went well he could elicit her opinion on the murder of Manuel Cortez and ask her about the mysterious rule that, once settled in Suicide, no one can ever leave.

  “Tell Miss Elliot I’m delighted to accept her kind invitation,” he said.

  Moses nodded. Then he said, “As Miz Elliot’s guest there are certain rules she expects you to abide by. I hope you don’t mind.” It seemed Moses didn’t much care if McBride minded or not, because he added without pause, “You must come unarmed. You must not wear cologne or other perfumes and until tomorrow evening you should avoid contact with animals, including dogs and cats. While in Miz Elliot’s house you should refrain from foul language, tobacco chewing or smoking and any comment that might be perceived by Miz Elliot as amatory innuendo. Nor will you discuss politics or religion.”

  Moses had obviously learned his mistress’ house rules by rote, and now McBride smiled. “I shall be happy to avoid all those social miscues,” he said.

  Moses nodded again and tucked the Greener under his arm. “Until tomorrow evening, then.”

  He turned and left as quietly as he had come, a giant of a man who moved like a panther.

  McBride watched Moses go and shook his head, grinning. Dinner with Miss Allison Elliot was shaping up to be an interesting experience.

  Chapter 14

  “I’m a man of my word, McBride,” Jed McKay said. “I will cancel Manuel Cortez’s debt to me and extend your line of credit for six months from this date.” McKay gave McBride a sly glance. “Though I was hoping you’d put a bullet into that little piece of dirt.”

  “It didn’t work out that way,” McBride said. He was grateful for the credit but decided he didn’t like McKay much. “I need flour, salt—”

  “Hold on there,” the storekeeper said. “We have another matter to discuss.”

  “We have?”

  “Yes, a very pressing matter.”

  Feeling he owed it to McKay to be pleasant, McBride said, “I’m listening.”

  McKay had been arranging small burlap bags of ground coffee on the counter. Now he stopped and his eyes lifted to McBride’s face. “I’ve called a meeting of the concerned citizens of the town for six o’clock this evening. It will be held here in my store.”

  McBride grinned. “I didn’t think there were any concerned citizens in Suicide.”

  “Then you thought wrong,” McKay snapped. He waited until the tall man’s grin faded to a suitable look of interest and said, “Adam Whitehead the blacksmith is concerned and so is Clyde Kaleen the saloon owner. They’ll both be here tonight. So will Nathan Levy who owns the hotel and a dozen or so other men who make their living in or around town.”

  “No women?” McBride asked.

  “Conrad Heber has a wife and so does John Wright. Heber lives in a shack near the creek and brews beer for the saloon. Wright is a carpenter. We had another carpenter here, a man by the name of Weiss, but he was killed two years back.”

  McKay read the question in McBride’s eyes and answered it. “He tried to leave Suicide.”

  “The rule, huh?”

  McKay nodded. “Yes, the rule.”

  “Whose rule?”

  “We don’t know, but some of us have our suspicions. You’ll learn more tonight.”

  “McKay, I really don’t think—”

  “You want the El Coyote Azul to prosper, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “The men who will be here tonight can help you make that happen.”

  Knowing full well he was making up McBride’s mind for him, McKay said, “Flour, salt…and what else can I get for you?”

  A couple of cow ponies were standing three-legged outside the cantina when McBride carried in his supplies.

  Two bearded men, who wore low-slung Colts and had a watchful wariness about them, were drinking mescal at the bar and divided their time between keeping their eyes on McBride and ogling the generous cleavage revealed by one of the fat ladies. After fifteen minutes they paid and left.

  Business, McBride decided, was picking up. The money of outlaws on the dodge was as good as anybody else’s.

  McKay had promised to deliver a new barrel of mescal within three days, and, judging by the joyful reception of the supplies by the fat ladies, the stove fires would be lit very soon.

  McBride smiled inwardly as he donned his apron, grabbed a corn broom and began to sweep the floor. Now he had a line of credit at the general store and the word was seemingly getting around to outlaws and drifters that his cantina was a safe place to visit, his business success was all but assured.

  But then Papan Morales rode into town and suddenly all that changed.

  “Senor McBride, please to step outside.”

  The summons drifted through the cantina door, vaguely polite but demanding.

  McBride propped the broom on a table and walked into the street. A small, slender man sat a tall roan horse, his face shaded by a wide Mexican sombrero. The man wore the tight pants and short jacket of a vaquero, but no ordinary rider could have afforded the silver-plated, ivory-handled Colts that hung on his thighs.

  “Ah, Senor McBride, it is so good we meet at last. My name is Papan Morales and I am your very good friend.”

  McBride was puzzled. He’d never seen this man before in his life. He gestured toward the door of the cantina. “There are mescal and food inside.”

  “Ah, yes, that is good. That is very good. But, alas, Papan is not in the fair town of Suicide to eat or drink mescal. No, I am here to discover if the generosity of the late owner”—here he made a hurried sign of the cross and raised his eyes skyward—“
is excelled only by your own.”

  His confusion growing, McBride asked, “Are you collecting for charity or something?”

  “Senor, charity begins at home.” Morales’ teeth flashed white under his thin mustache. “No, I am here for the angel’s share.”

  McBride was aware that Jed McKay was standing outside his store, looking at him. Whitehead, the blacksmith, had laid down his hammer, his eyes also intent on McBride and the Mexican.

  “I don’t understand,” McBride said, thinking that no good was about to come of this.

  “Of course you don’t understand,” Morales said, his thin, hard face concerned. “How could you understand when you have only newly become the owner of this fine establishment?” The Mexican leaned forward in the saddle. “I will explain it to you.

  “Senor McBride, this land around us is very dangerous, the haunt of outlaws and Apaches. Many people have died or been robbed of all they own. Now, my boss is a very great man. His name is Angel Guerrero and he pondered deeply and for a very long time about how he could protect the people of this town from bandits and Indians. After confessing his sins to a holy priest, he spent many days in prayer and then God came up with a bold plan.

  “‘Angel, you yourself must protect the people of Suicide from all who would do them harm,’ God said, smiling down on him.

  “From that day forth, out of the generosity of his heart, that is what Angel has done. He has protected this town.”

  Morales smiled. “Now, even saints like my boss have to eat and he has many men to support. So God told him to collect a small fee for his services and call it the angel’s share.”

  The Mexican settled back in the saddle and spread his arms, palms upward. “And that is why Papan is here. To collect the angel’s share.”

  “How much might that be?” McBride asked.

  “Ah, a good question, senor. Why, it might be five hundred dollars every month, but it is not. It might be two hundred, but it is not. No, Angel Guerrero is a generous man. He collects only from the business establishments in town and his fee is a pittance, a mere hundred American dollars every month.”

  Morales held out a hand. “And now, senor, if you will give me the angel’s share, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Papan, is that your name?” McBride asked, a slow-burning anger rising in him.

  “Si, Papan, that is my name and the name of my father before me and of his father before him.”

  “Have you ever heard of New York, Papan?” McBride asked.

  Now it was the Mexican’s turn to be puzzled. “Sure, it is a big city, far, far from here.”

  “Know what they call the angel’s share in New York? It’s called a protection racket. Lowlife scum, just like you and your boss, use it to prey on the weak and the frightened and extort their hard-earned money. Well, mister, I’m not weak and you don’t scare me a bit. Now, ride on out of here and tell Guerrero he won’t get a penny out of me.”

  “Ooh, senor, this is very bad for you, I think,” Morales said. “Angel will be very hurt and when he is hurt, he does evil things that he later regrets.”

  “Tell him I won’t give the devil his due,” McBride said. “Tell him that, and something else—tell him to go to hell.”

  Morales grinned, his eyes on fire. “I will tell him, senor. Soon Angel will talk to you himself.” He swung his horse away and called over his shoulder, “With his gun.”

  Jed McKay walked hurriedly down the street and yelled, “McBride, wait up!”

  A few drops of slanting sleet splattered against him as he stepped next to the tall man and said, “Angel Guerrero is one of the subjects we’ll bring up tonight.” He watched McBride nod, then added, “Be on your guard. You’ve just made yourself an almighty dangerous enemy.”

  Chapter 15

  McBride was about to walk back into the El Coyote Azul when shouts from the street stopped him. McKay had also come to a halt. He was watching heavily loaded freight wagons slowly emerge through the blowing gray veil of the sleet storm.

  The wagons, three in number, were carrying buffalo bones and dead men.

  A bearded man was standing in the lead wagon, the lines of his eight-mule team in one hand, the other cupped around his mouth.

  “Apaches!” the mule skinner yelled, a mindless hysteria spiking his voice. “Oh, my God, Huck Benson is dead. Ed Warner is dead. Ol’ Bill Henry is behind us on the grass, kilt an’ scalped. They took Zeke Bryant an’ by now he’s wishin’ he was dead. Oh, God! Oh, God!”

  McKay, who looked angry as his fear turned on him, grabbed the bridle of the lead mule and halted the team. “Get control of yourself, man,” he hollered. “Where are the Apaches?”

  The mule skinner looked down at McKay and waved a hand. “Behind us somewhere. We met a Tonto scout on the trail who was lighting a shuck for home. He said the Apaches ambushed a company of Negro hoss sodjers earlier today, killed five and wounded twice that many.”

  “Where is the cavalry now?” McKay asked.

  “Skedaddled. The Tonto said they’re headed south, carrying their captain over his saddle.”

  The wind was rising and the floppy brim of the mule skinner’s hat was pushed up against the crown. His face was ashen and sleet whitened his mustache and beard, giving him the look of a frightened ghost. Several other mule skinners had left their wagons and were drifting closer. They were looking at McKay but their hollow eyes were seeing nothing, haunted by the memory of what had happened to them.

  A fight with loco Apaches was not a thing a man could soon forget.

  “Luke, you carryin’ wounded?”

  Bear Miller had stepped beside McBride.

  The eyes of the man called Luke widened in recognition. “Oh, howdy, Bear. Yeah, we got a youngster in the last wagon. He’s gut shot an’ he won’t live.” The man’s glance searched Bear’s face as though he was seeking an answer to a question. Finally he said, “We lost three wagons, had a two-hour runnin’ fight with them savages.”

  “You kill any?” McKay asked harshly.

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t reckon so. I think maybe I winged one, but I ain’t sure.” The mule skinner’s eyes angled back to Bear. “Ol’ Bill Henry is dead, Bear. You remember him, kinda quiet-spoken feller. He won’t be playin’ his fiddle no more.”

  “You still got your scalp, Luke,” Bear said. “Be thankful for that.” His glance shifted to the mule skinners standing by Luke’s wagon. “You men, bring that wounded boy into the cantina. I’ve done a heap of doctoring in my time. Maybe I can do something for him.”

  It took a few moments for the old scout’s words to register with the mule skinners. They stood looking at him dully, their eyes so expressionless they could have been painted onto their faces. At last several of the men turned and shuffled in the direction of the rear wagon.

  Bear turned to McBride and said, loud enough for the mule skinners to hear, “John, these men look like they could use a drink. You still got mescal?”

  “Enough.” McBride’s eyes lifted to Luke, cold, wet sleet lashing around him. “You and the other men come inside.”

  Both fat ladies tended bar, dishing out equal measures of mescal and sympathy to the stunned, speechless men crowding around them.

  McBride had the mule skinners lay the wounded boy on a table. He was a freckled youngster who looked to be no more than fourteen. But he had sand. Gasping breaths hissed between his gritted teeth as he tried to bear a pain that was unbearable. In a world of hard men, he desperately wanted to prove that he was worthy to be counted among them.

  “What’s your name, boy?” McBride asked.

  Luke stepped beside him, a cup of mescal in his hand. “That’s no good. He can’t hear you. He can’t talk either, and if he has a name, I never knew it.”

  “He’s a deaf mute?”

  “If that’s what you call it.”

  “Does he have folks, back where you come from?”

  Luke shook his head. “Far as I can tell, he’s an orphan. He si
gned on with us as a bone picker at our camp up on the Black River. That was six months ago an’ he done his share without complaint.”

  The mule skinner lifted the boy’s head and put the cup to his lips. “Drink boy,” he said. “It will ease the pain.” Luke helped the boy drink, coughing on the fiery mescal, then gently laid his head back on the table. “He don’t know a word I said, but he knows what mescal is all right.”

  “Three dead and if Zeke Bryant ain’t dead by now, and I hope to God he is, two dying,” Luke said. “All we wanted to do was to hunt the plains for buffalo bones and take ’em to a railhead someplace to be ground up into fertilizer, make us a few dollars maybe.” His troubled eyes searched McBride’s face. “Why did the Apaches kill us for that? Do you know?”

  “I don’t think the Apaches need a reason for killing,” McBride answered. “Or if they do, the fact that you were white men was reason enough.”

  The wounded boy had gone quiet and Bear Miller had been listening to McBride.

  “It ain’t that simple, John. Some Apaches want to live in peace with the white man, but most don’t. There’s already been too much killing to ever go back. When an Apache has seen his wife shot down by soldiers, his children tossed on the points of bayonets, he becomes a loco Indian and he’ll fight the white man until one or both of them are dead.

  “Now, with a few exceptions, the blancos don’t want peace either. They’ve seen their cabins burned, their wives and children butchered, and they’ve become loco themselves. I reckon the fighting and killing will never end until all the Apaches are dead or all the white men. The trouble with that, as far as the Indians are concerned, is that there are few Apaches and a lot of white men. And the whites will keep on a-coming right at them, no matter how many are killed.”

  To McBride’s surprise McKay was standing at his shoulder. “That is yet another topic of discussion for tonight’s meeting,” he said. “If the bone picker is right and the cavalry has retreated, Suicide is wide-open to attack. We need to form a militia.”