Ralph Compton: West of the Law Read online

  McBride heard it too. He stepped away from the freight car and his eyes scanned the night. A few lights burned over at the warehouses and one by one he saw them blink out as they were obscured by a hulking black shape. The locomotive’s bell clanked and steam jetted from between its wheels, the huff-huff-huff of the venting smoke from the chimney drowning out the sound of the rain.

  Byrnes shoved McBride’s carpetbag at him. ‘‘It’s the train. Go now, John!’’

  McBride felt it then, an overwhelming sense of dread. The men who stalked him were close. They were here.

  A bullet smashed into the side of the boxcar, inches from McBride’s head. Another whined viciously off the iron rail close to his feet. Suddenly Byrnes was firing into the darkness, a .38 bucking in his right hand. He turned his head slightly. ‘‘Go, John!’’ he yelled. ‘‘I’ll hold them off!’’

  Lightning branded the sky, flashing bright. McBride caught a glimpse of four men running toward him, one of them with a shotgun slanted across his chest. McBride fired at that man, very fast. The light flickered and died as a wild scream split the night.

  ‘‘You got one of them!’’ Byrnes yelled. ‘‘Now run for the train. That’s an order, damn it!’’

  Desperately, McBride cast one final look at Byrnes, then turned and ran. The caboose was right ahead of him and he saw a red lantern waving from the rear platform.

  Behind him, he heard Byrnes’ gun. Then the man was pounding after him, running between the rain-slicked rails. Another shot and Byrnes stumbled and fell, clutching at his right leg. McBride stopped, looked back, but the inspector waved him on. ‘‘Get to the train!’’ he hollered. ‘‘I’ll be all right.’’

  ‘‘Inspector, I—,’’ McBride began, standing uncertainly, his gun in one hand, the carpetbag in the other. Now the caboose was off to his left and the train of boxcars was gathering speed, rattling into the darkness. McBride could see the guard now, frantically waving the lantern, yelling words he could not hear against the crash of thunder and roar of rain.

  ‘‘Go, John, before it’s too late!’’ Byrnes yelled.

  McBride ran for the caboose. He heard Byrnes call out, ‘‘John, write to me when you get to where you’re going.’’ A pause, then: ‘‘Confide in no one! Trust no one! Sean Donovan reaches far.’’

  A sickness in him, McBride ran. ‘‘Hurry!’’ the guard yelled.

  The big cop threw his bag onto the caboose platform, then leaped for the rail. He swung himself up beside the guard and saw that the man’s eyes were wide with fear. A bullet smashed into the glass of the door behind the guard and he yelped, dropped his lantern and ran inside.

  The train was moving faster, the boxcars and caboose hammering along the rails, plunging into the darkness.

  Fear coursing through him, McBride put his hands to his mouth and roared into the night: ‘‘Inspector!’’

  He heard a flurry of shots. Then an echoing silence mocked him.

  Chapter 2

  Days, nights, melting into a blur of landscape, changing weather and the pale, shifting faces of his fellow travelers, rushed past John McBride at the speed of a steam train. He had no final destination, no place of rest in mind. He kept to himself, spoke to no one and was content to ride the iron rails to wherever they might lead.

  But one thing he did know—his direction was west, always west, toward the Divide.

  Two weeks after he’d left New York, McBride stood on the platform of a train station . . . he knew not where.

  Over the past hour it had grown dark and the sky was ablaze with stars. Lanterns hung on each side of the door that led to the waiting room and ticket office, casting dancing pools of orange light, flecked with tiny white moths.

  His carpetbag at his feet, McBride looked around him. The station was small, but it had been built with care. Elaborate gingerbread carving adorned the edges of the slanted roof, and expensive, wrought iron benches were placed at strategic intervals along the platform for the convenience of travelers. A water tower stood by the tracks, leaking fat drops as they all did, and close by sprawled a rickety cattle pen.

  Beyond the station he saw the lights of a town, tiny by McBride’s standards. He was a man who had been born and bred in the big city. But where there was a town, there would be a hotel, and he was looking forward to stretching out on a real bed.

  After he’d left the freight he’d ridden the cushions, but had spent long, boring hours kicking his heels at stations in the middle of nowhere, often just an old boxcar on a siding, where he drank coffee made from alkaline water and ate fried salt pork the few times it was available.

  There were other stations, farther west, where he looked over the town and judged what it had to offer. But all of them seemed too small, smaller than this one, and in such towns a man as tall and muscular as McBride would be noticed and be a source of much speculation and talk.

  Inspector Byrnes had told him to confide in no one and trust no one, warning him that Sean Donovan’s reach was long. So far none of the towns along the Santa Fe track had offered him the kind of anonymity he sought, and he’d kept on rolling.

  At first the country McBride had passed through had been a patchwork of wheat fields, flat country formed by the retreat of ancient glaciers, and a few stretches of pastureland. As the days passed, the land had changed. The villages had disappeared, giving way to rolling prairies that went on forever under the vast blue dome of the sky. The only trees in sight were the cottonwoods and willows that lined the creeks. Once, the train had stopped to allow the passage of a herd of buffalo. Seeing McBride’s interest, and pegging him for a pilgrim, one of his fellow passengers, a wiry old man in a buckskin shirt who held a brass-framed rifle between his knees.

  ‘‘The buffs are all but gone now,’’ the old man had said, a faint touch of sadness in his smile. ‘‘Maybe we’re seeing the last of them. So remember this, boy, because you’ll never come upon their like again, not in your lifetime or in any other.’’

  Only when the old man told him that the Rocky Mountains were directly ahead of them, and beyond the peaks lay the dry, desert lands of the Arizona Territory, did John McBride decide to leave the lurching, smoking misery of the train and find a place where he could settle.

  But for how long? A month, a year, longer? He had no answer to this question and the realization of that made him sick at heart. He was a stranger in a strange land, far from the stone canyons and teeming streets of the great city he loved. Maybe there would be no going back as long as Sean Donovan lived. In that case he was doomed to be forever a wandering exile and no one, man, woman or child, would look forward to his coming or regret his leaving.

  Unbidden, a sigh escaped McBride’s lips. He shook his head slowly, picked up his carpetbag and stepped into the station. A ticket clerk sat behind an iron grille, a small man with a lined face, a visored cap set straight on his head. He looked up when McBride entered.

  ‘‘No other trains tonight,’’ the clerk said, waving a dismissive hand, ‘‘ ’cept the Denver cannonball, an’ she don’t stop.’’

  McBride nodded, a tall man in an ill-fitting brown suit, looking hot and uncomfortable in his high celluloid collar and dark green tie. His black derby hat showed signs of hard use and was frayed around the brim. The shabby suit coat, cut generously in the style of the time, concealed the Smith & Wesson in the shoulder holster under his arm.

  ‘‘What is this place?’’ he asked.

  The clerk looked surprised. ‘‘Hell, man, you mean you don’t know?’’

  ‘‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking,’’ McBride said.

  At first the clerk had tried to slap a brand on the tall man, taking him for a drummer headed for the gold diggings or maybe a cattle buyer. Now, looking into a pair of blue eyes that were the coldest and hardest he’d ever seen, he wasn’t so sure. His tone changed.

  ‘‘That there iron road outside belongs to the Santa Fe, but you already know that.’’ He waved a hand. ‘‘The town is called High
Hopes an’ this is the great state of Colorado. To the west are the Spanish Peaks, to the south the Picketwire and to the north there’s miles of nothing until you reach the Platte.’’ The man smiled. ‘‘Enough for you, stranger?’’

  ‘‘What’s to the east?’’

  The clerk shrugged. ‘‘More nothing until you get back to the place you came from.’’

  McBride allowed himself a smile. ‘‘What manner of town is this?’’

  ‘‘It’s a town like any other west of the Mississippi, ’cept it’s booming on account of the railroad and the gold in the Spanish Peaks. High Hopes caters to miners, cattlemen, whores and gamblers. We got thirty stores, two hotels, three saloons, and I’m betting that nary a man jack of us has ever lived within the sound of church bells.’’

  ‘‘That apply to the women as well?’’ McBride asked, another smile tugging at his lips.

  ‘‘Especially the women.’’

  McBride thought through what the clerk had told him. Even back East he’d heard of the Western boomtowns with their constantly shifting populations of footloose miners and those who preyed on them, whores, gamblers and saloonkeepers.

  A man could lose himself here. He’d just be another face in a constantly changing crowd and no one would notice or care as he came or went.

  ‘‘What’s the best hotel?’’ McBride asked.

  ‘‘If you got the money, two dollars a day, the best is the Killeen. If you don’t got the money, you can bunk at Charlie Ault’s place for two bits a night. Of course, you’ll have to share your bunk with another feller and a passel o’ bedbugs.’’

  ‘‘Then the Killeen it is,’’ McBride said. ‘‘I suppose it doesn’t have bedbugs?’’

  ‘‘No, no bedbugs,’’ the clerk said. ‘‘It’s got clean rooms.’’ The man had answered the question absently, obviously thinking about something else. Now he said what was on his mind.

  ‘‘How long you plan on staying in High Hopes, mister?’’

  ‘‘I don’t rightly know,’’ McBride said. ‘‘Why do you ask?’’

  The clerk was suddenly uncomfortable. He rose to his feet, opened the door of the ticket office and stepped beside McBride. ‘‘I have some advice for you, if you’re willing to take it.’’ His previous bantering tone was gone, replaced by something more serious.

  ‘‘Advise away,’’ McBride said. ‘‘I’m listening.’’

  The clerk nodded, smiling. ‘‘Good, because it’s been my experience that advice is seldom welcome, and them who need it most, like it the least.’’

  ‘‘Like I said, I’m listening.’’

  As though intimidated by McBride’s size now that he was standing next to him, the clerk gulped down a breath and said, ‘‘The way to keep on living in High Hopes is to see nothing.’’ He glanced fearfully over his shoulder, then back at the tall man. ‘‘Just mind your own business, you understand? You might see things, hear things, but you just walk away and say nothing. Out here you’re west of the law, west of most everything. Nothing in High Hopes is as it seems. Everything is upside down, higgledy-piggledy. You get my drift?’’

  McBride nodded. ‘‘That sits fine with me. I’m not hunting trouble, here or anywhere else.’’ He touched the brim of his hat. ‘‘Obliged to you. Now I’ll look up that hotel.’’

  The clerk shot out his hand and grasped the big man’s arm. ‘‘There’s one more thing.’’

  Slightly irritated, McBride nevertheless held his temper and asked, ‘‘And what’s that?’’

  ‘‘There’s a man in town, goes by the name of Hack Burns. He’s poison-mean and fast as chained lightning with a gun. Since he’s been here, he’s killed three men, and a fourth, the town marshal, is right now lying at death’s door with Hack’s bullet in him. Now, if you come across this here Hack Burns, just step around him real quiet an’ respectful-like and you’ll be fine.’’

  All this was nothing new to McBride. Even as a child on the mean streets of the Kitchen he’d been warned about hard cases and over the years he’d come up against quite a few. As things had turned out, he’d proved himself to be a harder case than most of them.

  ‘‘Sounds like a good man to avoid,’’ he allowed, playing the rube a little longer. ‘‘I’ll be sure to give Mr. Burns a wide berth. How will I know him?’’

  ‘‘You’ll know him when you see him. Wears two guns in crossed belts real low on his hips and right here’’—the clerk’s fingers strayed to his left cheek—‘‘he’s got a stain on his face, looks like spilled port wine. Whatever you do, mister, don’t mention it. Hack killed a cowboy last week who funned him about it.’’

  ‘‘The mark of Cain,’’ McBride said.

  ‘‘Huh?’’

  The big man shook his head. ‘‘Nothing. It’s something I read one time.’’

  ‘‘Well, don’t call him Cain either. If you have to talk to him, you say ‘Mr. Burns,’ and you say it real polite-like. If you don’t, he might gun you quicker’n scat.’’

  McBride let the smile that threatened to come to his lips die stillborn. ‘‘I’ll remember,’’ he said. ‘‘Call him Mr. Burns and don’t mention the mark.’’

  ‘‘See that you do remember,’’ the clerk said, his face stiff and parchment-yellow in the glow of the oil lamps. ‘‘Just see you do.’’ His smile was faint. ‘‘You’ll live longer that way.’’

  Chapter 3

  McBride left the station and crossed the street, picking his way through a noisy throng of bearded, profane miners, townspeople hurrying about their business with downcast eyes, lawyers and land speculators in black broadcloth, a few booted and spurred punchers astride wiry cow ponies and a scattering of Chinese who chattered incessantly in a tongue nobody else could understand.

  The saloons were roaring, interior oil lamps’ hazy halos of orange light lost in a fog of blue cigar smoke. Men bellowed, made loud and bold by whiskey, and the sudden, strident laughter of hard-eyed women rang false, chiming wild like cracked crystal bells.

  The town was booming, bursting at the seams, its sea of lights holding back the night. The hour was yet early and High Hopes was just hitting its stride, a seething, shifting mass of humanity eagerly seeking to commit one or all of the seven deadly sins in a place where such transgressions came easy, but never cheap.

  For his part, born and raised amid the swarming squalor of Hell’s Kitchen, McBride felt right at home and forced a path for himself by elbowing his way through the crowd to the lobby of the Killeen Hotel.

  A prominent sign on the wall opposite the door read:

  The majority of our rooms are without transoms, ventilation being obtained by the use of adjustable windows. Guests may therefore lie down to peaceful slumbers undisturbed by apprehensions of getting their heads blown off or having their valuables lifted by burglars.

  —The Management.

  Smiling, McBride signed the register as John Smith, apparently a common name in those parts, since the disinterested desk clerk didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Then he climbed the stairs to his room on the second floor.

  As the man at the station had promised, the room was clean. The bed had fresh sheets and there was a pitcher of water and a basin on a small table. The dresser had a mirror, a rare luxury in the West, and there was a pine clothes closet. Lace curtains hung in the room’s only window and an oil lamp stood on the bed stand.

  McBride closed the curtains, lit the lamp, then unpacked his few belongings—shirts, socks and a supply of celluloid collars. He took off his high-buttoned coat and sat on the bed, hearing it creak under his weight. He broke open the Smith & Wesson, ejected the shells and thoroughly cleaned and oiled the gun before he reloaded and slid it back into the shoulder holster. The .38 had been a considerable investment on McBride’s part, almost a month’s salary, and he lavished much more care on the revolver than he did on himself.