by Will Keen
The explosion of light somewhere inside his skull was of an intensity that dimmed the glaring white of the Arizona skies. Then even that faded as McClain fell to nowhere through the darkest of nights.
Chapter Two
A rustler had taken a red-hot running iron from a fire and was raking it across McClain’s ribs. The pain was searing, agonising, biting through the dark curtain of unconsciousness, dragging him back to life. He emerged fighting, flapping his arms at ghosts, groaning through clenched teeth. The groan set up inner vibrations that threatened to split his already battered skull, but the movement of his arms had rolled him clear of the other pain’s source. He opened his eyes to solitude and the understanding that there was no branding, no rustler with a red-hot running iron. Mad Dog had cracked his skull with his ancient pistol and left his unconscious body draped across the edge of the dying campfire. His sprawled weight had acted like a smothering blanket, starving the fire of oxygen. But that had taken time. McClain had fallen with his cowhide vest open. Without that to protect him, the heat from the dying embers had burned through his cotton shirt and begun searing through the pale skin over his ribs.
His senses recovered faster than strength. For a while, bemoaning his stupidity, he lay on that mountainside in the last rays of the sinking sun. But even that short while was too long. A light breeze had sprung up, a callous zephyr sweeping across the featureless slopes, cooling the air. In McClain’s weakened state it felt like the onset of a northern winter. He began to shiver, hard enough to rattle his teeth. The remains of common sense kicked in. He sucked energy from some inner reserves and clawed and crawled his painful way across coarse grass and into the shelter of the rock overhang. No longer a shield from the hot sun for a rangy gunman with cold blue eyes, but a necessary windbreak for a man in deep trouble.
McClain wriggled until he was sitting with his back against the hard rock. There was a lingering animal smell under that rock shelf. Fresh droppings were dark and still warm, but the horse had gone. As had McClain’s, from where he had left it ground-tethered out in the open – but what the hell had he expected?? He was the stranger who’d ridden down a mountainside, fallen for the cold cunning of a lean gunslinger and been cold-cocked by a mad dog.
But even as he berated himself for the mistakes he had made, McClain knew there was more.
The gunman had recognized him. Called him by name. In the same breath, he had described him as the man who had planted a knife in his own sweet wife’s breasts and left her to bleed to death.
And about that, McClain thought bitterly, he couldn’t be more wrong.
Things had begun their terrible turn for the worse twenty-four hours earlier when McClain had unhitched his horse from the rail outside the Macedo’s Flat jail and ridden out of town. Heading for home, concerned but optimistic, he was oblivious of the tragedy that was to change his life forever.
He had been a lone figure in the jail office for most of the afternoon, pacing with growing impatience as he waited for his relief. Marshal Lane Dexter had been out of the office all day. Soon after midday McClain’s good friend Deputy Frank Norris had walked out with no word about where he was going, leaving McClain as the lawman in charge and on call.
When Norris got back, the marshal had still not returned. McClain had cut short the deputy’s apologies and tumbled from the office in one hell of a hurry. And that was the way he rode, pushing his horse hard past the town limits and taking the rough trail that cut across the hot, arid Arizona landscape to the south of Tombstone. There was urgency in McClain’s riding, a fierce energy that he could not control.
And for good reason.
That morning, with sadness but determination in her dark eyes, his wife Emma had asked an oft-repeated question: which did McClain value most: his marriage, or his career as a lawman?
Midway between Tombstone and the Mexican border, Macedo’s Flat lazed in the perpetual heat, but employed a marshal and a couple of deputies because of Geronimo and his marauding bands of Apaches. Long gone now, those marauding braves and their proud chief had ridden back and forth across the border much too close to the small town for residents to sleep easy in their beds. More recently, one of those old deputies – now with very little to do – had died from the accidental discharge of a six-gun. News of the vacancy had reached a restless McClain.
Close to Tombstone, he’d realised. Where the legendary Earp brothers had fought the Clantons. Hell, he’d thought, why not? His wife, Emma, had laughed along with him and within days she’d watched as he pinned on the badge.
But that was then. Now, Emma, the girl he had met and married in Gila Bend, was pining. She was homesick for that far-west town on the banks of the Gila River. This time, along with the question, she had given McClain an ultimatum, hence the sadness in her eyes: she needed his answer by the next day’s dawn. But McClain had no answer. He was still sitting on an uncomfortable fence, uncertain which way to jump. He needed to talk to his wife.
Their home was located some five miles to the north-west of the town, in one of the few areas softened by undulating if patchy grassland, and covered here and there by stands of desert willow and blue palo verde. The house was hidden until a rider got close. A turn that took the trail around dense Chilean mesquite thickets brought it in sight. It was a single-storey dwelling with trees providing some shade from the sun, solidly built of peeled logs, the roof of old wood shakes. There was a chimney constructed from rock slabs, for even in Arizona the winter nights could be cold.
McClain slowed his roan’s pace as he approached the house. He rode straight in, making for the short hitch rail fronting the gallery and steps. There, he brought the roan to a halt. But instead of dismounting at once, he sat motionless in the saddle.
The hot air seemed electric with tension. He had a sudden premonition that something was terribly wrong. There was nothing he could pin down. The house was quiet and still, yes, unusually still in his opinion – but why should that be bad? It was late afternoon. It was not unknown for Emma to flop down for half an hour or so in the cool bedroom.
And yet. . . .
Still in the saddle, McClain let his eyes range over the property. They had argued, he and his wife, and an ultimatum had been delivered. But had Emma jumped the gun and decided not to wait for his answer? Possible, yes, for she was nearing the end of her tether, and had always been impulsive. But if she had gone, she had gone on foot. The small corral could be seen to one side of the house. Her chestnut mare was there, as was their mule – both animals with ears pricked as they watched McClain. He recalled hearing the mare whinny as he rode in. Also, the small wagon they used for monthly supplies was in its usual place between the two outbuildings.
So, with going any distance on foot out of the question, she must still be here. But . . . wouldn’t she have heard him ride in? Heard her mare whinny that greeting? Appeared in the open front door, smiling and relaxed, dark hair tousled from sleep? He’d like to think so, but why should she? They were not on the best of terms. The bedroom was at the back of the house, and Emma always could sleep the sleep of the dead.
That thought would come back to haunt McClain.
Taking a deep breath, blowing it out in frustration and calling himself all the fools under the sun, he swung out of the saddle, hitched his roan and thumped up the steps. He made sure his boots pounded on the gallery’s worn boards. He pushed open the front door so that it banged as he strode into the big front room, calling, ‘Emma? Hello, back earl—’
And broke off at the raw stink of fresh blood. He felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle as he saw, on the animal skins covering the board floor beyond the low table in the middle of the room, a pale hand at the end of an outstretched arm, the limp fingers curled.
‘Jesus Christ!’
He went around the table fast, slammed to a halt and reared back as if he’d walked into a cliff face when he saw the woman – his wife – Emma. She lay flat on her back, both arms stretched wide, her body slack
. Her eyes were open, but rolled back so that all McClain could see were the whites. Insanely he thought of blindness when he knew damn well he was looking at death. She, Emma, was not breathing. The front of her faded gingham frock was soaked in blood. The thin material was saturated, across the swell of her breasts, clear down to her waist and lower where it was moulded wetly to her thighs. There was more blood on her face: a trickle at the corner of her mouth and an ugly stain on white teeth seen through parted lips.
McClain felt as if he’d been kicked in the belly by a longhorn steer. Without thinking he swept off his hat and let it fall, sagged at the knees and found it impossible to draw breath. His skin was prickling. As the strength left his limbs he sank weakly to one knee and began to topple sideways. Automatically, he stretched out his right hand to steady himself – and gasped as his palm slapped down on cold steel, a hilt of bound leather. A Bowie knife. Sticky with blood. He shuddered, snatched it up, felt sickness welling and turned his head away, squeezed his eyes shut. . . .
‘Stay like that, McClain,’ a voice snapped. ‘I knew you two had differences, but hell, man, you gone plumb crazy?’
‘I’m taking you in. Can’t recall a clearer case of a killer being caught red-handed. The woman dead, blood on your hands, still holding the goddamn murder weapon—’
‘She was my wife, Dexter, not just the woman,’ McClain said, his voice hoarse with pain, ‘and you know damn well I’d no more kill her—’
‘Do I?’ Marshal Lane Dexter was grim-faced, the six-gun in his big fist locked on McClain. ‘Does one man ever know another? I know there was some friction between you two, I know in our job we learn a little more every day, but this . . .’ Marshal Dexter gestured with his Colt, taking in the whole sickening scene, and shook his head in obvious disbelief. ‘Get up, McClain. I’ll send the doc and undertaker out with a wagon when we get back to town, but for you, a cell in my jail’s just an overnight whistle stop before the gallows—’
He didn’t finish.
McClain had twisted away from his wife’s body. Now, in an explosion of fury, he launched himself from his crouched position. His head, all his weight behind it, sank into the marshal’s midriff. He heard breath whistle from the man’s open mouth. Blindly, McClain swung a looping overhand punch. His knuckles crunched against the angular bone of a jaw. Then both men were falling. Dexter went down backwards. His skull cracked against the boards. McClain clung to him with his clawing left hand. He came down heavily on top of the half-dazed marshal. Punched hard and fast with his right hand. Each blow cracked against Dexter’s face – jaw, cheekbone, nose. McClain’s knuckles were skinned, his fist slick with the marshal’s blood.
With his dead wife’s blood.
But Dexter was a powerful man. Before pinning on a badge he’d fought in – and won – savage late night brawls in saloons across the West. On his back under McClain, head half-turned, he absorbed the fierce pounding and even managed a twisted grin. Soaked up the punishment. Let the man on top weaken.
McClain’s fist felt numb. His forearm was on fire. Could he find the one punch sure to finish Dexter? He tried in desperation. Drew back his arm. But shoulder muscles cramped, locked – and Dexter kicked violently upwards. His knee hit McClain hard in the fork of his legs. McClain gasped. Pain knifed through his groin. Instinctively his knees jerked up. His fingers uncurled, slipped from Dexter’s bunched shirt. Hold relinquished, awash with pain, he rolled clear of the big man. Kicked out at the blood-streaked face. Missed.
Still prone, Dexter moved with the speed of a striking snake. He had never released his grasp on the six-gun. It came over in a vicious downswing. Steel flashed through sunlight slanting across the room. McClain saw it through a blur of pain. He jerked his head clear. The pistol’s front sight broke the skin below his right eye, raked his cheekbone. Again McClain kicked. His boot connected with Dexter’s thigh, but the blow lacked power. Dexter’s laugh was scornful. He spat blood. Rolled over. One vicious left-handed punch snapped back McClain’s head.
It was a blow that on its own might have finished the fight. But what did it for McClain was raw, elemental emotion. The struggle had taken them close to Emma’s body. As McClain’s head went back and his senses reeled, his outflung hand fell across the soft swell of his dead wife’s breast.
With a moan, hand wet with still warm blood, he gave up the fight and sank to the boards in tears.
Frank Norris was sitting in Dexter’s chair in the Macedo’s Flat jail, his booted feet on the desk, when the marshal brought in his prisoner. In a leisurely manner the deputy stood up, hitched his gun-belt and looked at McClain with nothing readable in his blue eyes.
Dexter threw McClain’s gun-belt onto the desk. Weighted with a six-gun and shells, it slid, sweeping papers to the floor and knocking over an ashtray.
‘Lock him up,’ Dexter said. ‘If he objects, acts tough, knock him down and drag him by his hair. One way or another he’s going to die, so if that’s what it comes to, don’t pull punches. He killed that woman of his and damned if I can see any need for a trial. I’m off to the council offices to tell those fellers I caught a killer red-handed, and hanging him at dawn without waiting for an old judge to reach a decision can save ’em money.’
He slammed out of the office.
Norris reached up to a wooden peg and took down a bunch of keys. McClain watched him without emotion. Any feelings he might have felt had died on the floor alongside the dead body of his wife. The raw wound on his face was a dull ache, his cheek stiff with dried blood. He touched it without thought. Then, not waiting for Norris, he walked through the office doorway leading to the cells and waited outside one of the strap-steel doors. Keys jangled. The lock snapped open. Norris stepped to one side. McClain walked into the cell, stood with his back to the door. He heard the lock snap shut, Norris’s footsteps as he walked away, the office door closing.
Not one word had been spoken.
Some time in the night, a bright moon was floating across clear skies, high and free on the other side of the small barred window. McClain was lying on the hard cot with its cornhusk mattress, wide awake, staring at nothing. He heard Frank Norris returning. The deputy unlocked the cell door. A tin tray clattered as he placed it on the floor by the cot. Again, no words were spoken. Norris went out, closed the cell door and went back to the office.
Half an hour later, McClain had eaten the food Norris had delivered but tasted nothing, had drunk the cold coffee and flopped back on to the cot.
Another half hour passed. McClain’s numbed brain began to work. He realized that Norris had walked in as if there was no danger from his prisoner, had walked out of the cell and closed the door – but there had been no jingle of keys, no snap of a lock. For the first time since he’d discovered his wife’s body, McClain experienced a flicker of emotion. This time it was hope, the flicker swiftly becoming a flare that drove him from the cot and onto his feet.
He’d thought he wanted to die. He’d not taken into account that animal instinct to cling on to life.
But now? He knew the office must be manned, but he could hear no sound. OK, it was the middle of the night: whoever was out there could be asleep. But was it Norris, or Dexter? Fifty-fifty. Were those the odds? Toss a coin, make a wrong call? One man had sworn he would hang, without trial. The other had forgotten to lock a cell door. Forgotten – or deliberately left it open?
Norris was McClain’s friend first, deputy a poor second – and he didn’t make mistakes. Though at the time it hadn’t penetrated the grief deadening McClain’s thinking, he realised now that Norris’s behaviour had been unusual. No words spoken when Dexter brought him in, no comments, no commiseration – no accusation. The conclusion being? Well, the deputy might be disgusted, sick to his stomach at the thought that McClain had murdered his young wife, but he was a fine lawman who rarely made a mistake. If a cell door was unlocked, that’s the way Norris wanted it. He wanted his prisoner to walk to freedom.
So what the hell was Mc
Clain waiting for?
He crossed the cell’s hard dirt floor, chasing his moon-cast shadow and pushed the cold iron door. It swung open. For an instant McClain closed his eyes as hope surged. Then he took a deep breath, stepped out of the cell and walked down the short passage to the door leading to the office. There he hesitated, heart thumping, one hand on the iron handle. Then he pressed it, winced at the loud click as the door opened, stepped through and down the single step. Kept going. Kept moving. Nice and easy, like a free man fresh out of bed, walking out of his home for a breath of cool night air.
The single oil lamp hanging over the desk was unlit. The only light was from the street lamps, a faint glimmer seeping in through a front window that had never been cleaned. Norris was in the swivel chair behind the desk. His feet were up. Eyes closed. Mouth open. His arms were folded across his chest, fingers laced, which put his hands well away from his six-gun.
It was in McClain’s mind to take some time. He was light on his feet, could move silently. His gun-belt, with his Colt, had been taken by Lane Dexter. It had to be somewhere in the office and would take seconds to locate. Yet even as the thought crossed his mind, a swift glance cast at the deputy told him not to be a fool. In the faint light from the window he could see that Norris’s eyelids were not closed but slitted, his eyes glinting.
Awake and watching, or in a deep sleep with his eyes half open? McClain wasn’t about to hang around for the answer.
Four silent strides took him to the street door. It opened without sound. Leaving it ajar, he stepped out, leapt down from the high plank-walk and set off across the dusty street for the livery barn.
Chapter Three
Perhaps it pays to look back. McClain emerged from what felt like a waking nightmare feeling cleansed, washed clean. It was as if reliving the whole dreadful experience, however unwillingly, had pushed the torment of his young wife’s murder into a hidden, sacred corner of his brain. There it would lie, resting, available for recall in pensive moments of his choosing, but never again to emerge unbidden to catch him unawares and vulnerable.
