by Will Keen
The relief he was feeling saw a resurgence of the intelligence for which, as a deputy marshal, McClain was renowned. Intelligent thought now raised several questions about the killing and his arrest for murder: what had brought Marshal Lane Dexter to McClain’s house? Why had he walked in at the very moment McClain sat back on his heels holding in his hands the bloody knife? Christ, had Dexter been involved in the killing? Was he himself the killer? Had he been there when McClain rode in, out back at the water butt washing a dead woman’s blood from his hands? Waited, listened, come around the house and in through the open front door with drawn six-gun?
Suddenly, McClain was animated. He pushed away from the rock wall and climbed to his feet, paced restlessly, kicked at the dust, his mind in a whirl.
His one aim had been to get as far away from Macedo’s Flat as possible. But now? Did he go on – or go back? If he returned to the town, what would happen? If he asked those questions of the marshal . . . but no, almost certainly he wouldn’t get that chance. Dexter might be the killer, but first he was town marshal and would have no compunction about shooting down the escapee McClain in cold blood. No trial, no hanging, more money saved. If McClain did manage to voice his suspicions, all Dexter or any Macedo’s Flat citizen close enough would see was a sadistic killer trying to wriggle out from under.
So, did he continue to travel east, putting the town and his suspicions out of his mind for all time? Or go back and fight for justice?
It was a decision he found impossible to make. He took another angry, frustrated kick at the dust and walked aimlessly away from the rocky overhang. Without conscious thought he looked off to his left to where his horse had been ground tethered, patiently grazing.
It had gone, of course.
Whichever direction he took, he would be walking.
In the time he had taken to drift away from the present and dwell on the brutal crime that had changed his life forever, the sun had sunk beyond the western hills. Under the rock overhang, the air was still. Out in the open there was the raw smell of wood smoke and the night air was noticeably and rapidly cooling. Beyond the small plateau where the dying campfire smouldered, the slopes that fell steeply away could be seen only dimly in the luminous, gathering dusk.
Still undecided, absently touching his burnt shirt and the scarred skin, McClain half turned. The shadows under the rock overhang beckoned. There he would at least have shelter for the night. In the warm light of new dawn any decision would surely come easier. But now, in that gloom, out of the corner of his eye, McClain saw something white lying in the dust close to his feet. Half buried, it had been uncovered by his aimless kicking.
Paper was his immediate thought. A page torn from a small notebook, crumpled in a fist then dropped by the men who had knocked him unconscious and stolen his horse. But no, he was wrong. What he was looking at was not paper, but cloth, white cotton. It was stained, and the stains were. . . .
‘Jesus Christ,’ McClain whispered. Heart thudding, disbelief hitting him like a hammer blow, he knew what he was looking at; he knew with absolute certainty what he would have in his hand when he mustered the courage to drop to one knee and pick up that soiled scrap of cloth.
It took him several heartbeats, several breaths drawn shakily. Then, gritting his teeth, he went down in the dust. The cloth was soft to the touch. He held it gently, almost with reverence, with fingers that trembled.
It was one of Emma’s handkerchieves. McClain clearly remembered how, on impulse, he had bought half-a-dozen from a batch brought into the Tombstone general store they occasionally visited, owned by a bearded man named Benson. The mere sight of it brought back the store’s smell of coal oil, gun oil, soap, grain in hemp sacks and the board floor’s dust. This one, like the others, had a simple red heart embroidered in one corner and so was easily recognizable. McClain had ridden home and given the handkerchiefs to Emma that evening as a surprise present. It had been one of their many precious moments; he had been overwhelmed when she swept him into her arms, eyes sparkling with delight.
Those days were gone forever, and now one soiled handkerchief seemed to be making nonsense of a town marshal’s guilt. Guilt, McClain had to admit, that had been no more than a figment of his wild imaginings. But as he teased the crumpled cloth with fingers that were still far from steady, he knew that here imagination was playing no part: the dark brown stains were dried blood. It must have been taken from his wife as she’d laid dying, or dead. But why? A grisly memento, slipped into a vest’s pocket by a killer? And even if that wasn’t an accurate reading of what had happened, the killing was so recent that there was only one way Emma’s handkerchief could have ended up in the dry dust of an Arizona mountain’s slopes.
She had not yet been dead for twenty-four hours. And so the decision that had been difficult was now easy.
Where before he had nothing, now a question had been answered and he once more had an aim in life. There would be no going back to face the music – at least, not yet. He was setting out on a quest, because he was pretty damn sure he now knew the identity of his wife’s killer. Killers: not one, but two. He would hunt them down, and take them back to Macedo’s Flat. There, he would with considerable satisfaction deliver them to Marshal Lane Dexter to face justice, and by so doing clear his own name.
Liberated and exultant, McClain carefully folded the handkerchief and slipped it into his vest pocket. Several steps took him well away from the rocky shelter, towards the long slopes leading into the hazy distance. Out in the open, with a soft breeze cool on his battered face, he paused for thought.
He had no pistol, no rifle, no food or water; his six-gun was in the Macedo’s Flat jail, his canteens in the saddlebags on the roan now being ridden by a cold-eyed killer. The killer had his horse, so ahead of him there was a long walk; the Lord knew how many miles he was facing. But . . . the first few of those miles were downhill. He could put those behind him without effort, jogging and walking to save energy while maintaining a ground-eating pace.
Once out of the foothills he would be forcibly slowed by an undulating landscape composed mostly of rock, sand and dust. But there was always the possibility of finding a dry creek bed. If he was in luck, by kneeling down on the sloping bank he could use his keen hearing to detect the faint gurgle of water; there was always some trickling under flat rocks that protected it from the burning sun through the long months of summer.
But then the bigger problem. To hunt down killers he needed to do more than slake the inevitable thirst brought on by heat and exhaustion. He needed weapons, and a mount, and he needed them before he approached any town where the killers might have stopped to drink a more fiery liquid. Finding his horse tied to a rail outside a saloon would be of no use to him if the only weapon he had to hand was his folding pocket knife, blunted by idle moments spent whittling.
The answer to that conundrum was to find a homestead. And the reason that a homesteader would be forced to listen – perhaps agree to supply him with a horse and weapon – lay in McClain’s vest pocket alongside his dead wife’s folding handkerchief.
It was something that, in his haste to arrest a killer, Marshal Lane Dexter had completely forgotten.
Chapter Four
McClain found the homestead an hour after he had put the mountains behind him. It was dusk, near to night-dark. The lights from the window and the open front door were beacons calling a welcome to the weary traveller. He was sore of foot and thirsty. No creek, wet or dry, had been located on the long walk. The lights promised to put everything to rights. Drawn by their promise, he picked up his pace along the rutted track that led to a rickety wooden gate hanging askew between two posts. Beyond that lay a yard with farming equipment and a buckboard, the property bounded by the house and a couple of tall barns.
The homestead’s dog, unseen, probably tied securely, was the first to detect his presence and announced it with its frantic yapping.
Next came a skinny young boy, emerging from one of the barns, al
erted by the dog’s barking. Barefoot, bare chested, his blue eyes were wary. He wore bib-and-brace overalls, and carried a shotgun.
‘Beat it, mister,’ he called, in a high treble voice he was struggling to keep steady. ‘We’ve had enough drifter trash around here for one night.’
The words were given emphasis by a loud click as he cocked the weapon. It was too big for him; too long, too heavy. It wobbled dangerously in his small hands, and McClain wasn’t too happy about the finger he could see, gleaming bone-white on the trigger.
‘Take care with that, son,’ McClain warned.
‘I’m not your son, damn it.’
‘And I’m not here to cause trouble. Is your pa about?’
‘Jamie?’
A woman had emerged from behind the house. Light flooded from the open front door as she came into the yard; a dark, featureless shape casting a long shadow.
‘It’s another of ’em.’
‘Them,’ she corrected. ‘And you don’t know that for sure.’
She began walking towards McClain, long skirt touching her ankles, puffs of dust catching the light. As she drew nearer, McClain could see her more clearly. Around her waist a gunbelt that was way too big for her drooped, dragged down by the holster with its heavy six-gun. She was carrying a spade in one hand, the blade caked with soil. In her other hand she carried a lantern. It swung in wide swathes, the sweeping brush strokes of yellow light painting the yard.
‘Give me that scattergun, Jamie. What on earth do you think you’re doing?’
‘I was in the barn. Someone’s got to keep lookout. You were . . you were busy, so what was I supposed to do. . . ?’
The words trailed off as the woman reached her son. At once both of them realized that to take the shotgun she would need to drop the spade, or the lantern. The boy waited. She shook her head, irritably, a reaction which the boy seemed to understand. He stepped back. The shotgun’s barrels were lowered, but he kept the weapon cocked; and though the twin muzzles were not directed at McClain, there was competence and some menace in the way the boy handled the weapon as he took a few steps out of the circle of lamplight to give himself more room.
‘I know you, don’t I? Not personally, but I know of you.’
She was nearer to McClain now, unhurried but tense, and in the light from the lantern McClain could see her long dark hair and the slimness of her form; the way she moved with grace and the beauty of her dark eyes as she studied him, head tilted.
He’d never seen her before.
‘You’re McClain,’ she said, as if reassuring herself. ‘I sometimes drive the buckboard to Tombstone for supplies that are only available there. It takes me a couple of days or more, so I stay over with my sister. I saw you there, in town with your wife. It must have been your day off. The storekeeper pointed you out.’
‘Benson.’ McClain nodded. ‘He’s a good man. But I live in Macedo’s Flat.’
‘And you are an officer of the law there, but you have come to us out of darkness, on foot and injured, which tells me you have had your share of recent troubles.’
She was staring at the cut on his cheek and the spreading purple bruise. The hole in his shirt was visible through his open vest, clearly caused by fire. McClain gestured, dismissing the wounds as insignificant, but she was having none of it. ‘You arrived in peace, seeking help, and my son threatened you with a loaded weapon. Swore at you, too,’ she added, casting a withering glance at the boy. ‘That’s inexcusable. The least we can do now is be hospitable before we bother you with questions.’
‘There may not be time for any of that,’ McClain said, wondering what she had meant by his share of recent troubles. ‘I’m hunting two men. They murdered a woman. Hot on their trail, I was a mite careless, came across them unexpectedly on high ground to the south. They were resting a while, had lost one of their horses to a broken leg. I had my back to one of them; he must have hit me with the heavy pistol he was carrying, knocked me cold. When I came to they’d gone, taken my horse and my gun belt.’
And now, like a snake shedding its skin and revealing what lay beneath, the woman’s demeanour had changed. Where before there had been elegance and grace, the strength that McClain suspected was part of this woman’s character had been mostly hidden. Well, as far as he’d known; at that point there had been no reason for it to be on display. He was a stranger, yes, but he had come trudging out of the growing darkness on foot, and clearly unarmed. So, no apparent threat – and her son, no matter how young, was in possession of a weapon that could kill even when aimed carelessly or inexpertly.
But now the woman’s underlying strength came to the fore. Her face had paled at his mention of two men, and their killing of the woman, but if anything her posture had become more erect, and in the clear brown eyes there was now a hard glint.
‘Two men came here, also,’ she said. ‘Early afternoon. They demanded food, and more. Money, anything; their attitude suggested they’d take anything we had that wasn’t tied down. My husband . . .’ She bit her lower lip, cast a hurried glance towards her son and seemed to gather yet more strength from the youngster’s reassuring nod. ‘My husband refused,’ she said, ‘told them they would get nothing here. So they shot him. Several times. He stood no chance.’
‘He’s dead,’ McClain said, and nodded at the spade. ‘You were out back, burying your husband.’
‘Yes—’ She bit off the word, closed her eyes for an instant, and her lip quivered.
‘Just so I can be sure,’ McClain said softly, ‘one of those men was tall and lean with cold blue eyes, the other as ugly as sin, short in stature, wearing wire glasses and a black hat tall in the crown. Does that sound about right? The tall feller was one of those strutting, cowardly characters who like to think of themselves as gunslingers, the other an abomination who could turn your dreams into nightmares.’
She nodded. ‘The lean man’s eyes were like ice slivers. He was the one who shot my husband down in cold blood. That other, the little man, he . . . he laughed.’ She hesitated, looked at McClain, a westerner to his worn boots but on foot. ‘The tall man was riding a good-looking roan.’
‘The roan is mine, so now I’m after them for two killings and the theft of a horse.’
From his vest pocket where it lay in the folds of Emma’s handkerchief, McClain drew the deputy marshal’s badge Dexter had neglected to take from him. He held it high, let it shine in the light from the front door and the lantern.
‘You recognized me, but it’s best I show you this so there’s no mistake. I’m a deputy marshal, working with town marshal Lane Dexter. I need a horse, a weapon of some kind. Anything you’re able to offer me will be returned. It’ll be a loan. I’ll make it my business to bring it back here, personally.’ Unbidden, his glance dropped to the soil-caked spade, and he shook his head at its implications. ‘If something happens to me,’ he added, ‘if I don’t make it back here, you’ll be paid in full by the council officials back in Macedo’s Flat.’
‘Shouldn’t you be riding at the head of a posse?’
‘There was no time.’
‘So you came alone? But you say you’re a deputy. No disrespect, but didn’t the marshal. . . ?’
‘Dexter.’
‘Yes, Dexter, didn’t he have something to say about you riding out alone after two men who’d kill you without a second thought?’
‘No. It was before dawn. Dexter was home in bed. I was desperate to get on the trail of those men because this is . . .’ McClain shook his head, looked to one side and then the other, seeing nothing but the encircling, encroaching dark; he searched for the right words and found none. Then he took a breath, again shook his head. ‘It’s . . . it’s personal. This woman, the woman who . . . died. . . .’
The woman caught her breath.
‘She was your wife? That lovely young woman I saw you with. Those men, they murdered your wife?’
McClain nodded. His throat was locked.
‘Oh, God, you poor, poor man,
’ she said.
The spade clattered to the hard-packed earth. She stepped forward, and without hesitation reached out to clutch his arm – and now, at last, her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Chapter Five
An hour later McClain rode away on just about the best horse they had in the peeled-pole corral – hell, probably the only saddle horse on the small farming spread. He was wearing one of the woman’s late husband’s shirts, and strapped about his waist was the gunbelt that had been too heavy for her – Sarah Crane. Her husband had been called Jed. The weapon, a Colt Peacemaker in good condition, had been unbuckled from the man’s blood-soaked body moments before she rolled it into the shallow grave.
After that first encounter in the yard McClain had swilled off most of the day’s dust in a tin bowl of cold water set on a stool alongside the back door. He slicked back his hair and tended to his droopy moustache, always seeing out of the corner of his eye the patch of raw earth at the edge of the light spilling from the kitchen window.
Then, at her call, he had stubbed out his cigarette and gone into the house. At the pine table in the homely kitchen where she and the boy had been talking while she cooked, she had put down a steaming meal of beef, potatoes and greens and rich dark gravy, and watched with what seemed to McClain like mixed emotions as he cleared the plate.
Well, hell, what did he expect? The woman had just buried her husband. Already, however temporarily, a man had taken his place at her kitchen table.
It had been in McClain’s mind, made sensitive by his own loss, to apologise. Instead he had sensibly kept silent, only offering his thanks and then sincere condolences – and again the promise to return – as he swung up onto the fine chestnut mare and rode out of the yard.
