by Will Keen
Skelton dismounted from the bronc in one lithe movement. He dropped down on his knees by his brother. With his two hands he reached up and tried to free the booted foot from the stirrup, but failed, so was forced to crawl as the quivering roan began to back away. Skelton’s curses were reduced by distance to strained whispers. He tried again, failed again, then in desperation wrenched the dead man’s foot from the trapped boot. Bent over the still form for no more than a breath of time, he sat back on his heels and raised his face to the white skies.
A hard man, wracked by grief. McClain, recent events leaving him no stranger to that awful pain, understood, but felt no sympathy: the man was distraught, but he was a cold-blooded killer.
And his back was to McClain.
McClain lifted the rifle, took careful aim and planted a bullet in the centre of that proffered target.
Skelton was knocked flat on his face. He lay still.
The roan had felt the weight leave the stirrup. Its head had lifted, and now the crack of McClain’s shot sent it away at a run. It ran without direction, but then turned towards the stand of trees where the mare had come to a halt at last and found a patch of grass where it could graze.
Without haste, McClain walked the hundred yards or so through the chaparral to the two dead men.
Except that one of them was still alive.
Hedrick Skelton had rolled onto his back. He watched McClain’s approach. There was an instant when it seemed that he had enough strength to go for his six-gun, and McClain began to lift the cocked rifle. Then Skelton sank back. His breathing, when McClain was close enough to hear, was ragged, but not liquid; not bubbling as it might have been if blood had leaked into a holed lung.
He lay down the rifle and knelt by the wounded man. He saw the wet red patch on the front of his shirt and knew that the bullet had passed clean through the man’s body. That was a good sign, as was the position of the exit wound. But McClain had done enough dressing of wounds when he patched up Frank Norris behind Ma Thom’s house. This man’s clothes would have to serve as crude bandages until the warm blood had congealed.
Watching him, Hedrick said hoarsely, ‘You reckon I’ll live?’
‘With my help, my permission, and Doc Wilson’s sobriety. None of that may be forthcoming.’
‘I’ve done you no harm.’ Skelton paused, sucked in a ragged breath, closed his eyes for a moment as pain flared. ‘The worst Marty ever did to you was knock you cold, there on the mountainside.’ He stared at McClain, his weak gaze mocking. ‘That all too much for a disgraced deputy marshal, more than you could take?’
‘I saw the way he used his knife on the old lady in Red Creek. In Macedo’s Flat he’d used another knife to murder my wife.’
Skelton choked on a laugh. ‘You’re crazy. The whole town knew—’
‘Your brother was the crazy one—’
‘You killed her, you—’
‘He had Emma’s handkerchief. Dropped it after he’d knocked me cold.’ McClain watched as Skelton shut up and thought back. He thought, realized, nodded.
‘OK. Yes. He liked pretty things. But he saw that bloody bit of cloth in the dust, outside the jail in Macedo’s Flat. That’s where he picked it up.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Again Skelton forced a laugh. ‘Damn it, man, if you’d taken more time you would have seen him yourself. You were there, in too much of a hurry walking away.’
The information hit McClain like a low blow. He got to his feet, turned and walked blindly away – stopped after a few yards and stared at the distant, stand of trees and the grazing horses. His thoughts were racing. He was remembering the time on the high ground. How, before finding Emma’s handkerchief in the dust, he had been wondering how it was that Marshal Lane Dexter had appeared so quickly on the murder scene, the way he’d found McClain kneeling by his wife, the knife in his bloody hands. He’d pictured the marshal out back, behind the house, washing away the blood that had stained his hands when he had murdered Emma – then bursting in to accuse McClain. He recalled being undecided, how he had been considering returning to Macedo’s Bend to confront the marshal.
But finding that bloody bit of cloth had changed everything. He had been consumed by hatred, by the need for revenge, and that obsession had taken him to a homestead, to Red Creek and more killing, then on the long ride south with Don Carter to the Gulf Coast.
And now it seemed that it had been a misguided obsession. It had led to this location north of Laguna Madre, to one man’s death, to another man now suffering from a grievous wound. Both had paid for their sins; Hedrick was still settling his debt while wracked with pain. But neither man had been responsible for the death of McClain’s wife. That killer still walked free. In the lazy Arizona town of Macedo’s Flat.
Marshal Lane Dexter.
Behind him, McClain heard Hedrick Skelton’s ragged breathing. Without turning he said, ‘There’s three horses, two of them are mine. That means your bronc stays here.’
‘No.’ Skelton was up on one elbow, weak, bleeding still but his eyes blazing. ‘You ride one of yours and lead the other. Marty goes on the bronc with me. As long as I’m alive, we ride together. And when the doc’s finished with me, in town, you can do what you like, do your damnedest to hold me – but I’m taking my brother home.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Why did you bring him in to get mended? Why the hell didn’t you finish him off?’
They were on the back gallery of Rankin’s place, gone midnight. The smell of the Gulf, salt air with the day’s heat lingering, no moon but the waters of Laguna Madre magically luminous. A jug on the table. No glasses. McClain smoking, stroking his moustache – contemplative.
Carter’s voice was low, but he was incensed, furious.
‘Guilt,’ McClain said.
‘What the hell’s got into you? Two killers, one of the victims your own wife – and meting out the only possible justice makes you feel guilty?’
‘I executed Marty Skelton – yes, I call it that because you’re right, he especially was a cold-blooded killer. Then I shot his brother, Hedrick. He was bending over Marty, and then kneeling, keening. I shot him in the back, but justified it because I thought he’d been party to the killing, in legal terms an accessory – he’d been there when his brother murdered my wife.’
‘You thought?’
‘I was wrong.’
‘And you figured this out yourself so you could beat your breast, wear sackcloth and ashes—’
‘My absolute belief in their guilt was based on the handkerchief I found when I recovered consciousness, there on the mountain. My wife’s, and there was blood on it. It must have been dropped by one of those two. The only way it could have been in their possession was if it had been taken from Emma’s body as a gruesome souvenir.
‘But . . .’
‘A dying man told me his brother picked it up outside the Macedo’s Flat jail—’
‘Hedrick’s still alive.’
‘But at the time, when he thought he was breathing his last. . . .’ McClain shook his head. ‘Dying or not, I believe him. It was dropped outside the jail by Marshal Lane Dexter. My earliest, my first suspicions confirmed: Dexter murdered my wife.’
He watched Carter chew on that information, pick up the cracked jug and tilt it against his lips to help him swallow it. The blue eyes were giving nothing away. Give him his due, McClain thought, he’s calmed down, and he’s not arguing. So maybe those eyes are elsewhere, looking at a different picture. . . .
‘What the story about Liz Kent?’
Carter waggled the jug, passed it to McClain and grinned.
‘One thing I learned in life is the only thing you need to know about anybody is that you don’t know anything. You and Dexter’s an example – even if you’re wrong. Liz. . . . Well, Liz had gone her merry way taking Maria part of the way to her home. Driving past her house she thought she saw a prowling coyote, cougar, a wild animal of some kind, so she gave a co
uple of blasts on the shotgun to scare it away. What followed was grown men who should have known better riding through the night like ageing vigilantes – and all over nothing.’
For a while there was an easy silence. Carter had drained the jug, placed it down on the boards. McClain flicked his cigarette over the rail towards the sand. Suddenly he was facing the prospect of the long ride back through Mexico to Macedo’s Flat. He’d had company on the ride down to the Gulf, but there had been something left unsaid and that had to be put right.
‘I have to tell you,’ McClain said, ‘that coming across those two on the mountain was pure coincidence. I wasn’t hunting them; I was on the run from Dexter’s jail. He’d accused me of Emma’s murder. Norris let me walk free.’
‘Which explains why you’d both lost the right to wear a deputy’s badge.’ He grinned at McClain’s surprised look. ‘Hell, I knew right away, back there in Red Creek when I said something about you two being Dexter’s deputies. Talk about guilty looks. . . .’
‘Something more than guilt in my eyes, if you’d looked closer. I knew my badge was worthless, but Norris’s? I couldn’t figure him out.’
‘I did wonder what the hell was going on, why he was there in the first place and how he managed to get there ahead of you. I never did believe in coincidence.’
‘And now there’s me and you,’ McClain said. ‘You staying on here, Carter?’
Carter shook his head. ‘You want some more homespun philosophy? When a man’s been away from home territory a long time, there’s really no way back in. Ask old soldiers about the difficulties they faced when returning from the war – and that was after just four, five years away. Besides, I’ve got an old-timer doing my job back in Red Creek. He deserves a pat on the back, and if you’re going to see Dexter pay for his sins you’ll need help.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Sure. We’ll stop in Red Creek on the way. You’ve got your roan so you can drop Jed Crane’s mare off at the livery barn, then maybe get some of the truth from your pal Norris if he’s still there recovering.’
‘No,’ McClain said, shaking his head. ‘I’ll never know what he was up to, because Frank Norris is dead.’
Part Three
Eighteen
Four weeks later.
It turned out that Frank Norris was alive and kicking. He had not only recovered from his gunshot wounds but had, according to Deputy Jim Wild, saddled up, left Red Creek and headed back to Macedo’s Flat. At once, this suggested to both McClain and Carter that Norris never had lost his badge, but did nothing to explain his presence in Red Creek. He’d been sitting at the saloon bar when McClain walked in. If still a lawman, why hadn’t he arrested the man accused of killing his own wife? Why, twenty-four hours earlier, had he let him walk out of jail? And how could any of that make sense?
McClain delivered the borrowed mare to the livery barn, the animal bone-weary after weeks on a lead rope behind McClain’s roan. He told the hostler who the mare had belonged to, and asked him to tell Sarah Crane, if she happened into Red Creek and collected the horse, that he would personally return her husband’s Colt Peacemaker as soon as he was able. Carter, in turn, delivered the deserved pat on the back to old Jim Wild and then told him he’d have to soldier on for a while longer. That seemed to please the old-timer, which left McClain mildly amused; it seemed that his walking down from the mountains all those weeks ago had been a breath of fresh air, and had brought interest and a measure of excitement into the lives of two bored, small-town lawmen.
Then it was back on horseback, and the leaving of Red Creek. Retracing McClain’s original route. Seeing again the rocky outcrop where he’d found Emma’s handkerchief. The skeleton of Manick Skelton’s horse, the bones bleached white by the hot sun on the naked high ground.
And so on to the downhill run into Macedo’s Bend.
It was evening when they rode in, which worked in McClain’s favour. The sun was a red ball low in the sky, casting long shadows. In the fading light of dusk he was unlikely to be recognized as the killer who had walked out of jail; besides, late in the day, the single main street was just about deserted.
There were several horses at the saloon’s hitch rail, one or two riders heading out of town towards outlying ranches. A few of the citizens still out and about did give the two riders a glance, but it was now more than two months since McClain had been brought into town by Marshal Lane Dexter. Most folks had busy lives to lead. Movement had caught their eye, or the sound of hoofs had attracted their attention, but there was nothing unusual to be seen in two trail-weary riders keen to wash the dust from parched throats. Not worth a second glance. They walked on, hurrying home.
A horse McClain recognized was tethered outside the jail.
‘He’s there.’
‘Dexter, or Norris?’ Carter said. ‘If Dexter, how d’you want to play this?’
‘It’s Dexter. Anger’s telling me to kick the door open, shoot the sonofabitch and walk away.’
‘But. . . ?’
‘I need an admission of guilt.’
‘Which could be a long time coming,’ Carter said as they swung down at the hitch rail and tethered their horses.
But McClain wasn’t listening. Up on the plank walk, that close after the long ride from the south, he was jumpy. Dexter’s horse said he was in his office. But where was Frank Norris? Frequently, Norris walked to work, from a rooming house at the other end of town. So they could both be in there, the marshal and his deputy – and they’d have heard McClain’s and Carter’s approach, and would be watching the door. They were unlikely to be suspicious but, as upholders of the law, at the very least they’d be ready to spring into action at the first sign of trouble.
‘So I make damn sure I get in the first blow, shock ’em rigid,’ McClain muttered – and he drew back his leg and, using it like a piston, drove the sole of his boot hard against the door’s latch.
The jamb splintered. The door crashed open.
At the last second McClain realized he’d failed to draw his six-gun. The door banged and bounced back. He made a fumbling draw and sprang into the room, moved instantly to one side, and flattened his back against the wall between door and window. The evening light was flooding the room, shafts of brilliance to his left and right. McClain was lost in the shadows.
Over at the desk, a dozing Lane Dexter had jerked into wakefulness, almost falling out of his swivel chair. The sunlight was hitting him full in the face.
‘Damn it,’ he complained, squinting, ‘can’t a man get five minutes peace—’
He broke off. McClain was motionless, his six-gun held down behind his thigh to hide its metallic shine. But Dexter’s eyes were drawn to the tall, lean figure of Don Carter now standing in the doorway. With his back to the sun the Red Creek marshal was little more than a black shape. Nevertheless, Lane Dexter was no fool.
‘Carter?’ he said, and he pushed up out of his chair, came around the desk.
McClain stepped into the light.
Dexter flicked a glance at the sudden movement. Recognition was instant. With a muttered curse he flung himself back to the desk. A big hand reached for his gunbelt. He touched the leather. His fingers found the pistol’s bone butt. Then McClain was on him. He chopped down with his six-gun, raking the barrel across Dexter’s skull, dropping the man to the floor. With rage welling, out of control, McClain snapped back the hammer, his hand shaking. . . .
Carter stepped in. He wrapped both arms around McClain, dragged him away.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘You told me what you needed, and a dead man cannot admit to guilt.’
Dexter had rolled and was sitting up, a hand clapped to the bloody head wound. Though dazed and in a deal of pain, there was nothing wrong with his hearing.
‘Guilt?’ he said. ‘McClain’s guilt was there for all to see back at his house—’
‘Your guilt,’ McClain said, ‘not mine. You murdered my wife—’
‘You’re mad.’
/> ‘You dropped her handkerchief.’
The room seemed to be throbbing. A woman walked past the open door, saw the blood, sensed the tension and said something under her breath as she hurried away. Dexter struggled to his feet, sank into his chair, frowning deeply. Carter released McClain, dragged a straight-backed chair with his foot and pushed McClain onto it. Then he walked away and leant against a tall cupboard with a creaking door. With a half smile he eased his holster to the front of his thigh, making sure McClain got the message.
‘What handkerchief?’ Dexter said.
‘It’s a long story. Let’s just say finding that bloodstained handkerchief led me to believe two crazies named Skelton had murdered Emma. I was wrong. Those Skeltons found it here, outside this jail. Said I’d have seen them pick it up, only I was in too much of a damned hurry walking away. So, there’s only one conclusion to be drawn.’
‘The wrong one,’ Carter said, ‘Because the timing’s way out.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘You were walking away, you say?’
‘They saw me—’
‘So you were heading home. When that happened, where was I?’
‘You were . . .’ McClain frowned, thinking back. Suddenly uncertain.
‘I’d been out of the office all day. First time I got back here was when I brought you in and got Norris to throw you in a cell. So how could I have dropped that handkerchief?’ He paused, took time to mop his bloody head with his bandanna. He looked at Carter, then back at McClain. He flapped a hand. ‘Damn it, if that handkerchief was there when you were heading home, your wife was already dead, McClain. You couldn’t have killed her—’
