Ralph Compton: West of the Law

by Ralph Compton

  A restlessness in him, McBride stepped to the window. He pushed back the curtain, raised the window a few inches and looked outside. A hollow moon was rising and the night was hot, heat lightning flashing to the west over the Spanish Peaks, an electric-blue radiance throbbing in the dark sky. The air smelled of dust, horse dung, cigar smoke and sweat. Pianos played in the saloons, their competing tunes tangling in a calamitous cacophony of jangled notes that fluttered aimlessly in the air like stricken moths.

  He was about to close the window and walk away when McBride’s attention was attracted to a freight wagon drawn by a couple of sturdy Morgans that had just pulled up at the entrance to the shadowed alley beside the Golden Garter. Normally, he would have glanced at the wagon, then dismissed it from his mind. But there was something different, even sinister about this one. An iron cage had been built into the bed, and in the uncertain light McBride thought he could make out the huddled shapes of several women.

  The driver, a tall, heavy man with a red beard that spilled over his chest, jumped down from the box. He was joined by a smaller man carrying a Henry rifle, his thin cheeks pooled with shadow. The red-bearded man, a miner, judging by his battered hat, plaid shirt and mule-eared boots, held a coiled bullwhip in his right hand. He stepped to the back of the wagon, clanked a key in a lock and opened the door of the cage.

  McBride watched the man motion with the whip, and a tiny woman rose and crouched hesitantly at the door. Red Beard cursed, then angrily waved the whip again, and the woman dropped lightly to the ground. Now that McBride could see her better, he realized that this was not a grown woman but a young, slight girl in her early teens. She was Chinese and her round face held a mix of fear and apprehension.

  Red Beard swore again, motioning with his whip, and three more girls joined the first. They were just as young, just as slight and equally frightened. The big miner made another irritable motion with the whip, pointing it toward the alley. The four girls clung to one another and, their long, blue-black hair gleaming in the light of the oil lamps outside the saloon, shuffled into the alley. Red Beard and the man with the rifle followed. Soon they were swallowed by darkness and McBride could see them no more.

  He closed the window, letting the curtain fall back into place, and as he stepped away he shed his shoulder rig. He slid the gun from the leather, placed it on the stand by the bed and stretched out, staring at the ceiling.

  What he had just witnessed disturbed him deeply. The oldest of the Chinese girls had looked to be about fourteen and the three others were even younger. There was no doubt in McBride’s mind that the girls, children really, had been terrified, cowed into obedience by abuse they’d already suffered. Maybe Red Beard did more with that bullwhip than use it as a pointer.

  John McBride swore, telling himself angrily that the fate of four Chinese girls was no concern of his. His orders from Inspector Byrnes—and they had been orders—were to lose himself in the Western lands, lie low and wait until told that it was safe to return to New York. He was young, not yet thirty, and he could resume his police career where he left off. With hard work and a bit of luck he might well end up as an inspector of detectives himself. It was possible. More than possible, it was very likely.

  Yes, he was still a law officer. But in New York, not here, not in this wooden shantytown in the middle of nowhere. What happened in High Hopes was hardly his business. Hadn’t the railroad clerk told him that the way to stay alive in the town was to see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, like the three Chinese monkeys?

  McBride shook his head in irritation. Now, why did he have to go and think about the Chinese again, even if it was only monkeys? He undid his tie and celluloid collar and laid them on the bed stand with his watch. Then he heeled off one of his elastic-sided ankle boots but had to sit up and remove the other. Wiggling his toes in his socks, he blew out the oil lamp, stretched out on the bed again and closed his eyes.

  But sleep would not come to him.

  No matter how hard he tried to clear his racing mind, the scared faces of the girls kept coming back to haunt him and an iron fist twisted his heart in his chest.

  Outside the boisterous town was as noisy as ever, the saloons going full blast and the street still crowded with people, and once he heard a flurry of shots followed by a woman’s scream. Whatever had happened, a killing or some drunken rooster shooting at the moon, High Hopes ignored it and the free-spending miners led the festivities as before.

  Tired as he was from his long journey west, McBride gave up the unequal struggle. There would be no sleep until the dawning sun told the town it was time to turn off the lamps and seek the blankets. McBride rose and padded in his stocking feet across the floor to the window. The cage was gone, but now there was something else to attract his interest—a woman.

  A woman like no other he’d ever seen.

  She stood on the boardwalk outside the saloon, and even in the darkness her beauty burned like a flame. Thick auburn hair was piled high on her head and she wore a low-cut dress of vivid red silk. A thin ribbon of the same color encircled her slim neck, and her shoulders were bare, revealing the swell of her breasts and the deep, shadowed V of cleavage. Her face was oval in shape, and her eyes were large and set wide apart, her lips full, scarlet and inviting.

  She was, McBride decided, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Even back in New York, a city renowned for its exquisite women, she would have stood out from the rest.

  Like a rose among thorns, McBride thought, pleased that he could still wax poetic, despite the life he’d led, a life where nothing had come easy and the pursuit of criminals and the probing of their often terrible deeds had calloused his soul. In that moment, in a single, blinding flash of realization, he knew he must have this woman, that somehow, some way, she must be his.

  There were ominous signs to be read, but blinded by the woman’s breathtaking beauty, McBride did not read them. He would pursue the woman in the red dress clean, with no predetermined notions or conditions.

  He was new to the West and did not know that among the Sioux, Cheyenne and many other Indian tribes, red is the color of conflict, wounds and violent death.

  He did not know it then, but it was a thing he was destined to learn.

  Two men stood with the woman, close enough to her that they shaped up to be at least acquaintances. The man at her elbow was tall and as big as McBride himself, but much more handsome in a cheap, flashy way. He sported a thick mane of yellow hair, obviously pomaded, and a trimmed, full mustache calculated to set female hearts aflutter. He was dressed in a well-cut suit of gray broadcloth and a diamond stickpin glittered in his cravat. Whoever he was, self-assured and relaxed even in the company of a beautiful woman, the man projected an image of wealth and raw, arrogant power.

  Beside him, his face lost in shadow under a wide-brimmed hat, stood a smaller man that McBride decided could be only Hack Burns. He wore two guns in crossed belts, hung low on his hips, but unlike the bigger man, he was not in the least relaxed. McBride saw his head slowly turn this way and that with the icy menace of a cobra as he studied faces in the passing crowd. There was a readiness about Burns that reminded McBride of a tensed spring about to violently uncoil. He had seen the gunman’s like before, back in the Four Corners, sudden, cold-eyed men who would kill for money without emotion or a pang of conscience.

  McBride made up his mind that he wanted no part of Hack Burns. Not then, not ever.

  He stepped away from the window, lit the oil lamp, then sat on the bed and pulled on his boots. He rose and slipped his suspenders over his shoulders. The night was hot and he decided to forgo his coat and collar. A glance in the mirror told him that he badly needed a shave. He rasped a hand over his lean cheeks, but decided the razor could wait. Right now he had to see the woman again— up close and personal.

  John McBride slipped his gun into his right pants pocket, settled his plug hat on his head and left the hotel . . . stepping into a roaring night streaked with lamplight. />
  Chapter 4

  The Golden Garter Saloon was packed wall-to-wall with people, gold miners mostly, in from the Spanish Peaks to spend their dust, a sprinkling of flushed punchers with their wide-brimmed hats tipped back, spurs chiming on their heels, and a few women in short dresses of vivid yellow, blue or green silk.

  As he made a place for himself at the bar, McBride’s eyes scanned the smoke-filled room, but he saw no sign of the woman in the red gown.

  The bartender, his pomaded hair parted in the middle of his head, slicked down shiny and flat on either side, asked McBride to name his poison. The product of a drunken, violent father, McBride had long ago sworn off alcohol, but he ordered a beer and let it sit, the foam settling as its tiny bubbles popped.

  He saw her then.

  A momentary parting of the crowd revealed the far corner of the saloon. She was sitting at a table with four miners, studying the playing cards in her hand. Stacks of poker chips stood on the table in front of her and surprisingly, given her surroundings, a small silver tray holding a steaming china teapot and a cup and saucer.

  The woman’s eyes met McBride’s for an instant—dark hazel, he noticed—then dropped to her cards again, long lashes lying on her cheek-bones like spread black fans.

  The throng crowded together again and she was once more lost from his sight.

  McBride turned to the man at his side, a young miner wearing a plaid shirt, a seaman’s woolen cap on his head.

  ‘‘Can I buy you a drink?’’ he asked.

  For a moment the man looked surprised, but then he shrugged and said, ‘‘Sure, why not? Whiskey.’’ He stuck out his hand. ‘‘Name’s Jim Palmer, harpooner, late of good old Nantucket Town. Now I’m here at the diggings.’’

  McBride shook Palmer’s hand, gave his name as John Smith, then motioned to the bartender to fill the miner’s glass. When the man had his drink he asked, ‘‘There’s a woman over there at the corner table, playing cards. Who is she?’’

  Palmer gave McBride a knowing smile. ‘‘Sooner or later every stranger who sets foot in High Hopes asks that same question.’’ He tried his drink, grimaced and set his glass back on the bar. ‘‘Her name’s Shannon Roark. She’s the house dealer for the owner of the saloon.’’ The man nodded to the end of the bar. ‘‘That’s him over there. Name’s Gamble Trask and he cuts a wide path around these parts.’’

  Trask was the handsome man McBride had seen outside the saloon with Shannon. Their eyes met and McBride was burned by the challenge in Trask’s eyes, that and the arrogance of money and power.

  McBride had no quarrel with Gamble Trask. He had nothing to prove and did not want to draw unwelcome attention to himself. He looked quickly away, missing the cruel smile of triumph on the man’s face.

  Palmer was talking again, smiling as though at some inner thought. ‘‘I know what’s on your mind, John Smith, but let it go. A lot of well-set fellows have tried to dab a loop on Shannon, as the cowboys say, but she’s sent them all packing with their tails between their legs and shrunk to about three feet tall. I believe Miss Roark is a woman who will choose her own man in her own time and on her own terms.’’ He nodded, still smiling, wistfully, like a man watching a fairy gift fade in the morning light. ‘‘Yup, that’s what I believe all right.’’

  ‘‘I want to meet her,’’ McBride said.

  Palmer shrugged. ‘‘Easy enough. If you’re a gambling man, just sit in on the game at her table. If you’re not, she takes a break two or three times a night. You could ask her if you can buy her a drink.’’

  ‘‘Champagne?’’ McBride asked, making a snap judgment.

  Palmer shook his head. ‘‘Tea. She never touches the hard stuff.’’

  ‘‘Then I’ll do—’’

  McBride never finished his sentence. Suddenly Palmer, a small man, was jerked backward by the collar of his shirt and sent sprawling on the floor.

  ‘‘Just makin’ room at the bar is all,’’ the man who stepped into Palmer’s space laughed. Those around him who were within earshot laughed with him, uneasily, shifting their feet or suddenly finding something of great interest at the bottom of their glass.

  John McBride didn’t laugh. Growing up hard as he had done, he’d met his share of bullies and he detested the breed. He had not wanted to draw unwelcome attention, but he could not let this go.

  The man who stood arrogantly beside him, purposely crowding him, was the red-bearded man he’d seen from the hotel window who’d driven the young Chinese girls into the alley like livestock. Up close, Red Beard was huge, big in the shoulders and arms, and he shared Gamble Trask’s arrogance, his cruelty plain in his thin mouth and pale blue eyes. The man had fresh scratches on his left cheek, the marks of a woman’s fingernails. Remembering the little Chinese girls, McBride did not want to think about what had caused them to be there.

  A white-hot anger building in him, McBride bent slightly and offered Palmer his hand. The miner shook his head, making no attempt to rise from the floor. ‘‘Let it go, Smith,’’ he said. His frightened eyes went to Red Beard, who was watching him and McBride with faint, contemptuous amusement. Palmer said, ‘‘Nolan didn’t mean nothing by it.’’

  The man called Nolan grinned, his teeth long and yellow as piano keys. ‘‘That’s right, tin pan, I didn’t mean nothing by it. Just cleared myself some room.’’ He looked around at the men at the bar, his grin widening. ‘‘Ain’t that right, boys?’’

  A chorus of approval by intimidated men followed and a few loudly banged their glasses on the bar. McBride’s voice, cold and flat, cut across the noise.

  ‘‘This gentleman’’—he bent and hauled Palmer to his feet—‘‘and I had not finished our conversation. Now, Nolan, if that’s your name, step away and clear a space.’’

  Nolan looked like he’d been slapped. He stood staring at McBride in stunned wonderment for a few long seconds, then said, shaking out the bullwhip in his right hand, ‘‘Mister, nobody talks to Jim Nolan like that. Just to be sure you remember, I’m going to cut some of the hide right off’n you.’’

  The man carried a Colt in a cross-draw holster on his left hip and McBride had no doubt he was a practiced fighting man. He had not wanted to step into the limelight, but now it was being forced on him and if he tried to back off, he knew Nolan would kill him.

  A hush had settled on the saloon, the last few notes of the piano faltering to a ragged stop. McBride was aware that down at the other end of the bar Trask and his gunman Hack Burns were watching him intently. Smiling.

  Nolan stepped back, giving himself room to swing the whip. Above his beard, the man’s face glowed with a triumphant, vicious light. He was a man who looked like he enjoyed killing and he was enjoying it now, like a glutton anticipating the first bite of a feast spread before him.

  ‘‘You’re making a big mistake, Nolan,’’ McBride said, his eyes cold. ‘‘I’m a man grown, not a little Chinese girl you can push around.’’

  Stung, Nolan roared and swung the bullwhip.

  McBride moved—very fast for a big man. His fingers curled on the beer mug in front of him and he hurled it with all his strength into Nolan’s face.

  The glass hit Nolan high on the forehead, opening a cut, and beer splashed over his face and beard. The big man roared his fury, and swung back his arm again, readying the bullwhip for a slashing strike at McBride’s face that could tear out his eyes.

  McBride did not let him get set. He moved in on Nolan and stabbed a straight right into the man’s mouth. Nolan was sobered by the unexpected power behind that punch and he stepped back, shaking his head, blood and saliva flying from his smashed lips. He dropped the whip, realizing the big man would not give him room to swing its ten-foot length, and waded into McBride, punching hard to the body with both hands.

  McBride fought back, standing his ground. He took a swinging right to the jaw from Nolan and pretended to stagger, hoping the man would come after him. Nolan did and McBride closed with him again. He hammere
d the front of his skull onto the bridge of Nolan’s nose and felt the crunch of bone. Nolan went back, gasping, blood staining his red beard scarlet. But he was far from beaten.