Ralph Compton: West of the Law

by Ralph Compton

When they reached the railroad siding, Prescott saddled his black and tied McBride’s mustang behind the wagon. The four Chinese girls crowded together inside the cage, mewling like tormented kittens as they suffered the first pangs of heroin withdrawal. When either McBride or Prescott stepped close, the girls thrust their arms through the bars, their eyes pleading.

  Prescott made a face at McBride.

  ‘‘Lord almighty, what’s that smell? Get near the wagon and it stinks like the Chisum ranch bunk-house in summer.’’

  ‘‘It’s part of leaving heroin behind. Something vile oozes out through the skin. I don’t know what it is, but it will get worse before it gets better.’’

  ‘‘Glad you’re driving the wagon and not me,’’ Prescott said.

  Because of the heavy wagon and McBride’s inexpert driving, it took him and Prescott two days to reach McKenzie’s cabin on the Cucharas.

  They’d passed through rough, broken country, a land of red canyons and majestic, aspen-covered ridges. At higher elevations they’d seen wolves move through the ponderosas like gray wraiths, trotting past towering parapets of granite rock where streaks of snow still clung.

  At dusk on the first day Prescott had shot an antelope, but the girls refused to eat and took no notice of their surroundings. They clung to one another, alternately sweating and shivering, moaning softly in the grip of a merciless enemy they could neither control nor understand.

  Angus McKenzie’s cabin was set back from a sandy bend of the creek, shaded by an ancient cottonwood. A small barn stood behind the house and next to it a pole corral. A vegetable garden grew on one side of the cabin and nearby a well had been dug.

  It was, McBride decided, a pleasant enough place, though he withheld judgment until he could determine if Prescott’s description of McKenzie as an irascible, dour old Scotsman rang true.

  Watching them come, the man himself stood outside his door, a rifle in one hand, the other shading his eyes. His tense watchfulness drained from him when Prescott rode close enough to be seen.

  ‘‘Howdy, Luke,’’ he said in a soft Scottish burr when the gunfighter drew rein close to him. ‘‘Still riding the American stud, I see. I recognized him fine when you were still a ways off.’’

  ‘‘Howdy yourself, Angus,’’ Prescott smiled. ‘‘I’ll get right to it. We’ve come to ask a favor of you.’’

  ‘‘Are you on the dodge, like?’’

  ‘‘I’m on the dodge, but I’m not asking a favor for myself.’’ He waved a hand. ‘‘It’s for them.’’

  ‘‘In the convict wagon?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, four Chinese girls. They need a place to stay for a while.’’

  McKenzie, a long string bean of a man with a gray beard that fell to the top of his canvas pants, walked over to the wagon and looked up at McBride.

  ‘‘And who might you be?’’

  McBride gave his name.

  ‘‘Would that be the Scots or Irish McBrides?’’

  ‘‘Irish, I believe.’’

  ‘‘Ah weel,’’ McKenzie said, ‘‘when all is said and done, is not one much the same as the other?’’

  Without waiting for an answer, he stepped to the side of the wagon.

  ‘‘These lassies are sick,’’ he said. Then, alarm showing on his face: ‘‘It’s not the black plague, is it?’’

  ‘‘It’s not the plague. They’ll be better in a few more days,’’ McBride said. ‘‘All they need is rest and some good food.’’

  McKenzie stuck an arm through the iron bars and placed his hand on the oldest girl’s forehead. She looked at him dully, making no move to pull away.

  ‘‘She’s got a fever,’’ he said. ‘‘They all have.’’ He withdrew his arm and put his hand to his nose, sniffing. ‘‘They all need a bath in the creek, smells like.’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ McBride said, deciding it would not be a good idea to elaborate right then.

  ‘‘They look far too young to be convicts.’’

  ‘‘They’re not convicts.’’ McBride hesitated. ‘‘It’s a story long in the telling.’’

  ‘‘I would fancy it is,’’ McKenzie said. He looked from McBride to Prescott, who had just ridden up to the wagon. ‘‘You two look sharp-set and so do the wee lassies. Come into the hoose and my woman will feed you.’’

  The cabin was sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean. The timber floor was swept and covered with buffalo hides, and the table and chairs were polished to an amber glow. There was a stove against one wall and an open cupboard where plates with a blue pattern were displayed. Several of McKenzie’s traps hung near the door and beside them, a rack where he set his Henry rifle.

  His woman was tall and slender and she wore her graying black hair loose over her shoulders in the style of the Kiowa. Humor lurked in her dark eyes and she seemed genuinely pleased to have visitors.

  ‘‘Aye, she’s a good woman right enough,’’ McKenzie said after McBride had thanked her for the bowl of venison stew she’d laid in front of him. ‘‘I paid twenty dollars in gold to the Kiowa for her. That was back in the spring of fifty-six and I’ve never regretted it. Weel, that’s not true. Sometimes I look back on the expense and feel a wee bit of regret, but what’s done is done and there’s an end to it.’’

  ‘‘What’s your lady’s name?’’ McBride asked.

  ‘‘Adoette. It means large tree.’’ McKenzie smiled, revealing surprisingly good teeth. ‘‘The Kiowa only have thirty-two female names, so there’s not many for a parent to choose from.’’

  Prescott poised a forkful of stew between his bowl and mouth and jutted his chin toward the Chinese girls. ‘‘I wonder what they’re called.’’

  ‘‘They can’t tell us,’’ McKenzie said. ‘‘Unless a man knows Chinese.’’

  The four girls were sitting on the floor and Adoette was spooning stew into their mouths. They opened up dutifully, but their eyes were still in a far place and they shivered uncontrollably.

  McBride was relieved. At least they were eating. Not much, certainly, but eating.

  After McBride and Prescott sighed their fullness and pushed their bowls away, McKenzie brought out a jug and three glasses. He filled each with whiskey, then said, ‘‘Luke, you asked about a favor, and I’m thinking that I ken what it might be. But I want to hear it from your own mouth.’’

  Prescott tried his whiskey, found it good and drank more. He laid his glass back on the table and said, ‘‘Angus, you’ve helped me before when I was on the dodge, and I don’t want to impose on our friendship and your good nature, but—’’

  ‘‘We want you to keep the girls for a while,’’ McBride interrupted. ‘‘I’ll pay you what you ask.’’

  McKenzie absorbed what had just been said and bent his head, looking into his glass. He stayed silent for a long while, the only sound in the room the tick of a clock on the wall and the soft cooing of Adoette as she fed and petted the girls.

  Finally the old man looked directly at McBride and said, ‘‘Tell me about them.’’

  Using as few words as possible, McBride told McKenzie how the girls had been destined for a short and violent life of prostitution until he and Prescott had freed them.

  ‘‘I will not go into any more details, Mr. McKenzie,’’ he finished. ‘‘There is no need for our enemies to become yours.’’

  ‘‘Yet, if I give these young Celestials a home, then surely your enemies will become mine?’’

  McBride nodded, a man bound to honesty. ‘‘That is likely.’’

  Again McKenzie went into a brooding silence. Adoette was whispering to the girls in a language they did not understand, and one of them answered, sounds without meaning, drifting sweet and light as birdsong through the hushed room.

  It was the first time McBride had ever heard any of the girls speak, and it pleased him greatly.

  Angus McKenzie lifted his head.

  ‘‘Mr. McBride, you have a good name and a strong face and I’ll tell you what I feel. By times, I am a harsh, un
bending man, much given to ardent spirits and profanity. But I am also a God-fearing man, from an early age raised in the Presbyterian Church to know what is right and what is wrong. Yes, I will take care of your girls and when you return, you will find them happier than they were when you left.’’

  ‘‘I’ll pay you—’’

  ‘‘No money, Mr. McBride, not for this. I cannot take gold and silver coin for an act of Christian charity. To do so would be to spit in the eye of God.’’

  ‘‘Angus, we’re beholden to you,’’ Prescott said.

  ‘‘When will you return?’’

  McBride shook his head and answered for Prescott. ‘‘That I don’t know. It will be when our business is done. A week, maybe two, maybe longer—’’

  ‘‘Maybe never,’’ Prescott said.

  ‘‘Then . . . this business of yours is revolver work?’’

  ‘‘It’s my trade, Angus,’’ Prescott said. ‘‘You understand that.’’

  ‘‘Then I will ask no more questions. The less I know, the less I can tell.’’

  McKenzie rose to his feet, sighing long, as though his new responsibilities had suddenly dawned on him. ‘‘I will have my woman sack you up some grub. Now you’ve been refreshed, you will be wanting to get back on the trail.’’

  It was a polite dismissal and McBride accepted it as such.

  ‘‘We’ll leave the wagon if you don’t mind,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yes, leave it. I’ll get rid of that damnable convict cage. It’s a thing the wee lassies have no need to see anymore.’’

  McBride stood to say his farewells. He walked over to the Chinese girls. Knowing they could not understand a word he said, he backed up his speech with an elaborate pantomime of his hands. ‘‘I am going now.’’ He pointed to himself and made a walking motion with two fingers of his right hand, covering distance in the air. Then, a return, this time using his left. ‘‘I’ll come back for you.’’

  He was met with blank stares—then the youngest girl surprised him. She jumped to her feet and threw her arms around his waist, her cheek pressing into the hard muscle of his belly. A frantic pleading in her voice, the girl kept saying the same words over and over again, her frail arms tightening.

  ‘‘She does not want you to leave,’’ Adoette said. ‘‘It is a child’s way. But you must go now, make a clean break.’’

  ‘‘John, maybe she thinks you’re her pa,’’ Prescott said, grinning.

  McBride gently disentangled the girl’s arms, took a knee and looked into her damp brown eyes. ‘‘I’ll come back for you,’’ he said. His eyes lifted to the Kiowa woman. ‘‘After I’m gone, try to make her understand.’’

  ‘‘I will try. You are taking the warrior’s path and will not be able to hold this child in your arms. Therefore you must hold her in your heart.’’

  McBride rose to his feet. ‘‘I’ll remember that, Adoette,’’ he said. The girl still clung to him.

  As they rode away from the cabin and a silence grew between them, Prescott turned in the saddle and said finally, ‘‘You think they’ll make it, John?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ McBride said. ‘‘If they can get over the heroin addiction, if McKenzie treats them right . . .’’ He wiped sweat from the band of his plug hat, then settled it back on his head. ‘‘I just don’t know.’’

  ‘‘If you’re still alive after this is done, what will you do with four Chinese girls?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know that either.’’

  ‘‘How would Shannon Roark take it? Having an instant family, I mean.’’

  McBride’s face showed his annoyance. ‘‘Luke, anybody ever tell you that you ask too many questions?’’

  ‘‘All the time,’’ the little gunfighter said, unabashed. ‘‘I have what you might call an inquisitive nature.’’

  They rode in silence for several minutes. Then McBride said, ‘‘I don’t know how Shannon would take it.’’

  Chapter 20

  McBride and Prescott made camp that night in an arroyo due east of the Spanish Peaks and bedded down on a mattress of pine needles.

  From out of the darkness McBride heard Prescott’s voice. ‘‘John, where do we go from here?’’

  ‘‘I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t know.’’

  ‘‘We’ve hurt Gamble Trask, killed a few of his men, freed the Chinese girls and burned his opium, but he’ll bounce right back.’’

  ‘‘He can rebuild his cabin and slave shack and hire more men, that’s for sure.’’

  McBride heard Prescott stir and rise up on one elbow. ‘‘We’re no match for Hack Burns and the Allison brothers, not if they come at us all at once.’’ After a few moments of silence he added, ‘‘I think I can take Burns, but the Allisons stick together. They’d be a handful.’’

  ‘‘I’ll be with you.’’

  ‘‘It’s still two against four, plus how many hard cases Trask can round up. I don’t think we can buck those odds.’’

  ‘‘I’ve been thinking about Shannon. I promised to protect her, but I’ve left her all alone in High Hopes. That can weigh on a man.’’

  Prescott sat up and started to build a cigarette. ‘‘We can’t do anything else to damage Trask out here. Hell, as it is, all we’ve probably done is make him mad. I reckon High Hopes is where we should be.’’

  A match flared orange in the dark and McBride saw it reflect on the lean planes of Prescott’s face. ‘‘Kill Trask and it’s over,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I want to kill him bad and that would be the easy solution.’’ Prescott lay on his back again. ‘‘It’s getting to Trask without getting killed ourselves that’s difficult.’’

  McBride was silent for so long, Prescott thought he was asleep. ‘‘John?’’

  ‘‘I’m awake. I was just thinking that we’ve failed. We killed a few men, freed some girls and burned up a shipment of opium. There’s nothing there that Trask can’t replace. We’ve been a couple of hornets trying to sting an elephant.’’

  Now Prescott fell silent. When he spoke again there was a note of excitement in his voice. ‘‘John, you told me that Trask plans a grandstand play, something that will be his ticket out of High Hopes and into lace-curtain Washington. If we can find out what it is and head him off at the pass, it’s our chance to ruin him. Once Trask is broke and alone, I’ll kill him.’’

  ‘‘His big score could be something to do with orphan trains. Have you come up with any idea of what Leggett was trying to tell me?’’

  ‘‘No, I haven’t. Dying men say all kinds of things that don’t make sense. ‘Orphan trains’ could be one of them.’’

  McBride turned his head, peering into the darkness at Prescott. ‘‘Luke, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m a police officer, a detective sergeant. I was ordered to get out of New York after I killed the son of a man who is just like Gamble Trask, only worse.’’

  Prescott laughed softly. ‘‘Hell, John, I knew you was some kind of law the first time I ever saw you. Wearing a star changes a man, the way he walks and talks and thinks . . . and there’s something else, something in his eyes, watchful, like a hawk.’’

  ‘‘Like a gunslinger’s eyes.’’