McBride nodded. “Yes, a few times.” He remembered the Zuni Plateau and the killing of Deer Creek Tom Rivers and his clan. News of that gunfight would have spread far and his name would have been spoken often.
Bear was talking. “When you’re a named man, folks remember. Maybe saying, ‘I’m John McBride,’ meant nothing to you, but it meant plenty to them as heard it. Sure, they might have said nothing at the time, but as soon as your back was turned, tongues would start wagging. People ride trains, lawmen talk on the wires and newspapers tell stories. Word gets around.”
The old man helped himself from the coffeepot on the table. “You may be right of course. Rentzin might not know you’re in Suicide. But by now he’ll have enough information to figure that you’re holed up somewhere in this neck of the woods.”
McBride was suddenly uneasy, but he angrily derided himself for being so foolish. Roddy Rentzin had left the Brazos, but the western lands were vast and he could be headed anywhere. He told this to Bear, then added, “Besides, with the Apaches out, he’d be a fool to come this far north.”
The old man nodded. “That could be.” He rose to his feet and looked down at McBride. “Wear your gun, John.”
Bear passed Jed McKay at the door and the two exchanged a curt nod. McKay’s glance swept the room and settled on McBride. He sat opposite him and said, “With all the excitement last night, I forgot there was something I wanted to talk to you about, Marshal.”
“Talk away,” McBride said. He picked up the pot. “Coffee?”
The storekeeper shook his head. “Listen, the Apaches have driven out the Army, at least for the foreseeable future, and Suicide is wide-open.”
McBride nodded. “It’s a worrisome thing, all right. What about your militia?”
“A dozen men trying to protect every building in town? It won’t work. We’d be scattered and the Indians could pick us off one by one.”
“Then what do you suggest, McKay?”
“When you visit with Miss Elliot tonight, inquire of her if we can use her house as a citadel in the event of an attack by the savages. The house is solidly built and, as we well know, it has an excellent field of fire in all directions. A dozen riflemen, well provisioned, could hold out until help arrived or the Apaches got discouraged and left.”
“That makes sense to me,” McBride said. “I’ll ask her. I’m sure she’ll be agreeable.”
McKay rose to his feet. “There’s one thing more, Marshal, and it’s troubling. John Wright and his wife pulled out this morning. It seems he has no faith in your finding the killer among us.”
Alarmed, McBride sprang to his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I just found out myself. Conrad Heber saw them go and took his own sweet time telling anybody.”
“When did they leave?”
“At first light. Heber said they loaded their few sticks of furniture into a spring wagon and headed east. He said Wright told him that he’d rather take his chances with the Apaches than remain a minute longer in Suicide.”
Rage spiked through McBride. Heber was so fat and lazy he probably couldn’t be bothered making the effort to tell anybody until it was too late.
“I’m going after them,” he said.
McKay nodded. “Bring them back, Marshal. Bring them back alive and well.”
Chapter 18
There was no sign of Jim Drago at the livery as McBride saddled his mustang and led the animal outside.
The morning was cold, sleety rain driving from an iron gray sky, borne along by a north wind off the mountains that cut to the bone. The harsh, freezing air smelled of hardening ice and distant, frost-rimed trees. No comfort was offered by the day, only the uncaring promise of much worse to come.
McBride turned up the collar of his thin coat, his shivering breath fogging. He was wishful for a thick, sheepskin mackinaw but had none. He put his foot in the stirrup, swung his leg over the mustang and settled in the saddle.
A moment later he found himself flat on his back in the stony mud, watching the irritated, snorting mustang trot back into its warm barn.
McBride rose slowly to his feet, hurting. He picked up his hat, jammed it on his head and, his eyes ablaze, looked daggers into the gloom of the stable. The mustang had bucked like a bee-stung mule, sending him flying. Well, he didn’t want to go out in the cold either, but it had to be done.
He stomped into the barn, grabbed the horse by the reins close to the bit rings and let it outside again. But this time he was ready. He bunched his fist, held it close to the mustang’s head where the animal could see it, and yelled, “Do that again and I’ll punch you right between the eyes.”
Whether it recognized imminent violence in its rider’s tone of voice or had made its protest and was done, the mustang stood and allowed McBride to mount. He swung away from the stable and headed east. He was two miles outside of town before he finally finished cussing his mount.
McBride rode through high, rolling grass country with plenty of piñon and here and there thickets of gambel oak. Rabbitbrush, proudly displaying its golden fall blossoms, grew among the juniper on the slopes of the hills, adding streaks of color to the bleak landscape. This was open land, vast and lonely under the dark iron bowl of the sky, the passing of the plains tribes and the buffalo they once hunted here still remembered by the mournful wind.
Shivering in his coat of thin cloth, McBride scanned the distances around him. The falling rain mixed with sleet drew a veil over the Guadalupe peaks to the north, and ahead of him green hills and shadowed valleys stretched far, before fading into a hazy wall of gray.
McBride was slowed by the need to scout for wagon tracks. He quartered the ground, riding a mile to the north, then swinging back to the south again along the same line. After two hours he’d found nothing.
There was no movement on the plain except the long grass tossing in the wind and the slow, somber passage of slate-colored clouds across the ashen sky.
Breathing the icy air was like drinking long draughts of freezing water, and the cold tore at McBride’s lungs. The land was gradually rising higher and he swung the mustang into a mixed thicket of gambel oak and juniper growing on a rocky hillside. Here, sheltered from the wind, it felt a few degrees warmer, but McBride was shivering uncontrollably and the mustang hung its head, making its own misery known.
He would have to turn back. If he stayed out much longer he could easily freeze to death, especially now that night was only a few hours away. Maybe tomorrow he could try….
The shots carried in the wind, distant, faint, but McBride heard them: twice the flat statement of a rifle, then, after a few moments, a third. He guessed the firing came from somewhere ahead of him and to the north. Kicking the mustang into a shambling trot, he left the shelter of the trees and rode to the flat.
McBride lifted his reluctant mount into a canter, riding into a curtain of icy sleet that penetrated his clothing and seemed to reach the very marrow of his bones. He carried no revolver, but his Winchester was booted under his left knee. He slid the rifle free and his numb fingers fumbled with the lever.
A bullet split the air next to his head, another, a split second later, thudded into the saddle horn, tearing out a chunk of leather. McBride’s head swiveled on his shoulders, seeking the rifleman. He was not confident enough of his riding ability or his marksmanship with a long gun to shoot off the back of a running horse. Slowing the mustang to a walk, he held the Winchester high, ready to throw it to his shoulder if a target presented itself. Was it Apaches? He considered that, then rejected it. Even an Apache wouldn’t be out on a day like this when he could be sitting warm in his wickiup. It had to be a white man—a man who had good reason to travel in a sleet storm.
About fifty yards away to his left rose a steep ridge, its slope covered with stunted piñon and juniper. Patches of frozen sleet showed themselves around the roots of the trees and streaked the slope, clinging to ragged stands of bunchgrass. The ridge was about a quarter-mil
e long, crested with tumbled slabs of gray sandstone rock, clumps of bunchgrass and thickets of prickly pear. A fallen tree, its trunk white as bone, lay across a couple of rocks, stubby, broken-off limbs pointing to the sky.
McBride glanced quickly around him. The ridge was the only place a bushwhacker could hide. He climbed out of the saddle, hoping to make himself a less obvious target. Crouching low, he headed for the ridge, now shrouded behind a cartwheeling screen of sleet and chips of icy rain.
There was danger in the air. McBride felt it. He was exposed out there in the flat, and the hidden rifleman had come close twice. But if he’d tried to cut and run, his back would have been to the bushwhacker, giving the man time for a clean shot.
He was still bucking the odds, he knew, but he had a weapon in his hands and his face was to the enemy…if the man was on the ridge.
Fate is only a name for the result of a man’s own efforts, and now it rewarded McBride for his cold, scared walk across open ground into the gun of a waiting marksman.
He was ten yards from the base of the ridge, his eyes scanning the rocks, when he stepped into a shallow hole scraped away by some animal. The depression wasn’t deep, but it was unexpected. McBride’s ankle turned and he stumbled awkwardly to his left. At that same instant a rifle shot slapped from the ridge.
As he fell, the butt of McBride’s Winchester came up and the bullet slammed into the walnut, shattering the stock near the rounded end of the loading lever. The impact stung his frozen hands and the rifle spun away from him.
McBride rolled, got to his feet and dived for his gun. Grasping what was left of the stock, he fired into the rocks, racked the rifle and fired again. He saw his bullets chip fragments from the sandstone; then he was up and limping for the base of the ridge, his twisted ankle punishing him. He threw himself against the slope, his back coming up hard against its gravelly base. Again he levered a round into the chamber, the splintered butt of the Winchester clumsy in his hands as he looked up at the ridge.
The bushwhacker would expose himself to McBride’s fire if he tried to shoot down the slope. The big man gulped icy air into his lungs and waited.
A few moments later he heard the hoofbeats of a galloping horse, loud at first, then fading fast. He jumped to his feet and struggled up the slope, favoring his throbbing ankle. Tree branches tore at him, and several times his feet went out from under him and he fell on his belly, each time losing ground as he slid back a few yards.
When he reached the ridge he saw a horseman in the distance, vanishing quickly into the gray gloom of the sleet-scourged day.
Sudden anger flared in McBride. Summoning up every cuss word he could remember, plus a few he made up right there and then, he roared at the top of his voice as he fired at the retreating bushwhacker, levered the Winchester and fired again. But he was shooting at shadows. Nothing moved on the plain but the sleet and the wind.
Thirty minutes later McBride found the bodies of John and Ann Wright.
Chapter 19
The wagon was stopped in a narrow valley between tree-lined hills. The old mare in the traces was standing head-down, facing into the worst of the sleet storm, frost on her back and head.
John Wright sat upright in the seat, a neat bullet hole between his eyes. He had a look of horror on his face, an expression he had carried into eternity.
Ann Wright had been riding in the back of a wagon and had covered herself with a blanket and a canvas tarp for warmth. She had been shot twice in the chest and lay half in, half out of the wagon bed, her long hair trailing on the ground.
McBride pieced it together.
Their killer had been waiting for them in the trees and when the wagon passed he’d come behind them at a gallop. He’d fired twice at the woman, the two fast shots McBride had heard. Then, when John Wright had turned his head to look, he’d been shot between the eyes.
It had been a cold, efficient killing by a man who knew his business and had no conscience or had forgotten he ever had one.
McBride stepped from the saddle and walked to the wagon. Ann Wright’s huge eyes were open, looking down at the grass where the sleet was gathering. But she was seeing nothing but darkness. As for her husband, he knew only for a single, horrified moment he was dying.
Casting around the wagon, McBride found what he knew he’d find—shell casings from a .50-caliber rifle. The man who’d murdered John and Ann Wright had also killed Manuel Cortez. He was sure of that.
But now he had a difficult decision to make.
Suicide was a tinderbox and anything could start a conflagration. If he took the bodies of the couple back to town, he doubted that Adam Whitehead and the others would wait the promised five days. They’d say the Wrights’ deaths were confirmation of their suspicion that Allison Elliot was behind the rule and the murders. They’d storm the house, burn her inside it and hang Moses and Drago.
McBride was sure it would happen that way. The blacksmith and some of the others were on a witch hunt, possessed by the same, unreasoning fear that had made Salem, Massachusetts, a byword for madness and cruelty. A woman who was never seen, lived alone in perpetual mourning yet had killed five men to protect her vast fortune, was an obvious target.
Joan Whitehead had called Allison Elliot a devil, and it would be she and her husband who would provide the spark that would light the witch’s execution pyre.
McBride knew he had no other choice. The bodies of John and Ann Wright must stay where they were. The chances of anyone from Suicide passing this way and discovering them were slight. McBride shivered, facing a thought that had just occurred to him—the coyotes, the wolves and the buzzards must be the couple’s undertakers.
John McBride had never been a religious man, but he took off his hat, bowed his head and whispered what few words he remembered from the Bible. Then he racked a round into his shattered Winchester, his heart heavy in him.
If he turned the Wrights’ mare loose, the chances were good that she’d return to the only place she knew where there was food and shelter, her barn in Suicide.
The return of the horse could be enough in itself to start the kind of vengeful reaction he feared.
McBride would not let himself think about it any longer. He stepped quickly to the mare and shot her dead in the traces.
The dark day dying around him, McBride, gladly surrendering to a darker night, rode into Suicide. He was chilled to the bone and could no longer feel his feet or hands. A few oil lamps burned outside of the businesses along the street and he noted with pride that one glowed on the wall near the door of the El Coyote Azul.
Again there was no sign of Jim Drago at the livery stable.
McBride rubbed down the mustang with a piece of sacking, then scooped the little horse a generous amount of oats with its hay.
He slid his ruined rifle from the saddle boot, stepped outside and walked toward the cantina. He checked his watch. It was close to six. He would meet Allison Elliot in another hour. Maybe after talking to the young woman he would be able to convince Whitehead and the others that she was not the ogre they thought she was. He sure hoped so. It would be an excellent way to head off further trouble until he found the real killer.
Then, as he drew close to the cantina, a nagging doubt: What if Whitehead was right? What if Allison Elliot was the person behind the rule and the murders?
As soon as the thought entered his head, McBride dismissed it. What did Allison have to gain by keeping a few very drab and ordinary people here in Suicide? Why would she have a hand in killing those who tried to leave? There was no sense to the accusation and as he stepped into the El Coyote Azul, McBride had already let it go as worthless.
He had no customers and he headed directly for the warmth of the kitchen. The two fat ladies were eating as usual, the table piled high with food. McBride spread his hands to the fire of the stove, frowning. At this rate the help was eating more than the customers and there was little profit in that.
One of the women rose, smiled and bob
bed a curtsy. She waved a hand to the table, inviting him to eat. But McBride shook his head. He would save his appetite for dinner with Allison.
The fat ladies shared a cabin on the edge of town and McBride had been spreading his blankets on the kitchen floor after they left. Now he needed to wash and shave, but that required at least a small measure of privacy. With one last despairing look at the table, he took down the scrap of mirror he kept near the door and walked into the restaurant. He found a basin behind the bar and stepped outside into the freezing cold and sleet. The well was at the side of the building and he pumped a couple of inches of icy water into the basin and fled inside.
He carried the basin to the bar, then realized he’d forgotten his razor. He stepped into the kitchen again, but this time the women, engrossed in their gorging, ignored him. McBride found the razor and went back to the bar. He spared a glance for the kitchen door and let out a yelping little sigh. The fat ladies were eating him out of house and home, putting away vast amounts of groceries that he hadn’t even paid for yet.
As he scraped the razor down his stubbly cheek, McBride decided that things had to change around the El Coyote Azul. But what that change might be, he had no idea.
Shaving with cold water and no soap was a chore and when he checked his face in the mirror he saw that he’d nicked himself in several places. There was an old newspaper behind the bar and he tore off small pieces from the corners and stuck them on the cuts. He’d remember to take them off before he reached Allison’s house.
McBride’s third trip to the kitchen for his celluloid collar and tie again brought no response from the fat ladies. For the moment sated, they were leaning back in their chairs, eyes closed, their elaborate Spanish fans fluttering near their flushed faces.
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