Blood on the Gallows

Chapter 20

John McBride took to his blankets and slept under an electric sky. When he woke in the morning, Saul Remorse still sat by the fire, but coffee bubbled in the pot and the man was cleaning and oiling his Remingtons.

McBride rose on an elbow and shook his head. ‘‘Saul, you’ve got to be the strangest preacher I’ve ever come across in my life.’’

The man didn’t look up, his head bent to his task. ‘‘I don’t preach, John. I do.’’

‘‘Hell, I can’t even figure what you do.’’

Now Remorse looked up, his eyes cold in the thin morning light. ‘‘I right wrongs. I go where the rich and powerful murder and rob at will and treat the common people like chattel. I go to places where boys can be hanged for shooting a dog and women go in fear of being abused by men who abide by no law but their own. I protect the weak, John. Where wealthy ranchers leave nesters stretched out dead on the ground and their widows grieve, you will find me. And you’ll find me where vicious outlaws gather to spend their ill-gotten gains on whiskey and women.’’

Remorse spun his revolvers, flashing blue arcs of steel. After the walnut butts thudded into his palms, he said, ‘‘But wherever I go, I carry these and a Bible. If wicked men don’t listen to one, they listen to the other.’’ He used the cleaning cloth in his hand to lift the lid of the coffeepot. He glanced inside and said, ‘‘Good, almost done.’’

McBride rose, stretched a kink out of his back and said, ‘‘How do you know all these things, Saul? I mean about the Mexican boy getting hung and about Dora Ryan killing a man in Denver?’’ He smiled, taking any possible sting out of what he was about to say. ‘‘Does God tell you?’’

If Remorse was offended, he didn’t let it show. ‘‘After Chenguang died, God showed me the path my life must take, then he left me to it. As for what I know, the West is vast, John, but settlements are few and people constantly travel long distances by rail and stage to reach them. For that reason word travels fast, and you can’t keep secrets for long. A town like Rest and Be Thankful, a safe haven for outlaws of all kinds, is sure to be a topic of conversation where traveling men and women gather.’’

‘‘You were headed that way when you smelled my smoke,’’ McBride said.

‘‘Sure. I planned to read to them from the book. I still do.’’

McBride grinned as he settled his hat on his head. ‘‘And I thought you were sent to me from God.’’

‘‘Maybe I was,’’ the Reverend Saul Remorse said. ‘‘Maybe I was, John.’’

All McBride’s enemies were in town, and Remorse said that’s where they should go. When McBride objected, the man asked, ‘‘Then how do you want to play it, John? You can’t stay here, so you either come with me or you get on that ugly pony of yours and ride away from it. Is that what you want to do, just turn tail and ride away?’’

McBride shook his head. ‘‘Rest and Be Thankful is a nest of outlaws and killers who give Jared Josephine money to protect them. There’s still enough of the law officer left in me to want it cleaned out permanently.’’ He was silent for a moment, then said, his voice tight, ‘‘And there are people in town who owe me some payback.’’

‘‘And to do that, we go where the action is, and that means the town itself.’’

McBride’s laugh was bitter. ‘‘Saul, I’ll be gunned on sight.’’

‘‘No, you won’t,’’ the reverend said. ‘‘I’ll be with you.’’

‘‘You haven’t met Thad Harlan.’’

‘‘Not face-to-face, but I know of him. And he knows much of me.’’

Reluctantly, McBride agreed to Remorse’s plan, mainly because he could not come up with any other.

Remorse was wearing his black frock coat and clergyman’s collar when he and McBride rode out of the arroyo and onto the sage and juniper flat. They headed southwest toward town under a blue sky, a warm wind that smelled of pine pushing gently on their backs. To the north the higher Capitan peaks were tinged gold by the rising sun and the aspens looked like gilded wreaths circling the brows of colossal gods.

After a couple of miles a narrow creek bordered by a few scattered cottonwoods came in sight and Remorse turned his head and spoke to McBride. ‘‘There will be good grass among the trees and we should let our horses graze for a while. They had mighty slim pickings around the mine.’’

McBride nodded his agreement but immediately stiffened and drew rein, his gaze reaching out to the cottonwoods. He opened his mouth to speak but Remorse stilled his words.

‘‘I know,’’ he said. ‘‘I see them. I count three men.’’

‘‘All I have around these parts are enemies,’’ McBride said. He lifted the kitten and laid it on the saddle behind him. ‘‘Stay,’’ he commanded, knowing it was useless. Sammy never listened to a word he said.

Remorse smiled, the white hair that fell to his waist tumbling around his face in the wind. ‘‘Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we? We’ll ride in friendly as you please, just like we were visiting kinfolk.’’ He turned his head, his hooded eyes almost lazy. ‘‘However, if words fail and the ball opens, skin that fancy Colt of yours and get your work in fast.’’ He paused for a second or two, then added, ‘‘Do you understand?’’

‘‘I think I grasp the concept,’’ McBride said, irritated. At times Saul Remorse was a lecturing man.

‘‘Then shall we proceed?’’

Three men, bearded, shaggy and ready, stood out from the trees and watched them come.

When he was five feet from the men, Remorse reined up his horse. ‘‘Good morning, gentlemen,’’ he said. ‘‘May we graze our mounts here for a spell and perhaps trouble you for a cup of coffee?’’

The tallest of the three, a rangy, wide-shouldered man wearing a black and white cowhide vest and shotgun chaps, grinned. His teeth were dark brown, obviously a man much given to chewing tobacco. ‘‘Well, well, well, if’n it ain’t a parson an’ . . .’’ He turned to one of the man standing next to him. ‘‘Hey, Ben, what would you call that?’’ He nodded in McBride’s direction.

The man called Ben wore two guns in crossed belts and a surly expression. ‘‘Hell if I know. Some kind of dude, I reckon. He’s ridin’ a goat, looks like.’’

McBride caught Remorse’s warning glance and said nothing.

‘‘What’s a preacher doin’ on the back of a two-hundred-dollar hoss?’’ Cowhide Vest asked, a raw challenge in his tone.

‘‘Ah, you sell my steed short,’’ Remorse said pleasantly. ‘‘He cost that and more.’’

‘‘Well, that’s all to the good, parson, because my grulla just pulled up lame an’ I’ve always fancied a white hoss.’’

‘‘Done and done to the man in the elegant vest!’’ Remorse exclaimed. ‘‘Five hundred dollars and this fine American Saddlebred is yours.’’

The man grinned. ‘‘You got it all wrong, parson. See, I ain’t buying, I’m taking.’’

Remorse responded with a smile. ‘‘I know what happened. You fine fellows spent all your money in Rest and Be Thankful on women and whiskey and now you’re flat broke and looking for a fresh horse and traveling money. Am I right?’’

‘‘Right as rain, parson. I’d say for a hallelujah peddler you got yourself half a brain.’’

‘‘Yes, and I’m smart enough to know who you fellows are,’’ Remorse said, smiling like he was enjoying himself. ‘‘The ill-humored chap with the two guns is Happy Ben Carney, murderer, rapist and bank robber. The young towhead who hasn’t said anything yet is Steve Pettigrew, sometimes known as the Red Rock Kid. He has the same detestable vices as his friend Carney, only worse.’’ Remorse’s eyes fell on Cowhide Vest. ‘‘And you, my friend, are vilest of all. Decker Reese, hired gun, killer of women and children, rapist, robber and all-round tinhorn and lowlife.’’ Remorse sat back in the saddle, relaxed, still smiling. ‘‘Am I right or wrong, gentlemen?’’

Now Reese’s ugly grin was forced and the eyes of Carney and Pettigrew were black with death. ‘‘Right again, preacher.’’ His voice hardened. ‘‘Now you and your sidekick climb down off them hosses and take your medicine standing up like men.’’

‘‘What would you know about men, Reese?’’ McBride snapped, his anger flaring.

The gunman pointed at him. ‘‘For that, you get it right in the guts.’’

‘‘Wait!’’ Remorse said. ‘‘Just a single moment of reason, gentlemen, if you please.’’ He took a breath and sat taller in the saddle, like a preacher in a pulpit. ‘‘Ben, Steve . . . Decker, cast aside your lives of sin and return to God. Throw down your guns. End your association with ardent spirits and wild women and from now and forever let the Good Book be your guide along the trail of life. Turn your backs on murder, rape and robbery, and step into the loving and forgiving light of the Lord.’’

Reese grinned at his companions in turn; then his eyes again lifted to Remorse. ‘‘And what if we don’t plan on doing any of them things, parson?’’

Remorse shook his head slowly and made a tut-tut sound with his tongue, a man apparently filled with sadness. ‘‘Then I’m very much afraid that I’ll have to kill all of you.’’

For a moment Reese was taken aback and all five men seemed frozen in a single moment of time. It was Ben Carney who shattered it. Angry and belligerent, he snarled, ‘‘Decker, shoot that damn uppity parson right off his horse.’’

Reese nodded. And went for his gun.

Later, try as he might, McBride could not put it together. Everything happened so fast, like a lightning flash, his brain did not have time to process every movement.

He remembered Reese grinning, reaching for his gun. In his mind’s eye he saw Remorse’s arms cross his chest and the bucking Remingtons blazing. Then, through a gray haze of gun smoke three sprawled bodies lay on the ground.

The Red Rock Kid tried to rise, pushing himself up with one hand, his gun in the other. Remorse fired twice, once from each hand, and the man’s head exploded.

From the end of an echoing tunnel he heard Remorse say, ‘‘Dang me, but I knew I shot Steve too high the first time.’’

McBride hadn’t even drawn his Colt. He’d had no time. Now he watched Remorse reload his guns before he swung out of the saddle. The man stepped to the bodies and folded their arms across their chests. He kneeled among them, his hat off, head bowed in prayer, white hair streaming in the wind like a tattered banner fluttering over the fallen. His eyes were shut and his lips moved as he said prayers for the dead in a cadenced whisper.

After ten minutes Remorse rose to his feet, replaced his hat and his eyes lifted to McBride. ‘‘Care to say a few words, John?’’

‘‘You’ve said it all,’’ McBride answered. ‘‘I have nothing to add.’’

‘‘Then so be it. We will do what we came to do and let our horses graze for a spell.’’ Remorse smiled with the enthusiasm of a small boy. ‘‘John, there’s a fire by the creek bank. Smell the coffee and bacon? We can take time to eat before we ride on, huh?’’

McBride nodded. But he’d lost whatever appetite he’d had.

A short while from now he and the Reverend Saul Remorse would ride into Rest and Be Thankful. But, with a strange sense of dread, McBride knew the preacher did not intend to offer its morally frail citizens the hope of heaven. He would bring them only a guarantee of hell.