Blood on the Gallows

Chapter 27

The rocky portal to Capitan Pass was a mile behind him when John McBride saw a smear of blue smoke rise against the gray of the sky. He rode closer, coming upon a stretch of lava bed topped by a thick growth of sagebrush and a few scattered mesquites and junipers.

Saul Remorse stepped out of the lava rock and stood relaxed but ready. He smiled and waved. ‘‘I’d almost given up on you, John,’’ he said.

McBride drew rein. ‘‘What are you doing here?’’

‘‘Waiting for you, of course. Coffee’s still hot.’’

‘‘How did you know I’d pass this way? We’re off the trail into town.’’

Remorse shrugged, as though the question was of little importance. ‘‘I just knew. Besides, I built a big fire, then threw on some damp wood so you would see my smoke.’’

McBride glanced at the leaden sky, rain falling on his face. ‘‘How do you manage to light a fire in the rain? I can’t light one when it’s dry.’’

‘‘You’ve led a sheltered life, John.’’

McBride laid both hands on the saddle horn and leaned forward, suddenly defensive. ‘‘Saul, this may come as a surprise to you, but I was born and raised in the toughest slum in New York. Every single day of my life I had to fight just to survive.’’

‘‘Like I said, you’ve led a sheltered life.’’ Remorse nodded toward the lava bed. ‘‘Come, have some coffee.’’

He led the way to a large, arc-shaped clearing in the malpais. The rock was about eight feet high on all sides and deeply undercut, the resulting overhangs providing adequate refuge from the rain. Remorse had chosen to build his fire under the widest shelf, and his saddled horse grazed nearby on good grass.

Remorse poured coffee for McBride, apologized for not waiting for him at the wagon road. ‘‘I got bored,’’ he said. He then asked McBride what had happened to him after he left with the Mexican woman.

The reverend looked steadily out into the rain while McBride drank his coffee and told him about the grave and then what he’d discovered at Julieta Santiago’s cabin.

And after McBride had finished his story, Remorse said, ‘‘Funny, isn’t it, or, depending on how you look at it, sad, that you and I will soon be doing our best to make the kid an orphan?’’

‘‘Thought about that,’’ McBride said. He poured himself more coffee. ‘‘If Clare O’Neil was not in her right mind when she shot me, I might allow her some leeway.’’

‘‘One way to think about it, John,’’ Remorse said. He took out the makings and began to roll himself a cigarette. ‘‘Of course, on the bright side, if we gun his ma and pa we’ll make cute wittle Simon one of the world’s richest babies.’’

McBride grimaced. ‘‘You have a way with words, Saul. You really do.’’

Remorse grinned. He lit his cigarette with a brand from the fire. ‘‘Oh, this reminds me, I plumb forgot to tell you something, slipped my mind, you might say. When I was leaving the courthouse after checking on the O’Neil claim, I stopped on the boardwalk to build a smoke and I heard a couple of Texas hard cases talking about you.’’

‘‘About me? What were they saying? Nothing good, I expect.’’

‘‘I don’t know about that, I guess it all hangs on how you feel about things.’’ Remorse tilted back his head, blew a perfect smoke ring and watched until it was tattered by the wind and rain. Looking pleased at his accomplishment, he said, ‘‘You ever hear of a gun out of Wyoming’s Shoshone Basin country by the name of Shem Trine?’’

‘‘Never heard of him, and that’s not a name I’d forget easily.’’

‘‘Well, John, he sure knows you. Or at least he’s heard of you.’’

Remorse looked at his stud, the big gray tolerant of the mustang grazing close to him. Finally he turned his head away and said, ‘‘All right, my man, let me tell you about Shem Trine. He was orphaned at an early age, typhus, I believe, and was taken in by a Georgia farmer and his wife. By all accounts the farmer was a God-fearing man who carried a Bible with him wherever he went. But he was not one to spare the rod and spoil the child, so he laid a switch on the boy hard and often. As for Shem, he took the blows without a cry and bided his time.

‘‘Then, when he was fourteen and almost man-grown, his time came. One cold winter night he crept into the farmer and his wife’s bedroom with the old man’s own shotgun. Shem had cut pennies in half and had loaded them into both barrels. He cut loose at the farmer’s head on the pillow, but accidentally pulled both triggers. The man’s brains scattered all over the bed and his wife woke up, saw Shem with the gun and started to scream. Shem just giggled, threw himself on top of her and had his way with her, right there beside her dead husband on the bloody bed. After the deed was done, he strangled her.’’

‘‘Doesn’t sound like somebody I’d know,’’ McBride said, wondering why Remorse was telling him all this.

‘‘Wait, there’s more. Shem reloaded the shotgun, saddled the dead man’s mare and that same night rode to another farm. Again, he murdered the farmer and his wife and their three kids for good measure. Shem ransacked the place and he found two things that night—a .44-40 Colt revolver and his reason for living.

‘‘He headed west, used the Colt to kill a man in Arkansas and another in Kansas. After that he rode into the Shoshone Basin country, outdrew and killed a town marshal and then hired himself out as a fast gun. His price went up as his reputation grew. Last I heard he was charging five hundred dollars a kill, man, woman or child, and no questions asked.’’

Now McBride asked the question that had been on his mind. ‘‘Why are you telling me this, Saul?’’

‘‘Because Shem, a little fatigued by his exertions, is at this moment relaxing in Rest and Be Thankful and he plans on calling you out.’’

McBride was startled. ‘‘Why?’’

‘‘Because you’re the man who killed Hack Burns. Good ol’ Shem thinks gunning you will look real good on his curriculum vitae.’’

McBride’s eyes were wide. ‘‘You waited this long to tell me?’’

‘‘Told you, it plumb slipped my mind.’’

‘‘How good is he?’’ McBride could have bitten his tongue. He did not really want to hear the answer and when it came it was even worse than he feared.

‘‘Shem Trine is good, real smooth and fast on the draw and he hits what he aims at. He’ll gun you, John, step over your body and then go have breakfast.’’

Shem Trine . . . Thad Harlan . . . Lance Josephine . . . all of them fast guns. McBride saw the odds stacking against him and suddenly he felt downright vulnerable.

‘‘And Shem isn’t the only one,’’ Remorse continued cheerfully. ‘‘Right now I could name maybe six hard cases who want to call you.’’

‘‘Why now?’’ McBride asked. ‘‘I mean all of a sudden, why does every tinhorn gunman in town plan to draw down on me?’’

‘‘Well, it took a while for the news to get around that you’re the ranny who gunned ol’ Hack. I’d guess Thad Harlan spread the word to those he knew wanted to build a rep.’’

McBride stared into the rain, then at the drips ticking off the overhang. A gusting wind stirred the flames of the fire and gently rocked the coffeepot sitting on the coals. Remorse picked up the pot and set it in a safer place.

‘‘You got something on your mind, John?’’ he asked. ‘‘I mean about where we go from here.’’

‘‘No, but I’m open to suggestions.’’

‘‘We stay right where we are for five, six days until we see if your telegram got any results. Our time won’t entirely be wasted because we can ride out from time to time and keep an eye on Julieta’s place.’’

McBride looked around him moodily, at the wet lava rock and the dripping sagebrush. ‘‘Set here, in this place? For six days?’’

‘‘We’ll be comfortable enough. Back in Lincoln I imposed on Bartholomew’s good nature to pack us food for the trail. He sacked up enough coffee and salt pork to keep us fed for a week.’’

‘‘Saul, I gave Jared Josephine five days to get out of town, and he’s already used up one of them.’’

‘‘So, you let him have a couple of extra days to pack up his stuff and leave. He’ll think that’s real nice of you.’’

The reverend’s sarcasm was not lost on McBride, but he finally saw the logic of Remorse’s suggestion. If his telegram did what it was supposed to do, it would certainly make their job a lot easier. It was worth the wait.

After a while Remorse said, ‘‘John, Shem Trine is troubling you, isn’t he?’’

McBride’s face was stiff. ‘‘Yes, he troubles me. Him, Harlan, Lance Josephine and those six other hard cases you mentioned.’’

‘‘You don’t think you’re good enough with the Colt?’’

‘‘No, I don’t. Despite all you hear about Hack Burns, I have never thought I was good enough with the Colt.’’

‘‘Well, you’re right about that. You’re nowhere near good enough.’’

The unexpectedness of Remorse’s remark made McBride laugh. ‘‘Reverend, you surely know how to reassure a man.’’

‘‘Just stating fact, John. But don’t worry, I’ll be with you and I’m more than good enough.’’

McBride smiled and Remorse’s eyes met his. For a fleeting, terrifying instant before Remorse looked away, McBride felt he was drowning in a bottomless pool, plunging into blue depths that lay dark and cold and hidden. He shivered, the unbidden thought coming to him that he was looking into the eyes of a man long dead.

He shook his head, clearing that image from his mind, chiding himself for his own vivid imagination. And Remorse said, ‘‘Is something the matter, John?’’

‘‘No, nothing. Nothing at all.’’

The reverend stared into the teeming rain, his white hair streaming, the skin of his face drawn back tight against the skull. ‘‘Something’s the matter,’’ he said.

He took his Bible from his saddlebags and began to read, as McBride’s unsettled silence echoed between them like a tolling bell.

On the fourth day of their six-day wait, McBride watched Saul Remorse practice with his guns. The reverend was lightning fast out of the shoulder holsters, but he worked for an hour on his draw, shucking, then reholstering the Remingtons, his hands a constant blur of movement, his eyes intense, focused. Finally he fired, shooting from the waist, and the ten fist-sized lava rocks he’d lined up exploded one by one into ashy powder. It seemed to McBride that the racketing drumroll of the big revolvers lasted only an instant, about as long as it took him to blink.

The noise of the shots still clanging in his ears, McBride whistled through his teeth. ‘‘Saul, that’s some shooting.’’

Remorse smiled as he spun the Remingtons back into the holsters. ‘‘Now you, John.’’ He found five more rocks and set them up on a shelf of lava. ‘‘Let me see how you work.’’

McBride scanned the distance between himself and his targets. ‘‘A bit far, isn’t it?’’

‘‘Twenty yards.’’ Remorse shrugged. ‘‘If you can hit a rock at twenty you can kill a man at five.’’

McBride took up his erect, police-taught shooting stance, his Colt straight out in front of him at eye level. He aimed carefully, held his breath, and fired. He hit four of the five rocks, his miss close enough to scar the lava an inch to one side of the target.

Remorse nodded his approval. ‘‘Not at all bad, John. But let’s hope when the ball opens you’re not called upon to shoot in a hurry.’’

‘‘Are you talking about a fast draw?’’ McBride asked testily, feeling damned by the reverend’s faint praise.

‘‘No, I’m talking about survival,’’ Remorse said.