West of the Law

Chapter 22

He was swimming for his life. The cold water filled his mouth and he could not breathe as he battled through crashing surf. Ahead of him he saw a pirate island, the great smoking cone of its volcano surrounded by a lush jungle where snakes slithered and monkeys chattered. He heard the laugh of Portugee, mocking him as he struck out for shore. But he was tiring fast and suddenly the azure sea closed over his head and he was sinking . . . down . . . down to a sandy bottom where skeletons of men with coral eyes beckoned to him, welcoming him to a watery grave. . . .

No, he was in the creek!

McBride stopped struggling and his hands found the pebbled bottom. He pushed himself up and lifted his head out of the water. But more water, stinging, lashed at him. It was rain.

McBride clambered to his feet, the creek rushing past the middle of his thighs. His head ached and the hard morning light spiked at his eyes. He waded out of the water and collapsed on the bank.

Darkness took him again.

He woke to rain battering on his face and heard the sound of distant thunder. His head aching, he struggled to a sitting position and looked around him. Judging by the light, the day was far along. The sky above him looked like a vast sheet of curled lead from horizon to horizon. There was no sign of Portugee and his wagons, only the empty, far-flung distances of the plains and the kettledrum rattle of the raking rain.

McBride looked at his feet. He wiggled his toes, puzzled. Then it dawned on him through the red haze of his headache—they had taken his shoes. He made a quick inventory. His shoulder holster was gone and with it his gun. His watch was missing and his hat. So too was the money belt he’d worn under his shirt. It had held more than seven hundred dollars, the remainder of the money he’d gotten from Inspector Byrnes. All he had left was the soaked clothes he stood up in.

Piece by piece, McBride tried to put it together. He remembered talking to the man named Portugee . . . shaking his hand . . . and then . . .

Somebody had hit him over the head with some kind of club. Then they’d taken everything he’d owned and thrown him in the creek. He must have washed downstream with the current and then fetched up to a sandbank. He’d later rolled into the water again and had experienced the terrible dream about a pirate island and drowning. And he had been drowning, facedown in the creek, but had woken up in time.

Wearily, McBride climbed to his feet. He staggered, looking around him, trying to take his bearings. He had no idea where he was, except that the creek was close. He could follow it east until he reached High Hopes. And then? He had no idea.

Staggering, falling time after time, getting up again dizzy and sore, McBride lurched along the creek bank. The rain was his enemy, hammering at him, giving him no peace. The downpour pockmarked the surface of the creek with startled Vs of water and hissed at him, mocking his puny efforts to cover the wet, slippery ground. Lightning forked from the black sky, bony white fingers pointing at him, threatening to strike.

McBride stumbled and fell, this time landing heavily on his face. On the creek bank thick underbrush surrounded the slender trunks of a pair of willows. On his hands and knees he crawled between them and worked his way into the brush. He sat up and wrapped his arms around him, shivering uncontrollably, thorns snagging sharp and wicked at his shirt and pants. Rain filtered cold through the brush and above him the thunder roared, the sky flickering between blackness and flashing, searing light. Despite it all, McBride closed his eyes and slept. He was still asleep when the storm clouds parted and the tranquil night lay soft on the land.

Through most of the long day McBride alternated between sleep and blurry wakefulness. Once he crawled out of the brush and drank at the creek, then crept back into his thorny haven and slept again.

The sun had just kept its appointment with the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo when McBride woke to twilight. He backed out of the brush and stood, testing his battered body. For a few minutes the land around him rocked and spun, but gradually the world righted itself and he found he could take a few steps without staggering. But his skull clanged in pain, like a hammer beating on an anvil, and he felt sick to his stomach. His fingers went to the back of his head and touched dry, crusted blood. It was a bad wound and he was sore in need of medical attention. But there was little chance of finding a doctor in all that wilderness.

McBride tried to think. What were his wants? A horse, but he had no horse. Food? That could wait. Water? There was plenty in the creek. A gun? Where to get a gun? He forced himself to work it out, his aching brain protesting. Then he remembered. Stryker Allison and the dead miner probably still lay where they’d dropped and both had been armed. The bodies were back along the creek to the west, where blood was staining the sky red as the sun died.

He would retrace his steps and recover Allison’s guns.

The night drew tight and dark around McBride as he walked. Above him stars were dusted like diamonds across black velvet. A rising prairie wind tugged at him and far away to the northwest, over the Wet Mountains, distant thunder grumbled and arcs of blue fire shimmered above the horizon.

After two hours the rock cairn McBride had built over Luke Prescott’s body came into sight, the white rocks gleaming like a ghost in the darkness. McBride was exhausted, his body battered and bruised from the constant falls he’d taken during the walk to get there.

He found the miner’s body first. The man was sprawled on the grass like a rag doll, his clothes ripped where the coyotes had pulled at him. McBride cast about, searching around the body, but could not find the miner’s gun.

A few steps away, Stryker Allison lay on his back, one white, clawed hand raised to the night, a talon attempting to tear the living stars from the sky. McBride found the man’s Colt close to his body. Although he had never shot such a weapon, he was familiar with its operation, Inspector Byrnes and other detectives often carrying a short-barreled model. He swung open the loading gate and let the spent shells drop from the cylinder. Then he took a knee beside Allison and unbuckled his gun belt. The gunman’s filmy eyes were open, accusing, as McBride dragged the belt out from under him. Allison’s body jerked and the smell of death was already on him. Soon the coyotes would come for him.

McBride buckled the gun belt around his waist and slipped the Colt into the holster. But he was uncomfortable with the heavy, lopsided hang of it, and immediately took the belt off again. He filled his pocket with shells from the cartridge loops, tossed the gun belt away and loaded the big revolver. He stuck the gun in the waistband of his pants and its cold bulk returned a measure of confidence to him.

He started walking again, east in the direction of High Hopes, under a sky where the stars were going out one by one. Thunder banged close and the blue fire was all around him. Head down against wind and slanting rain, he trudged on, the flat echo of thunderclaps crashing over him like the waves of a turbulent sea.

McBride had wandered from the creek and the sheltering cottonwoods. His thinking muddled as it was, he did not realize that he was now the tallest thing on the prairie. He would very soon pay for his mistake.

The storm had brought an inky blackness to the land around him, now and then lightning flashes bathing the flat in brief, blinding light. During those moments McBride saw that he’d strayed far from the creek and he changed direction, heading north again. He was just yards from the cottonwoods when thunder bellowed right overhead. McBride felt the hair lift on his head and the air around him crackled with electricity. Thunder roared again. Immediately McBride found himself in the middle of a searing silver shaft of light that rent apart the fabric of the darkness. He was hurled backward, stunned, as the world exploded around him. He felt no pain, only a numbing shock that paralyzed his entire body.

He heard the thunder hammer again. Then he became one with the shattered night, fragmenting into a million crystalline pieces that fell scarlet and hissing hot to the wet earth that returned them to blackness.