Ralph Compton Shadow of the Gun

Chapter 1

Sergeant John McBride, formerly of the New York Police Department’s Bureau of Detectives, was a long way from home. To be exact, he was in grass and scrub country a few miles south of New Mexico’s Zuni Plateau. A two-hour ride to the west lay the Arizona border, to the east the vast bulk of Santa Rita Mesa.

Ahead of him…danger.

But the man who now rode beside McBride had assured him that Deer Creek Tom Rivers, his Chiricahua Apache wife and his three half-breed sons would meekly pack up and leave the range without a fight.

That nester riffraff won’t draw on the man who killed Hack Burns, Cliff Brennan had told McBride when he hired him for the job. Easiest five hundred you’ll ever make, gunfighter. Just run them filthy squatters off my grass and the money is yours. In gold coin, mind you.

Brennan was a hard, uncompromising man who had hanged both rustlers and Apaches with a ruthless disregard for the law. He rode a big American stud that dwarfed McBride’s mouse-colored mustang, and from his lofty perch he kept his eyes fixed on the trail ahead. The rancher clutched the Winchester across his saddle horn until his knuckles grew white and he fingered the trigger almost nervously. But the man’s weather-scarred face looked like it had been chipped from granite and the belligerent jut of his chin suggested a man whose constitution requires that he kill or be killed.

Watching Brennan’s intent, tight-lipped face from under the brim of his plug hat, McBride decided that the big rancher was lying about Rivers and his clan. He did not expect the squatters to saddle up and spinelessly ride away. What he did expect was gunplay and the violent deaths of men.

McBride felt a tightness rise in him. Brennan had contacted him in Albuquerque as a named man looking for investigative work. Impressed by his reputation as an up-and-coming gunfighter, notoriety McBride knew he did not deserve, the rancher had told him he needed a range detective to evict nesters from his property.

The law will be on your side, McBride, the man had said. Just show your gun and tell the trash to go. A smile had touched his lips. They’ll go, all right.

McBride had needed the money and took Brennan’s offer. Now he wasn’t so sure he’d made the right decision.

Back along their trail, he’d talked to men who knew Rivers, or of him, and the consensus of opinion was that the old man had sand and there was no backup in him.

Now McBride realized that Cliff Brennan’s grim face confirmed that estimation. The rancher knew, or at least feared, that Rivers and his sons would reach for the gun.

All McBride could do now was to go through with the job and hope to talk his way out of a revolver fight. His plan was thin, mighty thin, but there was no going back from it. He needed the five hundred real bad and he had it to do.

McBride glanced up at the faded blue of the sky, weighing what his chances would be if there was to be a fight. He was a fair hand with the .38 Smith & Wesson in the shoulder holster under his left arm, hit-and-miss with the Winchester in the saddle scabbard. If worse came to worst, as it invariably did in the West, it would be four against two. And if the Rivers boys had as much sand as their old man, the outcome of today’s work could be an uncertain thing.

His mouth dry, McBride scanned the sun-scorched land ahead of him and tried not to build houses on a bridge he hadn’t yet crossed. There would be time enough for that when he reached the Riverses’ place and the war talk began.

He and Brennan let their horses drink at a narrow creek, its waters shallow and still, then rode into greener country made difficult to cross by stands of prickly pear, stabbing chaparral and steep tumbles of volcanic rock. Here and there clumps of dust-covered mesquite stood like motionless ghosts, barring their way. The sun was right overhead and the air smelled of hot sand, horse and man sweat and the fleeting suggestion of distant pines. Only the surrounding mountains looked cool, their peaks a darker blue than the blue of the sky.

Brennan nodded once toward some cottonwoods growing around a pond that was little more than a shallow rock tank. Yonder are a few of my cattle, he said.

McBride glanced at a dozen or so white-faced cows grazing in dappled tree shade but took no joy in what he saw. Somehow seeing Herefords out there in the wilderness served only to make the land appear more hostile and a man to feel even more alone.

For thirty minutes he and Brennan rode in silence, the only sound the creak of saddle leather and the dusty plod of hooves.

Finally the rancher pointed to a craggy height ahead of him. That’s Eagle Peak and to the northwest of that Tejana Mesa. We’re getting close.

The day was stifling, with sultry air crowding thick and close, the alkali stretches around them burning white in the merciless sun.

McBride drew rein and reached for his canteen. He took a pull, swirled it around his mouth and spat out a mix of dust and water, then drank again. He hung the canteen back on the saddle horn and said to Brennan, How come none of your hands are with us?

Brennan had also drunk. He wiped drops of water off his mustache with the back of his hand and answered, I got three men working for me. But one is so stove up with the rheumatisms, all he can do is cook. The other two are younger, but they’re not gunfighters. Sure, they’ll ride for the brand, but I decided to leave them behind. All them two boys would do is get in the damned way.

And you, Brennan—how are you with the iron?

The eyes the rancher turned to McBride were suddenly cold. I’m fifty-one years old, and I killed my first man down in the Nations when I was fourteen. I’ve killed another three since, and every man jack of them took my bullets in the front.

McBride nodded. All of them named men?

Brennan shook his head. Hell no, not a one of them. Two were rustlers and the last was a bullheaded city marshal down Texas way who wouldn’t allow me to drive my herd through his town. ‘Too much crap to pick up afterward,’ he said. Well, when I told my trail boss to go ahead and push those cows along Main Street, the lawman drawed down on me. A wry smile flirted with the rancher’s lips. It was the worst an’ last mistake he ever made.

McBride nodded. I guess you’ll do.

Maybe, but I gunned that lawman twenty years ago. I’ve slowed down considerable since then and I’ve been thinking that maybe I don’t have the stomach for gunfighting no more.

Then you’d better put some fire in your belly, McBride said. This might not be as easy as you think.

I know that. That’s why I’m paying you gun wages. Brennan’s eyes were suddenly shrewd, thoughtful. Ever since I met you, McBride, I’ve been trying to figure you out. There’s something about you that don’t fit the gunfighter mold. You don’t have—the rancher thought for a moment—style. And I have a feeling you’ve worn a tin star yourself in some hick town along your back trail.

McBride grinned. You know, Brennan, you’re right. I did wear a star in a hick town once.

The rancher was pleased. Knew that! Dang me, but I had you pegged right off, huh?

You sure did. But one thing that hick town taught me was that a police officer must always present a fine appearance to the public. McBride climbed awkwardly out of the saddle, the mustang so small the stirrup was only six inches off the ground. As for style, he said, still smiling, his hands on the small of his back as he arched against the stiffness, maybe I can change your mind.

As Brennan watched in fascinated amusement, McBride took a new gray coat from his blanket roll, dusted it off and placed it carefully over the saddle. He found a high celluloid collar in his saddlebags and a red and black striped tie. He studded the collar in place and knotted the tie at his throat. Then he shrugged into the coat, wiped his boots free of dust on the back of his pants and settled the frayed brown derby squarer on his head. A forefinger and thumb smoothing of his dragoon mustache and he was done.

See, Brennan? he said. Style.

You could call it that, the rancher said, interested but unimpressed.

Now let’s go talk to Mr. Rivers, McBride said.

Born and raised in the teeming slums of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, McBride was no hand with horses, and mounting was always an uncertain undertaking for him. But for once the mustang stood still, its ugly head hanging, and he managed an ungainly mount.

Brennan raised an eyebrow. You must have paid all of five dollars for that hoss.

If I remember correctly, it was five plus another twenty.

Then you were robbed, Brennan said.

They rode across a stretch of brush flat; then the ground rose gradually toward a rise where a scattering of juniper and piñon grew among high rocks. When they crested the hill, Brennan drew rein and McBride saw the land drop away from them toward a narrow creek. Here the air breathed cool and thick. It was like drinking water from a deep well.

See the cabin? Brennan said. There, among the cottonwoods.

McBride’s gaze reached out into the distance and he saw a tumbledown log cabin standing near the creek, shaded by the tree canopy. Smoke, straight as a string, rose from a crooked wattle chimney before dying into a smear of gray against the sky. A rickety pole corral stood near the cabin, a few horses inside, and a covered wagon, its tongue raised, was parked nearby. The whole tumbledown spread looked like it was held together with baling wire and spit, and McBride decided that the Rivers clan appeared to be a lazy, shiftless bunch.

Cliff Brennan was talking to him. Formal and distant. Gunfighter, before we ride down there, let me tell you something: Deer Creek Tom Rivers is hell on wheels with a gun, but his eldest son, Mordecai, is a devil. He’s half Apache, half English and all son of a bitch. He’s lightning fast on the draw and shoot and he’s killed more than his share.

McBride nodded, the tightness in him again. How will I know this Mordecai?

Brennan’s voice was flat, taut. You’ll know him when you see him. Anyhow, he’s the one who will do all the talking, if there’s talking to be done.

Let’s go find out, McBride said, heeling his horse forward off the crest of the rise. He’d seen uncertainty, maybe fear, in Brennan’s face and it troubled him. The man had talked big enough on the trail, but now that they were about to choose partners for a revolver fandango, his guts seemed to be turning to water.

Hello, the cabin! McBride yelled when they were still a ways off. He called out, not to alert Tom Rivers, but to draw scant comfort from the confident tone of his own voice.

The cabin door swung open and three young men stepped into the yard, watching him and Brennan come.

McBride calculated distance and drew rein when he was twenty feet from the Rivers boys. At that range he could score with the .38 self-cocker if he were pushed to it. He opened his mouth to speak, but the oldest of the three men roughly headed him off.

What the hell do you want?

Ah, McBride said, smiling. You must be Mordecai.

And what’s it to you?

Mordecai wore a belted Colt as did his brothers. His high-cheekboned face was very dark, blackened by sun, but his eyes were pale green, and he had the slitted, cold stare of a snake. His lank black hair fell over his shoulders and McBride noticed that the walnut handle of his gun had been notched several times, one of the notches raw and fresh. The man looked small, thin and dangerous and he’d be almighty sudden.

Your name means nothing to me, McBride said pleasantly. I’m a range detective and I’m here to talk to your father. Then, carefully taking the sting out of it before he spoke, he added, I’m afraid you’re squatting on my employer Mr. Brennan’s property and you must pack up and move on. He hesitated a heartbeat. Now.

This here is open range, Mordecai said, taking an aggressive step toward McBride. And we’ve claimed it. Now, turn around that poor excuse for a horse and get the hell out of here.

The other brothers had spread out, ready to back their brother’s play. McBride saw the move and his spiking belly told him he didn’t like any part of it.

He managed to keep his voice level and reasonable. I think we should let your father decide. I’m sure he doesn’t want any trouble with the law.

Law! Mordecai spat in McBride’s direction. You ain’t the law.

His eyes wary, his voice surprisingly weak, Brennan said, Mordecai, we’ll talk to Tom. If he gets off my range, no law need be involved.

If it came down to it, would Brennan stand? The man looked scared.

McBride had no time to answer his own question. He was listening to Mordecai again.

Pa’s going nowhere. He was tense and ready, the Apache in him rapidly coming to the fore. He fell off his horse a month back and he’s a dead man—with the flat of his hand the man made a downward, sweeping gesture from his waist—from there to his toes.

He’s paralyzed? McBride asked.

His back’s broke, Mordecai said.

Brennan shook his head and found his voice and his courage again now that the invincible myth he’d built around Mordecai in his mind had solidified into a skinny half-breed no taller than the top rail of a corral fence. The state of your pa’s health is no concern of mine, he said, making his mistake. Now, load him into the wagon over yonder and get off my land.

McBride saw it then—a hundred different kinds of hell in Mordecai Rivers’ eyes.

The man was all through talking.

He was going to draw.

Chapter 2

The combination of an ornery mount and John McBride’s poor horsemanship saved his life.

As Mordecai’s hand streaked for his gun, the mustang became alarmed and reared, throwing McBride over the back of the saddle. He hit the ground hard, raising dust, and rolled, aware of the angry statement of Brennan’s rifle. The mustang bolted and Mordecai took a step out of the animal’s way. His Colt came up to shoulder height, his eyes seeking McBride.

Brennan fired again. McBride heard a scream followed by the rancher’s triumphant yell. But Mordecai had McBride spotted. He grinned as his gun leveled.

Hell, I’m throwing this away! The panicked thought flashed through McBride’s brain.

He drew the Smith & Wesson, got on one knee and held the revolver at arm’s length, sighting, as his police instructors had taught him. Mordecai fired, his bullet throwing up a startled exclamation point of danger an inch in front of McBride’s bent leg. The breed fired again, and McBride felt the slug clip an arc from his left ear.

Cursing, McBride squeezed the trigger and a sudden scarlet flower blossomed on Mordecai’s chest. The man roared his rage, took a step back, his gun lowering as if all at once it had become too heavy for him.

McBride shot again, the self-cocker bucking in his hand. Hit a second time, Mordecai dropped to his knees. But he was half Apache, game as they come and hard to kill. He gritted his teeth and his Colt came up fast, his green eyes on McBride, filled with pain, shock and an insane hatred.

Brennan’s Winchester bellowed. Mordecai’s head erupted into a crimson fan of blood and brain and he fell backward, the look of rabid venom frozen forever in his dead eyes.

Got the son of a bitch! Brennan swung out of the saddle, grinning from ear to ear. An’ I drilled the other two. Head shots, McBride, both of them.

McBride rose to his feet. Through a sullen mist of shifting gray gun smoke he watched the rancher lever his rifle.

Brennan’s cold eyes slanted to the cabin. Now I’m going to kill Deer Creek Tom, make a clean sweep. That thieving, white trash squaw-man has already lived too long.

A sickness in him, McBride’s gaze swept the three dead men. All were young, too young to have died in the dust for a worthless patch of scrawny range in the middle of nowhere.

Let it be, Brennan, he said wearily. The old man’s paralyzed and he’ll probably die soon enough.

The hell with that, McBride. He’s nesting on my ground and he has to take his medicine. I’m paying you to do a job—now let’s finish it.

The futility of arguing showed in McBride’s face. The blood madness was riding Brennan and he wouldn’t let it go. His eyes moved to the cabin, its single window staring blankly at the carnage outside. Brennan moved into his line of sight, striding purposefully toward the door, the Winchester slanted across his chest.

McBride saw the burlap curtain in the window twitch a warning and he screamed, Brennan! No!

The rancher was just outside the door. Inside the cabin a shotgun blasted and buckshot tore through the thin wood, ripping the door off its rawhide hinges. Hit hard, Brennan shrieked and fell, the front of his shirt splashed with blood.

Damn you! Damn you all to hell! McBride yelled.

He ran to the door and took a single step inside. Tom Rivers, gray-haired and wild-eyed, was sitting up in his bunk, snapping shut a 10-gauge Greener on a pair of fresh shells.

The old man’s glance met McBride’s and he swung the scattergun in his direction. Quickly McBride fired, fired again. Hit twice, Rivers slammed back on the bunk, his toothless mouth an O of surprise at the manner and time of his dying.

McBride heard rapidly shuffling feet to his right. He turned and saw a raised axe poised above his head. Away from the doorway, the cabin was dark and he saw only the shadowy outline of a figure. Instinctively he took a step back, triggering the Smith at the same time. In the gun flash he caught a momentary glimpse of a fat woman falling away from him. The axe thudded to the dirt floor, followed immediately by the heavier thump of a body.

His ears ringing, the acrid smell of smoke in his nostrils, McBride felt around the cabin and found an oil lamp. He thumbed a match into flame, lit the lamp and in its eerie orange glow saw what he feared he would see.

A plump woman lay on her back on the floor, her dead, open eyes staring fixedly at McBride. Her black, braided hair showed strands of gray and her greasy buckskin dress had ridden up over her naked hips. McBride’s bullet had struck her in the throat and the Apache woman had been dead when she hit the ground.

Bending, McBride pulled down the woman’s dress, guiltily ashamed at seeing her nakedness.

Deer Creek Tom was dead and so was Cliff Brennan, and their feud was already forgotten. Dead men need no range, just six feet of ground.

In less than a couple of minutes six people had met violent deaths and he was responsible for three of them, one a woman. He rounded up his mustang and led it back to the cabin, his conscience nagging at him. Right then and there he decided that the profession of range detective was not for him.

There had been too much killing, too much blood throwing a dark, ominous shadow