‘‘I tried my best to console Chenguang, to tell her that my love for her had not changed, would never change, but she could not live with what she thought of as her shame. Three days after the attack, she hanged herself from the pear tree in our yard that she loved.
‘‘I brought those five men to trial for the crimes of rape and murder, but they were very quickly acquitted. They belonged to the cream of Boston high society and a jury of their peers declared that such fine young men had obviously been seduced by the cunning Celestial. In summing up, the judge said, ‘Everyone here present knows the Chinese are people of low morals, especially the females. They are animals really, not even remotely akin to humans.’
‘‘He got a hearty round of applause for that.’’
After a while McBride said, ‘‘So you came West. To get away from your hurtful memories.’’
‘‘Not at once. On the night of the trial the five men gathered in the rooms of one of their number to celebrate their acquittal. I followed them there and shot them down. All but one, the oldest and the ring-leader. Him I hanged from Chenguang’s pear tree.
‘‘A few days later my flaming red hair turned white.’’
McBride studied Remorse’s face, watching the fire-light reflect in the man’s eyes and gleam on the blue steel of the matched Remingtons. He asked, ‘‘When did you become a preacher, Saul?’’
‘‘After I left Boston and came West. I ordained myself.’’
‘‘As a warrior monk.’’
‘‘Something like that.’’ Remorse caught and held McBride’s eyes. ‘‘I’m here to help you, John. Your enemies are my enemies.’’
‘‘Have you ever been in Rest and Be Thankful? If you haven’t, you don’t know my enemies.’’
Remorse smiled. ‘‘Try Thad Harlan, for one. He’s been on my list for quite some time.’’
‘‘What list is that?’’ McBride asked.
‘‘The list of men I intend to kill.’’
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?’’