Hart the Regulator 9

by John B. Harvey

  The thud of the pillow against the side wall awoke him in time to hear the shout of protest from the adjoining room; in time to see the same pillow rebound against the tall jug and send it down against a china bowl, pitching its contents forward to the floor.

  Fowler cursed in a growling complaint that brought its echo from next door.

  ‘Shit!’ The detective’s hands pressed against his temples as the pressure of his feet on the thin carpet sent waves of discomfort jarring through his head.

  He stumbled as far as the wall and hammered with the side of his fist, increasing his own head pains but shutting up his now frightened neighbor. Fowler splashed water in the general direction of his face and avoided looking at the fur on his tongue in the smeared and chipped mirror that hung from a loose nail in the wall.

  He had a theory that if a man could drink enough and pass through all the horror and obscenity of hangovers and throwing up on his hands and knees in the nearest back alley, then he should reach a state of perfection in which all distress and pain was left far behind. He hadn’t achieved it yet but a lack of success wasn’t going to stop him from carrying on with his efforts.

  For now, though, his head felt like it had been kicked at hourly intervals by a relay of mules and his mouth had the taste of something scooped up from where they were dredging the bay.

  He pulled on a miscellany of clothes and joined Hart below, drinking his breakfast and doing his best not to look at the ham and eggs and grits that Hart was forking into his mouth – to say nothing of the short stack of pancakes with maple syrup and butter. Fowler even grimaced at a harmless cup of coffee. He hung in though and by the time Hart had satisfied his morning appetite, he was ready to tell him what he knew about Lydia MacPhail’s missing son and his supposed girlfriend.

  Robert MacPhail was five-nine, having sprung up three inches since his fifteenth birthday. He was lean to the point of being called skinny, his arms gawky and forever giving the impression of being too long for his body. He had sandy hair that flopped across his forehead, gray-green eyes, and skin that had a tendency to take on freckles when exposed to a deal of sunshine. He’d never seemed interested in anything overmuch, just mooched around the way youngsters did, passed through phases of being keen on horses and such and maybe the only thing that had stuck was a fondness for guns and hunting. There were a lot of mornings when he’d be out before the light had really spread, taking a couple of dogs and maybe one of the hired men with him: he’d come back with anything that flew or ran on four legs. Throw in his haul at the back door for the kitchen. Usually refuse to eat it when it got to the table.

  He’d inherited some of his father’s wildness and unpredictability, although it had hardly ever showed through until the last year or so before he’d run off. Then there’d been sudden outbursts of temper in front of his mother; stubborn refusals to do things he’d previously accepted; an incident she’d never successfully got notions of, when he’d dragged back one of the gun dogs with great welts across its body, its coat matted with blood and mud. He’d run off three or four times, taking a gun with him and some ammunition and supplies he’d taken from the house. On each occasion when he’d returned he’d said nothing about where he’d been, how he’d coped up in the hills with only himself for company.

  Lydia quizzed him each time, accepting more and more readily his silence and trying not to notice that it bordered on contempt. She thought of his trips as a kind of testing of maturity, a growing-up ritual similar to those she’d heard took place among the Indian tribes.

  So far he’d always returned.

  When he didn’t, she’d waited and waited before sending out the men from the house to search for him. Waited longer before calling in the detective agency.

  A little more than two weeks before, one of Mrs MacPhail’s men had seen someone he was almost prepared to swear was Robert down near the bay at Yerba Buena Cove. He’d looked thinner than before as if food had been hard to come by; his clothes had been torn and soiled and he’d been walking fast, scurrying along as if not wanting to be seen. There’d been a girl with him, short, dark-haired, a honey sheen to her skin: a half-breed Indian, even an Apache, the man thought.

  He’d called out Robert’s name and all he’d got in response was a hasty glance and the scurrying had shifted up into a run, the girl keeping pace. It hadn’t been the sort of area the man had felt safe exploring on his own. All he could do was pass on the information to Mrs MacPhail when he got back north of Sacramento and up into the hills.

  It was the only recent information Lydia MacPhail had been able to give to Fowler and now he’d moved it along the line to Hart, who was wiping a chunk of dark bread round his plate, mopping up whatever there was to savor.

  ‘Ain’t a whole lot, is it?

  ‘No. Not in a place this size, it ain’t.’

  ‘Think we got a chance?’ Hart licked at the ends of his fingers, then sat back and belched contentedly Three or four people looked round and a woman breakfasting with her husband pulled in her waist tight and tutted.

  ‘He’s still with the girl maybe we got a chance. Gettin’ folk to remember two like that’s easier than one.’

  ‘If it was him the feller saw in the first place.’

  Fowler sighed. ‘We just got to hope it was. Work on that, anyways. Ain’t got nothin’ else. He could be any damned place in the state by this time.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Hart pushed his plate away and set an arm along the table. ‘Where do we start? Down by this—’

  ‘Yerba Buena. Yeah, guess so.’

  ‘We splittin’ up or what?’

  A gruff laugh came from Fowler’s mouth and he wiped finger and thumb across his thick moustache. His eyes seemed smaller than ever in the early part of the day, the skin puffed up around them as if trying to squeeze them out or cover them over completely. ‘Down on the waterfront you guard my back an’ I’ll look after yours an’ if we’re lucky we’ll get back out of there with our money belts still on and without someone sneakin’ a blade between our ribs.’

  Hart looked a shade disbelieving.

  ‘Tell you something, Wes. The population of this place’s gone up treble in the last ten years. Some of them’s folk with money, the sort that eat where we was last night. Eat there every damned night an’ never think a thing about it. An’ for every one of those there’s ten, twenty, thirty more as come here without a dime and soon they got even less than that. They sleep in flophouses if they’re lucky and if not they sleep rough. They’ll get food by beggin’ or stealin’ or any way they can. If they’re young enough and good lookin’ enough, girl or boy, they’ll sell themselves to the highest bidder till the disease gets ’em so they can’t run that trick no more. There’s gangs of kids roamin’ parts of San Francisco – no more’n a couple of blocks from where we was up to our asses in silver an’ marble – who’ll attack anyone fool enough to walk their way. Three minutes or less an’ they’ll have the clothes stripped off his back, his money’ll be gone and as like as not he’ll have been garroted and left for dead. If Robert MacPhail’s gone to ground in this city, as likely as not that’s the kind of company he’ll be keeping. An’ I don’t aim to wander into that sort of thing on my own.’

  Hart set his hands to his back just above the waist, stretched backwards and yawned.

  ‘Just so long as you’re that wide awake,’ said Fowler, ‘we shouldn’t be in for any trouble at all.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Hart, standing up. ‘Me awake an’ you cold sober, we make a fine team.’

  Fowler’s growled laughter faded into a question by the door. That lethal little toy you was totin’ round when I saw you last – you still got that?’

  ‘You mean the sawn-off?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Sure. Back in my room.’

  ‘Bring it along.’

  ‘You want me to walk through San Francisco brandishing a shotgun? What the hell are the local law goin’ to think about that?’
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  Fowler scratched at his gut. ‘Let’s get one thing clear before we start. There ain’t enough police on the pay roll here to get even half-way close to cleanin’ up the crime in this city. Which means that most of the time they don’t even try. An’ those that do are soon bought off with bribes. Not all of them, but most. Ain’t no way round it. Not with stayin’ alive too. On top of that the places we’re goin’ to be lookin’ for Robert MacPhail ain’t seen no policemen for so long they wouldn’t recognize one if he stepped up to ’em and tapped ’em on the shoulder to wish ’em a good day.

  ‘No, you forget about the law like they already forgot about you the minute you step out from some well-lit street and into an alley. Bring that little beauty along, right enough. You don’t have to wave it in the air all the time, just make good an’ sure it’s to hand. Never know when we’re goin’ to be glad of that little extra help.’

  ~*~

  The shotgun was a Remington ten-gauge, its twenty-eight-inch barrels sawn down to less than half their original length to give a wider blast pattern and make the weapon more maneuverable. Hart loosened the buckle of his gun belt one notch and slipped the Remington down into the left side of the belt, the trigger guard resting against its edge. He slung his Indian blanket over his right shoulder and knotted it loosely below his left hip, covering the shotgun at the same time as leaving his right arm free to use the Colt at his hip. Remembering what Fowler had suggested they might come up against, Hart didn’t leave things at that. From his bags he drew the double-action Starr .44 pistol which had been his since he’d taken it from a soldier fighting for the Union in the War Between the States. Hart had lost the war and most of his prejudices along with it, but hung onto the gun.

  The other weapon he removed from his saddle bags was a double-bladed knife inside its Apache sheath – like the Navaho blanket a gift from his days on the frontier scouting for the army. The knife sometimes hung from the pommel of his saddle, sometimes was hidden beneath his shirt, its loop about his neck. Now he pushed it down into the outside of his right boot, the tip of the haft less than an inch below the top curve of scuffed leather.

  Armed like that he felt ready to take on whatever glories the city of San Francisco had to offer.

  ~*~

  They started in the haybunks along Vallejo Street wharf. Scores of men and a few women lay curled up in the hay or sat, straddle-legged, hawking bitter phlegm onto the dusty floor. Bottles of rotgut liquor were passed from hand to hand and little else. Fowler went in first, his crumpled and stained suit making him appear at first glance simply another bum in search of somewhere to sleep. Then when the questions began, resentment and a kind of realization set in and silence and antagonism were only eased over by Hart’s presence in the light that filtered through the slats of the doorway. The Colt at his side was enough to free a few tongues and quieten down their desire to pitch Fowler out and into the bay.

  One burly Irishman shook his head of dark curly hair towards Hart and told him he was asking for trouble and that if he didn’t get back where he belonged, well, he’d come across just the feller to give it to him. Hart shrugged and ignored him and told Fowler to get on with his questioning. The Irishman was broad-shouldered and sure of himself. He advanced on Hart with a length of timber held in both hands and swinging up over his shoulder like a club.

  Hart shook his head sadly and sighed and waited until the timber came all too slowly for his head. He neatly sidestepped, drew his Colt in a blur of speed and laid the side of the barrel against the Irishman’s temple. The length of wood spun from between his hands and he struck the stone floor face first, splitting his nose open like some damaged fruit.

  After that Fowler got himself a lot more attention but nothing that he heard was any use at all. Most of the men claimed not to have seen the gangling sandy-haired youngster either in the company of a breed girl or on his own. Most of them wouldn’t have remembered the last face they saw before they fell asleep. After something over an hour Fowler had had enough.

  The light was so bright off the bay they had to shield their eyes. Out in its midst islands heaved up darkly like the humps of whales. The curve of land at the far side showed green with trees and the wind salted their tongues with the ocean. Fowler rested a boot on one of the worn wooden bollards used for securing ropes and pulled a flask from his pocket. He took a couple of quick shots and offered it across to Hart, who shook his head, ‘No, thanks.’

  Fowler grunted and slipped the flask back from sight.

  ‘Ragtown,’ he said.

  ~*~

  Ragtown was the name locals had given to the city dump that lay south of Townsend Street and close by a more southerly stretch of the bay where they’d started dredging and reclaiming the land. More than a couple of hundred lived here, using whatever others had thrown out, whatever had been pulled down or broken up to fashion makeshift homes of their own.

  A haphazard jumble of shacks made from odd lengths of timber and pieces of tin sheeting seemed to fill every piece of part-way level land the dump offered. Between and before them were puddles of blackened water which stank of urine and on which human excrement floated.

  Hart stood still and stared and shook his head.

  ‘Pretty, ain’t it?’ Fowler took another pull on his flask and this time Hart didn’t even wait to be asked. The jolt of the bourbon shook the stench from the back of his throat and nose but even as he passed back the flask he knew it was no more than temporary.

  ‘I spent time with so-called savages,’ he said sadly. ‘Indians like the Navaho, even the Apache. Them savages ain’t got anywhere near the squalor an’ stink of this … this …’

  He gestured with his hand, failing for a word.

  ‘This civilization.’ Fowler offered.

  Hart cleared his throat and spat, trying not to notice where a child, pot-bellied and naked and no more than two years old, sat happily playing with whatever mess it had found in one of the pools of filthy water. Off to the side, sitting cross-legged outside a shack and biting at the knuckles on the back of her scabbed hand, a woman who might or might not have been the child’s mother watched abstractedly.

  ‘We ain’t askin’ questions round all these?’ Hart said.

  ‘No. These places usually throw up some sort of leader. We’ll talk to him. That’ll do it.’

  ‘How d’we …?’

  But Hart’s next question was answered by the appearance of a squat figure off to the right, a man with no hair to speak of on his head yet a full beard that was turning to white from the edges inwards. He was wearing a heavy patchwork coat, oblivious of the heat, and long sailor’s boots which squelched and splashed through the mud when he walked. He was stocky and might have been strong before he started going to seed. Still, at one time he’d clearly proved himself the strongest man in Ragtown and now he marched through a welter of shit and slime to prove it.

  Three men came behind him, each of them skinnier and taller and younger than he was himself. One of them had hair that was long enough to reach midway down his back and large black eyes that seem to glow brighter and brighter the nearer he got. All three were armed with makeshift clubs and the leader had an old sabre clutched in his left hand, the other hand bunched into a huge fist.

  Fowler growled and spat and waited.

  Folk peered out from their hovels and gazed on, a few with excitement but most of them impassively. Whatever went down it wasn’t likely to bring them anything more to eat or drink. It wasn’t as if a couple of stray dogs had been fool enough to wander into the camp and offer themselves up for their cooking pots. They hadn’t got down to eating human flesh yet, though some of them had been sorely tempted.

  Fowler and the camp leader stood and glowered at each other for several seconds until the leader’s voice rasped out: ‘You ain’t welcome here, mister!’

  Fowler nodded and continued to eye the man with distaste, taking his time and refusing to be bullied into anything that suggested he might be afraid. />
  ‘You in charge here?’ he finally asked, no attempt to disguise the scorn in his voice.

  ‘Sure I am! What the hell’s it look like?’

  ‘Look like!’ Fowler spat. ‘Looks like a stinkin’ pile of moose turd with a handful of scum floatin’ round on top.’ His finger jutted forward. ‘You’re in charge that makes you the biggest turd of ’em all.’

  The leader stumbled a pace back in surprise at Fowler’s audacity and one of his lieutenants let out a howl more of pain than of surprise. Before the man could bring up his sabre or any others could begin to wave their clubs, Fowler’s hands had come up out of his coat pockets and in one of them there was a pistol, its hammer ready cocked. The other held maybe twenty dollars in bills.

  The money stayed in view for ten seconds before disappearing from sight: the gun remained where it was.

  ‘All right,’ Fowler said, taking pains to talk both clearly yet quietly, so that his voice wouldn’t carry far beyond the immediate group of men. ‘You can have it either way you want it. Between us, we can likely leave you squirmin’ in the mud with blood drainin’ from your guts. Then again, you got that money comin’ to you for answerin’ a couple of questions and answerin’ ’em straight. Now which is it goin’ to be?’

  The four men looked at one another, undecided. Fowler made a few grumbling sounds to show he was getting impatient and Hart kept half an eye on the feller with staring eyes and long hair and still managed to see a kid of about twelve or thirteen creeping round the shacks towards them from the side. There was something clutched behind his back and it could have been a bunch of flowers or a note saying welcome but Hart didn’t think so.

  ‘How much money you got there?’ asked the leader.