Henry’s pistol was in his hand, the arm angled towards the floor, surprise startling his bearded face. Lacy was staring at Hart with renewed interest and Hart noticed that his right hand was close by the lapel of his suit.
‘I ought to finish that no good bastard right now!’
Henry began to bring up the gun, but one look from. Hart was enough to make him stop.
‘He’s been drinkin’.’ said Hart, stepping between the youngster and the two men at the back of the room. ‘He ain’t goin’ to do you any harm now.’
Henry still hesitated: Lacy continued to watch, playing no part.
‘You got a lawman in town?’ Hart asked.
‘Not right now.’
‘Okay.’
Hart released the hammer on the Colt and slid it down into his holster. He turned towards Waterford and scooped him up with one arm, setting him over one shoulder. ‘I’ll get him outside in the air. Let him sober up.’
Bearing Dan Waterford as if he were little more than a child, Hart left the saloon.
Jake Henry stood open-mouthed. ‘Who in hell’s name was that?’
Lacy arched his fingers, pressing the tips lightly together. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know but I think we’re going to find out.’
Chapter Six
Hart forked another mouthful of beans up from his plate, the sauce dripping down thickly. He broke off a chunk of corn bread and wiped it around one half of the plate, mopping up bean juice, egg yolk and bacon fat and pushing it into his mouth. He chewed a while, swallowed and drank some coffee, black and bitter. The bed hadn’t been too good, the straw mattress lumpy and torn and set on wooden boards, but at least the breakfast was making up for it.
He stretched and belched - the four other boarders glanced round at him and quickly looked away again. Hart grinned and pushed his fork into the beans. They were midway to his mouth when the door opened and Lacy stepped inside.
The fork dropped from Hart’s hand with a clatter, splashing yellow-brown juice over the table and the front of his shirt. Hart’s hand was at the edge of the table, close to his holster.
Lacy stood quite still, waiting for those who’d turned round to get back to their own breakfasts and business. Then he pointed to the chair opposite where Hart was sitting.
‘I’d like to join you.’
Hart nodded, ‘Sure.’
Lacy pulled out the chair and sat down carefully, as if he was afraid of creasing his suit.
‘Coffee?’
‘Thank you, no.’
‘You don’t mind if I ...’ Hart looked at his plate.
‘Go right ahead.’
Hart finished his breakfast, thinking about what Lacy had come for; thinking that he could guess but that with a man like Lacy it didn’t pay to be too sure until you knew.
He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and eased his chair away from the table.
‘What’s on your mind?’
Lacy’s mouth moved fractionally in what might have been the beginnings of a smile – it probably wasn’t.
‘You were impressive last night.’
Hart looked at his face, saying nothing. The light blue eyes refused to flicker.
‘But, then,’ Lacy continued, ‘I presume that was your intention.’
‘Go on.’
‘You’re new in town, you wear a gun as though you can use it, you’re probably looking for work. What better way to get it than by showing your worth.’
Hart drained his cup of coffee. ‘Who was I showin’ it to?’
Lacy took out his spectacles and put them on. The woman who ran the boarding-house came over and asked him if there was anything he wanted. Lacy said there wasn’t.
To Hart he said: ‘The man you stopped going for his gun was Jake Henry. He manages the Beaumont mine. The one you pistol-whipped is called Dan Waterford. He isn’t anything.’
‘Like his brothers?’ Hart asked.
‘As I said in the saloon, I know nothing about Waterford’s brothers.’
‘But they might have been killed?’
Lacy sighed lightly and sat back in the chair. ‘Of course they might. Tago’s an unruly place. Men argue, fight, get knifed or shot and nobody knows why or cares. What might have happened to that boy’s brothers is no concern of mine.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did you do with him last night?’
‘Dumped his head in the horse trough, then left him propped up against the wall.’
Lacy set his finger-tips together. ‘And was I correct that you are looking for work?’
‘The right kind. Maybe’
‘Would something along the lines of last evening’s play in the saloon be along those lines?’
‘It might.’
Lacy sighed again. ‘You’re an unduly evasive man, Mr …?’
Hart let the search for his name hang. ‘You ain’t made your proposition yet.’
‘Very well. Tago needs a lawman, a marshal, regulator, call it what you will. We sent for one, a gunman named Hart. Have you heard of him?’
Hart nodded. ‘I reckon.’
‘He hasn’t showed. If you want the job, it’s yours.’
‘Regulator.’
‘Yes.’
‘What does it pay?
‘Hundred a month and all found.’
Hart shook his head.
‘A hundred and twenty-five. That’s the top offer. It’s already too much.’
Hart shook his head again and stood up. ‘Sorry.’
Lacy removed his spectacles. ‘A hundred and fifty.’
Hart stood away from the table. ‘Who’ll I be workin’ for? You?’
‘Not precisely.’
‘Then who? Precisely.’
‘Mason Beaumont.’
‘Fine. I’ll talk to Beaumont.’
Lacy eased back his chair and stood up, facing Hart. He was shorter by an inch, thinner and lighter by some forty pounds.
‘It isn’t necessary.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I talk to the man who’s payin’ me or I don’t work.’
Lacy turned half away, considering. After a few moments he looked back. His face was showing something now - it showed that he was being pushed and he didn’t like it.
‘The Beaumont place is north-west of town. Almost a mile. You can’t miss it. Mr. Beaumont will see you at eleven.’ He stared at Hart pointedly. ‘You might clean up before then.’
Lacy had been right when he’d said the Beaumont house couldn’t be missed. It stood at the end of a long avenue of aspens, its white painted boards gleaming in the bright sunlight. Hart led the grey on to the gravel drive and rode slowly towards the house. It was two stories high, a steep angled roof leading to brick chimneys at either end. The windows were covered with white shutters, all save one of which were closed across. Rounded wooden pillars supported an arched roof over the veranda that ran along two-thirds of the house front. The main door was set behind the arch. Wisteria climbed up frames attached both to verandas and walls, lavender with occasional flowers of pink, rose or white.
A rocker stood empty on the porch. There was no sign of anyone around. Hart reined in the mare and waited. He pushed back the brim of his hat, warm in the sun. He was wearing a grey cotton shirt and black pants pushed down into brown boots, a leather vest unbuttoned over the shirt.
After a few moments a man came around the corner of the house, a Negro. He was older than Charlie, older and darker, his hair greying and his back stooped more than a little.
‘Yes, sir?’
Hart made a face. ‘Don’t “sir” me, just tell Beaumont I’m here to see him.’
‘Yes, sir. Who shall I tell him it is, sir?
‘Don’t call …’ Hart realized it wasn’t worth it. ‘Just tell him his regulator’s here.’
The Negro put his head over to one side, as if he hadn’t heard quite correctly.
‘Regulator?’
‘Yeah, you heard it right.
’
‘Yes, sir.’ The black turned away and climbed the steps towards the house. He was met by Lacy coming out.
‘You got here, then,’ he said to Hart, taking the watch from his vest pocket and clicking it open to check the time.
‘Yeah, an’ clean, too.’
Hart dismounted and tied the reins to the rails in front of the veranda.
‘Mr. Beaumont’s waiting to speak with you. On your insistence.’
‘Sure.’
Hart walked past Lacy towards the door; this time it was the Negro who was coming out.
‘Mr. Beaumont says—’ he began.
‘Uh-huh,’ grunted Hart, moving past him.
‘You can get back to your work,’ said Lacy stiffly, following Hart into the hallway.
The inside of the house smelt of flowers; they were everywhere, in vases that were tall and small, thin and round. White and pink blossoms, blue and red and yellow.
The boards of the floor were so polished that if you looked down it was possible to see a blurred reflection.
‘Upstairs,’ said Lacy.
The staircase wound round to the upper floor. On the landing Lacy went past Hart and stopped by the furthest door.
‘This is Mr. Beaumont’s room.’
Hart nodded. ‘Whose are the others?’
Lacy gave him a look of contempt and turned the handle. Inside the room the atmosphere was different. There was a scent that might have been of flowers, but if so they were dying, decaying. To Hart the room smelt of death, sickly sweet like rotting flesh.
He looked at the portrait of the Confederate major on the wall and then, only then, at the man in the white suit sitting in the leather chair beneath it.
‘Mr. Beaumont?’
The short man looked at Hart, then past him to where Lacy was standing in the doorway. ‘All right, Lacy. I’ll call you if there’s anything.’
‘Mr. Beaumont, I—’
The podgy hand waved and Lacy stopped in mid-sentence, abruptly quitting the room. His footsteps sounded down the corridor.
‘You come with high recommendation,’ said Beaumont. ‘Lacy isn’t a man who’s impressed easily.’
‘I’ll bet.’
Beaumont waved a hand towards a glass-fronted cupboard at the side of the room. ‘A drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Then fetch one for me. There’s a decanter of brandy over there.’
Hart hesitated, not liking the man’s assumption that he was going to be waited on; irritated, also, by the high pitch of his voice. But he shrugged and poured the brandy.
The air was stifling; when he came close to Beaumont to hand him the glass Hart could smell the sweat of the man’s body. He glanced at the windows and saw that the shutters were closed against two of the three windows.
‘Lacy has told you my terms?’
‘Yeah, a hundred and fifty a month and all found. Board, an’ ammunition. What wants doin’?’
Mason Beaumont gulped at the large glass of brandy. ‘There’s a lot of money in Tago. Money being dragged and blown out of those hills as silver. Most of its mine. Tago is mine. This house’ is mine. I don’t want to see any of them threatened. I want them to grow.’ He swallowed some more brandy. ‘Grow around me.’
‘And?’
‘The town needs a firm hand. Control.’
‘How ’bout Lacy?’
Beaumont touched one corner of his fleshy mouth. ‘Lacy is my, er, companion. I don’t want him getting involved in that mess.’
‘But it’s okay for me?’
‘At a hundred and fifty dollars, yes.’
‘So you just want the placed cleaned up? Settled down.’
Beaumont wriggled a little in his chair. ‘There’s more to it than that.’
Hart nodded. ‘I figured there would be.’
Beaumont’s small dark eyes looked past Hart towards the door. He beckoned him closer and leaned forward. ‘Someone is doing their best to ruin me.’ The eyes blinked. ‘Totally.’
Hart waited for him to continue. When he did the voice was thinner and quieter than before.
‘For the past three months there have been raids on the mine, on the assay office, on shipments going from here east. Whoever is behind it knows too much about my business. I don’t…’ He glanced again at the door. ‘I don’t trust anyone.’
Hart straightened up ‘Not even your companion?’
Beaumont bristled and downed the rest of his glass. ‘Get me another brandy!’
Hart grinned and did so; this time he helped himself too.
‘You got anyone else workin’ for you?’ Hart asked. ‘Outside of Lacy and the people at the mine. Anyone who might handle a gun, I mean?’
‘There’s a man named Carter. Two others called?’
Hart finished it for him. ‘Noonan and Moody.’
The fresh glass of brandy slipped between Beaumont’s fingers, splashing over his lap. The glass rolled along his leg and fell to the floor, splintering apart. Both men held their breath, waiting for Lacy to walk through the door.
But nothing happened.
Mason Beaumont’s face was screwed into a white mask. ‘Who are you? What did Lacy say your name was?’
Hart smiled with his eyes. ‘Lacy didn’t say. Lacy didn’t know.’
Beaumont closed his eyes, wiping a hand across his forehead. It came away wet with sweat.
‘Who…’
‘The name’s Hart. Wes Hart.’
Beaumont shook. ‘You ... you said you weren’t coming. Wouldn’t? Didn’t want the job?’
‘And that was when you sent Crazy John Carter back after me.’
The hardness of Hart’s voice drove Beaumont back into the leather chair. He looked around wildly for a way out but Hart seemed to be filling all the space before him.
‘What happened to ... to Carter and ... the others?’
The faded blue of Hart’s eyes bore into Beaumont. ‘Same as I guess you intended for me. I killed ’em.’
Mason Beaumont turned his head and jammed his fist to his mouth, but he was too late to stop the thin trail of vomit springing from between his purple lips. Hart stared with disgust as it ran along his arm, dripping from his thick, round fingers to the white leather of the chair and the carpeted floor.
When he looked at Hart again his eyes were misted, glazed with what might have been tears.
‘What are ...’ He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
Hart let his right hand drop to his boot and when it came up the Apache knife was tight within it. Beaumont stared at it transfixed.
‘A second,’ said Hart softly. That’s all it would take to slit your fat throat from ear to ear.’
Beaumont’s mouth fell open, thin lines of spittle hanging past his chin.
‘But seein’ as you wanted me to work for you so bad ... enough to have me killed when I said no ... I figured maybe it might be a job worth takin’.’
A blob of perspiration balanced on the end of Beaumont’s nose, then fell. He gulped: ‘You want to take ... the job?’
Hart nodded: ‘Uh-huh.’
‘I don’t ...’
‘I’m not sure I do.’
Hart saw Beaumont’s eyes move fractionally towards the door. Lacy hadn’t been there before - that didn’t mean he hadn’t come back.
‘You did say,’ said Hart quietly, ‘you didn’t trust anybody?’
Beaumont’s white face nodded.
‘That’s fine. ’Cause I feel the same way. I’d hate for you to set anyone else on to me. Lacy, for instance.’
Beaumont’s head shook from side to side, his eyes promising that he wouldn’t think of doing anything like that.
‘See, if you did ... after killing him, then I’d have to come and kill you.’
The point of the knife moved closer to Mason Beaumont’s throat and Beaumont’s eyes jerked shut, his head pushed back against the leather of the chair. He shook.
Hart withdrew the knife and
slipped it back into the sheath inside his boot; he stepped soundlessly to the door. The first Beaumont realized he’d gone was when he heard the door closing.
Beaumont sat in the chair, mouth open, thinking of the small violet bottle in the cabinet; trying not to think of the wet stain that was darkening the front of his white trousers.
Chapter Seven
Wes Hart moved his room at the Widdens’ boarding-house from the small upstairs back to the larger upstairs front. The bed was bigger and had springs under a mattress that was stuffed with more than straw. From the window he could see along Silver Street right into the main square. Looking straight across he had a good view of the shell of the church that was being put up to the east of the town and if he swiveled his head he saw the tents down towards the river.
Not far along Silver Street was the livery barn where Hart had installed the dapple grey, making sure the owner understood just how important it was that she be properly cared for.
The store immediately past the livery had provided boxes of cartridges for his Colt Peacemaker and for the Henry that was his saddle gun – also 10-gauge shot for the sawn-off Remington. He’d bought a new blue cotton shirt, some thick socks to wear inside his boots and several other things that had taken his fancy.
The store had been more than reasonable when Hart had explained that the payment would be made when he received his wages from Mason Beaumont Since Beaumont owned the store anyway, it didn’t seem to matter a great deal. And if it had, the look in the stranger’s faded blue eyes and the way he hefted the shotgun would have driven such thoughts from the manager’s mind.
So far all Hart had done was to walk around the town a few times, getting to know the place. He couldn’t be certain that Beaumont had taken his warning to heart and if anyone was being sent after him then he preferred to be out in the open where he could see them coming.
But nothing happened. He didn’t see Lacy, nor anyone else who looked suspicious. Not that that made him drop his guard.
Hart discovered that the Silver Star wasn’t the only saloon that Tago possessed. There were three others close to the square, each one smaller and more squalid than the last. He passed a barber’s shop and an undertaker’s; two stores selling mostly mining supplies; another place selling boots and clothing; a saddler’s, a couple more general stores, a butcher’s and an apothecary’s. There were five eating houses, two laundries and one brothel. It wasn’t a whole lot different from any other mining town. In the daytime the place seemed pretty deserted, with most of the men and children up on the hills either side of the river searching for silver ore. Some folk would stay up there for weeks at a time, living in makeshift shacks; others would drift back down into town every opportunity they got. For those of them who’d struck lucky there was little enough in Tago to take it away from them, but they still did their best to spend it. Apart from Beaumont’s saloon and stores, there were other places, other people anxious to help those who had money to get rid of it. Small-time grafters and gamblers swarmed round the place like blue flies, fattening as fast as they could. The saloon girls and the hustlers and the whores from the brothel scarcely had time to pull their underthings back on between trips.
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