Guns (John Hardin series)

by Phil Bowie

  “I know, but I’d like to think they’ve got some more good days out here, at least.”

  Bo smiled thinly. “Ran away, huh? Can’t say as I blame ‘em for that. Wouldn’t want to die in no rest home myself.”

  “Come on over and meet them. They’re good people.”

  Bo forced a smile, walked over, shook Hank’s hand and said hello ma’am to Hattie. “Roy’s told me about you, how you got out here. I live not far away over to Pantego, and I’ll just be comin’ out here time to time to see how you’re gettin’ on, if that’s okay. You need anything, Roy here says to just let me know.”

  “You won’t be going too fast on the way back over, will you?” Hattie said. “Roy’s hurt as you can see and he doesn’t need a rough ride just now.”

  “I’ll treat him like three dozen eggs, ma’am. We’ll go slow.”

  “That’s a slick rig you got there, son.” Hank said.

  “Next time I’m over this way we’ll take a ride in her. I’ll show you how she works.”

  “I’d like that, son.”

  “Mister Gaskill, Miz Gaskill, would you mind if I talk with Roy a bit now? There’s a thing I got to tell him.”

  “Not a problem,” Hank said. “It’s gettin’ cold out here anyway. What say we go back and get us a cup of your tea, Mother.” She hugged Sam and then Hank led her away, both of them turning and waving twice before they were out of sight, Hattie wiping at tears.

  “What is it, Bo?”

  “Sam. Why don’t we just walk over there to the church. Get in out of this wind. Talk a little.”

  Sam’s belly was chilling with a creeping black dread. He followed Bo to the church and they went inside. Bo sat in the back pew and Sam propped the crutches against the back wall and slid awkwardly in beside him. There was a plain rough-hewn cross on the wall up behind the old pulpit. Dusty sunlight shafted through the rippled-glass windows. The rustling of Bo’s slicker seemed loud as he used his hands to rake back his shaggy hair. “Lord, I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, his voice loud in the small church.

  “Just tell me, Bo.”

  “You got some good friends over to Ocracoke. When I heard you disappeared I ran the skimmer over there, see was there something I could do. Met a Coast Guard man named Ruben Dixon in The Privateer. We talked a while. Sam, the boy Josh, he’s fine. But your lady, Miz Lightfoot. She’s dead, Sam.”

  It didn’t register. “No, that can’t be. You’re wrong, Bo.”

  “Lord, I’m sorry, Sam. Maybe if I had more school I’d know a way to say it so it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  He was numb. “Her parents and her man died in car accidents,” he heard himself say. “God, it wasn’t that…”

  Bo shook his head. “They figured it was somebody was after you. They planted a bomb in your Jeep. She tried to use the Jeep. It had to have been so fast she never knew it, Sam. I hear the boy is with kin somewhere up in the mountains.”

  He squeezed his eyes closed tightly, trying to shut it out, but all he saw was her getting lithely into the Jeep, reaching down under the mat for the key, trying to start it, maybe thinking of some kid thing Josh had done that day, maybe even thinking of him, and the whole world suddenly flashing white…

  He stared at the back wall of the church. The cross began to melt and hot drops fell onto his shirt front. He started to gather the hundreds of random thoughts of her. Those ancient dark and deep eyes. Her lustrous black hair. Her knowing smile and her electric touches and her satin skin in the candlelight. The unique timbre of her voice. Her neatness and efficiency and sense of humor. The dreams she’d dreamed for Joshua. He began to gather it all and to sear it into his memory so she would go on living there and he would never…never forget her love until his own dying day.

  He whispered, “Joshua. He must be full of so much pain, Bo. They could have killed that good little boy, too. She didn’t even know why. They were after me. God, I drew them down on her.”

  “No, Sam. I never knew the lady but I’d bet she’d never blame you. I don’t know where you’ll have to go from here, but I wanted to tell you, Spud and me, we’re not half bad in a fight. If you need us to watch your back…”

  “That’s okay, Bo,” he said in a raw, choked voice. “Thank you…thank you for telling me here, in this old church. That’s eased it somehow. I knew, of course. I knew there was something badly wrong over there.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped his eyes on the stiff salty jacket sleeve.

  He sat there for several more minutes in the quiet musty little church, the breeze shivering the brush outside, making small shadows skitter nervously at the windows, Bo sitting motionless beside him in the bright yellow slicker with his head bowed.

  The world suddenly a profoundly changed place.

  After a time he took a last look up at the cross and said, “Let’s go now.”

  16

  A YOUNG DOCTOR AND A NURSE WORKED ON HIM FOR three hours in a small outpatient clinic on a Raleigh side street. The doctor told him he would have minor permanent scars on the side of his head and upper forehead and a much more evident one along his hip, but that he was healing well. They put a light-weight cast on his right leg, which an X-ray confirmed had been broken, and re-taped his ribs, three of which were cracked. They swabbed and band-aided him here and there and gave him two small bottles of pills to take at specified intervals, and a new pair of crutches.

  A Marshal took him to a plainly-furnished house on a quiet street in the suburb of Wake Forest outside of Raleigh, a small three-bedroom ranch indistinguishable from hundreds of others in the area, in a sprawling development filled with young couples trying to make livings and pay all the bills, most of them neither knowing nor caring about their neighbors. Another Marshal followed in another car. They used a radio-controlled door opener and drove him right into the garage. One of the Marshals left to get some groceries and he sat with the other one across from him at the dining table.

  It was eleven o’clock at night. Matthew Jensen was leaning back in his chair, balancing it on its back legs, with his arms folded, dressed in what seemed to be the regulation dark blue suit, white shirt, and a loosened muted burgundy tie. He was in his late fifties and was somewhat overweight and balding, wearing half glasses. He was ready to take notes on a small flip pad. There were foam cups of coffee and a box of donuts on the table.

  “No, I’m afraid nobody has been arrested for it,” Jensen said. “I understand they combed the island thoroughly. A woman in a store remembered some young man in fatigues with a high-pitched voice asking questions about you early that night, but she couldn’t give any description beyond that. Apparently nobody else noticed anything unusual before or after the, ah, the incident. They know it was C-4 rigged to the ignition, but not much else. I’m really sorry, but if I were you I wouldn’t expect any arrests soon, much less any prosecutions.”

  “I saw a big one. A face like a bulldog. Smoked a fat cigar. I’d seen him somewhere before.”

  “Yes. That might have been Walter Calzo. His street name is Winston. Lives in Newark. They tell me he’s a known occasional associate of Strake’s.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was the one who shot at my plane. He had a submachine gun.”

  “Yes. After you talk with them they’ll bring him in and question him, maybe, but he’s apparently an old hand at this game. It’s likely he’ll have two or three who will swear he was playing stud poker in Newark when you say he was on the island. I’m sorry, but that’s the way this frequently goes. They’ll either raise the plane or go down and take a look at it. We’re debating whether the best thing to do would be just to leave it right where it is for a time. But with the lack of evidence and no real witnesses other than you, as I say, I wouldn’t expect much to happen soon.”

  He unfolded his arms, letting the front chair legs thump down onto the carpet. He took a sip of coffee from the foam cup. “Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about any of that. My job is to protect you. From my po
int of view the situation is good. As far as anybody knows or has to know outside of the law, except for that fisherman who saved you and brought you in this morning, Sam Bass is dead or vanished, and you say the fisherman will keep his mouth closed. Let’s hope you’re correct about that. All we have to do, then, is let Mr. Bass rest in peace. We’ll fix you up with a whole new identity and significantly change your appearance this time. Tinted contact lenses would make a big difference for you, to start with. Color the hair and cut it close, part it, grow a beard or a mustache, maybe some plastic work around the eyes. We can put a little discreet pressure on the company that insured the plane if we have to. I think the policy was for forty-five thousand, and the plane was paid off, wasn’t it? So I think we can get that for you, paid to Mr. Bass’s estate, with our lawyer handling it. We’ll get you established in some Midwestern state, maybe. That should be the end of it.

  “Meanwhile you can stay right here while you heal some more. Sturdevant will stay here with you. The house has an excellent security system. He’ll see that you’re fed well and he’ll go out to get clothes and whatever else you need. There’s some exercise equipment in the back bedroom. You need to do exactly what Sturdevant tells you to do. He’s a good man. As I say, it’s a near-ideal situation.”

  “No. I want to stay up in the Smokies somewhere. Western North Carolina or eastern Tennessee.”

  “Yes, well. You want to be near the boy. I can understand that. What you have to understand is the potential danger you pose for him.”

  “Believe me, I realize that. I don’t plan to have any contact with him.”

  “That would be wise. I still would strongly suggest you get well away from the East Coast, but if you insist I suppose that if we handle it correctly, and as long as you’ll follow our instructions, the mountains might be safe enough for you.”

  “How did they find me?”

  “The story about you that ran in the Raleigh Sentinel,

  I’m sure.”

  “I never saw it.”

  “I didn’t either, but somebody did. It was picked up by the Associated Press and it ran in something over a hundred papers all over the country. You should have let us know that was going to happen. We probably could have stopped it, or at least we could have moved you off of that island in time.”

  “It had been almost five years. You tend to forget, or to diminish the threat in your mind. I was getting careless.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that now. What we can do is build you a new identity that will have no holes. Do you have a preference for a name?”

  He thought for a minute and then said, “John Hardin.”

  Jensen printed it on the pad and turned it so he could see it and confirm the spelling. “That sounds familiar. It shouldn’t be even close to anyone you’ve known.”

  “It’s nobody I ever knew.”

  “Okay. We’ll get started on that, then. We’ll help you set up a pilot’s license with all the same ratings as before. We’ll get photos later, of course, for the passport and driver’s license. Meanwhile you’re safe hidden away here.”

  “You get tired of hiding, too.”

  “Well, any time you do, take a minute to consider the options.”

  “I have. There’s an old movie you ought to like,” he said, staring at the wall with his gray eyes and speaking in a distant voice. “It’s called Cahill, United States Marshal.”

  “I don’t think I ever saw that one.”

  “It opens at night in a snowy woods near a campsite. John Wayne slowly rides in carrying a double-barreled shotgun in his left hand with the hammers cocked. There are five armed hard-cases at the camp, three in a fan in front of Wayne, two in the nearby woods, one of those with a shotgun, the other with a Spencer rifle. Wayne pins his Marshal’s badge to the outside of his coat, then draws the side of the coat back with his right hand to expose his ivory-handled hog-leg. You know what he says?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “He says, ‘Any of ya wanna surrender?’”

  The Marshal looked at him for several seconds and then said, “Yes, well. Life can’t be like some old western, I’m afraid.”

  “It can’t?”

  “That’s Sturdevant coming back now. I’ll be leaving. I’ll be back late in the morning. We might as well start using your new name, John Hardin, so you’ll get accustomed to it. How does it sound?”

  “It will do,” thinking John Wesley Hardin.

  Fastest gun in the west.

  Two days later when he and Grady Sturdevant had nothing particular to do in the afternoon they sat in the living room of the safe house drinking casually from a pint of Jim Beam, the Marshal limiting himself to two drinks. Sturdevant could have been a poster image for the Marshals. A neat young black man, he was burnished-healthy and rugged-looking. He had his suit jacket off but kept his tie on, and the leather of his shoulder holster gleamed. He had an interest in light planes. “I went for my license a few years ago,” he said. “I soloed in an old Cessna one-fifty and passed the written, but I’ve never seemed to find the time to finish up. The wife and kids take up most of my free time these days. I’m not complaining, mind you. I’ll get back to it one of these days.”

  “Do it,” John Hardin said. “I’ve never done anything else that’s given me the same challenge, the same satisfaction, and I’ve done some crazy things. I’ve never tired of flying.”

  “They never told me the full story of why you’re in the witness program.”

  So over the rest of that afternoon John Hardin told him most of it.

  17

  IT STARTED THE DAY HE MET LOUIS STRAKE.

  The big brick warehouse in Edgewater, New Jersey, was behind a high razor-wired fence alongside a ship dock across the Hudson from Harlem. A small brass plaque on the steel entrance door bore the raised name Worldarms Corporation superimposed on a logo that was a stylized peeled globe. A receptionist had him sign in and ushered him into a large room with a leather-inlaid conference table at one end that could seat ten. An oversized ornate desk at the other end looked to be a valuable antique. Everything was darkly immaculate, softly lit from recessed ceiling fixtures. The walls were crowded with lighted glass display cases that held scores of different weapons, mostly military. There was a medieval feel about the room and it smelled of gun oil. He moved along with his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, examining the exhibits. A large case labeled World War I contained old bolt-action rifles with bayonets affixed, gas masks, uniforms, sabers, and accouterments. None of it was dusty; all of it was well preserved.

  A quiet voice behind him said, “Do you have an interest in weapons?”

  He turned and said, “Yes, but I don’t really know much about them, except for some of the western frontier guns like the Spencer rifle, the lever-action Winchesters, the early Colt revolvers.”

  “Have a seat at the table. Would you like coffee or a soft drink?”

  “No, thank you. I had breakfast an hour ago.”

  When they were seated across the table from each other he studied Strake. The man was impeccably dressed in a tailored blue suit. There was something about his manner and his erect bearing, his aura, that made you see beyond the surface and realize you were in the presence of an intelligent, powerful man. He had a dark penetrating gaze even though he was smiling. There was a hint of menace about him.

  Strake said, “Mr. Kensington at the Teterboro Airport recommended you to me. He said they call you Cowboy. I need a pilot. My former pilot now captains a seven-twenty-seven for a Kuwaiti.”

  “What kind of airplane do you have?”

  “A Super King Air B Two Hundred. I’m told you know the airplane well.”

  He had flown one five hundred hours over the past three years for a New York financier until the man had been caught up to his elbows in a widespread insider trading scheme. The financier was awaiting trial and facing the prospect of doing modest time in an upstate country club prison, where he would have plenty
of leisure to contemplate whatever small portion of his portfolio the lawyers deigned to leave him.

  “Yes, I do know it well. It’s an excellent plane. Probably the best turboprop twin ever built. It’s certainly been popular.”

  “I like it because it has enough range to take me anywhere I want to go with minimal refueling stops,” Strake said. “It cruises at over three hundred miles per hour, yet it can operate out of relatively short, unimproved strips. The one I have is seven years old but it’s been well maintained and upgraded. GPS, color radar, an electronic flight information system, Collins autopilot and flight director. Virtual all-weather capability. I’ve owned it for almost three years. It’s as good as—in many respects better than—brand new and I insist that it be kept that way.”

  “It sounds like a fine machine. I’d like to take a look at the logs, of course.”

  Strake’s smile widened fractionally. “I tend to be rather more demanding than others you may have worked for. I need someone who will be on call every day at least from dawn until dark, someone I can reach within an hour so I can be airborne within two or three hours for any destination. I also require absolute discretion concerning my business affairs. I’ve had you checked out rather thoroughly and so have some assurance that you’re a competent pilot and a man to be trusted. In return for what I demand I’m willing to pay fifty percent more than that Wall Street fool was paying you. There are other amenities.

  “The company has a comprehensive benefits package. There are the best accommodations wherever I go. The best food. The opportunity to meet some of the most influential people in the world. I do a great deal of my business these days right from that desk, with the telephone, e-mail, and Fax, but there are still many occasions when I must travel to inspect a stock of weapons that I want to buy or to conduct a transaction that can’t be handled any other way. Very often time is at a premium. I have a home in Vancouver and a getaway cottage in the Bahamas, so there are planned flights to those places. I take commercial flights most of the time to Europe, Asia, or Africa, although there will be times I will want to use the King Air for overseas trips. I have agents who work for me around the world and I maintain small subsidiary offices in London, Vancouver, and Panama. I ski in Vail and I go to Caracas and other South American destinations from time to time.”