Hart the Regulator 5

by John B. Harvey

  ‘You folk like to spell a while,’ called a woman’s voice from the door. ‘Water from the well for the horses. I was just fixin’ Frank and the kids something to eat.’

  The husband scowled and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. Jay and Hart exchanged glances. The woman took a couple of steps into the sunlight; her hair was also cut short, almost like a boy’s. It was the same reddish-brown as the rooster’s wings and as she moved the sun caught it and it shimmered like the grass, but darker, deeper.

  ‘Thanks ma’am,’ said Hart, speaking for the first time. ‘We’d be glad to.’

  ‘Much obliged,’ added Jay, slipping his boot from its stirrup and swinging his leg over the horse’s back.

  Grudgingly, still with an anxious look towards Hart, the farmer took the reins of the animals and led them towards a trough he’d fashioned from a hollowed log.

  Hart and Jay washed the trail dirt from their faces and drank from the bucket by the well. When they went inside the farmhouse, the woman was setting plates round the table. A girl of five or six was following her round, putting down knives and forks and spoons. A child that couldn’t have been more than a year old sat tied into a chair, watching what was going on in silence and clinging to a rag doll.

  ‘My name’s Frank Escort,’ said the man, holding out a hand first to Jay and then to Hart. They shook the hand, hard and calloused, and said their names.

  ‘This is my wife, Emily.’ Emily smiled and blushed just a little and shook hands also. ‘That there’s Teresa.’

  The little girl hid behind her mother’s skirts and Emily reached round with a hand and stroked her hair.

  ‘Our baby over there,’ said Emily, looking in the direction of the chair, ‘that’s Henry.’

  ‘He dangerous, ma’am?’ asked Jay with a smile clear on his face.

  ‘Why no!’ she protested. ‘I set him in that chair hoping he’ll go to sleep, but if I’m not watching him he’ll wriggle so that he’ll fall off and bang his head on the floor and then starts in crying and caterwauling and…’

  She broke off at a look from her husband.

  ‘Frank sometimes says I do as much myself,’ she apologized, and moved over towards the stove.

  The three men sat down.

  The meal was stew, mostly vegetables but with the occasional piece of beef, fibrous and chewy. Emily cut off hunks of bread she unwrapped from inside a muslin cloth and passed them round. Their glasses were filled from a pitcher of well water. The baby seemed to have fallen asleep, its head toppled to one side and resting on the rag doll.

  ‘We see so few folks,’ said Emily, cutting a piece of meat on her daughter’s plate, ‘I’m afraid I tend to chatter on something dreadful. Frank usually gives me a good talking to about it when company’s gone.’

  Frank kept his head to his plate and got on with his food.

  ‘You don’t get up to town much, then, ma’am?’ said Jay, making conversation.

  ‘Caldwell? Why, no. Frank rides in for supplies once a month maybe, but…’

  ‘Ain’t nothin’ there but fools and folk as want to take your money for what you don’t need,’ said Frank. ‘Best stay away.’

  For several minutes all five people tended to their eating; a hen squawked outside and flapped foolishly up against the window, wings beating vainly against the glass. The little girl laughed.

  ‘Of course,’ Emily said, ‘we’ve got one of them big catalogues and I can send out for things every once in a while, but it is something special to be able to walk into a store and see new dress material for yourself. I mean, actually to feel it and see the colors and hold it up against yourself in front of a…’

  Frank’s knife clattered on to his plate and a splash of stew chased across the table. ‘Emily, you stop that foolish talk! I told you enough times we tend best when we tend after ourselves. You and Teresa and me and the boy.’

  The fierceness in his voice brought the beginnings of tears to the young girl’s eyes.

  Jay glanced at Hart awkwardly and the only response he got was a stony face as Hart tore a piece of bread away and pushed it into his mouth. He went back to looking at Frank and the stare in his eyes was far from friendly.

  There’s them in town as is jealous of what we’ve got here,’ Frank said impulsively. ‘Some as didn’t reckon we was goin’ to do as well as we have and now they can see it comin’ they don’t like it none.’ He lifted up his fork only to rest it down again, unused. ‘Cattle!’ he snorted. ‘That’s all some folk can think of. Think of land and they think cattle. Well, they’re wrong, I’m sure of that. The future of this state don’t lie with cattle, I’m willin’ to stake all I’ve got on that.’

  No one spoke; no one offered him a reply. His wife used the end of her apron to dry the girl’s eyes.

  ‘Wheat,’ Frank said, nodding his head strongly. ‘Hard winter wheat. That’ll grow through anything. That’ll take the richness of this soil an’ put it back all the richer.’ He wiped his mouth and pointed north-west. ‘You know what I’ve got on that land out there? You know what I’ve got planted out there? Acre on acre.’

  Jay shook his head and said he didn’t know.

  ‘That’s wheat. And even through a winter like the one we’ve just had that keeps growing. Ain’t nothing goin’ to kill that off. I call it hard and I mean hard. That’ll be heading in the spring and I’ll have the harvest of it come June. Wheat as far as a man’s eye can see.’

  His round head bristled with energy and emotion.

  ‘That’s the future of Kansas, I know it. And them fools up in Caldwell who are lookin’ to cattle, them as is tryin’ to bring the railroad in so herds of beef can trample over the future of the land, well, they’re worse than fools, they’re insane.’

  He ate a mouthful of stew.

  ‘Insane.’

  Jay choked on a section of turnip and had to hammer his fist into his chest and then try to splutter down some water from his glass. His face went bright red and tears ran down his cheeks.

  ‘The man crying,’ said Teresa to her mother. ‘Man cry like T’esa cry.’

  ‘Yes, honey, that’s right,’ said her mother.

  ‘Big country,’ said Hart leaning across towards Frank. ‘Ain’t there room for both?’

  ‘No!’ The farmer pushed his chair back from the table, pushed his empty plate away from his hands. ‘No, there ain’t an’ I’ll tell you why. It’s ‘cause wheat ain’t got no legs an’ cattle got four. Them fool Texans are supposed to keep ‘em close, required to by ordinance, but I don’t make no matter. They bust loose, break down fences, eat hay and tromp down crops and destroy whatever they come across. Spend the winter here gettin’ fat on land that ain’t their own...’

  ‘Don’t they pay no grazing rights?’ interrupted Hart

  ‘Grazing rights! Some do an’ some don’t, but if the stock ain’t stayin’ on the grazin’ land as is paid for, what’s the difference. No, they get fat on other folks’ land so’s them Texans can sell ‘em for a better price.’ He wiped sweat from his broad forehead with the edge of his hand. ‘Now when I plant my crops, when I sow my wheat I know sure as hell where it’s goin’ to grow. An’ folk as farm near know my wheat ain’t about to go wanderin’ onto their land. That’s for sure.’

  The farmer stood up and tucked his check shirt back down into his britches.

  ‘You had all you want, Frank?’ asked his wife.

  Frank ignored her.

  ‘You two cattlemen?’ he said.

  Jay glanced at Hart and then shook his head. ‘We’re not,’ said Hart, wiping the last piece of bread around the inside of his plate.

  ‘What you aimin’ to be doin’ round these parts, then, or you passin’ through?’

  ‘Well, we…’ Jay began hesitantly.

  ‘Could say, in different ways, we’re working for the law,’ said Hart.

  Frank stared back at him. ‘The law? You mean Miller? That law?’

  ‘What other is there?’
/>
  ‘Not much, an’ that’s for a fact.’

  ‘Then,’ said Hart, shifting back from the table, ‘that’s the law I’ll be working for.’

  ‘You’re going to be a deputy?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Hart shrugged. ‘Something like.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Frank, ‘you’re going to be a hired gun for Fairburn and his kind. Frightening decent folk into agreeing that the railroad should come down to Caldwell, even forcing money out of ‘em with a pack of lies.’

  ‘Now, Frank, you don’t know that for the truth.’

  He leaned forward and hit the table hard with his fist. ‘Emily, I told you till I’m sick of it, you tend to women’s business. Leave things you don’t understand to me!’

  ‘Frank, that’s…’

  She jumped from her chair, almost knocking it over; she hurried to the stove and fiddled with the stew pan. Hart could tell by the bend of her body and the slight sound that she was crying. It was a lot of tears for one meal: he caught himself wondering how many flowed in the normal run of things, when they were left to themselves. How had the husband put it? You and Teresa and me and the boy.

  Hart nodded at Jay, letting him know it was time to leave. Ignoring the farmer, Hart went over to where his wife was standing and set his broad hand on her shoulder. He was surprised how close the bone was to the surface of the skin.

  ‘Ma’am, you were real hospitable. We both appreciated it.’

  She sniffed and for a moment he thought she was going to turn towards him, but she remained as she was. He felt her stiffen beneath his touch and let his hand fall away.

  ‘You outstayed your welcome,’ said the farmer from by the door, his voice hard and flat.

  Jay’ stepped past him, glad to be back in the air and the heat of the sun. Hart paused close by where Frank stood and looked down into the farmer’s face for long enough for Frank to read the warning in the faded blue of Hart’s eyes. Then both men were walking to where their horses were tethered and Frank was watching them go; the rifle was back in his hand. As they rode away, both Jay and Hart looked for a sign of the woman at door or window but there was none. Just an angry, embittered man with a rifle.

  ‘Many folk think that way?’ asked Hart after they’d ridden perhaps a mile.

  ‘Uh-huh. There’s more’n a few.’

  Hart nodded and let his weight lean back on the saddle. Things were not going to be easy. They rode on between the acres of growing wheat and the sun drew sweat from the pores of the skin. Not easy at all.

  Chapter Four

  When they finally rode into Caldwell it was the lazy fading of the sun and the shrill chattering of small birds which chased between the trees of the orchard at the southern edge of town. The buildings were set back on either side of a wide main street - some thirty feet of dirt and dust and packed mud. As they advanced the cabins became more substantial: a few houses fashioned from stone as well as wood; stores that were three times as deep as they were wide; a hotel with a shaky-looking second story. For perhaps a hundred yards along each side there was a boardwalk, with, here and there, slanting wooden awnings supported by wooden pillars sunk into the street. Caldwell General Store - J. Weinstein, Prop. West Kansas District & County Bank. Caldwell Dining Rooms - J. Weinstein, Prop. Kansas Star: Hotel and Saloon. Weinstein Guns & Ammunition. Caldwell Citizen. Lucky Lady Saloon & Gambling House. Front Street Store - J. Weinstein, Prop. Roundabout there Hart stopped looking.

  Folk didn’t stop looking at him.

  No one had wanted news about the new regulator to get out, but when there were as many people in the know as the members of the town council, their wives and families, there was no way of keeping things quiet. So when Wes Hart rode slow down the center of the street with Jay Cambridge alongside him there was little doubt who or what he was.

  Like any other cowtown, Caldwell was used to gunmen; even to those who did more than wear their pistols with style and keep their mouths for shooting off with. But word had got round how Andrew Fairburn had been held up and robbed of the money that was due to go to the railroad company. Two thousand dollars. And rumor went that some of the Four Bars men had been involved. What hadn’t been rumor was old Nesty, tied with a length of rope to the back of the rig they’d gone out on, tied up and dead. That wasn’t any rumor. Nor was the fact that Marshal Harry Miller hadn’t stirred off his rear end to do anything about apprehending the killers. Instead, word went, he’d asked permission from the town council to send for an outside gun.

  Word hadn’t got it exactly right, but it was close enough.

  Quite a few men looked at Miller disgusted after that — if he wasn’t man enough to do his own work then he shouldn’t be wearing the badge.

  If any of them had asked him just why he hadn’t ridden out to the Four Bars and made an arrest or two, he would have told them it was due to a lack of evidence. Which was part of the truth. He probably wouldn’t have told them that after the description Barer oft had given him of the two gunslingers who’d both taken the money and put paid to Nesty, he didn’t hold with the idea of going up against them. Not if it was at all possible to avoid. They sounded fast and mean and out of the marshal’s class and what he wanted to do was carry on drawing his pay for as long as he could.

  ‘Marshal’s office,’ said Jay, pointing across the street.

  ‘Yeah.’ Hart hauled on the rein and the grey headed for the hitching post set close against the boardwalk.

  The building was squat. The single reinforced door was shut, the one small window that faced the street had its wooden shutter set to. A sign hammered on to the wall gave the lawman’s name. Despite this, Miller was waiting for them when they entered, standing back of his desk with his badge looking shined up on his vest and his hand ready to shake that of the new regulator.

  ‘Wes Hart?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Good to meet. Heard good things about you.’ Miller withdrew his hand and stepped a pace away, letting his gaze take Hart in. ‘Word is you’re a man as does what he sets out to do. Does it well.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Hart, ‘we all try to do that.’

  Miller nodded. ‘Yeah, we try.’

  ‘You want me for anythin’?’ asked Jay Cambridge, who had remained just inside the door.

  Miller bent and reached inside one of the drawers of his desk. He came up with six gold pieces — a five and five ones. ‘There’s your money, Jay. You did well to find Hart here fast as you did.’

  ‘Thanks, marshal.’ Jay dropped the coins into his pants pocket. ‘You seen anythin’ of Seth?’

  ‘Ain’t seen him. Heard he’s mending pretty well, though.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll go see.’ He raised a hand towards Hart, nodded goodbye, and went back on to the street.

  Miller pulled round a chair for Hart and then took a bottle of sour mash whiskey from another drawer. ‘Taste?’

  ‘Sure. Throat’s dry from ridin’.’

  Miller half-filled a couple of glasses. ‘I guess Jay gave you what’s going on around town. Railroad, subsidy money getting stolen and such?’

  ‘He told me what he knew.’

  ‘And what we want you to do?’

  Hart swallowed a little of the whiskey and coughed as it hit the back of his throat. ‘Get your money back if it’s still around. I don’t see anyone being too upset about the old boy bein’ shot, but I guess you want to make sure them as did it don’t think it’s open season.’ He set down the glass and looked at Miller. ‘Keep ‘em scared off until the deal with the railroad’s signed and sealed and the tracks are gettin’ laid. That it?’

  Miller smiled. ‘About sums it up.’

  ‘Fine. Now I’d like a place to stay, somewhere to put my things so’s I can wash this dirt off me and then get the feel of the place.’

  Miller offered the bottle to Hart, who refused it with a shake of the head. ‘Later, maybe.’

  ‘Okay,’ The marshal poured himself a small shot, threw it down a
nd drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table, ‘Members of the town council … said they wanted to see you soon as you got in. My job to take you to ‘em.’

  Hart waved a hand dismissively. ‘It’ll wait till I’m feelin’ settled an’ got the trail dirt out my eyes.’

  Miller hesitated, then agreed with a nod of the head. ‘Room for you at the Kansas Star. Clerk’s expecting you. S’pose...’ Miller pulled out a watch from the side of his vest opposite the shield. ‘... we say an hour from now?’

  ‘Make that two.’

  ‘Two hours to wash up?’

  ‘Man’s got to eat.’

  Hart thanked the lawman for the drink, arranged to meet him in the bar of the hotel and left. Harry Miller seemed decent enough, straight enough, too, far as he could tell. Hart guessed that in most situations he’d be able to handle himself pretty well. But with things hotting up in Caldwell and likely to get hotter, Hart could understand why he’d been called in.

  Out on the boardwalk, he wiped a rime of sweat from inside his flat-brimmed hat and set it back at a slight angle on his head. He stroked Clay’s nose and patted her neck and climbed easily into the saddle. There were still folk looking at him like he’d just stepped out of the forest. A bunch of kids gawping from lower down the planking; a couple of men leaning against a pillar outside the barbershop as though it would collapse the second they moved. Hart waited till a wagon loaded high with feed had passed along the street and then followed it down in the direction of Barcroft’s livery stable.

  The clerk behind the desk in the foyer of the Kansas Star was a thin young man with a pair of shiny bracelets holding up his shirtsleeves and an eyeshade keeping back the glare from the large, plate glass window. He twitched a little when Hart headed for him, one side of his mouth pinching up and one hand fussing with a quill pen.

  ‘Name’s Hart. Got a room for me?’

  ‘Hart?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve got a room for you. Yes, Hart. Yes.’ He turned the register round for Hart to sign and hand him the pen. His hand was shaking more than a little.