The woman frowned. Behind her the boy let go of one of her hands and teetered, then peered at Hart around the woman’s head.
‘Smells good,’ Hart said.
The woman turned away from him and lifted the child so that he was sitting on the edge of the table, his small hands clutching it, his legs slightly swinging. She went over to the sideboard and took down a cup from a hook, set it on a saucer, took them both to the stove and lifted the pot clear with the help of a cloth, balancing cup and saucer in her left hand. The coffee came out black and steaming.
Hart accepted the cup and said, ‘Thanks a lot.’
She looked back at him blankly and turned towards the boy. Hart took the coffee out into the dining room and pushed back one of the chairs. He sat with his back pushed up against the wall, the heels of his boots hooked over the rungs of another chair. If she didn’t want to talk that was her business.
In fifteen minutes he was down at the livery stable, tightening the girth of his saddle. The dapple-grey mare twisted her head and pushed it against him. Hart smiled and set one hand against the animal’s warm nose and patted it hard, stroked it; he stood back and slotted one foot into the stirrup, grasped the saddle pommel and swung himself on board. From what Miller had told him, it would be an easy hour’s ride out to the Shire ranch.
The trail followed the line of an old riverbed east of the town, the land rising slowly, a line of hills forming hazily to the north and ahead timber. Clear now above the mist of hills the sun was round and orange, huge. A single blackbird flew between Hart and the sun, was outlined against it then lost for a moment in its intense color as though it had been burned up. With a flap of wings it emerged at the other side and flew on.
Hart turned Clay off the trail and rode towards the sun, seeking higher ground. They carved a passage between swathes of switch grass and big bluestem, grasses that rose as high as Hart’s knees and which closed behind horse and rider after they had passed through.
As they climbed the grass became shorter-stemmed, needle grass and then blue grama. Hart moved the mare through a half-circle and dismounted. Immediately, the animal began to feed. Hart squatted down and surveyed the land to the southeast. There was another valley winding its way between the rise and fall of prairie, fertile this one, not sunken and cracked and old like the one he had met up with short of town. In patches along its path there were thickets of small trees clustering close - wild plum and walnut, hackberry.
Hart remained still: in the middle distance he picked out the flat dark of buildings which he took to be the Shire ranch. Close by him, a pair of rabbits chased one another until they realized he was there, a tip of tail and they disappeared.
‘Clay.’ Hart’s voice was soft but the grey shifted her head away from the grass she was cropping and eyed him. ‘Let’s go.’
The first fence was maybe a mile short of the ranch and the sign posted on it left no room for doubt: Warning! No Texas Cattle - No Texas Cattlemen. Hart leaned over and opened the gate and passed through, closing it behind him. A thin spiral of smoke rose up past the worn trail and the lazy, bent heads of cattle. Hart rode towards it.
The first man picked him up roughly half a mile from the ranch building. He was careful not to come too close, kept way to the side; but he was close enough to let Hart know that he was there, close enough to show the saddle gun that had been drawn and was crooked inside the man’s arm. The second showed soon after and on the other side; this one was bolder, knowing there were two of them now, he rode to within twenty yards and Hart could see the hard lines of his face beneath the pulled-down brim of the battered Stetson.
A couple of cowhands who’d ridden herd since they’d been big enough to ride, near enough, and now they felt themselves threatened without ever quite being certain why or how. But the Texan herds and the Texan cowboys were something they could recognize and that made it easier. They could blame the longhorns for diseases their own cattle picked up and died from; they could blame the men who drove the cattle up from the south for lowering the price of beef and raising the cost of transporting them to market. They didn’t understand, quite, but they clung to what understanding they had like it was gospel. That was what made them dangerous.
Hart ignored the two men and rode easy, making it look as if he knew where he was going and why, as if he’d do his business and ride back the same unhurried way.
Hart wondered if that would be the case.
When he saw Dink straddling a length of fence post close by one of the outhouses, he wondered all the more.
The sallow-faced youngster watched him with more than passing interest, eyes peering from under the bent-down brim of his hat, but he gave no sure sign of recognizing him. Both men knew that he had. Hart tightened for a moment his grip on the reins gathered through his left hand and touched the smooth surface of his saddle with his right. If Dink was here then so were the others: somewhere.
More men were appearing - one with a pitchfork from a high barn, a couple from the bunkhouse, one of them holding a frying pan, the other a pistol; a tall, bald Mexican led a mule almost into Hart’s path, not quite enough to make Hart either stop or swerve. The Mexican stared up at Hart and shook his head as if to suggest that Hart was making a big mistake. Ten yards past the Mex, a pair of men came out from between two low buildings and stood in Hart’s way.
One of these was Matthew Jakes.
Both of them had pistols drawn and angled upwards.
Jakes was wearing the same high Stetson, with the top pinched in four ways, the same cartridge belt slung across his shirt. His beard was bushier than ever, threatening to take over the whole of his face and neck. The man alongside him was six inches shorter, which still left him pretty tall. He was wearing clothes that were a whole lot cleaner than Jakes’ and he had a beard and moustache that were trimmed and neat. It was this one who spoke.
‘What’s your business?’
‘None of yours.’
The man grinned, despite himself. ‘That’s spunky talk for a feller with at least three guns pointin’ straight at him and half a dozen more almost there.’
Hart assumed that the Mexican had pulled his pistol in back but he didn’t turn to see. ‘You foreman here?’ he asked the man standing next to Jakes.
‘Right. Stoddard.’
Hart nodded: ‘Shire around?’
‘Could be.’
‘Tell him I want to see him.’
‘I didn’t say he was here.’
‘I did say I wanted to see him.’
Behind Hart somebody, maybe the Mexican, whistled.
‘You have got a lot of balls,’ said Stoddard.
‘Yeah,’ laughed Jakes. ‘An’ they want cuttin’ off.’
Stoddard looked at him quickly. ‘You the man to do that?’
Jakes licked his tongue down into his beard. ‘You bet I am. Cut ‘em off and stuff ‘em in that big mouth of his.’
Stoddard laughed. Hart leaned forward in the saddle. ‘Jakes, if I had the time an’ if I figured you were worth botherin’ with then I’d trim you down to size. But you ain’t worth shit!’
Hart straightened and turned his attention to the foreman, who was laughing more than might have been wise. The Mexican was laughing, too. Jakes’ eyes were blazing and the finger on the trigger of his Colt .45 was beginning to squeeze down. Hart looked back at Jakes, spoke to Stoddard.
‘You goin’ to tell him I’m here?’
‘What makes you think he wants to see you?’
‘Letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘Letter he sent me in town.’
‘Bullshit!’ mouthed Jakes.
‘You got this letter?’ asked Stoddard.
Hart patted his vest pocket with his left hand.
Stoddard held out his left hand. ‘Le’me see.’
‘It weren’t written to you. Now get back to the house and let Shire know I’m here or quit wastin’ my time an’ let me by. I’ll tell him myself.’
> Stoddard grinned and scratched his head. ‘Jose! Tell the boss.’
The Mexican holstered his gun and set off towards the two-story building that was sideways on to the last of three corrals. There were high windows on both floors and a front door that was reached by climbing a curving set of six steps. There was glass in the windows but no curtains behind them. The Mex had got as far as the bottom step when the door opened and Clancy Shire appeared.
Hart understood why there was ramp fixed over the center of the steps.
Shire looked to be middle aged, a shock of brown hair that tended to hang over his left eye. His shoulders were broad, his chest suggested strength, his head was held high and proud. He moved strong hands and set the wheelchair rolling down the ramp and on to the hard ground. Steadily, he propelled himself towards where the men were gathered. Stoddard and Jakes drew back a little, their weapons still drawn. There was a rug over Shire’s body from the waist downwards; whatever remained of him it was impossible to see.
‘You Hart?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You got my letter?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Let’s go inside and talk.’
Hart dismounted and the Mexican took the reins of the grey and said he’d water her. Hart nodded and followed in the twin trail Shire’s wheelchair left in the dust.
There was little furniture and what there was had been widely spaced to allow Shire easy access. The interior of the house was plain, totally lacking in ornament, in anything which Hart would have said denoted a woman’s hand. He followed Shire into a room that was part office, part dining room. The rancher went over to a roll-top desk and slid up the wooden shutter. He took a long envelope from a drawer and swung the chair through a circle, holding the envelope out towards Hart. ‘Take it.’
Hart shook his head.
‘How much more? ‘
‘That ain’t it.’
Clancy Shire let the envelope rest on the plaid rug that was wrapped about his lower half.
‘You come in. What else for?’ For an instant a slight flicker of fear shifted across the back of Shire’s eyes as he thought about the Colt holstered at the regulator’s hip. It was there and then gone: Shire wasn’t a man to have much truck with fear.
‘Talk.’
‘I said what I got to say on that note. You ain’t no regular lawman, your gun fires for whatever side’s got the most money. Right now, that’s me. How much they payin’ you back in Caldwell?’
‘Two hundred a month.’
Shire laughed: it was a good laugh, clear and free and open. When he laughed he was handsome; Hart wondered what he had been like before he had been reduced to moving around in a wheelchair. He wanted to ask him about it, how it had happened. He didn’t. He waited for the rancher’s laugh to subside.
‘I’m paying three hundred here and now for you to ride out and keep riding.’
Hart shook his head. ‘It’s a threat. I don’t take to threats.’
‘Don’t be a fool. I know your kind. Stubborn as a blind mule on account of you think that’s the way a man has to be. Don’t see a damned thing.’ He picked up the envelope and held it forward. ‘This isn’t a threat, it’s a payment. Money. Here, take it.’
‘But if I don’t?’
Shire simply looked back at him. ‘Then you’ll be more of a fool than at present I take you for.’
‘Then it’s a threat.’
Clancy Shire heeled himself over to a cupboard and opened a section and took out a bottle. ‘It’s brandy.’
‘No whiskey?’
‘Can’t stand the stuff.’
‘All right. Brandy. Thanks.’
Hart sat on a hardwood chair opposite Shire, the sun coming in strong through the glass of the window, the glass itself smeared and diffusing the light but not its warmth. Hart wondered if Shire was too hot under the rug. Again he wanted to ask him what had happened. He saw Matthew Jakes walking from barn to corral and said: ‘Why pay money for trash like that?’
Shire shrugged. ‘You know him?’
‘We met up once. Him an’ Dink and them twins that ride with him.’ He looked evenly at Shire. ‘That the best you can dredge up from the border?’
‘There’s not much to choose between most men who sell their guns.’ Shire fingered the rim of his glass and it sang. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’
Hart didn’t say anything.
‘What difference does it make to you? My money or theirs. Is it because taking mine is running away? Is that it? Something about your pride?’
‘Maybe.’
Shire held the glass between his eyes and the sun; the brandy glowed golden. ‘It’s a fool’s game. That kind of pride.’ He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face. ‘I was proud one time, that kind of proud.’ The eyes opened. ‘Spent the rest of my life regretting it.’
He turned to Hart: ‘Don’t you do that.’
‘Ain’t only that,’ Hart said. ‘They hired me first. I took the job. I guess I’ll do it best I can.’
‘You think they’re right?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Then…’
‘I maybe don’t think any folks are right all down the line.’
‘So it’s easier if you don’t have to make a choice?’
‘Meanin’?’
‘Go with the first bidder and to hell with thinkin’ out right or wrong.’
Hart swallowed the remainder of the brandy too fast and it bit the back of his throat and made him cough. He stood up and set the glass down. ‘Someone tried to set me up in the saloon first night I arrived. That you?’
‘No. All I did was arrange for that letter to be in your room.’
Hart nodded.
‘You believe me?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s more than me want to see Fairburn’s ideas about the railroad squashed. There’s a lot more want the quarantine line brought down all the way south to the state line.’
‘I know.’
‘And they’ll do anything to make it happen.’
‘I know that, too.’
‘Then step aside.’
Hart looked down at him. ‘Take the money and run?’
Clancy Shire shrugged his still powerful shoulders. ‘You know I was nothing to do with what happened in town. What else you got to say to me, say it. I’ve got a ranch to run.’
‘I wanted you to know I’m goin’ to do the job I’ve been hired to do. I wanted to tell you that if you send men to try and stop me, if those guns you hired cheap come close, I’ll blast them away. That’s about all.’
Shire stared back at him. ‘All right. You said it.’
Hart’s footsteps clipped the boards of the floor, echoed through the largely empty house. He wondered what that sound did to Shire, sitting a prisoner of his own wheelchair, knowing it was a sound he would never be able to make for himself.
Matthew Jakes was leaning against the door frame of the first bunkhouse, a piece of straw in the corner of his mouth. The Mexican brought Hart’s mount towards him; paused and nodded in Jakes’ direction.
‘Watch your back if you have to pass him.’
There was sweat running freely along the high dome of the Mexican’s bald head.
‘Okay.’
‘He has been bragging that he will kill you and take your gun away. That gun…’ And he glanced down at the Colt’s mother-of-pearl butt. ‘… he wants it very much.’
Hart grinned. ‘Not as much as I do.’
He climbed into the saddle and Clay set off at a walk. There were other men watching him, Stoddard and Dink among them, but he’d seen nothing of the Donaldson twins.
He was sure they were around somewhere; he hoped it wasn’t somewhere at his back with rifles. Jakes hadn’t moved from the bunkhouse doorway, the straw still bobbed in his mouth. His right hand was close enough to the grip of his gun that were he to stretch his fingers to their fullest extent they would have rested upon it.
Hart pulled a little on the reins, so that the grey had to pass by him close.
Alongside, less than three feet separating them, Hart reined in.
‘Somethin’ on your mind?’ asked Jakes insolently.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘An’ what would that be?’
Hart slipped his left boot from its stirrup fast, the back swing of the leg wasn’t great but still it gathered force enough. The underside of the toe caught Jakes on the breast bone and he smashed back against the edge of the door frame with a sharp cry. The straw fluttered towards the ground.
Before it touched Hart had leaned over in the saddle and grasped Jakes’ greasy shirt front and hauled him back away from the wall. Jakes’ mouth was open, eyes staring with surprise. Hart hurled him back against the angle of the wood and he was down from the saddle too fast for the bigger man to recover.
Jakes tried to get his hand to his pistol but Hart jabbed his elbow down on to the muscle of Jakes’ forearm, lifted his knee hard into Jakes’ groin. With a moan of pain the bushy head jolted forward and Hart punched into the middle of it, twice, three times.
When he stepped back, Matthew Jakes pitched forward on to his face, rolled sideways and was still.
Wes Hart hadn’t finished.
He walked quickly between the group of men who were watching, some of them with their hands on their guns, and picked an oaken bucket from the ground. This he splashed into a trough of water and carried back to where Jakes was still unmoving. He lifted the man’s face up with his boot and hurled the water into his face.
Dink came hurrying forward, looking as if he might interfere, but a warning look from Stoddard was sufficient to stop him.
Jakes was spluttering back to consciousness.
Hart dragged him to his feet and threw him back against the wall; the planking gave a little. Hart drew his gun.
‘You want this?’
Matthew Jakes looked at him with difficulty; one of his eyes was already closing, a fold of bloodied skin wrapping itself puffily about the pupil.
‘Huh? You sayin’ you want this?’ He thrust the gun close to Jakes’ face.
‘Sure, I…’
‘‘Specially the grip, that’s what you like, ain’t it? This fancy grip.’
Hart the Regulator 5 Page 7
