‘Jimmy,’ said Hardin, ‘go hurry that fool on.’
‘You bet!’
But Hardin called out after the youth when he was no more than a couple of paces away. ‘Forget it! Let him take his own time. It’s this damn Mason gettin’ me in a sweat. Come back and get settled. Carson’ll be here with time a-plenty.’
Jim Mann shrugged and did as he was told. He didn’t see why Daley Carson had needed to go off for yet more whiskey anyhow. But then he didn’t consume nearly as much as the rest of them.
~*~
Wes Hart saw one of Hardin’s men start off down the platform, looking as if he was going in search of the one already in the diner. Then he heard a voice he presumed to be Hardin’s, though he couldn’t distinguish the words, and saw the man turn back on his heels and board the train.
Why the hell hadn’t they all boarded together?
He looked out for a sign that the captain was making his own move, but he appeared to be giving Hardin time to relax and settle down. Back along the platform there was no sign of the fifth man emerging. Hart smoothed his palm along the butt of his Colt, mouth tight shut, nerves honed to the sharpest edge. His stomach was flat and hollow. The door to the diner opened and someone came out. Hart wedged himself deeper back into the shadow and watched as the man boarded the train lower down. It could have been the one he was looking for but it wasn’t light enough to be sure. He might have got on the train at the nearest point and be intending to walk through from car to car until he found Hardin.
Hart hesitated, uncertain what to do.
~*~
In the midst of that uncertainty, Captain Armstrong nudged Ollie Halverton and made his move from the door of the freight depot to the train.
~*~
Inside the coach Hardin took off his hat and flicked it neatly on to one of the empty seats. He flopped down into the seat nearest to him, the springs complaining so loudly that a couple of the men laughed and Jimmy Mann threw out a remark about Hardin’s weight. Mann promptly sat facing him on the opposite side of the aisle. Mason hesitated about sitting facing the engine or not and finally chose the window seat next to Hardin. That left Masters in the aisle.
He was still there when Captain Armstrong clambered up the steps and threw back the coach door. The only one facing him was Jimmy Mann and nothing about the Ranger seemed to register. Armstrong was using a cane and although he had a holster tied down to his right leg, his gun was safe inside it.
Masters turned his head at the noise and said, ‘This coach is private.’
Armstrong grunted something inaudible and took a couple of clumsy paces along the gangway.
‘I said ...’
But now there was another man close behind the first and things didn’t look so good. Hardin saw doubt flicker across Masters’ face and he pushed himself up and round in his seat. He didn’t need to recognize Armstrong to understand.
‘Texas, by God!’ he shouted and twisted the top half of his body, hand plunging inside his coat. Jimmy Mann let out a nervous laugh and sprang to his feet. The door at the far end of the coach opened with a slam and Lamar cannoned into Masters’ back. The pair of them fell sideways, half on to and half off the seats, struggling and punching.
Hardin’s fingers tightened on the butt of his .44 and he jerked it from the holster. Half-way clear, the foresight snagged against the elastic of his suspender.
Jimmy Mann thumbed back the hammer of his Smith and Wesson and fired from just above the hip, the shell skimming through the crown of Captain Armstrong’s hat.
Armstrong straightened his right arm from the elbow, squeezed back on the trigger and shot the youngster through the chest. Mann was driven back against the end of the seat hard, head coming forward, a gout of bright blood spewing from his mouth on to the floor.
Hardin cursed and pulled his pistol free from under his coat just as the Ranger captain lashed out with his cane. It struck the gunman on the side of the wrist and knocked arm and weapon aside, a .44 slug discharging through the window and shattering it outwards.
Close by Hardin, Mason threw his hands above his head and shouted that he had no gun.
Armstrong jumped Hardin, grabbing for his gun hand, missing the hand itself but seizing the barrel of his pistol. Armstrong brought round his own pistol fast and smacked the side of the long barrel alongside Hardin’s temple. The gunfighter’s legs shook but refused to give way. Both men struggled for control of Hardin’s .44, Ollie Halverton looking for a chance to intervene.
Outside, Wes Hart heard a shout at his back and saw the door to the adjoining coach swing open. The man who came running through had a six-gun in one hand, a whiskey bottle in the other.
‘Hold it there!’ called Hart.
Daley Carson kept on coming.
Hart shot him through the fleshy part of the right shoulder and Carson lurched back against the door and dropped the bottle crashing down the steps.
‘Christ!’ he yelled and went tumbling after it.
Hart waited until he’d finished rolling and clubbed him unconscious with the butt end of his Colt.
O’Reilly was running along the platform. A lot of folk were shouting and screaming. Back inside the coach Jimmy Mann had got to his feet and evaded Ollie, jumping on to one of the seats. Ollie called for him to stay where he was. Mann threw himself through the already shattered window and on to the boards of the platform.
Armstrong brought the barrel of his gun down on Hardin’s temple for the third time. There was blood over both of them, most of it Hardin’s.
Out on the platform, Jimmy Mann somehow got to his knees, blood thick on his shirt. O’Reilly took careful aim and kicked into the center of his face, breaking his nose in two places.
Masters was down on all fours against one of the seats, Lamar leaning over him, the tip of his pistol barrel resting on the nape of Masters’ neck. Apart from a lot of unsteady breathing, neither man was moving.
Wes Hart came into the coach as Armstrong was hauling Hardin to his feet, a lot of pride showing through the splashings of blood.
‘Let’s get this trash outside!’ he said.
Climbing down the steps to the platform, his wrists manacled together and Armstrong’s pistol square at the small of his back, Hardin caught sight of Wes Hart.
‘You bastard!’ he yelled. ‘I said I’d kill you …’
He raised his hands high and jumped off the steps towards Hart, intending to pummel him to the ground. As he was in mid-air, Armstrong thrust his cane high between his legs, tripping him. Hart neatly side-stepped and drew his holstered Colt. The fast arc of it struck Hardin’s forehead hard enough to break the skin and draw a gouging line of blood.
‘You said it okay.’ Hart stood over him. ‘You said it an’, you mean an’ miserable bastard, you was wrong!’
On 1 October 1878, John Wesley Hardin was sentenced to twenty-five years in the Texas State Penitentiary for the murder of Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb. In prison he studied law between periods of hard labor and was released and pardoned on 17 February 1894. His wife, Jane, died while he was in the penitentiary.
Released, he set up a law office in Gonzales, Texas, then moved to Junction. Here he met and married a young girl called Callie Lewis, who left him on the same day as their wedding. Hardin moved to El Paso, still attempting to practice law. He took up with a crew of gamblers and low-lives and crossed two El Paso policemen, the Selmans, father and son. After some public arguing the older Selman, a former Texan gunfighter, walked up behind Hardin while he was shooting dice and shot him through the back of the head. The bullet tore his skull and emerged through his eye.
Wes Hart quit the Texas Rangers on the last day of August, 1877. He rode into New Mexico and fought for John Chisum in the Lincoln County Range War. Along with Dick Brewer and a skinny youngster named Billy Bonney, he was one of Chisum’s and Tunstall’s unofficial posse of Regulators. When Hart left New Mexico and struck out for Indian Territory on his own, the name Regulator just stuc
k.
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