Hart threw himself to his left, hand arching downwards towards his Colt. As his left shoulder and hip hit the boards his fingers touched the grip and tightened; he rolled fast and pulled the Colt clear of its holster. Straightening, steadying himself with left hand hard against the planking, he thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the smooth metal of the trigger back against the guard.
There was a double explosion and one shot was his.
The ferryman was hurled back through the air as if he’d been punched in the chest by a steel fist. His feet left the deck and he cannoned into the rump of Hart’s mare, which shied and stamped her hoofs. The ferryman sank forwards on to his knees and stared at Hart, who worked the hammer for another shot.
Blood trickled from the edges of the ferryman’s mouth and ran through his gray whiskers, staining them bright red. He tried to hold onto his pistol but it fell away and bounced into a shallow puddle, spinning through a slow circle. Hunched, humped, the man gazed at Hart, blinked then coughed. His head went back and he opened his mouth wide; the chuckling laugh was drowned in a splutter of blood.
His head lurched forwards and down and hit the boards with a crack.
Hart swung his gun to the side – Jefferson was lying on his side, both hands pressed to his stomach, legs drawn up close. Like he was sleeping.
And the boy…? The boy...
Hart turned again but not fast enough. A bunched fist hammered down on to his gun arm and the pain shot from bone to brain and back. His hand opened and the Colt fell away. The same fist moved fast and caught Hart under the ribs. He went backwards and lost his footing, sliding on the wet, rocking surface. Jonah jumped, knee angled and driving for Hart’s groin. Hart moved fast but not fast enough. The knee drove down into the inside of his thigh and his eyes closed tight with the sharpness of the pain.
His leg went numb.
Hands were at his throat and he flung up both arms and tried to knock them away. The grip was loosened but still held fast. Through Hart’s mind flashed the image of the boy’s hands tight about the ferry rope. He swung his head sideways and sank his teeth into the boy’s wrist. Jonah shouted and let go his grip, swinging a punch with his right hand. Hart ducked inside it and the fist smashed into the deck.
Hart moved his head again and rammed it hard into the boy’s face. There was a crunch of bone and Jonah staggered back, blood streaming from his nose. Hart dived. Head and hand sank into Jonah’s belly and the two of them landed in a heap by the far side of the ferry.
Hart stepped on the boy’s arm and jumped back; the deck moved sideways underneath him and he was almost thrown off balance again. He caught sight of his Colt wedged against Jefferson’s curved neck and turned towards it. An arm wound about his neck and something – a knee or a fist – hammered into the small of his back.
He was thrown round and away; saw the side of the deck and the chopping waves of the river beyond; one leg gave underneath him and he threw out his arms. A line before his eyes, blurred and indistinct and then the thick rope was tearing at his throat: tearing: burning.
Hart’s body slid through underneath the rope and for seconds he was hanging on it, fibers biting into his neck, the skin under his jaw. The rope burnt his face like fire as he grazed past in, down into the water. The side of the deck thumped into his head. Hart let himself go beneath the surface, drifting down with the current.
When he splashed clear and gasped in air, the ferry was ten yards to his left and moving in the direction of the opposite bank. The preacher’s son was yanking on the rope as fast as he could, hand over hand over hand.
Hart shook his head again, gulped in more air and started to swim, fighting the current as it tried to drive him with it.
The heavy ferry was finding the going more difficult than he was. From time to time Jonah would glance round but it needed all his energies to reach the shore.
Hart came level with the back of the deck and struck out more strongly, swimming along the far side away from the rope.
He reached up a hand and clung on: the end of the ferry ground against the bank. Jonah jumped clear with the tie-rope and slithered through the first few feet of mud until he had the thing secured. When he turned Hart was out of the water.
The two stood facing one another. The boy’s eyes widened in his round, smooth face and his mouth opened; he made a choked, guttural sound and charged. The strongly muscled body gleamed. On the end of the ferry, Hart braced himself, hands curved open and outstretched.
As Jonah closed fast, Hart grabbed across for his right arm with his own right hand and swiveled low, throwing his hip into the boy’s stomach. There was a crunch of bone and the side of Hart’s body jarred; the boy was falling, trying to bring Hart down with him.
Hart evaded one flailing arm and aimed a punch at Jonah’s head. The blow landed and it was like hitting rock. A boot kicked into Hart’s belly and he went back fast; Jonah rolled and sprang after him. Hart found himself thrown against his own horse and turned so that his face struck the leather of the saddle and cannoned away. Again, the arm slid round his neck and tightened. Sweat and heat. Through the flesh and muscle, the hardness of bone. Choking, grinding back against the skin where the rope had burnt it. Tight. Tight. Tight.
Hart’s fingers fumbled blindly for the saddle pommel; closed about the haft of the knife.
He swung his elbow hard into his attacker’s stomach and wrenched his neck sideways – the arm tightened further. Hart’s mouth gasped vainly for air. His head throbbed. He struck back again and brought the knife against the arm. The blade sliced through flesh, touching bone. As the elbow moved and the grip loosened, Hart twisted inside it.
He saw the big, open eyes, the staring, uncomprehending face and drove the knife with all his strength, going upwards in a short swing, up between the ribs.
Jonah was jolted backwards and Hart pulled the knife clear. The blade, the front of the boy’s shirt, were fresh with blood. Jonah stared at it, unable to believe. He tossed his head and came for Hart again, but Hart sidestepped and struck out with the end of the bone handle clenched tight. The boy went sprawling across the deck and landed on his face. Hart pushed the knife down into his belt and picked up his gun from where it had become wedged under Jefferson’s body.
He turned the boy over. Where he had been laying, puddles on the deck had reddened.
‘Why? Why d’you do it? Who paid you to do it?’
Jonah shook his head then looked at the body of the ferryman.
Hart knelt in front of him, catching hold of the bloodied front of his shirt. ‘Who the hell was it? Who?’
The preacher’s son opened his mouth and deep in the red, dark space Hart could glimpse the root of tongue moving vainly. The sounds that emerged were nothing more than that; rehearsals of words which would never be heard.
Hart stood up.
He bent down by Jefferson. The shell had gone in close to the heart and the front of his coat and shirt were matted with blood. Jagged edges of skin and material stuck to one another around the exit wound in his back. Likely he’d been dead before hitting the boards. Hart went through his pockets and found a faded letter he didn’t bother to read and a handful of dollar bills. He pushed the bills into his own pocket.
The ferryman had a piece of gold inside a tobacco sack in his pocket. Hart weighed it in the palm of his hand, guessing that what he was doing was weighing the value of his own life. He couldn’t put it at more than a hundred dollars. That didn’t seem too much to him.
He stood on the ferry, throwing the gold up and down and looking from body to body to body. The preacher’s son was stretched out on his back and his eyes were closed; the knife wound in his chest was still seeping blood. Hart thought he was still alive but didn’t know how long for.
Hell, he’d made his choice!
He untethered Clay and led the dapple gray up on to the bank. The gold piece was deep in his own pocket. Hart reached out and cut the tie-rope, slipping the knife back into the Indian sheath
hanging from the saddle.
Somewhere to the north-west was a man who might give him a job; somewhere also was someone who was willing to pay to see him dead, someone who would kill him himself if he got the chance.
Hart climbed into the saddle and swiveled round: the ferry had started slowly to drift downstream, the sun still picking out the crested heads of waves as the current bore it along.
Chapter Five
Turkey Creek ran north to south in a wavering line that took it into the Cimarron. Close by it was the stage line from the Kansas border to Fort Reno on the North Fork of the Canadian River. Either side of the creek was tall prairie grass, the reddish soil showing through close to its banks.
If Fredericks was selling grazing rights, thought Hart, then he’d sure picked a good place to do it. Instead of keeping their herds through the hard Texas winter and then driving them north after the spring round-up, the big ranchers could move the longhorns as far as Indian Territory in the fall and let them winter there, where the climate was kinder. They’d fatten up on that lush prairie grass and the early spring would see the herds pushed the short distance north to the railroad.
And Fredericks sat in the middle and waited for the money to come rolling in. All he needed was a wide, peaceful stretch of range and nothing too much in the way of competition.
Hart lifted the water canteen from his saddle pommel and unscrewed the top. The water was warm and tasted stale. The sun was dipping down behind a low roll of hills far to the west. The land was darkening, closing in as it folded towards the creek valley.
He thought about refilling the canteen but decided against it. Better to reach the Fredericks place before he lost the light. Ten miles back he’d pulled in his horse near a sodbuster’s place and asked for directions. At the sound of Fredericks’ name the family had gone quiet, cold. The thin, balding father had looked again at Hart’s holstered Colt and his saddle guns and then glanced at the long-barreled Sharps leaning close by his own doorway. The girl with shaved hair had hurried to her mother and pressed close against her long skirts. Two boys stopped sawing wood and stared.
‘What’s passed between you?’ Hart had asked.
The man shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Only?’
‘Only he don’t like us here. Don’t like our kind gettin’ in his hair, messin’ with his range.’
‘Thought you had a right,’ said Hart.
The man spat sideways and pressed his boot down over it. ‘Maybe Fredericks got his own ideas as to what’s right.’
Hart nodded. One of the boys was moving slowly round towards where the Sharps was resting against the sod wall.
‘Tell your boy to stay where he is. I don’t want to add to your troubles none.’ Hart’s voice was soft, easy. The father turned and the son stood where he was, simply looking back at him.
The woman spoke for the first time. She was tall, almost as tall as her husband; her hair was tied into a tight bundle on top of her head; her arms were wiry and veined, hands pressed against the dark material of her skirt.
‘If we tell you how to find Fredericks, how do we know he won’t send you back here to throw us off our land?’
‘Ma’am,’ Hart began, ‘neither of us...’
‘Mary,’ interrupted the father, ‘he’s going to find the place with or without our help.’ He turned back towards Hart. ‘Go north along the creek another ten or so miles. You’ll see a hill with a squarish top off to the west. Head for that. Fredericks’ place is a couple of miles on.’
Hart nodded: ‘Thanks.’
He raised a hand towards the rest of the family and pulled the gray around. The man stepped towards him.
‘One thing. When we come out here it was with a Bible in our hands and God in our heads and hearts. We still got the Bible, only it’s back inside. That Sharps is nearer our hands now. You can’t beat this land with God alone, we found that out. You do come back here, remember that.’
Hart put out his hand and the man reached up and shook it; it was a good, firm grip.
‘I’ll remember,’ he said.
Hart glanced back once and they were standing as he’d left them, like a tableau, watching.
By the time he reached the turn-off from the creek the sun was setting behind the square hill. Dark clouds moved slowly over it, their undersides lit with orange. Purple-orange light spread about either side of the hill and the top seemed settled with molten fire. As the horizon moved further to each side, the line of light dipped and darkened, sinking through a field of yellow.
Hart reined in Clay and freed his blanket from behind the saddle, slipping it over his body, where the evening cold had been biting into his shoulders.
The Fredericks place was set back against a rise of land, a stream that flowed into Turkey Creek passing close in front of it. When Hart saw it first he could only pick out the outline – a square building, two storeys high. As he rode nearer, details became clearer. Steps at the side of the house, leading up to a door on the first floor. The main door, wide and painted white. Glassed windows set in square crisscrossed frames. At one of these, on the ground floor to the left of the door, a light showed. For a moment Hart glimpsed a figure passing in front of it, between lamp and window.
‘Hold it!’
Hart pulled in on the reins, freeing his right hand to drift towards his holster. Someone was standing in front of the low line of buildings away to the far side of the house, barns and such Hart guessed. Beyond them again was the corral.
‘Who are you, mister?’
‘Come to see Fredericks.’
‘That ain’t no answer.’
‘Maybe it’s all your goin’ to get.’
He could see him now, Stetson angled to one side, wool coat, rifle resting across his left arm. The figure crossed the light inside the house again, deflecting Hart’s attention.
‘I’m askin’ again, who are you? What’s your business?’
‘I told you, I want to see Fredericks.’
‘You see me first.’
Hart sighed; his fingers were touching the smooth leather of the gun belt now, almost on the mother-of-pearl grip of the Colt.
‘Man named Jefferson...’
‘The mulatto?’
‘That’s him. Told me to ride out an’ see Fredericks ‘bout a job.’
There was a pause and then the man with the rifle took a couple of paces closer. ‘Why don’t you get down off that horse of yours?’
‘Why don’t you put up the rifle?’
The white door swung open and a man came out. ‘What’s the trouble, Peters?’
‘No trouble. This feller just rode in. Said he wanted to see you. Said Jefferson told him to come. No sign of Jefferson, though. I was just checking him out, Mr. Fredericks.’
Fredericks looked up at Hart, waited a few moments, thinking.
‘Come into the house and we’ll talk. Peters, see to his horse.’
Hart waited until the man had put up his rifle and then slid from the saddle and followed Fredericks into the building. There was a small hallway with a wool rug laid down on painted boards, doors to either side. Fredericks opened the door to the left and light spilled out.
‘Come in.’
The room was perhaps twenty foot square and carpeted. There were dark green curtains, not drawn, hanging by the windows in the front and side wall. The back wall was lined with bookshelves from bottom to top, mostly stacked solid with leather-bound volumes. An oil lamp stood on a central table, swelling smoked glass on a polished brass base. There was another, longer and lower table and three armchairs. The woman in one of the chairs had black hair taken away from her white face into a bun. There was a jeweled slide in the side of her hair and her lips were painted deep red. She was wearing a black dress with a black lace shawl over her otherwise bare shoulders. One leg was crossed over the other beneath the flared skirt of the dress.
She leaned back in the chair and stared openly at Hart, taking in his lean tallness, t
he Indian blanket that hung diagonally from his right shoulder, the flat-crowned hat angled low, the dust of the trail on his pants and boots and face. The faded blue eyes that were answering her stare.
‘This is my wife,’ said Fredericks, moving towards her.
‘Ma’am,’ said Hart nodding with a quick dip of the head.
She opened the fingers of her hand and spread them along the arm of the chair. ‘Bonney,’ she said. ‘Bonney Fredericks.’
Fredericks put his hand on the back of her chair so that it was just touching the lace of her shawl. With a slight shrug she moved her body forward.
‘Wes Hart, ma’am.’
He looked past her at her husband. Fredericks was thick– set, a couple of inches under six foot. His dark hair was brushed away from a parting on the right of his head. He had a nose that was a little too large for his face, a mouth that was too small. His cheeks were florid and beginning to sag some with loose flesh.
He was wearing a dark suit flecked with light gray, the buttons of the vest undone. He didn’t seem to be carrying a gun.
Hart put him at around forty years of age.
‘You said something about Jefferson?’ Fredericks asked.
Hart nodded. ‘Met him in Guthrie. According to him, you were looking to hire a man. Jefferson seemed to think I might be him.’
Fredericks blinked: ‘What kind of man?’
Hart looked at him coolly. ‘One that can use a gun.’
Mrs. Fredericks moved her hand again, touching it to her other arm.
‘Why should l...?’
‘He said you were gettin’ trouble. Needed someone to sort it out.’
Fredericks stepped away from his wife’s chair, turned and looked at her. ‘Bonney, would you like to step outside while we discuss this matter?’
The eyes flashed: ‘No, Jackson, I don’t think I should care to step outside.’
Her body remained relaxed but the words were as taut and dangerous as a length of oiled rope.
Hart the Regulator 2 Page 4
