Hart the Regulator 5 Page 11

  ‘I didn’t expect…’

  ‘No, no, not after … after what my husband said. Only…’ Emily faltered and looked around the room. She gave the waitress a quick half-smile.

  ‘Why don’t you come over and sit down? Rest here a while.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Hart turned to ask the woman to fetch more coffee, but she had already gone into the kitchen.

  ‘With you in town like this,’ Hart said, ‘I guess it must be somethin’ special’

  ‘Yes, it is. It is. Did you hear her?’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Out there earlier. Aronia Hawthorne.5

  ‘Is that who she was? Hawthorne?’

  ‘Aronia Hawthorne.’ Emily’s eyes shone. ‘Isn’t she just a wonderful speaker?’

  ‘Powerful, ma’am. I’ll say that for her.’

  ‘Then you don’t agree with what she said?’ asked Emily, leaning forward, a note of surprise folding into her voice.

  ‘Well,’ Hart hesitated, ‘I’ll admit there was somethin’ there, but it seemed a little extreme…’

  ‘Extreme? But after listening to her and…’

  She broke off as the waitress arrived with a pot of coffee and a fresh cup. Using a mixture of mime and mouthed, silent words, she asked Emily whether the children wanted milk to drink. For the first time Hart glimpsed the short stump of tongue at the back of her mouth.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Emily, after a while, ‘I was forgetting that you were being paid to help bring these dreadful men to Caldwell, not keep them away.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Hart. ‘Texans ain’t dreadful. Not the whole bunch of ‘em, no more than Kansans.’

  ‘Mr. Hart, let me tell you, I have seen these men with my own eyes and I’ve heard the way they have spoken to my husband when he tried to prevent them from using our land. I have…’ She tied a knot in the ribbon at the front of her dress, blushing. ‘…heard the things they’ve said to me. Such men aren’t...’

  ‘Such men are one hell of a long way from home an’ they’ve been livin’ rough for week after week for precious little pay. They ain’t seen fireside nor woman since they can remember. Thrown together like that, they cut up rough, sure enough, But drivin’ herd’s a rough life.’

  ‘That may be, but I’m sure Frank would say you were just making excuses.’

  ‘Where is Frank, ma’am? He here in town?’

  For some reason that she would not have been able to explain satisfactorily to herself, Emily’s blush deepened. With the color of her hair, it made her whole face close to beautiful. Hart’s stare told her so and she blushed all the more. Quickly, she picked up her cup and set it in front of her face.

  Hart grinned a little and then smiled at Teresa, who managed a hasty smile in return then hid her face once more.

  ‘No,’ said Emily, ‘Frank he’s … he’s…’

  She stared over her shoulder, as if afraid someone might have that moment entered. Her body shifted closer in the chair and she set the cup back down.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I … the girl who served us,’ she asked with a low voice, ‘can’t she talk? Do you know? What happened to her?’

  Hart glanced round. ‘Never heard her speak. Didn’t realize till just now it was on account of she can’t. Her tongue, it…’

  Emily set a hand to her mouth and screwed up her eyes.

  ‘How dreadful. To imagine…’

  ‘That wasn’t what you was talkin’ about, ma’am. That woman back there.’

  ‘No, I…’ Still the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘You came lookin’ for me, that’s right, ain’t it? You didn’t wander in off the street and away from that meeting by chance. There was somethin’ you had to tell me.’

  His faded blue eyes held her gaze and refused to release it.

  ‘Now best you say what you got to say.’

  She stared back at him, dumbstruck.

  On her back the baby wriggled and began to whimper. The little girl reached up one of her hands to quieten him.

  ‘You was tellin’ me about Frank.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is terrible. I shouldn’t be here.’ She made to go but Hart’s hand, firm but gentle on her arm, prevented her.

  At the back of the dining room, the waitress’s own hands held a knife and she watched what was happening closely, shining the blade slowly.

  ‘He don’t know you’re in town, that it?’

  ‘No, of course not. I wouldn’t come to town without Frank’s permission. I wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Then he knows you’re here.’

  ‘Yes. Aronia Hawthorne’s cause is our cause. We both feel strongly about it.’

  ‘But you ain’t both here.’

  ‘No. He…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m worried, you see.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There was a meeting,’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Frank wasn’t going to go but some men came by a few days ago. They were … they had guns. They said Frank had to go, didn’t have any choice.’ Emily lowered her voice further, so that Hart had to lean forward to catch the words. There was a shout and a cheer from the street, as if the meeting was starting up again. ‘He left last night, said he’d be back some hour today. Said it was all right for me to come here with the children, listen and head straight back.’

  ‘These men,’ asked Hart, ‘were there three of them, wearing long coats, dusters?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Four of them. They didn’t seem to be wearing anything special.’

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  Emily thought back but she didn’t have to think hard. ‘The one who did most of the talking, he was big – much bigger than Frank, bigger than you. He had…’ and she gestured around her face with her small hands ‘…a big beard, sticking out all over. Shouted and cursed.’

  ‘Like a Texan?’ asked Hart sarcastically.

  Emily flinched a little. ‘He certainly wasn’t anyone I’d seen before. Frank neither.’

  ‘He have a couple with him look alike?’

  ‘That’s right. Do you … do you know them?’

  ‘Seen ‘em around.’

  Emily picked up her coffee cup and found it was empty.

  ‘You want some more?’ asked Hart swiveling his head.

  ‘No,’ Emily stopped him. ‘No, thank you, really.’

  ‘Well, it sure isn’t as good as what you make at home.’

  She began to blush again, look pretty again. Both of them knew it.

  ‘Where was this meeting?’

  ‘Shire’s ranch.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Figures. Those are Shire’s men.’

  ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like Frank riding with men like that. He isn’t a fighting man, he doesn’t like to use a gun. Not against other men.’

  She moved her hand and for an instant her eyes looked at Hart appealingly and he thought she was going to rest the hand on his arm. Instead, it hung strangely in mid-air for some seconds before returning to her lap.

  ‘You think what they’re plannin’, it’s usin’ guns?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but … but, yes. I think so.’

  ‘An’ Frank’d go along with that?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. If they make him, put pressure on him.’ Her eyes were bright. ‘I know Frank. He’s stubborn. If he’s convinced that the only way to keep Texas cattle out of the state is to fight, he’ll fight.’

  ‘Against them as wants ‘em in? Other ranchers, them as rent out land for pasture. People like yourselves.’

  Emily put both hands to her face. The waitress got up and carried a box of cutlery into the kitchen. The street seemed to have quietened down again. A man was whistling, off-key, in the bar.

  ‘Whatever he does, whatever you want,’ said Hart. ‘Nothin’s goin’ to stop the railroad comin’ to Caldwell. If not this year then next. Them rails are goin’ all over. Whol
e damned country’ll change and a lot of folk won’t think for the better.’

  ‘Then if…’

  Hart shook his head. ‘There ain’t nothin’ we can do. There’s people back East with money they want to make into more money and out here’s where they’re planning to do it. Already there’s ranches bein’ bought out by big companies, some of ‘em not even American. French, English. Gods knows where. Way I see it, it’s gettin’ so’s the land won’t belong to them as works it.’

  ‘And you don’t care?’ Emily asked, eyes widening.

  ‘I care. I care but there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it. ‘Cept maybe try to keep myself to myself long as I can. Choose where I go an’ keep movin’.’

  ‘And Frank? What do you think will happen to Frank?’

  Hart pushed back his chair and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Likely, he’ll keep out of things if they ride in anywhere usin’ guns. If not, I guess he’ll have to take his chances.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do then?’

  ‘For your husband? What do you want, for me to go out and nurse-maid him back? You know how he’ll react to that. Like a wild cat trapped in the dark. But I will go talk with Shire. See if I can calm things down a little. See war don’t break out round here. I been in a range war once, down south from here. Lot of men got hurt an’ a lot of blood got spilt and it weren’t pretty.’

  Hart stood up and Emily did the same; they faced one another across the small table.

  ‘You’d best be gettin’ back. You an’ the kids.’

  ‘I know. I … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I had no right…’

  ‘That’s okay. I’m just sorry there ain’t nothin’ I can do.’

  Hart ruffled the little girl’s hair and walked quickly past, leaving Emily looking at the far wall and the waitress standing just inside the kitchen door, watching them both.

  Chapter Ten

  The sky was overcast with gun-metal hue. No wind moved the tops of the tall grass. No light showed where the crests of far hills merged with the horizon. A solitary bird, black, the edges of its broad wings like ragged lace, flew lazily through the still air. The slow, occasional flap of its wings echoed dully over the riders’ heads. Not one of them looked up.

  They rode in a slow, silent swathe through the rising grass; rode in a hazy V, Matthew Jakes at their head. The dun mare he straddled seemed too small for him, as though his boots might trail the ground, his weight might hazard the animal’s back. Jakes looked neither to right nor left, but straight ahead, west through the grassland.

  The Donaldsons rode to either side of him, their flat, round faces equally expressionless. Vests fastened over the faded blue of their shirts, Stetsons levered back on their heads. Dink was at the far left of the curving line, three other men between himself and Angus Donaldson. A further four riders were to Andy Donaldson’s right and the last of these was Frank Escort. His thick-set body rose and fell with the steady rhythm of the gelding he rode; his eyes and mind were rarely still. Ever since Jakes had come out to the farm, ever since he’d listened with the others to the words of Clancy Shire as the rancher sat in his wheelchair and addressed them all – ever since he’d seen the light of death in Matthew Jakes’ eyes – he’d known it was wrong. What they were doing, it was wrong. Not the why. Not the wherefore. But the what.

  He thought of the small ranch they had ridden through less than three hours since. The stock, not just run off and stampeded, but slaughtered. Men firing into the panicking bodies of corralled animals like they were taking shies at a county fair. The hand who had tried to stop them, rushing towards the mounted men with nothing more than a shovel in his hands. The way Jakes had laughed and drawn his pistol and waited until he knew the shot would hurl the man’s body aside like so much wasted rags. The body of the rancher himself. Frank wondered if it was still swinging, slowly swinging from the length of thick woven hemp that the youngster Dink had thrown over a rafter inside the barn. It had seemed to swing for a long time: and there had been no one to cut it down.

  And now they were …

  And now they were …

  Frank Escort glanced at the bushy-bearded figure at the center of the line and wished that he had the courage to do what was in his heart. He was thinking this, looking at Jakes still, when the big man’s head turned and their eyes met and, as if guessing what was running through the farmer’s mind, Jakes laughed aloud.

  Frank Escort swung his head away and stared vacantly at the endless green and tried to think of Emily and the children but their images came to him only fleetingly and then they were not smiling.

  The ranch was small, settled into the end of a narrowing valley; the water that ran down the creek was as yet not much more than a trickle of cold blue. A long, thin corral held perhaps a dozen horses and then there was a smaller corral, empty. Two barns, angled against one another so that they shared a common wall. The ranch house was low and flat and made half of timber and half from earth and stone. Smoke drifted upwards from a hole at the center of the roof and disappeared into the flat grey of the air.

  Jakes raised his hand and the men stopped, horses’ heads shifting and tossing. Jakes looked along the valley and chuckled and said something to the Donaldson on his right. Andy Donaldson laughed and, although he hadn’t heard Jakes’ remark, his twin laughed in sympathy. Frank Escort looked over at Dink and the sallow youth looked back at him and shook his head. The others - men from Shire’s own ranch, farmers like Frank who opposed the coming of the railroad and wanted an end to Texas cattle - waited uneasily. Uncertain. Remembering, possibly, the way the man they had hanged earlier had bucked and kicked before his body had finally twisted and turned at the rope’s end, turned and twisted this way round and that and never seemed to be still. Perhaps never would be still in their minds: no easy thing to hang a man. Not for some.

  Matthew Jakes spat to the ground and wiped the sleeve of his greasy shirt across his mouth. He lifted his arm again and moved the men forward, along the valley towards the ranch.

  Grant saw them coming a couple of hundred yards from the corral and saw from the way they rode, the formation, the way they were set in the saddle, that they meant trouble.

  He glanced anxiously at his wife’s back as she bent over the rough kitchen table, kneading and pummeling the dark dough into bread. He knew that their son, Aaron, was away from the ranch, had gone out hunting early that morning, sixteen and proud of the new rifle his parents had bought for him. Proud and wanting to show that he could use it and bring home food for the family supper.

  ‘Mary.’ His voice was soft but there was something in it which prevented her from turning to him straight away; something which made the dough against her fingers seem suddenly oppressive, alien.

  ‘Mary, get to the shutters.’

  ‘But Aaron is…’

  ‘I know.’ He nodded in the direction of the windows. ‘The shutters.’

  Particles of brown dough slipped away from the woman’s fingers like thick, tacky glue.

  Grant went to the back wall and lifted down the rifle he kept there, going then to the side cupboard for a box of cartridges, all the while trying not to appear flustered, not to scare his wife; all the while knowing the necessity for speed.

  Praying that Aaron would not come back.

  Matthew Jakes kicked the dun mare into a sudden trot; a space developed between himself and the other riders and then they quickly closed it again, the V becoming more narrow. Dink and Frank Escort were side by side, less than six feet separating them.

  ‘This is gonna…’ said Dink, without looking anywhere but ahead, ‘…this is gonna be good.’

  Bile caught at the back of Escort’s throat and clung.

  Jakes saw the shutter fasten over the window to the left of the door and he kicked again and whipped with the ends of the reins; within seconds all of the men were galloping past the long corral, reaching for their guns as they did so.

  ‘Mary!’ Grant shouted and
leaned against the side of the other window at the same moment, leveling the rifle at the leading rider. He saw the tall hat, the bearded face, the open, red mouth through the end sight and pulled back on the trigger. Too fast.

  The bullet went high and to the right of Jakes and the big man growled and laughed and growled some more. He began to haul in on the reins and shouted orders to the others to spread themselves. A second shot came from the timbered section of the ranch, no more dangerous than the first.

  ‘Bastard can’t shoot worth shit!’ said Jakes and, sideways on to the house, pulled the Colt .45 from his holster and aimed a shot towards the window. Splinters of wood burst about Grant’s face as he ducked hastily away.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ His wife came running towards him, thinking that her husband had been hit.

  ‘It’s all right, Mary. All right. Get back! Get away!’

  There was already nowhere to run: nowhere to hide.

  The Donaldsons’ shoulders crashed into the thick wood of the door and it reverberated against its hinges. Shots aimed more or less at random raked the ranch house. The two men sent their weight into the door again and again and it began to give.

  Grant and his wife looked at each other, hopelessly.

  Grant turned and threw his rifle through the open window. It pitched awkwardly, somersaulted and lay close by Matthew Jakes’ horse. Jakes laughed.

  ‘Stand off, boys!’ he called. ‘Looks like we’re goin’ to be made welcome after all.’

  The Donaldsons backed off from the door and drew their guns. After less than a minute Grant slid back the length of wood back of the door and stepped outside. It took him longer to look Jakes in the eye.

  ‘Ain’t no way…’ laughed Jakes. ‘Ain’t no way to welcome folks as come a callin’ friendly.’

  ‘Way you rode up,’ muttered Grant to the ground.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Way you men rode up here,’ said Grant, looking at the bearded man now. ‘Seemed you was meanin’ trouble.’

  Dink sniggered and close to him Frank Escort shifted uneasily in his saddle.

  ‘Depends,’ said Jakes. ‘We come to talk to you folk.’ He glanced past Grant towards the house. ‘Is more of you, ain’t there? More’n just you?’