Hart the Regulator 5 Page 12

  ‘No. No, I…’

  Jakes spurred the dun horse forward and sent the animal into the rancher, knocking him sprawling to the dirt.

  ‘Lyin’ bastard! Can’t shoot straight and can’t talk straight neither.’

  ‘Get up!’ called one of the Donaldsons, coming towards him, a pistol in his hand.

  Grant stumbled up and Jakes moved the mare towards him once again. ‘Now, who’s in there?’

  ‘Just … only … my wife. Mary, that’s all.’

  ‘All, huh?’ Jakes pointed at one of Shire’s men. ‘Fetch her out.’

  ‘No, it’s…’ Grant turned to run and Andy Donaldson stuck out his boot and tripped him.

  As Shire’s man appeared in the doorway, Grant’s wife stepped towards him, arms folded across her apron, graying hair circled in a braid about her head. Pain flooded her eyes when she saw her husband trying to scramble up from the floor. He made to go towards her, but hands held him back. Spun him round.

  ‘You been supportin’ the railroad,’ Jakes said. ‘Payin’ out good money so’ they’ll run track through. You been hirin’ out your land for them Texans to pasture their herds. Makin’ ‘em welcome. An’ lookin’ to do so again.’

  Grant stared back up at him; he knew for certain now how the men had come and why. It wasn’t ordinary desperadoes, bandits out for what they could ravage and steal.

  ‘Ain’t no law…’ Grant began.

  Jakes’ laugh shut him off. ‘That’s damn true. No law at all. But this.’ He tapped the butt of his Colt.

  Grant’s wife pressed her hands tight against her apron and gulped air noisily. Aaron! Aaron! She said nothing.

  ‘Got to teach you Texas-lovers a lesson,’ said Jakes, looking around the men he’d brought with him. ‘All of us. Ain’t that so?’

  Some of the men called their assent, others, like Frank Escort, kept their mouth closed and waited.

  ‘A lesson,’ laughed Jakes and Grant’s wife tried once more to get close to her husband.

  Shire’s man grabbed at her and pulled her back.

  ‘Keep the bitch off!’ said one of the Donaldsons.

  ‘You want it with your eyes open like a man, Texas-lover,’ said Jakes, grinning through his beard, ‘or you want to close your eyes an’ pray?’

  Grant tried to run at Jakes and the Donaldsons grabbed hold of his arms, swinging him back and holding him fast. Mary made as if to go to his aid and Caleb Shire’s man grasped her by the shoulders, setting himself between her husband and her. With a strength that took the man by surprise, Grant’s wife freed her right arm and reached beneath her apron.

  ‘Ready for it, Texas-lover?’ called Jakes, but Mary was no longer listening to what was happening around her.

  The long-bladed kitchen knife came sideways through the heavy air and the tip of the blade cut through the vest and shirt close by the man’s heart. Mary leaned all her weight upon it, both hands to the haft.

  Silent, open-mouthed, Shire’s man staggered back: stared. The knife was sticking from his chest, shaking with the movement. Blood ran out at both sides of the blade and began a blurred trail down his shirt. The man continued to stare at the knife; he reached his hand towards it, gingerly.

  The other men looked on, silent.

  Mary gazed, fascinated, at the meandering blood, at the kitchen knife so strangely angled from the man’s chest.

  Matthew Jakes turned the upper half of his body, brought round his arm, thumbed back the hammer of his Colt .45 and shot her through the neck.

  Mary clung to the wound even as she was being hurled backwards, even as her eyes were failing, as she could no longer see.

  Grant shook off one of the Donaldsons and the other twisted his arm high behind his back. Grant screamed but kept on going. Andy Donaldson kicked up into the man’s groin and Angus lifted the arm higher till it had to crack. Frank Escort jumped from his saddle and started towards them, uncertain of what he was going to do but feeling that he had to do something.

  Matthew Jakes moved his dun mare across Frank’s path and grinned down at him and shook his head.

  ‘We don’t want to start killin’ our own, now, do we?’

  Frank bristled with anger, his short brown hair threatened to stand stiff on his scalp. Dink went in fast behind him and let Frank feel the barrel end of a pistol in his back.

  ‘Ease off,’ said Dink and it was the first time Frank had heard the youngster speak and he swung his head round in surprise.

  ‘Ease off like Matthew says.’

  Frank let his arms hang limp and useless by his sides, let his head fall.

  ‘Take him back of the barn,’ ordered Jakes.

  The Donaldsons dragged Grant, struggling like a fish on a hook. The others mostly followed behind, one of them with a coiled rope over his shoulder.

  ‘Get them horses strung up,’ said Jakes to two others and pointing in the direction of the long corral. ‘We’ll take ‘em along.’

  He clicked his tongue and the dun mare went close by where the woman lay on the ground. One hand was still at her throat and the insides of the fingers and the palm were red. The other hand rested at her waist, ends of the first finger and thumb fast on the string of her apron. She looked old beyond her forty or so years. More red flecked her face and the grey of her braided hair.

  ‘Bitch!’

  Jakes hawked phlegm from the back of his throat and spat down at her body.

  ‘You!’ he shouted at Frank. ‘Get here an’ see to this man. Get that bleedin’ stopped.’

  The man Mary had stabbed was kneeling on the ground, the kitchen knife lying close by. He had opened his shirt and was trying to use a soiled bandanna to stem the slow but steady flow of blood. He still could not believe what had happened.

  A shout came from the barn, a shout and the gargled cry of a man whose breath is being violently jerked out of him. The cry was dying almost before it was heard.

  ‘See what’s in there as is worth takin’,’ said Jakes to Dink, pointing his pistol towards the ranch house. ‘Smash the rest.’

  Ten minutes later they were all saddled up and ready to move away, the string of stolen horses waiting beyond the corral with two of the men.

  ‘Move out!’ called Jakes and they set off, in twos this time, a ragged column heading back eastwards under the same gun-metal sky. Only this time a pair of eyes watched them go.

  Aaron had taken a couple of shots at a grey fox for fun and missed; he had killed three rabbits and four quail. Travelling back to the ranch he had felt good, proud. Now he lay on his stomach and beads of cold sweat lined his forehead and stung his eyes and the hands which held the brand new rifle were less than steady.

  He whispered advice to himself, words his father had told him time out of number; whispered the words and tried to make his hands and eye obey. He knew he would have to shoot straight and fast and that even though he might take as many as half a dozen of the men he could never hope to take them all. He had no horse and to run would be cowardly and useless.

  Aaron squinted along the shiny barrel and his finger began to squeeze back on the trigger.

  The explosion rocked the riders into sudden life. The man alongside Andy Donaldson gasped and grabbed for his side and before he knew what was happening he was falling from the saddle, his mount was bucking in panic and he was being dragged over the ground, one foot twisted in the stirrup and a bullet wound between his ribs.

  Aaron fired a second time.

  Frank Escort was looking up at the side of the valley, searching for the telltale rise of smoke. The bullet drove him backwards, legs coming up in the air as he rolled head-first over his horse’s rump. The slug had driven into his left side, high up, and torn a passage through the muscle at the back. He was dead within seconds of hitting the ground.

  Aaron fired twice again and hit one of the horses but nothing more. A volley of shots rang about him and he willed himself to stay flat and fire slowly, but it wasn’t any use. He was on one knee, on his
feet. The shot he snapped off went harmlessly into the air. Horses were being driven fast up the slope towards him. Aaron chanced one more shot and without waiting to see the result, he turned and began to run. Eyes smarting with sweat and tears he ran like a rabbit being driven to ground. The sound of galloping hoofs resounded in his ears until he thought they would burst with it.

  Matthew Jakes angled his right arm so that the elbow was steadied against his side and shot the boy in the small of the back, twice.

  Chapter Eleven

  There were few horses remaining in the corral; few men in evidence about the ranch buildings. Hart rode with the Indian blanket draped across his shoulder, brim of his hat eased down; his eyes were narrowed to slits of faded blue. The holster that held the pearl-handled Colt Peacemaker was newly greased; the pistol itself freshly cleaned and oiled. The .44 Henry was in the scabbard which nestled against his left knee: the sawn-down ten-gauge Remington bulked on the opposite side of the saddle. Behind him, within quick reach of his right hand, a Starr double-action .44 sat up inside one of his saddle bags and the straps to the bag were unfastened. The double-edged Apache knife which hung in its beaded sheath from the saddle pommel had been keened razor sharp.

  Hart had no clear idea of what he would find at the Shire spread. That the rancher was drawing together a band of men to ride at his instructions seemed clear enough, but Hart had no means of knowing when they might ride or where. If he could get directly to Clancy Shire and talk to him, so much the better — but if he had to fight his way through Jakes and all the rest, then that was how it would have to be.

  He’d ridden with Billy Bonney and Dick Brewer down New Mexico way in what had been called the Lincoln Range War. Regulators, they’d called themselves. Regulators – and for Hart and a few others who’d never seen Lincoln County, the name had stuck.

  As he rode towards the Shire place, Hart remembered what it had been like well enough to know he didn’t want to see it happen again. Not anywhere: not here with himself in the midst of it. A shadow passed over his face as he remembered more. He remembered Billy.

  The Kid in the middle of the floor, on all fours like a dog. First time he’d seen him he should have known. Mouth too small and eyes too wide apart. The way saliva trickled down from that mouth whenever he’d shot a man, shot anything. That last night in the shack together, the Kid drunk on tequila and whiskey, nasty and mean. A sullen temper that suddenly burst out as he gouged a broken bottle into one man’s face. His leg giving way beneath his slender, drunken weight when he’d faced up to Hart and tried to reach his gun. The Kid in the middle of the floor, on all fours like a dog.

  However dangerous Jakes might prove to be when he’d surrounded himself with enough men, he wasn’t as kill-crazy as the Kid. He wasn’t insane.

  Hart was passing between the outbuildings now and although he figured the ranch wasn’t deserted, he’d seen little to prove the opposite. Then, much as he’d done the first time except now he was alone, Shire’s foreman stepped into the bleak light to face him.

  Stoddard was sprucely dressed, his work pants looking for all the world as if they’d come straight from the wash. He wore a bottle-green shirt and a wool coat a shade between brown and black. His beard and moustache appeared to have been trimmed early that morning. Hart could see the leather of his gun belt, but not the weapon that was sitting in its holster.

  ‘You come back.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘From what Clancy said, didn’t think there was anythin’ else for you two to talk on.’

  ‘Maybe not then.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now’s different.’

  Hart was half-concentrating on the conversation, the rest of him trying to make out the source of sound that barely impinged upon him — a man or men trying to move unnoticed and out of sight.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘If you don’t know, it ain’t for me to waste time telling. Ask your boss.’

  Hart glanced away towards the house; what might have been the shape of a man at one of the windows shifted too soon for him to be certain.

  ‘He don’t want to see you,’ said Stoddard firmly, setting himself even more square. ‘I know it.’

  ‘Shift aside.’

  Stoddard’s right hand was almost casual as it moved to the center of his coat and the fingers slid the button free and then the hand pulled the right flap of the coat back behind his holster. The gun was a Remington .44 and seemed to Hart as if it had been around for a long time. He wondered how efficiently it still functioned. He wondered how fast the foreman might be.

  He said: ‘Don’t die for him.’

  Stoddard blinked and his mouth opened a fraction.

  ‘Don’t,’ Hart repeated.

  The door to the ranch house swung slowly open and the figure of Clancy Shire, seated in his wheelchair, legs blanketed over, appeared at the head of the steps.

  ‘Stoddard!’ Shire called.

  The foreman didn’t turn his head.

  ‘Stoddard. Let him come.’

  The foreman still didn’t move. Hart had to swing the grey round him before he could ride up to the house.

  ‘You’re too late,’ Shire said as he spun the wheels of his chair round in a half-circle. ‘Too late.’

  ‘You stirred it up,’ replied Hart. ‘You sent ‘em out. Bring ‘em back before too much damage is done.’

  Shire shook his handsome head, the shock of brown hair bouncing and falling across his left eye. ‘It wasn’t me who asked the railroad in, begged them to come to Caldwell. Wasn’t me who wanted to turn Caldwell into another Wichita, another Dodge City. That was those short-sighted money-grabbers back in town who can’t see further than the bottom of their pockets.’

  ‘And you?’ asked Hart moving towards the side wall. ‘Just what are your motives?’ He could see Stoddard close by the nearest of the barns, speaking with one of the hands he didn’t recognize. ‘You doin’ this for the benefit of the community?’

  ‘Partly.’

  Hart snorted with anger. ‘Tell that to them as your riders is out killing.’ He pointed a finger at the rancher. ‘I told you before, you don’t hire trash like Jakes unless what you got in mind stinks lower’n a polecat’s asshole.’

  Shire spun the chair round again, so that he faced the window. For several moments of silence he stared out through the expanse of glass. When he spoke he was still facing the same way.

  ‘Santa F6 Railroad’s meeting beginning of next week. They’ll be looking to make up their minds once and for all. Kansas City, Burlington and South Western’s pushing powerful close. Stopping them means acting now and showing we mean business.’ He moved the chair round slowly until he was facing Hart again. ‘You can’t do that by words.’ The hair shook down over his eye again and he brushed it aside. ‘Words don’t work fast enough.’

  ‘But killing does?’

  ‘Who says it has to be killing?’

  ‘Huh! With Jakes leading ‘em. What the hell d’you expect?’

  Shire shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘He’ll push folk around a little. Lean on ‘em. Threaten, yes, but it doesn’t have to be killing.’

  Hart shook his head. Through the window he could see that Stoddard was walking from the barn towards the corral. He wondered where the Mex, Jose, was — whether he’d ridden off with Jakes or if he was still somewhere close.

  ‘I told you an’ you won’t listen. If you think they’ll hold it down to threats then you ain’t no judge of men.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Good enough.’

  It was Shire’s turn to laugh, rich and open. ‘You don’t realize you’re being played for a sucker, do you? You still don’t realize.’

  Hart watched Shire’s face, waited.

  ‘How d’you think I know when the railroad’s meeting? How d’you think somebody else knew just when and where Fairburn would be carrying that subsidy? Knew how much money was in that bank safe?’ He laughed again. ‘You think
there’s a crystal ball out here somewhere?’

  Hart let out a breath slowly. ‘Weinstein,’ he said.

  Clancy Shire returned Hart’s stare but made no reply, gave no indication.

  ‘Ever since I got to town,’ said Hart, ‘he’s been doin’ his best to get me moved on. At the marshal’s funeral he threatened me with a derringer. Soon after that someone tried to gun me down in the dark.’ The fingers of Hart’s hand grazed the butt of his Colt. ‘It has to be Weinstein.’

  Hart took a pace closer to the wheelchair, then another.

  ‘I need to know,’ he said. ‘For certain. From you.’

  Shire smiled and shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘What difference?’ asked Hart. ‘Now?’

  ‘The difference is that if we hold fast for not many more days the railroad’ll change its mind and then the quarantine line will come right down to the border and there’ll be no more Texas cattle.’

  ‘Bring the quarantine line down and try to force the trail herds out and that border line’ll be thick with blood.’

  Shire moved his chair several inches back towards the window. ‘Some things are worth dying for.’

  ‘Yeah. Long as someone else is doin’ the dyin’.’

  Clancy Shire hesitated before lifting back the blanket from around his legs; he didn’t lower it far, but far enough to reveal the material of one pants leg wrapped tight about a short stump that began and finished almost at the hip.

  ‘I’ve tried stopping those Texan bastards myself. I didn’t always have to hire men to do it for me and it sticks in my craw that I have to now. Last time I rode out to meet one of their outfits face to face … last time I rode…’ For a few seconds his voice stilled and he seemed not to be seeing Hart at all, even though his eyes were still fixed in the same position. ‘...they stampeded a herd right into us. One of them long-horns took me right through the leg. Up by the thigh. Lifted me out of the saddle and flung me down and gored me through. Bunch of Texans riding around hollerin’ and whoopin’ like it was fiesta.’

  The eyes did drop away now and the voice was subdued, soft.