Hart the Regulator 9 Page 5

  Hart rode with his body hanging low from the saddle, almost hidden from sight by the gray’s head and side. One slug fell short enough to send a cloud of dirt stinging into his face, but other than that they were saving their ammunition for when they had a better target. Hart tightened his grip on the reins, shouted loud in Clay’s ear and galloped her up the steep rise of ground that ran close alongside the bunk house. He lifted himself in the saddle at the last moment, hauling her into a jump almost physically. The gray’s hoofs skittered the loose dirt on the ledge in front of the ranch house and held. Cantrell jutted his arm through the window to the left of the door and sent two shots directly over the saddle but Hart was no longer there.

  He dived through the open doorway, tucking his head low and rolling towards the open fireplace against the back wall. He came out of it smoothly and as he righted himself the hammer clicked back on his Colt and Cantrell was crouched in front of him less than ten feet away.

  ‘Bastard!’ Cantrell hissed and threw the empty pistol at Hart’s head.

  He swung his head aside at the last moment and closed on the rancher fast enough to evade the arm Cantrell threw up to parry his swing. The side of the gun barrel lashed against Cantrell’s temple and the sight tore a line from the eye corner to the lobe of his ear, pulling a section of the lobe away. Cantrell’s feet slid from under him and Hart caught him another blow when he was on the way down, this time with the butt end hard against the base of his skull.

  Hart heard the bone splinter and felt it give way beneath his hand.

  Mosley’s warning shout moved him fast towards the window and a bullet – from the sheriff or from Barlow he didn’t know – ricocheted around the back of the room, ripping wood as it went.

  Hart vaulted over the sill and as he landed in a low crouch the man he’d known as Bennett was holding a gun on him and saying: ‘I should’ve killed you when I had the chance!’

  Hart threw himself forward, head down, firing as he went. Simultaneously a pistol shot rang out from below. Barlow was slammed against the front of the ranch house, one slug embedded against the wall of his stomach, the other, taking away the front of his head above the eye line, killing him instantly.

  Hart pushed himself to his feet and something shook and whirled close behind him. He turned fast with an outwards swing of the arm that sailed over Mrs Cantrell’s head. Her face was white, skin drawn back over the bone like a corpse. The small knife was in her hand and aimed for Hart’s belly. He backed off and Mosley yelled for her to hold still or he’d shoot but she was past hearing anything for real by now. She darted the knife in on Hart so quick he was only just able to catch her wrist in one hand and slam it down against his other arm. Her fingers flew open and the knife fell away even as her arm broke.

  She spat in his face and cursed him terrible names till Mosley came up behind her and slapped her across the back of her head with his pistol cushioned inside the crown of his Stetson.

  They looked at the lifeless outlaw sprawled bloodily against the wall.

  ‘That him?’

  ‘Guess so. Looked pretty like that picture till his face got changed some.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll still pay up on the reward?’

  ‘They’d better.’

  ‘Yeah. How ’bout the other feller?’

  Hart jerked his head towards the door.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Uh-uh. Just out cold.’

  Mosley wandered over and took a look. ‘How come he opened up like that?’

  Hart shrugged. ‘Remember what it said on that flier. “Three others unknown”. Likely he was one of them.’

  ‘Yeah. Could be.’ Mosley was looking pale and having difficulty standing up, even with one hand resting against the wall.

  ‘What we goin’ to do about her?’ asked Hart, nodding towards Mrs Cantrell.

  ‘Wait till she comes round. Take her in with Cantrell if she wants. Otherwise leave her here. That’s okay with you? It was you she was tryin’ to gut with that knife of hers.’

  Hart nodded. ‘Fine by me. Now what say we get them wounds of yours staunched before you lose so much blood you faint away.’

  Mosley looked indignant. ‘Hell, boy! Man like me ain’t goin’ to pass out over a couple of little scratches like that! Huh!’ He laughed and Hart was only just quick enough to catch him when he fell.

  They rode back towards Virginia City with Barlow’s body wrapped in a sheet of tarpaulin and draped across a mule from the ranch stock. Cantrell and his wife rode with their hands tied in front of them, the ropes secured to the pommels of their saddles, and from there to the sheriffs own mount. Cantrell was also tied at the legs, the rope fastened under the horse’s belly. Hart and Mosley took it in turns to stand guard the nights they were on the trail. When they got back to Virginia City a crowd got together on the street and watched and cheered and jeered and all Mosley wanted to do was get his ass off the back of his animal and onto something soft.

  Cantrell refused to admit having anything to do with the bank hold-up in Egan County. Claimed never to have heard of anyone called High-Hat Thomas or Cherokee Dave Speed-more. Opened fire on Mosley and Hart because he reckoned they were trespassing on his land without the proper authority. Sure he’d known that Bennett was up in the barn but figured he was keeping out of sight because Hart had come to get him after their quarrel back on the trail. Didn’t have the least idea that he was also called Barlow or that he’d killed a bank manager or anyone else.

  Mrs Cantrell didn’t say a thing, simply sat in the cell and seethed.

  Mosley sent in a claim for the reward on Barlow to the head office of the Nevada Mining Company and wrote to the sheriff of Egan County, asking if there was anything that would tie in a rancher by the name of Cantrell with the Ely robbery. He knew if nothing came of it, there wouldn’t be anything else to do but let the Cantrells go, maybe slap a fine on them for assaulting a peace officer in the course of his duty but even that could be chancy if Cantrell opted to complain to the circuit judge or the US marshal about his crossing the county line with no more than a nudge and a wink from the local lawman.

  All this took a couple of days and it wasn’t until the end of it that a hefty man with an eye-shade and a twitch in one eye stopped Hart in the street and asked him if he had a first name of Wes and if he was expecting any mail. The first letter was in a long brown envelope and had been forwarded five times, chasing Hart clear across two states. It was a reply from a cattle association high on the Missouri, informing him that they were sorry but were turning down the offer of his services as a regulator in favor of a man named Artie Penn. The letter had been mailed close on a year ago.

  The second envelope had only been forwarded twice. It didn’t weigh more than pigeon feathers and the writing on the envelope was purposefully buckled and curled, ends of the a’s and r’s stretching down. Hart held the envelope fast as if it might stop his breath: the calloused whorl of his thumb slid heavily across the writing. He turned away from the man at the counter and stared out into the street and for maybe ten seconds he couldn’t see anything other than a sharp haze of dust.

  Then he pushed the envelope, unopened, down into his rear pants pocket and strode out. He walked past Mosley’s deputy on the street without a sign of recognition though by now he was seeing things clearly enough. He went into the cantina at the edge of town and bought two bottles of tequila. He took them over to a table that he wedged into the back corner and sat down with his hat pushed back on his head and his pistol right there on the table by his hand.

  Half-way down the second bottle he fell asleep in the same position, shoulders and head slumping forward a little but nothing more. The owner of the cantina hovered for a while as close as he dared and then went running for the sheriff. Mosley came hobbling painfully down, taking more weight on his walnut stick than he’d been used to. One look at Hart and he told the owner to let him sleep it off and hobbled back to his office, sending the deputy down to stand guard until
Hart was able to look after his own hide again.

  By the time Hart eventually came round it was well past midnight and the only other people left in the cantina were its owner and the deputy, playing cards. He groaned some from the pain in his temples and the crawling feeling in his gut and hated his mouth for tasting like two weeks in the desert. It took him fully a minute to remember the unread letter in his back pocket and then he unstoppered the second bottle of tequila and drank it steadily, determinedly down.

  Before dawn was really up, he set off for the livery and got his horse saddled up and pushed the folded envelope deep into one of his bags. He ate a breakfast near twice his normal appetite and swallowed down four or five cups of strong black coffee before Mosley hobbled in and told him two wires had come – one from Egan County saying they knew nothing on which to hold Cantrell, the other addressed to Hart from a man by the name of Fowler at the Didion Detective Agency.

  Chapter Six

  Hart reined in the gray hard as a cyclist swerved out from Geary onto Market, peaked cap pulled low across his eyes, iron-spoked wheels whirring to a blur. The mare tossed her head and her mane shimmered momentarily in the sun as it reflected sharply from the glass windows. A tall woman, her blue check dress bustling out behind her, paused and turned her head. Hart caught her eye as he used his hand to calm the gray down. The woman’s face nipped into a frown and she swished on her way.

  The planking was being renewed on the opposite side of the boardwalk, some seventy-five yards of it. Chinese and Irish laborers worked in gangs, tools leaning against the fronts of buildings and ragged-looking horses standing patiently between the shafts of squat wooden carts filled with sand and stone and dirt.

  The Palace Hotel stood seven stories tall and filled an entire block stretching back from a frontage on Market Street that was close to three hundred feet wide. The store windows were filled with expensive and fashionable goods and between them curved steps led down from the gilt and glass front doors. A white-haired commissionaire waved Hart unceremoniously round onto New Montgomery Street and the side entrance.

  Inside he found himself in a warren of carpeted floors with marble surrounds, marble pillars and pink walls. The main hotel office was flanked by a variety of other partitioned rooms: a book and magazine store, a telegraph and postal office, at least two dining rooms, a barber shop, a billiard room with a dozen tables, committee rooms, a travel agent’s, a music room, a reading room, the inside display windows of the stores that faced out onto the street, and a luxuriously appointed bar complete with white marble vases holding deep green plants, a patterned carpet into which a man’s boot heel was in danger of sinking without trace and, sitting alone within easy reach of the door, the bear-like figure of R. G. Fowler.

  The two men shook hands and the detective growled a greeting while a uniformed waiter hovered to inquire what Hart intended to drink. Fowler intercepted with an abrupt order for another large bourbon and ice and for Hart a malt whisky imported from Scotland.

  Fowler’s suit had been cleaned and mended and was sufficiently presentable to make Hart feel a trace conspicuous in his trail clothes. Nobody else seemed bothered and the smooth warmth of the whisky helped Hart to feel more at ease.

  ‘Some place!’ he said finally, sitting back and staring up at the high, decorated ceiling.

  ‘Hate it!’

  ‘Then how come?’

  ‘I hate it ’cause it’s full of cheap gamblers and expensive whores and folk who never did a day’s work in their lives! Asked you to meet me here because they serve good bourbon and I wanted you to taste that malt you got there. Also figured you deserved one good meal before you make up your mind about the proposition.’

  Hart leaned forward again. ‘Which proposition’s that?’

  ‘The one I’m goin’ to make when you got some good food inside you.’

  He obviously wasn’t going to reveal more until then. The pair lapsed into desultory conversation which served to fill in some of the time that had passed since Fowler had ridden off from where Hart left him, taking along with him that spunky little Alice Kennedy, all eyes and buck teeth and guts.

  When they moved along to the dining room with its solid silver cutlery and Irish linen tablecloths the meal proved to be every bit as good as Fowler had promised.

  The detective ordered for both of them. Oxtail soup followed by baked trout, a pause for a couple of drinks since Fowler refused to be bothered with wine, then haunch of venison in port wine sauce with sweet potatoes, cabbage and squash. Fowler made Hart have a rum omelet while he simply watched and drank more bourbon. They carved some generous slices of cheese, after which Fowler broke his drinking habit long enough to open a bottle of brandy and light two long Cuban cigars.

  ‘It’s a missing kid job,’ he said, dropping the match into an oval silver ashtray.

  ‘Girl?’

  Fowler gave a short shake of the head. ‘Boy.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Then he ain’t lost.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not at sixteen. He’s missin’ cause he wants to be.’

  A shrug of heavy shoulders followed by a cloud of upward-drifting smoke. ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Makes him a sight more difficult to find for one thing.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘When he is found he likely won’t want to come back.’

  Fowler rolled the brandy round the balloon glass and gulped some down. His smile came slowly and only lived around the eyes. ‘One more reason why I don’t want to do this thing alone.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You know how many kids go missing every year in San Francisco, Wes? Hell, every damned month. Every week. There’s sections of this city it ain’t safe for most folk to go into without eyes in their asses an’ pockets weighed down with guns.’

  Hart nodded with some little surprise, though believing what the detective said. ‘How come you’re not using another man from the agency?’

  ‘For one thing they got more pantywaists than anything else. For another the Old Man’s got ’em prancin’ around all over the state. He gave me fifty dollars flat rate to hire someone to help out.’

  ‘Fifty dollars!’

  ‘Well, I got this arrangement with Mrs MacPhail, she’s the one whose son took off. I leveled with her an’ told her we was understaffed and anyway findin’ some youngster who’d headed out for San Francisco wasn’t too likely. She agreed this little bonus.’

  Fowler’s eyes twinkled in his round face.

  ‘How little?’

  ‘Boy, she’s got more gold than any half a dozen other folk you can name. We find him we’re set up for … well, for a month or so.’

  ‘An’ if we don’t?’

  One of Fowler’s stubby hands hit the table hard enough to make the knives and forks sound like an untuned carillon and bring two waiters forward in a sedate version of a run. ‘Goddam! I’d managed to forget what a miserable son-of-a-bitch you are!’

  Hart grinned and shook his head and tipped an inch of ash from the end of his cigar. His stomach felt full enough to keep him content for a week; the brandy lacked the smoothness of the malt whisky but made up for it in strength. He hadn’t imagined feeling so good inside a place as off-putting as the Palace Hotel.

  ‘What d’you say?’ Fowler asked.

  ‘Came all this way, didn’t I?’

  ‘You could go back again.’

  ‘I got nothin’ to go back for.’ He’d managed not to think about the letter for long enough to have almost convinced himself it had never caught up with him. The knowledge that it was still there in his saddle bag waiting to be read sent a quick jolt of pain across his eyes.

  Fowler saw it and noted it but said nothing and asked no questions.

  ‘How does she know he came here?’ Hart asked, shifting his position on the padded chair.

  ‘Someone saw him. Up by Yerba Buena. With a girl. Part-Indian.’

 
; ‘How long since?’

  ‘Couple of weeks.’

  Hart drank a little more of the brandy and tried to pretend he was thinking about finding a sixteen-year-old-boy. Fowler shoved the stopper down into the top of the bottle and said they’d take it with them and watch some billiards, maybe try a game or two. He called for the bill and didn’t blink as he laid down thirty-five dollars in the manner of a man who did such things every other day of the week.

  Fowler persuaded Hart to try his hand at the tables and succeeded in winning back most of the money he’d spent, his skill with the cue belying the amount of alcohol he’d consumed.

  ‘Got a room?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘We can double up.’

  ‘Here?’ asked Hart incredulously.

  Fowler grinned. ‘The good widow MacPhail ain’t puttin’ up this kind of money. No, we’ll be stayin’ at the Union up on Kearney. They ain’t got the same class of bugs as this place, but the sheets are cleaned and darned and they stable mounts better’n most places in town. Okay?’

  ‘Sure. We leavin’ now?’

  Fowler’s grin spread clear across his face. ‘Just one more game. Same stakes.’

  Chapter Seven

  Wes Hart woke sticky with sweat that lay on his body like cloying vomit, turning cold. He didn’t know what his dreams had been, forgot them in the act of waking; he could have guessed but instead threw back the sheet and washed himself down in water from the enamel jug on the wash stand by the window. Below, the street was taking shape through a rising mist that had come in off the bay during the night. Light, yellow and sickly, began to filter through the narrow angles between buildings.

  Two rooms along, Fowler clutched his pillow in sleep. For him it was the same old dream, the Giants were into their final innings and they were a score down. Fowler was strutting out towards the mark, bat gripped tight between confident hands, the crowd on its feet and cheering him on each step of the way. He licked his teeth with the end of his tongue, shifted the angle of his peaked cap and dropped into a cocky little crouch, head angled round towards the pitcher’s mound. For long seconds it seemed as if the ball would never leave the man’s hand, then there it was swinging in a wicked curve towards him. Fowler’s tongue pressed hard against the roof of his mouth and he began his strike …