Hart the Regulator 5 Read online

  ‘Name’s...’

  ‘You’re Wes Hart,’ Deignton said, stepping briskly forward now to shake his hand. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

  He introduced Hart to the others in the gathering and Hart could tell from the way their hands met is and the way their eyes did not that they were less enthusiastic than Deignton.

  ‘Drink?’ asked Deignton.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Whiskey or brandy? ‘

  ‘Whiskey.’

  ‘Fine. Cigar?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  Hart took his glass; the whiskey tasted smooth and warm. Deignton poured drinks for the others. Fairburn, Weinstein and Marquand sat down. Hart remained standing between table and door, but angled sideways so that no one could come on him too quickly from behind. Caleb Deignton leaned back against the mantelpiece.

  ‘We were discussing tonight’s excitement,’ he said.

  Hart nodded; he had thought that had been the cause of some of their reactions.

  ‘Maybe we should hear your version of things?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Weinstein slowly, ‘you could explain to us why it was necessary to kill him, this boy?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  They looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘You don’t want to take my word for it, go over and feel his heart. It’s still beating.’

  ‘But we were told…’ began Fairburn.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Deignton, ‘I said we were acting rashly on nothing more than rumor.’

  ‘But there was a shooting,’ persisted Weinstein, ‘and within an hour of Hart’s arriving in Caldwell.’

  ‘I tried,’ said Hart, ‘to talk him out of it. Scare him off going for his gun.’

  ‘Did you know him?’ asked Fairburn.

  Hart shook his head.

  ‘Then why...?’

  ‘He was primed.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Someone put him up to it, paid him, promised him, I don’t know what.’

  Weinstein stubbed out his cigar and stood up. He took a few steps away from the table, then turned. ‘It doesn’t make sense. You’re suggesting that someone put the boy up to this, yet it doesn’t seem as if he ever stood a chance. Why would anyone be foolish enough to hire a boy who hasn’t one hope in hell of beating you to the draw?’

  ‘Because that wasn’t important,’ Hart said. ‘If he got off a lucky shot so much the better, but that wasn’t what whoever was behind this was after. They wanted me to gun him down in front of a bar full of people. That’d give them the opportunity they wanted. There were men back of the crowd, urging ‘em on, lookin’ to start a riot, call me for a coldblooded killer...’ Hart glanced at them. ‘… same as some of you were doin’ in here, I’ll wager. Then they’d have a better chance to get me; get me out of town if nothin’ else.’

  Deignton looked back at him in surprise. ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘Not certain sure. Nothing to prove, but sure enough. That’s why I let loose a barrel-load of shot over folks’ heads. Clear the whole lot out of there fast.’

  No one said anything for quite a while. Hart finished his glass of whiskey and helped himself to another.

  ‘Seems certain, then,’ said Fairburn finally, ‘more than ourselves knew who you were and why you were here.’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Of course, you’ve no idea who?’

  ‘I just might.’

  Fairburn blinked rapidly. Deignton opened his mouth to ask a question, but slowly let it fall closed instead. Harry Miller was shown into the room by Deignton’s wife.

  The marshal held his hand over the table and then opened out his fingers; silver dollars rolled and tumbled, fell. Eight, nine, ten of them. Shiny and new.

  ‘Got ‘em from the kid’s pockets.’

  Hart shook his head. ‘Ain’t much.’

  ‘When you got nothin’, it’s a whole lot.’

  ‘Have you found out who they came from?’ asked Fairburn. ‘Who paid him?’

  Miller shook his head. ‘Right now, he ain’t sayin’ a whole lot. Lost a lot of blood and keeps faintin’ away. Doc’s tending to him.’ The marshal shrugged. ‘My guess is, he won’t say anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My guess is, he’ll be too scared that if he does open his mouth, whoever set him up will get to him. Teach him a lesson ‘bout keeping his mouth closed.’

  ‘What you aimin’ to do with the money?’ Hart asked, nodding towards the table.

  ‘Ain’t thought.’

  ‘Let him have it back,’ said Hart. ‘He earned it more than most.’

  Caleb Deignton came close. ‘Before the marshal came in, you were about to tell us who you thought was behind this.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘You said…’

  ‘I said I might have an idea who it was. I didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout tellin’ anyone who that is.’

  ‘Damn it, Hart,’ exclaimed Weinstein from across the room. ‘Just remember you’re working for us!’

  Hart’s left arm swung out like a whip, finger pointing at the storeowner’s head. ‘An’ you remember that I do things my way and that means I ain’t at the beck an’ call of a lot of businessmen who don’t know their ass from the hole in their head! You brought me into this town and you’re payin’ me to be regulator here. Well, I can’t do that if every step of the way I’m explainin’ what I do to some damn fool committee. I’ll keep in touch with the marshal, here, an’ he’ll act between us.’ Hart looked from one to the other: only Deignton and Miller held his eye. ‘Now that’s the way it’s got to be or I don’t work. If you don’t like it, say so now, good and loud so there’s no mistake.’

  When Hart closed the door and stepped outside, and for some little time afterwards, nobody said a word.

  The bed was more comfortable than most and Hart stripped down to his pants and lay back, head propped against a couple of pillows. The faces of the men who were paying him shifted across his mind: Marquand, the banker, a thin, pinched man with silver hair combed carefully back and fingers that were permanently soiled from handling money, a man who seemed as if he’d be frightened of his own shadow; Andrew Fairburn, the President of the Cattle Growers’ Association, the one from whom the railroad’s subsidy money had been stolen, smooth-shaven and with something about his grey eyes and the line of the mouth that suggested he’d be quick to anger, slow to back that anger up with anything more than words; Jules Weinstein, with thick, dark hair that stank of whatever sweet water he splashed on it, with a gold stick-pin poking up from his cravat and gold on his fingers that glistened when he flapped his hands; Caleb Deignton, red-faced from too much brandy and too many cigars, yet with a firm handshake and steady eyes that weren’t afraid to meet yours and a voice that expressed confidence and action.

  Hart shook his head: of the lot Deignton was the only one he was disposed to trust. But all of them, all of them were the same kind of businessmen he’d met in town after town. The more years he lived, the more he traveled, the more of them there were. Running in front of the railroads for the most part, buying up land - sometimes legal, sometimes not, always paying as close to the wind as they could - building stores, saloons, depots, ranches. Transporting goods, people. A little of this and a little of that: a deal here and a deal there but never carried out where the light was too bright or strong.

  Hart knew them: they were the kind of men that hired him. They were the ones who could afford him. The ones who needed him.

  To remain free, his own man, he needed them.

  It twisted in his craw.

  He was reaching for the whiskey bottle on the floor beside his bed when he heard steps at the top of the stairs. Quickly, Hart swung his legs round and as soon as his feet touched the floor the bottle changed places with the Colt.

  Hart waited.

  Whoever was coming was doing it slow, cautious. Someone who wasn’t anxious
to announce their approach. Of course, there were other rooms at that same side of the building, but that thought did nothing to loosen Hart’s grip on the butt of his gun.

  Footsteps stopped.

  Beyond the door, Hart could sense, rather than hear, someone breathing.

  He levered back the hammer of the Colt.

  Nothing.

  He leveled the gun at the center of the door, then up a few inches.

  ‘You got five seconds to step in or walk away. After that I’m putting a bullet through you an’ the door both.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath and the handle turned, Hart’s gun arm was absolutely steady, thumb on the hammer, finger resting lightly on the trigger curve. He was still not prepared for what he saw.

  ‘Is that the way you always treat visitors?’

  She was not more than a few inches over five foot and from her face she could have been as young as eighteen but already there was something about the way her eyes were looking at his naked chest that said she was older. Her hair was fair to the edge of whiteness and fashioned into ringlets that fell almost to her bare neck and shoulders. At the front there was a fringe of tightly frizzed strands, pointing down to light blue eyes, a nose that was perhaps too small for perfection, a mouth perhaps too wide. Whatever she had put on her cheeks made them glow even in the subdued light of the room. She was wearing a blue dress that was lightly gathered at the waist and tight at the bodice; it hung loosely to the floor so that it would barely brush it if she moved.

  But she didn’t move: only her eyes and one corner of her wide mouth.

  Hart knew she had said something, but couldn’t remember exactly.

  She reminded him. She said: ‘Do you always treat visitors that way, Mister Shootist?’

  ‘Depends if they come tiptoein’ up all sneaky or walk in straight like a...’ He broke off.

  The girl laughed, one hand fleetingly to her face. She was wearing white gloves. “I do believe, Mr. Shootist, you were going to say, like a man.’ And then she did move. ‘Now, you wouldn’t really expect me to act like a man, would you?’

  She puckered up her face for a moment, mockingly, and, again mockingly, she smiled.

  ‘Not unless that’s how you’d prefer me to be,’ she said.

  The smile widened.

  ‘I had heard tales, you men out on the trail month after month, together.’ The girl’s head inclined to one side. It isn’t hard to understand how a man could get to feel that way. Although…’ She took another small step closer: she could have touched him now had she reached out. The nails of her hands were painted coral color. ‘… it would be a waste.’

  Hart released the hammer of the Colt and lowered it to his side.

  ‘That’s better,’ she smiled. Then, the head angling to the side again so that some of the ringlets bounced up from the smooth skin of her shoulder, ‘isn’t it?’

  ‘Somebody send you?’

  She looked back at him in mock horror. ‘Now, Mr. Shootist, do I look the kind of girl people send anywhere? Especially to men alone in their rooms.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Really? You mean you think I’m one of those...’ She fluttered her eyelashes. ‘…soiled doves from the house down the street?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘And someone sent me along to you as a welcoming present, is that the way you figure it?’

  ‘Till you tell me who you are an’ what exactly you’re doin’ here, ma’am, I can’t say.’

  ‘Mr. Shootist, I came to see just what my husband bought.’

  ‘Bought!’

  ‘Why, yes. What else would you call it?’

  Hart’s eyes narrowed. ‘No man buys me.’

  She did reach out her arm and her fingers did touch his chest, only for a moment, the tips of them pushing through the thick growth of curly, dark hair.

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’

  ‘I heard you were for hire.’

  Hart wanted to strike the smirk from her face. She knew it, could see it clear in his face, in the tautness of his body, like an animal about to strike, and she relished it.

  ‘Who is your husband?’ Hart asked. ‘Deignton? Fairburn?’

  The woman giggled. ‘Why, no! My husband is Jules Weinstein.’ The giggle subsided and she was suddenly serious. ‘My husband owns more of this town than any other man. And right now he owns you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Part of you, anyway. Equal shares with the others.’ Her eyes strayed down his body. ‘I wonder which part is mine.’

  ‘None is yours.’

  ‘Oh, but husband and wife share and share alike. What’s his is mine.’ Her eyes lingered. ‘I do hope he chose the nicest piece.’

  Hart lifted his arm, dropped the Colt into the holster and slipped the thong back over the hammer. He pulled his shirt off the bed and started to put it on.

  ‘But that’s not right,’ the woman protested. ‘That’s not right at all.’

  Hart shook his head. ‘You got it wrong, lady, not me. First off I ain’t livestock to be bought an’ sold for amusement. Second, if I want a woman I’ll go to that place down the street and buy me one. Thing is then, I’ll be doin’ the choosin’ myself.’

  She touched the back of his wool shirt, running her hand over it, beginning to tuck the tail of it down inside his belt. ‘You know there isn’t anything any one of them girls can do that I won’t do for you and better. Anything you want.’

  Her voice was little more than a whisper, but a whisper with a trace of hoarseness in it. She bent her head down to his back and before Hart realized what was happening she had opened her mouth and sunk her teeth into his flesh, through the material of the shirt.

  ‘Damn you!’

  But she had pulled away, laughing, moving back around the bed, her eyes bright and the flush on her cheekbones more now than she had put there with powder and rouge.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, tossing her head, ‘normally I prefer a younger man, but for you I’d make an exception.’

  ‘Out!’ Hart scowled. ‘Get out now before I throw you out on your ass.’

  ‘Oh!’ hand to her mouth, pretending shock. ‘How can you be so coarse?’

  ‘Out!’

  She smiled and watched as Hart went past her to the door. She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Lily,’ she said. ‘Lily Weinstein. That’s my name. You won’t forget it.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll remember it next time I’m with your husband.’

  She tightened, for an instant, her grip on his arm. She had small fingers, but they were strong. ‘Silly! That wouldn’t do at all. You see…’ she smiled. ‘… Jules would never believe you. He thinks I’m such a good little girl.’

  Hart pulled the door open and stood to one side. She passed by him close enough for him to feel the swell of her breasts against his body and to catch a scent of perfume that was nowhere near as cheap and unpleasant as that worn by her husband.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr. Shootist. For now. It was pleasant talking with you like this. I’m sure we’ll meet again. Soon.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  But she laughed up at him and after he had slammed the door he could still hear her laughter, clear and pealing, through the reverberations of wood against wood.

  Hart finished dressing and sat back down on the bed with the whiskey bottle. The moon was half-full and shone clearly through the window. The night was clear and beginning to be cold. He sat there trying to get the scent of Weinstein’s wife out of his nostrils, but it persisted and the more he drank the more it rose up into his brain. He tried thinking of other women, but now the harsh, animal and sweat smell of Belle Starr repulsed him and when he forced himself to think of Kathy she had no scent at all.

  Halfway down the bottle he went out into the street and walked towards the end of town and paid for a woman. For perhaps twenty minutes it cleared the thought of Lily Weinstein from his senses and afterwards he was able to sleep.

&nb
sp; Chapter Six

  Hart woke once: a memory. Night in a town name of Boley down in the Cherokee Outlet. A girl called Annie with short, dark hair and dark eyes who’d slept with him for five dollars. And cried. And told him how they were both alike. Gunfighter and whore.

  We both sell our bodies. Me for sex and you ‘cause you’re fast with a gun. Time’ll come when we’re no good for either. Too ugly or too slow. Trouble is we won’t realize.’

  It doesn’t have to be that way, Hart had argued. It doesn’t have to be like that.

  But she had rolled against him, her breast against his hand.

  ‘Yes, it does. Yes, it does.’

  Gunfighter and whore.

  When Hart woke again it was past dawn. The sky through the window was lightening, black fading into grey, a rim of pinked whiteness spreading the horizon. Cold air stung his eyes. He poured water into the basin and lifted cold water to his face. Cleared his throat and spat through the open window into the dirt of the street below. He pulled on his brown wool pants and his shirt and buckled on his gun belt; then he went downstairs to the privy and relieved himself.

  A grizzled old timer was asleep across two of the tables in the saloon, both arms cradling his head as to protect it. A tortoiseshell cat lay curled up in the hollow at the back of his legs.

  Hart could hear someone else moving slowly back of the dining room and could smell coffee heating on the stove. He walked through. The waitress who’d served him the previous evening was standing in front of a long table, her arms out, hands holding the smaller hands of a child taking uncertain steps. A boy with dark, curled hair and eyes that were soft and dark as Hart remembered the mother’s to be. The boy stumbled and looked uncertain, and the woman held him and her head nodded for him to try again, but she did not speak.

  ‘Mornin’,’ Hart said, and she spun round and her eyes were still dark but no longer soft.

  ‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’ He nodded towards the blackened enamel pot on the big stove. ‘Sure could use a cup of coffee.’