Hart the Regulator 5 Read online

  Hart reversed the Colt in his hand.

  Jakes eyes narrowed then widened.

  Hart hammered the butt end of the Colt between them.

  The bridge of Jakes’ nose split apart: blood drowned his eyes.

  Hart wiped the gun against the front of the man’s shirt and stepped away; he holstered the gun and swung back up into the saddle. From one of the windows in the house he could see a shape, which he was certain was Clancy Shire, watching.

  ‘Tell him,’ said Hart, ‘if he comes near me again I’ll kill him.’

  And he rode back to town.

  Chapter Seven

  At around the same time that Hart was sitting in the sunlit room of Clancy Shire’s ranch house, talking and drinking brandy and wondering about what had happened to Shire’s legs, three men rode into Caldwell from the north.

  All three wore long duster coats, grubby-white, that trailed past their stirrups towards the ground: all three had Winchester ‘73 rifles hitched up in scabbards that angled from beneath their saddles so that the stocks were resting against their knees. All three rode slow and easy, not talking, keeping their heads steady while their eyes flicked from side to side, missing nothing.

  If Andrew Fairburn had been out on the street he would have recognized two of them from that day out by the Chikaskia River; if Barcroft had been leading a team hauling feed out from his livery stable, he would have recognized the same two. Neither man would have picked out the third rider as being someone he’d seen before, yet he’d been there — back in the trees with his Winchester sighted well enough to put a slug right where he wanted it, in Seth’s left thigh. He used a Winchester well enough to put a slug most any place he wanted.

  His name was Weston. He was short for a gunfighter and not strong; with a .45 he was slower than many and he’d been known to get in a first shot and miss. Once that had happened and the feller at the other end of the street had missed too. One other time he’d got shot in the side of the head and he’d been certain — certain clear in one plain long second that his brain pan had been blown away. It hadn’t. Weston suffered headaches almost all the time now, fierce attacks that made him feel as if a herd of buffalo were stomping over the right side of his head. His jaw would sing with pain and his ear would feel as if someone, unseen, were driving a thin needle into the inner drum; the hair on that side of his scalp would be as if a hand were tugging at it, desperate to tear it from the roots; he was positive at these moments that the top of his head would burst. He had lost, also, his right eye.

  A black patch of soft leather, like a rounded triangle, was fastened over the empty, twisted socket by a length of black cord.

  Weston had learnt to fight at a distance, with a rifle. He had learned to shoot with his left hand, squinting along the barrel with his left eye; the adjustment had been made surprisingly quickly. Weston could put a Winchester slug most any place he wanted.

  He rode in the center of the three: Waite and Walker to either side of him. Waite’s lank, black hair had been freshly slicked down with grease and clung to his head like the fast-folded wing of a blackbird. His eyes seemed so far back in his head that from a distance he appeared to be blind. There was nothing strange about Walker’s eyes; they were bright and alive, never still, taking a shine from the growing strength of the sun that cut over the roofs to the left of the street.

  A fly buzzed sleepily in front of Walker’s face and he grinned and flapped a large hand at it, the palm almost white. The mouth beneath the flat spread of nose opened in a short laugh.

  ‘Things don’t seem too lively here yet a while, do they?’

  ‘No. Place needs a little somethin’ to liven her up.’ Waite angled his head towards the Negro and grinned back at him; where Walker’s grin was warm, Waite’s was plain evil. It was the kind young children saw in the blackest of their dreams.

  ‘How ‘bout the bank?’ asked Walker with an even broader grin. ‘You reckon that’s open for business?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Waite, nodding his angular head up and down. ‘We’ll see.’

  Weston didn’t say a thing.

  The sign that hung down between the door glass and the black linen blind read Closed. Above the door, painted on a wooden sign, were the words West Kansas & District & County Bank; in very small lettering at the bottom right of the sign it said, J. P. Marquand.

  ‘This is a sleepy cowtown,’ said the Negro gunman, shaking his head hard enough to shift the tan Stetson. ‘It surely is, an’ no mistake.’ He looked at the others. ‘What we goin’ to do?’

  For answer, Weston slid the Winchester out of its scabbard and readied himself to lever a shell into the chamber.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Waite shook his head.

  ‘What’s eatin’ you?’ asked Walker, smiling pleasantly.

  ‘That ain’t the way.’

  ‘That ain’t the way?’

  ‘That ain’t the way.’

  They both looked at the one-eyed man, who pushed the Winchester down below his saddle without changing his expression.

  ‘You mean,’ said Walker, leaning forward in his saddle, ‘you ain’t of the opinion we should attempt to do some kind of damage to the fabric of this here bank?’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ Waite agreed.

  ‘Okay. So what we do? You want us to wait out here in the street?’ He chuckled. ‘Waite? Huh? Huh?’

  ‘No. Seems the rest of the town’s still havin’ breakfast and as I recall we didn’t have that particular pleasure this mornin’.’

  Walker pursed his lips and whistled; his eyes were mischievously bright. He said: ‘I believe he’s right. We never did get no breakfast. Ain’t that so, Weston? We never had no breakfast.’

  Weston looked at him with his left eye and said nothing.

  ‘I think...’ Waite began.

  ‘You think we ought to get ourselves somethin’ to eat an’ hang on till the bank is ready to do business with us. That so?’

  Waite looked a little annoyed at being interrupted and being told what he intended to say before he’d actually got around to saying it, but it wasn’t sufficient to rile him so’s he’d do anything about it. It was setting up for being too nice a day and, besides, after mentioning food, after thinking about it9 his stomach was rumbling and groaning like he hadn’t eaten for a week.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ he said, shortishly, and kicked the heels of his boots into the horse’s flanks.

  The others followed him down and across the street until they reached what was called the Caldwell Dining Rooms. They tied up their horses to the hitching post and walked across a rickety section of boardwalk.

  ‘Hell’s the matter with this town!’ shouted Waite, as his boot caught against a broken piece of wood and he nearly tripped. ‘Can’t even keep it safe for folk to walk.’

  Walker laughed and pushed his way through the dining room door. There were perhaps a dozen men inside, sitting at small rectangular tables set against either wall of the long room. A woman with her head bent over a large tray came through from the back and began to deposit plates at one of the tables.

  ‘Sit by the window,’ suggested Walker.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Waite without enthusiasm. ‘See the rest of the world go by.’

  Not much above half an hour later they had cleared their plates of ham and eggs, potatoes and beans and bread. Walker was sitting hunched over his plate, wiping it round with a crust of bread. He pushed the bread through what remained of the yolk and the sauce the beans had been cooked in, and lifted it with relish towards his open mouth. Some of the egg yolk slipped away and ran down on to his smooth chin and flecked across his faded blue shirt. The Negro swallowed the bread and then used one of his fingers to wipe the runny egg from his face.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ complained Waite. ‘You eat like you never sat up to table before in your life.’

  Walker sucked his finger and grinned. ‘That’s true, boss. But then you know us poor niggers never got us no education like you white folk
did. We was too busy gettin’ up at dawn an’ diggin’ ditches and pickin’ cotton, we never did have the time to learn to eat proper. ‘Sides there being thirteen of us — least, thirteen when my momma made the last count.’ He winked at the others. ‘She never could count too good.’

  Waite pointed his fork across the table. ‘I bet she couldn’t. Bet she weren’t too good at sayin’ no, neither.’

  Walker began to laugh but the laugh faded fast on his lips and he pushed his chair back from the table.

  Weston glanced from one to the other of them quickly.

  ‘We been here long enough,’ said Walker.

  ‘Right,’ said Waite. ‘Let’s go.’

  With a harsh scraping of chairs, the three men moved away from the table and went out into the street. Walker and Waite went to their mounts and drew their rifles from the scabbards. Waite had a Smith & Wesson Schofield holstered against his right leg; Walker a Colt Peacemaker which he wore on the left - unlike Weston he was naturally left-handed.

  ‘Horses, Weston,’ said Waite.

  The one-eyed man nodded and climbed into the saddle of the middle mount; he gathered up the reins of the other two and led them slowly across the street, heading diagonally towards the bank.

  Waite and Walker went ahead on foot.

  The sign in the glass top of the door had been turned: it said, Open.

  ‘That’s fine,’ murmured Waite.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Walker, ‘ain’t that dandy.’

  They went in.

  Freddy Logan ran so fast along Main Street that his lungs seemed to be leaping against his ribs; his throat was dry and rasping. He only saw Mrs. Braddock up ahead of him with her bundle of packages at the last moment. Desperately, Freddy grabbed out at one of the posts at the edge of the boardwalk and swung round on it, trying to stop. He managed to avoid banging into Mrs. Braddock but not to miss sending the parcels flying from her hands. One after another they tumbled onto the boards, then toppled into the street.

  ‘Why, Freddy Logan! What do you…’

  But Freddy was in far too urgent a hurry to stop for explanations; he ducked underneath the woman’s outstretched arm as she made an attempt to stop him and started to race across the street in the direction of the livery stable.

  He rushed through the high, open double doors and skidded to a halt on the loose straw. A group of men sitting around the stove by the center of the barn turned to see what all the disturbance was about. When they saw it was only Freddy Logan, they went back to their cards.

  ‘Where’s Mr. Barcroft?’ Freddy called, hurrying towards them. ‘I’ve got to see him.’

  The men were used to Freddy running here and running there; everything with that boy was a matter of life and death, down to curry-combing a mare in her stall or fetching a bucket of fresh water from the well out back.

  ‘Where is he?’ Freddy demanded.

  ‘Ain’t seen him this past half-hour, kid.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Take it easy, Freddy. Barcroft’ll be back when he’s a mind.’

  ‘But I’ve got to see him now.’

  One of the men changed two cards out of the five in his hand, spat down on to the floor and waved Freddy away. ‘Shove off, son. Go pester someone else.’

  But Freddy had listened to, though he shouldn’t have, Barcroft’s version of the hold-up in which the railroad money was stolen. Freddy had lain up in the loft and listened so hard that every word still lodged in his mind, sharp and clear as crystal. And he knew that two of the men who did the robbery had been wearing long white coats. He knew there were three men wearing long white coats who’d just gone across from the dining rooms to the bank. And two of them had gone inside carrying guns. He’d seen them.

  He found Barcroft in the end stall, kneeling over the small, shiny form of a young foal. He had a feed bottle in his hand, the other hand under the animal’s neck. He was trying to get it to take enough milk to keep it alive.

  ‘Ssh, Freddy,’ he said, setting the teat of the bottle close to his lips as a sign for the boy not to make a sudden noise. ‘Don’t startle her.’

  ‘Mr. Barcroft…’ Freddy was still having difficulty catching his breath.

  ‘Her ma never got the chance to nurse her. If she had, she’d take the bottle all right. As it is…’

  ‘Mr. Barcroft.’

  The stable owner looked at him properly for the first time. ‘Spit it out.’

  Freddy told him what he had seen.

  Barcroft’s face shifted and he gazed down the length of the stables as if expecting the men Freddy had described to come walking in there with their white coats and rifles. It wasn’t that he was afraid, just that whatever might or might not be happening up at the bank it wasn’t his business. Not directly. Barcroft kept all his money in a tin box under the floorboards of his room.

  ‘Go find the marshal,’ said Barcroft quietly. ‘Don’t talk to anybody else till you’ve seen him. You explain it to him like you did to me. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘But, Mr.…’

  ‘Go on, son.’

  Freddy hesitated only a moment before scrambling out of the stall and taking off for the marshal’s office. None of the card players looked up as he ran past. Barcroft set down the feed bottle and went for the shotgun he kept on two pegs on the wall. He checked the load and took it back with him to where the foal was lying, her eyes glazing over. Then he patted the animal’s neck and lifted her head, trying to prise her mouth open so that he could drip the milk down in.

  ‘Anyone moves, they’re dead!’

  ‘That’s right!’

  Two men and a woman who were standing in line at the single teller’s position whirled faster than they knew they could move. The bank clerk got off a half-choked scream and one of her hands jerked sideways and knocked a pile of bills into the air. Seated behind his desk in the back office, the door open, John Philip Marquand heard the shouted order as clear as anyone else. He closed his eyes and quietly lowered his head towards the surface of his desk; his limbs were instantly shaking like a man in fever.

  ‘Back away!’ snapped Waite pointing at the customers with his Winchester. ‘Over by the wall.’

  The woman clutched at her black skirt and shuffled backwards; first one man, then the other followed. One was the town barber and dentist, there at the bank to get change before the day’s work; the other was the manager of Jules Weinstein’s guns and ammunition store, who had gone into the bank to deposit the previous day’s takings.

  All three were thinking at that moment that they were about to be killed, whatever they did. Something in the manner of the tall desperado with the slicked-back hair told them it was so — something in his eyes, deep in his eyes.

  ‘Anyone back there?’ Walker asked the teller, pointing his rifle towards the office door.

  She nodded and her spectacles, suspended from a piece of fine chain, wobbled against her breasts.

  ‘Let me through.’

  The woman’s fingers were fumbling against the lock for several moments before Waite spun towards her and said: ‘If she can’t get the bastard open, shoot it off.’

  Her hands shook all the more, till the Negro grinned at her reassuringly. ‘Don’t pay no mind to him, his eggs was fried too hard.’

  ‘You watch your mouth!’ Waite shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, boss. Yes, boss,’ said Walker laughing.

  The woman finally got the half-height door open. Marquand hadn’t moved his head from the desk: wisps of silver hair sprinkled over a bundle of papers that were heaped on the desk top. His arms were cradled about his head.

  Walker gently brought the tip of the rifle barrel to rest on the center of his skull.

  ‘Get up!’ the Negro hissed.

  Marquand shook a little harder, a little faster, but he made no effort to get up. Walker increased the pressure he was putting against the gun.

  ‘Do it, mister. We’re in some hurry.’

  Outside, Waite had o
rdered the customers to face the wall and set their hands against their heads, resting their foreheads on the planking of the wall itself. The bank teller was trying to get as many coins and bills into cash bags as she could without spilling them on to the floor. The quicker she tried to go, the more she became aware of Waite watching her, the more clumsy she became.

  ‘Jesus, lady, you sure got ways of making a man lose his patience!’

  She stared up into his face and one of the bags fell from her hand; a vain attempt to recover it sent it into the wall, dollar pieces skittering over the floor.

  ‘Fuck it!’

  Waite jumped fast, lifting the Winchester high into the air. He stopped over her crouching body and rammed the stock of the rifle down on to her shoulder, close by the neck. The teller cried out and collapsed to the floor as Waite lifted and swung the rifle a second time.

  ‘Hey, what…?’

  Walker’s head poked round the office door in time to see the flat of the Winchester stock smack into the side of the woman’s face. Her head struck the floor and lolled to one side. She jerked involuntarily and when her mouth opened it was to spit out blood and fragments of teeth.

  Walker stared down at her, shaking his head.

  ‘There weren’t no need to do that.’

  Waite stared at Walker as though he didn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘I mean, you didn’t have to…’

  The sunken eyes continued to stare. ‘Nigger, you’re gettin’ awful damn nosy about things that don’t concern you!’

  Walker grinned, but it was edgy, doubtful. More blood oozed from between the bank teller’s closed swollen lips; she coughed, her hand coming to her mouth too late. The woman in black over against the wall was crying, almost soundlessly. The two men had turned from the wall and were watching, waiting to see whether the situation would erupt further and give them a chance to escape. The door was less than a dozen paces away.

  ‘You got that bastard in there movin’ yet?’ Waite demanded in response to Walker’s silence.

  Walker shook his head, no, once.

  ‘Then why don’t you get on with what you should be at, an’ let me do things here my way?’