Hart the Regulator 5 Read online

  Walker wet his lips with his tongue, shifted his fingers along the Winchester. He turned abruptly and went back into Marquand’s office.

  ‘You!’ shouted Waite, spinning round and pointing the rifle at the nearest of the two men by the wall. ‘Get over here and fill these bags. And pay mind to what happened to her. Do it fast and do it right.’

  The barber nodded nervously and shuffled over towards the counter.

  ‘You two,’ Waite said, still using the barrel of the rifle as a pointer, ‘get them faces pressed against that wall. Hard.’

  Freddy Logan hammered his small fist against the thick wood of the marshal’s door. Hammered and called. Harry Miller hauled his legs off the top of his desk, dropped the fliers he had been studying into the nearest drawer, slid his chair back and went slowly over to the door.

  ‘What’s goin’ on so special?’ he asked, sliding the bolt and turning the handle. ‘Hotel on fire? Bank bein’ robbed?’

  Short of breath, leaning forward with one arm across his stomach, Freddy Logan told him.

  Miller went cold: sudden cold.

  ‘You sure, son?’

  He knew the boy was sure; didn’t need to hear the answer.

  ‘Marshal, what you goin’ to do? You goin’ after ‘em to arrest ‘em, ain’t you?’

  Miller was back by his desk, pistol in hand, checking the load. He dropped the gun back into its holster and reached both hands up to the gun rack on the wall. The weapon he lifted down was an American Arms twelve-gauge shotgun, which he broke and loaded with shot from another of the desk drawers.

  Freddy Logan watched, eyes bright and wide, mouth open.

  At the door the marshal paused, wondering how soon Hart might be back in town. He knew it wouldn’t be soon enough. He also knew he could set the shotgun back on the rack, chase the boy off home with a flea in his ear and lock the office door again, himself safe behind it. After what folk had said about the robbing of the railroad subsidy, he knew he couldn’t do that, none of it.

  Almost gently, he took hold of Freddy by the shoulder and shifted him aside. ‘Keep clear, boy.’

  Harry Miller hefted the shotgun and set off up the main street.

  John Philip Marquand was down on his knees beside the safe, the end of a rifle barrel pressed close against his head, immediately in front of his left ear. Sweat slid coldly down his skin and along the gun metal. He managed to steady himself long enough to open the safe door.

  Walker motioned for him to shift out of the way.

  Then, with the banker where he could see him, the Negro began to lift sacks of coin and parcels of notes out of the safe interior.

  ‘You done in there?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Well, hurry it!’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Outside the bank, seated on his horse, Weston turned easily in his saddle and with his one eye saw the lawman heading up the street towards him.

  He glanced at the bank doors, the adrenalin starting to pump round his body. Come on you dumb bastards, let’s go. There was no movement from the bank. The marshal was coming slowly, the badge clear on his vest, the shotgun held with the right hand and resting on the left forearm. The same steady tread. Come on!

  Walker slung the heavy sack over his right shoulder. ‘Kneel!’ he ordered Marquand. ‘You kneel in the corner by the safe an’ don’t you move for a long, long time.’

  ‘Jesus, Walker, what in hell’s name’s keepin’ you?’

  ‘Nothin’.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  Waite kicked the door to the bank open with such force that the one-eyed man turned his head towards the sound automatically, as if there might be trouble. Forty yards down the street, Marshal Miller also heard the noise and hesitated, left arm craning the double barrels of the shotgun upwards. Waite stepped through the doorway, the door bouncing back towards him so that he had to shoulder it aside. Walker was several paces behind him.

  Miller ran three paces, stopped, turned sideways on and brought the shotgun higher; his finger began to press the triggers close.

  ‘Weston, what the fuck…?’

  ‘I know.’

  Walker, hurrying, barged into Waite’s back, nudging him two awkward paces on to the boardwalk.

  A couple of men passing on the opposite side of the street stopped and pointed.

  A window went up with a slam.

  ‘Hold it there!’ Miller’s voice was loud behind the shotgun.

  Weston moved the Winchester up to his shoulder smoothly and sighted fast with his one good eye.

  ‘Shoot the bastard!’ yelled Waite.

  Weston shot the bastard.

  As Harry Miller was squeezing the triggers of the shotgun back through the final fraction of an inch, a bullet from the Winchester tore the center of his face apart. The impact rocked him backwards, flailing, stumbling, falling, sprawling. The shotgun exploded even as it seemed the marshal flung it from his grasp — twelve-gauge shot peppered the far side of the street, breaking glass, shredding wood, slicing tiny holes down the calf and thigh of one of the men watching.

  ‘Go! Go!’ shrieked Walker and pushed past Waite, leaped off the badly warped boards and grabbed at the reins of his horse and Weston dropped them down towards him. The Negro climbed fast into the saddle, lashing the top of the money sack around the pommel.

  Weston slid the Winchester back down into its scabbard and dug his spurs into his mount’s flanks hard and sharp.

  Waite slotted his boot into one of his stirrups at the third attempt and as the horse turned through a clumsy circle he saw that one of the bank customers had shown himself in the open doorway. Left hand holding the saddle, bags hanging over his left shoulder, Waite pulled his Smith & Wesson .45 and fired two shots. The first splintered the door frame and the second whistled through the space where the barber had been a second before.

  ‘Moooove!’ Walker kicked his horse into a gallop and sped up the street, long tails of white coat spreading out in the wind behind and around him. Weston followed close behind. Waite holstered his pistol and finally got into the saddle. The other pair were fifty yards off and bending low over their saddles. Waite whacked down on his animal’s rump and kicked his boot heels into her side and set off after them.

  One of the townsfolk sent a desultory shot in his wake.

  Harry Miller’s legs and trunk had stopped twitching; he lay face down in the dirt of the street and the blood that trickled from beneath his face looked dusty and dark. Freddy Logan stood close enough to watch, unable to draw his eyes away, staring fascinated as the thin dark line spread snakelike through the dirt. Around him, cautiously, other people began to gather. Freddy remained where he was, dreading the moment when his mother’s voice would call him away.

  Chapter Eight

  The procession moved slow and thin along the center of Caldwell’s main street. Barcroft sat up behind the team of four horses that were pulling the flat-bedded wagon which was serving as a hearse. Meaney, the undertaker, had covered the bottom of the wagon with a width of black cloth and the edges of it hung and flapped in the easterly wind. The marshal’s coffin was held in place by planks of wood wedged firmly against the sides; to make sure it didn’t slip adrift a length of rope had been wound about it and fastened to the head of the wagon.

  No more than a dozen people stepped slowly along in the coffin’s wake. Harry Miller had no relations in the neighborhood — no relations at all that anyone had heard him speak of. No mention of kin had been found amongst his effects. What little money he had saved towards a rainy day, together with the wages due to him, had paid for funeral expenses.

  It was that rainy day.

  The rain slanted into men’s faces in endless lines that seemed to stitch sky and ground together. The wind stirred it and swept it hard and it fell as if it might never stop. The wheels of the wagon rolled several inches deep in mud. Oilcloths and slickers glistened on the backs of those who rode or walked behind. There were the members of the to
wn council, sent there from a sense of duty; there was Wes Hart, who had arrived back in town in time to see the marshal’s body being lifted off the street; there was little Freddy Logan, who had persuaded his mother that the two of them should go and see the lawman buried; there was a scattering of folk who made a habit of following any coffin they could, moving haltingly at the back of the lean line like vultures, black and shining.

  The preacher was waiting at the cemetery which was steadily claiming the hillside beyond the edge of town. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, a broad-brimmed black hat pulled low over his eyes, forcing his ears to right angles. A black leather-bound bible lay between oilskin and dampening wool coat, directly over his heart. Rain trickled down his neck, running inside his collar; somehow it entered his pockets and wet his fingers and palms; somehow it penetrated his new, black leather boots.

  Beside him, the earth, turned and open, steamed.

  A deep pool of water had collected at the bottom of the freshly dug grave.

  The preacher saw the makeshift hearse approaching through the heavy haze of rain and gave thanks to God.

  ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto us all that are in the house.

  ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven.’

  Watching, listening to as many words as would penetrate through the whine of wind and the sigh and sizzle of the rain, Freddy Logan wondered if that was where his father was. He tugged on his mother’s sleeve but she shushed him and gave him one of those familiar looks, so he kept the thought to himself.

  Hart was remembering the way the rifle bullet had splintered the marshal’s face like rotten wood; he recalled Jay Cambridge, who stood now at the far side of the opened grave, telling him how a man had put a slug into his friend’s thigh from a hundred yards and meant exactly that.

  He realized that the preacher had stopped speaking and that the bible was back beneath his oilskin. The man to his left, an old timer he didn’t recognize, called out an Amen that was swallowed by the wind almost before it had left his lips.

  Hart stepped over to the coffin and took hold of one of the ends of rope which rested in the gathering string of puddles around the coffin. Caleb Deignton bent over the other end and the two men faced one another.

  ‘If you’d been in town…’ Deignton began.

  ‘He was doin’ his job,’ said Hart. ‘Tryin’.’

  The preacher gave a sign and Hart and Deignton, Jay Cambridge and Andrew Fairburn lifted the coffin to waist height.

  ‘How ‘bout your job?’ said Deignton, in a voice that was quiet but firm. ‘When are you going to be tending to that?’

  ‘I was,’ growled Hart.

  ‘We didn’t pay you to talk. Miller could’ve done that.’

  The four men lifted the marshal’s coffin until it was positioned directly above the grave.

  ‘He avoided those three gunmen when he should have ridden out after them first,’ said Deignton, with a nod down at the coffin, ‘I hope you aren’t about to do the same.’

  Hart stared back at him and shook his head. ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘Good.’

  They lowered the coffin as carefully as was possible but there was no avoiding the final splash. Deignton and Fair-burn let go of their ends of rope and Hart and Jay pulled the ropes through. As Andrew Fairburn turned away, one of his feet slipped on the wet mud and he fell backwards, grasping at the rain, one leg sliding down into the open grave.

  Hands saved him.

  Fairburn was hauled to his feet, the front of his dark suit thick with mud, his face spattered with dark, wet freckles of it.

  As Hart bent over a shovel and prepared to help throw the earth back into the grave he was aware of someone moving up behind him. He straightened and as he did so something pressed against the small of his back. It was small and round and hard like the barrel end of a derringer. The voice that Hart failed immediately to recognize was urgent and quiet.

  ‘Keep away from my wife! Keep away from her or I’ll kill you!’

  Hart hesitated a moment, then leaned forward away from the gun, pushing the blade of the shovel into the heap of dark earth and throwing it down on to the coffin.

  When he stood straight again he knew the man was still there, as if the rain were sealing them together.

  ‘Better you tell your wife to keep away from me,’ said Hart, teeth all but clenched.

  ‘Don’t you dare…’

  Hart leaned forward again, away from the words. Earth on the shovel, he turned his arms fast and hurled it into Jules Weinstein’s face. As the man staggered backwards, Hart followed through with the shovel blade itself. It hammered into Weinstein’s left arm, between shoulder and elbow, and knocked him off his feet.

  Other men shouted and began to move.

  Hart threw the shovel after Weinstein, not intending to strike him. But he sprang fast, straddling the cowering man, pulling him closer so that he could see the drops of rain, the sudden fear on Weinstein’s face.

  ‘You ever come up behind me with a gun again, you better pull the trigger. Otherwise I’m liable to kill you.’ He let Weinstein’s head fall back to the sodden ground. ‘As for that pretty wife of yours, lock her up nights. If you can’t do that, you’d best be prepared to take the consequences.’

  Hart turned and strode away from the gawping faces, mud and water splashing up from his boots until he was nothing more than a shadowy figure in the close distance.

  Caleb Deignton pulled his coat from his back and shook it in the doorway of the hotel lobby. He hung it over one of the curved hooks of the coat stand to the side of the doorway and, nodding in the direction of the clerk, walked through to the bar. The sight of Wes Hart seated at one of the tables with a glass of whiskey didn’t please him. Still, he ordered a drink for himself and went over.

  ‘Join you?’ asked Deignton, sitting down without waiting for an answer.

  Hart shrugged and took a little more of the whiskey.

  ‘Hell of a day.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Deignton looked at Hart, waiting until the regulator’s eyes were upon him. ‘Didn’t think to find you here.’

  Hart nodded and shifted his chair sideways, leaning down on the edge of the table with his elbow. ‘Uh-huh. You figured I’d be out chasin’ after them as shot Miller.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. For one thing goin’ after three men like that in this damned rain’d be like chasin’ ghosts. For another, I ain’t sure that’s the best way to do it.’

  Deignton’s face seemed redder than ever, his voice louder. The few others in the saloon looked round, openly interested. ‘We got a marshal dead. The bank’s been held up in broad daylight, a woman beaten half to death and every cent taken — just what does it take to get you to do something round here?’

  Hart allowed himself the beginnings of a smile. ‘I appreciate how you’re feelin’.’

  ‘Oh, you do. Well, that’s fine but it still don’t get that money back. It don’t get either lot of money back. And meanwhile every desperado in the territory’s goin’ to be thinkin’ this town’s wide open for the taking.’ Deignton sat back and glared. ‘How’s that going to seem to the railroad company? How far’s that going to go to convince them it’s worth their while bringing a branch line down this far south?’

  Hart finished his drink. ‘Not too much, I guess.’

  Deignton slammed his hand flat and hard on to the table. ‘Hart! You don’t give a damn!’

  ‘I don’t care as much as you, I haven’t got so much at stake. But I took my pay and I’ll do my job.’ Hart stood up. ‘But be clear, Deignton, I’ll do it my way an’ in my own time. Don’t try and bluster me into it. Save that for them that’s scared of you already.’

  Caleb Deignton turned his head away and swallowed down his liquor. Half a dozen paces clear from the t
able, Hart swung back towards him.

  ‘That shipment Fairburn was takin’ to the railroad company — how many’d know where and when?’

  Deignton considered that for a few moments. ‘It’s possible. course. Myself. Marquand at the bank. Why?’

  Hart ignored the question.

  ‘Weinstein?’ he asked.

  Deignton considered that for a few moments. It’s possible. Obviously, he’d have known a payment was due to be made, but not necessarily how and when.’

  ‘Okay.’ Hart turned and moved towards the door.

  ‘Why?’ asked Deignton. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  It was another question that, for then, stayed unanswered.

  Hart pulled on his slicker and peered through the steady rain. Day was night. Hart had moved his things out of the Kansas Star Hotel and into Harry Miller’s office. There was a bed out back, between the main office and the jail, and that suited him better. He ducked his head, jammed the flat-brimmed hat down hard so that the wind wouldn’t whip it away and set off across the street.

  There was a rumble of thunder, distant and low, but no lightning.

  After the slow change from the winter’s drought, Hart knew that every farmer in the area would welcome the storm. Well, not every; he didn’t know about Frank Escort and his winter wheat. The result for him might be acre on acre of flattened crop — unless it was really as hardy as the farmer had claimed.

  As Hart’s foot stepped on to the boardwalk, a pistol shot sent him diving low. Diving and trying to turn, but the slippery wood made his feet skid underneath him and he landed heavily, crashing down on his right elbow. As his eyes tried to penetrate the darkness another shot screamed out and he saw the orange flash of fire forty-five degrees to the left, back across the street.

  A bullet whined along the wall behind him.

  Hart scrambled to his knees, scrabbled awkwardly inside the slicker for the butt of his Colt .45.

  A third shot and this one was close enough for the sodden board less than a dozen inches from his boot to be torn through. Splinters showered his face like rain.