Billy Bob set his counter down and leaned back in his chair. ‘Evening, Mr Bassett.’
‘Evening, Sheriff. Maybe it would be best if you went fishing.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Don’t fish at night, son. You never know what might creep up behind you.’
‘A wise man,’ I said, and I meant it.
I turned my attention toward my two captors, noting that Olds still had the shotgun with him; it was propped against the bar near to his left leg. Jerry was visibly trembling but Olds held still, his hand inches from his gun, a look of uncertainty carved into his heavily jowled face. ‘Well, boys, what is it to be? You are both packing, so I do not see a problem here if I shoot you both down.’
‘Just like that?’ Olds said. ‘You just shoot us down in a room full of witnesses, including the law.’
‘I will give you a chance to pull first, but I warned you once and I never rattle twice.’
Jerry raised his right arm and unbuckled his gun belt with his left, letting it fall at his feet and, stepping clear of the leather, he moved swiftly to one side. ‘I’m not going to fight with you, Bassett. I was just obeying orders.’
How many times do you need to hear those words in a lifetime? I wondered. ‘I guess it’s down to you then, Jimmy. You do have a choice here, though, and I want you to give it some serious thought. Draw or drop your pants, as I aim to put the barrels of that sawed-off you stuck in my back where the sun definitely does not shine.’
‘The hell I will.’ He growled and pulled.
Same result as the first time: too slow by a heap, and I put a round through his left shoulder and was tempted to follow that with his other ear. He was side on, though, so I let the urge pass. The force of the heavy round bounced him back against the unpolished bar, his foot caught in the rail and he fell heavily, knocking a spittoon clear across the room to rest at Billy Bob’s feet. The air reverberated with the echo of the single shot. The powder smoke would leave a stink for a few days and the ears of onlookers would ring for an hour or two, but not mine. I holstered the Colt with a twirl and fished the little cotton bundles out of my ears and dropped them on to the sawdust floor.
The old sheriff nodded approval and did the same, saying, ‘I thought you might be calling.’
I looked at Jerry. The man was visibly shaken; twice in only a few days he had come under my gun and I wondered if he was going to stand or run. ‘Get him to the doc, Jerry, and remember: either of you ever see me again, it will be for the last time.’
Mort Cullis said, ‘Doc’s out of town but I do a little patching up when he’s not around. Take him over to my place, Jerry, but keep him in the front of the shop. I got a ripe one out back, a farmer. Awaiting approval from the sheriff here before I plant him.’
Billy Bob waved his hand dismissively and said, ‘Bury him, Mort. I forgot clean about him.’
‘And send the doctoring bill to Frank Vagg,’ I said. ‘Add a couple of bucks to it for a round of drinks here and now.’
Someone whooped happily and I ordered two cold beers without heads, one for me and one for Billy Bob Hunt.
As soon as Jerry, Jimmy the Deuce and the undertaker had left, I picked up the sawed-off shotgun. It was an English gun; a lovely piece with a smooth polished walnut stock and what was left of once deeply blued choked barrels. I removed the loads and put them on the table in front of Billy Bob. I tested the hammers: slick but a little heavy on the trigger pull. I put the gun on the table in front of the sheriff. ‘You see that Frank Vagg gets that for me, Billy Bob.’
‘I’ll deliver it myself. Any message with it?’
‘Yes. Tell him if any more of his hired trash come after me, I will come straight for him.’
‘Just who are you, Mr Bassett?’
‘Just a tired man passing through.’ I finished my beer, said goodnight and left him with that thought.
I remembered that Joshua Beaufort had once told me that it was better to kill an angry man than humiliate him. I think I hit it somewhere between the two choices, and I left the Red Diamond thinking of Henri Larsson and wondered if she had heard the shooting. If so, did she think that I might be involved?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Devil
It was late by the time I returned to the hotel. I needed a meal, a bath and a clean shirt. The smell of black powder smoke clings to a man’s clothes long after the hammer drops and the round is capped. I ate a thick steak, washed it down with black coffee in the empty hotel dining room and waited while the disgruntled hired man stoked the boiler that heated the water in the steamy warmth of the Wayfarer’s bathhouse. I gave him four bits for his late night’s work, which brought a smile to his sour face. Fine how half a dollar can bring the light back into a tired old man’s eyes. I soaked for an hour, smoking a cheroot and sipping from a fifth of whiskey, nodding my approval as he topped up the hot water. Then mellow, hot and wrapped in the hired red bathrobe that went along with the cost of the bath, and carrying my clothes, I made my way up the backstairs to my room and settled on the bed. Damn Texas and its weather: one night it’s chillingly cold or boiling hot, and the next the air is damp and humid extracting moisture from every pore; more uncomfortable than being in a Sioux sweat lodge.
I had just reached that sleepy stage where reality turns into a distant dream when the knock on my door forced me to the surface and back into the world I would like to have left for an hour or two. I thought to ignore it but the tapping became insistent, and I rolled off the bed, picked up the Derringer and shuffled barefoot to the door.
‘God, Lucas, I thought you were dead.’ Henri Larsson stared at me, that mischief alive in her dark eyes. She shook her head slowly and, closing the door behind her and leaning back on it, said, ‘Do you ever come to the door with your actual clothes on and without your pistol in your hand?’
She was laughing at me but I was too tired to care.
‘Depends,’ I said, setting the little gun on the nightstand.
‘On what?’ she said.
‘On who is knocking,’ I said.
‘Sorry if I woke you.’
‘That’s OK; you did not. Just dozing, is all. Drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ She stared at me for a long while and I flopped back onto the bed. ‘Was that gunfight really necessary?’ she asked, her voice quiet, a little husky.
‘You heard about that already?’
‘I would guess the whole town has heard about it. Well, was it?’ There was a sharp, irritable edge to her voice.
‘I do not know for sure, but I am fed up with San Pedro and would like to be on my way back to Wyoming, where the weather is more predictable. Nothing here worth getting shot for. Vagg offered me a job and I turned it down, is all.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been a smart move to get inside of his organisation?’
‘He hasn’t got an organisation, just a raggle-taggle crew of trigger-happy low-lives.’
‘That how you read it?’
‘That’s how I read it. Look, Henri: Frank Vagg is a greedy old man who looks like he should have died years ago. He is buying up the bottomland to the east of the town in the hope of – or on bought intelligence – that the Denver and Rio Grande will choose that route and make him a very wealthy man. It’s not a new story by any means and it is one the US Marshals can handle; no need for Pinkerton agents to be involved. You can write that in your weekly report to San Antonio, I can get paid and we can both go home: me to Wyoming and you back to civilization.’
It was some speech and my throat was dry. ‘If you’re not having a drink, you can pour me one. My feet ache.’
She stared at me long and hard. ‘You really believe that is it?’
‘Yes, I do really believe that is it.’
She poured me a generous measure, brought it over to the bed and settled on the side as I shifted over. ‘I think there is more to it than that, Lucas. Margaret Vagg has been sending telegraphs to a bank in San Antonio, from what I hear on the key; innocent
enough in their content but each one carries the word Diablo. Do you know what Diablo means?’
‘It’s the Mex word for the Devil, is all.’
‘No, I mean in this context.’
‘No. Do you? Probably some code word to a fancy Dan banker she’s got on her line. I hear she spends a lot of time there and I cannot say that I blame her for that.’
‘Maybe and maybe not; I think I will make it a query in my report to Beaufort.’
‘Report away, just so long as it gets us out of here. Anything else you are worried about?’
‘One of Vagg’s men brought in several wires today, mostly to suppliers, but one was to a man in Bitter Springs, New Mexico, asking for him to make contact regarding employment. It was too fast for me to get the whole thing.’
‘Who was this man? He have a name?’
‘Max Hadley.’
I quickly sat up straight and spilt some of my drink in the process.
‘Max Hadley,’ I said. ‘Damn the man.’
‘You know him. . . ?’
‘Yes; but worse than that, Agent Larsson, he knows me and what I do for a living, which means he will guess who you are and our job here will be done whether we want it to be or not.’
‘Where do you know him from?’
‘A south Texas shithole called Dry Water about five hundred miles to the east of here. He was a lawman on the wrong side of the law, and I put him right. He tried to foul me up with the Wyoming law enforcement but Marshal Beaudine straightened that out. The man lost his job and I left town with him in jail nursing a bad headache and a gimp I had given him as a leaving present.’
‘Did you break the case?’
‘Yes, with Jake Benbow’s help. It was pretty bloody.’
‘Was it bad?’
‘It cost Agent Kathleen Riley her life when she got too close to the dingus and I didn’t have her back well enough to protect her.’
Henri slid off the bed, walked over to the small table and poured herself a long drink, holding it to her breast and staring out into the darkness. Finally, she turned back toward me, set her glass down and walked over to the bed. ‘Do you like me, Lucas Santana? I mean, really like me?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very much. Too much, perhaps.’
‘Never too much, Lucas.’ She settled down beside me and, undoing the top buttons of her blouse, took my hand and guided me to her breasts, then leaned forward and brushed my lips with hers, saying, ‘I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell.’
She looked up at me and I said, ‘To die upon the hand I love so well. . . .’
I laughed quietly; Henri Larsson was also well read.
Later, in the darkness and the quiet time that follows a burst of passion, a sometimes foolish burst of love making, Henri turned on her side to face me. I knew it was a retrospective grilling, a habit some women have, of committing themselves without question and then trying to back up that impulse to prove to themselves it was the right decision to make. This is a problem most men do not seem to have. ‘How old are you, Lucas Santana?’ she asked, her voice husky, almost a whisper.
I thought about the answer to that, and I did not have one. ‘I don’t actually know,’ I said. ‘Somewhere maybe a little more or a little short of forty-five, but a good shade less than fifty. I have often wondered the answer to that question myself.’
She raised herself onto one elbow; her face was cupped in her left hand and she pulled my face towards her with the other. ‘You have to be fooling with me. A detective who does not even know how old he is?’
‘It’s a fact,’ I said, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I was a foundling, taken in by a Montana lawman and his wife. They gave me a home, their good name and their love but they had no idea who I was, how old I was or where I came from. They guessed maybe three or four years old and started from there.’
‘When did they tell you?’
‘When I was twelve.’
‘Did you ever wonder where your real folks were?’
‘Hard to get that information; records were a little scarce back then and, in any case, as far as I was concerned the Santanas were my folks. Jesse Santana taught me when to pull a trigger and when to walk away, and Miriam taught me how to live a decent life. I hope I have lived up to her expectations. She was a frontier woman, a lawman’s wife and she knew there would be bridges, lines if you will, for me to cross.’
‘Are they still alive?’
‘No, sadly they passed while I was serving.’
‘The blue or the grey?’
‘The Confederacy; Hood’s Texas Brigade.’
She kissed my cheek and snuggled up against me as I studied the ceiling again and drifted off to sleep. When I awoke she was gone and I stared at the ceiling some more, wondering if Annie Blue would approve of my actions. I had that sure feeling that she would. Being in my line of work, we had often talked about such things, both of us knowing that one time I might not come back but be buried in some lonesome grave far from the Wildcat and her. Life goes on.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Max Hadley
‘Playtime is over. I tried the easy way, but Bassett is an arrogant and impertinent bastard. Rousted one of the boundary riders and threatened to kill him over a goddamned raven blind. He beat up on one of my men and shot another’s ear off and then shot him again tonight and threatened me. Had the nerve to send my shotgun back with Billy Bob Hunt. He showed no respect whatsoever to Margaret. Time to take the man down. Are you up for that, Jack?’
Temple thought about it long and hard. Being Vagg’s bodyguard was an excellent job; looking out for his business interest within accepted parameters was also good, and both jobs were well rewarded, but murder. . . . That was not part of his job description.
‘No, sir, Mr Vagg. He came at you with intent to harm. That would be one thing, but his rousting a couple of the border trash you have working for you, and not showing you the respect you merit. . . . Well, that is another matter.’
‘You scared of him or what?’
‘No, sir, I’ve studied some on the man and I think I could take him. It would be close and it would have to be for the right reason, and you have not given me one. I’ll draw my pay if you want it that way.’
‘No, I don’t want that. Jack, you are one independent cuss and I respect you for that. One of the reasons I like and trust you, in fact; reminds me of me at another time and place. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t involve you in what some might think to be the darker side to our enterprise here on the Circle V. I won’t put you on the spot, Jack. I have already sent for a man some weeks ago and since confirmed my offer in a wire in the last couple of days, in fact. He’s a man who will do the job in hand: one with your rep but not your scruples. He can handle it. He will cost, but Bassett is an itch I need to scratch permanent.’
Max Hadley considered the letter and the telegraph that followed it at some length. It was interesting, and he could smell money – a lot of money – and money was his game. He was a big man, over six foot, with long black hair and a fashionable drooping moustache on a darkly tanned face that carried a white scar from temple to the edge of his lower lip. He dressed in black, walked with a slight limp and wore a tied down sidearm on his right hip.
It was an offer, should he prove to be suitable, to work as a trouble-shooter on a large ranch on the Texas/Mexican border. The owner, Frank Vagg, had stressed that he had been recommended by friends, who had found his services in the past to be satisfactory with their duties fulfilled. Recognising the names of the previous employers told Hadley all that he needed to know about what kind of job was on offer.
Bitter Creek was dead. He would be happy to see the back of it, and the people who lived there probably as much as they would be of him. As the town council’s appointed marshal, his heavy-handed dealings with even minor lawbreakers had not gone down well. That and the fact most of any fines levied somehow did not find their way into the town’s coffers. He answered the telegraph imm
ediately, dropped his badge and a brief letter of resignation on to the office desk, packed his bag and by midday was well on his way to a town called San Pedro on the south Texas/Mexican border. He arrived just forty-eight hours after leaving Bitter Creek and, by dusk on the following day, he was astride a hired horse. With directions gained from the liveryman, he was headed for the Circle V.
Frank Vagg and his sister Margaret were taking a sundowner on the back porch of the Circle V with the albino gunman Val Lefranc. Jack Temple walked the limping Max Hadley through the house and introduced the big man to his prospective employer.
Vagg got to his feet unsteadily, shook hands and sat back down again quickly. He was feeling rough following the previous evening’s bout of drinking mescal followed foolishly by a peyote button: not a great combination. ‘Good of you to come, Mr Hadley. A pleasant journey, I hope. Rain washed out the Overland trail last week, but I understand the road to be passable again.’
‘Already dusty, Mr Vagg. This country dries the moisture out of just about anything and everything, including humans.’
‘Very true, sir. Very true. This is my sister, Margaret, and her companion Val Lefranc. You have already met my friend, Jack Temple. Margaret, will you please pour our guest a drink. Whiskey, I assume, Mr Hadley?’
Hadley shook hands with the woman, holding it longer than was necessary, nodded to Temple and took the chair offered, watching carefully as the one-eyed man and the albino both retired to distant seats by the porch doorway.
‘You come highly recommended, sir,’ Vagg said, sipping his lemonade. ‘My friends both north and south of the border assure me you are the man for the job outlined briefly in my letter.’
‘No problem, if the money is still there to back the offer.’
‘I assure you it is, Max. May I call you Max?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Three hundred dollars a month, and found of course. We keep a good table and cellar here on the Circle V.’
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