Hart the Regulator 1

by John B. Harvey

  Fagan went over to the bar and reached himself a glass. ‘Give me a chance to lubricate this throat of mine, an’ maybe I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Sure, marshal, sure.’

  Grant hurried round and poured a glass almost full to the brim of whisky. ‘You want one?’ he said, looking over at the sandy-haired deputy.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Amos,’ said Fagan. ‘This is Jed Kimball. Man outside’s Griff Howard. Took ‘em on a few weeks back. Judge’s instructions. Goin’ to set on a few more before the month is out. We just ain’t gettin’ ‘em into Fort Smith fast enough for him to keep the hangman busy.’

  Grant chuckled. ‘Feller come through here a couple of months back, told me that hangman of the Judge’s...’

  ‘George Maledon.’

  ‘That’s the one. Told me he strung up six at the same time an’ let ‘em all drop together.’

  ‘I heard that, too.’

  ‘Didn’t see it, did you?’

  Fagan shook his head. ‘Can’t say I did.’

  ‘Damnation! I’d dearly love to have heard about that. Give near anythin’ to have been there myself and seen it. Six at one time!’ He whistled. ‘Gives a man somethin’ to think about, don’t it?’

  The marshal nodded shortly. ‘Guess it does.’

  Instinctively, Hart touched his hand to his throat. No matter how many men he’d seen hanged, it was a way of dying he hated, unconsciously feared.

  The second deputy came in and went over to Fagan, saying something low and quick so that Hart couldn’t hear. Fagan glanced over his shoulder at where Hart was sitting towards the rear of the room. Then he pointed to the bottle and the deputy poured himself a shot of whisky.

  ‘You goin’ to say what you’re doin’ this way?’ asked Grant, impatient for the news.

  Fagan leaned his weight against the counter, turning his body so that Hart could see him clearly and be able to hear what he was saying.

  ‘Bank got robbed four days’ ride from here. Winfield. Two men bust in while a third held the horses. Feller who runs the bank took too long to open the safe. They shot him in the back and in the legs. He ain’t dead but he ain’t moved or said a word since. Somebody saw ‘em ride through town, though, gave us a pretty good description. One of ‘em has to be a mean bastard called Dury. Alexander Lovatt Dury.’ The marshal glanced round: ‘Jed, fetch them handbills in.’

  Fagan had a swallow at his whisky and carried on. ‘What we could make out, they rode south. Might have passed through here.’

  Grant twitched his head round towards Hart and the marshal followed the gesture, easing himself away from the bar.

  ‘Three of ‘em, you say?’ asked Grant, a trace of nervousness in his voice.

  ‘That’s right.’ Fagan pointed down the room to Hart. ‘You wouldn’t have ridden in from the north, would you, stranger?’

  ‘No. Come up from New Mexico. Couple of days back.’

  ‘That a fact?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s a fact.’

  Hart pushed his chair back, giving himself room to move; the fingers of his right hand rested on the edge of the table, tips touching the stained wood.

  ‘Here’s the bills,’ said the deputy, coming back to Fagan’s shoulder.

  Without taking his eyes off Hart, Fagan took them and then dropped them on to the counter, leafing through them. After a few moments he lifted one out and held it up in front of Amos Grant’s face.

  ‘Recognize him?’

  Grant took the small poster with its sketched face and peered at it; once again, he glanced down towards Hart and once again the marshal intercepted the look.

  Fagan scowled: ‘Someone better tell me what’s goin’ on here, before I start puttin’ things together on my own account and maybe get it at half-cock.’

  ‘Maybe the feller down the bar wants to look at the poster?’ suggested the dark-haired deputy.

  Hart pushed the table away and stood up slowly, making sure all three lawmen got a good look at the Colt .45 holstered low at his hip.

  He started to walk forward and when he was midway the other deputy stepped wide and said: ‘That your grey mare in the barn?’

  Hart stopped, fixed him with his stare. ‘She’s mine. What of it?’

  The deputy marshal smiled wryly. ‘Looks like she’s been ridden pretty damned hard to me.’

  ‘Any law against that?’

  ‘Depends what you was runnin’ from, don’t it?’

  ‘Or after?’ added the second deputy.

  ‘Maybe.’ Hart carried on walking and reached out a hand for the poster. Fagan handed it to him and above the arm the eyes that looked keenly at Hart were unflinching, grey, lacking any sign of humor.

  Hart took his time. He wasn’t sure which way to jump, what the reaction of the three lawmen would be. Whatever they thought it would change again when they found out he had the bank money snug in his saddlebag. If they found out.

  He set the poster back on the bar.

  ‘Know him?’

  ‘Seen him.’

  ‘Where?’ Fagan rested his hand on the plain butt of the short-barreled Colt Peacemaker.

  ‘Here.’

  The sandy-haired deputy slid his gun out of its holster.

  ‘When would that be?’

  ‘Day before yesterday.’

  The deputy clicked back the hammer of his pistol, the triple click loud and very clear.

  ‘An’ you say you rode in from New Mexico?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Not down from Winfield?’

  Hart braced himself, spreading his legs slightly, right hand beginning to drift outwards. ‘You got where I come from right the first time. An’ if that man of yorn don’t ease that hammer back nice an’ easy, he’s goin’ to get a .45 smack between his eyes.’

  Fagan pushed out his top lip, stared at Hart for a few seconds, then said softly: ‘Griff.’

  The deputy released the hammer.

  Hart stared at him, waiting.

  The gun was dropped down into the holster.

  Hart nodded. ‘There was three of ‘em like you said. Dury, a lanky Texan with a stooped back named Quint, an’ a youngster they called Drew. During the night this Quint lit out with that grey of mine and their money. I guess it was what they took from the bank. Soon as I found out, I went after him.’

  ‘You catch him?’

  ‘I caught him,’ said Hart grimly.

  ‘What you do?’

  ‘What d’you think I did? I killed him.’

  Marshal Fagan blinked: just once. ‘And the gold?’ he asked.

  Hart turned and walked to the table where his saddlebags lay. He knew there was more than the money belt stuffed inside. There were clothes, boxes of shells, some dried meat and a Starr double-action .44 that he’d kept ever since capturing it from a Union soldier during the war between the States. That gave him two guns against a possible three, not being sure which way Amos Grant would come down.

  His fingers touched the butt of the pistol, tightened for a moment around it.

  He spun round fast and lobbed the money belt through the air. Fagan reached up his hand and snatched it, letting it swing like a wide, brown snake.

  Fagan held it up finally, felt the coins through the soft leather and tossed it over his shoulder for one of the deputies to catch.

  ‘It all there?’ he asked.

  ‘Most.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I had to pay for the horse I went after him on. He shot it from underneath me.’

  ‘That all?’

  ‘Ain’t there no reward comin’?’ Hart asked.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ replied Fagan. ‘Not on Quint, if that’s what he’s called.’

  ‘How ’bout Dury?’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t catch him,’ sneered one of the deputies.

  Fagan poured another two shots of whisky and stepped towards Hart. ‘You boys,’ he said, ‘take a wander round outside for a while.’

  The
marshal set the glasses down at a table and pushed a chair with his boot. ‘Take the weight off your legs.’

  Hart sat down, suspicious.

  ‘You as good as you think you are?’

  Hart thought for a moment. ‘I’ve been up against some fast men; never got taken yet.’

  ‘Uh-huh. You wanted for anything?’

  Hart shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know. You sure won’t find me on any of them bills of yorn.’

  Fagan stared at him a while, then swallowed back the whisky. ‘You ever held a badge?’

  ‘Rode with Texas Rangers. Armstrong’s company. Best part of five years.’

  In spite of himself, Fagan almost looked impressed. ‘You got anything to prove that?’

  Hart reached down into one of his saddlebags and came up with a brown manila envelope. He dropped it down in front of the marshal. ‘Them’s the papers.’

  Fagan read them quickly and nodded. ‘Guess you know something ‘bout Judge Parker. He was made Federal Judge in ‘seventy-five with jurisdiction over the whole of this area, right across the Outlet. He’s authorized me to deputize as many men as I can use, anything up to two hundred. Right now we could use a man between here and the Canadian River. That takes you as far across as Tulsa, east to Muskogee and west to Guthrie.’

  ‘That’s a lot of territory,’ Hart commented.

  ‘Sure is. And you’ll be ridin’ it on your own and fixin’ things your own way. You might see me from time to time and you might not.’ He leaned towards Hart and pointed a finger close to his face. The one time you’re sure to see me is the time you do some graftin’ and robbin’ on your own account. That’s when I’m likely to be steppin’ up close behind you.’

  Fagan sat back and waited while Hart drank his whisky.

  ‘You want the job?’

  ‘What’s it pay?’

  ‘Seventy-five a month.’

  Hart’s mind raced: there were all kinds of reasons for saying no, most important that he’d said to himself when he’d quit the Rangers that he would not take a similar job again. Not one where he was riding under orders. But right now there weren’t a lot of alternatives—and with the marshal and his men still not trusting him any too well it would be a way out of that problem.

  ‘Seventy-five a month and cartridges?’

  Fagan shook his head: ‘Seventy-five and room to ride as your own man.’

  Hart put out his hand. ‘I’ll take it.’

  Fagan’s grip was firm and brisk; as soon as it was released he was hollering over his shoulder for a badge and a Bible.

  The badge was a six-pointed star, each point capped with a small circle. The words Deputy U.S. Marshal were engraved into the tin and stood out black against the untarnished silver. Hart could feel the pin against the left side of his chest.

  ‘Like I said, you handle things your own way. Make a slow sweep through the territory and come into Fort Smith and report to me. That should be in around a month, maybe six weeks depending on what’s happenin’. You got your first month’s pay in your pocket. We’ll see if anythin’s comin’ to you when you get in.’

  Fagan paused to wipe his buckskin sleeve across his mouth. ‘If you take a prisoner, something important, and there’s nowhere to stash him, you bring him in right away. You got that? Don’t go takin’ no unnecessary risks.’

  Hart nodded. Fagan turned and hauled himself up into the saddle of his mount.

  ‘Good luck out there. God knows you’ll find trouble in plenty. Aside from the Cherokee this territory harbors all the cheap, murderin’ riff-raff of five states.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hart wryly.

  Fagan nodded and pulled on his reins. A moment later he swung the horse back. ‘Down by the Canadian, Eufaula way, lot of cattle an’ horse stealin’ going on. Heard there’s a woman involved. Name of Belle Starr.’

  The marshal jerked the reins again and dug in his heels, heading off through Stillwater, his deputies waiting for him at the beginning of the trail back to Fort Smith.

  Wes Hart watched the three of them for a while, then walked over to the barn to fetch his own horse, eager to be on his way.

  Chapter Six

  The day Wes Hart rode into Boley was the first day it had rained in over a month. Sleeping out, it had woken him like sharp needles into his face. Dawn had been washed through by long, slanting lines that stitched themselves from sky to ground.

  After the first hour the rain had slackened off some but never stopped. It fell against the shiny black of Hart’s slicker, sticking his hair to the top of his head, numbing his hands as he rode.

  The main street of Boley was washed clean of anything but the tracks of a wagon that had not long since been driven from the livery stable to the alley which ran down alongside the general store. Soon the packed dirt would stop holding the water in rapidly spreading puddles and become thick mud.

  The boardwalk that had been built along the north side of the street showed clearly the various colors of its planking. Outside a saloon the last vestiges of the previous night’s vomit hung thinly down into the street.

  Hart rode on until he came to a building which grandly announced itself as ‘The Royal Boley Hotel’ in three-foot-high red letters painted on to the wall above its doors.

  He dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching rail, then hurried up the boards into the hotel. He pulled his slicker off and shook it while a short man with a pair of spectacles gazed at him in a mixture of astonishment and disgust.

  ‘Really, I don’t see why you have to do that in here. I…’

  He caught sight of the deputy marshal’s badge and stopped, open-mouthed.

  ‘You got a room?’ Hart asked.

  The man fluttered his hands. ‘Yes, er, that is, no. I mean, oh.’

  Hart advanced on the desk behind which the man was standing. A number of keys hung from hooks on a green baize-covered board.

  Hart pointed. ‘They’re keys, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘Give me one.’

  The man’s eyes rolled helplessly. ‘But...’ he faltered.

  Hart reached past his shoulder and pulled a key from one of the hooks. He pocketed it and went out again to fetch his belongings. When he walked back in the little man was standing beside the desk in the shadow of a considerably larger woman. She was wearing a bright green dress with fur trimming and her hair looked as if she’d taken the best part of a couple of hours to pile it up, coil upon coil. She wasn’t young any longer but she was certainly what could be called handsome.

  ‘Marshal...’ she began.

  ‘Ma’am,’ replied Hart quickly, not breaking his stride and heading for the stairs that led up to the upper floor. The slightly tattered label attached to the key read Four. Hart found the door turned the key and found that he was locking instead of unlocking it; he used his boot to push it open instead.

  It was only half-light inside, the curtains still pulled across. Hart hefted his saddlebags from his shoulder across on to the jumble of blankets and sheets on the bed.

  There was an immediate yell of protest and a sudden movement that knocked the bags on to the floor.

  Hart kicked the door shut and hurried across to the window, dragging back the curtains.

  ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

  The hair was black and cut short, tousled from sleep; the eyes dark brown and not focusing any too well; the mouth was wide and parted; she couldn’t have been older than nineteen.

  ‘It’s too early.’

  ‘What for?’

  A slim, white arm appeared and waved in the direction of the door. ‘Go down to Emma and tell her it’s too early.’

  ‘Like Hell I will! It’s too late is what. Time you were up an’ out of here.’

  ‘You can’t...’

  ‘See this?’ Hart held up the key. ‘This is my room and you don’t come with the furnishin’s.’

  The girl’s face tightened into a scowl. ‘Just ‘caus
e you got that badge on, that don’t mean you can treat people like they was dirt. I got my rights, same as anyone else.’

  ‘Lady, the only thing you got right now is a couple of minutes to get some clothes on that body you’re so fond of wavin’ around and clear out of here.’

  ‘I’m not waving anything around!’ she shouted, shaking a diminutive fist at him and letting go of the sheet. Her breasts appeared, tight nippled, upturned, beautiful.

  Hart stared openly, nodding his head in admiration.

  She grabbed a pillow and hurled it at him. ‘Mister, you want any of it, you’re goin’ to have to pay. And for you that means double.’

  Hart grinned and pointed to the door. ‘I got more important things to do first—like seein’ to my horse.’

  ‘You bastard!’ Her voice was sharp as steel.

  ‘Language! It ain’t done for ladies to swear. Not even your kind of lady.’

  ‘Why, you sanctimonious, hypocritical no-good asshole! I bet you’re the kind who’ll screw every whore from here to Kansas City and back for ten years and then expect your wife to walk up the aisle a virgin smellin’ of apple pie.’

  Hart opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. Instead he jumped at the bed, grabbing her up in his arms, bedclothes and all, and dumping her outside on the landing. As she began to curse and swear with protest he hurried back inside and locked the door behind him. After a few minutes she got tired of trying to kick the woodwork to pieces and went off in search of some clothes from one of her, colleagues in the other rooms.

  Hart lay back on the bed and laughed. The red paint was right but the writing should be changed to The Royal Boley Whore House.

  After a while he stripped off his shirt, poured some water from the earthenware jug into a bowl and splashed it over his face and chest and arms. Then he pulled on a clean but crumpled wool shirt and went out in search of some food, careful to lock the door behind him and pocket the key.

  Hart spent most of that day in the saddle. The rain cleared as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the ground slippery underfoot; the bark of the trees was dark and shining, the leaves rich and green. In the middle distance earth steamed.