‘On what?’
‘I ain’t sure.’
Belle set her face to one side and looked up at him. ‘There’s some brandy in my saddle bag. D’you think that would make things any clearer?’
‘No.’
She laughed and it was a deep, rich laugh. ‘Nor do I.’
She moved to where her horse was eating leaves from one of the branches and took out the flask. She threw it across to Hart, who moved his left hand across his body and caught it up near his right shoulder.
Belle laughed again: ‘You don’t look to make any mistakes, do you?’
Hart shook his head and unscrewed the cap, drinking the brandy in short swallows then passing it across. The ends of her fingers bristled the hairs on the back of his hand.
After she had drunk her lips were wet with it.
Hart could smell her stronger than before.
She came slowly to him and reached out her hand, low, feeling his pants pocket. ‘Your badge. I wondered if you was carryin’ it.’
‘It’s there.’
She stepped half a pace back. ‘I can feel it.’
She lifted the flask. ‘You want some more?’
‘Why not?’
She sat back against a tree and Hart went down on to his haunches opposite her, comfortable in that position, his body still perfectly in balance. He was angled so that he could see anyone approaching from the direction of the cabins.
‘You don’t trust me, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Should I?’
She responded with the same deep laugh. ‘No.’
‘Then we understand one another.’
‘Do we?’
Hart wiped the sweat from his hand on to the knee of his pants. A fly buzzed close to his head. ‘Ranches north of here been losin’ stock for months. You and your gang been rustlin’ it and runnin’ it off to two, maybe three, way-stations to make trackin’ you down more difficult. After the brands have been changed and the heat’s faded a mite, you run ‘em across the border and get the best price you can.’ He looked at her. ‘How’s that sound?’
Belle nodded: ‘Sounds pretty good. But that ain’t to say.. .’
‘I know. If I’d met up with you ridin’ herd on them horses yesterday instead of bein’ penned in by Indians, things would have been different.’
‘Sure they would. You’d have had half a dozen of us to deal with if you were for putting that badge on your shirt front where it belongs.’
‘I know that, too.’
Belle pulled her blouse away from her neck, then unbuttoned it some more at the front. ‘What you thinkin’ of doing?’ she asked, a look of amusement on her face.
‘Makin’ a deal?’
She nodded and a few drops of sweat came away from her forehead. ‘What kind of deal you thinkin’ of?’
Hart ran his tongue round the edges of his mouth. He could still taste the brandy and feel its warmth inside him. ‘You let me have Dury and the kid. I’ll take ‘em into Fort Smith. Dury’s got it comin’ to him from way back.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘Why not?’
Belle leaned forward so that he could see her breasts where her blouse had fallen open. ‘I thought you might be aiming to do something about me.’
She moved her hand on to him and this time she wasn’t feeling for his badge.
‘No, Belle. Not this time round. That can wait.’
She pulled her hand away like it had been touching ice or fire. Hart stood up in a fluid movement; looked down at her. ‘What d’you say?’
She looked away for several moments, considering. Then: ‘I say all right. But the boys.. .’
‘Hell, they’ll go along with whatever you say.’
Belle pressed her hand against the Cottonwood trunk and levered herself up. ‘If I tell you where they’re holed up, you won’t come sneakin’ back in to the Bend?’
‘I told you. I’ll take them to Fort Smith for trial. That’ll give you time to do whatever you want.’
‘Like what?’
Hart shrugged: ‘Move on maybe.’
She turned away and walked over to her horse, taking hold of the bridle. ‘You will come back then?’
‘Likely. Only.. .’
‘Yes?’ She swung her head round to face him.
‘Only next time I’ll be wearing this badge,’
Belle opened her mouth to say something but reconsidered. She pulled on the bridle and moved the mare round away from the trees.
‘Head north-west the best part of ten miles. You’ll hit a range of hills running due west. Follow that a couple of miles more. The cabin’s back of a small wood, stuck well out of sight. If you didn’t know what you were lookin’ for you’d ride right past it.’
She looked at the ground. ‘That Dury, never did take to him. Maybe I should never have let Sam talk me into having him ride with us.’
She pulled herself up into the side saddle. ‘You need to go back to the Bend for anything?’
Hart shook his head.
‘It’s as well.’ She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and flicked the reins. ‘I won’t say good luck.’
‘Okay.’
Hart stood and watched as she rode away at a canter, watching as her figure got small and smaller, less and less distinct. However far away she got he could still smell her body as if it were pushing close against him.
Chapter Twelve
Hart sat on the branch of the oak, one arm round the trunk. He could see the cabin below him, tucked into the corner of a gulley. Smoke had begun to drift up through the hole in the flat roof and lose itself in the graying evening sky. They obviously didn’t feel the need to be over-careful.
Eight horses were cropping grass inside a fenced compound in front of the cabin. A wooden trough near the furthest edge seemed empty. Close by it a saddle balanced on the top length of fencing and a rope was coiled about one of the posts.
It looked peaceful and friendly.
Pretty soon Hart reckoned the smell of cooking would rise up from the cabin and later still maybe the men inside would step out for some fresh air and a glimpse of the stars.
If they were expecting anyone at all it was only Belle and the rest of the gang of rustlers.
Good. Let them rest easy, Hart thought, let them relax just enough.
After another ten minutes he lowered himself down to the ground and stepped slowly back through the lines of trees. At the far side of the wood he untethered his horse and mounted up. He rode her at a walk for about a mile until they came to a small stream he’d spotted earlier.
There he tied the horse again, making sure she could drink if she wanted. Hart checked the wind and then went to find wood to build a fire.
Within fifteen minutes he was sitting cross-legged beside the gently crackling flames, waiting for the blackened enamel coffee pot to heat through. He bit into a stale biscuit, the crumbs like dirt in his mouth. Finally he lifted the pot clear and poured some of the steaming, bubbling black coffee into his chipped enamel mug.
The sky was darkening fast; the cold beginning to bite in. He set down the cup and got up to unroll the Indian blanket from behind his saddle. He draped it round his shoulders and sat back down. With his finger end he flicked a scalded fly out of the coffee.
Hart wondered what Marshal James Fagan would say about his deal with Belle Starr were he ever to find out. In his mind he saw the lawman’s long, graying moustache and his keen grey eyes; he could pretty well guess the marshal’s disapproval. But, then, he’d said handle things in your own way, just keep clean. Keep that badge clean.
Hart didn’t think he’d sullied it overmuch.
Neither was he sure what else he could have done. After all he was taking Dury in, or should be. That was something—a start. The thing was, he couldn’t be sure how much that had to do with the badge he was wearing. Him and Dury. More like it was something which had to be finished one way or another. If Hart didn’t see it that way himself, he was pr
etty sure Dury did—especially with six hundred dollars’ worth of gold that the bull-necked outlaw reckoned as being rightfully his.
The fact that most of the money had been handed over to Fagan wasn’t going to make a lot of difference to Dury once he was making a play for his gun.
Hart leaned back and pulled down on the edge of the blanket. The moon was beginning to show through, a faint white blur behind the slow-moving clouds. He’d do his best to take in Dury and see it settled legal. Dury and that youngster who was tagging his heels.
Yes.
Hart swallowed some more coffee and ate some more of the biscuit; he spat it out and got up fast. Pulling a piece of jerky from his saddle bags and starting to chew on that instead. He thought of what the two outlaws might be eating, warm, in the cabin.
Without wishing it, his mind moved on to Carol Peterson; he saw her sitting opposite her husband, some stew sending up steam from the pot on the stove behind them. Her even, white teeth as she bit into the chunk of bread she’d wiped round her plate.
Shit!
Hart stood and stepped down by the stream. What the hell was he doing thinking about someone he hardly knew. Didn’t mean anything to him. Her and her damned fool farmer husband!
He went back to the fire and poured some more coffee; stood drinking it. In the morning, early, then he’d get them out. Dury and the other one. His lips were drawn tight; the skin over his high cheekbones taut; anger burned at the back of his faded blue eyes.
Dreaming, he pressed his hand against a woman’s breast. Small, firm, filling the palm of his hand. He recognized it as Annie’s; the way she pressed her young body against him. Black hair brushing across his mouth, warm and harsh.
But the smell, the smell was Belle’s.
In his dream, he brushed aside the hair and lifted the face towards his own. Carol Peterson stared back at him with scorn and loathing and he turned away, suddenly asleep no longer, not awake. Lying somewhere in between, knowing he had been dreaming yet not certain whether he still was.
After a short while the movement of an owl through the trees and the hardness of the ground told him that he was awake,
And then he wasn’t.
He left his horse back in the trees, the rifle also. He’d checked the Colt .45 in his holster, the sawn-off shotgun that he gripped in his left hand. It was half-light, cold; he wore his vest buttoned over his wool shirt. When he walked the dew made the tops of his boots glisten.
He set down the shotgun and used both hands to ease away and lower one of the lengths of fencing that kept the horses in. He shifted another, leaning the end quietly on to the ground. Moving quickly, stealthily, he urged the animals through the gap, letting them take their time until they were some little way along the canyon.
If either of them got past him Hart didn’t want there to be a horse within easy running distance.
He walked slowly up to the cabin, stopping six feet away from the door and listening. There was a dull sound that could be one of them snoring. Hart figured that there would be a piece of timber holding the door fast, likely at the center against the latch. He also figured that to stay outside and try and force the pair out was setting up a long business which might be interrupted by the arrival of some of Belle’s gang. The windows were shuttered across with boards he could have broken through but he didn’t take to the idea of clambering in and impeding his own movements.
It had to be the door.
He took a pace forward and brought up the shotgun, aiming it at the middle of the door, towards the latch end.
Okay, said a voice back inside his head, and he pulled back on both triggers. Amid the roar of the gun going off the door rocked and splintered and Hart jumped fast, kicking with the underside of his right boot. It gave and sprang back and he was inside the cabin and reaching for his Colt as he went; two, three paces inside and turning; the shapes moving from the bed by the right-hand wall and the straw mattress on the floor behind the door,
‘Hold it!’
Hart thumbed back the hammer. Dury hesitated in reaching for the pistol in the holster by the head of the bed; Drew fell forward on to his forearms.
It was dark in the room but not so dark that the two outlaws couldn’t pick out the gun and begin to recognize the man behind it.
‘Go for a gun and I’ll blow you away!’
Dury’s eyes shifted towards his gun belt again and Hart jerked the barrel of his Colt at his chest.
‘No!’
Drew pushed himself back up into a sitting position and Hart nodded at him. ‘Where’s your gun?’
Drew gulped in air. ‘Over there.’ He pointed to a bundle of clothes hanging from a wooden peg driven into the wall. ‘Under them.’
‘Okay.’
Hart shifted his attention back to the right side of the cabin. ‘You! Move your left hand real slow an’ pull out that pistol. Finger an’ thumb. Nothin’ more. I’m watchin’ real close.’
Dury stared back at him, defiant, a sneer spreading over his broad face as he took in the badge pinned to Hart’s vest.
‘You...’
‘Never mind. Shut up and do it.’
Dury still didn’t move; Drew started to cough, a gritty, nervous cough like something was caught in his throat.
‘Do it!’
Hart narrowed his eyes further and Drew lifted his left arm and reached it high across his body, fingers spread and moving slowly towards the holster.
Light spread slowly round the room from the open doorway. Drew’s head bent forward as he coughed into his cupped hands, muting the sound. Dury’s finger and thumb touched the end of the gun butt. He started to lift it clear, slowly, slowly—his hand grabbed at it and he threw himself sideways off the bed, back towards Hart and his body turning as he fell, hauling the pistol round.
Hart rocked his body back and shot Dury through the back of the left arm.
The slug smashed in an inch wide of the shoulder blade, splintering the bone of the upper arm, glancing off it and pulping the flesh alongside as it exited and buried itself in the cabin wall.
The gun dropped to the floor with a clatter.
Drew shouted once, high pitched and disbelieving.
Dury’s body slammed down between bed and wall and rolled over so that the big man was gazing up at Hart through a blur of sharp pain.
Hart thumbed back the hammer of his Colt and straightened a little.
‘Finger and thumb. Do it right!’
Dury shook his head, stared.
Hart lifted the Colt and aimed it down at the man’s head. ‘How many times...?’
Dury winced and pushed himself round, reaching for the gun, gasping involuntarily as he got hold of the butt the way he’d been told, finger and thumb. He tossed the pistol across the floor and it bounced back from Hart’s right boot.
‘That’s better. Next time, listen.’
Hart leaned to his left and set the shotgun on the side of the worn wooden table. Then he scooped up Dury’s pistol and tucked it down into his pants’ belt.
‘Okay, now yours.’ Hart pointed his Colt at the wall and Drew got up slowly, his body visibly shaking, his eyes wide; the curls of his light brown hair stuck to his scalp with sweat.
The youngster lifted away shirt, pants and coat and dropped them to the floor. He touched the leather of his gun belt as if it was a snake that might bite back. When he brought it round towards Hart his mouth was open and his hand was shaking.
‘Throw it down.’
Hart bent easily, covering Dury all the time; he slid the gun belt over his left shoulder, the gun in its holster pressing against his chest.
‘Now get that shirt off him an’ wash that arm.’
‘He ain’t doin’ nothin’ to me. I...’
‘He’s doin’ whatever I say. Less’n you rather I tended to it for you. Saw a man clean a gunshot wound once. Did it with a pointed stick. Just leant all his weight on it an’ pushed it clear through an’ out the other side.’
Du
ry turned his head away in disgust. Drew moaned.
‘Get to it before he loses too much blood. I don’t want him too weak to ride.’
‘I ain’t ridin’ like this. I’m...’
Hart moved in close, the end of the gun barrel less than two feet away from Dury’s face. ‘How many times I got to spell it out for you? You’re doin’ exactly what I say. The pair of you. All the way to Fort Smith.’
‘Fort Smith!’
‘That’s it. All the way into the cells and up the steps to the courthouse. After which I don’t care too much what they do to you.’
Dury arched back his head and spat. Hart dodged aside then brought his right arm through the air like a whip. The barrel of the Colt cracked against Dury’s face, striking the bone at the top corner of the eye. Dury’s head hit the wall and flopped sideways down towards his bloody shoulder.
‘That’ll make it easier for you. He won’t be wrigglin’ around while you’re fixin’ him up.’
Drew glanced at Hart and then looked back at Dury. Blood was thickening around the torn edges of material that surrounded the wound. The whole of the sleeve and much of the front of the shirt were dark with it.
‘Best get a move on. He’ll start comin’ round.’
Drew put one hand to his mouth and mumbled through his fingers: ‘I’m goin’ to throw up.’
‘No, you ain’t. You might think you are, but you ain’t. You’re goin’ to do what I said. Fast. Got that?’
Drew mumbled some more but got hold of Dury’s sleeve none the less and began to ease it away from the skin. Hart stepped away and sat back on the table beside his shotgun, watching.
When Dury’s arm had been washed and bandaged up, Hart tied his wrists and elbows tight behind him, opening the wound again as he did so; within minutes the material that had been used as a bandage was newly wet with blood. Hart ordered Drew down into the canyon in search of a pair of horses for Dury and himself. He told the kid that if he didn’t fetch them back but rode off then he would kill Dury and come after him. He made it clear that Drew’s own end would be particularly slow and painful.
Drew brought the horses.
They rode at a walk, the prisoners tied together now by a rope that went from Dury’s back to one of Drew’s legs. Hart kept ten yards to the rear, watching Dury for any false move, scanning the surrounding country for signs of other riders. Towards noon the sky clouded over and a wind got up from the north-west, so that for a time they were riding straight into it.
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