Beyond her, at the crowd’s edge, Hart saw the face again: saw it: recognized it.
Below the steps Maledon pulled the lever hard and fast.
The trap doors swung free: the bodies fell through air.
Caught.
Held.
Jerking, dancing puppets.
Silent: the crowd was silent. Suspended.
Dury’s body settled first, hung still, held down by his greater weight. His head was twisted up to one side, tongue protruding, eyes round and open, lank hair falling straight down, partly shielding his face.
But Drew ... Drew bounced and turned, side to side to side, never still. Hart started to shoulder his way through the crowd, making for the front. His eyes were on Drew all the way, seeing the way the youngster’s neck was stretched, his face pushed round by the rope, tongue sideways from his mouth like a purpling snake, eyes bulging about to burst. Mouth working now. Almost, almost into speech. A harsh gargling sound stuttered through with spittle that flew out over those who pressed forward against the edge of the scaffold.
The stench of excrement spread.
Drew’s pants hung about his legs, soiled and dark with urine.
Hart reached the front and the body became still.
George Maledon hurried forward.
At the back of the chanting, cheering mob someone started playing a bugle, sharp and off-key.
The judge and Fagan had turned away and were starting to walk back when Hart came up to them. Fagan turned his head.
‘Thought that young bastard wasn’t goin’ to go for a while there. Reckoned old George was goin’ to have to cut him down, string him back up and do it all over again.’
Fagan finished with a grin.
‘I bet he would at that,’ said Hart bitterly. ‘And you two would have gone under there and swung on his boots if you’d had to.’
Judge Parker looked at Hart severely. ‘I had hoped that I’d talked all that nonsense out of your head. Surely you see that the world is better off without the likes of trash like that contaminating it?’
Hart stared at him, finding it hard to keep his hands to his sides.
Fagan nodded towards Hart’s Colt. ‘Man like you, livin’ the way you do. Usin’ that Colt there. You can’t say there’s no reason for ever killing a man.’
‘Exactly,’ said the judge. ‘What about the men you’ve killed yourself?’
Hart took a pace back and looked at the pair of them.
‘Only men I’ve killed had it comin’ to ‘em and there wasn’t no other way out. And I did it myself. Me. Not hidin’ behind the law an’ flags an’ guards an’ such. Not watchin’ men die like these two did, tied and helpless with a mob screamin’ an’ yellin’ like it was the fourth of July.
‘And that boy...’ Hart swung his arm round and pointed back at the scaffold. ‘... that boy. If I’d known what was goin’ to happen to him, I’d’ve shot him down before I brought him in. Shot him down lookin’ right into his eyes.’
Hart reached up and tore the badge away from his vest and threw it down on to the ground between the two men’s feet. Then he turned fast away and thrust himself clear.
The fire was low, little more than a reddish glow of ashes beneath whitening twigs. Wes Hart sat forward, legs crossed, Navaho blanket draped over his shoulders. The pot of coffee was all but empty. There had been rustlings in the dusk about the perimeter of the fire’s dim light, but they had been birds, small animals. Behind him, the mare shuffled her feet and made a slight neighing sound but Hart ignored it.
He took the last piece of bread and wiped it round the pan in which he had cooked his bacon, enjoying the salty, greasy taste. Then he got up and put more coffee grains into the pot and poured water into the pan. On his knees he blew into the bottom of the fire, shielding his breath with cupped hands. When the flames had begun to flicker anew he pushed more sticks into them. Finally he began to boil the water, sitting back down to wait.
There was a noise in the trees and this time it wasn’t a bird.
‘’Lo, Charlie.’
Two men stepped into the shifting circle of light, leading their horses. Hart looked quickly, quizzically at the one he didn’t know.
‘This is Dan Halloran, Wes. He’s been ridin’ with Billy, too. Ever since you left.’
Hart nodded. ‘Why don’t you two tie up them horses and sit down. Food’s gone but there’s coffee on the way.’
‘Sure, Wes.’
Hart looked at them across the fire. Charlie Bowdre he’d got to know back in Lincoln County, though Charlie’d ridden with Dick Brewer more than the Kid. Only after the men had been pulled together and made self-styled Regulators had Hart seen much of him.
Bowdre was a quiet man, not given to passing the time of day in aimless conversation, preferring to bite on the stem of his clay pipe and listen to what was going down. Story was that he had a wife down near the Texas border, a Mexican girl called Manuella. Hart didn’t know if this was true and he’d never asked. But if it was right then he wondered what Charlie was doing getting involved in the Lincoln Range War.
But it wasn’t any of his business.
Hart looked at Charlie now, fingering his pipe from his coat pocket, face lined and graying, brown hair thick at the temples under the brim of his hat. He was maybe five years older than Hart, maybe more.
Dan Halloran looked to be in his early twenties. He was a tall man, slightly built, a cast in his left eye so that it was never certain whether he was looking at a man or not. He sat there rubbing the flat of his hand against his knee, nervously.
‘Saw you at the hangin’.’ Hart said.
‘Yeah. Kinda wished I hadn’t been there,’ replied Charlie slowly. ‘He went real nasty, that boy.’
Hart nodded. ‘He did.’
‘Heard it was you brung ‘em in,’ put in Halloran. ‘You bein’ a deputy U.S. Marshal and all.’
Hart reached forward and poured bubbling water over the coffee. ‘I took ‘em in right enough.’ He set down the pan. ‘But ...’ Hart pulled aside the end of the blanket to reveal his vest, the tear through the material where he had ripped the badge away showing clearly. ‘... I ain’t a deputy no more.’
Charlie sucked on his pipe and Halloran went back to rubbing the inside of his right hand as though something was making it itch.
‘Only got two mugs,’ said Hart. ‘You two are goin’ to have to double up.’
He poured the coffee, passing one of the mugs across the fire to Charlie.
‘Billy was sayin’.’ Halloran began.
‘Yeah,’ interrupted Hart, ‘how are things with Billy?’
Charlie sipped at the hot coffee and passed the mug on to Halloran, answering himself. ‘Had a bad run-in with Murphy’s men out at Doc Blazer’s. Dick got shot.’
‘Dick Brewer?’
‘Uh-huh. Got his head blown clean away.’
Hart drank some of the coffee and waited for the story.
‘Group of us rode into the Doc’s. Dick an’ Billy. Dan here an’ me. Three or four others. Some of Murphy’s men were there. Buckshot Bill Roberts was one of ‘em. Well...’ Charlie took a deep breath and carried on, turning his pipe over and over between his fingers. ‘... Billy said something to Bill Roberts about how he was one of those as killed Tunstall. Roberts tried to talk his way out of it but Billy wasn’t letting him back down. Finally Roberts went as if to walk out and as he was passin’ me he went for his gun. I beat him to it. Shot the bastard in the stomach.
‘Right about then all hell bust loose. Roberts fell back but he must’ve got hold of a Winchester somehow. He shot George Coe in the hand with his first slug, took his middle finger right off at the joint. After that he went chargin’ in, blood pourin’ out of his belly somethin’ awful. One of his shots got Jack, Jack Middleton, in the chest and then he came up alongside Billy and got the end of that rifle jammed up into the Kid’s side. Damn me if the thing didn’t jam soon as he pulled the trigger.
‘I ain’t clear what happened r
ight after that, ‘cept that when we all rushed outside a few minutes later there was Bill Roberts standin’ up in Doc’s barn wavin’ a blasted buffalo gun. He yelled out and Dick Brewer went towards him. Roberts blew the top of his head to little pieces an’ the recoil of the gun knocked him back into the barn.’
Charlie Bowdre looked up at Hart. ‘That bastard didn’t die as sudden as Dick but he died a whole lot more painful. I ain’t one to gut shoot a man on purpose, but with that one I was sure glad I did.’
A wind made the fire flicker up suddenly and the lines on Bowdre’s face seemed deeper, more keener etched than before. Hart offered him the coffee pot, but Charlie shook his head. Halloran also.
Hart poured some more into his own mug and swilled it round the sides before drinking it.
‘You didn’t ride all the way up here to tell me that.’
Charlie looked at him: ‘That’s part of it, Wes.’
‘Billy said if we told you how it was down there, you’d ride back with us. We got to pick up a few more men on the way. He’s aimin’ to end it once an’ for all.’ Halloran clenched and unclenched his hand.
‘No.’ Hart shook his head slowly, definitely. ‘I’m not goin.’
‘Wes, we...’ Charlie began.
‘I left the Kid once and I’m not ridin’ with him again. Tried workin’ as marshal and that ain’t for me neither. I guess I’ll stick by myself for a while.’
Halloran had stopped fidgeting with his hand now; it was quite still. ‘Billy was figurin’ you for bein’ a Regulator again.’
Hart stared back at him. ‘If I’m to be a Regulator, I’m bein’ one on my own, in my own way.’
Charlie bit down into his pipe and glanced sideways at Halloran. The cast in Halloran’s eye seemed to quiver as he stood back from the fire.
‘Billy said if you said no, we was to...’
His right hand grabbed for the gun by his hip and Hart rocked backwards, his own hand curving through a fast arc that brought his Colt up from its holster, thumb moving the hammer back while Halloran was still clearing leather.
‘Don’t! ‘Hart yelled.
Halloran kept on drawing.
Hart shot him once through the side, the bullet slicing through the flesh beside the ribs. Cocking the gun again, he stood up.
‘Drop it!’
Halloran squinted and gasped through clenched lips; face contorted he pulled the gun clear. Hart squeezed back on the trigger, splintering Halloran’s breast bone, knocking him several feet backwards and into the trunk of a cottonwood.
Both men watched as the body leaned there and the pistol slipped away from Halloran’s fingers; a gout of blood choked out of his mouth. Suddenly he pitched forward and fell headlong, one arm knocking the burning wood away from the fire.
Hart watched as Charlie Bowdre lifted the arm clear of the flames.
The two men looked at one another.
‘Well, Charlie?’
‘Well, Wes?’
‘I ain’t got no quarrel with you.’
Charlie nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘And the Kid?’
‘We never seen you.’ He pointed down at Halloran. ‘I’ll think of something to account for him.’
‘Okay.’
Charlie went round to Halloran’s feet. ‘You help me get him over his horse. I’ll bury him later.’
Hart nodded and got hold of the dead man’s shoulders and helped lift him away from the light. Within less than ten minutes the hoof beats of the two animals had faded away and Hart was standing alone by the remnants of the fire. In the morning he’d ride west, maybe pick up the Cimarron and follow that for a while. South of Stillwater was the Peterson place...
Whatever he chose to do he was doing it alone: the only person he was going to have to answer to was himself. Hart pushed two fresh .45 shells down into his Colt and spun the chamber before sliding the gun back into its holster. Yes: alone.
About The Author
John Harvey is a prolific author of thrillers and westerns. Harvey has published over 90 books under various names, and has worked on scripts for TV and radio. He also ran Slow Dancer Press from 1977 to 1999 publishing poetry.
The first Resnick novel, Lonely Hearts, was published in 1989, and was named by The Times as one of the 100 Greatest Crime Novels of the Century. Harvey brought the series to an end in 1998 with Last Rites, though Resnick has since made peripheral appearances in Harvey's new Frank Elder series. The first novel in this series, Flesh and Blood, won Harvey the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2004. In 2007 he was awarded the Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's Contribution to the genre.
Coming Soon
Hart 2: Blood Trail
The trickle of blood from a scalped corpse in a deathly quiet Stillwater saloon told Hart that the Cheyenne had paid a visit... but there had to be a reason. A crooked rancher called Fredericks is engaged in a shady deal with the Cheyenne, Belle Starr is involved too, and it’s up to Hart to sort things out.
PICCADILLY PUBLISHING
The brainchild of Amazon Kindle Number One Bestselling Western writers Mike Stotter and Ben Bridges, Piccadilly Publishing is dedicated to reissuing classic popular fiction from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and Beyond!
To visit our website, click here
To visit our blog, click here
To follow us on Facebook click here
Hart the Regulator 1 Page 13