“You know,” said the man who had just shot the dog, stepping out in front of the two riders, “that blasted animal never gave a thank-you for a thing in all his life.”
Loughlin mumbled something and pulled on the reins, eager to move round both man and dog and be away.
“Brung him up since he was a pup an’ fed him good, times even when there weren’t enough food for myself, and still he never acted like he was grateful.”
He waved his pistol at Baptiste, who ducked his head away and swung his horse wide, pushing it to catch up with Loughlin. There were a few more people on the street now, drawn out by the man’s clamorous whining.
“. . . put a bone down an’ he bit me in the leg. Blast him! In the leg. All the thanks I ever got
When both men looked back, the man was on his knees beside the dead animal, the tatters of his coat trailing in the dirt of the street. His head was shaking from side to side and there were tears running down his face.
“Makes me thirsty,” said Baptiste. “How ’bout we stop over there?”
Over there was Peebles’ two-storey saloon and store, the sails of the windmill turning in the wind out back of it. Between the windows, unsteady letters proclaimed Peebles halt in red paint that was flaking away here and there. There was only one window at the bottom, but that was wider and stuffed full with boxes and tins and barrels, most of them opened up and used to display the goods they contained: shoes and shirts and socks and cans of beans and packets of biscuits and rice and buttons and bandages. Inside, two walls were covered from floor to ceiling with goods stacked on warped shelves, on upturned crates, upon one another. Huddled together were tubs of galvanized staples, sheets of corrugated iron roofing; silver grey cotton and wool camp blankets; twenty-four dozen extra-chiseled flat-bristle flowing varnish brushes, two inches in width; a gross of nickel-plated raw horn dressing combs, five and a half inches long and one inch deep; seven-jewel, No. 1 movement, nickel watches in dustproof screw bezel filled cases, guaranteed for one year to keep perfect time; featherweight green transparent eyeshades with self-adjusting elastic ribbon; pairs of extra seamless three-ply cotton socks with four-ply heels and toes and ribbed tops; an assortment of bits and augers and chucks and reamers, nails and screws, hammers and chisels, taper files and wood rasps.
Loughlin and Baptiste were stopped in their tracks inside the door, the abundance of goods overwhelming them. That much of it was coated with a thick layer of dust, and that some items were beginning to take to themselves a hint of mildew and damp rot, didn’t make it any less impressive.
Baptiste pushed his hat forward on his head and let out a low whistle. He was used to coming across such places in New Orleans, but out here in the middle of Arkansas, in a little two-bit place that couldn’t even call itself a town without boasting overmuch...
“Drink, gents?”
Peebles himself was behind the bar, a fancy waistcoat with an embroidered front worn over a cream-colored shirt that puffed out some at the sleeves. It looked as if he’d been helping himself to the best of his unsold goods and hadn’t bothered overmuch about which sex they’d been designed for.
“Passin’ through?”
The two men nodded and took and paid for their glasses of beer, fingering a good head of froth away on to the bar top.
“Headin’ for Fort Smith, I guess?”
Tap Loughlin nodded again and half-turned his back. The only other occupants of the room were a hump-backed old timer who was sitting as close to the stove as he could without burning himself and a ginger and white cat with one ear missing.
“Ain’t nowhere for most folk to go. Only Fort Smith. Round these parts, that is.”
An uneasy silence fell over the room. Loughlin and Baptiste downed their glasses and asked for refills, taking them off to a table pitched between stove and bar. Peebles watched them for a while, cursing them inside his head for being too damned standoffish to pass the time of day. After a short while, he began sorting out the bottles racked beneath the counter and Baptiste and Loughlin got their heads together.
“If we was after pickin’s,” said Tap Loughlin, “we got us the wrong place. I don’t see how there’s more than fifty dollars in this whole damn settlement.”
Baptiste nodded. “Reckon you’re right. Less’n we was interested in settin’ up store for ourselves.”
Tap half-smiled and glanced over his shoulder at the stock. “That’s true enough. He sure don’t believe in wastin’ any space, does he?”
Baptiste swallowed some more beer and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “What then? Tell the boys to give this place a miss an’ ride on?”
Tap considered it for a few moments. “Sure ain’t worth no seven men ridin’ in here, that’s a fact.”
Baptiste nodded, drained his glass and set it down on the table with a crisp clip that was loud enough to make the old timer shift his arm and grunt and for the cat to raise its one ear. Peebles glanced over the top of the bar and then ducked back down when he saw it wasn’t an order for more beer.
“Not so fast,” said Tap, leaning over and detaining the other man with a hand to his arm.
“What d’you mean?”
Loughlin nodded backwards. “How much longer we intendin’ to ride round this country with a couple of niggers wearin’ prison clothes?”
Baptiste flicked a fleck of froth from his lips and his eyes brightened. Both men stood at the same time. They explained to Peebles what their requirements were in the way of dungarees and work shirts, socks and a couple of pairs of heavy-duty boots.
“Real big fellers, these friends of yours,” said the store owner.
Tap grinned at the thought. “Real big,” he agreed.
Peebles finished pulling out what they wanted and wrapped the clothes in two large sheets of brown paper and tied them round with string.
“You’ll take the boots separate?” he asked, arming a little sweat from the top of his bald head.
“Sure,” smiled Tap.
Peebles smiled back, pleased to be getting so much custom from a couple of drifters who hadn’t seemed about to buy anything more than a few beers. He made a quick addition sum in his head and was even more pleased with himself that he got it worked out so fast.
“That’ll be.. .”
And that was when he saw the pistol in Tap Loughlin’s hand.
“. . . thirty dollars an’. . .”
But Tap was shaking his head and Baptiste already had the boots in one hand, holding them by the linked laces, and was pulling the parcel towards his chest with the other.
“We’re a little out of ready cash right now,” explained Tap, enjoying the man’s discomfort and surprise, “so we’ll just take these on credit.”
Peebles stammered a few words which didn’t amount to very much. Neither the old man nor the cat had as much as moved. Baptiste and Loughlin set off for the door. After a few paces, Loughlin swung round.
“Seein’ as we’re here and, like I say, we’re low on funds, maybe you’d best open that cash box you got there and make a donation.”
By the door Baptiste gave a low, rumbling laugh.
“Ain’t nothin’ here worth you fellows troublin’ yourselves over, I ain’t got...”
The gun came closer and Peebles shut up and pulled the metal box out from beneath the counter. It wasn’t even locked. There were fifteen dollars in bills inside, a solitary gold one-dollar piece, three silver quarters, two dollars’ worth of nickels and a bronze one-cent piece. Tap threw this back to Peebles, who caught it at the third attempt and held it foolishly in his open palm.
“You ain’t about to try nothin’ to stop us ridin’ out of here?” asked Tap as he retreated towards the door.
Peebles shook his head, a few drops of sweat flicking away on either side. Why would he be so foolish as to do that when with any luck they’d ride out of the place none the wiser for missing the gold bars and silver coin that were inside a strongbox in the padlocked store room out back? Let
them go!
That’s what I call being real sensible,” said Tap, feeling pretty pleased with himself.
Baptiste was already in the saddle, the boots dangling from the pommel and the parcel of clothes stuffed behind the saddle; he was fixing a length of rope about it as Loughlin came through the door.
“Easy enough,” shrugged Baptiste.
“Yeah,” said Tap. “Why can’t they all be that way?”
He mounted up, glanced back towards the place to make sure that the owner hadn’t changed his mind.
“Let’s go.”
The dog still lay in the centre of the street, flies buzzing now around the hole that had claimed just about half of its head. Blood congealed thickly and the dirt and dust were dark with it where it had run down. The man was still kneeling close by, oblivious of the fact that the corpse was setting up a fair stench. Maybe he stank so much himself he never would have noticed anyway.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Tap. “Look at that!”
Baptiste shook his head. “Poor bastard’s left his senses.”
Tap nodded, averting his head as they came closer. “Reckon so,” he agreed.
The two riders separated out, moving to pass man and dog on either side, giving them as wide a berth as possible. The man was murmuring to himself, words that made no sense as they drifted upwards, nothing more than a jumble of distraught thoughts. Baptiste cleared his throat and spat off to the front of the nearest shack.
As he did so, the dog’s owner got to his feet and began to scream, a sudden violent invective against all the creatures of God’s earth. Both Tap and Baptiste turned, startled by the man’s ravings.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Tap again. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He swung out his legs to kick the horse into a little more pace and as he did so the man whirled both arms about his own head, shouting all the more. Loughlin’s mount lurched off down the street and Baptiste sought to follow suit. As he turned his back and lashed out with his reins, the dog owner ceased to swirl his arms and brought them to a standstill in front of his body.
The Colt Navy was still tight in his hand.
Baptiste rocked in the saddle and the explosion roared through his head.
He arched steeply backwards, dropping the reins, clutching for something behind that he could never hope to reach.
The man dipped his head, cursed, and fired again. This time the slug grooved a path through the dirt of the street and finally embedded itself in a post twenty yards away to the side.
Baptiste could feel a deep stabbing pain in his back and his head was singing, a roaring, a ringing that seemed to dart back and forth between his ears. He could feel something warm trickling down the centre of his back, underneath the rough wool of his shirt.
Tap Loughlin kicked at his horse’s flanks and drew the pistol from his belt. The horse shied under him and his finger came back jerkily against the trigger; the bullet soared off into the air. The man with the Colt Navy stood his ground, mouth open and a line of saliva drooling from one corner over his stubbled jaw. He saw Loughlin coming towards him and fired. Tap yelled disbelievingly as he felt something tug at his sleeve and the pistol was jolted from between his fingers.
He swung the horse wide again, once more having trouble controlling it. Baptiste was sitting hunched forward in his saddle, the pommel and the two pairs of boots pushed up against his stomach. His head still swam and his back was burning. His eyes kept flickering open but all the time he was aware that what they really wanted to do was stay shut.
The man in the middle of the street wasn’t bothering with any more gunplay. As other folk appeared cautiously on the edges of the street, he realized what this pair were up to - they wanted his dog. He pushed the Colt Navy down into one of the capacious pockets of his old coat and, bending with some difficulty, he lifted the dead animal up into his arms.
Tap Loughlin stared at the sight of the man’s haphazard progress, the legs of the animal pushing out on either side of his body as he ran. Tap cursed and looked at his arm, trying to figure out exactly how much damage the bullet had caused. All he could tell without tearing the sleeve completely away was that there wasn’t a great deal of blood and the bone didn’t seem to have been hit.
He glanced at his pistol, down in the dirt, at Baptiste’s heavy body beginning to slide sideways from his saddle. Faces were staring at the two of them and down towards the end of the street -in the direction that the man and dog were heading-the bald head of Peebles was clear and unmistakable. He sure as hell didn’t want to find himself stuck in the middle of a place turning all righteous and thinking it had itself a choice pair of outlaws to string up. He heard the word, “penitentiary’ and that was enough to make him realize that even here in Peebles’ Halt, two and two weren’t so hard to put together.
Tap dropped to his feet, called off a few curses as the pain jolted along his arm, and retrieved the pistol. He ran across to Baptiste and spoke to him urgently, propping him back up in the saddle and telling him to hold on till they put a little distance between themselves and the town. Holding the reins of Baptiste’s mount in his left hand, he climbed back on to his own horse and got the two of them down that street and off back the way they’d come as fast as he was able.
Chapter Six
“What the hell are you runnin’ here, Loughlin? I mean, what is this, some kind of joke outfit you set up for laughs? Let me call the shots, you said. I’m the one who knows what I’m doin It’s me that knows what it’s all about. Ain’t I the feller who robs banks an’ such for a livin’?” Majors stood tall in the middle of the group of men, pumping his fists out into the air, letting his voice swell and roar. He’d been drinking hard on the bottle of home-made liquor they’d taken from the farm house and there wasn’t going to be any holding him. The only way to shut him up was going to be to knock him down - and out.
“Jesus, I should have known better than to have trusted some stumble-bum bandit who can’t take a train without getting most of his gang either killed or wounded. Wholesale bloody carnage and at the end of it two of the bunch run off with the money and you haven’t got a damned idea where they’re gone. Jesus Christ! Loughlin, I’ll tell you this - as an outlaw you’re about as dangerous as a five-year-old kid with a stick of candy!”
Tap Loughlin glared up at Majors and then looked away at the embers around the edge of the fire. There were things he felt like saying, excuses he could make, but what would be the point? He’d feel even lower if he tried to apologize to a man like Majors, and the prospect of crawling in front of what was left of his outfit didn’t suit him too well, either. With any luck, saying nothing was the best way to get Majors to shut his mouth.
There wasn’t any such luck around.
Majors hauled the bottle from the ground, wiped his mouth around the neck to get the last drops and then hurled if off into the scrub. He got himself closer to Loughlin and pointed down at him with one of those ham-like hands.
“You know what you just did, don’t you? You and your right-hand gun, over there. The one layin’ groanin’ with a slug in his back to go with the one he’s already carryin’ somewhere in that leg of his. You know what you done?”
Majors gave himself long enough pause to look quickly round the rest to make sure they were giving him the attention he figured he deserved.
“You rode into this two-bit place and stole a couple of suits of clothes and you couldn’t even get away with that! You got yourselves shot up by who? The town marshal? Some tearaway punk provin’ himself quick on the draw? Like hell you did! You got shot up by some lunatic hobo who’d just used the same gun to shoot his own dog. His dog!”
Majors’ finger jerked close to Loughlin’s shamed face.
“And then, an’ this is the part that’s real jim-dandy, you rode off with your tail between your legs, lettin’ the feller go scot-free.”
“What would you have done?” Loughlin managed to get out, still not looking up.
“
Me? I’d’ve taken that place apart and not before I’d put a couple of shots in that old fool’s brain-pan the way he done to his dog.”
That’s about it, Loughlin thought, shooting old men in the head and sticking knives in kids before you rape their sisters. That’s your mark. He thought it but he didn’t say it. He didn’t say a thing.
“You ain’t even got the guts to open your mouth, Loughlin. Jesus, you make me sick!”
Majors stepped back far enough to be able to clear his throat and hawk down a mouthful of phlegm that slid into the dirt inches away from Loughlin’s boots.
It was enough to make Tap’s back straighten and his hand move in the direction of his gun butt. Majors grinned and pushed back his coat, letting his own pistol show clear.
Neither of them moved near as fast as Gideon. The tall black seemed to be on his feet without anyone else realizing that he was moving. He set his large body between Majors and Loughlin and for once Lloyd Majors found himself having to look up.
“What’s on your mind?” Majors growled.
“Just a thought.”
“Yeah?”
“That you could ease off on that mouth of yorn a little.”
Majors’ eyes tightened, his mouth twitched; he wasn’t used to being told what he could do and certainly not by some jumped-up nigger.
“Boy—” he began.
Gideon nearly laughed. “Who do you think you’re callin’ boy?”
“While I got this gun here and you ain’t,” said Majors, ‘I’d say it was you.”
“Huh!” Gideon snorted and shook his head.
There was a movement from across the fire.
“My brother there, he ain’t got no gun, but I sure have. You want to take a look, white boy?”
Majors gritted his teeth and flexed his fingers round the grip of his gun and looked. Joseph was sitting with one of the shotguns resting on his knee, and in the firelight his smile looked wide and handsome.
Hart the Regulator 7 Page 6