Hart the Regulator 7

by John B. Harvey

  Lloyd Majors stalked across his mind and once again he wanted to leave the other two where they were and ride north fast. He didn’t want Majors tracking down both his money and his woman. Especially his woman. He thought of the man’s bulk, the evil look that came into his eyes, the evidence he had heard against him at the trial.

  Tap stood up and went to the door. Three horses tied up out front and what was to stop him taking the fastest?

  He reached into his pants pocket and took out a sack of tobacco and some papers; there was light enough to let him see what he was doing, the thin brown snake of tobacco tipping down against the white paper. He tapped both ends against the back of his left hand and wet the strip of paper with his tongue. Three or four stars were faint in the sky and the moon was little more than a horseshoe of silvery white.

  Tap looked again at the horses; struck the match against the underneath of his boot and held the flame to the cigarette end.

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  He half-turned at Baptiste’s voice, low-registered behind him. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts he’d failed to hear the big man move.

  “Why don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Light out.”

  Tap let the smoke drift upwards from his mouth and nostrils. He held the cigarette cupped inside the curve of his right hand.

  “That weren’t—”

  “Yes, it was. We been together too long for you to start lyin’ to me now.”

  Tap drew deep on the cigarette and tried not to feel whatever it was that was twisting inside his gut.

  “You done what you could,” said Baptiste, “but it wasn’t the right thing.”

  There was anger in Tap’s face when he turned, anger in his voice and all of it directed against himself. “You know I ain’t scarcely done a thing right since we took that train. Tried to take the damned train. Look at what happened since we broke out – what happened to you, to Kinney in there. That’s what I done!”

  Baptiste shook his head, set his broad hand against the top of Tap’s shoulder. “You never done that. Neither of those things. It weren’t your fault. None of it.” He moved his hand away. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  Tap nodded, but what the big man said didn’t do anything to make him feel any more at peace with himself.

  “We’ll make out,” said Baptiste after a few moments during which the only sound was of Little Kinney groaning.

  “Yeah!” laughed Tap. “Two cripples proppin’ one another up. You’ll fare pretty good, okay.”

  “Time you stopped mindin’ other folks business for ’em. You get on one of them horses come sun-up and ride the hell out of here. There’s a lot of dollars up by the border and it’s yours to get.”

  “Yours and Kinney’s too.”

  “Fine. You get to it before that mad dog Majors and keep it for us till we get fixed up and get there.”

  The two men stared at one another through the half-light; Kinney moaned again inside the shack.

  “I know that ain’t all as is crossin’ your mind,” Baptiste went on.

  Tap turned away, dragged on the cigarette.

  “It’s her, ain’t it?”

  “Her?”

  “That teacher. That Sara-Lee. You’re frightened he’s goin’ to get to the money through her.”

  “He won’t!” Tap’s voice was firm, hard: not hard enough to convince Baptiste, certainly not enough to convince himself.

  “You’re a fool!” snorted Baptiste. “Ride out!”

  But Tap turned on him again, throwing the cigarette butt down to the ground. That man in there,” he pointed at the shack, his face tight with anger, “he had a chance to ride off back in Ozark. I ain’t forgettin’ what he did for me.”

  “Yeah,” said Baptiste. “Yeah, sure. He saved your life just to have you throw it away again.”

  The big man shuffled slowly back inside, leaving Tap Loughlin to his own thoughts, the sliver of moon, the coming cold of the night.

  ~*~

  Charlie Deuce and Norton Carey picked up the tracks of three horses moving slow just before dusk settled in too far for them to make out anything more than their own hoof beats.

  “What d’you reckon?” asked Carey, leaning back in the saddle and stretching his back, reaching one hand round to rub it at the centre. It had been a long day, they’d been on the move since first light, cross-checking the tracks each side of the northern trail.

  Charlie Deuce shifted his weight, pushed his fingers up through his close-cut hair. “One carrying more weight than the others?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Same as we saw yesterday then lost?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Deuce reached round to one of his saddle bags and unbuckled a strap; he fingered out a small silver flask and snapped out the cork. Wiping the neck with his sleeve, he set the flask to his mouth and swallowed twice. He stoppered the flask and slid it back from sight without ever thinking to offer a drink to his partner.

  “We’re not goin’ to see much in this light.”

  That’s true enough.”

  “Hardly a thing.”

  “No.”

  Charlie Deuce sighed elaborately and shifted across the saddle again. He lifted his silver case watch from a vest pocket and snapped the front open.

  “Let’s give it another hour.”

  He shut the watch and dropped it back down into his pocket. It was seven minutes short of the hour when they saw the smoke.

  ~*~

  Charlie Deuce sat huddled under the plain blanket he kept wrapped inside an oilskin slicker at the back of his saddle. He’d long since taken off his boots and pulled on two more pairs of long wool socks; he had put on a pair of thick gloves and sat on his saddle bags. Watching. The brandy in his flask had run out halfway through the night. It had been a long time since the couple of men who’d been standing out by the horses had had their conversation and then gone back inside.

  Alongside, Norton Carey had let his head droop a number of times, fading into sleep and coming out of it again with a start and a quickly muffled sound from his lips. Carey had been all of going down right off - soon as they’d had time to get to sleep at least – and blasting into them. Charlie Deuce had been against it. For one thing they weren’t certain who exactly was in there; for another, if they made their move at night then it would be easier for the men to slip away.

  No, they would wait until just before dawn. That would be the best time. Carey might have argued some more but he didn’t see the sense to it. No amount of words were ever going to change Deuce’s mind once it was set – that was one of the things Carey admired about him most.

  So Carey gripped his arms tight across his chest and did his best not to let it appear that he was shivering. Charlie Deuce wasn’t the kind of man you showed any sign of weakness to: if you did then sooner or later he’d turn it against you. That was something else Carey admired about the man.

  Down inside the shack everything was quiet; the fire had embered out and even Little Kinney had managed to get some sleep.

  It was shattered by the thump of something landing on the floor of the shack, something hurled through the single window, ripping through the tattered piece of sacking that had been nailed across it.

  Little Kinney was the closest to consciousness, the first to react. He tried to sit up from his blanket, yelled as he realized that with his back in the state it was, there was no way he was going to be able to do that. He rolled on to his side instead and shouted all the louder.

  Tap and Baptiste were awake seconds later, alerted by Kinney’s shouted warnings and by the smell of burning.

  The blazing rags that had been hurled through the window had been soaked in paraffin and fixed to a length of branch. Thick black smoke spluttered all over the interior. The three men moved as best they could, Tap jumping to his feet and trying to seize the brand and throw it back out, but the flames had caught too well now and he wasn’t able to get
that close. He tried kicking at it, shifting it towards the door. All three men were yelling warnings, orders, questions. Baptiste finally threw his blanket over the blaze and stomped down on it with his bare feet.

  The first volley of shots burst through the front of the shack: only the door was stout enough to deflect the bullets, the rest tore through the thin warped timber and into the sod wall at the side, the bare surface of the hill behind.

  “Jesus!”

  “Who the hell?”

  Tap and Baptiste grabbed their guns and moved towards the front wall, only too aware that another round of shooting could rip into them.

  “The horses!” shouted Kinney, struggling into his boots best as he could. “Get the horses!”

  Tap turned away from the window. “The horses are gone.”

  “Don’t be a fool! How can they?”

  Tap shook his head, a grim smile showing around his mouth. “They’re gone.”

  “Bastards!” Baptiste eased the door back a few inches and immediately two shots rang out. He ducked back below the splintering wood and cursed some more.

  “Come out now and keep your hands high!”

  “Throw out your guns!”

  The blanket had failed to smother the fire completely; flames were starting to lick out from beneath the edges, yellow and orange and curling. Dark smoke once again drifted around the inside of the shack.

  Little Kinney snapped a last shell into the chamber of his pistol, coughed hard, shuffled towards the corner of the front wall. When he leaned his head against it and coughed again, bright blood flecked across the soiled board.

  “You got another ten seconds.”

  Baptiste and Tap exchanged quick glances.

  “I’ll cover you,” said Baptiste. “We’ll hold ’em off while you make it far as you can.”

  “Without a horse?” scoffed Loughlin.

  “Okay. Stay here an’ get shot to pieces.”

  Tap eased his gun over the sill of the window. “Damn it! We’ll stay together.” “You’re a fool!”

  Their ten seconds were up and there weren’t going to be any second chances, no more warnings. Rifle shots peppered the shack, tearing through the decaying timbers. Baptiste and Tap gave as good an answering fire as they could, picking out the positions, right and left, the firing was coming from. Whoever it was was keeping well under cover, almost out of six-gun range, not taking any chances.

  “Bastards!” roared Baptiste again and emptied his gun through a slit in the wall, leaning back and reaching for fresh cartridges.

  Tap was already on his knees, reloading, one side of his face welling with blood where a sliver of wood had pierced his cheek. His left arm had taken a deep graze and was stinging sharply, more blood running free down to the elbow and from there to the floor.

  Little Kinney still hadn’t moved from the corner; his head was still pressed against the wood and his mouth was open, like a fish thrown up on the shore. His eyes were open too, but they weren’t seeing anything any longer. As many as four bullets had driven into him, three of them lodging fast. His shirt, his vest, his pants were wet with blood, sticky with it, stinking with it. He slumped in a rising puddle of it. It didn’t seem that there would be any left long in his whole body, he was leaking blood so fast.

  “Jesus!” Tap started across the floor towards Kinney but halfway there he stopped himself, knowing the uselessness of it.

  “If you’re still alive in there, throw out your guns and come on out after ’em!”

  Baptiste shook his head, coughed. The blanket was just smoldering now, the flames dying; the room swam with smoke.

  “Who d’you reckon it is?” he asked.

  Tap shook his head; he looked exhausted, broken.

  “Like to know,” said Baptiste, pushing himself slowly up the wall to his feet. “Like to know who it is I’m gettin’ killed by.”

  Tap saw that he’d taken at least another bullet; some of the blood seeping through his clothing was new, differently placed.

  “Some damn posse,” said Tap, shaking his head.

  “How in hell’s name they know who we are?”

  “Maybe they don’t.”

  Baptiste shook his head low; for almost the first time since he had known him, Tap thought he looked about to give in.

  “You got your last chance!” boomed the voice from the hill.

  Tap Loughlin stood upright, pistol in his right hand. His throat was constricted and dry and he still didn’t know what the hell he was going to do and why, except that sure as anything he wasn’t about to throw out that gun and go walking after it. He sure wasn’t about to do that.

  “All right.” Baptiste had moved to the corner of the room and retrieved Little Kinney’s pistol. He checked the chamber and pushed it down into his belt. His own pistol was in his left hand; the shotgun now in his right. He looked at Tap and nodded in the direction of the back of the shack.

  “No!” Tap said, even before the big man’s thoughts had been articulated.

  “Them boards. They’re rotten. You can easy bust through. The horses can’t be far. You take one and get the hell out.”

  “I …”

  “Go see Sara-Lee.”

  Air sucked hard from Tap’s body. Baptiste grinned through his heavy beard and moved to the door. The last thing Tap saw of him was that big leg swinging back and kicking the door open, then striding out into the early light. Tap ducked towards the rear of the shack.

  Outside, Baptiste stood for a moment drawing in the bright cold of the air. He glimpsed a second’s reflection of metal on the hillside to the left, another slight movement amongst a group of trees right of centre. He knew the way things were whoever was there was too far out of range.

  What he needed was a little more distance.

  Holding that fresh air down in his lungs, Baptiste started to walk forward. Shotgun and pistol were held low down by his legs and he made no attempt to lift them higher. Six paces, seven, nine, improbably eleven. He seemed to be stepping out into some kind of dream, Tap, Little Kinney, everything so quickly fading back of him. Even the pain that nagged at his back, the lesser, nagging pains in his leg seemed to have diminished almost to nothing. Ahead of him, through the clump of trees, the hazy orange of the sun was coming up like one of the big sternwheelers back down by New Orleans.

  The shots came from both directions more or less at once and rocked him this way and that and the big man’s knees shook and gave a couple of inches but no more.

  Baptiste swung up the pistol now, aiming at the shape barely glimpsed by the trunk of a tree and then swinging it round towards the hill.

  He gritted his teeth and took another step, another. A slug ripped through his body inches above the hip and he sucked in his lower lip and bit down into it hard enough to raise blood.

  As if there weren’t blood enough!

  He saw one of the rifles clear and tried to hold his right arm steady enough to draw a bead but another bullet plucked at his chest and threw him off balance. One more wavering pace and he doubled over, resting his weight on the shortened barrels of the unfired shotgun.

  A slug spurted dirt up into his face where it ploughed into the earth a couple of inches in front of him.

  Baptiste was breathing heavily now, his whole body shaking with the lumbering effort of it; he was like a wounded bison at the, moment before the beast keeled over on to the ground,

  The two detectives held their fire and waited for that moment.

  Baptiste trembled, shivered the bent length of his body, but he didn’t keel over. Instead he pulled himself straight and started off again towards the trees. He was firing the six-gun as he walked, knowing that he might only get one of the men, but if he could do that …

  He thought he was being hit as he went forward, but he couldn’t any longer be sure. He could still see the sun behind the trees but it looked mistier than ever and the trunks and branches seemed to be swimming in a kind of orange fire. Bathing in it. He choked on a
mouthful of phlegm and blood and hawked it to his feet. Something kicked into his belly and he staggered back, right arm waving wildly. The already empty gun fell from his fingers and he tried to reach the other at his belt.

  A slug slammed into his shoulder-blade from behind and he was driven to his knees with a thud that jolted pain screaming through his entire body.

  Baptiste brought up his head and then the shotgun, finger across the trigger, right hand coming round to steady the twin barrels.

  A rifle bullet smacked into the side of his face and sharded his cheekbone away, pulped mouth and ear against what remained of the back of his skull.

  Baptiste emptied both barrels into the orange haze of the sun, blasting it out of the sky. He fell like dead weight into the darkness he had created.

  Chapter Eleven

  Charlie Deuce touched the door with the stock of his rifle and it fell away from the remaining hinge and skidded up dirt and dust. Deuce waited for it to settle and stepped inside. The stink of burning clung to the ceiling and the stench of blood was hued to the wails.

  The Pinkerton man’s eyes took in the body slumped into the corner, the boards ripped away. He narrowed his already narrow eyes and pressed his lips together until all the blood was forced from them. He cursed several times inside his head and walked across to Little Kinney’s body.

  Using the long barrel of the Sharps he lifted the man’s head high enough to get a look at the face. A pair of dead eyes, one blue, one green, stared back up at him.

  Deuce looked into them for a few moments before letting the head fall. He went to the open doorway.

  Carey was kneeling beside Baptiste’s inert body, trying to count the number of bullet holes front and back.

  “We missed one of ’em,” said Deuce, each word flat and lifeless as Baptiste’s body. Somehow more so.