Hart the Regulator 7

by John B. Harvey

  Smiling, Bluey’s guts were spread all over the cabin.

  Levy was sitting in the corner on top of the barrel, his pistol drawn but unused.

  Majors hollered his appreciation for what Joseph had done, flicked a few sprays of blood and tissue away from his clothes and asked Levy if they’d told him where the money was.

  “Sure,” said Levy, and told Majors what they’d said.

  Majors nodded, turned, turned back and shot Levy through the side of the head.

  The blue and green eyes looked startled even as he died.

  “What you…?” Gideon began asking, till a quick glance from Joseph warned him to hold his tongue.

  Majors answered him anyway. “He was one of Loughlin’s bunch. No way you could ever trust him. Besides, all that money goes a lot further split three ways, don’t it?”

  “Sure,” agreed Joseph slowly. “Close to two thousand dollars each.”

  Majors shook his head. “Let’s think on that. I’m runnin’ this show, ain’t I? I get more of the cut. That’s the way it has to be.”

  Gideon and Joseph looked at one another, at the dead men spread across the room, back at Majors again. “All right,” Joseph said, “it seems fair to us.”

  “Yeah. Half for me, the rest split between the two of you. And that’s the way we’ll run things from here on in.”

  The two blacks said nothing; neither of them wanted to cross Majors there and then. Even half divided between them was more money than they’d ever reckoned to see in a lifetime down in Bogalusa. And if they stuck with the big man a while longer, there might be even more. Majors had been sounding off about how taking banks was easy and if a weak fool like Tap Loughlin had made a good living at it, then they were sure to do better.

  Majors dipped his fingers into what food remained inside the pan Jeff had thrown against his chest. He ate it hungrily and licked his finger ends clean.

  “We’d best get to diggin’ up this money, boys,” he said, making it clear that what he meant was that they had best get to doing it.

  There was a long-handled shovel racked against the far corner of the cabin and Gideon soon found a claw-hammer amongst a box of rusting tools. They set their muscles to work and Majors picked at the remnants of the food and watched. As soon as the boards had been lifted and the earth was beginning to be thrown back, he joined in, spelling the two blacks, his greed getting the better of his idleness.

  The money had been buried in the sacks Tap’s men had taken it away in, those sacks set into an old packing case with warped, loose sides. Gideon was digging when the case was struck by the shovel blade and his smile rang true through the sweat that ran liberally down his face.

  In only a few minutes, all three men were sitting on a heap of old floorboards, staring at five and a half thousand dollars.

  “When we’ve counted this,” said Majors, “we’ll share it out. Right off.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Gideon and Joseph together.

  “Then we’ll ride on out of this stinkin’ hole.”

  “Yeah.”

  “North.”

  Gideon and Joseph looked at him for an explanation.

  “We’ve got us six hundred more dollars owin’. I intend to see we collect.”

  ~*~

  From Shadow Point to Springfield was a good day’s ride and the three men had to break their journey somewhere. Rossiter seemed as good a place as any. No more than a dozen buildings clustered around a well and a windmill, it squatted in the middle of the plain like something that had long since been forgotten. One general store, one livery stable, one saloon. That represented the sum total of Rossiter’s commercial enterprise. The dogs swapped fleas around all summer and spent most of the winter forgetting where they’d hidden their bones.

  Majors and the two blacks tied up the horses to the corral post to the side of the livery stable, while Majors went in to trade.

  “All right,” he said a few minutes later. “We can get the mounts fed and watered. There’s a hay barn we can throw down in for the night. That’s about the best this one-eyed place does for a hotel. Gideon, you take these horses inside, meet us over at the saloon.”

  Inside the Rossiter Empress, the same card game was going on that seemed to have been going on for the past five years. The bartender reluctantly set down his hand and shuffled to the bar in broken-backed shoes. He didn’t want to disturb a winning run to serve anyone, let alone a nigger. Would have said so, too, except for him being big and armed and having a white feller with him who was even bigger if anything.

  He wiped at his runny nose with the side of his hand and asked what they wanted. He was wiping the dust from the whiskey bottle when a second nigger walked in, looking just like the first. He almost dropped the bottle there and then.

  Old Ed, dealing a fresh hand, set down three cards on the same spot before realizing what he was doing.

  Majors dropped a coin on to the counter and snatched the bottle away. Joseph carried three stained and chipped glasses. There were tables enough to choose from and Majors picked one close to the back of the room, where he could sit and face the door.

  The three men sat for a while, drinking in silence, letting the whiskey get to their veins. Occasionally one or other of the card players would turn his head and glance round to see what the strangers were doing, but after fifteen minutes or so, the cards became more important.

  Majors was drinking fast and starting to brag about what they’d done and what they were going to do in the future. The light slowly started to fade inside the room and the bartender got up to light a pair of kerosene lamps, one more or less directly above the card table, the other over the bar. Two circles of light, shifting a little in the wind that cut above the door, spilled over the edge of the table at which the three men sat.

  “Why the hell ain’t there no women in this place?”

  Gideon and Joseph tried to reason with Majors, quieten him down.

  “I said,” Majors shouted, pushing away Joseph’s restraining hand, “why the hell ain’t there no women? What kind of a saloon is this without women in it?” Majors stood up too quickly, knocking the table sideways, sending a couple of the glasses to the floor with a crash.

  Gideon caught the bottle before it fell too, though there was little enough left inside.

  “You! You!” Majors was pointing at the bartender, who was busy looking at his cards and pretending not to notice. “Where are all the whores around here?”

  Old Ed Davison chuckled to himself and said: “You think if we knew the answer to that one we’d be sittin’ here playin’ poker?”

  But Majors didn’t hear what Ed had said, only knew that he’d said something. He started out towards him and Joseph stood up and intercepted him. Majors saw the black in his path and tried to brush him aside. It wasn’t that easy.

  “Let’s sit back down,” said Joseph forcefully.

  “I’ll do what I damn well please!”

  “Sure. Only why don’t we finish this bottle an’ then we can all go whorin’ when we’re done. There’s got to be women somewhere, ain’t there?”

  Majors ground his teeth together and went to go past Joseph again, but still the big Negro blocked his path, standing square in front of him, one hand restraining Majors’ right arm.

  “C’mon,” called Gideon from the table. “Sooner we get rid of this bottle, sooner we can buy another. Ain’t that so, Joseph?”

  “Sure,” replied Joseph. “Sure, that’s right. Let’s get it done.”

  He succeeded in turning Majors round and shifting him back to his seat. Gideon recovered the glasses from the floor and set them down.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s have a drink.”

  Majors swayed a little and his breath came heavily; his face lurched towards Joseph’s and the thought flashed through the Negro’s mind that maybe now was the time to make a break. Hit Majors but good when he wasn’t expecting it and leave him cold. Grab the horses, take their share of the money and ri
de anywhere but where Majors was heading. What did another five hundred dollars matter when you had as much as was already waiting to be spent?

  But Majors grasped Joseph hard on the upper arm and nodded his head. “You’re right. You’re both right. Let’s get another bottle.”

  He pulled a greenback from his pants pocket with a mixture of speed and dexterity that made Joseph glad he hadn’t put his thoughts into action. Majors was nowhere near as drunk as he was letting on.

  “You get it. Huh?”

  Joseph didn’t think much to running errands, but he took the bill anyway and went over to the bar. The bartender glanced over his shoulder and called to hang on a minute – he had a good enough hand not to want to throw it in on account of one bottle of whiskey. Joseph leaned back against the counter and hooked his boot heel over the wooden rail that ran close to the floor.

  Majors and Gideon were finishing what remained of the first bottle and the big man seemed to have calmed down. He was sitting with one arm spread wide across the table, the other angled towards his mouth. Joseph stared at Majors, his thoughts about him torn between admiration for his strength and resolution and contempt for his sheer callousness, his apparent lack of self-control. If there was one thing a black learned down low on the Mississippi, it was self-control.

  Over at the table, the bartender cursed as his three eights weren’t good enough. Scraping back his chair, he stood up and began to turn. He didn’t get more than halfway round – he stopped short and stared at the doorway.

  Hart had come up soft. He’d tied his own mounts lower down the short street; checked with the man at the livery stable that the horses of the three strangers were all tied up safe, unsaddled and far from ready for a quick getaway. Then he walked slow and easy back down to the saloon. It was a single door and it pushed back with scarcely a squeak. Hart had his hat angled down towards the right, the striped Indian blanket was draped over his left shoulder, left arm and hip. Underneath the blanket he was wearing a faded red shirt, ringed with different shades of sweat. His pants were brown and worn over scuffed brown boots of a darker shade. The pearl-handled Colt Peacemaker sat snug in its holster and the small leather thong which fitted over the hammer had been slipped free. A second length of leather, attached to the bottom of the holster, was tied tight inside his thigh.

  Hart stood one pace inside the doorway and allowed the heavy wooden door to swing slowly, almost silently, shut behind him.

  One of the card players began coughing, raw and harsh, and couldn’t find a way to stop. Another, without knowing it, drummed his finger ends to an irregular pattern underneath the table top. The bartender, mouth slightly open, stood almost erect and stared.

  Joseph had followed the barman’s look and as soon as he saw the figure in the doorway, his hand started to move towards his gun.

  “Don’t!”

  Joseph’s hand froze.

  At the back of the room, Majors lurched awkwardly to his feet, pushing the table hard into Gideon’s chest and dislodging one of the glasses. It fell to the ground without breaking and started to roll in a decreasing number of arcs, the rim rattling on the uneven edges of the boards.

  “Majors!” called Hart.

  The big man swayed a little and watching him from the corner of his eye, Joseph was certain he was exaggerating again. Trying to gain himself an edge.

  “Lloyd Majors?”

  “Who the hell wants to know?”

  Majors squared himself round and jutted his head belligerently forward. His gun arm began to arch out from his body and his feet shifted themselves inches further apart, adjusting the balance.

  Two of the card players shifted their chairs away from the table and scuttled towards the side wall. The one who was coughing sat doubled over, his nose almost resting on a hand of cards, his whole body racked. Above him, the bartender still hadn’t moved; his eyes still hadn’t left Hart’s face.

  Joseph was continuing to look at the pearl-handled Colt, then at the blanket, wondering.

  “You men there,” said Hart, nodding at the card table, “get clear.”

  The order jerked the bartender into movement; he helped the coughing man towards the side, the continuous rasping sound cutting through the saloon like a saw jammed into a knot of wood.

  “Majors,” said Hart, “I’m takin’ you back. You two ...” His eyes shifted quickly from Gideon to Joseph and back again. “…I ain’t interested in. Keep out of this an’ where you go ain’t my concern.”

  Joseph heard the words but stuck at believing them. What kind of a lawman was this? What kind of bounty hunter? Didn’t he know how much they were carrying?

  Hart read the Negro’s thoughts.

  “I’m not with the railroad,” he said. “Not the law. I don’t care about what you dug up at Shadow Point. I just want him.”

  And Hart’s words pointed directly at Lloyd Majors and no one else.

  Majors angled his arm a little more steeply. “You want me,” he called down the room, “you’re goin’ to have to take the three of us.”

  Hart nodded: “If that’s the way it’s got to be. Only I wouldn’t be so certain I was callin’ all the shots.”

  Majors turned his head fractionally and glared at Gideon; he nodded, bull-like, at Joseph midway along the bar. “Three of us,” he repeated.

  “Maybe.”

  Gideon’s mind was racing, jumbled. His thoughts broke between the sawn-off shotgun that was resting between the folded saddle bags on the floor, less than a couple of feet away from his right boot, and the length of the room between where he was standing and the door. If he and Joseph could get clear and ride.

  Sweat broke from his temples: he knew for certain that the moment he made that kind of a move, Majors would shoot him in the back.

  “I’ll take that gun, Majors.” Hart still hadn’t moved, he could see the entire saloon from where he was, covering everyone as they stood in and out of the circles of light that pooled down from the pair of lamps.

  “Now. Use your left hand and ease it out.”

  “Go to Hell!”

  Hart shook his head. “Uh-uh. That’s where you’ll go the minute you call the wrong move.”

  Joseph unhooked his boot from the rail. “Who are you, mister?” he asked.

  “Majors, he stabbed a youngster to death, raped a girl. Their old man don’t think he should be runnin’ free after doin’ that.”

  “You’re takin’ me back to prison?” demanded Majors, loud-voiced.

  Hart shook his head again. Tm takin’ you back to those kids’ old man.” The first traces of a smile appeared around the edges of Hart’s mouth. “He says he’s goin’ to string you up with his own hands. An’ I think I just might help him do it.”

  Majors threw back his head suddenly and laughed - a rough, roaring sound that grated the air. He flung out his left arm wide and at the same time his right hand dived, fingers clutching, towards the gun at his hip.

  Hart’s own hand blurred through a fast curve and climbed.

  Majors’ laugh choked to a spluttering silence as he felt the hardness of the pistol butt slap against his palm and his fingers tightened on wood and metal.

  His massive body dipped further as he dragged the pistol up. The front sight snagged against the holster as Hart leveled his Colt and allowed himself time to aim. In a fractured second Majors saw him, saw the gun, continued to draw. Hart shot him through the left side, splintering two ribs over the heart. The big man’s arm was still lifting, rising; his fingers were opening, clutching blindly for the pistol grip as it slid away.

  Majors stumbled three, four paces back and then heaved himself to the side, sending the table crashing to the ground as he slumped over it. He moaned and lifted his head, slamming it back down on the edge of the fallen table as if somehow that would obliterate the pain that was tearing jaggedly through him.

  Gideon backed off, lifting his own hands level with his head, not wanting the stranger to think he was about to interfere. At
the bar, Joseph still hadn’t made up his mind, still couldn’t believe that this man was about to let them ride free.

  Majors slammed his head a second time,-breaking the skin. He snarled and fell, only he wasn’t falling, he was diving for the shotgun on the ground.

  Hart thumbed back the hammer and waited until Majors began to straighten. Then he fired twice, the shots so close together that their sound merged into one explosion. The slugs tore away a fist-sized hole at the point where the breast bone had been before the impact splintered it away. One bullet lodged up against the collar bone, the other burst through Majors’ back taking with it a welter of ruptured tissue and bloodied bone.

  “Jesus Christ!” Joseph started forward, hesitated, hung his right hand over his pistol butt.

  Hart shook the blanket free of his left arm and revealed the ten-gauge Remington, its fourteen-inch barrels pointing straight at Joseph and ready to blow him away.

  The black rocked on his heels and caught his breath: slow and deliberate, he spread both arms wide, wide as they could go.

  Majors finished falling. The length of his body crashed against the boards and the sound echoed dully up and down the saloon. One heel hammered a brief tattoo on the boards and it was done. Except that the blood continued to pump from the four holes in his body. Except that the sphincter muscle loosened and the room was suddenly filled with the stink of human rot.

  The bartender hurried across the room and jerked open a bottle, tilting it back and drinking hard. Two of the others half-ran, half-shuffled for the door and Hart stepped aside to let them through. The two blacks were still waiting, hands surrendering.

  “We got no quarrel?” Hart asked, looking from one to the other.

  Neither man spoke or moved.

  “You ain’t fixin’ to do somethin’ ’bout that?” He looked at Majors stretched out along the floor.

  “Uh-uh,” gulped Gideon.

  “No, sir.” Joseph shook his head and let his arms fall back to his sides. “You don’t want nothin’ more from us, we got no words to have with you.”

  “Okay,” Hart moved a couple of paces deeper into the room. “One thing you can do before you ride out. There’s a couple of horses out front. Take him out and wrap him in the blanket tied across the pinto. Rope him over the saddle. I’m taking him back.”