From a sitting position, he fumbled on the floor close to the bed for the bourbon bottle he’d set down there not so many hours before. He lifted it to his mouth and a few drops trickled forlornly on to his tongue.
‘Shit!’
Fowler tossed the empty bottle up on to the bed. The room stank of sweat and bourbon and the sad, half-sweet stench of his own flesh.
Fowler coughed, a harsh racking cough that bent him forward and held him there for several moments. Then, slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and stood uncertain, shaking. A hammer drove up and down inside his head like a gandy dancer laying track.
‘To hell with it!’
There were a few inches of cold water in the basin and he lowered his face towards them, flinching. His fingers sprinkled the water upwards on to his cheeks, rubbed again at his eyes.
What the hell was he doing in Creek City?
Why was he still there?
Hadn’t that whore-mongering bastard Kennedy sacked him?
Shouldn’t he be on his way back to Sacramento?
Fowler lifted up the basin and emptied the contents over the back of his head: too many questions and the easiest answer was to get dressed and get out on to the street and by a fresh bottle of bourbon. It didn’t help with the answers but if he drank enough it made him forget the questions.
Dazed as he was, he heard the footsteps outside before they stopped by the door. Slowly, he backed towards the head of the bed and felt underneath the greasy pillow for his Smith & Wesson .44. He dragged it clear as a hand knocked on the door twice.
Fowler shook his head to clear it and gulped in air through his open mouth.
‘Who is it?’
‘Open up.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Kennedy.’
Fowler’s left eye started to blink involuntarily; he set the back of his hand against it to still it. The barrel of the pistol, filed down from its normal six and a half inches to five in order to fit more easily into his shoulder holster, pointed at the door.
‘Come on in.’
‘Good grief!’
Kennedy wrinkled up his nose at the stink of the room and went swiftly over to the window, pulling aside the curtains and throwing the lower pane open.
‘For God’s sake, man!’
Fowler lowered his gun. ‘What’s the matter, Kennedy? You here from the town council or something? They got some new city ordinance about smell?’
Kennedy looked at him in his rumpled and stained long Johns, dark hair tousled and ragged, pistol by his side, and nearly walked right out again.
‘What the hell you want this time of the morning?’
Kennedy sighed: ‘If you think you can stay sober long enough, I’ve got a job for you.’
Fowler blinked. ‘What kind of job?’
Kennedy told him about the kidnapping and the ransom note.
‘Let’s see,’ said Fowler after a few minutes consideration.
‘Hm, see what?’
‘The note.’
Kennedy took it from his pocket and passed it over; Fowler took it and read it with some difficulty, his eyes having trouble focusing.
‘What’s wrong with the other feller?’ he asked, handing the note back. ‘What’s his name, Hart?’
‘It was, hm, Hart whose incompetence allowed my child to be taken in the first place.’
Fowler looked at him. ‘So you sacked him, too, eh? You sure do get a kick out of firing people.’
Kennedy bristled. ‘That’s my business.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Fowler waved a hand. ‘He still in town? Hart.’
‘How should I know?’
‘Well, I hope he is ’cause I want to talk to him.’
‘To him, what for?’
Fowler was losing his patience. His head felt like muddy ground and his mouth tasted like the dregs from the bar room floor. Kennedy was getting on his nerves so much he wanted to tell him to go to hell. He couldn’t afford to. Instead he said: ‘Half an hour. I’ll see you in half an hour. At the saloon.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Now out!’
Fowler pointed at the door and he was pointing with the gun; Kennedy went.
‘You leavin’.’
Hart turned from fixing the cinch on Clay to see the detective leaning against the edge of the livery door.
‘Seems like.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Fowler came towards him and Hart could see the outline of the holster beneath the left side of his coat.
‘These men…’
‘Men?’
‘Them as took Kennedy’s girl.’
‘What about ’em?’
‘What were they like?’
‘To look at, you mean?’
‘That’ll do for a start.’
Hart let the saddle flap fall down and wiped the palm of his hand against the leg of his pants. ‘Leader’s around six foot, little less maybe. Silver hair. Scar. They called him Lee.’
Fowler shifted with the barest suggestion of interest. ‘Uh-huh. Go on.’
‘Shorter feller with thirty or so pounds more’n he should have. That an’ a beard. Taller one with a fancy for wearin’ black called Vonnie. Then there’s an old timer given to a lot of talk.’ Hart touched his throat automatically. ‘Not so old you can afford to mess with him.’
Something close to a smile showed on Fowler’s face - really in the eyes, none of the rest of his features altered.
‘Know ’em?’ asked Hart.
‘Could be,’ said the detective with a growl. ‘Could be them bastards are the Sternberg outfit. Descriptions fit. That’d be Lee Sternberg with the silver hair an’ scar. They’ve been messin’ round this territory some time now.’
‘You tangle with ’em?’
Fowler shook his head. ‘No. Not direct. Suspicion of ’em bein’ involved in this bank hold-up down by the Texas border. But they’re clever an’ they know it. They ain’t greedy like most an’ they don’t take chances. I seen Sternberg a few times. He’s got a sort of swagger as says I ain’t no ordinary two-bit desperado.’
Hart could smell the bourbon on the detective’s breath. He thought about Alice, wide-eyed Alice who had tried to lay a whip across his face and had cursed him like one of her pa’s whores.
‘How d’you think they’ll play it with the girl?’ he asked.
Fowler gave a heavy shrug. ‘Long as Kennedy comes up with the money, they’ll make the switch.’
‘Straight?’
Fowler rubbed at the side of his mustache as though it was suddenly irritating him. ‘Pretty straight. What I know of Sternberg, he ain’t too happy with bein’ straightforward. Likes to give things his own little twist. But …’ He moved his hand away from his face and wiped it down the front of his coat. ‘… they’ll carry out their side of it. No sense in them gettin’ stuck with a damn fool girl.’
‘No. Guess you’re right.’
Fowler put his head to one side and his eyes became bright. ‘You got any reason for doubts?’
Hart shook his head. ‘No.’
The detective moved to pat the warm dappled coat of the grey’s neck. ‘You weren’t thinking of comin’ along?’
Again, a shake of the head. ‘Note says two men, don’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then that’s you an’ Kennedy.’
Fowler’s eyes smiled and his fingers touched the horse’s mane. ‘You could come aways behind an’ keep out of sight - if you was interested.’
‘Uh-uh,’ replied Hart taking hold of the rein, so that Fowler stepped clear. ‘I ain’t interested. Not any more.’
Fowler shrugged: ‘Okay. Maybe I’ll see you some place.’
‘Maybe.’
Hart led Clay out of the livery stable and mounted her once they were level with the corral. Fowler was still looking at him as he rode slowly from sight, but Hart didn’t bother to look back.
Kennedy hadn’t exactly been born into the whorehouse business. His father had
been a Presbyterian minister, his grandfather one of the most important elders of the United Secession church before the merger of eighteen forty-seven that gave birth to Presbyterianism proper. Kennedy remembered his grandfather as a round-faced, bewhiskered man whose breath thundered of the Lord and malt whiskey and who ruled their house with total command until the Devil that was eating up his intestine - gnawing through it with a fire and pain that convinced the old man more and more of the reality of hell - finally reduced him to a mewling, wasted figure Kennedy could scarcely recognize.
When the old man died, Kennedy’s father came into his own. Thin and gaunt where his grandfather bad been large and round, abstemious even to refusing an extra helping of meat at table or a dram of liquor on the eve of the new year, he had brought Kennedy up after his own model. On the few occasions the boy had strayed the tawse had been wielded with hardness and virtue to bring him back into line.
His mother had been a pale, bent woman who had endured both the conceiving and bearing of her seven children with tight lips and thoughts that she confessed to nobody - least of all her husband’s jealous God.
Kennedy had loved her: had been unable to touch her
When she had lain in her pine coffin, pennies set on the waxen lids of her eyes, he had still not been able to lay his fingers on her white face or touch the worn hand from which the single thin gold band had been removed.
Kennedy had taken the money he had been saving in secret and traveled steerage to America, determined to make a new life for himself. He had turned his few pounds into dollars and gold and had done it by a mixture of hard work and careful accountancy. He started businesses and ran them until they made a good profit, sold them for more profit, bought another … another … another.
Last year it had been woolen goods: this year it was female flesh.
Kennedy was a good businessman.
‘You sure there’s no other way?’
He was wearing an off-white cotton coat with wide lapels and large pockets. The dollar bills had been counted and wrapped in paper and tied with string and were set tight in the saddlebags behind him.
‘Not unless you want to risk your daughter’s life there ain’t.’ Fowler looked across at him, making no effort to hide his distaste.
‘Not even, hmm, trying to beat them down as to the actual amount?’
Fowler turned his head aside. He wanted a drink. Even more than usual, he wanted a drink.
When it was clear he wasn’t going to get an answer, Kennedy flicked his reins and pulled the horse out into the street. Fowler spat down into the dust and followed.
Chapter Nine
Lee Sternberg smiled with relief as the arching stream of urine puddled down into the ground at the rear of the cabin. There wasn’t anything better than a good piss - well, not too many things. His smile broadened: those cheap whores down in Creek City were all right for Vonnie but he knew better. Kansas City, now, Kansas City. There was a little dark-haired girl there with fingers like angel’s wings and an ass that had been molded by God himself. She gave a man a massage that caressed every care out of mind and body and then when you were floating she’d bring you to a pitch of excitement so slowly that you feared your nerve ends would bust.
Yeah! He licked his lips and began to whistle, shaking himself dry and then buttoning up his pants. Kansas City. Kansas City.
‘Lee!’
‘Yeah?’
‘Ain’t it time to be movin’ out?’
Little Fats had brought both mounts to the front of the cabin and was standing between them, checking the chamber of the Colt .45 in his right hand.
Lee took out his watch and checked the time, turning his head up towards the sun as if for confirmation.
‘Guess so.’ He stretched and turned his neck in both directions as if it were stiff.
‘You okay?’
‘Sure. Fine.’ Lee looked towards the cabin. ‘Vonnie, you there?’
Vonnie came outside a moment later, fingers busy with the makings of a cigarette. He leaned against the door frame and grinned openly at the two men. ‘You goin’?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. I’ll keep an eye on the girl. Have her ready to bring down when you got the money. Only…’
He hesitated and glanced at Lee, then looked at the cigarette and put the edge of the paper to his mouth, licking it with the tip of his tongue.
‘Only what?’
‘Don’t you think you’re bein’ a mite over-careful, playin’ it this way?’
‘No.’
The voice didn’t encourage further comment, but Vonnie wasn’t to be put off that easily. He struck a match against the wall, cupped a hand around the thin cigarette, lit it and drew down, letting smoke drift from his nostrils.
‘He won’t try anything stupid. Not with his girl at risk. Why don’t you ride her down and switch her straight?’
‘I told you before,’ said Lee, with impatience sounding in his words, ‘Kennedy don’t like to part with his money if he reckons it can be avoided. I wouldn’t put it past him to try somethin’.’
‘Then havin’ the girl there where he can see her ought to make him think twice.’
‘Or it might just as easy lead him to make a play to take her and keep his dollar bills.’
Vonnie hunched one shoulder and squinted towards Lee, drawing on his cigarette.
‘We’re wastin’ time,’ put in Little Fats. ‘No sense in not showin’ when we said. That way he might get nervous and do somethin’ foolish.’
‘Right.’ Lee turned away and climbed up into the saddle, Little Fats following suit.
‘Where’s Turkey?’ asked Lee, turning the horse around.
‘Went off an hour or so back. Didn’t say where. You know what that old buzzard’s like - wanderin’ off all the time and just ridin’ around like there was some point to it.’
‘You mean there ain’t?’ asked Little Fats.
‘No,’ said Vonnie decisively.
‘Then that’s why he does it,’ said Little Fats and kicked the mount into a walk.
The light grey ash on the end of Vonnie’s cigarette disintegrated into the air. The sound of Lee’s and Little Fats’ horses came back to him on the wind. An itch had started up in his guts, in his groin and he recognized it without a smile.
Alice was sitting inside on one of the bunks, her wrists tied behind her back, not tight. Whenever she had wanted to relieve herself or when there was food, she had been freed and watched and then bound once more. At no point had she made any attempt to escape. The situation still frightened her, froze her, numbed mind and body. She seemed slighter and thinner than ever, as though if she stepped outside into the air it might blow her away as well.
She had heard the men ride off; heard their conversation. She knew that Vonnie was the only one left.
‘Kid?’
Alice’s large eyes looked up from the subdued light of the room and saw him outlined in the doorway.
‘Uh?’
‘You okay?’
Pause. ‘Yes.’ The voice like a slight shuffle across the floor.
Vonnie stood there a while longer and she could not be certain if he were looking at her or not. Then he moved out of the doorway, out of the light and Alice’s front teeth pushed down into the softness of her lower lip and her thin shoulders hunched forwards.
Vonnie wandered off to the corral, seeking something to do. His fingers trembled slightly as he used the makings to roll another thin cigarette. Images dropped in front of his eyes, behind his eyes, like tinted daguerreotypes. Flesh that was soft to touch and eyes that tempted and burned.
Inside the cabin, Alice’s left wrist, almost by accident, was turning either way inside its bonds. She bit her lip more strongly and held her breath; the rope was rough and harsh against her skin as she wriggled that arm free.
Vonnie climbed back out of the corral and walked to the trough. The sun had come strongly through the thin lining of cloud and was hot on the back of his n
eck; his shirt stuck to him along the spine, skin prickled under the arms, between his legs. He drew deeply on the cigarette and looked at the flat, unfocused reflection in the water.
Alice pulled the knotted rope clear of her right arm and moved both hands on to her lap, rubbing one wrist then the other. She was breathing noisily, gulping the warm, closed air of the cabin.
Vonnie looked up at the sound of a bird taking off from the trees to the rear of the cabin. He saw the flap of grey-blue wings and wondered if it might mean Turkey was coming back, but he heard no other sign. He took one more drag on the cigarette and threw the butt to the ground. A face inside his head laughed and smiled and taunted. Vonnie bent his body over the trough and plunged his head into the water, breaking the reflection. He kept head and hands under the water for several seconds then pulled back up again, shaking his head from side to side like a dog, drops of water scattering across the bright rays of light like unstrung stars.
At the doorway of the cabin, Alice peered out and saw him with his back to her, arms outstretched. She slid through the opening and around the side of the cabin, her heart hammering against her ribs like a bird.
Vonnie rubbed at his eyes, black shirt blacker yet with the water. His face shone and his wet mustache drooped over his upper lip. Nothing had changed. He cursed inside his head and walked towards the cabin. Stepping inside he saw the girl was no longer where he had seen her last. He took another couple of paces into the cabin, eyes searching with a sudden panic.
Alice was running between trees, not knowing where she was going, just wanting to run. Her breath was already rasping against her throat and her side beginning to ache. She held her side and almost banged into a tree, swerving at the last moment. Her scalp, under her long brown hair, tingled.
Vonnie knew that she could not have got past him while he was at the trough, doubted if she would have been able to clamber through the corral without disturbing the horses. He turned past the corner of the cabin and went into the trees, moving at a lope, his mouth suddenly dry.
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