‘I lost my leg to one of them longhorns. Lost half my life inside less than a few minutes.’ He looked directly at Hart and he had strength back in his voice again. ‘You want to know why I hate every damn Texan and everything they stand for, there’s your answer.’
He nodded downwards before letting the blanket fall back into place.
Hart nodded. ‘I can understand, maybe, but it ain’t enough.’
Clancy Shire threw back his head and laughed. In the midst of the laughter, Hart turned and began to walk towards the door.
The laughter broke. ‘I can’t let you.’
Hart carried on walking but more slowly.
‘Can’t let you walk out of here now.’
Hart stopped, body tense, adrenalin racing fast; the fingers of his right hand were beginning to curl.
‘You just might stop me and that’s a risk I’m not taking.’
Hart judged his moment, his body dropping into a crouch and turning in a fluid blur; the palm of Hart’s hand hit the hardness of the Colt’s butt, his fingers closed around the butt, index finger inside the guard, the thumb beginning to draw the hammer back.
He saw that Clancy Shire had lifted the blanket from his legs once more and this time not to reveal his shattered body. He had a Smith & Wesson rimfire .32 in his hand and as the plaid cloth of the blanket fell back Shire fired. His hand was too hasty, his aim poor. The bullet sliced a section from the wall a couple of feet to the left of the door.
Hart leveled his Colt, hammer cocked: he motioned for Shire to let the pistol fall.
Behind, through a section of the glass, Hart could see men running — Stoddard, two other hands, Jose.
‘What’s it to be?’ he said, the Colt steady.
Shire threw back his head suddenly and laughed; then he shrugged and moved his face to one side and let the gun drop down onto his lap. Hart released the hammer of the Colt and moved towards the chair. Two paces in and Shire’s fingers were stretching for the Smith & Wesson once again.
Hart jumped.
The underside of the barrel came cracking down on the knuckles at the back of Shire’s hand. Shire yelled and the gun bounced from blanket to floor. Hart brought the Colt back through a tight circle and let it swing, angled upwards, across the rancher’s face.
Shire shouted with muffled, astonished pain and his wheelchair was whirled sideways. There was the sound of boots running through the house. Hart thumbed back the hammer of the Peacemaker and as he did so he leaned away from the back of the wheelchair and set the flat of his right boot hard against it. As the first man approached the door, Hart released his leg and drove the chair towards the window as fast as he could.
Stoddard sprang into the room first, just in time to find himself staring down the barrel of Hart’s gun; in time to glimpse, behind Hart, the wheelchair striking the wall immediately below the window, striking hard and pitching Clancy Shire head first through the plate glass.
‘Jesus!’
‘Told you once,’ Hart snapped. ‘Don’t die on account of him.’
The jangle of sharded glass and fractured wood echoed in the still and heavy air.
Behind the ranch foreman was Jose and back of him, the other two men. Jose had a rifle in his hand and Hart guessed there was already a shell in the chamber.
Hart looked at the Mexican. ‘Same applies to you.’
Jose hesitated; Hart could read the indecision clearly in the man’s swarthy face. Then Jose turned his head towards the other men. ‘Go see what you can do.’
They went at a run to where Shire had fallen.
‘Inside and put up the gun,’ ordered Hart.
The men looked at one another and slowly did as they were told.
‘The rifle, Jose, toss the rifle aside.’
The Mexican hesitated a moment longer, then bent down and set the gun on the floor. From the broken window they could hear the ranch hands talking, discussing Shire.
‘He pulled a gun on me from under that blanket,’ Hart explained. ‘Tried to shoot me in the back.’
Jose seemed to flinch; sweat ran from his bald skull.
Hart kicked Shire’s gun across the floor towards them. ‘Recognize it?’ he asked.
Jose said nothing. Grudgingly, Stoddard said, ‘Yes.’
One of the men shouted through the window for them to come and help.
‘Okay,’ Hart said and stepped between the two men. If Shire was still conscious – if Shire was still alive – there was still a question he wanted to ask him.
The men had the crippled rancher in their arms and were in the process of lifting him back into his chair. One of the wheels was buckled and it sat strangely on the ground. Brown hair fell straight down over Shire’s face, shielding his eyes. His lips were white and closed. His face was white except for a diagonal line of blood that ran from the jawbone on the left to just below the right eye.
As they sat Shire on the chair he seemed to return to consciousness and immediately shrieked with agony and clutched at the air with both hands. Almost as quickly as he had come to, he fainted away again.
Stoddard leaned down with his head pressed against Shire’s chest. After a few moments he stood up. ‘Heart’s beatin’ okay,’ he said. ‘Got a heart like a mule.’
Hart moved Stoddard aside and knelt alongside the chair. He shook Shire lightly by the shoulder and then more strongly. When Jose moved to interfere a look from Stoddard stopped him.
Shire’s eyes blinked open, wavered, shut, opened again.
He saw Hart and recognized him; wondered exactly what had happened; wondered why he wasn’t dead.
Hart bent his face towards Shire’s and asked a question.
The corner of the rancher’s mouth twitched and his head lolled to one side. Hart set a hand by Shire’s head and moved it so that the rancher was facing him.
Again, he asked the same question.
Shire tried to speak and a bubble of blood broke from his lips. Flecks of it, no bigger than pin pricks, scattered Hart’s cheek.
Hart wiped the blood away with the sleeve of his shirt and set his head down so that his ear was close by Shire’s mouth. Shire only uttered one word but it was enough.
Hart stood straight and looked at Stoddard. ‘You’d best ride for a doctor. You yourself or send a man with a couple of fast horses. That is, if you want to keep him alive.’
Stoddard nodded, grim-faced, and turned away.
Jose was still staring, sweating; the palm of his hand itching even as he rubbed it hard against the edge of his belt. ‘He was a good man,’ the Mexican said. ‘Treated me good. He believed
‘He believed so hard,’ interrupted Hart, ‘that he’d shoot me in the back for it.’ He glanced towards the cripple, unconscious in the chair. T could have, likely should have.’
Hart walked over to Stoddard and turned the foreman round with a hand to the top of his shoulder. ‘I reckon by the time he begins to recover, things’ll be settled. If they ain’t, talk him out of tryin’ more of the same. Tell him not to send more trash out with guns.’
Stoddard looked away and nodded.
Behind him, beyond the lines of the corral, a string of horses was being led into the ranch by a couple of men. The third horseback had a man’s body roped across it.
Chapter Twelve
The two men rode in on Hart’s gun. When he motioned with it for them to stop, they stopped. They got down from their mounts and shucked their weapons and told Hart, in outline, what had taken place. Hart could see plainly enough, without having to ask, that the dead man folded and roped across one of the stolen horses was Frank Escort.
‘I’m worried, you see.’
He could tell it was Escort from the thickness of his shoulders as they hung, lifeless, down, the brown hair cut close.
‘I don’t like Frank riding with men like that. He isn’t a fighting man, he doesn’t like to use a gun. Not against other men.’
‘They comin’ back in?’ Hart asked, finally.
/> The men looked quickly at one another before answering.
‘Said there was one more…’
‘…one more call to make.’
Both men looked aside, maybe recalling two bodies strung up and swinging, wondering how many more. They had followed Jakes into something they were unused to, ridden along on the coat tails of his fever and now that fever was beginning to wear off under the cold stare of Hart’s gun.
‘But they’ll be back?’ Hart confirmed.
The men nodded.
‘Jose,’ said Hart, turning and then pointing to Escort’s body. ‘Cut him down. Careful. And when you’ve done that, get clear. All of you get clear and stay that way. I want Jakes and the three as ride with him. That’s enough. You ain’t got no need to go buttin’ in — none of you.’
The faded blue eyes looked at the Mexican, at Stoddard, at the other hands. There was no argument.
Dink had found a bottle of whiskey at the last ranch and now the men were passing it from hand to hand, throwing it from saddle to saddle, swallowing the raw liquor and wiping their sleeves across their mouths and passing it on some more.
Matthew Jakes leaned sideways towards Andy Donaldson and pointed a finger in his face. ‘That dumb bastard back there. Near to wet hisself soon as we rode up. Never mind when we showed him that length of rope.’
Donaldson nodded and grinned and when Jakes poked the same finger closer to him, the grin broke into a laugh which was automatically taken up by Angus at the other side.
‘How ‘bout,’ called Dink from a few places off, ‘how ‘bout that skinny little girl of his?’ Spittle flew from the mouth and his young eyes were red-veined and blurry. ‘Way she squealed when I come after her. Like a…’ He wiped his mouth with his hand and wiped the hand down one leg of his pants. ‘Like a stuck pig, that’s what. Huh, Jakes, like some skinny stuck…’
‘Pig?’
‘Yeah, sure, Dink. That’s right.’ Jakes’ mouth opened red in a roar of laughter. ‘Any girl would at the thought of bein’ stuck by you.’
Jakes slapped his thigh and the dun mare took it as a signal to break into a trot till he hauled her back.
‘Take it easy, you bitch. Ain’t no call to go runnin’. We’re all but there.’ He looked around. ‘Hey! You! Pass me that goddam bottle while there’s still whiskey left.’
The bottle was on its way, hand to hand, till it got to Angus Donaldson. There it stopped.
‘Jakes,’ Angus said quietly, staring straight ahead.
‘What the hell you doin’ hoggin’ that bottle, boy? Give it here!’
‘Jakes.’ Angus was looking towards the ranch, towards the dirt space between corral and barns.
Something in the softness of his voice stopped Jakes’ shouting, turned his head around.
‘Well, I’ll be...’
Wes Hart was sitting astride his grey, alone. The black, flat-brimmed hat was angled across his forehead; the blue, red and white Indian blanket hung from his right shoulder across his body, trailing past his left knee. He sat tall and easy: and alone.
Jakes wet his mouth with his tongue, feeling the ragged roughness of his beard. ‘I’ll be damned.’
Alongside him, the Donaldson brothers said nothing. Neither did Dink, whose grip of the reins was tighter now, his pulse beat beginning to race. The other men gulped air, glanced around, wanted to be anywhere other than where they were.
Jakes and the rest kept going in until there was perhaps fifty yards between themselves and Hart. Only then did Jakes raise his hand awkwardly and bring them to a halt.
He leaned forward in the saddle and grinned. The taste of whiskey was still strong in his mouth and throat. ‘I owe you,’ he shouted towards Hart. ‘I owe you good.’
Hart looked back at him and said nothing.
‘You and that fancy gun of yours.’ Jakes stuck his arm out, finger jabbing the dull air. ‘I’m goin’ to take that like I should have done when first I saw it. But before I do, I’m goin’ to take you.’ He sat back in his saddle and the mare shifted under him uneasily. ‘You hear that, regulator? I’m riding right through you as if you weren’t there!’
The Donaldsons glanced at him anxiously; Dink wiped his mouth with his sleeve although his mouth was already dry as dirt. The other men shifted in their saddles, let their horses step this way and that.
Hart spoke, his voice clear and direct: ‘Rest of you men, ride off. Jakes and them as are with him, that’s all I want.’
Jakes cleared his throat and spat to the ground. ‘Go to hell! They’re all stayin’ here.’
Their faces suggested otherwise.
‘That ain’t for you to say,’ called Hart. He raised his voice. ‘Get clear and mind your own business an’ you won’t get hurt. But do it fast ‘cause I ain’t waitin’ around.’
One man, then another, pulled on his reins, looked quickly and anxiously at the big, bearded man at their center. They were scared of him, sure, but there was something even more frightening about the gunman with the Indian blanket draped across him — something about his stillness and certainty. One man, then another, shifted away.
There were four of them left: the same four who had ridden up to Wes Hart’s shack down on the border. Like Jakes himself said, it should have happened then. Both Jakes and Hart regretted that it hadn’t.
Hart touched his spurs to the grey’s sides.
Jakes swept the tall hat from his head, hollered, slapped the hat down on the dun mare’s flanks and threw it into the windless air. He set off towards Hart in a wild charge, head and body leaning forward and to the left side of the animal’s neck, right hand pulling for his Colt while the left gripped the reins tight.
The other three were taken by surprise and floundered, Dink’s horse shying from Jakes’ shout. The bearded man was fifteen yards on before they set off in his wake.
The grey kept moving forward at the same pace, slow and steady, Hart guiding and controlling her with his knees, left arm hidden beneath the blanket, fingers of the right hand tightening around the grip of the Peacemaker and sliding it up from the leather holster.
He could see the flare of Jakes’ beard, the red and black of his wide mouth as he yelled defiance and perdition.
Hart brought his gun level and began to squeeze back on the trigger.
Twenty yards.
Less.
Less.
Matthew Jakes fired and rolled his body low down the side of his mount, his right leg clinging to the saddle, his left buckled in two. As his own shot skimmed close enough to Hart’s head for the wind of it to be felt, a bullet from Hart’s Peacemaker ripped through the flailing back of his shirt and scored a line down his back that seared him like passing flame.
His left hand almost lost its grip — almost.
Hart steered the grey aside, letting Jakes pass as close to him as a matador does a charging bull. The remaining three were almost upon him, closing fast. Hart jerked his left hand and the flap of blanket flew aside. The shortened barrels of the Remington ten-gauge came up and the triggers slid back hard.
Angus Donaldson and Dink rode into the spread of shot and it lifted them out of their saddles. They went sprawling back in a sudden welter of tissue and blood and pulped flesh. Hart had already turned sideways in his saddle and brought the Colt round into a line that followed the crouching shape of Andy Donaldson until the line was right.
Hart shot him through the side of the head.
He called to the grey and turned her once again, through a tighter circle this time, thumb bringing back the hammer of the Colt. Jakes was rushing him once more, crying out his damnation, both boots kicking hard into his mount as he strove to get close enough to drive a bullet through Hart from a range which wouldn’t allow him to miss.
‘Damn bastard!’
Hart heard the words and fired into their center.
The final ‘d’ rolled on, resounded even through the roar of Hart’s gun. Jakes kept going too, staying in the saddle by God knew what str
ength, what force. He was near enough for Hart to see the hole his bullet had torn in Jakes’ chest; see the beginning of recognition in his eyes; see the knowledge of death fire through him.
The dun mare reached the corral wall before she lost her rider. Jakes toppled forwards against the animal’s neck, then slowly fell sideways against the fence. For several seconds the big man was held there until the mare shifted away and he fell the rest of the way to the ground.
Hart slipped from the saddle and broke the barrels of the shotgun, reloading and snapping them shut before he went to where Jakes was lying. He knew that some of Shire’s men were beginning to show themselves now, but he was unconcerned with them. When he stood over Jakes’ body he nodded with satisfaction: the slug had taken the man close by the heart. A sliver of blood issued from one side of Jakes’ mouth and ran through the wild tangle of his beard. Blood ran in a slow trickle from both nostrils. Blood pulsed from one ear.
The right side of his face was twisted up in anger or scorn.
Hart bent down and picked Jakes’ Colt .45 from the ground.
It seemed only right.
Then he looked at the rest. Andy Donaldson had died before he left the saddle. The top half of his head had been all but blown away.
His twin brother was still alive though it was little more than tenuous. The faded blue of his shirt was streaked with tiny red pearls, as if some careful, loving hand had stitched them there for decoration. His right leg was twisted up under him at an angle that could not be real.
Dink no longer looked young — he just looked dead.
‘That see the end to it?’
Hart turned to face Stoddard, the expression on the ranch foreman’s face telling him that he hoped it was.
‘Almost.’
‘But Clancy ain’t goin’ to…’
‘I know.’
‘Then…?’
‘There’s business in town. Man I got to see.’
Stoddard thought a while, the question and then, possibly, the answer passing behind his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Yeah, I understand.’
‘Can you take care of this?’ asked Hart, looking round.
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