“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t be good for you,” Hank said. “It might raise up a riot that might send you to a hanging tree.” He stopped talking and shook his head. “No, I reckon it wouldn’t go that far, but it wouldn’t do no good to mention your past. It don’t do no good to mention the past mostly always out in this country.”
They rode on in silence, except now and then Hank Shard would rumble his deep voice and say, “Well, I’ll be hanged!” and, “What you know about that?” And when they reined over to the trail before the Empire House in Bowie, Hank said, “Might as well let me do the talking since we’re both looking for Belle Driscoll. Reckon they’ll be able to tell us in the hotel if she’s still living in town or where we might find her.”
They clumped into the little lobby where one door went into the dining room and on the other side another door opened into the bar. A flight of steps went up back and around the desk to the rooms above.
There were a couple of old sourdoughs over in the corner playing checkers and they didn’t even look up from the board.
Nobody was behind the desk or in sight except through the door that opened into the bar. Hank moved his head and he and the kid walked into the bar.
“You can always find somebody in the bar when they’re supposed to be at the desk of a hotel,” Hank said. Then, he quickly lowered his voice and he nodded to a woman behind the other end of the bar washing glasses. He said, “That’s Belle Driscoll,” in a low whisper. He jerked his head and they moved past three cowhands to the end of the bar and stood across from her.
She looked up. She had a pleasant face, middle-aged now, and there was gray in her hair. But she was still slim and she’d kept her shape well and her eyes were still beautiful eyes.
“She used to sing like a thrush back in the days when she was at the Palace in Silver City,” Hank whispered.
She looked up then and froze. She looked at Hank and then quickly at Wes Kane and then back at Hank and then at the kid. She opened her mouth and closed it.
The bartender was a big man with a lick of dark hair slicked over his forehead. He looked over. The woman looked at him and began drying her hands on her apron. She turned and then, on her way to the barkeep, she looked back over her shoulder. “Joe,” she said low. “Those two across the bar. The big man and the towheaded kid.”
“They bothering you, Belle?” Joe said and started for the two.
“Wait,” she said. “They’re there, aren’t they? I’m not seeing—things, Joe? That—that towheaded—” She was looking at Wes now, staring at him and through him as if he were a ghost.
“Sure they’re real,” Joe said: “Sure, Belle. You’re all right.”
“Hello, Belle,” Hank said and laughed as if it was funny.
“The man’s talking to you,” Joe said. “Friend of yours, Belle? He knows you, see? You ain’t seeing things.”
She came back slow, behind the bar until she was standing across from them but she kept staring at the boy, not Hank.
“Hank—Hank Shard,” she said. And kept looking at Wes Kane. “Who’s the lad with you, Hank?” She said the last almost in a whisper.
“Just a friend,” Hank said. He wasn’t laughing now. It was hell to see the agony of hope and fear on her face as she stared at the face of Wes Kane.
Wes turned. He said, low-toned, “I’m getting out of here.”
Hank caught his wrist. “You’re okay,” he said.
All at once Belle shook her head and tears came to her eyes. She said, “No, it couldn’t be.”
Joe, the bartender was beside her. The cowhands were watching from up the bar. The barkeep said, “You all right, Belle?”
She shook her head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “I’m all right,” she said. “I get a little crazy, sometimes.” She looked at Wes. “I had a boy who would look about like you. Towheaded boy. But he died when we had the fever epidemic.” She came out from behind the bar. “Come on up to my room. We can talk there.”
She had a sitting room and a bedroom behind it. She went through the curtains into the bedroom and told them to sit down. Hank whispered, “Not a word about the man on the Border.” The kid shook his head and Belle called, “What you whispering about?”
“Just telling Wes you haven’t changed a bit in twenty years,” Hank called. “Ever sing any more for the boys, Belle?”
“No,” she said. “I kind of came out of the fever epidemic minus several things.”
She emerged then in a fresh blue flowered dress and her hair had been neatened. She sat down across from Wes Kane. She said, “This is certainly fine, you two dropping in. I can understand you coming, Hank Shard. You always were chasing the girls.”
“Just you I’m after. Belle,” Hank said.
“Go on with you,” Belle said waving a hand. “But what about you, towhead?” What brings you?”
Wes coughed. He got red in the face, like he was going to burst. He opened his mouth and closed it and looked at Hank.
“We just happened to be riding up together,” Hank said. He lowered his voice and glanced at the open door. He went over and closed it. “The boy got in a little trouble down on the Border. He says it wasn’t anything that was his fault. He figured he’d come up this way and maybe find a riding job.”
Belle was looking hard at Wes, tipping her head, and Hank said, “You ain’t seen any posters around here that he’s wanted, have you Belle?”
She shook her head instantly. “I’d know the face,” she said. “I think you’re safe this far north of the Border unless somebody comes riding through and remembers.” She hesitated then, “What kind of trouble, Wesley? That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He was working on cattle drives down that way,” Hank said quickly. “The man he was working for was a rustler and he didn’t know it. He sent the lad to drive a herd of rustled cattle across the Border and Wes got caught. That it, Wes?”
Wes swallowed and nodded. “And I broke out of jail and headed north.”
“You’re lucky,” Belle said. “I believe you. But you better not show your face around town for a day or two, till I can make sure there’s no notice of you being wanted.”
“I’ll hide out up in the hills,” Kane said.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Belle said. “You’ll stay here. You can sleep on the couch. I’ll bring your meals up to you until we’re sure.”
Hank Shard got up slow. He said, “I’ll take your horse to the livery stable, Wes, and she’ll get a good rest.” He winked at Belle. “Wes could stand some eating food right now, Belle.”
“I’ll tend to it,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me when to feed a person.” She was up and nodding her head toward the door. She said, “Come on. I’ll show you where you can have a room, Hank Shard.” She caught hold of his arm as they went out and she hugged it. “It’s as good as Christmas seeing you come back, Hank. No fooling. Why did you come back?”
They were out in the hall, walking down between the doors that led to the various hotel rooms. Hank said, “You didn’t believe me, Belle, but I told the truth. I came to see you.”
“You’re talking like a kid Wesley’s age,” she said.
“I’m talking like a man that’s sick of living alone.”
Belle had opened a door and stepped into the room. She fluffed up the thin pillow and turned back the blankets. “You can bunk here, Hank. What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Hank said.
She stepped to the door, “I was afraid I did. I’m going down to the kitchen and rustle some food for Wesley.” She stepped into the hall. “A mighty nice boy, seems to be. Can’t imagine him getting into trouble on his own.”
“He might, drawing too slow,” Hank n said. “That’s about all the trouble I can think of he’d rightly get into by himself.”
“You’ve seen him draw?”
Hank grinned. “When he ran into me on the trail. I told him a
bout it.”
“I wouldn’t want him a gun-fighting kid,” Belle said. She went out. Hank could hear her feet treading the stairs to the lower floor.
He opened the window to his room and then went down to the horses. He rode his bay and led the sorrel to the livery stable and paid the boy there and told him to treat them good. He slung his saddle roll over his shoulder and started back.
A lean man with massive shoulders and a thick beard on his face reined close to Hank as he crossed the street. The man had a deep, rumbling voice. He said, “Excuse me, stranger. Didn’t a towheaded, long legged kid ride into town a while ago on that sorrel you just led in?”
Hank Shard stopped dead in his tracks. He turned with the saddle roll hindering his right arm if he wanted to draw.
“Maybe he did,” Hank said. ‘Maybe he didn’t. What business you figure it is of yours?”
“Just curious,” the man said. He reined his horse around.
Hank Shard said, “See that you keep it just curious.” He stepped back on the board walk and watched the stranger with the beard ride up the street.
“Friends of yours?” a voice said behind Hank.
He turned. A sandy haired man with a full flowing mustache and a big star on his vest was looking at him. The star said, “Sheriff,” real plain and the eyes of the sandy-haired man were narrowed.
“Never saw him before in my life,” Hank said. “Did you, Sheriff?”
“No,” the sheriff said, “and if I find you’re lying it won’t be so easy to pull what you three got on your minds.”
“Pull?” Hank said. He laid back his head suddenly and laughed.
“You rode in about an hour ago with a towheaded kid,” the sheriff said. “Now you just took your horses here to the livery stable. They’ve had some hard riding. That can mean a lot of things.”
“It sure can,” Hank said. “It might mean you’re making wrong guesses.”
“Then again,” the sheriff said. “It might mean something that would need looking into. Like what was this bearded man doing just now, giving you a signal of some kind?”
“You don’t trust nobody you never saw before in this town, is that it, Sheriff?”
“About it,” the sheriff said. “You’ll be watched, every move. So you better get out of town, all three of you.”
A window at the back of the Empire House slammed up and a woman’s voice called down to the two in front of the livery stable.
“If you’re just visiting with that man, Sheriff, you’ll find him good company. If you’re figuring he’s an owlhoot and a road agent you’re picking the wrong man. That’s Hank Shard and he’s honester than you, Sheriff. Don’t be bothering him.”
It was Belle Driscoll. She slammed down the window and was gone. The sheriff frowned at Hank. He said, “You know Belle Driscoll?”
“Known her for over twenty years,” Hank said.
The sheriff looked disgusted. He said, “You might be all right, then,” and looked disappointed. He turned and walked up the street.
Hank crossed the street and went around to the front hotel entrance and Belle was waiting for him there. She said, “Nosy lawman. Just because I saved a youngster from hanging once, and proved he didn’t do the horse stealing he was supposed to have, Sheriff Rance watches everybody he hears new that I speak to.”
Hank Shard opened his mouth to mention the bearded man. He closed it again. Instead, he said, “You got Wesley fed?”
A soft light came into her eyes. “I never saw anybody so hungry in my life. I had to stop him eating for fear he’d get sick.”
She walked up the stairs with him and to his room. She took his saddle roll off his shoulder and unrolled it on the bed and put away what things he had.
Hank watched her and a warm feeling possessed him. He said, “I meant what I told you, Belle, about why I came here.”
She spread out a special little doily on the top of the old varnish-cracked dresser.
“I been a wandering ranny most of my life, Belle. But I’ve made my pile—in silver. Got it banked safe and sound and I aim to buy me a ranch some nice place and have you and me settle down.”
“Hank,” she said, turning. Her eyes glistened with moisture.
“You can pick out the place and ranch.”
She turned and stared out of the window.
“I’ve thought about you a heap since I saw you years ago. I always thought about you as my girl.”
She turned. “Hank,” she said. “You forget. I’m still married.”
“After that—after your husband left you like that, in the middle of the fever epidemic? Took everything you had in the house and went out and left you and the boy sick.”
He said it savagely, for it seemed to be coming out of him, forced into speech against his will.
“I’m married, just the same,” she said. “Even if I hate the ground he walks on. Even if I might kill him if I could, I’m married to him. I said, ’Till death do us part,’ Hank. Folks from Utah are like that. Strict. I’m funny, I guess. Maybe it’s the way I was brought up. I was brought up awfully strict, Hank, about marriage. I guess that’s partly why I went off the trail when it all happened. Sometimes I see things in my sleep, like I thought I was seeing down at the bar, when you stood there—with the towhead.”
“Think about it,” Hank said. “You’re going to be pestered with me until you tell me yes, Belle.”
She shook her head. “I’m proud to have you ask me, Hank,” she said. “But you best forget it.” She went out and he heard her go down the hall and descend to the first floor.
Hank walked down the hall and tapped at Belle’s door to see the kid. There wasn’t any answer. He tried the door and it opened and he peered around the edge of the door.
Wes was sleeping like a baby, sprawled out on the couch. Hank closed the door softly. He said, “Any snake that’d use a kid like that to get him caught with rustled cattle ought to be hung twice.”
He went down to the back porch of the Empire House and washed up and Belle had dinner for him when he came in the dining room. But she didn’t stay. She went out to the kitchen and he didn’t hear any more from her.
“Shouldn’t of sprung it on her so sudden,” Hank muttered. “It was enough shock me coming up with a towheaded kid that reminded of her own dead one without me asking her first chance to marry me.”
She came in to bring him his dried apricot pie and she turned to go, then she bent over and looked out of the front window.
“What’s Sheriff Rance doing on that porch pole over at the general store?” she said.
Hank took a squint. He said, “Tacking up a poster bill of some kind. Somebody’s wanted. He must have just got them in.” He went back to his apricot pie.
“He’s looking over this way,” she said. She stood, suddenly motionless, looking at Hank Shard. “You don’t suppose—the boy, Wesley. They wouldn’t have followed him—here?”
Hank Shard wiped off his mouth and got up. He hitched his six-guns, slammed his hat on without a word, and headed for the front door.
He was thinking of what Belle had said about the sheriff and how he’d like to get something on her. It was queer, him tacking up a wanted poster right across the street from the Empire House.
* * * *
As Hank crossed the street, he saw a woman and a half grown girl come out of the general store and pause to look at the poster.
“He looks so young,” Hank heard the woman say.
His blood boiled a little in the wave of heat that rushed over him. Maybe the kid was guilty. He didn’t think so. But maybe the kid had known all the time he was rustling cattle. What was burning him was the way the arrogant sheriff went about it.
He glanced up the street. Sheriff Rance had paused up by his office and was looking down the street, watching him. The man with the beard was on the edge of the office doorway. He ducked back as Hank looked up. Maybe he was going to step back anyway, and maybe it was on purpose—a strange move.<
br />
Hank walked past the poster without looking at it. He went into the store and bought a sack of smoking tobacco. He turned and waited inside the door. He could see the poster well enough through the dirty store window. It was a poster like the ones he’d seen down south near the Border. It was the same, a picture of Wesley Kane with his name under the picture of the kid and the amount, “ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. DEAD OR ALIVE.”
“The devil with the sheriff seeing me,” Hank exploded. He stepped out of the store and got a close look at the poster. The sheriff was still up there watching. Hank looked back at the poster and tried to figure what was different about it from the others he’d seen. Something was different, that was sure. Yet, the picture and the printing were the same.
When he turned again, Sheriff Rance was at his elbow.
Hank turned on him. He said, “Where’d you get these posters, Sheriff?”
“If it’s any of your business,” the sheriff said with a trace of a grin, “that bearded man I figured you were planning something illegal with, is a U.S. marshal. Just happened he brought the posters along. Why?”
Hank Shard froze. He turned his head slowly and looked up the dusty street toward the sheriff’s office. The bearded face was gone from the door.
Sheriff Rance was throwing him a tight loop. He said, “You haven’t seen the kid, have you, Shard?”
Hank tried to relax. He tried to pretend he wasn’t much interested. He said, “What you got against Belle Driscoll, Sheriff? She’s a mighty fine woman—always helping people.”
“She helps the wrong ones,” Sheriff Rance said and there was no trace of a grin on his face now. “But you ain’t answered my question. I asked you did you see that kid on the poster. He’s wanted for rustling down along the Border.”
“It don’t seem like a nice looking kid like that could rustle cattle, Sheriff,” Hank said, desperately.
Sheriff Rance turned and walked back up toward his office.
Belle was waiting inside the door of the Empire House when Hank clumped back in. He wiped off the dust of the street on the rope mat and took his time.
The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories Page 19