‘It weren’t necessary,’ he said, ‘not none of this. Weren’t necessary. We could’ve moved from this place to somewhere better. Built a proper home, bought good stock, held our heads up. Lived in the world not outside it like paupers.’
Rebecca bent her body forward towards the mound of earth and tears fell across it but they were tears for herself, not for the man who lay covered. In the world not outside it: her brother’s words stung her brain.
Jacob looked through the alder branches. He didn’t know where his uncle might be, knew only that he had to find him and for one reason. He had lived too long without getting his hands on the wealth that could have made his growing different; things were going to change and they were going to change because he was going to make sure they did. That gold wasn’t being wasted on some damn trapper who had no need of it. It was going to be his, his and his sister’s.
Jacob, not looking, stretched his fingers down until they touched, softly the small bare patch of skin at the base of Rebecca’s neck. Not looking, she moved her hand towards his and held it warm and firm against her.
Chapter Four
Hart came down on Fallon from over four thousand feet, the trail winding its way in a zigzag pattern from where the Carson River bellied out around Lahontan. Eventually the road broadened and leveled and he was riding easy with the river to his right and short-stemmed grass never rising above the gray’s fetlocks. The air was cold and clear and back of the plain he could see the graying overhang of the Stillwater Range - he knew that south of those mountains and out beyond them there was little but the salt flats and the desert. A land of seemingly endless wilderness only broken by the bitter scrub of cholla and prickly pear, the fishhook thorns of the barrel cactus and dwarfed palo verdes. A land fit for the desert tortoise and the horned lizard, bull snakes and diamondback rattlers, not for men. Hart had gone out into the desert one time, ridden after a prospector whose family had paid fifty dollars to have him found and brought back to civilization. When Hart had finally found him, he’d been chewing on some prickly pear, sharing its flesh with a desert hog, while a family of woodrats skulked just out of reach of his boot and looked fierce and hungry. His eyes seemed to have swollen to almost twice their proper size and inside that white and yellow expanse, the pupils were little more than kernels of darkness. Hart tried reasoning with him for just as long as it took to realize that the man was as close to being crazy as anyone he’d seen. He waited until the prospector had finished his meal and then sapped him on the side of the head with the barrel of his Colt and flung him over the pack mule he’d brought out with him. He delivered him that way and collected his fifty dollars and before he could spend one half of it, the prospector had looped his leather belt round his neck, tied the end over a door frame, clambered unsteadily on to a chair and kicked it away from beneath him.
Hart hadn’t seen him like that, he’d no more than heard about it in passing, a scrap of conversation that came to him across a bar room, but it caught at him like one of them fishhook thorns and refused to let go for a long time.
Now that he was riding back towards Fallon, it all came back to him again and he tried to convince himself that if he’d left the man out there in the desert he’d have died soon enough anyway. Nothing wrong with the logic of that, except that if he’d died out there with the cactus and the hogs, he just might have died happy.
Hart reined in the gray and tilted his hat back on his head.
To hell with it!
If the damned fool wanted to hang himself that was his own business, weren’t it?
He unwound the strap of his hide water bottle from the pommel of the saddle and took two deliberately short swallows. He could see the outlines of the town now, dark violet shadows that squatted on the plain. Setting the bottle back his fingers touched the smooth wooden stock of the Henry lever-action rifle that was held in a bucket holster under the left flap of the saddle. Turning, he reached down into one of his saddlebags and pulled into sight the sawn-off ten gauge he liked to have with him whenever he reckoned he might be going up against odds that needed a little equalizing. With the twenty-eight inch barrels cut to half their original length, the weapon had a wide blast pattern that was deadly over a short distance, capable of stopping four or five men in an enclosed space. He pushed a couple of fat cartridges from their box and broke the gun, slotting them down firmly into the barrels.
Above, the sky broke for a moment to reveal a pale yellow sun. Hart slid the sawn-off back into the saddle bag and loosely fastened the strap. His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth and his knees pressed against the mare’s sides.
‘C’mon, Clay,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘C’mon. We got us work to do.’
~*~
The main street was wider than most and a three-legged dog lay sprawled in the middle of it, summoning up the effort to get to the other side. A supply wagon was offloading outside the general store while its team of six mules hung their heads and swished their tails at passing flies. A woman in a wheelchair propelled herself slowly along the south side of the boardwalk, a neat black bonnet fastened over her white hair and a small ginger and white cat curled in her lap.
Hart noted the whereabouts of the three saloons, the sheriff’s office and the dining rooms as he passed through town on his way to the livery stable. He left Clay with a sallow-faced old timer who sported a brace of bent and buckled bullets from his watch chain. Saddle bags slung over his left shoulder, Hart headed back up the street, keeping to the north. The window of Zack Moses Hardware and Grocery delayed him a few moments with the advertisements pasted across it. Hart considered the merits of Sim D. Kehoe’s Model Indian Clubs, Ten Pins and Balls for muscular and physical development - ‘No Clubs genuine unless Stamped with my Name’; Van Buskirk’s fragrant Sozodont for the cleansing and preserving of teeth; Dr Sage’s Catarrh Remedy at fifty cents a bottle - ‘$500 reward for a case of Cold in the Head, Catarrh or Ozena which it cannot cure’; and most interestingly Helmbold’s Buchu Leaves - gathered by the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope especially for H. T. Helmbold - guaranteed to cure infections of the bladder and kidneys, brick dust deposit, loss of memory, difficulty in breathing, dimness of vision, pains in the back and eruptions on the face.
Hart figured he’d get along without buchu leaves for a while longer and broke his thirst in the Salt Flats Saloon. That done, he crossed the street to the sheriff’s office.
Merle Wringer was one hell of a lot different from old Herb Mosley back in Virginia City and it wasn’t just a case of having two good legs and some fifteen to twenty years on his side. He looked up from his desk as Hart stepped into the office, eyes blue and alert, beard and moustache fair and neatly trimmed. His cotton jacket was beige and spotless, his tan pants were clean and pressed. The leather of his gun belt shone and the butt of the Smith and Wesson in the holster was so polished it was a wonder his fingers didn’t slip off it when he made his draw.
He got up from his chair and stepped around the desk, extending a hand towards Hart in what he made into one fluid movement.
‘Sheriff Wringer, Merle Wringer.’
‘Wes Hart.’
The sheriff’s mouth sucked in a little at one side and his eyes blinked quickly as if the name triggered off something he couldn’t quite catch.
His grip didn’t falter.
‘Just rode in, huh?’ the sheriff said, looking at the trail dust that still clung to Hart’s clothes.
‘Yeah. More or less.’
Wringer nodded and released his hand, stepped back but not too far. He was still trying to place Hart’s name, remember if and where he had seen his face, his mind flicking back through the dozens of fliers that came in with every visit of the stage.
Hart realized what was going on, was accustomed to it -Mosley back in Virginia City had been the same - lawmen most places were the same. Man who looked the way he did, wore a gun the way he did, well, he asked for a certain degree of suspicion.
‘So
methin’ I can do for you?’ Wringer asked.
‘Uh-huh. Hear there was a hold-up on the stage line a while back, somewhere between here an’ Salt Wells.’
‘Two or three of ’em this six months.’
‘Well, way I heard it, feller by the name of Speedmore could’ve been tied up in one of ’em anyways.’
‘Dave Speedmore?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Cherokee Dave Speedmore?’
‘That’s what he calls himself.’
‘You know him?’
‘Not personally.’
Wringer nodded again, glanced pointedly at the pearl-handled grip of Hart’s Peacemaker, with its design of an eagle gripping a snake between mouth and claw. ‘Just through the reward poster, huh?’
Hart’s lids blinked down over the faded blue of his eyes. ‘You find anythin’ wrong with that?’
Merle Wringer slowly drew a handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and unfolded it carefully, wiped it across his mouth. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not for them as can’t see no better.’
‘Meanin’ what?’ The edge bit through Hart’s voice and his muscles tensed.
‘Meanin’ if you don’t even half-way understand there ain’t no point in me sayin’.’
‘Sayin’ what? Spit it out!’
The kerchief was refolded and slipped from sight.
‘Saying’ what, damn it!’
‘Riding’ out after a man an’ fixin’ to gun him down no better’n a dog seems a strange way of choosin’ to make a livin’.’
‘Maybe he ain’t no better’n a dog.’
Wringer stared at Hart hard. ‘Who’s to say that?’
‘What?’
‘Who’s to make that judgment, stranger? You? You the one to say this man’s, life ain’t worth worryin’ over, nor this, nor that? Judge an’ damn jury both! Ain’t it time this country got somethin’ better in the way of justice than that?’
‘Meanin’ you?’ Hart spat out.
Wringer pulled aside the lapel of his coat and showed the shiny badge pinned to his shirt. ‘I was elected legal. I represent what law there is. Speedmore or anyone else gets the same chance from me – he gets a spell in jail an’ a fair trial and then whatever the jury decides.’
‘An’ if he don’t take kindly to that idea?’ sneered Hart.
‘Then I’ll do what I have to.’
‘You’ll kill him?’
‘If I have to.’
‘Then what’s the big difference? There sure ain’t none for Speedmore.’
Wringer opened and closed the fingers of both hands, tightening them into ball-like fists. His breathing was still steady but louder; he was remaining unruffled but it wasn’t easy. For his part Hart was almost needlessly annoyed by the lawman’s manner, his arrogant sureness that he was right, even the un-creased cleanness of his clothes succeeded in getting under Hart’s nerves.
‘You know the difference,’ the sheriff said after a couple of moments. ‘The difference is this badge. The difference is that I was elected. The difference is I ain’t goin’ out there huntin’ down some man for money like he was antelope, I ain’t trappin’ him like he was beaver.’ He touched one finger lightly to the front of the badge, as if not wanting to smear it. ‘There’s somethin’ here than make it more than just animal – hell, no, what you an’ others like you do, that’s worse than animal. They kill out of need: with you an’ your kind it’s greed. Sheer bloody greed! You an’ every other bounty-huntin’ trash I ever clapped eyes on!’
Hart’s hand was fast on the butt of his Colt and his eyes were no more than slits. His breath had jammed in his throat. His mouth was open. Wringer stared at him with a mixture of anger and disgust full in his face. He hadn’t bothered to make any kind of a move towards his own gun. It was as if he was daring Hart to break down to the level he expected of him.
Seconds passed with no more than the uneasy breathing of both men and the faint sounds from the street. Then there were steps on the boardwalk coming nearer and a fist hammered against the door.
Wringer made no move: Hart neither.
The knocking repeated, more urgently.
Wringer’s eyes flicked away from Hart towards the door; Hart let out a deep breath and his body relaxed a fraction.
‘Come on in!’
The man who stepped inside was medium height, middle thirties, his belly was sagging a sight more than it ought to and his bare arms were as well muscled as a logger. When he spoke he filled the office with the fumes of whiskey and cigars.
‘Everythin’ okay here, sheriff?’ he looked at Hart anxiously, then at Wringer and back to Hart again.
‘Fine, Howard. What’s the trouble?’
‘It’s … er … you know the Batt kid? The elder one, come to work up at the livery?’
‘Jacob?’
‘Yeah, him.’
‘What about him?’
Hart uncoiled his body, slid his fingers back from his Colt .45; he moved back from the desk into the corner of the room and took an interest in the posters tacked to the wall at the same time as listening to the conversation and trying to calm himself down. He was angry with himself for getting riled up so fast and for no real good reason. Merle Wringer hadn’t said anything he’d not heard a couple of dozen times before; hadn’t said anything he hadn’t felt himself.
‘Got himself into a poker game at the saloon an’ lost a little money. ’Bout all he had to lose, I guess. Went out in a temper an’ come back with coin enough to buy a bottle of rotgut. Don’t know where he got it from, but he sure didn’t have time to earn it. He’s been sittin’ back in the corner swiggin’ it down an’ growlin’ at anyone who comes near. If someone don’t get him out of there fast he’s goin’ to cut up real nasty.’
Merle Wringer nodded in an understanding sort of way and moved back towards his desk. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a small billy club, then tucked it down into the back of his pants. It made an unseemly bulge at the rear of his coat, just about the only thing out of place about him.
‘How ’bout Speedmore then, Sheriff?’ Hart lost interest in the posters and set himself between the lawman and the door.
‘It’ll wait.’ Wringer moved as if to step around him.
‘But you are goin’ to help, ain’t you? Tell me what you know?’
Wringer moved forefinger and thumb back along his upper lip and let it have another moment’s thought. ‘Maybe. When I get back.’
Hart nodded. ‘Mind if I tag along?’
‘Why the hell should you want to do that?’
‘Figure I might learn somethin’. Like to see a man do it nice an’ legal.’
Wringer narrowed his eyes and said: ‘You goin’ to step out of my way?’
Hart almost grinned. ‘You fixin’ to arrest me if I don’t?’
Wringer’s hand faded towards his pistol and the man from the saloon took a pace into the center of the room, but Hart just laughed shortly and took himself away from the door.
When the sheriff was up to it, Hart said: ‘You goin’ to tell him you’re arrestin’ him before you sucker him with that club you’ve got hidden, or after?
Wringer sighed and didn’t bother either to answer or turn around. He set off down the boardwalk, the saloon man close on his heels. Hart took one last look around the sheriff’s office and marveled that he was so trusting as to leave it unattended with a bounty hunter in the vicinity. Then he pulled the door closed and followed the pair down the street.
Fifty yards along there was a loud shout from the saloon and then a couple of pistol shots and the shatter of glass. It seemed as if Sheriff Wringer might be too late and his billy club might just not be enough.
Chapter Five
When Merle Wringer arrived outside the saloon the echoes of the two shots were beginning to fade. There was a lot of noise coming through the batwing doors, mostly folk talking too fast and too excited, though through it Wringer reckoned he could hear the half-choked sobs of someone in a l
ot of pain.
He unbuttoned the front of his coat and moved one lapel back so as to show his badge clearly to anyone who might have reason to be interested. His right thumb shifted the safety thong from the curved hammer of his Smith and Wesson .45 and the palm of his hand pressed hard against the shiny butt.
Wringer glanced once over his shoulder, noting that Hart was coming down the street without any kind of hurry.
He drew a breath, held it several seconds before releasing it slowly as he stepped towards the doors. His left hand pushed one side back and held it and he went through, not too fast, not too slow. If there’d been some kind of school or academy that taught lawmen and peace officers to enter buildings in which there was likely a crowd of angry and frightened folk along with a man who’d used a gun and was maybe going to use it again, they’d have taught Merle Wringer to do it exactly the way he did.
Cool, calm, authoritative and dependable.
He stood in the doorway, badge on his shirt and gun in his holster, visible for all to see. Most of the talking shut off fast, most folk stopped moving. A shape detached itself jerkily from the shadows at the back of the saloon and a third pistol shot roared out. Merle Wringer was hurled backwards, a hole spreading from the center of his forehead. He was dead before his back cracked against the edge of the boardwalk.
Hart jumped fast against the front wall of the building, fingers diving for his Colt as he did so. For several moments there was little sound other than the squeak of the left-side door as it came back and forth on its hinges. His mind raced: the town’s sheriff was dead and as far as he could tell there weren’t any deputies around who were about to take his place and finish what he’d set out to accomplish. There was, on all accounts, a young kid inside there with a bottle of rotgut whiskey inside him and a gun in his hand and likely three more shells left in it. That hole in Wringer’s forehead could have been a fluke, but even if it was, Hart didn’t relish walking in on someone who was running that kind of luck.
And it seemed the boy’s luck had surely changed since his earlier game of poker.
Hart the Regulator 10 Page 3