by Frank Callan
What she didn’t know was that she had a listener nearby. Only a few yards away, crouched by a row of sand-filled bushes, was Joe Dane, and he was not happy about what he heard.
‘Lydie, it’s me, Joe,’ he whispered, and she jumped with fear.
‘Joe Dane, you almost made my heart stop! What you doin’, sneaking around behind me?’
‘I was looking for you, and then I saw you walk in here . . . look, Lydie, we was once real special. You know how we felt about each other.’ He sat down next to where she was crouched, speaking to her father’s spirit. ‘I told you how you was the only girl I would ever need in my life, and you know I speak the truth when I say that since I left Broken Man, there has been no other girl that has had my affections. You have to believe that, darlin’. Some men can lie as natural as they breathe, but . . .’
‘Ma says you’re one such a man, Joe,’ Lydia said, with venom.
He took a little strand of red hyssop that was growing close to the ground, and he handed it to her. ‘See, this is for you. It’s a beautiful red flower that grows even in this bone-dry scrub – something like you, I’d say!’
Lydia was no fool and she saw the performance in this. At first she played along, but then took the flower and threw it back at him, with an accusation, ‘Joe Dane, you left without a word. You just up and left, and all your fine words were worth nothin’ . . . not a handful of dry dust.’
He moved away slightly, and Lydia took the chance to ask something she had been longing to ask since Dane came back. ‘Now Joe, if you want to do something real fine for me, well, you can tell me something and speak true, as you say you do.’
‘Sure, anything . . . just ask.’
‘The truth is, I been thinking about how Pa died, ever since you left. I was told about the accident and . . .’
‘Right, if you really want to know, but maybe you should put all that behind you. Live for now, Lydie, like we said we always would.’
Lydia had a feeling that Joe Dane knew much more than he ever said. Something in her wanted to push him, goad him, into emptying out all that he knew, spilling it out and settling matters for good. ‘Joe, I know he died on the cattle drive to Cheyenne, but there’s been talk. I’ve heard men talk about that day, and fact is, it don’t add up.’
Joe stood up and walked around, kicking dust. Then he seemed to think of the right words to say and he squat down again. ‘Lydie, just leave it alone. I was there that day. I saw him fall. That’s what it amounts to . . . We either have luck, or we don’t. There ain’t no God. If there is, he don’t give a dead rat for us down here in this back-end of nowhere.’
‘Joe Dane, you denied the Lord . . . and in a graveyard, too!’ Lydia was disgusted.
‘Lydie . . . just think how Broken Man got its name! I mean, the story I was told concerned Carney’s grandpa, who came here from down South and things was so bad his family starved, all but one . . . Carney’s daddy! Now I heard that old grandpa Carney was the man who gave this place its name and put the first post up, telling any arrivals that he had been broke by the darned place.’
‘That’s a fine old yarn, son, but it stretches the truth, just like you.’ Lydia and Joe turned towards the voice, and there stood Elias Hole. His giant frame cast a long, solid shadow, and his face showed that he wasn’t too happy. Joe Dane, along with every soul in Broken Man and beyond, knew about Elias Hole’s moods and tempers. Along the road of his life there were a number of casualties of his temper; some were still limping to that day, and some were still getting aches in the jaw and pains in the back.
‘Now, Mister Dane. I have one very plain thing to say to you, boy. Get out of my sight, out of this town . . . start riding, and don’t come back!’
From somewhere deep down, Joe Dane found words of defiance. ‘I don’t take no heed of threats and commands, Mister Hole.’
‘Oh really? How about this? Do you obey this?’ He rolled back the sleeve on his right arm and held up a fist, tight and hard and ready to go.
For Joe Dane, this kind of situation was one that prompted the right hand to dart down to the pistol in the holster and whip up the barrel in a split-second, followed by a shot to the heart of any man who faced him and insulted him. But this time, thinking of Lydia present, his hand stopped, hovering over the grip of the gun. In that moment, big Elias kicked out a leg and knocked Dane backwards, where he sprawled over the grave of Rico Santo.
Lydia let out a scream and ran for cover behind the nearest greenery, while Dane ran at Elias, to try a desperate head butt in the belly. But as he discovered, the effect was like a wooden pole ramming up to a thick stone wall: no impact at all, and his unfortunate body merely shivered and then folded. Dane was soon on the earth at the feet of Elias, who picked him up and threw him several feet down the gentle slope of the graveyard. But he gave Dane no time to recover, and when the man struggled to his feet, Elias hit him with a forearm across the nose and then a knee to the guts.
Then there was a real beating dished out, as Elias slugged and battered Dane, throwing him around like a dog with a dead rat. Elias was the kind of man who went hell for leather once he was stirred to action, and not much could restrain him.
‘Don’t, Pa! Stop! Stop at once!’ This was Lydia, and she had now run out to hold on to Elias’s thick belt, and tug at it, to get his attention. He gave Dane one last swipe with his fist and the gunman lay out cold like a dead man.
Chapter 13
Harry was staying in The False Start for his last night in Broken Man. He had wanted to be away from the literary crowd and needed some time to think. He was next booked for the same talk at Daunt’s Pass, a day’s ride on the stage again, but there was something bothering him: the shot that had injured the young woman, Lydia. What kind of a town was this? Now there was the death of Boodle, and in fact, when it came to supper time, Perdy, who had been sedated and had been sleeping for hours, emerged and walked into the main bar where Harry was sitting alone, watching the card players and trying to understand what was splitting the town apart.
Perdy tapped him on the shoulder, pulled out a chair, and asked, ‘Can a poor common singer sit down with an English lord?’
He smiled and welcomed her. ‘Sure. Forget the lordship thing. I want to help you if I can. I know what it’s like to lose someone close.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ said Perdy, waving her arm to call for a drink, which soon arrived. ‘This is gin, Harry, the only thing that helps when a girl doesn’t believe in anything.’
‘Have you always felt that way?’
‘No, sir . . . I was brought up a good Christian, and I prayed before every meal and went to church twice a week. My pappy was a God-fearing man and a complete fool. He trusted too much, and that’s weak. Mind, I have to say I trusted Happen. He was the finest man I ever knew. Should have married him. But I never wanted no man to shove me around and rap out orders . . . you follow?’
‘Oh, I follow! In England, everybody except the men who own the land gets told what to do, when to do it, and trust is floating around, an option only for fools.’
Perdy gave Harry a searching look and finished her gin. ‘I can’t figure you out, stranger. Why do you do these lectures? Do you feel a better man for spouting on about law and justice?’
It was clear that she had hit a nerve. Harry called for a drink now, and as the beer arrived, he explained, ‘Miss Perdy, not so long ago I was the kind of man who gave orders, pushed people around, kicked fools out of my way . . . I had learned to survive in a strange land, and I trusted nobody because that was too risky. I’m a one-man enterprise, Miss, and cash for food and clothes is all that counts. Talking about law and justice pays pretty well. Your townsfolk, like so many others like ’em out here, they want a touch of the finer things in life . . . though civilization comes at a cost. A few hundred bucks a visit, in fact.’
‘It all sounds very smug. The only thing Happen was smug about was Vienna. He was a man of your culture as well. He could talk day and ni
ght about dinners and princes, parades and bands . . . oh, and the poets of the city. He said he was brought up with silver spoons and fancy words. . . .’ Perdy’s voice began to waver and fade, and a sob rose in her, prompting Harry to put an arm around her and give some comforting words. In the throes of the weeping that rose to fill her cheeks with tears she muttered Happen’s name and put her head down on the table.
‘Miss Perdy, why don’t you go and lie down . . . you’re not ready for this.’ Harry said.
She pulled herself up sharp, called for more drink, and told Harry not to worry at her like an old dame. Harry, instead of arguing, pulled her to him again and kissed her forehead, saying, ‘You know what . . . it would be a fine idea for you to sing us a song . . . maybe Happen’s favourite?’
She loved the idea, and she was soon on her feet, shouting for the fiddler who was now dozing in a corner, to come up on to the dance floor and play I Know Where I’m Going. Perdy, making the heads turn at the card tables and in the line of serious drinkers at the long bar, spoke first. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is an old, old song and Happen Boodle loved it. He used to hum it all the time. . . .’ She sang the first lines after the fiddler had played a few bars of the melody: ‘I know where I’m going and I know who’s going with me . . . I know who I love, but the dear knows who . . . who, I’ll marry. . . .’
Her voice faltered over the last few words, but she picked up again when the audience clapped her, and she sang the song through, until she managed to end with a smile on the same words again: ‘But the dear knows who I’ll marry. . . .’
When she sat down by Harry again, she said, ‘You know, Lord Harry Lacey, you could stick around. I could use someone to sweep up the straw!’ She managed to laugh at this, and Harry joined her. ‘Seriously though, mister Lord . . . you must be in need of a little female company sometimes . . . one of my girls could oblige . . . that’s all you men want, right?’
She was now struggling to maintain control of her anger, and the sourness was coming through the usually polite, professional exterior behaviour.
‘Some of us don’t think like that, Miss Perdy.’
‘Oh, some of us don’t, do we? Some of us is too grand for a little missy from Colorado, eh?’
The fiddler saved the moment from more trouble and embarrassment by asking the band to join him in some of Happen’s favourite dance tunes. Soon Perdy and Harry were stepping around the floor, to the applause of the drunks, drifters and cowboys.
When Itch Carney finally made it out of bed and faced what was to him a hostile world, he reminded himself that in twenty-four hours destiny would arrive, at least for the Son of Satan who existed in the jailhouse. Itch thought, with a thrill of satisfaction, how the sun rising on the next morning would be the last dawn that McCoy would ever see.
He needed to take the day to gather strength, to muster his resources – fine, so he couldn’t suddenly be the fighter he was when he first came out west twenty years back, but he could still pull a trigger and fire straight and true. He thought of how close he had been to death just a year before, when he had had that collapse. It had been a warning to him, he thought now, a warning to act, instead of letting time roll on and the hunger to make McCoy pay go on gnawing at him.
It was the full light of late morning around him when he pulled his clothes on over his aching bones, and stood by the long old mirror that had been his Ma’s. He didn’t like what he saw. Who was that weak old man? It was in the face and in the frame that he saw the age. But no, he had to take heart, for this one last throw of the dice.
He shouted for Will, who was over the way in the stables, and as he called out, he staggered forward and felt a pain in his chest. He supported his weight on the table, pressing on it hard, so the thick wood would take the force. Then, slowly, he recovered, just in time to put a smile on his face as Will Ringo came to the door. ‘You wanted me, boss?’
‘Yeah, Will. Come on in and sit there. Now, I want to run through tomorrow’s preparations.’
‘Mr Carney, we have eighteen hands ready and willin’. How can we fail?’
‘ ’Course we can fail, son. Every general on campaign knew the concern for possible defeat. You never read about Napoleon? Now there’s a man who covered all possible flaws in strategy – see what he achieved!’
Will wanted to remind Carney that this was not some great battlefield, but just a baking hot, dead corner of Colorado, which folk with any sense would see and then ride on past, but he could understand that his boss’s feelings for the sheriff had rankled in him like a new burn, and he settled for a nod and a smile.
‘Will, who’s the bastard got with him?’
‘I’m pretty sure there’s four deputies, and of course there’s Elias Hole, and he’s worth three men in a fight.’
‘That all? Six men against our twenty-one?’
‘Not quite that simple, Boss. You see, lessen we act real sharp, the Broken Man Godly types and dark suits, they’re gonna cluster around their tin star. There’s Chet Two Winds and there’s Hal Bornless . . . even some of the regulars at The False Start, since Boodle died and faces turn your way in suspicion.’
He stopped talking as Itch Carney cut in with, ‘Oh yeah . . . thanks for reminding me that Happen Boodle is no more. The boys told me about it. Terrible shame! ’Course it was a sad accident and can’t be blamed on me. So none of the saloon and hotel crowd is gonna point the finger this way?’
‘No boss, it was a pure accident and nothing to do with Joe Dane . . . shame for Miss Perdy!’ He said this with a wry smile and a strong sense of sarcasm.
‘Exactly. Miss Perdy, she’s surely looking for some consolation in the arms of, well, maybe some old son of sin who runs a ranch, name of Carney!’ He laughed so loud as he said this that his yellow teeth showed in the light, and Will Ringo joined in.
‘So, as I was saying Will, I make the arithmetic notably in our favour. Tell the boys to be ready, with rifles and pistols checked and smooth, after first eats tomorrow. We go straight for the jail and shoot it into pieces. Splinters will fly! A volley from some Winchesters should split some wood. By full sun we’ll have bodies feeding flies and rats. Any prisoners in that place, Will, it’s too bad for them.’
‘Coffee boss?’
Carney still felt flashes of pain across his chest and was pushing himself to cover over the evidence of that deep hurting that was likely to show on his weather-beaten face. The coffee helped. And so did the drug that Doc Potworthy had left for him – the usual laudanum. He took the coffee, thick and strong as mud, and told Will that he needed rest again, before they met up to eat, when Joe Dane would be due to show up.
‘I’m going to town tonight, Boss. Just a game of cards, but I’m listening for every scrap of talk I can hear.’
‘Right, but nice and easy, you savvy? Keep real quiet about everything. We want a normal feel to life. No sign of a storm brewing, eh?’
‘Sure. What’s more normal than Will Ringo playing some poker?’
Chapter 14
In The False Start, Perdy and Harry were still together, and Harry was trying his best to help her through the worst time of her life – coping with the loss of her man. By early evening she had slowed down the rate of taking in wine or gin, but she was the worse for wear, and moody. The staff did their best, as they knew all her moods, and one by one they tried to get her to rest. As for Harry, he relied on talk, and in the past he had found that to be the best medicine.
He managed somehow to bring in two of the girls who worked there, and the fiddler, and he tried to turn the conversation to something that would keep Perdy away from the extremes of her mood, but it was no use. She suddenly threw her glass across the room and said, ‘So who’s the coward who killed my Boodle then? Who killed my little German?’
One of the girls answered, ‘Easy . . . Itch Carney, though he didn’t do it himself.’
‘She’s right. It was that no good shameless failure . . . I turned him down, you know that eve
rybody? I turned him down, and he went off like a little red-faced boy being told he can’t have no cherry pie!’
Harry sensed that feeling of helplessness he had known so many times. But then Perdy stood up and walked around to Harry, sat down on his lap and started to run a finger along his cheek, down under his chin.
‘Harry Lacey, you’re the kind of man I should be with. I mean you got some style, some manners . . . men around here, they treat you like you’re a crate of goods to shunt around. But you, well you’re a true man of courage and honour. You know why folks? Because he has no gun attached to that strong leather belt there . . . he’s not a man of violence. Now ain’t that courage?’
‘Some might say it was foolish!’ someone said. Harry took up the point. ‘True mister, some would be right to say that. I can see that the gun is the law out here. Yet things can be different. There are other ways to run things. . . .’
Perdy stood up now and rapped out, ‘Tell that to Happen Boodle . . . you know what, mister English Lord? He won’t hear ya!’
The musicians and the girls agreed that this would be a good time for them to play and dance again, to lighten the mood and distract Perdy from her misery. It was around the time when things livened up a little at The False Start, but with there being a shadow of death over the place, maybe things would be different, the girls thought. They were wrong. Soon, just after the band played again, in came Will Ringo and a bunch of cow hands from the Big Question. Will did all the right things: he went to Perdy and expressed his condolences, very formal and proper. The other boys did the same. They could see that now she was much the worse for drink, sitting and trying concentrate on the band, with Harry next to her, ready to help.