BERNARD YATES STOOD in front of the empty fireplace, hands behind his back ‘and his eyes fixed firmly on Hawk. Hawk stood easy, staring back. Even inside, the rancher’s head was stooped forward so that he gave the impression of peering down from a considerable height. Hawk reckoned that at some time Yates had taken a bad fall from a horse and had the top of his spine knocked out of shape.
Apart from that Yates seemed strong and wiry, the muscles of his rangy body in good trim for their fifty years. Running a ranch, even with a good complement of hands, was no light work. And usually it had meant starting off more or less alone.
His silver-grey hair was neatly combed into place and his face clean shaven. He wore a coat of grey wool and pants that looked to have been recently pressed. Where they showed, his boots shone.
‘Rhodes says you and Walt had a fist fight in town.’
‘That’s right. He had something he wanted to get out of his system.’
‘And he’s done it?’ queried the ranch owner.
‘I reckon so. ’Sides, I can handle him. Don’t worry.’
‘I’m not worried about you, don’t think it. Neither am I worried about Walt. Not personally. What I don’t want to happen is for the men here to feel that your coming among them is bringing nothing but trouble. I don’t want them quitting, either because they think it’s getting too dangerous or because of any animosity towards you.’
Hawk gave a half-smile; ‘That’s a lot of ifs and buts. You sure you want me after all?’
Yates brought his hands round from behind his back. ‘I’m sure to hell I don’t want you working for me nor anyone like you. But in the position I find myself, I don’t seem to have any choice.’
Hawk set his head to one side. ‘At least you’re bein’ honest. Two questions, though. What is this position you’re in, and why pick me and not Turner?’
Yates left the fireplace and went over to the window which overlooked the front of the house, the corrals, the adobe bunkhouses. He stayed there for several minutes, so long that Hawk began to feel awkward, almost an intruder. He glanced at the furniture, a mixture of the rough and ready and several items which Yates had obviously had shipped in specially. The whole room was a strange mixture of the gentle and clumsy, maybe the female and the male, though Hawk had seen no woman on the place, nor a definite sign of one.
At last, Yates faced back into the room.
‘I own the biggest spread south of Doña Ana. In fact there’s only one to rival it all the way to the Texas border.’
‘And that’s the Baker ranch,’ suggested Hawk.
‘Right. The Double Bar. Cyrus Baker’s a mean, ambitious son-of-a-bitch who wants to own every bit of land he ever sees. If ever I ran into a man who was obsessed with his own self-importance, Baker’s the one. He’s got a stage line, a freight business, he part owns places in El Paso as well as Doña Ana. There’s rumors he’s got substantial shares in the Southern Pacific Railroad. Other rumors link him with anything and everything from rustling through to bank robberies.’
‘How much of that stuff do you believe?’ asked Hawk.
Yates rubbed the fist of one hand inside the fingers of the other. ‘All of it. Every damned bit. That man is capable of anything in order to make himself richer and more powerful than anyone in the whole of New Mexico.’
‘Whereas,’ said Hawk with a slight smile, ‘you’re content just to be rich and powerful without wanting to be more so than any other big rancher.’
‘That’s right.’
Yates went back to his favorite spot in front of the fireplace. A wrought iron basket held a neatly arranged pile of logs and close by them a poker and shovel hung from hooks set into the wall.
‘As to your other question, I chose you because I liked the way you went about your work.’ He opened his hand and glanced at the palm for a moment. ‘No, that’s not true, I didn’t like it. I loathed it. But it was professional. You were fast and confident and you didn’t let anything or anyone get in your way. You could have killed at least two of my men but you chose not to. I don’t think that was anything to do with sentiment, but merely that you only kill when you have to—when your life is in danger or when the price is right.’
He paused and stared at Hawk. ‘Is that accurate?’
Hawk grinned: ‘Pretty damned good.’
‘That’s fine. I want you to put yourself about and let Baker know you’re on my payroll. Get in his way, worry him. Make him understand that I don’t care what he does as long as he leaves my place alone.’
He looked at Hawk again, questioningly this time, but Hawk made no comment.
‘Right, I’ll pay you fifty dollars a week, board and cartridges. How’s that?’
‘It’ll do. Where do I sleep?’
‘First bunkhouse. Find Rhodes and he’ll show you. If there’s anything about mounts or such, see him. He’s my top hand. Otherwise, come to me. Keep me informed of what you’re doing.’
‘Okay. Any ideas of a good place to start?’
Yates thought for a few moments, then: ‘He’s been getting good trade from that stage line of his. El Paso to Tucson, El Paso to Santa Fe. It might be a good idea to discourage quite so many passengers from using it. Not to mention those who send goods along with it.’
Hawk nodded and turned to go. Before he had left the room, Yates was back at the window, staring out. Hawk wondered again what the rancher could be so interested in.
When he opened the front door and walked out on to the top of the steps he knew.
She was sitting in a small buckboard, talking quietly, intently, to one of the hands. The first thing Hawk noticed about her was her hair. It was cut fairly short and combed back on the right side; the sun glowed on it and it was a light, almost an orangey red. Then he noticed the face beneath it—oval, smiling, yet serious at the same time. The features were sufficiently like her father’s to make it clear why Yates had been watching her so keenly.
She was wearing a blue shirt with a light check through it and brightish blue pants tucked into tight brown boots.
As soon as she noticed that Hawk was looking at her, she turned towards him and the smile disappeared from her face. She was younger than he had first guessed; her face on the edge between maturity and girlishness—her body already that of a woman.
Likely she was fifteen.
She said something quickly and flicked the reins, moving the buckboard off towards the side of the ranch house. Marl stood watching the back of her red hair as it moved away, then he glanced up at the window and Hawk figured that he saw Yates watching him.
Something certainly made him whiten slightly and turn away fast, heading for the bunkhouse.
Hawk went down the steps and as he glanced back up at the house, Yates moved away from the window. Hawk wondered if there was a Mrs. Yates and, if so, where she was. He didn’t have to wonder much about what the rancher thought of his daughter passing time with the hands—that was clear enough already from the way all three of them had reacted.
‘Hawk!’
It was Rhodes, coming over from the smaller corral, waving to him. Hawk raised an arm in recognition and waited. The sooner he got himself settled in, the quicker he could be getting on with what he was being paid for.
The ground cover was thick and dark. Shades of green and, here and there, deep red. The brush was tangled and broken. Underfoot the earth was hard and beginning to split on the surface. Higher up, on the hills, the stubby pines pushed up from a lighter reddish-brown. Eroded pillars of rock broke the vegetation, their tops reflecting the sun and casting long shadows.
The trail wound in from the south, turning with the contours of the land. It curved like a snake, white and dusty, seeming to shimmer in the heat.
Hawk wiped his arm over his forehead and then flicked beads of sweat from his nose and under his eyes, wiping his hand on the thigh of his pants.
There was no sound except for the tiny song of a wren, away to the left.
Then it made itself heard, the sound of horses and wheels. The wren paused in its song, fluttered another few notes, then flew quickly, nervously away.
Hawk went to where Walt was holding the reins of his grey gelding. ‘Remember.’ he said as he swung himself up into the saddle, ‘if there’s any trouble you let me handle it. Okay?’
The stocky man nodded.
‘Davey, that clear?’
The turkey-neck wobbled. ‘That’s clear.’
Hawk spun the chamber of his Colt and watched as the stage came into sight, dust churning up from the tall wheels, the four horses moving easily, the whip in the driver’s hand unused.
They waited until the stagecoach was no more than three hundred yards away and then Hawk gave a signal and they rode down towards it fast. A couple of hundred yards off, Hawk drew the Colt and fired a couple of shots into the air.
The driver jerked his head round, spat, swore, raised the whip and cracked it out over the horses. Beside him the guard sat round and rested the barrel of his rifle on the top of the coach.
Hawk spurred his horse and changed direction, aiming to cut across the front of the stage while Davey and Walt closed in from behind. A rifle shot sang out but the shell went harmlessly into the air, the jolting speed of the coach making it difficult for the guard to take any kind of aim.
As Hawk came alongside he caught a glimpse of startled faces inside the coach and then he was looking at the bearded face of the driver and the guard beyond him. Hawk lifted his pistol high and yelled for them to pull over. The guard tried to bring his rifle round but a shot from Hawk whistled by his face and he thought better of it.
The driver dropped the whip down by his feet and hauled back on the reins. Fifty yards on he was pulling back at the heavy wooden handle of the brake.
‘Put down that rifle!’
The guard hesitated long enough to see the movement of the Colt in his direction; the gun hit the ground close by Hawk’s horse and bounced once.
‘Now anything else you’re wearin’. Now!’
Two hand guns followed the rifle.
‘Climb down!’
Walt and Davey had taken up positions at the rear of the coach and watched as first the driver, then the guard climbed down from the front of the stage. The driver was a shortish man with a full beard and very little hair anywhere else on his head. A few wisps blew in the breeze and he automatically moved his hand to flatten them. The guard was younger, maybe twenty-five, with a florid face and nervous eyes that shifted hastily from Hawk to the two Circle Y men and back again. He stood close by the back pair of horses, almost leaning against the nearest one’s rump.
‘We ain’t carryin’ nothing valuable, mister,’ said the driver nervously.
‘That’s for us to worry about. Get your passengers out here.’
The driver shrugged and turned down the handle on the door, telling those inside to step down. They came slowly, grudgingly, clutching what small belongings they had to them. A pair of women in their thirties who looked like schoolmarms and sisters both; a tubby man in a brown suit who was sweating pounds away with every minute that passed and who held his case of whiskey samples like it was a baby; an older man wearing well-pressed pants and a shirt that had been white at the start of the journey-he was the only one who appeared to be carrying a gun.
‘Stand by the coach. Spread yourselves out. You, too, ladies. You won’t come to no harm.’
Hawk nodded to Walt and Davey. ‘Get down here and cut the traces. Then run them animals off a ways.’
‘Jesus, mister, you can’t—’
Hawk grinned and moved the Colt: ‘This says that I can.’
‘Why don’t you simply take what you want from us and let us continue on our journey?’ The man with the smart clothes had a voice to match, clipped and exact and an accent that Hawk was unused to.
‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’
‘It is my business. And these ladies…’
‘You can worry about them after we’ve gone.’ Hawk swung down from the saddle and took a couple of paces towards the coach. ‘For now, you can hand over that gun.’
The man’s eyes flickered and his hand began to move, hesitated, the eyes flickered again.
‘Don’t be foolish, mister,’ warned Hawk.
‘Do like he says,’ advised the driver quickly.
Davey and Walt had finished severing the harnesses and were leading the four horses away from the trail.
‘Nice an’ easy,’ said Hawk, nodding at the gun holstered by the man’s hip.
He pulled it out with middle finger and thumb only touching the butt, watching Hawk all the while.
‘Now let it fall and kick it over here.’
The man gave Hawk another quick glance, made up his mind, and grabbed the butt up into his hand, lifting the arm as he did so. Hawk took a pace forward and kicked out, striking the underneath of the man’s forearm with the toe of his boot. There was a sharp crack and a shout as pain jolted along the bone.
Hawk closed in all the way and bent down to grab at the gun, picking it up awkwardly in his gloved hand, only the thumb capable of movement. He was on his way back up when the guard jumped him.
The shape flashed into the corner of Hawk’s vision and as he whirled round he caught the flicker of sunlight on the blade of the guard’s knife.
Hawk ducked under it, letting his body weave from the hips, then pushing up with his legs. The Colt swung in a wide arc and lashed round into the guard’s face. The side of the short barrel hit him on the cheekbone, opening the skin and sending him staggering back against the side of the coach.
The two women screamed shrilly and grabbed at each other; the whiskey drummer clutched his case all the more tightly. Hawk stepped back to give himself room then brought his pistol down on the other side of the guard’s face. Down and then back. The front sight tore a line through the cheek from the edge of the open and bleeding mouth.
Behind Hawk, the man in the white shirt had been quietly moving towards his gun. As his fingers were reaching towards it, Hawk spun round.
‘Don’t!’ The shout was accompanied by the click of the hammer going back under Hawk’s thumb.
The man didn’t. He stood straight, his face ashen now, and kicked the pistol away.
‘You okay?’ yelled Davey, riding back with Walt.
‘It’s all over,’ said Hawk over his shoulder. ‘Now get to work on that stage.’
Hawk gestured with his gun for the driver and passengers to move to the left. The guard he had to drag himself and the man winced and pulled back when Hawk bent towards him. His face was bleeding badly from the pistol whipping he had received, diagonal lines and a deep cut over one cheekbone, a dangling flap of bloody lip and a nose that dripped blood down his front. Hawk hauled him to his feet and threw him across the space between the coach and the rest.
Walt and Davey kicked in the wooden spokes of the wheels and as the coach sank down, Walt’s enormous strength pushed it right over on to its side. The strong box bounced off and fell on one edge, untouched, leaning against an outcrop of rock.
‘Soon as we’re gone, you folks can get walkin’. A few hours might get you some shelter from this damned sun. Or someone might ride along.’ Hawk slid the Colt back down into its holster. ‘Just one thing. When you tell folk about this, you make good an’ sure you tell ’em not to waste their time an’ money ridin’ on Baker’s stage line. ’Cause any time they do they’re likely to find their journey a little rough—and end up walkin’ a whole lot more than they’d figured. You got that? All of you?’
No one said anything, only the driver nodded his balding head, but the message was clear and Hawk was certain it would get passed around.
There was a fierce splintering sound as Walt joyfully kicked through the paneling at one side of the coach.
‘Come on,’ called Hawk. ‘We done enough here. Let’s not stop these good folk from gettin’ on with their walkin’.’
He laughed and mounted the gelding, turning its head and riding easily away, the Circle Y men following. Twenty yards on, Hawk came round and rode quickly back. He pointed at the drummer’s case and smiled. ‘That stuff in there—good, is it?’
‘Yes, sir! Best you can get in this part of …’ He stopped talking, realizing that the automatic sales patter wasn’t the right thing. But it was too late.
‘Hand it up.’
He clung to it desperately, backing well away. ‘No! No, I can’t. It’s …’
‘Shut up and take a look at the guard’s face,’ said Hawk roughly. ‘Then think what that damned case of whiskey’s worth.’
The drummer gulped and came cautiously forward, finally handing the leather case upwards. Hawk snapped the catches open and looked at the contents. He rested the case on his saddle and slid three bottles back into his saddle bags. Then he shut the case again and threw it down to the salesman.
‘Here. Don’t want to take all you’ve got. Not after such a generous gesture!’
Hawk swung the gelding about and galloped off to rejoin Walt and Davey. In less than five minutes they were lost to sight and sound and the folk they’d left behind had begun their long, exhausting trek under the unrelenting New Mexico sun.