George Rawlings had grown into his badge a long time back. He’d been toting a gun or two and pinning one shield or another onto his leather vest for near on twenty years. That took him up around Herne’s age but there were few men who’d dare to call him old man. Most of the reason for that was the six pointed star with the words US Marshal engraved on it. Plain and simple, nothing the least bit fancy. It gave Rawlings the right to go most places, to cross state lines in search of whoever he wanted; it showed him as a man to be feared and respected.
Unless you knew of Jed Herne’s reputation or unless you’d seen him in action with his Colt, it was possible to misjudge him the way the folk back at Cimaron Falls had – a drifter who was getting past his prime.
The badge on George Rawling’s vest stopped that before it begun. Not only the badge, though, for Rawlings made a point of keeping himself spruce and tidy. His beard was shaved down to his lean, tanned skin each morning, his hair clipped and scissored every few weeks; he wore shirts that usually looked as if they’d recently been laundered even if they hadn’t. His boots were high polished and his Stetson blocked and brushed. The silver buckle of his gun belt shone. Everything about George Rawlings yelled out: step aside and keep well clear ’cause I’m comin’ through.
That’s the way it was when Marshal Rawlings headed his posse into Cimaron Falls.
~*~
When Dan Yester turned back into his office, waiting for Cohen to carry on at him about letting Herne ride out of town, he’d got the town councilor’s reason wrong. Cohen had that minute received a telegraph message from the US Marshal, stating his intention to stop over at Cimaron Falls. It was with this news that Cohen was hotfooting it towards the sheriff’s office. Needless to say, seeing Herne taking off gave him another concern, but it was George Rawlings’ imminent arrival that was uppermost in his mind.
‘There weren’t no point to it,’ Yester began, but Cohen ignored him.
‘Just got word,’ he said, waving the piece of yellow paper, ‘Marshal’s on his way.’
‘Too late for Herne,’ Yester said, still not understanding. ‘I couldn’t hold him on evidence like we’d got, it weren’t.’
‘I’m not interested in that good-for-nothing,’ stormed Cohen. ‘Now you hear what I’m saying. The US Marshal and his posse are arriving in town at any minute. I want us to show him that this community is both law-abiding and intending to stay so. This Rawlings, he came through here eighteen months back and the things he said about your predecessor wouldn’t bear printing. Admittedly, Sheriff Tozcek was sobering up from a three night drunk at the time and the cells were jammed tight with a mixture of whores and gamblers and other ruffians, but the marshal, he wasn’t wearing no excuses. Told Tozcek, straight to his face, that he was a disgrace to his badge. Any kind of badge. Assistant to the Fire Department would be too good for him. Then he had the effrontery to tell me, before a number of witnesses that the kind of peace officer a town had, showed what kind of a town it was anyway. Reflected on the town and them as ran it, that was what he implied. No, what he said. Out loud. In front of maybe twenty people. More. So when he gets here I want you to create the right impression. Show him what kind of lawman Cimaron Falls has got itself now. Let that reflect upon the town and them who run it.’
And Cohen finished his speech by sticking one hand down into his coat pocket and the other between the buttons of his vest, face uplifted like he was listening for the applause.
Yester looked at him, thinking he was a pompous fool; thinking that the kind of lawman he was himself was the sort that got his gun taken from him by one of the prisoners in his custody; the kind of lawman who then agreed to cover up for the prisoner’s escape, even to the point of shaking hands with him and waving him off down the street.
Cohen said: ‘I made myself understood? A good impression is essential.’
Yester nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
Cohen turned for the door and the sheriff thought the first thing he’d best do was wash away the line of congealed blood from his face; in his excitement Cohen hadn’t noticed, but doubtless the US marshal would.
‘And Yester,’ said Cohen from the doorway, ‘was that that saddle tramp, Herne, who was riding off from here when I came up?’
Yester nodded; waited.
‘I thought he was under arrest for murdering that poor woman back of the hotel?’
‘He was. But I thought better of it.’
‘You thought better of it? You? All on your own? Don’t you think that might be presumptuous for a young man who hasn’t been in the job more than a week?’
Yester coughed and tried not to look the man directly in the eye. ‘I made some investigations. Seemed that there was a breed girl working at the dining rooms. She had a grudge against this Nadine. Also, she knew about the silver that was buried, knew it said where in the letter. Right after the killin’, she quit town. No one’s seen her since. Looks pretty conclusive to me. Didn’t see how we could keep that Herne behind bars after that come to light. Figured we’d be best off without him around. Told him to head out an’ keep goin’. If he come back again he’d end up back in jail or as dead as that mare the other day.’
He made his threats with sufficient vigor to impress Cohen that he was capable of carrying them out. ‘You going after this woman, whatever she’s called?’ he asked, stepping back into the office.
‘Rose. She’s called Rose. Well, I was wonderin’ about that. Thought I’d ask your advice. See, if I take off after her it could mean being away two, three weeks. Long time to leave the town without a peace officer.’
Cohen set his head to one side and scratched at his ear. ‘That’s true, we wouldn’t like to leave the community wide open on account of one woman being killed. I mean, unfortunate as that is. And if her attacker has also left—’
‘We could make our findings known to the marshal,’ suggested Yester. ‘He might be able to track her down.’
Cohen left his ear to its own devices and rubbed his hands together, a small ball of wax forming and sliding between his palms to the floor. ‘You’re right. As soon as the marshal arrives we can acquaint him with what happened.’ He set one foot onto the boardwalk. ‘Remember what I said. A good impression is not only essential for your sake, but the town’s also.’
And the town council, thought Yester, don’t forget that. As if you ever could. He set to sorting out a few of the more recent fliers to tack to the walls, sorted and tidied around and got a fresh pot of coffee going on the corner stove. Like Cohen had said, creating a good impression wouldn’t do his future any harm at all.
~*~
What neither Cohen nor Yester realized was that Marshal Rawlings’ impression of Cimaron Falls was already formed long before he ever clapped eyes on the place. He’d seen one horse dumps like it before and he’d see them again. He was as like to be impressed by the town as by a dried pancake of cow shit and he’d think as much of the young sheriff as he would a yellow-bodied fly that was humming around it, searching for food.
Rawlings had grown up around Fort Smith on the borders of Arkansas and Indian Territory. His father had been a sutler at the fort and young George had learned what frontier life was about in the midst of horses and guns and harsh voices booming drill orders around the dusty parade ground. Out beyond the fort walls there’d been Cherokee and Creek, Seminole and Choctaw – occasionally the Osage would ride down from the north, or, worse, the Comanche from west along the Red River.
When George was in his teens and old enough to fend for himself, he signed up for the Butterfield Overland Mail which ran through Fort Smith on its way across through the southwest to Los Angeles. In time he stopped off along the line and wore a deputy’s badge in both El Paso and Tucson, hell-holes that got through young deputies like they were going out of style. George Rawlings survived.
Hankering for a mite less dust and a few more trees, he headed up north of the Sierra Nevada and found employment as a peace officer in Virginia City. Close to tike end of the California Trail, it kept him busy till the railroad broke through. When that happened he hopped aboard the first Central Pacific going east and almost the next thing he knew he was holding down a badge in Denver. It was there that he was deputized by a US marshal.
By the time he got to be sworn in as a full marshal, he’d earned himself the reputation for being a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly, who’d reckon a man was in the wrong before he’d think him in the right, who’d use the ivory grip Remington Frontier .44 he wore at his hip a sight faster than he’d stand around and ask questions. He was smart and harder than hide that had been baked in the sun of Death Valley.
He rode into Cimaron Falls with his head held high and the front of his Stetson pinched deep at the crown. His back was straighter than hickory. The light caught the silver at the center of his belt, the butt of his pistol, even the sheen of his boots and reflected them in a myriad of flickering stars about him as he rode. There were eight men with him, stretched out back of him in a column of twos, just as if Rawlings had never left Fort Smith at all. The deputies included one Negro, one man with a bandage wound tight about his head and showing clearly beneath his hat – apart from that they were all anonymous, interchangeable. Paid and trained to do whatsoever George Rawlings demanded of them.
Cohen came running to the sidewalk; Bennett pushed back the doors of the Imperial Palace and beamed over the top of his cigar; Dan Yester looked out through the window at the front of his office and felt a twinge of excitement mixed with a whole lot of envy.
Marshal Rawllings ignored the entire damned bunch of them. He did pull his mount to a halt outside the hotel, that’s true, but for all the indication he gave, Bennett might just as well not have been standing there. Rawlings dismounted and issued orders to his men, one of them taking the reins of his horse. That seen to, the marshal went striding into the hotel, by which time Bennett had retreated behind the reception desk and was trying to stop his right eye from twitching nervously at the far corner.
‘Marshal, may I say it’s an honor to—’
‘I want a room with a good bed and a lock that works, window looking out over the main street. Fix me a bath of hot water and hustle the town barber over here with a sharp razor. After that I want a steak sent up to my room, all the fixings. A bottle of good whiskey. If there’s a whore in town without the clap you can send her up after I’ve eaten. One of my men will be outside the door at all times, another down here in the lobby. I expect to be moving on in the morning after breakfast.’ He scarce paused for breath. ‘All that clear?’
The one of Bennett’s eyes which wasn’t twitching was round and full and staring; his teeth clamped down into the suddenly tasteless cigar and slowly he nodded his head.
‘Fine!’
George Rawlings strode towards the stairs, one of the deputies following in his wake; the black deputy positioned himself to the right of the door, a Winchester ’73 cradled in his arms. Bennett didn’t move until he realized that inadvertently he’d bitten through the butt of the cigar. Then he ran towards the side door as if his life depended upon it.
Yester had seen Cohen coming but he didn’t answer the door until his visitor had knocked twice on the locked woodwork.
‘What the Hell are you shut in for?’
Yester shrugged, he wasn’t sure himself. Ever since it had begun to grow dark, though, the bolts had been slid home and the key turned. The kerosene lamp that hung outside the door, spilling light along the boards and off out into the, street, gave him warning of whoever might be approaching. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that those deputies of the marshal’s were on the prowl that had made him so unsettled. Maybe it was guilt.
‘He wants to see you.’
‘He?’ Yester knew well enough who Cohen was taking about.
‘Now. Up in his room at the hotel.’
Dan Yester gulped in a little air and reached for his hat; he hoped that wearing it would make him seem a few years older. His fingers grazed his cheeks, seeking out stubble that was only barely there since that morning.
‘You best not keep him waiting.’
‘Yeah.’ Yester waited till Cohen had moved out onto the street before following him, pausing to lock the door at his own back. The diagonal walk over to the Imperial Palace seemed longer than he’d ever figured before.
Inside the foyer, the bandaged deputy let his finger rest casually inside the trigger guard as he gave Yester the once over, taking in the pistol tied down at his thigh and the sheriff’s badge on his coat. The deputy gave a grin and stepped aside as Yester crossed in front of the reception desk, with Nadine’s replacement high-cheeked behind it. The thick carpet felt unnatural beneath his feet. His boots echoed on the stairs. When he turned onto the landing he was staring down the long barrel of a Winchester.
‘You the sheriff?’
Yester’s tongue wet his lips. He pointed to the badge on his coat and waited for the rifle to be lowered. It seemed to take a long time.
The deputy knocked on the door, none too loudly, and waited until a hard voice replied from inside. The deputy opened the door and stood back just far enough for Yester to pass through. Immediately the door was closed behind him.
George Rawlings was sitting up in a double bed, bare-chested, curls of thick black hair matting the muscular body and matching the hair on his head. He was leaning against the polished brass rods of the bedhead, his eyes staring at Yester, dark and intimidating. The silver buckled gun belt was hanging from the corner of the bedpost but the holster was empty. The Remington .44 lay on the quilted bedcover close by his right hand; his left hand was gently stroking the shoulder of an apparently naked girl who was leaning against him. To Dan Yester, she looked no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age.
A tray sat on the floor beside the bed, its oval plate cleared of all but a smudge of mustard and a sliver of fatty gristle. There was a whiskey bottle close by it and Rawlings reached down for this and lifted it to his mouth; he set the neck of the bottle to his mouth and swallowed hard, twice, three times.
‘You’re Dan Yester,’ he said, lowering the bottle. It was never a question.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the sheriff, hating himself for saying ‘sir’ but unable to prevent himself.
‘You just took the job here?’
‘Yes. Sir.’
Rawlings stared at him with barely concealed amusement. ‘That Cohen said you was a mite young, but I didn’t expect someone with the cradle marks still on his ass.’
Yester flushed bright red; the girl alongside the marshal giggled and he stopped stroking her shoulder. She stopped giggling.
‘Sir, I’m twenty.’
‘That a fact?’ asked Rawlings, still amused.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose I was much older when I became a deputy down El Paso way and that was one Hell of a town. Not a peaceable place like this one you got here.’
‘No, sir.’
Rawlings studied him a while longer and nodded. ‘You got manners, I’ll say that for you and you ain’t drunk, like that immigrant bastard as was here afore you.’ He pointed the bottle at Yester’s gun belt. ‘You any good with that thing, or you wearin’ it for decoration? Impress folk?’
Yester wet his lips again before answering.
‘Thirsty, son?’
Yester caught the rebuke and stifled it. He nodded instead. Rawlings tossed the half empty bottle across to him and Yester managed to catch it at the second attempt. He straightened up and took a slow drink, the level hardly going down at all.
‘You was saying? About that Colt you got there?’
‘Uh-huh. I can shoot good. Hit most things within range. My father, he taught me. Knew a lot about guns.’
‘Fast?’
Yester hesitated. ‘Not so’s you’d notice. But I reckon always to make my first shot count. Folk say that’s more important than clearing leather quicker than another man. I mean, if you.’
‘Okay, Sheriff,’ Rawlings interrupted ‘I guess I know well enough what folk say.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Rawlings held out his hand and Yester went forward and handed him the bottle. Closer to, the bed gave off a warm smell, bodies and sweat. Closer to, the girl looked even younger.
‘Know why I’m here?’ asked the marshal.
Yester shook his head.
‘Heard of an outlaw name of John Young?’
‘Waco John Young?’
‘That’s the one.’
Yester nodded. ‘Saw a flier on him. Didn’t know he was round these parts, though.’
‘We been tracking him for a couple of weeks now. He and his gang held up a train southeast of here and got away with one hell of a haul. They split up straight after and split the money with them. Least, that’s what we think they did. Could have stashed it somewhere, no way of being certain.’
‘He’s headed towards Cimaron Falls?’ asked Yester, half hoping the answer would be yes, half no.
‘Looks that way.’
‘Any reason for that?’
Rawlings patted the girl’s shoulder and glanced down at her briefly. ‘Always had a weakness for women, Waco Johnny. Seems there was one special, regular firecat, she come this way so we heard.’
‘You mean she’s here now?’
‘My men are out lookin’. Ain’t turned her up yet, but they will.’
A nerve triggered off something at the side of Yester’s head and deep inside his stomach turned. Some sixth sense was sending him messages he didn’t want to receive.
‘What’s the matter, son? You look like you’re about to take bad.’
Yester shook his head and shuffled his feet. ‘This woman,’ he asked cautiously, ‘she wouldn’t be around thirty, real good-lookin’, fair hair and blue eyes?’
George Rawlings laughed; it was a loud, gutty sound that seemed to reverberate around the room. The girl started to giggle until he slapped her softly and she stopped again. ‘Hell, no! She’s dark and small and looks like she comes straight out of Hell, which ain’t far from the truth. Part Comanche, something like that.’
It was already clear from Yester’s face that he knew who the marshal was talking about. Rawlings sat forward and his arm left the girl alone; she was forgotten.
‘Let’s hear it!’
Dan Yester told him.
Rawlings listened attentively for the five minutes it took the young sheriff to get through the tale. His eyes seemed to become darker, more lustrous; he was a man whose quarry was almost in sight.
‘This letter – no one else knows what exactly was in it?’
‘I don’t think so. Bennett here, he claimed she wouldn’t show it to him and the feller who brought it, he said the same.’
‘You believe ’em?’
Yester thought about it. ‘Bennett, yes. The other one, I’m not so sure.’
‘But you let him go just the same?’
Yester stumbled and stammered and explained that once he’d found out about the breed girl there didn’t seem to be anything to hold him on.
‘Maybe you’re right. You know where he went, this—’
‘Herne. He just rode off out of town. Who knows where drifters like that ...’
But the light in Rawlings’ eyes had changed again.
‘Herne,’ he repeated, the name testing on his lips. ‘That’s not Jed Herne? Herne the Hunter?’
Yester looked surprised. He scratched at one side of his chin and fidgeted with the front of his belt. ‘Didn’t say nothin’ ’bout that, just Herne was all. He didn’t look up to much that was certain.’
Rawlings pointed at him. ‘What did he look like?’
Midway through the description Rawlings’ face showed that it had been Herne the Hunter right enough.
‘You know him?’ asked Yester.
Rawlings laughed and this time there was nothing in the sound that made the girl feel obliged to join in. ‘We run across one another times enough to know it’s best to stay clear. Ain’t no love lost between us, that’s for certain. But that aside, he’s a cussed son of a bastard. And you had him locked up in your jail.’ He looked at the sheriff admiringly. ‘Ain’t many lawmen can lay claim to that.’
‘Was he one of Waco Johnny’s gang?’ asked Yester.
Rawlings shook his head. ‘Not unless he’d sunk down a lot further than I can imagine. Always was fussy ’bout who he rode with, Jed Herne. Honest, too, after his own fashion. I don’t reckon train robbery’d appeal to him over much.’ A rare smile crossed the marshal’s face and he slid his hand down the side of the young whore’s arm, making her snuggle up to him all the more, her hair, fine and fair, falling across his breast. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, if those fellers hadn’t set on Herne in that alley like you said they did, you’d no more have got that son of a bitch inside no jail than you’d’ve been likely to have slammed Quantrel in the guard house for exceeding orders.’
Rawlings laughed again and Yester was about to argue, but better judgment advised him against it.
‘Something to tell to your kids when you gets ’em, that’ll be. Running Jed Herne inside.’
Yester shook his head slowly and said: ‘If he’s that good, that fast what’s he doin’ all dressed up like some old man?’
George Rawlings rocked his body forward, the sheet falling away, the girl knocked to one side and screaming. Yester tried to move away from the end of the bed but he was never making it. Rawlings’ left hand grabbed hold of his shirt front and pulled him against the bed rails hard; his right hand had brought the gun up close to the side of Yester’s head. Yester’s mind flashed back to what had happened in the jail. Twice, he thought. Twice I’ve been got the same damned way!
The girl was still screaming.
The bedroom door swung open fast and the deputy jumped in, Winchester at the ready. As he’d describe it later to his friends, what should he see but the marshal kneeling on the bed, bare ass naked, with his pistol about to blow this sheriff’s brains out and a beautiful young girl with her hands to her ears and no clothes on either, shouting her lungs wide open.
Rawlings flashed the deputy a quick look which said, get out, I’m handling this my way.
The door shut fast but the muzzle of the Remington didn’t budge. Dan Yester looked at Rawlings’ face and prayed. It was the first time since he couldn’t remember when, but he made up the words as he went along. Let me out of this alive, Lord, and I promise I’ll never let anyone get the drop on me like this again.
Maybe the Good Lord heard him; maybe George Rawlings was feeling kind-hearted. Either way the marshal released the hammer and moved the gun away. He glanced down at himself, as if realizing for the first time that he was naked. With a quick movement, too agile for his years, he was off the bed and pulling on his clothes.
The girl’s protests had faded to a whimper and with a look from Rawlings they stopped altogether.
‘You can go,’ he said.
She didn’t hear him clearly, her hands still over her ears. When she lowered her arms he repeated what he’d said. The girl gathered up her things and moved towards the door, sliding her limbs into garments at points along the way.
When she was outside and the marshal was dressed, he buckled on his gun belt and slid the Remington into place, tying the thin leather thong fixed to the bottom of the holster around the inside of his thigh,
‘You asked about Herne lookin’ like an old man,’ said Rawlings, in his own good time, his temper cool now and his voice steady once more. ‘How he dresses, what he wears, that’s his concern. There’s but two things about a man like Herne as matter and they’re his hand and his eye. As long as he’s got a gun, he’s as young as he needs to be. Man who’s lived as long as he has, faced down as many men, he deserves your respect.’ Rawlings jutted a finger out towards Yester’s face. ‘Next time, don’t you be so quick to judge.’
Yester nodded, meaning it. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said and this time the words didn’t even begin to stick in his throat.
‘Okay, Sheriff,’ said Rawlings, ‘I’m goin’ down to pass a bottle round with my men. Come sunup we’ll be on our way. We got us a lot of riding to do to catch up to that Waco, but we’ll do it in the end Maybe get the woman, too. If’n we do, I’ll let you know.’
‘Sure, marshal,’ said Yester. ‘And thanks. It’s been an honor meetin’ you.’
He held out his hand and the marshal gripped it, firm and fast. Next thing Dan Yester was walking down the stairs, his head running free with what the man had said, the way he’d acted; he thought about the kind of respect a badge and a gun could bring to a man if he learned to use them both right. One day, he said to himself, crossing the street back towards his office, one day that’ll be me.