WYATT SLEPT LIGHT from long habit. Herding cows on a patch of Texas scrubland open to Comanche attack had taught him that. He woke as the first cock got its throat cleared ready to crow in the burgeoning day, instinct closing his hand on the Colt beside him. The lamp was still burning, its glow fading as light began to filter through the shadows still gripping Black Rock, and he rose to trim it.
The town was quiet yet, save for the stridency of the cock, and beyond the walls of Garrett’s bedroom the saloon held an almost palpable stillness. Wyatt unlocked the door and stuck his head through. The room gave off a pungent aroma of smoke and whiskey and sweat, the bottles stacked along the wall gleaming as sunshine began to pierce the gloom. He yawned and closed the door, turning the key again as he wondered if the next four nights would be as lonely and as boring as the first. He dropped his pistol on the crumpled bed and fastened the gun belt about his waist, then—after dropping the Colt back inside the holster—he poured water into a bowl and sluiced his face. He was hungry, looking forward to eating breakfast with Josie. He settled back on the bed, waiting for Garrett to appear.
After a while, he heard footsteps echo on the boards outside and his father-in-law’s voice came through the door.
‘Tyler? You awake?’
He swung the door open, grinning at Garrett. The Southerner was in his shirtsleeves, but his vest was buttoned neat and a dark blue foulard was stick-pinned at his neck. He had shaved, and his silver-grey hair smelled faintly of pomade. There was a bruise on the side of his neck, just above the collar line.
‘Sleep well?’ Wyatt grinned at the mark.
‘Eventually.’ Garrett smiled back. ‘Have to check the customers are getting satisfaction in a business like mine.’
‘Yeah.’ Wyatt nodded, coming out of the room. ‘It’s all yours, Cole.’
‘It was just like I told you,’ said the Southerner, ‘wasn’t it? Quiet as a grave.’
‘Where I was,’ acknowledged Wyatt. ‘Those fellers take the stage out?’
‘DuPré and Martin?’ Garrett ducked his head. ‘Sure. Got on with the drummer.’
‘Good.’ Wyatt turned for the batwings. ‘I’ll see you later.’
The older man waved a hand in agreement and went into the bedroom as Wyatt crossed the saloon and pushed out into the clean stillness of the dawn. Black Rock was starting to wake up, early sunshine reflecting off the glass of storefronts and houses as the day got bright. The air was crisp, carrying a tang of woodsmoke and frying bacon. The brindle dog was back in front of the hardware store, jaws parting in a massive yawn as Wyatt went by, tail swinging lazily from side to side as it yapped a greeting. Wyatt scratched its head, grinning as it turned its attentions from him to the opening door as Wilbur Meacham came out with a bowl of scraps. He nodded to the storekeeper and paced on towards the smithy, belly beginning to rumble as he thought about Josie’s cooking.
She was up, bustling around the stove as he came in, blonde hair drawn back off her face with a green ribbon. She looked good. And felt better as she came into his arms, pressing against him like it was a whole lot longer than one night they’d been apart.
‘I missed you.’
The scent of her hair filled his nostrils and he held her close, feeling his body respond to her slender firmness.
She raised her head, lips parting as her eyes closed. The kiss was long and strong, rousing in Wyatt thoughts of the bed beyond the partitioning wall. Then Josie pulled away, laughing as the pan on the stove began to spit and disappointment showed in her husband’s eyes.
Think of the money,’ she admonished, moving to save their breakfast.
‘I am,’ he smiled back. ‘Wondering if it’s worth it.’
Josie began to set the food on the table. ‘Fifty dollars is a lot of money, honey. Like you said—it goes a way to paying Daddy off.’
‘Yeah.’ He forked bacon into his mouth. ‘But it don’t keep you warm nights.’
She sat facing him, the laughter still in her eyes.
‘It’s only five nights, Tyler. We can last that long.’
‘I guess.’ He mopped up egg yolk with fried bread. ‘But I don’t have to enjoy it.’
When they finished eating he went out to the smithy and used the bellows to get the forge started. There was a set of plough shares to straighten and four wagon wheels that needed rimming. He began to heat metal, relaxing into the satisfying rhythm of his work as the smithy filled with the odor of the forge and the red-hot iron. After a while he stripped off his shirt, the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders gleaming as sweat ran from his labors. A little before noon Doc Mortimer showed, leading his roan buggy horse. The doctor was bleary-eyed as usual, his hand shaking as he hitched the pony and settled on a bench to watch Wyatt fix the new shoes.
‘How you feeling?’ the blacksmith asked.
‘Like I need a drink,’ grunted the physician. ‘Like always.’
Wyatt shook his head, tapping nails into place. Doc Mortimer was the closest thing Black Rock had to a character, steering an unsteady line between respect for his medical knowledge and outrage at his excessive drinking. Few people in the little settlement knew his full story, his alcoholism and a sense of personal privacy keeping him aloof from the casual knowledge of neighbors’ affairs enjoyed by most of the inhabitants.
He had arrived in Black Rock two years before, stepping down off the stage with a medical bag in one hand and a bottle in the other. He had gone straight to the Belle and taken a room there, spending four days in solitude, joined only by the steady stream of bottles he ordered sent in. On the fifth day the stage had arrived with a pile of baggage marked for delivery to P. Mortimer, M.D., care of the Black Rock depot. Cole Garrett had taken the opportunity to start a conversation with the mystery man, and from that a friendship had sprung up that expanded to encompass Wyatt and Josie. The baggage had contained clothing and medical supplies, enough to stock a modest pharmacy. There had also been money, and bank drafts that Mortimer cashed with Garrett. Men had been hired to build a small house, and the physician had hung his shingle there, announcing his intention of settling.
Over the ensuing months the story of his past had slowly emerged; mostly as the level went down in a bottle. He had been born in New England, the son of a doctor who packed him off to medical school at the earliest opportunity. He had emerged to take over his father’s practice, marrying along the way with the intention of maintaining the family tradition. The Civil War had intervened and he had joined the Union forces as a Medical Officer. The day he left to join his regiment, his wife had announced her pregnancy. He had seen her three times since then, and then, serving in the Shenandoah valley, had received a letter two months out of date that informed him she had died together with the stillborn child. Personal loss and the horrors of the war had enlarged his natural capacity for drink, and by the time peace came, he was an alcoholic. Unwilling to return to a home redolent of memories, he had taken his discharge and gone west. Drifting, he had finally arrived at Black Rock and decided to stay, the only reason he ever gave, that he liked the taste of Cole Garrett’s whiskey. He was the only genuine physician in a hundred-mile span of open territory, and that had got him business despite his shaky hands. He was, as most folks had to admit, whatever they thought of his drinking, an excellent doctor. He maintained a supply of medicaments that he ordered from the East, and kept abreast, as best he could, of developments through subscriptions to the few available medical journals. He avoided any kind of surgery as far as he was able—he had once admitted to Wyatt that an operation on a cowboy torn up by a longhorn bull had left the man with a permanent limp. Because Mortimer hadn’t been able to steady his shaking hands. But he was still Black Rock’s doctor. And a good friend.
‘Done.’ Wyatt lowered the newly-shod hoof, surveying his handiwork. ‘She’ll be dancing now, Doc.’
Mortimer grunted in reply and passed coin over. Touching the brim of his derby, he took the reins and began plodding back in the direction of the Belle. Wyatt watched him go, then turned towards the house, thinking about food. He halted on the porch, his attention caught by the approach of four riders. They were coming in off the prairie at an easy canter, yellow dusters melding with the sun-bleached land to give them a curiously ghostly appearance, as though they had sprung from nowhere and might disappear again at any moment. They slowed as they reached the outskirts, and Wyatt waited in the shadow of the door, watching them.
Two men rode slightly to the fore, sitting their ponies with the casual grace of men long-accustomed to saddle travel. One, he saw, was tall and hard-muscled, black hair that was streaked through with grey thrusting from under an old cavalry Stetson. A bandanna was wound high about his throat, and as he turned his head to glance at Wyatt, the movement was somehow stiff, awkward. His companion was shorter, his face weak, nondescript save for the inane smile decorating his thickish lips. His duster was unbuttoned, flapping back to reveal the faded blue of an old cavalry uniform. Behind them came a rider considerably younger, his face freckled and open like a Georgia farmboy’s. Curly yellow hair looked to threaten his Stetson with a fall and he kept tugging the brim down, the movement emphasizing the bunched muscles of his brawny arm. Next to him was one of the ugliest men Wyatt had ever seen. Hatless, his skull glistened in the sun, devoid of hair and puckered redly where the hairline should have started. With a shock of surprise, Wyatt realized that he had been scalped. Perhaps by the same knives that had left a tracery of scars over his features. One eye was tugged down at the corner by a knife cut that ran across his left cheek to where his mouth was curled upwards in a permanent sneer. His nostrils were flared, dragged back by poorly-healed flesh where the tip of his nose was missing. He saw the blacksmith watching him and swung round in the saddle, pointing at his face as his mouth opened to emit a high-pitched, yipping chuckle that was somehow both menacing and contemptuous.
Wyatt watched them go by, thinking about the money in Garrett’s safe as they reined in outside the Belle. He stepped into the house with a frown creasing his forehead.
‘What’s wrong?’ Josie looked up from the table. ‘You look worried.’
‘I think I’ll go talk to Cole.’ He fetched his gun belt from the peg. ‘It’s probably nothin’.’
Concern showed on Josie’s features, and she put a hand on his arm.
‘What is it, Tyler? I have a right to know.’
‘Four riders came in.’ Wyatt shrugged. ‘They looked like hardcases. With that money sitting in the saloon, I want to talk to yore pa.’
‘Be careful.’ She looked up into his eyes. ‘You remember that money doesn’t buy your life.’
‘Hell!’ He stooped to kiss her cheek. ‘I don’t plan to walk into no gunfight.’
Before she could say anything more, he ducked out the door and walked fast towards the saloon. The men were inside now, bellied up against the bar with a bottle passing between them. Their dusters were open and the weapons he could see reinforced his apprehension. Three of them wore Colts, but the scar-faced man carried a big LeMat shotgun-pistol across his belly and the farmboy had a Winchester carbine cradled in his left arm. The tall man with the bandanna carried a saber sheathed on his left hip, the blade cut down to around fourteen inches, the brass guard polished bright. They glanced at Wyatt, then turned back to their drinking as he paced down the room and tapped on Garrett’s door.
‘Who is it?’ He heard the click of the Southerner’s hammer going back, and muttered, ‘Tyler,’ with his mouth close to the woodwork.
The door opened and he went inside, halting Garrett’s arm as the Southerner moved to close the door.
‘Take a look.’
The urgency in his voice wiped the smile from his father-in-law’s face, and Garrett peered down the saloon.
‘That,’ he said as he closed the door and turned the key, ‘is the ugliest man I saw in my life.’
‘They just came in,’ Wyatt told him. ‘That’s kinda funny, Cole. Two strangers on the stage last night, now four hardcases today. Black Rock ain’t seen that many strangers since I come here.’
‘They’re probably just passing through.’ Garrett led the way into the other room. ‘Hell, Tyler! This money’s making you nervous. How could they know?’
Wyatt shrugged. ‘Damn’ right I’m nervous. We’re sitting on three thousand dollars an’ there’s four strangers out there looking like they’d cut yore throat for a pair o’ used boots.’
‘Drifters.’ Garrett’s voice was confident. ‘Even if they were thinking of trying anything, how’d they do it? They’d be up against the whole town. You think they’d risk that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wyatt looked at the half-eaten meal on the table and remembered Josie’s cooking. ‘But I don’t like it.’
Garrett smiled. ‘I’ll keep the doors locked and I’ll stay right here. No one’ll get past me.’
‘All right.’ Reluctantly, Wyatt nodded. ‘But anything starts, you fire off that pistol an’ I’ll come running.’
‘Sure.’ Garrett clapped him on the back. ‘Quit worrying.’
Wyatt left the saloon, but he didn’t stop worrying. He worried as he ate the meal Josie set in front of him and he was worrying as he worked in the smithy. He was still worrying as he returned to the Belle to take over from Garrett.
There was no sign of the four horsemen, and the Southerner told him they had booked rooms and retired there accompanied by a woman apiece.
‘Like I said,’ he announced, ‘they’re just passing through. They want to drink some and they want to whore around some. They’ll be moving on come morning, most like.’
Wyatt nodded and sat down on the bed, wishing the Southerner’s ambitions hadn’t pushed him into the situation. When Garrett had outlined his plan it had seemed like an easy way to make a fast fifty dollars and he hadn’t thought much farther than that. Now he was feeling—just as Garrett had said—nervous. There was something wrong with this many strangers coming through town so soon after the arrival of the money: Black Rock didn’t see much of strangers, except for the stage travelers staying overnight or the cowhands who drifted in come the spring branding, or round-up time. Summer was quiet: the town settled into a lazy routine that brought a comfortable sense of security that was now broken—for Wyatt, at least—by the strangers. He took the Peacemaker from his holster and checked the loads, wondering how he would react if they did try something. He could use the gun, knew from time spent practicing with it that he could draw fast and shoot accurately. But he had never faced a man in a gunfight. He had no idea how he would feel, drawing the Colt to kill.
He drifted into sleep with the pistol on his belly, fingers curled around the butt.
And woke to the sound of shouting and the clanging of a bell.
He recognized the bell instantly. It was hung out front of the stage depot in case of fire. Abner Teech had a barn piled full of grain and hay for the line teams and the bell was his warning system. When it got rung, every able- bodied man in town came fast to lend a hand.
He swung clear of the bed, the Colt in his hand, and moved for the door. Then he halted, torn between his instinct to go help and his agreement with Garrett. He stared at the key, grey eyes troubled. He could hear boots pounding on the stairs that connected the saloon with the hotel, the rattle of the batwings as men poured out into the street. A fire would bring the women and the children out, too. Either to help or to watch. Just about everyone in Black Rock would be out there, clustered around the depot.
So one less wouldn’t, he decided, make much difference. And he had given Cole his word. Reluctantly, he left the door closed and went into the second room. He opened the shutters, flattening his face against the glass as he tried to see around the angle of the walls, trying to catch sight of flame in the night. He could see nothing, but that didn’t mean a whole lot because the intervening buildings could be blocking off the blaze. Or maybe it wasn’t that big. He hoped not as he swung the thick shutters into place and dropped the crossbar. Anyway, he’d hear soon enough. Once the fire was dealt with, Cole would come back and tell him all about it.
He returned to the bedroom, locking the door behind him, and sat down on the bed.
Then his senses came alert as he heard the batwings clatter and feet echo on the boards outside. He put his hand on the Colt, thumb resting light on the hammer.
The feet crossed the saloon and came to a stop outside the door.
And a whispery voice called, ‘You want to open that, feller? Or do we bust it in?’
He thumbed the Colt’s hammer all the way back. The voice had been soft, as though some constriction of the throat blocked the words, but it was still full of menace. He felt sweat bead cold on his back.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he called. ‘I got a pistol in here.’
‘The name’s Jennings,’ the voice husked. ‘Vance Jennings. An’ I got Cole Garrett out here. He’s kinda anxious to see you. Could get real cut up about it.’
‘He’s got a knife on me!’ Wyatt recognized Garrett’s voice. And remembered the cut-down saber the hardcase had been wearing. ‘He means it, Tyler.’
‘Like I said,’ whispered Jennings. ‘He could get cut up.’