There were few horses remaining in the corral; few men in evidence about the ranch buildings. Hart rode with the Indian blanket draped across his shoulder, brim of his hat eased down; his eyes were narrowed to slits of faded blue. The holster that held the pearl-handled Colt Peacemaker was newly greased; the pistol itself freshly cleaned and oiled. The .44 Henry was in the scabbard which nestled against his left knee: the sawn-down ten-gauge Remington bulked on the opposite side of the saddle. Behind him, within quick reach of his right hand, a Starr double-action .44 sat up inside one of his saddle bags and the straps to the bag were unfastened. The double-edged Apache knife which hung in its beaded sheath from the saddle pommel had been keened razor sharp.
Hart had no clear idea of what he would find at the Shire spread. That the rancher was drawing together a band of men to ride at his instructions seemed clear enough, but Hart had no means of knowing when they might ride or where. If he could get directly to Clancy Shire and talk to him, so much the better — but if he had to fight his way through Jakes and all the rest, then that was how it would have to be.
He’d ridden with Billy Bonney and Dick Brewer down New Mexico way in what had been called the Lincoln Range War. Regulators, they’d called themselves. Regulators – and for Hart and a few others who’d never seen Lincoln County, the name had stuck.
As he rode towards the Shire place, Hart remembered what it had been like well enough to know he didn’t want to see it happen again. Not anywhere: not here with himself in the midst of it. A shadow passed over his face as he remembered more. He remembered Billy.
The Kid in the middle of the floor, on all fours like a dog. First time he’d seen him he should have known. Mouth too small and eyes too wide apart. The way saliva trickled down from that mouth whenever he’d shot a man, shot anything. That last night in the shack together, the Kid drunk on tequila and whiskey, nasty and mean. A sullen temper that suddenly burst out as he gouged a broken bottle into one man’s face. His leg giving way beneath his slender, drunken weight when he’d faced up to Hart and tried to reach his gun. The Kid in the middle of the floor, on all fours like a dog.
However dangerous Jakes might prove to be when he’d surrounded himself with enough men, he wasn’t as kill-crazy as the Kid. He wasn’t insane.
Hart was passing between the outbuildings now and although he figured the ranch wasn’t deserted, he’d seen little to prove the opposite. Then, much as he’d done the first time except now he was alone, Shire’s foreman stepped into the bleak light to face him.
Stoddard was sprucely dressed, his work pants looking for all the world as if they’d come straight from the wash. He wore a bottle-green shirt and a wool coat a shade between brown and black. His beard and moustache appeared to have been trimmed early that morning. Hart could see the leather of his gun belt, but not the weapon that was sitting in its holster.
‘You come back.’
‘Yeah.’
‘From what Clancy said, didn’t think there was anythin’ else for you two to talk on.’
‘Maybe not then.’
‘And now?’
‘Now’s different.’
Hart was half-concentrating on the conversation, the rest of him trying to make out the source of sound that barely impinged upon him — a man or men trying to move unnoticed and out of sight.
‘How come?’
‘If you don’t know, it ain’t for me to waste time telling. Ask your boss.’
Hart glanced away towards the house; what might have been the shape of a man at one of the windows shifted too soon for him to be certain.
‘He don’t want to see you,’ said Stoddard firmly, setting himself even more square. ‘I know it.’
‘Shift aside.’
Stoddard’s right hand was almost casual as it moved to the center of his coat and the fingers slid the button free and then the hand pulled the right flap of the coat back behind his holster. The gun was a Remington .44 and seemed to Hart as if it had been around for a long time. He wondered how efficiently it still functioned. He wondered how fast the foreman might be.
He said: ‘Don’t die for him.’
Stoddard blinked and his mouth opened a fraction.
‘Don’t,’ Hart repeated.
The door to the ranch house swung slowly open and the figure of Clancy Shire, seated in his wheelchair, legs blanketed over, appeared at the head of the steps.
‘Stoddard!’ Shire called.
The foreman didn’t turn his head.
‘Stoddard. Let him come.’
The foreman still didn’t move. Hart had to swing the grey round him before he could ride up to the house.
‘You’re too late,’ Shire said as he spun the wheels of his chair round in a half-circle. ‘Too late.’
‘You stirred it up,’ replied Hart. ‘You sent ‘em out. Bring ‘em back before too much damage is done.’
Shire shook his handsome head, the shock of brown hair bouncing and falling across his left eye. ‘It wasn’t me who asked the railroad in, begged them to come to Caldwell. Wasn’t me who wanted to turn Caldwell into another Wichita, another Dodge City. That was those short-sighted money-grabbers back in town who can’t see further than the bottom of their pockets.’
‘And you?’ asked Hart moving towards the side wall. ‘Just what are your motives?’ He could see Stoddard close by the nearest of the barns, speaking with one of the hands he didn’t recognize. ‘You doin’ this for the benefit of the community?’
‘Partly.’
Hart snorted with anger. ‘Tell that to them as your riders is out killing.’ He pointed a finger at the rancher. ‘I told you before, you don’t hire trash like Jakes unless what you got in mind stinks lower’n a polecat’s asshole.’
Shire spun the chair round again, so that he faced the window. For several moments of silence he stared out through the expanse of glass. When he spoke he was still facing the same way.
‘Santa F6 Railroad’s meeting beginning of next week. They’ll be looking to make up their minds once and for all. Kansas City, Burlington and South Western’s pushing powerful close. Stopping them means acting now and showing we mean business.’ He moved the chair round slowly until he was facing Hart again. ‘You can’t do that by words.’ The hair shook down over his eye again and he brushed it aside. ‘Words don’t work fast enough.’
‘But killing does?’
‘Who says it has to be killing?’
‘Huh! With Jakes leading ‘em. What the hell d’you expect?’
Shire shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘He’ll push folk around a little. Lean on ‘em. Threaten, yes, but it doesn’t have to be killing.’
Hart shook his head. Through the window he could see that Stoddard was walking from the barn towards the corral. He wondered where the Mex, Jose, was — whether he’d ridden off with Jakes or if he was still somewhere close.
‘I told you an’ you won’t listen. If you think they’ll hold it down to threats then you ain’t no judge of men.’
‘And you are?’
‘Good enough.’
It was Shire’s turn to laugh, rich and open. ‘You don’t realize you’re being played for a sucker, do you? You still don’t realize.’
Hart watched Shire’s face, waited.
‘How d’you think I know when the railroad’s meeting? How d’you think somebody else knew just when and where Fairburn would be carrying that subsidy? Knew how much money was in that bank safe?’ He laughed again. ‘You think there’s a crystal ball out here somewhere?’
Hart let out a breath slowly. ‘Weinstein,’ he said.
Clancy Shire returned Hart’s stare but made no reply, gave no indication.
‘Ever since I got to town,’ said Hart, ‘he’s been doin’ his best to get me moved on. At the marshal’s funeral he threatened me with a derringer. Soon after that someone tried to gun me down in the dark.’ The fingers of Hart’s hand grazed the butt of his Colt. ‘It has to be Weinstein.’
Hart took a pace closer to the wheelchair, then another.
‘I need to know,’ he said. ‘For certain. From you.’
Shire smiled and shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What difference?’ asked Hart. ‘Now?’
‘The difference is that if we hold fast for not many more days the railroad’ll change its mind and then the quarantine line will come right down to the border and there’ll be no more Texas cattle.’
‘Bring the quarantine line down and try to force the trail herds out and that border line’ll be thick with blood.’
Shire moved his chair several inches back towards the window. ‘Some things are worth dying for.’
‘Yeah. Long as someone else is doin’ the dyin’.’
Clancy Shire hesitated before lifting back the blanket from around his legs; he didn’t lower it far, but far enough to reveal the material of one pants leg wrapped tight about a short stump that began and finished almost at the hip.
‘I’ve tried stopping those Texan bastards myself. I didn’t always have to hire men to do it for me and it sticks in my craw that I have to now. Last time I rode out to meet one of their outfits face to face … last time I rode…’ For a few seconds his voice stilled and he seemed not to be seeing Hart at all, even though his eyes were still fixed in the same position. ‘...they stampeded a herd right into us. One of them long-horns took me right through the leg. Up by the thigh. Lifted me out of the saddle and flung me down and gored me through. Bunch of Texans riding around hollerin’ and whoopin’ like it was fiesta.’
The eyes did drop away now and the voice was subdued, soft.
‘I lost my leg to one of them longhorns. Lost half my life inside less than a few minutes.’ He looked directly at Hart and he had strength back in his voice again. ‘You want to know why I hate every damn Texan and everything they stand for, there’s your answer.’
He nodded downwards before letting the blanket fall back into place.
Hart nodded. ‘I can understand, maybe, but it ain’t enough.’
Clancy Shire threw back his head and laughed. In the midst of the laughter, Hart turned and began to walk towards the door.
The laughter broke. ‘I can’t let you.’
Hart carried on walking but more slowly.
‘Can’t let you walk out of here now.’
Hart stopped, body tense, adrenalin racing fast; the fingers of his right hand were beginning to curl.
‘You just might stop me and that’s a risk I’m not taking.’
Hart judged his moment, his body dropping into a crouch and turning in a fluid blur; the palm of Hart’s hand hit the hardness of the Colt’s butt, his fingers closed around the butt, index finger inside the guard, the thumb beginning to draw the hammer back.
He saw that Clancy Shire had lifted the blanket from his legs once more and this time not to reveal his shattered body. He had a Smith & Wesson rimfire .32 in his hand and as the plaid cloth of the blanket fell back Shire fired. His hand was too hasty, his aim poor. The bullet sliced a section from the wall a couple of feet to the left of the door.
Hart leveled his Colt, hammer cocked: he motioned for Shire to let the pistol fall.
Behind, through a section of the glass, Hart could see men running — Stoddard, two other hands, Jose.
‘What’s it to be?’ he said, the Colt steady.
Shire threw back his head suddenly and laughed; then he shrugged and moved his face to one side and let the gun drop down onto his lap. Hart released the hammer of the Colt and moved towards the chair. Two paces in and Shire’s fingers were stretching for the Smith & Wesson once again.
Hart jumped.
The underside of the barrel came cracking down on the knuckles at the back of Shire’s hand. Shire yelled and the gun bounced from blanket to floor. Hart brought the Colt back through a tight circle and let it swing, angled upwards, across the rancher’s face.
Shire shouted with muffled, astonished pain and his wheelchair was whirled sideways. There was the sound of boots running through the house. Hart thumbed back the hammer of the Peacemaker and as he did so he leaned away from the back of the wheelchair and set the flat of his right boot hard against it. As the first man approached the door, Hart released his leg and drove the chair towards the window as fast as he could.
Stoddard sprang into the room first, just in time to find himself staring down the barrel of Hart’s gun; in time to glimpse, behind Hart, the wheelchair striking the wall immediately below the window, striking hard and pitching Clancy Shire head first through the plate glass.
‘Jesus!’
‘Told you once,’ Hart snapped. ‘Don’t die on account of him.’
The jangle of sharded glass and fractured wood echoed in the still and heavy air.
Behind the ranch foreman was Jose and back of him, the other two men. Jose had a rifle in his hand and Hart guessed there was already a shell in the chamber.
Hart looked at the Mexican. ‘Same applies to you.’
Jose hesitated; Hart could read the indecision clearly in the man’s swarthy face. Then Jose turned his head towards the other men. ‘Go see what you can do.’
They went at a run to where Shire had fallen.
‘Inside and put up the gun,’ ordered Hart.
The men looked at one another and slowly did as they were told.
‘The rifle, Jose, toss the rifle aside.’
The Mexican hesitated a moment longer, then bent down and set the gun on the floor. From the broken window they could hear the ranch hands talking, discussing Shire.
‘He pulled a gun on me from under that blanket,’ Hart explained. ‘Tried to shoot me in the back.’
Jose seemed to flinch; sweat ran from his bald skull.
Hart kicked Shire’s gun across the floor towards them. ‘Recognize it?’ he asked.
Jose said nothing. Grudgingly, Stoddard said, ‘Yes.’
One of the men shouted through the window for them to come and help.
‘Okay,’ Hart said and stepped between the two men. If Shire was still conscious – if Shire was still alive – there was still a question he wanted to ask him.
The men had the crippled rancher in their arms and were in the process of lifting him back into his chair. One of the wheels was buckled and it sat strangely on the ground. Brown hair fell straight down over Shire’s face, shielding his eyes. His lips were white and closed. His face was white except for a diagonal line of blood that ran from the jawbone on the left to just below the right eye.
As they sat Shire on the chair he seemed to return to consciousness and immediately shrieked with agony and clutched at the air with both hands. Almost as quickly as he had come to, he fainted away again.
Stoddard leaned down with his head pressed against Shire’s chest. After a few moments he stood up. ‘Heart’s beatin’ okay,’ he said. ‘Got a heart like a mule.’
Hart moved Stoddard aside and knelt alongside the chair. He shook Shire lightly by the shoulder and then more strongly. When Jose moved to interfere a look from Stoddard stopped him.
Shire’s eyes blinked open, wavered, shut, opened again.
He saw Hart and recognized him; wondered exactly what had happened; wondered why he wasn’t dead.
Hart bent his face towards Shire’s and asked a question.
The corner of the rancher’s mouth twitched and his head lolled to one side. Hart set a hand by Shire’s head and moved it so that the rancher was facing him.
Again, he asked the same question.
Shire tried to speak and a bubble of blood broke from his lips. Flecks of it, no bigger than pin pricks, scattered Hart’s cheek.
Hart wiped the blood away with the sleeve of his shirt and set his head down so that his ear was close by Shire’s mouth. Shire only uttered one word but it was enough.
Hart stood straight and looked at Stoddard. ‘You’d best ride for a doctor. You yourself or send a man with a couple of fast horses. That is, if you want to keep him alive.’
Stoddard nodded, grim-faced, and turned away.
Jose was still staring, sweating; the palm of his hand itching even as he rubbed it hard against the edge of his belt. ‘He was a good man,’ the Mexican said. ‘Treated me good. He believed
‘He believed so hard,’ interrupted Hart, ‘that he’d shoot me in the back for it.’ He glanced towards the cripple, unconscious in the chair. T could have, likely should have.’
Hart walked over to Stoddard and turned the foreman round with a hand to the top of his shoulder. ‘I reckon by the time he begins to recover, things’ll be settled. If they ain’t, talk him out of tryin’ more of the same. Tell him not to send more trash out with guns.’
Stoddard looked away and nodded.
Behind him, beyond the lines of the corral, a string of horses was being led into the ranch by a couple of men. The third horseback had a man’s body roped across it.