The eyes were hazel tinged with green, the hair brown, long, falling around her face, across her face. Tears bitten back, welling again inside. He reached out to touch her and she pulled away, turning her head from him as if his hand upon her would be like touching something rotted and old.
‘Kathy!’
The face muscles tightened, the tears set away, there was nothing there but pain and strength.
‘Kathy!’
Hart heard the word and woke, startled by the sound of his own voice. Through the open window he could see a pattern of stars, forking left to right across the blackness. Strand of her hair left to right across her face – freckled face. Cold sweat lay on him like a skin. He sat up in the bed and wiped at his arms with the flannel sheet, at his arms, chest, face and neck, the insides of his thighs.
He knew what had brought the dream back to his mind. Fredericks’ question: have you ever been married? No, he could have said. No. I just stood in the place I built for her, for the pair of us to live in and watched her telling me that she wasn’t going to live there, that she wasn’t going to marry me. That was all. As close as he’d come to being married. A handful of years ago, not much in a life. Long enough for a dream to become a nightmare.
Before Kathy there had been women enough, more than enough. Saloon girls and whores and chance encounters whose names he couldn’t remember even if he’d ever known them. Since then the only person who might have meant anything to him had been Carol Peterson, a woman he’d spoken to for half an hour.
Hart thought about the strangely neat, ordered cabin deserted by people and wondered again where she and her husband might have gone, what might have happened to them. He recalled the look on her face when she’d talked of having children – later – one day. Remembered smoothing rough-hewn wood to satin in the room that would have been for his and Kathy’s firstborn.
A son.
Why a son?
Was it only so that when he was gone there would still be someone else that was still part of him? Blood of his blood. Was that it? Flesh of his flesh. Like the boy he’d had to kill on the ferry, the one whose father had cut out his tongue. Like his own father, coming home from his prospecting trips with nothing to show for it but an aching body and a bloody temper.
Is that what it meant – father and son?
If so, wasn’t he better off as he was?
Hart lay back down and pulled the covers over his shoulders. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind and drift back to sleep.
Hart spent the first few days getting to know the extent of the Fredericks property and lay of the land. He [also talked with the men Fredericks kept on his regular payroll – he would take on extra hands when there were herds to drive up to the border.
Peters didn’t prove any less surly and difficult to get on with after Hart got to know him a little. A stocky wrangler with a drooping brown moustache and a greasy Stetson that he never seemed to take off, Peters was only half-way civil to Hart because he knew his job depended on it. But every chance he got he made it clear as day that he reckoned Hart was only slightly preferable to a wild dog.
He was five or six years the older man and he’d spent his life since fourteen handling broncs and steers and bustling his way to be top hand. When the trail herds came through he’d be worth double his pay but until that time, he just riled Hart all the time, as if driving him to swing a punch. Hart let it ride and kept out of Peters’ way as much as he could. The time might come when he’d need to have him on his side.
Chavez was a Mexican who’d drifted up from Texas a year before and stuck around. He was tall for a Mex, a few inches above six foot and rangy with it. He wore one of those leather vests studded with pieces of polished metal that Mexicans seemed to like and a large-brimmed sombrero. He spoke in a broken accent that Hart suspected he put on more than he needed to and liberally sprinkled what he said with odd words of Mexican.
Whenever he was sitting around doing nothing much, he’d take out his knife – a slim-bladed throwing knife with a double edge like a razor – and toss it over and over, always catching it with the haft in the palm of his hand. Every now and then he’d punctuate this routine by throwing it at anything that moved close. One time Hart saw him impale a long-legged spider from a dozen feet, the contents of the insect’s sac spilling out around the blade.
The other two were called T.C. and Howie. They’d been signed on together when they came up the Chisholm Trail that spring. Howie had had a run-in with the trail boss and got himself fired. T.C. had quit on the spot and drawn his pay. They’d worked for Fredericks ever since. Howie was a barrel-chested man with legs that seemed too small for the rest of his body. He had a wide-open face and the look of someone who was constantly being taken by surprise. T.C. was taller and thinner and had a habit of coughing into an old red kerchief he always carried with him – long, racking coughs which bent him near double and took the blood from his face. He had only three fingers on his left hand; the middle two had got smashed up when he was tossed from a bronc that followed up by stomping him against a corral fence. The fingers had been so torn and crushed the foreman had given T.C. a quick slug of whisky and cut through them close to the knuckle with a big old bowie knife.
Hart had ridden out with Howie and T.C. a few times – north towards the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River, west towards the hills that led into the Outlet. To the east the tree line began and the prairie got swallowed up in oak. Southwards was the Canadian River.
It was at the end of one of these journeys that Hart got back to find Fredericks with visitors. Three Cheyennes were astride their ponies outside the house, two wearing leggings and breechcloths, one a pair of wool pants several sizes too large. All three had hide shirts decorated with quillwork and beads. Their hair was greased and pulled back on their heads, parted at the centre.
Peters was standing outside the bunkhouse, toying with his rifle. Chavez was sitting on the ground by the end of the barn, throwing his knife up into looping circles.
Hart nodded for T.C. and Howie to ride to the left and went slowly forward. The Cheyenne who turned to face him had a nose that looked to have been broken more than once and spread across his face. He was nursing a Winchester in both hands, letting it rest on his thighs. The other two were also armed, though with pistols. All three weapons looked new and hadn’t lost their shine.
Hart reined in Clay next to the two riderless horses, one another Indian pony, the other a saddled gelding with a white mark on its rear right leg.
Hart got down from his mount carefully, watching the Cheyenne all the time. Their faces regarded him impassively. He went to the door and pushed it open, stepped inside.
Bonney Fredericks was so close inside the door that he was next to her almost before realizing she was there. Something in his head jumped and his hand rested on his gun. She said nothing, looking up at him with her deep-set eyes, a strange half smile on the corners of her painted mouth.
‘You aren’t going to use that, are you?’ She was looking now at his hand on the Colt.
Hart ignored her question and made to step past her. She slid her body into his way and for a moment her bare arm touched his chest.
‘Where’s Fredericks?’
She turned her head sideways. ‘In there. Talking with his Indian friends.’
‘What about?’
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. ‘You don’t really expect me to know. You heard my husband telling me business was none of my affair.’
Hart looked at the side of her face, as if for a moment expecting the marks of Fredericks’ hand still to be there, imprinted. Then he moved away and knocked on the door, stepping into the room without waiting for an answer.
Fredericks was standing behind a long dining table, a cigar in one hand. A white man in a fringed leather jacket and black wool pants was standing close beside him. Opposite them was another Cheyenne, wearing a mixture of white and Indian clothes. Two eagle feathers stuck up at a low angle from the right side of his hair.
On the table were a bottle of whisky, three glasses and a map. The map had been unrolled and two of the glasses were holding down corners; the man alongside Fredericks was keeping down a third corner.
‘Anything wrong?’ asked Fredericks sharply.
Hart shook his head. ‘I was goin’ to ask you the same.’
The two men stared at one another for a few seconds and then Hart took a couple of paces towards the table, looking at the map. He saw the area he’d been riding for the past days, the creek, the stage stations, the words in copperplate script – Ceded to the Cherokee Nation. Lower down – Lands set aside for the Cheyenne. Unratified agreement of 18 November 1873.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Fredericks, ‘this is Wes Hart. He’s working for me as regulator. Hart, this is John Probert, he’s an Indian Agent in the Cheyenne Nation. And that’s Bear-Who-Runs, he’s a Cheyenne chief.’
Hart nodded at both men, taking them in quickly. Probert was in his fifties, close to six foot and starting to get a stoop and a belly at the same time. Gray hair and a gray, almost white, moustache. A Colt Peacemaker with a wooden butt and a short barrel holstered by his right hip.
The Cheyenne was older, though it was almost impossible to tell how old. His skin was dark, close to black; the veins on his hands stood out like purple-black worms leeched to his skin. He looked at Hart with brown, still eyes, studied him for a few moments and then turned his head away.
‘We were discussing grazing rights,’ said Fredericks. ‘It seems the Cheyenne feel they have some claims that aren’t being met.’
Probert raised a hand above the map and glanced at Hart.
‘Pretty straightforward. This parcel of land here ...’ A finger prodded the map. ‘... originally belonged to the Cheyenne by government treaty. In July of sixty-six it was ceded back by the Cheyenne Nation and nothing much has been done with it since. It forms part of what are called the unassigned lands, north and east of Fort Reno. Not many whites have settled the land, mainly ’cause it’s surrounded by Indians and they don’t sleep too safe at nights.’
He gave a short laugh and grinned over at Bear-Who-Runs, who stared back with the same imperturbable expression.
‘But the land’s good for grazing as Fredericks found out. Him and a few others. Thing is,’ he glanced at Fredericks quickly, ‘the more land you use the more beef you can take on, an’ the more beef you take on the more money you get back.’
Fredericks stubbed out the end of his cigar. ‘All you’re saying is obvious. It’s business, pure and simple.’
It occurred to Hart that however simple it might be, none of the businessmen he’d come into contact with were what he’d call pure. But he let it slide and said nothing.
Probert was poking down at the map again. ‘Thing is, the north-west section of what Fredericks is claiming for his land is inside the area still granted to the Cheyenne by treaty.’
‘Which the Cheyenne don’t use,’ Fredericks put in hastily, anger beginning to show in his voice.
‘Which the Cheyenne don’t use a whole lot, I agree. On account of it bein’ a long way from what’s now their homeland and only used for the odd huntin’ party.’
‘Don’t anybody else live on the land?’ asked Hart.
‘Sure. Arapaho mostly.’
‘And I’ve as much right to it as they have,’ said Fredericks. ‘More.’
‘That’s as maybe.’ Probert looked straight at him. ‘But it ain’t the issue.’
Hart moved round the table and poured himself a shot from the whisky bottle into one of the glasses. When he picked it up, a section of the map sprang into a curve.
‘How much you asking?’
‘Fifty cents a steer.’
Hart pursed his lips, nodded slowly, looked at Fredericks,
‘I told you, it’s out of the question.’
Bear-Who-Runs turned from the table and stepped around Hart, heading for the door. Probert and Fredericks looked at one another, the Indian Agent fingering the buckle of his belt.
‘Hold on,’ called Fredericks and the Cheyenne chief turned round slowly.
‘I’ll make it twenty five.’
After a slight pause the chief shook his head, looking at Probert as he did so.
‘Fifty,’ repeated Probert.
Fredericks paced away from the table to the far wall and back again, lips moving silently as he did calculations inside his head. Finally he leaned against the table end and planted his fingers down on to it, hands spread wide.
‘Forty a head and twenty-five for steers under two.’
Probert straightened up, glancing at the Cheyenne for his approval. Bear-Who-Runs said nothing; after several seconds he gave the slightest nod of his head.
Probert let out a low, whistling breath. ‘You got a deal,’ he said to Fredericks.
Fredericks stood across the table from the Indian Agent and shook his hand. He went to the roll-top desk at the far side of the room and took out several sheets of paper, a glass bottle of ink and a quill pen. Hart reckoned he’d had enough. Without a word he stepped round the Cheyenne and left the room.
Outside the house, the Indian with the wedge nose stared at him with a lot of hostility, gripping his new rifle as though he’d dearly like to use it. Hart couldn’t quite understand why, unless he knew what was going down inside.
Peters and Chavez were still roughly where they’d been before, still looking as if they were expecting trouble to break out at any moment. Hart went past them, leading his horse towards the barn.
Howie was inside, sitting on an upturned oaken bucket and trying to fix a broken bridle.
‘What’s goin’ on?’
Hart shook his head. ‘Nothin’. ’Cept business.’
When the Cheyenne made to leave some half an hour later, Fredericks and Probert shook hands again outside the door of the house. All smiles. They hadn’t passed out of hailing distance when Hart was inside, facing up to Fredericks across a rolled-up map and a copy of a handwritten contract.
‘What gave you the right to barge in here like that?’
‘You’d rather do your dirty work without too many folk lookin’ on.’
Fredericks started chewing the inside of his mouth. ‘Damn it! You were here. You saw what happened. You saw how they pushed me. Way, way over the price I had in mind.’
‘Bullshit!’
Hart reached for the nearly empty bottle and poured himself a shot of whisky. He slid the bottle in Fredericks’ direction, but it was ignored.
‘Hart, you’re not being paid to interfere with my business, you’re.. .’
‘I know, I’m bein’ paid to aim this Colt of mine in whatever direction you want me to point it. But when those Cheyenne wake up to the fact that you’re screwin’ ’em for one hell of a lot, maybe I just ain’t goin’ to be enough to stop ’em wipin’ you out.’
Fredericks’ cheeks were no longer tinged with red, they were glowing with it. The fingers of his hands were clenched so tight his nails had to be cutting into the skin.
‘That was a perfectly honest deal. I...’
Hart put down the glass with a smack on the hardwood table. There were a whole lot of things about to leap off Hart’s tongue but he choked it back.
Fredericks’ small mouth was slightly open, his nostrils dilated. The color was draining from his face now, veins showing through his loose skin.
‘I’ve met a whole lot of Indian Agents an’ I only ever met one good one an’ he was a Quaker. The rest of ’em are in it for what they can get and they don’t give a couple of damns about the Indians they’re supposed to be lookin’ out for. Probert don’t seem no better.
‘All that stuff in here was set-up. Lettin’ on that he was forcin’ you into a bargain when you’d already agreed it beforehand. They could have got another ten, maybe fifteen cents a head for grown cattle. Do in other parts. So you slipped Probert a hundred dollars and he agreed to go through that act. Bear-Who-Runs might have been fooled an’ he might not, but I wouldn’t bet on it if I was you. Indians ain’t stupid, you know.’
Fredericks backed off towards the desk and then turned. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. They don’t think right, they’re like children. Savage children. That’s why I had to do a deal with Probert. Sign a paper with an Indian and inside a month he’s going back on everything he said. You should know that, you were an Indian scout.’
‘Only Indians I knew ever went back on their word had damn good reason. They got a brand of honor stronger’n that of most white folk I ever met.’
Fredericks pushed his hands down on to the table and stared hard at Hart. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means I ain’t met too many men like you, but I seen enough to know what’s chewin’ on your gut. You want to own more than anyone else around; you want to own it and control it. I can read it in what you do an’ what you say.’ Hart stepped over towards the side of the room. ‘One thing no Indian’s got eatin’ away at him an’ that’s greed.’
Fredericks ground out the end of his cigar and reached for the whisky bottle, pouring himself a strong shot and downing half of it in one. Hart could see him trying to control his reactions and fight down his anger.
Finally he looked at Hart and spoke. ‘That’s a fancy speech for a gunman, Hart. Fancy words for a hired killer selling his services to the highest bidder.’
Fredericks thumped the table; his voice rose a couple of octaves, the redness of his cheeks deepening.
‘Who in God’s name do you think you are? You won’t see a man with a rope round his neck good and legal, but you’ll shoot him down yourself. You try to tell me how to run my business like you was some kind of saint.’
The fist struck the table again, jolting one of the glasses over so that it spun round then rolled through a series of arcs.
‘That’s a gun you tote in that holster, you know. It ain’t no bible. You’d best remember that. Nothing about you give you any right to push your morals on someone else. Especially not me.’
Hart’s mouth was set in a tight line, his eyes narrowed; a vein at the left side of his head was beginning to beat. Fredericks stared at him and all of the words that came to him were useless in reply. Maybe what Fredericks said was right; maybe there wasn’t much to choose between them; maybe in their own ways they were equally as rotten. But...
Fredericks thumbed open a box and picked out a fresh cigar. He struck a match on the table edge and cut off the cigar end with a small knife he kept in his vest pocket.
‘Seems to me like we finished our business for now, Hart. You can go.’
Bonney Fredericks was outside the door when Hart stepped through. She made no pretence to hide the fact that she’d been an interested listener. Her eyes swept over Hart’s body with a sense of power borrowed from her husband. Hart went quickly past her and out of the house.