There was still a crowd of townspeople around the front of the marshal’s office. Men who didn’t have any work to do, women and small kids, a handful of down-and-outs who hoped someone would get excited enough by what had happened to toss them a few cents for beer. The crowd began to separate as soon as the two lawmen appeared at the end of the street, making a channel through which Herne and Stewart could ride.
As the two men got nearer, Quentin Faulkner began to hurry across the street from The Cattlemen’s House, anger showing clearly in his face and the determination of his stride. The burly shape of Wilbur Merz appeared at the far side of the crowd, hands resting over the slope of his belly.
‘See here, marshal, what right had both you and your deputy to be riding out of town and leaving your prisoner unguarded? I demand ...’
Stewart gave Faulkner little more than a glance. ‘Demand away, Faulkner. It ain’t goin’ t’ get you anywhere.’
‘It is my belief,’ the owner of The Cattlemen’s House shouted at their backs as they passed beyond him, ‘that you left town with the specific purpose of allowing your friends at the Double C to ride in and take that Tolly to freedom.’
Herne saw Stewart flinch: a wave of amazement and surprise ran through the crowd. Dan Stewart turned in his saddle and looked at Faulkner as though he were nothing more than dog vomit.
‘Tell you what to do with your beliefs, Faulkner. You can choke on ’em till you drown.’
Faulkner’s face blazed. ‘Look, marshal, I’d best remind you that I’m the head of the town council and you cannot talk to me in that manner.’
Stewart swung his horse round. ‘An’ I’ll remind you that I’m marshal here in town an’ it ain’t for you to tell me how to do my job.’
‘I don’t call giving the Double C a free hand ...’
‘Who in hell’s name says it was the Double C? You see ’em Faulkner?’
Faulkner waved a podgy hand in Stewart’s direction. ‘I didn’t have to see them to know. Who else would want to free that gunman but those friends of yours?’
Stewart’s fingers tightened about the saddle pommel. ‘Careful what you’re sayin’ about the Double C bein’ my friends.’
Faulkner allowed himself a smile. ‘Come now, marshal, do you deny that’s where you have just returned from? Why the whole town knows about you and that Emerson woman.’
There was a blur of movement and the Remington that was holstered on Stewart’s chest had been pulled clear in the fastest cross-draw that Herne had ever witnessed.
Faulkner stammered, stuttered, went white. His arms fell to his sides. ‘Don’t... you can’t... you ...’
‘Damn you, you snivelin’ bastard! You take back what you just said!’
‘I didn’t...’
Stewart eased back the hammer of the gun.
‘No, please. Please!’
‘Get down on your knees and take back what you said!’
Quentin Faulkner stared around the crowd, open-mouthed and desperate for some sign of assistance. But folk either looked away or stared back at him with obvious relish. When his eyes met those of Wilbur Merz, the banker’s glazed over as if his fellow councilor wasn’t even there.
‘Please!’
‘Get down, you lyin’ bastard!’
The gun moved an inch; Faulkner closed his eyes and, tears almost bursting from his face, he knelt in the dirt of the street in front of a crowd of drunks and hangers-on, women and fool kids. His head was bent low so that no one could see the humiliation pictured there.
‘Now say you lied.’
Faulkner’s body shook, but no words came.
‘Say it!’
The crowd was totally silent.
‘I ... I didn’t know what ... what I was saying about ... about the marshal and the Double C ...’
‘Or Miss Emerson.’
‘Or Miss Emerson.’
Faulkner’s head went all the way forward, till the ends of his hair were touching the dirt. People at the back of the crowd began to snigger, then one or two laughed outright. Wilbur Merz turned his back and walked slowly towards the bank.
As the noise from the crowd rose to a crescendo, Stewart released the hammer of his gun and slid it back into its holster. Herne dismounted and tied up his horse, then stepped onto the boardwalk.
‘Get away!’ he ordered the crowd. ‘Get on with your business. Whatever there was to see, you seen it.’
He walked through the open door into the office, Stewart following him a few moments later. The desk had been pushed up against the side wall and a couple of chairs turned over; generally the place looked a mess. But that hadn’t been what the men were interested in.
The door that led through to the cells had been ripped off its hinges and lay back against the wall, smashed beyond repair. Inside, the lock to Tolly’s cell had been shot away; the iron-barred door was half open. Whoever it had been had come in force.
‘We’d best be movin’.’ Stewart started to take boxes of cartridges from the wall cupboard.
‘Know where to?’
‘No. But with that many it shouldn’t be hard to pick up their trail’ Herne took some .45 shells for his own gun. ‘Guess they’ll know that sure enough.’
‘Right. They’ll either split up or else send someone back to watch for us—that’s the way I see it. You?’
Herne looked up. ‘Sounds reasonable. Only way we’re goin’ to catch up with Tolly is by trackin’ ’em down, though.’
'Surely is. Let’s go.’
As the two men rode out of town, the crumpled shape of Quentin Faulkner sat hunched in the privacy of his office. Two lines ran down his face where the tears he’d been unable to stop had coursed through the caking of dust that had risen up from the street. The knees of his suit were marked with dirt. He sat there, alone, trying to wipe the memory of it from his mind, knowing that it would not be easy.
The trousers he could brush, his face he could wash— but his mind. There would be only one way to bury his humiliation—and that would mean burying Dan Stewart as well.
‘Trail breaks off here, Dan.’
Herne pointed down to a mess of hoofprints on the ground. ‘Small group of ’em fork off south, rest stay west.’
‘Well, wherever they’re headin’, it sure ain’t the Double C.’
‘No, but if it was them, they wouldn’t be likely to lead us straight back to the ranch.’
The two men rode on cautiously, anticipating an am-bush. The slate sky had cracked apart and the sun spilled its warmth over them as they travelled. To the west aspens quivered in the breeze; out of sight beyond the hills to the east came the sound of lowing cattle in the mid-distance.
Once Herne stopped short at a movement in the trees, his Sharps pulled clear, but it was only a large, black bird.
And still the tracks of the larger of the two groups headed forwards; whoever it was had made no attempt to cover their path. Half a mile further on, Herne and Stewart found out why.
The tree was on a crest that pushed up against the sky-line; the middle one of three. Their branches all pointed towards the east, set by winters of wind. From the strongest branch of the tree, Tolly’s body twisted slowly, a rocking movement, side to side.
‘Well, I’ll be ...’
‘Now that’s somethin’ I guess we neither of us figured.’
‘Sure answers a few questions, Jed.’
‘Guess it does. Asks a whole lot more, though. Let’s get to it.’
They set their horses to a trot and crossed the open stretch of plain that led up to the three trees, both men grim-faced and thinking their own thoughts.
Tolly’s arms had been secured behind him and his legs had been tied fast at both ankles and knees. It was a tall branch and impossible to hang a man from his saddle. They would somehow have had to have made Tolly stand on his horse instead of sitting on it—then whipped it away.
The thick cord of rope about his neck had burnt through the skin and a double necklace of blood shone above and beneath it. The head lolled to one side, purple tongue pushing between darkened lips. Yet Tolly’s face looked younger than Herne remembered it, more peaceful. For all the world like a kid who’d been out picking blueberries and eating them.
Except for the angle of the neck.
Except for the mass of flies that swarmed around the seat and legs of his pants where he’d shat himself in the moment of dying.
Dan Stewart climbed the trunk and shinned along the branch until he was within reach of the rope. He sliced through it with his knife and Jed caught the body as it fell, laying it out on the ground.
‘Jesus! One of us’s got to take this stinkin’ thing back to town.’
‘Hate to say it, Jed, but you’re the deputy.’
Herne grinned ruefully. ‘Yep, but like you said the other day, you pull a lot more money than I do. You got to do somethin’ extra to earn all that.’
Dan Stewart made a face, but he picked up the stiffening body nonetheless and draped it over his horse, tying it down with rope.
‘Boy,’ said Herne, ‘am I goin’ to ride well downwind of you!’
The two lawmen stood in the middle of Liberation’s main street. Tolly had been deposited with the local undertaker and the crowd that had gathered to watch his return to town had dispersed just as quickly.
‘Jesus! I need a drink after that. Ain’t seen too many hanged men close up that it don’t get to my gut.’
Herne, who had seen a good many killed by hanging and worse, looked at the younger man and said nothing.
‘Only thing is, with you unpopular at The Five Aces an’ me at The Cattlemen’s House, we’re runnin’ out of places to buy us a beer.’
Herne grinned: ‘Never did know a lawman any good at his job who was popular with very many folk—’specially them he was hired to protect. ’Sides, you ain’t afraid of Faulkner, are you?’
For an answer, Stewart set off towards The Cattlemen’s House. He ordered a beer for himself and a bourbon for Herne and pushed a way through the idlers and gawpers who were chewing tobacco and discussing young Tolly’s lynching.
‘What you goin’ t’ do ’bout it, marshal?’
‘Yep, marshal, you goin’ t’ catch them lynchin’ bastards?’
‘Marshal?’
Stewart sat in one of the booths near the stairs and Herne sat opposite him, drinking and waiting for the demands of the men round the bar to die down.
Josie came bustling out of the kitchen and gave Herne a wave and a bright smile. ‘Hey, Josie!’
‘What can I do for you, Mr. Herne?’
‘Jed.’
‘Jed, then.’
‘I could use a steak and eggs. How ’bout you, Dan?’
Stewart made a face and shook his head.
‘Now, marshal,’ joked Josie, ‘you know my cooking ain’t that bad.’ She hurried off back to the kitchen.
Stewart looked at him. ‘That why you took a room down the street, ’stead of usin’ the one by the jail?’
Herne sat forward, elbows on the table: ‘Maybe it is an’ maybe it ain’t. One thing, though, whatever the reason, it’s sure my business an’ nobody else’s. You may have good reasons for your feelin’s ’bout women, but they ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.’
‘Hey, steady on, Jed. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Josie’s nice enough—for a woman.’
‘Huh!’ Herne sat back and swallowed his bourbon. The door to Faulkner’s office opened a little then shut fast. Round the bar folk were still busily talking about what had happened to Tolly.
Herne waited till he was half way through his steak before he asked Dan the same question most other folks in town were asking.
‘I don’t rightly know who done it. Whoever it was split up the other side of that hangin’ tree an’ we’d be fools to try an’ track all of ’em. Course, I got a few ideas, but ideas don’t prove nothin’.’
‘That’s right, but I’d like to hear ’em just the same.’
Stewart sank the last of his beer and wiped his hand round his brown moustache. ‘There’s ...’
He didn’t get any further. There was a shout from out in the street and a whole lot of commotion down at the bar. The name ‘Emerson’ drifted through the welter of noise and then there she was standing in the doorway.
She was wearing black this time, the cloth smeared and stained with the dirt of a hard, fast ride. Her dark hair was pushed up underneath a fawn hat and she wore a gun belt with a curved-handled Smith and Wesson .32 in the holster. Her green eyes were blazing with more fury than Herne had even seen in one woman.
Nor was she alone.
Scott Miller was right behind her, whip and pistol in their usual places, anger showing in his face also. There were other Double C men just through the doors on the boardwalk. .
The saloon was silent.
‘Marshal Stewart!’
The woman’s voice rang through the large room like a bell tolling the end of the world.
Dan Stewart stood away from the booth, moving slow, not wanting to start anything before he knew what he was into.
‘Miss Emerson.’
‘We brought you something, marshal.’
She flicked her hand at Miller, who turned to one side and called a couple of his men forward. They walked into the saloon and a gasp went up from everyone round the bar.
They were carrying one of the cowboys between them, holding an arm and a leg each. They moved him head first, so that the head itself fell forward and stared up at Stewart with eyes that were open and dead. The man’s mouth was open, too, and below another, wider mouth yawned where his throat had been cut. The bubbles of blood that had sprung from it had dried into crimson lips.
‘Set him down, boys.’
The Double C men laid the dead cowboy out on one of the tables, head and legs falling over the edges. Bathsheba Emerson stepped up alongside the body and pointed at it.
‘Recognize him, marshal? Curly Young, one of my best punchers. Been with me for five years. A good man, steady, not a drinker, never drew down on another man in his whole life. A law abiding citizen of this territory, marshal—the sort of a man you and your friend there are paid to protect.’
Mumbling from the drinkers, sounds of shuffling, awkward feet. Herne could see more people gathering outside. He cut off a chunk of steak and set it to his mouth. No point in letting good food go cold.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened to him, marshal? You don’t seem awful curious, standing up there like that. Perhaps you know already.’ She stared at him accusingly. ‘But in case you don’t, I’ll tell you. Curly was out riding line, him and one of the other boys. Some dozen of them came up fast. Rode them down. Mitch got away but, as you can see, Curly wasn’t so lucky. They cut his throat and brought him near enough to the ranch house for us to see him. There was a note on his body, just so that we’d know who’d done it.’
Bathsheba Emerson ran the tip of her tongue round her lips; they were dry and the back of her mouth felt parched.
Dan Stewart said his first word for some time: ‘Who?’
She took a pace towards him, then another. ‘You mean you don’t know, marshal? You don’t know who did this to one of my boys?’
‘If’n I knew, ma’am, I wouldn’t be wasting my breath asking.’
Herne watched closely, wiping a piece of bread round his plate and pushing it into his mouth.
‘It was the Broken Bar, marshal. Who else did you think it could be? Hastings and the Broken Bar.’
Everyone started talking at once; almost everyone, Herne and Stewart exchanged hasty glances.
‘You say Hastings was there?’
‘Of course he wasn’t. He wouldn’t do his own dirty work when he can pay others to do it for him. But it was his men, right enough.’
Stewart started to walk down the saloon. Fifteen yards away from her he stopped. ‘You brought the note?’ he asked, left hand outstretched.
Bathsheba Emerson reached behind her and Miller put the note into her hand. She unfolded it and read it aloud: ‘This is a warning. Every time my stock is rustled by you thieves from the Double C, your men will pay the bill. Ifs time someone took care of the law round here and we’re going to do it—like we did with that murderer Tolly.’
Stewart continued on his way. Herne had moved from the booth and was covering the marshal from an angle to the left, watching Scott Miller and the men behind him. Stewart took the note from Bathsheba Emerson’s hand and read it slowly twice. Then he folded it up and pushed it into his back pocket.
‘What you aimin’ to do, Miss Emerson?’
‘What do you think?’ Her voice was like a slap.
‘I hope you’re goin’ to take Curly back to the ranch and bury him proper. Nothin’ more.’
Bathsheba threw back her head and laughed, a sharp ringing laugh that echoed round the saloon. When she spoke it was almost in a whisper. ‘We’ll take Curly back home all right. Then we’re going to mount up and ride over to the Broken Bar and show Hastings what kind of trouble he’s bought.’
‘No, you ain’t.’
She laughed again, full in the marshal’s face, and started to turn away from him. He grabbed at her arm and as he did so Scott Miller went for his gun.
‘Freeze!’
Jed Herne had seen the move and his own had been faster. The ramrod’s pistol was half-way out of his holster when Herne’s Colt was drawn and pointing at him, hammer cocked back. The big man snarled and let the gun slide back into his holster.
‘Any of you make a move an’ you’re dead men!’
The Double C boys looked at Herne’s gun and believed him. No one made another play. Stewart still had Bathsheba Emerson’s arm tight within his hand and she stood her ground, green eyes glaring hatred at him.
‘Let me go!’
Stewart shook his head and she tried to pull away from him; he held fast and she aimed a slap at his face with her free hand but he parried the blow and then beat her to the .32 at her hip. Stewart tossed the little gun back along the floor towards where Herne was standing, covering the rest of the Double C gang.
‘Don’t you dare!’
She made to slap Stewart again and this time his left hand went fast for the Remington at his chest. The open palm cracked across the marshal’s face exactly as the end of the gun barrel pressed home between her breasts.
‘Don’t!’
She stared at his handsome, angry face with the white marks of her fingers imprinted on his cheek; felt the prodding of his gun in the cleft of her breasts.
‘You bein’ a woman won’t make it any less likely for me to kill you.’
She wrenched her arm free and he took half a pace back. ‘What I hear,’ she hissed, ‘it’s all the more likely, not less.’
Miller glared at Stewart: I’m goin’ to tell you something, marshal. Next time we meet up you’d best go for one of them guns of yours right off. ‘Cause I ain’t goin’ to let no man treat Miss Emerson that way. Not an’ live.’
‘Stop runnin’ off at the mouth, Miller,’ snapped Herne, ‘or I’ll put a bullet in you right now.’
Stewart fished out the note and held it in his hand, showing it to Bathsheba. ‘I want your word you’ll let us handle this.’
‘You’re joking ...’
‘I ain’t. You take your men back to the Double C and wait.’
‘For what, marshal? An invitation to your funeral?’
‘Maybe. That’s my affair. But you’re going back—this is law business. Like you said yourself.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘You and your boys can spend the night here in jail.’
Bathsheba stamped her foot in temper and slapped a hand against her thigh. ‘Damn you, marshal! Damn you!’ She rounded on her heel and pushed through her men and out into the street.
Herne moved after her, herding Miller and the rest of Double C boys onto their horses.
‘Want me to ride with ’em a-ways, Dan?’ he asked.
Stewart shook his head. ‘Miss Emerson knows what’s right by the law. She’ll go back to the ranch for today. Won’t you, ma’am?’
The woman hissed an inaudible reply through her teeth and jerked at her horse’s rein, pulling it away and into the street. She tossed her head and the hat fell backwards, revealing her pinned-up hair.
‘You’ve got till this time tomorrow, marshal. You and your ... your friend there. After that this town will see that Hastings isn’t the only one to take the law into his own hands!’
With a whirl of dust, she galloped out of town, her men following, the dead body of Curly Young bouncing on the back of the spare horse to which it was tied.