Wes Hart leaned back in his chair and scratched at the flat of his stomach through the thinning cotton shirt. He’d been sitting in on the game for the better part of an hour and up to now he hadn’t even got five cards that were worth bluffing on, never mind winning. Change three and throw in; change three and throw in.
‘Ain’t your day,’ commented the dealer from around his cigar stub.
Hart grunted agreement and threw in.
‘Happens like that,’ the dealer went on, sliding the player to his left and Hart’s right two fresh cards. ‘Remember a time when I was working the sternwheelers up the Mississippi. Made three trips without winning more than half a dozen games. Near cleared me out.’
He accepted the challenge to be seen, turned over a straight flush and reached out to scoop in the pot.
‘Just have to keep ridin’ it,’ he advised Hart. ‘All a man can do when his luck don’t run - keep ridin’ till she changes.’
Yeah, thought Hart, or till he’s lost everything he had.
‘You ain’t quittin’?’ said the dealer as Hart scraped back his chair.
‘That’s right.’
‘But this deck’s still warm.’
‘Too warm for me.’
The dealer chewed at the cigar and shook his head. ‘Mistake,’ he said. ‘Turn your back when your luck’s bad an’ it don’t ever change back. You got to play it out or it ain’t never goin’ to let you up again.’
‘Yeah,’ said Hart, looking round the table. ‘You men do what you want. I’m pullin’ out while I still got folding money. As for you,’ he went on, pointing at the dealer, ‘seems to me you take them cards too serious. Ain’t no more than a game.’
The dealer took the cigar butt from his mouth, spat a little tobacco sideways to the floor, shook his head and held his tongue. Some men were born so stubborn they never did listen to reason. It just weren’t worth wasting your breath. Besides, he’d heard about this man, Hart. All of Caldwell had. He wasn’t the sort of man you argued with for long — not if you wanted to keep alive and healthy. There were quite a few folk around who could have testified to that. That is, if they’d still been breathing and possessed of the power of speech.
The dealer watched Hart walk away between the mostly empty tables and set the remains of the cigar back in his mouth; he flicked the deck and began to deal.
Hart pushed back one of the doors and stepped out on to the boardwalk. The light was bright, turning towards afternoon; the sky pale, clear blue. He leaned forward to reach the ends of thin leather attached to the bottom of his holster and tie them at the inside of his leg, holding the holster tight in place.
He was finished in Caldwell. He’d done what they’d paid him to do and he should have already moved on. The armed opposition to the railroad company bringing a spur line down from the north had ended when Hart had sent the crippled rancher Clancy Shire through the plate glass window of his own ranch house; the robberies and the double-dealing had finished when Hart took Caleb Deignton to the jailhouse at gunpoint and paid off the three outlaws Deignton had been using and sent them on their way. Hart had half-thought they might not quit that easy, he’d part expected them to come riding back into Caldwell looking for him but they hadn’t. Why should they? It wasn’t anything personal to them. Why risk getting shot when someone was giving you the money for nothing?
No, Hart should have done what he always did when a job was over; he should have packed his bags, paid his bills, saddled up and rode on.
He knew what was nagging away at him. It was the time Emily Escort had come to him and told him that her husband, Frank, had ridden off with Shire’s men. That he was going out with a bunch of them to visit those local farmers who supported the railroad. Visit was a polite term for what they would do.
She had come to Hart because she was worried for her husband’s safety. Not because he was under any obligation to either of them, but because there was no one else she could ask. Hart hadn’t done an awful lot. He hadn’t prevented Frank Escort being shot from the saddle of his horse with an anxious, frightened kid’s rifle. No reason why he should - no way he could. Hart moved from the boardwalk into the street, walking diagonally across the packed earth, the heels of his boots kicking up small clouds of dust behind him. He was a tall man, a little over six foot and weighing close to a hundred and seventy pounds. He had a worn leather vest over his shirt, a flat-brimmed black hat set on his head so that it angled down from left to right. The gun that sat in the holster was a .45 caliber Colt Peacemaker with an embossed mother-of-pearl grip. He walked easily, his body leaning forward slightly, as if ready to spring sideways or drop into a crouch at the first suggestion of danger.
Knowing nothing about him, simply seeing him then, walking away across that wide main street of that Kansan cow-town, anyone could tell that he was a gunfighter. A shootist. Wes Hart liked to call himself a regulator.
An hour later he was on the trail south out of Caldwell, his belongings in the pair of saddle bags or rolled up behind in the Indian blanket he always carried. From the right-hand bag protruded the butt of a Remington ten-gauge shotgun, its twenty-eight-inch barrels sawn down to make it easier to use in tight situations where its blast pattern would be wider. His saddle gun was a .44 Henry with an extra rear sight; a double-bladed knife hung from the saddle pommel in its Apache sheath.
Whatever Hart rode into, he was prepared for it, ready to fight his way out if necessary.
What he was riding into now didn’t hold that kind of danger, but he felt uneasy about it just the same. The place had been made from split timber, the windows glazed and curtained; a white fence ran the perimeter of a vegetable garden; stones had been heaped into a rough Circular wall around the well. Washing hung from a clothes line, limp now that the earlier wind had dropped. A dress, blouses, an apron, things that would only fit small children. Hens pecked at the dirt below them.
In the corner of the yard there were flowers set against a newly humped patch of earth.
Hart reined in on the slope above the farm and let his eyes run over the hard winter wheat, its tops shining back the sun.
That’s where the future is for this state, Frank Escort had said, not in cattle but in wheat.
Somebody’s future, maybe; not his.
Hart flicked at the reins and touched his boots to the gray’s sides.
As Hart neared the front of the farm, a little girl ran out through the open door, saw him, stopped, her mouth an open dark space, turned and ran back inside.
A few moments later Emily appeared, the girl, Teresa, peeping out from behind her skirt. The woman’s hair, cut short like a boy’s still caught the sun with its reddish-brown sheen, but her eyes were dull and there were narrow lines beside her eyes that Hart hadn’t noticed before.
She looked at Hart, saying nothing, a hammer gripped in her left hand. The little girl slipped one of her hands inside her mother’s right and continued to look up at Hart with her big eyes.
Hart touched, just, the underside of his hat brim and swung down from the saddle. He left the gray untethered.
‘I was passin’—’ he began.
Emily turned away and ushered Teresa back inside.
Hart hesitated, thinking should he follow, knowing it was so easy to remount and ride on. He glanced at the grave in the corner beyond the well, its few flowers set in a jar that leaned with the uneven set of the earth.
He followed the woman and child into the house.
The little boy, Henry, was asleep on a blanket, cuddled up to a rag doll.
Things were piled on top of one another, or pushed into groups, here and there across the floor. The table was loaded with kitchen utensils and plates and cups.
‘You’re selling up,’ said Hart.
Emily looked over her shoulder, no answer necessary.
‘You didn’t think of staying on?’ he asked.
‘And watch the place Frank built up fall down around me?’ She shook her head, a bitterness in her voice that Hart could understand yet which still surprised him.
‘How ’bout hiring someone to help?’
‘What with?’ She turned to face him.
Hart shrugged. ‘The crop looks pretty good.’
‘And the mortgage looks better.’
Hart nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Perhaps.’
She lifted up a sheet and began to fold it.
‘My daddy’s dead,’ the little girl said to Hart, peering from the table leg. ‘He’s gone to Heaven.’
The eyes were round and earnest.
Tm sorry I can’t make coffee,’ Emily said. ‘Offer you anything. You can see—’ She pointed vaguely round the room and the sentence faded.
‘We put out flowers for him,’ explained Teresa. ‘Mummy and me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Hart said, looking at Emily’s back.
‘You said.’
‘Well—’
‘Sorry isn’t any use,’ Emily faced him again, the white sheet folded over her arms. ‘It doesn’t help sell this place, it doesn’t pay off the debts, it doesn’t get us out of this country.’
Her cheeks sucked in air and for a moment Hart thought she was going to break. But he realized that had already happened and that she was likely cried out.
‘You ain’t just selling up then’ said Hart, ‘you’re movin’ out altogether?’
Emily nodded. ‘My mother’s sister, my aunt, she lives in St Louis. She always said there’d be a home for us if … if we ever needed … it’s the only thing that makes sense. This land out here, nothing but space and men riding over it with guns.’
Hart moved towards her. ‘Frank wasn’t that kind of a man.’
‘I know. You think I don’t know that?’ Her hand pulled at the side of her dress, fingers plucking at a non-existent thread. ‘That’s why he got sent home to us in the back of a wagon.’
Teresa, agitated by her mother’s voice and understanding enough of what was being said, began to cry. She ran from the table to her mother and grabbed at one of Emily’s arms.
Emily hushed her and petted her.
On his blanket, Henry stirred and pushed one of the arms of the doll against his mouth and was quiet again.
‘You had that done,’ Emily said. ‘Had Frank’s body sent back.’
‘I thought—’
‘Yes, it was kind. It was what he would have wanted. To lie here.’ ‘But you
She shook her head. ‘Not now. I’ve seen Marquand from the bank. He rode out when he heard what had happened. He’s going to take charge of the sale, the crop, everything. What money’s left after paying off the mortgage and any other debts he’ll send after us.’ ‘You trust him?’
She looked at him with eyes which said, I don’t trust anyone. Not anymore.
‘How ’bout your things?’ Hart looked round the room. ‘Some I’m listing to be sold. The rest are being freighted out.’
‘An’you?’
Teresa looked up, no longer sobbing. ‘We’re going on a train.’ The excitement of it made wonder tremble a little in her voice.
Emily smiled at her daughter. ‘We’re going to Topeka first. We change there onto the Kansas Pacific and that takes us to St Louis.’
‘Is it a long way?’ Teresa asked. ‘Yes, honey.’
‘Longer than going into town?’ Emily laughed. ‘Yes, Teresa, much longer.’ Hart thought how much better Emily looked when she smiled, the worry lines at her eyes replaced by laugh lines about her mouth.
‘I’ll ride with you,’ he said quickly, ‘as far as Topeka.’ She blinked at him. ‘You’re going on the train?’ ‘Well, I was travelin’ north. Train’s as good as any.’ She shook her head. ‘Why?’ Hart shrugged.
‘Why should you?’
‘Don’t know, I thought, travelin’ on your own, yourself an’ two kids—.’
‘You thought I could use a man.’
He shrugged his shoulders again, feeling uncomfortable without being certain why.
‘Maybe if you’d thought of that sooner—’
‘There weren’t nothin’ I could do. Things had gone too far.’
Emily breathed heavily and hung her head for an instant. ‘I know. I know. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even your business.’
That’s right, thought Hart, that’s right. But he just looked back at her and didn’t say anything.
‘If you’re sure you wouldn’t be going out of your way,’ said Emily tentatively.
‘I’m sure. I’m through here anyway.’
‘I heard about that rancher, that man Frank rode for when … I heard what happened to him. And Caleb Deignton. It all seemed so dreadful. Everyone trying to get things their own way no matter what it cost.’
Hart nodded: that was the way it was.
‘All Frank wanted to do was bring up a family and grow wheat.’
Hart saw the loss in her eyes, in the slump of her shoulders, the way life seemed to have been drained from her whole body. She stroked the girl’s head and pulled her closer until Teresa began to sob again, quietly, without clearly understanding why.
The boy rolled over on his blanket, lost the rag doll from his grip, and woke up.
‘Maybe I could find that pot and make some coffee,’ Emily offered.
Hart shook his head. ‘You got your hands full here. If there’s nothin’ I can do, I’ll ride back into town.’ The boy was crying now as well. ‘When’re you due to leave?’
‘Two days. I want to get away from here as soon as I can.’ ‘Okay. I’ll hire a rig of some kind in Caldwell, be better if we drive up to Wichita in that. We can always pay someone to take it back down. That’ll be the best way of getting your things to the train.’
Thanks.’
Emily brushed one hand along the flat surface of her hair and tried a smile. She freed herself from Teresa and went over and picked Henry up in her arms. He stopped crying almost at once. When she moved with him to the doorway and stood there, Teresa was back behind her skirt, clinging to her leg. The sun was still strong in the sky and Hart’s shadow was flat and dark on the dirt of the yard. On the fence post, the rooster flapped it wings and threw back its head in a noisy clamor.
Hart spoke the gray’s name and she came slowly towards him, nuzzling the palm of his outstretched hand.
‘Two days,’ Hart said.
Emily nodded, watched as he mounted up and rode away.