Cross-Draw Read online

  But when he had woken, the chair had not been tried, his Colt not needed. He eased himself from between the smooth sheets and poured water from the white jug into its matching bowl. The hot water he had ordered the night before had been waiting for him outside the door— something else they did well at The Cattlemen’s House. Hastings had been right about Faulkner having efficient people working for him.

  Herne whistled softly to himself while he shaved, feeling the hunger rising in his stomach. A good night’s rest, a clean shave, a fine breakfast—what else could a man ask for?

  Soon, thought Herne, Faulkner or one of the others would be coming to him with his hundred dollars. That would just about round things off well. Likely he’d then collect his horse and ride down to Cheyenne. With the close of spring, there’d be trail herds moving in there a-plenty. Down the Western Trail from Montana Territory above the Yellowstone; up the Goodnight-Loving Trail that came north through New Mexico. All heading for the railroad and the chance to sell their herds for a fine price before they were shipped east on the Union Pacific to Chicago.

  A lot of cattle: a lot of men.

  Herne knew that meant trouble and trouble meant work as far as he was concerned. Yes, he’d head down towards Cheyenne soon as he’d collected his dues.

  ‘More coffee?’

  Herne turned his head. The woman was close to thirty, dark brown hair held down round her face with pins, a mouth that could have been a little more generous, eyes that seemed to change from brown to blue then back again.

  ‘I heard what you done yesterday. Getting them killers like that. You must be some man.’

  She was smiling down at him, holding the coffee pot with one hand, letting the other rest immediately below her hip.

  Herne nodded pleasantly but said nothing.

  She gestured with the pot: ‘You want some more?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  She came closer and leaned over the table at Herne’s side, letting her arm graze his shoulder as she poured the dark, hot liquid into Herne’s cup. As she straightened, he was aware of her hip pressing against him for a moment.

  Then she was standing at the far side of the table. ‘Anything else you want, while you’re here ... you only have to ask.’ She parted her lips and Herne saw die tip of her pink tongue. ‘Man like you.’

  Herne grinned in spite of himself. ‘Real nice of you. Only thing is, don’t reckon I’ll be stayin’ long.’

  She pouted. ‘That’s a shame.’ Shrugged her shoulders. ‘Still, that’s what happens, seems to me.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, folk hurryin’ from one place to another so fast, just to keep on the move. Never settlin’. You must know how it is.’

  The clock behind Herne began to strike the hour.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I know the way it is.’

  ‘Well...’ She hung her head to one side and a length of brown hair slipped out from under its pin and trailed down.’... if you change your mind, my name’s Josie.’

  Herne nodded again and watched her as she walked away. Something about the sway of her hips ...

  He lifted his cup and sipped at the coffee: it was hot and strong and slightly bitter.

  Quentin Faulkner was wearing a different colored suit but it had obviously been made by the same tailor. He strutted across the floor of The Cattlemen’s House, with his own self-importance shining in his eyes. The pin holding his cravat in place was the same; the cravat had been changed to match the suit.

  He stopped a couple of feet away from the table where Herne was sitting and reached into his coat pocket for a white envelope.

  ‘Mister Herne, the town council have asked me to give you this on their behalf.’ And he leaned forward with the envelope held lightly between his round, scrubbed fingers.

  Herne grunted thanks and the envelope was dropped onto the table. Faulkner turned to go.

  ‘Hold on now.’

  ‘Mister Herne, my business with you is over.’

  ‘Not quite yet it ain’t.’

  Faulkner tugged at one of the lapels of his coat. ‘I assure you, sir, that it is. I can only hope that you will saddle up and leave Liberation as soon as possible. Good day, sir.’

  Herne was out of his seat and round the table quicker than Faulkner considered possible. Only the hand that held him fast by his collar made him know otherwise.

  ‘What’s the all-fired hurry?’

  ‘Nuh ... uh ...’

  With the pressure on his throat, Faulkner was finding communication difficult.

  ‘Come back here and sit down. Take some coffee.’

  He whirled the man round and pushed him over to the table; pulled up a chair and shoved him down into it.

  ‘Josie!’

  She came running, with a flurry of skirt and petticoats.

  ‘Your boss wants some coffee.’

  ‘I don’t...’ he blurted, trying to rise.

  ‘He does,’ countered Herne, pushing him back so hard that the chair rocked and nearly spilled Faulkner onto the ground. ‘He surely does.’

  While Josie poured them both cups of coffee, Herne held the envelope in his hand, staring across at Faulkner, who was squirming inside the plentiful material of his suit. Josie managed to get the coffee into the cups without her face cracking into too broad a smile, then retreated.

  ‘Drink it.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Drink!’

  Faulkner drank, the liquid slipping down one side of his mouth as he fidgeted in his chair, now looking at Herne, now glancing round towards the door.

  ‘Expecting somebody?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When’s that marshal of yours get back into town?’

  Faulkner gulped in air. I... I don’t know.’

  ‘Hastings around?’

  Faulkner shook his head. ‘He went back out to his ranch.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Herne pushed a finger underneath the flap of the envelope and slit it across. Then he took out the folded bills and placed them on the table. Faulkner looked at the door with increasing desperation.

  ‘Might as well count ’em.’

  Herne began to separate the notes, then count them out slowly onto the table. As he did so, his mouth set firm, his eyes grew hard and set.

  ‘Sixty dollars.’ The voice was quiet and low but clear enough to be heard all round the almost empty room.

  An old man who was wiping the counter of the horseshoe bar looked up and stopped work, the cloth bunched in his hand. Another ceased emptying the cuspidors and began slowly to back away in the direction of the door.

  In the kitchen, Josie hung up her apron and came towards the hatch.

  ‘Sixty dollars.’

  Faulkner sweated; ground his hands together, fingers against palms; did his best to avoid Herne’s stare. Herne held up the bills for him to see, then let them fall.

  ‘Where’s the rest?’

  Faulkner shook his head. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

  ‘I’ll give you ten seconds to answer.’

  Herne stood up and for Faulkner his shape seemed to fill the room.

  ‘... Eight... nine...’

  ‘No! I... we ... we thought... the fire …’

  ‘What about the fire?’

  ‘The damage. The cost of fixing the damage to the saloon. We ...’

  ‘To hell with what you and your bunch of schemin’ friends thought! We had a deal.’

  ‘You made the deal with Hastings.’

  ‘An’ you agreed to it.’

  ‘Yes, but there was no talk about setting fire to places.’

  ‘An’ nothin’ that said not to. Nothin’ about damage to property. I went in an’ did the job best way I saw it. Took four men for you an’ stopped them shootin’ up any more of your precious citizens. That was what you wanted wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but ...’

  ‘And that was what I did, wasn’t it?’ />
  ‘Yes, but ...’

  ‘Then hand over the rest of my money.’

  Faulkner pushed himself up in the chair, still hoping someone would come into the place and intervene on his behalf. He sighed and gulped like a fish out of water and tried to make a run for it. He didn’t come near to succeeding. Herne grabbed his arm and hoisted him back, tightening his grip until Faulkner’s face was a contorted mask.

  ‘You give me the forty dollars. You can get it back from the council later.’

  ‘What if they don’t see it that way?’

  ‘Then you lost yourself forty dollars.’

  Faulkner tried again and Herne tripped him and lifted him high over his own head, both arms outstretched and taking his weight with ease. He started to shake Faulkner up and down until his belongings began to fall out of his pockets.

  When he saw the wallet on the floor, Herne turned the man over fast and sat him back down in the chair where he held on tight and tried to rid his head of dizziness.

  Herne picked up the wallet and counted out twenty dollars in one dollar bills.

  ‘This all you got?’

  Faulkner looked up at him, bemused.

  Herne stuffed the notes into his pocket and grinned: ‘Let’s try that office of yours fer the rest.’

  The safe was behind a picture on the wall behind Faulkner’s desk. Built in real fancy. Herne watched as Faulkner’s fingers fumbled with the lock.

  ‘Fetch that box out and set it down easy.’

  The box was metal, painted black with gold lines over it. Faulkner set it on the surface of his desk like it might explode.

  ‘Open it up.’

  There were several rolls of bills inside, close to five hundred dollars, Herne reckoned. He stood there with his hand held out, waiting for Faulkner to count off the remaining twenty dollars he was due.

  When the notes were safe in his pocket he laughed and suddenly Faulkner was staring down the barrel of a Colt .45.

  ‘What are you ... what are you aimin’ to do here?’

  ‘Lot of money to keep in a little old safe like that. Asks to be taken. What’s the matter with the bank here in town? Don’t you trust that banker friend of yours to look after your cash for you or somethin’?’

  Faulkner collapsed backwards into his chair, unable to look Herne in the face and fearing the worst. Herne swiveled the Colt round on his finger and let it slide down into the holster on his hip.

  ‘So long, Faulkner. An’ let me give you a bit of advice. Next time you need to hire a gun, make sure you deal with him fair an’ square. Lest you end up with that gun comin’ after you.’

  Herne went out of the office and shut the door firmly behind him. Josie was standing outside the kitchen, hands on hips, her face half anxious, half smiling.

  ‘He’s been needing that for a long time. Only there weren’t the man around who could do it.’

  ‘Maybe so.’

  Herne went to step past her, but she moved in front of him and placed a hand on his chest, fingers spread. ‘Other things needin’ doing—other things there weren’t a man around big enough to handle.’

  Herne looked down at her: the eyes were blue now and staring up into his; the pressure of the fingers against him was certain and warm; he could smell her breath, the odor of her body.

  He put his hand up to hers and held her wrist for a moment, not hurting her but not gentle either. ‘I got to get my things. Move on.’ He shifted her hand away and she stepped aside.

  When he looked back from the stairs she had gone— just the two bent old men cleaning the saloon, that and the swinging of the pendulum, the ticking of the clock.

  ‘Herne! Jed Herne!’

  Inside the room, Herne spun round, hand already covering the butt of his gun. The shout had come from downstairs in the saloon.

  ‘Come on down here with your hands well in sight.’

  He moved closer to the door, careful not to stand directly behind it.

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘This is the marshal.’

  Herne blinked, opened and closed the fingers of his right hand, making the knuckles crack; he lifted the Colt clear and checked and spun the chambers. He dropped the gun back into place and turned the handle of the door.

  Three paces along the corridor, then two to the head of the stairs. The marshal of Liberation stood back from the bottom of the stairs and his pistol wasn’t in its holster at all.

  Chapter Five

  The gun the marshal favored was the same as Herne’s— a Colt Peacemaker .45. Right now it was in his hand and pointing at an angle up the stairs; an angle that made it plumb in line with Herne’s chest. As Herne stood there, looking down, the marshal thumbed back the hammer and in the stillness of the saloon the triple click rang out clearly, breaking the rhythm of the clock’s continuous ticking.

  Herne looked the man over. The Colt wasn’t the only gun he was wearing. A gun belt ran diagonally across his chest with a holster close to the right arm pit. The Remington Frontier .44 with the black wood butt was ready for a left-handed cross-draw. A couple of feet to the marshal’s right, leaning against one of the tables, was a Remington ten-gauge shotgun with 28-inch double barrels.

  Not a man who believed in taking chances.

  The marshal was in his early twenties, Herne guessed. Wearing black pants and a black shirt, with a black waistcoat. Only thing that broke up the color was the silver marshal’s badge on his chest—opposite his second gun.

  His face was handsome—more than most—with a neat brown moustache and unwavering eyes. The only thing that maybe marred it was the small, round, purple birthmark on his right cheekbone.

  Herne had made no further move; his hand was still as far from his own gun.

  ‘Want to see me, marshal?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘Got this complaint. Seems you robbed one of our citizens of some of his money.’

  ‘That so?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Emptied his wallet and then forced him to open his safe and took some of that, too.’

  Herne shook his head from side to side slowly.

  ‘You believe every thin’ you hear, marshal?’

  ‘Depends who’s tellin’ it.’

  There was more than a scattering of folk in The Cattlemen’s House by now. Crowded close to the door and round the curve of the bar; a few on the flight of stairs that went up behind Herne to the second story. He could see Josie close by the entrance to the kitchen, her hands fiddling with an apron. Quentin Faulkner stood just inside his office with the door barely open.

  ‘What you aimin’ t’ do ’bout it?’ Herne asked.

  ‘Take you in. Talk about it in my office. I’m a man as likes to listen to both sides of things.’

  ‘That a fact?’

  Herne stepped off the landing and onto the top step, then down another, and another. The marshal let his body fall deeper into a crouch, the gun shifting slightly to cover Herne’s new position.

  ‘That’s far enough!’

  Herne stopped, letting his right hand swing to within an inch of his Colt.

  ‘Last man tried that bought himself a wooden box. He thought he was pretty fast, too.’

  Herne stared down, eyes narrowed.

  ‘Tell you what—’fore you come any further, just ease that gun out and let me have it.’

  Herne almost smiled. ‘You want this gun?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Herne’s right hand began to move—

  ‘No!’

  Stopped moving, resting on the worn butt.

  ‘Use the left hand, fingers only, keep the other one high. That’s it. Lift her out real slow.’

  Herne reached in front of his body with his left hand and did as the marshal said. The Colt was back to front in his left hand.

  ‘You sure you want this?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Herne lobbed the gun through the air, right over where the marshal stood.
Without effort, the man put up his free hand and caught it, glanced at it quickly, then pushed it down into his belt

  ‘That sure makes you a regular arsenal, don’t it?’ said Herne.

  ‘Maybe it does. But I feel safer this way.’

  He took a step to one side and dropped his own pistol back into its holster. He lifted up the shotgun and covered Herne the rest of the way down the stairs.

  ‘Okay. Let’s walk us across the street. And remember I’ll be right behind you with this.’

  Herne nodded: ‘I ain’t about to forget.’

  They went through the crowd of onlookers round the door and stepped out of sight. Both Josie and Faulkner watched them go with great interest—and only one of them was smiling.

  The marshal pushed the door of his office shut by leaning back on it and stacked the shotgun against the wall by his left hand. He reached for the gun he had taken from Herne and looked down at it, glancing over at where Herne stood in the middle of the room.

  ‘Catch!’

  He threw the gun with his right hand and as it was in the air he made his cross-draw with his left. As Herne snatched his Colt out of the air, the marshal had the Remington snug in his hand, hammer cocked.

  ‘Damn!’ said Herne. ‘You sure got good on that one.’

  ‘Guess I did at that.’ The marshal held his expression for a few seconds longer, then his face cracked into a wide smile and he reholstered the gun.

  ‘Jed Herne! Never thought I’d get to see you again. Not in these parts.’

  ‘An’ not with me starin’ down the end of that gun of yorn.’

  ‘Sorry ’bout that, Jed.’

  ‘Plumb glad it was you an’ no one else.’

  ‘If it had, what would you have done different?’

  Herne shrugged. ‘Let’s wait till that happens and see.’ He went forward to where the marshal was standing and clapped both hands to his shoulders. ‘How are you, Dan? Sure lookin’ good.’

  Marshal Dan Stewart nodded. ‘Okay, I guess. Nothin’s ever perfect.’