Cross-Draw Page 5

  ‘Got trouble?’

  ‘Who ain’t?’

  Stewart went over to his desk and took a tin of tobacco from a drawer, found some papers and started to roll a cigarette. Herne watched as the slender fingers expertly manipulated the paper. ‘Want one?’ he offered.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Herne sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  Stewart lit the cigarette and drew the smoke down into his lungs; waited until he had breathed out. ‘Got this little matter to settle first.’

  ‘Faulkner, you mean?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You ain’t treatin’ that serious, are you?’

  ‘He’s a mighty important man around here.’

  Herne stiffened. ‘You mean when he shouts you go ahead and jump?’

  Stewart looked at him closely, not hiding the fact that Herne’s remark had stung. ‘That’s not the way I’d see it’

  ‘Maybe not. But then again, perhaps it’s Hastings who calls your tune.’

  Stewart jumped up and glared down at Herne, the birth mark on his cheek showing more brightly than ever. ‘What the hell’s got into you, Jed, one minute you’re pleased to see me again, the next you’re accusin’ me of being in the pocket of every big man in the territory.’

  Herne put up a hand to calm him down. ‘Shit, Dan, you’re right. Maybe I’m talkin’ way out of line. But look at it my way—when I got here yesterday these cowboys were shootin’ up the place while you were out lookin’ fer Hastings’ cattle. Today, soon as you get back, Faulkner comes runnin’ to you an’ right off you come fer me tooled-up like a small army.’

  ‘Didn’t know it was you when I called you out.’

  ‘He didn’t say my name?’

  ‘No. Reckoned maybe I’d’ve thought twice ‘bout comin’ for you if’n I’d known who you was.’

  Herne looked at the younger man keenly: ‘And would you?’

  ‘Like you said earlier, wait till it happens an’ then we’ll see.’

  Stewart drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘If you don’t want one of these, could you use a cup of coffee?’

  Herne relaxed: ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sure.’

  First time he’d met Dan Stewart it had been a couple of years back. Stewart had been marshal of a place called Ogden then. Right off he’d impressed Jed by the way he handled himself—the way he handled other people. Firm and sure but not too pushy. Way he took care of things with those guns of his had been pretty impressive as well. Only after a while had Herne found out the young lawman’s name and then that he’d known his old man years further back. John Stewart—Long John, they’d called him. He and Jed had roped horses together for a while;

  chased wild herds high up into the hills of Montana, nothing around them but sun and sky, nothing below them but rock.

  ‘Seen your pa lately?’ Herne asked after Dan Stewart had handed him an enamel mug of coffee.

  ‘Saw him four months back. He’s livin’ east of here now. Omaha way.’

  ‘How’s he doin’?’

  ‘Okay ... ’cept for one thing?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Lost his sight round Christmas. Stone blind.’

  Herne looked closely at the movement of the liquid in his mug as he tilted it first one way and then the other. Horses, wagons, boots went past the door outside. Neither man spoke for some time.

  Then: ‘Want to tell me ’bout this business with Faulkner’s money?’

  Jed told him.

  ‘Seems you was in the right to me. Faulkner was withholding what was your due.’

  ‘And you’ll tell him that?’ Herne questioned.

  ‘I’ll tell him just that. You got my word on it.’

  Herne set down his mug and started to move towards the door.

  ‘That business down at The Five Aces—you handled that real well. Thanks.’

  ‘I got paid.’ He set his hand to the door handle. ‘You seen the one I brought in?’

  Stewart nodded towards the door that led to the cells. ‘He’s in there, hollerin’ off at the mouth how I got to let him out real soon or else the whole of the Double C’ll be bustin’ in here and settin’ him free.’

  ‘Any truth in that, you reckon?’

  ‘Could be. ’Specially if’n they find out it was Hastings sent you in after ’em. Double C hate Hastings an’ the Broken Bar worse than rattler poison.’

  ‘It them bin takin’ Broken Bar stock?’

  Stewart shrugged. ‘Could be. But if’n it is, I sure can’t prove it. Not yet, anyways.’

  Herne nodded and opened the door.

  ‘Jed.’

  Herne looked at him, waiting.

  ‘You got to move on right off? You got work lined up or something?’

  ‘Could have. Why?’

  ‘Deputy got shot yesterday. I know that ain’t much of a job for a man like you, but ... hell, Jed, truth is, I could use someone like you about now. Someone I can trust. This territory’s ‘bout to bust itself wide open an’ I don’t know if I can hold it down as one man.’

  Herne hesitated, thinking. ‘What’s the pay, Dan?’

  ‘Eighty a month and ammunition. There’s a place you can sleep back of the cells. Hell, I know it ain’t much, but ...’

  ‘Tell you what. I’ll go down to the livery stable and check out that stallion of mine. Maybe take a ride out a-ways. Come back to town fer a bite to eat. Think it over. I’ll let you know this afternoon.’

  ‘Fair enough, Jed. You do things as you see best.’

  Herne stepped out onto the boardwalk and shut the office door behind him. There were three wanted posters pinned to the wall outside, one for rustling, two for murder. One of the killers wasn’t more than fifteen.

  He waited while a pair of women in black dresses walked slowly past him, pretending not to be interested in who the stranger was who had shot all those men the night before.

  Then he walked on down the street towards the livery stable. It took him ten minutes to get away from the old timer who worked there, having to listen to several different versions of what had happened in The Five Aces, each more gory than the one before. By the end of it he didn’t recognize the scene himself and he was the one who’d been in there. It was like one of them stories they wrote back east about Buffalo Bill Cody and suchlike. Least no one was going to write a book about him.

  Around one, Herne walked into The Cattlemen’s House. Quentin Faulkner was taking a drink at the bar and he nearly choked on his own whisky.

  ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in jail?’

  ‘As for that,’ said Herne, ‘you’d better ask the marshal. For the first part, I’m here ‘cause you had the sense to hire yourself a good cook.’

  ‘But I insist...’

  Herne let the owner see the gun at his hip. ‘You insist nothin’. Any time you don’t fancy my custom in this place of yours you try throwin’ me out.’

  And he strode past him towards the tables at the back where food was being served.

  ‘Thought you was leaving?’ said Josie as she set the plate of steak, potatoes and eggs before him.

  Herne smiled: ‘Tell you what—food round here’s so damned fine makes a man want to stay a while.’

  Josie didn’t stop grinning all the way back to the kitchen —and then some.

  Chapter Six

  The badge on Jed Herne’s shirt showed clearly as he pushed open the bat-wing doors of The Five Aces. A hurricane lamp hung from a hook close to the center of the ceiling, moving slightly in the wind. Underneath it, two men knelt on the floor, busy replacing those boards that had got burnt up the night before.

  One of the men was wearing a sweat-stained stetson, the other bare-headed and mosdy bald. They looked at Herne for several moments before the bald one picked up his hammer and went back to work.

  ‘You sure done a good job,’ said the second man, the sarcasm clearly evident in his voice. ‘Sorry ’bout your place.’

  ‘I just bet you are.�
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  The bald man took a nail from his mouth and set its point against the floor. ‘Take it easy, Ed. Don’t rile him any.’

  ‘Why the hell shouldn’t I? What reason he have for burning this place of mine down?’

  The bald man struck the nail, gently at first, then hard three times until only the rounded end showed in the board. ‘It didn’t burn down, for one thing. For another, things could have bin a whole lot worse if it had been left to others to try and get them bums out of here.’

  ‘Those bums are my living,’ said the saloon owner acidly.

  ‘And you chose it,’ put in Herne.

  The man with the hat stood up. ‘Anythin’ wrong with that?’

  Herne shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’ He raised his right hand briefly in salute. ‘Be seein’ you gents.’

  As soon as the doors were swinging to behind Herne, the saloon owner grabbed up a hammer and flung it across the room, where it cannoned off one of the walk and into a pile of stacked chairs.

  ‘Damn him! Comin’ in here to gloat.’

  ‘He weren’t necessarily gloatin’, Ed. Just checkin’ us out on his rounds. Don’t get so all-fired het up about it. We may be glad he’s here afore long.’

  ‘Only way I’ll be glad to see him stay here is up in the cemetery.’

  The bald man hammered another nail. ‘Double C boys have their way you might be able to take along a wreath yet.’

  An hour later Herne paused outside the saddlers and leant against the door, checking it. As he did so he heard a sound from directly across the street—someone trying to walk soft.

  ‘Hold it!’

  He was round and in a crouch, both hands extended, one holding the Colt. In the shadows opposite, the figure moved, came forward to the end of boardwalk.

  ‘It’s okay, Jed. Only me.’

  Herne recognized Dan Stewart and put up his gun with relief. The two men met in the middle of the street.

  ‘Seen anythin’?’ Stewart asked.

  ‘Nothin’ to trouble us.’

  ‘Good. Thought we might get a visit.’

  ‘Yep. That Tolly alone in the jail?’

  ‘For now. But there’s three locks between him and the street and no back way in. He’ll rest easy.’

  ‘I reckon. What’s it like up at The Cattlemen’s House?’

  ‘More crowded than usual. On account of The Five Aces being temporarily out of business, I guess. You could take a look.’

  I’ll do that. See you, Dan.’

  ‘Jed.’

  Light spilled out from the windows and doors; sounds of laughter and talk; clink and clatter of glass; jangly, off-key notes from an upright piano.

  When Herne went in not too many people noticed; they were too preoccupied with their own evening’s entertainment. Not that Jed minded—it was better that way.

  He walked round the big room, stopping every now and then to look at the spin of the faro wheel, the deal of the cards at blackjack, the bidding of the poker players. Faulkner saw him, but gave no sign of recognition.

  Whatever arguments Dan Stewart had used on the town council to get him the post of deputy, they must have been pretty persuasive.

  Finally Herne made his way towards the curved bar, leaning one elbow against it and looking towards the rear of the room while waiting for one of the bartenders to serve him.

  There were six or seven saloon girls scattered about the place. All of them wore identical emerald green dresses with layers of black petticoat showing underneath and black edging at the sleeves and across the bodice. Black fishnet stockings and high heeled shoes.

  Herne paid for his shot of bourbon.

  Two brunettes, three blondes, one with hair that was jet black and one redhead—none of them anything like as attractive as the girl from the kitchen. What was her name? Josie?

  He turned back to the bar, disappointed that she wasn’t there and annoyed with himself for feeling that way. He had the best part of a hundred dollars in his pocket and any one—or two—of those girls in green would keep him company for as much of the night as he wanted.

  Maybe, Herne thought, maybe ...

  He saw the bunch come through the door out of the corner of one eye. Five, six, no, seven men. Keeping close together in the way that such gangs always did. Seeking shelter in their own noise, boosting one another’s courage. They pushed and elbowed people out of the way until they had cleared a space for themselves at the bar and began calling out for whisky and beer.

  Herne glanced round to see if he could see Faulkner, but the owner had slipped out of sight. Probably, thought Jed, sheltering in his office and guarding his precious safe.

  Herne swallowed back his drink and moved back from the bar, putting space between himself and the group at the counter. He didn’t want to make what they’d come for too easy for them—and he was certain he knew what they were after: himself.

  He wondered where Dan Stewart was, whether he should just walk out and leave them to it. Before he could make up his mind, it was made up for him.

  ‘Anyone seen that new lawman you got in this town?’

  The voice was harsh, rough; even so not too many folk heard it. The first time. After the second faces began to look round, assess the situation and move away. The speaker stepped forward into the space that had cleared around him.

  Herne stood alongside the blackjack table and took a good look at him. Well over six foot, a couple of inches taller than Herne himself, and built like a prize bull. His face was a mass of black stubble and thick hair fell forward over his forehead in unkempt clumps. He had a riding quirt fastened round his right wrist; a gun holstered at his left side.

  Herne guessed that he was the ramrod of the Double C.

  ‘I said, anyone seen this new marshal you got here in town?’

  To Herne’s left, the blackjack dealer stopped pushing forward the cards. One by one the customers forgot about their stakes, eased back their chairs and moved back into the crowd.

  The redhead in emerald green picked up her skirt over one arm and hurried for safety. The piano player had stopped: the last notes hung discordantly on the thick, smoky air.

  ‘Well, now, boys,’ said the ramrod, turning his head part way to the other cowboys, ‘look what we got us here. It ain’t a real marshal at all—just some crumblin’ old man they dressed up in a badge.’

  ‘Tea,’ said one of the others, stepping away from the bar, ‘that can’t be the one as took Tolly in and killed Shay an’ the rest. All he’s good fer is standin’ guard over his own coffin.’

  The Double C men laughed and Herne gave the speaker the once over. Little more than a kid, five eight or nine, spiky brown hair and an attempt at growing a moustache that was nothing but a joke. Two guns strapped to his sides and worn too low to get an even draw. He looked down the room at Herne and Jed saw that there was a cast in his right eye.

  The one with the quirt took a step along the floor: ‘That right you’re the new deputy?’

  ‘That’s right,’ answered Herne in even tones.

  ‘You’re this Herne the Hunter we bin hearin’ about?’

  ‘Some folk call me that.’

  The kid stepped forward: ‘That ain’t what I’d call you. Not me. I’d call you a washed-up old man who don’t know when he’s over the hill and rollin’ down the other side.’

  Herne bit down on his lower lip. The crowd moved even further back, hugging the walls. Behind the horseshoe bar, the three bartenders were quietly lifting as many of the liquor bottles below the counter as they could.

  ‘You hear me, old man?’

  ‘I hear you,’ answered Herne, a tinge of weariness in his voice.

  I hear you now, he thought, and I’ve heard you for the past ten years, ever since this hair of mine started to go grey and the lines came to my face. Heard you in every street and saloon between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande. Nights when I’ve slept bad I’ve heard you in my dreams.

  ‘What you aimin’ to do about i
t?’

  Herne shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Not a damned thing,’ he said and turning his back, started to walk slowly along the room, real, real slow.

  The kid jumped forward, grabbed a chair and hurled it across the floor. ‘You see that?’ he shouted. ‘You all see that? That no-account deputy crawlin’ off with his tail between his legs like the mangy dog he is.’

  Herne stopped: turned, hands well clear of his gun belt. The kid was standing in a gunfighter’s crouch, the tips of each set of fingers inches above the polished butts of his guns. Behind him to his left, the other Double C cowboys were lined up against the bar, passing a bottle silently between them. The ramrod of the outfit stood back to the kid’s right, hand close to his pistol.

  Around sixty people in the saloon and every one of them watching Herne and the kid, eyes flicking nervously from one to the other.

  ‘Right, son, you had your say. Now I’m goin’ t’ have mine. You run off at the mouth any more an’ I’m goin’t’ come down there an’ take them guns away from you and ram the barrels down that stupid throat of yours.’

  The kid shifted his stance, blinked, the cast in his eye more evident than ever. The men at the bar started to spread out; the bottle came to rest on the counter.

  ‘Old man, you ain’t about to do nothin’. Unless it’s to crawl out of this place an’ find some old kennel for the night.’

  Herne drew breath and started to walk back down the room, all the way keeping his hand curved above the butt of his Colt, all the way fixing the kid with his eyes and staring at him hard.

  ‘I’m warnin’ you, old man. Don’t you come one step closer or I’ll drop you fer dead!’

  Herne kept going.

  The kid held his breath, clenched and unclenched his fingers, became aware of the sweat that was running down both sides of his face and of the nerve that ticked away at his temple. The next pace the lawman took he’d go for his guns ... the next... the ...

  ‘Don’t you ...’

  But Herne was upon him. A grip like a vice clamped down on his right arm and something that felt like falling rock thudded against his jaw. A fire shot through him as a knee was rammed between his legs and he knew he was falling backwards, knew his mouth was open wide and that what he could hear was the sound of himself screaming. Screaming with pain like some fool kid.