Hawk 03, page 15
part #3 of Hawk Series
‘The same.’ Morros used his left hand to slip the eye-patch from his head. ‘A poor bandido in much need of money.’
Hawk held his arms raised, looking down at Morros. Very slowly, taking care to make as little movement as possible, he eased his right foot clear of the stirrup. Morros was holding the Colt in his right hand. His cotton tunic was open, exposing a black shirt with a brown leather strap visible across the chest. Hawk guessed that the strap belonged to shoulder rig, explaining the bulky object he had noticed under Morros’s left arm back in the cantina.
‘You’re kind of close to town,’ remarked Hawk, using the sound of his own voice to complete the removal of his foot from the stirrup. ‘For a hold-up.’
Morros chuckled. ‘Señor, the only law in Mantegara just now is one overweight sergeant and two troopers old enough to be my grandfathers. Had my mother known her ancestors, that is.’
He stepped closer to the black stallion, angling the Colt up to hold Hawk covered. ‘Now use your left hand to take out the money. You will drop it on the ground on my side. Then you will drop your guns. After that, you will dismount—on the right side—and stretch out. I feel generous tonight, so I shall just take your money, your horse and the girl. I will leave you your life.’
Hawk nodded and reached down to unfasten his coat. He unbuttoned his shirt, feeling the sudden chill as the night air hit his bare skin, and tugged out one wad of bills. He reached over, letting the money fall to the ground. It made a dull sound as it hit. He thrust his hand back inside his shirt and eased the second wad clear from its resting place between stomach and belt. Reached out again and flicked the bills clear. They landed closer to Morros, almost touching the outlaw’s boots. Instinctively, Morros eased back.
And Hawk moved.
He dropped his full weight on to his left foot, using the stirrup to brace the sudden swing of his body, powering up in the saddle as his right foot lashed out. The toe of his boot hit the underside of Morros’s Colt, kicking the pistol up. The gun went off with a roar that seemed to fill the night. Hawk swung his left foot dear of the stirrup and used his original momentum to carry him clear of the saddle in a sideways dive at the bandit. Muzzle flash scorched his face, but then he was falling down with both arms reaching out to clutch at the outlaw’s gun hand.
The black horse screamed and skittered clear of the two men. Manuela screamed, her mustang bucking as a stray bullet burned its rump. She screamed again and pitched clear of the pony, which took off in a wild gallop back towards the west.
Hawk carried the outlaw down with him, twisting the wrist to force the Colt up and away from his body. Morros smashed a fist into his face and the American tasted blood in his mouth. He drove a knee at the Mexican’s groin, feeling it deflected by the man’s thigh so that a sharp stab of pain darted through his leg as the old arrow wound struck and opened. Morros brought a hand round to hook his fingers into Hawk’s cheek, catching the corner of his mouth so that Hawk’s face was stretched, the pressure threatening to rip his lips open along his jawline. He bit down, grinding his teeth until he tasted blood that was not his own and felt the edges grate on bone. Morros screamed, the pain lending him strength.
A fist and both knees slammed into Hawk’s belly, smashing the wind from the gunfighter’s lungs as a great wave of nausea watered his eyes and hurled him clear of the Mexican.
Morros rolled back, swinging the Colt and triggering wild as Hawk fought agony to pitch his body sideways out of the line of fire. The gun clicked empty and Morros hurled the useless weapon at Hawk. The American swung his left arm up, feeling a numbing blow as the pistol bounced off his forearm. His left wrist lost all sense of feeling other than the dull pain that seemed to paralyze it helplessly by his side.
And Morros reached beneath his cotton shirt to draw the hideaway gun.
Adrenalin flooded Hawk’s body, streaming through his nervous system so that time slowed and he saw the Mexican’s hand cross his chest to emerge with a cut-down Peacemaker in his right hand. He was unconscious of his own hand slanting over his belly to clutch the grip of the Meteor. His thumb snapping back the hammer as the stubby barrel swung up to point at Morros. His forefinger closing the trigger.
There was a terrific flash and a growling roar as the shotgun exploded its charge. The flash outlined the figure of Felipe Morros so that Hawk saw the outlaw’s gun hand disintegrate, the massive force of the ought-ought load driving fragments of splintered bone and ribbons of flesh back into the man’s chest. The dirty cotton shirt was abruptly red, and Morros flew back, a hole opening in his torso to expose pulsating organs that sprouted a myriad fountains of crimson. He crashed on to his back, legs kicking briefly as shattered lungs and ravaged heart pumped out the last of his life.
Hawk dropped the Meteor, flexing his wrist as he felt the force of the scattergun’s kick numb the nerves.
When feeling returned to his hand he picked up the gun and reloaded, then walked over to Morros’s body. The bandit’s right hand was mangled into his chest, the Colt blown back through his ribs. Hawk tipped it clear with his boot and turned to Manuela.
The girl was sitting on the ground, her head bent so that her long hair hung down over her face. She had both hands pressed to her stomach. As Hawk approached she looked up. Her eyes were very wide, and her full lips were tight together. She stared at him, then smiled.
‘It follows you, Jared. Like vultures follow a dying animal.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hawk paused, disturbed by her enigmatic words.
‘Death,’ she said. ‘It sits on your shoulder. Waiting.’
He moved towards her. ‘I’ll take you back to your people.’
She shook her head and opened her arms, turning her hands towards him, palms uppermost. They were sticky with the blood draining from her stomach.
“I am sorry for you. God forgive you, perhaps you can’t help it.’
A thin thread of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, thickening as she coughed and began to choke on the liquid draining out her life. Before Hawk could reach her, she closed her eyes and a great gobbet of crimson spilled from her lips. She lowered her head again, mumbling something Hawk couldn’t hear, then slumped sideways, the blood forming a spreading pool beneath her face.
Hawk stared at her body then slowly unwound the blue muffler from his neck and used it to wipe away the blood.
When he had cleaned her face he went back to pick up the money, stuffing it back inside his shirt. He fetched the black stallion over, calming the big horse as it snorted nervously at the smell of death. He hobbled the animal and wrapped Manuela in the blanket she had worn, slinging her corpse over the saddle. Then he wrapped the corpse of Felipe Morros in his poncho and lashed that on to the horse behind Manuela.
There was a bitter feeling seated deep in his gut as he led the animal towards Mantegara, but he ignored it. Instead, he patted the bundles of notes resting against his stomach and then thought about the bounty offered on the outlaw.
Death, he decided, had a high price. In this case the bounty was three thousand dollars. He decided to spend part of it getting very drunk.
About William S. Brady
William S (Stuart). Brady is the pseudonym for the writing team of Angus Wells and John Harvey.
Angus Wells was a British writer of genre fiction, including fantasy and, most famously, westerns. In addition to a few standalone novels written under his own name, Wells wrote under numerous pseudonyms, including Andrew Quiller (The Eagles), James A. Muir (Breed), Charles R. Pike (Jubal Cade), William S. Brady (Hawk and Peacemaker), Charles C. Garrett (Gunslinger), Richard Kirk (Raven), J. B. Dancer (The Lawmen) and Ian Evans. Encouraged by Laurence James, he left an editorial job in publishing in 1975 and became a freelance writer.
His friend and co-author, John Harvey, recalls: “A love, and near encyclopaedic knowledge, of western movies – in particular those of Sam Peckinpah – helped to make Angus well suited to the task. He was as inventive and hardworking as was necessary to produce 50,000 words every four or five weeks, and in those books we wrote together, he could be relied upon to correct not just my faulty knowledge of guns and ammo, but my spelling of sheriff and marshal.”
Read more about Angus
John Harvey is a former English and drama school teacher. Since 1975, he has been a professional writer with something in excess of 100 published books to his credit. After a number of years spent learning his craft by writing paperback fiction for both adults and teenagers, he is today principally known as a writer of crime fiction, with the first of the Charlie Resnick novels, Lonely Hearts, being named by The Times as one of the 100 most notable crime novels of the last century.
Harvey’s genre fiction appeared under both his own name and the pseudonyms John J McLaglen (Herne the Hunter), William S. Brady (Hawk and Peacemaker), J. D. Sandon (Gringos), J. B. Dancer (The Lawmen), L. J. Coburn (Caleb Thorn) and William M. James (Apache).
“In the Western,” says John, “I’m interested in finding a balance between the myth of the West (as it comes through American literature and film) and the historical reality. Increasingly, I’m concerned to attempt to make a stronger place for women in the Western, which is traditionally a refuge of masculinity and male fantasy.”
Read more about John
By William S. Brady
The Hawk Series
The Sudden Guns
2. Blood Money
3. Death’s Bounty
And still to come …
4. Killing Time
5. Fool’s Gold
6. Blood Kin
7. Gates of Death
8. Desperadoes
9. The Widowmaker
10. Dead Man’s Hand
11. Sierra Gold
12. Death and Jack Shade
13. Killer’s Breed
14. Border War
15. Killer!
The Peacemaker Series
Comanche!
Outlaws!
Whiplash
Lynch Law
Bloodrun
War-party
One Thousand Dollar Death
The Lost
Shoot-out
Notes
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See Hawk 2: Blood Money
William S. Brady, Hawk 03
