Hawk lay on the floor where they had thrown him, his back partly resting against the wall, one arm bent over his head at an awkward angle. His mouth was open and he was breathing harshly.

  The heavy wooden door that separated the cells from the marshal’s office was locked and little light came through the window. There was little light outside anyway.

  Hawk moved his arm and his hand fingered the bruise back of his ear. It was swollen like an egg and tender to touch; dried blood crowned the end.

  His eyes flickered open and saw nothing.

  He slept.

  Inside Hawk’s head a match flickered and caught; first one then two lanterns shone their light around the barn. Jared Hawk, fifteen, saw the swaying figure of his father lurching towards him …

  Caleb Hawk had been out to Tansy Adams’s corn liquor still and had come home late and drunk as usual, drunker than usual if that was possible. He had abused Jared’s mother yet again and this time Jared had interrupted; he had shouted back at his father and his father had told him to shut his mouth.

  Jared had told his father to make him.

  They had gone to the barn.

  ‘Come on, bastard,’ roared Caleb’s drunken voice. ‘See if your old man can’t still kick the goddamn shit out of you!’

  Rage took over Jared’s mind and body and he hurled himself, head down, at his father. His head drove into the older man’s swelling belly, and the two of them went over, his father punching down into Jared’s back. Caleb dragged his son’s head back by the hair, ignored the punch the fifteen-year-old threw at him, and butted his head into Jared’s face. His head smashed into the boy’s mouth and when Jared tried to wriggle free, Caleb kept hold of his hair and shifted sideways so that he could drive his knee up into Jared’s groin.

  Jared screamed and rolled clear and as he did so a fist hit down into the back of his neck.

  Jared saw his father closing on him and forced his body back, pivoting on his hips and swinging his legs up into his father’s chest.

  Caleb went backwards with a shout of surprise and the youngster scrambled to his feet. For a while they stood toe to toe, slugging punches at one another’s faces. Blinded by pain, Jared drove his fist into the center of his father’s face and felt the cartilage in the nose give under the force of his blow. Blood and mucus spurted over both of them.

  Jared stepped back and kicked his father hard in the knee.

  Caleb Hawk fell to the floor hard.

  Jared grasped the leather of a plow harness and swung it round his head, bringing it down into his father’s face, his shoulders, the back of his head, again, again, again.

  Only when the flailing harness snagged on a nail did the beating stop. Only then did Caleb unwind his arms from about his head and rise to his feet with a roar. He threw the harness clear and leapt to the wall, fingers closing round the long wooden handle of the pitchfork leaning against the planks by the door. Caleb held the fork against his body, balancing its weight, the light from the lanterns flicking off the twelve-inch tines at the fork’s end.

  Jared backed away.

  ‘Goddamn bastard.’ Caleb’s voice was low, a monotone that grated harshly. ‘Gonna teach you a lesson, boy. Teach you a lesson to respect your paw. Teach you a lesson you’ll remember.’

  Jared moved closer to the wall, dreading reaching it, knowing that when he did there would be nowhere else to go.

  The prongs of the fork flashed towards his belly, his chest, his head.

  Jared pulled back.

  Someone screamed high, and instinctively, Jared shifted his head towards the source of the sound.

  Caleb thrust the pitchfork forward, leaning all his weight behind it.

  Jared sensed rather than saw it coming and pushed out his left hand to knock it aside.

  This time the scream was his own.

  The fork had driven six inches into the wood of the barn wall and one of the tines had pierced the center of his left hand, straight through the palm, pinning it to the wall. Jared Hawk stared at the wound, watching his fingers twitch and try to close with involuntary reaction. The fork was still quivering. Blood was beginning to run slowly down the curving length of the tine.

  Jared heard his father’s laugh, his mother’s horrified sobs, then slumped to the floor, losing consciousness.

  Hawk half woke to the sound of the cell door being swung open, the metallic clatter of bars, the squeal of hinges lacking oil. His eyes blinked and as they did so a bowl of icy water was thrown down into his face. He spluttered and threw up his hand, scrambling to his feet before he could clearly see. Something hard pressed against his belly and he stopped moving.

  It was the barrel end of a Winchester.

  Marshal Jackson laughed, the hairs of his fair mustache curling over his upper lip. ‘Thought it was time you woke up,’ he said.

  Hawk sneered at the young lawman and the deputy standing alongside him, empty enamel bowl in one hand, the other on the butt of the pistol that was holstered in front of his right hip.

  ‘Reckoned you might as well get washed at the same time.’

  Hawk looked at Jackson, saying nothing. He was thinking what he would do if the rifle wasn’t there. If the deputy wasn’t there. If the two of them were face to face with nothing to make the odds less than even. One day that’s how it’ll be, thought Hawk. One day.

  ‘’Sides,’ the marshal said, ‘you got a visitor.’

  Hawk looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Lock him back up tight, Henry.’ Jackson stepped out of the cell, never letting loose his grip on the Winchester which was aimed now at the midpoint of Hawk’s chest.

  The deputy grinned lopsidedly and slammed the cell door shut; the keys were attached to a large iron ring on his belt and he set down the bowl, fingering the keys without attempting to use them.

  ‘Wait there, Henry.’

  The marshal opened the door to his office and said: ‘You can come in now.’

  He didn’t sound too happy about it. When Hawk saw the woman from the dining rooms step through the door, he reckoned that he had a good idea why.

  ‘Thank you, Jackson,’ she said, flatly.

  He grunted and stood aside, looking into her face for a moment. Then she walked on and the marshal shut the door hard and loud between them.

  Hester was carrying a tray covered by a checkered cloth and Hawk could smell the bacon already.

  ‘You said you’d be across for breakfast,’ she said to Hawk through the bars. ‘When you didn’t show, I found out why. As long as you’d made what amounted to an order, I figured—’ She paused and looked at the deputy. ‘Henry, how do you expect me to give this man his breakfast with that door closed the way it is?’

  Henry coughed and flushed a little and drew his pistol before swinging the door back again.

  Hester went to walk through but Henry called her to a halt.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ she asked him, sounding vexed.

  ‘It’s all right for you to pass that there tray through, no account for you to go in there yourself.’

  ‘Who says?’

  Henry licked his bottom lip and looked a trifle uncertain. ‘I says.’

  Hester sighed and dismissed Henry as a fool with her brown eyes and handed Hawk the tray.

  ‘Obliged, ma’am.’

  Her eyes flashed.

  ‘I mean, Hester.’

  When she smiled her nose wrinkled slightly and her strong face took on a different light. Hawk thought she likely didn’t get to smile too often.

  The deputy shut the cell door and locked both padlocks fast. Then he leaned back against the wall and set to watch Hawk eat the plateful of bacon, eggs and beans and bread.

  ‘Do you have to stay there, Henry?’ asked Hester.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Marshal’s orders. No visitors without there’s a man here all the time.’

  She scowled and Henry retreated a little further down the wall but apart from that he held his ground.

  ‘It’s good,’ Hawk said. ‘Good and welcome.’

  ‘You could use some attention to that lump on your head,’ she observed. ‘I’ll fetch some warm water and wash it clean. I—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Hawk said, interrupting. ‘Ain’t no call for you to go to no more trouble on my account.’

  She shook her head and the Star of David shifted across the top of her breasts. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  She turned and left the jail. The deputy came closer to the cell and sneered through the bars. ‘That ain’t wise, you sparkin’ with the marshal’s woman that ways. He ain’t goin’ to like that one cent. Likely he’ll pop that Winchester round that head of yorn another time and twice as hard. Maybe,’ he chuckled, ‘you won’t get up.’

  Hawk glowered at him. ‘You’re talking like a prize jackass.’

  ‘That’s what you say,’ said Henry. ‘That’s so, how come I’m the one as is out here and you’re behind bars?’ He laughed until he started coughing and he was still coughing when Hester came back from the marshal’s office. She waited until Hawk had finished his breakfast and then told him to stand round so that she could reach his head through the bars. She was almost through tending to him when the marshal came through the door.

  ‘You can let him be, Hester, he won’t thank you none for it.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Jackson?’

  The marshal looked at Hawk dismissively. ‘His kind never do.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said straight off, ‘I don’t judge by first appearances as much as you do.’

  ‘Huh! Weren’t no first appearance in the saloon when he was beatin’ all hell out of Eddie Makem.’

  ‘What I heard, Makem was drunk as usual and got what he deserved.’

  ‘I didn’t think you approved of violence.’

  ‘That depends why it’s being used.’

  ‘Or who’s using it, I suppose.’

  Hester stared at him for several seconds before answering. ‘It just might.’

  He bristled and the fingers of his left hand clenched and loosened and clenched again. The Winchester was tight in his right hand, the underside of the stock resting against his hip.

  ‘How long you figurin’ on keepin’ me cooped up in here, Marshal?’ Hawk asked, turning away from the bars.

  ‘Just as long as I’ve a mind to,’ Jackson snapped back.

  Hawk looked at him until Jackson’s eyes flickered away. ‘You judge an’ jury round here as well as marshal, that it?’

  Jackson poked the rifle towards the cell door. ‘It’s whatever I want it to be. You understand that an’ maybe you’ll see the outside of that cell in a few days.’

  ‘Jackson, that’s—’ Hester began.

  ‘It’s stubborn foolishness from a boy who ain’t got the gall to act like a man,’ Hawk finished for her.

  The marshal pulled the Winchester back and then jabbed it through the bars hard. Hawk ducked his head to one side and grasped the barrel with his right hand. The deputy pulled his gun as the marshal pulled the rifle back fast. Hawk’s knuckles were banged against the bars. The hammer came back on the deputy’s pistol as it was pointed at the side of Hawk’s head.

  Jackson dragged his Winchester back on to his side of the door and worked a shell into the chamber.

  Hester released her breath slowly and stared at the marshal. ‘You want me to step outside while you handcuff him and beat him up, the pair of you? Or did you have in mind gunning him down while he tries to escape?’

  Jackson whirled on her, grabbing her arm with his left hand. ‘Hester, you can step outside okay an’ you can do it fast as all hell. I guess your business in this jail is all done.’

  She stepped back and looked him up and down as though recognizing him for the first time. ‘Yes, Jackson,’ she said bitterly, ‘I guess it is.’

  And she swept past him and slammed the door behind her.

  Jackson hesitated for a moment, as if contemplating going after her. The thought didn’t last long. His eyes narrowed and he glared at Hawk. ‘You make one false move and I’ll empty this Winchester into your guts an’ let you die stinkin’ and slow!’

  Hawk stood his ground, staring back through the bars until Jackson stepped away and eventually left the deputy to laugh at Hawk’s discomfort.

  ‘I told you you’d catch shit for sparkin’ with the marshal’s woman that way. I sure enough told—’

  Hawk silenced him with a look. ‘For one thing I ain’t been doin’ no sparkin’, as you call it. For another it don’t seem to me that she’s acting like she belongs to anyone, least of all that marshal out there. Women like that belong to themselves.’

  Henry leered and said nothing, just poked his pistol a little closer in Hawk’s direction.

  Hawk leaned towards him. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you one more other. You stick that gun of yours much closer to me an’ I’m goin’ to take it off you an’ stick it up your ass before I pull the trigger!’

  The deputy blanched and pulled the gun away, retreating to the safety of the far wall.

  It was early afternoon when Hawk had his second visitor. The heat inside the jail was close to stifling and the incessant buzzing of flies around the pail in the corner of the cell was infiltrating Hawk’s brain. He’d seen nothing of either the marshal or his deputy since before noon. No one had brought him anything to eat or drink and his stomach was beginning to grumble loudly. He passed the time thinking how best he could get his own back on the uppity young marshal.

  He was leaning back against the wall, balancing on his heels, when the door from the marshal’s office was flung back and she walked uncertainly through.

  She … the piano player … the woman from the graveyard.

  Jackson’s voice followed her: ‘You got five minutes.’

  Henry came and stood in the doorway, leaning sideways against the frame, fingering the butt of his pistol as though waiting for Hawk to give him cause to use it.

  ‘Hello.’ Her voice was lower than her singing had suggested. ‘I wanted to come and say thank you for what you did.’ She attempted a smile but it was never more than a tremor around the corners of her mouth. ‘It’s on account of me that you’re here.’

  Hawk smiled: ‘That’s okay. I was enjoying your singing. I didn’t want you to be interrupted that way.’

  She lowered her eyes a fraction. ‘That’s nice of you. But I’m used to it, playing there. There and other places.’ For a moment the brown eyes looked away. They were light brown, smaller than Hester’s and without the least trace of green. She was smaller altogether, more beautiful, especially her mouth. Hawk looked at her eyes again and recognized the hurt in them and remembered the song he had wanted to hear uninterrupted to the end.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.

  Hawk shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Unless you can persuade the marshal out there to let me out of here.’

  She smiled and the sadness faded. ‘I don’t think I’d have much success. I’m not the right woman.’

  For a moment Hawk felt like contradicting her.

  He said nothing: they looked at each other and then looked away.

  ‘I must go,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  She moved away from the cell door. ‘Thanks again for what you did. I’m sorry it got you into so much trouble.’

  Hawk grinned. ‘So am I.’

  Just before the door, the gaping deputy behind her, she gave him the hint of another smile. ‘My name’s Linda Marlowe,’ she said.

  Hawk gave a bow of the head, half-mocking. ‘Jared Hawk.’

  ‘Your time’s up,’ came the marshal’s voice.

  She raised her hand in a half-wave and turned away. The deputy stepped back to let her through. Hawk heard words exchanged between the woman and the marshal but couldn’t make out what they were. The door to the street opened and closed.

  ‘Don’t I get nothin’ to eat, Marshal?’ Hawk called.

  The answer was a curse and then Henry’s grinning face and then the slamming of the door. Hawk was left with the stench of the hot cell and the buzzing of the flies and his own thoughts.

  Chapter Five

  THEY CHOSE THE afternoon when the town was at its sleepiest. Most folk who were still around would be feeling the effects of their midday meal and the sun. Over the spread waters of the Rio Grande it was siesta time. Even Marshal Jackson set his Winchester back in the wall rack, got Henry to pull off his boots, poured himself a cup of coffee from the stove, leaned back in his wooden chair and stretched his feet up on the broad desk. The coffee got cold and a skin formed across the top as the marshal let his eyelids fall and finally he slept.

  Most every afternoon in Eagle Pass it was the same.

  Not this afternoon.

  They had sent some of the men in early, Walsh and One-Eye because they were already known and no one would think their presence suspicious, Luis and Jose because to gringos all greasers look alike, Ernie and Nate because of the rest they were the least noticeable and looked less like the killers and bandits they all were.

  Walsh got himself into position on the side of the street close by the Grand Saloon, leaning against one of the wooden columns which supported the balcony, smoking one of his inevitable cigars, hat pulled down over his eyes to keep out the sun. One-Eye loitered inside the dining rooms for as long as he could without Hester getting alarmed, then stepped down the street to the barber shop and sat in the seat closest to the window and laid his head back for a shave.

  Luis and Jose shared a bottle of tequila in the cantina at the Mexican end of the street, sitting close to the door and peering through the smoke-wreathed air out into the bright sunlight.

  Ernie talked saddle guns with the gunsmith in his shop more or less opposite the adobe building of the Eagle Pass and South Texas Bank; Nate West chewed tobacco with the peg-legged owner of the livery stable and listened to the man reminisce about what that part of Texas had been like twenty years before.

  It was a typical lazy Eagle Pass afternoon.

  Inside the bank building the manager, Charles J. Constance, sat in his office in his shirt sleeves composing a letter to the owner of a small spread north of the town informing him that unless the mortgage payments were made up then the bank would have no alternative but to foreclose. A fly buzzed hazily in the corner of Constance’s office and sweat ran from beneath his arms, soaking his shirt. The paper on which his hand rested was damp and difficult to write on. Ideas would not come … not ideas about his letter. Instead he kept thinking of his wife. Strange that he should think of her, he hadn’t done so in years. Not since he’d been posted down to the border, hardly anyway. Then only when the heat made him itch and caused his mind to wander. Long slender body and a head of fair hair. Everyone had said he was the luckiest man around. To her they had said … privately … why waste yourself on a man like that? Dull, boring, a nobody. She had listened to them and gone ahead and done what she wanted. For seven years they had fooled everyone who knew them by being happy and content. Then the fever took her and she died within a week. For the last four days she was delirious and although Constance remained at her bedside all the time she never recognized him, never spoke, not even when he held her pale perspiring hand, not even when he kissed her white lips, certainly not when her eyes glazed over and her body went into its final, sudden, terrible arch and she flung up her arms and then that was the end of it. Constance tried not to think of her like that now, rather to remember her as she had been when they had first married, beautiful and shy; later, beautiful and not so shy.

 

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