Hawk 12, page 9
‘Sure it was Shade?’
Beckstein shrugged. ‘Usually our information is reliable.’
‘Not always?’
‘Not always.’
‘Why the hell would an operator like Jack Shade kill a man for whatever he might have been carryin’?’
Beckstein allowed himself to smile. ‘The man was known as a dealer in guns. He had done business with Shade before. Perhaps they had a falling-out.’
‘Yeah. Sounds like maybe they did.’
‘He isn’t a good man to cross.’
Hawk finished his whiskey. ‘That depends,’ he said.
‘You’ll go to Bonita?’
‘I’ll ride that way.’
‘And the Army rifles?’
Hawk nodded in the direction of the street. ‘They’re boxed and loaded on a wagon back of the livery stable.’
‘You’re going alone?’ Beckstein asked with some surprise.
‘You offerin’ to come with me?’
Beckstein almost laughed; he shook his head and stared at the end of his cigar. Struck a match and relit it.
‘I hired a driver,’ Hawk said.
‘He know what he’s carryin’?’
Hawk shook his head.
‘Or who you’re lookin’ for?’
‘No.’
‘Reckon that’s exactly fair?’
‘Uh-uh. But I needed someone to drive that wagon. Too much of the truth and the price was goin’ to go up or else no one’d agree to make the trip at all.’
‘That’s right,’ nodded Beckstein. ‘Especially after seein’ what happened to the last feller who rode with you.’
Hawk stared at the detective for a few moments before stepping clear from the bar. ‘Thanks for the drink,’ he said, not sounding as though he meant it at all.
The Pinkerton man touched the tips of his fingers to the underside of his new hat. ‘Be seeing you around.’
Hawk headed for the street; he walked down towards the dining rooms thinking it might be good to talk with Lizzie, but the sign that hung across the locked door still read: Closed—gone to funeral. The sky was still thick with cloud and weighed down heavy. Hawk thought of going back to the saloon for a bottle but he didn’t want to see any more of Beckstein. Instead he changed direction and headed towards the livery stable. Making sure the rifles were all right wouldn’t do any harm.
Hawk had been back in his room at the hotel just long enough to unbuckle his gun belt and pull off his boots when he heard someone coming along the landing outside. His Colt was in his hand by the time the knock came on the door.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
He recognized Lizzie’s voice.
She stepped inside as soon as he pulled the door open. She was wearing an embroidered jacket that seemed to have been made from a hundred or more velvet patches, greens and reds and oranges and blues. Underneath it the almost bright white of her blouse shone out in the light from the kerosene lamp. Her pants were deep red and tight and they were tucked into black boots that shone more than the white of her blouse. Her hair was full and soft and looked as if it had recently been washed.
One hand was behind her back and when she brought it round to the front there was a bottle held in it.
‘I want to talk,’ she said.
Hawk gestured towards the bed that dipped steeply at the center and she stepped past him close enough for him to sense the clean heat of her body. She sat on the edge of the bed while Hawk found a glass and a chipped cup and handed Lizzie the glass.
‘Get rid of that light,’ she said.
Hawk lifted the bulging glass clear with his glove and extinguished the flame. The sour stench of smoke and burnt oil permeated the still, close air of the room.
Hawk pulled the one chair close to the bed, reversed it, straddled it and sat down. Lizzie poured some liquor into his cup. In the subdued light that came through the window her hair looked almost black and her eyes still managed to shine.
‘Tell me about it,’ she said.
‘About Matt?’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Lizzie listened without moving, all the while staring at a spot somewhere between the rim of the glass and the toes of her boots. When Hawk had finished his story she stayed in the same position, fingers curved and rigid on the glass. Hawk watched her, waiting for some reaction, something that would show how she was feeling about what she had heard.
When she spoke it was without moving anything other than her lips and her voice was so quiet she had uttered half a dozen words before Hawk realized she was speaking at all.
‘… was back in the kitchen and there was this knocking on the door, not insistent, quiet, something kind of apologetic about it. I yelled for whoever it was to come in and there was this feller there, tall, had been taller but now his back was stoopin’ more’n it should. Clothes had seen better times and a lot more bodies than his, but there weren’t nothin’ hand-me-down about the man himself. Eyes that held you true and honest for all they was waterin’ and a voice that made itself felt as well as heard.’
For the first time her fingers slid a little round the glass.
‘That was the first time I laid eyes on Matt Dent. Feller from the saloon had sent him over, told him I was lookin’ for help. Washin’ dishes an’ such.’
The fingers, slender, strong, moved around the whiskey glass a further half an inch.
‘’Bout the first man I ever met in my life I’d go to the grave callin’ a gentleman, an’ there he was scrubbin’ down my kitchen and washin’ other folk’s dirty dishes. Folk as weren’t fit to clean Matthew Dent’s boots. He was the … he was the …’
The glass cracked beneath the force of her hands and fragments fell jaggedly to the floor. Lizzie called one single wordless sound and pulled both hands hard against her face. When she slid them away moments later, her eyes were closed and there were steaks of blood patched down her cheeks. She set her hands in her lap and seemed surprised that they were bleeding. Hawk wanted to help her, but something stopped him.
There was more that she wanted to say.
‘He’d finished with killin’, finished with the law, wearing badges, squaring up to drunks, using the barrel of his gun to make a point, follow through an order, take another man’s weapon away from him, escort someone else out of town. Through with that. Through!’
Slender lines of blood were slowly trickling around Lizzie’s fingers from the cuts in her palms and falling to join the pieces of glass on the boards of the floor.
‘He was gettin’ ready to die an old man. Peaceful. Not a down-an’-out, not a drunk, not one of them wrecks that folk turn away from or only notice to curse an’ kick as they walk by. Matt Dent was old an’ respected, loved by the folk here in Hollister. You saw that today, the people up there in that cemetery singin’ that fool hymn! Loved, he was, and he went with you on some fool’s errand and got hisself killed!’
She sprang to her feet and before Hawk could stop her she was flailing at him with her bloodied hands, nails scratching his cheeks, seemingly trying to gouge out his eyes. Hawk’s chair leaned a long way back and he was close to losing his balance altogether as he struggled to evade her blows, keep himself from serious injury. He managed to cover his head with his arms and duck his face low beneath them while she rained blow after swinging blow at his head, expending her energy, her hate, her sense of loss—letting go now as she had not been able to do under that leaden sky and before all those people, white lilies a mocking tribute on Matthew Dent’s coffin.
After what seemed long minutes but were certainly less, Lizzie stumbled back until her legs were stopped by the side of the bed. Her arms swung down to her sides and she stood breathing heavily, air rasping through her open mouth. Gradually, as Hawk watched, her breathing began to ease and her shoulders slumped forward and she lifted up her hands slowly before her and stared at them as if unable to understand the why and where of the smudged blood.
Hawk found the bottle and the chipped cup and poured her some whiskey, holding it to her mouth until she drank, which she did quickly, gagging, all but throwing it up into his face.
Again, she controlled herself, took the cup from him and sipped for some moments. Then he lifted the cup away and stood looking at her, close enough to touch her but neither knowing if he wanted to nor if he did how she would react.
So she was the one to touch him, pulling him to her and kissing him till they were collapsed on the ramshackle bed and her hands were proving more expert than his, her body more sure of what it wanted and how.
When each of them had taken what they needed of the other, Hawk lay on his back and stared at the ceiling and Lizzie curled in upon herself and fell asleep. The last thing Hawk remembered was the evenness of her breathing, the warmth of her back as it curved into his side.
He had no awareness of falling asleep himself, only of waking; finding, of course, that when he stretched out his hand the bed beside him was bare.
Chapter Nine
WHEN THEY CAME over the rim of the San Bernardino Mountains it seemed that all that was back of them was desert and all that lay before them was timbered high country layered in green fold after green fold. In fact, they would gradually descend towards a patchwork of valleys and low hills that had begun to be planted with wheat and fruit trees. Up behind that again, the land pushed up towards the San Gabriel mountains and a rugged wilderness that would only yield to the ocean.
To reach the Devil’s Punch Bowl they had to make a wide swing to the north as they worked their way down through the high country, plotting their course by one or other of the Franciscan missions that had been built from the middle of the sixteenth century on.
When the missions had been constructed their chapels had been dedicated to the worship and glory of God and some of them still served that purpose. Others had turned to different ways and housed a different brand of men than the priests who had come in the wake of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. There were failed prospectors, peons who had swum the Rio Grande in search of plenty and found little enough; there were desperadoes who would squabble to knife point over a five-dollar bill—and there were men like Jack Shade.
Hawk pushed his hat back off his head and the cord caught about his neck and held it at his back. Sweat was running freely down his forehead and he wiped across it with first his left arm and then his right and by the time he had taken up the reins again his brow was as wet as before.
The past three days had been the same, the sun always seeming to be higher in the sky than was possible, red and burning. The sides of the eastern mountains glowing pink, while the hills that were visible through the trees to the west were hazy and blue. The bright yellow cornet-shaped flowers of tree tobacco covered the land on either side of the trail.
Hawk turned in the saddle and raised his arm, signaling to the driver to bring the wagon to a halt.
Walker’s big hands worked on rein and brake and the two-mule team tossed their heads and swished their tails at the inevitable flies.
‘Let’s take ten,’ Hawk called, turning his mount back towards the wagon. ‘Let the animals take some water. Rest up an’ stretch.’
Walker’s off-white Stetson nodded and a gravelly, ‘Yup,’ came out from underneath.
It was about as much as he’d said ever since they’d left Hollister. Hawk had asked around for someone who was reliable, could handle a wagon and keep his mouth closed. He hadn’t meant all the time, but that was pretty much what he’d got. He wasn’t complaining.
Walker had been an Army scout for a few years back in the fifties and since then he’d worked for the Overland Stage and spent some time as ramrod on a ranch up towards Montana. Apart from how much he was going to get paid, Walker had only asked Hawk one question.
Did he have to tote a gun?
When Hawk assured Walker that was up to him, Walker had shrugged and worked the plug of tobacco round the right side of his mouth for a few seconds and agreed to drive the wagon.
Not that he’d got anything against guns, he’d assured Hawk with a glance at the black leather gun belt, just as long as someone else was using them. Hawk had all but asked him how he coped when he was scouting for the Army, but figured he’d save the question till they were on the trail. By then it was too late and Walker had shown himself as being the most taciturn man Hawk had ever met. He’d not heard above a couple of dozen words since they’d set out and at least half of those had been directed towards the mules.
Hawk was sure Walker thought more of the mules than he did of most people—neither was he sure that he disagreed.
He was more than a little surprised then when Walker turned his bulky frame slowly away from one of the water barrels and asked: ‘Where we fixin’ to sell the guns?’
‘Guns?’ Hawk repeated after the initial shock.
‘Nothin’ else I know sits in a box that shape. An’ I seen enough Army-issue rifles comin’ into camp to know what I’m talkin’ about.’
Hawk leaned against the wagon and stuck his thumbs down into his belt. ‘Worry you?’
Walker shook his head.
‘What then?’
‘Curious how long you’re fixin’ to wander round these hills. Thought maybe you weren’t exactly sure where you was headin’.’
Hawk grunted and freed one hand, rubbing the sweat against his leg. ‘Let’s say I reckon I know where our man is, I just got to make a little noise and draw him out.’
Walker looked long at Hawk from under bushy eyebrows. ‘Lot of fussin’ to make a trade. There has to be a better reason. You could get a good price for those any one of a dozen places this close to the border.’
Hawk nodded. ‘I got a buyer in mind.’
‘An’ what you got in mind for him ain’t just sellin’ what’s in them boxes.’
Hawk smiled. ‘When you ain’t sayin’ much you’re sure thinkin’ things over, ain’t you?’
‘Not a deal else to do.’
‘Okay.’ Hawk stood clear and came closer. ‘I’ll ask again. How much does it worry you?’
Walker weighed it carefully. ‘About another fifty dollars’ worth.’
Hawk’s smile became a laugh. ‘All right. You got your fifty.’
Walker’s head went back. ‘Is that before you get shot or after?’
With a wry shake of the head, Hawk went to where his coat was folded and strapped at the rear of his saddle and took five bills from the fold in his pocket.
‘Reckon them mules of yours are rested now?’
Walker shuffled through the bills and pushed them down into the back of his pants. ‘Yup,’ he said.
Hawk took it that their conversation had been terminated.
The store and saloon at Green Point lay smack across the trail, causing a man either to ride round it or slip out of the saddle and make use of the hitching rail that ran three-quarters of the length of the broad front. The door hung open and of the pair of windows set to either side only one boasted plate glass and that was cracked badly enough to let in a little air. Whatever was hanging on the breeze. Living quarters had been added to the side and a barn built at the rear, its angled roof a couple of feet higher than the squatter angle of the store. There were a couple of tall spruce off to the side of the barn, another—on its own but taller—back of the living quarters.
As Hawk rode up, the wagon following some thirty yards behind, a gray-haired dog with a white face like a skull came slowly off the porch and approached Hawk suspiciously, harboring a growl at the back of its throat.
‘Don’t fuss with him,’ called a man’s voice from the cracked window. ‘He don’t know but makin’ that fool noise. So damned old an’ near-blind he can’t see a thing.’
Hawk raised a hand in acknowledgement and carried on eyeing the old dog with a certain amount of suspicion. He looked along the half-dozen mounts tethered to the rail and that suspicion altered and grew. Nothing he recognized for certain, but maybe, like the dog, his instincts had taught him to sniff out danger.
He waited until Walker had swung the wagon round to a broadside and leaned across. ‘Stay here,’ he said.
Walker looked at him questioningly, thinking the last thing he wanted to do was sit on that same hard chunk of planking when he could stretch his legs some and maybe get a halfway cold beer.
‘Stay here,’ Hawk repeated and the firmness in his voice and the look he gave the line of horses made its meaning felt.
Walker tightened the brake another notch and said, ‘Yup.’
Hawk flicked the safety loop from over the hammer of his Colt and slid to the ground. His hand lifted his flat-brimmed hat back on to his head and angled it down over his eyes. The sandy soil was almost hot enough to burn through the soles of his boots as he stepped towards the open door.
The place was divided more or less into two halves by a bar that jutted out from the back wall and came to within eight feet of the door. To the left of that there were three round tables with chairs pulled close and a long dining table that could seat a dozen at a time. The right side of the room was a maze of crates and sacks and boxes arranged in no apparent order and with shoes next to flour, shirts neighboring nails and pairs of special-offer heeled boots resting awkwardly on top of piles of seed catalogs. Just about the only things which seemed to have been stacked with reason or care were the boxes of ammunition which were arranged one above the other on wooden shelves fixed to the side wall.
‘Hot, ain’t it?’
The owner of the voice Hawk had heard before leaned against the end of the bar, swarthy arms folded over one another and a cigarette hanging from one corner of a fleshy mouth. He was close on fifty, fatter than he ought to have been, hair falling and fading, a couple of days of stubble dark on his already dark chin.
There was a bottle by his elbow, a couple of glasses close to it. As Hawk stopped inside the door and gave the place the once-over, the owner picked up the bottle and poured a shot of liquor into one of the glasses. That done he hesitated and leaned to one side, peering past Hawk towards the wagon.
