‘If you had,’ said One-Eye leaning towards him, ‘you’d know the one rule that matters is you don’t talk out of turn with strangers.’

  Hawk turned away and drank some of his beer. He wondered if Elena was with the man with the scar or the tall negro with the bald head.

  ‘Course, if you was lookin’ for a job—’

  ‘Job?’

  ‘Sure,’ said One-Eye, ‘usin’ that Colt there for Kincaid. If that was what you was anglin’ towards askin’.’

  Hawk shrugged again. ‘Could be. He lookin’ for guns?’

  ‘Couple of the boys got themselves shot up in a cantina day or so back.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Got into a fight with one another and this other feller chimed in an’—’

  One-Eye broke off and looked at Hawk sharply, a thought racing through his mind for the first time.

  ‘When d’you say you lost that fancy gun belt of yours?’

  ‘Couple of days back,’ said Hawk, keeping his tone nice and easy. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just remembered what one of the greasers said as saw Carlos an’ Bull get theirs.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Said the feller who finished Carlos, he was wearin’ some kind of fancy black gun belt.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that’s why I’m askin’, mister, exactly when was it you said you lost yours in a poker game? Always supposin’ that’s what really happened?’

  Hawk tensed his muscles, watched the flicker of the single eye for a sign that the man’s suspicions had pushed him to the point where he was sure enough to make a play for his gun.

  ‘What he said ’bout a gun belt,’ Hawk shrugged, ‘could mean anything. Could be anybody’s.’

  ‘Yeah,’ snarled One-Eye, ‘an’ it could be yours.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Hawk, ‘ease up. One minute you’re offerin’ me a job ridin’ with Kincaid, next you’re accusin’ me of gunnin’ down one of his men. Why in hell’s name would I want to do that? You figured that out?’

  One-Eye hesitated; he hadn’t thought that far. He did now and a reason wasn’t clear … not unless the stranger with the black glove was a detective like he’d already said. He looked at Hawk and Hawk was just standing there, putting down some of his beer and not looking too bothered about anything. If he had been the one that got rid of Carlos, it meant he was pretty fast with that Colt Frontier of his. One-Eye didn’t like the sound of that. He’d seen Carlos in action and he’d’ve thought twice about standing up to him himself. Mex who told him about the fight said Carlos barely cleared leather … Leather. The Mex never said nothing ’bout the man wearing a black leather glove. He’d have to have noticed that, sure he would? Have to? An’ he never said nothin’ ’bout no glove.

  One-Eye glanced at Hawk again, looking away down the bar.

  No: he guessed he was okay. Least, as long as he could see him.

  ‘Let’s finish up here,’ One-Eye said, ‘go downtown an’ meet a couple of the boys.’

  Hawk set down his beer. ‘They’re here?’

  ‘Sure. Spending some of that hard-earned money from Eagle Pass on ten-dollar whores an’ good whiskey.’

  Hawk nodded and drained his glass; One-Eye did the same. They moved through the men standing around the cantina and pushed out into the street. It was dark, the sky overcast, few stars and only the occasional glimpse of the moon as it slipped in and out of the wind-blown clouds. Here and there along the street small knots of horses were tethered at hitching posts. A few men walked along unsteadily, one of them singing an old song from the War Between the States.

  The buildings hunched along the sides of the street and from them the night was broken at intervals by the cry of a woman in pleasure or pain, the cry of a child waking from a nightmare, the shouted curse of a man in anger or regret.

  Hawk walked alongside Kincaid’s man and began to ask him questions about the gang and its activities, doing his best to make them appear natural to someone who might be joining up. When he came to ask about what Kincaid’s next raid across the border might be, One-Eye stopped short and swung towards him, hand tight on Hawk’s right arm.

  ‘Mister, that’s enough!’

  ‘I only figured as long as—’

  ‘As long as you’re askin’ questions like that you’re likely to get your head blown off. That’s a fact you did ought to know. Kincaid don’t take to folk talkin’ out of turn.’

  Hawk’s mind went again to the woman in the bordello, he wondered if she had done what he asked; wondered how successful she had been.

  One-Eye squeezed Hawk’s arm hard. ‘That understood?’

  ‘Sure.’ Hawk shook himself free. If he wasn’t going to get any information out of the man then maybe he was best advised to come out into the open with who he was and finish him right there.

  ‘There it is,’ said One-Eye, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Let’s go and find the boys.’

  Okay, thought Hawk, it’s too close now. Let’s get inside and see what happens.

  There were similar numbers to the night of Hawk’s earlier visit, girls leaning over the balcony in various stages of undress, others mingling with the potential customers or lounging in positions that displayed their bodies to the best advantage. Both men stood not far inside the door and surveyed the crowd.

  ‘They ain’t here,’ said One-Eye. He jerked his head upwards. ‘Must be still havin’ fun.’

  He gave Hawk a nasty one-eyed leer.

  ‘How d’you know they ain’t gone already?’

  One-Eye shook his head. ‘Horses’re outside.’ He touched Hawk on the arm. ‘Let’s get a drink while we’re waitin’.’

  They were almost at the bar when there was a high-pitched scream from beyond the balcony. Both men whirled round and as they did so the scream was repeated. Two of the girls on the balcony were running towards the source of the sound, another was crouching with her hands clamped over her ears.

  Hawk and One-Eye glanced at one another and then Hawk set off towards the nearest flight of stairs at a run. The Colt Frontier was clear of his belt and in his hand, cocked, by the time he was mid-way. He didn’t know whether One-Eye had come after him or not, there was too much commotion to tell.

  A couple of steps before the top, one of the doors around the other side of the balcony was flung open and a man came out, tall, very tall, very black. He had off-white long Johns below his waist and he was naked above. The muscles in his chest and arms rippled as he moved. His chest was shiny with sweat and spotted with blood. His dome-shaped head was totally bald. There was a dull-bladed knife held between the fingers of his right hand.

  Two girls close by screamed.

  Men who had been hurrying up the stairs behind Hawk and those opposite stopped in their tracks.

  A figure appeared in the doorway behind the negro. Small and faltering, quite naked. Something set a nerve racing at the side of Hawk’s head, pulsing against the taut skin. He recognized Elena and knew from the wounds down her body what had happened: she had asked her questions too well … not well enough.

  Amongst the other doors opening, one produced a heavy-set man with a white scar down his left cheek whom Hawk recognized from Elena’s description. He was moving a little unsteadily, buckling on his gun belt as he moved towards the negro.

  The black still hadn’t moved from the edge of the balcony.

  In the doorway behind him, the woman collapsed sideways against the frame of the door.

  Hawk brought up his gun and fired. The negro went back from the balcony as if he’d been kicked. His back slammed into the wall and the wall shook. Elena’s knees gave under her. The man with the scar grabbed his gun and as he did so a shot from below creased a line in the wall above Hawk’s head. He guessed it was One-Eye getting into the play and dodged up to the head of the stairs and dived flat.

  As he dived he fired a shot which sent the scarred man back into the nearest doorway.

  The negro had pushed himself off the wall, a bullet wound in the right side of his chest, more blood now on his shining black skin, still managing to find the strength to move forward.

  Hawk leaned his weight to the left, steadying himself against his left elbow as he moved back the hammer of the Colt and took aim through the bars of the balcony, near and far, and between the shocked girls who were shaking in near hysteria.

  He broke Darkie Winters’s breastbone into fragments so small some of them would have been invisible to the naked eye. Winters rocked back and as he did so his large hands grasped the balcony rail. His muscles strained; eyes bulged. The rail snapped in two places and man and woodwork plunged backwards with a crash.

  More screams.

  Hawk was on his feet and running, keeping low, bent almost double.

  A shot winged over his head and he saw the doorway from which it had come and put a slug through the upper panel. He heard another shot followed by a shouted warning he recognized as One-Eye’s and stopped fast, straightening as he did so.

  One-Eye was kneeling behind a leather-bound settee with his gun resting on the upper edge.

  Hawk extended his arm, taking aim quickly and accurately. The top section of the settee burst apart, stuffing flying into the air as though a duck had been hit with a broadside from close range. The bullet drove through the settee and deflected at a slight upward angle into One-Eye’s face.

  It tore a hole where his remaining eye had been and then a larger one at the back of his skull.

  He hit the whorehouse floor with a thud and a splashing of blood and brains, ignorant of the fact that he was now totally blinded. Ignorant and dead.

  Hawk had already moved to the curve of the balcony and was outside the door from which the shots had come. He stepped back and kicked the door wide, jumping into the small room Colt first. In an instant he saw the woman crouching at the head of the bed, sheets gathered up to her half-naked body, terror driven hard into her eyes; underneath the bed, only his balding head and his shaking shoulders showing, was the man who had been with her when Willis had run into the room; a small window that led out above the side alley was open. Hawk went over and looked down. It wasn’t an impossible jump for a man who needed to make it. Better than getting shot.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Hawk to the girl, ‘I guess it’s over.’

  This part of it, he added inside his head as he left the room, just this part of it.

  But even that wasn’t exactly true.

  Darkie Winters was dead, ribs cracked and driven up into his lungs. The results of his massive hemorrhaging were evident right across the balcony floor. One-Eye had already been dragged out into the mud-strewn street and propped against the wall to await the undertaker and a cheap wooden box and a hole in the ground.

  Hawk took Elena into his arms and laid her down on the bed where one night before they had made love.

  There were deep, curving knife wounds round and below both her breasts, swooping nearly to the navel. Another, shorter and deeper, down from the exposed bone of her shoulder to the top of one breast.

  Hawk used a piece of sheet to mop away the blood. Still more came in its place.

  Her eyes flickered open and saw him and closed again.

  There were others in the doorway but Hawk ignored them.

  ‘Elena.’

  His voice stirred her and the eyes opened slowly this time, the lids lifting as if heavy weights were doing their best to prevent them.

  ‘Elena, I’m sorry.’

  The words sounded useless and even as Hawk said them he knew that but didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘The doctor, he—’

  It was useless.

  Her hand moved like an aged pained thing and found his and clutched it hard as if holding on to something that was alive would prevent death. But with the pain she must be suffering death would surely be an easing away, something to be welcomed now.

  ‘I asked him—’

  The words were very faint, Hawk having to bend his head almost to her mouth to hear them. Part of him wanted to tell her not to talk, to save her breath, but the other part knew that he had to listen.

  ‘He said … said … there was … was a—’

  Her head jerked forward in a sudden movement and her forehead banged against Hawk’s cheekbone and when he touched his face it was wet with blood.

  ‘A train.’

  ‘Over the border?’ asked Hawk.

  The face gave no sign of understanding.

  ‘This train, was it in Texas?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘In Texas? The train he talked about.’

  Blood ran down from her left nostril, curved into the edge of her mouth.

  ‘Yeesss.’ It was more a sliding breath than a word.

  ‘Did he say when?’

  Elena’s eyes opened again and recognized him in a moment of complete clarity.

  ‘I did what you asked me,’ she said. ‘I found out what you wanted to know. I—’

  She closed her eyes, her hand fluttered in the air like a thrush’s wing and she died.

  Hawk stood away from the bed and pushed his way between the watchers at the door. He descended the stairs and went out into the darkened street and knew as he walked towards his rented room that any sleep he got that night would be stolen from other men’s dreams.

  Chapter Ten

  HAWK CROSSED THE Rio Grande at dawn, the appaloosa swimming through the high swollen waters with natural strength. The sun was just skimming the mountain tops and the sky starting to lighten to the east and south. Within an hour the heat of the sun was strengthening and his pants were starting to dry out. In half an hour more he was riding at a steady clip towards San Antonio and what he hoped would be the answers to a couple of questions he needed to ask.

  The town was busy, wagons and carts quarreling for space along the broad street, groups of riders drifting into or out of town, women with parasols window shopping. A small black and white cat skittered across in front of the mare’s hooves and disappeared under the raised boards of the sidewalk.

  Hawk spotted the sign that announced the office of the Rangers and pulled over. He dismounted and looped the reins about the hitching post, hitched up his gun belt and went inside.

  The uniformed man behind the desk was filling in papers with a quill pen which seemed to be giving him more than a little trouble. He was a stout-man, fiftyish, dark hair curling out from his nostrils, thick sideburns and a full mustache. He cursed the pen, jabbed it through the air and sent a blot of ink over the top sheet. He cursed again, glanced up at Hawk, screwed up the paper and hurled it ineffectually into a corner of the room.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Captain McCone.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He ain’t here.’

  ‘He in town?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Out on patrol.’

  ‘When’ll he be back?’

  ‘That’s his business.’

  ‘Yeah, but you must have some idea.’

  ‘Maybe, but if I have it’s mine and not yours.’

  ‘You think he’ll be back in the next couple of days?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You reckon so?’

  ‘I said maybe.’

  ‘Would you say a couple of days?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say anything. You could say what you like. Don’t matter a damn to me.’

  ‘No, I guess it don’t.’

  Hawk turned on his heels; the man picked up his pen and dipped it into a bottle of ink. The door slammed and a blob of ink fell from the nib and splashed across the paper. The man cursed again and kicked out at the leg of the desk, nearly overturning the ink bottle. He just wasn’t suited to paperwork.

  Hawk was on his way to the railroad station, down at the far end of town, the tracks bisecting the main street. The station was off to the right side, a couple of wooden buildings on either side of the line: ticket office, waiting room, a small restaurant and saloon, the area headquarters of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

  Hawk went up a flight of steps at the side of the building and knocked on the door. After waiting a few moments without an answer, he went inside. A woman with graying hair tied back severely and a black apron fastened over her dark blue dress looked up at him as though he’d just vomited on the floor.

  ‘I didn’t say come in,’ she said in a shrill voice that would have frightened the dawn birds and likely did.

  ‘I know,’ replied Hawk, ‘that’s why I did it of my own accord.’

  ‘Young man, you’re very—’

  Hawk came close and grinned at her evilly. ‘I know. And women with gray hair really get me goin’ so hard I can scarce control myself.’

  She went white and then flushed all in a matter of seconds. She scampered behind her desk and picked up a ledger in self-defense.

  ‘You get out of here this minute!’

  ‘When I’ve seen to my business.’

  ‘What exactly is that?’

  ‘I want to see the man in charge.’

  Her eyes glanced nervously at the door to her right. ‘You can’t. Mr. Drummond is busy and you don’t have an appointment.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Hawk nodded agreement and stepped around the desk. She made a feeble attempt to catch hold of him before he had opened the inner office door.

  A dark-haired man spluttered into the whiskey glass he had to his mouth and set it sharply back on the desk with a gasp of surprise. He was short and closing on sixty, spectacles on his nose, a nose which was red and broken-veined from too much liquor over too many years, hair on the backs of his knuckles. When he spoke he still had vestiges of Scottish beneath his Texas drawl; his eyes widened and stayed that way, magnified by the thick lenses.

  ‘I don’t recall—’

  ‘No.’

  Hawk sat on the corner of the man’s desk and looked down at him. The railroad man lifted up his glass and emptied it, mostly down his throat. He dabbed at what was running down his chin with a red and blue handkerchief.

 

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