Hart the Regulator 2 by John B. Harvey

Author:John B. Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, action, cowboys, gunfighters, westerns, john harvey, wes hart
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eight

At first Hart thought it was still night. When he stepped outside the mist was so thick that he could touch it; his hand pushed through it, like the wets of a million spiders. Cold. Wetness that slid and clung. Gradually, low to his left, light broke through: a silver disc that showed beyond the ribs of trees: that looked like the moon but was the sun.

Hart shivered. A rime of frost settled on his eyebrows. When Griffiths had ridden in the previous day to see Fredericks there had been signs of it – orange glow of sunlight through shifting, wavering swathes of mist. The night had been the first cold night of fall. And now...

Wes Hart wiped a hand across his face and turned towards the barn; he would see to his horse, then eat himself. A shot of whisky in his coffee. Nothing much would be happening a day like this.

He was wrong: it had already happened.

T.C rode in a couple of hours later, the silver mist clearing, his mount showing every sign of having been driven too hard for too long.

‘It’s Howie. The bastards shot him.’

He stood there and stared at them — Hart, Fredericks, Peters, Chavez — then pulled his red kerchief from his pocket and broke into a series of coughs which bent him in two, making his thin body shake.

When he looked at them again the red spots were clear on his cheekbones, clear and bright.

‘Put three slugs in him. Killed him deader’n a dog.’

Fredericks seized him by the arm. ‘Who?’

‘The C Circle. Five of ’em.’

‘The hell!’

‘Where?’ demanded Peters, angrily.

‘Up at Buffalo. The stage station.’

Hart had already moved away. The rifle lay across the chest in his room, the shotgun was resting on its butt against one side of it. Quickly, without flurry, he picked up each weapon and checked its load. He palmed his Colt and spun the chamber.

He was on his way back down stairs when Fredericks met him, face white with fury. ‘They went in to pick up supplies off the stage. Yesterday. Stage came in late and they decided to stop over, head back this morning. C Circle were there spending their money. Drinking. Picked a fight with Howie and T.C. and shot Howie down without a chance. T.C. made a run for it.’

Hart nodded, his face set firm, eyes narrowed.

‘The kid, he there?’

Fredericks looked at him. ‘Griffiths’ boy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was there.’

Then likely he still is. He won’t have gone far in this. Not if he drunk himself stupid last night.’

Hart went to pass Fredericks and the older man grasped his shoulder. ‘It doesn’t just matter ’cause he was gunned down by five men. It matters ’cause he was workin’ for me. And they knew that.’

Hart looked back at him. ‘I know it,’ he said. ‘I know it, too.’

Peters had Hart’s horse saddled and ready and Chavez was sitting astride his own mount, a black gelding, toying with his throwing knife.

‘You don’t have to, you know,’ said Hart. ‘You ain’t paid for it an’ I am.

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