Relentless

It was a big comfortable room with exposed rafters and heavy Spanish furniture of dark wood and leather. The deputy was a big man gone soft, belly sagging over his belt, wearing a blue uniform and a black Sam Browne belt His hands were flat against the leather couch cushions as if to propel him to his feet but he was arrested in that strained attitude, fearful glance rolling from the Major to Baraclough.

The woman stood in the middle of the room, one foot on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Her head was turned, she was staring at Hargit. Her nostrils flared but she didn’t speak. She had walnut-brown hair and she wore it proudly, like a lion’s mane; she was encased in a vertically striped shirt with pearl buttons and a pair of bleach-blue Levi’s, long of leg, tight and round at the hips. She had a starkly sensual face—prominent bones, heavy mouth, big eyes surrounded by sun tracks.

You could see what it was that made her husband the jealous type.

The Major’s voice clacked abruptly, breaking the ugly silence: “All right, Steve.” And Baraclough put one foot over the sill and climbed in.

Walker went in after him. Baraclough had walked across the room, going around behind the woman, staying out of the Major’s line of fire; now he went behind the couch and bent over to unsnap the flap of the deputy’s holster and pluck the service revolver out of it. Then he stepped back and tossed the revolver underhand toward Walker. Walker caught it awkwardly in the air and turned it around in both hands, got his grip adjusted and pointed it vaguely in the woman’s direction.

A corded muscle rippled in her cheek. Baraclough was staring at her, frankly and obviously undressing her in his mind. His expressive lips pulled back slowly in a smile.

The woman slid her glance off Baraclough as if he were some kind of zoo animal. “All right. What do you want?”

“Keep your lip buttoned,” the Major said mildly. Hanratty came inside and closed the door behind him. The Major said, “Hanratty, find a bathroom and see if there’s any surgical tape. A few wire coat hangers. Go on, now.”

The woman said, “You’re going to tie us up?” She was controlled and angry but underneath that she was a little relieved: if they were going to tie you up they weren’t going to kill you.

Baraclough put one of his menthol cigarettes in his mouth and got a lighter from his pocket.

The deputy’s hands came together in a prayer clasp. Hanratty left the room and the deputy said, “Look, y’all ain’t got no way to get clean out of this. We got this whole area surrounded and they gon close in on you. Y’all give yosevves up to me and it mat go a whole lot easier.”

The woman said, “You’re wasting your breath, Frank.”

“Very astute.” Baraclough was standing against the wall, shoulder tilted, smiling slightly, the smoke of his cigarette making a vague suspended cloud before his long face.

The woman turned without hurry and settled on the edge of a chair. She seemed incredibly calm; she acted with complete aplomb, perfect attention, absolute control—control so rigid, in fact, it seemed quite possible to Walker that she might begin to scream at any moment.

The Major said conversationally to Baraclough, “I counted eleven horses in the barn,” and then Hanratty came into the room with a handful of coat hangers and a white roll of first-aid bandage tape.

Baraclough handed the second pistol to Walker. “Keep both eyes open.” And went over to bind the deputy’s wrists and ankles with coat-hanger wire.

5

They tied the deputy to the steam radiator in the corner of the living room. Baraclough said, “Come on,” and took Walker outside with him: they left the Major and Hanratty standing guard over the woman and the deputy. Baraclough led the way up the hill.

Before they reached the crest Baraclough sent his call out ahead: “Gentle down, Eddie, it’s Baraclough.”

Burt was waiting with an expression of mild impatience on his brutal broad face. “What took so long?”

“We had to get the jump on a hick cop.” Baraclough made gestures. “All right, everybody load up. Let’s see if we can cart all this stuff down there in one trip.”

The money sacks seemed to have gained weight in the interval. Walker staggered under two of them and they paused every few yards on the way down.

“Dump it here, it’ll be all right.”

They left it piled in a heap in the middle of the yard and went into the house.

The Major had found the rancher’s arsenal. There was an array of hunting rifles laid out on the coffee table. Two of them were ’scope-sighted .30-06’s. “Pick yourselves a weapon.” There was a pile of ammunition boxes.

Walker said, “What are we pla

“Hardly.”

The woman sat in the chair with her legs crossed and her eyes heavy-lidded. “I don’t suppose it matters but those rifles cost us a lot of money.”

Baraclough said, “In this land of Western hospitality, what’s yours is mine.”

The Major said, “Now who’s had experience with horses?”

Walker turned, looked up from the rifle collection. “I’ve had a little. Grew up on a farm.”

“Fine. Pick us out six mounts and saddle them up. If you can find a couple of pack saddles put them on two more.”

“Six?”

“Just do it,” the Major said. “Steve, you might go on out to the garage and see what you can pick up on the police radio. Sergeant, go upstairs and see what you can find for us in the closets by way of coats and hats and overshoes.”

Walker started for the door but then he hesitated. “Look, why can’t we use the police car?”

“Because every road within fifty miles of here is blocked off.”

“They’d let a police car through.”

“With five of us in it? Forget it. You’d better get moving, Captain. Take Hanratty with you and show him what to do with the saddles—we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll be closing in on this place by morning.”

“But what happens to these two?” The cop and the woman.

“Just saddle the horses, Captain.”

“In a minute, maybe. First I want to know your plan. Maybe the rest of us won’t like it. We’ve got a say in this.”

“Captain, I’m trying to get all of you out of this fix with whole skins and you stand there arguing with me.”

“All I want is a simple answer.”

“You’ll get it in due course.” Hargit’s hard eyes penetrated him. “We agreed from the begi

Walker’s toes curled inside his boots. He went outside.

6

It had been a long time since he’d fooled with any kind of livestock. Fortunately the horses were kept in separate box stalls and he didn’t have to chase them all over a corral to catch them up. He had several bad moments getting bridle-bits into mouths without having his fingers chewed. The saddle blankets were soft worn Indian fabrics and the hulls were solid Western saddles, heavy wooden trees with a lot of leather on them, double-cinch rigged, leather tapadero boot-guards around the wooden stirrups, a lot of concho strings and saddle pockets. Each one of those saddles had probably cost five times the price of a good horse. He found a stack of X-frame pack saddles built on old Army McClellan trees, with open slots down the middle over the horse’s spine; he cinched up two of those on big horses and tied lead-ropes to their bridles.

He showed Hanratty how to smooth down the blankets and settle the rigs in place before cinching them up. Under the yellow forty-watt barn bulbs Hanratty looked pale and unhappy, afraid the animals were going to stomp him or bite him or kick him in the belly. He wasn’t much help but in the end Walker had the eight horses strung out on a picket line of nylon rope and he led them out into the front yard and tied the picket rope to the front porch of the house. Horse smell was oddly, pungently nostalgic in Walker’s nostrils.