CHAPTER 3
THE LAW IN BITTER CREEK
The weathered oak signboard at the edge of town swung violently under the lash of the north wind, creaking on rusted iron hooks that threatened to give way at any moment.
Cut into the beaten wood with a knife, the faded notice read: Bitter Creek, Texas.
Evening came down over the country like a shroud of lead, grey and dense and stifling, choking off the last of the colour in the dusk.
Unlike other frontier towns, which tended to come alive after dark with the clamour of teamsters and pioneers and the racket of gamblers, Bitter Creek held the grave-silence of an abandoned church.
The windows of the rough houses of adobe and plank were sealed tight with inside bolts; the few residents who dared to cross the dirt avenue hurried their heels against the ground, keeping their heads down and their chins tucked into their chests.
They walked as though the very air they breathed belonged to somebody else.
And in fact it did. Every inch of that dust, every drop of whiskey, and every living soul inside the town limits was the exclusive property of Colonel Jonathan Vance.
Nero came onto the main street holding the black stallion to a slow, almost funereal walk.
The animal blew with exhaustion, sending jets of hot air through its half-open nostrils, worn out by the merciless crossing of the red desert.
Lashed to the leather saddle, the coarse burlap sack no longer ran with fluid, but it gave off a heavy, sweetish, iron smell of decay hurried along by the heat of the day.
That silent rot dragged behind it an invisible and noisy court of night flies, humming in a thick cloud around the horse’s haunches.
He drew rein in front of the local livery, a colossal timber structure whose thatched roof sagged at the middle.
The strong smell of fresh manure, animal sweat and dry hay struck Nero in the face, working as a temporary relief from the carrion he carried.
It was not long before an old man with a long beard yellowed by chewing tobacco emerged from the gloom of the stalls.
He held a camphene lantern whose wavering flame threw misshapen shadows on the walls. The fellow raised the lamp, weighing first the powerful lines of the black horse and then lifting the light to the tall silhouette of the stranger, whose face remained wholly swallowed by the brim of a worn hat.
“Two dollars a night. Money up front,” the old man grumbled, holding out a callused hand with the fingers curled like claws. “And I charge double if that mount’s got a temper and tries to bite my boys.”
Nero came down from the saddle in one fluid motion, despite the weariness stiffening his joints.
The dry metallic sound of his silver spurs striking the packed dirt rang through the frame of the livery.
Without saying a word, he walked to the animal’s flank, untied the rough burlap sack with deliberate movements, and gripped it firmly by the mouth bound with sisal cord.
The old man took two quick steps back, covering his nose with the sleeve of his grimy shirt the moment the breath of decay reached his chest.
Under the shadow cast by the felt of his hat, Nero’s blue eyes glinted for an instant, as cold as the edge of a razor in the yellow light of the camphene lantern. He put out his gloved arm and dropped a heavy coin of pure silver into the stableman’s palm.
“Take good care of the animal.” Nero’s voice came out a low baritone, roughened by dust, without any hurry in it. “If he loses so much as one nail out of his shoes while I’m gone, I’ll come back and collect from you. And the price won’t be in coin.”
The old man swallowed hard, feeling his Adam’s apple scrape in his dry throat.
His eyes jumped from the silver coin to the bottom of the burlap sack, which had just marked the straw on the floor with one last thick, dark drop.
He only nodded, a shaky little motion of the head, and took the black stallion’s leather reins and led it to the back of the stable without daring to pronounce another mechanical syllable.
Nero threw the macabre bundle over his right shoulder, feeling its cold weight strike his canvas duster, and walked steadily toward the one lit window on the avenue — the one that showed, painted crudely on the dirty glass, the shape of a tin star: the office of the territorial sheriff.
The Sheriff’s Office
The sheriff of Bitter Creek was a middle-aged man of thick and prominent build, named Weaver.
He was lounging with his mud-caked boots propped shamelessly on a desk of American oak, using the sharpened point of a pocketknife to pick meat out of his dirty teeth.
He did not hear steps on the porch outside; the office door simply swung open all at once, without the pine floorboards giving a single warning of weight.
Weaver’s brow furrowed at once. He folded the knife and let his feet drop heavily to the planks as he found himself facing a stranger in a long coat, shoulders coated with the dust of the roads.
“We’re well past the hour for drifters and vagrants,” the sheriff sneered, adjusting the leather belt where a heavy-framed revolver rode near his ample belly.
“If it’s a clean bed you’re after, go on down to the hotel at the end of the street.
If you came looking for trouble, I suggest you get out of my town before I find a reason to lock you in a dark cell.
” Nero did not trouble himself to answer the ultimatum.
He took two firm steps toward the middle of the room, reached out, and loosed the sisal cord that tied the mouth of the sack. THUMP.
The dead and macabre weight struck the oak desktop, tipping the glass inkwell over on its side and spilling black ink across the official papers. The impact knocked the toothpick clean out of Weaver’s mouth. The sheriff blinked repeatedly, in a state of absolute shock, as the burlap slid down.
Three human heads, their features twisted and hardened by rigor mortis and by the red dust of the desert, rolled out across the county’s criminal reports.
Weaver recognized the violent scar splitting the first face almost instantly.
The blood seemed to drain out of his own face entirely, leaving his skin a pasty, whitish colour.
“McCready…” the sheriff whispered, his trembling fingers rising to his mouth. “And Thorn. And Smiley… Good God, man… you cleaned out the whole gang. You killed them.”
“Eight hundred and twenty-five dollars,” Nero said, breaking the silence, both hands crossed beneath the folds of the long coat, inches from the wooden grips of his Patersons. “Paid in Union gold. That’s the exact figure on the Kansas City bills.”
Weaver yanked the centre drawer of the desk open with clumsy, noisy movements.
His shaking hands groped inside until they brought out an official register and a small sack of grey canvas that chimed loudly with the characteristic weight of precious metal.
Yet before he pushed the prize across to the bounty hunter, the sheriff raised his dull eyes.
The initial terror in his features was giving way to a grim seriousness, almost to mourning.
“You’re quick with a trigger, stranger, I can smell that from here,” Weaver said, lowering his voice until it became a strained whisper, as though the very roof beams of the office might witness the conversation.
“But you made the worst mistake of your life setting foot in this county. McCready and his bunch weren’t just road thieves; they did all the dirtiest and most profitable work for Colonel Vance.
A little over three hours ago one of Vance’s scouts came through the gates of Bitter Creek riding like a man about to die, bleeding like a hog with a bullet hole in his gut.
He opened his mouth in the saloon. Said a blue-eyed devil with a cavalry sabre on his back had ambushed him in the canyon. ”
Nero put out his black-gloved hand and took up the grey canvas sack. The metal chimed between his long, steady fingers.
“The devil has a name,” was all the hunter offered in reply, stowing the weight away.
“I don’t give a damn what they call you in hell,” the sheriff snapped, jabbing his index finger toward the dust-fouled window glass.
“The man you left alive and dying on that rock is up at the Cross Ranch right now, emptying everything he saw into the Colonel’s ear.
Vance will have every board and every stone in this town turned upside down until he finds your carcass.
Take that blood gold, get on your horse, and be gone from my sight before the sun shows on the horizon, or Bitter Creek will turn into your permanent grave. ”
Nero settled the long coat on his shoulders, turned his back on the man of the law without a sound of farewell, and took to the cold darkness of the Texas night. He had no intention of running, and never had.
The Broken Spur Saloon
The Broken Spur served as the beating, noisy, violent heart of Bitter Creek.
The sour smell of cheap tobacco smoke, of corn whiskey stilled illegally out in the marshes, and the heavy lavender perfume of the night women escaped through the gaps in the swinging doors, spilling onto the boardwalk and soaking the air of the street.
Inside, the chords of an out-of-tune piano with its keys gummed together by filth were trying, without much success, to smother the noise of drunken laughter, loud arguments, and the steady knock of pewter mugs on the gaming tables.
The moment Nero pushed through the doors and stepped into the room, the volume of the din dropped visibly by a tone.
A few men seated near the entrance noticed him — the reddish dust piled on those broad shoulders and the long duster announced the arrival of a dangerous stranger — but within seconds the saloon returned to its usual chaotic, unruly rhythm.