“You say her name was Belle?” Wes asked.
“Belle Driscoll.” Hank Shard nodded. He turned, suddenly. “Why?”
“Funny thing,” Wes Kane said. “That’s kind of how I come to be heading for Bowie.”
Hank Shard was staring hard at him through the early morning haze. “How?”
The kid jerked his head. “Back when I was working for the man on the Border—the man who got me in trouble. Once we was driving herd and we’d stopped for the night and we were sitting by the fire and he got to drinking and talking. He said there was one mistake he made. Talked about the only home he’d ever had was Bowie. He said to go up to Bowie if I ever got into trouble and see Belle. He said she’d help me.”
Hank Shard was breathing heavily, deeply. He stared at the boy. “Well, I’ll be hanged!” he said.
“What you make of it?” Wes said.
Hank Shard rubbed the bottom of his chin reflectively. He said, “One thing I make. If you want get set right by this Belle, don’t say a word about the man who told you, understand?”
“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t be good for you,” Hank said. “It might raise up a riot that might send you to a hanging tree.” He stopped talking and shook his head. “No, I reckon it wouldn’t go that far, but it wouldn’t do no good to mention your past. It don’t do no good to mention the past mostly always out in this country.”
They rode on in silence, except now and then Hank Shard would rumble his deep voice and say, “Well, I’ll be hanged!” and, “What you know about that?” And when they reined over to the trail before the Empire House in Bowie, Hank said, “Might as well let me do the talking since we’re both looking for Belle Driscoll. Reckon they’ll be able to tell us in the hotel if she’s still living in town or where we might find her.”
They clumped into the little lobby where one door went into the dining room and on the other side another door opened into the bar. A flight of steps went up back and around the desk to the rooms above.
There were a couple of old sourdoughs over in the corner playing checkers and they didn’t even look up from the board.
Nobody was behind the desk or in sight except through the door that opened into the bar. Hank moved his head and he and the kid walked into the bar.
“You can always find somebody in the bar when they’re supposed to be at the desk of a hotel,” Hank said. Then, he quickly lowered his voice and he nodded to a woman behind the other end of the bar washing glasses. He said, “That’s Belle Driscoll,” in a low whisper. He jerked his head and they moved past three cowhands to the end of the bar and stood across from her.
She looked up. She had a pleasant face, middle-aged now, and there was gray in her hair. But she was still slim and she’d kept her shape well and her eyes were still beautiful eyes.
“She used to sing like a thrush back in the days when she was at the Palace in Silver City,” Hank whispered.
She looked up then and froze. She looked at Hank and then quickly at Wes Kane and then back at Hank and then at the kid. She opened her mouth and closed it.
The bartender was a big man with a lick of dark hair slicked over his forehead. He looked over. The woman looked at him and began drying her hands on her apron. She turned and then, on her way to the barkeep, she looked back over her shoulder. “Joe,” she said low. “Those two across the bar. The big man and the towheaded kid.”
“They bothering you, Belle?” Joe said and started for the two.
“Wait,” she said. “They’re there, aren’t they? I’m not seeing—things, Joe? That—that towheaded—” She was looking at Wes now, staring at him and through him as if he were a ghost.
“Sure they’re real,” Joe said: “Sure, Belle. You’re all right.”
“Hello, Belle,” Hank said and laughed as if it was funny.
“The man’s talking to you,” Joe said. “Friend of yours, Belle? He knows you, see? You ain’t seeing things.”
She came back slow, behind the bar until she was standing across from them, but she kept staring at the boy, not Hank.
“Hank—Hank Shard,” she said. And kept looking at Wes Kane. “Who’s the lad with you, Hank?” She said the last almost in a whisper.
“Just a friend,” Hank said. He wasn’t laughing now. It was hell to see the agony of hope and fear on her face as she stared at the face of Wes Kane.
Wes turned. He said, low-toned, “I’m getting out of here.”
Hank caught his wrist. “You’re okay,” he said.
All at once Belle shook her head and tears came to her eyes. She said, “No, it couldn’t be.”
Joe, the bartender was beside her. The cowhands were watching from up the bar. The barkeep said, “You all right, Belle?”
She shook her head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “I’m all right,” she said. “I get a little crazy, sometimes.” She looked at Wes. “I had a boy who would look about like you. Towheaded boy. But he died when we had the fever epidemic.” She came out from behind the bar. “Come on up to my room. We can talk there.”
She had a sitting room and a bedroom behind it. She went through the curtains into the bedroom and told them to sit down. Hank whispered, “Not a word about the man on the Border.” The kid shook his head and Belle called, “What you whispering about?”
“Just telling Wes you haven’t changed a bit in twenty years,” Hank called. “Ever sing any more for the boys, Belle?”
“No,” she said. “I kind of came out of the fever epidemic minus several things.”
She emerged then in a fresh blue flowered dress and her hair had been neatened. She sat down across from Wes Kane. She said, “This is certainly fine, you two dropping in. I can understand you coming, Hank Shard. You always were chasing the girls.”
“Just you I’m after. Belle,” Hank said.
“Go on with you,” Belle said waving a hand. “But what about you, towhead?” What brings you?”
Wes coughed. He got red in the face, like he was going to burst. He opened his mouth and closed it and looked at Hank.
“We just happened to be riding up together,” Hank said. He lowered his voice and glanced at the open door. He went over and closed it. “The boy got in a little trouble down on the Border. He says it wasn’t anything that was his fault. He figured he’d come up this way and maybe find a riding job.”
Belle was looking hard at Wes, tipping her head, and Hank said, “You ain’t seen any posters around here that he’s wanted, have you Belle?”
She shook her head instantly. “I’d know the face,” she said. “I think you’re safe this far north of the Border unless somebody comes riding through and remembers.” She hesitated then, “What kind of trouble, Wesley? That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He was working on cattle drives down that way,” Hank said quickly. “The man he was working for was a rustler and he didn’t know it. He sent the lad to drive a herd of rustled cattle across the Border and Wes got caught. That it, Wes?”
Wes swallowed and nodded. “And I broke out of jail and headed north.”
“You’re lucky,” Belle said. “I believe you. But you better not show your face around town for a day or two, till I can make sure there’s no notice of you being wanted.”
“I’ll hide out up in the hills,” Kane said.
“You’ll