The Last Waterhole Read online

  Cassie chuckled. ‘If there’s dead carcasses poisoning the water, we can suck on a fat cactus. We’ll survive. And we’ll be ready when Hedger rides in.’

  Then they cut out the talk and concentrated on the last mile.

  It took them what Bobbie Lee estimated was half an hour. Then, between sand and stone, parched grass sprouted. The grass became green. It was moist with dew. The pony had been moving with a lightened step and its head lifted high for fifteen of those last thirty minutes. Now it tried to break into a trot. Cassie held it back, talking to it through cracked lips, keeping the reins taut. Still its pace quickened. Stumbling to keep up, Bobbie Lee let them go. He watched Cassie bouncing weakly in the saddle as the roan broke into a trot. Then horse and rider were plunging down the basin’s slight incline. He saw them reach the water’s edge, heard the splash, a tantalizing liquid sound that had been haunting his waking dreams for most of the night. He saw the water’s flat surface break, the widening circle of ripples. . . .

  Bobbie Lee could smell it, taste it, from fifty yards away. The blue roan was standing spread legged, head down. Cassie was on her knees, splashing water over her face and shoulders.

  And then Bobbie Lee was there with the horse and the woman. There were no rotting carcasses. The water was fresh and clear and cold. He fell to his knees, gasped at the shock, leaned forward and drank.

  ‘Goddamn,’ Bobbie Lee said after a while, still on his knees, water dribbling from his unshaven chin and cupped hands. ‘That must be the best drink I’ve tasted since we left The Last Water-hole.’

  ‘Make the most of it,’ a hard voice said. ‘That drink you tasted was your last.’

  When Bobbie turned his head, he saw the lean man he had known as Van Gelderen standing back on the edge of the cottonwoods. The conchos in his hat-band glittered. His black clothing was caked with dust. One of his six-guns was held nonchalantly at his side.

  ‘I suppose your horse is hid in the trees. Where’d you get the other one?’

  ‘You think I’d risk crossing the Llano without a spare? I bought it from a trader taking fifty head down into Texas.’

  ‘And the man sleeping by the fire? A dummy?’

  ‘Rocks, and a blanket.’ Hedger grinned. ‘The extra saddle came with the horse.’

  He’d moved away from the cottonwoods as they spoke and was standing on the basin’s lip. Close. A mere twenty yards away. Bobbie Lee climbed out of the water and contrived to put some distance between him and Cassie. She did the same, stealing another yard away to his right as she stood up.

  Their scheming didn’t fool Hedger. He was watching with a cynical grin.

  Gives him two targets spaced out – but so what? Bobbie Lee wondered. The man had the drop on them. Cassie’s Henry was back in the saddle boot. His own six-gun was in its holster – but was he fast enough? Hedger would have managed to get some sleep. Bobbie Lee was wrung out, leg-weary, his left shoulder stiff and the arm back in the sling. He’d draw with his right – if he made the try – but he’d be off balance, and weariness would make him sluggish.

  The cogitating became of no importance.

  ‘Unbuckle your gunbelt,’ Hedger said, ‘let it drop, then kick it into the water.’

  Bobbie Lee looked at Cassie. There was something in her eyes. He held her gaze for a moment, searching for meaning. Then he slipped the belt’s tongue out of the buckle and let it fall.

  ‘Into the water.’

  Bobbie Lee complied. The belt and six-gun splashed into the water hole.

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I can understand your hatred of Harlan Gibb, the twisted reasoning behind it – but why my boy, why me?’

  ‘You’ve already been told. Murphy was close by and listening when Smoky gave you the reason.’

  ‘Smoky, the cook? Remind me.’

  ‘San Angelo.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bobbie Lee nodded. ‘A gunfight, he said. I remember it, but I was on my way out of town before the man I shot dead hit the ground.’

  ‘You were in the middle of Main Street when the guns began blasting,’ Hedger said, and his face was tight with bleak memories. ‘Folk had gathered to watch. The man you killed managed to get a shot off.’

  ‘I always gave them a break.’

  ‘That shot went wide. It took my little girl in the right eye, killed her stone dead.’

  Bobbie Lee heard Cassie gasp.

  ‘I guess you were trying to tell me something at breakfast in The Last Water-hole,’ he said. ‘You couldn’t understand why I was facing the man who’d killed my son, and doing nothing about it. I knew his name, knew exactly where he was, whereas you lost track of me. . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘You found me in the end – but was that pure luck?’

  ‘Sure. I had a job to do that took me to Beattie’s Halt. I rode in – and there you were.’

  ‘Why let me live after you killed Jason?’

  ‘I wanted you to feel some of the pain I’d been carrying with me for years – and there was that job, I had a score to settle with Harlan Gibb. I knew you’d come after me. Killing you could wait.’

  ‘Bobbie Lee!’

  Her voice was urgent. He flicked his gaze to the right. His skin prickled. While he and Hedger had been locked in conversation, Cassie had worked the little Remington over-and-under out of her boot. It was glittering in the strengthening light. As he turned his head, she threw it underhand towards him, hard and fast.

  It was classic misdirection. Hedger had heard the shout. His eyes flicked to Cassie. Reacting when he saw she was armed, he began to lift his six-gun and swing towards her.

  The Remington spun towards Bobbie Lee. It was coming from his right. His left arm was in a sling. A catch with his right hand would be awkward. Instinctively, he brought his left forearm off his chest, pointing his empty hand as if firing from the hip. The white triangle of the sling tightened from wrist to shoulder. The pistol hit the tight flat cloth, a small bird fluttering against a net. It began to fall. Bobbie Lee grabbed it with his right hand.

  Twenty yards away on the lip of the basin, Hedger’s teeth drew back in a snarl. He was fast. He’d turned when he saw Cassie with the Remington. Now he swung back, brought the six-gun to bear on Bobbie Lee.

  But Cassie’s cunning move meant the outlaw was always going to be that fraction too slow. He was too slow swinging towards Cassie. Too slow reacting to the bewildering change and switching his aim to Bobbie Lee.

  And before Cassie flipped the little Remington to Bobbie Lee, she’d cocked the hammer.

  The crack of the pistol in the dawn air was the snapping of a thin twig. A black spot appeared in the centre of Hedger’s forehead. His finger jerked on the trigger. The blast of the six-gun split the dawn air. The bullet smacked into the water.

  Vern Hedger’s eyes rolled back in his head. The whites gleamed like milk, the eyes of a blind man – or a man already dead. His legs buckled. He hit the ground on his knees, flopped onto his face and lay still.

  In the sudden, deathly silence, Bobbie Lee could hear Cassie breathing. He looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

  ‘You OK?’ he said.

  ‘I am now.’

  ‘You’re too clever for your own good.’

  Her chuckle was a rich gurgle.

  ‘I know. And d’you know what we’re going to do now?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We’re going to get that horse Hedger left in the desert. Then we’re going all the way back for my pa. We’re going to pull those rocks off him, and we’re going to take him back to the Halt and give him a proper burial.’

  ‘And Hedger?’

  ‘We do the same for him.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s ironic, Bobbie Lee. When we’re finished today and the sun’s going down, we’ll drink to my pa’s memory in your saloon, The Last Water-hole. But for Van Gelderen, Vern Hedger, whatever you care to call him, the last water hole he’ll ever see is here – and he’ll be here forever.’

  ‘There but for the grace
of God. . . .’ Bobbie Lee said fervently. ‘Come on, Cass, we’ve got work to do.