Reuben Cole Westerns Collection

Chapter 5

Reuben heard the noise that woke him in the night and thought it must be the wind taking hold of the broken yard door, which never could shut properly, causing it to bang repeatedly. Turning over, he tried to ignore it but when the noise came again, he sat bolt upright, senses straining, the dark pressing in on him like a living thing. As he waited, body coiled like a spring, he realized one very important detail: there was no wind that night. Not so much as a breath.

He sat rock still for some considerable time, mouth slightly open, heart pounding in his ears. The large, sprawling house, built by his father some fifty or so years ago when people called this piece of dirt The Wild West, seemed suddenly an unfriendly, alien place. Someone had broken in, violated his privacy. But who could it be, he wondered. This was Nineteen-hundred and five. The outlaws were all gone now. Dead, buried or forgotten. The telegraph wires hummed, cattle wandered across the plain without fear of marauding savages and he had even heard it say people had seen a horseless carriage trundling through Main Street. A German invention somebody said. Reuben Cole was not quite sure where Germany was. The modern world was as much a mystery to him.

He swung his legs out from under the blankets and waited legs bare from the knees down, his nightgown thin, shivering. Nights were cold out here. Cold and friendless. Reuben did not have many friends. He was a loner, not lonely, as he was ever quick to tell anyone interested – of which there were few – but the path he had chosen kept him apart from company and he liked it that way. Nobody with whom to answer. Get up when he liked, go to bed when he liked, farted and—

ly,There it was again. A footfall, without any mistake.

Reuben remained alert, struggling to keep his mind from freezing over. He had killed men, but that was a long time ago, out there in the open world where the questions and answers were cleaner and simpler, unlike in here, alone in the hideaway he had made for himself.

He knew he would have to go and confront whoever it was. A thief, an opportunist. Reuben had little idea how much anything in the house was worth, other than … He squeezed his eyes closed. The old painting his daddy had bought from that strange old coot over in Paris, France. The artist had died years before and his paintings, especially that large Water-Lillie one, had fetched a pretty sum. The one hanging on the dining room wall was probably worth more than the entire house.

He eased the drawer of his bedside cabinet open, careful not to make a sound, and reached inside. His hand curled around the familiar, maple wood butt of his Colt Cavalry. He took it out, gently checked the load and stood up.

He gathered himself, breathing through his mouth, eyes clamped on his bedroom door. Dawn’s grey light was just beginning to find its way through the night but even so, Reuben’s eyes were now well accustomed to the dark.

He took a step toward the door.

There followed an almighty crash from downstairs, so loud he almost jumped into the air. Damn it, what could that be?

Footsteps crushing shattered glass.

He knew what it was. That old Chinese thing Daddy had brought back with him from one of his many trips abroad. Ting or Ying or something. Old anyways. So big, you could plant a Love Oak inside it and still have room for an Elm.

Someone was hopping around down there, the sound unmistakable. Whoever it was must have bashed their knee against the side table holding the vase and Reuben imagined the intruder gripping his offended knee with both hands, swallowing down his curses.

The accident decided everything for him.

He tore open the door, all thoughts of maintaining silence gone. Taking the steps two at a time, he careered into the wide-open foyer and saw two men, one disappearing out the rear entrance, the other bent over, clutching his knee. He turned as Cole came in. His face turned white as ash, a soundless scream developing in his open mouth. Cole hit the man across the side of his head with the Colt, harder than he meant to, and he winced at the sound of breaking bone sounding off like a gunshot.

‘Peebie? You all right in there?’

The owner of the voice came in from the dining room. Big bellied, small headed. In his hand was something that looked like a machete. Reuben shot him high up on the left shoulder, spinning him round in as fine a movement as any ballet dancer ever could complete. ‘Oh, no, help,’ he managed to squawk, ‘he’s killed Peebie!’

Peebie!The big guy retreated before the shock of the gunshot struck home. Once he became aware he was hit, his body would shut down and he’d be as petrified as one of those fossilized trees up in Arizona Cole had read about. Blundering back into the dining room, crashing through the door, hitting the floor hard, the wounded man nevertheless managed to scramble to his feet. Reuben went after him but had not taken a single step before a grip as strong as a vice closed around his ankle. He looked down.

The dawn light, slowly but inexorably conquering the dark, bathed the original intruder in an eerie, unnatural light. Mouth open, his white teeth gnashed amongst the ruin of his cheekbone, and he gurgled, ‘I’ll see you in hell…’

Trying to shake him off proved useless, so Reuben put a bullet through that grinning skull and ran into the dining room in pursuit of the other one.

Something as hard and as heavy as a blacksmith’s anvil hit him across the back of his head, catapulting him forward into a huge, gaping hole of blackness.

He was out cold before he hit the parquet-laminated floor.