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  The settlers at Rising Star just about had enough of James Hunter and his bullying ways. They turned to Jared Hawk to clean up their town. It took Laura Friedman to persuade Hawk to pin on their marshal’s badge. When he did, he promised to deal with Hunter … one way or another.

  He didn’t go back on his word when he faced Hunter’s hired guns.

  Or when he learned the truth about the woman who hired him.

  Or when he found out just who they wanted him to kill …

  HAWK 6: BLOOD KIN

  By William S. Brady

  First published by Fontana Books in 1980

  Copyright © 1980, 2023 by William Stuart Brady

  This electronic edition published October 2023

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book / Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

  Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.

  This one’s for Carolyn Caughey –

  well, in way they all are.

  Chapter One

  JAMES HUNTER WIPED the forefinger and thumb of his right hand around his opened mouth, rubbing away the drippings of fat from the pork chop held in his left. He licked the tip of his tongue into the cleft in his dark mustache and then pushed the underside of it down into the beginnings of his beard. The remains of five decimated chop bones lay on his plate. He took a final bite at the pale meat and dropped the bone amongst the rest.

  A grey-brown Irish wolfhound, its head too big and angular for its tall, lithe body, moved towards the table from one of the corners of the upstairs room. The dog’s head was set to one side, dark eyes on Hunter’s face, hopefully.

  Hunter ignored the animal; perhaps he didn’t notice.

  Instead he eased his chair back and drew a cigar from the breast pocket of his dark brown suit, bit a quarter inch from the end, spat that down on to his plate along with the bones, took a box of matches from a side pocket, extracted one, struck it against the table edge, lit the cigar, puffed and pulled strenuously a few times and then relaxed.

  I had been a good morning. A good morning apart from that bastard Svenson. Damnable little man! Who in God’s name did he think he was, arguing over allowing Hunter to buy goods on credit? As if Hunter’s credit wasn’t good—sound enough for all of Rising Star to see. The saloon with its dining room off to one side; the whorehouse at the far end of the street, discreet enough, none of the girls allowed to flaunt their wares on the boardwalk. Even then there’d been complaints from some of the women in the town about the way the girls hung out of the windows and called out to passersby. They’d even tried to get the town council to declare the whore-house closed, but with every male member of the council a regular patron that had been difficult.

  The point was that since Hunter had come to Rising Star and set up his business the trade of everyone in the place had more than doubled. Trebled. More than that even. It was fast becoming the best-known town in that part of Texas to go to for a good time: and folk who’d had a good time were the most likely ones to spend money. That was a fact of life.

  Hunter had learnt it early. Twenty-three and almost more money than he knew what to do with. That was an exaggeration, of course. There was always something worth investing in if you thought about it long enough. A general store, for instance. In that way he needn’t be bothered by nothings like that stupid little Swede.

  Damn!

  Hunter set his cigar down on the plate and a length of grey, fine ash slowly toppled into a small pool of pork fat that was gradually congealing.

  He’d have something done about Svenson. If word got round about the way in which the Swede had stood up to him, it wouldn’t be a good thing.

  Hunter picked up the cigar and replaced it in his mouth; he stood up and walked to the window. He was a tall man, perhaps half an inch under six foot. Thin, his legs and arms were nonetheless strongly muscled. He was a handsome man, too, the kind who drew attention to himself in a crowd by his natural features, his clothes, a certain arrogance to his bearing that sat rather strangely on a youngish man.

  He looked down into the street. A wagon was trundling towards the livery stable, two small boys, raggedy-assed, running along behind it and calling out to the driver. Here and there horses were tethered to rails beside the boardwalk.

  As Hunter watched a woman came out of the Svenson store, some hundred yards to the left, and began to walk in his direction.

  Even from that distance, Hunter knew immediately who she was.

  Laura Friedman.

  Laura.

  She walked with her head thrown back, black hair tumbling behind her and being blown slightly by the wind, her eyes dark yet bright; step faster than normal, always in a hurry, always anxious. Her figure generous, warm.

  James Hunter stared down. He had no knowledge of how warm or otherwise Laura might be. He had never touched her skin, held her hand. Once they had stood so close that he had been able to sense the heat of her body, her eyes angry then, fists clenched as if she might strike him.

  Laura Friedman did not like Hunter.

  She did not approve of him nor what had happened to Rising Star in the few months that he had been there.

  She did not approve at all.

  And now she was hurrying along the boardwalk, having just left Svenson’s store and without doubt he had told her about what had happened that morning and she was without doubt off to relay the news to someone else as part of her campaign to get him to leave town.

  Well, James Hunter was not about to leave Rising Star.

  And he did want Laura Friedman.

  Badly.

  Hunter turned from the window and went to the door; he opened it and called loudly along the corridor. Moments later a small Chinaman came scuttling, his single pigtail bouncing from his shoulders. Sammy had landed at San Francisco ten years before and his name wasn’t Sammy. He had quickly learned that if you were sensible you answered to whatever the white man called you. So he was Sammy for five years in San Francisco until one evening when his employer ordered him to perform a task of a rather personal and perverse nature. Sammy, for the first time on American soil, refused an order. He showed his refusal with an open razor, after which he left the west coast rapidly and began to travel eastwards. A little over a year ago he had been won by James Hunter in a game of stud poker.

  Now he paused in front of Hunter, rather out of breath and leaning his slim body to one side.

  ‘Sammy.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Find Link. I want to see him. Fast.’

  The Chinaman nodded and turned away.

  ‘And Sammy.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘If Artie and Putnam are with him, tell them to come too.’

  ‘Yes, boss. Sure, boss.’

  Sammy scuttled out of sight, his feet light on the stairs, the door shutting not slamming. Hunter wandered back to the window but Laura Friedman had disappeared from sight.

  Link was perhaps fifteen years older than Hunter and he could never adjust to being given orders by someone who wasn’t much more than a kid. He never said anything about it, not within earshot of Hunter anyhow, and limited his displeasure to a certain surliness of manner and a slow, drawling way of answering Hunter’s questions. Beyond that he wasn’t prepared to go—Hunter had the money and paid well. That was all there was to it.

  He stood now a few paces inside the upstairs room, a tall, lean man with brown hair that was beginning to thin on top and an aquiline nose that hung over his upper lip and seemed altogether too large for his face. His eyes were a lighter shade of brown than his hair and they shifted around the room as he waited for Hunter to say what it was he wanted.

  Link was wearing a dark wool vest over a grey wool shirt, black pants tucked into scuffed but clean leather boots. A Smith and Wesson .44 American was holstered at his left side, the holster tied so that it slanted a narrow angle forwards.

  The two men behind him were both carrying Colt .45 Peacemakers. Artie had his at his right hip and Putnam wore his in a shoulder rig that nestled against his left arm. The barrel had been filed down to between four and five inches and Putnam reckoned he could clear leather faster than anybody else on Hunter’s payroll.

  Artie wasn’t certain if that was right and from time to time he’d get to thinking about it, figuring there had to be a way of proving it once and for all without risking standing Putnam off in a fight.

  Link, he never worried about it at all. He knew he could take Putnam and his fancy shoulder rig any time he wanted to.

  The three of them stood there waiting while Hunter lit a fresh cigar. Link doing his best to appear uncaring; Artie, not many inches shorter but several pounds heavier around the waist, blinking and scratching the inside of one hand with the fingernails of the other; Putnam, the shortest of the three, tapping his boot heel against the floor

and looking in the direction of the window.

  ‘Svenson,’ said Hunter.

  All three looked at him.

  ‘Svenson.’ Hunter repeated. ‘I want him taught a lesson. Respect. That damn Swede’s got to learn some respect. You understand me?’

  Putnam was no longer tapping his boot, Artie no longer scratching his hand; Link nodded slowly and looked directly back into Hunter’s face; they all understood.

  ‘Good.’ said Hunter. ‘Good.’

  Link turned around and walked between the other two men, who followed after him, down the stairs and out into the street. From the window, Hunter watched them as far as the entrance to the store. Then he lifted an eyebrow and clamped his teeth more tightly into his cigar. The last shipment from Santa Fe had brought a case of Scotch whisky, from Liverpool to New Orleans, up the Mississippi and then overland. Hunter liked good whiskey and he’d been saving this consignment up for a special occasion. He smiled to himself: he thought this might be just such a special occasion.

  There were five customers inside Svenson’s store. An old timer waiting for Svenson to stop serving and come back to their regular game of checkers; two married ladies examining what the Swede had in stock by way of underthings and making sure their backs were turned to everyone else while they did it; young Teddy Matthew and his mother, who was trying to fit his feet into a pair of shoes that were at least one size too small but the only ones she could possibly afford.

  Link, Artie and Putnam went into the store briskly and looked around. Then Link took hold of the handwritten sign hanging in the glass-topped door and reversed it so that instead of reading outwards the word open, it read closed.

  ‘Okay,’ said Artie loudly. ‘Everybody outside.’

  They stared at him, uncomprehending.

  ‘What the …’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘You can’t …’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Artie, a look of triumph spreading over his face. ‘Can’t you folks read? It says closed. Now don’t it, ma’am?’ He approached seven-year-old Teddy’s mother and pointed his finger back at the sign. ‘Don’t that say closed?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see …’

  ‘There you are,’ said Artie, the triumph moving to his voice. ‘The lady has it right, the sign says closed.’

  ‘You cannot do this. You cannot be coming into my store and sending out my customers. By gosh, no, you …’

  Artie laughed and slapped the man across the face with his right hand. The crack of knuckles against skin was sharp and clear.

  The old timer began shakily to stand, nudging the small table as he did so, one after another the checkers rolling off and hitting the floor, rolling again, finally lying still.

  One of the ladies started to laugh, the side of her mouth twitching, her head moving in sharp pecks up and down. Her companion stepped aside and stared at her in astonishment.

  ‘There you are.’ said Artie, ‘the lady here thinks it’s funny.’

  He snarled and grabbed hold of Svenson by the front of his brown apron. A thin line of blood was running down the Swede’s chin and dripping on to his collarless shirt.

  ‘How ’bout you, you think it’s funny?’

  Svenson shook his head from side to side and gulped in air.

  ‘Huh? That’s an answer?’ The grip on the apron tightened, almost lifting the Swede off his feet, pulling him up on to his toes. ‘What kind of answer is that? You can speak American, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I can … no, no, this is not being funny. No.’

  ‘You’re damned right it ain’t.’

  Artie loosened his grip enough to push the man away hard. Svenson went back into the wall and dislodged several cans of tomatoes, one of which fell against his shoulder and bounced from there on to the counter.

  Fascinated, Teddy Matthew peered at it, watching it spin round.

  The lady set off into another broken peal of laughter, more obviously hysterical this time, one hand clutching at her bosom.

  Link took a couple of steps into the center of the store. ‘Folks, you’d better all leave now, while you still can.’

  ‘No, I …’ Svenson tried to make a move away from the wall, raising his hands to signal for his customers not to go, his mind more and more certain about what would happen when he was left alone with the three men.

  ‘Shut it!’ Artie slammed the store owner back into his shelves and a number of other cans toppled to the floor noisily.

  The hysterical lady’s friend grasped her by the arm and hustled her towards the doorway, strangely embarrassed by the sound she was making. Teddy Matthew’s mother scooped him up and carried him, struggling and unwilling, out through the open door.

  ‘Sven, I, you know …’

  The old man walked hesitantly, a little stooped, eyeing the guns the three men were toting, knowing full well what was about to happen and realizing there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Inadvertently, his foot kicked one of the fallen checkers out on to the boardwalk.

  Link moved back to the door and shut it swiftly, so that the ‘closed’ sign bounced and rattled. Artie laughed and when the sound of his voice subsided all that was to be heard was the impatient tapping of Putnam’s boot heel on the floorboards.

  ‘Get away from the wall,’ said Link. ‘Get yourself out here.’

  Svenson blinked and slowly did as he was told. The three men stood round him, close enough for their fists to strike if they wanted.

  ‘We been gettin’ …’ Link began.

  ‘Complaints,’ suggested Putnam.

  ‘Yeah, complaints,’ laughed Artie.

  ‘About the way you run this flea-bitten store,’ said Link, his voice drawling and slow.

  ‘It stinks,’ said Putnam, with scorn in his voice.

  ‘Like rat shit,’ added Artie and pushed a hand up into his sandy hair.

  ‘Course, we’ve noticed,’ Link continued, ‘that you ain’t one of us an’ you don’t understand the ways of decent folk.’

  ‘Decent upstanding folk.’

  ‘Same as us.’

  ‘So we thought it only right …’

  ‘And neighborly …’

  ‘To show you how to handle things better.’

  Svenson’s head was spinning; the voices coming at him from every angle, never stopping, overlapping. And always the threat of violence never more than a flicker of an eyelid away.

  ‘Take these biscuits, for instance,’ said Link, picking up a box that sat on the counter. ‘They ain’t worth payin’ a nickel for and that’s a fact.’

  He tossed the box towards Putnam, who made a show of catching it, juggled with it for a few seconds and let it fall upside down to the floor. The contents spilled out, breaking into crumbling pieces.

  ‘And these here eggs,’ called Artie, getting into the spirit of it and hurrying to the far end of the store. He lifted one from the barrel and set it against his nose, making an extravagant face. ‘Shit! This egg’s so old it must’ve been laid before my daddy laid his self top of my ma!’

  And he threw back his arm and hurled the egg into the side wall, where it broke and splashed yolk and white down the shirts and pants that hung there.

  Putnam chuckled and Artie, encouraged, threw a half-dozen more after the first, only stopping when a look from Link told him he’d gone on long enough.

  Link stood directly in front of Svenson, his beaked nose inches away from the Swede’s terrified face. ‘See, you got to understand that if we wanted, we could tear this place of yours apart.’ He moved his face even closer and Svenson pulled his own head away. Link grabbed at him, fingers and thumb tight on the Swede’s jawline, turning him back. Svenson could smell tobacco and stale beer on the man’s breath; could see the controlled anger in his light brown eyes.

  ‘You got to be a lot more careful how you treat things. A lot more careful how you treat people.’ The eyes bore into Svenson’s head. ‘How you treat people. You getting my meaning, Swede?’

  The store owner gibbered, wriggled, failed to find the right words that might have got him off the hook.

  Link stepped back and glanced at Artie and Putnam.

  ‘I don’t think,’ he said slowly and with a proper amount of regret, ‘our friend understands.’

 

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