Herne the Hunter 18

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  The words were indistinct and came with longer and longer gaps between them. Herne was forced to kneel beside the man and bend his head sideways so that his ear was no more than inches above the man’s mouth.

  “Edwards … Jamie Edwards … prospectin’ off and on for thirty years … hills around … made strike … Fallen Lake … couple of thousand dollars … silver ore. Tell my wife Nadine … Cimaron Falls. Promise me.”

  Still Herne hesitated. How many old man had he run into who’d wasted their last years, their dying words over delusions of silver mines and buried ore?

  But Herne agreed reluctantly to the old prospector’s last request and rode into Cimaron Falls in search of the beautiful, wanton Nadine. But what he didn’t know was that Jamie Edwards was murdered a brutal gang of train robbers – Zac Peters, P. J. Armitage, Savannah, Tex Blakely and their leader, Waco Johnny Young – a gang who would stop at nothing to lay their hands on the silver …

  HERNE THE HUNTER 18: DYING WAYS

  By John J. McLaglen

  First Published by Transworld Publishers in 1981

  Copyright © 1981, 2017 by John J. McLaglen

  First Smashwords Edition: January 2017

  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.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.

  Cover image © 2016 by Tony Masero

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  For Nadia and John and Nick: Lumb Bank, January 1981–where this one began

  Chapter One

  ‘Who d’you think you’re foolin’, mister? What this town needs is someone with fire in his belly and a little hunger in his eyes – not some stumblebum old man as ought to be heading for the bone yard.’

  The words ate into Jed Herne’s brain as he rode the narrow trail two days west of Cimaron Falls, the bay gelding he was astride moving at no more than an easy walk.

  ‘… some stumblebum old man as ought to be heading for the bone yard.’

  Someone had passed the word to him at a way station fifty miles to the northeast and at the time it had seemed a good idea, better than most. Small place needed a lawman, nothing fancy, the one they’d had, name of Tozcek, had been heading for a peaceable retirement when misfortune had struck. Cleaning the American Arms shotgun he took on his rounds, he’d accidentally jabbed his elbow into the enamel coffee pot standing on the desk. The pot had jumped and tipped and half the contents, black and hot, had poured onto the head of Scraps, the sheriff’s mongrel dog. The dog, feeling betrayed, had sunk his teeth into the back of the sheriff’s leg. With a shout that fetched folk running off the street the sheriff leapt to his feet and forgot that his finger was a mite too close to the trigger. To cut a long story short, he shot off his right foot at the ankle, the wound went gangrenous, the barber who performed an amputation on the leg wasn’t all that pernickety about sterilization, fever took hold and the burial was attended by three members of the town council, a deputation of soiled doves from the whorehouse and Scraps, a new black collar round his neck for the occasion.

  As the stage driver said to Herne over a plate of beef stew, you won’t find a more peaceful job in the whole of Colorado Territory. Herne certainly didn’t have anything better to do; he hadn’t worked in long enough to make him careful how many shots of whiskey he drank in the saloon and double orders of steak were a thing of some richer past. If the job paid as little as forty dollars a week, he could likely sleep in one of the cells and there’d be free ammunition.

  So Herne had thanked the man and saddled up his horse and ridden down to Cimaron Falls. At first the leader of the town council had thought Herne was joking when he enquired about the vacancy for a sheriff; after that he’d snorted and called a meeting of his fellow councilors. They’d looked Herne up and down, stared at the long black hair, graying strongly now at the temples, and the way it splayed greasily over his shoulders. They’d looked at his stubbled chin and the thickening girth of his stomach and then nodded at one another knowingly and huddled together, talking in loud whispers.

  … some stumblebum old man …

  Jed Herne was forty-three years of age. He’d killed his first man when he was fifteen and never looked back. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There’d been the short time he’d been married, the months when he’d folded cloth around his Colt .45 and left it in a drawer and tried to pretend he didn’t feel next to naked walking around without it strapped to his thigh. Like most happiness, his marriage had proved as substantial as ice come springtime. Herne had taken up his gun again but in that short time things had changed, changed awful fast. The name he’d earned in his years as an Indian scout fighting the Apache Nation in the bleak southwest, as a bounty hunter who never gave up until his man was tied to his saddle and he was on his way back in to collect the reward, that name had faded into the backs of folks’ memories.

  Herne the Hunter.

  Men would look at him and scratch their heads and vaguely recall someone young and strong and fast who was reputed to be quicker on the draw than Masterson – or was it Earp? Surely this couldn’t be the same man?

  Some made that mistake and didn’t live to regret it.

  Others were allowed to walk away. It had been like that in Cimaron Falls. Herne had controlled his anger, his desire to show that fool bunch of storekeepers and moneymen who in God’s name they were talking to. But he had realized that it wouldn’t have done any good – other than to his battered pride and that had taken dents enough that another one wouldn’t hurt any. So Herne had eaten a leisurely meal and considered a haircut and shave, but the story of the amputation put him off. If the barber couldn’t saw through a limb with a clean blade, what was he going to do to Herne’s neck with a razor?

  Herne collected his horse from the stable, watered and fed and curry combed, and climbed up into the saddle. Cimaron Falls wasn’t much of a place and he didn’t reckon he was missing a great deal. Other than forty dollars a week and all found.

  Now he was riding west, not too certain why or exactly where. In the back of his mind lodged the idea that he could drop a loop down towards Denver and likely pick up some work there. Riding guard on some freight wagons, even a spell as railroad guard.

  Hell! He’d done both before in his time and didn’t feel much the worse for it. He looked round to the left as the gelding tossed its head, but there was nothing obviously there. Just the gray blurring of hills as they pushed haphazardly up towards the horizon; clumps of trees, black oak and pine, that broke the barrenness of earth and stubbled grass. A broad-winged bird, its head jet black, swerved above the nearest trees, curving on the currents of wind with a grace and agility that Herne naturally admired, even envied.

  The gelding snorted and broke into a trot as if there was something about the place that the animal didn’t trust. Herne slipped back the loop of leather which held the hammer of the Colt steady; his fingers touched the worn leather of the holster as the calloused palm of his hand patted against the smooth wood of the pistol butt. His left leg unconsciously increased its pressure against the single shot .55 Sharps that lay in a bucket holster slotted underneath the saddle harness.

  If there were anything beyond the tree line, anything which threatened, then he was ready for it.

  But after half a mil
e the gelding slowed to a walk once more and seemed to have calmed itself down. Herne gave one or two backward glances but saw nothing out of the way. A couple of hundred yards further along, the horse pricked up its ears again but this time it was the sound of water flowing over rocks. A narrow stream was making its way down from the hills and at the sound, horse and rider felt their joint thirst and moved into a canter.

  The water was clear and sparkling cold. Herne dismounted and loosened the saddle girth. He went down on his knees and scooped the water up into his mouth, letting it splash through his fingers onto his face and neck. When he had drunk his fill, he unfastened his canteen from the saddle pommel and refilled it. The horse was still drinking, lifting its wet, dark nose into the air for moments at a time before resuming. Herne stretched and coughed and cleared his throat onto the ground. There was a nagging pain at the back of his mouth which he’d managed to forget for some hours, but now it was there once more. Gnawing into his gums. A pain sharp enough at times to have been caused by the blade of a small knife being pressured against the root of his teeth. On and on and on.

  Herne shook his head and cursed aloud and the gelding looked round at him questingly.

  Knowing that it was the last thing he should do, Herne nevertheless pushed his index finger inside his mouth and began to probe. There was a gap of one tooth close to the back on the right side, the upper row of teeth. He tried to remember at which fight it had been loosened, when it had eventually come out, but he wasn’t able. What was certain – more or less certain – was that it was the tooth in front of that gap which was causing him the trouble. He pressed the ball on his index finger against the uneven ridge at the bottom of the tooth and drew his breath in sharply. He gasped a little and played around some more. Every time he applied any sort of pressure around that one tooth it screamed at him from deep inside the gum. He got hold of it between finger and thumb, testing whether it was loose enough for him to pull himself. Apart from a slight wobble, there was no movement. Still Herne persisted with the idea that he should drag the offending tooth out of his mouth and so rid himself of the cause of his discomfort.

  But the tooth proved equally as stubborn: it refused to budge.

  Herne tried a different tack, convincing himself that it had been some hours since the pain had visited him and likely it wouldn’t return. It had almost certainly been the coldness of the water which had brought back the jabbing, frustrating ache. In a short while, minutes even, it would fade and disappear.

  He threw up the saddle flap and began to readjust the girth; something hovered across the corner of his eye distracting him from the task in hand and the pain in his mouth. A thin spiral of smoke was drifting away from the hills to the side, lightening and thinning as it caught in the wind. He stood for several seconds, watching, thinking. It meant little enough – some traveler cooking over a small fire, the keen smell of freshly roasted meat or maybe bacon. Nothing to concern him.

  Yet what came slowly down into the valley with the wind and the last vestiges of smoke was not the smell of food; it was a sound, indistinct and meagre, almost not there. The sound of a man’s voice.

  It wasn’t singing any song or calling any time.

  Herne finished tending to the saddle and slid his hoot into the stirrup. Refreshed, the gelding trotted in the direction of the pines and whatever lay beyond and out of sight. There was a faint track which wound its path between the contours of the land and horse and rider followed this, both the smell of the fire and the sound of the voice growing clearer as they went.

  Herne freed the hammer of his gun for the second time that journey and ducked under the low branch of an oak. He saw the fire immediately and the shape of a man alongside it, stretched out beneath a blanket. Three seconds elapsed while Herne waited for any further sign of movement, but all that happened was that the voice faded to nothing and then was silent. He touched the gelding with his spurs and it drew forward a trifle warily. The butt of the Colt was hard against Herne’s hand.

  The wood of the fire was crumbling away at the center, gray ash around the edges. It had been built some time back and not carefully; now it was dying.

  Herne dismounted and went over the ground towards the blanket. The man’s head partly showed over the torn hem. A lock of dark hair, a patch of graying skin, two eyes closed tight: no semblance of movement. Herne knelt down beside the man and lowered his head towards the blanket. Quietly and slowly, he lifted up the stained material and folded it back. Here and there it stuck fast and he had to pull it free. There was blood all across the man’s chest and it had dried to form a ridged coating of dark brown, tinged with red. Herne pressed his ear to the man’s heart and after a few seconds knew that there was still life.

  He worked rapidly, stoking up the fire, pouring water from his canteen into the enamel pan he carried in his saddlebags; he fetched out the small bottle of whiskey intended for the cold and lifted the man’s head off the ground. The liquor ran along the thin line of his lips, mostly dribbling down onto his unshaven chin. But the mouth did open fractionally and he saw the man’s neck move as he swallowed. Herne pulled open the front of the man’s shirt, careful not to disturb the scabs which had formed thickly over the wounds. He washed away some of the surplus blood, cutting round those pieces of wool which were stuck fast.

  As he was doing this, the man’s eyes flickered open, saw him, closed once more. The next time they stayed open longer by several seconds. On the third, Herne again lifted his head and poured a shot of whiskey down his throat. There was a bout of rough coughing and a few jolts of pain and then the man was conscious, awake.

  Herne moved over to the fire and started to make coffee in the pan.

  ‘Wh ... who are you?’

  Herne glanced round. ‘Saw your smoke, heard you call. Figured you might be in need of a hand. Seems you were.’

  The man said nothing for a while and Herne watched the coffee begin to bubble, then moved away from the center of the heat.

  ‘You with the law?’ The voice was low, rough-edged, often little more than a rasping whisper.

  Herne shook his head and gave a half laugh. ‘Not me.’

  ‘What are you, then?’

  ‘Ain’t nobody. Just ridin’ west.’

  ‘You ain’t with them ..?’ But the question vanished into a fit of racking coughs which jerked the man forward and opened one of the wounds in his chest. He swayed back and moaned and Herne thought that he was going to lose consciousness again. Instead he held on; maybe the question – or its answer – was too important to be lost.

  ‘You ain’t with them as bushwhacked me?’

  Herne poured some of the coffee into his blackened enamel mug. ‘If I was, I doubt that I’d be sitting here nice an’ easy. Looks like whoever it was jumped you didn’t have such peaceable intentions.’

  The man tried to smile and the effort looked to tear him across his shattered ribs. He winced and nodded and said: ‘Guess that’s so.’

  Herne moved closer. ‘You know who they was?’

  The man shook his head. It was getting colder, darker; clouds were shifting in a random pattern across the sky. When dusk came it would be sudden and already Herne’s mind was shifting to the question of where he was to pass the night.

  ‘What was they after?’ he asked. ‘Them as shot you up?’

  The man shook his head again but the effort pained him. ‘Don’t … rightly… know.’ He breathed long and uneasily. ‘Horse … gun. I don’t know.’

  Herne nodded. ‘Rest up.’ Then, ‘You want coffee?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘Shot more whiskey?’

  ‘Uh ...’

  The man’s head slumped back and his eyes closed. Herne went to him quickly but he was breathing audibly now, each single breath being drawn with difficulty, grating against his chest. From time to time, flecks of blood, bright red in the darkening light, sprayed from his nostrils in small clusters or dribbled from between his lips.

  There wa
s nothing Herne could do, other than ride on and leave him to die in peace. That or stay. There was never much doubting which it was going to be. He thought of himself in some doubtful future, wounded and alone, crawling off to nurse his wounds and die without anyone to talk to. Without anyone to bury him. Herne drank some of the bitter coffee before unsaddling the gelding and tethering it to the nearest tree. He brought his bedroll over to the opposite side of the fire and unfolded it, stretching it upon the ground. That done, he went off to gather enough wood to keep the fire in all night.

  There were biscuits and a piece of dried meat to accompany the coffee. He’d bought cheese back in town, already hard and culling, but thought to save that for the following day.

  He tried to make the man drink a little water, but only a few drops went down. His breathing had eased a little but was still difficult. Herne lay down as soon as darkness overtook them, determined that he would remain awake for as long as he could. Within ten minutes he was on his side, snoring softly. He woke a little over two hours later, the pain from his tooth driving into him unremittingly. Sitting up, he pressed the palm of his hand against his jaw and grimaced; he shook his head and swore. Only when he had taken a shot of whiskey the ache begin to diminish. It was then that he realized that the man lying at the far side of the fire was trying to speak.

  The words were indistinct and came with longer and longer gaps between them. Herne was forced to kneel beside the man and bend his head sideways so that his ear Was no more than inches above the man’s mouth.

  ‘Edwards ... Jamie Edwards ... prospectin’ off and on thirty years ... hills around ... made strike ... Fallen Lake ... couple of thousand dollars ... silver ore...’ He stopped to hawk up a mouthful of blood and phlegm which flopped down onto the already soiled blanket and began slowly to seep through. ‘Tell my wife ... Nadine ... Cimaron Falls ... wrote her a letter …’

  He strained to push himself up and wouldn’t stop until Herne set a hand to his back and lifted him forwards. Then he reached with great difficulty into the pocket of his pants, drawing out an envelope which almost at once drifted down between his fingers. Herne picked it up and saw the look of distrust in the man’s eyes as he did so.