The Black Widow

  Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

  Whitey was on him like a lean panther, swinging the pistol like a club at the back of the boy’s head, catching him a solid blow. The sentry crumpled to his hands and knees, mewing in pain, barely conscious. As Jed kicked the outer door shut, shooting the main bolt across, he heard the sickening crack, like a ripe apple being trodden underfoot, as Whitey swung his gun a second time, smashing the top of the guard’s skull to a bloody pulp. Ignoring the body, that lay still twitching at his feet, the albino bent and wiped blood and matted hair from the foresight of his Colt on the fancy waistcoat, adding a macabre layer to the decorations. “Leaves us three,” he said ...

  THE BLACK WIDOW

  First Published by Corgi Books in 1977

  Copyright © 1977 by John J. McLaglen

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: November 2012

  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. If you’re reading the book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  Cover image © 2012 by Westworld Designs

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with Elizabeth James.

  My oh my how time does fly. This is for John Harvey who is as good a writer as he is a friend. Remember to keep your eyes on the Omaha Rainbow.

  Chapter One

  The spider was small. Its size quite out of proportion to its ability to deal a swift and agonizing death.

  It squatted malevolently in the corner of the glass box, the light from the oil lamps glittering off its glossy black skin. It looked swollen, sitting at the center of its own skeletal legs. As it moved, in a sudden and uncertain run to one corner, it was possible to see the red markings on its underbelly that identified it beyond all doubt as the black widow.

  ‘Remember me when I am gone away,

  Gone far away into the silent land;’

  The boys paused at their play, hearing the husky voice of their mother from the withdrawing room across the hall from them. Reading the beautiful love sonnet of Christina Rossetti. Since the peculiar death of their father two years ago, Ruth Stanwyck had taken more and more to reading alone in the vast book-lined room.

  Mark sniggered. An obscene little noise that barely disturbed the air with its ripple. ‘Mama is feeling lonely again, Luke.'

  His twin brother, born just eighteen minutes after him, also looked up, and smiled. His smile was as pale as his clothes. As smooth as white silk. ‘Perhaps she will be taking another of her trips to San Francisco.’

  Again the giggle. ‘Good. If she does, my dear brother, then we can go on a trip ourselves.’

  Luke shook his head, poking casually at the crouching spider. ‘Remember what happened last time. In March.’

  ‘But it was such sport. The lonely lady near Tucson, and her friendly and hospitable neighbor. I enjoyed them so much, Luke.’

  This time it was Luke who laughed, the sudden noise bringing a pause to his mother’s reading. He moved, the light off his totally white clothes dazzling amid the shadows of the vaulted room.

  ‘Your tastes in pleasure are so close to mine, brother, and yet so very far apart.’

  Again he prodded at the spider with the needle-sharp tip of the stiletto he always carried. Mark stood away from the table, pouting at his brother.

  ‘At least my pleasures come from sticking things into other people and not from sticking things into myself.’

  There was the soft rustle of silk as Luke straightened up, his eyes narrowing. ‘You always were squeamish. About yourself. Yet I have never seen you concern yourself with the sufferings of others.’

  Their mother heard them beginning their ceaseless circular bickering and sighed, stopping reading the sonnet two lines short of the end. The rambling mansion that her late husband had built for them, high in the fastness of the Sierras, was becoming a prison. Much as she loved the house, with its treasure-trove of antiques culled from all over Europe and Asia, and much as she loved her twin sons, there were times when the house, with its dozen armed guards permanently on duty, seemed more like a jail.

  Mark and Luke heard her stop reading and paused in their argument. Although their mother was capable of stifling affection, she was also capable of taking the riding-crop from the wall. The whip with the handle of chased Spanish silver and the triple-plaited thongs. Although they were only two weeks short of their joint twenty-first birthday, Ruth would not hesitate to take them into her ornate bedroom with its brocaded velvet hangings cutting off the ranging views. To strip them and order them to bend across the four-poster and lash them in a fury of anger, until the blood flowed from their torn flanks.

  And afterwards she would hold them close and touch them where it hurt. Taking away the pain and bringing a luxuriant, somnolent pleasure. A pleasure that both boys found so intense that it made the punishment almost worthwhile.

  Almost, but not quite.

  They waited for the sound of her high-button boots clicking across the marble hallway towards them, but there was silence. Luke fitfully poked again at the black widow spider, neatly slicing off one of its legs, so that it scampered away from the corner, dragging its body askew, then waiting, looking up at the boys, its body swollen with venom.

  ‘Cut off another, Luke. See how long it can keep going around.’

  ‘Let’s see you pick it up out of the box and I will. Go on.’

  ‘Take care, brother. Cross me and you’ll not sleep easy for wondering what you might find between your sheets.’

  ‘Worry more about what you might find between your ribs, Mark.’

  ‘Stop that at once!’

  The voice was as keen as the east wind that tore at the gables of the house. Involved in their perpetual feud, the brothers had missed the sound of their mother’s approach. With a squeal of fright as shrill as a girl’s, Mark spun round, and his hand caught the edge of the glass box. Sending it spinning to shatter on the floor, right at his mother’s feet. Sending its glossy black occupant tumbling out near the edge of the Persian carpet.

  Tightly corseted in black satin, a jet necklace at her pale throat, Ruth Stanwyck looked down at the spider with no more concern than if it had been a botanical specimen.

  Mark’s hand went to his mouth, while Luke took a careful step backwards, brushing a small patch of dust on the immaculate sleeve of his white suit.

  ‘Take care, Mama,’ whispered Mark, between his bitten fingers.

  ‘This creature is yours?’

  Neither twin spoke. Neither Mark nor Luke would risk crossing their mother when she was close to one of her tempers. Both kept their eyes fixed on the intricate pattern of the rug, not wanting to meet Ruth’s gaze. Her eyes, as heavy-lidded as a hooded falcon, would flash with startling fire if they crossed her.

  ‘I asked a question, did I not, Mark?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘And I do not believe that I heard either of you reply to it, did I, Luke?’

  ‘No, Mama.’

  Seemingly ignored, the spider was painfully crawling nearer and nearer to the trailing hem of the long black dress.

  ‘Very well. Since the creature seemingly belongs to neither of y
ou, then I shall dispose of it. There!’

  Without even looking down, Ruth Stanwyck lifted her foot and brought it down on the crippled creature, squashing it into a tiny ball of poison on the polished mahogany floor with the toe of her boot.

  Mark opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it.

  ‘Yes, Mark?’ Quick and alert as ever, their mother had caught the slight movement of the lips.

  ‘Nothing, Mama.’

  Luke interrupted, quietly slipping his knife back into its oiled deerskin sheath behind the right hip. ‘Mama?’

  ‘Yes, Luke.’

  ‘Mark was asking if it might be possible for us to come with you next time you travel to the coast?’

  His mother didn’t answer, walking past him to the vaulted window, with its inset panel of fourteenth century stained glass, torn from a monastery in Bavaria. She stood with her back to him, staring out at the gray stones of the mountains, unblinking as the wind dashed a flurry of sleet against the glass.

  Although she was nearly forty, Ruth Stanwyck was a fine figure of a woman, her body still ripe and promising beneath that tight black dress. And her hair hung in a cluster of tight blonde ringlets, framing her face and those marvelous eyes. The only touch of color was a massive ruby set at the center of the buckle of her belt. Beyond that touch of deep red, she presented a frighteningly somber figure encased in gleaming black satin.

  She behaved as though she hadn’t heard the question, turning back to look into the room, at the splash of splintered glass by the table, and her twin sons standing each side. Mark her first-born, nervously picking at a ragged piece of torn skin on his knuckles. And Luke immaculate, as always, in white. But she knew Luke well. There was already the faintest twitching of his cheek below the right eye. She glanced at the onyx clock on the mantelshelf. It was nearly five. She would make him wait a while longer for his … ‘treatment’. In another hour he would begin to sweat. By dinner he would be willing to crawl on his belly for that precious half-spoonful of white powder that she kept locked in the iron safe in her boudoir.

  Ruth smiled.

  ‘My dearest boys. Outside the chill of winter is settling its claws into our lovely estate. Across that blue lake, the fall will soon be frozen into a pinnacle of ice. Then the lake will freeze. The valley will be cut off for a couple of months. All this will happen within the next two or three weeks. Anyone outside the house after that date will not be able to get back. Nor will anyone within be able to get out. It has always been so and it will always be so.’

  It was true. Mark and Luke had lived in the house for most of their lives, only able to taste the heady air of freedom for an occasional week at a time.

  ‘That alone would make a request for permission to leave for San Francisco utterly absurd, would it not?’

  They both nodded. There was a knock at the door and their eyes flicked towards the hall with a flash of interest. An interest that dulled the moment they saw it was only their English butler, Jackson.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs. Bellamy wishes to know when you require dinner serving, madam?’

  ‘Is it the salmon as I ordered?’

  ‘It is, madam.’

  ‘Then we will eat at eight.’ She watched Luke, finding a perverse pleasure in the look of dismay that crossed his face. ‘Don’t worry, my dearest boy. I shall ensure that you have your medicine before we eat.’ The butler turned to leave the room, as silently as he had entered. ‘Oh, Jackson?’

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘I was just talking to my sons about the approaching winter. We have in all the provisions that we need, do we not?’

  ‘Indeed we do, madam. Will there be anything else?’

  ‘No. You may go.’

  After the door whispered shut, she turned again to her sons, neither of whom had moved since she entered the room.

  ‘Mark, my sweet boy. And darling Luke. I would rather lose my life than have you hazard yourselves outside.’

  ‘Mama. We can look after ourselves. We’ve been out before and we got back safe.’

  She smiled gently. ‘Yes, Mark. The last time you went out was March of this year of grace eighteen hundred and eighty-two. And you joined Senator Nolan’s son and some of his so-called friends on that wretched train.’

  ‘But, Mama we...’

  ‘Luke! Hold your tongue. Children should be seen and not heard. If you interrupt me again I think we may have dinner late. And I recall that you are never in the best of appetite if your medicine is much delayed.’

  Luke’s face went white behind its usual pallor, giving him the bizarre appearance of a corpse dressed for a wedding. But he kept silent.

  ‘Very well. That adventure of yours up near Tucson, and don’t look so surprised that I mention it, Mark! That adventure has proved expensive. I hear from a friend on the coast that the husband of the slut who chose to end her slatternly existence after you had favored her is making a nuisance of himself.’

  Mark and Luke exchanged glances. Since March and their safe return, neither of them had left the house, perched on the narrow snaking trail not far from the township of Lone Pine. So the bitch’s husband was riding the vengeance trail, was he? That might prove interesting if he decided to tangle with the Stanwyck family.

  ‘There were others, Mama.’

  ‘And they are all dead, Mark.’

  In the silence, the clock chimed the quarter hour, its silver note echoing on and on.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, Luke. Your hearing was always at its most keen at this time of the evening. I wonder why? Yes, I hear that this gunman has slaughtered them all. All but you two, of course. And now the dear Senator has, I understand, arranged that this person will soon be able to join his harlot wife, and is having vigilantes track him down. So that we will remain here until the winter has eased. By then it will once again be quite safe, and you will both be of the majority, and I will permit you to take short vacations beyond the valley.’

  Luke began to twitch, his face moving uncontrollably. Great gobbets of tears coursed down his cheeks, spotting over his virginal shirt and jacket. His shoulders heaved and he reached out blindly towards his mother. She took a step forwards and took him to her, clasping him in her arms, nestling his head on her bosom.

  ‘There, there. My wee baby Luke. Don’t you worry. Mama will give you your nice medicine, and then we’ll eat, and maybe I’ll let you sleep in Mama’s bed tonight so you can cuddle up and be warm.’

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘Now, Mark. I allowed you to share my bed only a few days ago. Today is, let me see, Tuesday, October tenth. My goodness! Exactly fourteen days to your birthdays. I have arranged such a lovely surprise for you both. And nothing will spoil that. Don’t either of you worry any more about what’s outside Mount Abora here.’

  Mark turned away from his crying twin and gazed out of the window across the valley, sealed in by high walk of rock, and covered in a scattering of tall pines, with the tips of the massive sequoias just visible through the settling gloom of the evening to the west.

  ‘It’s snowing, Mama. If it settles tomorrow, perhaps we could go out with a few of the men and try out the new toboggan you bought us in the city.’

  Ruth Stanwyck smiled. ‘Of course, Mark. Have you thought of a nice name for the sled?’

  The boy simpered. ‘I had thought, Mama, if you don’t mind the name, that I could call it after a flower.’

  ‘How sweet, darling boy. What about a name like “Rosebud”? That’s a lovely name.’

  ‘No, Mama. That’s too prickly. And Rosebud would be a silly name for a sled. I shall call it “Speedwell”. I saw the name in one of Father’s old books in the library.’

  ‘That’s lovely! A most appropriate name. But do take care and make sure the men have their guns.’

  Mark reached to the side and pulled on the long hanging cord of maroon silk, with its tassel of gold thread. Smooth and silent, the drapes swung across, cutting off the evening an
d the snow.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mama. I hardly think this dreadful avenging angel will be spreading his wings up here at this time of year. They would become covered in icicles and he would fall from the sky.’

  ‘Like Lucifer fell as he was cast down from heaven,’ said Ruth, helping Luke from the room, letting him lean heavily on her shoulder, his white clothes a stunning contrast with her shiny black dress. She paused at the door to wait for Mark to catch up with them. ‘But I’m sure that you’re right, dear boy. Hardly weather for camping out, is it? Nice for the sled tomorrow if the sun shines through. Speedwell. Yes, but I still think Rosebud would be a nicer name. Don’t you?’

  The oak door closed behind them and cut off Mark’s reply. Outside, the snow continued to fall across the valley.

  As it fell on the crenellated towers of Mount Abora, so it fell all along the spine of the Sierras. Dappling the trees and the peaks, falling silently in the streams and rivers of Yosemite. Coating the mighty trees of the mountains.

  Freezing.

  ‘Jed. I’m freezing!’

  ‘You and me both, Becky. I guess it’s so long since I been up in the tops when the frosts came that I clean forgot just how damned keen it bites. Here. I’ll put a few more pieces of wood on the fire. Daren’t let it blaze up too much.’ He squinted through the drifting whiteness across the valley, to where they could just see tiny pinpoints of light. ‘I guess we’re less’n a mile from Mount Abora.’

  ‘And the end of the killing,’ said Becky flatly, trying to cut up slices of jerky with Herne’s belt-knife. The honed Civil War bayonet remained safely in his boot. That wasn’t for meat, only for fighting.

  ‘Yes.’

  Herne let his mind wander back in the silence, his eyes fixed on the tumbling flames of the small fire, the driven flakes falling on the embers with the faintest hiss.

  Seven men had taken part in the brutal rape of his wife back in March. The rape that had culminated in the murder of his neighbor, Rachel. The mother of fifteen-year-old Rebecca,

  Five of the seven men had died on the vengeance trail, and there had been other deaths. Becky’s father had been gunned down in a saloon, and Jed Herne was now her only guardian. A load that weighed on him with increasing gravity. Much as he liked the girl, and that was as far as his mind would allow the thought to spread, she was still a dreadful liability in the game he played.