Shadow of the Vulture Read online

As his boots hit the grit of the drive, running hard, there was a sudden blaze of light as the massive front door was thrown open. Herne saw the sharp outline of a man holding a rifle. He raised his Colt and fired as he ran.

  The man fell backwards into the light. Almost, for a moment, as though he was wearing a halo. Herne jumped through the door and stared around. Apart from the sprawled figure of the dead man and his weapon the only thing he noticed immediately was an oil lamp hanging in the center of the hallway. Herne swiveled round at the sound of men racing towards him. Realizing that the light made him a prime target, he flattened himself fast, snapping off a shot as he did so. The men still came forward. Herne nestled behind the cover of the dead man’s body and rested his gun arm against it. Two shots. Two more dead bodies.

  Quickly he got up and slammed the heavy wooden door shut. Leaning back against it, he drew his breath in gasps through thinly parted lips. He reloaded his Colt and revolved the chamber. To the right of the hallway, stairs climbed up at an angle. On either side were closed doors.

  Herne cursed the sheer size of the house and wondered how many men waited in hiding behind its closed doors. Wondered behind which one of them he would discover Senator Nolan.

  He decided that the only thing to do was to start on the ground floor and work upwards, checking a room a time. In the kitchen he dragged a terrified Chinese by his pigtail out from behind a cupboard. But the little man was too numb with fear to help him in any way. Herne left him cringing on the stone floor and moved on.

  Dining rooms, guest rooms, bedrooms: all empty, save one which contained a silver haired cat. It jumped from off a silk bed cover and ran purring around his feet, seeking to be stroked.

  Herne nudged it away with the side of his boot. He didn’t have much time for cats. Especially aristocratic looking ones like that. Right now he had no time for anything.

  He hesitated outside a double-doored room on the second floor. Thought he heard a movement inside. Drew his gun and placed his left hand upon one of the door handles. Pulled it down towards himself and stepped in quickly.

  The room was lit by a low-burning lamp. The remains of a log fire smoldered in the hearth. In the center of the room a large chair was placed with its high back to the door. From the other side of the chair a narrow strand of cigar smoke curled upwards to the ceiling.

  Herne took several paces forward, gun at the ready.

  ‘Take it real easy. Get up out of that thing and face this way. And keep your hands high,’ he ordered.

  Almost immediately, the chair began to swivel round upon its base. Herne watched, fascinated. A figure spun slowly into view. A blanket draped across the knees. In the left hand a cigar that was three parts smoked down. Herne stared at the face. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right!

  ‘Don’t move, cowboy!’

  The voice had come from behind him. Herne froze.

  ‘Let that gun of yours drop to the floor.’

  Herne hesitated.

  ‘Drop it or I’ll blow a hole in you big enough to put a fist right through!’

  Herne’s fingers loosed their grip. The Colt dropped on to the carpet.

  ‘That’s good.’

  Herne watched as the man in the chair in front of him withdrew his right hand from underneath the blanket. In it was a cocked pistol. The smile that crept over the man’s face changed into a laugh which twisted the right side of his mouth.

  He stood up and flung the blanket down on to the floor. ‘Get his gun,’ he said to the man behind Herne. A hand-picked the weapon up from off the dark red carpet.

  ‘Surprised, cowboy?’

  Herne looked back at him but said nothing.

  ‘See, that ain’t my chair. It’s usually the old man who’s wrapped up under that blanket. But he’s long gone, leaving us here behind him. Waiting for any visitors who might come in out of the night.’ He looked arrogantly at Herne, his face contorting once more. ‘I’ll say this for you, though, cowboy, you were better than I thought you’d be. Heh, regular Billy the Kid, ain’t he?’

  His companion chuckled agreement.

  ‘Anyway. You’ll get what you wanted. You’ll get to see the old man right enough. We got orders. We’ll tie you up and keep you till he gets back. Even tend to that arm of yours. Make certain you don’t die of rabies or something like that. The old man wants to look at you. Only then will we be able to kill you. And after what you did tonight, that sure is going to be a pleasure.’

  Still Herne didn’t answer. He was busy weighing up his chances. Deciding that they didn’t look any too good. Two men held guns on him and they looked as though they knew only too well how to use them. It was their trade. Just like it was his. Only at that moment, they were holding all the aces...

  Something jogged in his brain, something...

  He heard, or thought he heard, a footstep on the stairs. Someone climbing up cautiously, carefully. Someone who didn’t want his presence to be known.

  ‘Damn it!’ Herne suddenly shouted out. ‘This arm of mine’s hurting like merry hell. Can’t you do something for it?’

  ‘Sure, cowboy,’ said the one who had taken him from behind. ‘Sure we can. Let’s see that poor old arm of yours.’

  He took a step towards Herne, then lashed out with the barrel of the gun he was holding. He ground it hard into the wound that the dog’s teeth had made, causing Herne to wince with the pain.

  He stepped back and laughed in Herne’s face. ‘How d’you like that, cowboy?’ he sneered.

  Herne held his left arm. Other than that he didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Someone else answered for him. Wayne Pardoe. Pardoe who had been making his way silently up the stairs and along the corridor to the open doorway.

  He answered by twice firing the gun he was holding into the jeering man’s back. Instantly, Herne dived at the second man, hands clawing for the pistol. Finding it. Feeling the cold metal against his hand. Forcing it back and up.

  A knee rammed itself upwards and Herne was forced to lose his grip. For a second the gun moved free. Then Herne threw a punch at the man’s jaw which connected with enough force to drive him over towards the wall.

  ‘Duck, Jed!’

  Pardoe’s shout was loud and clear. Herne didn’t hesitate. He ducked. The shot blasted out in the room and over by the fire the oil lamp flickered crazily. The man’s body was hammered back into the wall once more. Only this time the blow was lethal. Fingers found the wound and the right side of the face twisted upwards. He died with that lunatic attempt at a smile on his face.

  Wayne Pardoe walked over to Herne who was picking himself up from the carpet. ‘Thought I’d try to pay off the rest of my debt,’ he said.

  ‘Plumb glad you did,’ admitted Herne.

  ‘Besides, all those remarks about my prowess with a gun were beginning to hurt enough for me to believe they were true.’

  Herne looked at the Colt .44 in the gambler’s hand. ‘I’d only seen you with that little toy derringer of yours before. Never did see you handle a real gun.’

  ‘Trouble with these things,’ said Pardoe with a half-smile, ‘is they make unsightly bulges in your suits. Now I’m a man who sets great store by appearances…which reminds me, I believe this is your property.’

  He reached inside his coat and drew from his belt the bayonet blade. ‘I found this outside the gate and just followed the trail of dead bodies until I found you. What are you doing anyway? Staging another Battle of the Little Big Horn?’

  He laughed at his own joke. In the middle of the laugh a gunshot choked it short. Wayne Pardoe fell forward into Herne’s arms with an open-mouthed expression of wonder.

  Herne looked over the slumped head at the wounded man on the floor. The one they had taken for dead when two of the gambler’s shells had ploughed into his back.

  They had been wrong.

  Herne watched as the man attempted to shift the gun to take aim at himself. But the effort was too much. He saw the gun slip forward, then revolve around the man
’s finger as it stayed within the guard. His head banged against the floor with a thud that was dulled by the thickness of the carpet.

  Herne laid Pardoe down gently. Not that it mattered. If he’d dropped him from his full height, he would never have noticed. Herne closed his eyes for an instant. Pardoe had proved to be a good friend. Only he should have stuck to playing poker. It brought him better luck.

  A low moan returned Herne’s attention to the wounded man on the floor. Herne went over and knelt beside him. Pardoe’s bullets had both penetrated through to the front. The man didn’t have long to go …and there were questions that wanted answering.

  Herne propped up the guard’s head. ‘All right. Where is he? Where’s Nolan?’

  The man opened his mouth and coughed; a snake of blood slithered slowly over his lower lip and down on to his chin.

  ‘Where’s Nolan?’

  ‘I...I...I ain’t tellin’’

  Herne grabbed hold of him and shook him hard. ‘I ain’t bin through all this for another damned dead end. You tell me where he is or it’ll be the worse for you.’

  The fading eyes sought Herne’s. ‘It ain’t no good threatenin’ me. I know I’m gonna die anyhow.’

  Herne drew the bayonet from his boot. The blade that Wayne Pardoe had returned to him. He lifted up the man’s hand and held it in front of his face.

  ‘Open your eyes and look, damn you!’

  The man opened his eyes and watched horror struck as Herne cut off his little finger.

  ‘Christ! You bastard! You fuckin’ mad bastard!’ he croaked.

  Herne held the man’s hand tightly as the blood ran down over his own fingers, pulsing out of the open wound in tiny spurts.

  ‘You may not have long to live, but I reckon you got long enough for me to take off every finger on this hand. And then the other one. After that maybe we can find a few other things to cut away. You ain’t goin’ to like that.’

  ‘You...you wouldn’t...’

  Herne sliced away the next finger.

  The man stared wide-eyed, then turned his head to one side as vomit forced its way through his throat. He coughed and gagged and seemed about to choke. Herne hit him high on the back and he shrieked aloud. He spat a mouthful of blood out on to the already red carpet.

  ‘Where the fuck is Nolan?’

  Herne once more moved the razor sharp blade towards the man’s hand.

  ‘No! I’ll...tell...you.’

  And he did. Herne listened carefully, having to bend his head so low to catch the words that his face was splashed with the bubbles of red that burst from the dying man’s lips as he spoke.

  Then, when he had heard everything, he swiftly drew the bayonet across the man’s throat from ear to ear. Jed Herne wasn’t the sort of person who liked anyone to suffer unnecessarily.

  Chapter Ten

  It was not only during the nights that San Francisco was damp in January. In daylight hours too, when the white clouds of mist came rolling in from the bay, the clawing wetness sought out everything, everyone.

  So that, when it became too bad, those who could sought escape. And as he sought to escape from the vengeance of Herne the Hunter, in the same way Senator Nolan attempted to flee the atmosphere of the city.

  He bought his way out.

  Nolan had chartered a special railroad car to take him up into the hills that surrounded the city. There the air would be cleaner, calmer–more restful.

  Jed Herne rode along at a leisurely pace. The sky above was still overcast, but the temperature had risen considerably. He found it good to be in the saddle again, enjoying the rhythmic movement of the animal beneath him. Good to be on the trail again.

  Especially as he knew that this time there would be gold at the rainbow’s end. For above him, ahead of him, the senator’s train was slowly making its way. As long as Herne keep in sight of the rail track he was content. He would catch up with the senator soon enough. And then ...

  Money. Hell! thought Herne. Money was a kind of cancer that spread through the bloodlines of certain families and made them rotten. He remembered the Stanwyck woman and her two sons, hidden away in a place that was built like a fortress. Built out of money. Innocent from the outside but rotten inside.

  Like opening up a crisp green apple and finding its core diseased, crawling with maggots. Herne shuddered.

  Trains. It had all begun with a train. A specially chartered train–the one that the senator’s son had hired to carry himself and several ill-assorted companions on a gambling jaunt across country. No chance of an interruption that way; they could drink and play cards to their hearts’ content. Nolan had the money that made it possible, so why not? Trains and money.

  Herne visualized the over-confident, spoiled face of Josiah Nolan. Imagined him rubbing his well-manicured hands together with anticipation, a puffy smile on his thin, mean-looking lips. In anticipation of making a killing!

  And so he had. Though almost certainly not the one he had had in mind. Not even one. Two. Two women. One of them Jed’s. He looked up at the vast grayness of the sky as it stretched from one distant horizon to the other. In all of that space he could see nothing but the figure of a young woman wearing her best dress. A dress that was beginning to spread round her belly with the first visible signs of pregnancy. She had only worn it once, that green velvet dress. For a special occasion.

  Like hanging herself when she knew that she could not hope to live with the memory of what had happened to her.

  She had died before Jed had woken and found her. Her memory had not. It lived on inside Herne himself. Lived and drove him. Onwards. Upwards.

  Herne shook his head in an attempt to dispel his sudden gloom. This time no specter hovered in the sky. Just gray clouds. And away from him stretched the black lines of the railroad track.

  He clicked gently to his horse and touched her flanks with his spurs.

  ‘Come on, now. We’ve got things to do. Let’s climb a little.’

  An hour later Herne saw the train. There were only two cars being pulled behind the engine. He urged his mount harder, moving in closer with every pace.

  Soon he could distinguish the rear car. The blinds were pulled down against the light–such as there was. Apparently,

  Senator Nolan chose to spend most of his time in comparative darkness. Chose to...or had to.

  Herne had found that out from the guard back at the house in San Francisco before he had killed him. Also, that the senator would be accompanied in the blacked-out carriage by his two top bodyguards. Men to whom Nolan paid a small fortune. For theirs was the final responsibility.

  He had not learnt much about them. Only their names: Neilson and Lamont. And the fact that Lamont was a negro. The dying man had thought that would interest Herne, but Jed couldn’t see why.

  When you were going to kill a man, what the hell did the color of his skin matter?

  There was a point up ahead of him where the track wound itself alongside a small stream. Both water and rail moved in close to a fairly steep bluff. Herne reined in and looked thoughtful; then he pushed his horse back into motion. Wheeling round to the east. Fast.

  Now he knew what he should do.

  He left the animal tucked out of sight over the incline, tying her to the overhanging branch of a tree. Then he hurried down the side of the bluff, leaning back against it so as not to lose his balance. Boots digging into the hard ground to find footing. Hands now steadying, now pushing him on his descent.

  Finally he slithered to a halt at a point that was almost directly above where the train would pass. Below him, the stream coursed strongly, the recent rain having nearly swollen it over its banks.

  All around, the landscape was bleak, dead-looking.

  Into this deadness, moved the train. The steam that emerged darkly from its engine funnel soon became one with the sky.

  Train of death.

  Herne steadied himself and checked quickly that the leather tag was pulled up from the back of his holster
over the hammer of his gun. He didn’t want that to shake free when he dropped downwards.

  He held himself back against the sloping ground as the engine passed below him. The driver and his fireman were busy with their tasks. Neither looked up. After all, on such a drab day, what could there possibly be to look at?

  Herne pushed himself forward, timing his jump so that he would miss the tender and land on top of the first, hopefully empty, car. He tensed himself and then relaxed as the jolt of the impact thrust up through his legs.

  He immediately flattened himself on top of the car. Looked round anxiously towards the engine. No one moved. The sound must have been lost in the noise from the moving train. He waited a few moments longer. Partly to get his breath back. Partly for the terrain to level out. He didn’t want the rear car to go rolling back downhill. Not with him on it, he didn’t.

  Ready now, Herne crawled along to the end of the carriage and climbed down off the roof. The door that led into the senator’s car was firmly closed. Herne bent down and lowered both of his arms underneath the iron coupling hook which held the carriages together.

  The occasional bumping of the wheels on the somewhat uneven track did not make his task easier. It was some time before he was able to drag the hook clear of its linkage. He knew that his forearms would be bruised and there was a troubling ache from the injured left arm where the dog had savaged it.

  Herne jumped free from the still moving section and leapt upon the almost stationary carriage. His right hand loosed the tag from the hammer of his Colt; the left went to the handle of the door. Tested it. It did not budge more than a fraction of an inch. And it would not be long before those inside realized that something had gone wrong. That they had stopped moving.

  Which was fine. Because it meant that sooner or later one of those who were within the darkened car would have to look out and see what had happened. A window would open. Or a door.

  Herne ran on to the grass at the side of the track, putting some space between himself and the carriage.

  Herne crouched down and surveyed the drawn blinds. He could only see one side, of course, with a good view of the observation platform at the back and a partial view of the shorter section that led away from the front end.