Herne the Hunter 20 Read online

  Stanley was squatting back on his haunches clutching his wounded shoulder and sobbing almost silently.

  The preacher burst through the charred remains of the sacking like Armageddon. His white hair sprayed out like a halo about his head and the center of his face was a black hole that spewed forth hate and damnation. The shotgun waved and jabbed the air.

  ‘You murderer! You killed my son! May God forgive you, you killed my son!’

  The shotgun was still waving around as the voice boomed and echoed around the center of the old fort. Herne had his right arm straight from the elbow, the Colt quite steady, the hammer under the ball of his thumb. His index finger was smooth and taut against the trigger.

  ‘You’ll rot in hell for this, you heathen bastard! You’ll rot in hell!’

  ‘Throw down the gun, Kenton.’

  Herne’s voice was ice against the torrent of words.

  ‘You aren’t fit to live, you murderin’ swine. Killin’ innocent souls who never turned a hand against you!’

  ‘Throw down the shotgun!’

  The weapon was suddenly steady, its stock hard against the preacher’s black broadcloth coat.

  ‘Vengeance is mine!’

  Herne squeezed back on the trigger as he hurled himself beneath the roar of the shotgun. His elbows and knees hit the ground hard and for a moment he was winded, the breath driven out of him.

  The preacher was swaying backwards and forwards no more than two yards beyond him. Herne knew that he must have hit the man in the chest, but still he hadn’t gone down. His mouth opened and started to shout but after the first couple of words he choked on his own blood. Both barrels of the shotgun had been emptied over the top of Herne’s diving body and now the preacher lifted the sawn-off over his head and with his muscles straining, he hurled the weapon down.

  Herne rolled sideways and the stock of the shotgun splintered against the ground. He brought the Colt up as he rose onto one knee. The preacher’s white hair was wild about his head and his eyes were as full of hatred as his mouth was crammed with the taste of his own blood.

  ‘Vengeance is mine!’ he spluttered, the words half-drowning.

  The tall body stopped swaying and the preacher seemed to recognize Herne anew. He snarled and ran at him with his fists. Herne waited until he was no more than four feet away before pulling back against the trigger.

  The force of the impact swung Kenton round, the bullet breaking several ribs without being deflected from the heart.

  Stanley was on his feet now, watching open-mouthed, his own wound forgotten.

  The preacher stumbled several paces and then pitched forwards onto his face with nothing to break his fall. The force of the impact made it seem for a moment that the earth had shaken.

  Herne calmly fingered fresh cartridges into the chamber of the Colt, all the while watching the preacher’s inert body. When the gun was reloaded and he was certain the man was not going to move again of his own free will, Herne turned aside.

  He could just hear Cootie’s cracked, tight voice repeating over and over: ‘He ain’t lost none of it, not a bit. Ain’t lost a damned thing!’

  As Herne walked the short walk back to his horse he wasn’t at all sure that what old Cootie was saying was true. He figured that maybe he had lost something. Maybe some time in his past he would have killed a couple of folk, one more or less by chance, and he would’ve felt something.

  Anger. Pity. Pride, even.

  Something.

  Right then he didn’t feel a single, solitary damned thing.

  They watched him ride back out of the fort like they’d had a visitation from hell.

  ~*~

  Herne headed back up the northbound trail pleased that he was going to be riding with others for a spell, keeping company and enjoying it, not having to look about him all the while on account of there was someone likely to step out of the shadows with a gun in his hand. A gun or a bible. Or both.

  He was looking forward to Irma’s red-faced cooking and Ilsa’s broken-accented, gawky common-sense, Christiane’s squeeze box and Stephanie’s giggle and maybe most of all Mary Anne Marie with her hair in curlers and a thin, black cheroot over to one side of her mouth and her eyes tinged green with amusement or anger.

  He touched his spurs to the horse’s flanks and felt it quicken its pace beneath him. Off to the right the workings of a disused mine showed through the pines. Herne shook his head and his face broke into a smile: there were more kinds of gold than the sort a man dug out of the ground.

  The Herne the Hunter Series

  by John J. McLaglen

  White Death

  River of Blood

  The Black Widow

  Shadow of the Vulture

  Apache Squaw

  Death in Gold

  Death Rites

  Cross Draw

  Massacre!

  Vigilante!

  Silver Threads

  Sun Dance

  Billy the Kid

  Death School

  Till Death

  Geronimo!

  The Hanging

  Dying Ways

  Bloodline

  Hearts of Gold

  … and more to come!

  HERNE THE HUNTER 20

  HEARTS OF GOLD

  By John J. McLaglen

  First Published by Transworld Publishers in 1982

  Copyright © 1982, 2017 by John J. McLaglen

  First Smashwords Edition: July 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 Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

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