River of Blood Read online

  ‘And now you’re going to pay for our meal and go looking for this man, Harvey. Maybe risk your life all over again?’

  Herne said, ‘Don’t know about that somehow. Sure, I’m going to find him. But there’s a feeling inside me that says it ain’t going to be too dangerous.’

  Becky looked at him seriously and slipped her small hand over his.

  ‘I hope that’s so, Jed, I surely do.’

  Herne allowed her hand to rest there for a moment, then he stood up, adjusted his gun belt.

  ‘I’ll meet you back at the hotel.’

  The first man Herne asked about Larry Harvey knew him well enough for a smile to come to his face when he was asked where Harvey could be found.

  ‘Well, friend, that’s depends how closely you intend looking.’

  ‘Close as I need to,’ was Herne’s reply.

  The man smiled again. It was a good day for smiling.

  ‘Tell you what you do then. Head down Main Street till you come to the General Store. E. A. Harding’s General Store, that is. Ask for a man named Bennett. He’s Harvey’s partner. Leastaways, he was ’til pretty recent. Tell him what you want and ask him if he can spare the time to ride out to the mill with you.’

  Herne thanked the man and walked down to the Store.

  Bennett was a smartly dressed man of about fifty, with two protruding front teeth and an apron over his dark waistcoat and trousers.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Certainly. I’ll be only too happy to ride up to the mill. It’s only a mile or so north of town.’

  Bennett removed his apron and went round to the back of the shop, returning with his jacket over one arm. He ushered Herne out through the front of the shop and climbed up into a small rig. Herne mounted his horse and followed the man along the main street.

  When they arrived at the mill, Bennett climbed down carefully and tied the reins of the rig to the hitching pole. Herne hitched his mount also and followed his guide into the Ready for whatever trouble might arise, he loosened the fingers of his right hand ready and eased the Colt up and down inside its holster a few times.

  He went into the central section of the mill and saw that Bennett was standing by the white grinding stones which were used for making the flour. Huge things they were, capable of milling a great amount of grain in a short space of time.

  ‘Is Harvey here?’ Herne asked.

  Bennett looked at him.

  ‘Well, sir, in a way he is and in a way he isn’t.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ snapped Herne, suspecting that he was wasting his time.

  Bennett raised his hands aloft as though he was about to preach a sermon. ‘Be patient, sir, I will reveal all. All that I can. You see, our worthy miller, while being an estimable man in many ways. . . ’

  Herne grunted with disbelief.

  ‘ . . . did used to go on occasional drunken trips around our city, travelling from saloon to saloon with increased unsteadiness. Now, only two days ago, the gentleman in question staggered back to the mill at the end of one such evening and ·- sad to relate — decided to take a closer look at these very millstones you see before you.’

  Bennett pointed dramatically downwards. He should stop working in a shop, thought Herne, and get a job writing books. A born storyteller.

  ‘Alas,’ said Bennett with the gloomiest of voices, ‘poor Harvey must have fallen head first into his own works. The stones crushed him to death. It was very difficult to find anything to put into his coffin.’

  Herne began to grin, then to smile, then to laugh.

  Bennett peered at him with curiosity. ‘How strange, sir. I thought the gentleman was a friend of yours.’

  Herne shook his head, still chuckling. ‘No friend of mine. Only a man due vengeance.’ He looked quickly upwards, then back down again at the stones. ‘The mills of God may grind slow, but they sure grind small.’

  An exciting preview of the next book in the Herne the Hunter series, The Black Widow, coming soon

  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 centre 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 goi
ng around.’

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

  ‘Take care, brother. Cross me and you’l1 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 you, 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, tom from a monastery in Bavaria. She stood with her back to him, staring out at the grey 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 centre 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 walls 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 and 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?’