Billy the Kid (A Herne the Hunter Western Book 13) Page 2

  Herne looked at the man, gauging his chances of taking the two of them if it became necessary.

  ‘We ain’t got time to waste,’ Turner called, anxious.

  The kid grinned his one-sided grin. ‘It ain’t goin’ to take but a minute.’ He gripped the reins tight in his left hand and let the fingers of the right graze the butt of his pistol. ‘Now you call it. You’re either ridin’ with the posse or you’re a stinkin’ coward as ain’t worth lettin’ live!’

  Herne’s eyes flickered, his breath cut short, his hand blurred with speed and the big Colt came up from the greased holster in an arc that stopped and steadied only when the gun was level with the kid’s body.

  The kid jerked forwards in the saddle as if he’d been shot. His own gun was barely an inch out of the holster when he heard the triple click of Herne’s hammer just as clear as if it was the death roll of a rattler,

  ‘No!’

  The kid froze. Herne waited. Turner threw down his rifle and ran to the kid’s side, reaching up and grabbing the pistol from his now shaking fingers and hurling it across the street.

  Herne carefully released the hammer on the Colt .45 and stood tall; he slid the gun down into its holster and watched while Turner took hold of the reins of the kid’s horse and moved it round, leading it along the street to where the other posse riders were waiting, watching.

  The fair-haired man paused by his rifle, stooped to pick it up; he gave Herne a quick glance and a nod of thanks, then carried on his way.

  Herne sat down opposite the old timer and pushed his Stetson back on his head. Behind him now, the posse rode up the street towards the edge of town.

  ‘You ain’t lost it,’ the old man said after a while.

  Herne looked at him without answering.

  ‘Fool kid! Maybe you should have finished him then.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Works on a ranch south of here. That Turner’s pulled him out of more scrapes ’n prickles on a cactus. One day he ain’t goin’ to be around an’ that boy’s goin’ to face up to someone like you an’ be dead.’

  Herne nodded: ‘Maybe.’ He was thinking about another time, another place, another kid.

  ‘You want to carry on with the game?’

  ‘Sure. In a while. Let’s get a beer first, huh?’

  ‘Fine.’ The old timer stared at him. ‘Let’s have a beer an’ talk. I figure you got some stories you could tell.’

  Herne pushed his chair back and nodded, heading for the bar. Ordinarily he wasn’t a man to go on about the past, his past, but right now his mind was heading back a little more than six years. To Lincoln County, to a hot dusty day when the dirt had near choked him as he’d ridden south towards the Rio Feliz …

  Chapter Two

  Herne had stayed in Lincoln less than an hour but that had been enough to feel the tension on which the town seemed to live. Each time a man stepped through a door or turned the corner of a street, there was the possibility of sudden action, of a gun pointing at him from cover, the sharp crack and the dive to the hard ground. In the saloon and the dining-rooms, Herne had felt men staring at him, weighing him up, asking themselves: Who is he? Whose side is he on?

  Twice, men came up to him and asked him outright: you with Riley or Chisum? You with Dolan or McSween? Herne had looked at each of them, taken his time before answering that he wasn’t with anyone. The first had shaken his head in disbelief and stepped away cautiously, never taking his eyes from Herne’s gun belt. The second had grinned and nodded, saying–‘You will be. You will be.’

  It hadn’t been difficult to find out what was going on; anyone and everyone would talk about it at the drop of a hat.

  Two Irishmen, Riley and Dolan, had managed to get the government beef contracts for the area all sewed up in their favor, squeezing out some of the other big ranchers such as John Chisum and John Henry Tunstall. What made it worse, Chisum and Tunstall strongly suspected that the Irishmen were partly fulfilling their contracts with rustled beef.

  Riley and Dolan had what law there was in Lincoln County tied up to work in their favor, so the rustling charges were never made to stick. Things carried on a while with both sides sniping at each other until one day a deputy working for the Irishmen put a bullet through John Henry Tunstall’s head.

  That was when all hell bust loose.

  A lawyer named Alexander McSween started hiring on men to fight for Chisum and his allies and the sniping broke into a small-scale war. Everyone took sides and those who didn’t were likely to get shot both ways for just standing in the middle doing nothing.

  Herne heard the story twice, once from each side, and he thought that Chisum and McSween smelt slightly sweeter, though he guessed there wasn’t much in it. Of course, he could simply have ridden through and kept out of things, but McSween was hiring on and if he didn’t earn a living by the Colt .45 that hung at his hip, how was he going to earn it?

  He surely wasn’t about to start punching cattle.

  So he loaded up with supplies, being careful to choose the Chisum rather than the Riley store; he bought a few boxes of ammunition for his Colt and for the long-barreled Sharps he carried in a bucket holster by his saddle. That done, he collected his horse from the livery stable where it had been getting fed and watered and brushed down, then set out for the Tunstall ranch. Which was how it was still known, although Tunstall didn’t live there–or anywhere–anymore.

  Dust clouded him as he rode, clogging his nostrils and the corners of his eyes; he spat and swallowed and spat some more, pulling a bandana from one of his saddle bags and tying it over the lower half of his face. Lank, dark hair hung raggedly down to his shoulders from under the uneven brim of his Stetson. The arms and back of his shirt were dark and sticky with sweat. He hoped he wasn’t taking that ride for nothing.

  The horse could smell the river by the time the buildings of the ranch came into sight. A low, long ranchhouse with several smaller buildings making two sides of a square. To the left a couple of corrals and beyond those a windmill, its sails turning easily in the breeze. As Herne approached, men came out of the bunkhouse and the barn, hands moving towards their weapons.

  A large, bald man sat on the corral fence with a double-barreled Remington shotgun across his legs and a smile on his face that said: you make a wrong move and I’m going to enjoy blasting you out of your saddle and all the way to hell with this beauty.

  Herne glanced up at him and nodded, passing between a couple of hands with rifles at their waists, staring up at him with barely concealed hostility.

  Herne reined in forty yards from the ranch house and looped the reins round the pommel of his saddle.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’

  A silence, then: ‘Depends what you want?’

  ‘I had the message you was hirin’ on.’

  A pause, then a short, choked laugh.

  ‘You punch cattle, mister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Break broncs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe he wants to be a Little Mary,’ laughed the bald man with the shotgun.

  Herne turned slowly in his saddle, mouth pulled into a tight, straight line. ‘Ain’t there no one here but you jackasses?’

  One of the rifles shifted up as a shell was levered into the chamber. Herne’s right hand moved to cover the butt of the Colt at his hip.

  ‘Company?’

  The door to the bunk house swung open and a slight, smiling figure stepped into the bright sunlight, squinting up his eyes against the light. He was young, slim-hipped as any girl. His face had a nose that was too broad, a jaw that was too long and, alive now as they stared up at Herne, bright eyes that were set too far apart. His mouth was too small for the rest of his face and it, too, was like a girl’s.

  He was wearing a black shirt and black pants, a black leather gunbelt with a pistol strapped and tied below his right hip. He leaned carelessly against the edge of the door and traced a pattern in the dust with the toe of his
boot.

  ‘What’s your name, stranger?’ He spoke without looking at Herne, staring down instead at the star shape he’d made in the dirt.

  ‘Herne. Jed Herne.’

  One of the men whistled. ‘Herne the Hunter?’

  Herne glanced over at him and nodded. ‘That’s what some folk say.’

  The man, medium build, curly-haired and scarce past twenty, whistled again and looked afresh at the man in the saddle.

  The black figure in the doorway stepped a couple of paces forward into the sunlight, treading out the pattern he’d drawn. ‘That’s some fancy name.’

  ‘I don’t call it,’ replied Herne. ‘Just answer to it.’

  The face twisted into a laugh, one side of the small mouth turning up at the corner. Herne tried to figure out how old he was and guessed him to be around eighteen or nineteen years. He watched the mouth move again, watched the wide-set eyes flicker and something about the face made him shudder inside: something he couldn’t have put a name to but felt strongly all the same.

  ‘You got a name?’ Herne asked him,

  The youngster nodded his head, angled against his shoulder. ‘Uh-huh, William Bonney at your service.’ And he bent his body over his arm in a mock bow.

  Several of the men guffawed and the sudden change of expression on Bonney’s face cut them short abruptly.

  ‘Some folk call me different. Some call me Billy the Kid.’

  Herne’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard about the Kid and what he’d heard he hadn’t liked. Stories about a youngster with a wild, unpredictable temper, someone who loved to use his gun and who would kill for the sheer enjoyment of it. Even given the usual exaggeration, Herne reckoned from the face that now looked up at him, there was more than a little truth in what he’d been told.

  ‘Anyone can take a name,’ said Billy. ‘All you have to do is say it an’ wait for someone to prove you wrong.’

  Herne felt the tension rising through the other men. ‘I said it, you goin’ to make me prove it?’

  Billy set his head to the other side and smiled. He waved out his left hand and looked to overbalance as he took a step sideways. ‘Well, now, I didn’t …’

  His right hand went for his gun, thin fingers grasping the butt. Herne saw the sudden move and covered it, his own hand tight about the handle of his Colt and beginning to draw it from the holster.

  ‘Hey, now!’ Billy’s hand froze and he grinned. ‘It don’t have to be that way, does it?’

  His eyes weren’t looking at Herne’s face but at the Colt that was emerging from the holster and Herne wondered whether the Kid would have stopped if his own draw had not been as fast.

  ‘Mike,’ Billy called to one of the men, ‘let’s have us a little shootin’ practice.’

  ‘Like the other day?’ asked a lean man with a drooping moustache.

  ‘Like the other day.’ Billy confirmed.

  Mike headed for the barn, while the others put up their weapons and started to walk over towards the far side of the corral. Herne and the Kid followed behind, keeping square of each other, neither willing to let his back present any kind of target.

  The cans were set out on the fence top, spaced a half dozen feet apart. Six of them. The men spread round in a semi-circle, leaving Billy and Herne in the middle. Herne dismounted, letting one of the men take the reins of his horse and lead it away.

  ‘We face away from them cans and wait for a signal,’ Billy explained, his eyes never still. ‘Then draw and turn, hit as many as you can as fast as you can. That’s all.’

  Herne nodded and stepped to the side, watching the Kid as he turned so that his back was to the fence. The heavy black leather of the gun belt seemed almost too much for his size as he crouched slightly forward, right arm crooked.

  Across from him, the bald man put two fingers in his mouth and held his breath. Everyone watched Billy, waiting.

  At the first sound of the shrill whistle, the Kid’s hand moved for his gun almost faster than the eye could follow. A blur of white at the end of the black-shirt sleeved arm and the slim hips swiveling, the face another, broader white blur. The Kid’s right boot pushed hard into the packed earth as his thumb brought back the hammer. The first shot crashed out and the first can on the line seemed to leap into the air within the identical moment. There was a second shot that blended into the sound of the first and for an instant, Herne, watching the fence post, thought Billy had missed.

  But the third can was sailing away, spinning over and over and then the Kid’s third shot took the last can and Herne knew they were getting something a little fancier than they’d reckoned on. The Colt swung back and sent the remaining three cans winging off the fence, three, two, one in reverse order.

  Billy’s face relaxed into a lopsided smile. The wide eyes fixed on Herne and the thin mouth creased an uneven line across the broad face. Billy rolled the gun twice over his index finger and slipped it back down into his holster.

  ‘I should reckon anythin’ Billy the Kid can do,’ he said, grinning, ‘Herne the Hunter should be able to do, too.’

  Herne nodded and flexed the fingers of his right hand. ‘I guess you’re right at that.’

  The Kid pointed. ‘Mike, let’s have some more cans up there.’

  The men talked as they were being set in place; Billy watched Herne shift into position, his boots standing in the same marks that Billy had made in the dirt, obliterating them. Mike set the final can in place and moved quickly away. Herne pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, body held taut and still in its gunfighter’s crouch, waiting for the whistle that would be the signal to turn. His hand was arched above the butt of the Colt, his elbow angled away from his body, his ...

  The whistle cut the air sooner than he’d expected and he swiveled and turned, fingers searching for the smooth wooden butt and finding it the way it always was. Hand and weapon fitting together like a machine, fitting and moving. The hammer came back as Herne’s left arm moved out to give his body balance; before the turning circle stilled he’d fired once, twice, the first pair of cans sailing up and over. And he shot the second pair away in what seemed a single shot. Smoothly on to the last two cans, the final one whining off in a series of somersaults through the hot air.

  Herne’s Colt was back in its holster before men had drawn breath. It hadn’t been as fancy as the Kid, but it had been faster, hardly anyone doubted that–except maybe for Billy himself.

  The slim figure moved towards the fence. ‘That ain’t bad, only …’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘After I’d taken them cans the way I did, why didn’t you do the same? Or better?’

  Herne squared up. ‘I did do better. Go for a target and get it the quickest way possible. Face more than one man an’ you take ’em straight, ain’t no time for playin’ games then.’

  ‘That’s okay for the real thing,’ said Billy. ‘This was only a game. For fun.’ He laughed strangely, lightly; almost a giggle,

  ‘No.’ Herne shook his head. ‘This ain’t no toy.’ He patted the palm of his hand against the holster. ‘I don’t use this for games. It’s too important. It’s what I live by …’ He looked at the Kid keenly. ‘... an’ other men die by.’

  Billy opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Herne waited some moments while the men started to walk back towards the bunk house, carefully reloading his gun. A brown-haired man wearing a blue and yellow check shirt over brown pants came from the house, pausing to exchange a few words with the Kid.

  He went up to Herne and extended his hand; the grip was strong, firm. ‘I’m Dick Brewer. Foreman here. You’re Jed Herne.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Fine. We need every good man we can get. Bring your stuff over to the bunk house and we’ll find you a place. Then step on over to the house so’s we can talk. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Herne followed him, wondering how Brewer got on with the Kid, how far he could control him. He wondered how
he would get on with the Kid himself and knew that only time would provide the answer.

  Chapter Three

  Tom O’Folliard sat on his bunk, guitar across his knees. His left hand moved easily over the frets and finger and thumb of the right picked out a rag clean and fast and easy. Mike Daniels lay back on his mattress, trying to whistle along with the tune and never getting further than a few bars before the guitar raced ahead and left him stranded.

  Charlie Bowdre, mouth sucking in his lower lip, sat on a chair in the corner writing with a stump of pencil. Every now and then he would screw up his eyes and stare at the bunk house ceiling as if searching for inspiration. After a while he fingered his clay pipe from his pocket and packed it with tobacco, lighting it and blowing clouds of blue-gray smoke across the room.

  ‘Hell, Charlie! You have to smoke that stuff? You know it puts Tom off his playin’.’

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Mike Daniels. ‘Charlie’s been collectin’ pig shit again and dryin’ it out back.’

  Mason laughed and slapped a big hand down on to his thigh, rocking back and forth on the edge of his bunk.

  Charlie looked up at the pair of them, his face lined and graying although he wasn’t more than five or so years older than most of them. Thick brown hair framed his features. He nodded, half-smiling, and went back to puffing on his pipe, picking up the stump of pencil once more and starting in again to write.

  Tom O’Folliard ended one tune and tightened the top string of the guitar before breaking into another, slower this time, prettier.

  Mason laughed again, bald head shaking. ‘Know why Tom’s playin’ this, don’t you?’

  He pointed over to where Herne was half stretched out on his mattress, cleaning his gun.

  ‘Hey, Herne, you hear me? I said, you know why Tom’s playin’ this lovin’ song, don’t you?’

  Herne barely looked up, shook his head.

  ‘It’s on account of Charlie there.’

  Mike Daniels guffawed and looked at Charlie drawing unconcernedly on his pipe.