Herne the Hunter 18 Read online

  ‘Give it to ... Nadine … fifty dollars. There in my bags. For you … if you … take it. Tells her where … silver hidden. Promise me – oh, sweet Christ!’

  He jerked his head back and his body arched as pain shook him like a tree in a hurricane. Herne caught hold of him and steadied him until the spasm had passed.

  ‘Promise me.’ The voice was almost gone now, a whisper faint on the night wind.

  Still Herne hesitated. How many old men had he rim into who’d wasted their last years, their dying words over delusions of silver mines and buried ore? How much worthless information had been committed to maps and letters and instructions? How many unfulfilled lives faded out on illusions of empty hope?

  ‘Promise?’

  Herne had no wish to ride back to Cimaron Falls. No wish at all. And fifty dollars would scarce repay him for a fruitless journey to a town which had showed its disregard for him already. Certainly not for no good reason, for a dying man’s last foolish wish.

  The mouth opened but no words sounded – just the failing eyes, pleading.

  ‘... some stumblebum old man as ought to be heading for the bone yard.’

  The words mined their way back into Herne’s consciousness. ‘Okay,’ he said to the man. ‘Okay, I’ll take your letter.’

  A feeble smile showed him that his answer had been heard, nothing more. After a while he went back to his bedroll and fell asleep.

  He awoke at first light, the damp seeping through his clothes and his mouth aching worse than ever. His companion across the smoldering fire was dead and his bones had already begun to set stiff, colder and harder than the ground on which they lay.

  Chapter Two

  The four men had been in the saddle since roughly the time Herne had first woken. They had splashed a handful of brackish water into their faces, left without coffee or food, only the taste of the previous night’s rotgut whiskey still left in the corners of their mouths. He had got away from them once, that lying bastard Edwards, but it was going to be the only time. When they’d caught up with him this time, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not again.

  They gritted their teeth and kicked in their spurs and headed northwest in the direction Edwards had taken.

  One man rode a few yards ahead of the rest. He wore a long cream-colored coat that was unbuttoned and flared out about him as he went. Underneath the coat he wore brown pants tucked into black boots, a red bandanna loosely knotted over a grimy brown shirt. There were two holsters on his gun belt, a matching pair of Smith & Wesson Schofields with the triggers filed down and the initials ZP carved onto the grips. The left hand gun was worn with the butt reversed and Zachery Peters used it with a cross draw once the ammunition in the first gun was gone.

  Zac Peters had worn two guns that way ever since he’d ridden with the Jawhawkers when they were creating bloody mayhem in Kansas during the War Between the States. Since that time he’d worked, if that was the right word, as a stagecoach hold-up man across three states, keeping one pace ahead of the law but not its guns. Twice he’d stopped a rifle slug in his arms; once in the right shoulder, the bullet passing clean through, and the other time chipping the forearm on the left side. The third time he’d been wounded had been down in Texas when he rode straight into an ambush set up by the Texas Rangers. Zac had lost the middle finger of his right hand that time and a .44 slug had scored a deep groove across his belly that left a scar to the present day.

  That occasion in Texas had been the closest Zac had come to getting caught. It had also resulted in his meeting up with Waco Johnny Young for the first time. They’d found themselves fleeing in the same direction and before long they’d been drinking together, sharing the same whores and robbing the same banks. They separated for several years and met again in Indian Territory, only by this time Waco Johnny had grown more ambitious and had decided that the big money was in trains.

  The men riding with Zac Peters were all one-time members of Waco’s gang. First off was P. J. Armitage, who was handsome enough with his long curly brown hair and thick mustache to attract any number of women, except that his inclinations didn’t tend that way. P.J. was dressed in a red shirt and dark blue pants with a brown jacket and brown hat with a round crown and short brim turned down at the edges. He wore a single Colt .45, strapped to his right leg.

  Next to P.J. rode Savannah, a long-faced man with a pointed beard which made his face appear longer still. Savannah used a short-barreled Colt Peacemaker in a shoulder rig on the left side of his chest. A long-bladed knife was clipped into a sheath at the right side of his belt. When it came down to it, Savannah was faster and more accurate with the knife and it was usually his first choice of weapon. The thing was, it would only deal with one victim, unless the fighting was hand-to-hand. That accounted for the amount of practice he got in with the Colt – now on a good day he could hit four out of six bottles hurled high above his head, smashing them before they broke on the ground. As far as Waco John Young’s bunch went, it meant he could hold his head up pretty high. Only Waco himself reckoned to bust all six each time and Zac was the only other member who even came close.

  The last rider was an older man – older even than Zac and that by quite a few years – who was Waco John’s wrangler. He arranged for the gang to have good mounts in the right places at the right times, looked after the stock and bought replacements when it became necessary. His name was Tex Blakely and he’d tagged along with Waco since earlier than Zac even. He was the only long-term member of the bunch to avoid the rope or a spell in some State penitentiary or other. Tex wore the same old fringed coat he’d always had, the identical hide pants and scuffed boots. No one else would bed down within ten yards of him if they were given a choice and back at their more or less regular camp he was content to sleep in the barn with his precious horses.

  Tex went hatless whatever the weather, gray hair getting whiter each year and straying well past his shoulders and onto his back. He scorned a handgun, carried only a Winchester ’73 with the barrel sawn down to half its normal length.

  The four of them cantered across the plain, the hills rising out of the morning mist before them. If Edwards was still alive – if – then they knew how to handle him. If not ... he’d got what he deserved.

  All things being equal, the four riders had a hankering after coming across Edwards alive.

  They were to be disappointed. Jed Herne had shed his worn and scuffed coat and was working in shirtsleeves, despite the sun not yet really being up. The earth had been hard and the digging with the shovel end he’d found amongst the supposed prospector’s things had been back breaking. If that shovel had been used for mining silver ore, it had been a long time ago.

  When the grave had finally been dug – shallower than Herne would have liked for himself, but deep enough to keep out any but the most persistent of coyotes – there had been one hell of a task getting the body to fit inside it. Eventually Herne had been forced to break one of the dead man’s arms so as to slot him into the narrow space. Edwards wasn’t about to complain any.

  Herne stood for several seconds staring down at the body, trying to summon up a few appropriate words. When he found that he couldn’t, he picked up the broken shovel and began to throw the dirt back down. He wasn’t far into this when he spotted four small clouds of dust rising off the valley below; rising and shifting fast in his direction.

  Herne threw in a couple more shovelfuls, then wiped his forehead free of sweat, leaned back and waited. The men and horses gradually took on form and shape and as they came within rifle range they slowed down and began to ride more carefully, glancing all along the ridge of hills; When they had Herne spotted, they pulled to a halt and had themselves a short conference before continuing. At the foot of the first slope, the men divided into pairs, taking the left and right routes up, not allowing the man above them the chance to cut loose on them all at the same time. Had he the mind to do so.

  Herne was of no such mind. But he did watch the strangers as sh
arp as a hawk and his hand was ready to spring for the Colt .45 faster than most of their eyes would have been able to follow. Below, in the narrow hole hewn from hard ground, the late Jamie Edwards lay unconcerned and silent.

  Herne remembered what Edwards had said about being bushwhacked by a group of men and wondered if the four who were at that moment approaching him might be the same crew. Coming up the right side was a tall man in a long coat, a curly-brimmed hat stuck firm on his head; just behind him was a feller with a pointed beard and a shoulder holster. Over to the left were a gray-haired old timer and a man with a thick brown mustache and a round hat that reminded Herne of some of the city clothes he’d seen that one time he’d been to New York.

  ‘Stranger!’ The shout boomed up along the ridge to the flat piece of ground on which Herne stood.

  Herne raised his left hand in salute, careful to let them see that his right was close to his gun.

  ‘Name’s Zac Peters,’ the big man reined in and leaned forward to pat his animal’s sweating neck. ‘These here are P.J. and Savannah.’ The two men the leader pointed out nodded towards Herne grudgingly. ‘An’ that over yonder is Tex.’ Zac laughed. ‘Don’t let them gray hairs fool you none. He’s sharp as a tack when he needs to be. Ain’t that so, Tex?’

  Tex grinned back, showing a head almost empty of teeth, and agreed that it was. Herne believed it – the old man looked pretty fit and healthy and, anyway, who was he to believe that gray hairs meant a man was over the hill?

  ‘What’s your name, stranger?’ asked Zac, lifting one boot from the stirrup and leaning back in his saddle.

  ‘Herne.’

  ‘Huh?’ Zac grunted.

  ‘Herne. Jed Herne.’

  Zac and Tex Blakely exchanged looks; the name didn’t mean a thing to P.J. and Savannah, but to the two older men it just might.

  ‘You wouldn’t be ...’ Tex began but let the sentence drift away on the cold air. ‘Hell, no, you couldn’t be. Don’t make no sense.’

  ‘Hold your horses, Tex,’ put in Zac, staring at Herne interestedly. ‘Don’t be in such an all-fired hurry to make up your mind.’ He let a half-smile drift across his face and looked down at Herne shrewdly. ‘Used to be a feller with a name like yorn, don’t know ’bout the Jed part, but Herne, that was what he called himself. Herne the ...’

  The remainder of the name faded from his memory and it took the old man to fill it in for him.

  ‘Herne the Hunter,’ said Tex, pleased at recalling it so easy.

  Zac slapped a hand down onto the thigh which was hoisted up onto his saddle. ‘Herne the Hunter! Well, I’ll be damned if that ain’t it. Herne the Hunter!’

  P.J. and Savannah looked at him, surprised that he should be so excited and not knowing why. The name was not one that they’d come across before, Herne not one of the men whose exploits they had listened to in saloons and bunkhouses or prison cells.

  ‘You him?’ asked Zac, leaning down.

  ‘Reckon,’ said Herne and spat down onto the soil, careful to turn his head away from the grave.

  ‘Seems hard to believe.’

  ‘Sure does,’ agreed Tex, scratching the side of his jaw. ‘Heard you stopped a bullet too many down Arizona way, must be ten years back.’

  Zac laughed and pointed. ‘See for yourself, Tex, this ain’t no ghost we got us here. This is real life flesh an’ blood. This is the man who reckons he’s Herne the Hunter.’

  Tex continued to scratch and nod his head and be surprised by it all. Savannah yawned and stretched and finally climbed down from the saddle. Herne watched him all the way, noting the knife at his belt and making sure his right hand didn’t drift too close to what looked like a short-barreled Peacemaker in that fancy shoulder rig he was wearing. ‘Course,’ said Zac after a few moments, his voice still nice and easy, ‘a man ain’t necessarily what he says he is. I mean, anyone could say he was anybody else, if he’d a mind to. Ain’t that so?’

  Herne didn’t reply, simply stood, grim-faced looking directly at the leader of the bunch now, waiting for the smile to drop from his face and the good humor to disappear from his voice. Seconds ticked away inside his head. As it was there wasn’t long to wait and the smile stayed firmly in place. Zac shifted his body once more in the saddle, no more than that, until suddenly his hand clawed at his holster and his fingers closed on the butt of the Colt awful fast.

  Herne spotted the movement of the arm, even though the man’s eyes refused to give his intentions away. He dropped his body into a crouch and as he was doing so, his own hand sped towards his gun. The palm hit the wood of the grip hard and the fingers slid between the trigger guard and around the butt. His thumb pulled back the hammer as the Colt came up and by the time it was midway through its upwards curve, the hammer was fully back and ready to fire.

  Zac’s pistol was out of the leather but little more. He sat there like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar when he should have known better.

  His eyes and Herne’s caught and held.

  The watching men were unmoving, holding their breath.

  Herne kept his gun hand absolutely steady, the barrel angled up towards Zac’s chest. A second, the slightest movement of the trigger and a .45 slug would go smashing through his ribs.

  Zac’s smile had become deadly serious; now it slowly changed into a grin, almost sheepish. ‘You got me convinced, you’re who you say you are, right enough.’ He shrugged and laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. ‘Clear leather that fast, you can be Billy the Kid for all I care!’ He laughed again, but it still wasn’t funny. He released his grasp on his pistol and it slid back down into the holster.

  Still none of the other men had moved. Herne looked at them all, taking his time, letting them see what staring down the barrel of a .45 was like – just in case they’d forgot. Then he released the hammer nice and gentle and the Colt was back snug in its holster.

  Zac pointed down at the open grave. ‘Friend of yorn?’

  Herne shook his head.

  ‘Figured he might not be.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Figured maybe he made the same fool mistake as me.’ Again the laugh; again no one responded.

  ‘He was dyin’ when I got here.’ Herne’s voice tightened. ‘Seems a bunch of fellers jumped him, tried to take his horse and gun, least that’s what he reckoned. When he didn’t see it their way, they slammed at least three slugs into him. Somehow, got himself away.’

  Zac shrugged; P.J. dug into the ground with the heel of his boot. Tex edged a little closer so as to get to peer down at the corpse. Savannah simply stood where he was, listening and waiting. Herne wondered for what.

  ‘He say,’ Zac asked, ‘who these men were as shot him?’

  ‘Said he didn’t know ’em,’ replied Herne.

  Savannah did move then; he glanced round at Zac a mite too fast and Herne caught the movement and wondered exactly why that news was so interesting.

  ‘Of course,’ said Herne, ‘he didn’t have to be tellin’ the truth.’

  ‘Men do when they’re dyin’,’ offered Zac. ‘Least, as a rule.’

  Herne nodded. ‘Less they got good reasons for doin’ the opposite.’

  Tex wiped at his mouth and asked: ‘You know where he was headed when you caught up to him?’

  Herne grinned. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  They all looked at him then and waited.

  Herne pointed down into the ground. ‘Right there.’

  The four men asked if they could warm themselves by the fire and give their mounts a breather, in exchange for helping Herne fill in the grave. There didn’t seem to be any reason for refusing, so Herne watched as Savannah and P.J. toiled over the hard earth and then found some pieces of rock to lie across the top of the mound.

  ‘He have that broken old shovel with him?’ asked Zac.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Some kind of prospector, then?’

  Herne shrugged. ‘Could be. Though if you found me with a brandin
g iron in my bags I hope you wouldn’t hang me for a rustler.’

  Zac laughed, ‘See what you mean. Somethin’ ’bout not jumpin’ to hasty conclusions.’

  ‘That’s right enough.’

  Fifteen minutes later, the men tightened their saddles and reckoned it was time to be moving out. Herne asked casually where they were going and Zac replied that they were heading for Territory border. Herne nodded, neither questioning it nor believing it.

  ‘No hard feelings?’ asked Zac, holding out his hand. ‘’Bout what happened before.’

  ‘No,’ said Herne, but he just looked at the man’s outstretched hand and made no move to take it.

  Zac gave a quick, nervous laugh and turned on his heels. Herne watched him go, watched them all go, waiting for one of them to make a move and knowing that this time it would be for real. No testing. No game. No duel. But nothing happened. They mounted up and raised their arms in farewell and headed off down into the valley, swinging away to the west, the direction in which Herne had himself been heading the previous day.

  He looked at them and wondered how far they would ride until they turned round and began to circle back. He started to kick dirt over the fire, putting out the flames. It was possible that he was wrong and that he wouldn’t see any of them again. It could be chance, coincidence; they might have had nothing to do with the death of the man they had just helped to bury. But the questions had been just that little bit too concerned, more than the natural curiosity of men on the trail. And that play Zac had made with his gun – if Herne’s own Colt hadn’t been there faster he would have been laid out over Edwards’ grave and he doubted if Zac or any of his men would have been anxious to stop and spread earth over his body.

  Herne lifted his saddle from the ground and took it over to where the gelding was tethered. There had to be more to it than stealing a horse and a gun. He didn’t see Zac and his men as being bothered enough to kill a man for them. No, there were better reasons. Reasons for the first attack and then for them coming back for more. He slid the buckle into place and pulled it tight. The letter was folded down into his back pants pocket and the fifty dollars were in one of his saddlebags; the man he’d made the promise to was dead and gone. Cimaron Falls was the last place on earth he wanted to return to.