Silver Threads Read online

  ‘You feel we should hire a shootist. Is that what you are endeavoring to say to us, Minister McGonagall? Is that it?’

  ‘Well, Ma’am, it might … ’

  Lily suddenly smiled at him, and he positively melted with relief in the warmth. ‘The council have thought about this, Mr. McGonagall. You can rest assured that we are not the sort of people who would risk the livelihood of this town and all our many friends.’

  ‘Indeed, sister, that is so. And Amen to that, say I,’ interrupted Eliza. ‘Though the idea of having to hire us a paid gunman is repugnant, it is the lesser of the evils that confronts us.’

  ‘We are old ladies, Minister,’ said Lily, waiting for the contradiction from the priest, and freezing off her smile when it was slow in coming.

  ‘No you...’

  ‘Indeed we are, Minister. I am something past my sixtieth year, and my sister is a mite older. We are simply two gentle people, with no concept of the world and its wickedness.’

  Both of the Misses Sowren placed their gloved hands together in a pious expression of benevolence, while Father McGonagall nodded sagely at them.

  ‘So we have taken the necessary steps to procure ourselves a man who will come and save us from the hazards of malefactors.’

  ‘That is damned fine news, ladies and...’

  ‘Reverend!!’ snapped Lily, her jowls quivering with righteous indignation, the crack in her voice loud enough to raise dust at fifty paces.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your language, Minister. That is what,’ replied Eliza, glowering at him across the flying buttress of her nose.

  ‘We are not used to such talk in our home. Nor here in Wild Rose City,’ added Lily, nodding in agreement with her sister. ‘There may be silver threads among the gold of our hair, but that does not mean we can be treated with such blatant disrespect.’

  ‘Indeed not, sister,’ agreed Eliza.

  The poor young man stammered and blushed, wishing himself a hundred miles away from the Black Hills, mumbling his apologies to the daunting duo. Wringing his hands in anguish, knowing that neither of the sisters would allow his slip of the tongue to go unremembered.

  ‘I cannot say how sorry I am, ladies ... Please forgive me for... I know well enough how chastely you rule your lives and...’

  ‘That is enough, Reverend,’ said Lily firmly. To err is human and to forgive is divine. You have erred and we have forgiven you. Now we must go home to continue our devotions on this Sabbath in the privacy of our home. We bid you good-day, Mr. McGonagall.’

  With an icy nod they dismissed him from their presence, watching him as he walked quickly off down the Main Street of Wild Rose, towards the clear rushing river. Striding along between the rows of trim houses.

  Eliza turned to Lily with a thin-lipped smile at their encounter. ‘Know what, sister?’

  ‘What, sister?’

  ‘The priest there. The Goddammed son-of-a-bitch don’t have the balls of a bastard butterfly!!’

  Chapter Two

  Jedediah Travis Herne sat in a nameless saloon in a small town in another part of the Dakotas, sipping moodily at a glass of warm beer, looking at the cable that lay on the stained and chipped table in front of him. Wondering what to do about it.

  “Herne the Hunter’ was what men called him. It was a name he’d earned over many bloody years of riding hard and shooting first. The smell of black powder smoke was never out of his nostrils and the shadow of death hung at his shoulder.

  He was now forty-one years old. A good age for any man out West. For a man who’d lived by the quickness of his gun since the age of fifteen, it was close to a miracle.

  Living was the mistakes you didn’t make, was what he used to say. Herne hadn’t made many mistakes in his life. The one that he had made wasn’t the sort of thing you could see coming.

  Three years back he’d left his young wife, Louise, while he went into Tucson to get supplies. The little homestead should have been safe enough in the normal run of things. They’d been married only three years, and his young bride had managed to do the impossible. Persuade one of the most notorious guns on the frontier to hang up his weapons.

  Life had been looking good for Jed.

  Until that day. i

  Now he was alone again, with a lot of killing behind him, and only more death to look forward to. Most of the men he’d ever ridden with were dead. Long dead. Billy and Jesse. Wes. So many of them. Past counting.

  ~*~

  The barkeep watched the tall stranger, trying to find a tag for him. There was something about him that invited caution.

  Herne was aware of the interest in him, and he looked up at the fat man behind the bar. Who immediately pretended a great involvement in something he’d just excavated from his left nostril. Jed grinned at him, taking another thoughtful swallow of the beer. Reading the cable one more time.

  The barkeep shivered. Whoever he was, he sure as Hell hoped he wasn’t in town for long. There was something to him. He’d been around saloons long enough to get to smell it out. Despite his age, this man was a killer. The keep would have sworn away his month’s wages on it.

  He figured him at past forty. Standing a little over six feet. Broad with it. Long black hair, streaked with grey at the temples and over the ears. Dressed in a shabby set of clothes covered in trail dust. Colt Peacemaker strapped low on the right thigh. Cutaway rig for a fast draw. Butt of the pistol polished and shining in a greased holster. The way some kids did it who wanted folks to think they were mean shootists. Trying to make an impression. Didn’t look to the barkeep as if the stranger gave a damn for the impression he left. He’d just come in from the telegraph office an hour back, ordering himself a beer and a chaser. Sitting quiet with a white telegraph form in front of him, every now and then picking it up and reading it through.

  As if he didn’t know what to make of it.

  Herne couldn’t make up his mind.

  There were law-officers all across the country who knew Herne the Hunter was in business, and he’d cabled one to find out if there was any work for him. A sheriff who’d helped him some in the past. And now there was this reply.

  ‘Town council Wild Rose City, Dakota Territory, need top gun as guard silver shipments. Good money and keep. See Misses Sowren soon as possible’

  Herne had queried the word ‘Misses’, wondering if it was an error, but the clerk had told him it wasn’t. Meant there was two of them.

  He could use some dollars fast. But working for a council meant shopkeepers and men with white collars and yellow streaks down their backs. And run by women! It took some thinking on.

  Over the years there’d been some strange jobs. ii

  The bartender broke into his chain of memories, calling across the empty room.

  ‘How ’bout ’nother beer, mister?’

  Herne looked up at him, staring through the smoky dust that hung in the air of even the cleanest saloons, like an eternal mist, with the beams of the sun breaking through the dirty windows at the front of the building, strung through the saloon like stripes of pale gold. Above the bar there was a badly painted picture. A florid lady with yellow hair displaying charms that were so ample that they couldn’t have been painted from life. Carrying that kind of load on her chest, Herne doubted whether she could even have managed to sit up. Someone had used her well-displayed private parts for knife practice and the canvas all around the top of her thighs was scarred and torn.

  ‘I’ll take one more.’

  It would help to wash out the dirt from his throat, and maybe ease away some of the dark memories that kept returning to haunt him.

  ‘Chaser?

  ‘No.’

  He couldn’t afford the shot of whiskey. Not if he wanted to pay for a night’s stabling for his stallion and a bed out back for himself. The handful of coins jingled in his pants’ pocket as he shifted in the seat. His eye again catching the penciled lettering on the telegraph form.

  Work for a council. And a handful of
damned women.

  He looked up as the keep waddled over and planted the glass down on the table. Letting beer spill over the top and form a puddle in front of him.

  ‘Sorry, Mr.,’ said the man, in the sort of voice that showed he didn’t care much either way.

  ‘You could be,’ said Herne, deliberately dropping the money in the spilled beer.

  ‘Hey! You didn’t have no call for that.’

  There’d been times when Herne would have picked up the brewing quarrel. Even maybe pushed it as far as it would go. Just to fight off the boredom of being a hired shootist. But he was getting older and he let the barkeep walk back across the saloon.

  Calling out after him.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘What is it, mister?’

  ‘Had a friend down in El Paso. Spent the night in a Mex whorehouse down there. Prettiest little ten year old dark-eyed girl you ever seen. Just startin’ to bud. Five more years she’d have bloomed and rotted away. But right then she was the prize of the place. Five dollars American for a night with her.’

  The barkeep was interested now, in spite of himself. Standing halfway across the room, holding the wet coins in his fingers. Watching as Herne lifted the glass and drank.

  ‘This friend of mine was a funny guy. Time came to go and settle up. Got himself dressed in his best clothes. Fancy duds. Shouts out to the old lady runnin’ the joint he don’t have no money.’

  ‘You there?’

  ‘Sure. Outside waiting for him. Heard the yellin’ and that. Loads of them bastards runnin’ in with knives. Sayin’ they’re goin’ to cut off my friend where it hurts. Screaming and a couple of shots. Then he appears. At the window on the second floor.’

  He drained the glass, putting it back down on the table, then edging it over, eyes never leaving the bartender’s face, pushing it off so it shattered on the floor. Reaching down very casually and flicking the leather thong off the top of the hammer on the Colt, readying it in case it was needed.

  It wasn’t.

  The barkeep had seen enough to know that a broken glass wasn’t worth getting killed for.

  ‘I yelled for him to jump, and he did. Clean into the middle of the biggest heap of shit you ever did see. Must have been the midden for the whole damned quarter of town. Covered in dust so he didn’t see what it was until he was off and flyin’ into it. Must have been ten feet deep. He vanished and I figured that was it. Couldn’t seem to like the idea of divin’ in after him. Then he appears. I tell you, he was covered. Shit in his hair and eyes and mouth. Just plain covered. He looked up at me, eyes white in the mess that soaked his face. Know what he said?’

  ‘No, sir. I don’t.’

  Herne stood up and pocketed the cable, without even looking at it again.

  ‘He said: “There sure must be somethin’ more in life than this.” So long.’ And he was gone.

  ~*~

  It took Jed Herne three days of hard riding to get to Wild Rose. Beautiful spring mornings, as soon as dawn lightened the eastern sky. Pushing the stallion on through the green days, stopping off at noon for an hour’s rest, Watering the animal and eating a frugal meal himself. Riding on through into the pink evenings.

  It was late afternoon on the third day when he heard the sound of the Gearwater River surging through the rocky gorge that ran alongside Wild Rose City. Reining in the horse and sitting back in the saddle with a sigh of contentment.

  It had been a hard ride. All along the trail he’d been hearing about the robberies of the silver shipments. There was hardly a large mine within a hundred miles of Wild Rose that the bandits hadn’t hit. Snatching finest ore.

  And that was the puzzling thing for Jed. He knew a little about mining, Man couldn’t spend more than half a lifetime out West without picking up some kind of knowledge. And he couldn’t understand why the robbers were picking up ore. Why not wait until it had been through processing and smelting and then take the bullion? Easier to get rid of. Much easier. Whoever the criminals were, they must have some kind of access to a lot of mining and processing equipment. Maybe even be in league with an honestly run plant. That was a thought to play around with.

  It was the prettiest town that Herne could ever remember seeing.

  He’d passed the Mount Morgoth Mine a couple of miles back, wrinkling his nose at the chemical stench that came billowing from it in noxious clouds, darkening the sun and veiling the blue of the sky. He could understand why the first owner had built his home well away from the source of his wealth. Mr. Sowren had chosen well.

  The little houses unrolled up the hill, topped by a big white frame mansion that Herne guessed rightly must belong to the ladies named in the cable. Right next to a tree-fringed graveyard that bore no resemblance at all to most of the Boot Hills that Jed had seen. Folks in frontier towns didn’t care that much for burying strangers and graves were holes scratched in the dust. With a wooden marker if anyone had the inclination to whittle one and daub on a name and a date.

  But Wild Rose City wasn’t a bit like that. There was a church. A saloon that looked clean and quiet. Couple of side streets with a livery stable on the corner of one of them. Handful of stores.

  From where Herne sat the town looked like something out of a rich little girl’s nursery. Almost too good to be true.

  ~*~

  Herne had only a couple of dollars left and he went straight to the saloon, leaving his horse tethered to the white rail outside. As he walked up the steps he had the prickling feeling that he was being watched and he stopped in his tracks. It was a feeling that you learned not to ignore. That way you kept living.

  Slow and easy, Herne turned round, seeing that it was a lawman. Lying back in a rocking chair, feet propped up. Just staring at him. Biggish man. Not as fit, maybe, as he thought he was.

  That was Jed’s first impression.

  Waving a hand to him. ‘Morning, Sheriff.’

  ‘You come over here, boy,’ was the reply, with a slow gesture of the hand.

  Despite his experience and age, Jed sometimes found his hair-trigger temper bard to control. Being called like that in the middle of a strange town was one of those times. But he thought about the couple of dollars and he swallowed hard. Walking over and standing in front of the lawman, balanced easily on the balls of his feet. Feeling the afternoon sun warm on the back of his neck.

  Sensing a challenge to his authority, Sheriff Daley levered himself out of the chair, looking at the tall stranger with distaste. The old guy hadn’t smiled at him. Sheriff didn’t take to folks like that

  ‘Wild Rose don’t warm to saddle-bums, mister,’ he said. Measuring out the words as if he was going to have to account for them all at the end of the month.

  ‘I can bet on that, Sheriff,’ replied Herne. Noting the scattergun bucketed at the lawman’s hip. Lazy man’s weapon. Doesn’t take any skill to blow a person in half with a sawn-off heavy twelve-gauge.

  ‘You’re kind of an old man to be wearin’ that pistol low on the hip, ain’t you?’

  Herne put the sheriff at about his own age. Wondering if he might ask whether he wasn’t too old for a scattergun on the hip. Deciding not to. ‘I didn’t hear you reply to that, boy.’

  ‘Didn’t say anything, Sheriff.’

  ‘Maybe you better talk a whiles. like tellin’ me who you are and what the Hell you’re doin’ foulin’ up a clean street with your dirt?’

  ‘I’m here after a job.’

  ‘Job. Might be somethin’ cleanin’ out the shit-house round back of the saloon. That’s ’bout all I figure you as bein’ fit for.’

  ‘Matter of opinion, Sheriff.’

  ‘My opinion, boy. My damned opinion!’

  ‘You’re entitled to that.’

  The lawman’s right hand was edging on down towards the stock of the scattergun. And a vein at the centre of his forehead was beginning to throb in anger.

  ‘I’m Sheriff Daley, boy. You heard of me?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

 
; ‘I run this town.’

  Jed fired off a long shot ‘I heard that the Misses Sowren ran Wild Rose.’

  There was a silence like someone had broken wind in a cathedral. Then Daley cleared his throat. ‘That’s true enough, boy. They’re my aunts. You heard of them?’

  ‘Way I understand it, I’ve come to work for them. Guarding some silver.’

  ‘Holy shit!’ He looked quickly round as if he was worried someone might have heard the expletive. ‘Old man like you couldn’t guard his ass-hole with both hands.’

  ‘Some might not agree, Sheriff,’ replied Herne, keeping his voice mild and his fingers clear of the Colt.

  ‘I don’t believe I caught your name, did I?’

  Jed noticed that the ‘boy’ had disappeared. The first indication of the magic that the name of the sisters could work in the town.

  ‘Didn’t throw it you, Sheriff. But it’s Herne. Jedediah Herne.’

  There was a look of bewilderment as Sheriff Daley struggled to remember where he’d heard the name. Then it came back to him with the chilling rush of a flash flood.

  ‘Herne the Hunter! You’re...’ Suddenly the gun was out of the holster, the twin barrels gaping at Jed. ‘You better let slip that belt real easy, Herne. Jesus! I heard years back you was dead. Some shootin’ with that guy with the razor.’

  ‘Josiah Hedges. Man they call “Edge”. Hell, no. He’s alive and kickin’ and so am I. Maybe both a spell older. But still around.’

  ‘I see that. And you come ridin’ in here cool and like you own Wild Rose. Come on! Get that damned belt off before I slice you clean through the guts.’

  ‘Your aunts wouldn’t like that, Sheriff. Seem’ as I’ve ridden a long way to come and help them out.’

  Daley was confused. He knew that Lily and Eliza had sent out for a gunman to help them. But he was certain sure they had no idea what they’d gone and gotten hold of. Herne the Hunter. That was bad news.

  The worst news.

  ‘I guess ... Look, Herne. Maybe I’ll give you another chance.’

  Jed spat in the dirt, looking up at the ponderous lawman. ‘Come on Sheriff. Don’t piss on my boots and then tell me it’s rainin’.’