The Hanging (Herne the Hunter Western Book #17) Read online

It was just a matter of time.

  There was nobody out back in the cells. He left the body exactly where it was, the blood already starting to congeal, losing its freshness under a dull skin. Jed looked around the office, wondering whether or not to take the flyer. Finally deciding not to. There wasn’t much point. They’d come out after him whatever he did.

  He flattened himself against the door, squinting sideways through the curtains, seeing the street was quiet. A rickety buckboard had just rattled by, driven by an elderly woman wearing man’s pants tucked into working boots. She was smoking a stained clay pipe, the wind tugging away the smoke.

  He took the key off the chain, opening the door and closing it quickly behind him. Turning the key in the lock and pocketing it. Walking away towards the stable as though he had every right to be there. Nobody watching him would have guessed that he’d just cut the throat of their elected sheriff.

  As he went past the saloon he saw the bar-keep out on the porch, working at sweeping the dust out the door with a long-handled broom.

  It was around three in the afternoon.

  Eighteen miles out of Pueblo a group of five men in linen duster coats were pushing on northwards at a fast canter. Their leader was tall, with a black hat. Long hair that was touched with grey. They were in a hurry.

  Trying to make sure they kept an appointment at a bank the following noon.

  The three whiskies were working well in the bartender’s stomach, bringing a flush to his cheeks and a slight fuzziness to his tongue.

  ‘Hey, mister!’

  Herne stopped in his tracks. Hand reaching down in an automatic reflex to check that he’d slipped the cord from across the hammer of the pistol.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You find the sheriff?’

  ‘I didn’t … Yeah. I found him.’

  ‘How was he?’

  ‘Sleeping when I found him.’

  ‘What about when you left him?’

  Herne summoned up a thin smile. ‘Guess he was still sleeping.’

  The bar-keep looked around to make sure nobody could overhear him. ‘Fact is, mister, that fat old bastard spends most of his damned time sleepin’. That and eatin’ and fartin’ and carryin’ on shameful with young boys.’

  ‘That so?’ The shootist wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Yeah. I hate the stinkin’ son of a bitch.’

  Herne waved a hand as the man pettishly threw the broom down and walked back inside the saloon.

  The shootist carried on towards the stables, thinking about the way the town seemed to feel about Sheriff Ryman.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said to himself. ‘Seems like to know him was to love him.’

  Chapter Four

  The old-timer sat, dozing. Hands folded in his lap, the fingers cribbed and swollen with arthritis. Every now and again someone going by in the street would wake him and he’d jerk into movement, eyes blinking open like a curious turtle.

  He wore blue overalls, with a wide belt. Tucked into the belt was a heavy old Colt Dragoon, immaculately clean and oiled. His name was Bart Winston and there’d been a time when he’d earned something of a reputation as a shootist. Way back before the War, when he’d been a scout, leading wagons to the sea. Winston had been a hell of a man. Once.

  Now he was way the wrong side of sixty, closing in fast on seventy. A Cheyenne dog soldier had put a lance through the muscles of his right arm, back in ‘forty-one, and that’d taken the edge off his speed with the pistol.

  He’d opened up a small spread near Kansas City, married, raised three children. Then the fighting had begun and the most savage action had been in Kansas, Bloody Kansas. Farms had been burned down. Women raped and killed. Children butchered. Bart Winston had been away buying cattle when the raiders came to his homestead. The thing that bothered him the rest of his life was that he never even knew which side the guerillas were fighting on. Maybe they didn’t much know or care.

  But they burned down his house. Cut the throats of his children. Ran off his cattle.

  Bart never found anything of his wife, barring her bloodied dress in a steep draw a mile to the west of his farm.

  The last twenty years or so seemed to have drifted past him without his really noticing much about them. There had been too much whisky in too many small towns. Towns like Stanstead Springs, Colorado. Pleasant little place with a decent school, a church with a white frame to it. Some friendly stores.

  And a bank.

  Stanstead Springs was real proud of its bank. A branch of the First National. Built of locally made red brick, with high, arched windows.

  Bart Winston had been living in Stanstead Springs for seven years. He’d managed to pick himself up out of the gutter one rainy Tuesday in Tucson, when a young lady had given him a half dollar. Telling him that he reminded her of her old Daddy and she was sorry to see him brought so low. After that Bart never got himself drunk again. Not that he didn’t enjoy a nip every now and again, but he regained control. And there was always some kind of work around town for him. Helping out in some of the stores when folks were off on vacations or were sick. Some days he helped the minister at the church. Bart was easy-going and obliging.

  Everyone in town liked him, though there were those who’d heard his tales about the good old days a few times too often. Bart was always giving the kids advice about how to be a gunfighter. Never stand with your back to the sun. Or, was it to always stand with your back to the sun? Every now and again the old gunman’s mind got a little cluttered and the sentences faded away, unfinished.

  Tuesdays he helped out at the First National Bank. The regular guard had the day off and Bart walked in, hefting the cannon at his hip, swaggering around and peering myopically at any strangers. Once he’d even stopped a robbery. Putting a bullet clean through a bandit at twenty paces, killing him outright. He was a hero around Stanstead Springs for a while.

  And he never told anyone that he was aiming to hit the robber through the knee.

  The bank closed for an hour for lunch, and Bart Winston slept through it, in a beechwood chair, legs stretched in the late October sun.

  Soon be opening time again.

  Down the trail from the south, five riders appeared, dots against the white dust. As they came nearer Bart caught the jingling of bridles and opened his eyes, blinking at the brightness. Five men. All wearing duster coats that flapped around their boots.

  Behind him the old-timer heard the rattle of the roller blind being tugged up, and the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  Stanstead Springs bank was opening up for the afternoon’s business.

  The Negro took the five horses and walked them away from the front of the bank, away around the corner. A big black stallion, two bay geldings and two bay mares. An Army saber rattled at the Negro’s hip as he walked and he was singing “Bringing in the Sheaves” in a high, thin voice, more like a woman than a man. The sun glistened off some kind of grease that was pasted thick over his curly hair.

  The old man creaked up out of the chair and walked inside the shadowed coolness of the bank, going straight over to his usual place, in a padded seat to the right of the counter. He raised a hand in salute to the manager of the First National.

  ‘Howdy, Mr. Abbott.’

  ‘Afternoon, Winston,’ replied Edgar Abbott. He was in his early thirties, eager for promotion from the one-teller bank in the back of nowhere. He wished that he could have persuaded head office to allow him to employ a regular guard with a smart uniform instead of the old man. But he had to admit that Winston stayed sober on the job and was never late. And the folk liked him. So he forced himself to slide on a hearty smile as the old-timer marched past him.

  He wished that he didn’t have to work another day in Stanstead Springs.

  He was about to get that fervent wish granted.

  The telegraph operator in Denver was flattered by the attention that the middle-aged man was showing him. Coming around most mornings and afternoons, leaning a hip against the sill of
the window, and listening to his tales about cut wires and Indian troubles.

  There was something about the stranger that had frightened him at first. He stood better than six feet, with black hair, longer than most men wore it. Tinged with grey across the temples. Said he was a feed-buyer from Des Moines. Also said that he was interested in the clicking telegraph machine. Always asked whether there was any news in on the wire that might be a good talking-point in the saloon down the street.

  The big man seemed especially interested in bank robberies and thieves.

  Bank robberies, specially.

  First thing after lunch the bank rarely got crowded at all. Maybe three or four people in. Sometimes nobody.

  Bart Winston sat upright in the chair, alert and keen. His hand kept fluttering to the butt of the Dragoon, settling on it like a nervous bird. Then moving away again. There was something going to happen. Even all these years after he’d stopped fighting Indians his remembered reflexes hung on. Reminding him how it used to be.

  The three men who’d come in didn’t set right with Bart. All of them were strangers, and they seemed to be pretending that they didn’t know each other. But he’d seen them come into town with his own eyes. There were two more some place. The nigger and the one who’d been on the black. Tall bastard. Put him in mind of some shootist from way back when. Bart racked his brain, seeking the elusive memory. Didn’t think he’d known the man. But he’d once known someone a whole lot like him.

  The men who came first were brothers. They all wore the same cattle coats, trailing clean to the floor, but one of them also had a long scarf on, wrapped around his mouth like he was riding at the rear of a Montana cattle drive. Both standing apart, looking around the paneled bank.

  The boyish one of the three stood opposite Winston, eyes raking him from under a tugged-down brown Stetson. He held a cut-down Meteor scattergun like he’d be frightened to let go of it.

  The old-timer was certain and he tried to catch the eye of Mr. Abbott, but he was too busy sucking up to the Widow Britton, one of the richest women around those parts.

  At that moment the main door of the bank swung open, rattling a loose pane of glass in its top. And there stood the tall man in the black jacket and pants, his eyes set deep in his skull. There was a pistol in his hand.

  ‘Hi, there.’

  ‘Day to you.’

  ‘Still around?’

  Herne grinned at the young telegraph operator. Wondering how long it would be before he started to get suspicious of the way he hung around the office, morning and afternoon. Always with the same interest.

  ‘Yeah. I’m still around. Business deal that just won’t close. Know how it is?’

  The clerk didn’t but he nodded, feeling that he wanted to win the stranger’s approval.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Anything on the line today?’

  ‘Nope. Not much. There’s some floodin’ botherin’ folks out east. Word of a special shipment of ploughs on the way from Chicago.’

  Herne waited, patiently. He had been waiting patiently for longer than he’d intended and the risks were growing daily. It was only a matter of time before some bright deputy glanced through the latest flyers and starting watching out around Denver for anyone might fit the description of the murderous bank raiders.

  The clerk at the telegraph office got news through faster than anyone else in all Colorado. When the robbers who were using Herne’s name struck again, he’d be one of the first to know. And Jed aimed to be just a few moments behind him.

  He’d already figured that the best—almost the only —chance of clearing his own name was to go after the robbers himself. Bring them in and ride away free. And at least a thousand dollars better off, though the reward would likely have risen by now. He wasn’t about to go to the Denver sheriff’s office to check that one out for himself.

  ‘No robberies?’

  ‘Holy hominy grits, Mr. Smith,’ grinned the young man. ‘You surely are a keen studier of criminals. ‘

  ‘Kind of hobby, son,’ smiled the shootist. Thinking that the clerk was possibly the most boring person he had ever met. Praying that the raiders would hurry up and hit another bank soon.

  ‘First man to move gets himself a free ticket to meet his Maker.’

  Mr. Abbott froze, hands gripping a bundle of bills. His eyes stared at the bandit, seeing only the pistol that was pointing in his direction. Mrs. Britton turned round, saw the gun, and slipped immediately into a total faint. No cry, or anything, just the strings breaking all at once and the thud as her bonneted head hit the floor of the bank.

  Bart Winston started to stand up, seeing the threat to the First National. Which also meant a threat to him, as it was his job on Tuesdays to guard it. The decision was as simple and unheroic as that. It just never occurred to the old gunman that he’d do a whole lot better sitting very still against the four men.

  ‘I don’t normally warn twice, old man,’ said the leader of the gang. ‘I’ll make an exception to you, seem’ you’re close to the grave anyway.’

  There was a cackle of laughter from the brothers, both of whom had drawn pistols. The smallest of the bandits took three steps towards Winston, hefting the shotgun in his direction.

  The light came through the window behind Bart, throwing his shadow over the polished wood of the floor, until his head nearly reached the boots of the little robber. Under the brim of the Stetson the old man saw eyes glittering like a rattler under a stone.

  ‘No further,’ said the robber, his voice tense and high. The movement of threat with the Meteor tugged the duster open, showing a pale blue shirt, tight across the chest.

  Something that he saw puzzled the old gunfighter, but he didn’t hesitate, doing what he had to.

  ‘You scum better get out of here,’ he warned them, his voice free of the slightest tremor. He had his hand around the Dragoon, starting to heave it out from his belt.

  The leader spat on the floor, angered by the foolish defiance. ‘No mindless old fucker talks to Jed Herne like that!’ he shouted.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Herne the Hunter, you dumb old bastard! That’s my name and this is my gang.’

  ‘Shall I …?’ asked the little man, finger whitening on the trigger of the Meteor.

  ‘Jed Herne!’ Bart Winston forgot for a moment what was happening. Forgot to go on drawing the pistol. Standing still, staring from watery eyes at the tall man in the black coat.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I knew you, years back. Couple of times.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Remember me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must, Jed. That day when you was with little Billy Cody and you was both in that canyon. Out west. And I come in with a train of mules ... we was—’

  ‘I don’t know you. Now shut the fuck up, damn it!’

  ‘But you … Wait on, son. Wait on.’

  He took another step away from the window. Pointing with his left hand. ‘You ain’t him!’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Mr. Abbott, unable to hide his shock.

  ‘It ain’t him, Mr. Abbott. Not Herne. I knowed him well and that sure as God made the world ain’t him.’

  The tall man didn’t speak for a moment, conscious that everyone’s eyes were on him. Including the twins and the small man. Only poor Mrs. Britton slumbered on, a trickle of blood across her cheek from her fall.

  ‘I swear that isn’t him! Jed Herne was a cold-hearted boy and went on to be a dreadful killer. But he wasn’t a stinkin’ thief. He’s not Herne the Hunter. Not the—’

  ‘Bust the son of a bitch,’ snapped the leader, gesturing to his companion with the scattergun.

  The explosion burst on the end of his words, swallowing them in a crash of noise and smoke. Behind the counter the manager of the First National of Stanstead Springs saw an amazing sight. His elderly guard was lifted from his feet, his hand plucking the Dragoon Colt from his belt, dragged by the force of the shotgun. His arms flew outward
s and he demolished the large window into a million splinters of razoring glass. Bart’s head and shoulders virtually disappeared under the impact of the double charge, splashed in a mist of blood and bone and brains all over the wall and ceiling of the bank.

  ‘Oh, no,’ whispered Abbott.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ replied the man who had claimed to be Jed Herne. ‘Now open up that vault and be quick about it.’

  ‘Then after the copper coil gets wound round in the place where they … hey, just a moment.’

  Jed watched the clerk at his work, adjusting headphones and starting to scribble with his pencil on the pad of yellow paper.

  ‘What is it?’ There was a sudden stiffening of the man’s narrow shoulders as he wrote, as though there was something.

  ‘It’s a raid.’

  ‘Bank?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s … quiet …’ the pencil leaping across the page to the angry chattering of the machine.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Stanstead Springs.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Quiet, mister. I can’t just tell you—’

  Herne reached in and gripped the little man by the side of the face, his finger and thumb pinching so hard that tears leaped to the clerk’s eyes.

  ‘Tell me, damn you!’

  Letting go of him as suddenly as he’d grabbed him.

  ‘I don’t know why you did that. I’ve been real friendly to you—’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today. Guess about a half hour back. Killed three and took the First National. But I don’t … mister! Hey, mister!’

  But the lean man with the fiery eyes was gone and the clerk never ever laid sight on him again.

  They took nearly twenty-two thousand dollars from the bank, throwing it hastily into sacks, the two brothers heaving it out and hanging it over their saddle-horns, the giggling Negro holding their horses for them. The smaller man was next out, firing the Meteor to deter a group of honest citizens who’d been watching hesitantly, as if they were considering going for bravery. Instead they chose caution.

  The manager stood by the empty vault. The far side of the counter Mrs. Britton was stirring, moaning to herself and trying to sit up. Not managing it.