White Death Read online

  There wasn’t a lot she had to add to what they’d managed to learn from Louise. The train that had been stranded below them for two days, while the wind howled round their cabins and the deep snow piled higher.

  ‘It was late on. Ma and me had gone to bed. I heard men calling and shouting, and Ma getting me to put on a gown and sneak out the back, while she held them off at the front hid until they’d gone, dragging Ma with them, over to this place. And I went into the barn, and I hid there and I heard a lot of screaming and laughing and cussing. Then I heard Ma start to scream. Louder and louder. But I couldn’t see nothing. But I heard …’

  She started to sob again, and her father took her on his lap, and tried to comfort her, but she cried more and more at the memory of hearing her mother butchered. Jed sat across the room, fingers knotting on each other, while he tried to get clear in his head what he ought to do.

  ‘Becky.’ Everyone in the room started at the voice. It was Louise, showing the first sign of interest in anything since they’d arrived back from Tucson. ‘Come here, and sit with me, and help me wind this wool.’

  The young girl walked over and dropped to her knees on the floor, picking up the skein from the table, and holding out her hands to help wind it into a manageable ball. While the women worked, each content to remain silent with her own thoughts, Jed and Yates went outside. The weather had taken an amazing change, with a hot sun now blazing down on a thawing landscape. As suddenly and unexpectedly as the snow had appeared, so it was vanishing

  ‘What we going to do, Jed? Get after the bastards who done this?’

  Herne shook his head, looking out across the fields, seeing a smudge of smoke on the horizon that told of the west coast express on its way, catching up on lost time. Vaguely, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a half-chewed apple lying amid the churned-up earth a few paces from the door.

  ‘I don’t know, Bill. The train went through Tucson last night. We’ve got to see to Rachel’s burial. I’ve got to look after Louise, less’n she goes right off her head with the worry of it all. And what about Becky?’

  ‘What about the girl? She’ll stay and mind the farm here while you and me goes after the men who did this.’

  Herne exploded with anger. ‘For God’s sake, Bill! She’s only fourteen. Leave her here on her own after what’s happened! How in Hell can she run a spread like this on her own? And would you leave her with a hired hand?’

  Yates spat in the melting snow. ‘Hell! I just don’t rightly know. There’s her Aunt Rosie, out in Phoenix. Rachel’s sister. But she’s ailing. I reckon she’d take in Becky for a month or so, till we tidy up our business. And I can get a man in Tucson to ramrod the spread for that time. You’ll come with me?’

  It was a difficult decision. After a moment or two of thought, Jed shook his head. ‘I reckon maybe not. I can’t tell yet, how my wife’s going to be. Don’t press me on it yet, Bill. If I come it means riding on a long hard vengeance trail, and I don’t rightly know I’m up to that after the years away from a gun. I don’t even know if Louise would want me to go.’

  ‘Seven bastards fuck your wife and butcher Rachel, and you don’t know!’ Yates’s voice was shaking with anger, and his cheeks had gone red – almost purple. ‘I tell you Jed, from everything I heard about you; I never reckoned that you’d be the sort of man to turn yellow on a friend. Specially not when it’s your own wife involved.’

  Herne’s voice was as cold as death, and Yates took an involuntary step backwards, although the bigger man had made no move. ‘I have killed many men, Yates. More men than you would believe. And I have cut them down with no more thought than I would give to crushing a blowfly under the palm of my hand. Cut them down for saying one tenth of what you just said.’

  Stammering, Yates tried again. ‘I’m sorry, Jed. But you see I’m upset …’

  ‘Time was that wouldn’t have saved you. Time is now that it does. Be grateful, and don’t try your luck again with me.’

  ‘I’ll let it ride a day or so. It’s too late to get Rachel decently buried today. I’ll ride back with her, and young Becky. Maybe you could ride into Tucson for the preacher for me in the morning, while I lay her out and make her looka mite more decent. And there’s the box to build. I got me some pine that’ll do the job. Then, maybe on the twentieth, we can talk it over again. By then you’ll know how Louise is taking it.’

  ‘That’s our anniversary,’ said Herne, suddenly aware of it. ‘I’ll be giving her that dress she set her heart on. Maybe I’ll let her see it tomorrow. Or even tonight. Lighten her load a mite.’

  ‘Can’t wait to see her in it,’ said Yates. ‘She’s a damn pretty woman, Jed. Damn pretty.’

  The cleaning up was over. The body of Rachel Yates, washed and made decent in a cloth that Becky rode over to get, had been taken back to their spread on a buckboard.

  After they’d gone, Jed lit the fire, and repaired the door. It was while doing that chore that he made a macabre discovery. .

  He’d noticed that the Sharps rifle had been fired once, but when he asked Louise about it she looked puzzled and said quietly that she didn’t remember anything about it at all.

  There was no mark anywhere within the house of a bullet, but behind the door, out of sight and hidden by the damage, was a severed finger.

  A man’s finger. Middle. Soft, and delicate, though already decomposition was beginning to wrinkle it. And it wore a small signet ring. Gold, with a fine polished opal set at the centre of it.

  Jed picked it up, and showed it to his wife. ‘Louise. You must have shot this off one of the men. It must mean something to you.’

  But she had shaken her head and carried on with her knitting, eyes hardly raising at all.

  That evening, it was Herne who cooked a meal, making a stew out of a few vegetables and some spare cuts of meat. When it came to eat it, neither he nor his wife could face any, and he threw it out the back for their pig.

  In bed, Louise went in first, shutting the door of the other room firmly behind her. He guessed that it wouldn’t be wise to go in while she was undressing, so he waited, passing the time by cleaning the Sharps. He hesitated whether or not to get out the Colt, but didn’t, thinking that the sight of the handgun might stir too many memories for his wife.

  Finally, he went into the other room. It was still cold, holding the chill of the previous days. There was a small brass oil-lamp on the side table, and he walked towards it, reaching for the box of Lucifers that he knew would be near it.

  ‘No!’

  The cry was so loud that it made him jump, nearly knocking into the foot of the bed. His eyes were always quick to adjust to changes of light, and he could make out the dim, humped figure of his wife, huddled right away on the very furthest side of the bed.

  When he had gone in there, earlier in the day, he had been horrified by the state of the room. Bits of rope were still attached to the head and bottom of the bed, where Rachel Yates had been bound for the men to take their pleasure of her. And there were two empty bottles on the floor, and a broken glass. Cigar stubs. And a pool of congealing blood that had already attracted the flies.

  The blankets were all stained and torn, and he had taken them out the back and burned them on the fire. The same fire that had consumed the stump of the finger, though he removed the ring, slipping it into his jacket pocket. It was at the back of his mind how good it might be to find the man and return the finger to him. Then gut-shoot him, and watch him cough and choke to a slow and certain death. At the thought, he recalled how the gun would buck in his hand, the warmth of the barrel and chamber. And his fingers tightened convulsively as though round the butt of the Colt.

  While Louise sat quiet in the living-room, he had found clean blankets. And sheets. A luxury that they normally kept for some special occasion. White and fresh, still smelling of the crushed flowers that Louise had laid to keep them nice.

  The room stayed dark.

  Jed got undressed quickly, stripping down to
his combinations, laying his clothes neatly over the end of the bed. He climbed in, careful not to come close to his wife, feeling her tenseness across the area of cold whiteness.

  ‘Louise?’

  No reply.

  ‘Louise? Please talk to me.’

  The voice muffled, as though her head was under the blankets. ‘What about?’

  ‘It’ll pass. All things do. And then everything’ll be just like before.’

  ‘For Rachel?’

  ‘Of course not. But Bill’s going to get over it. He wants me to go after them.’

  There was an implied question, that Jed left hanging in the empty air of the bedroom. The only answer was a sudden groan from his wife, like a moan of pain.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘My stomach hurts. A pain deep in … where they … I don’t want to lose it.’

  ‘What? Lose what, dear?’

  Again the sullen, stubborn, impenetrable silence. Far away, like the distant cry of some dying creature, they both heard the noise of a train.

  Jed tried again. ‘If we do go after them, then we’ll need to know something about them. Do you want to talk about it, Louise?’

  ‘Why not? I don’t care about it. It’s all over now, as far as I’m concerned, and nothing you can do’ll make a jot of difference to it. Sure I’d like to see them dead. Every single one of them. I’d like to be the one that pulls the trigger on them. I’d like to have each one of them chained up in a room with me for a day, and me with a skinning knife. Maybe a glowing fire and a few needles. But killing them won’t change nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘Maybe if’n it stops them doing it again to some other woman, then it’s worth doing.’

  ‘Maybe. But it still won’t bring back everything that’s been lost here.’

  ‘Come and lie with me, here close in my arms, and I’ll kiss the hurt away.’

  ‘No! By sweet Jesus Christ, no! Jed …. you … No. Just no. I’ll tell you what you want, but keep away from me.’

  ‘Damn it, Louise!’ Finally, Jed felt himself losing control of his hair-trigger temper. Something he’d tried to keep a tight hold on ever since their marriage.

  ‘There’s been hundreds of women got raped since men started to push westwards. Raped and a whole lot worse. I seen white women who’ve lived as Indian squaws for ten years. Maybe girls of eighteen when they got took. Now they look like grey-haired old women of sixty. They know what suffering means. By God, Louise! I’ve seen worse things done than you could ever imagine. Sure it was bad, but you’re alive. Listen, it’s our third anniversary on Monday. Try and get over it.’

  There was a sniff of contempt from the far side of the bed, I and he knew he’d failed. Although his wife lay only a couple of feet from him, she might as well have been on the other if side of the world for all the contact he felt with her.

  ‘I got that dress.’ Nothing. ‘I got you that dress you set your heart to. For a present. It’s in the other room there. Want me to get a light, and you can see it now? It’s the damnedest dress I ever did see. No Tucson belle’d dare look at you when you wear it.’

  ‘Tomorrow. Maybe you’ll see me in it tomorrow, Jed.’

  ‘All right. Do you want to sleep, or do you want to talk at all about the men?’

  Her voice was as cold and flat as a gravestone. All the life and warmth and exuberance seemed to have drained away from it.

  ‘Why not now? Maybe there’ll not be another chance like this.’

  Herne lay on his side, facing the blackness, hearing the dull monotone as she recalled her attackers. He stored all the information away in his mind, ready for the time that he might need it.

  ‘Seven of them. All men. Some old and some younger. One of them was rich. Powerful. Spoiled. All the others did what he said. Called Josiah. Most times they were careful not to use names though. Sounded not from round here. Maybe from out west. He was … was the first. A dark-clad man. Older. Grey hair. Had a silver tie-pin with a big seed pearl set in it. One was a reverend.’

  ‘A preacher!’ exclaimed Herne unbelievingly.

  ‘Yes. They called him "Preacher".’

  ‘Might have been a fun-name.’

  ‘Maybe.’ It sounded as though she couldn’t care much either way. ‘One was a real dude. Southerner. Dressed like a gambler or a sharp. Fancy clothes. Lace to his cuffs. Smelled of perfume like a town whore.’

  ‘Yes. That’s four.’

  ‘I know,’ she hissed with venom. ‘I kept count, Jed. I kept the toll real careful. I can tell you who was first and who was second and who was third and who was fourth and who was fifth and who was sixth and who was seventh.’

  ‘Don’t!’ he shouted, feeling the sickness rising again in his throat.

  ‘And I can tell you who was first to have their next go. And how many goes they all had. You want to know the total, Jed? I kept score real good.’

  By now she was shouting at the top of her voice, an ugly, vicious rasp rising at him, seeming to take a vile pleasure from trying to hurt him in the same sort of way that she’d been hurt.

  ‘No. Just what they were like.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway. There was sixteen had me properly. And two tried to do it in my mouth, and three up my ass. Ass! That’s not a pretty word from a lady is it, Jed? More the sort of word you’d hear from the sort of trollops you used to make use of in the saloons and bordellos. Well, it’s what they called it when they did it to me. “Ram it up her ass, while I do her cunt”. There’s another word you never thought you’d hear from my lips! Well, my lips have changed a lot since yesterday, and you’d better get used to it.’

  He remembered a time when he’d been hit in the chest by an Apache lance. The force of the blow, and the numbing shock. That was what it felt like now, as he lay there hot-eyed, listening to his beloved Louise cry and sob and blaspheme, until she finally quietened down. He desperately wanted to reach out and hold her, and kiss away the pain, but he knew that it would only make things worse, so he lay, there, in incalculable solitude.

  ‘Jed. My darling. I’m sorry, but …’

  ‘Go on telling me about them. What they were all like.’

  ‘One was balding and fat. All of them seemed very prosperous. Good clothes. This one was bald and he wore a red wig that flapped up and down. The others laughed at it.’ There was a note of anguish in her voice. ‘It hurt so much, Jed. The tearing and the thrusting. It hurt, and it still hurts. The pain gets worse.’

  ‘It’ll pass, my love. Go on.’

  ‘There were two more. Both young. Odd. Something peculiar about them. One was dressed totally in white. White suit and shirt and tie. Even white boots. And he was soft, and he smiled at me the .whole time. He was the one who couldn’t … couldn’t do it properly. He whispered in my ear about it, because he knew that I’d realize. He said: "Let on I can’t, and I’ll cut your eyes from your skull." I think he was ill. And the other was his brother. Maybe even twins. He was the one who did it … did it the … other way. He seemed to hate me. You told me about there being men who hated women and who wanted to do it with boys. I think he was like that.’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Seven. I must sleep, now. I’m sorry Jed, so sorry about everything that’s happened. You do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do. Sleep now. You’ll feel better in the morning.’

  ‘I love you so much, Jed Herne.’

  ‘And I love you, Louise. For ever and always.’

  Herne had once met a man who claimed that everybody dreamed at night, and that if you didn’t then it’d kill you.

  Herne never dreamed, and it hadn’t killed him. That night was no exception. Once his head rested on the firm, clean-smelling bolster, he was away. But though he slept easily and well, it took very little noise to wake him. Normally, and when he was at his peak, a very slight movement would do it, but now he’d lost his edge.

  It was first light when he started from sleep. The cold weather hadn’
t entirely gone, keeping the tips of its claws still buried in the land. And the rest of the snow that hadn’t melted lay across the fields. The barely-rising sun bounced off the whiteness, throwing a ghostly paleness into the bedroom through the thin curtains.

  He shuddered, feeling a chill strike at him. The room was still and quiet. He lay there for a moment, on his back, trying to come to terms with the new day. Then he realized that there was a sound missing that should have been there.

  He couldn’t hear the breathing of his wife.

  Quickly he stretched out a hand, but the sheets were as cold as death, all the way clear across to the other side. Moving with a lithe grace, be Hung back the blankets, and the white expanse of the bed lay open before him, like a new land viewed from the peak of a high range of mountains.

  They were white and pure, except from right over the further side, where Louise had laid. And there the white was dappled and clotted with brown. Dark brown that was still red in places where the blood hadn’t quite dried.

  He was out of bed and into his trousers, padding in bare feet across the room, easing open the door to the rest of the cabin, glancing round it, and instantly realizing that it too was empty. As he stepped across the floor, his feet touched a patch of something wet and sticky. Something that he hardly needed to touch with his finger to know that it was a small circle of blood, spreading out as though it had fallen from someone moving.

  By the table. And on the table, propped up against the cold coffee-pot, there was a sheet of notepaper, as white as the sheets in the bedroom. As white as the snow that lay beyond the windows.

  And on the sheet of paper, scrawled in his wife’s hand, was the single word ‘Jed’.

  Herne stood quite still, and took three deep breaths. He’d once met a Chinaman out west who’d taught him this simple my trick for calming himself, and he’d used it on occasions before a stand-up gunfight. When his breathing had steadied, he picked up the flimsy sheet of paper, taking it to the front window, pulling back the curtain, holding the letter so that the pale light fell across it.