Billy the Kid (A Herne the Hunter Western Book 13) Page 5

  Billy snatched the handbill away and screwed it tight; then he ripped at it, fingers attacking it like claws, flakes of paper falling away here and there until the Kid’s hands tore and twisted it to shreds.

  The last fragment fluttered to the ground as Billy swung round to face the men. His features were highlighted by two bright red spots high on either cheekbone; the remainder of his face was the yellowy-white of candle grease.

  His small mouth opened and shut several times with no sound emerging, almost as if he were gulping air. Finally he elbowed his way through the half-circle and headed for the house. After a few moments, Dick Brewer turned on his heels and followed him.

  The handbill lay on the ground by the men’s boots, savaged into small pieces. It looked, thought Herne, like something that had been chewed on by a rat.

  ~*~

  They left the Tunstall ranch at sun-up. The sky to the east was a flourish of orange and purple, a yellow ring spreading out from it and threatening to encircle the horizon. The rest of the sky was brightening from gray to blue.

  Billy Bonney rode out first, Brewer content to stay behind and let the Kid run this in his own way.

  Aside from Herne and Charlie Bowdre, the other riders were Tom O’Folliard and Jim French, along with Frank McNab, the foreman from the Chisum spread, and Fred Wayt. McNab had been over to talk business and had begged to be allowed along. Knowing how good he was with a gun, Billy had agreed.

  Herne had bad feelings about what was going to happen when they got to Lincoln. The Kid hadn’t said anything, hadn’t explained, but it was clear enough that he wanted to get his own back on Brady for putting a reward on his head for something the Kid didn’t consider a crime. It was true that Morton and Baker had been killed but it hadn’t been murder. Billy and a bunch of the others had been riding down the men who’d killed Tunstall and had run Morton and Baker to ground, keeping them under siege for two days and nights.

  When the two men had finally come out Dick Brewer had been for taking them into Lincoln and handing them over to Sheriff Brady. Billy hadn’t liked that one bit, arguing that it would be a waste of time and that Brady would only let them go, saying they’d shot Tunstall legally.

  Brewer had prevailed but in the end it hadn’t mattered. When they’d got to Black Water Spring and dismounted to drink and water the horses, the two deputies had made a break for it. It had been all that Billy needed: the pair of them were dead within seconds of running, shot through the body and the head, each squeeze of the trigger making the Kid sing aloud with pleasure at the revenge he was taking for Tunstall.

  It hadn’t been murder, not to Billy. It had been justice and a better, fairer brand than could be expected from the law in Lincoln: fairer and fiercer, deadly.

  Sheriff Brady must have realized he was taking a chance putting the Kid’s name and picture on a flier and he might have guessed that the Kid would show his displeasure and show it fast. Herne reckoned that Murphy or Dolan had likely pushed him into it, maybe as a way of making up for one of their own men facing a rustling charge and three others having been killed.

  However it was, the sun was clear and full in the sky when Billy led the men into town, keeping clear of the main street and riding slowly to the rear of the store owned jointly by Chisum and McSween. No one seemed to have noticed them as they knocked and went in by the rear door. McSween’s wife, Susan, opened it cautiously.

  She didn’t like Billy and it showed in her face,

  The Kid, in high spirits now in anticipation of what was to come, leaned his slight body towards her and kissed her on the mouth. She jumped back with a cry, wiping the back of her hand across her lips.

  Billy laughed and pushed past her, the other men following. Herne was the last in line and as he was crossing the threshold a word from Billy stopped him.

  ‘Someone ought to go down to the courthouse, in case of any trouble there.’

  ‘What kind of trouble you meanin’?’ Herne looked at Billy doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the Kid shrugged. ‘Trouble. Any trouble. You head over there. We’ll wait here a while and meet you over there.’

  Herne didn’t like it, didn’t see the sense of it, but there was no way of arguing against it. He turned on his heels and moved back down the alley that led from the rear of the store. Susan McSween shut the door behind him.

  Billy stepped along the aisle between the wooden counter and a row of barrels topped with crates and boxes. He looked through the plate glass window: down the street some seventy yards was the sheriff’s office; almost opposite was the Murphy store. He knew that the court house, out of sight, was along the street in the opposite direction.

  An elderly woman was choosing a length of material, her body bent awkwardly inside a black dress that spread on to the floor at the hem.

  ‘Get rid of her!’ Billy hissed.

  Susan McSween stared up at him, incensed. ‘You can’t come in here and order me around like that. My husband—’

  Billy stopped her with a laugh: ‘Your husband won’t do shit an’ you know it!’

  Susan McSween flushed deeply, her scalp burning. The old woman’s hands fumbled with the material. Billy came closer, leering at them.

  ‘I said get her out.’ He caught hold of the woman by the shoulder, spinning her round. ‘Finish up and get goin’!’

  The length of material tumbled away from her and she jammed one hand to her mouth stifling a scream. Susan McSween took her by the arms and started to move her towards the doorway. Billy pointed at the windows, glancing at Charlie Bowdre and Tom O’Folliard.

  ‘Get the shutters.’

  The men hesitated, then moved to obey the order. Susan McSween ran towards Charlie, placing herself between him and the window.

  ‘No, you can’t. It doesn’t make sense. We’re open for business. My husband...’

  Her voice trailed away. Billy grinned and said to Charlie Bowdre. ‘Knock her out of the way an’ get on with it.’

  The dark eyes in Susan McSween’s face flickered sharply; her cheeks were still flushed. Charlie moved his hands and she flinched but he only set them on her shoulders and moved her, firmly but gently, aside.

  When the heavy wooden shutters were in place, Billy sauntered round behind the counter and took a bottle of soda pop for himself. He leaned against the wall, lifting the bottle to his mouth, smiling. Susan McSween looked into his eyes and as hastily looked away.

  ‘What time is it?’ the Kid asked.

  Charlie Bowdre pulled out the watch he kept in his vest pocket and snapped the front open. ‘A little short of ten.’

  Billy nodded and swigged on the soda pop. He drank too fast and the yellow liquid dribbled down one side of his chin and on to his black shirt. When he lifted the lip of the bottle away from his mouth he belched loudly.

  Susan McSween stared at him in disgust.

  Billy caught the expression and hurled the bottle towards her; not at her, but close enough to make her jump back alarmed.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mrs McSween, ain’t you used to men who behave natural? Don’t McSween ever do that? Don’t that nice husband of yours ever belch or fart?’ He started to walk towards her and she clutched at her skirts, glancing nervously at the other men for signs of assistance. ‘Don’t he—’

  ‘Billy!’ hissed Frank McNab from by the window. ‘I reckon they’re comin’ out.’

  The Kid turned and hurried to the shuttered window, all thoughts of Susan McSween excised from his mind. He peered out into the street.

  ‘Dad Peppin just went in,’ McNab explained. ‘They’re likely ready.’

  Billy nodded. Horses were tied to the hitching post outside the sheriff’s office. ‘Think they’ll ride or walk down?’

  McNab glanced at him. ‘Walk.’

  The smile on Billy’s face was thankful. He turned and motioned to the others to get in position. ‘Tom, you an’ Jim get round to the side, down behind that wall. The rest of you find a space in here an’ wa
tch the street good. An’ don’t nobody fire before I do.’

  He drew his pistol and checked the load. Charlie Bowdre knelt down at the other end of the shutters; Fred Wayt by the door.

  Susan McSween had ducked down behind the store counter, dreading what was about to happen but knowing there was nothing she could do to prevent it. If only her ... but she cut the thought there ... she knew that the Kid had been right. Good man as her husband was, believing in the justice of the Chisum and Tunstall case as he did, he wasn’t the sort of man to go up against Billy successfully–especially not Billy with a gun in his hand and that look in his eyes. Susan McSween shuddered as she remembered the look in Billy’s wide-set eyes.

  ‘Here they come!’

  She heard the half-shout and held her breath, one hand wringing the material of her skirt.

  George Hindman and Dad Peppin came out of the office first, both of them with rifles over their crooked arms. For a moment Billy cursed, thinking that Peppin was going to untie the mounts, but all the gray-haired man did was to pull a bundle of papers from one of the saddle bags and stuff them into his back pants’ pocket.

  After a few moments, the chief deputy, J. B. Matthews, came through the door and stood aside while Sheriff Brady stepped on to the sidewalk. Matthews shut the door and locked it, while Brady broke the sawn-off shotgun and snapped it closed again.

  ‘Let’s go.’ The military voice could be heard inside the store.

  Brady moved off the sidewalk and began walking along the center of the street, boots kicking up small clouds from the loose, sandy earth. Matthews followed close to his right, the other deputies keeping a few yards back and checking over their shoulders from time to time. They knew the danger they’d brought upon themselves by having the warrant issued for Billy and nothing was going to let them forget it.

  The Kid watched them carefully, in particular never taking his eyes off Brady. Alongside him Frank McNab started to ask a question, but Billy shut him up.

  Brady hesitated in the street, noticing for the first time that the shutters had been pulled down on the McSween store. His gray eyes ran along the front of the building and the low wall at the side, but saw nothing unusual,

  ‘Okay?’ asked J. B. Matthews.

  Brady nodded and carried on towards the courthouse. The four men came level with the store, moved past. Charlie Bowdre glanced anxiously at the Kid, wondering why he hadn’t opened fire and if he’d changed his mind.

  The end of Billy’s pistol slotted through a gap in the shutters and the Kid began slowly to squeeze back on the trigger. The sheriff and his men were some fifty feet past the store and Brady’s back filled Billy’s sights. The tip of the Kid’s tongue appeared between his lips and the trigger moved back through that final space.

  Brady went forward with a jolt as if something had kicked into the small of his back. The shotgun flew from his grasp and his left arm began to twist round, as though trying to pull the slug from his body.

  All at once the air was full of the sound of firing. From the store and the adobe wall alongside the Tunstall men opened up with pistol and rifle. George Hindman got his own Winchester up level with his chest and splintered the wooden shutter not too far from Billy’s head. Frank McNab watched the deputy change position, running along the opposite sidewalk; he followed the movement with his own rifle and sent a shot screaming after him, missing by inches. Hindman turned fast and fired from the hip, running again for the cover of the nearest doorway.

  He was turning into it when a shot from one of the men behind the wall drove through his back, entering wide of the right shoulder blade and deflecting off the bone so that it exited with a blast of blood and flesh high in the shoulder itself.

  Hindman slumped on to his knees, head going forward until it rested against the rough adobe of the building.

  In the middle of the street, almost directly behind him, Sheriff Brady was already dead. The Kid’s bullet had torn through the center of his back, narrowly missing the spine but severing an artery close to the heart. Blood pumped through an exit wound in Brady’s chest the size of a man’s bunched fist but it was meaningless. The body’s business of dying continuing after the brain has died.

  ‘Hold up!’ called Billy. ‘Hold your fire!’

  Dad Peppin and J. B. Matthews had somehow found shelter on the far side of the street. Peppin by diving through the open window of a house, Matthews leaping for the safety of a narrow alley and getting into the same building by the back door. Now he was lying by the window on the first floor, waiting his chance.

  ‘Two of ’em left,’ said Charlie, reloading.

  ‘How ’bout Hindman?’

  ‘He’s done for.’

  It wasn’t true. George Hindman was on his hands and knees, head towards the ground, choking on a mixture of vomit and blood. But he wasn’t dead: not yet.

  ‘See where those two bastards went?’ asked Billy.

  ‘No,’ replied McNab, glancing towards Susan McSween, who was kneeling behind the counter her hands pressed together at her breasts, eyes closed tight and lips moving silently.

  ‘They made a run for it,’ ventured Charlie Bowdre, sneaking a look up the street.

  ‘You sure?’

  For an answer Charlie emptied his pistol in the direction of the facing doors and windows; there was no response.

  The Kid stood up. ‘I’m goin’ out there.’

  ‘What in hell’s name for?’ asked McNab.

  ‘I want to make sure that bastard sheriff ain’t breathin’—an’ I want to get me that sawn-off he’s always totin’ round like he was the Lord God himself.’

  Billy touched Fred Wayt on the shoulder. ‘Come with me.’

  Fred didn’t take to the idea but he wasn’t about to argue. Charlie Bowdre and Frank McNab moved into position to give covering fire. Billy eased the door open and went into the street fast, pistol in hand. Fred Wayt followed close behind, half-anticipating a shot which didn’t come. Billy went towards the sheriff’s body at a low run, stopping by it and reaching for the sixgun holstered and unfired. He pulled it free and tossed it to Wayt, scurrying after the lawman’s sawn-off. As his fingers touched the metal, Matthews broke cover and fired from the window above. His first shot missed the Kid by inches, making him drop the shotgun and wheel fast.

  Both Charlie Bowdre from the store and Tom O’Folliard from the cover of the adobe wall sent shots through the upstairs window, both of them high of their target

  Matthews fired again, trying for Fred Wayt this time and catching him stranded between the two sides of the street. The rifle slug ploughed through the fleshy part of Wayt’s right thigh, tumbling him over, a shout of shocked realization on his lips.

  Billy splintered the window frame with a snatched shot and made another attempt to grasp Brady’s shotgun. Again he got his hand to it as Matthews fired. The deputy’s bullet hit the Kid in the side, scoring a deep line as it passed across his ribs without breaking bone.

  Billy sank to his knees, his head striking the corner of the sidewalk hard. As he collapsed Herne showed at the end of the street, between the courthouse and the large adobe building that was the San Juan church. He came forward at a run, recognizing Billy’s as one of the bodies down; the other two, left and right of the street, Fred Wayt and George Hindman, he was uncertain of.

  Charlie Bowdre threw open the door of the store and called for cover. He got a yard towards Wayt when Dad Peppin opened fire from across the street. Hastily, he ducked back inside.

  ‘Got to get ’em out of there,’ shouted Frank McNab over the general noise.

  ‘Easier said than done,’ replied Bowdre, aiming at the doorway opposite.

  Herne stopped against a post back on the sidewalk and aimed with his Colt. He sent one bullet ricocheting off the wall close by Peppin’s head and put a second through the upstairs window the other deputy was using. He could see Wayt now, slowly crawling towards the cabin; Hindman easing himself along the far wall, blood dribbling from h
is open mouth.

  Herne sent another shot winging towards the doorway and went for Billy at a run, keeping his body low. Seeing him go, Charlie Bowdre made a second attempt to rescue Fred Wayt, Tom O’Folliard vaulting the low wall to help him.

  Herne grabbed at the Kid’s arm and began to pull him across the street, bullets sailing past them from both sides. He backed towards the store, using his Colt with one hand and pulling the Kid with the other.

  Frank McNab slammed the door shut behind them.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ called Bowdre.

  Herne leaned over Billy, who was beginning to come round, head swimming. ‘You okay?’

  The Kid opened his eyes uncertainly, trying to focus on Herne and not succeeding.

  ‘I … got hit.’

  Herne pulled away the black material masking the wound and examined it. ‘It’s okay. A scratch.’ He stood up. ‘We’d best move out. They’ll get reinforcements before long.’

  Jim French had the horses ready at the back. As the men went quickly through the door, Susan McSween gave way to the tears which had been welling up inside her throughout the fighting. The sound of horses rose and faded and still the tears ran noiselessly down her cheeks while outside George Hindman on his bloody and final journey had got as far as the church steps. He pitched forwards and turned, face towards the sun, oblivious to either its heat or light.

  Chapter Six

  The South Spring ranch looked the way John Chisum had intended it to look, solid and built to outlive generations. The furnishings inside were comfortable without being ostentatious–a mixture of straightforward American workmanship and colorful Mexican artistry. Heavy wooden chairs and tables were surrounded by woven blankets and tapestries that hung from the walls; pottery vases were filled with spring flowers. The richly-patterned rugs lay on dully polished boards.

  John Simpson Chisum stood with his back to the fire, although nothing other than unlit logs lay across the grate. His hands were clasped behind and his six foot three frame was erect and still.