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

  During the hour Herne also learned that they had planned to try and hit two more banks before the snows closed right in on them, but the delay with the rains and the lame horse had changed things.

  ‘Just one more,’ scar-faced Sean kept saying, more to himself than to the others. ‘Just one more.’

  The shootist stayed hidden a few minutes beyond the hour. The little figure of Joey had put some more broken branches on their fire and the flames had flared up, throwing dancing shadows clear out to where he was hiding. Even in poor light Jed figured that there was a real danger of his being spotted and hunted down before he could get back to his horse.

  He was huddled over, keeping his body surface as small as possible to prevent the cold biting at him. His arms were folded around his knees, fingers white, despite his gloves. It was close to midnight before the fire sank lower and he decided to take his chance and slip away from the camp.

  But Dermot moved first.

  ‘Got to go and piss.’ he called out, standing and stretching. Moving straight towards where Herne was lurking. The duster coat that the Irishman was still wearing brushed at the snow, making a faint hissing sound and he knocked the branches of the trees as he went by them, heading for Herne.

  The shootist was still kneeling in the snow, in the lee of the big pine, and his mind raced as he considered his options.

  Stay where he was and take the chance on not being seen.

  Or get in first and try and take the bandit out in silence. Then run for it.

  The two options suddenly became one. The clouds that had been scudding across the moon picked that particular moment to clear away and Herne found himself looking straight into O’Sullivan’s eyes from about six feet.

  Despite the cold and the long period of utter stillness, the shootist’s reflexes operated with oiled precision.

  The bayonet from its sheath in his boot into his right hand.

  Lunging up from the snow faster than anyone Dermot had ever seen in his life. Faster than anyone he would ever see again.

  He caught a glimpse of the crouching figure, then it seemed to explode towards him. There was a lean face with slanted eyes; black hair that flowed out from his shoulders with the speed of the movement. He even had a fleeting moment to see the touch of grey at the temples, like George Wright.

  Something in the right hand.

  Hitting him on the left side of his chest, through the thin duster coat, and the thicker pea-jacket beneath. A hard blow that seemed to strike clean to the core of his body. A grating shock as the point of the knife went clean through, angled upwards, crunching off the bottom part of his left shoulder-blade, right through the upper section of his heart.

  Herne twisted the hilt of the old knife as he tugged it free, feeling hot blood gush out from the mortal wound and soak his hand and wrist. The boy’s mouth sagged open and for a moment Jed thought that he was going to put all of his last seconds into a scream to warn the others.

  But the problems of his own dying took over his mind and he fell to his knees in front of the shootist. Hands going to his chest, feeling his life ebbing from him.

  The face of his killer preoccupied Dermot O’Sullivan. It was like George, yet not the same. More frightening, with depths to it that the gang leader didn’t possess.

  If it was someone looking like that, then it had to be …

  ‘You’re Herne,’ he whispered, half-smiling as he solved the puzzle.

  ‘Yeah, son. And you’re dead,’ replied the shootist, his voice hardly raised to a whisper, barely reaching the ears of the young Irishman. Who slipped down on his face, like a swimmer entering deep water, hands beneath him, head turned a little to one side.

  His eyes were still open.

  ‘Dermot!’

  Herne quickly wiped the blood-slick blade in the snow, sheathing it again.

  ‘Hey, Dermot!’

  It could only be seconds. Sean O’Sullivan was already turning around, craning his neck as he stared into the forest blackness, trying to make out where his twin brother had disappeared to.

  ‘Dermot, are you there?’ Quieter. ‘George. Somethin’s up with Dermot. He’s not after answerin’ me calls to him.’

  ‘Are you there, boy?’ called Wright, standing up, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants. The others also stood up.

  Herne was already forty paces off, ghosting back, dodging as he went, trying to keep as many tree trunks as possible between himself and the faint gleam of the fire.

  Behind him he heard feet crunching through the ice and snow. Then a yell of rage and desolation as Sean stumbled over the pale corpse of his twin brother.

  Jed knew there was little point in concealment now and he began to run in earnest, catching the sound of someone shouting at him.

  There was the flat crack of a pistol being fired, and snow on a branch a few yards to Herne’s left exploded in a starburst of whiteness. Three more shots were aimed at him, but none of them came close. Then he heard the voice of George Wright bellowing at his gang to hold their fire.

  ‘Bring that fuckin’ posse down on us. Get after him.’

  But Herne knew that he had a good enough start. Even in his bulky clothes and boots, dodging in and out among the trees, he was confident that he could reach his stallion way ahead of the pursuers. Again it was a throwback to his time with the Indians. The Oglala Sioux would run after buffalo for an entire day, gradually wearing down the herds, finally isolating a weak straggler and killing it. Loping along at a remorseless pace hour after hour. Stopping only for a few moments to sip at water. Then on again.

  The noise of the bandits died away behind him and Herne was running alone. His ears filled with the crashing of his own progress, snapping off branches that showered him with powdery snow. Silence was utterly irrelevant.

  All that mattered was speed.

  He saw the small clearing where he’d left the horse. The animal snickered to him as he ran up, panting with the effort of the run, about to swing into the saddle and get away.

  When a cold voice from the shadows froze him where he stood.

  ‘Got eighteen guns on you. I’m a man of God, mister, but I’ll gladly send you to meet our Maker if’n you move a damned inch.’

  Chapter Eight

  At least they hadn’t tied him.

  With eighteen of them they didn’t see a whole lot of need to do that. All of them were armed and they were all jubilant at having pulled off the big capture. Strutting around, having built up a huge fire that could have been seen for miles.

  Jed had tried.

  Really tried.

  But the vigilantes weren’t exactly in the listening mood.

  A couple of them had gone for him with rifle butts but the minister had held them off, even though Herne took a couple of stinging blows to the ribs first. And the general mood had been for hanging him straight away, without even the formality of any kind of trial.

  ‘No, no, no. Let us behave properly. Find out who this man is first.’

  During those stunning initial moments of capture several thoughts had raced through Jed’s mind. There were all manner of possibilities open to him. Hardly any of them looked specially better or worse than the rest.

  He could have fought.

  And died on the spot under a positive hail of lead from all around.

  He could have run.

  Dying a few paces further away from his horse.

  Maybe he could have tried to explain to them how Wright and his gang were only a quarter mile away through the snow-veiled trees.

  They’d not have believed him.

  The middle-aged robber would have heard the hubbub as Herne was caught and led his men away in the opposite direction as quickly as he could, probably leaving the corpse behind him.

  It even flashed through his mind that the evidence of the body and the clear signs of the camp might be enough to prove he was telling the truth. But without Wright himself there then the posse would just claim that there’d been an
argument among the gang and Herne had run out after killing the Irishman.

  ‘What’s your name, mister?’ asked the priest.

  ‘Herne. Jedediah Travis Herne. I’m a—’

  But the shouting that arose around him drowned out anything else he wanted to say. The large figure of the minister stood and waved his arms. ‘Peace, brothers, peace. No violence until we string him up.’

  ‘You want me to talk or you want me to die?’ asked the shootist.

  ‘I’m the Reverend Henry Wyndham, Mr. Herne. You and your murderin’ friends killed three of the decent citizens of Stanstead Springs only a week back.’

  ‘I was in Denver a week back when the word came through on the wire.’

  ‘Sure! Lyin’ son of a bitch! He’s lying to us, sure as my name’s Cyrus Blennerhassett!’

  ‘What the Hell you doin’ out here, then? If’n you didn’t have nothin’ to do with this robbin’?’

  There was a chorus of “Yeah!” from the group of men and someone spat at Herne. The spittle landed on his cheek, cold and sticky. He lifted his hand to wipe it off, looking round for the man who’d done it.

  ‘I’ve killed for less’n that.’ he said, quietly. ‘Man does that and hides ain’t a man.’

  ‘You talk big, Mr. Herne, for someone facing his God.’

  ‘Your God, Reverend, not mine.’

  ‘All our Gods,’ insisted the priest. Looking puzzled as he realized that something had gone wrong with his grammar.

  ‘I’ve told you who I am. I’ll tell you more.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘If you’ll listen to me.’

  ‘Sure. Talk on, you bastard!’

  ‘I’m a bounty-hunter.’

  ‘And a liar!’

  Herne ignored the interruption. Carrying on with his story, knowing the utter futility of it. But as long as he was talking, then he was still breathing. And as long as he was breathing he was alive.

  Long as he was alive, there was always some kind of hope.

  ‘I heard that some robber was using my name and I came after him. Try and clear my name. Only way I knew.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the law, Mr. Herne?’ asked the priest, winking at the rest of the men. The fire was now rising to a mighty blaze and Herne looked around the circle of faces. Seeing nothing but a gloating satisfaction that they’d come to the end of their chase and a blind lust for killing. There wasn’t a grain of humanity to be seen anywhere.

  ‘They’d have arrested me. There’s a flyer out on my name and my description.’

  ‘But it ain’t you?’ shouted a voice. The man who’d spat in his face, Herne recognized.

  ‘No. What’s your name, mister?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Like to know.’

  ‘I ain’t tellin’,’ said the man, defensively, backing off uncomfortably, carrying his shotgun under his arm.

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘Not of you.’

  ‘Then tell me your name.’

  Blennerhassett laughed. ‘Tell him, Jud. Won’t do him no good where he’s goin’.’

  ‘Yeah,’ grinned Herne. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Jud Bridges,’ muttered the man, reluctantly.

  ‘Bridges. I’ll remember that,’ said the shootist, still standing at the center of the posse. Wondering when one of them would take his pistol.

  ‘That your horse, Mr. Herne?’ asked the priest.

  ‘Yeah.’ Seeing that it was still precisely where he’d left it. Tied in the way that he’d tied it.

  ‘Might coincidental that it’s the same as the man rode who robbed our bank.’

  ‘And killed!’ came a voice from the back.

  ‘Your tracker could tell that my horse isn’t the one you’ve been following,’ tried Jed. ‘If he wasn’t dead drunk the whole damned time.’

  ‘You could have circled and trailed us in. I figure it was you we shot at way back before those rains came on down.’

  ‘Take me back to town and face me with the folks there,’ suggested Herne. Knowing as he said it what a long, hopeless shot that was likely to turn out for him.

  ‘Folks’d know you are dead, you bastard,’ said Blennerhassett.

  ‘Then I fear that things look black for you, Mr. Herne,’ said the priest, with an unctuous smile that Jed longed to smash from his face. The shootist realized that Wyndham was actually enjoying this. As the minister to a small community he didn’t have many chances to flex his muscles and show his power. Now he had the opportunity as leader of the posse, Wyndham wasn’t likely to throw it away easily.

  ‘I figured that the moment you caught me,’ replied the shootist.

  ‘You aren’t tryin’ very hard, are you? Guess you know you ain’t got a hope.’

  Herne looked over at the speaker. A small man with a battered brown hat, flattened to his head by a muffler that came down beneath his chin, helping to keep his ears warm in the bitter cold.

  ‘I know that, mister. I know that you’ll shortly be hangin’ an innocent man.’

  ‘We can live with that, huh, Reverend?’ laughed Jud Bridges, his confidence returning.

  ‘Yes, Jud, we can. We know that the righteous wrath of the Almighty shall settle only upon this sinner. He acts through us.’

  ‘Amen. We are the vessel of the Anointed,’ called a deep voice.

  ‘Amen,’ chorused the posse, some of them feeling that they ought to show respect to the sudden wave of religious fervor by doffing their hats.

  ‘I’d like a little time, before … before you do what you must,’ said Herne.

  ‘For prayer?’ asked the minister, unable to conceal the surprise in his voice.

  ‘Yes, Father. I’d like to talk a little and maybe write a last letter.’

  ‘Letter?’

  ‘My Ma.’

  ‘You got a mother livin’?’ asked Blennerhassett, looking doubtful. ‘Must be a damned old woman by now.’

  ‘She’s close to seventy. Near blind. Lives out east in Vermont.’

  ‘Then you must have broken her heart with your wickedness,’ said the priest, piously. Things were going even better than he’d hoped. They’d not only caught the leader of the killers, without a man being hurt, but Herne was now showing pleasing signs of wishing to make a Christian and contrite ending of it.

  ‘I fear I have, Reverend. I fear I have. I have neglected her sorely. Now, at the last, I’d want to let her know I died repenting.’

  ‘Amen,’ called the priest.

  The vigilantes dutifully followed his lead again.

  ‘Don’t you want to do some more beggin’?’ shouted a tall man in a stovepipe hat, the brim and crown decorated with a fresh powdering of snow.

  ‘I am done with that. I have told you all the truth and you disbelieve me. Then there’s an end to it all, says I,’ Jed replied.

  He sensed the slight feeling of disappointment among the watching men. Knowing that they had wanted more drama. But he wanted a quietness to the situation. Wanted them to relax the tension. Think it was closing in to its end so that their attention might not be so sharp and keen.

  Herne still didn’t see even a glimmer of light to guide him to a chance of freedom, but he could only do what he could.

  ‘Hang him now!’ yelped Cyrus.

  ‘Yeah. Now!’

  ‘String him high.’

  ‘Get him dancin’ to our tune, the damned killer!’ bellowed a new voice.

  But Wyndham didn’t want the lynching party to slip out of his control. He patted Herne familiarly on the shoulder and called out to the other men. ‘Friends! Friends, let us have calm. The man has admitted his guilt. And he knows what is to follow. But it can be done with some dignity, can it not?’

  The question didn’t get much of a reply. Merely a discontented grumble that might have been agreement or more likely disappointment.

  ‘Give him five minutes to clear his soul, Reverend.’

  ‘And my letter?’ asked Jed, looking down at the rutted earth in what he hoped seemed a suitab
ly contrite and humble manner.

  ‘I think we can spare you a couple of minutes for some silent prayer, Herne. And then a whiles longer to compose the letter to your mother.’

  ‘Who’ll deliver it?’

  ‘It will reach her. In Vermont, you said?’

  ‘Norwich.’

  ‘I give you my solemn word that I will guarantee it is delivered to her,’ smiled the priest.

  Thinking that his cousin, who worked on one of the Denver newspapers might well pay handsomely for such a confession. Maybe one of the men could draw up a sketch of the scene after they’d pulled the noose tight. Labeled with everyone’s names. That’d be fine and dandy.

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘You have my word as a Christian, Mr. Herne,’ replied Wyndham.

  ‘Let’s get to it, Reverend.’

  ‘Yeah. This bastard cold’s freezin’ my balls clean off of me.’

  ‘String him up and let’s us all get on home.’

  Herne looked around at the group of men. ‘Will you not go after the rest of the gang?’

  ‘Hell, no. Don’t give a shit ’bout them. Just you we wanted.’

  ‘I surely wouldn’t want you catching cold on my count,’ grinned the shootist, carrying on with his plan to try and lower the tension.

  The priest also looked at the members of his flock. ‘Are we agreed he shall have time to pray?’

  ‘If he’s quick.’

  ‘And the letter?’

  There was a general nodding in reply. Wyndham took Herne by the arm. ‘Shall we pray now, my son?’

  The shootist was sickened at the way the minister switched from being an eager hangman to a sugary comforter.

  ‘Can I have a little quiet to myself? Maybe … ’ Looking about him. ‘Maybe over there.’ Pointing to the side of the clearing furthest from his horse.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  It was Jud Bridges who’d shouted. ‘Might be some kind of stinkin’ trick, Reverend. Make the bastard stay this side.’

  ‘It’s not a trick,’ protested Herne.

  ‘Could be his friends are thinkin’ of sneakin’ in to rescue him,’ suggested Bridges, spinning around with the hammers of his shotgun cocked, peering in among the silent trees, away from the brightness of the flames.