River of Blood Read online

  ‘Guess you’re going to have company in your gig till we can buy me a new horse. That all right with you?’

  He felt her nod her head against his upper arm.

  ‘Come on then, let’s fetch the saddle of my mount then move on out of here.’

  As they drove through the canyon, Becky tried to avert her eyes from the bodies of the dead men, but it was difficult. That night and for many nights after she would see them over and over again. Especially the falling, green-shirted shape, coming down from above her eyes and crashing into black rock, his face distorted by an unfinished scream which Becky herself voiced for him.

  Isaiah Coburn sat very still. He was perched on the edge of a wooden chair, with his feet stretched out in front of him, one hooked over the other. His hands were open, finger tips touching in an arch. Although his eyes were closed, the angle of his head showed that he was concentrating on the positioning of his hands. He had been sitting like that for a long time: since his five men had ridden off.

  The sound of gunfire had not disturbed him. It was expected. Nor was there any point in worrying about what might have happened. A number of shots, at well spaced out intervals -· it could mean anything. And whatever it meant, there was nothing Coburn could do. Except wait.

  So he stayed in that position, relaxing his body, trying to direct all of his attention into the touch of one finger upon another. Trying to clear his mind of all thoughts.

  It was not easy. Ideas, conversations, memories would insist upon intruding. His first meeting with Herne. Herne now. Half of Coburn hoped that his men had failed in their mission; the other half wanted them to have succeeded — for if they had not, then it would be up to him to finish the job.

  Not that he was afraid of Herne: any more than he thought Herne was afraid of him. But there was a doubt about which man would be the fastest if it came to a showdown. It was a doubt Coburn was not anxious to see resolved. The two of them had co-existed until now, had often fought on the same side. Why not leave it that way?

  Why not?

  Money.

  The price Senator Nolan had put on Herne’s head was such that he could not afford to turn it down.

  If he’s a friend of yours then get others to kill him, have him shot down in the street, in the back — anything you like. Only get him for what he did to my boy. Those had been the Senator’s instructions.

  So he had hired other men. But all the time he had known inside that they would not be good enough; had known that it would be left to him in the end.

  For Herne the Hunter did not become someone else’s prey easily, and only a good hunter could catch and kill another. Coburn hoped that he was that good a hunter: had thought he was when he accepted the job. Thought so now, sitting in the shack, waiting for news.

  He tensed his thin limbs momentarily, then relaxed them again. He forced his mind clear once more. Only the sound of hoof beats would break his concentration. A single horseman, riding fast, Herne? No, he would not know which way to go.

  It had gone wrong then. All the time he had been sure that they were not good enough. But they had been so cocky — kids, mostly. You stay here, they had said, All we need to do is hide and wait until he rides along and then . . . Easy! Like picking apples off a tree. ·

  Yes, thought Coburn, but until you bite into an apple there’s no way of knowing what it tastes like, what fatal poison it might contain.

  The rider pulled his mount to a noisy halt outside the shack and jumped off hastily. The door was Hung open and Elliott stomped into the room.

  No other name, just Elliott. The oldest of the five who rode with Coburn, he was the only one who had worked with him before, the only one for whom Coburn had any respect — and then not much.

  He was nearly as tall as Coburn, but well-built almost to the point of being fat. His belly was starting to sag over his trouser belt and his shirts were always bursting apart at the seams. He pulled the greasy Stetson from his head and used the underside of the brim to wipe his face clear of sweat.

  Coburn had not altered his position at all, only opened his eyes questioningly. Elliott looked worried, ill at ease: Herne must have put on quite a show.

  Elliott stood with his hat held in front of his trousers, his eyes still flickering wildly.

  ‘He . . . he took them all,’ the large man spluttered. ‘Every one of them. It was just . . . easy for him.’

  Coburn relaxed the formation his fingers had maintained for so long.

  ‘You mean easy as picking apples off a tree?’ he asked without a suggestion of a smile.

  ‘He shot Shelby right through the eye! He couldn’t have had more than a couple of inches to aim at and he took . . . he took his eye clear out.’

  Coburn lifted his legs clear of the floor, then swung them down and stood up in a single movement. He took a step towards Elliott, a step which moved easily into a blow as he followed through with left fist into the man’s bulging stomach. The Stetson fell to the floor and, as a result of a right cross, the man followed it.

  A movement of hand towards gun belt was halted by Coburn’s boot which trapped Elliott’s wrist against his thigh.

  ‘Don’t! You ain’t good enough for Herne and you ain’t good enough for me either. I told you that none of you would ever take him. Next time it’ll be done my way. Right?’

  The pressure on the wrist increased. Elliott grimaced and nodded his shock of dark hair. Coburn released him and allowed him to get up from off the floor.

  ‘We got his . . . his horse,’ Elliott offered. ‘And he’ll be riding in a little wagon with some young girl that he’s got along with him. Why don’t we take him now? We could do it.’

  Coburn swiveled easily and swung out his left fist. Elliott fell back heavily against the door frame, bouncing outside on to the barren ground.

  Coburn followed him and stood in the doorway.

  ‘You dumb ox! You don’t ever learn. To try and take him now is the very thing he’ll expect, so he’ll be more on the look-out than ever. And we now have only two guns yours and mine. You just failed to take him with five.’·

  He looked away over the man’s head, towards the far horizon.

  ‘We’ll wait. And then we’ll take him good. If someone else hasn’t done the job for us first.’

  He turned and went back into the shack. Elliott hesitated, then pulled himself to his feet and began to unsaddle his mount. It had been a surprising day. He had not expected Herne to be that good : he had not expected Coburn to be that angry.

  The first place of any size in which Herne expected to be able to buy himself a fresh horse was the town of Little Rock on the Arkansas River. Apart from being a ferrying stage and stopover for cattlemen, nothing had justified its existence until the coming of the railroads. Not one, but two.

  The Illinois Central Railroad headed down south from the gigantic cattle markets of Chicago. The Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Railroad intersected it on its journey from the West Coast.

  As a result of this Little Rock threatened to outgrow its name. The buildings blossomed along the vine of the main street, trade flourished, saloons and bars shot up over night. Compared to Amarillo, this was a scene of urgent and purposeful movement - even if much of that purpose was getting as much liquor down in as little time as possible. Or , winning as much money as luck and the dealer’s subtle shifts of cards would allow.

  All Herne wanted was a good mount, some fresh supplies of food and coffee, and a comfortable pair of beds for Becky and himself He was to get more than he had bargained for.

  It was midday when they entered the main street. The sky was clear, though the sun that day was watery and none too warm. Herne’s appearance in the small gig raised a few remarks from the men sitting alongside the street, but he ignored these and drove along steadily, looking out for a good livery stable.

  Tied to a rail outside one of the saloons, Herne saw a fine looking horse and thought to himself that a mount like that would be just the thing if
he was lucky enough to find one for sale. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the horse: a big, black stallion with a black leather saddle. An animal to notice and remember; Herne remembered.

  He had seen the horse in the stable in Amarillo. It was Matt Bronson’s.

  Their business carried out, Herne and Becky found two rooms in a quiet boarding house towards the eastern edge of town. The further they kept away from saloons the better; the less likely they were then to bump into Bronson.

  But Herne could not believe that the boy’s presence in Little Rock was an accident. Of course, they could leave straight away. But if he was following them then making a getaway would be of little use. And at some stage Herne knew that Coburn would try again. To have some tool kid messing around at the same time would only make things more difficult.

  So the thing to do was to wait until the next day and make sure whether he was actively looking for them or not.

  And if so, which of them was he seeking out — and for what reasons?

  ‘Becky,’ Herne began, ‘when you were talking to that young kid back in Amarillo . . . ’

  ‘Do you mean Matt?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Yes, I guess so. So you’re already on those kind of terms with him?’

  Becky flinched with embarrassment. ‘What do you mean by those kind of terms? He introduced himself to me properly.’

  ‘In the stable?’ Herne scoffed. ‘Young girls didn’t used to meet boys in stables and stroke their horses when I was a kid. Leastways, nice young girls didn’t!’

  Becky flushed an even deeper shade of crimson, and hid her face in her hands.

  ‘That’s unfair, Jed. That’s a terrible thing to say!’

  Herne relented slightly, realizing that she was right. Yet there were still things he wanted to know.

  ‘Did he say anything special to you about any arrangement for meeting you again? Anything about maybe following you?’

  The hands came down from the face and the eyes were bright with expectation.

  ‘Have you seen him then?’ she cried. ‘Here in Little Rock?’

  Herne was annoyed at her obvious pleasure. She was too young to be getting ideas about boys. Especially kids like Matt Bronson who liked to make a name for themselves with a gun and who were liable to end up with a rope round their neck or a bullet in their back.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ he answered. ‘And you haven’t answered my question.’

  Becky looked at him directly. ‘He didn’t say anything about following me . . . or meeting me. Nothing at all.’

  There was nothing else that Herne could do or say so he allowed the matter to drop.

  In the Ace of Hearts saloon that evening, watching a good game of poker and marveling at the way the dealer dealt T from both ends of the pack, Herne stiffened as someone l suddenly called his name loud and clear across the crowded room. He turned sharply, his right hand hovering above his Colt .45 like an eagle poised ready to dive and kill.

  ‘Herne! Jed Herne! I’ve not seen you for an age, boy.’

  The speaker was a man of about sixty, his face flushed with drink, his nose swollen and red. He waved his arms in Herne’s direction and called out to him like a long-lost brother.

  Herne made no move towards him, gave no acknowledgement. He couldn’t recall which saloon he had seen him in before. He might have seen more than a dozen such men; their own lives empty, trying vainly to ill their time with memories of things which never happened. They gave themselves the courage to meet their fellow men through drinking. They laid claim to any slight acquaintance with the famous and infamous in order to add color to their own fuddled failures.

  ‘That’s him, folks,’ the man continued, pointing across at the poker table and trying to gain as much attention as he could for both himself and Jed. ‘That’s him. Herne the Hunter they call him. Never was a man could escape his guns if Herne was set to track him down. Why, I remember the time back in Dodge City when . . . ’

  His voice became drowned in a flood of talk as the people in the saloon recognized yet another familiar and probably untrue tale start to pour from the man’s whiskey-soaked lips.

  Herne turned back to the game, which had been carrying on regardless of the interruption. It was a while since he had played poker himself; must have been before his marriage. Sometime soon, he wouldn’t mind a game or two. Especially if the dealer was one Barton Duquesne.

  That thought was uppermost in Herne’s mind when he turned in for bed; it was still there when he awoke.

  Their journey was nearly over. They would soon be within reach of Memphis and the Mississippi. Very little stood between them and their destination;

  Very little: an eighteen-year-old kid on a black horse.

  Matt Bronson was in the centre of the main street, his mount pulled round to a slight angle which favored his right hand draw. When Herne and Becky turned out of the Livery Stable yard, it was the first sight they saw.

  Though it was still early, there were plenty of folks about on the street and at the sight of the youth, obviously about to block Herne’s path, they stopped in their tracks and waited. Some of them recognized Herne from what the old man had said about him in the saloon the previous night and the words spread along the line like fire flickering the length of a brittle branch.

  Becky was very agitated as she sat in the gig, uncertain of what was going to happen. Pleased to see Matt but terrified at the thought of what might be about to take place. For the very manner he sat astride his horse was hostile. And she could not see any outcome other than death.

  She knew then that she did not want either man to die.

  Herne was less surprised, though he had considered that the boy would make his play during the previous night. But as he sat on his own horse, watching Matt’s face keenly, he realized why this could not have been so.

  Last night Becky had not been there. And of all the people that he wanted to impress, Becky was the most important. It was Herne’s place, his presumed place, in Becky’s affections that Matt wanted. The kid was jealous of both his reputation and the girl he rode with.

  Herne spoke first, his voice cold and clear like the spring sunlight before the frost has gone.

  ‘What are you doing there, boy?’

  Matt sneered, ‘What does it look as if I’m doing here?’

  ‘Making a damn fool of yourself’

  One or two of the men on the boardwalk sniggered and Matt shot them a hasty glance which shut them up instantly. Young he might be, but he still looked dangerous. Dangerous like a young wildcat out to prove his strength and cunning.

  ‘You going to get out of our way?’ Herne said, edging his horse nearer to Matt and further away from the gig. He didn’t want Becky in the way of any stray bullets.

  Matt sat slightly more upright in his saddle. ‘No, I ain’t moving. You’re going to have to pass through me. Which means you’re going to have to use that famous gun of yours.’

  There was a whisper of expectation from the steadily growing crowd; it rose and fell like the sea, falling around the tenseness of the central scene.

  Herne made no answer to the boy’s challenge. Simply stared at him all the harder.

  Matt shifted awkwardly. ‘Well? You getting deaf, old man? You getting past your prime already?’

  Still no answer. Matt continued colicky, becoming sure that he had Herne on the run.

  ‘I reckon you only wear that Colt of yours to keep you balanced aright. Take it off and you’d fall to your knees like the dribbling old fool you are! You couldn’t outdraw nobody anymore!’

  He shot a glance at Becky to see how she was reacting to his baiting of Herne, but it was impossible to know from her expression what she was thinking.

  Herne’s face betrayed nothing either.

  ‘Come on, now! Or are you too much of a coward to try your luck with someone younger?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Hell, then, if you want to get on your way you’d better turn around and
skulk out of town the back way, with your old tail down between your legs. ’Cause you sure ain’t going past me. Only one thing. You leave the girl here. Obvious that you ain’t good enough to protect her from anything anymore. Not even your own slobbery self maybe?

  Herne raised his right hand high in the air, until it was level with his shoulder. He wanted Matt and all of those watching to see that he wasn’t making a play for his gun. Not now.

  With his left hand gripping the pommel of his saddle, he swung down to the ground, Matt Bronson watched surprised, unsure of what to do.

  Herne began to pace the distance between himself and the boy, right hand still well clear of his gun-belt.

  ‘What you doing now, you fool old man? You gone loco or something?’

  Matt’s eyes began to show traces of panic. A fast shoot-out he was prepared for, but this . . . What was the man up to?

  ‘Herne! I called you out. You stand and make your play like a man or I’m going to gum you down in your tracks as you walk.’

  Herne raised his head slightly and saw the look in Matt’s eyes. ‘Son, you ain’t about to do any such thing - and you sure know it.’

  The boy’s hand moved fast: all the way from the shoulder to the hip, Herne’s hand moved faster. The fingers formed the shape of the Colt’s butt as they sped downwards, the thumb released the hammer, the forefinger eased itself on to the trigger: all of this before Matt had cleared his holster.

  The kid’s eyes were wide now. Not fear: astonishment. He had thought he was fast. Had practiced, hour after hour until his lingers were sore. Had been sure he could take any man.

  And now he was sitting astride his horse, gun two-thirds of the way clear of leather, staring down the end of Herne’s Colt, watching the linger tighten on the trigger.

  From behind, Herne thought he heard the beginnings of a cry from Becky, but it was choked off before he could be certain.

  Keeping his gun aimed at the boy’s chest, Herne took another three steps forward, until he was alongside the horse. He reached up his left hand and took the gun away from Matt’s hand, throwing it carelessly behind him. Then he slipped his own weapon back into its holster.