Silver Threads Read online

  With that she swept out, calling back over her shoulder to Lily to make sure that Mr. Herne took that sleeping draught. It was the first that Jed had heard of it and he felt his hackles rising.

  But the song was coming and it took all of his concentration to avoid Lily Sowren’s greasy pawing and her sly, whispered questions about topics that no lady should be concerned with.

  ‘My garden was planted full

  Of flowers everywhere,

  But for myself I could not choose

  The flower I held so dear.’

  As she warbled on, Jed wondered what the rest of the day would bring. It was often the case when you were a shootist: that you knew the sunset would mean you had lived through another day of danger. This promised to be another of those days. Lily Sowren was nearing the end of the maudlin ballad.

  ‘My garden is now run wild,

  When I shall plant anew,

  My bed, that once was filled with thyme

  Is over-run with rue,

  Yes, t’is over-run with rue’

  ~*~

  Two hours later, Lily Sowren crept into the room alongside Jed Herne’s bedroom and slipped back a small panel behind a picture. Applying her eyes to the hole that was revealed.

  As she watched, she began to smile, licking her lips at what she saw. Herne, only half-clothed, was stretched out on his bed, lying there on his back. One boot on, while the other lay on the floor. As though sleep had overtaken him while he was still getting ready for a nap.

  ‘Good,’ she whispered. Looking at the helpless man. She knew that Eliza’s draughts would keep him unconscious until the next morning and leave him with a foul headache. He would recall very little. Simply that he had been fatigued. That was all.

  It was an overwhelming temptation for the fat old woman. Though past forty, Herne’s body was in marvelous condition. Well-muscled, the flat stomach and broad shoulders. Lily looked for a long time at the sleeping figure. Trying to pluck up the courage to do something that she knew her dominant and efficient younger sister would take exception to. And when Eliza took exception to something.

  ‘No,’ she said, firmly, nearly sliding the peep-panel closed. Then hesitating again, Her right hand falling to her bosom. Then lower.

  And lower.

  Lower.

  ~*~

  Jed kept his eyes closed for another ten minutes, then risking a glance from lowered lids. His position on the bed, seemingly casual and accidental, was the result of a lot of thought. He’d taken the precaution of checking out the room as soon as he had first been left alone in it. Finding the hidden panel behind a picture and another in the corridor wall. From where he had arranged himself on the bed, he could see both while his own eyes remained in shadow. He had seen the movement behind the portrait of a Spanish nobleman, real eyes replacing the canvas ones. Heard the panting, and guessed immediately that it was Lily. Suspecting that she wouldn’t dare to spy on him like that for so long if Eliza had been in the house. Taking care to lie very still on the bed. Praying that she wouldn’t come in on him, to test by touch if the sleeping-draught had worked. He wasn’t sure just how strong his self-control was.

  But she went away. Lying still, Herne could hear her heavy lumbering steps as she disappeared into her own room along the corridor. The slam of the door. Even the rattle of the sets of bolts and chains that kept Lily’s privacy.

  It wasn’t the only locked room in the mansion. He’d been exploring all over the rambling house and discovered that some of the cellars were also locked. More heavily locked than he would have thought necessary. The one sure thing in Wild Rose was that nobody would dare to steal from the Misses Sowren.

  Finally, when he thought it might be safe, Jed rolled over and cautiously stood up. He’d only taken a couple of sips from the crystal glass of emerald liquid that Lily had handed him, but it was enough to make his head feel as though he’d been on the liquor for several nights running. What he’d have felt like if he’d drunk the whole glass didn’t bear thinking on.

  It had been easy to distract the ample Miss Lily while he poured the remainder of the drink into a large potted plant. With olive-green leaves and a rubbery stem. He wondered in passing what the elixir would do to the plant.

  Now it was time to be moving.

  He blessed the designer of the mansion as he eased his way through his bedroom window, out onto a sturdy trellis that held a rambling tangle of ivy. Sure that it would take his weight as he’d tested it a couple of nights earlier against just such an emergency.

  The stable was at the back and he saddled up his stallion, walking it quietly out, straight into a grove of trees that clustered close to the side wall. He thought as he sneaked away that those trees were evidence of how safe most whites now felt against the threat of Indian attack. That grove of leafy trees would have sheltered a hundred Oglala warriors and their ponies.

  There was a narrow draw running close beyond the trees and he was soon safely out of sight of the house, swinging himself up into the saddle with an easy grace.

  Taking a back trail that would lead him to Drowned Squaw Canyon.

  As he heeled the horse onwards, he felt the first pattering spots of rain on the shoulders of his shirt.

  ~*~

  By the time he’d covered three miles at an easy canter, the rain had begun to fall in earnest, soaking through the dry ground and converting sand into mud. His slicker was in one of the saddlebags and he’d pulled it on, though he hated riding in the noisy, constricting, uncomfortable coat.

  The sky was dark and he wondered how the time was going. With no sun it was difficult to calculate. He putted down the brim of his black hat and water tipped from the front, mingling with the rest of the rain on the horse’s mane. He was glad that the new guns worked just as well in this kind of weather. He had bitter memories of wet powder and constant misfires during the Civil War.

  Zimmerman had said late afternoon. The storm was slowing him down and he knew he was at risk of being too late. But the weather must also be slowing down the wagons with the ore from Old Number One mine. Probably slowing down the robbers as well. It wasn’t safe to try and push on faster. There was no knowing where the ambush would be and it would be a dangerous exercise to gallop around a blind corner and find yourself facing armed men.

  The rain eased for a few minutes, and then suddenly began to pound down with redoubled power. Lightning came forking across, shattering off the wet rocks around Herne, and it was all that he could do to control his horse, terrified by the new violence of the storm.

  Blinking against the flashes of dazzling silver light that spread across the dark sheet of the sky, Herne dismounted and tugged his horse into the cover of a shelf of overhanging rocks. Fighting for breath against the downpour. Patting the terrified animal on the neck to try and calm it. Hanging on the bridle, talking to the stallion all the time. Blowing gently in its nostrils, a trick he’d learned from the Indians.

  Winning the battle.

  ~*~

  The storm passed as quickly as it had appeared, the black clouds scudding off towards the south, leaving a land that streamed water from every crevice of stone. The trail had become a ribbon of mud and twice Herne had to urge the horse on through narrow creeks that had instantly become turbulent, bubbling streams in the flash flood. Mud rose as high as the stirrups on one occasion and he wondered what the rain must have done to the Clearwater if it had reached that area. With a localized downpour, it might not even have affected the river.

  It took another half hour to reach the end of Drowned Squaw Canyon. During the visit to the area with Sheriff Daley, Jed had seen there was a natural plateau halfway along, up a box canyon, that commanded a view of most of the main trail, and he headed the horse towards it. Hoping he was going to be in time,

  He wasn’t.

  Herne heard the fusillade of shots when he was still a quarter mile short of where he’d wanted to be. And that meant a change of plan. By the time he reached the vantage poin
t, the robbers could be well hidden from him. Maybe driving off the wagons to a chosen spot before they transferred the ore to mules.

  ‘Come on you bastard,’ he hissed at his mount, giving it a punch between the ears that made it stagger, kicking in the spurs at the same time. Hanging on the reins with one hand while he drew the heavy Sharps with the other.

  When he heard more shots he pulled in on the reins, bringing the horse rearing on its hind legs in protest at the treatment. This time the shooting was different. Several spaced shots. Six, he counted. At regular intervals.

  Jed slipped from the stallion’s back and tethered it quickly to a spur of wet rock, just out of sight of the main trail through the canyon. Peeling off the slicker he walked quickly, splashing through puddles, pausing at the next corner of the canyon and peering around it, the cocked rifle in his hands.

  It was the sort of scene that he’d feared. A scene that he’d seen many times in different places with only minor changes to it. Sometimes it had been a civilian wagon filled with women and children. And the attackers had been red. Apache or Sioux, most times. Sometimes the wagon had been a military one, with supplies or ammunition. Once or twice a stage with masked killers around it. Once it had even been a wagon train attacked by other whites, with scenes of the most appalling butchery. That had been at the time of the worst of the Mormon troubles.

  This time, it was three wagons. With what looked like had once been two men guarding each one. They weren’t doing any guarding now.

  They were all dead, and Jed recognized the meaning of those half dozen, spaced, careful shots. The bright blood showed up in the dim light, and he could see that each man had been shot several times. Mostly in the body, the close grouping of the wounds showing that their slayers hadn’t been far away. But each corpse also had another wound. A dark-rimmed hole in the middle of the forehead, directly between the eyes. Powder burns showing the shots had been fired with the muzzle of the guns touching the skin. The silver robbers were very careful and professional men. They knew that the price of silence was high, but cheaply bought with a bullet through the brain. The best witness was a dead witness.

  And the best robber was a dead one, thought Jed, checking their numbers.

  Four. Again, that meant his original thoughts about the hi-jacking were right. To get that close to a half dozen edgy guards, meant that they had found some way of taking the men by surprise. That meant a trick, or maybe that they knew them. A man you know can kill you a whole lot easier than a stranger. Just depends on what you’re expecting.

  Four robbers.

  One already hefting the bodies from the seats of the canvas-topped wagons. One more holding the horses. On foot. A third was at the back of the furthest rig, starting to unlace the cover. The fourth man looked like the leader. He was a big man, sitting his bay mare a little apart from the others. Directing the operation. There was something familiar about the man’s shape.

  That could come later. Right now Herne’s only worry was the simplest way of shooting down four men and killing them without risking his own life.

  There was the question of which one to take first.

  Not the leader. A man in the saddle when shooting began was at a disadvantage, with his mount bucking under him.

  Same applied to the robber holding the horses. Who also seemed a touch familiar, Herne thought. Though the light was so poor in the deeps of the canyon that it was hard to make anything out. That man would also find himself busy when the other three horses all began to kick as the shooting began.

  That left two.

  One behind the wagon. The other on the seat, tipping off corpses as calmly as if he was shifting sacks of flour in a main street store.

  ‘One behind the rig,’ breathed Jed, cocking the long rifle, putting a dab of spit on the foresight to help show up his target in the gloom. Cuddling the gun against himself, finger on the trigger, stock rammed hard into his shoulder.

  One of the men... the burly figure on horseback, shouted something to the man behind the wagon who called back, his head appearing round the corner.

  It couldn’t have been better.

  At such comparatively short range, Herne could have taken the pips off a playing card. Striking a man through the middle of the skull was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  The boom of the gun echoed around the rocks, and for a moment the target was obscured by the cloud of black powder smoke that billowed out of the muzzle. During the next six seconds, several things happened at once.

  The horses all reared up at once at the unexpected noise. The heavily-built man coming close to being unseated as he fought for control, drawing his pistol and dropping it again as he clung to the reins. The man with the horses was also having problems. All three of them were bucking and rearing and he dived out of the way, letting go of the bridles, rolling in the clinging mud, screaming to the others for help.

  The man on the seat was unlucky.

  He was just standing up, balancing against the movement of the rig, a corpse draped in his arms like a dance-hall whore. The noise of the Sharps and the screaming of the man in the dirt all combined to spook the horses drawing the wagons. They started forwards, sending him toppling sideways off the seat, the weight of the body making it impossible for him to save himself.

  He landed awkwardly and Herne clearly heard the brittle snap of a bone breaking, above the bedlam of other noises, as the leg folded under the killer, leaving him helpless.

  That was three of them.

  And the fourth?

  He was dead.

  Extremely dead.

  A heavy bullet, like a fifty caliber, hitting a man in the head is likely to kill him. And this particular murderer was no exception. It hit him a finger’s width above his left eye as he looked out at his leader. Making a neat hole through the frontal bone of the temples, carrying on into the soft puddle of brains. Its pointed shape was a little battered from the impact, and its clean trajectory was distorted so that it had begun to tip end over end. Tearing out an enormous chunk of the pink-grey tissue. Finally exiting like a mighty metal fist through the back of the head. Punching a hole four inches in diameter through which the dying man’s brains and blood poured out in a red flood.

  The impact was enough to kick him staggering backwards, nerveless fingers letting the wet canvas of the wagon slip from his grip as he fell.

  There was little pain. The sensation of the enormous blow on the front of the head, then a white light that blazed ferociously for a fraction of infinity, before the flame burned out into limitless blackness. He didn’t feel that he had fallen. Nor the wetness of the mud on his face, soaking up the crimson.

  Dying is very easy. The only basic qualification is being alive in the first place.

  Herne reloaded the Sharps and selected the next target.

  ~*~

  The one on the floor had barely realized what was happening, the first spasms of agony from his smashed leg making him start to scream. A noise that set off the horses into a frenzy of kicking and whinnying. The robber who had been supposed to be holding them had given up on that task, trying to draw his pistol where he knelt in the dirt, spray from the trampling horses blinding him as he peered around for the invisible assassin.

  And the leader on the horse hadn’t even come close to regaining control of his animal.

  Jed shot the kneeling man first, the Sharps being a fine gun on a more or less stationary target, but not so useful as a Winchester on someone in the saddle of a prancing mare.

  The bullet hit the man through the top of his head, where he was bowed over trying to wipe his eyes clean’ The impact shattered a huge chunk of skull, lifting it clean away in whirling fragments of white bone. Killing him instantly.

  This time the reloading took a little longer, his fingers slipping on the wet cartridge. Fumbling it and nearly dropping the gun. Glancing up to see that the leader of the robbers nearly had his bay under control. Yelping something at his crippled colleague, having succes
sfully drawn his other pistol from his belt.

  Rather than waste the cocked Sharps, Herne took quick aim and shot the man with the broken leg, the bullet opening up his throat in a welter of choking bubbling scarlet. It was a mercy. Like the mercy you might show a horse with a similar injury. But Jed didn’t think of it that way.

  He just thought of it as one less bastard for him to worry about.

  ‘Herne!!!’ roared the man on horseback, finally managing to get his animal moving in the right direction, snapping off a couple of shots from his hand-gun. Heading in like an avenging angel of death, homing on the cloud of powder smoke that still hung in the damp evening air.

  The mark of the great killer is that he rarely has to hurry. And when he does it’s with a precise haste, without fumbling or panic. Jed laid the smoking rifle down against the wall of rock at the side of the canyon, and drew the Peacemaker from its holster. Thumbing back on the hammer, aiming up at the man galloping in towards him.

  There was a great veil of mud and spray being kicked up by the horse’s hooves, mingling with the rain that had again begun to fall with a frightening force, pounding off the rocks and splattering all around Jed’s boots.

  ‘Bastard!!’ screamed the rider, firing off a cascade of lead in Herne’s direction, emptying his pistol before he was within forty paces.

  Jed stood very still, hearing the bullets splintering off the boulders, none of them coming within ten feet of him, holding his own gun in his right hand, steadying it as if he was on a target range with his left hand.

  Waiting.

  His attacker saw his death coming, unable to restrain his mare from bearing him fast towards it. His mouth falling open ready to yell for mercy.

  The first bullet hit his horse in the middle of the nose, close up towards its eyes; the second, fired a fraction of a second later, hit the wretched creature in the chest, knocking it off its feet, to topple sideways in a screaming tangle, its fall obscured by the water and slime on the canyon floor.

  Jed knew that the horse was dying and paid it no further attention, moving a few steps sideways so that he could get in a straight shot at the rider.