Herne the Hunter 21 Read online

  ‘You die, white man,’ he grunted.

  ‘We all do … one day,’ replied Jed, finally managing to shuffle himself back on his feet, looking desperately around the room for a way out. For a weapon. For anything.

  ‘Man who goes fast on horse killed woman of my people.’

  ‘I know that.’ His eyes flicking around. Last time it had been a coffee pot. This time, he could see nothing.

  This time could be the last time.

  ‘We take many hands of horses.’

  ‘And kill many whites.’

  The Cheyenne nodded his agreement. Following Herne as he backed away into the living room, into the light.

  ‘You kill this many.’ Holding up his left hand with three fingers showing. ‘And man with hair like snow killed this many.’ Four fingers for the Dutchman.

  ‘I will kill this many more,’ said Herne, bravely holding up the middle finger of his left hand. Waving it insultingly at the advancing Indian.

  The pistol was on the table, temptingly near. Totally out of reach. The knife alongside it. No other weapon in sight.

  ‘Stop,’ ordered the Indian. ‘Stop now and I kill quick.’

  There would be no time to run through the kitchen and unbolt the door. The ax would shatter his skull before he’d gone five steps. The room was quiet, the silence broken only by the steady patter of blood, dropping from the ends of Jed’s fingers on his right hand. He tried to move them, relieved to find a little sensation in them. The initial dull ache in his upper arm sharpening to a sharp pain.

  ‘Stop,’ repeated the Cheyenne warrior, hefting the tomahawk again.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Herne.

  In later life it would become something of a saying of his. ‘If you got no chance, and one chance in a hundred. Go for that one chance. Anything beats nothing.’

  In the room he was dead meat. So, he had to try and get outside the room.

  Running as hard as he could towards the nearest of the shuttered windows. In dime novels the hero would have found time for a muttered prayer to the Almighty for his own survival. Herne only wondered how much it would hurt him if he broke both ankles.

  The Indian was after him, yelling something in his own tongue. But Jed was committed. Hurling himself, feet-first, at the casement. Trying to fold his injured arm across his chest to protect it.

  If he had drawn back by even a small part of his power, he would have failed, falling ignominiously back into the room to be butchered as easily as a runaway calf.

  It was never, ever, in his nature to draw back once he had decided on a course of action. His booted heels crashed against the shutters like twin hammers, pounding the wood off its hinges, bursting them open. So that he was catapulted out into the cold night. The breaking glass cut him in several places about the legs and chest, scratching his face across the right cheek.

  Herne landed awkwardly, rolling on his left side, yelping with the pain as his injured right arm was crushed against the earth. The square of broken glass was bright from the lamps within, and he saw the Indian appear, a huge shadowed silhouette, peering out in his direction. Jed knew enough to be certain that the brave would not be able to see him from within and he scrambled to his feet, making to run away towards the trees.

  The Cheyenne glimpsed him and vanished. Heading for the back door, through the kitchen, certain that he would only need a short pursuit to track down the clumsy, crippled white man.

  Jedediah Herne wasn’t just good.

  He was very good.

  The moment the warrior disappeared he stopped dead in his tracks, turning and running as lightly as he could. Not away from the cabin.

  Towards it.

  Towards the door. Seeing in his mind’s eye the big Indian moving. Through the living room, skirting the table with the gun and knife, on into the kitchen. Sliding the bolts and starting to open the door to the outside.

  Jed waited for the sliver of yellow light showing at the edge of the door.

  And charged it with his good left shoulder, with all of his remaining strength.

  The last of the Cheyenne braves was taken totally by surprise. Thrown back by the weight of the white man’s body crashing against the opening door, sending him staggering backwards, tripping over the corpse of the youngest of his brothers, toppling flat on the floor.

  Herne went on over him, avoiding a desperate upward cut from the Indian’s ax. Vaulting the second of the stiffening bodies in the kitchen, heading for the table. Seeing his Colt Navy, lying there. Gleaming with a dull light, reflecting the glow of the oil-lamps.

  The pain from his right arm was becoming almost overwhelming.

  Moving away from the nagging ache to a tearing agony. Blood still flowed, faster after the jarring it received when he leaped for his life. There were other pains tugging at the teenager’s concentration, but he ignored them.

  The brass frame of the pistol cold against the fingers of his left hand. Hammer coming back, clumsily, the thumb stubbornly refusing to work properly. Blood on both hands making it hard to grip the gun. Index finger fumbling for the narrow trigger.

  The Cheyenne was half up, a bitter rage lighting his face. Seeing the tall, slim boy, battling to use the gun in his wrong hand. Knowing that the impetus of the fight had been stolen from him, but there was still time enough and hope enough.

  Jed couldn’t even use his right hand to brace the left wrist. Trying to aim the pistol at the rising figure, less than a dozen feet away from him.

  Pulling the trigger.

  Too fast, jerking it, so that the ball tore through empty air, out past the swinging door, vanishing into the dark Wyoming night.

  Again.

  In his excitement to fire, Herne had accidentally knocked one of the percussion caps off the nipple. The hammer falling with a sharp, flat click.

  The Cheyenne was up, moving in towards Herne, the tomahawk hefted in his right hand. Herne stood, defiant, blood-sodden, face a mask of crimson from the broken window. Thumbing back on the Colt’s hammer a third time.

  A burst of powder smoke, filling the room. The bullet striking the brave low on the right side of his body, passing clean through, leaving a welter of spouting blood and torn flesh. The man staggered back, clutching at the wound with his left hand, still holding the war-ax. It was a nasty wound, but not a crippling one. No bones broken or muscles ripped to shreds.

  The fourth bullet missed, the butt kicking in Jed’s hand, slipping. So that the ball missed the Cheyenne by at least four feet, burying itself in the wall of the cabin.

  A fifth time he pulled the trigger.

  A second time the pistol misfired.

  ‘Now,’ said the Indian.

  ‘Now’, repeated Herne.

  The sixth and last squeeze on the trigger, bringing the hammer down on the last chamber. The kick of the explosion running up his left arm, clear to the shoulder. Immediately the boy dropped the useless Colt, reaching for the knife. Not even watching to see where the bullet went, prepared to sell his life as dearly as he could.

  The smoke seemed to take an eternity to clear away from the room. And when it was gone, it had taken the Cheyenne with it. The man had utterly disappeared, as though the bullet had snatched him from the face of the earth.

  In the stillness, Jed heard the noise of someone groaning. Outside the door. In the deep night. And feet scrabbling in earth.

  He picked up one of the three lamps, holding it away from his face. Even though the glass shade was smoked and dull, there was enough light for him to see the warrior, lying half on his side, knees drawn up to his chest, mouth open in a rictus of agony.

  The last .36 ball had hit him in the groin, sending him staggering backwards, folding him over like a paper doll. Leaving him gasping in the dirt. Down, but not dead. Seeing the white man, the Indian managed to draw his knife, still snarling defiantly.

  Jed held the lamp higher. Considering going to get the spare cylinder for his pistol. But to change them with only one good hand would
not be easy. And to try and butcher the wounded Cheyenne with his own knife, left-handed, would be even more hard.

  ‘So long, bastard,’ he whispered. Throwing the oil lamp at the warrior.

  The glass broke on the trodden earth, oil splashing over the prostrate figure of the Indian. Immediately catching fire, enveloping him in flames. Jed moved fast, going back into the station and coming out again with a second lamp, adding its fuel to the fire.

  The man screamed, high and thin. Like a hog at the blood-letting. He was wrapped in yellow flames, smoking and burning, fighting to his knees, despite the pain from the bullet in his lower belly. His hair flared from his scalp and his clothes burned fiercely. Twice he fell, rolling in the dirt as he tried to put out the fire, but the oil had soaked into his shirt and breeches.

  Herne watched, knife held in his left hand. Ready to go and fetch the third of the lamps. He was overwhelmed with exhaustion himself, weak from loss of blood.

  The Cheyenne brave danced and stamped, keeping up the murderous screaming, his burning body illuminating the entire area around, making the shadows of the trees all about pitch and whirl. Time seemed to stretch. It was like hours and days before he fell to his knees, flames flickering all over him, the scream sinking to a gurgling moan. Still Jed watched him.

  The body, oddly, remained upright, on folded knees, like a blazing idol. The features disappeared in a blur of red and orange fire and the body and limbs blackened. The scent of the burning oil was overlaid with the stench of burning flesh. A smell that Herne recognized from a couple of days back.

  Finally, it was over.

  The flames shrank, and became glowing corpse-candles. The body remained where it was, like a charred log. Herne turned from it, closing the back door again. Again sliding the bolt, tugging the broken shutter across as best he could.

  The arm hurt like a white-hot lance, and he bathed it, washing the congealed blood off the slashing cuts across his face, wincing as the water stung him. With a struggle he succeeded in cutting a strip of material off one of the bed-sheets, tying it around the deep gash in his upper arm, using his teeth to secure the knot. With an effort he could flex the fingers on his right hand, which promised well for a full recovery.

  Though he was so bone-tired he wanted to drop, Jed spent a full half hour fighting with the Colt Navy. Cleaning it and then reloading it, tamping the balls down, and greasing it, slipping fresh caps on the nipples. He took the gun into the bedroom and put it by the rumpled pillow.

  Only then did he give way, lying on the bed and closing his eyes. Sleep came rushing up at him like a runaway locomotive and he didn’t wake until late the next morning.

  ~*~

  He was able to scratch a grave for Aurora Clifton, lowering his head and muttering a few words he recalled from his rare visits to church with Aunt Rosemary. Then he saddled up the horse and moved on west.

  A half-day later, just before evening, he arrived at the next way station, with the mail safe. The wound in his arm festering, near delirious from pain.

  It was close to a month before he was recovered enough to get back riding with the Pony Express.

  Thirteen

  The upper part of his right arm was badly and deeply scarred from the Cheyenne ax. Just the first of many wounds that Jed Herne was to carry with him through his often violent life. The doctor in Sacramento who examined him when he was brought there by hired buckboard, all at the company’s expense, was impressed with the stamina of the teenager. But Jed remained in hospital for nine days, gathering his strength. Apart from his arm, he was a maze of other cuts and scratches, mostly superficial. And he’d lost a lot of blood.

  But he’d come through, bringing the mails with him. Earning himself a page or two amid the other immortals of the Pony Express.

  Like David Jay who rode the Pony when he was but thirteen, and elegant Jack Keetley who once won a wager by galloping for a solid twenty-four hours. John Fry who broke the hearts of a hundred maidens along his route with his dash and charm. Charley Cliff held off hostile Indians with a brace of arrows feathered in him and the Mormon, Dick Egan, who finished as a respected bishop of his church.

  And Charley Howell, with his quick wit and dubious appreciation of the word ‘honesty’, who galloped with the best and the worst of them.

  And Jedediah Travis Herne, later to win undying fame across the West as Herne the Hunter.

  ~*~

  While he rested, Jed was visited by a couple of the more senior officials of the Pony Express, who praised his courage. And presented him with an illuminated scroll registering their thanks and a silver half-hunter watch, engraved with his name and the date. Jed carried the timepiece with him until the early days of the Civil War when he lost it in a skirmish not long after First Bull Run.

  The news had taken a long time to filter through to Sacramento of the extent of the brief Cheyenne rising, and the reasons behind it. Herne had been clear in the middle of it, from beginning to end. Only three days, but with several deaths along the way. And a deal of expensive animals lost. The Cavalry had recovered six animals, but the rest of the mustangs had vanished forever.

  ‘They say there was an accident, with the killing of an Indian woman.’ The official had a heavy mustache that gave him the appearance of a disapproving walrus.

  His companion was bearded, constantly fiddling with a garnet fob on his watch chain. ‘Indeed. The slut was drunk, so we hear.’

  ‘Who d’you hear that from?’ asked Jed, interested in this tale.

  ‘We sent out a man to talk to anyone involved.’

  ‘He tell you ’bout Ethan Corleon?’

  The mustached one nodded. ‘Yes. That name is on the record of his journey. Corleon was the man forced to shoot the squaw. Says she pulled a blade on him.’

  ‘Not what I heard,’ said Jed, shaking his head. ‘Not that way at all.’

  ‘Yes, anyway…’ said the other official, rising and pulling on his gray gloves. ‘Water under the parapets, dear boy. Corleon has been rebuked as to his future conduct.’

  ‘Rebuked!’

  ‘Master Herne,’ warned the first of the men. ‘Take care of your own anger. Such intemperate speech makes us reconsider our generosity towards you.’

  ‘But…’ Jed could hardly find the words he wanted, he was so enraged by this blatant whitewashing of Corleon. This sweeping under the carpet of all that happened to him and to others.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I heard it from the lips of a dyin’ man, how Corleon began it all with a murder. A callous and cruel killing that set the torch to the powder.’

  ‘That is not what we have heard from Mr. Corleon himself.’

  ‘Then he is a damned liar!’

  The taste of scorched flesh rose in Jed’s gullet so that he near choked and he saw again that last wave of the land from Aurora Clifton before the arrow hummed from the dark trees and plucked the life from her body.

  ‘Enough. We have to go.’

  ‘But he is …’

  ‘He is cleared of any further trouble by the Company, faster Herne. I beg you to recall that and not become intemperate with Corleon should your paths cross.’

  The man with the heavy mustache nodded his agreement. ‘Instant dismissal, for fighting between employees of the Central Overland, California and Pike’s Peak express Company, Jed, young fellow. It would be a shame to mar such a proud record.’

  He patted Herne on the shoulder and both men left the room of the hospital. As they walked along the corridor Jed heard the officials share some jest, bellowing their hearty laughter.

  At that moment he swore to himself that, should le ever meet again with Ethan Corleon, he would undoubtedly kill him.

  ~*~

  He and Charley Howell shared a meal together when they net up again at Gothenburg, Nebraska Territory. The weather had changed radically since they were both there, trying out for the Pony, back in August. Now winter had set its fangs in the land and everyone was huddled in heavy co
ats, fur-collared, often riding with hats tied on the crown of the head with a long scarf of wool. Apart from a slight stiffness when he put the arm through extremes of movement, Jed had totally recovered from the battle with the Cheyenne. He sat in the saloon, still wearing a plaid over-coat, opened across the stomach, so that his hand had free access to the pistol As soon as he came back to Wyoming and Nebraska he heard the word that Corleon was out for him and had threatened to gun him down on sight for his interference But Corleon was currently back East, visiting his brother in Montclair, New Jersey.

  And was expected back to pick up his job once more any day now.

  Charley was full of the feud, taking a perverse delight in feeding it with an account of all the insults that Ethan had been putting about.

  ‘He said he might not kill you, Jed. Just maybe shoot you through both knees and leave you to beg.’

  ‘Sure. Blowhard like him doesn’t frighten me.’ Which wasn’t strictly true. While Herne genuinely wasn’t frightened of any man or beast, he had developed a healthy caution towards Corleon.

  ‘Said that if’n you went down in the street and licked up dog shit off of his boots and begged mercy, he might slit your nose and cut off your ears and let you be.’

  Jed laughed. ‘Like I said to him once, Charley, that’: a threat. And it’s a whole country mile from bein’ a promise.’

  They were tucking into a great bowl each of some heavily-seasoned buffalo stew. Huge chunks of the coarse, grainy meat, floating in a sea of grease and butter, with some utterly unidentifiable vegetables. They’d argued over what they were. Charley insisting that it was small chunks of turnip. Jed standing by his own feeling that it must be some rather pale carrots. They asked the taciturn New Englander who ran the saloon, who looked in their dishes. Picked a piece from Charley’s dish between a grimed finger and thumb and slipped it in his mouth. Tasting it and then gobbing it out on the sawdust that covered the floor of the saloon.