Herne the Hunter 20 Read online

  What did it matter?

  Why shouldn’t there be folk riding into town?

  Didn’t they boast a whole new passel of whores?

  He swung his feet angrily round from the desk and as he did so he heard boots on the sidewalk.

  Why shouldn’t there be boots on the sidewalk?

  He heard the knock on the door and called out to whoever it was to wait an all-fired minute. Likely someone come over from the saloon to find out why he hadn’t made his evening round. Or some high-toned woman come by to complain about the shameful behavior of those poor soiled doves.

  He slid back the bolt clumsily and jerked the door open.

  ‘Wha …?’

  A gun barrel poked hard into his ribs and he was thrust back inside the room. Two men came in fast and the door was slammed shut behind them.

  “You ain’t got …’

  The pistol whipped up from his chest and into his jaw, tearing it round and not stopping, the sight ripping through the skin and drawing blood. Wickens was knocked back against the edge of his desk and the desk was driven hard against the wall.

  He pushed himself forward and tried to get at the holster at his side.

  A boot went hard into his elbow and he called out, his arm suddenly numb. The pistol barrel swung for his face again and he ducked underneath it and went in with his fists. He uppercuted the man to the chin and crossed another punch into his chest. He felt good as the man went back under his blows. He turned to take the second one and something seemed to explode alongside his temple. He sank to his knees and realized it was the stock of a rifle and that it was coming for him again. His fingers tried to grasp it but only succeeded in deflecting most of the force of the blow onto his shoulder. He swayed and reached for the top of the desk to steady himself, haul himself up.

  Midway to his feet, the rifle stock came up hard between his legs and his head lurched forward and he vomited onto the floor.

  Something metallic and hard struck the back of his skull and he fell forward and didn’t get up.

  José grinned lopsidedly and drove the toe of his boot into the marshal’s ribs for luck.

  ‘Trouble with you,’ Mitch said. ‘You ain’t got no respect for the law.’

  José turned Wickens over and unbuckled his gun belt, dragging it out from under him and slinging it into the far corner. Mitch pulled down the shotgun from its pegs and began searching the drawers for some boxes of matching shells.

  The sound of the accordion came tinnily through the air, carried on the wind from the end of town.

  A frown passed over José’s face. ‘You sure this is goin’ to be all right?’

  Mitch touched his fingers lightly to the bruises and burns that scarred his face. ‘It’d better be! They sure got it comin’ to ’em.’

  Without any warning the office door swung lightly open and both men jumped back and jabbed forward with their guns. Sanchez slipped into the room nice and easy and closed the door at his back.

  ‘You’re goin’ to get your belly full of buckshot sneakin’ up on folk that way!’

  Sanchez grinned: ‘It has its uses.’

  ‘Maybe so. Now what d’you find out?’

  ‘The women are where we thought. There are a few men hanging around. Six or seven. No one looks like they could mean trouble for us.’

  ‘An’ the big feller?’

  Sanchez shook his head.

  Mitch reached quickly forward and grabbed him by the bandoliers that crisscrossed his chest. ‘What d’you mean he ain’t there? He’s got to be there.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t know that, Mitch. Maybe you should find him and tell him.’ José’s voice was soft and insinuating, like a snake sliding over hot sand.

  Mitch’s thin, white face flared beneath its many scabs. His finger pointed at the breed’s chest like a knife. The marshal’s shotgun was tight in his other hand.

  ‘Don’t smart-ass me, you damn greaser!’

  José’s body tensed and he glanced at his friend. Sanchez still had a smile on his face but there was nothing funny about the double-edged knife that had appeared from nowhere into his hand.

  ‘Your language, Mitch, it ain’t so careful. Ain’t so good. Maybe you better watch your tongue.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ agreed José, rubbing the center of his palm against the butt of his gun.

  Mitch looked fast from one to the other. He didn’t trust either of them -especially that light-footed bastard who’d as like cut his mother’s throat as not. He had the shotgun and that should account for the pair of them right here and now if he had to, but now weren’t the time. There was other things more important. He’d been beaten by a gang of women, a bunch of whores. Him and his runnin’ mate, and for Leroy it had been more than a beatin’. That gunslinger had shot him dead without givin’ him as much as a fair chance. That lank-haired old bastard! Well, he was goin’ to learn you didn’t do that to a friend of Mitch McClave and get away with it. And as for them cheap whores … they had a lesson comin’ to ’em as well.

  He relaxed and shook his head and grinned, stretching the scabs on his face. ‘Okay, fellers, forget it. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. We come here to do somethin’. Let’s get it done, huh?’

  He looked at Sanchez and Sanchez put up the knife; glanced at José and José quit toying with his pistol.

  ‘What we goin’ to do ’bout this gunslinger?’ asked Mitch. ‘We want him an’ them together, else it ain’t goin’ to work so good.’

  ‘Maybe he has not gone far. Maybe we wait till he comes back. Watch for him. Then when everyone else has started to go away, we can make our visit.’

  Mitch nodded; he liked the sound of that.

  ‘I will look for him,’ said Sanchez. ‘He won’t see me. When he goes back to the wagon, we will know. Maybe we can even be waiting for him.’

  Mitch smiled and spat into the side of the room.

  ‘Where do we stay in the meantime?’ asked José.

  Mitch was smiling more broadly. ‘What better place than here? Who’s goin’ to think of lookin’ for us in the marshal’s office?’

  ~*~

  Herne was cooling his heels in the back of the Crazy Moon, keeping a straight face over three eights and wondering what the other three players were holding. So far he’d taken the pot four times out of a possible dozen and there was a lot of money riding this time. Now and then a few of the other customers would wander over and glance at the hands, but the excitement was pretty low and the place didn’t seem to have a good crowd. There were a couple of women off to one side, drinking tequila and cursing the intruders from out of town.

  Apart from a few happy men, Herne thought, Banning would likely breathe a sigh of relief when they rode out.

  He fingered his cards together, set them down on the table and pushed a dollar piece into the center.

  Alongside him a heavily bearded man rubbed his belly, belched onions across the table, scratched himself some more and asked for three fresh cards.

  Herne concentrated on what was going down, succeeding, more or less, in shutting everything else out: the preacher and his sons; the bunch of trash back at the camp; the look on Mary Anne Marie’s face before he walked away from the wagon.

  ~*~

  Jim Wickens opened his eyes and suppressed a groan. The back of his head felt like it had been kicked by a pair of mules working in tandem for the best part of a couple of hours. His groin screamed at him when he flexed the muscles of his legs. It was darker inside the office; someone had turned out one of the lamps and left the one by his desk burning.

  He could smell tobacco smoke, hear someone singing almost under his breath in Mexican. Feel the hardness of the floor.

  His arms were behind his back and he knew they snapped a pair of cuffs on him while he’d been unconscious.

  He moved his feet fractionally and determined that they were still untied.

  The singing stopped and a chair scraped and a man cursed a few times in American but with a str
ong Mexican accent.

  ‘Take it easy,’ said a voice from the vicinity of his desk. Just American this time.

  He remembered the faces of the men who had attacked him – one some kind of breed and the other thin and white and mean as hell.

  Jim Wickens wondered what they were doing there in Banning, why they’d bust into his office and taken him prisoner? They could be after the bank, maybe the stageline office with its safe. They could be on the run, but if so a marshal’s office seemed a strange place to choose for a hideout.

  Or there could be another reason.

  Jim’s head throbbed badly.

  He recalled Christiane’s description of the bunch who attacked them back along the trail; he remembered what Herne had had to say about it, about the three they’d warned off and sent on their way. He’d only seen the two himself but that didn’t mean too much. A third could easily be lurking outside.

  ‘Any of that fancy whisky left?’ asked the Mexican.

  ‘Here.’

  Jim Wickens heard the bottle being thrown from hand to hand and cursed them for finding his best scotch whisky. He’d been drinking that slow, saving it maybe for a special day, a special occasion. The day he turned in his badge and headed out for the coast to build that special place of his own.

  ‘Don’t finish it all.’ Mitch said.

  ‘Okay, here you go.’

  If they were who he thought they were, then it meant Irma’s life was in danger. Jim fought to control his breathing, keep perfectly still. As long as they thought he was still unconscious they were likely to leave him be; that way there was some chance he’d be able to do something. If he made a false move now they’d be as like to empty their guns into him as anything else.

  He didn’t want that for Irma: and he didn’t want it for himself.

  He lay still and waited, his left arm going numb under him, the back of his skull continuing to throb with pain.

  ~*~

  Irma heaved a sigh, heaved the man’s leg over her thigh and sat up on the thin mattress. Already he was dabbing at himself, tucking his shirt down over his privates, pulling up his long Johns. While he hopped and struggled with his boots, Irma washed herself from the water in the barn.

  ~*~

  With a grunt that might have been thanks, he was gone, out of the wagon and scuttling back to his wife, praying all the while that he hadn’t caught a dose of anything bad. Irma washed herself carefully, praying all the time that she hadn’t caught a dose of anything bad.

  She peered through the end of the wagon and saw that Stephanie was sitting below Mary Anne Marie on the steps, her head resting sideways against the older woman’s breasts. Almost abstractedly, Mary Anne Marie was stroking the girl’s fair hair.

  Christiane sat quiet, huddled in her blanket, the accordion resting silent in her lap.

  Ilsa squatted close to the fire, warming her hands by the fading embers.

  ‘Play us one more tune,’ called Mary Anne Marie, ‘something soft an’ slow. After that we can all turn in.’

  As the plangent strains of the squeeze-box sounded out from the side of the wagon, Irma closed her eyes and dreamed of a home that wasn’t hers.

  ~*~

  ‘Okay.’ Sanchez’ voice was an urgent whisper at the door.

  ‘He’s back?’

  ‘On his way.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Mitch stood at the side of the desk; his battered and pale face eager and excited.

  ‘Left the place he’d been playin’ stud. Didn’t seem to do too good. I think he will go back now.’

  ‘You only think?’

  Sanchez shook his head. ‘I am sure, Mitch. I am sure.’

  Mitch’s face twisted into a smile as he lifted the double-barreled shotgun from the desk and broke it open, checking the load. He snapped it shut with a flourish and started for the door.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘What about the gringo?’ asked José, pointing over into the corner.

  ‘Ain’t moved since we slugged him cold.’

  ‘Maybe he’s dead.’

  ‘Nan. I checked. He’s breathin’ okay.’

  ‘I guess he fractured his skull. I knew a feller did that one time, he never come round for three days.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘He sat up, opened his eyes, and said, “I’m dying”.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He died.’

  Laughter broke around the room.

  ‘You want me to check him again?’

  ‘What’s he goin’ t’do if he does wake up – cuffed the way he is?’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s go before it’s too late.’

  Jim Wickens, eyes clenched, heard the door slam shut and footsteps moving quickly away. Instantly he rolled over onto his back and over again towards the desk. Trying to ignore the pain in his head and shoulder, he awkwardly levered himself to his feet, using the side of the desk for support. He knew the key to the cuffs was in one of the top drawers, but didn’t see how he could fiddle with it himself. If only he hadn’t chucked that stinkin’ drunk out of the cell, he could’ve done it for him.

  Wickens cursed as he pulled the drawer open with difficulty, bent sideways and back and fumbled underneath old fliers and such for the key. Finding it seemed to take an age and all the time he could hear the clock ticking down inside his head.

  The key in between his fingers at last, he got the door open and ran across the boardwalk and towards the lights of the saloon.

  As soon as he shouldered open the door he yelled out loud as he could for help. The cuffs unfastened, he rubbed briskly at his wrist, borrowed a pistol from one of the drinkers and the 0-0 sawn-off from under the bar. He winced with each yard he ran down the street.

  ~*~

  Herne heard the sound of the squeeze-box, mournful and low, and hoped tomorrow was going to be a better day. He could smell the tortillas and the soft, charred wood of the fire and maybe through it all the scent of the girls. He walked slow and easy, feeling angry with himself for losing so much money at poker. If he’d spent it on half an hour inside the wagon with Mary Anne Marie, likely he’d’ve been feeling a sight better.

  Quietly, he stepped out of the shadow and just inside the wavering circle of light.

  Quietly, Sanchez slid in at back of him and drew the blade of his knife across Herne’s throat.

  The edge razored the taut skin alongside the Adam’s apple, drawing a fine line of blood.

  Herne had stopped breathing, his whole body tense and alert. He could smell the breed’s sweat, his excitement and fear.

  With his free hand, Sanchez drew Herne’s Colt from its holster and pushed the barrel down through the front of his belt.

  It was the second time he’d sneaked up on Herne without being heard; the second chance he’d had to slash his throat from ear to ear and not taken it; the second time he’d taken Herne’s gun away from him.

  He was soft like quicksilver and soft like a fool.

  He was living on borrowed time.

  Out ahead, Mitch stepped into the firelight and brandished the shotgun around the curve of women. ‘We meet again, ladies.’ He laughed and the weapon came to a standstill pointed at Mary Anne Marie and Stephanie. A squeeze of his finger would blow them both apart.

  ‘Bring that one out here!’ ordered Mitch, pointing the shotgun now at Ilsa.

  José went towards the fire and seized Ilsa’s strong arm and tugged her closer to where Mitch was standing.

  ‘See these?’ asked Mitch, freeing a hand from the shotgun to point at his own face. ‘See what you done here, you bitch? You fuckin’ whore bitch!’

  Spittle flew from his lips and he rammed the end of both barrels into the tall girl’s belly. She shouted and bent low over them and Mitch jerked his arm as though he was about to pull both triggers.

  ‘No!’ screamed Irma and ran directly at him.

  José jutted out a leg and caught her high on the shin, sending her flying, rolling
dangerously close to the fire.

  Herne struggled to control himself, the blade still tight at his throat. He could feel the slow, warm trickle of blood and knew without seeing that the breed was grinning wildly.

  There were steps somewhere at back of him, or so he thought -but when he listened again, they seemed to have disappeared.

  ‘Scared, you bitch?’ screamed Mitch. ‘Scared, you fuckin’ whore!’

  He quickly withdrew the shotgun and as Ilsa began to straighten he lashed it towards her face and she only just managed to evade the force of the blow, staggering back towards the wagon nonetheless.

  Irma scrambled to her feet and went for him again and for a second time José caught her with his boot, this time a kick in her breasts which forced air from her lungs in a tight hiss.

  He swung back his leg to kick her again and, from the shadow, Jim Wickens shot him in the back of the other leg.

  The marshal had let his anger get the better of his aim; he was fully intending to take the Mex’s head clear off.

  The sound of the unexpected shot drew Sanchez’ attention aside for just long enough. Herne thrust up his right hand and trapped the breed’s wrist, knocking the knife away. At the same time he drove his left elbow back into Sanchez’ ribs, catching him under the heart. He turned, keeping hold of the wrist. Saw the mixture of astonishment and pain on the man’s face. Herne raised his knee and brought the breed’s arm down across it hard enough to break the bone across.

  Sanchez screamed.

  By the fire, José hopped like a headless chicken, clutching at the wound in the back of his thigh.

  Mitch loosed both barrels in the direction the shot had come from, but Jim Wickens was no longer there.

  Sanchez stared at the end of a shattered piece of bone sticking through his shirt and screamed again.

  José toppled, slowly, into the edge of the fire.

  Mitch hurled the shotgun aside and jerked up his pistol. He hadn’t got it level when he realized Wickens was at his side and had a sawn-off pointed at his head. He blinked and hesitated and turned to see if there was a way of escape. Immediately behind him, slightly to the other side from the marshal, Mary Anne Marie’s derringer was also aiming at his head.