The Hanging (Herne the Hunter Western Book #17) Page 9

  Something so amazing that he could hardly believe what he saw.

  The small man that he knew as Joey was crouched low over the neck of his horse giving all of his energy to the escape. Someone had torn the bandit’s shirt and Herne, and the rest of the township, saw that Joey was a woman. A secret that Matt Kitchener had taken with him to his grave.

  In the confusion and panic, with George Wright coming last, raking the street with bullets, Herne turned and slipped through the building behind him, past a startled young woman with thick, pebbled spectacles. Out into a draw that ran behind the main street of Cold Christmas, sprinting away from the noise and the dying.

  Heading for his own horse.

  Finding the black stallion tied just where he’d left it, in a small grove of sycamores on the outskirts of the settlement.

  Herne vaulted into the saddle, bucketing the Sharps, setting his heels to the animal’s flanks, pushing it away from the buildings.

  The shootist figured that Cold Christmas would take some time to get itself a posse together, giving the three surviving robbers a couple of hours’ start. But this time he was right on their trail. Eating their dust as they charged frantically away, back west towards the high mountains.

  He rode on after them, towards the sun, moving at a fast canter, not wanting to tire his stallion out too soon. Knowing that this time the tracking would be easy, and there was little risk of anyone else interfering in the final drama.

  Among the tracks of the three horses he noticed there were occasional spots of blood.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was no longer a question of how many days before he managed to get on the trail of the diminishing gang again.

  It wasn’t even measured in hours.

  Herne could have taken them at any time he wanted. All that delayed him was the need to pick his ground with care. To attack the three survivors of the bank raiders as and when he wished to.

  From the blood that decorated the trail westwards the shootist knew that it wouldn’t be too long before the gang had to stop. Or, at least one of them would have to stop.

  It was the negro, Beech.

  Herne’s black stallion scented the man before Jed knew he was close. The horse was the latest in a long line of virtually indistinguishable animals that the shootist had owned. He simply liked riding stallions and black was a color that suited his work best. When he lost an animal, which was a hazard of the trade, Herne just went out and bought himself another one. Didn’t much matter to him whether the stallion was broken or not. Herne’s training methods wouldn’t have won the approval of the Eastern ladies who believed in kindness above all. He had to depend utterly on the stallion’s obedience and that generally involved a long battle to prove who was master.

  It was never a gentle battle.

  Someone once asked Herne why he never gave a name to his horse. He’d replied that he didn’t see much point in naming something that one day he might have to kill and eat.

  The sun was beginning to move from overhead, slipping lower ahead of him, throwing the shadow of man and horse back along the trail towards Cold Christmas. And, as the day wore on, so the temperature began to fall again. There was a grey haze over the slopes of the mountains, promising more snow to come.

  The stallion snorted, steam gushing out from its reddened nostrils in a double plume.

  ‘Smell something, huh?’ said Herne.

  The patches of blood on the trail had been becoming more frequent. Fresher. Lacking the glaze that quickly forms over spilled blood as it begins to congeal. The shootist guessed that it must be the black that he’d managed to hit as the raiders galloped from the town. And from the volume of crimson, it couldn’t be long.

  ‘There,’ he breathed, seeing a bay mare standing quietly among the trees a hundred yards ahead of him, cropping at the stunted grass at the edge of the trail. And there was something lying near it.

  Herne stopped, swinging from the saddle, stretching from habit to loosen the muscles that tightened up during a long ride. He took the Sharps from the scabbard and walked towards the figure.

  ‘Hey, there!’ yelled the man. Unmistakably the reedy voice of the negro. The man called Beech.

  ‘You hurt bad?’ shouted Herne. Stopping and looking around at the dark forest, suspecting that this might be a trap. But doubting it. Knowing that the first intention of the robbers was going to be to keep on running. Over the last few days they had been ripped apart.

  First Dermot.

  Then his twin brother Sean.

  And now the black.

  That left George Wright and the girl. She intrigued Herne, knowing how rare it was to find a woman who’d ride with bandits. Plenty of women would sleep with them, but not many would fight and kill with them.

  There was no reply to the question.

  The man lay on his back, resting with his head against a small mound of earth and leaf mould. His pale linen duster coat was draggled and patched with blood. There was a rifle still bucketed on the bay’s saddle and Herne could see that the negro still had his pistol in its holster on his belt.

  ‘You hurt bad?’

  ‘Bad enough, Mr. Herne.’

  ‘They left you?’

  ‘Surely did.’

  ‘Where’re you hit?’

  ‘Shoulder. But your fuckin’ bullet bounced off the bone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In my chest. Lungs I guess.’ There was a sudden coughing fit that gave emphasis to his words. Herne stepped in a little closer, seeing that there was pale blood and froth around the man’s mouth, streaking over his chin and down onto his chest.

  ‘Throw away that pistol.’

  ‘I’m dyin’, Mr. Herne.’

  ‘You’ll die a lot faster if’n I put a ball through your damned head. Throw it clear.’

  With an effort that was obviously a struggle, unless he was a fine actor, Beech tugged out the handgun and threw it several yards in front of him. It clunked on the earth in the cold stillness and Herne walked in closer. Deciding that this wasn’t a trap.

  ‘Keep real still. Hands out where I can see them.’

  ‘Sure, Mr. Herne. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.’

  The shootist paused again, ten paces off from the critically wounded man. Staring intently at him, making sure he wasn’t faking.

  It was hard to fake dying.

  It was something in the eyes.

  A vague sense of distance. The way a man who knew he was doomed would stare around him with an odd intentness, peering at each tree or stone, as if he was certain it would be the last he’d ever see.

  Beech gazed up at the shootist.

  ‘You’d be Mr. Herne? I’m right, ain’t I?’

  ‘Yeah. Jedediah Herne.’

  ‘Told George it was a mistake … Tryin’ to use your name to trick… Oh, God!’ He stopped for a moment, fighting for breath. Coughing up gobbets of blood. ‘To try and trick folks.’

  ‘They gone on?’

  ‘Like scared jack-rabbits.’

  ‘They leave you with your agreement?’

  Beech tried something that might have been a grin, but never made it. ‘Kind of. They said we’re goin’ and I wasn’t in any way to argue with ‘em.’

  ‘That woman?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Joey?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You seen her bubbies, I guess.’ This time the smile hung around a while. ‘Mighty pretty. Used to warm us up nights.’

  ‘All of you?’

  Beech hung on the smile. ‘That shock you, Mr. Herne, suh? Why, lawdy me, suh!’ Parodying a woolly-headed, cotton-picking field hand. ‘Miss Joey surely liked to taste dark meat now and again, yes, suh! Didn’t mind lay in’ a nigger now and again.’

  Herne didn’t consider himself a racist. He’d known good and bad blacks. Same as whites. But something deep down rebelled at the idea of the girl sharing her favors among all the gang.

  ‘Where they headin’?’

  Beech coughed ag
ain, lying back with his eyes shut. ‘Guess I didn’t hear you, sun?’

  Herne didn’t have the time to waste on the dying man. He didn’t really expect or need an answer to the question.

  ‘Want a bullet? Quicker?’

  The negro shook his head painfully. ‘No, Mr. Herne. Thanks for your thought. I don’t have far to go, now. I’m damned cold.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Herne turned away.

  ‘I never figured to end like this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Figured on hangin’. Come from Georgia and get yourself a name as an uppity nigger and that’s what’s always around the next corner.’

  ‘Is this better?’ Herne faced him a dozen yards off.

  ‘Sure is. Free, kind of. Hell … hell, whatever happened to them good old days folks talk about? Tell me that, Herne?’

  ‘Good old days, Beech? They never existed. They was just a lot of people, doin’ the best they could.’

  ‘Lot of white people, Herne.’

  ‘Maybe. So long, Beech.’

  He turned away again, stepping through the crisp, frozen leaves, towards the stallion.

  When his hair-trigger reflexes caught a sound.

  A moment of shuffling, like something moving quietly among the trees.

  His first thought was that it was an ambush and he started to turn, thumb pulling back on the hammer of the buffalo rifle, leveling it from the hip.

  When he saw the noise had been the negro. Sliding on hands and knees, like a crab at tide-turn, hand reaching for his pistol. His face was swiveled towards the shootist, mouth pulled down in pain. His eyes were large and white against the darkness of his skin.

  The butt of the handgun was within reach of his fingers but he saw that he wasn’t going to make it, checking the movement and starting to call out to Herne not to shoot.

  But it was too late. Jed was already committed to pulling the trigger of the Sharps and nothing on earth could have stopped him.

  Firing a heavy rifle from the hip isn’t the best way of guaranteeing accuracy and Herne wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have totally missed the negro. But his aim was good.

  The fifty-five caliber ball hit Beech under the ribs on the left side of his body, going clean on through his stomach without touching any bone at all. Exiting on the right side, punching out a chunk of flesh larger than a hen’s egg.

  ‘Oh, God!’ screamed the black, the impact pitching him on his face, rolling twice, then trying desperately to sit up. Failing and lying back, hands pressed to his stomach, groaning.

  ‘You stupid bastard,’ said Herne quietly.

  ‘Never was too clever, boss,’ sighed Beech, blinking at the pain, forcing his breathing to steady down.

  The sound of the shot had frightened off the bay mare and they could both hear the pounding of its hooves away to the east. Back along the trail towards the settlement.

  ‘So long,’ said the shootist, swinging back on his heel.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘What?’ Facing him once more.

  ‘That bullet you said you might have for me.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  The negro coughed again, his whole body shaking with the effort. Blood coming freely from his open mouth, still trickling from his stomach wound.

  ‘Be grateful for it now.’

  ‘Now you’ve tried to back-shoot me.’

  ‘Hell, Herne. You’d. ... Oh, Christ… You’d have done the same.’

  It was true, and the shootist nodded, grudgingly. ‘Yeah. I guess so.’

  ‘That stuff ‘bout how a man has to have a sense of honor, Herne. It don’t just… Aaah… Don’t just apply to white folks, you know.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Jed laid down the Sharps on the cold ground, drawing the Colt from his holster. Cocking it and walking towards the mortally wounded negro.

  ‘Make it fast, Herne.’

  ‘Sure. Anything you want to say?’

  Beech grinned at him, forcing the smile through his pain and his desolation. ‘Yeah. You can kiss my Ma’s brindled hog’s ass.’

  The shot sounded flat among the trees, the surrounding forest muffling the echoes, deadening the explosion. The smoke curled slowly from the barrel of the pistol, lazy and silent. Herne holstered the handgun again, flicking the retaining leather strap over it.

  Beech was dead, the bullet hitting him through the middle of the forehead, leaving only a small black hole. From underneath his head a great deal more blood was leaking out into the dirt. The negro’s eyes were still open, but Herne didn’t bother to stoop to close them. There wasn’t any point in doing that last service for the bandit.

  He wasn’t seeing anything anymore.

  It was dusk when Herne made contact again with the fleeing raiders.

  George Wright had persuaded Joey that she should stay and pick off the shootist as he came pushing along after them.

  She’d thought it was a good idea.

  Chapter Twelve

  Herne had been hunted by the best. Civil War guerillas with eyes like stone chips and brains smaller than a sheep who could still take the leg off of a bobcat at four hundred paces with one of their long muskets. There’d been all kinds of Indian tribes. Cheyenne and Arapaho. Mimbreños and Pawnee. Sauk and Blackfoot. Creek and Navaho. Chiricahua and Kiowa. Comanche and Shoshoni. Warriors who would wait with an infinity of patience to take their enemies. And there had been Mexican bandits, crude and excitable. Mountain men after bounties.

  After that a sixteen-year-old girl from Baton Rouge was never really in there with much of a chance.

  Herne saw the signs a full half mile before he came on her. There was a pair of hawks, hanging evening-dappled, wind-hovering. Occasionally swooping lower with a harsh cry towards the dome of dark trees, then rising again. There was something there that had scared them away, probably keeping them from their eyrie.

  It could just be that the two fugitives had stopped to rest a blown horse. Or to snatch a meal. But Herne’s first and most pressing thought was that they were lying for him in ambush.

  They’d have heard the boom of the Sharps and the flatter sound of the pistol. They’d know he’d be closing in on them. So, if they couldn’t outrun him, then they’d have to turn and fight.

  Some time.

  Soon.

  The hawks had disappeared, vanishing towards the snow-capped peaks to the west, where the sun was already out of sight. Bringing a new bite to the wind, turning the dust-coated water in the trail ruts to thin ice that cracked under the hooves of the big stallion.

  Apart from the sound the forest was totally quiet. And that alone was enough to worry Herne.

  ‘When the animals are silent there are men about.’ Who had said that? Was it the tall Apache warrior, Cuchillo Oro? Old Golden Knife himself? Herne couldn’t exactly recall.

  But whoever had first said it, there wasn’t a shred of doubt about the truth of it. Somewheres ahead of him they were waiting.

  He left his horse again. It was so close to night with ill weather threatening that he doubted the robbers would go much further anyway. So it would be good to make the best use of the blackness and try and get in close to kill them both.

  Herne rarely went after enemies with the plan to take them prisoner. It was all about getting there firstest with the mostest. That generally meant blowing people away the first chance you got.

  Among the thick trees to the right of the main trail it didn’t seem so cold. Out of the teeth of the biting wind that still swept southwards, carrying sleet and hail on its breath.

  He’d left the Sharps behind. Whatever happened it was likely to be close fighting.

  Gradually he circled away from the track, wanting to come in from behind. Using his instinctive woodcraft to keep going among the maze of ice-slick trees, managing to hold a position parallel to the trail. He had his Colt out and cocked. Despite the cold he’d taken off his heavy gauntlets, wanting to feel the action of the filed-down trigger.

  He cut ba
ck on the trail with the light almost totally gone. Bending, head turning around for a sign of trouble, checking the marks. One horse. Only one.

  The girl or the man?

  From the depth and span of the tracks it was obvious to the shootist that it must be the man on his large stallion who’d gone ahead, leaving the young woman behind.

  ‘Nice. That’s real nice, George,’ whispered Jed to himself.

  Despite her age and the fact that she was a woman, Joey had tried. Tried really hard, better than a lot of men could have done.

  She’d dug herself a small hide, using broken branches and twigs, building a nest for herself in among the piled greenery. From a distance it was impossible to see her. But Herne knew she was there.

  One thing that she’d forgotten was that it was so cold. Though Joey was well wrapped in layers of clothes her body heat was disappearing. Rising in a barely visible veil of steam above the hide. Already Herne could make out ice glistening around the edges of the branches she’d cut and tugged to cover herself.

  He was in among the trees, while Joey was facing the other way. Not knowing that he’d circled around her and was closing in from the back.

  It crossed his mind to empty the pistol in among the greenery, but there was always the odd chance that he might not kill her or wound her sufficiently and then he might be in trouble.

  If it hadn’t been for the poor light Herne would have gone back and fetched the Sharps. And fired into the hide until he’d killed her safely from cover.

  Not very chivalrous.

  Then again, Jedediah Travis Herne had never been in the chivalry business.

  But night was on him. And George Wright was still somewhere out in the darkness. Probably trying to make himself a camp quite close. Herne’s guess was that the leader of the bank robbers couldn’t be more than four or five miles off from him.

  ‘Leave her or kill her?’ He said to himself.

  He could go on around her. Track her horse and slit its throat. The odds were then that Joey would die in the wilderness, if one of the posses on the trail didn’t get to her first and hang her.

  There was a movement among the branches and he saw the white of a face. Hands gripping a rifle that glinted a little in the last of the day.