From that moment he was set on an irrevocable course for death.
But his thighs, in a grim reflex, locked his body to his pony’s back, and the animal reared and lashed out at Herne, knocking him over among the boulders, dropping the shattered remains of Abernathy’s Winchester as he fell.
‘Shoot the horse!’ he yelled to the lawman, who immediately leveled the buffalo gun and touched the trigger. Unprepared for the lightness of the pull, it fired before he was ready, the heavy bullet plowing into the dirt several paces in front of the bucking animal.
‘Oh, God damn!’ cursed Herne, struggling to his feet and drawing the pistol. There were still at least four or five of the Indians left the other side of the barrier, pinned back for a moment by the rearing pony with its dying rider. He couldn’t afford to waste a valuable bullet on the animal.
Just as he had with the rifle, he reversed his grip on the Colt, holding it by the barrel. Some shootists preferred to cut down the seven and a half inch barrel of the Peacemaker to around four inches for ease of handling. But Herne had always liked to keep the balance of the pistol as it was, risking sacrificing a fraction of speed for a large chunk of accuracy.
Using the gun like a club, Herne raised it above his shoulder and smashed it on the pony’s head, striking it plumb between the eyes. Praying the savage blow wouldn’t damage the frame of the pistol, or even break the butt the way the Winchester had splintered.
But it held. The animal buckled at the knees but still didn’t fall, its hooves scrabbling at the loose sand and pebbles on the edge of the drop as it fought dazedly for balance.
Herne braced his shoulder against the pony’s side and pushed with all of his strength. Blood splattered in his face from the Apache’s ghastly wound, and he could hear a faint bubbling sound from the man’s throat. But he ignored it and pushed again.
There was a cry of anger from the other Indians as they saw the animal slide finally over the edge of the drop, man and rider locked together as they plunged to the rocks below.
Before they’d reached the ground, Herne was back behind the earth-slip, ducking as a cascade of bullets hissed and whined about him. He saw the frightened face of Sheriff Abernathy at the far side of the small plateau, waving a reassuring hand. Jed ignored him, being far more interested with what the other Mescalero warriors were doing.
It took less than a minute for him to find out.
Seeing their brother die in such a hideous manner, fearing the loss of face that would result for all of them, the four remaining braves decided on a death or glory charge. Leaving the single buck behind to give some kind of covering fire.
They found no glory.
Just death.
Standing safely behind the huge pile of fallen rock and stone, Herne was able to pick them off one by one as they forced their ponies through the gap towards the trapped group of whites.
Holding the pistol steady in both hands, it was like target shooting at a county fair. Picking tin cans off a shelf to win a rag doll for the little lady. Easier than that. The targets were bigger.
Only one got through. The last man, whose pony leaped out in a wild jump, snorting and wide-eyed with terror and the stink of spilled blood. Carrying him past Herne’s first shot. The animal dodging the scattered corpses of the first three through. Two with forty-fives buried in their skulls. The third with two more bullets drilled between the shoulder blades, kicking him off the back of the painted pony.
The last of the warriors wheeled around, whooping exultantly at his success. Seeing the white man standing facing him. The small group of children cowering against the face of the cliff. Not noticing Abernathy hugging the big Sharps.
Herne had a single round left in the pistol, and he wasn’t about to waste it. The butt warm in his right hand, his left used to steady his wrist. Sighting along the barrel at the young Apache. His eyes coldly taking in every detail of the brave. Around eighteen. Painted for war. A band of bright yellow cotton holding back the mane of greased black hair. A flowered print shirt and plain trousers. High, soft leather boots. An Army issue rifle in his right hand, the rope bridle in his left. Mouth wide, shouting defiance. There was something dangling around his neck that caught Herne’s attention for a fraction of a moment until he recognized what it was.
A woman’s gold ring, set with a small glittering stone. With the hacked-off finger still inside it!
‘Bastard!’ said Jed, quietly, pulling the trigger.
At the same moment that the lawman, twenty yards away from him, finally fired the second shot from the fifty-caliber Sharps.
Abernathy hadn’t learned his lesson and again snatched at the trigger, the bullet missing the brave, hitting his pony through the neck, pitching it forwards on its face, throwing the rider over the left shoulder, to land heavily on his neck.
Jed’s bullet sang through empty air, finally spending itself a quarter mile away in the wall of another arroyo. He was scarcely able to believe what a bungler his companion was turning out to be.
‘Got him!’ yelped Abernathy, waddling forwards at his best pace, trailing the smoking rifle. ‘One of the best shots I ever made.’
‘It was the worst,’ said Herne, disgustedly. ‘You hit his damned horse.’
‘Brought him down, though. Didn’t I?’
‘Luck, Sheriff. Just luck. And a man who lives on his luck like you do is surely goin’ to get killed by it one day.’
The children stood around the fallen Mescalero, looking down at him silently. John Two was crying, his shoulders shaking, but Herne noticed that there were no tears in his eyes. At least there wouldn’t be any more confusion between the twins now. It was just John on his own.
The Apache was semi-conscious, rolling over and over, his head buried in his hands, moaning softly. The shirt was torn across the shoulders and Jed could see the lump in the skin where the fall had smashed the delicate collarbone.
‘Tie him up, Sheriff, and see if you can do that without fuckin’ it up.’
‘I don’t think you ought to use language like that in front of these children,’ puffed Abernathy.
‘These children killed an old lady and burned down her store, or has that gone from your mind as well?’ replied Herne, beginning to tidy up the bodies and collect the weapons. Cautiously moving in the open in case the last of the Apaches was still there to snipe at them. But there were no further shots and he guessed that the warrior would have seen the massacre of his fellows and chosen to go to wherever the main camp was and report the news of the disaster to his chief. And what would happen then was anyone’s guess. Indians on the whole have a simple idea of justice. If one of their people is killed, then they will try and kill the person responsible.
Clearing the trail was easy. The live ponies had already bolted back towards the bottom of the mountain. The dead Apaches were simply thrown over to fly for a moment, arms and legs whirling, then crashing down among the boulders, near the dead pony and rider. The animal that the lawman had accidentally shot in the throat with the Sharps was dying, its lifeblood gushing out in the dirt, puddling it to mud. Its legs kicking feebly, eyes rolling in their sockets.
‘Ain’t you goin’ to put it out of its misery?’ asked Abernathy, kneeling by the captured Apache, tying his wrists tightly behind him with rawhide thongs.
‘Bullet costs money. Dead horse comes free.’
The children asked if they could guard the prisoner, and Herne, preoccupied with what came next, agreed. He and the sheriff went and sat together, further down, out of the hearing of the children. To discuss whether they should go on as far as Houghton’s Bluff, or whether they should wait and try and approach by night. The lawman was all for riding on in, but Herne was more cautious.
‘We hold off and whoever’s there’s goin’ to start gettin’ worried. They’ll have heard the shootin’ and they’ll wonder just what’s goin’ on down here. Maybe they’ll come along and we can have us a shot at them.’ He paused. ‘Whoever they are.’
In the end they agreed that they’d wait. The lawman was relieved in some ways, as it postponed for a few hours the dangerous moment when they would have to try and enter the ghost town. Not knowing who or what was waiting for them there. Perhaps the senator’s daughter, representing five thousand dollars. Perhaps a corpse worth only five hundred. Perhaps the rest of the Mescalero tribe.
Perhaps nothing. Nobody.
‘What about that prisoner, Jed?’ he asked.
‘He’s no trouble, Sheriff Abernathy,’ replied the girl. Mary, standing quietly close by them. Neither of them had heard her approach them. She was smiling gently.
And her hands were soaked in blood.
She was right. Their prisoner wasn’t going to be any trouble to them from now on. No trouble at all. Apart from the effort for Jed later of heaving his corpse over the cliff to splinter among the others.
Herne blamed himself. He’d forgotten to take away the Indian’s knife, and the children had used it.
‘He killed John One,’ said Aaron, simply. ‘And we punished him for it.’
‘Does not the Good Book say that thou shalt take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?’ asked Mary.
‘And a life for a life,’ muttered little Caleb, looking sideways at Herne.
‘Yeah. It don’t say a thing in the Bible about cuttin’ out your enemy’s eyes and tongue and all while he’s still breathin’,’ said Herne.
‘Nor slicing off the poor heathen’s cock for him,’ giggled Mary.
Herne was no lover of Indians, but he hated to see foolish wanton cruelty. And these children offended him in their strange evil delight in causing suffering. With no thought of what he was doing he swung an open hand at the girl’s face, slapping her across the cheek. Sending her staggering backwards, to fall in an ungainly heap in the dirt, the hem of her skirt resting in the muddied crimson pool.
The marks of his fingers stood out like spilled ink on new paper, but her expression never altered. Her eyes locked with his.
‘I wish you hadn’t done that, Mr. Herne. I truly do.’
‘How the Hell did you keep him quiet?’ asked the lawman, looking at the body with mingled revulsion and fascination.
‘I kicked his head, behind the ear there, until he was sent asleep,’ replied Aaron. ‘Then Mary cut out his tongue. After that he couldn’t scream if’n he’d wished to. We left his eyes to last so he could see what we did in payment for John One.’
‘Jesus. You did him good. I seen Mex miners after the Apaches spent time with ’em, and they never done it any better.’
‘We learned from the old woman,’ said John Two. ‘Not to go too deep too quick.’
‘He told us that we ...’ began Caleb, and then stopped. The others glaring at him. Herne wanted to ask the albino boy who ‘he’ was, but knew there was no point with the rest of the children to pressure him.
‘I sat right on his face when John Two cut off his …’ she looked at Jed and hesitated. ‘He could not breathe properly and so struggled less against us.’
‘But his legs kicked mightily.’ grinned John.
‘He bounced me like a nursery horse,’ said the girl, getting slowly to her feet. Wary of another blow from the shootist.
‘It was after his eyes had gone that he died. I think perhaps too much blood had flowed from his body by then,’ Aaron pondered.
‘Perhaps,’ said Herne.
‘You mad at them for killing that Indian?’ Abernathy asked, as they waited for dusk.
‘No,’ said Herne. ‘For the way they did it. Cruel and wanton. I had meant simply to throw him over the cliff when the time came to move. He was too dangerous to leave alive.’
‘Oh, my God,’ breathed the sheriff. Wondering if the nightmare could possibly get worse,
Chapter Eight
The children had been vague and evasive about the precise whereabouts of the camp of the Mescalero band. Just saying it was close by the ghost town. And that among the captives was Miss Susannah Jackson. As evening closed in on them all, Herne decided that it was time to press them a little.
And also try and satisfy some of his curiosity about the little white-headed Caleb.
‘Sheriff,’ he said, quietly.
‘What?’ Abernathy had been short with him ever since the end of the fight and the torturing and killing of the Mescalero prisoner. Hurt by his own failure to do anything to help the lean shootist, he had been horrified by the callous efficiency of Herne as a killing machine. And shocked by the children. Shocked more by the information that Jed had intended to kill the young brave anyway. The final straw for the sheriff had been when Herne refused to do anything to bury John One. Simply taking the small body and laying it on the rocks below the earth-slip, throwing a few boulders on it.
‘Don’t get nervy with me, Abernathy.’
‘I don’t—’
‘You hear me?’
‘Yeah, but …’
All his life Jedediah Travis Herne had been plagued with a sudden temper. As a boy it had given him the reputation of being a bad person to cross; a reputation heightened by his unique skill with a gun. In his later teens he passed through a period when he traded on that skill, using his temper to push men into fights. Only when he felt that he was in the right. But there wasn’t much chance to state your cause against a fiery kid with a Navy Colt ready in his fist
Later, he began to see the greater value of trying to control his temper realizing that when he was genuinely locked into red anger his talents as a shootist were slightly diminished. Then came the years as a top gun, trading on his pistol, followed by the brief marriage. Since then he had begun to notice that his temper was becoming worse again. Flaring when things went badly. Edgy when he was around people he rated as fools. And lately he was aware that most people he met seemed to fall into that particular category. He faced the sheriff, finding that his hand had dropped automatically to the butt of the Peacemaker, the leather thong already off.
‘Just ease back, Sheriff. I can put up with your stupidity and your not being able to hit a man with a rifle at twenty paces.’
‘Now you back off with that—’
‘Shut your flappin’ mouth! I want you to take the three older children and keep an eye on them for a half hour. Maybe longer’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to talk to Caleb. And I don’t want the others there.’
‘Why do?’
‘Oh, Jesus! There’s somethin’ here we don’t rightly understand.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And we know they’re lyin’ to us.’
‘Sure.’
‘The only one that’s let slip a word here and there has been the white-haired kid.’
‘Yeah. That’s right. And you want to question him on his own?’
Herne put his hands gently together in ironic applause. ‘Ten marks and a credit point for you, Sheriff. That’s right’
‘And I keep the others away.’
‘Correct. I don’t want then comin’ over to bother Caleb, no matter what they say. No excuses from any of them.’
‘Got it, Jed,’ grinned Abernathy. Profoundly grateful that he had an easy task.
‘And Sheriff …’
‘Yeah. What is it?’
‘Don’t turn your back on any of ’em. Useless tub of sweat you may be, Abernathy, but you’re all I’ve got. Right now you’re just a mite better than nothin’.’
Caleb was terrified. Frightened of the hard-eyed man still spotted with darkening patches of blood from the fight. Scared rigid by being singled out like this by Herne and taken away from the others. Walked by the arm a hundred paces down the trail, away from the rest, so that he couldn’t even see them.
‘Sit down, son,’ said Jed, as gently as he could, trying to put the albino at his ease.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You don’t need to call me "Sir", boy. My name’s Jed.’
There was no response from Caleb, sitting like a trapped rabbit, fas
cinated by Herne’s presence, looming over him in the night.
‘You hear me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I just want a talk with you, Caleb.’
‘Can I go back with the others, Mr. Herne, if you please?’
‘No!’ More gently. ‘No. I just want you and me to talk here. I’ll sit down a spell so you don’t have to stretch up to see me. There. That better?’
The child didn’t answer, looking worriedly away, past Herne, towards where Abernathy was riding shotgun on the other three. As he sat there, his profile strained against the pale light of the moon, Jed was struck once again at the uncanny resemblance between Caleb and his old friend Isaiah Coburn. The same set of the jaw. The same fall of silver hair. The deadness of the skin, and the glowing embers of the eyes.
He decided to try and come in on what he wanted know about the ghost town by persuading the boy to talk a little about himself first.
‘Caleb?’
‘Sir?’
He saw that there was no hope of persuading the lad to stop calling him “sir”, so he pressed on.
‘You must recall your other name. The Apaches only had you for a spell there. Now you tell me what it is … and I’ll promise you that I’ll never let on to the others … to Aaron, Mary and John … that you told me a thing.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t, boy? Or would that be “won’t”? Which is it, Cal?’
The little boy didn’t answer, staring past Herne, his fingers twitching each other in his lap, knotting and twisting with the tension.
‘Come on, boy.’
‘Please, Mr. Herne.’ The face turned to him at last, the eyes almost invisible in the darkness, the face a white blur.
Death School (Herne the Hunter Western Book 14) Page 6