Herne the Hunter 22

by John J. McLaglen

  He laughed his smug, self-satisfied laugh. ‘But then, cowboy, you don’t really know what’s happening here anyway, do you? You should have stayed out West with your cattle rustlers and stage robbers and simple things you can handle.’

  He laughed again and walked the short distance to Veronica and took hold of her hand, squeezing it as he kissed the side of her neck.

  Herne looked for a sign of distaste in her eyes but saw nothing.

  Quinlan giggled and gave a little clap with his hands.

  ‘You’re forgetting one thing, Daniels. I know this laughing fool here and that mountain you keep around were the ones who carried Bellour’s body out of the house and dumped him in the bay.’

  ‘Really?’ Daniels raised an eyebrow. ‘And can you prove that?’

  ‘With witnesses. Two of them.’

  Daniels shook his head. ‘I wonder who’d believe them. But even if the court thought it true, what would it prove? Disposing of a body is not the same thing as murder. Unless these witnesses of yours saw that too …?’

  Herne opened his mouth to say something, but the words failed to come. He knew that he was having the floor pulled out from underneath him; he knew that if Veronica would swear that he’d admitted to killing Bellour everything was going to stand against him. He was the outsider, the man who’d stuck his head where it wasn’t wanted and didn’t belong—stuck his head into the dark and now they were going to drop a noose about it and pull it tight.

  They …

  Daniels, Quinlan, even the dead Bellour … even Veronica.

  He wondered how long it would be before the law arrived and his chances of getting out of San Francisco were more or less blocked out. But he still had the Colt in his hand and there was no one preventing him from turning round and going back through the same door he’d entered.

  Except that he didn’t like what was happening to him; he didn’t like the frame he was being trapped inside; he didn’t like what that too-perfect looking woman was doing to him. That woman who …

  He stared at her and remembered the shape of her breasts against his body, the softness of her mouth and the twisting of her tongue.

  Daniels leered at her green-encased body and for a second his tongue appeared between his fleshy lips.

  ‘Have you told her about the money you were trying to get from her father, Daniels?’ Herne said angrily, moving a couple of treads up the stairs. ‘Have you told her about that?’

  Daniels moved away from Veronica and flashed him a warning look but Herne wasn’t about to be warned.

  ‘Tell her how you tried to get a couple of thousand dollars from a dying man.’

  Veronica was looking at him now, those dark eyes staring at the gambler’s fleshy face.

  ‘You said they were gambling debts, but that wasn’t the truth. The major didn’t believe that, but he didn’t know the truth. Part of him didn’t want to know but the rest of him couldn’t stomach getting drawn into the kind of rottenness that you and your kind live their lives in. That was why he sent for me. To lean on you, stop you if I could … and if not throw things out into the open, get it over somehow, some way.’

  ‘He’s a brave old man and no matter how far his bones have decayed he’s still got more spine that you’ve ever had. You don’t need backbone to blackmail a dying old man. And that’s what it was, wasn’t it. Blackmail.’

  Herne was slowly going forward, his eyes fixed on Daniels, waiting for him to make some kind of a move.

  ‘If he paid up regardless, then so much the better. You’d count your money and laugh about it and then there’d be another note and then another. And if he didn’t pay, you’d send him one of Bellour’s nice little pictures. Cassie in a little girl’s frock, playing on a swing. Cassie in her crib. Cassie dressed up in her wedding veil.’

  ‘You’re insane, Herne! You’re babbling! There isn’t any truth in what you’re say’

  Herne squeezed back on the trigger of the Colt and the roulette wheel jumped and spun.

  Daniels jumped backwards, one pudgy hand moving too slowly towards his coat pocket.

  Herne fired again and this time the slug embedded itself into the wall less than a foot to the right of the gambler’s head.

  ‘You best tell the truth, Daniels. Tell Veronica. Let her hear it. Tell her about the notes you sent the major. Tell her!’

  Herne stopped walking and aimed the .45 at Daniels’ heart.

  The gambler’s mouth dropped open and both hands swung forward, palms outward, begging Herne not to shoot.

  ‘Tell her!’

  ‘I thought … I wanted … Hell, he’s got so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s not going to miss a couple of thousand, is he?’

  Daniels was looking at Veronica, his head turned towards her, his voice more and more imploring. She continued to stare back at him, through him. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking; if she was thinking at all.

  Herne waited for her to say something, react.

  Finally she swished the green gown as she moved a pace towards Herne and said: ‘Is that all you’ve got to say, cowboy?’

  Quinlan laughed his high-pitched laugh and rubbed his hands with glee.

  Daniels stopped sweating and a glint came back to his eyes. ‘You’re out on a limb, Herne. Right out on the end and here comes the man who’s going to saw it right off.’

  Daniels was looking past Herne, down towards the main room.

  Herne swung his head for an instant, expecting to see the policeman with the bowler hat and the plaid coat. At first he saw no one and then, bulking against the curtain by the door there was the Chinaman.

  Quinlan rushed him.

  Herne spun fast and the barrel of the Colt caught the Irishman on the side of the jaw and swung him round. Quinlan fell awkwardly, cannoning off the roulette table and back against Herne’s legs. A fist drove hard into Herne’s groin. His eyes watered and he doubled forward. The little man’s head smacked into his nose and blood spurted freely.

  The steps close at his back shook with the weight of the running man.

  Again Herne tried to turn, but the Irishman was clinging to his legs as if his life depended upon it. A fist the size of a man’s head slammed against Herne’s ear and he couldn’t prevent himself from falling. The back of his skull struck the thick leg of the roulette table and colors exploded and faded fast at the back of his eyelids.

  Something metallic slammed hard against his temple and the colors turned to black, the black became a tunnel and he fell down it.

  His head felt as if it had been on the receiving end of a charge from a five hundred pound bull. At least one of the wounds from the last time Daniels’ men had worked him over had opened up again. He could feel the dried blood that had coiled around his ear and down the side of his neck. He could feel the tightness of the ropes that kept his arms tight at his back, his ankles locked against one another.

  Someone was singing off-key deep inside his brain.

  Gradually words seeped through the pain of the song. Voices he recognized as belonging to Daniels and Veronica. They were in the room next to his and the door was ajar. Herne figured they’d carried him upstairs out of the way. There was a bed over to the side of the room and through the slit in the door he could see an armchair, a leg lightly swinging, the top of it encased in lime green. The smell of cigarette smoke and good bourbon.

  The song stopped shrieking enough for him to hear what was being said.

  ‘ … sort of deal did you and Bellour have figured out?’ It was Veronica’s voice, relaxed, almost warm, a deep purr.

  ‘He needed contacts to sell his merchandise. He met them through me. Here. I put him in touch with people and in exchange he gave me a cut. Twenty per cent.’

  ‘You’re a shrewd man, Cord,’ she said admiringly.

  ‘I try to be.’

  There was a clink of glass against glass, the spurt and hiss of a match. Herne tried to ease his wrists inside the rope but it was
useless.

  ‘How about girls, Cord?’ Veronica asked. ‘Did he meet any of those here?’

  A pause. Then: ‘One or two. Once in a while, I’d introduce him to someone pretty, young. The kind he liked.’

  ‘Cassie?’

  The pause was longer. ‘Cassie? He may have met her here, I don’t know.’

  Veronica laughed and the sound chilled Herne, whatever effect it had on Daniels. ‘Relax, Cord, you know there’s no love lost between Cassie and myself. She’s always run wild. That’s the way she is.’

  Daniels chuckled. ‘You’re right. She’s wild okay. According to Ray, once she got going there wasn’t any stopping her. Why, she had ideas that even he hadn’t thought of.’

  He laughed some more and the glass clinked again as the decanter poured out the last of the bourbon. There was a sound that was unmistakably that of two people kissing.

  A few moments later there was Veronica’s deep voice again. ‘You’re a clever man, Cord. You introduced Bellour to his clients and his girls which meant you had both of them at your mercy.’

  ‘What do you mean, Veronica?’

  ‘I mean, Cord, my dear, that in the fullness of time you were in the position to blackmail the whole damn lot of them!’

  The laughter of the couple merged together and only faltered when Daniels stood up. ‘I guess I’ve been drinking too much. I don’t know how you women hold it like you do. I’ll be right back.’

  His laugh was shut off by the closing of a door.

  Herne looked up and Veronica was standing there in the doorway. This time there was no doubting what was in her eyes. The hate itself was almost enough to burn through his ropes.

  Inside my right boot,’ he said urgently, ‘there’s a bayonet. You can—’

  She put a finger to her lips, silencing him. When she knelt beside him, he could feel the warmth and slight trembling of her body. The bayonet slid from the boot into her hands and she began to saw at the rope at his back.

  In the other room the door opened and steps came close across the carpet.

  ‘Be quick!’ Herne hissed.

  She was not quite through the first strand when Daniels came through the doorway. It took him a moment to realize what was happening and as soon as he did his face went white and he fumbled inside his pocket for the derringer he carried there.

  Veronica stood up and faced him. The bayonet was still in her hand and there was less than four yards between them.

  ‘You do a very good job of changing sides,’ snarled Daniels.

  The derringer was tight in his fist and the skin between the knuckles was stretched taut and white. His face was flushed now with anger, its pallor disappeared.

  ‘You realize, Veronica, you have just thrown away a great deal.’ He raised an eyebrow and looked pityingly at Herne. ‘And why? For that simple-minded cowboy?’ He threw back his head and laughed and at that moment Veronica started to walk towards him.

  ‘Veronica, don’t be stupid!’

  The blade of the bayonet was thrust out before her, lifting higher the closer she got.

  ‘Don’t!’

  Sweat swung from Daniels’ brow as he took a half step back against the door frame and fired.

  The .22 slug tore at the green of Veronica’s arm, plucked at the skin. Blood bubbled out and down, dark on the green.

  Not for a second did she stop staring at him. Quite still now. Watching.

  Daniels waited for her to fall, drop the bayonet, run.

  Instead she went forward.

  The gambler lifted the derringer, sweat running down into his eyes, his hand beginning to shake. He willed himself to use the gun a second time but his finger refused to move.

  Veronica’s eyes held him trapped, sweating, gibbering, terrified.

  When the blade pushed against his heart he opened his mouth to scream. Veronica clutched the end of the bayonet with both hands, leaned her weight against it, pushed some more, twisted, and was done.

  She stepped back and watched as Cord Daniels shivered against the door and his body began slowly to sink towards the floor.

  A thin trickle of blood ran from his still open mouth.

  Sounds gargled out, wordless, without meaning.

  Veronica continued to gaze at the lengthening line of blood, at the way his shirt darkened around the blade, the twitch of his hands and the irregular drumming of his feet.

  ‘That’s for Cassie, you bastard!’

  Her hands tightened back around the bayonet and she heaved it clear. Blood followed heavily in its wake. She didn’t stop to wipe the blade clean before using it to cut the rest of Herne’s bonds.

  As the final one was severed, the body of Cord Daniels fell sideways onto the floor, his face wedged against the carpet, and didn’t move again.

  Twelve

  Herne rubbed at his ankles and wrists and tried to get the circulation going as quick as he could. His head throbbed constantly and each fresh movement sent a hammer blow juddering through it.

  Footsteps were coming up the stairs fast.

  The door to the far room was flung back and the big Chinaman came barreling through, Herne’s Colt .45 in one hand and a massive club dangling from the other.

  He yelled something undecipherable and ran half way across the room.

  The sight of Cord Daniel’s sprawled, dead body brought him up short.

  Herne moved fast, snatching the blade from the carpet where Veronica had left it. His body swung through a low crouch and his right arm extended backwards, the vicious looking blade at the end of it. When the arm swung back, angling up, all that was visible was a dark blur with a silver tip. The bayonet left Herne’s hand at a speed that was too fast to pick out.

  Its trajectory took it curving wickedly upwards towards the Chinaman’s chest and vainly he clawed his hands towards it. His left hand touched it as it sped past and his little finger sheered away. Nothing could prevent the point breaking the flesh above the chest bone and deflecting upwards off the edge of the bone and burying itself below the Adam’s apple.

  The giant of a man swayed on his heels, rocked forward onto his toes. Six inches of the blade had disappeared from sight. His fingers sought the end of the weapon and strove to drag it free.

  Herne went forward fast, snaked out his boot and kicked the Colt clear.

  It was in his hand when Quinlan’s amazed face peered round the edge of the far door.

  ‘Mary, mother of God!’ he sighed and crossed himself.

  Herne covered him with the gun.

  The Chinaman finally succeeded in wrenching the bayonet from his throat and the effort sent him down against the floor with a thud that shook the boards. He groaned and rolled over onto his back, his face already a vivid mask of blood. His tongue rolled, his hands stretched up towards Herne and he kicked out with his boots, anything to strike out at the man who had killed him.

  ‘Get in here, Quinlan!’

  The Irishman wasn’t about to refuse. He came with his hands as far towards the ceiling as he could, paused when he saw Veronica at Herne’s back, nodded in sudden understanding and waited to do as he was told.

  ‘Get that gun he carries with him,’ said Herne, speaking to Veronica without looking round. Then use that rope to tie him up.’ He glanced at the huge figure struggling amidst his own blood on the ground. ‘We’ll take him below first. The law can clear up the rest of this mess up here.’

  Quinlan’s gun in her hand she looked at him, hesitant. ‘The law …?’

  ‘He came at you with a pistol, fired a shot. You’ve the wound in your arm to prove it. You didn’t have any choice.’ He looked back at the gambler’s still body. ‘Besides, Wallace won’t be getting any more from Daniels. He’s got no reason to protect him.’

  Herne gestured with the Colt and the Irishman walked dejectedly down the stairs, doubtless rehearsing his story so as to come out of it as innocent as possible.

  At the foot of the staircase, Veronica turned against him and her body w
as not quite still beneath the closeness of her dress. Her skin shimmered with sweat. For the first time he could smell her more strongly than the perfume she wore. He liked it. Her face was inches away from his.

  ‘You were good,’ he said quietly. ‘You had me worried for a long while, but you were very damn good.’

  Her kiss was as he remembered it: now and much later. ‘You were pretty good yourself.’

  Major Russell insisted on pouring the brandy himself, although it was necessary for Lucas to push the wheelchair around the room so that he could hand a glass to Herne and both of his daughters.

  Cassie was looking pale and weak and her eyes seemed hollow, seeing little if anything that passed in front of her. Each time she moved, Lucas swung his head towards her in panic, as if thinking she might fall.

  As for Veronica, she seemed to have been through no more than a hard night watching the roulette wheel spin the ball away from her personal number. She was wearing white and she looked like she’d just stepped out of a pack of ice from down on the dock. Once, she looked across the room and gave him a conspiratorial smile, but that was all. It was almost as if nothing of the last few days had happened; everything had slipped from sight beneath one of those sea fogs that came rolling up out of the bay.

  ‘You did a damn fine job, Mr. Herne,’ said the Major, lifting his glass towards him. ‘If it hadn’t been for you Daniels would have been bleeding what little life I’ve got left out of me and taking countless others for what he could get into the bargain. As for Bellour …’ His eyes passed over Cassie’s slight, childlike body and a shudder passed over his aging heart. ‘Men like him are best not born—born, they’re better dead.’

  He nodded towards Lucas and grudgingly Lucas picked up a long envelope from the sideboard and came forward to Herne with it in his hands.

  ‘There’s a bonus there, Mr. Herne, for a job well done. I thank you, sir, with all my heart.’

  ‘Fine, Major. Only it ain’t finished. Quite.’