Herne the Hunter 19

by John J. McLaglen

  ‘You figure it’s Indians?’

  ‘Tacklin’ the stage? Could be. Not like Chiricahua to go for robbery.’

  ‘That Mendez has white blood in him. Well … Mex blood, if you can call a greaser white.’

  ‘I don’t generally call a Mex anything,’ replied Herne. ‘Scalping looked like Indians. Whole town seems certain sure it’s Mendez and his war party of young bucks.’

  Bisset nodded. ‘Sure sorry about that trouble with the boy.’

  ‘Not your doin’, Bisset. Just damned sore that you never got to draw this rotten tooth of mine.’

  ‘Can’t do it with my left hand. But I figure this arm’ll be well enough in three … four days. Then I’ll do it. And not charge you a cent. On the house.’

  Herne grinned. ‘I’m surely popular. You offer me a free tooth out and the Sheriff offered me a whore. Can’t wait for the next offer.’

  ~*~

  Drink dulls pain, so Jed bought himself a bottle of whiskey, taking it to his room. The owner of the saloon had heard all about the lethal speed and short temper of the shootist and had offered him the ‘best room in the house’, in place of the one overlooking the alley. This was a front double with a white-painted balcony, over the street. There he sat, watching Stow Wells go about its business and deriving a certain satisfaction in the way everyone knew he was there but nobody would actually look openly up at him. Except for the children and they were swiftly slapped for their temerity.

  One of the girls from the sporting-house along the street came to see whether she could interest him in doing some business. When she found that the tall stranger wasn’t in the buying vein, she stayed a while to talk with him, sharing the same shot-glass. Giving him an entertaining commentary on the citizens of the small township.

  Entertaining and scurrilous.

  ‘See him? Old goat with the little beard and eyeglasses? That’s J.W. Locke. Owns the hardware store. Married thirty years come next Thanksgiving. Eleven children born. Eight livin’. Elder of the church meeting society. Member of the council. Mighty big man around Stow Wells is Mr. J.W. Locke.’

  The laughter as she spoke told the shootist that she knew more about Mr. Locke than Mr. Locke was likely to want made public. But the liquor had loosed the young whore’s tongue.

  ‘Not so big and mighty when he comes around our house. My God but he ain’t.’

  Herne relaxed in the warm sun, conscious that the pain from his jaw had slipped away a little. Wondering whether, after all, he might not take advantage of the girl’s offer.

  The whore, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, shuffled her seat closer along the balcony. It was warm and she was only wearing a thin cotton shift with a lace shawl low across the top of her swelling breasts. Herne could almost taste the sweetness of her body. The faint scent of her sweat beginning to rouse him.

  ‘Want to know about Mr. Locke?’

  Herne nodded.

  She laid a hand on his arm, the fingers butterflying their way along the inside of his wrist. Rubbing at the

  center of his palm in a small, delicate circle. Smiling up at him and licking her lips in the provocative way that she had learned when she first began whoring four years earlier.

  ‘Let me whisper,’ Dropping her voice, her mouth close to his face so that her breath stirred the fine hairs inside his ear. ‘Old J.W. gets real excited when I dress up for him. Pretend I’m a little girl at school. Pinafore and knee stockings. No drawers. He comes in like he’s the teacher and he has to examine me. See I haven’t been … you know … touchin’ myself.’

  Herne knew that he was going to lie with this girl.

  ‘Then he says that he intends to give me a good thrashing for my wickedness. Makes it sound like something from the Bible, he does. But he gets off all his fine clothes to tie me up. And I have to ask him if I can tie him first, as I’m kind of frightened by the idea.’ She laughed so loudly that a brace of passing housewives walking slowly across the street looked disapprovingly up at the balcony.

  ‘I get him tied tighter than a calf at first branding and he wriggles and struggles. But only kind of pretend. And his pecker gets all hard. Hard as it ever gets with J.W. Locke. I whip him some and then he begs me to let him do dirty things and I let him. Things you wouldn’t rightly believe.’

  Herne would have believed. He’d once spent three weeks in a Juarez whore-house recovering from a razor-cut to his left wrist. Things he’d seen there were enough to keep his imagination going for the rest of his life. But he was not bothered by what people wanted to do in private. Long as they didn’t do it in the street and frighten any passing horses.

  The girl was about to go on but she saw the slim figure of the sheriff strolling by. He stared up at her and she waved a cheeky hand.

  ‘There’s Clifford V. Williamson, the Lord bless him! He’s kind of cute. Been the law round here for years they say.’

  ‘Honest?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Sure is.’

  It was the turn of the shootist to laugh. ‘I never hardly met a lawman who could say the word “honesty” without crapping in his breeches at the thought.’

  ‘There’s Mr. Goddard,’ she said, suddenly, pointing to a smaller saloon down the street.

  ‘Stage driver?’

  ‘Used to be. Drink sort of fuddled his mind but he’s really kind to us girls when he comes on by. Don’t see him much now he’s lost his job.’

  Goddard was short and plump, a salt and pepper beard decorating his chin. Herne watched him, seeing that there was that exaggerated care in walking that comes with the never sober. Not to be confused with the perpetually drunk, who inhabit the next house along the line. The stout figure disappeared through the bat-wing doors of the saloon.

  ‘He likes me …’ began the girl, but Herne was distracted by the sound of wagon wheels, coming in from the north of Stow Wells at a fair lick.

  ‘Who’s …?’

  ‘Miss Lily Abernathy. Ain’t nobody else drives like that.’

  ‘Lady runs the Home for the old men?’

  The whore nodded, leaning forwards to look over the painted rail, towards where a swirling cloud of dust showed the movement of the rig.

  ‘Sure. Her and her daughter. The Matron. Miss Andreanna. Hell of a couple, Herne.’ Her hand was off his arm. And down onto his thigh, squeezing with a slow, languorous movement, easing higher and higher.

  The shootist was interested. Interested in seeing the two women. And he managed to close his mind for a few moments to the attentions of the girl. Seeing a buckboard come bouncing along the street, stopping outside the dry goods store. There were two women in it. The driver, handling a long carriage whip with the skill of a Tupelo mule-skinner, was in her forties. Tall, in a fur-trimmed jacket of rich blue, and a long skirt in a lighter color. Her hair was grey-blonde, piled high on her head and held in place with a glittering ruby pin. If the other girl was her daughter, she must be in her twenties, though she looked older. She wore a plain leather jacket over a divided skirt that came only to mid-calf. Beneath it were a pair of gleaming riding-boots with tiny silver spurs.

  ‘You seem mighty interested in them, Herne,’ pouted the girl, pinching him to recover his attention for herself.

  ‘Sure. Heard plenty ’bout her since I came to town.’

  ‘She has a lot of power. Most men hereabouts lust after her. Run about with their tongues danglin’ for her. For the both of ’em. But none of them ever gets more than a sniff at her.’

  ‘That one of the oldsters in the back of the rig there?’

  There was a hunched figure squatting in the bed of the rig. He had a blanket huddled over his scrawny shoulders. His head turned towards the couple on the balcony.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know them?’

  The girl laughed again. Her hand was right at the top of the shootist’s leg, fondling his swelling maleness.

  ‘No. All old men look the same, Herne. Blue pants and them white shirts with the big
sleeves. All look the same. They come and they go. Some been there years. Some only a day or so. Hear that one died within an hour of gettin’ there. Probably saw Miss Lily and that was too much for the poor bastard.’

  ‘She’s a mighty handsome woman,’ said Herne, quietly.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Doesn’t much matter, does it?’

  Across the narrow street the wagon stayed still, its black, sharp-edged shadow clear beneath it. The figure under the blanket remained motionless, though Herne was sure he could make out eyes flickering like bright gems in the darkness of the makeshift hood.

  ‘Hell-fire and perdition!’ exclaimed the young whore.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Miss Lily just peered out through the store window and maybe saw me up here.’

  ‘She won’t be pleased?’ he guessed.

  ‘Not likely,’ she stammered. Her hand leaving Jed’s crotch. She stood up and ducked low, scurrying back inside the bedroom. Her voice floating out from within.

  ‘Us ladies of the night ain’t supposed to be seen like this. Out in the open with a gentleman.’

  Herne grinned at the alarm in the girl’s voice. But it didn’t surprise him. He’d seen the effect that upright, God-fearing ladies of a community could have in ridding their towns of women like the young whore. There could be tarring and feathering. And it would be ladies like Miss Abernathy and her daughter that could be at the forefront of such movements.

  As he watched them come out of the store and walk slowly along the elevated boardwalk, talking animatedly, Herne wondered what went on behind the neat, tight clothes. Wondered about the dreams that disturbed the long hot nights of the Arizona summer.

  ‘Come on in here,’ hissed the girl from the darkness behind him.

  The shootist watched the two women until they disappeared into a draper’s, pausing to acknowledge Sheriff Williamson as he crossed over the street to tip his hat to them.

  The figure in the wagon still didn’t move at all, head half-turned.

  Watching.

  ‘You comin’ in, Mr. Herne?’

  He was. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why don’t you just come on inside here. Where it’s cooler?’

  He went inside and joined her.

  But it wasn’t cooler.

  Six

  The coach was ready a half hour before dawn. The signs of the bloody battle had been cleaned off, but there were still dark stains around the seat and inside the body of the Concord. Herne had been up since five, checking that his horse was well cared-for, stopping off for a word with Jim Bisset.

  The sight of the big blacksmith with his shoulder still supported in a sling, brought back the memory of the pain from his rotten tooth. Herne experimentally touched the very tip of his tongue to the tooth. Soft and gentle as a girl with her first lover’s gift of a rose.

  ‘Fuck!’ he, breathed. Eyes squeezing tight, mouth screwing up with the pain. Holding his breath until the lancing spears had moved from his jaw. He sighed, whistling through his pursed lips. Shaking his head at how bad it had been, not surprised to find that his forehead was beaded with sweat.

  ‘Hey, Herne,’ called the voice of the law. Clifford V. Williamson, waving a friendly hand towards the shootist. The sheriff was sharply dressed in black, with a brocade waistcoat decorated with glowing colors of orange and deep green.

  ‘Mornin’, Sheriff.’

  ‘Just soberin’ up your driver over yonder,’ a cocked thumb indicating an eating-house two doors along from the Inside Straight.

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  ‘He’s on his ninth mug of coffee right now,’ grinned Williamson. ‘Hot and black enough to float an anvil.’

  Herne breathed, moving his fingers slowly to keep circulation moving. It had been cold earlier and only now was the rising sun giving a pearly glow to the morning.

  ‘There’s a scattergun bucketed along the seat there,’ said the sheriff.

  ‘I’ll take my Sharps along.’

  ‘Not much use from a moving stage.’

  ‘I can get down, Williamson. And then … If I can see it, then I can hit it.’

  ‘Sure. There’s a small load today.’ He dropped his voice suddenly and looked around. There was nobody within fifty paces but he kept his voice at a whisper. ‘Truth is, there’s a pay-load, silver. Worth around seven thousand dollars. Banker’s shiftin’ it out today. Figures they won’t hit twice in three days. Bastard Chiricahua. And that son of a bitch. Mendez!’

  ‘We’ll gather at the river … the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful fuckin’ river. That flows by the throne … throne …’

  Goddard erupted from the eating-house with the speed and violence of a bursting boil. Landing on his backside in the street, managing by a miracle of balance to keep his battered Stetson in place. Looking back behind him as he staggered to his feet, making an obscene gesture with his clenched fist.

  ‘By the throne of God,’ he finished.

  ‘Over here, Roy. Come meet the shotgun we got you,’ called the sheriff.

  ‘Fuckin’ shootist, ain’t he? Herne. Herne the fuckin’ Hunter. Heard of you. Good to have you ridin’ with me. Fuckin’ good.’

  As he shook the leathery hand offered to him the shootist was almost knocked clean off his feet by the man’s breath. It was like walking through a blazing liquor store. But the shake was firm enough, the hand strong and steady.

  ‘Good to meet you, pardner,’ he said. ‘You ridden shotgun ’fore today?’

  ‘Few times. You driven a stage ’fore today?’

  Goddard laughed, throwing back his head, showing a mouth filled with three teeth, each of them a masterpiece of decay. ‘Few fuckin’ times, Herne.’

  ‘You drive fast?’

  ‘I got two speeds, pardner. Fuckin’ remarkable and even more fuckin’ miraculous. Today you may get to see both.’

  ‘Time you was moving along, now,’ said Williamson. ‘Should be through to Burned Mill Creek by noon. On to Marks Hill by evening. Back here a little after noon on the morrow. Good luck.’

  ‘No passengers?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Hell. I near forgot. Course there is.’

  The driver spat on the ground a fraction of an inch from the toes of the lawman’s boots. ‘More damned trouble than they’re worth. Fuckin’ passengers.’

  ‘There’s only two. Ramrod from the Nolan spread. And Mr. J.W. Locke himself.’

  Goddard spat again. ‘That dumb bastard couldn’t find his ass with both hands.’

  ‘Makes more money than you and me’ll ever make,’ replied Williamson.

  ‘Sure. So did Frank, Jesse, Cole and the rest. Doesn’t mean it’s right.’

  Herne turned away from what was obviously an old and long-standing argument. Climbing up on the driver’s box, perched over the oilskin front boot. It was strapped shut and he guessed that the strong-box was already in there. Perched eight feet in the air he looked around the little town. Seeing a group of the oldsters from the Home lurking around the corner of one of the alleys; He recognized Ben and Paddy from two mornings back and gave them a quick wave of the hand as he settled the Sharps rifle between his knees. The two old men looked startled and then both waved back. There was a third man with them, who didn’t wave.

  Jed checked the Meteor scattergun on his left, making sure it was loaded. Williamson had given him a handful of spare cartridges for it and he felt in his pocket to ensure they were there. Living meant being careful, and that specially meant taking care of your hardware.

  The Concord rocked as Goddard clambered alongside him, wheezing like a mule going up a ladder. The driver settled himself down and grinned across at the tall shootist.

  ‘Soon be off.’

  Herne didn’t reply. It was some time since he’d ridden the box and he didn’t feel that much confidence in going with a notorious drunk. To handle four strong horses pulling over a ton of coach at speeds ranging up to thirty miles an hour wasn’t easy with the best of drivers. He w
asn’t certain that Roy Goddard was anywhere close to being the best of drivers.

  J.W. Locke appeared suddenly from across the street and walked to the coach, opening the door and climbing in without a word to Herne, the sheriff or Goddard.

  ‘Morning, Mr. Locke. Morning, Mr. Goddard. And how are you, Mr. Locke? Fine, thank ’e, Mr. Goddard,’ said the driver, playing both parts with much smiling and tipping of his hat.

  A cold voice floated up to them from inside the Concord. ‘Guard your tongue, you drunken sot. Or I’ll have you whipped from Stow Wells for good.’

  Goddard ignored him, winking at Herne. Leaning so far sideways that he nearly toppled off the box. ‘Ain’t got my head to rights yet,’ he slurred. ‘Any Jehu can drive a rig blindfold and asleep. If’n he’s any good.’

  ‘Meant to ask,’ said Williamson, still standing near the pair of bay wheelers. ‘How come you drivers get called Jehu?’

  It was Herne who answered him. Quoting from the Bible. ‘The driving is like unto the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for verily he doth drive most furiously.’

  Goddard cackled. ‘Fuckin’ truth in the Good Book,

  Brother Herne. Fuckin’ furiously. Yeah.’

  Williamson laughed. Pausing as they heard footsteps coming up from the other side of the main street. ‘Hey, Job. Job Burnham, ramrod of the Nolan ranch out of town. Been there six months. Job, this is Jed Herne.’

  The foreman was tall as Herne, but at least fifty pounds heavier. Belt hooked under a spreading paunch that was barely concealed by a nice-fitting cotton shirt. He looked around thirty, eyes close-set under bushy brows. His lips were full and red beneath a drooping moustache. Burnham had the kind of face that looked as though it laughed a lot and enjoyed a good time and a glass or two of cool beer at the end of the day and a merry yarn. The kind of man that knew that everyone would like him.

  From that first glance Herne disliked him.

  From the moment that Roy Goddard cracked the long whip and urged the leaders off Jed Herne’s worries about his driver vanished. Despite the toll that drink had taken of his skills, Goddard was still good enough and then some. He tugged on a pair of gloves of the finest doeskin that the shootist had ever seen, even on a woman. Explaining that he had to keep his feel on the ribbons, adjusting the bunches of reins in his hands and clucking his tongue at the team of four horses.