Herne the Hunter 19

by John J. McLaglen

  Jed watched the man’s skill, seeing how the reins were looped in the left hand, wrapped around the fingers, held loose and easy. Goddard kept his right hand free for the whip and in case he needed the brake, though he’d told Herne that this run was soft and gentle as driving a coach and four across a table-top.

  ‘Been too fuckin’ long.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Too fuckin’ long.’

  ‘What has?’ Herne found that he needed to raise his voice to a full shout if he wanted to be heard by Goddard. The pounding of the hooves, the jingling of the harnesses and the rattling of the Concord combining to make conversation exceeding difficult.

  ‘Since I drove.’

  ‘How long?’

  Goddard considered the question, transferring a hunk of chewing tobacco from his left cheek to his right. Too fuckin’ long,’ was the final reply.

  ‘Glad to be here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Herne leaned back, holding on the rail with his left hand, knees pressed together to keep the Sharps rifle safe. If it hadn’t been tied down with a leather thong the Meteor scattergun would have long since disappeared over the side of the cascading rig.

  Stow Wells was already ten miles behind them. Goddard seemed intent on proving that all his old skill was still there, pushing them on at a good lick. Occasionally urging the lazy nearside wheeler with a scattering of pebbles he carried in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Be early at Burned Mill Creek,’ shouted the driver.

  ‘Better five minutes late this world than thirty years too soon in the next,’ replied the shootist, grinning sideways at Goddard. Beginning to like the middle-aged drunk. Enjoying the ride, and the fact that he was getting paid for it. The next day he’d be able to ride on from Stow Wells in better shape then he’d entered it.

  The rear wheel bounced over a jagged boulder and the whole coach lurched. For a sickening moment Herne thought they were tipping and he grabbed on with both hands. The sudden movement sending a stabbing pain through his jaw.

  ‘Christ!’ he yelled.

  ‘Had you worried, Herne!’ cackled Goddard, spitting out the mangled tobacco. As it sailed away through the teeming, baking air, Herne had a moment to notice that it looked uncommonly like something you might find on your boots after a walk through a cow-pasture.

  ‘Got a bad tooth. Rattled it.’

  ‘Get Big Jim Bisset to pull it. Son of a bitch pulled all mine.’

  ‘Aim to. When we get back.’ By then he guessed that the blacksmith’s injured arm should be well enough for him to tug out the offending molar.

  He hoped so. It had been going on for entirely too long.

  ~*~

  They slowed down some when they reached a rocky defile two-thirds of the way to Burned Mill Creek. The trail wound to and fro among steep-sided arroyos and Herne took his Sharps and held it across his lap.

  Goddard saw the movement and grinned crookedly. ‘Yeah. I fuckin’ figure it too. This is as fuckin’ good a place as any if them Indians come a’callin’ on us.’

  ‘You figure it for Mendez?’ asked the shootist, eyes raking the edges of the cliffs ahead and around them.

  ‘Chiricahua?’

  ‘Folks say it.’

  Goddard shook his head. ‘I drove more years’n you’ve had hot dinners, Herne. I never once got me attacked by Apaches.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘No. Pawnee. Arapaho. Sioux four or five times. Plenty of fuckin’ breeds. Never an Apache.’

  The shootist nodded his agreement. ‘Yeah. Maybe we’ll see. Maybe not.’

  ‘I never seen it, that’s all.’

  The shootist recalled something that his old friend Whitey Coburn used to say. You can keep all your yesterdays. They mean nothing. It’s just the one tomorrow that’s worth thinking on.’

  The driver half-turned. ‘Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth, Herne. Ain’t it.’

  ~*~

  There hadn’t been much sign of their two passengers. Once the chilling Mr. Locke had rapped on the side of the driver’s seat with a silver-topped cane to draw attention to his complaint that there was a lot of dust blowing through the windows of the Concord, despite the leather curtains being buckled down.

  Goddard had replied to him, bellowing an answer over his shoulder. ‘Best thing I can offer, sir, is to wait for rain. Damps the dust wonderful, it does.’

  There hadn’t been any further words from the storekeeper. But the ramrod, Job Burnham, had been continually calling out to Goddard and to Herne. A stream of jokes that had reinforced the opinion of the shootist about the man. Someone as perpetually merry as the cowboy had to be a first-rate pain in the ass.

  ~*~

  They were near the end of the maze of linking ravines, still making good time, when Herne happened to glance behind them.

  Back along the winding trail.

  ‘We got us some company, Roy,’ he shouted, putting his mouth close to the driver’s ear so that the passengers wouldn’t hear him.

  ‘Indians?’

  ‘Don’t make him through the dust. There’s one … no, two …’

  ‘Comin’ fast?’ yelled. Goddard, flicking the whip out and nipping the flank of the nearest horse to keep it working with the rest of the team.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  Herne sniffed. ‘No. Means there’s likely more up front.’

  ‘Fuck it. Damn it and fuck it. Fuck, fuck and fuck again.’ It was said with a surprising calm, more like a litany in an echoing cathedral.

  The shootist hooked the hammer back on the big fifty-caliber rifle. Easing the retaining thong off of the pistol in his belt.

  ‘Shame we aren’t carryin’ more guns.’

  ‘The ramrod must be able to use a handgun. What about Locke?’

  ‘His idea of defendin’ hisself is to try and scare ’em off with the inside of his fuckin’ wallet.’

  They came to a sharp bend, the Concord slowing right down to little more than walking pace. Goddard was still cursing quietly under his breath. Suddenly stopping.

  ‘Recall gettin’ hit by some fuckin’ road agents, eight, maybe ten years back. Near San Antone. Three of ’em. No more than raw kids. Rainin’ like the end of the world, it was. Had twenty-one folk that day.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Twenty and one, Herne. Nine riding inside and another dozen of us out on top. Weather so bad that nobody was in any mood for bandits. Everyone pulled out and let rip. Tore them kids to pieces. Guess they must have been hit by about fifty bullets each. Should have seen the blood ... the blood and the mud and rain. Jesus!’

  The stagecoach lurched again as they hit a deep rut in the road. But the suspension of the heavy leather thorough brace absorbed the worst of the impact.

  ‘There they are,’ said Herne. ‘Stop here.’

  There were five figures, strung out across the trail. Around two hundred paces ahead, where the road ran straight and narrow between sheer walls of red-orange stone.

  Goddard threw his weight on the brake, the heavy shoe biting on the rim of the wheel, bringing the rig to a pitching, slewing halt. He called out to the team, quieting them.

  Herne brought the Sharps to his shoulder, waiting for the bucking to stop. Looking back over the top of the Concord. Watching for the following men to come into sight through the spiraling pillar of pale dust.

  ‘Yeah. Two of them. Whites. That’s seven in all.’

  ‘What do we do, Herne?’ asked Goddard.

  ‘Could run them.’

  ‘They’ll bring down the horses.’

  ‘Yeah. Stay here and shoot the bowels out of the sorts of bitches.’

  ‘All seven?’

  ‘Figure on hitting four or five. Should take some of the fighting heart out of them.’

  ‘What is wrong? Why have we stopped here? Driver! I am speaking to … Oh, land of Goshen!’ Mr. J.W. Locke had finally looked out of the window of the stage and seen the group of robbers, still
sitting their horses and waiting patiently for a move.

  ‘There’s five of them out yonder and we figure another fuckin’ couple out back of us.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘You don’t do anything, Mr. Locke,’ replied Herne. ‘I’m here for that.’

  ‘They are after my silver.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s your silver, is it?’ grinned Goddard, slipping another chew of tobacco into his mouth and beginning to bite on it.

  ‘Yes. We must fight for it. You must, Herne. That is why you’re hired.’

  ‘I didn’t get hired to get killed. There’s seven against us.’

  ‘There are three of you.’

  The long face of the ramrod appeared out of the next window along. ‘Hold on there, good pardner. I’m here for the ride.’

  ‘I’ll pay well.’

  ‘How well?’

  ‘Five hundred dollars if we can win through those bandits.’

  ‘Wait on,’ exclaimed Herne. ‘Best make that five hundred each.’

  Locke tightened his thin lips. ‘You and the driver have contracts. I will not interfere in your conditions of employ.’

  Then I won’t interfere with saving your money. Coming, Goddard?’

  The driver nodded his agreement, starting to loop the ribbons around the handle of the brake. A nerve began to tic at the corner of Locke’s eye as anger snatched him.

  ‘You can’t … You are a bastard, Mr. Herne.’

  ‘No, Locke. Not true. Might not have seen my Pa for forty years, but he was there when it mattered. And with most bastards it’s just an accident of birth. But you, Locke, are really a self-made man.’

  ‘I’ll pay you both. Fifteen hundred dollars in all if we can get free.’

  Herne nodded. ‘Then we’d best set to it. Those five out there won’t wait all day. They can just sit there, figurin’ us for sittin’ targets. They know they’ve got men behind if’n we try and break and turn and run back to Stow Wells. I’ll see what lean do with the Sharps here to slow them down some.’

  Behind him he heard the click of the ramrod cocking his pistol. The shootist didn’t even look round. ‘Won’t need that yet, Burnham.’

  The ranch foreman’s voice was quiet in the sudden stillness. ‘Wrong, Herne. I need it right now. Drop the rifle and sit real patient.’

  Seven

  ‘You scum.’

  ‘Sure, Mr. Locke. Guess you might think that. But me and my friends think different.’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’ asked Herne, intent on keeping the cowboy talking. From where Burnham leaned from the window of the Concord he couldn’t see Jed all that well. And that was an angle worth concentrating on.

  ‘Not long. Easy money.’

  ‘Blame it on Mendez and the Chiricahua?’

  Burnham laughed. ‘Yeah. Now drop the gun, Herne. I aim to call my pardners over once the buffalo gun’s hit the dirt.’

  ‘How come you’re here?’ asked Goddard. ‘You weren’t on the other stages that gotten hit.’

  ‘No. They didn’t have Mr. Herne the Hunter riding shotgun, did they? I’m just here as a kind of insurance. Figured I’d be needed. I was right. Now, Herne. The long gun. In the dirt. Now!’

  ‘Do as he says,’ quavered Locke.

  ‘So he’ll spare us all?’ mocked Roy Goddard, glancing sideways at Herne, trying to second-guess whatever plan the shootist might have.

  ‘They might.’

  ‘Ask him,’ suggested Herne.

  ‘The gun, mister,’ warned Burnham, leaning further out of the window to give himself a clearer view of Herne.

  ‘Down there?’ pointing to a patch of soft sand among the boulders.

  ‘Fuckin’ anywhere.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, you son-of-a-bitch. I don’t give a damn ’bout whether you get it now or later.’

  ‘Sure.’ said the shootist, standing and hefting the big fifty-caliber rifle. Heaving it over the right side of the coach, where Burnham could see it.

  And diving off the other side.

  Snatching up the Meteor as he did so, thumbing back the hammers before he even hit the ground. Rolling off one shoulder and coming up in a crouch, the heavy shotgun braced against his hip.

  Burnham’s head appeared through the window of the coach, his pistol raking the air, searching for Herne.

  Seeing him.

  Seeing the scattergun pointed right at him.

  Mouth opening in what might have been the beginning of a scream. Or a curse. Or a prayer.

  It didn’t much matter.

  Herne tugged back on both triggers, feeling the gun kick against him, nearly knocking him clean off balance. A burst of smoke from both barrels and the man in the coach disappearing from sight as utterly as if he’d never existed.

  Rising behind the noise of the scattergun was an odd squealing sound. As though someone had buried a butcher’s knife in the flank of a prime sow.

  Herne dropped the shotgun, starting to move away around the front of the horses, ignoring the sound. He knew that he’d hit Burnham, so the sound wasn’t going to be anything important. The team was bucking and rearing, Goddard standing up on the box, fighting them, holding the reins in both gloved hands.

  ‘They’re comin’, Jed,’ he yelled. ‘Front … front and back.’

  The shootist was concentrating on getting to the Sharps rifle. Knowing that if he was fast enough at powering himself to pick up the heavy rifle he should have time to pick away some of the attackers.

  The screaming still flowed on.

  The Sharps was where he’d thrown it, flat on its side. Herne had taken care not to drop it muzzle down, so that it risked getting blocked and jamming. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the cloud of dust as the bandits started to come in at the gallop. The boom of the scattergun telling them that things had gone wrong.

  ‘Ones behind are closer!’ called Goddard and Herne waved an acknowledgement.

  Picking up the Sharps. The familiar weight and balance to the rifle. Flicking back the side hammer and running to the rear of the Concord. Goddard had fought the team and won, holding them steady. As he went past the right side of the coach Herne saw what remained of Job Burnham dangling bloodily from the half-open door. The head had been blasted to shards of splintering bone, the top of the scalp flapping loose as though an Apache had been interrupted at taking the hair. The features were gone, and one arm hung on the shoulder by scraps of gristle.

  The noise continued from inside and Herne was now able to place it as being the voice of J.W. Locke. Crouched on the floor of the coach, keening his terror at the way death had blasted from the Arizona morning. Splattering him with brains and gobbets of torn flesh.

  Two riders. Closing fast. The nearest whipping furiously at a big grey, less than a hundred paces off.

  Jed steadied himself, calming his breathing. Quickly putting a dab of spittle on the sharp foresight from habit. But eighty yards to the fifty-caliber buffalo gun was like shooting at blackboard across a classroom.

  Aim, stock firm against the right shoulder. Cheek cradling against the warm wood. Both eyes open, peering along the smooth barrel. Finger tightening …

  Tightening . . .

  ‘Got the fuckin’ whore!’ yelped Goddard, waving his hat around in excitement.

  The bullet took the rider through the upper chest.

  A safer killing shot at a man galloping towards you than going for the skull. This way you had a spare margin all around. Bullet high and it hits him in the head. Low and it rips the guts from him.

  The impact of the big slug was enough to pluck the robber clean out of his saddle, leaving him dying in the dirt. There had been no warning. Through the dust he hadn’t even noticed Herne at the corner of the stage. By the time his eyes registered that there had been a puff of powder smoke it was way too late. He was flat on his back looking up at the sun through misting eyes.

  By then Jed had ejected the warm brass case, hearing it tin
kle among the pebbles by his feet. Taken another cartridge from his jacket pocket and thumbed it into the rifle. Sighting and firing in a single fluid movement that was his inheritance for the long, painful years of practice.

  But the man’s horse had swerved, pulling away, to avoid trampling on the fallen rider, putting Jed off his aim for that vital moment.

  ‘Missed him,’ shouted Goddard.

  ‘Start turning the team and shut up!’ yelled Herne, knowing instinctively that his second shot had missed. It was still booming out across the roasted land when he fired a third time. This time making no mistake.

  The bullet hitting the second of the trailing men in the center of the throat, angling sideways after it hit the cervical vertebrae of his spine, snapping his neck like a dry twig underfoot. The distorted ball ripped out through the side of his neck, taking the big carotid artery with it. Sending the bandit spinning to the dirt in a wheeling fountain of bright blood.

  The pounding of hooves from the other five bandits was getting closer. Goddard had begun the slow process of turning the Concord from a standstill, using his whip on the leaders and cursing them. The cries of distress from inside the coach had gradually faded away to a miserable whimpering.

  ‘Ain’t goin’ to fuckin’ make it, Jed,’ shouted the driver. ‘Not time.’

  ‘Then hold ’em there. Side on.’

  Herne shuffled quickly around to the further angle of the coach, steadying himself and firing twice in quick succession. Lips peeling back from his teeth like a cornered wolf with the satisfaction of seeing two men fall. One horse also went down and stayed down, shot through the side of the head, its legs stiff and kicking. The rider struggled to his feet and called something out to the three survivors.

  Who heeded the cry of warning, reining in with a brutal violence, wheeling their animals around and heading off the main trail towards a side canyon. The bandit on foot started to sprint after them. Head back, arms pumping as if he was running a foot race.

  Which he was, competing with the speed and accuracy of Herne’s shooting.