‘And some of the girls says you’re scared.’
‘You say that?’ asked Jed.
‘No. No, I don’t. I just ... I just figure you must have your own reasons.’
‘Yeah.’ The shootist saw no reason to explain to a teenage prostitute how his thinking went. She wasn’t important enough for that. She was only really important to Herne for one thing.
And as soon as he’d eaten a quick meal and downed a couple of shots of liquor Herne took Louanne up the broad stairs, past the ornamented golden cherubs at the top, into his room. And used her for what she was best at.
‘What time is it?’
‘Round five.’
The girl yawned, rolling over on her face, burying her head in her arms. The sheet slipped away from her, revealing her naked from top to toe. Herne glanced once across at her, the sight of her dimpled bottom giving him a brief smile at the memory of parts of the previous night. Then he turned away to something that interested him far more.
‘What are you doin’?’
‘Cleaning my guns. The Colt and the Sharps.’
‘Why?’
It was a question of such staggering stupidity that the shootist didn’t even bother to reply.
‘They dirty? They sure look clean to me.’ She was sitting half up, her breasts red and marked around the nipples with finger-marks where Jed hadn’t been too considerate in his handling.
‘Fire a gun and it’s fouled,’ he grunted. Concentrating on his work.
‘You didn’t use that handgun.’
‘There’s the fouling from powder. Lead. Dust. Damp. All of ’em work against a gun.’
He’d already cleaned off the sides and the front of the cylinder, using an oiled rag. Barrel and the frame recesses had been wiped clear. He’d cocked both pistol and rifle several times, listening intently to the sound of the actions. Eyes screwed up with the effort of listening, trying to catch the slightest sound of something not quite right. But both guns seemed all right to him.
Herne had also pulled through both barrels to wipe away any lead and trail dirt, wondering whether it might be time for each of his guns to be totally stripped down and boiled and then greased again. Deciding that it could wait another week or so.
‘You movin’ on?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When?’ No answer. She tried again. ‘When? Today? Tomorrow?’
‘Probably after noon.’
‘Ooh, I’ll miss you, Jedediah.’
‘Sure you will,’ he said, not bothering to conceal his disbelief.
‘Truly.’
‘Sure.’
She banged one fist on the bed. ‘I mean it, damn your lousy …! I mean it, Jedediah. I’ll truly miss you when you go.’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘Maybe you will at that, girl. But there’ll be another drifter along tomorrow. And another on the day after. And on and on.’
‘I’d surely like to get out of this.’
‘All whores say that, Louanne.’
‘Some make it,’ she protested.
‘Most don’t. Drink or a knife. Mainly the former. That’s the marker at the end of the line for girls like you. Way it always was. Way I figure it always will be.’
‘Maybe I’m different.’
He nodded. ‘Maybe you are.’
‘I’ll show you.’
‘Be pleased at that.’ Holstering the pistol. Laying the Sharps carefully on the table. Then picking it up again and sighting along the smooth barrel.
‘Something wrong with that gun?’ she asked.
‘Could be.’
‘What are you goin’ to do?’
‘Go out back a quarter mile and try and sight it in again.’
‘Shoot?’
‘Yeah. Shoot.’
‘Can I come?’
Herne sighed. ‘Persistent little bitch, aren’t you, Louanne? I guess so.’
‘Thanks a . . .’
‘But you keep out of my way and you keep quiet. And you can mark targets for me.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘I’ll tell you. Now. Get dressed. I’ll meet you out the back of the saloon in three minutes from now.’
She grinned at him. And for a moment he remembered Becky Yates, seeing something in the face that was both different yet oddly similar. He hadn’t thought of Rebecca for some time and the memory was oddly painful.
‘Three minutes?’
‘Yeah.’
The whore jumped out of bed, pink and naked, cupping her young breasts with both hands in a cheeky gesture at the middle-aged gunfighter. ‘Be ready in two if’n you don’t mind me with no drawers.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Then let’s to it.’
~*~
It was a wonderful morning.
The sun high and serene, swinging imperceptibly across a deep blue sky. The temperature was in the nineties, but a cooling wind kept it tolerably comfortable. As Herne stepped out of the front of the building he blinked, eyes rapidly adjusting to the change in light. It was so clear that he could make out the distant peaks, shimmering through the heat, maybe forty miles away or more. It was odd to walk on a main street of a township like Stow Wells and see it almost deserted.
There were a couple of women standing chatting on the corner, along by the deserted forge. As soon as they saw the shootist they deliberately turned their backs on him.
Sitting in a row, like carved ornaments, Jed saw five of the old men from the Home, all in identical wooden chairs, leaning back in the shade of the porch. Five wrinkled heads on scrawny necks turning to watch him move. Five pairs of hooded eyes, like sun-warmed lizards, staring in his direction.
It was an eerie sight.
They walked for nearly a half-mile, out towards the neat walls of the Colonel Roderick Abernathy Home For Distressed Gentlemen. Herne carrying the long rifle at the trail, moving fast and light. The girl hobbling after him in absurdly high-heeled calf-length boots, their gleaming black leather quickly dulled by the reddish dust of the desert. She cursed and moaned as she teetered after the tall shootist, holding her skirt up with one hand, to keep it from dragging in the dirt.
‘How much further?’
‘Guess this’ll do. You see that arroyo over yonder?’
‘One with the saguaro cactus at its mouth?’
‘Yeah. I’m goin’ to shoot at that cactus. You hold up one hand for a clean hit. Both for a miss. Got that clear?’
‘Sure. One a hit. Two a miss.’
‘Right. And after the first hit I want you to point out exactly where it is. Use a stick or something. After that I’ll aim to get as close as I can to it. So show me with your hands whether I’m high or low. Left or to the right. Understand that?’
Her face was blank with boredom. Sweat clouded her upper lip and her mouth was set in tight line.
‘I asked if you understood, girl?’
‘Yeah. Sure I do. It’s easy enough. Jesus Christ on the Cross! It’s damned hot out here.’
‘This’ll take less than an hour. Then we can go back and I’ll buy you a drink.’
‘And make love again. Before you leave town.’
The shootist nodded. ‘Yeah. That too.’
She smiled suddenly. Radiantly. ‘You’re the best I ever had, dearest Jed. The best that I ever had.’
Then she went hobbling off to where he’d told her, turning a half dozen times to wave to him. Each time he returned the wave. Each time wishing she’d hurry up so that he could get on.
As he waited, cradling the Sharps in his arms, Herne found himself probing with his tongue at the rotten tooth. Hissing at the sudden shock of pain from it. Despite the long days that he’d been suffering with it he still vaguely hoped that it would, somehow, go away. Even though all logic and common-sense told him that it was utterly impossible.
It had gone too far.
A quarter-mile or so to his left, north of Stow Wells, the shootist saw a trail of dust winding skywards as a buggy moved fast towards the rec
tangular building that was the Home. He wondered which of the two women was driving it.
And he wondered again about the strange old man who seemed so interested in him.
Louanne was where he wanted her. Waving a scrap of white material. Herne lifted the rifle above his head as a sign that he saw her and that he was ready to begin shooting.
In his involvement his awareness of the bad tooth slipped away. When Jed Herne did something he did it with all of his energy and attention. Concentrating on calming his breathing. The stock of the buffalo rifle tight against his right shoulder. Dab of spittle on the sight. Both eyes. Bringing the gun steady on the dark jagged shape of the giant cactus.
‘One hand.’
A hit.
Watching intently to try and make out where the whore was pointing. The kerchief a tiny dot. The bullet had hit a little high and right of where he’d thought.
He sighted in and fired again, not altering the gun at all.
‘Hit. To the right and high. What I figured.’
The jolt as he’d dropped the Sharps from the stage had jarred the gun. Not enough to damage it seriously, but enough to bring it a little out of line.
He fired ten more rounds, still leaving the sights on the fifty-caliber rifle untouched. There was no point in fiddling with them. All he wanted was a consistent guide to how the gun was firing.
‘High and right again,’ he muttered after the twelfth bullet. Seeing the figure in the long dress pointing where he’d hit.
In between rounds Louanne was moving away to the side, sitting and resting on a large boulder close to the narrow mouth of the arroyo.
‘Try one more,’ the shootist said to himself, ejecting the cartridge case, hearing it tinkle to the earth among some small pebbles. Reloading, and tugging back on the hammer.
Looking up. Along the barrel. Holding his breath again.
Easing his finger away from the trigger.
Lowering the gun.
‘Where the Hell?’
Louanne had disappeared. One moment she’d been sitting down in clear sight. Now she’d vanished. She’d been complaining about the heat and it crossed Herne’s mind that she could have fainted. Or maybe she’d been taken short and retired discreetly behind the rocks, or into the shadowed opening to the ravine.
Maybe.
Jed half-lifted the rifle to his shoulder again, then changed his mind. If she wasn’t there to mark it for him, then it was just a waste of time and a bullet to fire it off.
‘Damned little …’ he said, thumbing the hammer back down on the gun. Starting off towards the cactus at a brisk walk. Feeling the heat of the sun as it bounced back into his face from the shattered stones all around. He noticed that there were several signs of rattlesnakes in among the mesquite. Sinuous winding trails in soft sand. But he was wearing boots and he knew that it was rare that a snake would deliberately attack a man.
Rare, but not unknown.
When he was a hundred yards off from the ravine he stopped.
‘Hey! Louanne! You all right?’
The desert was still, only the whispering of the wind reaching his ears.
‘Louanne! You hear me?’
His voice would certainly have carried if she’d been out of sight inside the arroyo. So his first guess was probably correct. She’d likely passed out from the warmth of the day.
Before going into the cool deeps of the sheer-sided ravine the shootist stopped to check out the torn and pulped cactus. Raising a hand to flick a fly away from his nose and mouth. He studied the grouping of the shots, calculating just how much the gun was off. Around six inches high at a quarter mile. Not more than three inches right. To most men it would have seemed like brilliant shooting, but those kind of tolerances weren’t good enough for Herne. Not firing at a stationary target in perfect conditions of visibility. The margin was too great. When he got back to Stow Wells he’d walk along to the smithy and see whether he couldn’t do something to fix the Sharps himself.
‘Louanne!’ he shouted again.
The high walls of the arroyo bounced the name back to him. For the first time the shootist felt a faint prickling of concern. Even if she’d fainted, the whore should have recovered by now. Should have heard him calling her. Should have answered him.
Unless she was teasing. Hiding and waiting for him so that she could jump out on him. That might be it. She’d joked about not having her drawers on.
That might be it.
But there was still the gut feeling that something was wrong. Herne cocked the Sharps again, moving cautiously forwards.
Looking for the girl.
The cool walls closed around him and the noise of the wind faded away to a total silence. It was so quiet that he could hear the hissing of the blood as it raced through his skull. Each step he took the noise of his boot-heels grating among the stones was like harsh thunder.
‘Louanne!’ he tried once more.
Herne was a cautious man by nature. And walking into a silent canyon after a vanishing girl heightened all his senses. His finger was tight on the trigger of the Sharps and his eyes raked the fallen boulders that were scattered all along the sides of the ravine.
Thirty paces ahead of him there was a sharp bend in the arroyo, almost at right angles. He closed in on it, moving slower. Tension building.
Twenty paces.
Ten.
‘Louanne!’
It was a box canyon. As he rounded the corner he saw that there was nowhere else to go. The sides opened out, leaving a natural arena fifty yards wide, with broken rocks piled all about.
He saw the girl immediately. Knew that it wasn’t a game.
Louanne lay on her back, to the left of the canyon, legs spread wide.
Her throat had been slit open.
Jed caught the sound of movement and began to turn, just as the three Chiricahua braves came rushing at him.
Ten
They were young men and they were ambitious. Eager for glory. The honor of taking this solitary white man. They’d watched from the depths of the canyon, peering out and seeing the way Herne had consistently hit the big cactus with his long gun. All of them wanted that long gun for they had never seen such shooting. Such accuracy. With a rifle like that any one of them would have immediately become a man of importance. A warrior that even Mendez himself would look up to and respect.
And to personally slay the owner of such a gun would also bring great honor.
They were young men, out on a scouting party, a few miles ahead of the main band.
To kill the white woman had been easy. Taking her from behind. It had been Two Knives who’d done it. Creeping behind her, silent as a midnight ghost. One arm locking around her as she sat and waited. A hand tight over her mouth, pulling her back so that her terrified eyes stared straight into the sun. The blade of one of his twin knives drawn deep and hard across her neck, the edge grating on bone.
Louanne died in utter fear, blinded by the bright Arizona sun.
As she lay, legs part, the three young braves had sniggered at her exposed sex, making obscene gestures, one to another. Two Knives privately regretted that he’d killed her so quickly. She was pretty, little older than he was. But very skinny.
Then the white man was coming, holding that magical rifle. Walking into their trap. Each of them was desperate to be the killer of the shootist and they agreed that they would not use their own guns or bows.
‘There would be no honor in such a death,’ said Two Knives, and the others agreed.
They were young men, inexperienced in the arts of fighting, and that saved Herne’s life in that first, desperate charge. All three Chiricahua boys came at him together, jostling each other in their eagerness to count coup on the white man with the graying hair.
As he spun round Jed squeezed the trigger of the Sharps, firing from the hip. Not even bothering to see where his shot went, reversing the rifle to use it as a club. There was no time to draw the Colt, held in its holster by the thin leather
retaining thong.
The bullet went low.
Low, but straight.
Striking the leading warrior near the top of his right thigh, almost in his groin, ripping through his breech-clout. Striking the femur, then angling sideways and ripping, a distorted hunk of lead, into the young man’s genitals.
He screamed once, the impact kicking him over to his right. Dropping his knife, both hands going to the wound, trying to squeeze away the white agony.
Herne glimpsed the Apache fall, but the fight was barely begun. His attempt at a clubbing blow to the head of the second Indian missed as the boy darted and feinted, the Sharps missing him by a finger’s breadth. Two Knives came in behind his friends, shocked at the speed of the white man’s response. Nearly falling over the tumbling figure of his shot brother.
Herne managed to swing the long, heavy rifle a second time, using it to counter the thrust of Two Knives, who came in at him with his weapons gripped low in both hands, ready for the upwards thrust of the skilled knife-fighter.
‘Bastards,’ breathed the shootist, not wasting his energy on shouting. Talk was useless.
And the price for inaction was colossal.
The groin-shot boy was rolling around, screaming, mind locking out everything but his own wounding.
The younger of the Chiricahua braves came in a third time, parrying the rifle with his forearm, wincing at the sharpness and power of the impact. Managing to duck and slice sideways at Herne’s stomach. The shootist heard the whisper of sound as the tip of the knife hacked open the front of his shirt, drawing a slivered thread of blood from his flesh.
‘Close, son,’ he said, quietly.
Two Knives started to circle around the big man, hoping to take him from behind. Already he was regretting that they had chosen the path of honor rather than that of safety. They could easily have killed the white man from cover.
But now ...
‘Now,’ hissed Jed, weaving the rifle around his head in a lethal figure of eight. Conscious of the boy coming up at his back. Knowing that the longer this went on, the less good his hopes were. They were younger and fitter than he was and they would inevitably wear him down. You didn’t get to live long taking chances, but this might be one time to do it.
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