‘Jesus,’ he exclaimed, feeling something break inside his mouth. There was an electrifying lance of pain and he spat out a mouthful of blood. And something hard that rattled on the stone floor of the cupboard.
‘Who’s that?’ said a voice that Herne scarcely recognized.
‘Andreanna?’ he asked. ‘That you?’
‘Yes. Mr. Herne. Oh, Jesus. What’s … what’s …?’ And then the girl collapsed in floods of tears. Mumbling helplessly. ‘I didn’t know it was you … I just kicked out when … Oh, God, help us all.’
‘God helps them that helps themselves, Miss Andreanna,’ said Herne’s father, pressing in behind his son and pulling the door shut, closing out some of the noise from the fighting and butchery.
‘You knocked my damned teeth out,’ coughed the shootist, reaching inside his own mouth with a probing forefinger. Surprised even amidst that looming danger that there wasn’t the usual agony that had been plaguing him for months.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr. Herne …’ sobbed the young woman.
‘Shouldn’t be. I been tryin’ to get rid of that son of a bitchin’ tooth for a long whiles now. Should thank you.’
‘The roof, son,’ urged Albert Herne.
‘Yeah. Up those steps, Miss Andreanna.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You got no choice.’
‘I’d rather stay here and die.’
‘Then move out of the damned way and let us through. Here, Pa, give me your hand.’
He felt his father reach out for him, the fingers thin like dried twigs. The grip feeble. The woman sank to her knees and began to cry, inconsolably.
‘We can’t leave her, Jedediah,’ said his father.
‘We can’t take her. They’ll be here in maybe only seconds. Talk costs lives. We go.’
‘They said you was a hard man, son. They surely said right.’
‘No choice, Pa. We got two hopes. Slim and none. She makes it none if we stay. They’ll cut us down like cattle if we don’t try and run for it.’
‘Please help me!’ moaned Andreanna, a disembodied voice in the blackness.
‘I tried, lady, I tried,’ said Herne, feeling for the steps. Hanging on his father’s wrist with his other hand.
‘Just wait a while,’ she begged. ‘Maybe they’ll go away.’
‘Lady … I don’t have the time.’
The steps were steep and awkward and Herne climbed them carefully. Helping his father close behind him, ignoring the empty crying of the girl. There was a heavy trap door at the top and he cautiously pushed it up. The night was black and solid, with no trace of a moon visible through banks of low, scudding clouds. There was enough wind to cover any sounds they were likely to make getting out and he stepped onto the flat roof, tugging Albert after him.
‘I’ll lower the trap,’ he said. ‘Chance is they won’t bother with the steps.’
As he laid it down he glimpsed a sudden light. The door of the cupboard was torn open and he caught a flash of men filling the space. The crying stopped and he heard a sharp, desperate scream from Andreanna Abernathy. A scream that was shut off as he set down the heavy cover. His father said nothing but Jed could feel him trembling as he held his hand again.
The night’s deeps wrapped them in tightly and Herne walked carefully across, feeling with his foot for the edge of the roof. Finding it and stopping.
‘I’ll jump down and then catch you.’
‘Sure. Go ahead.’
The air was heavy with the stench of smoke and Herne suddenly saw flames darting out of the windows further along the flank of the doomed Colonel Roderick Abernathy Home. The shooting seemed to have stopped and there was little noise. Above the crackling of burning wood he thought he could maybe still hear the noise of a woman screaming.
Alone.
But he couldn’t be certain.
His father drifted down into his arms, light and brittle. Herne didn’t dare to hold him too tight in case something broke.
‘Thanks, son.’ They stood in the darkness for a few moments, gathering themselves ready to walk away towards safety.
Herne figured that Mendez was now unlikely to attack Stow Wells. He had taken reasonable losses and didn’t have that much to show for it. Probably a third of his band would be dead or injured and their spirits wouldn’t be that high. And he would also have to put scouts out to watch for the returning men of the settlement. Though Herne had the uneasy feeling that Mendez might already have found the posse and taken a toll of their foolhardiness.
‘Ready, Pa?’
‘As I’ll ever be, son.’
‘Then let’s go on.’
‘Son.’
‘Yeah?’
The old man was talking so quietly that Jed could hardly hear him.
‘Just to say I’m sorry for all them years. When your Ma died I just kind of … kind of fell into pieces, I guess. We was so close and all. I kind of blamed you for her death, Jed. I know it sounds foolish. But …’
‘Load of water flowed under the bridge since then, Pa. Just don’t take on. I don’t blame you for it.’
‘You sure? I been no kind of father, runnin’ out on you.’
‘Hell, Pa …That’s over now.’
‘Yeah. Past’s past. Now we can.
He was interrupted by a Chiricahua warrior erupting from the ground, hurling himself at Jed and knocking him to the dirt. The clouds eased away for a few moments and Albert Herne saw his long, long-lost son on his back with the Apache on top of him. The sliver of moon glistening on the knife that was raised.
The shootist had been so involved in talking with his father that his concentration had slipped and he was taken utterly by surprise. Flat in the dirt with the weight of the Indian on him, helpless.
‘Pa!’ he cried.
The old man threw himself at the back of the Indian, grabbing at the arm that held the knife, his desperation lending his frail old body a sudden strength. It was enough to get the Apache off Jed, giving him a moment to recover his breath, drawing his own knife.
But that moment was also enough for the brave to react against Albert Jedediah Herne. His left hand gripped the old man by the throat, squeezing, while his right hand, with the sharp-pointed knife, punched at Albert’s chest.
Again.
A third time.
Albert Herne wasn’t conscious of much pain. Just a succession of blows on his body, and a sudden, ineffable weakness that made him want to lie down and rest. As he fell he saw that his son had wreaked revenge for him.
Rising from the earth like a demon, stabbing the Chiricahua so hard that the point of the bayonet stood out several inches through the cotton shirt at the back. Herne cut a dozen times, maybe more, filled with a lust for blood that misted his eyes and closed his brain to reason. Only stopping when he heard his father call out in a weak voice.
Leaving the ragged corpse of the Apache and kneeling besides the dying old man. Lifting the head from the dust and cradling his father to him. Finding that he was crying. Tears coming to his eyes for the first time in more years than he could remember.
‘Don’t, son,’ said his father. ‘Don’t. It’s over now. Doesn’t hurt none.’
‘I can …’ began Herne, knowing the futility of the lie he was about to offer.
‘You can’t, boy. I know it well enough. I see that old black cloud comin’ on down and I knew the race was over. Been good to meet you at last, son.’ There was a long silence and Jed thought he was gone, though he could just catch the faint sound of labored breathing, blood bubbling from torn lungs.
‘Son … I’m sure glad … glad
This time the silence lasted and Jed’s father was dead.
Epilogue
The sun was shining as Jed Herne heeled his stallion along the main street out of Stow Wells.
Far to the north he could make out the charred shell of the Home. The morning was hot and he eased his shoulders against the tightness of his shirt. Unconsciously poking with his tongue at
the cavity where his rotten tooth had been.
The little town was in mourning, shades drawn down, nobody on the street. The Sheriff’s Office was closed. Waiting for someone to take on the job now that Clifford V. Williamson was dead. And the smithy had its doors locked. Big Jim Bissett wouldn’t be drawing any more teeth for Stow Wells. He’d come back to town the same way that the lawman and three other members of the posse had. Face-down over his horse, wrists and ankles roped together.
Mendez had caught them cold and come in at night, killing easily. Taking lives and scalps. It had been a costly operation for the little township.
And they’d never found any trace of the missing merchant, J.W. Locke. In fact it would be nearly forty years later that children playing in the foothills would discover the dried skeleton, where the Apaches had killed him the day of the stage robbery.
So, it was all over.
Herne reined in at the gate of the little cemetery that served Stow Wells. There were a whole parcel of new graves there, all dug in the last week. Most with plain wooden markers.
But the reason he’d waited before moving on was the stone head-marker in the corner, where a stunted tree threw a little shade. The last thing he’d been able to do for his father was see him buried right and proper.
Jed dismounted and walked into the graveyard, heels crunching through the dry desert sand. Pausing for a moment, head bowed. Remembering.
Then he stepped away, remounted and rode off to the west, never once looking back.
The sun cut deep shadows in the letters on the stone, making them sharp and easy to read:
Albert Jedediah Herne
Born April 7, 1809.
His heart died with his beloved wife Elizabeth Julia
on February 29, 1844 at Carson Pass.
Father of Jedediah Travis Herne.
Lived on and died finally at Stow Wells
in the Territory of Arizona, July 9th, 1887,
giving his life for his son.
Then there was a space, and one more line of text.
Even the losers get lucky some time.
The Herne the Hunter Series by John J. McLaglen
White Death
River of Blood
The Black Widow
Shadow of the Vulture
Apache Squaw
Death in Gold
Death Rites
Cross Draw
Massacre!
Vigilante!
Silver Threads
Sun Dance
Billy the Kid
Death School
Till Death
Geronimo!
The Hanging
Dying Ways
Bloodline
… and more to come!
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