Vigilante!

by John J. McLaglen

  Herne sat in silence waiting for her to return. Out in the street there was increased activity as the day got underway. A couple of horses were led out of the livery stable. A wagon, loaded with sacks of grain, drove slowly up from the far end of town. Someone came running from the direction of the windmill, shouting loud, the words unclear but Herne already knew what they would be.

  Windows were thrown up, doors opened. Other men began to run, shout. The drummer stepped out of the rooming house and tried to stop someone and find out what was going on. The newspaper rustled.

  The woman came back with Herne’s breakfast on a tray. He looked up at her as she leaned over the table. Last night she hadn’t made any great impression on him, but this morning there was a warmth and friendliness about her that he found himself responding to.

  ‘Hope that’s all right,’ she said, nodding at the two thick slices of fried ham. ‘I drained the fat off as much as I could. Made your coffee good and strong. I—’

  ‘Would you believe that?’ exclaimed the drummer, now standing in the doorway, one hand pointing into the room, the other in the side pocket of his brown suit. ‘They say there’s a feller been hanged. Up on the mill!’

  He looked from one face to another, waiting for his news to have the desired effect.

  ‘Well, I’ll be ... On the windmill? Are you sure?’

  Herne chewed on dry bread, cut a piece from the ham and forked it up.

  ‘They say he was caught rustlin’. Caught up on him last night in the saloon.’

  The woman glanced down at Herne, who ate on, unconcerned.

  ‘I guess that’s only right,’ the drummer went on. ‘I mean, for a rustler. Folk say it’s the worst form of stealing and I suppose they’re right. Man works hard to rear stock he don’t want someone coming along an’ taking what’s his before he gets to profit from it.’

  The woman moved one of her hands around the edges of her tray. There’s rustlin’ an’ rustlin’.’

  ‘But surely, whoever did this? The law—’

  ‘Ain’t no law in Powderville. None but Drummond’s law.’ She stalked out of the room, scarcely giving the drummer enough time to get out of her way.

  ‘Really, I don’t see what … I mean … Drummond? Who is this Drummond? Do either of you two gentlemen know?’

  ‘No.’ Herne put another piece of ham into his mouth. It was tasting a whole lot better than he had feared.

  ‘No.’ The voice from behind the newspaper was tentative, worried. The accent was one that Herne failed to recognize.

  ‘Well,’ said the drummer as he resumed his seat, ‘I suppose I’ll find out soon enough. If he’s a man of importance I shall naturally see him in the course of my business.’ He looked at Herne and the other man, neither of whom seemed in the least bit interested. That did nothing to deter him. ‘This territory’s new to me, you see. I’ve been working out of Minneapolis and St Paul. But with the spread of the railroad.’ He made a broad gesture with his hands. ‘Where the rails go that’s where there’s fresh business to be found. And that’s what makes this country great. What’s going to make it greater. Selling and buying, selling and buying.’

  He stopped again and stood up. ‘My main line is in spirits; that and a little wine. Not too much call for that this far west as yet, of course. Though I do also have on my wagon other items I’m happy to hold a franchise for. Patent medicines. Perfumes, especially for the ladies. Shirts, some in the finest silk for the special occasion. Soft leather—’

  Herne clanged his knife and fork down onto his plate and glared round, cutting the salesman short.

  ‘Sorry, if I—’

  ‘Mister, if n we want to buy anythin’ of yours we’ll let you know. Right now I reckon the only thing we want you to do is to stop runnin’ off at the mouth.’

  Herne stood up, lifting his cup of coffee from the table: ‘You got any corks in that load of yours? Big enough to stuff in that mouth you can’t seem to get shut.’

  Herne went out through the door, taking his coffee with him, leaving the drummer’s mouth still wide open, but strangely speechless.

  The rooming house keeper was bending forward over a sink, washing dishes when Herne went into the kitchen. Before she turned round he was able to see the outline of her buttocks firm against the material of her plaid dress. It was a sight that gave him considerable pleasure.

  She looked over her shoulder, a strand of light brown hair falling loose. Seeing the cup in Herne’s hand she nodded towards the side. Tot’s over there.’

  Thanks. It wasn’t really what I came for.’ He went across and refilled his cup nevertheless.

  ‘You didn’t change your mind about the eggs, I hope?’

  ‘No.’

  She leaned sideways on the sink, her hip just above its edge. With her right hand she pushed the piece of hair back into place. There was a patch of wet now at the side of her head, that and a trace of white lather. Somehow, for Herne, it made her seem all the more appealing.

  That whiskey drummer in there, he goes off at the mouth too much for my liking.’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled and let her hand slide back into the water. ‘You should have heard him last evening at dinner ... But then you were in the saloon.’

  Herne drank some coffee, simply looking at her over the rim of the cup, saying nothing.

  ‘What happened?’

  He told her.

  ‘And at the windmill?’

  He told her that as well.

  Her hand was no longer in the water; it was clenched inside its partner, both in front of her. ‘I would say how could they? But the answer’s too easy – they’re animals, men like that.’

  ‘Men like what, ma’am?’

  ‘Men who put up their guns for hire. Men who kill for money. And enjoy it.’

  Herne shifted his weight from one foot to the other: ‘Maybe all men who sell their gun don’t enjoy havin’ to kill with it.’

  ‘Then why else would they do it?’ The answer was spat back at him across the kitchen.

  ‘If there were no other way—’

  ‘Of course there’s another way! There has to be. How else can this country grow up if the gun’s the answer to everythin’?’

  She was no longer the smiling, cheerful woman who dished up ham and coffee with a friendly word; her green-tinged eyes were bright and strong and whatever force made them burn was a passion as powerful as Herne had ever seen,

  He quickly finished his coffee, thinking what might have happened in her past to cause such anger and resentment.

  ‘Thanks, ma’am.’ He set the cup on the side and went towards the door.

  ‘Mister!’

  When he turned half-round she had stepped away from the sink; the strand of hair had come loose and hung down beside her cheek. Her hands were bunched tight at her sides: she was staring at the Colt .45 in Herne’s holster as if seeing it for the first time. Reading the meaning in the way it was tied down, the closeness of the polished butt to his hand as he stood there.

  ‘What you doin’ in Powderville?’

  Herne shrugged, coming round to face her fully. ‘Ridin’ through.’

  ‘Liar!’ She came another couple of paces to him and her hand moved out, fingers opening as if she were about to slap him. ‘Liar!’

  The second time a fleck of spittle flew from her lips and landed on the front of Herne’s waistcoat. Another hung from her bottom lip, by the corner of her mouth.

  ‘You come to sell that gun to Drummond!’

  ‘I don’t know no Drummond.’

  ‘You were with his men last night in the saloon.’

  ‘That don’t mean—’

  ‘It means enough to me.’

  She swung her arm and he caught it, tight above the wrist. She swayed a little then stood firm. Herne could feel the warmth of her uneven breath on his face; see the movement of her bosom. Her lips were white.

  Herne let go of her arm and she brought it back to her side.

  �
�You’re a hired gun.’ It was a statement, not a question. Herne put his back to her and opened the kitchen door. The man with bushy eyebrows was standing outside in the corridor, obviously listening. When the door opened he blushed and hustled away out of sight.

  ‘Aren’t you?’ she shouted from the middle of the kitchen.

  Herne looked over his shoulder: ‘Yes.’

  He was almost at his room when she came running up the stairs taking them two at a time. Her eyes were as bright as before. She pushed past him and threw open the bedroom door, grabbing his coat from the end of the bed and throwing it at him as he entered.

  ‘Take it! Take it all an’ get out!’

  ‘Ma’am, I’m—’

  He was interrupted by one of his saddle bags landing plumb in his midriff. ‘You’re paid up, now get out! An’ don’t never let me see you round here again !’

  There wasn’t anything else for Herne to do or say. He collected the rest of his things hastily with the woman looking at him as though he was something that had crawled in under the back door in a storm.

  She watched him all the way down the stairs, along the corridor and out into the street. Finally she slammed the door behind him making it reverberate inside its frame.

  Herne lifted his bags onto his shoulder and draped his coat over the other; the sun had risen over the roofs of the houses to the east of the street but it sure didn’t feel any warmer.

  None at all.

  Chapter Four

  The livery man squinted up at Herne and let the bridle he was carrying in his left hand dangle to the floor. You was in an all-fired hurry a while back.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Hungry, eh?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Or maybe you’d come from findin’ that youngster takin’ a ride on that mill?’

  That’s right.’

  The old man kept looking at Herne and spat out of one side of his mouth. ‘Don’t believe in givin’ anythin’ away, do you? Least of all, your time. I re—’

  ‘That horse of mine ready?’

  ‘Since sun-up.’

  ‘Here’s your money.’ Herne dropped the coins into the man’s open hand and stepped past him, heading for the stall where the bay was waiting. In a couple of minutes he was leading him out, saddled up and looking well rested.

  ‘Did a good job,’ said Herne as he went past the small corral.

  ‘Course I did,’ the old man snapped back at him, peevishly. ‘Bin doin’ it long enough, ain’t I?’

  Herne had one boot in the stirrup when he hesitated; the fifteen cents weighed heavy in his mind. He looped the reins over the top fence and stepped a few paces back.

  ‘Seems to me I’ve heard a lot of mention of a man named Drummond since I got into Powderville. That make sense to you?’

  The livery man set down his bucket and turned slowly, a scowl on his largely toothless face. ‘I thought you was the one in too much of a hurry to talk, be neighborly the way decent folks would?’ And he started to turn away again.

  ‘Please yourself! I can—’

  ‘What you want to know about Drummond for?’

  Herne shrugged: ‘Got curious. Folks talkin’ ’bout him like he was important or somethin’.’

  ‘That why you want to see him?’ The old timer pointed at Herne’s Colt. ‘You heard he’s buyin’ guns?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Even after you seen what he done?’ The reedy voice was high with indignation and surprise.

  ‘Anybody else likely to be offerin’ me work round here?’

  ‘That kind of work – no.’

  ‘Then I guess it’s got to be Drummond I want to see. If you’re sure those were his men.’

  The livery man spat down onto the wisps of straw. ‘Men! Men, d’you call ’em? Dogs, more like. Mangy, stinkin’ dogs!’

  Herne reasoned that he was wasting his time and went back to where the bay was waiting. He was in the saddle when the man came limping after him. ‘You want to find him, go north of here and then fork west. All that land along the river valley, that’s Drummond’s. Circle D. Closer you get there’s so many damn signs up a blind man couldn’t miss seein’ ’em. You’ll be wastin’ your time, though. Drummond ain’t about to hire no has-beens like you!’

  Herne ignored the insult; touched the horse’s flanks with his heels and moved off into the street.

  At first the road was the same one he had come in on. Ten miles or so northwards, he took a fork to the left and straight off started losing height. Gradual and slow, but definite just the same. The hills on his right grew steadily higher as the grass beside the trail became richer and greener.

  The sky was a cold blue, hardly smudged by any cloud: cold, blue and vast. Underneath it the prairie spread itself in all directions, alternating patches of yellow and green that were studded here and there with the darker shapes of ponderosa pine.

  Now and then Herne glimpsed the tops of birch trees down to the west where they marked the bank of the river. He had been riding almost an hour on this track, taking his time and letting the horse feel its own pace, before he came across the first sign.

  PRIVATE RANGE CIRCLE D RANCH

  TRESPASSERS ARE HEREBY

  WARNED

  He was to see a great many signs before he saw anything much else. There were cattle, moving in batches of maybe two, three dozen. Black or brown with white heads that bent to the grass even as they moved. Fences. Barbed wire.

  No men. No buildings. The range seemed to spread forever.

  At one point Herne leaned over from his saddle and touched the barbs of the wire with his fingertips. Nine years since it had come into existence. Years in which men had learned how to milk money out of the land and had seized it with a greed that was insatiable. Years when the land had been torn apart by those who fought for a bigger share. Every ten acres meant another cow could be reared and grazed: every cow meant more dollars.

  In seventy eight Herne had fought in the Lincoln County Range War. Him and others like him. A tall character with a steady head and a way of walking up on you that was quiet and deadly – Pat. Pat Garrett. Him and that kid he palled up with. That kid whose mood could change from laughing to hating inside a second. The kid who shot the heads off four or five hens and watched them run aimlessly about flapping their wings, enjoying it so much that the saliva started to drool down his face. The kid Billy Bonney. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

  Now Herne was about to get involved again. Fighting for other men’s wealth.

  He looked up and where the trail had been empty in front of him before, it was empty no longer.

  The thin column snaked over the horizon and grew as it approached. The faint spray of gray that floated above it became a cloud of swirling dust. The lines of men and horses separated one from another. Not as many this time: eight riders.

  The speed at which they rode made the ground shake. It was designed to strike fear into whoever they went towards; a show of strength and force.

  Unafraid, Herne let the bay continue to trot forwards, wondering if the man who had led them the previous night in the saloon was with them again.

  He soon picked him out. To the right of the line, at the front. There was no mistaking the nose which dominated the thin, pale face.

  Herne reined in his mount and waited, the fingers of his right hand resting on his thigh, close enough to the butt of the Colt that the heel of his palm was actually against it.

  He sat, unflinching, waiting for the lines of riders to come to a halt or ride on round him. They stopped.

  The breath from the animals’ nostrils was warm and raw; sweat stood out on their bodies. Whoever ran the operation had to keep a big string of horses for the men to use.

  ‘Can’t you read?’

  ‘No, his eyes are failin’ him. Gettin’ old.’

  Herne would have recognized the laugh which followed that remark anywhere. For an instant he was hearing it again in the saloon – the lea
ping body hurled back by the blast of a double-barreled shotgun. Imagining it at the mill – the fall and shake and last slow dance of the hanged man.

  ‘He’d damned well better have seen! Better have some damned good reason for trespassin’ on Circle D range!’

  The riders were slowly moving out of line and spreading about Herne, making an arc, closing down on him. He heard the lever of a Winchester being pumped.

  The man with the broken nose edged his horse nearer to Herne, less than ten feet away now. He reached up his hand and flipped the tall hat off his head so that it hung at back of him from the cord about his neck.

  ‘Ain’t I seen you before?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe, Hell! You was in The Cattleman’s House last night.’

  ‘When we caught up with them two rustlers,’ put in a young feller with a pair of new leather gloves on his hands and freckles on his fresh face.

  The leader laughed: ‘You seen what happened to them, stranger. Any time you want, we can arrange the same for you.’

  The laugh cut off sharply and became a snarl that was accompanied by the sound of another Winchester being levered.

  ‘You got five seconds to start sayin’ your piece.’

  ‘I’m ridin’ in to see Drummond.’

  ‘You’re what?’ The man glanced at those nearest to him in amusement and surprise. What in Hell’s name makes you think that Mister Drummond might want to see you?’

  ‘I heard he was hiring on.’

  ‘What?’ asked the freckle-faced kid. ‘Folks to help out back of the stables? Someone to peel potatoes for old Frenchy?’

  Herne shifted his gaze slowly, letting it rest on the youngster’s face. ‘I heard he was hirin’ guns, sonny. Heard he was tired of boys and wanted men.’

  The words were spat out, cold and harsh and flat like bullets. The kid jerked backwards as though he’d been hit and when he recovered he lunged forwards, his hand making for the gun at his hip.

  ‘Jesus!’

  Herne’s Colt was in his hand before anyone realized what was happening. Body bent forward into a gunfighter’s crouch, arms spread, feet spaced apart for perfect balance. The hammer of the gun was thumbed back.