Vigilante!

by John J. McLaglen

  He watched as Nate knocked the hands away and heard her feeble cry and Nate’s answering laugh, like a coyote that has just smelled blood.

  Herne pulled the Winchester in towards him, settling himself back a little so that he could rest the barrel of the gun on the edge of the rock.

  Nate grabbed hold of the old woman’s clothes and twisted her round, so that she fell away from him, stumbling and trying to stop herself from going headlong. She went down on both hands but her arms couldn’t bear the weight of even her light body. With another cry she collapsed to the ground.

  Nate pointed at Billy and the big man hurried in and bent down to her, pushing one arm beneath her body and lifting her, protesting, up into the air. For several minutes he twirled her round his head, while the rest of the men stood and slapped their thighs and cackled and hooted with laughter. Herne leveled the rifle sights on Billy’s belly as he swiveled the old woman above his head. If it seemed Billy was going to hurl her to the ground then he would shoot.

  But Nate gave an order and Billy stopped turning and set her down, almost gently.

  Then Nate gave another order and Herne saw Jo-Bob begin to smile as he walked towards his horse. A moment later he came back with the rope.

  No, thought Herne, not this. Not this as well.

  He carefully swung the barrel of the Winchester to the left, following the movement of the crowd of men who were now pulling and pushing the old woman towards the two corpses.

  Billy lifted her up once more as Cole led an unsaddled, tired-looking horse between the trees. Jo-Bob shinned up one of the trunks and started along a branch some ten or twelve feet from the ground.

  The woman struggled in Billy’s vast grip and Nate laughed aloud, more of a shriek than a laugh. Billy held her high and shook her like a rag doll. A strangled cry of terror came from the woman’s mouth before she- went limp in Billy’s huge hands. He ran forward a few paces and threw her up onto the back of the horse, where Cole caught her and held her upright.

  He had one arm high about her chest, reaching upwards to collect the noose that Jo-Bob was passing down to him. Cole took the rope between his fingers, levering the old woman’s scrawny neck so that the coil of rope could pass over her head and circle around it.

  Herne squinted along the barrel of his rifle, beginning to evenly squeeze back the trigger.

  The rough noose touched the woman’s wrinkled skin.

  Herne fired.

  Cole screamed out as the shell tore through the fibers of his upper arm. He was rocked backwards, his balance going. The noose bobbed upwards and the woman’s head slipped out of it as her body, no longer supported, fell sideways from the back of the horse and crumpled to the ground.

  As her body struck the earth, Herne fired a second time, the slug driving a channel in front of Billy’s feet and becoming lost in the damp soil.

  Already men were running, pulling at pistols, seeking their mounts, shouting above one another, searching for their assailant. Herne sighted on Nate and began to work the trigger.

  ‘No!’

  Herne’s blood froze. The voice was directly behind him, firm and clear. ‘Leave it fall!’

  He squinted at Nate a second longer, then withdrew his finger from the guard.

  ‘Let it fall!’

  Herne set the Winchester down on its side and pushed it to his right, his mind racing, thinking out distances, times, the space between his hand and Colt in inches and seconds.

  Inches and seconds.

  ‘Turn around with both hands high above your head.’

  Herne started to roll over, slowly.

  ‘High!’

  The seconds, the inches were too great. Herne was staring down the barrel of a rifle, tight in Tom’s hands and aiming directly at the middle of his chest. Behind and to his left, Rob stood with a similar weapon, similarly aimed.

  ‘Stand up!’

  Herne stood up. There were shouts, questions from down below, the sounds of men running.

  ‘Now let your left arm down and ease it across. I want that Colt picked out by your fingers as if it was goin’ to go off in your face if n you touch it too hard. That’s it. Do it! Do it!’

  Tom’s round face was flushed with excitement and pleasure.

  Herne got hold of the butt of the Colt with forefinger and thumb and lifted it clear of the holster.

  ‘Now throw it t’wards me. Nice an’ easy!’

  The gun hit the rock and spun in a circle on the chamber.

  ‘Watch him, Rob!’

  Tom bent and picked the gun up, his smile broadening as he tucked it into his belt.

  Rob walked past them and hollered down to the men below: ‘It’s Herne! But we got him. We got him but good!’

  The vigilantes formed a circle around Herne with Nate at the point Herne was facing. The red spots on his cheeks were as small and sharp as needles. When he spoke from the side of his mouth the words were as hard as stones.

  ‘I knew you was a double-crossin’ bastard first time I laid eyes on you! I bin watchin’ you, watchin’ you like a hawk. I figured when you started sidin’ with them Taylors that you was up to no good. Said then that you knew too much about rustlin’ off our stock for your own good. Ain’t that right, men?’

  There was a loud chorus of agreement and Herne looked quickly round the circle of hostile faces.

  ‘When you didn’t get back with Charlie last night I got to guessin’ what you’d bin up to. Worked it out pretty good, I reckon. ’Stead of hittin’ them rustlers the way you should, my guess is you shot Charlie in the back and went in with ’em. That’s the way of it. Ain’t that so?’

  He got the shouts of agreement he wanted.

  Herne knew that it would be useless to protest, to try and tell it the way it had been. There would be nobody who would listen to him now, who would take his word against Nate’s.

  Someone pushed through the circle and came towards him. It was Cole, a rough bandage tight about his arm, a pistol in his left hand.

  He stopped less than three feet away from Herne and stared at him, the right side of his angular face twisting upwards. ‘You bastard! You mean bastard, you shot my arm to pieces!’

  And he lashed out with the gun. Herne threw up his right arm and parried the blow, the force of the barrel numbing him and shifting him off balance. He swung his left fist at Cole’s chest, catching him hard and driving him back into the surrounding men.

  ‘Get him, Cole!’

  ‘Finish him!’

  Herne glanced around again but there wasn’t anywhere to go.

  Cole pushed himself forwards, the pistol still in his hand.

  Herne dropped into a crouch and waited for him to come in, watching his eyes. When Cole darted at him, Herne went for the gun arm, knowing that getting hold of the weapon might give him some kind of a chance.

  As he moved a boot tripped him from behind and instead of seizing Cole’s arm he was tumbling past him, using his hands to break his fall. The edge of the barrel caught him a glancing blow and he winced with the impact, but rolled over as soon as he hit the ground and sprang up again.

  This time someone punched him hard in the kidneys and he bent backwards, mouth open. An arm twisted about his neck and yanked him further back. Seconds later the toe of a boot landed high on the inside of his thigh. Herne reached back, struggling to free himself and catching hold of someone’s head, pulling it round, twisting his own neck out of the grasp that sought to hold him still.

  He saw a face that he scarcely recognized as Jo-Bob’s, so intense was the look of hatred on it; he punched out. His fist landed against solid bone and then what felt like a bull struck him in the small of the back.

  Herne’s legs went from under him and as he toppled to the ground he looked back over his shoulders and saw Billy’s massive frame.

  The instant he landed another boot crashed into the side of his head and he lost consciousness.

  Not for long.

  Moments later he was being haul
ed to his feet with a rope tight about his chest, keeping both arms pinioned to his sides.

  Nate came in front of him and looked at him for several seconds before leaning his head back and then bringing it forward again fast, the ridge of his forehead smashing into Herne’s nose. While the pain was still lancing through his head, Nate spat full into Herne’s eyes. Blood began to trickle from his nostrils.

  Somebody pulled sharply on the rope and he was jerked backwards; fists and knees and feet attacked his body. He was spun round and round, thrown from one side of the circle to another. Always the punches and the kicks rained in hard upon him. And over and through it all the harsh shriek of Nate’s laughter.

  As he fell to the ground for the tenth, or twelfth time, Herne vowed that he would kill Nate. Slowly.

  Then he was lifted back to his feet and the beating began all over again. After a while it wasn’t fun any longer. The men grew tired of hitting the almost lifeless form that swayed in front of them, falling over now almost as soon as he was set to rights.

  Finally they let him lay there: a beaten, bloody shape that barely breathed and when he did the pain of breathing dragged through him like a rusty saw.

  Nate sent two men after the old woman who had tried to run off into the rocks. They dragged her back and when Jo-Bob was back up the tree they hanged her.

  Only it wasn’t much fun: not now.

  Nate ordered anything else of the place that was left standing to be brought to the ground and thrown onto the smoldering remains of the fire.

  ‘What about him?’ asked Cole. ‘Ain’t we goin’ to kill him?’

  Nate laughed and shook his head. ‘Strip him!’ he said.

  They pulled away all of Herne’s clothing and left him curled on the ground, without his having regained consciousness. Nate went over and stood beside him, sneering down at him. He bent over and lifted Herne’s right arm away from his body, turning it so that the palm was pressed into the ground. Then he lifted his leg high and stamped the boot heel hard down onto Herne’s knuckles.

  As he strode over to his horse, his laugh was such that it startled the large black birds which had perched high in the trees above the three hanged bodies and sent them screeching skyward.

  Chapter Ten

  The lizard darted across the ground, paused, lifted its head and flicked its forked tongue out into the air, pulling a passing insect back into its mouth. It scurried over the earth, pulling itself forward by its long, bent toes, their hooked nails digging down into the surface. The long, thinning, rounded tail swung behind it from left to right and back again.

  It stopped again next to the man’s leg, not knowing that was what it was. Its body was dark yellow, mottled with brown spots. A black and white pattern, like a collar, circled behind its head.

  The lizard took another flying insect with a deft pass: inspected with its black, beady eyes the mound it was now on. The feel of the naked flesh was strange to it. The limb had looked like a rock but it didn’t feel the same.

  It scuttled upwards, pausing to dart its head down into the patch of dark hair at the middle of the body, between the legs. Then on again, stopping and starting with nervous movements.

  It tried to taste the lines of dark reddish-brown where blood had dried on the skin but it was no use. Sitting on the side of Herne’s swollen, battered face it watched and calmly waited, then caught a fresh insect on its black tongue.

  Inches away from its head a fold of puffy skin moved gradually and an eye appeared. For a moment the two tiny, round eyes of the lizard stared into it, before it had jumped off the head and hurried over the open ground in the direction of the rocks.

  Herne lay like that for what seemed to him a long time, making no attempt to move, his body so numb from the beating he had received that the cold of the early evening was hardly affecting him. Just two eyes that could barely see through the swelling flesh that surrounded them staring at the fading gray-blue of the sky.

  When eventually he tried to roll over a pain ran through him that made him cry out. His entire right side seemed to be on fire. Fire. He paused, remembering where he was, what had happened.

  Herne started to lever himself up into a sitting position, but immediately pulled away his right hand, wincing. He fell back to his side and rolled over, slowly, pushing himself up with his left arm. When he was finally sitting he examined his right hand.

  The skin had been stripped from the knuckles of the central fingers. Something hard and sharp had dug into the flesh, exposing the bone. Around the knuckles, on either side, there was dark purple bruising. He tried to move his fingers, to open or close the hand, but found he couldn’t.

  He knew why they’d done it: knew that in the end it wouldn’t make any difference. There was nothing that was going to save them.

  He gathered his strength and stood up; after a moment or two he took a couple of steps. Fell down. Tried again; succeeded in making several more shaky paces. The burnt-out building was black and still; the bodies still hung from the curve of tall trees and now there were three of them, the old woman along with the others.

  Something else to avenge.

  At last Herne was feeling the cold. The evening wind was biting into the cuts and grazes that peppered his body.

  He staggered towards the trees and looked at the two lynched men. He knew that it would not be possible to wear their pants, not after the loosening of the bowels that comes with death.

  If he raised his arms as high as they would go he might be able to reach the bearded man’s coat and pull it off. He could get his left hand to the bottom of the coat, his fingers, just, to the hem of the sleeve. After five minutes, he had the coat in his possession. There was a bullet hole surrounded by dried blood on the left-hand side. Herne put the coat on with difficulty and turned away, heading for the spot where he had left the horse.

  Each step jarred him and several times he had to stop and rest, rather than fall over. Most of the pain was in his back, around the kidneys; there and in his face and right hand.

  It took him a long time to reach the place where he had left the horse hobbled and for much of that time he didn’t think he was going to make it.

  But make it he did – and the animal was still there. Whoever Nate had sent out to look for it – and certainly he would have done that – hadn’t been any too careful.

  Fine! It was time they made a mistake.

  Herne had made one himself, becoming so engrossed in what he was watching take place that he had neglected to guard his back. He would be careful not to make another.

  Only able to use the fingers on his left hand he untied the blanket from behind the saddle and wrapped it around his waist so that it covered the lower part of his body. It took him a long time to get the horse unhobbled and untied and when he was ready to go almost all light had disappeared from the sky.

  He pulled his wracked body onto the animal’s back and turned its head. The journey back to Powderville would be tortuous, seemingly without end. But there was no doubt in Herne’s mind as to where he had to go, what he had to do.

  There was cloud but not heavy; stars and the ghost of a moon showed him all that he needed to see. The main street of the town was deserted, not even a dog stirred: silence save for the tread of his horse. Herne was barely focusing; corners, sides of buildings seemed to shake as though something was making the earth tremble.

  He reined in outside the rooming house and got down to the ground, steadying himself with the horse’s mane. Looped the rein over the rail. Walked unsteadily to the door. Stood there swaying.

  The first knocks were so weak that he could hardly hear them himself. After that he hammered with what strength he could summon, hitting the painted woodwork with the inside of his left fist, with his forearm, his shoulder.

  Eventually there was a light showing and noises of someone moving around inside.

  A voice.

  Herne slipped and leaned against the door, his eyes closed inside their swollen lids.
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  Footsteps.

  ‘Who is it? What d’you want at this hour of night?’

  He tried to speak but all that came out were sounds rather than words.

  ‘Who is it?’ Louder now, but more worried also. ‘Who is it?’

  Herne’s mind turned slowly. She did not know his name, he had never given it. There’d be no point in giving it now.

  ‘Open … let me in!’

  He pushed himself away from the door with his left arm; it was a deliberate, pained action. The bolts on the other side of the door were slowly slipped back. A key was turned and the door opened; that was slow, too.

  Rachel Fairfax was standing there in a dark brown woolen night-gown, underneath which the hem of a white nightdress showed clearly about her bare feet. There were paper curlers in the ends of her light brown hair; worry and anger in her green eyes. Her mouth was slightly open. She held a pistol in front of her, holding it tightly with both hands around the butt, the thumb of one of them keeping the hammer cocked.

  ‘You! What are you doing here? And at this time? And looking like—?’

  She stepped back a pace and stared at him, her expression changing to one of surprise, then horror.

  Herne blinked, tried to concentrate. The gun ... the gun in her hands, leveled upwards at the middle of his chest, it was a Remington, a Frontier model .44. Herne imagined that it must have been her husband’s. Once. Before Nate shot him. He didn’t know why he bothered thinking about it, about the gun. It didn’t matter.

  He was swaying from one side to the other as he stood there, unaware that he was doing so.

  The green eyes narrowed. ‘Why have you come here? To me? What on earth do you expect? What do you want me to do?’

  She let the hammer carefully back down, touched his arm with one hand, gingerly, half afraid that it would hurt him, half scared of something she couldn’t name.