‘Without that horse and carrying little food and water, I figure there just might not be anyone left to write the damned stories.’
Ike stepped forward. ‘I swear I’ll kill any man who tries to throw away my equipment.’
Herne grinned, but there wasn’t a whole lot of humor in the smile. ‘I think we can risk takin’ it.’ Ike grinned back and began to turn away. ‘But. …’ waiting for his eyes to return to look at him, ‘I don’t let any man talk that way, Isaac. If I tell you something has to be and you tell me you won’t do it …Then I’ll shoot you down in the dirt like a mad dog.’
‘You goin’ to let him speak to me like that, brother?’ asked Isaac Ray. ‘You paying him to work for you or the other way about?’
Thaddeus scratched the side of his nose with a stubby fore-finger. ‘Now, I don’t rightly see how I can stop him, Ike. Fact is, we depend on Jed here to keep us alive. Now, he’s agreed you can keep the stuff a whiles longer. Let it ride at that. Huh?’
So, with dawn advancing fast Herne led his diminished convoy down the canyon and on again towards the hills. Out front himself with his stallion, the spare pack animal on a long rein. Then came Isaac leading the mule and finally the married couple, Thaddeus still showing obvious signs of his brush with death. His spare clothes had been on the dead horse, and were ripped to shreds.
They had been able to restore some of the food when Herne retrieved one of the missing saddle-pouches a half mile further down the canyon, where the waters had dumped it. And they weren’t too badly off for drinking. He’d insisted that they fill up their empty canteens with the muddy stream, filtering it a little through a length of Thaddeus’s torn shirt.
Carola had protested at having such impure water to drink and he had looked sternly at her.
‘Not one of your county hunts, Ma’am. No nigras in white wigs with goblets of iced champagne waiting for you. We don’t have water and we die. Simple as two and two making four.’
‘But it’s so muddy and tainted.’
He nodded. ‘Sure true. But there’s been times when I’ve strained my own piss through my breeches … filled ’em with sand first. Tasted like what it was, but it kept me livin’.’
~*~
The night of the rain Geronimo had made sure that sentries patrolled around the camp and there was no fire. The Mexican, El Poco, was well known to all the tribes and sub-tribes of the Apaches and was hated for his cruelty towards them. The little bandit had ridden one day, some eight months back, against a Mescalero fortress when the men were out hunting. They had butchered all of the children too young to run into the surrounding mountains and had taken their pleasure of the women.
Fifteen squaws had died that day, and their passing had not been easy.
The warriors had returned too late to do anything other than collect their surviving children and arrange the funeral rites for their women. That night they had sat and sung the death chants, until the moon began to dip towards the horizon. And they had sworn vengeance against Jesus Maria Diego. Against his Mexican comrades and against the mixture of half-breeds and deserters from the Apache scouts who combined as his gang.
One man had been caught and the Mescalero braves who tracked him down killed him with rocks, battering him to death, cheering each other on and laughing as stones felled the helpless man. They had stripped him naked first, binding his ankles with a loose hobble, tying rawhide thongs about his wrists behind his back. A hit on the body was greeted with roars of merriment. One jagged stone brought down the Mexican, hitting him plumb in the groin, cutting into his unprotected genitals, sending him rolling and screaming in the dirt, begging in Spanish for them to kill him or spare him.
In the end they killed him, but not quickly.
Revenge to the Apaches was a dish that should be supped slowly, and with great enjoyment.
The bandit took many hours to die, and by the end did not even know whether he was living or not. The blurring red pain of the knives and the stones and the fire and the needles had gone on for so long. His eyes had been burned from their sockets and most of the small bones in his body had been broken with clubs. Day and night and life and death all ceased to have meaning and when the final blackness closed over him, he had no awareness of the final, delayed mercy.
~*~
The day was even hotter and the toppling mountains about them seemed to trap the heat, turning the trail into a roasting oven. Herne had known it hotter but he hadn’t realized how the others were suffering until Carola Ray simply fell off her horse, landing unconscious on the stones. The fact that she hadn’t moaned increased his respect, for her courage, but the fact that she had lacked the sense to tell him she was feeling ill made him wonder about the Englishwoman’s intelligence.
‘Loosen her shirt there and splash a little water on her face,’ said Herne, dismounting. Taking a hasty look around and seeing that the defile where Carola had fainted would have made a perfect spot for an ambush. But he had seen no sign of any men passing that way for some days. The last marks he’d found had been clearly that of a Cavalry patrol, a week back, still on their fruitless chase after Geronimo.
‘Not too much water,’ he added, seeing Thaddeus being liberal with the pale orange liquid, dabbing it across his wife’s brow, the veil hanging from the top of her head like a new-born baby’s caul.
Isaac was holding all the horses, sitting patiently waiting for his sister-in-law to recover. So that they could go on for another scorching mile. And another.
Herne was normally on the alert, but he was still concentrating on the woman, seeing that she was beginning to come round.
So that it was Isaac who was first to see the three Mexican bandits appear above them, each holding a cocked rifle.
Chapter Six
‘Jed!’
‘What?’ Not looking up.
‘There.’
Ike’s voice had a strange, tense croakiness to it that attracted Herne’s attention, sending warning signals prickling up his spine. Knowing that the tone meant bad news even before he saw the three men covering them from the edge of the low cliff.
‘No move, señor,’ said one, assuming a false note of ingratiating apology.
Jed stood, very slowly, moving from where he’d been leaning against a massive boulder. As he moved, his eyes raked around, trying to make any more bandits. But there were just the three. Confident in their own expertise, knowing that surprise had weighted the odds heavily on their side. The rifles were all Winchesters, one with a heavily ornamented stock that looked to Herne like it had been stolen from an Indian. The three men were all young, the oldest seeming barely twenty. All short, dressed in what looked like a uniform. White cotton pants and loose shirt. Two in ordinary sombreros, the third—the one who’d spoken—in a massive hat, colored yellow, with a fringe of glass beads that tinkled softly as he moved his head. The sun touched on the sombrero making it the color of raw gold.
‘What do we do?’ hissed Ike.
‘Just what they say, for now. But keep ready,’ said Herne, quietly.
‘Oh, Lord have mercy on me,’ moaned Carola Ray, trying to sit up, while Thaddeus was torn between helping her add standing up himself to face the threat.
‘You all keep where you is, and all was very good,’ said the Mexican, babbling something to his comrades, speaking so fast that Herne couldn’t understand him, even though he had a reasonable talent for Spanish himself.
‘You,’ pointing at Herne. ‘Put guns on ground.’ Smiling through a mouth that seemed filled with a bizarre mix of glittering gold and rotting black teeth. ‘Very quick and very slow.’
The contradictory order made a kind of sense to the shootist and he drew out the pistol from its holster, stooping to lay it carefully near his feet, making sure the butt was ready to his hand in case there was a chance to go for it. But right now what he needed to do was watch for that chance. He had been involved with Mexicans before and knew that they were quite capable of simply gunning them all down
in a hail of death.
Two of them moved around, picking their way down from rock to rock until they were on the same level as the Rays and Jed Herne. Their eyes didn’t leave the party and the barrels of the rifles kept weaving around like the heads of snakes, covering all of them.
‘Can I stand up?’ asked Carola, addressing the question to Golden-hat, who bowed slightly in her direction.
‘Yes, pretty señorita. Now you stand. Sooner you are sitting and then laid down.’ He looked across at the other two bandits. ‘And soon she fucked, no?’
To Herne’s great relief, neither of the male Rays reacted to the words, and Carola was still too faint to pay any attention, struggling to her feet.
‘All guns on dirt. Muchas graçias. You are very good men and a very pretty lady.’
The guns of the two silent Mexicans waved the four of them together, and Herne was relieved that Thaddeus and Ike helped Carola to join him against the wall of rock, near to his own Colt. As he’d stooped to lay it down he’d deliberately grated his heels among the stones, covering the sound as he cocked the hammer back, ready for action.
If he got the chance for that action.
Finally, once he was certain that the other two had the situation safely under their control, Golden-hat himself came down, still keeping the Winchester steady under his arm, a broad grin never slipping from his lips. Like many Mexicans that Herne had known, the young bandit didn’t seem to wear his clothes. It was more like he inhabited them and the soiled cotton was a part of him.
‘I know you?’ he asked, staring straight at the shootist, his honed senses picking out Herne as the only one of the group likely to cause trouble.
‘No.’
‘I think yes.’
‘No.’ Herne kept his voice calm and neutral.
‘You called—’
‘Jed.’
‘Jed. What other name?’
‘Herne.’
‘Jed Herne?’ He pronounced the surname with a harsh guttural sound, as though he was preparing to spit.
‘You ride with a lot of men?’ asked Thaddeus Ray, interested, despite the obvious danger to himself and to all of them.
‘Why you ask?’
‘I am reporter. Journalist. I write.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Repeating this information to the other two young men. ‘That is good. El Poco maybe liked to be seeing you.’
‘El Poco?’ asked Carola, shaking her head and trying to clear her brain. ‘That was—’
‘Don’t know him,’ interrupted Herne, steering her away from potentially dangerous ground.
It was what he’d figured. It was unlikely that there’d be just three of the men around on their own in such a desolate region. And there was something about the way that they handled themselves that made him guess they belonged to a large and successful group of bandits.
‘You will, Señor Herne,’ smiled the Mexican. ‘He getting to known you very fuck good.’
‘I look forward to it,’ he replied, rubbing at his leg, as though it was bothering him. Repeating the gesture, this time stooping so that he reached down near the top of his right boot.
The young man thought it was a great joke that the stupid gringo should be eager to meet the dreaded El Poco and shouted opt the jest to his friends, who nearly doubled up laughing. But the rifles still remained covering the four people.
‘What are we goin’ to do, Jed?’ asked Thaddeus. ‘They mean us harm?’
‘Yeah. They mean us to be dead. Maybe the woman’ll live a whiles longer.’
‘We tie you up now so no mistakes making for you. Him first,’ pointing at Herne with the muzzle of his Winchester.
‘We won’t give no trouble, mister,’ said Jed, still seemingly having trouble with his right leg. Now stooping further to rub with his fingers actually inside the boot as if there was something there chafing at him.
‘You get tied good. Señor Herne. Herne?’ Questioningly. ‘I think that name I know somewheres.’
The two other bandits were moving in, cat-footed, cradling their guns. Indicating with their hands for the woman and the Ray brothers to go a little to one side while they dealt with the tall figure of Herne.
‘You pretty old man, Herne,’ called the leader.
‘Might be some snow up on the roof, but there’s still a good fire in the belly,’ Jed joked.
‘What wrong you leg?’
‘Got a sore inside my boot. Plagues me when I’m standing.
‘Maybe El Poco help you and make you not standing,’ smiled the Mexican, taking care that he was in a position to guard both Herne and the other three.
Jed was bending, right hand now deep inside his boot, rummaging around with an expression of discomfort on his face.
‘Hands up at back of you, Herne. I still know your name, Herne. Why?’
Jed could almost hear the wheels clicking in the mind of the young bandit as he struggled to remember where he might have heard the name of Herne. South of the Rio Grande Jed wasn’t as well known as north, but he guessed it wasn’t going to be all that long before the nickel dropped and then he was as good as dead. They wouldn’t take any chances as soon as they realized they’d trapped a wild cougar in their net.
The two other bandits were right by him, one slightly to the side, concentrating more on looking at Carola Ray, openly admiring the lines of her attractive figure. The other had pulled a length of whipcord from the pocket of his pants, nearly dropping his rifle as he did so, stepping in close, motioning for Herne to turn round and put his wrists together behind him.
Crouched, Herne’s right hand was masked from the Mexicans.
‘Herne? Hey! He is the one they called Hunter! Aguirre, Santos! He—’
The memory was just a few seconds too late.
Already Herne was exploding into a fiery blur of violent movement. The razored Civil War bayonet was gripped firmly in his right hand, hissing round at the throat of the nearest man. Striking at Aguirre like the wrath of God.
The bandit was seventeen years and three months old and had ridden with El Poco for two and a half years. In the raid on the Apache fortress he had brought a deal of praise on himself by binding one of the old men of the tribe to a stake and pouring lamp-oil on his head. Setting the Indian ablaze and then offering him a pot of boiling water from the cooking fires to quench himself. Repeating the process to cheers and laughter from his fellows until the elderly warrior was dead.
The edge of the bayonet opened up his neck as easily as a girl’s scissors through velvet ribbon, the blade so sharp that it actually sliced into the Mexican’s wind-pipe so that he fell, choking, hands going to the appalling wound. His eyes were wide with terror and he tried to pray but he couldn’t remember the words.
By the time that he dropped, Herne had already killed the second of the bandits. The young man they called Santos.
He had been a pretty boy, with full, red lips and a plump bottom. Attributes that had made him one of the favorites of El Poco, who was known to take his pleasures without concern for the sex of his victims. Santos had been raped by the tiny gang leader on his first day with the group, his hands spread and held by other bandits, a length of dirty rag knotted round his mouth to stifle the screaming. Afterward he was allowed to crawl away using the same rag to mop the blood from his thighs.
By the third week Santos was beginning to enjoy it, looking forward to the nights that his leader would crook his finger and call him over in the familiar fluting voice. He didn’t mind how he did it, either by dropping to his knees or by loosening the belt from his cotton pants and bending over a convenient boulder. Either way was fine with young Santos.
Herne killed him with a savage thrust through the middle of his guts. The Mexican was still watching Carola Ray, and he was only vaguely aware that something was happening. There was the beginning of a cry, choked into silence, from Aguirre, and a scuffle. Then the tall, grey-haired gringo was coming at him, something glittering low in the right hand. There wasn’
t time to use the rifle, though at the very last moment Santos tried to parry the blow. But the bayonet was through his guard, Herne hitting him so hard that his fist sank deep into the boy’s chubby stomach, blood jetting out over his wrist. The attack winded Santos and the air whooshed out of his lungs. Jed twisted the hilt of the knife as he withdrew it, spilling loops of intestines, greasy and yellow, through the torn shirt into the dry earth.
All of this took a little more than three seconds. Three seconds of action so fast and lethal that none of the Rays appreciated at first what had gone down around them. There was a Mexican on his knees, scarlet fountaining from his neck. Another doubled over, dropping his rifle, his stomach tumbling to the ground.
And the third …
Golden-hat was called Manuel. And his great sombrero was his pride and joy. He had been given it by El Poco’s previous lieutenant, who had been gut-shot with his own pistol by a blind whore in Naco three months back. With the hat went the position of Number Two in the gang.
Herne the Hunter. That was the name he had heard bandied around camp fires by the older men. There was a breed who had once seen this Herne in action, somewhere close to Durango. Now he was here.
‘Santa Maria,’ breathed Manuel, turning his head quickly to watch the gringo’s attack, the glass beads on the brim of his hat tinkling musically.
He had time to snap off a shot from his rifle, seeing the burst of stone splinters as his bullet cracked into the earth almost between the feet of the shootist. If he came back to El Poco and admitted that he’d allowed this gringo to kill two of their men—especially rosy-cheeked Santos—then the diminutive bandit might order him roasted over a slow fire. He had done it before.
Manuel dived to the right, levering at the Winchester, his mind still filled with the memory of the grandee who had been cooked in that way. It had been down by the mission named San Miguel, where there had been a great house. And there lived Don Carlos, a rancher. Who had mocked El Poco when the bandit chief came to ask for the hand of his daughter, Donna Maria. He hadn’t laughed when the smoke filled his lungs and he had smelled his own flesh roasting. Nor had the girl after the dwarf had finished with her and left her to the men.
Geronimo! (Herne the Hunter Western Page 5