Death Rites

by John J. McLaglen

  “Wait!” called someone. The Mex he thought.

  “I got him,” shouted another voice. Danny? Not Cal. Didn’t sound like Luke Barrell, and old Luke would have been too cunning to fall for such a simple trick.

  It was often the simple ones that worked best. He guessed that the killers must have been waiting up in the alley for some time, their nerves getting stretched like a rustler’s neck, waiting for him.

  Now he was there, and one of them was confident that he’d shot Herne the Hunter.

  Lots of men had thought that over the last twenty or more years. One or two of them had even managed it.

  Not this time.

  “I’ll finish him, Diego!”

  It was Danny.

  That must mean that there were only the two of them. Cal and Luke choosing to wait up in the safety of the hills to see whether they needed to run or wait. Which meant that Herne had to kill both of them to stop word getting back.

  He kept moaning, the pistol ready in his fist, eyes squinting into the dim light across the street to try and make out the figure of the bandit.

  There!

  Coming in a slanting run, like a huge crab, sidling out of the alley, snapping off a couple of shots as he did, one bullet ripping splinters of wood from the trough within a foot of Herne’s head.

  If it was Danny, then he wasn’t bad. Not that it made any difference to Herne. He’d known shootists who’d claimed they liked to come against top men as they felt better about it.

  Herne didn’t give a damn. A kid of ten with a scatter-gun would make you just as dead as Wes Hardin with a lightning cross-draw. If they weren’t for you, then they had to be against you.

  If they were against you, then they were better off dead. That was the simple way of looking at things. The only way if you wanted to stay breathing.

  “Danny! It might be a trick!”

  “Damn right, Mex,” said Herne softly, steadying the pistol by holding his right wrist with his left hand, sighting at the advancing man. Squeezing the thin trigger once. Feeling the jar run up his wrist, his nostrils filling with the familiar tang of the black powder smoke.

  The body of the bandit jerked to a stop as if it had just run into a brick wall, the hands flying out like they were about to embrace an invisible friend. Gun dropping to the earth with a thud.

  “Danny!” screamed Diego from the alley.

  The killer sank to his knees, a moan of pain and shock clearly audible to Herne, who was some twenty paces away from him. Clutching his chest where the heavy caliber bullet had hit him. Swaying with the wound.

  Carefully, aiming at where the sagging head joined the body, Herne fired once more.

  Like a kick in the face it toppled Danny backwards into the dust of the Tucson street. His legs scrabbled for a few seconds, then he lay still.

  Lights were coming on all around and a few doors were opening. But still nobody appeared.

  As he lay by the trough, Herne quickly replaced the four bullets that he had fired. Trying to put himself into the mind of the Mexican. Trapped in the alley. Having seen his comrade gunned down. Wondering in his turn what Jed was going to do.

  “Hey, Senor!”

  “What is it, Mex?”

  “This old man will be plenty dead in sometime soon if you no throw down the gun and let me go.”

  “He’s nothin’ to me, Mex. I kill you whether you kill him or not. I don’t care.”

  Diego considered this, wondering whether it was true or not.

  “I cut him pretty bad, first.”

  “I’ll take your knee-caps off Mex, and make you crawl from here to Hell and back.”

  “Señor!” There was a pleading note in the man’s voice, instantly putting Herne on the alert.

  “What?”

  “I tell you where the others are if you will let me go.”

  “If you mean the deserted silver mine up the north trail into the Pinaleños, then save your breath for prayin’.”

  A laugh. “Hey, you know pretty damned lot, Senor. I guess you think you a winner?”

  “No winners, Mex. Just a lot of losers.”

  Gradually, crawling slowly, Herne began to edge his way towards the alley. When there was the smashing of glass from the darkness.

  “He’s in the window, Mister,” called out a voice from a half-op en doorway.

  Herne had guessed that, trying to recall what he could of the inside of the eating-house. Wondering if the Mexican would go on out the back, or try and fool him by coming straight out the front.

  From what he knew of Mexican bandits, they were often low on courage, and very high on cunning.

  “The front,” he said to himself, standing up, gun ready.

  He was right.

  The main door exploded as if someone had set off a charge of dynamite inside it, and Diego came charging out, a pistol in each hand spitting fire into the night.

  The attack was so violent that Herne was taken partly by surprise, and dived backwards for cover, landing on his shoulder on the edge of the walkway with a jolt that knocked the gun spinning from his hand.

  There was enough light from the open doors and windows for Diego to see what had happened and he laughed in delight, standing still in the centre of the street, both guns steady on the helpless man.

  T think maybe you the loser, Senor.”

  Herne’s eyes were caught by a movement in the darkness of the alley. It was Scotty Mitchell, moving slowly and painfully, tucking a gleaming Colt into the greased holster on his hip. Steadying himself against the corner of the building, wiping a thread of blood from his forehead where they must have pistol-whipped him.

  “Come on old-timer,” breathed Jed, trying not to give Mitchell’s position away to the Mexican.

  “Now the game she is over, señor. Adios.”

  Before he could pull the triggers, there was a shout from behind him. From Scotty.

  “Call it, Mex!”

  “Dios!” spat Diego, spinning round to face the new threat. Both guns barking in his fists.

  There was enough light for Herne to clearly see the puffs of dust spurt from the old man’s chest and leg where at least two of the bullets had hit home. Knocking him back against the wall, that held him upright, facing the bandit, his own gun still undrawn.

  “You bastard,” said Scotty, his voice slow and heavy with the pain.

  Herne started to move for his own gun, then stopped, fascinated by the grim tableau being played out across the street from him.

  Diego was standing still, unable to believe that the old man was still upright with the bullets in him. Not firing again. Just waiting.

  “Greasy son of a bitch!” said Scotty, his voice louder. Hand feeling for the gun on his hip. Body slanting in a bizarre parody of a gunfighter’s fast draw. Like watching it done in a dream. Slowed down like someone fighting underwater.

  The hand coming up from the holster, with the gun in it. Scotty tried to cock it with one hand but the effect was too great for him and he brought the left hand across to help himself.

  Although Herne was conscious of people all around watching, from doors and windows, there was no sound. Just the lone wind bringing the taste of snow in it. And the click of the pistol as the hammer was drawn back.

  “No,” called the Mexican, snapping off another flurry of shots. At least two of them hit home, making Mitchell stagger. It wasn’t possible that he could still stand there.

  But he did.

  Bringing up the Colt as if it was a religious relic of infinite value, cradling it in both hands, holding it out in front of his chest, aiming it with great care at the Mexican.

  Diego couldn’t believe it, and he looked round at Herne, as if he sought reassurance that this nightmare wasn’t happening to him. But Jed shrugged, knowing that this hand needed to be played out right to the end, his only other movement being the quick step needed to pick up his own gun.

  In case.

  The old man’s pistol boomed, the flash of the
flame nearly obscured by the burst of smoke from the muzzle.

  Jed was a few paces behind the Mexican, and it seemed to him as if the man’s head had burst. The bullet hit him in the temple, angling off and distorting as it ploughed through the skull and ripped the brain apart. Knocking the sombrero off Diego’s head.

  The bandit danced back a few steps under the impact, as if he was fighting for his balance, but it was only a reflex action from the dying brain. The strings were cut and Diego’s body slumped untidily in the middle of the Tucson street, and lay motionless.

  Herne jumped over him, knowing that there was no need to bother further about him, sprinting to where Scotty Mitchell leaned against the wall of the eating-house. The gun had fallen from his fingers, and he was slowly sliding down the side of the building.

  “Gramps!” screamed a girl’s voice in the crowd. Jed turned to see Ellie-May running towards him, skirts flying. He caught her in his arms and stopped her going to the old man.

  “No.”

  “But he ...”

  “No, Ellie-May. Scotty’s done what he had to do. Wait here.”

  The side of the wall was splintered where the Mexican’s bullets had passed clean through the frail body of the old gunfighter, and blood smeared all the way down to where Mitchell half sat, half lay, looking up at Herne.

  “Sorry ’bout the trap, Jed, but …”

  “It doesn’t signify, Scotty.”

  There was a kind of a smile from the dying man. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, but Jed had seen the bullets hit him and knew that life was a matter of seconds for him.

  “I get him?”

  “Course.”

  “Dead?”

  “As a fish in ice.”

  “That’s mighty good.”

  “You saved my life, old timer,” said Herne, putting away his own gun.

  “Said I’d come a’runnin’, didn’t I?”

  “You sure did.”

  It was a scene that Herne had lived through more times than he could remember. Having a friend die right in front of you and nothing to be done. Though he’d only known Scotty Mitchell a couple days, he’d been a shootist, like Herne, And he’d done what he could in a tight corner. That made him a friend.

  “Guess this is the end of the trail, Jed.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you. You should have stayed safe in the alley.”

  The head shook. “Nope. Man couldn’t ask a better way to ... to go. Savin’ a life. Wastin’ a no-good. Smell of the powder smoke. I ain’t sad ’bout it.”

  Herne stood silent and watched the life ebbing. Hearing the girl crying behind him, and the muttering from the crowd in the street.

  Scott Mitchell peered up at Herne through eyes that were misting over. “You ... know something? I saw George Custer when he ...”

  The voice faded away like the dew on morning grass and the old man was dead. Herne walked back to his room through the cold of the evening.

  Chapter Nine

  Herne left instructions with Jollye that some of the money was to be given to Ellie-May Mitchell to pay for the funeral of the old man.

  He slept well, rising early to get ready for the journey up into the Mountains. He had told the owner of the livery stable that he wanted Jubal watered and saddled for a start before dawn, and the man had done what he asked. The bay stallion was brushed down and tethered in his stall when Jed arrived, giving him a whinny of recognition.

  The wind had dropped, but the town was dusted with another fall of snow. Just enough to bear the hoof-marks as Herne walked the horse along the deserted main street of Tucson, passing the place where Scott Mitchell had died. The broken door had been boarded up, and there was a solitary light gleaming yellow in an upstairs window.

  It took Jed Herne a long, hard day’s riding to get near the point where the trail vanished off north towards the towering peaks of the Pinal mountain range. Heeling Jubal along through the massive saguaro cactuses, the horse’s hooves raising a cloud of red-orange dust.

  This was Apache country. Mescaleros.

  There hadn’t been a lot of trouble in that territory for some time, but that didn’t mean that it would stay that way. Salt River Canyon and Turret Butte were only ten years back, and the dances and the rituals were still performed in the lonely fastnesses among the silent mountains of the Southwest.

  Jed prepared his camp with great care, choosing a spot overlooking a dry stream-bed, high enough up to be safe in case of a winter flash-flood. He would have appreciated a fire to keep out the biting cold, but he was only a few miles from the old mining-camp of Norwich Hills, and in the clear light a red glow would be seen for a long, long way.

  He wrapped himself in a pair of blankets, huddling down against the freezing wind, hoping the weather wouldn’t get any worse. Snow in the high country came fast and stayed long.

  Few people appreciated that better than Jedediah Travis Herne. Several times in his life snow had left its mark on him.

  It had been indirectly responsible for his birth, and for the death of his mother. Albert Jedediah Herne was a leading map-maker and an associate of the famous explorer, J. C. Fremont. Jed’s mother, Elizabeth Julia, was with her husband on the Fremont expedition that was surveying over the high Sierras in the early part of 1844. Although heavy with child, she had believed that they would have been able to return to the safety of civilization well before her time came.

  The snow changed all that.

  A blizzard had trapped the entire party up in Carson Pass, keeping them there for day after day. The delay meant that the expected child was born far from any of the comforts of home and doctor. The rough campsite was cold and desolate, and the delivery a difficult one.

  The last day of February 1844, a leap year, saw the birth day of Jed Herne. A squalling, sturdy child, he survived until the snow cleared and they could all come down in safety.

  All except his mother, Elizabeth Herne, whose bones would lie forever in that barren wilderness.

  Christened Jedediah after his father, and Travis after the defender of the Alamo, the baby was immediately given into the care of his father’s unmarried sister, Rosemary, who had lived in Boston.

  The shock of his wife’s death disturbed Albert Herne, and he never saw the child again, vanishing in Indian country while on a solitary expedition in the Fall of that same year of 1844.

  The gentle, weak, and mildly alcoholic old lady in Boston was no match for the wild young Jed and he ran away from home several times, finding both bad company and the wrong side of the law.

  At the age of fifteen Jed Herne killed his first man.

  To escape retribution from the dead man’s friends, he headed west, finding that the Pony Express was just setting up in business on the dangerous run from Fort Bridger westwards and was seeking young riders.

  It was the perfect job and by the time he was sixteen Jed Herne was one of their top men. The winter of 1860 was a bitter one. The Paiutes had risen but the Pony Express must get through.

  Sitting shivering in the windy darkness of the Pinaleño foothills, Herne chewed on a piece of jerky and thought back to those days.

  Back to the spunky young boy, a year younger than Jed, who had ridden with him. Traveling together on one occasion better than three hundred and fifty miles with no sleep. The boy’s name had been Bill Cody.

  Last Jed heard of Bill Cody he’d been making a name massacring huge numbers of buffalo for the railroad companies.

  Jed remembered those days. The pain, with the mind forcing the exhausted body on. There had been snow then. Deep drifts over the Sierras that had risen to the bellies of their horses.

  The memories of the past vanished as he heard a noise out in the brush. A light sound, that might have been the wind rolling a dry twig along over the rocks. Or might have been the scuffling of a soft leather boot.

  The moon was a thin sliver of silver lurking behind driven clouds, giving barely enough light to see the dim shape of Jubal standing patiently on the
far side of the small clearing.

  One man traveling alone would stand out to the eyes of the Apaches like a rat in a bowl of flour. Since it was unlikely that a white man carrying anything worthwhile would be traveling alone then it was also unlikely that the local Mescalero would bother to attack him.

  But you never knew with the Indians. Especially Apaches.

  Taking no chances, Jed drew the Colt and rolled out of the folds of the blankets, crouching, trying to see who or what was close.

  Mountain lion? Maybe even a bear.

  Still the best bet was that it was a man.

  Moving in slow, silent steps, Jed crept to the edge of the clearing away from the stallion. That way he wouldn’t disturb Jubal and give away his own position. And he was ready for anyone coming in that side.

  As he waited, he strained his ears. Suddenly aware that the hillside around him was alive with men. Maybe as many as twenty. Although the white man feared the strange cunning of Indians, claiming that they could ghost through stone walls and out again, Herne knew that they were simply skilled craftsmen in tracking and hunting. But that didn’t make them perfect. An Apache could no more move in total silence over dry grass and sticks than a white man could.

  The Mescaleros were closing in. There was no doubt about it. Against that many, Herne knew that he had two chances: very slim and none at all.

  Why so many should be out just after him was a puzzle. The first time he caught the sound he wondered if it was either Cal Ryder or Luke Barrell hedging their bets by watching the trail.

  There was the faint cry of a wild bird. Echoing around him. Mournful in the vast cold space of the mountains. A cry that was repeated from” both sides of the clearing. A third time from very close to him. They must be within a few dozen paces of him, circling steadily in.

  He peered out to where his blankets still lay, hoping that they resembled a sleeping man. If they made a final charge, then his slim chance would be that they might pass him by in the blackness and give him a hope of heading for higher ground.

  In his travels, Jed had picked up a little of the Indian’s language. Enough to get by in the basics with either Plains Indians or the smaller men from the mountains. With so many Apaches around him, calling their signals to each other, there was a chance that there might be talking, and he could then know what was happening.