Death Rites

by John J. McLaglen

  He flattened himself to the ground, oblivious now to the cold and the wind. All of his senses concentrating on the job of survival. Shielding the weapon under his coat to muffle the sound, Herne cocked the pistol, holding it in his right hand. Considering whether to draw the knife from his boot, and deciding that it was better on balance to leave it where it was as a last resort.

  Another spate of bird cries.

  Closer.

  There was a towering cactus behind him, its stark prickly limbs crucified black against the faint light of the sky. All around was low brush and spear-grass. Giving good cover among the stunted trees, but leaving dry leaves beneath, so that total silence wasn’t possible.

  Absolutely still, Herne lay and waited.

  Only a couple of yards away, there was the harsh whisper of two men talking. One ordering the other to a course of action. Herne couldn’t make it all out.

  There was another splutter of chatter. It seemed to be an older man telling a much younger one to go in and kill. That much was clear. It seemed almost to be some sort of a test.

  If it was a warrior being prepared in such a way, then it would make sense of attacking a lone white man. And other braves would have come along as well to witness how the young warrior bore himself.

  Herne tried desperately to see where the nearest of the Apaches was, wondering if it might be as well to try a break now while they weren’t prepared. Then he heard something that gave him a glimmer of an idea.

  “Go and kill as son of chief should,” was the nearest he could get in translation.

  So. It was the son of a local tribal chief, being blooded in front of all the warriors. With Herne as his target.

  Jed slid forwards into a crouch, the gun still gripped in his fist. Listening for the sound of the attacker coming in towards him.

  Hearing the faint scrape of the leather boots, and then the whisper of strained breathing. To have to kill an enemy in the darkness like this, even a man you thought was sleeping, would put great pressure on a boy, and his nerves would be stretched to breaking point.

  There!

  The silhouette of a slim figure, against the sky, stepping with feet raised high, putting them down each time with exaggerated care. Walking past the crouching man close enough to touch, unaware that the white man was even there.

  All around was silence. Herne was conscious of the remainder of the Apaches waiting, hoping for success, ready to move in case of trouble. The wind had eased, but the clouds were building up, promising worse weather to come soon.

  The boy was past him, focusing all his attention on the dark shadow of the blankets. Herne caught the gleam of light off the broad-bladed knife in his right hand. Held point downwards ready for the stabbing thrust to the heart.

  Keeping low, so that none of the other Indians would see him, Jed began to creep in behind the young warrior, easing the hammer forwards silently so that the pin rested on the cartridge. Making sure that his grip on the butt was firm and safe.

  Jubal whinnied suddenly, and skittered sideways, possibly scenting the Apaches all around him in the brush. Covered by the noise, Herne closed right in behind the Mescalero boy.

  Who had checked his advance at the horse’s movement, pausing on the edge of the clearing, bracing himself for the final charge.

  Herne judged the moment to perfection, raising the heavy pistol and bringing it down in a solid arc, hitting the young man at the base of the skull. The crunching blow was softened a little by the mane of black hair that tumbled to his shoulders, but it was still hard enough to knock him instantly unconscious.

  As the body slumped forwards, Jed caught it under the arms, holding it upright, pressing the muzzle of the Colt to the boy’s head, supporting him with the left hand. The knife dropped with a light tinkle to the stones, and Herne tensed himself ready for the next few seconds.

  They would determine whether he lived or died.

  From behind him in the darkness came a whisper. Asking the young man what had happened.

  Racking his brain for the right words, Herne replied in a loud clear voice.

  “Keep men quiet or boy dies. I have him with gun.”

  There was an instant babble of voices from all around him, drowned out by a loud shout for silence from the man that Jed guessed was the chief. The father of the young boy he held at gun-point.

  “You speak Apache tongue?”

  “Not well. Do you speak English?”

  A pause. “Some. You are clever white man.”

  “Clever enough not to send a boy on a job for a man.”

  “He lives?”

  “He lives. Do you want him to go on living?”

  “Yes. What is the price?”

  Herne hesitated. Despite the white man’s mistrust of the honesty of some Indians, he knew enough of the code of honor of the Apaches to be prepared to take a gamble on trusting them. Not that there was an awful lot of choice for him.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am what you call Man Runs On Air. I am chief of Mescalero tribe of Apache nation.”

  Herne knew the name. Man Runs On Air had won his name when he and three other braves had been captured several years back on one side of a knife-edge canyon. The cavalry had them surrounded and called on the four Apaches to surrender.

  Although there was a great yawning chasm between them and safety, the Indians chose to try and leap it. Three of the four fell screaming to a mangling death. Only one man survived the jump. Man Runs On Air.

  “I am Jedediah Herne, called Herne the Hunter.”

  Though he rarely used his nickname, he knew that it might help to impress the Apaches.

  “I know of you. You have taken prisoner of my son. He was to kill you as test for warrior.”

  “I can kill him.”

  “Yes. Then we kill you, and you will not die quick.”

  “I know that also. If I spare his life, then you will also let me go freely on my way? You will not try and have me followed?”

  “I must talk with others. Wait and do not harm boy. Can he speak?”

  “I laid him out cold with the butt of my pistol, but he’s still breathing well. Don’t take too long over the talking, chief.”

  The boy was showing signs of recovering consciousness, beginning to struggle feebly. Herne tightened the grip around his throat, pressing the barrel of the Colt hard into the side of his head.

  “Don’t move, boy. Just stay quiet and easy and maybe we both go on living.”

  Despite the chill of the night, Jed was sweating, feeling droplets running down the small of his back, soaking through his shirt. He kept moving around, changing the direction, in case Man Runs On Air decided to send in a warrior to try and beat the finger on the trigger with a snap shot. In the darkness it wasn’t likely, but it wasn’t a risk worth the taking.

  There was the sound of movement in the brush around the clearing and Herne called out again. “Anyone comes any nearer and your son loses his head, chief.”

  “We have spoken. My son has been wrong to be trapped by you. But we know of Herne the Hunter and he must not pay too much price for foolishness. If you release him then you go free.”

  “Not just for tonight, Man Runs On Air. Your word that no warrior of your people will harm me while I remain in these mountains.”

  “Wait.”

  The boy made an attempt to wriggle free and knee Herne in the groin. With no effort at all Jed half-turned, bracing his hip into the lad’s back, croaking the elbow into his windpipe and nearly strangling him. There was a gurgling moan and then he went limp in Herne’s arms.

  “What was that, Herne the Hunter?”

  “The cub tried to bite.”

  There was a note of anxiety in the voice of the Mescalero leader. “You have harmed him?”

  “He sleeps.”

  “What?” There was a depth of anger in the cry that made Herne tighten his finger on the trigger.

  “He sleeps and soon he will wake. But he fights me and it is h
ard not to hurt him. I would have your word of my safety here.”

  “How many days do you stay?”

  “I seek two men who are thieves.”

  “Apache?”

  “White men.”

  Suddenly there was an easing of the tension.

  “One in the clothes of a God-man? The other tall and in black? Three horses?”

  “Could be.”

  “They are in old mine.”

  “Norwich Hills?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guessed so, but I’m still obliged to you for that. They still there?”

  There was a quick exchange between the unseen chief and one of his warriors.

  “They are there. There was two men also. They have gone two days back. They also bad men?”

  “Not any more. I killed them yesterday. So I am free to go?”

  “For ... five days. After that I cannot give my word. You know what young men are?”

  Herne grinned at the resignation in the voice of Man Runs On Air.

  “Yes. I know. Five days will be fine. Should let me do what I need. Thanks.”

  “My son?”

  “Just waking up again. You want me to leave him here, or will you come in and get him?”

  There was no hesitation this time. “He is my son, Herne the Hunter. I will come and get him. Stand there.”

  Someone called out from the blackness, and Man Runs On Air replied angrily. Herne guessed that it had been a warning of possible treachery.

  There was a darkening of the night at his elbow, and he smelled the oil on the skin of the chief. The two older men stood together in silence, until Herne released the boy, steadying him when he nearly fell. Feeling as exposed as he ever had in his life, Jed holstered the Colt, and stood there, aware of the cold again.

  Man Runs On Air said something to the young man who slunk away into the blackness of the hillside. Then the chief called out to the rest of his warriors, who responded to the shout.

  “You are safe, Herne the Hunter. May you hunt well.”

  “I thank you. It has been good to know such a great warrior, Man Runs On Air.”

  There was the briefest clasp of hands and then the Apache vanished into the chill night, taking his men with him.

  In a couple of minutes the clearing and the brush around it were as empty as if the incident had never happened. Jed squinted at his watch, reading the time with difficulty. From beginning to end it could not have taken more than twenty minutes.

  Five minutes later he was asleep again.

  Chapter Ten

  Snow threatened.

  When Jed woke, cold seeping into the marrow of his bones, the first light of the morning hardly scraped at the surface of the night. Cloud wrapped the land in a dull gray shroud, and the wind was rising again. Blowing the dust into small pillars of red sand that collapsed in on themselves.

  He sipped a couple of mouthfuls of water from one of the canteens, and ate some more of the jerky. Jed was so chilled that he had to run around and do vigorous exercises to get the blood flowing again. Clapping his hands together, feeling the tips of his fingers tingling. He glanced around, seeing the mist that enveloped the tips of the Pinaleños, his brow wrinkling as he wondered how long it would be before the snow came.

  Norwich Hills had sprung up, flourished and died all within a couple of years. A chase after a double killer had taken Jedediah Herne there some years back, and he could still remember the place. Already fading when he got there. He’d gunned down the man he wanted on the porch of what used to be the church.

  He’d heard that the mine had closed and the little township had gone back to the wilderness of cactus and stone that had been there long before. Now it was a ghost town, a few miles into the hills on a winding road barely wide enough for a wagon.

  As he pushed Jubal forwards through the dust and sleet that the wind was carrying, Jed stared down at the rutted trail. Seeing where the rain had washed out sections of the trail so that it was no wider than four or five feet.

  At one turn of the track a slide had completely blocked it off, and he saw there were the prints of five horses going in. Two coming out. That meant that Cal and Luke were still in the place. Holed up and waiting for Danny and the Mexican to come back and tell them it was safe to move.

  Only they weren’t coming back.

  Not ever.

  Because of the formation of the Pinaleño range at that point, Herne knew that there was no practical way out of Norwich Hills. A man alone, carrying a few days” supply of water, might make it.

  Might make it.

  But the trail stopped dead at the far end of the one street through Norwich Hills. Just past where there used to be a blacksmith. Beyond that there was raw stone and jagged ridges. Rising and falling until you got across forty or fifty miles of nothingness to the main western trail towards Phoenix. And by the time you got to Phoenix you’d be near to dying.

  One trail into the mining camp.

  The same trail out again.

  There was a battered notice-board at a turn of the trail, not far from where Jed remembered the township began.

  It lay on its side in the dust, half-covered. He swung down from the saddle, stretching his legs, feeling the strain of the long ride. Walked over to the board and pulled it out.

  Someone had been using it for target practice, but all of the bullet-holes were years old. The wood weathered and torn.

  The paint had faded over the years, but it was still readable.

  “Welcome to Norwich Hills. Fastest growing little town in the Arizona Territory.”

  Then it said that the population was one hundred and eighty-seven souls. At least, that seemed to be the highest number in a line of altered figures. Some crossed through. Some left.

  As the population of the township rose with the lure of the silver, so it fell again when the lode ran out. And the numbers decreased. Down and down.

  Herne stooped and peered at the board, trying to read what was written in white paint, the letters uneven and sprawling.

  “I hav berried the last. It is ovr.” There was a signature, but it was illegible.

  Whoever he’d been, he’d been right. But now the little ghost town was enjoying a flourishing revival. At present the population stood at two, with Herne about to make it three.

  But if all went well it wouldn’t be long before Norwich Hills was down to one again.

  Then to nobody.

  Jed had remounted Jubal and walked him along until he reached the point in the trail where he knew he would be able to see down a small dip towards Norwich Hills. Along the trail, straight at that point, to the collection of ramshackle buildings, with the old mine working perched above it.

  Not wanting to trot into view of anyone watching, he dismounted again and tethered the bay stallion to a large boulder, in the lee of the biting wind. Howling in among the mountains all about, it was carrying a few flakes of snow on it. Whisking them about, blowing them into Herne’s face so that he could taste them cold and sharp on his tongue.

  Shading his eyes against the swirling snow, Herne stalked forward, the Sharps rifle gripped in one hand, shrugging his shoulders, sinking his head lower into the collar of his coat.

  There was a ridge, and he moved slowly towards it, warily creeping through a jumble of scattered rocks until he could see down into what remained of the township.

  “Jesus,” he whispered to himself as he saw what several years had done to Norwich Hills.

  His memory had been of a typical small township, centered around a narrow street, with the houses and saloons and brothel jostling each other on a steep hill. And above it all hung the mine, gaunt wooden piling scattered all around it.

  That was how it had been.

  Now there was virtually nothing left. It looked as if there had been a massive land-slip, obliterating all but a couple of the buildings. The street had gone, but Jed could make out a few tracks over the pile of red dirt, heading up towards the mine.

&
nbsp; There again nature had been at work. Ripping down the skeletal derricks and winding-gear, leaving only two or three small huts around the base of the diggings, with another close by the gaping tunnel of the main shaft into the mountain.

  That was all.

  Sheer beyond it rose the Pinaleño Mountains, their tops obscured by driving snow and cloud. When Herne had been there before it had been in baking heat, the orange dust blowing everywhere.

  There was Norwich Hills.

  Where were Cal Ryder and Luke Barrell?

  The blizzard was worsening so fast that there was no danger of his being seen, but there was a risk that his horse might die. A quarter of the distance to the shattered remnants of Norwich Hills there was the shell of a building, with a corner of the roof still hanging on to the beams.

  If it hadn’t been for the storm, he would never have dared risk bringing Jubal along that trail, but visibility had closed down to only fifty yards or so. Even if Cal and Luke were there, and Herne didn’t doubt they were, there was no risk of them seeing or hearing the stallion.

  Slithering around on the carpet of freezing snow, Herne returned and brought the horse along to the old shed, leading it into the comparative warmth and safety of the building. Despite the huge holes in the roof, there was shelter remaining to keep Jubal from freezing to death or becoming buried in the snow.

  Herne tethered him to a fallen rafter, throwing one of his own blankets over his back, patting him on the flank before walking out again into the teeth of the blizzard.

  If the Apaches said that the white men hadn’t been seen leaving Norwich Hills, then that meant they hadn’t left it. Since the main street was so flattened and destroyed, the odds seemed to be that they would be up nearer the mine, where the handful of huts would offer the best chance of protection.

  Carrying the Sharps, Herne clambered down towards the street, constantly stopping to wipe snow from his face and eyes. Nerves alert for any sign of either of the men. In that sort of situation, he might easily walk straight into them, unable as he was to see more than a few yards. Then it would be down to who was quicker. Herne knew that he’d have the edge, because he knew that they were there. They had no idea where he was, but they must have had a reasonable hope that he would be lying dead in a Tucson alley by now.