White Death

by John J. McLaglen

  It wasn’t long.

  ‘Dearest Jed,’ it began. ‘By the time you read this, I will be gone. What happened last night is too much for me ever to forget, and whatever you might think, it will always lie between us. What they did has killed everything. I was going to have another baby. Doc Newman reckoned that after last time it would be my last chance. But I know from the bleeding that they killed it. I wanted you to have your son, my dear heart. Now I can’t give it to you, so there isn’t much point in anything. Help look after Becky, as I do not think that Bill is much good with her.

  Please believe that I've always loved you my darling and that you brought me happiness like I never thought I would see. What a pity it is that our time has been so short, but that is God’s will, and we must abide it. Well, darling, time is getting on, and I have things to do. The dress is lovely and will do for the funeral. Thank you for it. You always were thoughtful to me, Jed.

  Again, my dear, I am so sorry that all must end in this way. Goodbye forever, until we meet again beyond.

  Your dearest, Louise.’

  The writing was small and neat, and Jed found some of it hard to decipher, tilting the paper to try and strain more flight on to it. Finally, when he’d finished, he rubbed his tired eyes before going out through the open front door, following the trail of footprints round the side of the cabin, through the frozen mud.

  Towards the barn.

  The door stood open, and a light wind had sprung up, making it creak on its hinges. He paused at the entrance, turning and looking round at the land about their spread, knowing that he was seeing it for the last time with that special vision that his wife had brought him. The rising sun glistened off the slopes of white, making his eyes hurt.

  Inside, it was very quiet. She had climbed up on a box to do it and then merely stepped silently to eternity. The noose had dug into her neck, leaving an ugly burn, but apart from that she looked very peaceful, hands hanging limply at her sides, a shaft of light gleaming off the gold wedding ring.

  And the dress looked pretty. Dark green velvet, with white lace at collar and cuffs. Direct from Paris, France, like the book said.

  It was a very pretty dress.

  Chapter Four

  Smoke and steam billowed out of the heavy locomotive a blinding cloud, sending a flock of birds screaming their protest from the roof of the railroad station in Tucson. The smoke rose greyly up into the clear sky, finally vanishing as the wind caught it. Several trucks of mining material and machinery clattered slowly past the two men on the low platform, followed by three passenger coaches. From the window of the third one a white handkerchief waved to them, and a tear-stained little face called a last goodbye.

  Both Jed and Bill waved back until the train had disappeared into the distance, carrying Becky Yates on the first step of her hundred mile journey, across the Gila River, to Phoenix. Apache country, but comparatively safe on the guarded train. And she would be met off the coach at Phoenix by her Aunt Rosie who had replied to Bill Yates’s, telegraph message with a notable lack of enthusiasm, saying that she would look after her niece as long as her health would permit.

  The burials had been quick – the increased heat made that essential. In the end, they had decided to bury the two women together, in a plot of land lying on the borders of their spreads, close to a small stream, with a view out over the plains to the distant hills.

  The Reverend had come out from Tucson, and done the reading for them, and a few women of the Tucson church also came and wept some and sang some. Then they all went home, leaving the men alone with their grief.

  Things had moved fast. On the way into the town to put Becky on the train, they’d managed to hire a couple of ramrods: Cowboys they both knew and who they reckoned were dependable enough to handle the spreads while they were away. ‘Settling some business’ was what they called it.

  There’d also been time to try and see the marshal, but he was away to the west, investigating some cattle rustling, and wasn’t expected back for days. And one of his deputies was sick with fever, and the other had ridden off after a cowhand who’d tried to hold up the clothing store and shot the owner the leg.

  ‘No time to waste,’ said Yates, delighted to find that Jed was now entirely with him on the quest for revenge. In his own eagerness, Yates hardly noticed that his friend had changed. Some of the men that Herne had ridden with in the past would have recognized him. There was the old set to the jaw, and the killing light was back in his eye. The Sharps hung at his saddle, and the Colt had come out of its greased cloth in the locked drawer.

  The night before – what would have been their wedding anniversary – Herne had walked out alone to the graves of Rachel and his wife. Yates was back in his own house getting Becky ready for the trip to Phoenix. The Colt swung again, tied down in its cut away holster, the familiar weight producing the slanting walk of the gunfighter.

  Jed had knelt on the ground, smelling the fresh scent of the flowers on the heap of brown earth, and he had remained like that for near an hour. Once he took the gun out, and held it. If you had gone close, you would have heard that he was talking. Speaking to Louise’s grave. Maybe telling her what he was going to be doing over the next few weeks.

  Maybe.

  There was no time to waste. It was Tuesday, March twenty-first, 1882. The feast day of Saint Benedict, whose emblems are a broken cup and a raven. The symbol of a destroyed home, and the harbinger of death.

  The train had gone west in the early hours of Saturday. So the men on it had a start of nearly three days. There was no time to wait for the help of the law. Who would be slow to act outside their jurisdiction. There had been offers of aid from men in Tucson, but they had all been refused.

  ‘Thanks,’ Jed answered one group. ‘But this one’s down to us. Like I heard a man say once, there are some things that you just can’t ride around.’

  The smoke of the train vanished behind the bluffs, and they both turned and looked at each other. The talking and the grief were over. The time had come for action.

  The dispatcher in the railroad depot looked up in alarm as the two men burst in on him, both wearing guns, both with grim, set faces. Yates shut the door behind them, leaning against it, while Herne perched himself on the edge of the man’s desk.

  ‘What can I do for you folks?’ stammered the clerk, eyes darting nervously from face to face.

  ‘You know, mister. You know who we are.’

  ‘Mr. Herne and Mr. Yates.’

  ‘You heard what happened to our families?’ Bill moved from the door to stand directly behind the man.

  ‘Yes. Yes sir, I did, and I’m right sorry. But I don’t see what.…’

  ‘Oh yes you do. You see very well. You know that the men who did it came off a train. A special train. And we want to know all about that train.’

  ‘I’m sorry but …’

  Calmly, and quite dispassionately, Herne punched the little clerk full in the mouth, sending a spray of blood over the papers in front of him. He groaned, hands going to his face, groping for a cloth to try and staunch the How of red from his cut lips.

  That’s just for starters, mister. Like a pair of twos, if you’re a gambling man. We’ve got an ace kicker to come. Like this!’

  Yates, behind the dispatcher, cupped his hands and brought them sharply over the man’s ears, hitting him with an explosive force that brought a yell of pain from him.

  ‘Bit harder and you’d be deaf for the rest of your life. No use as a dispatcher for the railroad then. Now come on and loosen up a mite.’

  The small man started to cry, picking at a splinter of broken tooth. ‘Please, mister. Let me alone. I don’t know nothing.’

  At that moment the door swung open and the station foreman marched importantly in. ‘Now then gentlemen. Members of the public aren’t … what is going on in here?’ Gazing aghast at his bleeding employee.

  ‘He’s helping us out with a few questions about your timetable. You want to stay and h
elp as well?’

  Backing away: ‘No. No, I’m sure everything’s in order here.’

  ‘Then get your ass out and shut the door!’ snapped Yates, letting his hand drop to the butt of his gun.

  ‘Now,’ said Herne to the clerk, who had finally managed to stop weeping. ‘Talk. Train. Where from? Who hired it? And the names of the passengers and where they come from.’

  ‘Please, mister. It’s more than my job’s worth, and I’ve got a sick wife and an ailing little girl.’

  ‘Well then, you’d better start talking, less they find their daddy is out of a job for ever. See that steel desk over there?’

  Fearfully, the little dispatcher looked where Herne pointed, seeing the green-painted piece of furniture, weighing about half a ton, with its lockable security drawers.

  ‘Yes, sir. I see it.’

  ‘You got nice hands,’ holding them gently, though the very touch was enough to make the man cringe. ‘This set of knuckles on your right hand. Once saw a fellow in Des Moines; had a disagreement with some horse-busters. They took his hand, and they put it in a drawer, just like that one there and they just slammed it shut as hard as it would on his knuckles. Split them all down the middle like a row of pecan nuts. Ended up with ten knuckles. Couldn’t use his hand properly. Said that it hurt like a bastard.

  It was a hot day outside, but the office was quiet and cool. Yet the brow of the dispatcher had broken out in heavy beads of sweat. His voice trembled as he looked pitifully up at Herne and Yates. ‘Don’t let on I told you, sir. Please don’t. The man who hired it and a lot of the others are very rich and powerful, and if they ever knew …’

  ‘Sonny,’ said Herne, ‘we aim to go and talk to each and every one of those fine citizens, and I don’t figure that any of them’ll be round here after that to bother you.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said the dispatcher, getting up and walking to a dark green filing cabinet. He rummaged through some sheets, until he found a buff folder. Herne noticed that his hands were shaking as he looked through the folder, finally holding up a single sheet of paper.

  ‘Here we are. Special train. Ran from New Orleans up to San Francisco. Got held up just outside town here for a couple of days by that snow. Two coaches and a locomotive.’

  ‘Most of this we know. Who hired it? And the list of passengers. It must have been cleared all along the line through here.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Hired by … you won’t tell?’

  Herne leaned over him, smiling thinly, and rubbing his knuckles. ‘Hurt like a bastard, was all he’d ever say about it.’

  ‘Josiah Nolan, from San Francisco. He’s the son of Senator Nolan. Very important.’

  ‘He’d be the leader, then,’ commented Yates.

  ‘Come on with the rest of those names. Quickly. We got things to do.’

  ‘Barton Duquesne, from Memphis. The Reverend Chester Goldsmith, from Fort Yuma.

  ‘The card-sharp and the preacher.’

  ‘Larry Harvey from Carson City. Pete Sheldon from out at Gila Bend. And the Stanwyck brothers – Luke and Mark. They give their addresses as Lone Pine. That’s up in …’

  ‘The Sierra Nevadas,’ interrupted Jed. ‘I know it. That’s all you can tell us?’

  ‘As God is my witness, mister! ’

  ‘Thanks a lot for your time. You’ve been a lot of help.’

  After the door was shut behind the two men, the dispatcher staggered out the back to the outhouse and was very sick.

  The Mother Lode welcomed the two men, and they sat at a quiet table behind the piano – covered in a dust-sheet so early in the day – and ordered drinks. Yates drank three large whiskies straight off, while Herne nursed his first one.

  ‘Now we know who, and we know where they’ve gone. So we go after them. Is that your way of thinking as well, Jed?’

  Herne was toying with the gold ring that he’d taken off the severed finger. ‘Yeah that list on the waybill is a real break. If it had been an ordinary scheduled trip, they wouldn’t have had that kind of information. I just wonder about the guy who lost this finger…’

  At that moment the plump, balding figure of Doc Newman breezed into the saloon, sending the yellow doors swinging and creaking. Both men looked up at him, expecting the usual smile and joke. Newman had been their doctor, as he was for most of the folks of Tucson, for years, and had attended Herne’s wife during her miscarriages and for the still-birth.

  But when he saw Yates and Herne sitting there, his jaw dropped, and he spun round on his heel and bustled out again, sending the doors rattling for a second time.

  ‘Now why in Hell did Doc do that?’ wondered Yates, reaching again for the bottle.

  Herne clicked his fingers, tossing the ring up in the air so that it gleamed. ‘I got me one Jim-dandy of an idea ’bout that, Bill. Come on.’

  He was quickly up on his feet, striding out of the saloon, spurs jingling on his boots, hand dropping from the reborn habit to slip the thong of leather off the top of the Colt, so that he could draw it as fast as he needed. Yates scampered after him, pausing only to down the last shot-glass of liquor.

  ‘Jed! Where are we going in such an all-fired hurry?’

  Herne still held the ring, and he tossed it again in the air, the sun catching the glittering gold. ‘Man who lost this lost his finger too. Man who loses his finger needs to get to a Doc real fast. That old Sharps of mine would take away a lot of bone too, so it wouldn’t be a lot of good to try, and stop it with a bit of cloth. Have to go to a doctor.’

  ‘Doc Newman?’

  ‘Could be. You ever seen him so damned nervy and spooky like just?’

  ‘Come on, Jed. He would never… I mean, he’s been a good friend to us. He wouldn’t shelter this man … what’s his name?’

  ‘Nolan. If it’s the one we think.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Folks said that the train stopped at the depot for a few minutes. Just time for a man to get off and hide up somewheres. Find him a sawbones when the heat slipped off a bit. Leave a wound like that in hot weather and you give yourself a whole heap of pain and trouble.’

  Ahead of them, never once looking round, the stumpy figure of Newman passed by his office, the worn shingle swinging a little in the light wind, and carried on.

  ‘Going on home,’ commented Herne.

  Newman lived alone in a cabin on the north side of Tucson. Flowers draped themselves up round the door in a normal Spring, but this hadn’t been a normal Spring. Blighted by the late frost and crushed by the weight of the snowfall, the flowers lay flattened along the narrow path. Still not looking round, and hurrying so much that he kept breaking into a strange little half-skip, half-run, the doctor paused at his front door and fumbled for a key, finally disappearing inside.

  But by then the two pursuers were so close behind that they heard a very odd thing. They heard Newman call out to someone inside the house. And he lived alone.

  ‘Who was he calling to?’ asked Yates. ‘Looks to me like you could be right.’

  Herne nodded. ‘Which way we play it, Bill? I reckon we just walk right on up and knock at the door. If this Nolan man’s there, then he’ll be holed up in the bedroom. He’ll maybe think we’re just paying a social call on the Doc and stay put. If’n he runs, then he’s going to find there aren’t many places he can run to in Tucson.’

  Yates nodded agreement, and they strode up the path, and rapped firmly at the brass knocker, carved in the shape of a lion holding a cat. They heard feet shuffling along towards them, and both stood back a little, hands hovering over their gun butts, in case they were right about that first of the killers being there and in case he tried to make a break for it.

  But the face that peered round the door was Newman’s, his eyes opening wide in shock at the sight of the two grim-faced men, his mouth starting to open.

  ‘Well. A good morning to you, Doc,’ said Herne loudly, immediately hissing under his breath: ‘One wrong move or sound and you’re dead.’


  Newman tried to paste a smile of welcome in place, but it immediately slipped off, and the horror and fear oozed back, confirming their suspicions better than anything could have done.

  ‘We were passing by, and we just figured it was time we came in and had us a talk about a few things, Doc. That’s all right with you, I guess?’ Yates didn’t wait for an answer, pushing past the doctor, into the living–room of the small house.

  Herne took Newman’s arm in a friendly-looking grip; that felt like steel bands drawn tight, and propelled him in next, following up and shutting the door behind them.

  ‘There now. You sit down there, Doc, while Bill and I help ourselves to a drink. You got something tucked away somewhere? Maybe in the other room?’

  Herne was deliberately keeping his voice low, so that nobody outside the room could hear clearly what they were talking about. Through the half-open doorway he could see into the neat kitchen, and there was only one other room in the house. Presumably Doc’s bedroom, its door shut. Away to the right.

  Lips working with panic, the words tumbling over each other, Newman started to gabble out what had happened. He was sweating, constantly mopping at his forehead with a handkerchief.

  ‘Listen, Jed. And you Bill,’ Yates raised a finger to his lips, warning him to keep his voice down. ‘I didn’t have no choice in this. He was brought here couple of days back, and he said that if I betrayed him to the law, or to you, then his father would make sure I never worked again. And that his friends would kill me if anything happened to him. I didn’t want to help. I swear that, boys. I’ve known you two and your wives for …’

  ‘You make me sick,’ said Herne calmly, drawing his gun and smashing the prattling man across the front of the head with it.

  Newman didn’t even groan, slumping to the floor, blood splashing across his face, and running over his worn carpet. Eyes closed, he rolled on his back and lay still, his breathing ragged and uneven.