Till Death (A Herne the Hunter western. Book 15)

by John J. McLaglen

  ‘Don’t know, Pa, but—’

  ‘What the hell’s the use of not knowing, boy? Make certain. I sure don’t want to have ridden all this way for nothin’. To have got beat to it by a bunch of savages.’

  The slightest trace of breath issued from Tom Lenegan’s nostrils and from the slimmest of cracks between his lips. Only by resting his own face on Tom’s could Hal be positive. He stood up and brushed his hands down the sides of his pants.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s breathin’, Pa. Certain.’

  Cyrus Clayton smiled. ‘Let’s get him out of this sun.’

  ~*~

  They laid Tom Lenegan back against rough red rock and left him there while they drank from their canteens and the youngest saw to the horses. Once a noise came from Tom’s mouth and all five turned fast towards him, but his eyes were still closed and the only movement they saw was a slow opening and closing of the fingers of his right hand.

  ‘All right,’ said Cyrus , his thirst quenched. ‘Let’s get to it.’

  He threw water in Tom Lenegan’s face and reached forward and slapped him hard, one side and then the other.

  Nothing happened.

  Cyrus repeated the process, the knuckles of his hand driving Tom’s face hard against the rock.

  ‘Pa …’ John began but got no further as his father whirled round to face him.

  ‘S’matter, boy? You don’t like what I’m doin’?’

  ‘I …’

  Cyrus spat into the space between them. ‘Damn, boy, I don’t know how I managed to get you at the end of a line of men. I swear I don’t. You got the spine of a jackass wearin’ a taffeta party dress, an’ that’s the truth.’

  Hal hollered with laughter; the others made no response. John’s face became paler and his left eye twitched shut as if it had been his cheek his father had been slapping against the rock.

  Cyrus took a step towards his youngest son. ‘You know what this trash has been doin’, don’t you?’

  John nodded.

  ‘You know why we’re here? What we got to do this for?’

  Cyrus’s eyes blazed in his head, protruding from their sockets.

  ‘Think on your sister and get them cowardly ways out of your head for good an’ all!’

  John tried to hold his father’s gaze but he couldn’t; his eyes turned away and although he was no longer looking he was still aware of the disgust in his father’s eyes.

  Tom Lenegan moved his right arm downwards a little and groaned.

  ‘Pa!’

  Cyrus glowered at his youngest boy a second or two longer and then went back to Lenegan.

  ‘He’s comin’ to, Pa,’ said Stewart, excitement rising in his voice.

  Cyrus pointed at Hal. ‘Let him have some more of that water.’

  The contents of the canteen washed over Tom’s face and he jerked his head suddenly forward and shook it from side to side, eyes finally blinking open. He saw men standing before him but they failed to register clearly. Shapes that were roughly the shapes of men and nothing more. His eyes closed and his head slumped back.

  ‘Again!’ shouted Cyrus .

  This time Tom recognized who the men were. He wished that he didn’t. He thought of Katie and as he was thinking of her Cyrus grabbed him by the arms and stood him off the rock.

  ‘I’m glad you’re still livin’, Lenegan. I’m glad them bastards didn’t finish you off out there.’

  Tom’s mind was trying to work, trying to think clearly, anxious to find some way of explaining, of attempting to make it all right.

  ‘Katie,’ he said, and Cyrus’s fist drove into the side of his face.

  Tom rocked back on to the rock and one of his legs went under him. Pain surged up from his thigh and tightened hard across his chest. His eyes closed and he didn’t want to open them again.

  He did open them.

  Cyrus Clayton’s face was thrust up close to his own and he could smell the sourness and contempt on the man’s breath.

  ‘Don’t ever let me hear you speak her name again.’

  Tom gulped in air and even that hurt.

  He said, quietly and slowly, ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘That’s good, coming from you,’ sneered Cyrus.

  ‘I mean ... I meant … the Apache.’

  Cyrus stepped back. ‘She ain’t none of your concern.’

  ‘No, I …’

  ‘Not no more.’

  Tom looked from one to another of the brothers – only John refused to meet his eyes.

  ‘Get that rope,’ Cyrus said to Jack. ‘Hal an’ Stewart, hold his arms.’

  Tom tried to struggle but they held him fast. Cyrus set his fingers against the front of Tom’s shirt and laughed; then he ripped it back hard, both arms moving outwards. The cotton tore away from the skin, taking scabbed blood with it, breaking the wound open fresh.

  ‘Jesus, Pa!’ shouted John, moving towards his father. You can’t!’

  Cyrus swung his right arm so that the back of his hand struck his son in the side of the neck. John staggered back and fell to his knees, clutching his throat and gasping for breath.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jack started to go to him, but a look from his father stopped him short.

  Blood was running from the knife wound in Tom Lenegan’s chest.

  ‘I’m teachin’ you a lesson,’ said Cyrus Clayton. ‘One you ain’t about to forget. Supposin’ you live to remember anythin’. Either way, you won’t come near my girl again. You won’t see her an’ you won’t speak to her an’ if you try I’ll shoot you down in the street like the cheap trash you are.’

  He nodded to his sons. ‘Turn him.’

  They laid Tom face forward on the rock, ropes to his wrists held taut so that he could scarcely struggle at all. Cyrus took a second rope, a length of stout hemp, the end knotted and tied fast. He swung some three feet of the rope end through the air, a grim smile coming to his small mouth.

  You remember what this is for, Lenegan. You remember good.’

  The rope hit Tom first on the right shoulder blade and drove his chest into the roughness of the rock and Tom screamed loud.

  ‘Hear that?’ asked Cyrus in triumph. ‘Hear that cowardly bastard yell?’

  The second blow was low and hit him in the kidneys and his legs would have buckled beneath him had not the ropes prevented it from happening. The third blow struck his spine and Tom’s head jerked upwards and his chin grazed open.

  The fourth blow was never delivered.

  The .45 slug whined off the rock a couple of feet high over Tom’s head and went ricocheting into the distance. Cyrus let the rope trail and turned fast. Hal Clayton turned faster, letting go of his own rope as his hand moved towards his holster.

  Don’t do it, son,’ said Herne. His thumb had already brought back the hammer of the Colt and now he covered Hal’s move. Hal didn’t hesitate long; his hand rested on the air and then fell to his side.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted Cyrus, anger in his eyes and voice. ‘Bustin’ in here like this.’

  ‘Who I am don’t matter,’ said Herne. ‘Let’s just say I don’t take too kind to five men gangin’ up on one man who’s already wounded bad.’

  ‘That ain’t none of your damn business!’

  Herne grinned and nodded towards the Colt. ‘While I’m holdin’ this it is.’

  Cyrus glanced round at his sons, uncertain of what to do. ‘I’m warnin’ you, stranger,’ he blustered. ‘You don’t know who you’re dealin’ with. Now you ride on and mind your own business an’ we’ll forget this ever happened.’

  Herne nodded, looked at Tom, whose body had slumped down the rock towards the ground.

  ‘What’d he do?’

  ‘That ain’t none of your concern. Now—’

  ‘Rustle your cattle? Steal your money? What?’

  John Clayton said, not looking up at Herne as he spoke, not looking at any of them: ‘He went courting my sister.’

  “That’s
all?’

  ‘That’s all,’ said John.

  ‘You shut your mouth!’ shouted Cyrus , clenching his fists.

  John did as he was told, looked away and began to walk slowly towards the horses. Stewart and Jack hesitated; Hal was still in two minds about making a play for the pistol at his side. Cyrus Clayton was shaking with impotent rage, helpless under the stranger’s gun.

  ‘Who the … who in hell’s name are you?’

  ‘Jed Herne.’

  ‘Herne?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Hal ventured a pace forward, his right arm starting to fan out. ‘Pa, he’s nobody. Just a bum who happened along. I mean look at him, just look at him. Whatever he might have been once, he ain’t nothin’ now.’ The arm spread wider. ‘Nothin’.’

  Cyrus hesitated, Herne’s name turning in his mind … somewhere, down on the border, maybe, some town or other he’d passed through perhaps ten years past he’d heard that name. Herne. Something like it. Not just plain Herne and not Jed Herne, the way he’d announced himself then. No, it was ...

  ‘Pa, I tell you, he’s a washed-up bum. A down-an’-out. Nothin’.’

  Herne the … Herne the … Cyrus’ mind raced as he clenched the nails of his fingers tight into his hand and sweat pumped from the pores of his body.

  ‘Pa.’

  Behind them, Tom Lenegan’s body made a final pitch to the ground. The sound drew Herne’s attention, his eyes flickered away and Hal saw his chance. Seized it. Seized the gun at his hip and rocked his body back as the gun came up, the hammer moving smoothly back as it swung through the angle, a smile, bordering on the older son’s mouth-easy, easy, easy: nothing but an old tramp - finger tightening on the trigger.

  ‘Herne the Hunter!’ the name leapt aloud from Cyrus’s lips as the memory shot home.

  Herne put a bullet through Hal Clayton’s chest, splitting the breast bone, driving him back, feet jolted clear of the ground. The bullet deflected sideways and down, exiting with a burst of tissue and blood and fragmented bone a few inches above the left hip.

  Hal’s gun was tossed into the air and a gout of blood flew from his mouth as his back struck rock.

  ‘No!’

  Herne’s legs were spaced for balance, left arm angled outwards for the same purpose; the Colt was ready again and the narrowed eyes above it showed their intent.

  Hal’s legs kicked up viciously and his back arched through an unnatural curve. Stewart and Jack knelt on either side of him, hands trying to quell both the movement and the pain.

  His father was still staring at the gun in Herne’s hand, then at his lined, weathered face. ‘Herne the Hunter,’ he said in a voice soft enough for church. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  Herne nodded down towards the bent form of Clayton’s son. ‘I ain’t the one who’s dead.’

  Cyrus Clayton closed his eyes and hung his head and his youngest son went and stood beside him, wanting to put a hand on his father’s shoulder, wanting to offer him comfort yet not knowing how.

  Chapter Three

  The room was on the upper floor at the back of the house. The walls had been painted white, the simple chair and small table and the dressing-stand painted white also. Above the bed hung a sampler in which the words, Bless This House, had been worked in red on a blue and gold background. For all that those colors had begun to fade, they presented almost the only brightness in the room.

  A brown blanket lay over the bed and Tom Lenegan sat propped against off-white pillows, a tray resting on his legs. It was the fifth day he had eaten broth and though it was as good as it had been on the first, he was plain tired of it. Tired of lying in bed and being told to rest. Tired of the ache in his chest and leg whenever he did attempt to move. More than tired of not seeing Katie, of not knowing what had happened to her since the day he had been wounded and beaten. Since the day her eldest brother had been killed by Herne the Hunter.

  Herne had seemed too big for the room when he stepped inside, his shoulders were forced to stoop by the low ceiling and his head to bend. He had been over to visit with Tom several times since getting him to Tucson; he’d got to like the youngster, admire him for the straight way in which he saw things. He sympathized with him in his feelings for Clayton’s daughter and tended to take his side - especially after what he’d seen the old man trying to do to Tom with that rope end.

  Herne had even ridden out to the small ranch run by Lenegan’s folks and told them what had happened, reassured them that everything was going to be all right. Their boy would mend with time and mend good.

  Gus Lenegan was taller than Herne by a good inch and he was as thin as a larch branch. A long neck and a small head perched on top of it as if a strong wind might blow it off. But the eyes that moved in the head were bright and lively and the mouth was anything but mean. The hand that gripped Herne’s was strong, too, but it was the left instead of the right. Gus Lenegan’s right sleeve was tied and knotted midway between his shoulder and where the elbow would have been. He’d had a bad accident with a steer a few years back, the thing had festered, gangrene had set in. It was only by amputating that the doctor had saved Gus’s life.

  Gus had been grateful and carried on best as he could. But there were things he could no longer do.

  ‘Should’ve been me,’ he’d said to Herne as they sat out on the small planked porch. ‘Me out lookin’ for him, helpin’ him. Not a stranger. Me.’

  ‘Gus,’ said his wife, Martha, sitting forward in her chair, an old weathered rocker that stayed out rain or shine, ‘don’t talk that way. Mister Herne here’ll think we’re ungrateful for what he done.’

  ‘No, ma’am, I—’

  ‘Call me Martha, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure, Martha, I reckon I know what … what Gus means an’ I don’t take no offence.’ He looked at Gus. ‘You wasn’t to know he was in any trouble anyway, I guess.’

  ‘That’s true, Gus,’ said Martha Lenegan. ‘There was no way of us knowing about any of it. The Apaches, them Claytons, none of it. We brung up Tom to stand on his own feet and go where he wants to without havin’ to ask a bye your leave from us. We brung him up like that an’ I …’ She broke off and turned her head aside for a moment, as if a mote of dust had caught in an eye corner. ‘I reckon we done a good job an’ we can be proud. Real proud.’

  She stood up sharply, a small woman with tight dark hair and wiry arms, hands that were veined and strong and which she now clenched in front of her apron.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘now let that be an end to all your mawkish talk, Gus Lenegan. I’ve had tea on the brew since Mi… since Jed here arrived and there’s a fruit cake I’m unwrapping so we’ll settle into those before Jed rides back to town.’

  She looked at the two men as if daring either of them to disagree. When neither did, she nodded quickly, like a bird pecking food, and went into the house.

  The men sat for a while in silence. Behind them the sun was mellowing to a deep orange, the shadows of trees lengthening down the sides of the valley. Smoke rose up from the chimney stack and drifted towards the south-west.

  ‘You got a fine woman there,’ said Herne, looking in the direction of the open door.

  ‘Yeah,’ Gus Lenegan nodded. ‘No man could’ve had finer. No man could’ve had a better life with a woman than I’ve had. That’s a fact.’ He prodded his pipe towards Herne and a smile shone in his eyes. ‘Tell you some thin’ I ain’t told many folk ever.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘First time I saw Martha, it was a little over half-hour afore we was due to be wed.’

  Herne started to say something and then waited; now that Gus had started he reasoned the man would explain in his own way.

  ‘Stage was late on its run, some trouble changing horses at one of the way stations, some fool thing like that. Martha nearly missed it altogether.’ He chuckled. ‘There’d’ve been hell to pay, then. Preacher’d wanted payin’ just the same, folks who’d brought food an’ drink wouldn’t’ve known whethe
r to take it back and try with it the next day or get it down ’em on the spot.’

  The chuckle grew to an outright laugh.

  ‘I was all dressed up in a suit I’d hired from the store just for the afternoon an’ hoppin’ around in it like a rooster who’s got hisself all spruced up but can’t get into the henhouse.’

  Gus laughed and shook his head and then struck a match and relit his pipe.

  ‘I set me an advert in this paper. Santa Fe Star. “Young man with good land and prospects wants wife. Must be young and strong and like hard work.” Got three replies. Two of ’em sent drawin’s of themselves they’d got done special, just so’s to show how pretty they was. An’,’ he wiped his hand down his leg and gave his knee a scratch - ‘they was – if them pictures were true. Martha, though, she didn’t send no picture. She wasn’t interested in seemin’ pretty; she wrote with a good strong hand – wrote it herself, too, I found that out soon enough – an’ told me how she was used to workin’ from sun-up to sun-down an’ how she was livin’ with her folks but wanted to get off on her own on account of how the land they had wasn’t enough to support the lot of ’em. Twelve kids in Martha’s family an’ her the third eldest. Nineteen she was. Nineteen an’ three weeks that time she wrote.’

  Gus drew on his pipe and leaned back. The sun was deeper and darker and seemed to fill the valley-end; the wind was keening towards cold.

  ‘Knew right off she was the one I wanted. Got a friend to write back and tell her to catch the next stage she could an’ to let me know when she was comin’ so’s I could rustle up the preacher an’ all.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘She was late but soon as she stepped down off that coach I knew I’d done the right thing an’ I ain’t never for one minute regretted it.’

  ‘You two intending to sit out here till it gets dark,’ said Martha, standing in the doorway, ‘or are you coming in for this tea now?’

  She gave no indication of how long she’d been standing there listening, save for a look of satisfaction and pride when Herne walked past her and into the house.

  The cake was rich and moist and the tea black and strong. The house was simply furnished, mostly with things Gus had made himself when he still had two hands to do it with. Herne sat there quietly drinking his tea and thinking they were good people and that Tom had been fortunate to have, been born to parents like them. He wondered why they had never had any other children-or perhaps they had and no others had survived.