‘Jesus! Son of a bitch, Jed! Fight fair.’
By mutual consent, they broke away from each other. Both scrambling to their feet.
For some minutes they sparred round each other. Twice Jed landed solid punches to Coburn’s white face, jolting him back on his heels, but each time his own footing was too unsure for him to follow up the advantage with his usual pantherish speed. Soon after he was caught by a solid right to the body that took his breath away and made him double up with agony. Whitey’s knee, following up, grazed the point of his chin.
‘Close, Whitey,’ he panted, trying to buy time to recover his breath.
‘Not close enough, Jed,’ replied Coburn, launching himself in another powering dive across the dark plateau.
But Herne wasn’t there. Moving smoothly aside at the last second, he chopped with the edge of his hand at the side of the albino’s neck. Feeling it jar home, knocking Coburn rolling across the ground. Landing up within a foot of the ice over the Rich Stream River.
Jed jumped in after him, feeling both feet land on Coburn’s back, expecting him to be virtually unconscious from the force of the chop. But that mane of silver hair had saved Coburn, and he managed to shift out of the way of a second punch, flipping Jed over on his side. Coburn crawled on his hands and knees over the snow to lever himself up on the side of a great black boulder. Both men were gasping hard with the effort of the fight, the breath burning in their lungs, rasping with the exertion of simply keeping alive.
The moon at last emerged from the clouds, bathing the plateau in its brightness. Shining off the white hair and face of Coburn, showing up the macabre red gleam in his deep-sunk eyes.
As they closed Jed feinted with the left, watching Whitey’s guard shift, then crossed the right, hitting Coburn just in front of the ear. Jabbing again with the left as Coburn staggered, rocking him on his heels, drawing a thread of blood from his nose. The blood seeming almost black in the moonlight, smearing across his chin as another punch connected.
A swinging roundhouse right was near enough to the point of the chin to topple Coburn. He fell flat on his back on the edge of the ice. Jed saw his chance and dived in, but Whitey had been foxing him, hoping he’d try that. As he was in mid-air, Coburn brought up his knees, kicking him in the chest, helping him up and over in a soaring arc towards the blackness and rushing death.
With a muscle-jerking effort Herne twisted in the air and landed on his side half a yard from the drop, sliding a ways on the ice. When he put his hand down to lever himself back to his feet, it encountered... nothing.
Just cold air, and the wind brushing his fingers from out of the night.
Face contorted, the blood streaking over his cheeks, Coburn was on top of him, grunting with the effort, fingers clawing for Herne’s eyes, knee rammed under Herne’s ribs, sapping his strength.
Herne rocked frantically, so close to the edge that he was unable to get any real leverage to throw Coburn off him.
Slowly, inexorably, the weight of the two men on the ice was sending them sliding over the precipice. Herne locked his fingers in the thick material of Coburn’s Coat, shouting out. Finding his voice had shrunk to a hoarse whisper.
‘Let go now, Whitey, or we go together.’
It was so obviously true that Coburn let go at once, kicking himself backwards, away from Jed and the drop.
‘Could think of worse ways to go,’ was all he said.
They faced each other across the frozen stream. Where Herne stood the rock was smoother, less rutted and less slippery. There was an area about ten feet square and he stepped back so that he was on the further side of it
‘Come on over, Whitey. Let’s finish this thing here and now.’
Coburn looked suspiciously at him. ‘What you trying on, Jed?’
‘Nothing. Just that this is a good firm piece of land to finish it on. Save all this leapin’ around the place. I’m not up to it anymore.’
‘Nor I, Jed. You sure you don’t want to go back and make it guns? I’m tired of all this fist-fightin’. Not gentlemanly, I guess.’
‘No. Come on. So close to the falls here, you can easy spit over.’
The wind was veering, reaching out across the narrow plateau, fluttering Jed’s hair and blowing at Whitey’s coat During the struggle the buttons had been torn off, making it whirl like the wings of a bat The clouds were gathering around the moon, making the light shifting and uncertain. One second there would be brightness, the next pitch blackness.
‘Right away, partner. Stand back then and give me room to jump this stream. Here I come.’
Jed watched as Whitey took a couple of steps back on the other side of the Rich Stream, gathering himself for the short jump, eyeing the rocks on either side for a safe take-off and landing. Finally satisfied, he started to run, taking awkward mincing steps over the ice, boot-heels crunching.
‘Now!’ he shouted, his voice strong and clear, raising an echo way across the valley.
Just as he reached the nearer side of the river, the moon suddenly disappeared behind a belt of cloud, like turning out the wick on a lamp. Coburn’s feet slipped, and he fell heavily with a cry of surprise and anguish in the center of the ice, managing by a miracle of reflex and co-ordination to regain his footing. But the incident had taken him perilously close to the edge.
Feet shuffling on the icy water, the albino balanced, eyes open wide, mouth gaping. Having done its work, the moon reappeared, and Herne saw for the first time that Coburn was only inches away from death. He started forwards, hand reaching out across the emptiness for the fingers of his friend.
But the wind reached Coburn first, catching at the hem of his winter coat, filling it like the sail of a ship, pushing him a half step backwards.
His right heel slipped on the tumbled ice at the brink of the Rich Stream Falls, and went over. His arms flailed at the air, trying to claw himself back to safety against all the laws of nature.
Herne was too late.
‘Son of a bitch,’ were Isaiah Coburn’s last words, delivered in an even, slightly surprised voice. His eyes turned towards Herne as he fell, but almost at the same moment they were looking inwards, aware of the beginnings of that last swooping plunge to the rocks and snow and ice hundreds of feet below.
After he’d vanished, Jed Herne stood quite still, eyes closed, waiting for the crash of bones. But there was only silence, the noise of the crushing impact whirled away by the funneling wind. He stepped to the edge, dropping to his hands and knees to avoid the same fate as Coburn, and stared for a long time into the depths. Despite the poor light, he could see the body, lying spread-eagled and partly buried in deep snow. Though Herne watched for some time, there was no sign of movement.
He stood up, aware of how stiff and sore he was going to be in the morning, and started the long climb down, towards the camp where Becky Yates was waiting for him.
Tomorrow, they would begin the ride out of the Sierras, heading eastwards.
Jed only looked back once at where his oldest, his only friend lay dead. ‘Like you said, Whitey,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s all got to stop somewhere.’
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The Black Widow Page 13