Death School (Herne the Hunter Western Book 14)

by John J. McLaglen

  ‘What, Jed?’

  ‘If’n you figure half a dozen bullets kicking up dirt around you is calling someone.’

  It had been one of those frantic moments when everything happens at once. Women screaming and a horse down and kicking where a stray bullet had caught it in the flank. Herne had spotted the older brother immediately, seeing him in the shadow of a watering trough. Pumping lead from a battered Winchester with a wire bound stock. Walt had long, grey hair, bound back in a greasy pigtail.

  ‘You get him first shot?’ Abernathy asked, clearing his throat and spitting at one of the interminable ranks of saguaros.

  ‘No. Took three. First one shifted him and the second took a heel off his right boot as he dived for cover. Third one hit him through the top of the right arm. Damned near ripped it away at the shoulder. Jesus …’ he shook his head. ‘… but there was surely a lot of blood from the arm.’

  The rifle had gone spinning in the dirt, and that had been when the youngest boy, Waylon, came yelping out of a side turning. Firing twice from a small pistol. Herne didn’t recall the make. And then dropping it. Diving for the rifle.

  ‘You warn him off?’ asked the sheriff.

  ‘Anyone picks up a gun at me, then I don’t see no reason to tell them nothing,’ replied Herne. ‘I killed him with a bullet through the middle of his face/

  ‘Good ending.’

  ‘Not so good. Walt lived. Lost his arm and went to jail. Just missed a hanging. Guess they felt sorry for him. He swore he’d get me one day. I don’t lose any sleep for it.’

  ‘Yeah. Man like you could.’

  Herne wasn’t listening. ‘Only one thing made it not so good. The Winchester the kid was holding when I killed him. It was empty.’

  Abernathy didn’t talk much for a while.

  Chapter Five

  Their meeting with the children was unexpected, yet totally lacking in drama.

  It was towards the evening of the second day, and both men were tired. Herne tired to the point of wanting to break for the evening. But Sheriff Ralph J. Abernathy was more tired than he’d ever been in his life. Reaching a level of bone-tiredness that he’d never even imagined existed.

  Every muscle in his body ached. It was as though the inside of his skin had been rubbed raw and then coated in salt to make it burn. His eyes hurt. His throat was dry. The saddle had chafed his skin making every step of his patient gelding blazing agony.

  It had been all right until the early part of the first afternoon. Then the clouds had again begun to gather and Herne had insisted that they speed up their tracking.

  ‘Man who says he can track a trail through a storm is one thing,’ he’d said. ‘A damned liar.’

  The rain had held off but they had found a camp, just before sunset. And that had told an experienced scout like Herne that the children were making a better pace than he’d thought. So that had meant a short night and a long, long day.

  Pushing both horses on for periods, and then dismounting and walking alongside to rest the animals. The overweight lawman found the riding harder than the walking, but Jed was ruthless. Driving on with the pursuit like an inexorable force. Seeming to begrudge every pause. Every mouthful of dried meat or swallow of brackish water.

  ‘Jesus, Herne,’ gasped Abernathy. ‘You always chase like this?’

  ‘I chase five thousand dollars’ worth, Sheriff. I don’t give a good damn for the girl. I figure they’ll likely have killed her by now. But that means five hundred dollars. These children we’re closing on must know something.’

  ‘Sure,’ sighed Abernathy. Closing his eyes and shaking his head with fatigue.

  ‘We must be near them. Maybe start before first light and bring up with them.’

  ‘They’re headin’ towards what’s left of Houghton’s Bluff,’ said the lawman. ‘Maybe they’re hidin’ there.’

  ‘Then that’s where we can take them. I never asked you, Abernathy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There must be some kind of reward out on those kids after the murder and the fire.’

  ‘I don’t rightly … I guess the town’d be pleased to take up a collection.’

  Herne spat. ‘They can take their collection and stuff it right up their asses with both hands, Sheriff. I seen that before. Ten, maybe twenty dollars. Buy some feed for the horse. Few rounds for the pistol.’

  The fat man didn’t speak. Knowing that there was something in what Herne said. Knowing the basic truth that no bounty-hunter would take on this kind of task without some sort of guaranteed back-up.

  The hills were closer, the narrow net of ravines at their foot now crusted with black shadows.

  The sight brought back memories to Herne of the nearby township. Wondering vaguely as he rode along what had happened to the older brother, Walt Nelson. Life in the Arizona Territory wasn’t easy at the very best of times. If you faced a long sentence in a prison and you’d also lost an arm, then it came within touching distance of being downright impossible.

  ‘Where we gonna camp, Jed?’ asked Abernathy, reining in the bay with a groan of discomfort.

  ‘Close by.’

  ‘How close?’

  ‘Don’t want to get in among those arroyos over yonder. Find Apaches stolen your horse and cut your throat and you’re still sleeping fast.’

  ‘How about here?’

  ‘There’s water ahead. I recall it. And the horses can scent it. There.’

  ‘Be good,’ muttered the lawman, wondering by now whether even fifty thousand dollars would make all of this worth the suffering.

  The dusty earth around the water-hole was trampled by many animals. Herne kept the lawman back while he slipped easily from the saddle and stepped cautiously forwards to read the sign. Walking carefully around, peering at the marks, occasionally bending and touching something with his hand. Rubbing dried horse chips between his fingers to test their age. His concentration complete in what he was doing. Abernathy sat quiet, knowing that he was truly out of his depth with a man like Herne the Hunter, wondering in passing just why the lean shootist had allowed him to come along.

  Though Jed would never have admitted it, the reason was simply that he’d seen a certain rough honesty in the fat sheriff and was prepared to have him on the trail for a touch of company.

  It had been a long while since Jed had ridden with a partner. Ever since the albino, Whitey Coburn, had come to the end of his time in a filthy gutter in a stinking city. He and Whitey had been friends - and sometimes enemies - for longer than either could ever rightly recall. Now the skinny man with the glowing eyes and the mane of spun white hair was dead.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How long since they been here?’

  ‘I guess not more than an hour or so. But …’ The sentence trailed away.

  Abernathy heeled his own horse forwards. ‘But what, Jed?’

  ‘There’s been some more here. Apaches. No doubt at all. Tell by their boots. Party of around ten. And they’ve been in a fight or a hunt. There’s a half dozen spent shells from where they’ve reloaded.’

  ‘Before or after the kids?’

  Herne stood up slowly, looking around at the dark-muffled hills. "Before. I guess ’bout a half day earlier.’

  ‘They could still be here.’

  ‘The Indians or the kids?’

  ‘Oh. I meant the Indians. But I—’

  ‘No. They lit out away south. But the kids …’

  ‘They might have guns.’

  ‘Yeah. They might.’

  A voice came from the further side of a hog-back ridge around fifty yards off.

  ‘But we don’t …’

  Jed had dropped immediately into a gunfighter’s crouch, the Colt out in his hand like a snake’s tongue, probing the spaces in front of him. Abernathy had hesitated a moment then drawn the bucketed Winchester, thumbing back on the hammer. Staying in the saddle. Knowing what a fine target he must make, but knowing that if he tried to get d
own off the bay, he’d be an even easier shot for someone hidden among the rocks.

  ‘Come on out,’ called the shootist, his voice bouncing back off the bluffs, mocking him in the stillness.

  ‘I got you covered, Jed,’ hissed the sheriff, eyes raking the evening as it closed around them.

  There was a shifting of stones, somewhere out of sight, and Herne shouted once more.

  ‘You kids get out here now before someone gets themselves killed.’

  ‘We’re comin’, mister,’ came the same voice. Sounding like a part-broken boy.

  Abernathy had been prepared for seeing five children, but when they filed dutifully out, he could hardly believe his eyes.

  ‘Hold it there,’ ordered Herne, straightening up. Seeing no sign of any guns. But not prepared to take chances. Sheriff Abernathy had described to him the wounds on the old woman’s body, and how she’d died. The local doctor had reported that after she was dead someone had kicked a gimlet in Sarah Hersham’s right ear. Kicked it in!

  ‘Don’t shoot, mister. We don’t have guns.’

  ‘Plenty of knives, though,’ snapped Abernathy, closing in a few steps towards them.

  ‘Yes, Sheriff,’ replied the oldest boy. ‘You know that. We killed the lady with them.’

  The calm statement made Abernathy flush with anger. Unable to credit what he was hearing. ‘By God, boy! Just you stand there real still, and tell me your names. And where you’re from.’

  ‘Do you want to know about the old woman?’ asked the girl. ‘That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s … well, I guess that’s partly it.’

  ‘What about Mr. Herne?’

  Jed was surprised. It took a lot to startle him, but the question, using his name, from someone he’d never seen before, in the wild center of nowhere, took him aback. It had been no secret in Tyler’s Crossing who he was and where they were going. But not until after the children had gone. And there’d been the clerk in the cheap hotel a few days back who’d known where he was heading. So, how did they know?

  There was a prickle of something that came close to being fear. Herne had a highly-developed sense of suspicion, what others might call a ‘sixth sense’, and it had saved his life on several occasions. Now he felt it warning him that there was something wrong here. Something that involved him.

  But he couldn’t begin to guess who or what was moving under the surface.

  ‘You know me, child?’

  The other four turned and looked at the smallest of them who’d used Jed’s name, with something like disapproval. The little boy was at the back, almost hidden, wearing a hat several sizes too big for him.

  ‘No, mister.’

  Herne let it pass. Now wasn’t the time nor the place for that kind of question.

  ‘Tell us who you all are,’ repeated Sheriff Ralph J. Abernathy.

  ‘I’m Aaron,’ said the tallest of them.

  ‘What’s your other name, boy?’

  He bit his lip, glancing down at his feet. Herne studied him. Long fair hair, looking like it hadn’t been washed for a long while. Blue shirt, torn and stained. But trousers that were almost new.

  ‘I don’t know my other name, sir.’

  ‘Don’t know it! You expect me to believe that, boy?’ asked Abernathy, angrily.

  ‘None of us know our full names, mister,’ protested the girl. Taking a couple of steps forwards, then stopping when Herne’s Colt drifted easily across to cover her.

  ‘You got some names?’

  ‘Surely. I’m Aaron. This is Mary. The twins are just John One and John Two. Times even they don’t rightly know which is which.’

  ‘The little one?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Cal … Caleb, mister.’

  Jed eyed the fire. Aaron would be around fifteen, and the girl a little younger. The twins were another year or so younger and the little boy at the rear, who’d known Herne by sight, could be no more than eleven.

  He was pleased to see that there were indeed twins, vindicating his tracking skills.

  The children were all dirty, and even from where they stood he could smell a rancid, heavy stink of their bodies. A scent that he immediately recognized as being bear grease. Which also proved another suspicion. The scent meant Indians. Until sometime fairly recently, the children had all been prisoners of Apaches. Which brought that five thousand dollars a little bit closer.

  Their clothes were a mix of old and new. The girl in a dress hiked up with a belt so that it barely reached her knees. Her thick, brown hair tied back from her sun-tanned face with a leather thong. She wasn’t what folks might call a pretty child, but Herne saw a great strength in her character. And he was reminded for a fleeting moment of Becky. Dead those two years. So many dead.

  The twins wore identical shirts and pants. And all but the girl wore new boots. The polish still showing through the mud and trail dirt. The girl, Mary, was bare-footed. The only one of them with a hat was Caleb at the back, wearing torn overalls.

  All of them carried knives in their belts. And if Herne needed any further proof of where they’d come from, it lay in those knives. They were Apache skinning blades. Long and narrow. Some with bone handles and others with carved wood, bound with thongs.

  And the children all looked sweet and innocent; God-fearing. Tired and dirty, sure enough, but what else could you look for if they’d really escaped from an Apache camp?

  ‘What do we do now, Jed?’ asked Sheriff Abernathy, uncertainly.

  Here were his gang of brutal killers, sure enough. They’d even told him so. But they also might be the keys that would open the lock on the whereabouts of Miss Susannah Jackson and the five thousand dollars that she represented.

  It was something beyond his experience and ability to handle. Throwing drunks in the tank for a couple of nights was one thing. Dealing with five young murderers was

  another.

  ‘I guess we all set down and talk a spell. After you kids have drawn those knives out real slow and thrown them down here.’ He waited until they’d obeyed him. ‘That’s fine. Now maybe you could give them a quick search, Sheriff, while I keep them covered here. Wouldn’t want any nasty accidents to anyone.’

  Herne stood patiently while Abernathy frisked each child to make sure none of them was carrying any hidden weapons. But they were all clean. Just as the lawman let the littlest boy go, Herne called out to him.

  ‘Check inside that damned great Stetson he’s sportin’. Could be a Gatling and a thousand rounds of ammunition tucked away in it.’

  The other four children looked at each other as the fat man reached up and plucked off the hat.

  ‘By God!’ gasped the sheriff as the cascade of hair, tumbled from hiding. The sun was almost gone, leaving only a sinking ball of crimson over the western desert. And that light bathed the little boy’s hair, making it appear deep red. The boys eyes were pits of bright fire, seeming to stare clean through Herne, looking blankly towards the furthest edge of the horizon.

  ‘You got no idea what your other name is, boy?’ asked Jed, feeling a chill to the pit of his stomach. In his life he’d only ever known one albino, and that had been Whitey Coburn. It had only been an hour earlier that he’d been thinking of the silver-headed man, the single best friend he’d ever had. Now, here was another.

  ‘None of us know, mister,’ said the oldest boy hurriedly. ‘The Apaches make us forget.’

  ‘How long you all been prisoners of them murderin’ bastards?’ said Abernathy.

  ‘For different times, Sheriff,’ replied the girl. ‘Me for a little over a year. The twins for seven months. Little Cal for only about three months. Aaron the longest.’

  ‘How long?’

  The boy answered himself. ‘Year and a quarter, Sheriff. Worst time of my life.’

  All of them looked at their captors with transparent honesty.

  Jed knew that every one of them was lying.

  Chapter Six

  With an Apache w
ar-party somewhere in the vicinity, Herne wasn’t about to light a fire. The five children had recounted their story, and Abernathy had told them to sit together, keeping quiet, while he and Jed considered what to do next.

  It had been chiefly Aaron who had done the talking, helped by Mary. With Caleb occasionally interrupting and the twins mainly holding hands, huddled close in silence.

  Herne had listened intently: Following the threads of what was said, and trying to pick out the net of lies that held precious little truth.

  There were several lines to the talk that had taken close to two hours before Abernathy professed himself reasonably satisfied. Jed wasn’t satisfied at all, and his sixth sense was becoming stronger and stronger. There was something malign behind all of this, and he couldn’t yet even guess what it might be.

  The sheriff was utterly exhausted, and his wits weren’t as sharp as they might have been. Even as he and Jed began to discuss what to do, his eyes were sliding shut.

  ‘Better stay awake, Sheriff,’ said Herne, keeping his voice low, but managing to impress a tone of urgency that snapped Abernathy from his half doze.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘These kids and their tale. You swallow it all, don’t you?’

  The note of the question made the lawman cautious and he hesitated before replying. ‘Well, damn it … I don’t know, Jed. Most of it, I guess.’

  ‘Most of it, you guess,’ mimicked Herne. ‘You don’t have the brains of a dead goat, Sheriff.’

  ‘Now you—’

  Jed laid his hand on the other man’s arm, gripping him tightly. Abernathy began to resist, and then stopped, wincing at the pain. Realizing the brutal power of Herne.

  ‘Listen, you old fool. There’s something goin’ on. We don’t take care here and we’re goin’ to be knockin’ on heaven’s, door before the next day’s run its course.’

  ‘What makes you …?’ began Abernathy. Stopping as the shootist interrupted him. Conscious of the five pairs of eyes watching them curiously from the darkness at the far side of the clearing. Somewhere beyond the children, one of the ponies snickered softly, shifting its feet in the sand.