Death School (Herne the Hunter Western Book 14)

by John J. McLaglen

  Herne had hoped he’d be able to provoke the man before he was able to take him prisoner. Risking all on a throw that was built on the trust that Nelson would hardly have set all this up just to gun him down helplessly in the street

  The throw worked.

  It looked like Nelson was using a standard Winchester rifle, and that meant it would take him a second to swing the action, using his left hand only.

  It was enough.

  Before the sound of the shot reached his conscious hearing, Herne was moving, Powering himself away towards the shelter of one of the houses. Diving straight at a broken window, putting up his left hand to protect his face, closing his eyes. He heard the crack of another shot and a scream of mad rage from behind him, the bullet hissing through the space he’d just quit, Nelson’s aim put off a mite by the hanging cloud of dust.

  Jed didn’t stay where he was, rolling up on his feet, sprinting across the crumbling boards, out of the empty doorway at the back. Flattening himself against the rear wall and waiting. Taking a quick check of himself. Seeing the damage he’d done with the dive through the splintering knives of glass.

  He’d been lucky.

  There was a smear of blood across his forehead where he’d been cut across the temple. But it wasn’t deep. There was a more serious cut on the flesh of his upper left arm, where it had taken the first impact of his leap for safety. Holstering the Colt for a moment Herne picked a few slicing splinters of glass from his arm, rubbing some dust in the cut to try and check the bleeding.

  Steadying his breathing. Thinking. Now that he knew the answer to the big question, it still left an awful lot of smaller queries. The problem of Susannah Jackson and her whereabouts was now of minor importance. What mattered was killing Walt Nelson.

  He’d sounded crazed to Jed, and to have thought up this devious plot showed an insane imagination. In some way he’d set Herne up, using those five children. He must have come upon them or even helped them to escape. Then used them to trick Herne into coming to Houghton’s Bluff where it had all happened. Nelson must have broken out of Territorial Prison and come after him, nursing an old hatred and the dreadful wound that had crippled him.

  ‘Bastard!’ yelped a voice. Loud and cracking, shaking the echoes from the surrounding hills. Followed by a wild volley of shots that smashed through into the timbers of the buildings on that side of the street.

  Herne decided that he might never have a better chance of taking the one-armed man than right now, while he was still enraged at the failure of his plan. The big problem was that Herne had only his pistol while Nelson had a rifle. Maybe more guns as well. And the big Sharps was safely and uselessly back with the animals.

  ‘I’ll fuckin’ kill you, Herne. Like you killed my baby brother. Gunned him down and him carryin’ an empty gun, you fuckin’ murderer.’

  While Walt harangued the morning air, Herne started to move further up the hill, dodging between the houses and stores. Intending to get around the top and then creep down behind the sheriff’s office and jail, where Nelson still shouted.

  It was easier than he’d expected.

  The monologue continued, Nelson shouting his hatred for Herne, occasionally firing off a round or two at random. At the top of the street there was a level piece of dead ground and Jed scampered across it, keeping crouched low. Pausing at the top of the buildings on the further side of the street. Close by the incomplete church. The tumbledown graveyard fence at his elbow. He glanced across it, seeing the broken markers and chipped headstones. Not a single one of them still legible. But somewhere up there, he guessed, would be the graves of old man Nelson and his two boys.

  The calling and shooting stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and Houghton’s Bluff slipped back once more into a kind of silence. Broken by the wind, still growing stronger, rattling at broken wood and metal. It would be difficult to stalk in that noise. Impossible to tell a careless foot from a creaking board.

  He rubbed at his nose, flicking a fly off his face. Wondering whether he’d do better to try and stalk back to Abernathy and get the lawman to help him. Remembering what he’d seen of the sheriff’s lack of skill and deciding that he was better as a man alone.

  If he was in Walt Nelson’s place, Herne would have waited. Sat it out, knowing that if Herne wanted him then he’d have to come on in and get him. Figuring that the shootist would either high tail it out of the ghost town, or would come around the back.

  ‘So I’ll come in round the front,’ he muttered to himself. Automatically spinning the chamber of the forty-five, to check the full load. Even though he could have told if someone had filed an eighth of an inch off the end of one of the cartridges. The balance to a top gunfighter was that crucial.

  The first store had been used by a photographer, and there was still a faded daguerreotype lying in the broken window. A smiling boy, with curly hair, his expression set and fixed. Somebody’s pride and hope? Or just the forgotten son of some old yesterday?

  Jed passed by, his shadow sliding across the weathered front of the building. Moving along down the hill, step by cautious step.

  Seeing the balcony of the jail, sticking out from the stone like a warning finger. It had a slatted rail around it, and Jed could see clear on through it. See that there was nobody there. Walt Nelson had abandoned his high perch and come down to earth.

  Jed waited and listened. Not sure whether he’d heard a noise.

  His lips moved. Making the word: ‘Yes,’ even though no sound came from his mouth.

  He’d been right. Nelson was around the back of one of the next three or four buildings along. There was a vacant lot, and then two houses that propped each other up, like a senile married couple, linked only by time. If either of the buildings moved or fell, it would inexorably drag the other down with it.

  The sound had seemed to come from the next in line down the hill. Herne strained at his memory to try and remember what it had been in the living days of Houghton’s Bluff, but it slipped away from him.

  Maybe a brothel? That was a safe enough bet.

  He doubted that many of the second storey floors would carry a man’s weight safely. Which would probably mean that Nelson was creeping across the big receiving room, towards the rear of the building. Ready to take Herne as he came along the backs towards the jail.

  For such a big man, Jed was uncannily light on his feet, stepping cautiously along. Making a dash past the empty lot. Pressing close to the fronts of the next two houses. The wind suddenly gusted, and a tattered veil of net curtains blew out of the empty sockets of the big windows, almost making him aim and fire, before he regained control. Momentarily grinning at himself as he recognized the tension of the silent hunt.

  Feeling confident that it was going to be all right. It was probable that the one-armed man would be carrying a bounty if he’d escaped from the prison. So it might be worth trying to take him in alive. If it hadn’t been for that Herne would have had no compunction in shooting Walt Nelson in the back.

  It wasn’t a game.

  It had been a bordello.

  In one corner of the room he could see the ripped remains of a red plush sofa. The doors had all gone, and it was possible for him to see the whole of the first floor, laid out as he peered in through one of the front windows, his Colt cocked and ready.

  Nelson was there.

  Crouching in a comer, against one of the windows, diagonally opposite from the shootist. Crouched beneath the splintered frame, the Winchester crooked in his left arm, ready for Herne. Not knowing that Herne was ready for him, twenty feet away.

  Very slowly, Jed stepped to the door, his shadow flung across the torn boards, nearly reaching the bending man.

  ‘You’re dead if n you move, Walt,’ he said, quietly, reinforcing the words with a bullet from the Peacemaker that ripped into the window only a few inches from Nelson.

  ‘Don’t shoot, Herne,’ croaked the older man, not looking round.

  The gun.’

  �
��What?’

  ‘Drop it there, Walt.’

  ‘Sure. Sure, I will. There it goes,’ letting it clunk from his hand. Still not turning.

  Herne walked inside, picking his way over the scattered rubbish and dust. Inside the building, the wind and its noises were muffled, but that didn’t worry him. There was nothing out there to concern him.

  ‘Stand slow, Nelson.’

  ‘I’m standin’, Herne. I’m standin’, Captain. See me doin’ it good. Don’t shoot. You done me enough harm. Me and my kin, Herne the Hunter.’

  ‘There a flyer out on you, Nelson?’

  ‘Flyer?’

  ‘Don’t play smart-ass with me. You jumped Territorial Prison, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sure did. Killed a guard to do it, Herne. They’ll hang me sure as eggs is eggs, this time.’

  ‘An escaped killer. Should be worth a few dollars, Walt. Keep still.’

  ‘You too, Mr. Herne.’

  Keeping the pistol trained on Nelson, Jed turned his head. Knowing what he’d see. Aaron, with the big Sharps aimed at him. Mary next to him holding the Tranter, the heavy pistol looking like a cannon in her small fists.

  John Two and Caleb at the side of the doorway. Staring in at him. Nelson, turning to see his rescuers, a great snaggle-toothed grin breaking across his gnarled face.

  ‘Holy fuckin’ shit! Am I glad to see you fuckin’ brats. Your turn to put the gun down, Herne.’

  Jed considered blasting Aaron and risking a shot at the girl, breaking for the door. But there were too many of them, and Nelson was only a foot away from his Winchester. The doorway was too crowded for a run for safety. Despite everything he’d thought before, there was no way that he could avoid being taken by them.

  ‘You kill the sheriff, kids?’ he asked.

  ‘Tried,’ replied Aaron, proudly. ‘Mary stuck him in the ass with the knife, and we took his guns. Took the pistol. The fat old bastard ran for it, with the Winchester, and we didn’t shoot after him, in case it spoiled things for you, Walt. We do all right?’

  ‘You done fine,’ smiled the old man. Fuckin’ fine, and that’s the fuckin’ truth. Drop it, Herne.’

  The pistol dropped to the floor with a dead sound, like earth on a coffin lid. Nelson picked up his rifle and walked towards him, an unpleasant gleam in his eyes.

  Just before he blacked out from the blow to the head from the butt of the gun, Herne caught a faint voice, shouting among the hills outside the brothel: ‘Don’t worry, partner. Lucky Ralph’ll get you out. Don’t worry! Don’t …’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘He told me that I couldn’t go on back to Kansas. That was yesterday. And I asked him how he figured he was goin’ to ride if’n he’d shot all them wild horses there used to be. Out on Stone County Road. He didn’t answer me nothin’. Not a word. Easier that way. Time was and I could see Montana each and every time I opened my eyes. Pa came from out of Montana. Used to …’ The monologue stopped and Herne was aware that Nelson had seen him move.

  ‘Awake, are you, Herne the Hunter? Back with the land of the living?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It was still morning, by the angle of the light through the bars of the jail. Metal stripes that daggered over the blank wall and floor, vanishing at an angle through the heavy bars of the door. Herne was lying on a metal bunk, with just bare, rusting springs. No mattress. No other furniture in the cell.

  ‘I led the wagons to the sea, Herne. Time when I was younger. You and me must be of an age, I guess. Two old men. But you got both your arms, haven’t you? You fuckin’ bastard!’

  There was no point in replying to the mad man. Jed saw that. Sitting up and shaking his head. Feeling the stiffness of dried blood across his cheekbone.. Touching the swelling with a delicate finger. Immediately aware that the gun was gone. Casually running a hand down to tug at his boots, as if he was worried they were loose. Checking that there was still the old Civil War bayonet snug down there. Honed to an edge that would slice through a silk kerchief.

  ‘I got you good. Me and those kids.’

  ‘Tell me about them, Walt.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe. May not be. Not maybe, Herne. Oh, no. Fuckin’ no.’

  ‘I’d be surely interested.’

  ‘Bet you would. Bet you would.’

  Nelson skipped about in the office, grinning at his prisoner. He bristled with weapons. There were three pistols in his belt, and he carried the Winchester he’d used against Herne with a bandolier, slung over his shoulders. The Sharps long gun was propped against the rough stone wall.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Won’t. I’ll talk about the old times.’

  ‘Old times, Walt?’

  ‘Sure. Them good old days, Mr. Herne the fuckin’ Hunter.’

  ‘Good old days. They weren’t the good old days, Walt. Way I recall it, they were just … just a whole lot of people, doin’ the best they could.’

  ‘They was hard, Herne. Won’t deny it. I was Pa’s first-born. Came south with him. Back … years back. Saw things you’d … Baby took by an eagle. Buffalo dotting the plains, like ants in a hill. I seen … Then he married and I had me brothers. You killed them both, didn’t you Herne? Both of them. Billy and Baby Waylon. And Pa. Billy was never right in the head. You killed him. Pa was an old man, ready for the evenings of his life. You killed him. And little Waylon. Empty gun. Empty, you fuck! Empty!’

  Herne stood up to face the man, holding on the bars of the cell, trying to ignore the lancing pain from the blow to his head. Looking calmly at Nelson, seeing the flecks of white froth that hung at the corners of his sagging mouth as he cursed him. The spittle falling to the floor, his matted hair swinging as he shook his head in a blind anger.

  ‘Talk comes easy, Walt. So do lies.’

  ‘Lies! Lies? I tell no lies, Herne the Hunter. No fuckin’ lies from Walter Nelson. Truth. What’s a lie there?’

  ‘Your Pa and the idiot boy tried to kill me. I got in firstest. Then your little brother and you did the same. Man points a gun at me I don’t hold out a hand and ask him if’ it’s loaded. He thought it was, Walt.’

  ‘You crippled me.’

  ‘That was an accident.’

  ‘Accident!’ screamed the older man, the sound of his voice so loud Herne winced at the raw insanity in it. ‘You call blowing off my fuckin’ arm a fuckin’ accident?’

  ‘Sure. I was aiming at your head.’

  The day wore on.

  Nelson looked in two or three times to taunt Herne and to babble his crazed hatred. Standing there for an hour or more, raving on, one word hardly making sense from the next. Once he fired his pistol through the bars at Jed, making him wince, the bullet shrieking off the stone, and burying itself in the floor.

  Though he was mad, Herne recognized that there was a streak of sanity there. Knowing that Sheriff Ralph J. Abernathy was on the loose in the hills around, Nelson armed the older children and sent them out as a pair of sentries.

  Caleb brought in a dish of water and a hunk of cornbread, round about the middle of the afternoon. Though Herne tried to get the little albino to talk to him, Cal lowered his head and scampered out without saying a single word.

  Jed shouted after him, but it brought no response. ‘Boy! Good to have some food. Been hungry so long my stomach’s been thinkin’ someone broke my neck.’

  ‘This whole town’s fallin’ down, Herne.’

  ‘Gettin’ old, Walt,’ agreed Jed.

  ‘Like you and me. Like me and you. Both of us, eh? Gettin’ old. You’d be past forty?’

  ‘Couple of years the downhill side of it.’

  Nelson nodded thoughtfully. It was late evening, the light fading away from the land. He’d returned to see his prisoner a half hour before, starting by raging and reviling Herne. Gradually calming as he saw that the shootist wouldn’t rise to his taunts. Finally easing back down into something that was almost on the right hand of sanity.

  ‘I’m eight years older. I f
igure it’s ’bout that. Pa was never good at figurin’ and I don’t have the readin’ nor writin’. But I know I’m near to fifty.’

  He looked older. The greasy matted hair was close to silver beneath the dirt, and his face was deeply lined. He had only two or three teeth left, scattered between the stained gaps. Nelson looked like he hadn’t washed or shaved for long weeks, his skin grained with filth, the beard stubbly white. He carried the pistol in his belt, with the Peacemaker in the holster on the left side. The empty sleeve of his plaid shirt had come loose and dangled unpinned as he moved.

  ‘You been plannin’ this?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Yeah. Since I come round from old Doc Collingwood’s butcherin’ on this stump. I near died. They say I was out of my mind for three days. Doc figured I was done for. Got corruption in this,’ touching his right shoulder with the barrel of the pistol. ‘He cured me up, then they called the marshal. Took me to trial rand prison, and gave me thirty years.’

  ‘You were lucky not to hang, Walt.’

  ‘Lucky! Call this lucky, Herne. I wish you such luck. I’ve thought of you. By God! But I have thought of you, Herne the Hunter. Every waking minute of the last three years, and many of the sleeping ones. Judge Backhouse sent me on down the line. The sanctimonious bastard! Told me that I’d have swung if it hadn’t been for the fact that God had punished me with the loss of a limb. It weren’t God. It was you. Herne!’

  He was becoming more and more excited, waving the gun around, his eyes glittering in the dim light of the jail. Herne tried to calm him down.

  ‘How long you been out?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How long you been out of prison?’

  ‘Two months. Got out when I was being took to the doctor in the town nearby. Two guards. And the doctor … damned funny. It was that runty fucker, Collingwood. One sawed off what was left of... Him. Recall he carried a big old forty-four. Colt Whitneyville-Walker Dragoon. Had a butt split, bound round with tape.’

  ‘How many you kill to get away?’

  ‘Three. Doc Collingwood first. Cut his throat from one ear to t’other with a scalpel of his. Took his pistol and called for the guards. Wiped them clean away as they came runnin’ in. I dropped the gun and stole a horse. Finished up here. Where I intended.’