Herne the Hunter 19

by John J. McLaglen

  ‘That or nothing. You got guns?’

  ‘Not many. My daughter and I each carry a small over-and-under derringer for our own protection. A hunting rifle. That is all.’

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Herne, disgusted. With no guns his idea collapsed. His immediate reaction was to head for town, get his horse and move on south as fast as he was able.

  ‘There’s Papa’s collection,’ said Andreanna.

  ‘Ah, that is true. My dear late and much loved husband was something of a collector.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Muskets. Entirely muskets.’

  ‘Powder and ball?’

  ‘Ample supplies. He used to fire them for sport.’

  ‘That’ll do it. With old men like this there couldn’t be better than muskets.’

  ‘There is also a brace of flintlock pistols.’

  ‘Better than nothin’. Then let’s to it.’

  It was like the Widow Abernathy had said. Her late husband, the dear Colonel Roderick, had built up a fine collection of muskets. Concentrating exclusively on the 1835 Model. There were five dozen, neatly chained in polished beech racks, every gun gleaming and oiled and ready to fire.

  ‘Pretty, Ma’am. But I’d have traded them all in for a half dozen Winchesters.’

  ‘The men can use them, surely?’ But the question showed her own doubt.

  ‘Should be. Most of ’em must have fired muskets like this when they were younger.’

  There was a card pinned to the end of the long rack of weapons. In a trim hand that Herne guessed must have been the late Colonel’s was written the basic specifications for the guns.

  The Model 1835 Flintlock Musket. The caliber is .690 minimum bore. The barrel is precisely forty and two inches in length. The average weight is nine pounds and nine and a half ounces. The trigger guard is of iron with finger ridges on the trigger plate at the rear side of the guard. The stock of the musket is of polished black walnut. The length is fifty and four and three-quarters of an inch and the model has a high, unfluted comb.

  ‘Mighty accurate, your late husband,’ said Herne. ‘Powder and ball?’

  ‘Locked in that room there. Here is the key.’

  It was a properly constructed magazine, with stone walls and no windows. The powder in canvas bags and the ball in brass-bound oak boxes. Another of the Colonel’s notices was on the white-painted wall.

  For the muskets a bullet weight of four hundred and twelve grains is ideal. Powder charge of one hundred and ten grains. Flints are already in place in the goosenecks of the muskets. A brace of Kentucky smoothbore pistols is to be found in the armory, locked in a side cupboard.

  ‘That’s all we need, ma’am. Best get all the men together and bring the stock in out of the fields around. I’ll walk about with your daughter, if I might, and make arrangements where we can defend best.’

  Lily Abernathy nodded her agreement. ‘Very well. I see that you have military training, Mr. Herne. Were you in the War?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, but I don’t care to talk of it.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll busy myself. Yes, Ben, what is it?’

  The old man had his Walker Colt tucked in his belt and he was spluttering with excitement at the prospect of being able to use it.

  ‘They’re comin’, Miss Lily. I seen dust, maybe five, eight miles off.’

  ‘You got good eyes, Ben,’ said Herne.

  ‘I can see an eagle shit at a mile, Mr. Herne … beggin’ your pardon, Miss Lily and Miss Andreanna. Just don’t see so good close up.’

  ‘That’ll be Mendez,’ sighed Herne. ‘Way faster than I figured. They’ll be here in a half hour or so. We sure got to get moving, ladies.

  Lily ran out, hoicking her skirts up to the middle of her shapely calves, calling some of the old men to help her arrange some sort of defense and move the animals.

  ‘I’ll come with you, Mr. Herne,’ said Andreanna. Jed noticed that her voice was trembling and that she was biting her lip with the tension. She was holding a scrap of handkerchief, fingers white, almost tearing it to shreds.

  ‘Sure. I want some windows sealed and shuttered where possible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The guns broken out and handed around to any man you think capable of firing it. But no powder or ball. I want to talk to them all first and try and get it done by numbers. Safer that way.’

  One of the old men suddenly appeared around the corner of the corridor, standing still in front of them, waiting as if he had something to say. Herne wondered whether it might be a report that Mendez was closer.

  ‘Mr. Herne?’ he began, hesitantly.

  ‘Yeah. What is it?’

  ‘Jedediah Herne? Jedediah Travis Herne?’

  ‘Sure. Are …?’

  He looked more carefully at the old-timer. The man was skinny, wasted, a long scar seaming his forehead and running down across the side of his temple towards his ear. The hair was thin, silvered. The body inside the standard Home’s uniform of dark blue breeches and cream loose-sleeved shirts was frail.

  The old man’s eyes were dark, brown, set deep in hollowed sockets. Fixed on Herne’s face with a desperate longing.

  ‘Yeah. Jedediah … I’m … I’m …’ and he began to weep.

  Twelve

  Albert Carson was so distressed that any conversation was impossible. Ben appeared at his elbow and took him gently away. Herne found himself unable to speak. Unable to make contact. Only when the two old men were almost out of sight he called after them. ‘I’ll. . . I’ll get to talk in a whiles.’

  ‘Is that?’ began Andreanna. But the shootist interrupted her.

  ‘How the Hell would I know! I never fuckin’ met him, did I?’ Realizing that his own reaction and out of character obscenity showed his own lack of balance. He thought of apology and changed his mind. ‘Hell, let it pass, ma’am.’

  ‘Albert Carson could be your father, could he not?’

  ‘I don’t … Yeah, I guess he could. Pa’s name was Albert. Albert Jedediah Herne. He looks the kind of age.’ He hesitated. ‘We’ll see. If’n we all get through the next couple of hours, we’ll see. But let’s get to it!’

  ~~*~~

  There were twenty-two old men, ready and willing to hold a musket. Albert Carson was not one of them, lying on his bed, sobbing uncontrollably. The few stock were all brought in, and the windows barricaded. Colonel Roderick Abernathy had done his building well. Stone so that fire was no hazard. Shutters that closed from inside, with narrow slits for rifles. Only two doors, both easily commanded from windows.

  If only the old-timers did their work well Herne felt confident that they could make themselves such a difficult prey for Mendez and his Chiricahua to swallow that they might pass on by.

  Jed had them lined up in the main entrance hall, standing facing him. He held one of the muskets and the powder and ball were laid out in front of him.

  ‘I killed me three Pawnee before breakfast with one of them little beauties,’ came a reedy, piping voice from the second row.

  ‘That is good to know.’ smiled Lily Abernathy.

  Herne was impressed with the way that the middle-aged woman was maintaining her calm in the face of possible death. Her daughter was much less in control, going around at the request of the shootist to check on food and water supplies in case of need. It was highly unlikely that they would have to hold out under siege from the Apaches. That wasn’t the way of the Chiricahua. But it gave the girl something to do to take her mind off her own growing terror.

  ‘Who said that?’ asked Jed.

  ‘Me,’ said the same voice. It was the old man with the shattered memory. The one who’d led the wagons to the sea.

  ‘What do you call him?’ Herne whispered. ‘Him. The man with no name.’

  ‘He sometimes thinks his name was Joseph. And he was born in Cardiff in Wales in England. So we call him Joseph Wales. He answers happily to that.’

  ‘Fine. Joseph. Come out here and show us what you can
do about loading her up. I’ll kind of talk around what you do so the others recall it.’

  ‘Sure. Sure, Mr. Herne. Be mighty proud to. Good to know us old-timers ain’t all washed up on the …’ Again his mind faded away and he lost the thread of the sentence, the words drifting off into the stillness.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Joseph Wales picked up the musket, looking at the table for the familiar ammunition. Starting the longish and complex operation of loading the gun.

  Herne watched him carefully, seeing to his surprise that the old man was in perfect control. Every move slotting into the next. Herne guessed that it was like learning to swim. Once you’d done it, then you never forgot how to do it.

  ‘Half-cock the hammer. Snap open the frizzen. There’s the priming-pan. Show them, Joseph. Fine.’

  ‘Hell, we don’t need these baby lessons, Herne,’ moaned Paddy.

  ‘Some don’t. Some do. Carry on, Joseph. Get out one of those ready-made cartridges. Musket in your left hand and cartridge in the right. Or the other way if you’re … Go on. Bite off the end of the paper. Pour around … What is it?’

  There was a hand up at the back from a man he didn’t know. ‘Mr. Herne,’ came a mumbling voice.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I don’t have no teeth, sir.’

  There was a ripple of laughter.

  ‘Then you put down the damned gun and tear off the end. Pour around ten grains of powder in the priming pan. Snap shut the frizzen. Very good, Joseph.’

  Though his hands were trembling, Jed guessed that it was age, and a certain tension at finding himself unexpectedly at the center of the stage.

  ‘Tip the rest of the powder down the barrel. Try not to spill any. Lose power if’n you do. Drop in the ball and wad up the paper from the cartridge. Shove that after the ball.’

  A man came tottering into the room, waving his arms, the loose cream sleeves flapping like the top-gallants of a clipper rounding Cape Horn.

  ‘Gettin’ closer, Mr. Herne!’ he yelped, voice creaking with excitement.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Can’t be more than ten minutes.’

  ‘Keep tellin’ me,’ replied the shootist. ‘I figure they’ll hold up a while around a quarter mile off. Kind of reconnoiter. Go back and watch.’

  ‘How ’bout a gun?’

  ‘You’ll get one in time. Go on.’

  The oldster disappeared like a rat behind an arras, hands still waving as though he was conducting some inaudible piece of music. Herne wondered whether any of the old men might not just plain drop dead from all the disturbance to their usual calm routine.

  ‘Where did you get to, Joseph?’

  ‘Just pushed the paper in, Colonel.’

  ‘That’s right. Go on. Get the ramrod and push the ball and wadding down as far as you can towards the breech. Real hard. That’s all.’

  ‘Can I …?’

  ‘No. Don’t cock it yet.’ Herne didn’t want the room filled with over-enthusiastic old men all loading and cocking their muskets. The result could easily be a massacre if someone accidentally touched a trigger.

  ‘Can we start?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Sure. And keep that damned cannon of a Walker in your belt until they get real close.’

  ‘Hell, Mr. Herne. I don’t have but two bullets for it.’

  ‘Don’t start thinking about saving them for my daughter or myself,’ said Miss Lily Abernathy with a thin smile. ‘We are capable of looking after ourselves, Benjamin.’

  ‘Sure, ma’am. Sure.’

  ‘Get to it,’ urged Herne. ‘We got more muskets than sharpshooters. Load them all. Careful. Then those that can’t fire or don’t see too well can stand by and be a loader.’

  He stepped back out of the way, bumping into Lily Abernathy. His arm brushing against her bosom. Surprised at the softness, expecting that she would be tightly corsetted. And she made no effort to move away from the pressure, looking sideways at him and smiling.

  ‘Why, Jedediah.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’

  ‘I once met a fine young officer in the United States Cavalry. Name of Brittles.’

  ‘Nathan? I knew him.’

  ‘The same. He used to tell me that to apologies was a sign of weakness. I do not think you are a weak man, Jedediah, so please do not feel any necessity for apologizing to me for that touch.’

  There was nothing that the shootist could think of to say. She was a marvelously attractive woman and there might be time.

  And they might all be dead.

  ‘We might all be dead in an hour, Miss Lily,’ he said.

  ‘And maybe not, Jedediah. She smiled. ‘But you are correct in your attitude. First we shall fight against the heathen and then … then we shall have to wait and we shall see what we shall see.’

  ~~*~~

  The building was as secure as they could make it. Every window had its marksman and behind every man there was another, ready to hand over a loaded musket and reload the spent weapons.

  The front door had two guards on it and the rear door was watched by one of the oldest men there. His name was Josiah Fisher and he was armed with one of the pistols. Herne was worried about Fisher, who seemed utterly vague about what was happening and what he was supposed to be doing.

  Andreanna Abernathy had placed him there. Explaining to Herne that it was the position that the old man usually took.

  ‘He’s doorman, you see, Mr. Herne. Doorman. That’s where he’ll feel safe. His job each day is to take charge of that door and let in visitors.’ Her voice was fast and high, showing her tension. Herne nodded.

  ‘Sure. That’s fine. Where’s Al Carson?’

  ‘He’s been askin’ for you, Jed. Keeps cryin’ and sayin’ he’s found his little boy. I guess that he’s lost control some. He’s in the room at the further corner of the building. Safe enough. No window there. Along the corridor from the rear door.’

  ‘I’ll try and get to see him in a while.’

  She was about to walk on when she stopped and looked at the tall shootist. ‘Do you ... do you think that he is truly your father?’

  Herne considered the question. ‘I just don’t know. Right age. Name. Fact he’s claimed it. No reason to do that if it wasn’t true. I just …’ he shrugged. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Here they are!!’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  They were ranged in a loose half-circle, sitting their dappled ponies and staring towards the large white building. It was easy to pick out Mendez. Wearing a shirt of flamboyant blue silk, that looked like it might once have belonged to an overweight whore. It was decorated with colored satins and hung loose outside white cotton breeches.

  Herne peered out through one of the slits in the heavy shutters. Weighing up distances and chances. The Indians were around three hundred paces off. The light was showing signs of beginning to fade away towards the east and evening wasn’t far off. Jed knew that he could hit Mendez without much difficulty, using his Sharps. But the Chiricahua weren’t like some other tribes. Kill an Apache chief and the rest just kept on coming.

  There was a temptation to allow the old men to break their own tension by firing off a volley at the Apaches. It would make Mendez realize that he was up against a well-armed fortress and it might make him ride on by.

  Or it might make him relish the potential challenge.

  The other problem with allowing the occupants of the Home to open fire was that Herne guessed that they were unlikely to make much practice even against close targets. He recalled something he’d once read.

  A Colonel Hanger, an officer in the English Army, had said in about ’85: “A soldier’s musket will strike the figure of a man at eighty paces; it may even be a hundred, but a soldier shall be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at one hundred and fifty paces. As to firing at a man at two hundred paces you may as well aim at the moon. No man was ever killed by a common musket at two hundred paces by the soldier who
had aimed at him.”

  The kick from a charged musket was quite severe, and many of the men were exceedingly frail. The recoil was probably sufficient to put most of them flat on their asses.

  Herne decided to wait before ordering any of them to open fire.

  At that moment he heard the noise of a shot and a scream of pain.

  Thirteen

  It was the tallest of the old men. An ex-soldier who must once have been a holy terror of his regiment. Nicholas Webb, still at seventy-four standing four inches over six feet and weighing in at around two hundred and seventy pounds.

  He had insisted on commandeering one of the two Kentucky pistols, loading it himself with the casual ease of the professional soldier. Cocking it ready for action and sticking it in his belt. Unfortunately the trigger hooked on a jack-knife that also hung from the belt and the handgun had discharged.

  Now he was lying on the floor, surrounded by most of the rest of the Home’s inhabitants, all looking at him, seeming as if half of them were about to pass out on the spot.

  ‘What the …?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Herne,’ moaned Webb. ‘I’m real sorry. I shot myself clean through the middle of the damned foot!’

  ‘Holy Christ! Two of you get him out of the way. Rest of you back to …’

  He was interrupted.

  ‘Here they come!’

  Jed ran to the nearest window, carrying the loaded Sharps rifle in his right hand, wishing that he had the Winchester from the his room in the Inside Straight saloon, back in Stow Wells.

  Mendez had heard the sound of the shot. Seeing no visible effect from it he had concluded that someone inside was feeling edgy and had lost their nerve. That seemed a good enough reason to the Chiricahua leader to whoop his band in towards the white walls of the Home.

  They were coming in at a slanting angle, lying low across the necks of their ponies. Herne bit his lip in a sudden burst of anger; the warning shot from Webb had blown away any hope of taking the Chiricahua by surprise. They could have picked off some of them, though he doubted the ability of most of the old-timers to hit a galloping man with the muskets.