Herne the Hunter 24

by John J. McLaglen

  ‘Why d’you kill these two?’ asked the shootist, gesturing with the Peacemaker at the dead Indians.

  ‘They might’ve heard us makin’ plans. Captain said that Jefferson and me could … could have us some sportin’ ’fore we did for ’em. mister … Please …’

  ‘What?’ Jed was turning away, holstering the pistol. Looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘You sure you ain’t … Oh, Christ on the Cross! It pains me.’

  ‘It’ll stop.’

  ‘You could shoot me.’

  ‘Shoot yourself. Your damned gun and your damned bullets.’

  ‘I’m too weak.’

  ‘Soldier, I just don’t have the time.’

  The renegade trooper died as Herne was tying the injured Indian boy across the back of one of the Cavalry mounts. A patient mare, that stood rock-steady as Jed carefully strapped the lad on, having first removed the saddle. The Chiricahua was shivering as if he had an ague, eyes squeezed shut. The wound in his throat had stopped bleeding and Herne had made an effort to bandage it with cloth tom from the shirt of the soldier who’d been head shot. Jed had also done what he could to cover the boy’s nakedness, shrouding the evidence of his beating in a faded blanket he found near the corpse of the woman he assumed to be the Apache’s mother.

  Then he swung up into the saddle of his own stallion, leading the Cavalry mare. Moving slowly off at a walk to where he figured the main Chiricahua camp might be.

  Taking the boy home.

  Chapter Nine

  He backtracked a half mile, until he managed to find the place where the Apache trio had joined the high trail. There was a great temptation to simply try and work his way around to warn Austin Nick’s wagons that they were heading for an ambush. But his guess was that the main part of the renegade patrol was still close by. Probably keeping watch on the train.

  If they hit him on the way in , the wagons had no chance at all. They would stop at the sight of the patrol of soldiers, and the massacre would begin. It was obvious that only caution and cunning had prevented Darke from rushing them a few days back. Once he was certain they would not provide too indigestible a morsel, he would lead his ravening deserters down on them.

  There was no real hope of raising a posse to go to their rescue. Jed had seen the reaction when he had tried to convince the burghers of Bulmer’s Wells that their trouble lay with whites, not Apaches. The idea that there was a whole patrol of killers would seem absurd.

  His only hope was the Apache people themselves.

  The boy only moved occasionally.

  Once he jerked against the restraining ropes and called out. The shootist had a fair working knowledge of several of the main Indian tongues, including the basic Apache language. And he heard the words of the tortured youth, his lips thinning. Pressing the horses on as fast as he dared.

  The Chiricahua had shouted: ‘My father, I am going into the dark.’

  By late afternoon, Jed knew that he was closing in on the camp.

  There was the marks of many ponies, mostly unshod, as well as the occasional scraping furrow of a cart of some kind, passing along the rocky trail.

  It was as he was moving steadily up a narrow, steep-sided valley, several hundred feet above the main floor of the desert, that Herne was aware that someone was watching him. There was that feeling, unmistakable, never letting him down. Eyes drilling into him, from above.

  He reined in, holding both hands above his head, showing that he carried no weapon.

  ‘I am Herne the Hunter and I come in peace. Shall I pass?’

  There was no answer, and after several long minutes of waiting he lowered his arms and moved on again. He knew that the Apaches would probably not reveal themselves but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Had they not wanted him to go on, they would have made that clear.

  Deathly, totally clear.

  A quarter mile further.

  The young man had not moved for some time, and Jed hoped that he was sleeping.

  The rifle bullet kicked up stone a dozen paces to Herne’s left, making both horses rear, whinnying at the sudden noise.

  Jed quieted them, finding it easier to steady the battle-trained mare than his own stallion. In the end he had to deliver a ferocious punch to the animal’s head, in front of the ear, staggering it. Only then did it gentle down and standstill.

  ‘I am Herne, called the Hunter, and I come in peace to the people.’

  Again there was no reply. No word from the echoing stillness all around him. The sides of the trail rose almost sheer to right and left, and ahead of him the narrowing trail snaked blindly.

  ‘I wish to go on.’

  The voice was from behind him. Behind and above. ‘You have the body of a warrior with you’

  ‘He is badly wounded. A young man.’

  ‘Is he Stalking Moon?’

  ‘I do not know his name.’

  There was a pause, and Herne could hear the guttural chatter of an argument. He knew that his life at that moment rested on the edge of a dagger. One movement wrong; one word out of place, and his life was severed.

  ‘Come forward, Herne, whom men call the Hunter. You have not led others to our home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come.’

  There were around a hundred in the Chiricahua subtribe. Many of them kin to the legendary Geronimo. Once they had dominated the entire South-West of the country, riding fearlessly, a terror to all others. But now the blue-bellied soldiers had driven them back off the flat lands, Up into the hills. Now they needs must hide out in the mountain vastnesses where they could set up their fortresses, safe from marauding patrols.

  Their numbers had shrunk, through privation and through the illnesses that they had caught from the invading whites. It was not that, unusual for the unscrupulous local agents to provide the Indians with free blankets. Blankets that had come, unwashed, from hospitals where they had been used to shroud sufferers from typhoid and tuberculosis.

  Of the hundred in the cliff-locked wilderness, better than half were women and children. All told, there were not more than thirty fighting men of warrior age. And most of them were standing in a circle as Herne heeled the horse forwards, halting ten paces from the silent Apaches.

  Their leader was a cousin of Geronimo, named Nai-chi-ti, anglicized to Nahche. The name meant “mischief” and the son of Cochise had been named after this old man. He was close to fifty summers, hair whitening, shoulders becoming stooped. But the eyes that stared fixedly at the white shootist were sharp as a diamond.

  ‘You ride to talk with the people, Herne Hunter. Or to kill us?’

  ‘I have come in peace.’

  Across the back of the big Cavalry mare, the boy remained unmoving. The chief pointed to him.

  ‘Stalking Moon is the youngest of my sons.’

  ‘I have heard of him, Nahche. A name of honor.’

  In fact, Jed had only heard the lad’s name for the first time less than five minutes ago. But the Apaches set great store by honor.

  ‘He had gone with his mother, my daughter, and her husband.’

  ‘They are both dead.’

  The only sign of emotion was an almost imperceptible bowing of the head, though others in the rancheria cried out in alarm and anger at the news.

  ‘So. I heard of guns being used, miles away,’ pointing towards the waterhole.

  ‘Yes. The others were dead when I got there. Two of the pony-soldiers were …’ he struggled for the words he wanted to describe the bestial behavior of the renegade soldiers. Changing his mind at the last moment. ‘He was being tortured.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With pony soldiers?’

  The circle of warriors had advanced a few steps nearer, and Jed caught the sound of carbines and pistols being cocked. He carefully kept his own hands on the neck of the stallion, clear away from his own guns.

  ‘I came on them.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘
I killed them.’

  Nahche looked at him for a long, long moment. And then nodded. ‘I see in your heart, Herne Hunter. You have eyes of man who has seen much death.’

  ‘It is true. One man I killed fast. The other not fast.’

  ‘These men … Were they not-soldiers?’

  So. The Apaches knew of the patrol of renegades. Herne wasn’t surprised at that. It was rare that much happened in what had once been their lands that the Chiricahua did not know of.

  ‘Yes. There are more than two hands of them. And they have all run from the Army. They are wicked men.’

  ‘They have put blame upon the people for their evil. Burning and killing.’

  While the two men spoke, a group of older women were carefully taking the unconscious boy from the back of the other horse, laying him on the ground. A very old man, who Jed guessed must be the tribe’s shaman, came shuffling out and knelt by the lad, laying his head on the boy’s chest. Herne watched this out of the corner of his eye, trying to concentrate on what Nahche was saying to him.

  ‘I know of this, Nahche. But many whites do not believe it is so. They think that it is the Indians who are responsible for the crimes.’

  It was coming towards the moment that Herne had looked for. Saving the life of the young warrior had not been premeditated or thought through. But now it was a keystone to his plan to try and save the wagon train from Captain Darke and his butchers.

  ‘You killed two of your people, Herne Hunter, to save my son.’

  It wasn’t a question. It was a flat, simple statement that hung in the air, almost like an accusation. The chattering and whispering had ceased. Jed noticed that the man standing next to the chief was scowling. Disbelievingly. And that the muzzle of his Springfield was drilling a hole through the air in the general direction of Jed’s belly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you tell the truth, then the Chiricahua are in your debt.’

  ‘He lies.’

  It was the man that Herne had been watching. And the gun was flourished, bringing a chorus of agreement from the other senior braves of the tribe.

  ‘I do not lie.’

  Nahche held up a hand, and the hubbub quieted. ‘I say that Stalking Moon will tell words clear and straight, when he has recovered.’

  The shaman interrupted, straightening himself painfully from the ground. ‘The boy will not tell anything. He is dead.’

  It was a bad moment for Jed Herne.

  Chapter Ten

  It had been a bad moment.

  Herne had climbed slowly down from the back of the stallion. In his mind was the rueful thought that if the Chiricahua were going to shoot him anyway, it would be less distance to fall.

  He had walked and stood directly in front of the chief, looking down on him from his height advantage of better than afoot.

  ‘You and I are not young men, Nahche. For both there is snow upon the roof of the wickiup. You have killed my people. I have slain yours.’

  The silence was total. He could even hear the light wind as it sighed among the jagged, frost-scarred peaks above the camp.

  The chief nodded for him to continue.

  ‘I am a man who speaks straight. I do not know another way. It is as I said. Two of the not-soldiers. Two of your people dead. The boy being hurt, badly. I killed the two not-soldiers.’

  ‘He lies. All white men lie!’

  Jed turned and faced his accuser. ‘I did not think that the old warriors of the Chiricahua were such fools,’ he said, quiet and calm.

  ‘Fools!’

  ‘Yes, fools.’

  Nahche again held up a hand for quiet. ‘These are words, Herne Hunter, that could bring a man to the stake and the fire.’

  ‘I stand behind them as I would behind anything I believe.’

  ‘Why am I a fool, white eyes?’ snapped the other Apache, mouth narrowed viciously.

  ‘You answer that question. If my words are lies that become worms in the mind of those who hear them … then why did I come?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did I come this dangerous trail?’

  ‘Because you …’ began the warrior, faltering, eyes shifting from side to side.

  ‘There is no reason. To bring a corpse to the rancheria. The son of Nahche. Why? If my words are not true, what could a possible reason be?’

  ‘A trick,’ suggested the Chiricahua, but his words lacked conviction.

  Herne smiled. ‘A fine trick. A dead boy to lay at the feet of his people.’

  Nahche nodded, turning and hissing something to the men at his side. Looking at them, until each of them had nodded his agreement. Herne knew that he had won the gamble, though the odds had been far more heavily loaded against him than he could possibly have realized.

  It was done.

  The tribe was going into mourning for the dead Stalking Moon, but before that there was time for a meeting of the council of the elders. Time for Herne to put his plan to them. Arguing long and carefully for the advantage for the Chiricahua. Playing down any advantage for the people on the wagon train. People who plodded through the endless, dusty miles, not knowing that there were wolves, hiding in the clothing of lions, waiting their moment to come panting to the slaughter.

  Herne kept thinking particularly of the two pregnant women and their innocent hopes.

  On his own, against the ignorance and prejudice of the white lawmen and military, there was precious little that Jed Herne could do. It was a bitter irony that his only possible help was the enemy. The dreaded Apache braves themselves.

  And Nahche had been helpful. Agreeing what was to happen. Selecting the squaw himself to carry the message from Herne. Addressed to Austin Nick, laying out the potential danger.

  And the possible solution.

  After that there had been little that Jed could do.

  He had bid farewell to the aging chief, clasping him by the hand. And they had both promised that they would keep their word to the other.

  Then Jed had clambered up into the saddle once more, feeling a twinge of pain in the small of his back. Waving to the watching Chiricahua and setting off down the narrow, cramped trail, towards the flat desert.

  He saw the smoke when he was less than a mile from the drying waterhole where he’d gunned down the two soldiers. It rose lazily into the morning air, coiling in on itself, finally dissipating and drifting away towards the high mountains of the far west. For a moment Jed’s heart sank at the thought that it might represent the destruction of the train, but he immediately realized that it couldn’t be.

  There was no way that the patient, plodding oxen could have brought the wagons that far. But the smoke clearly meant trouble for someone.

  From his memories of the region, Jed remembered that there was a settlement somewhere in that direction. A small township, not unlike Bulmer’s Wells. Called Abner’s Crossing. And there were a few isolated spreads in the valleys around.

  He pushed the horse on at a steady canter. There was no point in going in at a wild gallop. That would quickly have blown the stallion, leaving him without any reserves if they were needed. And if the place was already ablaze, there wasn’t likely to be very much that he could do about it.

  It took him dose to an hour.

  Stopping several times to make sure that whoever had done that attacking wasn’t coming in his direction. But there was only a diminishing cloud of orange dust, disappearing towards the north, away from the town. Jed had never been much of a gambling man, but he would have laid a good few silver dollars on the identity of the men at the center of that dust. And they would be wearing blue uniforms.

  It had been a ranch.

  Neat little house, with another, longer building that would have been home for the few hands necessary to work the place. Corral for the horses and any prized cattle. Three barns for winter and for storing the feed for the stock. Wind pump, still whirling away, drawing up the buried water. Vegetable garden with its trim rows, sprouting green.

  T
hat was how it had been.

  Not now.

  Not ever again.

  The buildings were burned, razed to the ground, with only glowing heaps of grey-crimson ash remaining. Both the living quarters had their chimneys, made of stone, still erect amid the rubble, like rough-hewn tombstones.

  Seeing them brought Herne back for a few heart-wrenching moments to the time that he and Whitey had ridden with Quantrill, the infamous Confederate raider, joining him on the notorious butchery of the town of Lawrence in Kansas.

  The corrals were all broken down, the stock gone. Except for one spavined nag that stood, whinnying now and again in a corner by the barn. Its one eye had been put out and three shafts were feathered in its shrunk shanks.

  The land around the ranch, including the vegetable garden, had been trampled down. Utterly destroyed. Jed knew that within a year, apart from the skeletal chimneys, there would be not the least sign that there had ever been a spread there.

  As he’d expected, the corpses were all left as macabre signposts towards the identity of the attackers.

  He dismounted and walked around, taking care not to step on the most obvious signs. As in the other raids, the attackers had used unshod ponies, that they must be keeping corralled somewhere. Most of the bodies were mutilated, as with the woman on the stage. But this time it had been done more hastily, as though time had been short. The heads had been crudely battered, and the dead woman was stripped naked, her legs obscenely spread. Herne found himself glancing around before he stooped to peer more closely at her.

  Though she looked as though she might have been raped a dozen times, from the tied wrists and ankles, the shootist saw that this was not the case. In fact, she hadn’t been raped at all. There was no trace of seminal fluid either around her bruised and bloodied mouth, or among the curling auburn pubic hair.