Geronimo! (Herne the Hunter Western

by John J. McLaglen

  Herne’s mind was filled only with the concentrated efforts of preparing to kill the young Mexican with the pretty sombrero. He dropped the blood-slick bayonet in the dirt, digging in and powering himself back towards where the others were standing. Isaac Ray had begun to move as though to help him, but he was in the way and Jed lowered a shoulder, knocking him spinning sideways.

  The Colt, ready cocked, lay a couple of yards in front of x him and he jumped for it, rolling over to break the fall, feeling the familiar shape of the butt in his fingers. Looking for Golden-hat.

  Who was kneeling, rifle to his shoulder, drawing a bead on the shootist, ready to place a bullet through the middle of his chest. One eye closed, finger tightening on the trigger.

  Too slowly.

  Herne owed his survival for so long to making the very best out of every situation. Not worrying about having your back to the sun or bracing your right wrist with a left hand. All that kind of thing was wonderful in an ideal world where seconds were plentiful. But when the chips were down it was getting firstest with the mostest at your command.

  His first shot was just wide, aimed while he was still off balance, kicking up dust into Manuel’s eyes, so that he blinked, losing yet another vital fragment of frozen time. The second was better, but Manuel had just ducked lower and the forty-five bullet tore through the crown of the golden sombrero, ripping it from the young Mexican’s head, sending it spinning away behind him, the beads whirring through the air.

  Herne quickly cocked the Peacemaker, firing a third time from a kneeling position, hearing the yelp of pain that meant a hit. Using the moment to move in closer, knowing that the range was against him with a pistol competing with the Winchester.

  The bullet had caught Manuel through the fleshy part of the upper right arm, ricocheting into him from the barrel of the rifle. The first impact had distorted the lead, flattening it; so that the damage was much worse than it might otherwise have been. A great wound opened in the flesh and blood began to pump out all over his shirt and pants.

  The bandit made a great effort to pick up the fallen rifle, but the muscles had been torn away from his right arm and he was helpless.

  ‘Señor Herne!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You have shoot me very bad and I can no shoot you so I stand here and you no shoot.’

  ‘Stand up then. Quick.’

  Holding his good hand in the air Manuel moved to his feet, blood flowing freely down over his ribs. He tried a cheerful smile but the pain drew the flesh tight about his cheeks, making him look like a wounded fox.

  Thaddeus Ray started to move closer, but Herne waved him away. ‘But I want a chance to interview him, Jed. Be a real scoop on others. Genuine Mex bandit. Wounded and all.’

  ‘And I can get a marvelous picture of him. The agony in his eyes,’ called Ike Ray.

  Carola Ray said nothing, sitting down again rather abruptly, her eyes flicking from corpse to corpse, virtually ignoring their prisoner.

  Herne looked at the bandit as he took a couple of steps nearer, the blood pattering among the pebbles on the trail.

  ‘Hold it there.’

  ‘Sure, Señor Herne. That shot was pretty. Hit me good.’

  ‘Where is El Poco? Near here?’

  ‘I don’t know I telling that. El Poco he not like me told you things about where he is.’

  ‘Give you another chance, Dago Last one you get. Where is El Poco and with how many hombres?’

  ‘Go fuck your sister’s dead cat you—’

  The bullet hit him in the mouth. Exploding among the gold teeth, driving on through his tongue and burying itself in his spine, sending him flailing over on his back, arms and legs waving in a desperate attempt to keep his balance. Blood burst from his open mouth and his head rolled on one side, fragments of shattered teeth spitting in the dirt.

  Manuel was dead within less than thirty seconds.

  ‘Jesus Christ’ exclaimed Ike Ray softly.

  ‘You dirty swine!’ said Carola, turning away, fighting back a desperate urge to vomit. Shocked to the core of her being by the total violence and callous efficiency of the man called Herne.

  ‘Why?’ asked Thaddeus. ‘Weren’t no damned threat to us, with that arm. We could have talked to him.’

  Herne walked over and swiftly checked that all three of the Mexican bandits were dead, standing over Manuel and casually reloading the warm pistol. Finally turning to face the three Rays.

  ‘You’re fools, all of you, thinkin’ I should have let this murderin’ son of a bitch Dago go on living a moment longer than I had to.’

  ‘But he was wounded,’ protested Carola.

  ‘Sure. Coming in to surrender. See the way his left hand was clenched. Look here.’ Holding up a small forty-one caliber Colt derringer pistol ‘That’s was how much he was surrendering. Never give a wild dog an even break, Ma’am. Now we got to move. And fast.’

  ‘Why? Because of the other bandits?’

  ‘Yeah. You was feeling ill, Carola. I’ll give you ten minutes to recover, then we move straight out whether you’re well or whether you’re not.’

  ~*~

  It wasn’t until the next evening that Geronimo heard about the skirmish in the narrow ravine. His scouts reported finding the bodies of three of the band of Mexican killers. Gleefully, and with much embroidering of detail, the warriors sat by the tiny embers of the cooking fire and recounted how they had mutilated the corpses in the approved fashion. Slitting through muscles and severing tendons, breaking joints. Putting out eyes, slicing the noses apart and dislocating jaws. So that the bandits, when they reached the spirit world, would be totally crippled and unable to take any pleasure in the remainder of eternity.

  Much as their leader enjoyed hearing of the dead Mexicans, he was more concerned to know who could have killed them.

  ‘What trails were there?’ he asked.

  Nachez had been one of the younger men and he answered Geronimo. ‘There had been four. White-eyes. One a woman, or a small man. One with a burro, laden. Two of the dead slain with a knife, one with bullets.’

  Geronimo looked into the dying fire, his mind searching for an explanation. Not Cavalry. And a woman? Three of the devils of El Poco.

  ‘If there are other whites here, we must know of it, brothers.’

  ‘We shall hunt and kill them?’

  The older man shook his head. ‘No. We shall keep away as does the hawk and we shall watch, fearing a trap.’

  ‘And if they are alone?’

  Geronimo reached down and took up a few dry twigs that had fallen from the edge of the fire. Holding them out in the palm of his hand. Then closing his fingers, crushing them to powder.

  There was no need for words.

  Chapter Seven

  While Carola rested, Herne mounted up and scouted ahead, picking up the tracks of the three Mexicans a couple of hundred paces ahead, finding their horses tethered to a stunted Joshua tree. He went quickly through the bags on the saddles, taking the scraps of food he found there; some meat and a little goat’s cheese. They had no need to carry extra guns with them and there was enough ammunition. The canteens of water were hooked over his own pommel but the half bottle of whiskey in one of the dead men’s bags was poured into the dust.

  If they were carrying so little food, then it followed that the camp of El Poco must be close by. Probably no more than half a day’s ride. If it lay along the trail then they must take the greatest care not to ride blindly in among the Mexicans.

  Because of his concern about the bandits, Herne scouted further and took longer than he had originally intended. By the time that he returned to the site of the ambush more than an hour had passed, but the three members of the Ray family had not been wasting it. All three of them had been busy.

  Thaddeus was sitting in the shade, a book on his lap, scribbling furiously. On the opposite side of the arroyo Carola was gazing into space, occasionally jotting a few words down in her notebook. But it was Isaac t
hat drew Herne’s attention to himself.

  The camera was out of its case for the first time since Herne had met Ike, perched like a querulous heron on its narrow legs. The brass joints gleamed in the light and there was a black cloak draped carefully over the top of it, like a mourning veil.

  The owner of the camera was hidden beneath the shroud, and as Herne dismounted he could hear angry muttering going on.

  ‘Twenty-five feet. Call it twenty. Twenty-two. Temperature’s … Blast and bugger it! Could be more’n a hundred. Hundred’s not on the … make it twenty feet. Then it’s eighteen seconds. Too long. Eighteen. Bright but that’s not … Twelve seconds. Try twelve.’

  His head popped out like a carved bird from a chiming clock, turning and catching sight of Herne. ‘Hey, Jed. Won’t be more’n a couple of minutes. Got most of what I want.’

  The shootist looked beyond the camera, seeing that Isaac Ray had been busy. The three corpses had been dragged together and propped up against a sloping ledge of orange rock. The photographer had managed to fix pistols and rifles in the hands of the dead men, wiping away the worst of the blood with rags, covering up some of the wounds with neckerchiefs.

  ‘Folks like death, huh?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Indeed they do, Jed. ‘Deed they do. Want to be in there with ’em?’

  ‘What? Sort of with my foot on them like a hunter with his game? Maybe dangle them up with ropes round the ankles?’

  Thaddeus looked up from his writing. ‘What’s gotten up your nose, Jed? Folks want blood and guts, then what’s wrong with giving it to ’em?’

  Herne turned away and spat in the dirt. Knowing that there was something in what the reporter said, but not liking it. Hating this callous exploitation of dead men. He’d seen it a dozen times in frontier towns all across the land. Corpses laid on a plank for the good folks to come and stare at. Seen women kneel to dip the comer of a lace kerchief in congealing blood and scurry away, clutching it to their panting bosoms. That and worse. Lynchings where naked blacks were burned by corseted matrons in poke bonnets. Where sexual organs were hacked off living flesh and paraded on the end of an uplifted parasol.

  ‘Are we to move on, Jedediah?’ asked Carola Ray, standing up and brushing sand from her divided skirt, flicking dark hair out of her eyes. She was remarkably self-possessed as though the incident with the three young Mexicans had been nothing more than a slight delay in their baggage.

  ‘Yeah. Now. Seen sign the camp’s over yonder, so we’ll go that way a half mile then fork away to the south soon as we can.’

  ‘Very well. I have done with my writing. What about you, husband?’

  Thaddeus also stood. ‘Yeah. I’ve done.’

  ‘You want to see what we’re doing, Jedediah?’ asked the woman, offering her small notebook.

  ‘I don’t … Maybe.’

  ‘Here. While we get the horses.’

  ‘Here’s mine, too. Be interested to know what you think of it, Jed. Surely would,’ added Thaddeus, giving him the pages of tight-packed notes.

  The shootist waited while Ike finished his last picture, counting out loud to himself, then beginning to pack away the boxes and the camera, folding it in on itself like a dead spider.

  Carola’s notes were the easiest to read and he scanned a few lines of them.

  ‘Oh, but he was the most handsome brute that I had ever set my eyes upon. Curling mustachios that bristled with unknown desires that set my heart fluttering at the sight. He carried a silver gun in his hand with three more of the same tucked into his gold-buckled belt. His courtesy was beyond question and I had no choice as he compelled me to follow him. His strong arms folded about my waist as he aided me into the saddle of my Arabian mare. He doffed his elegant—’

  Herne sniffed. ‘What in Hell’s this story about, Mrs. Ray?’

  ‘The fight today, Jed,’ she called, busily tightening the girths on her saddle.

  ‘This is lies,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘No. It is a story, made up around what happened here.’

  ‘This man you write about ...Who’s he supposed to be, Carola?’

  ‘Their leader. The boy with the beautiful golden sombrero.’

  ‘He isn’t ... That’s a young killer with the mind and manners of a wolf, if that’s not damned insultin’ to some wolves I’ve seen.’

  ‘What do you think of mine, Jed?’ asked Thaddeus, knowing from experience how angered his wife became if anyone criticized her work.

  Herne tossed down the woman’s book by his feet and opened the man’s. Struggling to read the irregular scribble that slanted across the scruffy pages.

  ‘Our scout was a good-hearted fellow named Burnes. Bruiser Burnes as the locals called him. He had a great scar across his cheek where he’d come off second of two with a parcel of Sioux bucks down the Mississippi. On the way towards the Rio Grande and Mexico where we looked to catch up with old Geronimo and his warrior army I had managed to kill us some deer with my trusty carbine, bringing down three animals with a brace of lead.’

  ‘Shit!’ exclaimed Herne in disgust. ‘I’d heard some bad

  things about you paper-writers, but this Why the Hell you bother to hire me and come here? Not a damned inch of truth in it. Lies.’

  ‘When the legend’s better’n the truth then we print the legend,’ grinned Thaddeus, picking up both notebooks from the dirt.

  It wasn’t an argument that interested Herne and he let it drop, walking away and mounting his horse, ready to move on out.

  ~*~

  ‘Hold it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hold them in and keep quiet. I think I can hear horses.’

  ‘Indians?’ asked Carola Ray.

  ‘Mexicans?’ asked her husband.

  Ike said nothing, looking around with only the dullest of interest. After the pictures were taken he had relapsed back into his apathetic shell.

  ‘Only men ride as careless as that in a place like this is the horse-soldiers. Good old United States Cavalry. Sounds like a patrol of about a dozen.’

  The echoes from the rocky slopes all around them fooled him a little. There were just six soldiers, with a young, fresh-faced Lieutenant in command of them.

  At his order the men reined in, around fifty paces away from them in the narrow valley, halting in a rough semicircle.

  ‘Advance and be recognized!’ the officer ordered them, receiving a harsh laugh from Herne. ‘I said advance and be recognized.’

  ‘You must be all of three weeks out of West Point, mister,’ shouted Herne. ‘Maybe even a full month.’

  The flush of anger to the officer’s cheeks was answer enough to the gibe. ‘You better tell me who you are, or I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what? Shoot us all down. Better back off some, mister. I caught you a half-mile off, and no scouts out for you. Heard about the Apaches and the bandits, have you?’

  ‘I am a scouting patrol out of Fort …’ he checked himself as he realized that Herne still hadn’t replied to his challenge.

  ‘My name’s Jed Herne and this here’s Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus Ray from New York with their brother, Isaac. They write for papers. I’m their scout.’

  The officer grudgingly heeled his horse forward, the men walking in double file behind him. ‘I’m Lieutenant Corso from San Francisco. We are tracking down the escaped prisoner, Geronimo.’

  ‘Prisoner. That what he was? Wasn’t the way I heard it, Mr. Corso.’

  ‘He was being escorted in to trial. When he turned tail like the cowardly dog he is.’

  ‘That so?’ asked Herne.

  ‘Yes. Corporal!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Stand the men off for fifteen minutes for a break. Then we go on.’

  Though he didn’t want to waste time, Herne swung down from the saddle and joined the young officer. There was always the possibility that he might have some news that could be of use to them in their own quest, though the impression he’d received from Lieutenant Corso hardly gave hi
m confidence.

  Isaac went and sat among the soldiers, joined after a couple of minutes by his brother, his notebook at the ready. Herne caught Ike’s eye and shook his head at the expected question. It took too long for the man to set up his camera.

  Carola sat demurely alongside the officer while Herne squatted back on a low boulder close by. Corso told them that he was supposed to be after the Chiricahua but hadn’t seen any sign of them in over a week.

  ‘You won’t, Lieutenant,’ said Herne, quietly. ‘Guess he could be within a few miles of us now, but he’ll know where you are and you’ll never get a sniff of him. Even if you stay out here five years.’

  ‘You an Indian-lover, Herne?’ barked Corso. ‘Sort that’ll sell all to the red bastards?’

  Herne felt anger rising but he fought it under control. ‘No. I had friends among Indians. Plenty of enemies too. Same as with whites Good and bad.’

  Corso shook his head. ‘Pacifist nonsense, man. Weakling talk. We learned better at the Point. Told us better. Chase them and hunt and kill them. Very straight and very simple.’

  ‘There’s an Indian story, crops up in several versions told by several tribes. How a young warrior, full of piss and importance, figures he knows it all. Goes hunting this old bear. Bear’s been around a thousand years. Boy goes after him, ignoring what the others tell him. Tracks it through the forest for fifty years. All the time he can hear it, just a ways ahead of him,’

  ‘What’s the point of this, Herne?’ asked Corso, rubbing at an angry red spot at the corner of his mouth, just below the line of a blond moustache that he was trying to grow.

  ‘Wait on. Fifty years. Gets old and tired. But all the time he hears it just in front of him. Then, one day, just before it kills him, he hears the noise a last time. Behind, not before.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said the officer, looking away at his men, all grouped around Ike Ray.

  ‘Figured you wouldn’t,’ replied Herne, grinning at the woman. Who smiled confidentially back at him.

  ‘You’ve seen no sign of Geronimo?’