Death Rites

by John J. McLaglen

“I think that she will probably live through the day. It is odd how the human body can cope when there is light in the world. But in the dark watches of the night, it becomes harder. If there is no further major hemorrhage, then I will be surprised if she lives through to see another dawn rise over this city.”

  So he left them, urging Jed to try and snatch a little rest, putting a small brown bottle of the quietening medicine on the table.

  After he had gone, Jed sat wearily in the chair by the bed, burying his head in his hands, suddenly feeling all of his thirty-nine years. And then some. Trying hard to recall the words of any prayers he might have heard. Finding that his mind had gone blank on him.

  There was a rustling from the bed, and he looked quickly up to see that Becky was staring at him, her face pale as chalk.

  “I wasn’t asleep, Jed.”

  “What?”

  “I heard what the doctor said.”

  “Now you mustn’t think that he ...”

  “I know I’m going to pass on to the realms eternal, Jed. And I shall see Mama again. And dearest Louise.”

  “It may not be ...”

  She shook her head. “Don’t fret for me, dearest Jed. I beg you. I have been unhappy for so much of my life that it is a relief to know that it will so soon be ended and I shall find peace.”

  “If you rest up, Becky, then maybe we can get you well enough for a trip out west again. Like we said.”

  She reached out for him, and he took her hand, feeling it lighter than a fistful of thin, dry twigs.

  “I have loved you so much, Jed. You know …”

  She stopped, and looked away from him, towards the window.

  “What?”

  “I thought for a time, in a silly, girlish way, that one day you and I might...”

  “Might what, my dear?”

  “That I might take the place of Louise in your heart and that we might marry.”

  Jed felt as though his heart would break with the pain of her words, blinking away the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes.

  “Don’t talk. You’ll make yourself cough.”

  “No. I have been thinking while I lay here. I believe I knew that I would soon be gathered into Heaven, Jed. I must speak of what I would so like.”

  “Anything.”

  “I would so like to be laid to rest with Mama and sweet Louise.”

  Rachel Yates and Louise Herne were buried together, in a plot of land that lay where their spreads had joined, near to a small stream, with a view far out over the plains to the distant hills beyond Tucson.

  “If that …”

  “I don’t think that there will be any "ifs" about what is to come, Jed. Please promise me.”

  Her fingers of her free hand played with the pendant around her neck, now cleaned of the blood.

  Jed nodded. “I’ll do everything I can, Becky. You can be sure of that.”

  The grip of her fingers on his broad, calloused hand relaxed, and for a moment he thought that she had gone, but her chest still rose and fell. She had once again drifted back into sleep.

  Throughout that long day, Jed Herne sat and watched as life ebbed from the young girl. The only person on the face of the earth for whom he felt any shred of affection, and now an uncaring God was taking her from him. To leave him to walk alone.

  Twice she recovered a little, and sipped some water to ease the dryness of her lips, but the effort made her cough, bringing flecks of blood. Each time, she seemed that much weaker.

  The doctor looked in on them several times, each time shaking his head helplessly. Hardly talking. Seeing that the tall silent man needed no words.

  Night came again, bringing an end to the snow. A flaming crimson sunset bathed the stone jungle in a warm light, flooding through into the hotel room where the girl lay dying.

  At full dark, Becky woke again, and even seemed to be rallying briefly.

  The doctor came, and examined her, walking out into the other room, followed by the unshaven figure of Herne.

  “It is nearly done, Mr. Herne. I have seen this false spark of vitality before. It is always followed by the end. You must prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “Doctor,” replied Herne gruffly, “I’ve been prepared for the worst every damned day of my life.”

  “It’s very dark here, Jed. Gould you turn up the light for me?”

  He reached up and twisted the little brass tap, letting the gas hiss through, brightening up the large room. Becky seemed very small in the big bed.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’m weak, Jed. Very tired, as if all I want to do is close my eyes and rest.”

  He was unable to hide his feeling that this was the end, and she saw him.

  “Dear Jed. Don’t weep for me. I should weep for you, leaving you here all alone. I shall be well enough with Mama and with Louise. She’ll be pleased to see that I am still wearing this pendant. You won’t take it from me, will you, Jed?”

  “No.”

  “Come sit with me, and hold me. I’ve always wanted you to hold me, and never dared ask you. I do love you, Jedediah Travis Herne. You know that, don’t you?”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, afraid that he would break down at a time when she most needed reassurance and strength.

  “I’m truly not frightened. Well,” she hesitated. “Perhaps I am a little bit. But I mustn’t complain. I have seen much of the world. Had a deal of happiness not to mention the fine adventures we had.” She stopped as a thought struck her. “Jed?”

  “What is it, Becky?”

  “Whitey?”

  “What about that old son of … what about him?”

  "Will I meet him again, beyond?”

  “I always reckoned that Whitey Coburn was the surest bet a man could make to go down and not up. But, things are mighty strange. Maybe you’ll see him somewheres around.”

  “I’d like that.” She laughed, the smile turning into a coughing fit that left her weak and panting.

  “Try and rest, Becky.”

  “No. It is getting most awful dark, Jed. I used to be powerful scared of the dark when I was little. Shall we sing?”

  “Maybe it’s better not.”

  “Perhaps. I’d have greatly been pleased to have a verse or two of ‘We’ll Gather At The River’. It was one of my favorites, and one of Louise’s also.”

  Almost without her noticing, Jed saw that her breathing was slowing down, like an engine that has been worked that little while too long.

  “I wish that I could have been loved. By a man. I’d have liked that, you know. That sounds rather wicked of me, but I hope that Jesus understands.”

  “I guess he will, Becky.”

  He held her hand tighter, trying to prevent the frail spirit from leaving him, but her voice was becoming quieter.

  “I know that Mama would have been shocked, Jed, but I surely wish that you would have laid with me. You don’t think Louise would have minded?”

  “I guess not. If it had been anyone, then I figure she’d have been pleased that I chose you. I’d have liked it too, Becky, but things ...”

  He couldn’t go on.

  “Things didn’t turn out that way. She’ll be sorry that you go on with the killing, Jed, but I understand.”

  “It’s all I can do. All I’m good at. All I truly understand.”

  “I know. Honest I do. Jed, I’m turning cold. Hold me tight against the chill.”

  He reached round her, folding her thin body close to him, feeling the tears coursing down his cheeks, knowing that it was nearly over.

  “Remember to lay me in Tucson, Jed. With the others. Promise.”

  “I promise, Becky.”

  “I’m going to think of the good times, Jed. Think of being young and free and running through the pastures in summer, with the sun on my shoulders and the earth warm beneath my bare feet. That’s a good thing to carry with you. Best there is.”

  The mist was rising off the rivers of New
York, closing round the hotel.

  Her left hand was tight in his, the other hand holding the small pendant.

  “I thought it didn’t seem fair, but now I don’t mind. It’s being young, and leaving so much undone, Jed. But ... I guess there’s no value in grieving. Jed?”

  “Yes, dear Becky?”

  “Will you say the Lord’s Prayer with me?”

  “Of course. You lead me. Seems a long time since I set my tongue to it.”

  With him saying the words behind her, Becky lay back in his arms and closed her eyes, her voice now so quiet that it scarcely disturbed the air in the room.

  “Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

  Louise used to say the prayer each night before joining Jed in bed, and the rich words flowed back into his mind, his voice rising above Becky’s.

  “As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

  Her head was pressed against his shoulder.

  “For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.”

  They had started the prayer together, but he finished it alone.

  Jed Herne was quite alone.

  Chapter Four

  “Damned good job the weather’s as bleak as this, mister. Else this wouldn’t have been taken.”

  Herne looked up at the garrulous conductor, his face set like stone. The trip out to St. Louis had taken two days. Leaving New York had taken a further two days. Jed had been touched by the collection that had been taken up among the guests of the Grand Central Hotel to provide an expensive funeral for Rebecca Yates. Better than four hundred dollars had been raised and Jed had been able to use it.

  Despite his promise to the dead girl, he hadn’t realized just what he was taking on in trying to get her back to Tucson, to rest with her mother and with Louise.

  The mortician had been fascinated with the task.

  “Of course, my poor dear Sir, we do sometimes receive some most unusual requests. A gentleman who wished to be laid to rest in a double coffin with a dressmaker’s dummy at his side. A sporting lady who required that she should be laid to rest seated in her favorite buggy. That was very costly. And I have had several departed who have wished for their remains to be buried at sea or in some even stranger places.”

  He had rubbed his kid gloved hands together at the happy and costly memories, while Jed had stood still, looking through the large window, reading the ornate Gothic golden lettering backwards. Hoping the man would be quick and tell him what he wanted to know.

  “One man, and I must preserve his name to avoid any impropriety with the family, had a long-standing relationship with a street-girl in Harlem. He wished his coffin to be built into the frame of a bed, so that she could carry on her trade on top of him, as it were.” He smiled. A tactful smile that landed on his mouth like a layer of fine, gray dust. “Of course, we were unable to provide that particular service for him.”

  “I don’t see why not,” snapped Jed. “But I just want to know how much. For the coffin and for ... for preparing Becky for it. And the rail fare to Tucson. I can take it from there.”

  A lot of scribbling with a long green pencil. The point broke and the mortician cursed softly, discreetly, reaching for a small knife and making it needle-sharp once more.

  He was so thin and willowy that he looked as if a fresh breeze would carry him away.

  “The cleansing and internal …”

  His nerves strained by the sudden death of the girl, and with lack of sleep for two nights, Jed’s hair-trigger temper was more than usually edgy. He half-drew the heavy pistol and showed it to the mortician.

  “I don’t want your damned details about what you’re goin’ to do to Becky. Just the money, you blood-suckin’ son-of-a-bitch bastard!”

  “You talk to me like that and I’ll call the law, mister,” protested the young man.

  “You call your sheriff, and you end up deader’n a beaver hat. Get on with it.”

  With a chill, the mortician realized that this grizzled westerner actually meant it. That he would slaughter him if he didn’t do as he was told.

  The idea was rather exciting and he had to press his knees together to try and cover his arousal by this man’s casual brutality.

  “I’ll do the best I can, Mr. Herne,” he stammered, dropping his pencil deliberately so that he would have the opportunity to kneel down close by the older man’s scuffed boots and worn pants.

  “No details. Just the cost.”

  “Fine. Even in the sort of weather you’ll be having all the way West, we must still provide a sealed coffin. The railroads insist on it because of the way that the bodies tend to ...”

  Herne interrupted him. “I know why they insist on sealed coffins,” he barked.

  “Of course. Of course. That means good quality, and good quality is not cheap.”

  Herne took out his watch, holding it flat in the palm of his left hand.

  “You are in a hurry, Mr. Herne?”

  “No. You are. You’re in a hurry to finish tellin’ me what I want to know in just sixty seconds, then I start to push your face around a mite.”

  “Oh,” quavered the mortician, torn between fear and excitement.

  “Fifty-six seconds,” said Herne.

  “Hundred dollars for pre-coffin work. Say, three hundred for the casket and sealing. I’ll have to check shipping but I figure it’ll be around another hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars. Through St. Louis then on the ... let me see …”

  “Union Pacific to Topeka, is the way I see it.”

  “Surely. Then the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad south to El Paso.”

  “And the Southern Pacific to Tucson,” finished Herne, flicking the watch away into a pocket of his jacket.

  The final bill was five hundred and eighty-nine dollars and forty cents.

  “I said this wouldn’t have gone in summer, even with that sealing, Mister.”

  The conductor on the Union Pacific pressed on, disregarding the silent stranger with the long hair, graying at the temples. Ignoring the tight set of the broad shoulders and the blank stare from the cold eyes, that looked as if they were one too many mornings and a thousand miles away.

  “You hard of hearin’, mister?”

  The eyes finally acknowledged him.

  Eyes colder than the Sierra snows, that froze the man to the floor of the carriage. Froze his tongue to the top of his mouth, and turned his brain into ice.

  “You got a job to do?” asked Herne, his voice flat and incurious.

  “I... I guess so, Mister,” stammered the conductor.

  “Then get the Hell away from me and do it.”

  “Sure. Sure will. Right away.”

  He stumbled quickly down the car, relieved to be clear and away with his life, breathing deeply to try and quell the sickness that rose in his guts at the memory of those eyes.

  Jed Herne sat back in the dusty seat and looked out across the bleak landscape rolling by outside.

  It had been hard. Dealing with the mortician, and the well-meaning folks at the hotel, but now it was over. He and Becky were both going on home, traveling West, following the pale winter sun.

  The coffin was heavy. Polished mahogany. A neat plate in silver set into it. The name: Rebecca Yates. The date of her birth: 1868. And that of her death: just sixteen short years later.

  He’d given her best dress to them for her to wear on her last journey. He kept the pendant himself to put on at the last moment, before the coffin lid was screwed down tight and sealed. Although it wasn’t worth that much, it was a pretty piece, and some light-fingered thief in the mortician’s might have taken a fancy to it. It wouldn’t have been the value. It would have been the broken promise.

  Herne had been shocked when he saw the girl that last time, in the soft lights of the chapel of rest, laid out in her pretty clothes. There had
been too much rouge on the cheeks, and he’d angrily demanded that it was wiped off.

  “Damn it! She’s a girl of sixteen, not a Memphis whore!”

  They’d hurriedly done as he asked, finally leaving him alone with her, for the last words. They hadn’t come easily, and they’d been private, secret words. That nobody would ever know. Not there. Not anywhere.

  Not ever.

  When he stood back, there were tears on his cheeks. Not for himself. Herne the Hunter had always made out and always would. Until the day that someone faster came along.

  The tears were for the lost years for Becky.

  He leaned over and kissed the girl gently on her firm, cold cheek, and then watched while the last rites of the sealing were carried out.

  The baggage car had been nearly empty. Not a lot of stuff being shipped west in the middle of winter. Nor were there many passengers aboard.

  After the change at St. Louis, things weren’t any different. Nor, after a few hours on the Kansas Pacific, was there any change on the run south from Topeka.

  Herne drank a lot and slept more. Folks on the train left him alone, figuring that the tall man with the mean face and the Colt strapped to his hip wasn’t the sort to enter willingly into conversation.

  Across the Arkansas River in a freak blizzard that held them up near Dodge City for two and a half days until they could get the special train through with the big snow-plough on the front. Past Trinidad and into the Territory of New Mexico. Another storm sent the train up the branch line into Santa Fe. Herne scarcely noticed the delays, soaking up the booze and laying out on the bench seats. Snow on the line between Albuquerque and El Paso meant another day wasted. Money was running short, and there was still the actual burial to arrange. As soon as Becky was safe in the ground, Jed was going to have go looking for another bounty. At El Paso they transferred to the Southern Pacific Railroad, and a few more folks boarded the train. Mostly making the long journey from New Orleans clean through to San Francisco.

  That didn’t worry Jed Herne. He found himself a seat and stretched out along it, waiting for the day’s ride through Apache country to Tucson.

  The end of the line for him.

  The unusually bitter weather didn’t concern him either. He simply tucked up the collar of his jacket and gripped the whisky bottle more tightly.