River of Blood

by John J. McLaglen

  Herne hoped he wouldn’t have to take him one day. He didn’t want to have to kill him.

  The sheriff of Floyd didn’t have any such qualms. He’d been a lawman for so long, he didn’t have qualms about anything.

  But he didn’t care for folks messing up the cells in his jail, being drunk and suchlike on the floor. Nor did he care for folk from his town being gunned down by total strangers.

  So next morning, after his usual heaped plateful of ham and eggs, with the eggs turned over easy, Sheriff MacLaine set out for the saloon where the young kid was putting up.

  MacLaine had worked all over the south and as he had got older, the towns he had been able to control had got a sight smaller, a sight easier to handle. So that he had ended up nigh on fifty years of age and plumb lucky to be alive . . .or so he told his dog every now and then when he was feeling talkative.

  Sheriff MacLaine had got himself built one of the biggest and best jails in that part of the territory and was seeing to it that no-one much ever got to find their way behind its bars. Maybe the odd drunk once in a while. Like John. Only John wouldn’t be getting drunk any more.

  As MacLaine walked over to the saloon, something told him to walk on past. Let the kid ride on. Have a friendly word with him maybe. Folks had said how John had gone for his gun first.

  Why couldn’t he let things be?

  He didn’t know: but he couldn’t. He pushed the doors open and called out to the man sweeping the floor.

  ‘The kid who did the shooting. Where is he?’

  The man stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. He looked at the sheriff and shook his head sadly.

  ‘Up on the next floor. Third room from the top of the stairs. But, Ed, why don’t . . . ’ ·

  The sheriff walked past him and the man’s words cut off in mid-sentence. For Matt had been waiting to see if something would happen. Now he was no longer in his room. He was standing at the head of the stairs, double gun belt tied to his thighs, waiting while the sheriff made the distance to the bottom step.

  No further.

  ‘Morning, sheriff. Wanting something?

  MacLaine stopped and looked up at the kid’s clear eyes, his taut, firm body and knew that he should have stayed away. He was conscious for the first time in a long while of how slack his stomach had become, how wavery his left eye now was, how the flies that once he had caught between two hands escaped him with ease.

  He stared up at Matt Bronson and knew.

  Yet he could not back down now.

  ‘You killed a man last night. A friend of mine. Friend of a lot of folk in this town. You shot him down when he was drunk and couldn’t even pull his gun out of its holster. You knew that before you shot him.’

  ‘Sheriff, I didn’t ask for trouble. I didn’t ask him to come after me just cause of some fool remark I made in the street.’

  ‘A fool remark you made in front of his wife and kids,’ the sheriff interrupted him. He looked hard at the boy. ‘His widow, I should have said. Did you think about them when you shot him down?’·

  Bronson shook his head slowly.

  ‘No. But did he think about them when he got drunk and come looking for me, prodding me into a fight. What did he damn well care for them then?’

  MacLaine sighed and leveled his boot on to the first step.

  ‘Son, I want your guns and I want you to come with me over to the jail, nice and easy. There’s folks in this town expect me to do something about John’s death. You can stand trial, nice and legal. If the people decide that you didn’t have no alternative, then you ride on out. That seem fair to you?’

  Matt Bronson looked down at him with something close to disbelief in his eyes.

  ‘Sheriff,’ he said slowly, ‘you surely don’t think I’m going to walk down to you and hand you over my guns, do you? Cause I don’t hand my guns to any man.’

  He stopped abruptly as he heard a door open along the landing. It was Becky.

  ‘Well, son,’ said Sheriff MacLaine, ‘if you ain’t about to give them guns to me, then I guess I’m goin’ to have to come up for ’em.’

  Another boot set on another step.

  Herne walked through the batwing doors. Stopped immediately, sizing up the situation in an instant. Watched the two men on the stairs. Watched Becky.

  MacLaine took one more step upwards. Matt moved from the edge of the stair to the centre.

  ‘That’ll do, sheriff. I told you, I’m not handing over my guns.’

  MacLaine looked at the kid, heard his voice saying, ‘And I told you I was takin’ ’em from you.’ His voice sounded very old.

  His hand made the automatic move for his gun . . . but his reflexes were slow. Too slow.

  Matt fired twice. The first shot took the sheriff high on the right side, the second drove home into the middle of his chest.

  MacLaine’s gun dropped on the wooden steps and bounced to the floor. Once, twice, three times. By the time it came to rest, the sheriff’s knees were on the stair edge. His eyes closed, opened on the kid standing over him, closed again. His mouth made as if to say something, but only blood issued from between the thin, old lips.

  There was a sickening thud as his head banged forward on to the staircase and Becky turned around, horrified, and ran back into her room. Herne saw her go and thought, why is she always seeing men killed, and then, why am I always watching this boy gun men down?

  There was no answer to either question. Footsteps sounded on the boardwalk outside. Faces peered over the top of the double doors.

  ‘Hey! It’s MacLaine! Someone’s shot MacLaine!’

  ‘Somebody’s killed the sheriff?

  ‘It’s that kid who shot John last night!’

  ‘Somebody get the doc, quick.’

  ‘That goddamn kid’s bin doin’ his fancy shootin’ again.’

  ‘Hey! Get over to the sheriff’s office. Get his deputy across here, quickly.’

  Matt Bronson and Jed Herne stood inside the saloon face to face. Neither man spoke, Then Herne stood out of his way as Bronson went towards the exit. The man with the broom eased the dead sheriff over on to his back.

  The batwing doors continued to swing back and forth behind the boy. Voices were raised up and down the street outside, and then there was the sound of a single horseman riding out of town, fast.

  Herne thought at least the kid had the sense to get out while he could, before the townsfolk got riled up sufficiently to come for him.

  Then he wondered if Bronson would get a good enough start on the posse that would inevitably be formed to hunt him down.

  But he still wasn’t sure how much he damn well cared what happened to Bronson. Or if he cared at all. The kid was in love with his guns; in love with the speed of his own draw; in love with the rush of blood to his head and heart as he saw another bullet find its mark. Why should Herne care for such as him?

  He walked to the stairs, stepped carefully over the spreading pool of blood and went on up to Becky’s room.

  This time she wasn’t crying. just sitting on the bed, legs crossed under her body, staring through the window at the sky.

  When Herne came in she turned to face him and her mouth twitched slightly.

  ‘I never wanted you to make this trip,’ he said. ‘Never wanted you to be around all this shooting and killing.’

  She looked at him and said, ‘But you’re part of it, aren’t you? That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘We’ve been over this before. D’you want those men to get off free after what they did?’

  Becky bit down on her bottom lip.

  ‘I don’t know any more,’ she said finally. ‘I just don’t know, Jed.’

  Herne gestured behind him. ‘The kid’s ridden out.’

  ‘What’s all that shouting then?’ Becky asked.

  ‘They’re makin’ up a posse, I guess. They’ll want to ride him down if ’n they can. Ride him down and string him up.’

  A look of horror filled the girl’s face.


  ‘Hang him, you mean?’

  Herne nodded.

  ‘But you don’t mean it! They can’t take the law into their own hands like . . .’

  Becky broke off, suddenly realizing that that was exactly what Herne himself was doing. And what she was helping him to do.

  Herne opened the door and the voices from the saloon downstairs and the street outside rose and grew in their fervor. He pushed the door shut again and looked down at the girl on the bed.

  ‘You can’t doubt but what they’ll do if they get the chance.’

  Becky looked up at him. ‘But you were there. You saw what happened. The sheriff drew his gun first. Matt didn’t have any choice but to shoot him.’

  ‘How much choice did Matt give the sheriff about going for that gun in the first place?’

  ‘What do you mean, Jed?’

  ‘I mean that the kid prodded and prodded until the sheriff couldn’t back down without losing his self-respect. Just like he did last night with that drunk in the bar.’

  ‘So rather than lose his self-respect’ said Becky, ‘he lost his life.’

  Herne looked at the floor for a moment, staring down at an uneven knot in the wood. Then he raised his head again.

  ‘Yep, Becky, that’s what he did. That’s what we all do when it comes down to it, I guess.’

  ‘Is that what you would do, Jed?’

  He stared directly at her now.

  ‘You know it is.’

  She looked away from the intensity of his gaze. She did know it. And now Matt was going to be hunted down and killed for an old man’s sense of pride and for his own recklessness. She didn’t know who to blame, who to feel sorry for.

  Finally she was left feeling sorry for herself.

  ‘Jed?’ she began weakly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can’t you stop them?’

  ‘Too late,’ Herne replied. ‘Anyhow . . . why should I?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Becky, ‘except that . . . except that I don’t want him to be killed. Not like that. Not chased and hunted down like a young animal.’

  Herne walked past her to the window.

  ‘Maybe that’s all he is, Becky.’

  She jumped to her feet and stood in front of him, her eyes suddenly alive.

  ‘No, Jed. Don’t say that about him. It’s not true. It’s not right.’

  ‘Honey,’ Herne said gently, ‘you’ve only seen him kill one man. I’ve seen him kill three.’

  Becky turned her back on him and stood by the end of the bed, her hands twisting around the bed-post. She spoke so softly that Herne could not hear her and had to ask her to repeat what she had said.

  Still it was soft, but this time he heard.

  ‘Don’t let him be hanged. Go after him. After the posse. Help him.’

  There was a silence in the small room which Becky thought would never end.

  Then Herne’s voice, saying, ‘Why? Becky, why?’

  And the girl’s reply: ‘For me, Jed. Please, do it for me.’

  He came to her and rested his hands on her shoulders, strong, wide hands that gave her warmth and reassurance.

  She allowed herself to fall backwards so that her body rested on his and she was glad of the comfort she found there. So much seemed to be going wrong. There was so much that she was unable to cope with, to face up to, to understand.

  ‘Is he worth saving, Becky?’ Herne finally asked. ‘He might end up like one of those men from the train. You know that, don’t you? Save him now and he might end up like Barton Duquesne or Senator Nolan’s son. A rapist. A murderer. Had you thought of that?’

  Becky nodded her head. She had thought of that. But there was something else she had thought of Becky turned and she was standing close to Herne, looking up into the lines of his face, the graying hair.

  ‘Or he might turn out like you, Jed. He might turn out like you.’

  Becky sat on the bed, thinking, trying to think. She had asked Jed for something and he had agreed. He had gone. just as he had asked her to go to Duquesne and she had gone. But had he been right?

  Was she?

  The occasional creak of the bed gave her no answers.

  Eight

  ‘Whoa, there!’

  ‘Let’s hang on a minute!’

  ‘What you stoppin’ for?’

  ‘What you seen, Billy?’

  ‘Look here. Tracks get kinda muffled up right about that bend we just come round. I don’t reckon we’re following the right trail. His mount was making heavier tracks than this.’

  ‘What you think then?’

  ‘I think we ought to go back and take another look.’

  The horsemen wheeled and turned their mounts and rode back to where the trail bent around itself like a snake.

  The man known as Billy Two-Pines, leaned low from his saddle and surveyed the ground.

  ‘Hell, it’s no easier to read than writin’ now that we’ve all ridden over it again. But there’s track of one rider forking off to the left. I reckon that might be our man.’

  ‘But that’d take him round by the river and back on the road to town. Less’n he doubles back on himself again.’

  ‘Yea, Billy. What’d he want to go back to town for? He sure lit out in an all fired hurry.’

  ‘Don’t ask me. I’m just sayin’ that I think that’s his trail. That’s all. I don’t know why he’s doin’ what he’s doin’.’

  ‘What about you, Hank? What d’you think?’

  The livery stable owner swore and spat, then swore again.

  ‘How the heck should I know what he’s thinkin’ of? What was he thinkin’ of when he shot down John and the sheriff?’

  There were murmurs and nods of agreement from the other men in the posse.

  ‘Well,’ said Billy, ‘t’ain’t no good sitting here all day. We gotta go somewheres. Dan, you’re supposed to be the deputy round here. This is your posse. What do you reckon we do now?’

  Dan stroked the strands of his moustache and seemed to be having some trouble knowing what to think. All Ed MacLaine had ever let him think about was sweeping out the cells and getting the coffee in. But after a while he pointed off down towards the river.

  ‘Guess we’ll follow what Billy reckons to be the trail. What he says is right — ain’t doin’ nothin’ sittin’ here ’cept getting our asses sore.’

  Glad to be given any kind of definite instruction, the posse pulled their animals round and galloped off in the direction of what they hoped to be Matt Bronson’s trail.

  It was.

  And they needn’t have hurried. They were going to catch him anyway.

  Matt had turned off at the bend and headed to the left, knowing that he was about to turn right back on himself, knowing that he had only to reach the river, cross it, and Floyd would be before him.

  He knew that by turning away at that point, there was a good chance he might lose the posse. Knew also that by riding through the river, he might make his tracks all the more difficult to pick up.

  Yet these were not the important things: not the motives that decided his change of direction and which the posse had been unable to guess at. He wanted to get back to town before Herne could move the girl out again. It was Becky that he wanted. Whether she wanted him or not — though he supposed that she did.

  Surely he was better for her than that has-been gunslinger?

  She had said, when they were talking in the stable that time, that Herne treated her as a father, but he didn’t believe that any man could travel night and day with a girl who looked as good as Becky did and not get fancy ideas about her. And once you got ideas, you were only a step away from putting them into practice. Only the reach of a hand away.

  Matt knew also that going back for Becky meant that he would have to come up against Herne. What the hell! He must be over the top by now. His reflexes must have slowed down —- like the old sheriff in the saloon that morning. That time in Little Rock had just been luck.

  He�
�d call him and take him and then he’d not only have Becky, he’d have his reputation known all over the territory.

  For men still spoke of Herne with respect — Matt knew that — and the gunman who finally laid Herne low wouldn’t have to step aside for anyone.

  That would show everyone, Matt thought with a glint of pride in his eye. That would show his father!

  But Matt forgot what they said came after pride.

  All those thoughts running round after one another in his mind had drawn his attention away from the path he was taking. Normally his horse could gallop over any sort of terrain without as much as a stumble.

  Normally.

  Matt had been driving her too fast.

  The animal failed to see a sudden dip in the ground, a hole partly covered by long, overhanging grass into which her leg pushed for support. The balance was lost. The mare flung up its back legs, the right foreleg buckling under it.

  As Matt’s body turned through the air, he heard the horse’s leg snap like a rotten fence-post. Then he landed badly on his side and all of the breath was knocked out of him. He tried to push himself up but his head was swimming round in a kind of mist and the effort seemed to send a hammer crashing down on to the front of his skull.

  He fell backwards and lost consciousness.

  The black horse whinnied twice, three times, fearfully.

  When he came round again, it was to the rumble of horses’ hooves along the ground to which his ear was pressed. A sound that got louder and louder. He sat up, dazed. Looked around him. The horse still lay on its side, trying to move its head round frantically. The posse was coming over the hill and was almost upon him.

  Matt tried to jump up, only to drop back on one arm. He reached down to his right holster. Empty. By the time he had changed position and felt for the other gun it was too late.

  The first two riders were alongside; both had their guns drawn. Matt let his left hand fall away from its position over his holster.

  ‘Well, well, look what we got ourselves here,’ said one.

  ‘Yep,’ answered Billy, ‘it looks like a young turkey bird all ready for trussing.’

  ‘Take that other gun of his, Billy,’ said Dan, beginning now to enjoy his new-found authority. ‘Just in case he’s fool enough to try anything stupid.’