‘Herne? Do this mean what I think it means?
From out of the darkness there floated a voice as cold as a midnight tomb.
‘It do.’
‘My leg’s broke, Herne,’ called Joab.
“What the Hell d’you want me to do? Come and nurse you?’
‘ You killed Gawain.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And Matthew and Marcus? Must have if’n you’re here and alive.’
‘You figure good. Just like a damned banker, Sowren. Even a crooked banker.’
At that moment, Eliza and Lily were sitting in their withdrawing room, a half mile away up the hill, waiting patiently. Not wanting to be too precipitate. Eliza had ruled that they would wait until half-past four. If nobody had returned by then they would assume that all was lost and they would act accordingly.
They both knew what they must do.
That had been agreed among the family many years back. Even though none of them had ever imagined that it would come to it. None of them had ever imagined that there was a man around like Herne the Hunter
~*~
‘Let me alone, Herne.’
‘You’re wastin’ breath, Sowren. Man as close to death as you are should be makin’ peace with his gods, not whining on about livin’.’
‘I’ll pay you, Herne. Thousand dollars.’
‘Forget it, Sowren.’
‘Ten thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money.’
‘Sure is. And I got me plenty of life to think on the way I earned it. Thanks a lot, Mr. Sowren, but I guess not.’
‘Anything...’
‘You don’t need to offer that much, Sowren. All I want is one bullet through your head. That’ll do me. Kind of pay off some scores for all the men you and your murderin’ family butchered in all those robberies.’
‘Wasn’t my idea.’ Joab was still fighting to free himself, but the dead weight of the horse was too much. At first shock had eased off the pain from the broken leg, but now it was inching back in. Tearing at him like the jaws of a wild animal.
‘I know that, Sowren. It was your mother and her crazy sister. They’re goin’ to get theirs too, not that I go much for killin’ women. But I’m real prepared to make an exception for those two.’
By now he was beginning to suspect that Sowren wasn’t armed. Or was so badly hurt he couldn’t get at his pistol. But a suspicion wasn’t enough to go walking up on, and he started to move around, skirting the grove of bushes that had first hidden him. Moving silent as a Chiricahua warrior, setting down each foot as carefully as if he was treading on eggshells.
At last he could see partly behind the corpse of the horse, settled in the mud. The banker was there, struggling to lift his head and see where Herne was.
‘Where are you? Damn it! Don’t just go off and leave me here. I’ll die.’
There was no answer.
Jed stepped in closer to him. Closing the gap. Watching the man’s hands, seeing they couldn’t reach the holstered gun trapped under him.
‘Come on!! Help!!! Help!!!’
Sowren’s control was going as he realized that he’d been left with his broken leg. It could be a day or more until anyone came along and found him. By then he’d be dead from pain and shock.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he whimpered. ‘Help me. Please, Mama. Help Joab. Help me, Mama. Please help me.’ His voice had dropped so low that Herne could hardly catch it, and the middle-aged banker was beginning to cry.
‘Not fair, Mama. Please.’
In his morbid terror, he hardly even noticed the cold of the muzzle of the Le Mat against his muddied hair.
‘So long,’ said Herne, in a pleasant conversational voice, squeezing the trigger once.
At the crown of the head the hair hadn’t got wet from the muddy earth, and the explosion of the pistol at point blank range set fire to it. Filling Herne’s nostrils with the smell of scorched hair. But it sizzled for only a moment.
Jed had aimed for a little behind the right ear, so that the bullet would bury itself in the middle of the brain. It was surprising how you could shoot a man through the head and not kill him. Herne recalled a dance-hall girl in Natchez, or could it have been Dallas? A girl who’d fired two shots from an over-and-under Derringer through her head and failed to kill herself. Both bullets had passed through without doing any fatal damage.
But the shots had scarred her face, taking away part of her jaw and most of her teeth. As soon as she was free from hospital she’d gone on down to the river and drowned herself.
‘Natchez,’ he said to himself, remembering.
Standing up from the twitching corpse of Joab Sowren, wiping shards of bone from his sleeve, specks of blood and pink brain from the back of his hand.
~*~
Three nephews and two sons dead. Herne looked up at the moon sinking slowly down towards the distant hills. The night was nearly over. He stood close to the trail and reloaded the Colt, sticking it in his belt. Glancing down at the two corpses.
‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘I guess it’s about time to go join the ladies.’
Chapter Twelve
Because of her bulk, Lily found it hard work scurrying about the dark, silent town, carrying the cans. Pouring out the liquid around the walls and doors of the houses and stores. Splattering the saloon with it. Gagging at the heavy smell. Wrinkling her nose with distaste as some of it splashed on her pink dress. Though it was still cool, she was sweating from her exertions.
Eliza also struggled with her labors. Despite her skinny build, she was strong for such an old woman, heaving out the cans, and rolling them along to pour them out where they would do most good.
At one point she straightened up with a groan of discomfort, putting both hands in the small of her back. Feeling the wind ruffling the silver hair, and she smiled.
‘Best kind of wind. Do most of the work for us,’ she said. Even though there wasn’t anyone there to hear her, alone among the shadows.
She checked her purse to make sure she was carrying the box of lucifers to ignite the fires. And plenty of brown wrapping paper to make certain that gallons and gallons of oil caught properly. Despite the recent rains, the wood of the buildings was dry and painted. With this wind it wouldn’t take too long for the entire town to go up in flames.
‘We made it, Papa,’ she muttered as she climbed back into the rig for more oil. ‘And we can destroy it.’
Eliza Sowren seemed to be acting quite rationally. In her own mind there was nothing wrong with what she was doing. Nor was there any doubt in Lily’s mind. They had agreed it was right and so it was right. It had been all along. The only way to save the town had been to steal and murder so that the mine would not die. Now all of that was over, spoiled for them by that wretched Herne. She looked again in her purse, making sure the little pocket pistol was safe and snug. If all went well, she would be able to make Wild Rose City into a fitting funeral pyre for Mr. Jedediah Herne. Eliza and Lily Sowren were, of course, quite mad.
~*~
Jed smelled the oil before he reached the first building of the town. His initial thought was that someone had spilled a can of it, or that someone’s storage tank was leaking. But it was very strong. Riding over the top of everything else, tugging at his nostrils despite the wind, now rising to near a gale.
Then there was the flickering of a light a couple of hundred yards ahead of him. And the bits of the puzzle clicked into place.
‘Oh, Jesus! They’re setting fire to the whole damned place,’ he said, wonderingly.
The first glimmer of orange light was growing even as he stood and looked at it. There were others. Seeming to spring up everywhere. Eliza had made her plans well, making sure that she and Lily were able to light nearly twenty blazes, most of them tucked away around the backs of properties. So that there was no chance of any of them being seen.
He caught a glimpse of someone moving, near the front of the saloon, and he drew the Colt, wondering whether to risk a shot. Even
in the moonlight, he was sure that he recognized the tall, angular frame of Eliza Sowren.
But there were more important things to consider. With the wind set the way it was, it could well sweep through Wild Rose City in a matter of minutes, leaping from neat frame house to neat frame house. Devouring the entire town in flames.
Already, as he stood and considered what to do, he could see the fire beginning to gain an unstoppable hold. There was no way of knowing how many people in the town were actively involved in the robberies. Probably quite a few of them. But with the Sowrens dead, they would be safe.
‘Fire!’ he shouted. ‘Fire!! Fire!!!’ Snapping off all six shots from the Peacemaker into the night air, the noise booming about him.
Then he began to run. Digging his heels into the muddy street, powering his way towards where he’d seen Eliza. She must have heard the shots and would know what that meant. And Lily must be around as well.
Windows were sliding up as he ran, voices calling out. Shouting. A woman screaming. For a hideous moment it brought back to him August 21 1863, and the fire-death of Lawrence, Kansas when Quantrill and his men massacred one hundred and forty-two men, women and children.
He’d been there, helping with the killing and burning. Now there was the chance to set the scores back a little.
By the time Jed reached The Rich Nugget saloon, it was well ablaze. It seemed as if the whole of Wild Rose was burning away, the flames leaping from house to house with a dreadful ferocity, carried by the strong wind. The air was filled with glowing sparks whirling by, and his ears rang with the crashing of timber and the breaking of glass.
Men were shouting and he saw a child dash out into the street ahead of him, its nightdress flaring as it ran. A man appeared and flung a blanket over the child, dowsing the flames.
Everywhere people were pouring out of buildings. Some to stand and weep. Some to shout for water. For a bucket chain to be organized. For anything that would help.
Three times questions were called out to Herne, and he replied, telling them what had happened, knowing the words would spread around the doomed town almost as quickly as the flames. Telling them that the ladies had done it, as a final revenge on the world, once their wickedness was discovered.
Knowing that it would not take long for them to come seeking revenge from the Misses Sowren. A revenge that Herne felt should come from him and from him alone.
The fire had been started around the rear of the saloon, and had raced through the building, leaping from dry painted wall to ceiling to floor to drapes and furniture. It could only be a matter of moments before the shingled roof collapsed. As Herne stood watching the awesome scene, he saw some of the roofing timbers being whirled away into the air by the furnace-heat, carrying their flames with them to start a dozen new blazes.
But where were the ladies?
He was sure he’d seen Eliza close by the saloon, but there had been no sign of Lily. He decided that he would walk around the block, guessing that they must have had a wagon to carry all the oil.
As soon as he stepped from the brightness of Main Street he heard the crack of a small hand-gun, and flinched away as a bullet dug splinters of white wood from the wall close to his head. It was pretty shooting in poor light with a small gun.
‘Nice try, Ma’am,’ he called out, the Le Mat ready in his fist. Dropping to one knee and scanning the dim alley for a glimpse of the woman. Suddenly, away beyond the blazing building, he heard the crack of a whip and saw a wagon race across, heading up the hill. Towards the Sowren mansion. Driven by a hunched, grotesquely fat figure, the pale face turned in his direction. It was past so quickly that there was no chance of a shot at Lily as she flogged the horse out of sight.
That meant it was Eliza with the gun.
Behind him, the inhabitants of Wild Rose were nearly all out in the streets, like ghosts in their night-clothes, seeking revenge. Calling out, a growing anger from the lunatic fringe.
‘Hang the witches!!!’ he heard. Or was it ‘Bitches’? It could have been both.
‘Mr. Herne!!’ came the cold voice from the shadows. ‘I am over here.’
It was a back door to the saloon. Either side of it were windows, splintering in the heat, showing the bright squares of flame. The room beyond the door must be an inferno of heat. There were some boxes piled by the door, and Herne knew that Eliza Sowren must be behind them. They were mainly of thin board.
The Le Mat had three bullets left.
He took a chance and fired two of them through the boxes, both about the place he’d reckoned that a woman’s breastbone would be. About nine inches apart, gambling that Eliza would be too much the lady to do anything like hitching up her skirt and crouching down in the dirt of the back alley.
The gamble paid off.
There wasn’t a scream. More of a muffled groan. And she appeared.
The pistol still in her right hand, the other pressed to her stomach, where dark blood oozed between her gloved fingers. He’d forgotten just how tall she was. In an ordinary woman the one shot would have certainly killed her, going clean through the heart. But it was too low. Barely above the sash around her waist, buried deep in her stomach. It would probably kill her in the end.
For Jed, that wasn’t enough.
‘You win, Mr. Herne,’ she called out, her voice still strong. ‘You have won, and we have lost. Who would have thought it?’
She half-turned for a moment at the crashing sound of beams breaking off and cascading inside the shell of the saloon in a burst of red and gold sparks. Then turned back to face him.
‘The mine was dead. Now the town is dead. We are finished, Mr. Herne.’ She paused as if she was gathering strength, eyeing him across the narrow street, the fires all around making it light as day, and he recoiled from the unflinching malevolence in her gaze. Realizing what a very remarkable woman she had been.
Still was, even so close to the ending.
‘And you are finished with us!!!’ she screamed, leveling the Derringer at him.
Eliza Sowren never got to squeeze the trigger of the little gun.
The last bullet from the Le Mat took her through the bridge of that amazingly bony nose, smashing on into her brain, killing her instantly. To Herne it was as though a flower of deepest crimson had bloomed in the centre of her face, the petals spreading down over her mouth and across the purple dress. The gun fell from her fingers and she staggered back against the door of The Rich Nugget.
Which opened as if a servant had been inside waiting for her entrance, welcoming her into the maelstrom of fire beyond.
The body toppled backwards and vanished in the silver heat of the flames. Immediately afterwards there was another splintering and more timbers from the saloon roof fell in on top of her, burying the corpse.
Herne sniffed and stood there for a moment, looking at the mighty wreckage all around him. Eliza Sowren had done her work well.
All that now remained was her sister.
~*~
Nobody had heard the noise of the shooting above the other sounds of the dying township. He glanced out again into Main Street, seeing that the fire was now raging through the length and breadth of Wild Rose. Men had formed a hasty and ineffective bucket chain down near the Clearwater, but they might as well have tried to stop a bullet with a wet neckerchief.
Others were battling to save some of their furniture and possessions, throwing down beds and books from upstairs windows. Women shepherded weeping children away from the blaze towards the surrounding woods.
A few men were standing together arguing furiously. One of them holding a loop of hemp rope in his fists, shaking it angrily towards the top of the hill.
Jed ducked back into the alley, crouching into a loping run past Eliza’s funeral pyre, turning left and heading up towards the mansion by the graveyard.
Towards Lily Sowren.
Several times in that climb he was forced to slip aside from piles of burning embers and wood as walls and roofs crashed down
about his ears. Nobody was bothering about the backs of the properties, all the action coming in Main Street. It only took him a couple of minutes to reach the main gates of the Sowren house, staring behind him once to see the total devastation of the town. It seemed that every single building was ablaze, the light dazzling in the dark of early morning. The sparks and smoke rose in a mighty red-tinted column hundreds of feet into the air, being finally dispersed by the wind.
By the iron gates of the big house, there was a chattering gaggle of servants, all huddled together. All in their night-clothes. One of them recognized Herne and came running over.
‘Miss Lily, Mr. Herne. We fear she’s come over all strange, Mr. Herne.’
‘Why?’
‘She come back a few minutes ago and ordered us all from the house. Had a gun with her, she did.’
‘Smelled of lamp-oil, sir,’ added a girl, her eyes pools of fear in a white face.
‘Then we saw the fires, and we think she has a mind to burn us all out.’
Herne nodded ‘Then all keep clear. Wait. You,’ pointing to the middle-aged man who had been the butler.
‘Sir?’
‘See to my horse from the stable. And I want my guns and possessions removed from the house. Now, before it’s too damned late.’
‘Sir, I don’t think Miss Eliza would like to hear such language.’
Jed grabbed the servant by the shoulder with fingers as tight as iron chains. ‘That bloody-minded bitch is dead and will hear nothing more this side of eternity. Do as I tell you. I have to see Miss Lily.’
He stalked away from them. Leaving a shocked silence behind as if he had spat in the face of a visiting preacher.
In the hall he stopped and sniffed. Was there the hint of smoke?
He looked up the sweeping staircase, and he saw clear evidence that the Sowren mansion was not to escape the general conflagration that was destroying Wild Rose City. There was indeed smoke, creeping in coiled tendrils along the landing, beginning to pour down the stairs like a murky river. And there was the distant crackle of flames, somewhere in the upper reaches of the big house.
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