He guessed where the old woman would have gone. Back to her lair like a dying animal.
To her own locked room.
Halfway up the stairs, Herne paused, realizing that he had no further ammunition and only the empty Le Mat pistol, But he had not used the scatter-gun barrel of the unique gun. It was the work of a moment to alter the hammer nose, making sure the nipple of the percussion cap was standing in place.
The smoke grew thicker as he walked to the top of the staircase, going to the right where Lily Sowren had her den. Stopping again when he was outside the heavy oaken door. Hearing the faint sound of someone weeping.
‘No,’ he said to himself. ‘Not weeping. The bitch is laughing!’
Holding the Le Mat steady in his right hand, Herne reached out with his left and gently... very gently... turned the ornamental brass knob of the door. Certain that he would find it locked.
It was open.
‘Come in,’ said a voice, heavy with drink. ‘That must be naughty Jedediah that’s spoiled everything. Nobody else would care to... I mean dare to come in like that.’
He remembered the servants had mentioned a gun. After all their killings, the sisters were so deep in blood that to kill him would only be another entry in the long column of butchery.
‘Come in, do. Let us have an end to this. Eliza is dead is she not?’
He slowly edged the door open, suddenly seeing a discarded Derringer, like the one Eliza had earned, on the carpet of the bedroom.
‘She is.’
‘I knew it. Where?’
‘By the saloon. It fell on her.’
There was a bellow of laughter from within. ‘That’s rich! Stupid, dried-up, drained, saggin’ old whore! That’s fuckin’ rich, Herne. Fuckin’ rich!’
Behind him the noise of flames was growing louder every moment and the smell of smoke thicker in his nostrils. There wasn’t much time. But he was determined not to leave it open at the end. Not for Zimmerman. And the rest.
He pushed the door open, and stopped, stricken by what he saw.
Lily Sowren was naked on her bed. The great rolls of her fat cascading about her like a stranded whale: her breasts sagged to her belly, the nipples buried in wrinkled skin. She lay with her legs apart, her hands busy between her thighs. The room stank of whisky and the heavy ruttish scent of her body.
And beneath her on the stained coverlet. Beneath her. Around her. On top of her. A mountain of pictures. Hand-tinted daguerreotypes. All showing the same thing. Men. Mainly young, from what Herne saw in that glance. All naked. Each one revealing himself to the camera in a way that Herne did not believe a normal man could do.
‘You like what you see, Jedediah. Come and love me a little. I’m old and ill and terrified and a bit in drink, dear boy. Come to me.’
He was disgusted.
Almost without knowing he did it, Herne the Hunter pulled the trigger of the Le Mat, sending the charge of buckshot ripping through her naked body. Tearing into her breasts and stomach, punching a massive hole in her soft, old flesh. Blood gouted from her, soaking over the pictures, pouring through on the bed, dripping to the floor.
He turned away and left her without a single backwards glance. Leaving the room. The house.
Leaving Wild Rose City, with his guns and his possessions and his horse.
Nobody tried to stop him and he didn’t check the stallion until they were on the crest of the hill to the east. The sky had lightened with the promise of the false dawn, and he looked at the smoldering smoking ruins of the beautiful town, with the river running on ceaselessly behind it.
And he thought at that moment of a song that Lily Sowren had loved. One she said was very new. A friend had got it for her from another friend.
‘Darling, I am growing old,
Silver threads among the gold,
Shine upon my brow today;
Life is fading fast away.’
After that thought, Herne didn’t look back again. There wasn’t any point.
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i For the details of Herne’s return to the killing trail, see White Death, first book in this series.
ii For all of these adventures, read the earlier titles in the exciting saga of Herne the Hunter, listed at the front of this book, all available from Piccadilly Publishing.
iii The story of the Lawrence raid can be read Massacre!, also available from Piccadilly Publishing.
Silver Threads Page 12
