Shadow of the Vulture

by John J. McLaglen

  Jed grinned back at her. ‘Hell, lady,’ he said, ‘I thought you was Father Christmas!’

  Rosie sat down beside him and slid her hand along his thigh. ‘Far as you’re concerned, maybe I am.’

  Chapter Four

  Rosie’s fingers spread themselves around the muscle of his leg and held it firmly. Jed did his best to ignore their presence, but it was not easy. Especially when they were no longer content to apply pressure in one spot. They were beginning to wander slowly up and down, from his knee to the edge of his groin.

  He looked at her face, trying to concentrate on that instead. It was impossible to work out how old she might be—he was never very good with women’s ages anyhow–but it might be anywhere between thirty and forty. For a long while she’d probably looked much the same as she did now and she would remain so a while longer.

  Her face showed few lines, but the make-up she wore would have taken care of most of those in any case. Her eyes, underneath the mass of red hair, were dark brown; something about her that jarred. Almost the only thing, Herne decided.

  And the hand was still moving over his thigh to the extent that he could no longer ignore it. The steadily growing swelling at the center of his body was testament to its presence.

  Rosie smiled. ‘Wouldn’t you like a drink, Mr. Herne?’

  ‘What’s the party in honor of?’ Herne asked her.

  The smile broadened. ‘Of you being so pleased to see me, of course.’ She moved her hand deftly forwards and rubbed the backs of her nails over his crotch. ‘You are pleased to see me, aren’t you?’

  She could damned well feel that he was!

  Jed reached across for the bottle and poured two shots, passing one glass over to the hand that was on his leg so that she had to move it away to take the whisky.

  Her eyebrows raised. ‘What’s the matter, Mr. Herne? Don’t you appreciate a little friendly attention?’

  ‘Sure. But not in front of quite so many people. It makes me feel that I’m part of the hired entertainment. Like the piano player.’

  ‘Honey,’ said Rosie playfully, ‘I can assure you that you are less like the piano player than anybody else I have ever seen. Or felt!’

  ‘All right, Rosie, I take your point.’

  ‘The question is, Mr. Herne, do I get yours?’

  Jed shuffled his feet awkwardly, a little taken aback by the woman’s directness. It wasn’t something he was used to. Saloon girls and tramps were obvious enough, certainly, but not in words.

  ‘Since you know my last name,’ said Herne, ‘you must know my first. Why don’t you call me Jed?’

  ‘I will, Jed, I will. Why don’t you pour me another drink?’

  He looked at her glass. ‘You haven’t finished that one yet’

  She smiled roguishly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with taking two at the same time. If you’ve a mind to it.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Herne replied tersely.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Rosie shrugged her shoulders and downed the rest of her drink. She held the glass over towards Herne. ‘Now do I get another?’

  She did. And a detailed account of what had taken place outside Joe Brodie’s store that afternoon. Sure, she had heard other versions but she explained that she wanted to hear the real story from the man himself. Herne assured her that it was the merest of trifles and that it would only bore her, but she seemed content to listen anyway.

  ‘You fast with that thing?’ she asked when he had finished, pointing down at his Colt.

  ‘Fast enough. Which is all that matters. Why do you ask? Is it idle curiosity or do you have a better reason?’

  Rosie pulled back her head and pouted. ‘I might and I might not.’

  ‘For a woman who was coming on mighty strong, you’ve gone awful bashful all of a sudden.’

  She took a slug at her whisky. ‘You know what we women are like, Jed, we change our moods and minds as easy as a bird flies from tree to tree.’

  She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘You keep that bottle here, Jed, and carry on helping yourself. It’s on the house.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘You gave the boys something to talk about. The more they talk, the more they get thirsty. And the more my profits go up. So letting you have a drink is the least I can do.’

  Jed leered up at her. ‘Yes, ma’am, I do believe it is.’

  She smiled openly back at him and turned to look over the saloon. Her hand was back at her hip and she was very much the actress once again. If she had ever stopped.

  She watched as the doors swung open and a group of men came tumbling in loudly out of the night. One of them immediately pulled the chair out from under an unsuspecting card player and took it over to another table close to the bar. A second man took the hat off his head and, with a whoop, sent it skimming along the top of the bar, scattering full and empty glasses alike.

  There were six of them all told but they managed to give the impression that they were at least twice that number. As they crowded around the end of the bar, it became clear that their leader was the wall-eyed man with a drooping black moustache and a pair of six-guns holstered for a cross draw.

  It was towards this man, at the center of the group, that Rosie walked. She kissed him on the cheek, but he grabbed hold of her and bent her backwards over the bar, pressing his mouth hard down on to hers. Herne’s right hand drifted slowly from the edge of the table to his belt. The man let Rosie up and as he did so he fetched her a hefty smack across her rear.

  She called out, but not in anger. Then she laughed good and loud and gave a playful tweak to one end of the man’s moustache. Herne let his hand move back on to the table and poured himself another drink.

  He guessed that Rosie knew what she was doing; she looked as though she could handle most men.

  He hadn’t been able to ask her the questions he had wanted to, but it was beginning to look as though that would have to wait until the following day. Business in the Queen of the West was steadily increasing. There had to be a number of large ranches around to provide so much free-spending custom. It certainly didn’t all come from the town itself. Though it was likely that people were warming themselves up for the Christmas celebrations.

  Herne thought about having another drink, then decided against it. He stood up and looked around the large room. Rosie had been wandering about among her customers, but had now returned to the wall-eyed character and his friends.

  Fair enough, Herne said to himself. He picked up the half-full bottle by the neck and returned it to the bar. He was on his way out when he heard his name called. It was Rosie.

  She had slipped away from the rowdy group of drinkers and was walking quickly over towards Herne.

  ‘You’re not going?’ she said.

  ‘That’s how it seems to me.’

  ‘I’d thought we were going to have a nice cozy chat.’

  ‘So had I,’ said Herne, ‘but that was reckoning without your friends.’ He nodded past her shoulder in the direction of the cowboys she had just left.

  ‘Aw, Jed, they’re nothing. That’s just business.’

  ‘You tell that to him,’ answered Herne, watching the wall-eyed man carefully.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Rosie.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Good.’ She stepped right up to Herne and wound her arms tightly around his neck. Then she kissed him full in the mouth. The embrace was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass.

  Herne swung her to one side, spanning his right hand over his Colt. At the center of the group at the end of the bar, the man was standing in a fighter’s crouch, brandishing a smashed bottle. He waved its jagged edges in Herne’s direction.

  ‘Back off! That’s my woman you’re messing with!’

  ‘Who says?’ Herne asked, defiantly.

  The man thrust the bottle further forward. ‘I say.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Herne, ‘does she?’

  Rosie freed herself from Herne’s left ar
m and stepped between the men. She raised an arm towards each of them. ‘Whoa, now, boys. We don’t want anything nasty to happen here, do we?’

  ‘That’s where you’re fuckin’ wrong!’ yelled the cowboy at the bar and made a move towards her.

  ‘Ed!’ she cried, ‘you got no cause to ...’ Rosie went up to him, left arm outstretched. The man called Ed lunged at her with the bottle before she had time to finish. Rosie screamed and jumped back. She half-turned towards Herne holding up her arm for him to see.

  There was a crazed gash down the inside of it and the blood was already pouring freely from the wound. She put her other hand across to try to stem the flow, but the blood bubbled thickly through her spread fingers.

  Herne looked coldly at the wall-eyed man. ‘You got three seconds to drop that bottle and go for one of them guns,’ he barked.

  His voice was loud in the otherwise total silence of the room. Men stood on chairs, tables–anywhere to get a good view of the confrontation.

  ‘What happens if I don’t drop it?’

  ‘Then I take you anyway.’ Herne’s voice was as cold as ice.

  ‘Shit!’ said the man and threw the bottle hastily in Herne’s direction. At the same time his left hand clawed across in front of his chest, going for the handle of the gun that waited there.

  Herne saw the broken bottle coming at his head and swiveled away to let it past. As he rocked back, all his weight thrown on to his right leg, his hand swept into a smooth circling motion and drew the Colt clear of its holster.

  Hammer back, trigger back, both actions part of the same beautifully coordinated movement. The first shot shattered the bones at the back of the man’s left wrist as the fingers dragged his gun round. Released, it fell uselessly to the sawdust strewn floor. Before it landed, Herne’s second shot had hammered into his chest immediately above the breast bone and slammed him back against the edge of the bar.

  He flopped forward, down onto his knees. Arms spread wide, he stared up at Herne in the final unbelieving seconds before dying. Herne cocked back the hammer one more time and took careful aim. He shot right through the man’s good eye, taking it out completely. The range was so close that a good deal of the head was blasted away as well.

  One of the cowboys who had been with the now dead man looked down with disgust at the splotch of grayish matter, streaked through with red that clung to his waistcoat.

  He stared at it as though it was some strange fungus that was going to eat its way into him, then he brushed it away with his sleeve, an expression of disgust riveted to his face.

  He looked at Herne over the slumped shape between them. ‘What the hell did you have to do that for?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ;What do you think I did it for?’ Herne snarled. ‘For one thing, he attacked this woman with a broken bottle. For another he went for his gun. Damn it! How many reasons d’you want me to have for killin’ a man?’

  ‘That depends who it is you’re killin’!’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that maybe we got plenty of reasons for taking care of you.’

  Herne ran his eyes along the bar. Five men; they had spread themselves out when the wall-eyed man was making his play; now they had edged back together in the way that gangs automatically do. The one who was acting as the gang’s spokesman was a swarthy, medium-built cowboy with a Stetson pushed back on his head. He wore one gun peculiarly high on his hip. Unless he had some special way of using it, Herne couldn’t see how he was going to be able to clear leather with any sort of speed.

  The other four had nothing special to mark them out. They weren’t any uglier or more handsome than any men who had spent a hard time working on the range and had come into town to loosen up and cause a little ruckus. They all wore guns–it would have been strange if they hadn’t–but none seemed to be professional. They didn’t have either the stance or the manner.

  But they had been drinking a lot and their leader had been shot down in front of them. It was going to be difficult for them to back down and lose face in front of the town.

  Yet the longer they stood there, the less likely it became that they would make any kind of move–except for the door. And all the while the blood poured from the wounds of the man crumpled on the saloon floor. Poured from his arm, his chest, from the hideous raw socket where his eye had been.

  ‘Reckon that if I were you,’ said Herne, ‘I’d pick him up and shift him out of here. Before he sets in rotten and stinks the whole place out.’

  Two of them pushed themselves off the bar and started to move forward, intending to do what they had been told. Two of the others were undecided, one of them the one who had been doing the talking.

  Which left one other cowboy. He stood to the far right. Hadn’t spoken a word nor made a move. There was nothing about him which suggested that he might do either. Until...

  Partly covered by one of his friends who was moving between Herne and himself, he went for the gun that hung below his hip. Did more than just go for it–he drew and had the hammer cocked in a lot less time than he should have been able to manage.

  Herne saw the move late and, unless he chose to shoot through the man who stood between them, had only a limited target. He loosed off a snap shot at the cowboy’s gun arm shoulder. It tore away the material of the man’s coat and several layers of skin, but not much more. The man’s return shot went low and embedded itself high in the thigh of the friend in front of him. This set off a loud shout of pain which was repeated in kind when Herne fired his next, more measured shot. His aim was directed at the elbow and it was true.

  The cowboy dropped his gun and clutched at the smashed bone of his right arm, his mouth opening with the intensity of the pain.

  The scene was rapidly degenerating into an orgy of shooting and blood-letting. There were three of them remaining, one close at Herne’s left side. He hadn’t made a move for his weapon, but Herne was not about to take any chances. He brought the underside of his Colt round in a sweeping blow that struck the man’s temple and grazed on across his forehead.

  He rocked on his heels, staggered backwards and finally collapsed over the body of the wall-eyed man.

  ‘Christ!’ shouted the cowboy standing with a hand clapped desperately over the deep wound in his thigh. ‘Christ almighty! Can’t somebody do something about this bleeding?’

  There didn’t appear to be any immediate offers. No one paid any attention to his problems, least of all Herne. He was too busy trying to figure out when the two remaining desperadoes by the bar were going to make a move.

  ‘Tell you something, mister,’ said one of them.

  ‘Make it quick,’ Herne snapped.

  ‘By my count you’ve only got one shell left in that gun of yours.’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘And there’s two of us.’

  ‘All right,’ said Herne, ‘so which one of you wants to take the risk that it won’t be him I use it on?’

  The two of them looked at Herne, then at each other. Finally they got their message from the pools of blood which were settling on the floor close to their feet and from their friend with the gunshot wound in his leg who was still screaming for help.

  ‘You’re calling the shots, mister.’

  ‘Right. Ease those guns out of your belts and slide them back along the bar. And don’t be foolish. There’s been enough shooting going on here for one evening.’

  They did as they were ordered.

  ‘Now get these bodies out of here–and get that feller there to a doctor. Suppose there is a doctor around here somewheres?’ Herne looked around the crowd, most of whom had backed away as far as they could without losing sight of what was happening. ‘Maybe one of you could fetch the doc? The rest of you could help get this mess sorted out.’ He gestured down to the heap of bodies in front of him.

  At first no one moved. Then a wizened old man hobbled over to the door while a few others, obviously with stronger stomachs than the rest, walked slowly and self-conscio
usly forward from the stunned crowd to help.

  Herne holstered his Colt and walked over to the bar.

  ‘Gave you back a bottle with a whole lot of whisky still in it,’ he said to the barkeep. ‘I reckon I could use some of that right now.’

  The bottle and a glass slid along the polished counter towards him. Herne was on his way back to his table, the one he had been sitting at before, when Rosie intercepted him. She looked a lot paler than she had and her arm had been tended to but otherwise didn’t seem any the worse for what she had seen. The fact that she had triggered it all off didn’t seem to be bothering her unduly. Herne reckoned that that was maybe because she was used to having men fighting for her favors.

  ‘It’s going to be difficult to talk in here for a while,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come into my office and have your drink?’

  Herne looked coolly into her brown eyes. ‘You want to talk?’

  Shaken though she might have been, the smile she flashed up at Herne did not reveal it. Although it did suggest a whole lot! Herne walked alongside her to the office door and waited while she drew a key from the depths of her cleavage and unlocked it.

  ‘You always keep your keys down there?’ Herne asked.

  ‘That depends what they open,’ she pouted.

  ‘You mean you got others?’

  Rosie moved up to him until her body was pushing against him from the hips. ‘By my reckoning, Jed, you got the key to my highway yourself.’

  She stood aside and ushered him through the door in front of her.

  The office was small. There was a solid looking wooden desk at its center, with a swivel chair behind it. Alongside the window, with its blind drawn down, there was an easy chair covered in smooth tanned hide. In front of this was a smaller table.

  Rosie stood behind the leather chair and motioned to Herne to sit down. ‘After all that exercise, I reckon how you could use a little rest.’

  Herne set the bottle and glass down on the table and settled into the comfortable leather chair. Rosie pushed the wooden swivel chair across from behind the desk and placed herself opposite him. She took hold of the bottle and poured two stiff shots. Herne grunted his thanks and swallowed the fiery whisky in one quick gulp. She looked at him surprised, then poured him another. He tossed it back the same way as the first.