Till Death (A Herne the Hunter western. Book 15)

by John J. McLaglen

  It was the 28th of February.

  The marriage was set for the 20th of March.

  Herne thought about it, but he didn’t have to think about it long.

  Harding was standing uncertainly on tiptoe, attempting to maneuver a shoe box from one of the higher shelves, when Herne entered.

  ‘Lo, Jed, can you …’

  Herne pulled the box free and dropped it down on to the counter. ‘Give me some shells, Harding, .45 and .55. Don’t waste time.’

  The little man looked puzzled, saw the Colt where it had not been for some time, strapped to Herne’s leg.

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘Shells.’

  ‘Someone ridden into town?’ Harding peered past Herne towards the door.

  Herne pushed him, firmly enough, back down behind the counter. ‘Now.’

  Harding nodded. ‘Okay, Jed.’

  ‘And a sack of supplies, enough for …’ Herne shrugged, assessing, ‘week, maybe two. Flour and some coffee, some of that dried meat, jerky, beans. I’ve got my horse to collect from the livery. Have it ready when I get back.’

  The storekeeper wet his lips with his tongue, nodded again. He’d had that feeling, like when you’re sitting opposite a straight flush and there’s no way of knowing other than that itching under your scalp and along the backs of your hands.

  Fifteen minutes later Herne was mounted and riding out of town, down towards the Harvey place. Louise was out back, pegging washing on to the line. When she saw Jed riding over, she dropped the clothes back into the basket and ran towards him. Ten yards off she noticed something different, she saw the gun.

  ‘Jed!’

  ‘I know. It’s something I’ve got to do.’

  ‘Jed, you can’t, you promised.’

  His hands were on her arms, holding her so that she had to look at his face. ‘After we’re married, I promised then.’

  ‘But you haven’t worn that … haven’t worn a gun for weeks now.’

  ‘I haven’t needed to.’

  He released her and she turned away, her back almost set against him.

  ‘Why do you need to now?’

  Herne hesitated, uncertain how much he should tell her, how much she needed to know.

  ‘Tell me, Jed.’

  Louise swung back towards him, one of her hands catching at his wrist, the other held out in front of her, open.

  ‘There’s some men, bust out of prison, they’ll be looking for me. It don’t matter why.’ Her eyes questioned him but he shook his head. ‘Best I see them before they catch up with me. Away from here.’

  ‘So you can kill them?’

  He looked over her head. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Or they kill you.’ The other hand curled inside his own.

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know.’

  She backed away, sucking in her wide lower lip, tears fighting at the corners of her eyes. ‘Because you’re who you are, that’s how you know, isn’t it? Because you’re Herne the Hunter. A fast gun. The fast … Oh, Jed!’

  She flung herself against him and he held her and rocked her on his body and then lowered his face to hers and when her arms went round his neck he kissed her for a long time.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ he said from the saddle, ‘I’ll be back in time for the wedding. Believe that. Even if you don’t hear from me, believe that.’

  Watching from the window of the house, Louise’s mother saw the anguish in her daughter’s face and read the cause. Her breath smeared the glass: he’s widowed her before he’s married her: the words unheard in the empty room.

  ~*~

  Herne didn’t know how long it would have taken the Latham boys to have found out about their brother, Pierce, but he figured that it wouldn’t have been long. Once the initial heat of pursuit had died down, the rumors and stories would be thick and fast. As soon as they knew what had happened, they’d come after Herne, even if it meant risking getting recaptured. Herne knew their mentality, understood, in part, the way their kind thought.

  He rode north, undecided at first whether to strike west towards Mesa or east in the direction of Fort Sumner. The trail between the two was a rough one, winding down across the desert flats away from the Pecos. Roughly midway along it sat Peg-Leg Mary’s.

  Mary’s was a trading post that served for most everything a man riding that trail might need - or think he did. She sold supplies, food and ammunition, served up hot plates of stew and the roughest whiskey that ever exploded out of a still. You could lose any money you had at cards and if you didn’t mind sharing her with the rats that now and then scuffled about under the sacking in the side barn, you could have Mary’s one-eyed sister, Martha. Those times of the month when Martha wasn’t available, a man with the gall to ask and the extra dollars to back it up, could avail himself of a little time alone with Peg-Leg herself.

  The story ran that Mary had been travelling west in a wagon train that got stuck in the snows high in the Sierra Madre, above the frozen Conejos river. Mary’s feet got frozen solid and the circulation threatened to go right up her legs and through the rest of her body. The men poured a couple of bottles of whiskey down her, tied her down with ropes, gagged her mouth double, and one of them who’d served on a whaler out of Nantucket amputated both feet an inch above the ankles using a small meat-saw and a clasp knife.

  Mary was a gritty woman and the man who crossed her was likely to live to regret it – if live he did.

  The main section of the place was adobe, its walls weather-beaten and pitted with bullet scars. More or less attached to the eastern wall was a lean-to barn that more than lived up to its description. A warped hitching rail several yards away from the front needed some half-dozen poles to support it.

  As Herne rode in there were four horses tied up.

  He knew it was less than likely that he’d ride in on the Lathams so easy, but it was a chance he couldn’t afford to overlook.

  Herne thumbed the safety thong from round the Colt’s hammer and eased the pistol inside its holster. Without touching it, he glanced down at his right boot and at the top of the bayonet handle which nestled there inside a sheath. Herne had been no more than eighteen when he’d ridden through the War Between the States along with William Quantrill’s raiders. He’d had the bayonet with him ever since. Times it stayed wrapped in one of the saddle blankets he carried with him, others he needed it closer to hand.

  He figured this might be one of those times.

  Herne rode in quiet, sliding down from the saddle and taking the horse’s reins so as to loop them over the rail. He was doing this when the door opened. Herne dropped the reins, dropped into a crouch, his hand was tight on the smooth butt of his gun.

  It was a woman who came out, an oaken bucket resting between shoulder and head with one hand supporting it. Her dress was long and shabby, torn away at the neck, the flowers of the print were almost faded out. She started as soon as she saw Herne, her single eye blinking fast.

  ‘Martha.’ Herne spoke low, edged with warning.

  She struggled to remember him, distinguish him from the others.

  Herne nodded at the riderless horses. ‘Who’s in there, Martha? Inside?’

  ‘You can go on in, see for yourself, no one special, just a few of the boys passin’.’

  She stopped and glanced over her left shoulder, the empty bucket nearly sliding from her hand.

  ‘Who?’ demanded Herne. ‘Name names.’

  Martha gave a wriggle inside her dress. ‘Rosso an’ Twiley from the Fort. Marv Gladwin. Don’t know the other feller’s name.’

  Herne nodded, relaxed. ‘Okay, Martha. You go get your water.’

  She gave him a one-sided smile and moved awkwardly away, the heel of one shoe flopping loose as she walked.

  Herne finished tethering his horse and went over to the door. He pushed it back and stepped inside faster than normal. Two of the men were leaning against a heap of crates, dealing
blackjack down on to the top one. Another, handing over coins to Peg-Leg Mary, whipped round fast, silver pieces slipping between his fingers as he went for his gun.

  ‘Don’t!’ called Herne and made his own draw as the word was sounding.

  Before it had faded the Colt was level in his hand, hammer cocked and ready: the man in front of Mary had but half-cleared leather.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed the fourth man from a sagging armchair which had somehow found its way into the trading post and never got out. ‘If that ain’t the quickest I ever see, it’s darn close to it. Yes, sir, darn close.’

  Sweat stood out on the forehead of the man Herne had drawn on, his fingers seemed to be frozen to the grip of his gun.

  ‘What was you aimin’ to do with that?’ asked Herne, nodding in the direction of the man’s holster.

  The mouth opened and the tongue moved but it was seconds before words followed. ‘Didn’t know who it was. Comin’ in quick like that. In back of me. What d’you expect?’

  ‘Who’re you expectin’?’

  ‘No one. No one at all. That’s …’ He broke off and glanced each way along the room, seeking assistance. He didn’t get it – not from there.

  Peg-Leg Mary said: ‘If you’re aimin’ to blow a hole through this feller, let me know first. ’cause where I’m standin’, it’s likely to go clear through me first.’

  Herne let back the hammer of the Colt and the man in the armchair whistled with some relief, or it could have been disappointment. The fingers on the gun butt in front of Herne began to unfreeze. Mary looked her thanks at Herne and hobbled out of the line of fire.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Herne asked.

  ‘Sheer. Danny Sheer.’

  ‘Headin’?’

  ‘Santa Fe. Santa Fe, mister.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Been winterin’ down round Presidio.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Herne moved the Colt towards his holster. Almost there, he looked at the man again sharply, asked fast, ‘You know the Latham brothers?’

  His face remained blank: it was at the corner of Herne’s vision, but he could still tell that Peg-Leg Mary’s didn’t.

  “Never heard of ’em.’

  ‘Okay. Finish up here an’ move on.’

  The sweat that had been gathering on the man’s head was now running along the bridge of his nose, a droplet about to fall away.

  ‘Mister,’ called the feller in the chair, his voice harsh from too much tobacco and Mary’s whiskey, ‘I heard they bust out of the state pen. Week or so past.’

  Herne nodded. ‘I heard that, too.’

  Peg-Leg Mary pushed a glass in Herne’s direction and pointed at the bottle of whiskey. Herne shook his head and Mary laughed.

  ‘Still don’t take to my whiskey, huh, Herne?’

  ‘That’s right. I like to live my life without takin’ too many risks.’

  The man Herne had drawn on muttered his farewells and got out while he was still able.

  ‘Some folk’d say askin’ after them Latham boys was a risk in itself,’ said Mary. ‘Seein’ as you finished that brother of theirs.’

  ‘News travels, don’t it.’ Mary smiled. ‘An’ bad quicker’n good.’

  ‘So they say.’

  Cautiously, Martha came back in carrying the bucket of water with both hands. Mary got to scolding her for being such a long time and then, when she hurried, aimed blows at her head for slopping water over the floor. Mary had never struck Herne as being house-proud. He watched them for a moment - Peg-Leg Mary hobbling after her one-eyed sister, trying to swat her face with a large, fat hand. You men from Fort Sumner?’ said Herne, approaching the pair who’s been playing blackjack. Both nodded.

  ‘You Herne?’ one of them asked. ‘Herne the Hunter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Billy rode in not long back. Spoke about you. You was with him down in Lincoln County.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Herne set one foot on to a barrel top. ‘You up there recent?’

  ‘Couple of days.’

  ‘See anythin’ of the Latham boys?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  Both shook their heads. Herne let them see his hand shift closer to his gun. ‘You wouldn’t lie to me now, would you?’

  The heads shook again.

  ‘Won’t see ’em there, not while Billy’s around. Him an’ old Ezekiel, they hate one another like poison. That’s a fact.’

  Herne remembered something the Kid had said once and figured he’d heard the truth.

  ‘Okay.’ He moved towards the door. ‘Anyone here runs into ’em, you let ’em know I’m lookin’ for ’em. Tell ’em, just like I was lookin’ for that brother of theirs.’

  As he went out of the door, Herne looked quickly back in. Mary’s face was composed, but her sister’s was all squinted up at the one side and she didn’t seem happy at all.

  ~*~

  Herne rode away at a steady pace, heading in the direction of Fort Sumner. When he was certain that he was far enough away and that no one was following him, he made a wide loop south and then north again, bringing himself within reach of Peg-Leg Mary’s trading post.

  He hobbled his horse some distance back and then went forward carefully until he was in a position where he could lie flat and watch who went in and went out.

  The pair Martha had identified as Rosso and Twiley came out a little past an hour after Herne arrived back. They mounted up and rode off east, taking the same trail Herne had started out on, back towards the fort.

  He had a longer wait for Marv Gladwin. Obviously Marv had got himself so settled in that old arm-chair, or else had drunk so much of Mary’s special whiskey that he wasn’t capable of moving under his own steam. Just when Herne was giving up all hope of him ever quitting the place, Gladwin appeared in the doorway with the air of a man who doesn’t trust the outside world. He attempted to walk through the hitching rail, after some difficulty realized that was impossible and clambered over it. It took him six attempts to slot his boot into the stirrup, three to cock his other leg over the saddle. Finally he moved slowly away, west, swaying effortlessly on the animal’s back.

  If Herne had a good luck charm, he would have used it then. He was trusting to his feelings and nothing more and there were only the sisters’ faces to go on. Those and the fact that the post was an ideal place to use as a base for tracking Herne down.

  Lacking a rabbit’s foot, he lay there thinking about Louise.

  They came.

  One first and that cautiously, riding in slow from the back so that Herne didn’t pick him out until he was almost on the post. He left his horse at the end of the rail and looked around before going in. Two minutes later he reappeared and put his fingers to his mouth. A high, long whistle brought the other three into sight. Everything clear, they rode in at a fast lick, shouting and laughing, rowdy and pleased with themselves. Herne was glad: that would help.

  He smiled grimly to himself. If they were still feeling their freedom that way, he’d leave them to stoke the fires a good bit more. Let them drink and holler and get at ease. That was when he’d make his move.

  There was no doubt in Herne’s mind as to what he had to do. If the Lathams were allowed to live, they would always be a threat to him. Not only to himself, once he was married, but to Louise as well. Putting them back in jail wasn’t any use - they’d proved that themselves.

  He had to kill them: all.

  In his time Herne had killed a good many men: he’d killed them in war and on what the frontier called peace.

  There’d been times when he’d been wearing a badge, but mostly he hadn’t. He’d killed for causes and killed for money, killed because of circumstance and he’d killed for hate. This would be the first time he would have killed for love.

  Four men.

  Herne could have used his Sharps and picked off at least two of them when they rode in, possibly three. From that distance
and with his skill with the long-barreled gun it would have been easy.

  He wanted to kill them face to face.

  Herne had heard of a regulator who used a Claymore rifle and always used it from the longest range possible. He’d do anything he could not to have to see his victim’s face when he died. Herne thought maybe he could understand that… but he couldn’t respect it.

  It was time to move.

  No!

  Martha came through the door, one of the men close behind her. As they went towards the barn, the man — Herne didn’t know which one it was - goosed her and she flapped an arm at him playfully. Herne heard her high-toned laugh, over-ridden a few moments later by his. They went round the corner and into the barn.

  Herne hesitated long enough for them to be started, then set off himself.

  He walked quietly, making a left curve so that he’d arrive at the opposite end from the barn. Softly along the back wall, close to the adobe. Several times, even through the thickness of the wall, he heard a roar of laughter from inside.

  The planks of the barn wall were loose and uneven. Through one of the chinks Herne saw the movement of two bodies, the heave and strain. The man lay between Martha’s legs, his pants pulled down to his ankles. Herne watched for a moment longer the fleshy buttocks rise and fall. A moan came from one or other of the couple as Herne bent silently and drew the bayonet blade from its sheath.

  There was no handle on the barn door, a piece of string knotted through a hole. Herne pulled it. The door creaked and something small scuttled out over his boots. Martha’s single eye stared up at Herne and she screamed into the man’s shoulder. Her legs were tight about the backs of his knees. The man gasped for air and tried, awkwardly, to turn his head. Herne was little more than a shadow, a shape above him. Over him. Then the blade shifted.

  Martha’s scream was real.

  ‘Christ, you …!’

  Herne drove the bayonet through the throat, puncturing the man’s windpipe. Pressed down. Twisted.