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.
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.