Chaos erupted.
Jed drew the Tranter with a fluid, easy action, seeing Jansen staring at him from along the bar with the first light of realization dawning in his eyes. At his elbow, Whitey drew his Navy Colt, and they both snapped off three shots at the lights. They exploded in a shower of hot oil and smoky flames, plunging the saloon into total darkness for a few moments. Until the fire began to get a hold on the dry wood of the walls and the timbers of the floor.
In that atmosphere of smoke and flames and boiling hatred, Dutchman was given the best chance he was likely to get at escaping. But he was too sodden with drink, barely awake, realization coming too slowly and too late to save him. Even as the lights went out, Herne saw their comrade disappear beneath a cascade of bodies. At the same moment he felt Whitey vanish from his side. There was the briefest glimpse of a veil of hair like snow and a lean body, heading for the side window. And above the yelling there was the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass.
The wind from outside tore at the rising fire, blowing aside the screen of powder smoke from the six shots. Though the men there were all entirely preoccupied in making the Dutchman their prisoner. But once that was done they would be wondering who’d shot out the lamps. Who’d broken through the window. And what’d happened to the other young boy from the further end of the bar.
Jed wasn’t about to hang around and let them find out the answers to any of the questions. Dutchman was as dead as if the birds already had his eyes and Herne had never been a believer in overloading graves.
The Dutchman was putting up the best fight he could against overwhelming odds, and there was a rolling mass of cursing, kicking bodies between Jed and the door. The window would now be like a hoop edged with daggers of broken glass and he didn’t much relish diving through that in the semi-darkness.
Which left the curtain and the way out back.
Out there the noise of the fighting was muted, and he could clearly hear the sound of the thunderous rain pounding on the shingles of the roof. It was pitch dark, without even a glimmer of light to guide him and he froze for a moment, the Tranter ready cocked in his fist
‘Out there!’ he heard Jansen shout. ‘I’ve got my old scatter-gun, boys. He’s a friend of that one. Out there!’
Jed bared his teeth and snarled like a trapped animal, moving forwards with his left hand outstretched, reaching for a door’ But finding the softness of warm flesh.
‘Oh,’ said a voice. The whore.
‘Scream and you’re dead,’ he hissed, grabbing her by the arm and feeling her wince at the power of his grip.
‘I’m not screamin’, mister. Hold on a mite more gentle and follow me.’
His nostrils were filled again with the smell. The mixture of her scent and stale sweat. The rustle of her dress as she walked. Behind him there was a brightening of the light as the fire began to set its fangs to the saloon, the oil soaking into the wood and burning merrily. The fighting seemed to have stopped and most of the shouting was directed at the blaze. Though he could also hear the voice of Jansen shrieking out for someone to listen to him and get out after another of those Quantrill bastards.
There was the clicking of a door bolt, and then the screaming of wind tugging at his hat. Rain slanted into Jed’s face and his ears filled with the rumbling of the thunder,
‘Come on, or you’re dead, mister,’ said the girl.
‘I’ll make a break for it,’ he replied, trying to get his bearings amidst the maelstrom around him. Somewhere around the front of the saloon he could hear voices shouting and he saw the pale gleam of a lantern. Probably after Whitey, he guessed.
‘They’ll get you before you make it to the trees,’ Jenny said, pulling at his sleeve.
‘What you got in mind?’ he asked, finding his senses becoming blurred by the violence of the elements beating around them.
‘Come to the necessary.’
‘What?’
‘The outhouse. Come on. Quick.’
Herne could hear the Jayhawkers yelping to each other as they began to hunt himself and Whitey. The door they’d just come from swung open and he spun round and fired off three quick shots, grinning wolfishly as he heard a scream of pain and the slam of the door being pulled shut
‘Jesus! Come on!’ said the girl.
There didn’t seem any better alternative to Jed so he followed, grateful for her leading over the bumpy and muddy path. There was the creak of a rickety door swinging open and he caught the familiar stench of an outhouse. The rain stopped thundering at him as she closed the door shut, standing pressed close to him in the stinking blackness.
‘Now stay quiet and if’n they come here then I’ll try and throw them off.’
‘Why are you doin’ this for me, miss? Hell, I don’t rightly recall your name.’
‘Jenny. I guess because I seen enough killin’ round these parts. A girl don’t have a chance to do much and … you’re kind of good-lookin’.’
The noise of men calling to each other grew louder. Jed wondered if Whitey was safe. But knew the tall albino well enough to be sure that a few seconds start in the dirty weather outside would be enough. The Dutchman had almost disappeared from his mind. Because if he wasn’t dead yet, it wouldn’t be long before he was. Herne also thought about the horses. Hoping that Frank James would have heard the shots and the disturbance and taken the chance to move the animals out to safety.
‘One of them went out this way. Along by the shit-house here!’ shouted a voice, and the trembling yellow light of an oil-lamp visible through cracks in the door. Herne could just see the pale face of the girl at his side, the great scar around her eye ridged and shadowy.
‘Here they come,’ she said, unnecessarily, and he could feel her body trembling with the tension.
Herne wasn’t able to stand properly upright in the confined space of the outhouse, so he half-sat, leaning his hip against the edge of the wooden seat trying to reload silently. The movement disturbed a rat or some other animal and he heard the plop and scurry of its action.
Just as the feet outside reached the door of the privy, Jenny called out.
‘It’s me.’
‘Who’s that? Jenny?’ The voice was Jansen.
‘Yeah. What’s going on? I got me a touch of the runnin’s and I heard shots.’
‘Good job you called out, Jenny. We got us one of Quantrill’s bastards, ready for hangin’. Them two boys you was talkin’ to inside was with them. One ... the kid with white hair … took a dive through the window. The other come out back. We figured he might be in there and I was all set to blast it apart with my scatter-gun. Lucky you called out like you did.’
‘Yeah. Sounds like luck,’ she replied, her voice shaky with the tension.
‘You heard anything?’
‘Nope. I mean, I did. A man, runnin’ fast. Only a minute or so back. Out towards the trees. Real fast.’
‘Hear that, boys?’ shouted Jansen. ‘The girl heard that Reb son of a bitch makin’ a break for it. Make sure that Dutchman’s held safe for the morning. Some of you go after the white-haired one and the rest of you, follow me. Come on! Let’s go!’
There was the splashing of several pairs of feet dashing past the outhouse, towards the river and the trees. Herne had found he was standing beneath a hole in the roof and cold rain was dripping in and trickling down under his collar. As the noise faded away he started to move.
‘So.’
‘What?’
‘No.’
‘Why? They’ll be back soon.’
‘There’s more of them round here than bees round a pot of molasses. Go now and you’re a dead man. Stay here a while longer and they’ll give up. They won’t chase more than five minutes in this storm. And they got your friend there so that’ll keep them happy.’
‘What’ll they do to Dutchman?’
‘Hang him at first light. Maybe beat up on him a mite first. Then hang him over yonder.’
‘I should go.’
Suddenly, the girl was on her knees, tugging at the heavy buckle of Jed’s belt. Opening it and reaching inside for him. Finding him aroused and ready for her.
‘Jesus! Jenny! Not here and—’
For a moment she took her warm lips away from him, and he heard her breath rasping in her chest with her own intense excitement.
‘Yes. Please. In the dark, here ... like this. In the dark—’
He still had his pistol in his hand and he reached down and caressed the side of her face with his fingers. Using the left hand. Straining his ears for a sound of the men coming back again. Trying to concentrate on everything at once. Trying to keep in mind that he was in deadly danger, but the girl was good.
He was close to coming in her willing mouth when he heard the sound of steps again. He breathed in hard, moving her lips from him for a moment while he kept very still.
‘Jenny?’
‘Yeah?’ To Herne her voice sounded even more strained and unnatural. ‘They got away. Jubal thought he heard horses movin’ off south and east, so there might have been more of ’em out there. You goin’ to be much longer?’
‘No I guess ’bout five or ten minutes, Mr. Jansen. That’s all. My stomach’s real bad.’
‘Well, come on quick. We goin’ to have us some fun with the one we got and you can watch. Might even let you help a mite like them ’Pache women do.’
‘Sure.’
‘And take care, Jenny. They might still be round these parts. Keep your eyes open for anythin’.’
‘I will.’
Jansen came closer. Lowering his voice so that it was difficult to hear above the sound of the heavy rain. Herne could actually see the round shape of the man’s face in the dim light of his lantern, through one of the bigger cracks in the outhouse door.
‘Make it fast, Jenny. A lynchin’ always gets the boys hot for some action. You’ll be all right for that, won’t you?’
‘I guess I will, Mr. Jansen,’ said the girl, wearily.
The footsteps went away and they both heard the sound of the back door of the saloon slamming shut.
Jed waited, conscious that Jenny was still on her knees on the muddy planks. He could actually feel her hot breath as she panted with fear and with arousal. Her tongue flicked and touched him and he nearly called out with the sudden shock.
‘Can I go on, please?’ she asked him.
‘No. Not like that.’
‘Oh, please! I—’
‘Let me sit down and then you can kind of climb aboard me.’
‘Truly?’
‘Sure. But be quick, Jenny.’
It wasn’t the best piece of love-making that Jedediah Travis Herne had ever experienced in his nineteen years of living. Nor the most comfortable.
But it was one that stayed in his mind for the rest of his life.
The storm was beginning to ease, with the great bolts of white lightning sliding away towards the south, and the rain slackening on the roof of the privy. Herne sat on the seat, ignoring the stench from the noisesome deeps beneath him, with his trousers lowered to his ankles, his Tranter banging gently on the floor with every movement.
Jenny heaved up her dress in a rustle of under-pinnings, straddling him, cool fingers grasping him and guiding him towards her. She was wearing cotton drawers that opened at the front at the tug of a ribbon, revealing her body warm and moist and ready for him.
She gasped once as he entered her, wriggling her hips to impale herself fully on him. Spreading her thighs and hanging on to his shoulders with her thin arms. Pressing her lips to his face and kissing him softy on the mouth.
‘Oh. Hell. I don’t even know your name, boy. What is it?’
He thought for a moment about giving her a false name, then decided there wasn’t a lot of point in it.
‘Jedediah Herne. Jed.’
She kissed him hard, nipping at his lips with her teeth. ‘You’re surely the most handsome boy I’ve seen in long years, Jed.’
He began to press against her, vaguely aware that the rickety necessary was rocking and shaking like an aspen in a hurricane. But the feeling of warmth and darkness and safety was overwhelming. And Jed was still plenty young enough to be greatly flattered that a woman - even a whore - could be so struck by him that she would risk her life for him.
‘Yes, my dear one! Yes!! Oh, yes!’
Jed kissed her on the mouth to try and quiet her cries, knowing that he had two dozen enemies within thirty paces of where they made their frantic love, coupling in a ruttish abandon as they both worked out their lonely need.
He felt her stomach muscles begin to flutter and she moaned deep in her throat as she neared her climax. With an effort of concentration Jed managed to join her and they panted their way to mutual satisfaction.
After he felt only a desire to get away. Knowing in the depression that so often follows on the heels of passion that he had risked his life in staying with Jenny in the necessary.
‘I got to go,’ he said, trying to push her from him without hurting her feelings too much. Wincing at the sucking sound as they pulled apart, the coolness of liquid trickling over his belly and thighs.
‘That was so good, Jed. You … you really have no idea how good and how much it —’
‘It was the best ever,’ he said, hastily buckling the belt of his pants, making sure the Tranter was still safe .and snug in the holster. He hadn’t managed to reload it fully. That would have to wait until he was somewhere more secure.
‘Truly? Oh, Jed. If you’re goin’ away then couldn’t you maybe?’
‘No.’
The refusal was so abrupt that she started to cry, weeping almost silently, her shoulders shaking as she held on to Jed, her head against his chest, the wetness of her tears soaking through his shirt.
‘I just want to get away, but I can’t. Jansen keeps all the money.’
‘I got ten dollars and you’re welcome to it, Jenny,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket for the money.
‘That surely makes me a whore, don’t it, Jed?’ she said. ‘I didn’t do none of that for the money. I did it because ... Oh, because I just up and wanted to. That’s all.’
But she took the money he pressed on her, tucking it down the bodice of the tawdry dress. Kissing him once on the mouth and then easing open the door of the outhouse.
The rain had fallen away to a light drizzle, but the thunder and wind had left the area of Strafford Springs. Jenny stepped out first, and Herne pushed past her, pistol ready again in his hand, eyes raking the darkness around them. Seeing the glow of light that was the saloon and hearing a cry of pain that rose and fell like a coyote baying the moon. It hardly sounded like a human voice, but Herne had listened to the noise of cavalrymen being tortured by Paiutes. He knew what the noise was. And he knew that the voice belonged to the Dutchman. The Jayhawkers were having their fun with their prisoner.
He took a few steps down the path, towards the trees and the river, feeling the path slimy and muddy under his boots.
‘Jed?’
‘What?’
‘What is it?’
‘Nothin’, Jed. Just nothin’ at all.’
‘So long, Jenny.’
‘So long, Jed.’
‘And thanks, Jenny. Thanks a lot for everything. I’ll never forget you.’
‘Sure. So long.’
Herne walked away from Jansen’s saloon, and he didn’t once look back.
Not once.