The creek had risen quickly in a flash flood, and Herne nearly drowned trying to get across it to the safety of the trees on the far side. He guessed that Frank James wouldn’t have been fool enough to hang around for very long after the shooting and the shouting that had erupted from the Strafford Springs saloon. Which meant that he was left with only one real chance of getting safe away.
The livery stable would certainly be guarded, but they’d be more worried about someone getting out. His main interest lay in getting inside. Then he could hole up for a while until the moment came when they’d be relaxing and then he could try and steal a mount and run for it.
He wiped rain from his eyes, tugging down on the brim of his hat. Trying to remember in the blackness which way the stable lay. Night had come up on them faster than they’d expected, and the arrival of the Jayhawkers in the saloon had made it impossible for them to get safely out in the light. Quantrill would by now be certain that his two latest recruits were either dead or in the hands of Lane and his men.
By creeping up through the trees, the movement of their branches hiding his noise, Jed was able to locate the bulk of the stable and get close to the back of it. The storm had made the animals skittish and he could hear whinnying from inside.
He waited and saw a sentry making a rapid and unenthusiastic round, carrying a scatter-gun, hardly bothering to look to left or right. Jed got down low in the brush by the side of the foaming river, seeing the first streaks of moonlight gleaming off the crests of the water, visible through breaks in the cloud.
The moon also showed him something else.
Hanging from the hay-loft of the barn.
A rope. Fixed to a hoist in the black square of the loft, dangling clear to the ground. It shouldn’t be that tough to climb it. Not with your life depending on getting up it.
The patrolling Northerner went past one more time, head squashed beneath his upturned collar. The moment he’d disappeared around the corner of the building, Jed powered himself across the trampled earth, nearly slipping and falling in the clinging mud. Reaching the bottom of the rope and giving it an experimental pull, making sure it was safely fastened at the top.
It was.
Jed wasn’t used to climbing a rope, and its thinness made it impossible to grip with his sodden boots. So it was down to his hands alone. Gritting his teeth with the effort and kicking himself aloft, trying not to look down, concentrating all of his energies on clambering upwards to the hay loft. Breath hissed between his teeth and once he nearly fell, finding that there was wet mud high up on the rope, coming close to throwing him twenty feet to the ground.
He was almost there when he heard the noise of feet in the dirt below him as the guard made another circuit of the barn. With a grunt and a colossal effort of his aching arm muscles, Herne succeeded in swinging himself in through the black opening, where he lay flat on the dry straw, fighting for breath.
The feet passed safely by beneath him, and he sighed, rolling or his side, ready to get up and move further inside the loft.
When he heard the soft click of a pistol being cocked and a voice spoke in the darkness.
‘One move, Reb, and you’re dead meat!’
Whitey had climbed into the hay-loft by the same perilous route, but without the added handicap of having fallen in the creek first.
‘Guess you must have near fouled your breeches, Jed. Ain’t that so?’ he laughed quietly.
‘Damned near blasted the top off your fool head, Whitey,’ replied Herne, irritated at being caught that easily by his friend.
‘I got in here and I was just pickin’ a horse for myself when them Jayhawkers came squawkin’ out of the saloon like a crowd of old women after a fox in their chicken-run. So I just climbed back up here ready to sit it out.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you come lookin’ for me? I might have needed help.’
‘You was dead or caught or safe. First one there wasn’t a thing I could do. Third one you didn’t much need me. Second one … well, I was just startin’ to think seriously about the second one.’
‘Thanks a lot for that, Whitey. You heard Dutchman screamin’ out there?’
In the darkness he could dimly see the blur of white as his partner nodded his head.
‘Yeah. They’ll hang him sure in the morning, won’t they?’
It was Herne’s turn to nod. ‘I guess so. If’n they leave themselves anything to hang.’
They were mostly silent for the next two hours. The wind continued to drop and the clouds blew away from the face of the moon, throwing a square of silver light through the opening of the hay-loft. The Jayhawkers clearly thought they’d both got away safe and weren’t likely to bother looking for them around Strafford Springs. Both of them snatched a little sleep, lying quiet in the thick piles of warm straw. Both with their pistols ready in their hands.
‘Dawn’s on the way, Jed,’ said Whitey, stretching his lean frame, and crawling over to the opening to peer cautiously out on the new day.
Herne yawned, sitting up, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Squinting around the loft in the pink glow of the early morning. The noises from the saloon had stopped around the middle of the night, and after that there’d been silence. Though they had heard several of the cowboys come back to the stable to sleep down with their animals on the bottom floor,
‘We wait until they get up?’ asked Jed, keeping his voice low.
‘Yeah. I figure there’s six or seven down there. No point in tryin’ to take them yet.’
While they waited, Herne reloaded the Tranter, carefully greasing each round before ramming it home. He also pulled out the bayonet from his boot, wiping it dry from his swim in the creek. Whitey also stripped down his thirty-six pistol and reloaded it.
Around seven there was smoke coming from several of the chimneys of the little township. They could see that the river was no longer in flood, though it was running faster than usual, carrying a lot of brown mud with it.
The two boys lay side by side, just within the shadow of the loft entrance, watching the stirring scene. Jed saw Jenny come from the back door of the saloon, pausing and staring around before she went back inside.
They could smell food cooking in one of the houses close by the stable and they stared down as three of the cowboys left with their horses, walking them to the saloon and tethering them to the hitching-rail.
‘Can’t be long,’ whispered Whitey.
Almost as if they’d been waiting for his words, a group of men came out of the saloon, with a naked figure at their centre.
‘Dutchman?’ asked Jed, though it wasn’t really a question. There wasn’t anyone else it was likely to be.
They heard someone call out from inside the stable and three more men ran out, fastening up vests as they did so, one buckling on his pistol.
‘That all?’ hissed Jed, pointing to die ladder that led to the main part of the building.
‘No. I’m sure there’s one more. Maybe two. I heard them comin’ in last night while you snored like a hog in muck.’
There was a confused muttering of more men. Whitey had been right. But their attention was gripped by the tableau that was making its way towards them.
‘Why are they comin’ this way?’ said Whitey.
‘There,’ replied Jed. That big oak looks like it might be their hangin’ tree.’
It was just across the trail from where they watched, and they realized they’d get a fine view of the Dutchman’s lynching from where they lay in the straw.
Jansen was leading the way, sporting his scatter-gun, at the head of the group of Jayhawkers. All of them armed, and all in a high humor at their success in capturing one of the hated Quantrill Raiders.
‘Looks like they worked on him some,’ commented Jed, seeing the state of the Dutchman’s naked body.
The Confederate’s hands were tied behind his back, and his ankles were shackled together with a halter of rope. Twice he fell as he was pushed along the rutted trail, and Jed and Whitey could see that there was black blood congealed around the ends of his fingers. Where his nails used to be. From the set of one shoulder it looked as if it had been pulled from the socket.
There were whip-marks all around his body, striping his, chest and belly, dappled with blood across the broad part of his back. His hair had gone. Burned off his scalp by the look of it. And from the state of the skin on his face it looked as if the Jayhawkers had paid Dutchman back in his own coin by giving him boiling water to extinguish the flames on his head.
A rope halter was knotted around his jaws as a gag, and there was fresh Hood trickling over his chest from his mouth. As he drew closer to them they could see that he had been extensively burned on the body with a cigar, most of the blisters being centered on his genitals.
‘Jesus! I guess these boys could teach the Apaches a thing or two about lovin’ their fellow man,’ said Whitey.
‘Maybe Dutchman’s been castin’ his bread on the waters a mite too long,’ replied Jed.
‘Hold it there!’ shouted Jansen, puffed with importance as the leader of the hangin’ party. ‘You got the rope, Jubal? Good. Then let’s get to it and then back to my place for drinks and ... that is a drink on the house.’
One of the Jayhawkers slung the end of the lariat over the protruding branch of the hanging tree, and as it dropped down the other side there was a cheer from the men. Dutchman had taken such a beating that he was almost out on his feet, swaying from side to side, not even looking at the noose as it dangled a foot from his head.
‘How ’bout now?’ whispered Jed.
‘I still figure there’s more down below.’
The naked body of the Reb was pushed and pulled into position on a stump that had been rolled over for the purpose.
‘Hold on, there. We want folks to know what this son of a bitch is. Else they might take us for murderin’ savages. Who’s got the hammer and the card?’
Jansen was handed a large piece of stiff paper that he pushed against Dutchman’s chest with one hand.
‘God Almighty!’ said Jed. ‘He’s not goin’ to nail that on while Dutchman’s still alive!’
He was and he did. The blows of the hammer driving the small nails in sounding oddly muffled against the wretched man’s flesh. Dutchman wriggled at the new pain that tortured him, and they heard a muffled cry squeeze its way out past the brutal gag. But the Jayhawkers held their prisoner tight, while one of them adjusted the noose round his neck.
Jed heard a sound from the stable below. A man calling to another. So Whitey had been right. But his interest was gripped by the last scenes of the play being acted out right in front of them.
‘Ready now. Make that free end of the rope good and tight.’ Jansen clapped his hands like he was organizing a barn-dance, not a hanging. ‘By order of Jim Lane and the good old boys of the town of Lawrence in the great Territory of Kansas, we got us this bastard called Dutchman and we find him guilty of bein’ a murderer and all that so we’re now goin’ to hang him. You got anythin’ to say, Dutchman?’ There was laughter at that. ‘Of course you don’t seein’ as how you kind of lost your tongue in the funnin’ last night.’
At that moment, both Jed and Whitey were galvanized into action. The ladder began to shake as someone started to climb it. And there was a voice calling down.
‘Come on, Matt. We’ll see real good from up in the loft!’
They had a variety of options varying from bad to impossible. Just to hide was one of the worst, as there was no way of knowing whether the whole gang of Jayhawkers might not come clattering up to share the view.
Jed motioned for Whitey to hide behind the top of the ladder while he continued to watch the beginning of the end of the Dutchman.
‘What the—! Don’t move, you bastard! Matt! Come on up here and see what we got us! One of them Quantrill boys that run for it last night.’
Jed turned round and saw a man in a red flannel shirt, wearing suspenders over it. Holding an Army Colt in his right hand as he stepped into the hay-loft, not looking behind him where Whitey waited like an avenging angel of death.
‘Come on Matt. You better stand real still, Reb, or I’ll blow you clean through that big door there.’
The ladder shook as a second man appeared. Also clutching a pistol. A Navy Colt this time. He was naked above the waist, looking as if he’d only just woken up and couldn’t be certain whether he was still dreaming or not.
Both of them faced Herne, sporting silly grins as if they’d found a pot of gold and couldn’t believe their luck. Behind them, Whitey Coburn rose silently to his feet, holding his own pistol ready cocked.
‘Keep him covered, Matt,’ said the first of them. ‘And I’ll go shout to the others to hold the hanging a while. Better to lynch two than one.’
‘Real still,’ hissed Isaiah Coburn, deadly as a prairie rattler. ‘Not a muscle movin’ boys. Not one. Just hold real still and you don’t get a bullet each through the back of the neck.’
Jed stood up straight and grinned at the expression of horror and fear on the faces of the men.
‘Not so easy, is it, boys?’ he asked. ‘Like shootin’ fish in a barrel and then findin’ that someone’s given guns to the fishes.’
‘You bastards!’ said the taller of the two. The first of them to climb the ladder into the loft. ‘The others’ll get you if you harm us.’
‘Maybe. But that’s not a whole lot of use to you when you’re both bein’ measured for a pine box in Boot Hill, is it?’
The danger had been so sudden that Jed and Whitey hadn’t been able to talk about what they’d do with their prisoners.
Jed took the initiative. ‘Guns down. On your knees. That’s good.’
‘You wouldn’t kill us, would you?’ asked Matt, his voice trembling on the edge of tears.
‘Keep quiet. Whitey.’
‘Yeah?’
‘If’n we just lay them out like a couple of steers, then that might be the best way of keeping them quiet.’
He put just enough stress on the word ‘quiet’ to impress on his friend that noise would get them both killed. Trapped up in that hay loft. Both the cowboys knew that as well, but they knew that it would also mean their deaths and that didn’t seem much of a bargain.
‘Yeah. Keep still, boys. Time for you both to go off to sleep for a while.’
‘Don’t kill us, please,’ said Matt, again, his eyes fixed on Herne. Neither of them even turned round once to look at Whitey.
‘Him first,’ said Jed, pointing at the man who had led the way up the ladder.
While he kept them covered with his Tranter, Whitey reversed his Colt, gripping it firmly by the end of the barrel. Swinging it to shoulder-level across his body, picking his spot with the delicacy of a surgeon. Bringing it hissing down again, hitting the kneeling man at the base of the skull, beneath the left ear.
There was a muted noise, like setting the heel of your boot to a rotten apple. A wet, crushing sound. And the cowboy toppled forwards on his face to lie, quite without motion, in the straw.
Herne winced at the violence of the blow, far harder than anything he’d expected from Whitey. There was no doubt at all in his mind what the result of it had been.
‘You killed him. Son of a bitch! After what you said, you went and killed—’
Mart’s voice was rising to a shout, and the albino stepped in quickly behind him, careful not to lose his balance in the shifting straw, and hit him down in exactly the same way. With the same sound and the same lethal result.
‘Jesus, Whitey! Hittin’ men that hard with your pistol isn’t quite what I thought you’d do.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Examining the Navy Colt carefully. ‘Hasn’t harmed it at all. Not a dent in it.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Herne, bending down by the two men and checking for a pulse in the neck. There was not a trace.
‘I know that’s not what you meant, brother Jedediah. But I just seen what they done to Dutchman, and I figure these two bastards would have laughed along with all that happenin’ to you and me. I’m all for Christian charity, when the price isn’t too high. But I’m surely not turnin’ the other cheek for sons of bitches like these boys to kick in.’
He joined Jed at the opening of the loft, wiping blood and matted hair from the butt of the pistol.
There wasn’t anything that Herne could say. Whitey was right The Jayhawkers wouldn’t have shown them the least mercy and their dying would have been a great deal harder and longer.
At least the Dutchman’s passing was very nearly over beneath the dusty oak tree across the trail. Oblivious to the double killing that had taken place almost under their noses, the Union men were getting ready to kick away the stump and leave the Quantrill guerilla dangling from the thick branch. Jansen had finished his windy speech and had just stepped back, dropping his hand to his side in a sharp, chopping motion.
‘Fall’s not enough to snap his neck,’ whispered Jed, and Whitey nodded his agreement They’d both seen a few lynchings in their nineteen years and they were good judges of technique.
Two of the Jayhawkers gave out a whoop and kicked away the stump of wood that had been carrying Dutchman’s weight.
But it rolled away slowly and his feet slipped off it, while he fought to stay on. His desperation denied him the chance of a clean fall and a quick dying.
The hands strained out behind him, fingers knotting as the rope bit into his neck, strangling him to death. His legs thrashed and kicked, the whole body stiffening and jerking with the strain. The head was thrown back and the face was becoming purple and swollen, the eyes protruding from their sockets like church hat-pegs.
‘Dyin’ hard,’ said Whitey.
‘Yeah. They’re all wrapped up in watching. Time for us to make a move, I guess. Or maybe we should wait until they all go back into the saloon and get themselves drunk.’
‘We wait and someone might come back in the stable and get inquisitive about where these two bastards have gotten to.’ Pointing at the two limp corpses in the straw.
‘Guess that’s so. Dutchman’s not long to go. Let’s make our move.’
They took a last look at the scene across the trail from them.
The legs had stopped flailing at the warm morning air, and the body was moving less. The hands still wrestled with each other and blood dripped from the rope-burns. As Dutchman revolved under the tree they could now read the placard that Jansen had nailed to his chest. Crudely lettered with smeared black paint it read: This is wat Kansas dos too Quantril kilers.
The two boys stood up, taking a last look at the lynching, Whitey pausing to spit in the straw.
‘Maybe Dutchman had it comin’, Jed. And that other man, whatever his name was.’
‘Red, so Frank said. Just Red.’
‘Yeah. Let’s go, Jed. Jesus, will you look at what hangin’s done to old Dutchman.’
‘Always makes it stick out like that. Seen it on nigras lynched down South. Hangin’ makes the blood kind of fill it so it sticks out bigger than livin’.’
Whitey shook his head. ‘No pleasure in it that way. Come on, Jedediah.’
‘I’m with you, Isaiah.’
The Jayhawkers scarcely knew what it was that hit them. Bursting out of the barn on stolen horses, driving the rest of the stabled animals ahead of them. Screaming and hollering to keep the horses running spooked along the trail away from Strafford Springs.
They’d taken the pistols from the corpses and emptied them into the group of men, throwing them down and then using their own hand-guns to help the slaughter and confusion.
Jansen fell dead with three bullets in his body, squeezing the triggers of his shotgun as he fell, the double charge of buckshot, by a trick of fate, tearing the body of Dutchman apart and finally giving him a last touch of mercy.
Jed and Whitey didn’t pause to check on the carnage they had caused, not bothering to aim at any particular targets, though they both admitted later that they’d both tried for the saloon-keeper. Crouched low over the neck of a strange horse, galloping bareback, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to even fire a hand-gun, never mind to hit anyone.
In fact they left behind two dead and five more wounded around the hanging-tree. And not a single Jayhawker managed to get a shot off in retaliation until the two boys were dusty dots a quarter mile down the trail back towards their camp.
Quantrill was glad to see them. So was Frank James who had given them up for dead. They told their story and gave the details they’d learned about the proposed raid from the Jayhawkers’ town of Lawrence. Telling Quantrill that Jansen had also said that Jim Lane would remain at home during the raid.
‘Lane there in Lawrence without his army,’ smiled Quantrill. ‘Might pay him a visit. That’d be a right neighborly thing to do. See some old friends. Settle a few old debts. Yes, my lads. In a day or so we’ll go ridin’ along there. Off to Lawrence!’