Never two days alike, the sky was as clear that morning as it had been dark the preceding afternoon. The wind had changed direction, blowing now from the north-west and less strongly. The sun was a perfect orb of pale yellow, lacking any real warmth. Under it the grass of the prairie shone strangely, more silvery gray than green.
Herne rode the trail back towards the Circle D ranch, uncertain as to why he was returning and what he would do when he got there. The debts that had to be collected were powerful in his mind – Nate, Billy, One-Eye. Yet a part of him still thought maybe he should play along with them a while longer. For one thing, he could do with finishing the month and collecting his wages from Drummond. For another, it wouldn’t be easy to ride in on near twenty men and make a play for three of them.
These ideas were slowly rolling round Herne’s mind when he spotted the smoke. At first it was little more than a smudge on the pale blue of the sky, eastward, edging the horizon. Then it was spiral, gradually rising until it dispersed and finally disappeared.
Herne pulled his horse round and set off towards it, increasing his pace a little as he went. The land rose steadily; soon he was moving into an area of hills where the trees grew more closely together and where outcrops of whitish rock thrust through the grass.
He stopped at the head of a rise and looked about him. Over to the left the dark winding line that was the road to Willard drew itself between the hills. To his right rose the taller bluffs of Medicine Rocks. The smoke was at a central point between both of these. Thicker now and blacker. Far more than a fire built by men for heat, even for branding. A building or a wagon, Herne guessed.
Before moving off again he pulled out the Winchester and checked its load. Did the same for the Colt, slipping the thong back over the hammer. He thought about his Sharps rifle, locked away in the armory that formed part of the cellar of the Drummond ranch house. Whatever happened, he was going to do his damndest to get that back again.
Another mile and he could smell the smoke too. An acrid burning that wouldn’t let go once it had taken hold of his senses. It was a smell he had got to know too well. From Lawrence, Kansas all the way to the present. Burning and lynching. After the rope, it was perhaps fire that he dreaded most.
Herne brought the horse to a halt and slid down to the ground. The earth was still damp underfoot, its surface breaking easily under his boots and then sinking inwards. He guessed that the fire was less than half a mile away now. The trees seemed to stretch off to the right of its source, as if maybe they kept well to one side. The land to the left was broken by jutting rock and patches of bush. It was difficult to tell which approach might offer the most cover.
He led the horse below the slight ridge he had been following and tied it to the stout branch of a tree where it was well sheltered from view. Then he hobbled it to make sure it couldn’t break away.
Carrying the Winchester in his left hand, a box of shells stuffed down into one of the side pockets of his long coat, Herne left the line of trees behind him and made his way between the rocks. After ten careful minutes he could see what he wanted to see.
The frame shack that was burning looked to have been built right onto the side of a hill. Now the sides had collapsed in on themselves and the boards were blackened and charred, half eaten away by the fire that still burned strongly at the center. The smoke which rose up was thick and bitter.
A few pieces of hand-made furniture had been thrown clear and then smashed, parts of them obviously used to refuel the flames when they had threatened to get low.
A make-shift corral that stood off to the right had been largely pulled down. Two men were in the act of pushing a flat-board wagon onto the top of the fire.
Herne lay flat, the Winchester alongside him, taking in every detail.
His eyes moved left towards a piece of raised ground and a curve of stunted pines that grew upon it. Five of them, close together.
Two already bore extra fruit, extra foliage.
The bodies hung from their ropes, turning slightly from side to side as the wind pushed between trunks and branches and moved them now away from each other, now together.
The nearest to Herne looked to have been a man in his middle years, his face all but covered by a wild growth of beard; dark, lank hair fell forward and covered the top part of his face. On his left side there was a dark, wet patch which Herne took to be blood.
Next to him hung a much younger man, his face twisted up towards the sky where the rope had bitten into his neck and forced it to that angle. The skin on his face was as white as could be, save for a wavy line of dark red blood that ran from the top of his head and over one cheek, disappearing into his shirt collar.
If they’d shot him first, Herne couldn’t see where. Likely they’d simply got hold of him and strung him up. Nate liked best to hang them when they were alive and most aware of what was going on.
He saw Nate now, standing in a tight group with Billy and One-Eye and someone else who Herne couldn’t make out. Except that it wasn’t one of them. No duster, no peaked hat. Then Billy stepped away and started to walk to where Cole and Henry were still maneuvering the wagon onto the fire.
Then he could see it was an old woman.
Her body was slight and fragile and the black dress that she wore hardly seemed to touch her bones. Her hair was short and ragged, as if someone had hacked at it with a blunt blade; its color varied from iron gray to dirty white. She reached up her hands towards Nate, in the act of pleading, and even from where he was Herne could see the large, red swellings around the joints where rheumatism had half-crippled her.
He watched as Nate knocked the hands away and heard her feeble cry and Nate’s answering laugh, like a coyote that has just smelled blood.
Herne pulled the Winchester in towards him, settling himself back a little so that he could rest the barrel of the gun on the edge of the rock.
Nate grabbed hold of the old woman’s clothes and twisted her round, so that she fell away from him, stumbling and trying to stop herself from going headlong. She went down on both hands but her arms couldn’t bear the weight of even her light body. With another cry she collapsed to the ground.
Nate pointed at Billy and the big man hurried in and bent down to her, pushing one arm beneath her body and lifting her, protesting, up into the air. For several minutes he twirled her round his head, while the rest of the men stood and slapped their thighs and cackled and hooted with laughter. Herne leveled the rifle sights on Billy’s belly as he swiveled the old woman above his head. If it seemed Billy was going to hurl her to the ground then he would shoot.
But Nate gave an order and Billy stopped turning and set her down, almost gently.
Then Nate gave another order and Herne saw Jo-Bob begin to smile as he walked towards his horse. A moment later he came back with the rope.
No, thought Herne, not this. Not this as well.
He carefully swung the barrel of the Winchester to the left, following the movement of the crowd of men who were now pulling and pushing the old woman towards the two corpses.
Billy lifted her up once more as Cole led an unsaddled, tired-looking horse between the trees. Jo-Bob shinned up one of the trunks and started along a branch some ten or twelve feet from the ground.
The woman struggled in Billy’s vast grip and Nate laughed aloud, more of a shriek than a laugh. Billy held her high and shook her like a rag doll. A strangled cry of terror came from the woman’s mouth before she- went limp in Billy’s huge hands. He ran forward a few paces and threw her up onto the back of the horse, where Cole caught her and held her upright.
He had one arm high about her chest, reaching upwards to collect the noose that Jo-Bob was passing down to him. Cole took the rope between his fingers, levering the old woman’s scrawny neck so that the coil of rope could pass over her head and circle around it.
Herne squinted along the barrel of his rifle, beginning to evenly squeeze back the trigger.
The rough noose touched the woman’s wrinkled skin.
Herne fired.
Cole screamed out as the shell tore through the fibers of his upper arm. He was rocked backwards, his balance going. The noose bobbed upwards and the woman’s head slipped out of it as her body, no longer supported, fell sideways from the back of the horse and crumpled to the ground.
As her body struck the earth, Herne fired a second time, the slug driving a channel in front of Billy’s feet and becoming lost in the damp soil.
Already men were running, pulling at pistols, seeking their mounts, shouting above one another, searching for their assailant. Herne sighted on Nate and began to work the trigger.
‘No!’
Herne’s blood froze. The voice was directly behind him, firm and clear. ‘Leave it fall!’
He squinted at Nate a second longer, then withdrew his finger from the guard.
‘Let it fall!’
Herne set the Winchester down on its side and pushed it to his right, his mind racing, thinking out distances, times, the space between his hand and Colt in inches and seconds.
Inches and seconds.
‘Turn around with both hands high above your head.’
Herne started to roll over, slowly.
‘High!’
The seconds, the inches were too great. Herne was staring down the barrel of a rifle, tight in Tom’s hands and aiming directly at the middle of his chest. Behind and to his left, Rob stood with a similar weapon, similarly aimed.
‘Stand up!’
Herne stood up. There were shouts, questions from down below, the sounds of men running.
‘Now let your left arm down and ease it across. I want that Colt picked out by your fingers as if it was goin’ to go off in your face if n you touch it too hard. That’s it. Do it! Do it!’
Tom’s round face was flushed with excitement and pleasure.
Herne got hold of the butt of the Colt with forefinger and thumb and lifted it clear of the holster.
‘Now throw it t’wards me. Nice an’ easy!’
The gun hit the rock and spun in a circle on the chamber.
‘Watch him, Rob!’
Tom bent and picked the gun up, his smile broadening as he tucked it into his belt.
Rob walked past them and hollered down to the men below: ‘It’s Herne! But we got him. We got him but good!’
The vigilantes formed a circle around Herne with Nate at the point Herne was facing. The red spots on his cheeks were as small and sharp as needles. When he spoke from the side of his mouth the words were as hard as stones.
‘I knew you was a double-crossin’ bastard first time I laid eyes on you! I bin watchin’ you, watchin’ you like a hawk. I figured when you started sidin’ with them Taylors that you was up to no good. Said then that you knew too much about rustlin’ off our stock for your own good. Ain’t that right, men?’
There was a loud chorus of agreement and Herne looked quickly round the circle of hostile faces.
‘When you didn’t get back with Charlie last night I got to guessin’ what you’d bin up to. Worked it out pretty good, I reckon. ’Stead of hittin’ them rustlers the way you should, my guess is you shot Charlie in the back and went in with ’em. That’s the way of it. Ain’t that so?’
He got the shouts of agreement he wanted.
Herne knew that it would be useless to protest, to try and tell it the way it had been. There would be nobody who would listen to him now, who would take his word against Nate’s.
Someone pushed through the circle and came towards him. It was Cole, a rough bandage tight about his arm, a pistol in his left hand.
He stopped less than three feet away from Herne and stared at him, the right side of his angular face twisting upwards. ‘You bastard! You mean bastard, you shot my arm to pieces!’
And he lashed out with the gun. Herne threw up his right arm and parried the blow, the force of the barrel numbing him and shifting him off balance. He swung his left fist at Cole’s chest, catching him hard and driving him back into the surrounding men.
‘Get him, Cole!’
‘Finish him!’
Herne glanced around again but there wasn’t anywhere to go.
Cole pushed himself forwards, the pistol still in his hand.
Herne dropped into a crouch and waited for him to come in, watching his eyes. When Cole darted at him, Herne went for the gun arm, knowing that getting hold of the weapon might give him some kind of a chance.
As he moved a boot tripped him from behind and instead of seizing Cole’s arm he was tumbling past him, using his hands to break his fall. The edge of the barrel caught him a glancing blow and he winced with the impact, but rolled over as soon as he hit the ground and sprang up again.
This time someone punched him hard in the kidneys and he bent backwards, mouth open. An arm twisted about his neck and yanked him further back. Seconds later the toe of a boot landed high on the inside of his thigh. Herne reached back, struggling to free himself and catching hold of someone’s head, pulling it round, twisting his own neck out of the grasp that sought to hold him still.
He saw a face that he scarcely recognized as Jo-Bob’s, so intense was the look of hatred on it; he punched out. His fist landed against solid bone and then what felt like a bull struck him in the small of the back.
Herne’s legs went from under him and as he toppled to the ground he looked back over his shoulders and saw Billy’s massive frame.
The instant he landed another boot crashed into the side of his head and he lost consciousness.
Not for long.
Moments later he was being hauled to his feet with a rope tight about his chest, keeping both arms pinioned to his sides.
Nate came in front of him and looked at him for several seconds before leaning his head back and then bringing it forward again fast, the ridge of his forehead smashing into Herne’s nose. While the pain was still lancing through his head, Nate spat full into Herne’s eyes. Blood began to trickle from his nostrils.
Somebody pulled sharply on the rope and he was jerked backwards; fists and knees and feet attacked his body. He was spun round and round, thrown from one side of the circle to another. Always the punches and the kicks rained in hard upon him. And over and through it all the harsh shriek of Nate’s laughter.
As he fell to the ground for the tenth, or twelfth time, Herne vowed that he would kill Nate. Slowly.
Then he was lifted back to his feet and the beating began all over again. After a while it wasn’t fun any longer. The men grew tired of hitting the almost lifeless form that swayed in front of them, falling over now almost as soon as he was set to rights.
Finally they let him lay there: a beaten, bloody shape that barely breathed and when he did the pain of breathing dragged through him like a rusty saw.
Nate sent two men after the old woman who had tried to run off into the rocks. They dragged her back and when Jo-Bob was back up the tree they hanged her.
Only it wasn’t much fun: not now.
Nate ordered anything else of the place that was left standing to be brought to the ground and thrown onto the smoldering remains of the fire.
‘What about him?’ asked Cole. ‘Ain’t we goin’ to kill him?’
Nate laughed and shook his head. ‘Strip him!’ he said.
They pulled away all of Herne’s clothing and left him curled on the ground, without his having regained consciousness. Nate went over and stood beside him, sneering down at him. He bent over and lifted Herne’s right arm away from his body, turning it so that the palm was pressed into the ground. Then he lifted his leg high and stamped the boot heel hard down onto Herne’s knuckles.
As he strode over to his horse, his laugh was such that it startled the large black birds which had perched high in the trees above the three hanged bodies and sent them screeching skyward.