The sound of shattering glass cut jaggedly across the saloon. A chair scraped harshly as the figure of a young man backed away from one of the tables.
Heads turned, voices were raised then quickly lowered. Men began to move away from the bar, forming automatically the curve of a circle. In front of the ornately patterned mirror, the barkeep ducked his balding head as his hands reached for the scattergun stashed in case of trouble. Halfway there he stopped: he knew the reputation of the man still sitting at the table. He wasn’t about to get involved. Likely wouldn’t need to.
“You got no call to say that.” The kid sounded even younger when he spoke, his voice high-pitched and thin.
He had stopped backing away and stood his ground in a slight forward crouch, his right hand hovering close to the butt of his revolver.
“No call.”
The watching crowd was silent, almost without movement. Behind the onlookers a hobbling shape, no more than four foot in height, moved awkwardly but quickly, greedily draining the unattended glasses.
“You take that back or I’ll ram those words down your damned throat with this gun barrel!”
“I doubt that, son.”
The voice was slow, strong. The speaker was still half-covered by the shadows at the corner of the room.
The youngster’s fingers grazed the edge of his gun butt. “Don’t call me son – old man!” he sneered.
The man at the table moved his chair back with his body, careful to keep both hands well in sight. He stood up and walked round the table with what might have been a brief sigh of regret. But at no time did his eyes waver or his concentration falter.
“Seems to me nothin’ I said’d rightly make you so all-fired touchy. Why don’t you step over to the bar and we’ll have us a drink an’ no hard feelings?”
The kid took another half pace and shook his head. “You ain’t gonna talk your way out of this, old man. Not like that you ain’t. Not after what you said.”
“All I said was, I didn’t think you was much with that thing you got strapped to your side there.”
“How the hell you know that? You ain’t even seen me.”
A flicker of a smile showed on the gunfighter’s lined face, then disappeared as quickly as the sun on a late autumn afternoon.
“Damn it, boy, I seen kids like you from here till doomsday. You ain’t no different from the rest of ’em.”
“That’s a lie! You’re a rotten, stinkin’ liar!”
The kid’s fingers stretched and arched. The men at the front of the curve of watchers shifted back, elbows pushing into those behind. The barkeep lifted the full bottles down from the bar and slipped them out of harm’s way. The dwarf threw back his disproportionately large head and swallowed down the remnants of another glass of whiskey, his eyes already beginning to bulge from their sockets.
The man stepped fully into the light. He was almost two inches over six feet and weighed around two hundred pounds. His hair was dark and long, reaching towards his broad shoulders, graying at the temples: it had been graying for some years now. A Colt .45 hung below his right hip. The plain walnut grip shone dully with use; the curved tip of the hammer picked up a reflection from the light overhead and flashed out a sudden star. A star eclipsed by the man’s hand.
Jedediah Travis Herne. He had killed his first man in eighteen fifty-nine. Now it was eighteen eighty-three and the killing hadn’t stopped. Men called him Herne the Hunter.
“All right, son. I’ll give you a chance to prove me wrong.”
There was an audible intake of breath from those gathered round, followed by a further shift towards the edges and door of the saloon. The dwarf climbed up on to the far end of the long bar and sat with his legs dangling, eyes large and red and gleaming.
Herne moved his left hand cautiously up to the pocket at the front of his black waistcoat and ducked finger and thumb inside. Both the youngster and the crowd watched him, mesmerized.
He drew out a silver coin and held it up in front of his face.
“What the hell’s that for?”
“You want to prove yourself, don’t you?”
“I don’t see how...”
‘Shut up and listen! When I drop this coin, you go for that gun of yourn. We’ll see how fast you are.”
The kid swung his head fractionally to one side; his eyes narrowed and a bubble of saliva appeared at one corner of his mouth.
“Don’t you try to make a fool of me! I didn’t come here to play no damn games. If n I’m gonna prove myself then we’ll face up like men.”
Herne tossed the coin into the air with his left hand and caught it once more.
“Make up your mind, boy. I ain’t about to waste a lot more time on you.”
The coin disappeared in the center of the large, strong hand, Herne’s eyes were fixed on the kid’s, coldly and dispassionately. He would rather not kill him as long as there was a choice. Only the way the boy was prodding him there soon wouldn’t be any choice at all.
Which would be too bad for the kid.
Herne glanced at the gun at the boy’s side. The belt was slung too low, the holster a couple of inches further down the thigh than it needed to be for a fast, curving draw. The revolver was a Remington Frontier .44. It was a close model of Herne’s own Peacemaker Colt, but inferior. The balance was out – not by a whole lot, but enough. In a gunfight, die merest fraction was enough.
“What’s it goin’ to be, son?”
The head twitched again, involuntarily. At the other end of the saloon, the dwarf started to sing a tuneless, incoherent song, his deformed legs swinging from side to side in time.
Herne tossed the coin a final time.
“Okay. Play your fool game.”
“Huh-huh.”
Herne turned sideways, left arm extended, silver coin clearly visible between the tips of finger and thumb.
“I ain’t gonna toss it, just let it fall. Soon as it leaves my hand you go for your gun. You got that?”
“Sure I got it. Plain enough, ain’t it?”
The crowd began to edge forward once more, whispering and nudging, leaning on the shoulders of others or clambering on to chairs and tables for a better view. The barkeep measured the distance between himself and his scattergun. Just in case things get out of hand.
Herne lifted his hand a couple of inches before his fingers parted and the bright coin fell to the scuffed and dirty floor.
The kid clawed for his pistol, dragging it upwards desperately, thumb pulling back on the hammer.
In the fresh and expectant silence, the coin hit the wooden board, wavered, spun round in a tight circle, wobbled and was still.
The youngster looked at the coin, then up at Herne. Color flooded his cheeks and his mouth opened wide. His tongue licked excitedly at his upper lip.
“Damn me!” shouted one of the onlookers. “The boy done it! He cleared leather before the piece hit the floor.”
“Sure did! Good a draw as I seen fer a long time.”
“Was that. Never reckoned he could have done it.”
“No, sir.”
The dwarf had tucked his legs up under his squat body and was perched on the bar, singing louder, more tunelessly than ever.
The kid took a couple of steps towards Herne, the Remington still tight in his right hand, the hammer still cocked back. Herne’s own hand rested on the butt of his Colt, ready.
“See that, old man? See me draw afore that damned coin of yourn could drop? You ain’t gonna tell me that weren’t fast.”
Herne watched the boy’s fingers on his gun. “Now you just ease back that hammer, before you do anything else.”
“Not till you admit that was fast. Faster’n you figured I’d be.”
“Okay, boy. You was fast. Faster than I thought. Now will you ease that damned thing back?”
The kid flushed even more brightly and half-turned to look at the crowd, which was still murmuring its approval. His thumb gently released the hammer and slid the gun back into its holster.
“Buy you a drink afore you head out of here?” said Herne.
“What you mean, head out of here? You just said how fast I was.”
Herne stared at him. “You’re fast, right enough. Trouble is, you just ain’t fast enough.”
The boy spread his gun hand once more, the color draining from his cheeks. Some of the crowd called out their disbelief but Herne stood his ground.
“Ain’t no one faster’n that. Not with that coin trick. Not even you.”
“Go home, boy. You done well. Go home and practice. Maybe you’ll get better.” If’n you don’t get dead, Herne added to himself, if’n you don’t get dead first.
The crowd pressed further forward; the kid took another step towards the central light
“You do it.” he taunted. “You show how it can be done faster.”
Herne nodded his head slowly, then called to the bartender. That gun you bin eyin’ under there. You care to lift it up so’s we can all see?”
“Sure.”
The bald man moved down the bar and pulled the spatter gun up into sight.
“Now cock both barrels and steady it against the counter, real easy.”
Beads of sweat formed on the barkeep’s rounded forehead; every eye was upon him. Every eye but Herne’s. He was watching the kid in front of him.
“Right?”
“Right, Mr. Herne. Plumb proud to help out anyways I …”
“Save the talk. Just keep that thing so that it covers anyone who might want to grab a part of the action. I don’t aim to leave myself without shells and no hack-up. You understand me?”
The barkeep gulped his understanding as Herne crossed his left hand to his holster and pulled out the Colt as carefully as he had lifted the silver coin from his pocket. Holding it high so that everyone could see, he ejected the shells on to the floor, where they bounced and rolled in all directions only stopping when they came up against a gap in the boards, the leg of a table, a mound of sawdust – the boot of the disbelieving kid opposite.
“Take up the coin, son.”
“I told you not to call me that!”
“Take up the coin!”
Herne spun the empty chamber of the Colt. The boy hesitated a moment longer then scooped up the coin.
“Hold it high so’s folks can see.”
The kid glowered but did as he was told. Even the dwarf had stilled now. Everyone watched expectantly, wondering what more the ageing gunfighter could so.
Once more the coin reflected a whorl of light from its silver surface; the youngster twitched his head, then pulled his ringers from the coin as though it had burnt his skin.
In the silence of the saloon Herne the Hunter swooped for his gun, left arm thrust out at an angle for balance. The hammer clicked audibly down on an empty chamber: once: twice. And then came the metallic clink of coin against wood.
The silence held for five, almost ten seconds. Then voices rose in amazement, in delight and noisy acclamation. The barkeep wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his white shirt and slowly let back the hammers of his gun. At the end of the bar the dwarf bobbed up and down and pretended to play a tune on an empty bottle, holding it as if it were a flute.
Only the kid made neither movement nor sound.
The gunfighter had been able to draw and fire twice in the time it had taken him, simply to pull his gun clear and begin the motions of his first shot.
He stared at the coin, still now in the circle of light, and the shells scattered around it. Twice, his brain kept telling him, repeating it over and over. Twice. He made it twice.
“What’s the matter, kid?” someone shouted from the middle of the group of watchers. “You lose somethin’?”
“Damn right he did!”
“Not such a fire cracker now, is he?”
Herne stepped over to the youngster and looked at the now pale face, the lingering disbelief in the eyes. “Want that drink, son?”
The head twitched sharply and the kid turned on his heel, pushing his way through the crowd whose cheers had turned to jeers. Then there were men pushing forward with the stink of stale beer on their breaths and empty compliments on their tongues. They wanted to shake the stranger’s hand, to clap him on the back; even to lay a finger on the shiny butt of the gun he had drawn with such speed.
“Here, mister. Here’s your shells.”
Herne accepted them from the trembling hands of a willowy saloon girl with dark curly hair and a sad, uncertain smile. No more than a kid. He knew her also; girls like her. They were all over the West, working every cathouse and bar that would take them. Until their bodies became riddled with disease or just plain ugly and ill-used. Then they found somewhere quiet and private and waited to die.
Herne looked back at the girl’s face and didn’t smile. She turned from him with a toss of her hair. Herne reloaded his gun, then walked over to the bar.
“That was mighty fine gunplay, Mr. Herne. Knew you was good “cause of your reputation, but never reckoned on anything like that. No, sir. Not like that.”
The bald man started to sweat again, his hands polishing on a glass so energetically that it looked ready to break.
“Thanks for your help with that scatter gun of yourn.”
The barkeep set down the glass and beamed. “That weren’t nothin’. Anytime you want. I’d be only too pleased to stand up alongside a man like you. Yes, sir, Mr. Herne, somethin’ to feel right proud of. Somethin’ to tell my kids about when they’ve gotten a mite older.”
“How in Hell’s name you gonna tell your kids anythin’, Walt, you don’t even know where half of ‘em are!”
The cowboy at Herne’s right banged his bottle hard on the bar top and roared with laughter at his own joke. In the middle of the laughter came another sound, a jagged, jangly singing, excited and high. As Herne turned to face it, the sound cut off and was replaced by a voice which squealed: “Don’t move!”
The gunfighter tensed, stopped. Nerves, muscles alert, ready.
“Got me a gun of my own. Pointin’ right up to your back. Can’t miss from here.”
Herne turned round slowly. The dwarf was standing close to the side of the bar, an old Navy Colt held tightly in both hands. The effort of holding it steady was evident in the tightness of the arms, the bulge of the huge forehead, the eyes protruding from their sockets so far that they looked ready to burst- free.
“What you gonna do now, mister?”
The voice squeaked its question, then lapsed back into its tuneless song. Herne was aware of the stillness in the long room, the distance from his hand to the Colt at his side, the effort the dwarf was making to keep the gun pointing upwards at his chest. And then, from the comer of his eye, he noticed the barkeep sliding slowly down behind his counter, hands reaching underneath it as he did so.
The dwarf noticed nothing; continued with his song, pleasure dancing across his straining eyeballs.
“Hap!”
Despite himself, the dwarf swiveled round at the sudden sound of his name. His face met the swing of the scatter gun, the heavy butt smashing into it with all of the barkeep’s strength.
There was a crunching of bone and a scream sharp as the point of a needle. The end of the big gun came up and down once more. This time the sickening thud of wood on bared bone echoed round the saloon and the dwarf collapsed to the floor.
Herne slipped his Colt back into its holster and bent down quickly, lifting up the dropped revolver and passing it across the bar to the bald man whose grin was spread broader than ever.
“You better look after this. And thanks. Saved me having to kill the poor bastard.”
“Hell, that were nothin’. Least I could do. He ain’t but half a man anyways. Damned fool that he is.”
Some of the customers picked up the dwarf and laid him on one of the tables, so that his feet just hung over the edge. His head lolled to one side, seeming even less a part of his body than usual. The wide nose was bloody and pushed to one side; the one eye that was visible hung oddly downwards on to his battered face.
The barkeep passed Herne a whiskey bottle and a glass and the gunfighter poured himself a good tot and drank it down in a single swallow.
He nodded to the man behind the bar and began to move away but he was called back. The bald head leaned over the counter. That right what you said? You’d have bothered killin’ a nothin’ like Hap?”
Herne looked back at the man with cold, unwavering eyes. “Knew a man once, down Lincoln County way. Billy Bonny, least that’s what he was christened. Said to me one time, “Jed, when you’re the fastest it ain’t the second fastest you got to worry about most, nor the third. It’s the fifty-first. The one you don’t know. The one you can’t work out. The one as might do any damned thing. That’s when you need to be real careful and take the least chances.”
Herne stood up straight. “Longest damned speech Billy ever made, least in my hearing. But sure was sense.” He looked at the changing expression in the barkeep’s eyes. “I’d have killed him right enough. Before he could’ve pulled back the trigger on that old thing he’d have been plumb dead.”
He coughed and spat down into the wide rim of the cuspidor alongside the bar. Poor bastard!”
Jed Herne walked briskly across the main street. For one thing the nights were getting colder. For another he knew better than to linger in that open space. The lights from the saloon would mark out his shadow as he stepped towards the softer light which showed in the doorway of the hotel where he had a room.
He pushed open the door and walked across the threadbare carpet and up the bare boards of the single flight of stairs. He was tired; the bed would feel good under him. A mattress of straw was better than a blanket on the ground.
Huh! Herne smiled ruefully to himself as he turned the key in the lock. Was a time when I would’ve thought that was real soft.
He stepped through into the darkness and as he did so he heard clearly, like hammers on the brain, the triple click of a gun being cocked.