Jed Herne sat cross-legged on the ground eating from a plate of beef and beans. The meat had become rather charred on the outside edge, but it still tasted better than anything he had had inside him since he couldn’t remember when. The beans were well spiced with chilies and he relished the burning sharpness on his palate.
He reached down and picked up a bottle of wine and swallowed deeply. It wasn’t chilled any longer, but Herne had never been one to fuss about such things.
He hadn’t been surprised when the Mexes had tried to take the money from him and keep what they were selling. Even so, he had allowed himself to get caught with both hands full and no easy way out He was fast enough to have dropped plate and mug and get his Colt clear…fast enough, but against two guns already cocked?
Herne shook his head and chewed thoughtfully. It was as well that Whitey had been there. A man almost as fast as himself. Almost?
Jed grinned. He didn’t know. Had no way of being certain. Come to that, he didn’t want to know. Like he’d said to the man back in that saloon, he sure as hell wouldn’t like to have to live on the difference.
Only that was what he had lived on today – Coburn’s speed of thought and action. And not for the first time.
Whenever they had worked together, each man backed up the other naturally, covering and watching, a perfect team. In those days when he had been traveling across the country with Becky and Whitey had been leading a group of men after him, it had not been right.
Neither of them had ever said as much, but both had known: it had felt wrong. All wrong, Whitey Coburn was his friend: that was the way it was.
Jed looked up from his food at the sound of a horse approaching.
He set his fork down on the plate and drifted his hand towards the Colt at his thigh. He could tell that the animal was not trotting evenly. Most likely lame in one leg. Neither did it seem to be carrying a rider.
The Colt slid from its holster and Herne stood up, placing the food on the ground by his left foot. It was Whitey’s horse, sure enough. The saddle empty.
Herne watched as the animal came towards the wagons, the bodies, the fire. Its front leg on the right side was barely touching the earth as it moved.
Behind it, the horizon was bare.
Jed Herne thought again of his friend, of Whitey’s wishes to settle down along of a river much like this one. Only lusher, greener land. A small ranch. A woman. A little gold, maybe. Enough to see its color against the markings of a hand that had lived by a gun.
As he stood there, a fresh sound broke into his mind. A second horse, coming faster, more directly – with a rider.
Herne waited, alert. Almost, he didn’t want to look. He looked. In the end all sentimentality got you was dead before your time.
Yet something stirred within him when he saw the albino’s long white hair moving in the wind; something he would never show.
“Where you bin?” he asked as Coburn slid down from his saddle.
“Takin’ care of business.”
Herne looked him over. “Seems like it took care of you, near enough.”
Coburn shrugged: “I’m okay.” He looked about him. “You?”
“Uh-huh. Scratch on my side. Get yourself some of that chow. Then we better check our load and move out. Reckon we might find ourselves gettin’ company afore we reach the border.”
Coburn raised an eyebrow and went over to the dying fire, preparing to take meat. “That’s too bad.”
“Yep.”
For a while both men ate in silence. Then Coburn’s eyes drifted towards the still shape of Don Vincento, less than ten yards behind them.
“That bastard’s startin’ to stink already.”
Herne gave a short laugh. “I guess he didn’t smell so sweet before.”
“What was that he said? Something about a man who shares his meat with another won’t never spill his blood?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
Coburn spat a mouthful of gristle at the dead man’s face. What had been his face. “I knew that fat bastard reminded me of that damned cock I took the head off.”
Herne nodded and stood up, dropping the plate down with a clatter. You ready?”
“All but.”
Coburn stepped past the dead Mexican leader and paused to bend over something on the ground. “Jesus Christ! Will you take a look at this?”
The grey mess that had been shot away through the back of Don Vincento’s skull still lay where it had fallen, partly on tin, partly on the ground. But where before it had been flecked with his blood, it was now alive with a mass of insects, black, red and brown. They moved over every square inch, a slowly buzzing, shifting morass of carnivorous greed.
Herne stared down. “They know what’s good for ‘em. Best part of the body to eat, some say.”
Coburn stood straight. “Hope it does them a sight more good than it did him. Bastard had more brains than was good for him.”
He kicked hard at the plate and it bounced down to the edge of the riverbank. Herne was already over by the wagon, checking one of the boxes.
They were wooden crates, tied each way with strong rope. Thirty of them, stacked in threes. Herne lifted one of them down to the ground, cursing it for being so heavy.
He drew the bayonet from his boot and cut through the rope at one side. He pulled at the wood with his hands but it was nailed down too securely.
“Whitey! Fetch somethin’ to lever this off with.”
Coburn pulled at one end of the metal posts that had been used for the spit and brought it over. Within moments the crate was open and Herne was lifting away the straw that had been used for packing.
He lifted out a squat, heavy statue and held it up. It was a badly formed figure sitting in front of what might have been a representation of the sun. The clay had been baked hard; the color a dull, dark brown.
“No wonder that Mex was laughing his balls off if all them crates are full of junk like that.”
“If.”
The two men tried several crates at random. There were bowls by the dozen, mostly painted with birds or animals at the center of odd geometric designs. Coburn lifted out one with a painting of a pregnant woman, legs spread wide apart and both hands holding her private parts exaggeratedly open. He whistled.
“Jesus! A man could get lost in there and never touch the sides!”
They found small shell ornaments shaped like birds or lizards; jars with handles decorated with black and white swirls; purse-like objects fashioned from bone; glazed black waters jars; tiny dolls less than three inches tall.
But nothing else.
The cargo was what it appeared to be. Even at half the original asking price it seemed damned expensive.
But that wasn’t Herne’s worry. Getting it across the border into Texas was.
“Whitey,” he said as the tops of the crates were hammered into place.
“Yep?”
“If my guess is right, they’ll be expectin’ us to head for the border by the closest route. More or less the way we came in.”
“Which we ain’t about to do?”
“Right. If n we ride south and cross the river lower down, we can take a trail east and get into Texas south of Laredo.”
Coburn set the last crate back into place and wiped his forehead. “They’ll come lookin’ for us?”
“When someone takes it into his head to find out what happened to that Vincento, they’ll come a-plenty. For one thing, they’ll know we’ve got money. For a second, we done killed eight of their own kind. If you want another reason, it’s ‘cause they think us Gringos are goin’ to attack in strength that their part of the country’s kept the way it is.”
Herne sniffed and spat. “Any one of them damned reasons’d do.”
“Okay. We’d better pick up whatever weapons and ammo we can find an’ load ’em on this wagon. If we’re goin’ to get ourselves chased by a damned army of rebels, we might as well get as prepared as we can.”
As soon as the river was out of sight, the land petered out into near-desert. Whitey rode up in the wagon, while Jed Herne kept on his own mount. Every now and then he would swing away, riding on ahead or round. Anywhere he might find a useful vantage point; Anything that looked capable of holding an ambush.
They had taken two spare horses from among the Mexicans’ string and these were tied to the rear of the wagon, along with Coburn’s own black. Its leg had not been badly damaged and if the animal did not have to take a rider for a while it might mend of its own accord.
The ground was a dull yellow under the equally dull sun. Eccentric shapes of cactus stuck up at intervals along with incongruously bright desert flowers. What trees there were appeared stunted, mostly scrubby firs set on slight rises of land.
It had become less cold: the turn of fall into winter heralded by a false promise of real warmth.
It was something you never really knew, thought Herne as he headed back in towards the wagon – the moment when the seasons changed. All that waiting and then next thing you knew it had already happened.
He guessed it was much like waiting for death.
His eyes focused on Whitey on the wooden seat, his Winchester standing close beside him, butt to the floor. Yep, you never knew. Just got the feelin’ when it was close. Like the shiver down your spine for no good reason.
“Nothin’?” Coburn asked.
Herne shook his head. “Only a lot more of the same.”
Coburn bit of a piece of tobacco and began to chew furiously. There was nothing else to do; nothing to say. They could only keep heading for the border.
They damned near made it.
It was early the following day and Herne was standing in his stirrups close by a pair of firs with short, stubby branches. Ahead of him he could see the wavering line where the vegetation altered. The desert .gave way to green and he knew that that green led to the river and the border.
Below him, moving at the same steady pace they had adopted since leaving, was the wagon, its three horses trotting behind.
And behind, rising like a thick cloud into the sky, was the dust of men riding fast. Many men.
Herne looked quickly around. Apart from the spot he was on, there was nothing that rose above the same cursed flatness. Not a shred of cover anywhere.
He inserted two fingers in his mouth and whistled twice. The first note going up, the second descending.
Coburn responded to the signal. The pair of horses pulling the wagon were halted; his Winchester was checked and ready by the time Herne had ridden down to join him.
“Yep?”
“Signs of men headin’ this way. A whole crowd of ‘em. Must be at least twenty from the dust they’re sendin’ up. Could be more.”
“Comin’ for us?”
Herne gestured about them. “Can you see anyone else they’re likely to be after?”
Coburn grunted and chewed all the harder. “Any cover?”
“Not a damned thing.”
“Bastard country!”
“I see it this way. You move the wagon deeper in and we’ll get those crates down and back of her. Then set it over on its side. If you stay there and use that for cover, I’ll hightail it back up to them trees an’ pick off a few as they come in.”
“Ain’t you goin’ to get yourself trapped up there?”
“That’s my problem. Anyhow, seems better than gettin’ us both pinned down rear of this wagon. An’ there’s no way we’re goin’ to outrun ‘em.”
“Right. Let’s move it!”
They got the crates down as fast as they could, the knife wound in Herne’s side nagging at him as the effort stretched and opened it once more. When the wagon was on its side, Whitey collected the guns they had taken and set them in a line close to hand.
“Take care,” he called as Herne rode off.
Jed’s reply was lost in the distance between them.
Herne used his rope to secure the horse some way back of the firs, hoping that it would not get hit by a stray bullet. He lay flat on the rough ground, his Sharps stretched out in front of him, watching the dust cloud grow larger, nearer. The dark blur at its center broke into separate shapes. Men and mounts: still too far off to count how many.
Coburn could see the first signs now. He inserted a fresh plug of tobacco into his mouth and leaned his cheek against the smooth stock of the Winchester. To his right there were three more rifles – a lever-action .44 Henry, a Winchester .44 carbine with the barrel a good six inches shorter than his own, lastly an English-made Kerr, a .44 caliber weapon the Confederacy had used as a sniper’s rifle in the Civil War.
Beyond them lay four pistols: a Colt similar to his own; a self-cocking .44 Starr; a pair of Smith and Wesson Schofield .45s.
Wherever the Mexicans had been buying their arms from, they had surely got themselves a varied supply.
All of the weapons were loaded and ready. Nothing now but the waiting. Coburn’s mind went back to the eighteen-sixties. Times out of number he’d been wedged under wagons then, taking pot shots at Apaches as they rode round in some damned circle, or charged in and over the top. Country much like this now...
Years later it had been the Lincoln County Range War. More blasted wagons. More waiting. Jed had been along of him then. Around the time they met Billy; the one they called the Kid; the one as Pat Garrett shot in Pete Maxwell’s bedroom.
“¿Quien es?” Billy was supposed to have said.
“¿Quien es?”
Poor bastard found out soon enough! Poor mad bastard!
He moved his weight on to his other side and stared ahead, past the end of the wagon.
The riders had spread themselves out now, sufficient for Herne to make a better count. Thirty was closer than twenty. He sighted along the top of the Sharps, moving the barrel so slowly from right to left that it seemed no movement at all.
He leveled on one man close to the center, letting the shape fill out inside the V. Something less than six hundred yards, he reckoned. His finger squeezed the trigger nice and easy. Come on, you beauty! Come on!
As he held the rifle steady, the rider disappeared from between its sights. Herne saw the men on either side of him shift away; the line broke, startled. By the time it had reformed, he had slid another shell into the breech.
Moved down the line to the right.
Fired.
Allowed himself a wry smile.
Reloaded.
He got off eight shots inside the first minute. Six of them struck home. One missed altogether as the target swung aside as the trigger was pulled back. Another hit a horse on a line between its eyes.
Herne cursed himself bitterly for that. Not that he was upset about the animal – but that he had missed his man for no good reason.
Time enough for them to regroup into three, one swinging to the far side of the trees which picked out Herne’s position, the others riding in on the wagon.
Time also for Coburn to have them within range. He tried a shot with his Winchester and a Mexican toppled sideways in his saddle, hands tight upon the pommel, hanging on for his life. Coburn followed him round and pumped the lever. The second shot took him high in the chest and the fingers released their hold.
He swung the rifle in the other direction and fired round after round quickly, going for speed rather than accuracy, driving the closest group aside, apart.
Having emptied the Winchester, he let it fall and reached for the Henry.
Herne had shifted his position and lay now with his body sideways on to the main attacking force, the Sharps pointing down towards the group that had cut away to attack him.
He had already dropped two of them and was aiming at a third. He saw an arm go up, the sombrero flip backwards, held by the cord about its owner’s neck.
Enough.
He pushed another shell home and fired instantaneously. A Mexican dropped his gun, shot through the arm. He kept coming. Herne ignored him and found one of the others in his sights. This time the bullet hammered into the middle of the Mexican’s chest, smashing the breast bone to fragments. The man’s legs spread wide, feet jerked from the stirrups. As his mount rode on, he seemed for a second suspended, riding the air.
Herne didn’t wait to see him fall. He knew.
Load and fire. Load and fire again.
Then there was only one man left in the saddle and that the one he had shot in the arm. He was pulling a pistol from his belt with his left hand, grimacing with pain. Herne could see his face clearly; eyes surprisingly blue, mouth set firm and thin.
Herne stood up fast, Sharps in his left hand. He drew his Colt and fired in a single movement. The hand on the Mexican’s gun released its hold. Lids came down over the blue eyes. The man was dead before he had dropped from the saddle.
A shot ricocheted off the tree to Herne’s right. He turned swiftly, gun still in hand, crouching low. A second shot went close enough to his head for him to feel the wind of it.
Two of the Mexicans had come up behind him on foot. They had made their chance and then thrown it away – like their lives.
Herne shot the man to his right high in the chest and watched as he threw up his pistol high towards the sky and wheeled round fast.
Before the gun had started its descent the second man was clutching at a death wound in his throat and Herne had bolstered his own Colt.
Below him some dozen Mexicans were riding round the lone wagon, firing at the figure of Whitey Coburn, jammed down alongside its wheels and base.
Herne picked off one with his Sharps, then ran for his horse. He jumped from several feet away, one foot slotting accurately into the stirrup, a hand pulling the rope free.
As the animal moved, he pushed back down on the ground with his right boot, twice, three times, and then swung into the saddle. Coburn saw him coming out the corner of one eye. There was no time for more than a hasty glance. Two of the attackers were coming straight for him, firing wildly as they rode.
Whitey fired the Henry from the hip and saw one rock backwards; he pressed the trigger a second time and nothing happened. The blasted thing had jammed!
Coburn threw himself to the ground and started to roll sideways, clawing for his Colt as he went. He was vaguely aware of the Mexican high over him and heard the explosion of his pistol. He rolled further and came up to his knees. The man was still there. Coburn pulled out his gun and fired upwards.
The man was already dead.
Herne had shot him through the side of his head, just below the line of his wide-brimmed hat. He jumped from his horse and landed six feet away from Coburn.
“What kept you?”
“Wanted to see if you could handle it on your own.”
Coburn’s reply was lost in a volley of gunfire. They were moving in for a final attack.
The two Americans steadied themselves, facing in opposite directions. Each using pistols now for closer range. Steady, controlled firing. The Mexicans, shaken at having their force cut down so dramatically, shot in desperation and fear. Against the pair of professionals it was not enough.
Three more dead or dying. One got close enough to throw himself from the back of his horse on to Herne’s kneeling body. Jed caught at the man’s arm and turned him over fast, dropping a knee hard into his groin. His right hand reached down to his boot and pulled out the bayonet he kept sheathed there.
There was a flash of terrified recognition in the Mexican’s dark eyes at the long blade drove in under his ribs and penetrated the heart.
Herne stood up and looked about him. Whitey Coburn was earnestly pushing fresh shells into the smoking chambers of his Colt. The two men looked at one another and nodded slowly. It was all right again.
As they moved amongst the dead and dying there was a terrible silence, broken only by the flapping of carrion wings from the topmost branch of a nearby tree.