Death in Gold (A Herne the Hunter Western #5)

For a frozen moment nobody moved. All stared down at the bright glitter of wealth in the center of the grime and dirt stunned by what had happened.

Then everyone was pulling at his gun and taking off for whatever cover the place afforded.

From the stairs, the man with the patch fired once in the general direction of Herne. As the bullet ricocheted at a crazy angle off the stone floor, Herne drew his Colt and shot through the glass of the hurricane lamp. There was a splintering sound and the flame leapt and flickered, but refused to die.

More shots sounded hollowly in the high room. Guns were being fired without aim or thought, in a frenzy of panic. Toomey was shouting out instructions to his men, but the words were lost in the rest of the noise.

Coburn had made a run for the stairs, ducking under the blow that had been aimed at him with the rifle and pushing the man with the patch from the steps to the floor. He dived low on the cat-walk as someone below fired upwards twice.

Toomey was still yelling, though by now he was in the shadows at the far side of the warehouse. Herne had crouched low behind a couple of crates and was waiting for the initial burst of shooting to die down.

The lamp was still swinging from its nail, casting weird shadows from those antiquities that had been uncovered.

Uncovered and now partly shot to pieces, gold and diamonds spilling from their hollows.

Hearne leaned his gun barrel on the top of one of the crates and aimed for the lamp’s, base. The shell went through it and embedded itself in the floor of the loft Oil began to pour downwards in a steady stream. The flame rose up with a final, orange burst of bowed light, then guttered to nothingness.

The only source of light was the crack in the double doors that had been slammed shut with the weight of a man’s body.

The oil continued to drip to the floor: that and the heavy breathing of men the only sounds.

Herne moved his left hand and felt it slide into something damp and sticky to the touch. He pulled the hand away and wiped it on his pants. In the spaces before him he could see nothing definite; nothing to aim at.

Herne leaned his body the other way, trying to get a firm grip on a crate. That ought to stir things up a little!

He started to lift it from the ground as noiselessly as possible, but the bottom edge scraped on the floor. After that it was a case of moving fast. Herne rocked back on his haunches, raising the crate level with his head before hurling it down into the center of the warehouse.

As it crashed on to the stone and bounced back upwards, the wooden sides cracked and broke apart, spilling out the contents.

“There he is!” Toomey’s shout seemed to come from the deepest recess of the vast room.

A volley of shots rang out from three different directions, all aimed at the area Where the crate had landed. Herne had been waiting, not wishing to waste his moment.

He aimed for the middle one of the trio of flashes and cursed to himself when there was no resulting cry of pain or sound of a body falling. He had aimed well he was sure. The man must have been firing left handed; his shot had been intended for the chest of someone firing with his right.

“Did you get either of them?” Toomey’s voice echoed round the walls and finally faded. There was no reply.

Moments more silence and then to Herne’s left a muffled shout, followed closely by a scream and a gurgling cry.

“What the hell?” Floyd Toomey was unused to asking so many unanswered questions, but the thump of a body falling heavily told Herne that Whitey had not been wasting his time.

It was time he made his next move. Like drawing a little more fire. He pulled another crate up into his arms and brought it higher than before, so that he was now standing. If he could get this one across towards the far side, that would likely give Whitey and himself a good sighting.

He took a step forward and his right foot slid away under him, skidding on the greasy floor. The crate went from his grasp and fell directly down, banging loudly and breaking open. Almost instantly came Toomey’s shout and a swift succession of shots.

Herne couldn’t stifle his gasp of pain as one of them tore at the flesh of his side, going through coat and shirt and skin to graze the outside of his ribs. He fell to his left, snapping off a shot as he did so.

Without balance there was little chance of hitting anyone and the shell was wasted. Whitey didn’t seem to have had any better luck.

“You got the bastard! Let him have it now while he’s on the floor!” Toomey’s voice was much louder, closer, more triumphant.

Herne pulled at the uneven flagstones with his finger ends, till a bullet struck the floor inches in front of them. He changed direction fast, pushing himself back towards the middle of the warehouse despite the waves of pain that swept through him,

He crashed his legs against a pile of packing materials and pots, sending them flying.

The shot was followed by a violent burst of flame from directly beside where Herne was now lying. He had made his way back to where the pool of oil had spread itself: the pool that had finally caught alight.

Toomey’s voice seemed to be coming from behind and above him and from its gloating tone, Herne knew who had thrown the matches down into the oil.

He glimpsed Whitey’s anxious face on the far side of the circle of fire and even as he did so, a second shell struck him in the right side, lower than the first. He flung up his right hand, fingers apart. The Colt tumbled out of his grasp and clanged on to the floor.

Coburn fired once at the man with the patch and didn’t wait to see if his shot had been accurate. He had to get Jed out of there. He put his left arm in front of his face and ran at the flames, which were now burning higher, fueled by the straw and wood that lay all around the building.

He leapt through the fire and as he did so two shots rang out from in front and behind. The first took him low in the stomach, inches above his left hip. The second smashed into the comer of his right shoulder blade and glanced upwards through the top of his neck.

Herne looked up from the floor and saw Whitey’s white, stricken face, white hair splayed out around it. And about that bright orange flame.

Coburn fell inside the fire and Herne grabbed at him with his left hand, up on his knees now and trying to recover his gun at the same time. He pulled it up with him, side and arm coursing with streaks of pain as he levered back the hammer.

One of Toomey’s men was outlined against the opening between the doors. Herne fired once and grunted with satisfaction as the body plummeted forwards and stayed where it had fallen. He lowered Coburn to the floor and got into the street as fast as he could.

The man with the patch was sitting in Toomey’s rig, trying to whip up the horses for a getaway. Where he was going he wasn’t going to need horses.

Herne winced as he squeezed the trigger twice, hitting the man in the upper arm and then in the side of the head, knocking him clean out of the rig.

The horses bolted, taking the empty carriage along Lacey Street at great speed. But of their owner, of Floyd Toomey, there was neither sight nor sound.

Herne went back into the warehouse and pulled Coburn out into the street. The blood was welling from the wound in Whitey’s neck and a dark stain was spreading fast at the front of his shirt.

Whitey shook his head, the eyes already glazed, their pupils contracting. His voice was a faint croak so that Herne had to bend low over him.

Herne looked away, then back down at Whitey’s face. “I finished ‘em. Don’t worry.”

Whitey started to lift his hand upwards, its fingers clenched tightly around something. He lifted it in front of Herne’s face and opened it slowly, his face contorting with the effort. A handful of gold dust lay in the palm of his hand, along with the dirt of the warehouse floor.

He looked at the gold and then at Jed and tried to smile but it was only another grimace of extreme pain. “At…at least…I got it…part right…”

The fingers opened wider; the hand shook with a final spasm; the gold dust trickled between the fingers of the dying man’s hand like the sands of time.

Herne felt the body shake under him and then all there was left was a flower of blood blossoming around his mouth and a pair of dead eyes staring at some land Herne did not know and could only imagine.

Jed Herne knew there was no hurry. He found himself a small boarding house and took a room for two weeks which he rarely left except to eat his meals in the long dining-room with the other lodgers. The doctor came to see him every day for the first week, changing the dressings on his wounds and making sure they were healing up the way they should.

After that it was a matter of resting and regaining his strength. Time spent in front of the full-length wardrobe mirror testing his right arm; reaching for his Colt and thumbing back the hammer.

Time after time until he was certain.

Only then did he pay his rent and step out once more into the streets of New Orleans.

He went first to the railroad station and inquired about the trains to New York. He paid a deposit on the ticket, using all of the money he had left. That didn’t worry him none either. He knew he was about to collect his dues.

The clerk in front of Floyd Toomey’s office tried to hold out on the tall gunfighter – but not for long. One glimpse of the bayonet blade sliding up from inside the man’s boot was enough.

Herne grunted and left for Bourbon Street.

The Bourbon Sporting House was almost exactly halfway down, a brightly painted sign outside advertising its wares. The best girls, the best gaming tables, the best steaks in New Orleans.

A negro doorman looked up inquiringly at Herne and began to mumble a question. He saw the determination on Herne’s face and didn’t bother finishing it. He was just mighty glad that whoever or whatever the stranger was looking for, it wasn’t him.

The room into which Herne stepped was richly furnished with purple and gold velvet drapes and long, low sofas upholstered in the same material. Upon these a number of strikingly beautiful women sat or lay, wearing a variety of underthings in shiny, colored satin. Satin which shimmered over the curves of their bodies as they moved.

One of them slid from the end of an elegant chaise-longue and came towards Herne. She walked with a sway of the hips and a tilt of the head that gave her the sensuous aristocracy of a queen,

A queen cat on heat.

She was an octoroon and as she opened her full lips in a smile, Herne was struck by the orange aroma of her perfume. Her cheeks were rouged, the dark eyes made Up strongly but not overpoweringly.

Herne thought back to the whore he had had back in that Mexican cantina. This one was in a class of her own, so much more beautiful. The thought of going with her to her bed filled him with a momentary shiver of excitement.

She stood before him, her smile half-mocking now, her voice warm and smooth. There hasn’t been a man like you in here for a long time. I surely hope you ain’t about to go off with anybody else. Not while I’m here.”

She fluttered her false eyelashes and rested a hand on his arm, the long, crimson nails pressing down insistently on his flesh.

“I can give you more pleasure than anyone.”

The beautiful face rose up towards him.

“I can do things you never even dreamed about.”

Herne was swimming in her perfume and the dusky warmth of her closeness. The hand gripped him and her lips reached up towards his mouth.

Herne stepped back, releasing the fingers from his arm. Instantly the expression on her face changed.

“I’m lookin’ for someone,” he said. “A man.”

She looked at him quizzically. “Well, if that’s your taste, you’d…”

“A man named Toomey. Floyd Toomey. You know him?”

The face hardened further and the girl turned away and began to walk back to where she had been sitting. Herne went after her and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

She wheeled round and swung her hand hard at his face, slapping him across the cheek.

The crack of the blow served to halt most of the surrounding noise. Talking, drinking ceased. The Negro pianist struck another half a dozen syncopated notes and left them to reverberate in the warmth of the room.

Herne rubbed at his cheek, his other hand still tight on the octoroon’s shoulder. -

“Let her go, mister!”

Herne tried to judge the voice bit was left uncertain. Man or woman?

“Let her go and back off afore I fill your back with both of these barrels.”

Herne took his hand from the girl’s shoulder and turned slowly, tensing his body for action.

The shotgun was leveled at him from the top of three plushly carpeted steps. The person who was holding it was dressed like a man but Herne didn’t think it was. Something about the build, the face, the voice, suggested a woman.

A dark brown suit which swelled out at the chest below a white carnation in the buttonhole. Short, fair hair. A face without makeup but with an oddly feminine mouth.

It didn’t matter. The finger on the trigger was real enough, strong enough.

“No one comes in here and manhandles my girls. No one!”

The legs widened their stance, the gun was pulled in more tightly against the body.

“You get right out of here and don’t come back.”

Herne said nothing. Merely shook his head.

The gun jerked in his direction. “I said you get! Or else get this!”

“Got me business here. I aim to see it done.”

“And I aim to see you dead for it!”

Herne’s eyes narrowed; the fingers of his right hand flexed. “Don’t make me do it.”

But there was to be no going back.

Herne went for his gun and ducked low at the same time. The fingers round the shotgun trigger tightened as he fired. As his shell struck home the shotgun exploded both barrels over the top of where Herne had been standing.

The weapon fell away and bounced down the steps on to the floor. Herne’s bullet had penetrated her breast and severed the artery close to the heart She landed face downwards and the blood from her body seeped into the thick pile of the carpet.

All around Herne women were screaming at the tops of their voices; men shouting and cursing. A group rushed through from the neighboring gaming room and yelled for an explanation.

Several prominent citizens of the city ran for the door, pulling on their clothes as they went.

Herne turned suddenly at a movement in the corner of his vision. By the gaming room door a man in a striped shirt and fancy waistcoat was releasing a Derringer from its holster just behind his hip.

Herne thumbed back the hammer and brought round the gun. He fired once, taking his time. The gambler rocked back against the door jamb, a playing card fluttering down from inside his shirt sleeve.

He moved his hand towards the wound high in his chest but the action was unfinished.

“Anybody else feel like chippin’ in?”

Herne turned a slow, full circle, Colt primed and ready. There were no takers.

It was then that he noticed the girl.

She was on the floor behind where he had been standing. What was left of her. She had taken most of the force of both barrels of the shotgun. Her beautiful face was beautiful no longer. It hardly existed.

Where there had been fine bone structure, perfectly painted lips and eyes, now there was only a bloody pulp matted with hair and fragments of buckshot.

The upper half of her orange satin slip was stained deep, deep red.

Two of the other girls were kneeling alongside her mutilated body, holding each other and sobbing hysterically.

Herne straightened and looked above them. On the balcony which ran to the left of the single flight of stairs stood Floyd Toomey. His bulbous face was as pale as death itself, both hands gripping the silver painted rail until it shook.

Herne smiled a wry smile of satisfaction and began to climb the stairs.

“Which room, Toomey?”

The lips moved but were unable to speak; his eyes flickered like frightened birds. Herne followed his gaze and prodded Him with his gun.

“Get movin’.”

Herne pushed the fat man into the room and shut the door. Almost immediately there was a movement underneath the mass of bedclothes. Herne jumped fast and pulled the sheets and blankets clear and on to the floor.

Two naked girls were huddled on the bare bed, one black, the other white. Neither looked older than fifteen.

“Get out!”

Herne reopened the door and locked it behind them. Then he put up his gun. He wasn’t about to be in need of it.

Toomey was half-sitting, half-lying, oh the bed, his eyes tight shut as though it were a nightmare and he would wake up and it would all be over.

It would be over soon enough but he wasn’t about to wake up.

Herne pulled him round and hit him full in the center of his face. Blood spurted from the nose and Toomey lifted his arms instinctively. Herne kneed him in the stomach and then punched him in the face again. Harder. The nose splintered and broke under the impact of the blow.

“First I want the money!”

Toomey didn’t even bother bluffing. He pulled a bulging wallet from inside his coat and let it fall on to the bed. All the while he was wincing and groaning with pain; the drops of blood that fell steadily from his face were patterning the yellow silk bed linen.

Herne took his and Whitey’s due from the wallet, then counted out a thousand dollars more.

“That’s the bonus you spoke of.”

The podgy hand reached for the wallet and what was left of the money. As the fingers closed around it, Herne reached down to his boot.

“Now there’s one more payment you got to make.”

Toomey turned, startled, seeing the bayonet in Herne’s hand.

“Whitey was my friend. A good and true friend. You sure can’t pay enough for gettin’ him killed, but sweet Jesus you can do your best!”

“Noooo!”

Floyd Toomey let out a high-pitched squeal and scrambled along the bed towards the far wall. Herne reached out for him with his left hand and jerked the fat body back into the center of the bed. As feet and hands waved up into the air, the bayonet blade drove down hard into the squealing, wriggling center.

“Aaahh! Aaahh!”

Herne slid the blade back through the excess of flesh. Then he pushed up the flabby chin and cut Toomey’s throat from ear to ear in a single, sharp curving stroke.

Herne stood and looked down at the bed. He pulled the satin sheets over the body and watched the yellow change color. A dead weight of flesh and bone wrapped in expensive whore house linen.

There was nothing more for Jed Herne to do.

Chapter Twelve