It was growing colder.
That evening there were flurries of snow down at the lower levels of the trail. Herne realized that his plans for getting to California were receding further and further from probability, passing beyond the limits of realistic possibility. The passes would be closed any day now.
But he was progressing. The gang were in his sights, and the vigilantes had gone blundering off on a false track.
It was difficult. To be caught by the posse would be the worst of news. With the lynching fever coursing through their veins there wouldn’t be a lot of chance of convincing them he wasn’t Herne the Hunter. Especially as he was. From hanging parties he’d seen the shootist figured that there was an average of less than an hour between being caught and being hung. Posses were notoriously disinterested in listening to protestations of innocence.
So killing the five robbers wouldn’t be enough. He’d need proof. The head of the leader would be sufficient. In that kind of cold it would remain recognizable long enough for him to get it identified and himself cleared.
He decided that his best bet was to come in close to the bandits’ camp that night and find out what he could about them.
Around ten there was a longer period of steady snow, thick enough to coat the trail and lie crisp along the branches of the trees. The clouds were low and covered up the moon, making tracking in on the robbers easy.
The negro had returned to join them, bringing the horses with him. And all five now sat around a small fire. Safe enough as there was no chance of seeing smoke at night and the prevailing wind was carrying the scent away south, in the opposite direction to the posse. And the forest was dense enough to mask it from a casual passer-by. Not that you got many casual travelers that late into the Colorado fall.
Herne had left his rifle with his stallion, tied safely out of trouble a quarter mile along a side trail to the left. A long gun wouldn’t be of much use to him in a night raid at close quarters. All he really wanted to do was get close enough to hear their plans and maybe find out more about them. Who they were. Whether they were after any more banks. What kind of opposition they were likely to provide for him.
The chill bit through his clothes as he walked carefully among the silent, sky-scraping trees. His boots crunched into the snow but he didn’t bother to take any great caution. Time for that when he got closer to the camp. There was enough light for him to see his own breath pluming out ahead of him in the darkness.
He heard the robbers before he saw them. Raucous laughter from one of them. Then high-pitched giggling that he guessed was the black.
It had been the black who’d stabbed the old lady on the wagon. Leaning from his saddle and swinging with a casual athletic ease up on the seat. Driving in a short, broad-bladed knife, piercing the old-timer’s back. The negro had then disappeared inside the rig and Herne had been close enough to hear the single, muffled cry as the husband went quickly to join his wife.
There was the fire.
Glittering like a nest of rubies among the black trunks of the pines. When he crept closer, setting each foot down with infinite slowness, he could see the silhouettes of the five men, sitting hunched around the flames, backs towards him. They were talking animatedly. The shootist was surprised to see that they hadn’t bothered to put out a sentry at all, feeling themselves safe.
When he was within ten paces Herne stopped and slithered down into a crouch, behind a tree, where he could still see the gang, and hear their conversation.
Despite the falling temperatures and the flurries of hail and snow, the shootist didn’t move a muscle for the next hour. Enduring discomfort that would have reduced most white men to the brink of tears. But he’d lived and fought long enough with and against the Indian tribes to know what true suffering was. Once he’d taken part in an Apache raid and laid for a day and two nights under six inches of baking earth. Not moving for anything. Relieving himself where he lay. Enduring the heat and the cold and the muscle pain.
The wait in the snow was nothing to Herne.
He learned all their names. Wright was clearly the leader, dominating the conversations, roaring with laughter at his own jokes. He was delighted with the way their murder of the old couple had sent the posse off on a wild hog chase. Herne was surprised at the closeness of the friendship between Wright and the slight figure of the man called Joey. George frequently touched the other man on the shoulder and the shootist began to wonder whether they were a couple of brownholers. Plenty of that kind of thing went on in most prisons and it wouldn’t have surprised him at all.
And it was a classic coupling. The tall, tough, masculine Wright and the slender Joey.
It didn’t affect Jed at all. It didn’t interest him or disgust him. He just accepted that some men preferred other men.
Herne didn’t.
‘Know what he said?’
‘No.’
‘Want to hear?’
Dermot O’Sullivan laughed. ‘Come on, George. Tell us.’
‘Sure. He said that he’d never seen one with teeth before!’
He leaned over and banged the other twin on the shoulder, nearly knocking him sideways, bellowing his own merriment. The rest of the men joining in. Joey’s giggling rising and circling above the deeper voices of the others.
During the hour Herne also learned that they had planned to try and hit two more banks before the snows closed right in on them, but the delay with the rains and the lame horse had changed things.
‘Just one more,’ scar-faced Sean kept saying, more to himself than to the others. ‘Just one more.’
The shootist stayed hidden a few minutes beyond the hour. The little figure of Joey had put some more broken branches on their fire and the flames had flared up, throwing dancing shadows clear out to where he was hiding. Even in poor light Jed figured that there was a real danger of his being spotted and hunted down before he could get back to his horse.
He was huddled over, keeping his body surface as small as possible to prevent the cold biting at him. His arms were folded around his knees, fingers white, despite his gloves. It was close to midnight before the fire sank lower and he decided to take his chance and slip away from the camp.
But Dermot moved first.
‘Got to go and piss.’ he called out, standing and stretching. Moving straight towards where Herne was lurking. The duster coat that the Irishman was still wearing brushed at the snow, making a faint hissing sound and he knocked the branches of the trees as he went by them, heading for Herne.
The shootist was still kneeling in the snow, in the lee of the big pine, and his mind raced as he considered his options.
Stay where he was and take the chance on not being seen.
Or get in first and try and take the bandit out in silence. Then run for it.
The two options suddenly became one. The clouds that had been scudding across the moon picked that particular moment to clear away and Herne found himself looking straight into O’Sullivan’s eyes from about six feet.
Despite the cold and the long period of utter stillness, the shootist’s reflexes operated with oiled precision.
The bayonet from its sheath in his boot into his right hand.
Lunging up from the snow faster than anyone Dermot had ever seen in his life. Faster than anyone he would ever see again.
He caught a glimpse of the crouching figure, then it seemed to explode towards him. There was a lean face with slanted eyes; black hair that flowed out from his shoulders with the speed of the movement. He even had a fleeting moment to see the touch of grey at the temples, like George Wright.
Something in the right hand.
Hitting him on the left side of his chest, through the thin duster coat, and the thicker pea-jacket beneath. A hard blow that seemed to strike clean to the core of his body. A grating shock as the point of the knife went clean through, angled upwards, crunching off the bottom part of his left shoulder-blade, right through the upper section of his heart.
Herne twisted the hilt of the old knife as he tugged it free, feeling hot blood gush out from the mortal wound and soak his hand and wrist. The boy’s mouth sagged open and for a moment Jed thought that he was going to put all of his last seconds into a scream to warn the others.
But the problems of his own dying took over his mind and he fell to his knees in front of the shootist. Hands going to his chest, feeling his life ebbing from him.
The face of his killer preoccupied Dermot O’Sullivan. It was like George, yet not the same. More frightening, with depths to it that the gang leader didn’t possess.
If it was someone looking like that, then it had to be …
‘You’re Herne,’ he whispered, half-smiling as he solved the puzzle.
‘Yeah, son. And you’re dead,’ replied the shootist, his voice hardly raised to a whisper, barely reaching the ears of the young Irishman. Who slipped down on his face, like a swimmer entering deep water, hands beneath him, head turned a little to one side.
His eyes were still open.
‘Dermot!’
Herne quickly wiped the blood-slick blade in the snow, sheathing it again.
‘Hey, Dermot!’
It could only be seconds. Sean O’Sullivan was already turning around, craning his neck as he stared into the forest blackness, trying to make out where his twin brother had disappeared to.
‘Dermot, are you there?’ Quieter. ‘George. Somethin’s up with Dermot. He’s not after answerin’ me calls to him.’
‘Are you there, boy?’ called Wright, standing up, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants. The others also stood up.
Herne was already forty paces off, ghosting back, dodging as he went, trying to keep as many tree trunks as possible between himself and the faint gleam of the fire.
Behind him he heard feet crunching through the ice and snow. Then a yell of rage and desolation as Sean stumbled over the pale corpse of his twin brother.
Jed knew there was little point in concealment now and he began to run in earnest, catching the sound of someone shouting at him.
There was the flat crack of a pistol being fired, and snow on a branch a few yards to Herne’s left exploded in a starburst of whiteness. Three more shots were aimed at him, but none of them came close. Then he heard the voice of George Wright bellowing at his gang to hold their fire.
‘Bring that fuckin’ posse down on us. Get after him.’
But Herne knew that he had a good enough start. Even in his bulky clothes and boots, dodging in and out among the trees, he was confident that he could reach his stallion way ahead of the pursuers. Again it was a throwback to his time with the Indians. The Oglala Sioux would run after buffalo for an entire day, gradually wearing down the herds, finally isolating a weak straggler and killing it. Loping along at a remorseless pace hour after hour. Stopping only for a few moments to sip at water. Then on again.
The noise of the bandits died away behind him and Herne was running alone. His ears filled with the crashing of his own progress, snapping off branches that showered him with powdery snow. Silence was utterly irrelevant.
All that mattered was speed.
He saw the small clearing where he’d left the horse. The animal snickered to him as he ran up, panting with the effort of the run, about to swing into the saddle and get away.
When a cold voice from the shadows froze him where he stood.
‘Got eighteen guns on you. I’m a man of God, mister, but I’ll gladly send you to meet our Maker if’n you move a damned inch.’