Cold Christmas. Population: 347. Founded: 1871. Two rooming-houses and seven saloons. One church. No school. One bank. (First National.) A pretty settlement nestling on the fringe of the Rocky Mountains. There is an abandoned silver mine close by with unsightly workings. There are a number of ill-marked trails in the vicinity where the keen walker and botanist might find great solitude and considerable beauty. The river that flows through the quaintly-named township is called the Lost Herd, named after a sad accident some years back when a flood took away many local cattle. However there is little danger of any accident to the modern traveler in this picturesque place.
From: ‘High Mountains And Beyond’ by Edgar Souse
published by Austin, Howell & James of Radlett, Ohio, 1885.
Walkers and botanists would have had a hard, cold time of it that fall in Cold Christmas. The snow had stopped, but the temperature, even in the middle of the day, hardly scraped its way up towards ten below. Jed Herne had known it a whole lot colder, once being up in the far north when the thermometer slipped off the scale at seventy-five below. So bitter that your spit froze and sang in the air and your eyes seemed like to freeze shut in their sockets.
That October wasn’t even close to that.
But it was still cold.
The citizens of the neat settlement were mainly indoors that Tuesday morning. The stores had opened for business but most of them had fires going in their iron stoves. The local branch of the First National Bank was also open, the pair of counter clerks busily preparing their monthly statements of accounts.
It was less than two months since the bank had been robbed by a gang of five men, led by an older bandit who made sure everyone there knew that his name was Herne the Hunter. The raid had been unusual for that particular gang as nobody had been killed. The manager had taken a ball through the right knee when he was tardy in opening up the vault.
Now it was his assistant, Matt Kitchener, who was in charge. Glorying in the chance of sitting in a comfortable office with his own fire blazing in the small iron grate, lounging back in a padded red chair, feet scarring the top of the manager’s desk. There had even been the chance to poach some of the regular manager’s precious stock of Havana two dollar stogies, normally reserved for very special clients of the bank.
Kitchener had been out the day that the gang raided the branch but he’d heard the story a couple of dozen times from everyone who’d been involved.
There was a knock on the office door and one of the clerks brought him in his morning cup of coffee, placing it carefully on a polished tray. Leaving a neat stack of buckwheat cakes on a plate at the side of the drink. Bowing respectfully and walking quickly out before Kitchener could find something wrong.
But the acting-manager was sitting smugly back thinking how obedient the two clerks were to him. Raising his cup of coffee delicately to his lips and savoring the delicious taste. Kitchener would not have enjoyed it so much if he had known that the two juniors had invented a ritual for themselves three times a day. Each time they made coffee for him they would offer it to each other first and each would spit in it. Or pick their noses or ears. Or worse. Stirring it in with the spoon with gigglings and mutterings of: ‘Here you are Mr. Kitchener, Sir.’ ‘Hope it chokes you, Mr. Kitchener.’ ‘Lovely green bit of spittle in that one, Mr. Kitchener.’
It was harmless fun and gave them a great deal of pleasure.
Herne was waiting outside town.
During the hour and more that he’d spent cowering in the snow-dusted forest, before the posse took him, he’d heard George Wright telling the others what he planned.
‘Hit a place we hit already. Sons of bitches won’t be ready for us. Easier than candy from a blind baby.’
The other four of them had laughed. Herne recalled that Dermot O’Sullivan had laughed louder than any of them. By now there wouldn’t be much left of his body. Just whitening bones with shreds of gristle still sticking drily to them.
And the town that they’d been laughing about was called Cold Christmas. Not the kind of name you could easily forget. Herne remembered it. Held it in his mind even while he was galloping through the blackness of the Colorado night, with the bullets of the vigilantes whistling about his ears.
It was the place to stop them for once and for all. Watch the trails in and out until Wright appeared with the other three. Then come in after them.
The shootist was certain that the killing of one of the twins wouldn’t have altered their plans. The snows were hanging in the air to the north like a threatening shroud. Any day and the mountains would close in on themselves and the paths to the west would be shut for half a year.
It had to be soon.
The idea had crossed his mind to go in and warn the good folk of Cold Christmas that their bank was likely to be hit. But during the hour he was a prisoner of the posse Herne had seen the futility of trying to reason with men who think they’ve a bank robber in their midst. So he decided that it was better to sit with the cards he’d got. Knowing that it was a good hand. Good enough to beat most.
So, he waited.
It had taken hard riding to get to the township before the robbers, pushing the stallion on to the limits and sometimes beyond. Overtaking them in the evening of the previous day, by taking a higher, more dangerous trail than the one that they were spurring along. Looking down on the four figures, their duster coats flaring in the chilly wind that blew through the canyons.
Now they’d caught up with him.
But Herne was safe on the heights, behind a series of jagged spears of rock, watching the bandits as they heeled their animals in towards the town. He noticed that all of the horses were moving easily. George Wright was in the lead on his own black stallion. The little figure of Joey was second. Then the negro and finally, slumped over his saddle, was scar-faced Sean.
It was a little after ten.
There were only a couple of people bustling along the main street of the settlement. Women with heavy baskets on their arms, heads tucked well down into the turned-up collars of their long coats, faces shrill with the cold that bit at their cheeks.
Herne heeled the horse down the side-trail, coming on to it a couple of hundred paces behind the robbers. Waiting at the edge of town until he’d seen Beech take the animals and walk them out of sight around the corner. The other three disappeared inside the imposing doors of the bank.
The shootist came in closer.
Ready.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ said one of the clerks, not really bothering to look up. He was near the bottom of adding a long column of figures and he didn’t want to break off.
‘Like to make a withdrawal, son,’ said George Wright, waving his pistol at the young man.
Who, unfortunately, didn’t look up. Still locked in. Buried in figures. ‘Fourteen hundred and thirty-eight dollars and seventeen. Fourteen hundred and seventy-nine dollars and eleven cents.’
Wright couldn’t believe it. There was nobody else in the bank, except for himself, Joey in his droop-brimmed hat, and Sean. The Irishman was standing near the door, as though he was just waiting for the chance to kill someone. Anyone.
‘I’m a regular customer. Made a large withdrawal only ’bout seven weeks ago.’
‘Be with you in just a moment, sir. Crave your kind indulgence in waiting patiently. Fifteen hundred and ninety … no, ninety-one dollars and four cents. Nearly done.’
‘Now, son,’ snapped George Wright, ‘or I’ll put a bullet through your damned clacking mouth.’
‘Oh, Jesus, no. No. No …’ The young man finally looked up from his spidery column of cribbed numbers and stared down the barrel of a forty-five, hammer drawn clear back.
And he fainted.
‘Christ! You!’ called the robber, banging the butt of his pistol on the counter.
‘Comin’, Sir,’ replied the second of the clerks, turning round with a bright, professional smile pasted on his face. Seeing his friend unconscious, or dead, and the three same men who’d robbed them before, grouped in a circle the other side of the protective grille.
‘You know me, boy.’
‘I do. ... I do, sir. Please don’t kill me, mister. I got a widowed Ma to support.’
‘Then get that door open.’
‘I can’t.’
The pistol was leveled at his head and he almost started crying. Breathing like a child who’s just been badly shocked. Shallow and fast.
‘The manager, mister …’
‘Who?’
‘Mr. Kitchener, the acting-manager.’
‘Figured the last one wouldn’t be back from the hospital yet,’ grinned Wright.
But the grin didn’t get close to the pale blue eyes.
‘Should I get him?’
‘You do that, boy. And you be quick. Joey.’
‘Yeah, George?’
‘Watch him. Don’t actually go in that office. Just stand out here and talk loud and clear so that Mr. Kitchener can hear you.’
‘Hey, George. There’s a man on a big black come in town. Tethered the horse yonder.’
‘What’s he like, Sean?’
‘Tall. Black coat. Looks kind of old.’
‘On his ownsome?’
‘Yeah. Nobody else in sight at all.’
The leader of the gang grinned again. ‘Then I guess we don’t have a thing to worry about, huh?’
‘Guess not, George. Just that the way Dermot gotten hisself killed in—’
‘Sure. Sure. We know it. Could have been Herne. It’s true, it could have. Could have isn’t the same as is.’
Back to the clerk: ‘You got yourself frozen to the floor, son?’
‘No. No, I didn’t.’
‘Then get on. Now.’
Jed Herne found himself a nice, sheltered position where he could watch the door of the bank. Sitting down on a long wooden seat, brushing off some of the pale coating of ice. Holding the long fifty-five caliber Sharps across his lap. He was in shadow and about sixty yards from the main door of the Cold Christmas branch of the First National.
‘Shouldn’t be long,’ he said, to himself.
Kitchener found himself facing the situation that he’d heard about. It was as though time had somehow looped itself around in a circle and he was trapped in it, like a hornet in a pool of spilled honey. The tall figure of the bandit, Herne, with his minions. Four of them. No, three. There was supposed to be a negro somewheres outside who minded the animals.
‘You’ve come back,’ he said.
George Wright laughed. ‘You sure got sharp eyes, Mr. Kitchener. It’s us, right enough.’
‘You can’t do this again.’
‘Well, that’s … ’
‘Let me bust him, George.’
Wright turned to face Sean. ‘No names, friend. You did it before. Remember that. No names. Now…’ he allowed the word to remain suspended in the still air of the bank.
Kitchener had the chance of being a hero or of being sensible. There was a Winchester, always loaded and cocked, hanging on pegs just under the counter. During the previous raid it had been untouched. He could see it as he stood there. If he reached down his sweating hands would grip the cool wood of the stock.
The assistant-manager wasn’t a brave man. His wife, Joanne, had reminded him only the morning before as he tucked into his ham and grits. ‘Matt,’ she’d said. ‘I’d rather have a husband who lives on his knees rather than one who dies on his feet. Remember that, my dear one.’
Joanne Kitchener spent too much time reading improving tracts full of homilies like that.
‘I’ll open the vault, Mr. Herne,’ he said.
‘That’s good. Real good. Joey. In and collect it. Only large bills, if you please, Mr. Kitchener. Joey’s only little.’
Sean looked again through the front window of the bank. Seeing the street was completely deserted. ‘George, that man in black’s disappeared,’ he said. Forgetting and calling the leader by his name again. Now he’d gone and done that it meant they’d have to kill all of the people in the building. Still, that didn’t worry Sean O’Sullivan very much.
He touched the hideous scar beneath his chin where a crazed man had once taken a hatchet to him when he’d caught Sean raping his wife in the cellar of their home. In bitter cold the scar pained him.
The small robber scurried behind the counter with a couple of gunny sacks, and held them out to Kitchener to fill. With the great thick steel doors hanging open, they could all see row upon row of neat metal boxes, and shelves to the left. Each shelf seeming to creak under white sacks, and rows of notes.
‘My sweet Lord. Will you look at that,’ breathed Wright. ‘That’s more than I’ve seen in a whole life of stealin’. Makes me feel kind of religious.’
‘There’s several hundred thousand dollars there. We’re holding it as a reserve against the bank in Denver’s needs. It’s our monthly—’
Wright interrupted him. ‘I don’t give a shit ’bout that, mister. Just fill them bags with the biggest pile of bank notes you can see.’
Herne quietly levered back the big claw hammer on the Sharps. Brought his finger to his lips and touched it with his tongue. Applying the dab of spittle to the front sight to make it stand out better. But the range for the long buffalo rifle was absurdly easy. If they came out the front, he’d hit them.
There were three shots from inside the bank. Two close together as Wright calmly put a bullet through the forehead of each of the clerks. Killing them instantly, kicking them over backwards, eyes blanking out as they stared at the ceiling.
Matt Kitchener saw them die, watching unbelieving at the callous killing. His mind hardly able to take in the fact that the men were dead. Two young boys, both of them from Cold Christmas, who’d joined the First National only a few months back. Now they were both dead.
And that had to mean that….
‘Please don’t,’ he begged, falling to his knees in front of the littlest of the robbers, Joey. Holding him round the legs, pressing his face down. Kissing the mud-caked boots of the bandit, tears coursing down his cheeks.
‘Jesus, mister,’ said Sean O’Sullivan, by the door, holding the sacks. ‘Don’t waste our fuckin’ time.’
‘I got a family, so please don’t …’ raising his face, level with the brass buckle on Joey’s belt, dirt and weeping coating his mouth, hanging in the neat little moustache.
‘Put him away,’ said George, also holding a sack in his right hand. Hearing the clatter of hooves that meant Beech was coming in right on time. As always.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Kitchener, suddenly disgusted and calm. Realizing he was going to go anyway. Lunging up at the throat of the small man, clawing for his eyes.
Joey tried to club him down with the butt of the Meteor, half-hitting. A glancing blow on the temple that drew an instant thread of blood, bright against the paleness of the manager’s face. His fingers caught in the duster, locking on the shirt underneath.
‘Bastard,’ yelled Joey, voice thin with excitement and anger.
The bandit hit him again, knocking him back to his knees, but his hands were strong and the heavy material of the shirt tore clear across and down.
Exposing a fine pair of breasts, the nipples erect with the tension.
That was when George Wright shot Kitchener through the throat from five paces away, sending him toppling to the polished floor of the bank, choking and gasping as he began to drown in his own blood.
‘Come on. Get the fuck out of here!’ yelled Wright, motioning at Joey to cover up her naked body.
‘That son of a bitch,’ screamed the girl, kicking out at the dying man and catching him a jarring blow to the ribs with her right foot. Drawing her boot back for another kick and then changing her mind, heading for the door behind George.
Sean tugged it open and stepped outside.
Taking a fifty-five caliber bullet clean through the scar under his chin.