It was no longer a question of how many days before he managed to get on the trail of the diminishing gang again.
It wasn’t even measured in hours.
Herne could have taken them at any time he wanted. All that delayed him was the need to pick his ground with care. To attack the three survivors of the bank raiders as and when he wished to.
From the blood that decorated the trail westwards the shootist knew that it wouldn’t be too long before the gang had to stop. Or, at least one of them would have to stop.
It was the negro, Beech.
Herne’s black stallion scented the man before Jed knew he was close. The horse was the latest in a long line of virtually indistinguishable animals that the shootist had owned. He simply liked riding stallions and black was a color that suited his work best. When he lost an animal, which was a hazard of the trade, Herne just went out and bought himself another one. Didn’t much matter to him whether the stallion was broken or not. Herne’s training methods wouldn’t have won the approval of the Eastern ladies who believed in kindness above all. He had to depend utterly on the stallion’s obedience and that generally involved a long battle to prove who was master.
It was never a gentle battle.
Someone once asked Herne why he never gave a name to his horse. He’d replied that he didn’t see much point in naming something that one day he might have to kill and eat.
The sun was beginning to move from overhead, slipping lower ahead of him, throwing the shadow of man and horse back along the trail towards Cold Christmas. And, as the day wore on, so the temperature began to fall again. There was a grey haze over the slopes of the mountains, promising more snow to come.
The stallion snorted, steam gushing out from its reddened nostrils in a double plume.
‘Smell something, huh?’ said Herne.
The patches of blood on the trail had been becoming more frequent. Fresher. Lacking the glaze that quickly forms over spilled blood as it begins to congeal. The shootist guessed that it must be the black that he’d managed to hit as the raiders galloped from the town. And from the volume of crimson, it couldn’t be long.
‘There,’ he breathed, seeing a bay mare standing quietly among the trees a hundred yards ahead of him, cropping at the stunted grass at the edge of the trail. And there was something lying near it.
Herne stopped, swinging from the saddle, stretching from habit to loosen the muscles that tightened up during a long ride. He took the Sharps from the scabbard and walked towards the figure.
‘Hey, there!’ yelled the man. Unmistakably the reedy voice of the negro. The man called Beech.
‘You hurt bad?’ shouted Herne. Stopping and looking around at the dark forest, suspecting that this might be a trap. But doubting it. Knowing that the first intention of the robbers was going to be to keep on running. Over the last few days they had been ripped apart.
First Dermot.
Then his twin brother Sean.
And now the black.
That left George Wright and the girl. She intrigued Herne, knowing how rare it was to find a woman who’d ride with bandits. Plenty of women would sleep with them, but not many would fight and kill with them.
There was no reply to the question.
The man lay on his back, resting with his head against a small mound of earth and leaf mould. His pale linen duster coat was draggled and patched with blood. There was a rifle still bucketed on the bay’s saddle and Herne could see that the negro still had his pistol in its holster on his belt.
‘You hurt bad?’
‘Bad enough, Mr. Herne.’
‘They left you?’
‘Surely did.’
‘Where’re you hit?’
‘Shoulder. But your fuckin’ bullet bounced off the bone.’
‘Where?’
‘In my chest. Lungs I guess.’ There was a sudden coughing fit that gave emphasis to his words. Herne stepped in a little closer, seeing that there was pale blood and froth around the man’s mouth, streaking over his chin and down onto his chest.
‘Throw away that pistol.’
‘I’m dyin’, Mr. Herne.’
‘You’ll die a lot faster if’n I put a ball through your damned head. Throw it clear.’
With an effort that was obviously a struggle, unless he was a fine actor, Beech tugged out the handgun and threw it several yards in front of him. It clunked on the earth in the cold stillness and Herne walked in closer. Deciding that this wasn’t a trap.
‘Keep real still. Hands out where I can see them.’
‘Sure, Mr. Herne. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.’
The shootist paused again, ten paces off from the critically wounded man. Staring intently at him, making sure he wasn’t faking.
It was hard to fake dying.
It was something in the eyes.
A vague sense of distance. The way a man who knew he was doomed would stare around him with an odd intentness, peering at each tree or stone, as if he was certain it would be the last he’d ever see.
Beech gazed up at the shootist.
‘You’d be Mr. Herne? I’m right, ain’t I?’
‘Yeah. Jedediah Herne.’
‘Told George it was a mistake … Tryin’ to use your name to trick… Oh, God!’ He stopped for a moment, fighting for breath. Coughing up gobbets of blood. ‘To try and trick folks.’
‘They gone on?’
‘Like scared jack-rabbits.’
‘They leave you with your agreement?’
Beech tried something that might have been a grin, but never made it. ‘Kind of. They said we’re goin’ and I wasn’t in any way to argue with ‘em.’
‘That woman?’ asked Herne.
‘Joey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You seen her bubbies, I guess.’ This time the smile hung around a while. ‘Mighty pretty. Used to warm us up nights.’
‘All of you?’
Beech hung on the smile. ‘That shock you, Mr. Herne, suh? Why, lawdy me, suh!’ Parodying a woolly-headed, cotton-picking field hand. ‘Miss Joey surely liked to taste dark meat now and again, yes, suh! Didn’t mind lay in’ a nigger now and again.’
Herne didn’t consider himself a racist. He’d known good and bad blacks. Same as whites. But something deep down rebelled at the idea of the girl sharing her favors among all the gang.
‘Where they headin’?’
Beech coughed again, lying back with his eyes shut. ‘Guess I didn’t hear you, sun?’
Herne didn’t have the time to waste on the dying man. He didn’t really expect or need an answer to the question.
‘Want a bullet? Quicker?’
The negro shook his head painfully. ‘No, Mr. Herne. Thanks for your thought. I don’t have far to go, now. I’m damned cold.’
‘Yeah.’ Herne turned away.
‘I never figured to end like this.’
‘What?’
‘Figured on hangin’. Come from Georgia and get yourself a name as an uppity nigger and that’s what’s always around the next corner.’
‘Is this better?’ Herne faced him a dozen yards off.
‘Sure is. Free, kind of. Hell … hell, whatever happened to them good old days folks talk about? Tell me that, Herne?’
‘Good old days, Beech? They never existed. They was just a lot of people, doin’ the best they could.’
‘Lot of white people, Herne.’
‘Maybe. So long, Beech.’
He turned away again, stepping through the crisp, frozen leaves, towards the stallion.
When his hair-trigger reflexes caught a sound.
A moment of shuffling, like something moving quietly among the trees.
His first thought was that it was an ambush and he started to turn, thumb pulling back on the hammer of the buffalo rifle, leveling it from the hip.
When he saw the noise had been the negro. Sliding on hands and knees, like a crab at tide-turn, hand reaching for his pistol. His face was swiveled towards the shootist, mouth pulled down in pain. His eyes were large and white against the darkness of his skin.
The butt of the handgun was within reach of his fingers but he saw that he wasn’t going to make it, checking the movement and starting to call out to Herne not to shoot.
But it was too late. Jed was already committed to pulling the trigger of the Sharps and nothing on earth could have stopped him.
Firing a heavy rifle from the hip isn’t the best way of guaranteeing accuracy and Herne wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have totally missed the negro. But his aim was good.
The fifty-five caliber ball hit Beech under the ribs on the left side of his body, going clean on through his stomach without touching any bone at all. Exiting on the right side, punching out a chunk of flesh larger than a hen’s egg.
‘Oh, God!’ screamed the black, the impact pitching him on his face, rolling twice, then trying desperately to sit up. Failing and lying back, hands pressed to his stomach, groaning.
‘You stupid bastard,’ said Herne quietly.
‘Never was too clever, boss,’ sighed Beech, blinking at the pain, forcing his breathing to steady down.
The sound of the shot had frightened off the bay mare and they could both hear the pounding of its hooves away to the east. Back along the trail towards the settlement.
‘So long,’ said the shootist, swinging back on his heel.
‘Hey.’
‘What?’ Facing him once more.
‘That bullet you said you might have for me.’
‘Yeah?’
The negro coughed again, his whole body shaking with the effort. Blood coming freely from his open mouth, still trickling from his stomach wound.
‘Be grateful for it now.’
‘Now you’ve tried to back-shoot me.’
‘Hell, Herne. You’d. ... Oh, Christ… You’d have done the same.’
It was true, and the shootist nodded, grudgingly. ‘Yeah. I guess so.’
‘That stuff ‘bout how a man has to have a sense of honor, Herne. It don’t just… Aaah… Don’t just apply to white folks, you know.’
‘Sure.’
Jed laid down the Sharps on the cold ground, drawing the Colt from his holster. Cocking it and walking towards the mortally wounded negro.
‘Make it fast, Herne.’
‘Sure. Anything you want to say?’
Beech grinned at him, forcing the smile through his pain and his desolation. ‘Yeah. You can kiss my Ma’s brindled hog’s ass.’
The shot sounded flat among the trees, the surrounding forest muffling the echoes, deadening the explosion. The smoke curled slowly from the barrel of the pistol, lazy and silent. Herne holstered the handgun again, flicking the retaining leather strap over it.
Beech was dead, the bullet hitting him through the middle of the forehead, leaving only a small black hole. From underneath his head a great deal more blood was leaking out into the dirt. The negro’s eyes were still open, but Herne didn’t bother to stoop to close them. There wasn’t any point in doing that last service for the bandit.
He wasn’t seeing anything anymore.
It was dusk when Herne made contact again with the fleeing raiders.
George Wright had persuaded Joey that she should stay and pick off the shootist as he came pushing along after them.
She’d thought it was a good idea.