The Clearwater had risen better than two feet during the night.
It was a sure sign that rain had been falling heavily up in the high country of the Dakotas, adding to the burden of the melt run-off.
Herne stood under a small grove of cottonwoods, scarcely visible in the pearly light of early morning, waiting to see if Zimmerman would keep his nerve long enough to show up for their meeting.
It had been easy to get out of the Sowren mansion without being observed. The servants who rose before dawn had their quarters at the back of the house, and nobody saw Jed as he crept silently out. The sky was lightening towards the east, with the first signs of the false dawn, but it would be a full hour or more before it became properly light. By then he hoped that his business would be finished and he could be safely back in the high feather-bed with the polished brass frame.
The sky was completely clouded over and a thin mist hung across the lower end of the valley, its tendrils reaching halfway up Main Street, about to the dry goods store. But stopping short of the Sowren house as if it didn’t dare to come any closer without incurring the wrath of the redoubtable ladies sleeping within.
Herne bent down and picked up a handful of tiny pebbles, flicking them absently into the surging waters of the river.
Hunching his shoulders protectively against the cold and damp. There was so much water carried in the air that it didn’t make a lot of difference whether it was actually raining or not The effect was the same. For a moment he wished he’d brought out his oilskin, but it was an impossible garment to wear or carry quietly, with its crackling folds, and he decided he’d made the right decision. It wouldn’t be a good thing if Miss Eliza or Miss Lily were to see him meeting secretly with their mine manager. Though what Zimmerman had to tell him was beyond Herne’s guesswork. But it had to be worth hearing.
He glanced back up the hill and wondered whether it would be possible for anyone in the house to see him, Deciding that they couldn’t. It was a good quarter mile and the visibility was very poor.
There was the sound of stones shifting underfoot, further down the valley, towards the mine. Herne checked automatically that the leather cord was free of the top of the Colt’s hammer. Wild Rose City was such a peculiar place that it was a fool who didn’t take precautions. And out West a fool didn’t get to live very long.
‘Mr. Herne,’ hissed a voice. High and thin and trembling, like the summer wind through pine trees.
Jed stood still and waited. Wanting to see whether Zimmerman had come alone or whether he was just the Judas goat in a trap. There was a silence and then he caught the noise of feet coming closer, slipping on the pebbles, somewhere to the left, on the same side of the river as Herne. Easing towards him.
‘Mr. Herne. Are you there?’
He still waited, not wanting to reveal where he was, deep in a pool of shadow. Able to see without being seen.
‘It’s me. Bob Zimmerman. Are you there? Oh, Jesus Christ!’
It was almost a cry of despair, so rending in the early morning that Jed immediately believed the manager’s honesty. Nobody could act terror that well. The little man from Hibbing was so frightened that you could damned nearly smell it.
‘I’m here. And keep your voice quiet, less’n you want the whole damned town to know we’re meeting here like this!’
‘Where are you?’
‘Under the trees.’
‘Where?’
‘Here.’
‘Oh. I think I see you. I’m just... Ooooh ... My God! I nearly fell into the river, Mr. Herne.’
With the Clearwater running as high as it was Herne had no doubts that Zimmerman would inevitably have been swept away to his death.
One thing was certain.
Though he was a good swimmer, Jed wouldn’t have gone into the icy waters after him.
The mist wavered as a breath of wind came up from the north, and Herne was at last able to see the manager of the Mount Morgoth mine. Staggering slightly as he fought for his footing on the wet pebbles. He was wearing a dark suit and ankle boots. An outfit better suited to Boston than a muddy trail in the Black Hills. Jed noticed that Zimmerman had obviously fallen several times on his stumbling journey through the darkness and his clothes were smeared with dirt, black patches of wetness showing in the pale light.
‘Thank God you’ve come, Mr. Herne,’ he panted, reaching out to shake Jed by the hand. As he took it, Herne felt the chill from his fingers. Fingers that were quivering with fear.
‘What have you got to tell me, Zimmerman? About the robberies?’
‘I’ve worked at Mount Morgoth for several years now, since I first came to Dakota Territory. Before that I had been...’
‘Christ, Zimmerman,’ said Herne disgustedly. ‘I didn’t come out here in this lousy weather just to listen to the story of your life!’
‘I’m sorry. Oh, God, but I’m so sorry, Mr. Herne.’ For a moment Jed thought the manager was going to break down and start weeping. The damp had plastered his thin curly hair across his forehead and there was a streak of dark mud under one cheekbone. The eyes were sunken in and he coughed nervously, putting his hand to his mouth. Jed saw that even since the previous day the man’s condition had worsened. He was blinking constantly.
‘Come on. Get a damned grip on yourself. Tell me what you have to say and we can both go.’
‘Yes. You’re right, of course. It’s just that I so wanted... ’
‘Zimmerman,’ warned Herne.
‘Yes. It’s about the robberies. I ... I know something about them.’
‘What?’
‘I know who’s doing them, Mr. Herne.’
‘Who?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.’
There was a short silence between them. Jed considered drawing the pistol and bending it across Zimmerman’s face. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in his mind that the manager really did know.
‘What the Hell is that supposed to mean?’ he snarled.
‘It’s just that...’
‘Just fuckin’ nothing, Zimmerman, you gutless son of a bitch!!’
There was no need to fake his annoyance. Herne was bitterly angry with the little curly-headed man for getting him out there in such a dangerous way, then losing his nerve.
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’ll kill me. They’ll know who... who told on them, and they’ll kill me.’
Reassurance was useless and Jed recognized that immediately. What the true story was might be something he could only guess at. And he was beginning to guess at it.
‘All right. Calm down.’ Despite his rage he forced himself to pat Zimmerman on the shoulder, wanting nothing more than to take the honed bayonet from its sheath in his right boot and cut the manager here and there until he blurted out what he knew. But it wasn’t the time or the place for that. It was time for the carrot rather than the stick.
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Herne. Truly I’m ...’ and to his embarrassment the manager of Mount Morgoth began to weep in his arms, his slight body racked with juddering sobs.
‘Come on. There must be some help that you can give me without betraying... anyone.’ The pause was where Herne nearly took a chance and voiced his suspicions, holding back from it because he was worried what the effect might be on Zimmerman.
‘Help?’
‘Damn it, man, that’s what we’re both down here for, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Hesitantly.
‘Then come on. It’ll soon be full light and they’ll be able to see us from every damned house in Wild Rose City. And that is going to make folks mighty suspicious, Mr. Zimmerman.’
‘I can tell you one thing.’
‘What?
‘The next robbery.’
‘Yeah? Go on.’
‘I know when.’
‘Tell me.’
‘And where.’
‘But not who?
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘I’m positive. Please don’t ask me that, Mr. Herne. I beg you.’
He was gradually regaining his control, standing away from Jed, wiping his nose with a white square of linen that he unfolded from a pocket of his vest. Blowing noisily and then sniffing, flicking away the remains of a tear from his cheek.
‘Better now, Zimmerman?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, tell me.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jesus, Zimmerman! You surely don’t give a lot of warning, do you?’
‘It’s taken all my courage, Mr. Herne, even to tell you this much.’
‘I need more.’
‘It’s from Old Number One Mine, again. They’ve already hit it once.’
‘Where?
‘Close by. About eleven miles north and west of town there’s a narrow canyon, with several spur canyons opening off it. Most of them are boxed, but there are some with trails through wide enough for a man on a horse leading pack mules.’
‘What time tomorrow?’
Zimmerman looked at the mud staining his boots and shuffled his feet nervously. Herne stared at him in disgust, unable to understand how fear could so reduce a person’s will. Once you let fright rule you, then it ruled for ever. All you had to do was stand up to it. The worst that could happen to a man was death. Herne stopped being afraid of dying a very long time ago.
‘I asked you what time tomorrow the robbery’s goin’ to be.’
‘Later on. Probably close to evening. They leave the mine in the morning, and they should be passing through here on their way to Jansonville by nightfall.’
‘That’s all you’re goin’ to tell me?’
‘I... I guess so, Mr. Herne. I think I ought to be gettin’ back now, before I’m missed. There’s eyes everywhere watchin’ around Wild Rose.’
All the time Herne’s suspicions were becoming stronger and stronger.
Unbelievable though they seemed to him, the trail of clues seemed to be pointing in only one possible direction.
‘Guess you better go. Me too. Wouldn’t do for the ladies to catch me sneakin’ out like this.’ A thought struck him. ‘But I surely am kind of doin’ the job they hired me for. Trackin’ down these killers who’ve been stealin’ silver ore all over the damned Dakotas.’
‘Sure is,’ stammered the manager, staring all around him as the light grew into a great halo in the east, making it possible to see further down and up the valley. Somehow the swelling brightness seemed to make the turbulent river sound quieter.
‘How many men goin’ to be there tomorrow evening, Zimmerman? Seems I’m goin’ to have to try it all on my own, so you owe me that much.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘God damn it! Be sure!’ hissed Herne, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him clear off the ground in one hand, his legs jerking and kicking helplessly. Zimmerman’s face began to turn purple, his tongue protruding. His eyes seemed to swell from their sockets.
‘Please.. .’ he gasped.
‘Please, nothin’,’ spat Jed. ‘I don’t know what you’re frightened of, mister, but whatever it is you better believe I can top it.’
He dropped him contemptuously to the wet stones, watching him sprawl on his side, rolling nearly into the Clearwater, panting for breath, running his shaking fingers around the inside of his collar.
‘Now you tell me how many. I’m not askin’ you who’s behind it. I see that one’s too much for you. But you must tell me how many.’
‘They might see us here,’ panted Zimmerman, scrambling painfully to his hands and knees, not looking at Herne.
‘To see us here they’d need to be up damned high with a spyglass, and I don’t see no signs of that happening. So come on.’
‘Two or three this time. Doubt there’s goin’ to be more, Mr. Herne. Truly. They know how the ore is being carried. How many guards.’
‘How do they know that?’
But Zimmerman remained stubbornly silent.
‘Late evening. What’s the name of the canyon where it’s to happen?’
‘Drowned Squaw Canyon. Can’t miss it. Listen, I’ve truly got to go.’
‘Yeah. Guess you have at that. I’ll be there, Zimmerman.’
‘I’ll go, then.’
‘Sure. If’n all this turns out well for us, then I’ll come and talk to you again.’
‘Be careful, Mr. Herne. You don’t know what it is you’re running yourself against.’
‘Maybe I do, Mr. Zimmerman,’ replied Jed, grinning at the little man. ‘Maybe I do.’
~*~
Herne watched the manager of Mount Morgoth scurry off down the valley through the dawn, the sound of his going quickly muffled by the river. Then he turned back towards the town and began to climb up the hill towards the Sowren mansion, confident that nobody had seen his secret meeting.
He would have been somewhat less confident if he had spotted the gleam of light from one of the upstairs windows of the big house. The sort of flash you get from glass or from polished metal.
From something like, for instance, a powerful telescope.