Recovering consciousness was generally more painful than being knocked out The pain was what brought you round. Grinding, tearing pain. Feeling as though the back of the head had been torn apart.
When Jed came to he was facing a pair of bright oil lamps, both turned up so high that the glass chimneys were becoming fast blackened with soot The flames flickered and danced, throwing strange shadows across the walls and ceiling.
It is impossible to disguise the fact that you are coming round. At that time there is no way at all that you can control your body. The eyes flicker and there are involuntary movements that you can do nothing about.
‘He’s back!’ called a voice that sounded as though it came from the further end of a railroad tunnel. Sounded like Marcus Daley, the saloon-keeper, but with his eyes still squeezed shut against that light, Jed didn’t bother to look round to see.
It didn’t make a whole lot of difference. It didn’t matter either who had slugged him, creeping silently up through the muffing long grass as he prepared to gun down Eliza and Lily.
None of that mattered.
He heard the sound of feet moving in towards him. One man. A light woman, tapping along on elevated heels. And the ponderous tread that must be Lily Sowren. Despite his great reserves of courage, Herne felt a pang of what must have been fear at the thought that he was helpless in the power of those two unspeakably wicked old women.
There was the crack of a boot in the ribs and he rolled over on his side. Testing the rawhide thongs that bound him. They’d done a good job. His wrists were forced tightly together behind his back, the cords cutting into his skin. He couldn’t feel his fingers, and guessed that the nails would be swollen and black from the pressure of the bindings. His ankles were also tied, though not so efficiently. Moving his leg he could feel that they hadn’t found the razored bayonet in its sheath in his right boot. It seemed to be the only card he held against the royal flush of the Misses Sowren.
Outside he could hear the sound of the wind, beginning to rise suddenly as if a storm threatened. Herne doubted whether he’d live to see it.
Rolling over also brought home to him the fact that there was a narrow cord linking his wrists to his throat. If he attempted any sudden movement then he was likely to strangle himself.
‘Do take care with yourself, Mr. Herne,’ said Eliza Sowren.
Jed squinted up at her, seeing her elongated form stretching out far above him, the angle making her look more than ten feet tall.
‘Yes, Mr. Herne. We have no wish to harm you any further,’ added Lily, standing at the side of her sister.
Herne kept his mouth shut There didn’t seem a lot he could say.
‘Conversation will, regrettably, have to be brief. You have stumbled upon our secret, and the price for that comes very high.’
“Extremely high,’ added Lily.
‘What have you done with Zimmerman?’ asked Jed, feeling at the thongs holding him, deciding that they had been tied too tightly for him to hope to shift them.
‘My sons have taken him back to the mine,’ replied Eliza. ‘He was very foolish, was he not? Now we shall see him no more.’
‘What about the body?’ Surely the whole damned town and the workers at the mine couldn’t all be involved in the murders and thefts.
‘Smelting furnace gets mighty hot, Mr. Herne,’ laughed Marcus Daley, with a fat man’s throaty chuckle.
That was it. Nobody would find a few splintered bones amid the ash of the furnace slag.
‘He didn’t stay alive for all that long after we found you spying,’ said Lily, grinning like an Oriental statue, rubbing her hands together.
‘There was little point in prolonging his suffering, you see. Not once we knew. The fact that you’d seen us, well... that was enough. So he died. He had been behaving strangely. Folks will imagine he has run away in his madness and the hills or the Sioux have got him.’
‘Me the same?’
‘Oh, no.’ Eliza bent down by him with a creaking of corsets. ‘We are not fools are we sister?’
‘Indeed not, sister,’ replied Lily. ‘We know that people know you have come here. And why you have come. There might be questions. Now poor Julius is dead, there will be no more suspicions. You will accidentally fall into the Clearwater. So sad. It’s very high at present and nobody who fell into it would have a chance. So sad.’
‘So very sad,’ added Eliza.
‘Who killed Zimmerman?’ he asked, trying to buy a little time.
‘Me. Why?’ said Lily.
‘Just so’s I’d know.’
‘Yes. One of the coiled probes became white hot and it kind of slipped through my hand into a certain part of his body and there he was gone. Off to play with the celestial choirs. I almost envy him.’
‘Very well,’ said Eliza briskly, straightening up again. ‘We must get on. The night is passing and we want you out of the way quickly. Your body should be twenty miles downstream by dawn.’
‘Can I not have a little...’ began Lily, moving in closer, her high-buttoned shoes near to his head. Lifting up one foot and resting it so gently on his throat. ‘Just one quick...’
‘No!’ snapped her sister. ‘There must be no marks on the body that the river didn’t put there. When you take him down, Matthew, you must untie his bonds. They will leave evidence on his wrists. Guard him well.’
‘Sure will, Aunt Eliza,’ laughed Matthew Daley, drawing his pistol and cocking it with a dramatic gesture.
‘One question,’ said Herne.
‘A brief one,’ replied Lily Sowren.
‘The robberies. The mine was failing and you had to cover it up. Or what your Pa did was for nothing and Wild Rose City, your town, was going to die?’
‘Correct, Mr. Herne. What a loss you will be to your profession. It is indeed our town. We have made it and if it is to be destroyed then it is us who will destroy it.’
‘That was why you stole ore? Mixed it in with the help of Zimmerman. Pretended it came from Mount Morgoth. Once smelted down there was no telling where it had come from. Easy. Damned clever.’
A foot hit him in the groin and he doubled up, nearly being sick at the pain. Only half-hearing the prim, outraged voice of Eliza Sowren.
‘No such language in our presence, Mr. Herne, if you please. Remember that we are ladies.’
He heard the soft noise of the shutting door, and knew that the Misses Sowren had gone, without bidding him farewell.
~*~
Matthew Daley relied on his Colt .45 while his brother Marcus carried a weighty old Le Mat pistol. Forty-two caliber nine shot pistol chambered around a smoothbore sixty-three caliber barrel that fired a load of buckshot as lethally as a sawn-down scatter-gun. And with about as much accuracy.
It was a comparatively unusual weapon this long after the ending of the War. Jed noticed that the saloon-keeper carried it with the hammer set for the ordinary pistol bullets.
They cut through the ties around his feet first, letting him struggle upright, leaning against the wall. Then Marcus sliced through the rope round his neck, looking to his brother for reassurance before freeing the gunslinger’s hands.
‘Maybe leave them be ’til we push him in. We’ll bend a gun butt over his head in case he figures on swimmin’ to safety. One bruise more or less won’t concern nobody when they pull him out of the Clearwater in a few days.’
‘Why not leave the cords on his hands? Be safer that way,’ said Marcus, standing away from Herne as though he was terrified of him, even bound, with a gun held at his belly.
The sheriff shook his head. ‘Nope. Better not, little brother. You all heard what Aunt Eliza said about takin’ them off. She’s likely to skin your back if’n she ever found you done got us all in trouble by disobeyin’ her special orders.’
That was enough for Marcus Daley.
The two of them followed Herne out of the mansion and down Main Street The wind was still rising, drowning out the thunder of the river. The ground was slippery and muddy from all the rain that had fallen, and twice Herne came close to toppling over, finding it difficult to maintain his balance in the greasy mud.
‘Don’t go gettin’ those clothes dirty, Mr. Herne,’ laughed Sheriff Daley.
‘They’ll get washed clean soon enough,’ he replied winning a grudging nod from the fatter brother. The moon broke through the scudding clouds at that moment, illuminating the pretty little town like something from a child’s picture book.
‘Guess you ain’t a bad old boy, Jed,’ muttered the lawman. ‘Things could have been different, then you and me might... Hell, no edge in figurin’ on that. Let’s get to it before Gawain and Joab come back from the burnin’.’
‘This been going on for long, Sheriff?’ asked Herne, deliberately slipping and nearly falling, remaining on his knees for a few moments before rising again, with a great staggering and lurching, nearly knocking over Marcus Daley.
‘Hey, careful there, boy,’ the fat man laughed ‘Don’t want you goin’ and bein’ hurt before we kill you.’
They were soon down by the river, the noise of its rushing and crashing over the rocks making it hard to talk. Sheriff Matthew Daley called out to his brother to cut through the rope on Herne’s wrists while he kept him covered. The saloon-keeper hung on to his own pistol while he fumbled for a knife.
‘You asked how long this’s been goin’ on, Jed? Guess my aunts always been kind of strange. Specially Lily. Wow!’ He laughed. ‘Guess all of us could tell you tales about Aunt Lily’d make your hairs curl, boy. Ain’t that right, Marcus?’
The heavily-built brother muttered his agreement while he finally got his blade free of the sheath at the side of his broad leather belt.
‘Sure is, Matt. But it was when the mother lode started to run out on Mount Morgoth that they kind of went up and over the top of the world. We went along ’cause we always did. Nobody ever really stood up to them, so they didn’t get the taste for losin’.’
The sheriff laughed again, standing with his back leaned against the trunk of a big tree, only a couple of paces from the edge of the water.
‘Ain’t that the truth, brother? Ain’t that the God-damned truth. Come on there with that knife!’
‘Nearly done. There!’
Jed felt the binding slip free and he brought his wrists around in front of him, pulling off the last strands of rawhide, wincing at the excruciating pain of the life flowing back into his bruised fingers. Seeing the blood clotted around his nails from the pressure of the ropes. Knowing that now was the moment to try and buy time.
‘That’s it, boy,’ said the sheriff, motioning at him with his pistol.
‘Want me to hit him with Betsy here?’ grinned Marcus, waving the ponderous Le Mat.
‘Guess so. Nothin’ else to be said, Herne. Figure you understand that?’
‘Yeah. I figure that.’ His hands felt as though they were on fire and he rubbed them together, stamping his feet, watching the two Daley brothers carefully for a chance to make his move.
Sheriff Daley was standing back from the water, covering the helpless man with the Colt, waiting for his brother to knock him out and tip him into the Clearwater. The river was foaming and churning away at its banks, carrying enormous quantities of mud and stones as it raced by.
He saw Herne seem to fall, fighting for a foothold in the slippery dirt at the edge of the water. Start to slide, arms flailing, going down to his knees. Watched with a grin as Marcus stepped in to help, the pistol ready in case of a trick.
Both men were on their feet when the shootist appeared to slip again, hanging on the arm of the saloon-keeper like a drunk at closing-time.
‘Get him in, Marcus!’ he called to his brother, glancing around to make sure nobody else was watching the murder.
When he glanced back things had changed.
~*~
As he’d gone down on his knee Herne’s right hand had dived immediately for the hilt of the bayonet, snug inside his boot. Keeping it on the blind side away from the two Daleys. Pretending to have difficulty hi standing up and grabbing at Marcus Daley for support. Once he felt the rough cloth of the man’s coat in his hand there was a rush of exultation, knowing that it was going to work.
The bayonet had been his since he first joined Quantrill and his group of bloody guerillas near the start of the War. He cherished it, keeping it polished and honed. The edge sharp enough to shave with, the point as keen as a needle.
It slithered in between the fourth and fifth ribs on the left side of the man’s chest. Jed gave it a savage twist and pulled it free, dropping it to the ground. It had done what he wanted of it.
Marcus Daley never really knew what had happened, and he slipped away from life, still puzzled. There was the feeling of a slight blow. No sensation of being cut at all. A dull pain in the middle of his body. Wetness and warmth over his stomach and thighs. A great weakness.
Herne took the gun from his relaxing fingers as easily as from a young child, pushing the dying man to one side. Daley’s legs no longer supported him as the blood poured from his burst heart and he fell forwards, landing head-first in the Clearwater.
The body was whirled away, tossing and turning like a hewn log, spinning away on the whirling pools and eddies of the flooded river. Finally becoming caught up with some rubbish several miles downstream and drifting into a backwater.
The rotting corpse was never found.
The last that Matthew Daley saw of his brother was the body flailing into the Clearwater. There wasn’t time for any kind of goodbyes. The lawman’s eyes were held by the big pistol that had miraculously appeared in Herne’s fist. One moment the shootist was helpless, about to be clubbed and drowned. Next moment Matthew’s brother was dead and he was facing the barrel of a pistol.
He didn’t understand it.
Died not understanding it, his flesh ripped apart by four carefully placed shots from the Le Mat, never even having the time to fire back.
Herne threw his body in the river as well, then went on into Wild Rose to wait for the Sowren brothers. It was going well.