Four

‘Now, Seamus—’ began Jim Bisset.

‘Shut that flappin’ mouth, you stinkin’ bag of tripe,' retorted the red-headed stranger. ‘And move away slow and easy.’

‘Why don’t you go play with your toy trains, son,’ said Herne, suddenly ice-calm. The tension at having the tooth pulled was totally gone. This was something he knew about now. Something he’d faced before. Might get to face again.

‘Don’t rile him, mister,’ said the smith, his voice barely a whisper. Outside a wagon rattled by, but inside the forge the three of them seemed locked away in a warm, dark universe.

‘Come on Bisset.’

‘He’s just a stranger, son.’ said the big man.

‘Don’t talk him down for me,’ hissed Herne. His temper had finally flared clean over the top and he was angrier than he’d been in long months.

‘Hear you call yourself a shootist, old man,’ sneered Blackstone, the Peacemaker with its polished barrel and engraved chamber casual in his gloved right hand. Gloves! So many of the kids thought it was smart to wear gloves like the flashy gunmen in the penny magazines they read.

‘Go away, boy. Now and for good.’

'You threatenin’ me, old-timer?’

‘No.’

‘Then …?’

‘A promise, boy. Not a threat. A promise.’

There’d been plenty of times when Jed Herne had been feeling more benevolent, and he’d let kids like Seamus Blackstone walk away alive. But he wasn’t in the mood for charity right then, and that was the God’s own truth.

‘You belong out there with them other crazy old bastards in the Home, you dirty killer. I heard ’bout old men like you. Dirty.’

‘Move away, Bisset,’ said Herne, quietly, ignoring the tirade from the red-headed boy. Sweat gleaming among the cropped hairs of his blonde beard, the big smith stepped a little to the side so that Herne could see Blackstone more clearly.

‘Guess you probably like lifting little girls’ dresses and fumblin’ at them, you stinking old bastard. You ought to be dead. You ain’t no …’

‘Enough!’ shouted Herne, powering himself to his feet, hand dropping to his right hip faster than Seamus Blackstone had ever seen anyone move before.

So fast that the boy didn’t even believe what he was seeing.

There’d been times before that Seamus Blackstone had crossed paths with strangers in Stow Wells. He had the reputation as being a bit of a no-good boy, eager for a quarrel with anyone that he thought weaker than himself. Three times in the last two years he’d drawn on drifters passing through the small settlement, killing them with a casual ease. The long hours he practiced with his hand-gun paying dividends against men with no skill as shootists.

Herne was the sky and the stars better than the boy, long years of killing paying their own dividend for him.

Even as he started to come up from the old chair his right hand was down, flicking the thong off the top of the Colt’s hammer. Beginning the draw. He didn’t stand upright, holding himself in a low crouch, body slightly turned to the right to make a smaller target.

Blackstone had the chance to fire off a single shot, but the speed of the middle-aged shootist blurred his mind. He jerked at the trigger, his mouth falling open in a frightened gasp of shock and fear. The pistol bucked in his gloved hand.

Herne was concentrating on killing the red-headed boy and he was barely aware that a shot had been fired at him. There was the booming sound of the gun and a burst of powder-smoke that momentarily obscured Blackstone. The shootist was conscious that the smith had been hit, glimpsing him shudder sideways, clutching at his muscular shoulder and yelping in pain.

But none of that mattered to Herne.

What mattered was his own eye and brain and arm and hand. All combining together with lethal efficiency.

His first shot hit the boy high in the chest, kicking him backwards, the pistol dropping from his suddenly nerveless fingers. Blackstone tried to scream with the thunderous impact of the blow to his body, but the bullet had ripped into his lungs and there was no air to breathe. Blood came to fill his mouth, dribbling down over his chest, pattering among the dry straw in the forge.

Herne’s second bullet caught the staggering boy in the face, smashing his nose to shards of splintered bone, the distorted lead angling upwards and sideways, pushing the right eye clean out of its socket so it dangled obscenely on his cheek.

Seamus Blackstone was dying.

He toppled backwards, rolling so that he caught the heavy iron tripod that supported one of the pans of charcoal embers. Spilling the glowing ashes all over himself. His clothes catching fire in a dozen places at once, the smithy filling with the stench of scorching flesh and cloth.

The boy’s legs twitched and kicked out as he lay burning, on his back. His hand clutched at the gaping raw socket where his eye had been. His lips parted as though he was going to try and speak but all that came out was pink froth from his ruptured lungs.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ sighed Jim Bisset, leaning with one hand against the wall of the forge, staring down unbelievingly at the twitching corpse of Seamus Black-stone, red hair puddled with his own blood, matted in the dirt.

‘You hurt?’ asked Jed, starting to reload the pistol.

‘Nicked me in the top of the left arm. Seems to have gone clean on through. Yeah.’ Examining the plaster behind him. ‘There it is. Figure I’ll dig that out and keep it to remind me of this day.’

‘Let’s have the gun, Herne,’ said a voice from the doorway.

The shootist didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. ‘Hello, Sheriff,’ he said. ‘Like the damned law the whole country over. Too damned little and too damned late.’

‘The pistol,’ warned Williamson.

‘The kid had already drawn,’ said Bisset.

‘Bull’s chips,’ spat Williamson. ‘Seamus wasn’t that stupid that he’d hold a gun on a man. And then get hisself killed. Just don’t seem likely.’

‘It happened,’ insisted the smith. ‘I seen it, Clifford. Kid shot me.’

‘Bad?’

‘Nope. Flesh wound. I’ll get it bandaged up and it’ll be good as smilin’ in a couple of days.’

Herne finished reloading the pistol, rolling the chamber with the palm of his hand, listening to the soft, whirring click. Holstering the Colt, but leaving the strip of rawhide clear of the hammer.

In case.

‘You drew on him and killed him, Herne?’

‘You’ve been told it twice, and already you’re startin’ to get the picture clear. That’s real bright of you, Sheriff.’

Williamson wasn’t going to be pushed. His own gun was steady on the shootist’s midriff. And Herne knew better than to argue with a cocked double-barrel Meteor ten-gauge. At that range it would have come close to blowing him clean in half.

‘We’ll take you over the jail for an hour or so, Herne. Get this sorted out.’

‘But I already told you. Cliff. We all knew that kid’d get to buy the farm one day. It just happened that Mr. Herne here was first in line for it.’

‘Shut your mouth, Jim. I’m the law and I do what seems right.’

‘Sure.’ muttered Bisset. ‘But it don’t …’

‘Jim.’ warned Williamson.

‘Sure. Sure.’

‘You don’t get my gun, Sheriff. Not just like that. I’ll come to the jail with you, of my choosing. I’ll tell you what happened. You get the smith to tell you. Anyone else wants a say … Fine. Then after that I ride on out of your town.’

Most of Stow Wells had gathered in the doorway of the smithy, whispering to each other in excitement and shock. First the stage, and now young Seamus gunned down by the tall stranger. There’d never been a day like it in living memory.

‘I can make you drop the gun.’

‘You don’t look like a killer to me, Williamson. There’s somethin’ round the eyes and you don’t have it. Some lawmen like it hard. I figure you for someone kind of likes it easier. I’m givin’ it you that way. Someone sweep up that garbage,’ pointing at the motionless body of the red-head. ‘And I’ll walk to your jail with you.’

That’s the way it was.

~*~

There had been a few angry shouts from the citizens of Stow Wells as Sheriff Clifford V. Williamson led Herne across the main street, into the cool of the office. Despite the calling and the protests, the lawman slammed the door closed and slid the bolt across it.

‘There. Make sure we don’t get interrupted.’

The shootist sat silent, looking at the Sheriff, wondering what he had on his mind.

‘Guess you’re wonderin’ what I have in mind?’ asked Williamson.

Herne shook his head. ‘No. Can’t say I was. I’m just wonderin’ how long you figure on wasting my time here. That’s all.’

‘About as long as it takes you to agree to ride shotgun in a couple of days.’

‘You got a driver?’

‘Sure. Old Roy Goddard’ll do it. Do anythin’ for a couple of bottles of liquor. Used to drive a Butterfield. Got fired for drinkin’ on the job. Turned a coach over and killed a couple of nuns. He’ll do it.’

Herne grinned. A thin, mirthless smile that brought Williamson up sharp. Blinking and suddenly licking at lips that had gone dry.

‘Now, Mr. Herne … There ain’t …’

'I'll do it.’

‘Well I …’

‘Not because of your brainless bastard idea of try in’ to pressure me. That kid was worthless trash and the whole town knows it. I’d back that Jim Bisset to stand up and tell the truth.’ There was a pang from his temporarily forgotten tooth. ‘Even though he can’t draw my rotten tooth for me with that bullet through his arm.’

‘It wasn’t …’

‘Fifty dollars.’

‘Thirty.’

The shootist smiled again. ‘Let’s settle at forty-five dollars and call it halfway.’

Williamson couldn’t understand it. As soon as he heard the shooting he’d guessed that it was Seamus and the stranger. Yet he hadn’t figured on Herne being so damned good. But immediately he’d seen the boy’s corpse, he’d seen a chance to blackmail the middle-aged gunman into doing him a big favor.

It had gone wrong.

Now Herne had more or less volunteered for the job of shotgun on the stage, and at a far higher price than Williamson had ever intended paying. And the lawman was only too aware that the shootist had backed him down in front of the whole town. It hadn’t been a good day at all.

~*~

That night Herne checked himself into a room at the rear of the Inside Straight, taking up a half bottle of whiskey and a plate piled high with two thick steaks and a mountain of hash brown potatoes. It had been a long, hard day, and the prospect of riding guard in a couple of days’ time didn’t fill him with excitement. It was a lousy job. Ninety-nine rides out of a hundred it was plain boring.

The hundredth time it was lethal.

Before he undressed and went to bed Herne inched open the warped window, finding that it wouldn’t rise more than three or four inches, letting in the cooler air of the Arizona night. From down the stairs he could hear the sound of an out-of-tune piano and the occasional high-pitched yelp of laughter from one of the soiled doves who worked there.

Sheriff Williamson had suggested that maybe the shootist might like to take advantage of one of those ladies’, on the town, so to speak. But Herne had shaken his head and firmly refused.

‘Thanks, Sheriff,’ he’d replied. ‘There’ve been times when I’ve found comfort there, but this isn’t one of those times.’

Women were just there to be used. That was Jed’s simple creed. And if they didn’t like it then he wouldn’t waste energy trying to persuade them.

The window from his room looked out across a narrow alley, then a line of outbuildings. And beyond that was the desert. As wild and desolate as it had been for the last thousands of years. Herne thought for a few moments on how weak and shallow was man’s grip on the land of the South-West.

His eye was caught by a movement among the shadows between the storage sheds and privies. There was someone hiding and he instinctively wondered whether Seamus Blackstone might have some vengeful relative or friend but there.

There was a full moon sailing serene and untroubled overhead and it gave him sufficient light to make out that the figure was one of the old men from the Home in his uniform of dark blue pants and cream shirts. As soon as he saw Herne peering at him the old-timer scampered away out of sight.

Jed wondered who he was and why he was taking such an interest in his presence in town.