‘Well, Jed,’ replied the concealed man. ‘Guess you better take that cannon out from your belt, and toss it down somewhere far enough for you not to get any ideas about diving for it. And put your sticker down as well.’
Herne’s face was carved from stone. Coburn had him colder than the Sierra snows. And he’d made it easier for him by coming up that trail. Whitey had seen the path and guessed that was the way Jed would come.
He threw down the bayonet, glancing as it fell to check its position, and drew the Colt, holding it regretfully for a second in his hand.
‘Quickly, Jed. Don’t get foolish.’
The handgun followed the bayonet.
‘Make like you been caught by the teacher and get your hands up on the back of your neck, Jed. That’s it.’
‘We known each other too long, Whitey. Ridden too many miles. Know the way each other’s minds work too damned well. I should have guessed you’d guess.’
There was a dry laugh from behind him and he heard the crunch of boots in the frozen snow. Slowly, taking care not to let his hands slip away from his neck, Herne turned round.
Coburn stood about eight paces from him. Plenty close enough to cover any sudden move, but not close enough to get caught by a dive or a kick. Just the right distance, as Herne would have expected.
‘Why did you come here, Jed? You must have known that I’d be here. Sooner or later. You killed plenty of men in the last year. Why not just have left it at that? Leave these kids alone with their Ma, and just have ridden on with that pretty little gal we tangled with back north.’
‘Like I read in some book, there are some things that a man just can’t ride round. These punks raped Louise. And then she killed herself. Can’t just leave it at that, Whitey. You know it.’
Coburn nodded, the pistol in his hand beaded rock-steady on Herne’s belly. ‘I knowed it, Jed. Still kind of hoped I wouldn’t be here to pick you up. I got a job to do, Jed and it ain’t that I want...’
‘Leave it,’ interrupted Herne. ‘Contract’s out, then that’s it.’
‘Right, Jed. Figured you’d know that well as me. Old man Nolan wants you back.’
‘Dead or alive?’
‘Ain’t that concerned. So let’s try and make it alive. Look at it like this, Jed, any of these punks he’s landed me with would have gunned you down. Backshot you and left you like a dog. Cut off your head and taken it back to ‘Frisco for the old man. This way, after I hand you over, then you’re on your own. Might be a way out. Man like you.’
‘How many of ’em?’
‘Five. Full o’ wind and piss. Reckon they’re men but act like babies. Without me, they’d have spilled their guts all over the Sierras.’ With a grunt Coburn stopped and picked up the gun, tucking it in his heavy belt, following it with the bayonet. This old knife of yours. Recall that faro dealer in... where was it?’
‘Albuquerque.’
‘Yeah. Recall him?’
‘The one who figured he had the right to deal off the top or the bottom.’
‘Runty guy with a little moustache. When he reached out for his winnings, you whipped this old bayonet out and stuck him clean through the back of the hand. Squealed like a pig at the gelding!’
Herne laughed. ‘Then when he put out his other hand to pull out the blade, you spiked him with your knife. Left him there all night Teach him a lesson.’
Coburn moved round Herne, his eyes raking him for any sign of other weapons. ‘Right. Hung himself the next night when he found his hands were all crook’d up. You carryin’ a pocket gun?’
‘No. What I got, you got.’
‘Then we better be moving oil.’
As he started to walk cautiously across the slippery ground, Herne at last asked the question that had hung at the front of his mind ever since Coburn jumped him.
‘The girl?’
Coburn tutted. ‘Never should have brought her. I tell you, Jed, old Nolan wanted the contract out on her too. Told him I wasn’t in the game of butchering little girls. Might have been once, but I’m gettin’ all tender.’
The idea of the lanky albino ever getting tender brought a wry grin to Herne’s mouth.
‘So as far as I’m concerned, she’s free to go.’ Although they were alone, heading back towards the lake, Coburn dropped his voice. ‘But I can’t answer for these young dudes back at the camp. I ain’t told them I’d seen you both camping up on the ridge over yonder. I’ve been doing some figurin’, and I’m not sure that Nolan don’t have some sort of contract out on the girl with them.’ Herne half-turned to speak, but Coburn stopped him. ‘And to save you askin’, then I’ll do what I can. After I seen you safe back at our camp, I’ll go for a walk up there and have some words with her. See her on the way to where she wants to go. She got kin?’
‘Me.’
They were near the edge of the lake, and Coburn seemed disinclined to carry on the conversation. Herne had tried to get a glance at his old friend, but he was swaddled up against the cold. Strands of fine white hair spun like silk from the edges of his hat, tied in place like Jed’s with a long black scarf. Whitey’s eyes and face were buried in its shadow, with only the pale tip of his nose protruding.
‘Camp’s a half mile up this draw. Been here only a day before you arrived.’
They climbed once more, their voices struggling to carry against the rising wind. The sky had darkened once more and the traces of blue had quite vanished. Herne paused and looked back across the expanse of the valley, and saw a flurry of snow breaking like surf against the walls of Mount Abora.
‘They know you’re here?’ he said, pointing towards the big mansion.
‘Nope. Nobody knows. Not even Nolan. You’ve been tough to keep a trail on. Considerin’ that girl, you been makin’ good time all over the damned country.’
‘I done my best, Whitey.’
‘Yeah. Look, Jed. I’ll do what I can for the girl. Maybe get her to some folks I know down in New Orleans.’
‘Not one of your damned cat-house madams?’
Coburn was genuinely shocked. ‘Jedediah! I’m ashamed of you. I might have done a whole heap of bad in my time, and killed a lot of men. But most of them needed it, and I ain’t never killed a woman.’
Herne stopped once again, hoping that Coburn would be tricked into coming close enough for him to have a chance at him.
He wasn’t.
‘No women, Whitey?’
‘Well... I recollect one or two who might have been kind of women, and a couple I wasn’t too sure about. But they all were badder’n a broke-back rattler.’
The snow reached them as they climbed, and both men huddled behind their clothes. Jed thought about Becky all alone back at their camp, then dismissed the thought. There was not a thing he could do for her. His only chance, and it was a slim one, was to get away from Coburn. Then he’d think about her.
‘Nearly there,’ panted Coburn, tired by the stiff climb from the lake.
They both stopped as they heard the mournful cry of an owl, echoing across the valley, answered by another one from up to their right. Herne looked enquiringly at Coburn, who tugged down his scarf with his left hand and spat in the fine snow at his feet. ‘Stupid bastards! Reckon that all this secret whistling code is going to make them scouts. Old Jim Bridger would have had this gang between two slices of sour-bread and then walked fifty miles in a day.’
‘That you, Mister Coburn?’
‘Who the fuck you think it is! George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry?’ Under his breath to Herne: ‘At least they call me Mister Coburn. One of them tried to get overly familiar a week or so back.’
‘And?’
‘Cut his ears off,’ Coburn grinned. ‘Had to quit. That’s why there’s five when there used to be six.’
‘Come ahead,’ shouted the voice. Then, to someone else: ‘The old man’s got him.’ A pause. ‘Yeah. I remember. Here they come.’
Herne moved his shoulders, feeling the stiffening of the muscles from the strain of walking up the steep hill with his hands behind his neck. Coburn’s camp was in a sheltered clearing, close by a stream. A flurry of snow blew in his eyes and he blinked to clear them. When he looked again, there were four men in the camp, all holding guns, looking grimly at him.
‘Jesus! It’s another old bastard!’
‘Where’d you get him?’
‘Where’s that girl he rode with?’
Coburn ignored them, steering Herne towards the fire, where they both stood, side by side, looking outwards. Almost, thought Jed regretfully, as though they were about to face them down together.
‘This is Jed Herne. You kids might have heard of Herne the Hunter. Here he is. I known him a long ways back. And he’s ten times any of you little snots. Get us some coffee.’
Nobody moved, and Herne felt the tension nudging at the base of his spine. Prickling the nape of his neck. There was something wrong here. He sensed that Whitey felt it as well.
‘Where’s the girl, Mister Coburn? You know that the Senator wants her brought in as well.’
‘No. I don’t know nothin’ bout that.’
‘Maybe the Senator don’t tell you everything, after all, Mister Coburn.’
Whitey ignored the atmosphere, waving round the group of men with the barrel of his Colt. ‘Let me introduce you to the posse, Mister Herne. The guy there with more weight round his middle than’s good for him is Frank Janson. Next to him, the Mex, is Rivera. The left-hander’s Pete Austin. Last one in line is Babe Wood.’
‘Don’t call me Babe!’
‘That’s Abilene Wood. Called Abilene ‘cos that’s where his Ma left him when she moved on. Ain’t got no other name. That’s four. Where’s the German?’
‘Netzen’s off scouting,’ said Wood.
The snow was getting thicker, masking out the surrounding trees. Herne had a feeling he’d had many times before. There was a tension there, as though everyone was waiting for something to happen.
‘The girl, Mister Coburn?’
It was Austin, the left-hander. Holding a Colt. Janson also had a Colt. The other two held Winchesters ready at their hips.
‘Weather’s closin’ in. If n she’s up there, then she ain’t goin’ far. We’ll get a meal, and see what happens this afternoon. That make sense?’
He was buying time. Trying to feel out just what the men wanted. Herne glanced round the clearing, hearing only snow falling in the fire. And feet shuffling.
‘Good to be back by a fire,’ said Coburn, throwing open his coat, half-turning as he did so. It was an easy, natural sort of action. If he hadn’t been ready for it, Herne would never have noticed that the movement brought the butt of his own pistol within reach, tucked in Coburn’s belt.
‘You said Netzen gone huntin’?’
‘Yeah, you could say that.’
‘What’s he hopin’ to catch himself?’
The fifth voice came from the bank of darkness behind them. A voice with heavy accents.
‘You, Mister Coburn.’
Herne couldn’t see the hidden man, but he almost made a grab for his gun. Only Coburn, again with that seemingly accidental movement, swung his body round a little, so that the Colt wasn’t so accessible. Jed guessed that Whitey must be waiting for the German to show himself, before they made their play. Five against two. All the five with their guns out ready, and all on the alert.
‘What’s this?’ said Coburn. ‘Something up with you boys? I brought in Herne, just like my contract. And I’m aiming to deliver him back to San Francisco. How come you boys seem to have different ideas?’
‘Senator Nolan don’t trust you, old man. He thinks that maybe you might be getting soft for this bastard Herne. So he asks us to watch. If you step out of line, we hit you. Or if you bring Herne in, you let us take over and you ride on.’
‘The bounty?’
‘You is muy hombre, Senor Coburn. Maybe we keep the dollars for you.’
‘They’re going to move any minute,’ whispered Herne to Whitey, wondering how the hell they were going to get any sort of start on the five young gunmen.
Coburn nodded slightly to show he’d heard, and moved back again, putting the Colt within reach of Jed’s right hand. But there were still those gloves!
‘That fire’s damned welcome, boys,’ said Herne, casually letting his hands drop while he pulled off the gloves.
‘Don’t try anything, Herne,’ snapped Coburn. ‘What’s happening between me and the boys ain’t no concern of yours. Whatever happens here, it don’t make any difference to you. Right?’
‘Whatever you say,’ replied Herne, wondering where the fifth man was and what kind of gun he was holding.
‘Cut the damned talking and let’s get to it.’
‘Wait on, Kurt,’ said Babe Wood. ‘Don’t be too hasty. I just want Mister Coburn here to realize what’s going on. That things aren’t under his say-so no more. Is that clear Mister Coburn?’
The ‘Mister’ was becoming more and more insulting.
‘You’re going to take Herne from me, after all I’ve done to capture him? So you’ll kill him.’
It was a flat statement. The gunmen laughed, their breath frosting out round their faces. Once again the snow had eased. There was the crunching of footsteps, and Herne half-turned to see the tall figure of the German appearing from the trees. Holding a sawn-off scatter-gun.
‘I ain’t saying we kill him just like that. But there’s a kind of a chance he might try and run. Know what I mean?’
‘I know. And what about me?’
There was a silence, and the gunmen exchanged glances.
Herne guessed they were still worried about the albino, despite the fact that they outnumbered him five to one. Coburn held his Colt easily, taking care not to point it at any one of them. That way they’d all feel menaced by it.
Herne saw that all of the young punks were still wearing their gloves, and that gave him a lot of hope. It was hard to work a gun fast like that Netzen was the main threat. You didn’t have to aim too good with a scatter-gun to make a mess of a man at that sort of range. Then the two with Colts. Easier and quicker in confined shooting. Last the two with the rifles. If they missed with their first shots, then the lever action would slow them.
‘Maybe you ride on, old man. Or maybe we kill you where you stand. I’m tired of this fuckin’ word-game. Let’s get to it, boys,’ said Frank Janson, stamping his feet in the cold.
‘Now wait on,’ said Coburn, pulling the glove from his left hand, then casually changing the gun to his other hand to take off the other glove.
‘No more damned waiting, Whitey,’ barked Janson,
‘I see. Whatever happens, you know me well enough to realize that at least one of you is going to get killed before you cut me down.’
‘So ride on.’
‘No man tells me to ride on, Janson. You should know that. But what of Herne? Am I to give up six months’ work and a saddle-sore ass just for you to take the bounty on him?’
Herne couldn’t work out what Whitey was doing. There wasn’t the slightest doubt that the gunmen were going to make their play at any moment. So it was down to Whitey to give the two of them an edge.
‘Jed?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been telling Jed here about you young bravos. Personally, I think that Kurt there is the best. And then I count on Pete Austin with his Colt. What do you think about them?’
‘Guess that’s right. But I’d put my money on Janson, with the others about equal.’
‘Cut the fuckin’ talkin’. Are you movin’ on, Coburn, you crippled son of a bitch? Or do we go?’
Coburn ignored them, still talking to Herne, his tone as calm and conversational as if he were discussing the weather with the pastor’s wife.
‘Remember that ramrod with the matched Colts? The pair with ivory-handles he said he’d won in Paris off of a Lascar seaman?’
‘Yes. What about him?’
‘Recall his trick with the lamp, that damn near got us killed?’
Herne nodded. There had been a tense situation in a bunkhouse with the ramrod. He and three of his hands were ready to draw against Herne and Coburn, and the cowboy had tried to give them the advantage by ‘accidentally’ setting fire to the waxed cloth on the table, timing his move until the material flared up and Jed and Whitey were distracted.
It might have worked only there was so much smoke that it also distracted his fellows and they had been easy meat for the two gunmen. Coburn obviously intended something like that. But what?
‘What?’
‘Gloves.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
While the five men watched, growing irritation on their faces, Whitey turned further so that the Colt was within inches of Jed’s fingers, then dropped his own woolen gloves in the middle of the camp-fire.
‘Hell and damnation!’ he shouted, pointing with his left hand at the burning gloves.
Like well-trained puppets, all five of the boys looked dutifully at where he pointed. It took them around a half second to realize they’d been taken.
And that half second was far too long for them to try and make up against Whitey Coburn and Herne the Hunter.
It was as though there’d never been the years apart for the two men. It worked like they’d talked it through, agreeing in those short few words who would try and take which of the boys.
The first shot was from Coburn, straight through the middle of the German’s chest, sending the scatter-gun spinning uselessly from his hands. By then Jed had snatched his own gun from the belt, feeling the grips chillingly cold to his fingers. Cocking it and snapping off the first of his shots at the fatter figure of Jason, hitting him in the stomach, doubling him up like a kick, swinging to aim next at the two Winchesters.
They were just beginning to react to what was happening, and one of them had started to duck away, opening his mouth to scream a warning. It was the Mexican, and Jed’s second bullet hit him high at the angle of the jawbone, just under the left ear. Cutting off the cry in a splatter of bone splinters and choking blood, the heavy slug ricocheting on and upwards, behind the nose, popping the left eye neatly from its socket and finally exploding out from the top of the man’s head. But its force was spent and it didn’t quite tear through the Mexican’s hat, merely raising a lump that became instantly soggy with brains and blood.
The eye hung from the raw socket by a tangle of tissue and nerve endings, and the man’s hand groped at it even as he fell dead in the snow, a river of scarlet washing from his open mouth, dotted with fragments of broken teeth.
But Herne wasn’t concerned with the corpse. His worry was about the living. Out of the corner of his eye as he moved to the right, thumb cocking the hammer of the Colt for the third shot, he saw Whitey’s second bullet hit Babe Wood in the shoulder, spinning him against a tree, where he fumbled with his left hand, tugging feebly with the glove, to get off a shot
For a moment Herne hesitated, wondering whether to go for the injured man, or for Pete Austin who’d moved faster than any of them, out of the line of Whitey’s sight, ducking and sprinting for the trees, firing off a snap shot at Herne as he ran.
The bullet was way off target, probably at least a yard he decided, hearing it tear into a tree a dozen paces behind him. He quickly straddled his legs, giving himself a firmer base, holding his right wrist in his left hand, and squeezed the slim trigger of the Colt. Felt the kick of the recoil, and saw Austin slide forwards on his face through the snow, the gun arcing from his left hand to fall through the lower branches of a nearby pine, scattering the body with powdery snow.
Immediately after his third shot, like an echo, he heard the boom of Coburn’s gun, and a groan from Babe Wood. He didn’t look round, seeing that Janson had clawed his way up off the ground to his knees. His left hand folded across his body as though he was trying to hold his stomach together, the right hand desperately trying to level his gun at Herne. Jed cocked and fired almost without thinking, so fast was his reaction. The bullet hit the fat youth in the chest, knocking him over in a flailing tangle of limbs, arms and legs kicking and scrabbling in reflex actions.
There was a man moaning, and the harsh stench of cordite hanging in the air of the clearing. And the scorched smell of what remained of Coburn’s gloves, still smoldering in the center of the fire. Drawing a deep breath, Herne straightened up and looked round.
Rivera, undoubtedly dead. One.
Janson; he walked over to the body, but the blank eyes, already coated with a film of moisture, told their own undeniable story. Two.
Pete Austin, the stain darker on his dark coat, just under the left shoulder-blade. Herne rolled him over with a boot in the ribs and saw the teeth pulled back from the lips in a last snarl of defiance. Three.
Netzen, the German, his body propped against the bole of a tree, hands pressed to a wound in the middle of his chest. As Herne reached out and touched him the hands dropped to his sides and the body fell over. Four.
Herne walked over and stood by Whitey, who was already methodically levering out the spent cartridges, letting them drop to the earth, and inserting fresh rounds. Looking down wordlessly at the boy named Wood. His groans were getting weaker.
He lay on his back, wrapped in so many layers of warm clothing that he looked like a beetle that had been turned over and couldn’t right itself again. He was bleeding copiously from the shoulder, and from a hole in the neck. Every time he breathed, head lifting with the effort, blood bubbled from his throat. A bright, shocking red. And each time that happened, he groaned.
‘Lungs?’ said Herne.
Coburn nodded.
‘Help me,’ pleaded Wood, face wrinkling with the pain of each breath.
‘Nothing we can do, boy. You done made your bed when you threw in with the others. I’m sorry, boy. Never did enjoy killing young folks.’
‘I’m not goin’ to die?’
Coburn slipped his gun back in its greased holster, stooping to tug a pair of gloves from the dead German’s hands before he replied. ‘No point in lyin’ to you, son. I seen men throat-shot like you before, and none of them lived above a few minutes. If’n you got any prayers, or messages, I’d do my best to see they got through for you, Babe.’
‘Name’s not Babe, you bastard. It’s Abilene.’
The boy tried to raise himself, but the effort brought a fountain of blood to his mouth. He made one attempt to spit it out but it choked him, and he slumped back dead.
Jed stepped away from the bodies, reloading his Colt. Looking up at the sky, trying to gauge the weather. It seemed a little warmer, which probably meant a heavy fall of the snow was imminent. There was a thud in the tree close by his head, and his bayonet stuck there, quivering and humming. Without turning round he tugged it free and slid it into the sheath in his boot. Settled the gun in its holster, straightened, and sighed.
‘Now, Whitey?’
‘Turn round, Jed. Don’t do to talk to an old friend with your back turned away.’
Herne turned slow and easy, feeling the cold gripping his fingers, remembering that Coburn had picked up another pair of gloves. Recalling how wearing gloves had slowed down the gunmen.
His old friend stood facing him, around twelve paces away, hand down by his side. Palm forwards. Wearing the gloves of the dead German.
‘Here, Jed?’
‘No. One day, I guess, Whitey. But if you can wait a while, then so can I.’
‘Get this sorted out, then we’ll come back to it.’
‘Right.’ Jed grinned, feeling a sudden rush of pleasure at being with a friend again. ‘Best get back to the girl.’
As they walked together away from the shambles of death, the snow that Herne had suspected began to fall in earnest.