Fallen Lake had once meant happiness to a lot of people. Wealth. The riches and rewards of heaven brought down to earth for the meek and the brutal, the miners who’d tracked gold and silver from California to Colorado, the one-time opportunists with nothing more than a second-hand pick and a rusty wash pan; for the pimps and the whores and the gamblers and the hustlers who came flocking in by wagon train and horse and mule and on foot. It lasted a little less than a year – the hope, that is. The silver itself, well, that ran out a good time before that. Now the lake that had given the place its name was pale blue oval, reflecting the gray and white of the hills that surrounded it. Midway along that oval, scooped out of the solid rock of the mountain, was the town of Fallen Lake.
Once it had boasted three hotels, half a dozen saloons, three dining rooms that were open twenty hours a day and nearly always full, two whorehouses, a number of gambling parlors, ten stores, a laundry, two livery stables and a bank and assay office. When the last of the wagon loads of prospectors and their camp followers was ready to pull out, they eased their feelings a little by smashing the windows of the bank and enjoyed that so much that they pulled down as much as they could and set fire to the rest. The remainder of the town had fallen into decay all on its own – unless you included the wind that roared down the passes and across the lake, the snow that came avalanching down from the mountains in the spring, the whole process of erosion that takes place to things that are manmade when they’re left so high up and exposed to the naked elements.
When Herne finally got the bay gelding along the narrow path that brought him to the lake, what he saw was a tumbled down, ramshackle ghost town that looked as if no one had lived in it for maybe twenty years. But he reasoned it hadn’t been that long — and if Edwards’ words had been any more than a dying man’s fantasies or lies then someone would have been here pretty recently’
Herne drew in the horse and’ stood in the stirrups, peering towards the detritus of the town. He wondered exactly who was there now. Maybe the woman, Rose; maybe the four men led by Zac Peters who’d got themselves out of Cimaron Falls not too long after she had. He couldn’t imagine who else and hanging around there wasn’t going to find out.
Herne settled back into the saddle and flicked the rein, touching the gelding’s flanks gently with his spurs. They moved along the edge of the lake cautiously, Herne’s bent-brimmed hat and his dark wool coat reflecting blurred in the water. He looked up and the summits were still shrouded in snow. The sun was shining and the sky was cloudless but that didn’t mean it was warm. Herne had an old woolen scarf thrown round his neck and scuffed leather gloves on his hands. If anyone had asked him what he wanted most right then – other than a sight of Rose and Edwards’ buried silver – it would have been a crackling fire with a coffee pot blackening away over to the side of it.
He figured that to be pretty damned unlikely.
He fingered the small loop away from the hammer of his Colt and eased it a little inside the holster. His eyes narrowed under the brim of his Stetson. The first buildings were less than a hundred yards away.
The street was narrow and here and there the dust was disturbed by the tracks of small animals and birds. Bits of hardy scrub had grown up and a solitary flower, its petals small and yellow, sat close to a length of broken, charred lumber. Faded paint appeared on the fronts of buildings, large spaces where there had once’ been plate glass were now hung over with thick cobwebs and door frames were wrapped firm with bindweed. Closing Down! announced one store front: All Stock To Go! Well, it had gone, along with everything else.
Herne drew the horse to a halt and listened. There was only the wind sliding between the loose planking and through the rafters of roofs that let in the sun and the cold.
‘Let’s go,’ he said quietly, giving the reins a shake, but his voice was loud enough to echo down the deserted street ahead of him.
And at the end of it he heard the metallic ring of something being struck.
Herne’s right hand closed with the butt of his gun fast. He swung his head round, left and right, looked behind and in front. Everything the same as before. He had not imagined the sound. As he strained his ears he caught a slight scraping, no more than a suggestion, faint and fading but this time he could place the direction. Two, no, three buildings down the street to the left, a broad-fronted place that had probably been a saloon or hotel. As he got closer, he could read the words Silver Star dimly imprinted on the wall above the doors.
Herne slid down from the saddle and looped the reins around a single post which leant over at an ungainly angle to the ground.
The boards which weren’t missing or badly broken creaked beneath his weight. The Colt was in his hand, thumb resting on the hammer. His right glove was folded down into his pants belt.
With his left hand he started to push back the nearest side of the double door. For a couple of seconds, he thought something had been wedged against it from behind, but it was only catching against the floor. It scraped back with a rasping whine and after a foot or so, it swung more easily. There was a cloud of dust and Herne held his breath, waiting for it to settle.
Silence now.
Absolute.
Herne’s right foot broke it harshly; his left. He hovered outside the doorway, trying to see through the still settling dust. When the dark shadows inside refused to take shape he went inside fast, dropping into a crouch as soon as he was clear through the door.
The boards threatened to give beneath his weight, sagged and creaked some more.
He’d been right about the place having been a saloon. The counter of the bar was still in place down the right side, a long narrow frame that had likely held a painted mirror was empty of everything save a few jagged edges of glass. There were round tables, broken, upended; chairs with their legs ripped off as if someone had used them for firewood. Off to the left hand corner were the ashes of a fire, an upturned barrel pulled close as if someone had huddled there, a seat close to the warmth.
When Herne checked the ashes they were long dead and cold.
Scatterings of broken glass crunched under his boots and strands of sticky webs caught at his face or his upstretched arm. The staircase was short and at least half of the treads had been hammered out so that it was hazardous to climb. The railing that had formerly surrounded the balcony leaned in both directions, with many of its supports missing. The whole interior stank of wild cats and vermin, waste and decay.
The memory of the sounds stayed fast in Herne’s mind. They could have been made by an animal, a rat possibly. Anything. He took two paces into the center of the room and then began to move, slowly, in the direction of the stairs. The first tread was missing and he tested his weight against the second. As he did so, there was a swish through the air and he turned towards it, throwing up his arm. A wooden box crashed against his forearm and the side of his head almost simultaneously; empty partly rotten, it splintered apart. The stones with which it had been filled were made of sterner stuff:
Herne staggered a couple of feet sideways and reached out for the bannister for support. The wood cracked and he was thrown to the floor. The edge of his jaw was aching and he knew, even before he’d managed to scramble to his feet, that the ache in his tooth had returned.
Herne glanced at the scattering of stones, the broken sides of the box; he leveled the Colt at the balcony and waited for whatever was to come next.
Nothing.
In the silence he could hear fragments of breath that were not his own; through the shafts of clear light that penetrated the partly open roof he could see motes of dust dancing to patterns he could not begin to understand.
‘Come out where I can see you.’
The reply was a faint shuffle of feet away into the shadowed corner and nothing more.
‘I’m countin’ to five. Good and loud. If you ain’t over by that balcony rail by five, I’m shootin’.’
The rough breathing intensified, but no voice accompanied it, no significant movement.
‘One ... two ... three ... four ...’
The triple click of the hammer was like timber breaking clean.
Shadow gradually became shape.
He was younger than Herne had figured, though he’d guessed the man wouldn’t be weak or he’d never have been able to heave that box of stones through the air at him. From the nature of his breathing, though, it had cost him plenty.
Herne kept him covered with the Colt as he stood close by the balcony rail. He tried to figure his exact age but it was impossible. A face half-covered with a beard that had grown straggly and long, stubble climbing high on his cheeks; sores enveloped his mouth and one of his eyes was badly swollen, so that the skin was puffed up about it and the man could scarce have seen out. The pupil of the other eye was drained of almost all color, as though it had been deprived of natural light for too long.
There were sores on the backs of the man’s hands, too. Scabrous and thick, they spread over knuckles that were alternately cracked and skinned. They shook as he stood there, back hunched, staring up at Herne with his one partly good eye.
‘I ain’t lookin’ to hurt you,’ said Herne.
But his voice was too loud in that quiet and the man was never going to believe him anyway. He’d started shivering now, his head and the upper part of his body joining his already shaking arms, his belly, his legs.
Herne released the hammer of the Colt and dropped it back down into his holster. He was aware of his tooth throbbing hard against the gum. The whole side of his face felt as though it must be swelled up, but when he touched it quickly it seemed normal.
‘It’s okay. The gun’s away. Take it easy.’
He reached out towards the man and as he did so, the man tried to duck away and only succeeded in losing his footing. He fell to the floor and rolled onto his side, then his stomach. He was trying to crawl away, like some obscene, decaying child, when Herne gripped him firmly and hoisted him back to his feet.
His clothes were thick with grease and dirt; he wriggled like a stinking fish inside Herne’s grasp until Herne carried him to one of the few chairs retaining four legs and sat him down on it, firm and hard.
‘Now sit there,’ he said, doing his best to control his temper while all the time sensing that control slipping away from him. He was annoyed by the man’s senseless fear; infuriated by the nagging pain inside his mouth that the heavy missile had caused to return. ‘Sit there and calm down and then we can talk.’
The one good eye looked up at him from an awkwardly angled head, not trusting him. Herne wondered how many men he’d spoken to in the last few years, this living remnant of the town’s past. How many of those had ill-treated him.
Herne leaned over him. ‘You stay here,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve got some food outside in my saddle bags. I’ll bring some in for you. You an’ me. Food.’
As if to show that he understood, the man opened his mouth and a thin sliver of saliva ran down from one corner.
Herne hurried outside and returned with a piece of cheese wrapped in muslin, a thick slice of dried beef and a bag of biscuits. He was surprised to find the man still there, sitting splay-legged on the unsteady chair. The saliva flowed more eagerly as the man saw the food that Herne was unwrapping. His fingers scrabbled for it and Herne had difficulty in making him eat slowly, afraid that he would make himself vomit. Herne chewed on a wedge of cheese himself, careful to keep it at the left side of his mouth. The man was mumbling wetly through a mouthful of biscuit and bacon, eyeing Herne mistrustfully as if he might snatch it away at any moment.
Herne went back outside for his water canteen and persuaded the man to drink.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, expecting no reply.
‘Williams,’ the man said, nodding his head as he did so. ‘Jess Williams.’
‘I’m Jed …’ Herne began saying, but the man was talking again already, had hardly ever stopped.
‘Got a brother name of Jack. Jack an’ Jess Williams. Twins we was. Twins and never looked alike one moment of our lives.’ The thought amused him and he spluttered a laugh, spitting out fragments of food. ‘Ma used to tell folk we was twins and they’d never believe us. No one ever did. Twins, yeah.’
He stopped abruptly, staring at Herne. So long since there’d been anyone new to talk with, he’d run off at the mouth a little and now felt strange about it.
‘You been here long?’ Herne asked casually.
‘Since the place was first settled. That’d be ...’ But the calculations were too much for him and he sucked at the ends of his sore fingers, trying to get every particle of food that he could.
‘Alone now?’
The shaggy head nodded. ‘’Cept for Jack, o’course. Just me and Jack.’ He looked at Herne. Twins,’ he said, almost defiantly.
‘Jack’s here now?’ Herne asked.
‘Jack?’ said Jess puzzled. ‘Sure he’s here. Only ... only he went off.’
‘Off? Where?’
The man scratched at the side of his bearded face, the ends of his fingers pushing hard against a large, purple scab.
‘Where’s he gone, your brother?’ Herne lightly brought the man’s arm back down from his head.
‘Gone? Why, off with them folk as came askin’ questions, that’s where. Should be ...’ The sentence disappeared, just as Jack had and the man’s mouth fell open.
‘What folk?’ asked Herne, kneeling down before him, trying to keep his concentration.
The man’s eye flickered dead and Herne shook him gently. ‘What folk?’ he repeated.
‘That feller an’ his woman. They rode up here—’
‘When?’
‘Day or so back. Yesterday. I ain’t sure. Askin’ where the church was?’
‘Jack knew?’
The man smiled. ‘Jack knew there weren’t no church. Never built. Too busy diggin’ for silver and gettin’ drunk to build a church.’
‘Then where did he take them?’
‘Hah! Jack knew where they was goin’ to build the church, knew that. He was the one as carted all the wood up here from below. Three wagon loads of it. Preacher told him where to put it. Right by where the church was goin’ to be.’
Herne nodded. ‘And jack took them there yesterday?’
‘Preacher got caught cheatin’ at cards. Town had a trial, fair and reg’lar. Found him guilty an’ strung him up.’ The man laughed and spittle ran down into his beard. ‘Said his own prayers afore they slapped the mule from under him. Took him close on half an hour to die – an’ then that was only ’cause someone hung on his legs real hard. All that prayin’, must’ve give him a strong neck. Least, that’s what I always reckoned.’
Jess Williams chuckled to himself and looked around, as if he was fully expecting to see the preacher’s body, suspended there in the center of the old saloon.
‘This woman who came by,’ Herne asked, ‘was she dark-skinned? A half-breed?’
‘You know her?’
‘I know her. Name of Rose.’
‘That’s it,’ Jess said excitedly. ‘Rose. He called her that all the time. Rose, he said, soundin’ pretty wild. Rose!’
‘He have a name, this feller?’
‘Must’ve, but I don’t remember ... no, can’t say I remember ... Rose, though, that was what she was called. I know on account...’
Herne straightened up, interrupting him with the movement.
‘Let’s go find them, okay. Rose and the man. Likely find your brother, too. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Getting up from the chair, Jess nearly collapsed and Herne had to catch him and break his fall.
‘You know where they went, don’t you? Where the church was to be built?’
He considered it for a few moments, screwing up his face. ‘Jack knows it best, on account of he delivered the wood there. Took three wagons right there. Maybe you should ask Jack.’
Herne controlled himself. ‘Jack’s already there, remember? That’s why you’ve got to show me. Jack went with Rose and the man.’
Jess Williams’ head nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. Herne began to walk towards the door. When he was there, he turned and saw that Jess had not moved from beside the chair at all.
‘Let’s go,’ said Herne, his impatience beginning to sound through.
Jess was looking into some unseeable distance, listening to voices Herne could not hear. Suddenly he snapped out of it and jerked a hand towards the door. ‘Waco,’ he said. That’s what she called him. I remember now, clear as anything. Waco.’
Herne nodded, grim faced, hardly surprised. He couldn’t figure out what the connection was between Rose and the outlaw or why she’d been working in Cimaron Falls and not with him and his outfit. But it looked as if she’d gone straight to him as soon as she’d got the letter, as soon as she’d found the location of Edwards’ treasure or whatever it was.
One thing, though, if Waco Johnny Young was going to ride all the way up into the hills as far as a godforsaken hole like Fallen Lake, there had to be more to Edwards’ story than the lunacy of a dying man.
To reach the site of the church it was necessary to clamber over a pile of rotting timber, some of which may even have been the same that the preacher ordered before other things claimed his thoughts. The slope was steep enough to keep both men sliding back, and Herne had to haul Jess Williams up the final thirty yards or he’d never have made it. Out there in the open, with the sun bright and baleful and the wind whistling around the edges of the hills, Jess looked more and more like a creature of the darkness, like a man who’d inadvertently been trapped in a mining tunnel when they sealed it up and somehow survived.
Below, on both sides, roofs of buildings had fallen in, frames sagged lopsidedly towards the ground. The preacher had chosen a natural ledge for his church, one which would have thrown up the steeple high over everything. Even as it was, the land gave them a view right over most of Fallen Lake, the flat blue of the water showing beyond the debris.
The wind tugged at Herne’s face and his tooth jumped and twisted and he wrapped the scarf about the lower side of his face and cursed some more.
This is it,’ said Jess pointing at the uneven ground, littered with chunks of broken timber. ‘This is where he brung ’em.’
Herne looked around and shook his head, certain that the man’s mind had gone. What else could he expect, eking out an existence the way he did, living cooped up in darkness like a rat. Living with the rats. Herne wondered about the sores of Jess Williams’ body, how many of them had been caused by bites. Rat bites.
‘Right here,’ Jess insisted.
Herne shook his head and aggravated the tooth still further. He winced and said: ‘There ain’t nothin’ here. Why’d he bring them up here?’
Jess Williams rubbed at the side of his face and broke away a small piece of hard scab; a thin trickle of pale blood ran down into his matted beard. ‘Church never got built up,’ he chuckled. ‘Don’t mean they never built down.’
‘Down?’ Herne queried. ‘Why in God’s name would you build a church down?’
Jess wrapped his arms across his chest as if he was feeling the cold, exposed as they were. ‘Preacher insisted. Dig down first. Get the foundations sound and the rest’ll be all right. Put in a cellar. That’s what
But Herne was already throwing aside the timber that had been scattered, looking now as if it had hastily been strewn over the ground for some reason. It took him minutes only to uncover the heavy wood of the door; set almost level into the ground. Alongside him, Jess Williams was on his hands and knees, not really helping, laughing instead, pleased to have been right, dribbling from his mouth and nose with happiness.
There was no handle to the door and Herne drew the bayonet blade from inside his boot, drawing a flicker of fear across Williams’ face at the same time.
‘Rest easy,’ said Herne. ‘Nothin’s goin’ to happen to you.’
Gradually the man’s face stilled. ‘Yeah,’ he said, to himself as much as to Herne. ‘That’s right. Nothin’s goin’ to happen.’ His head jerked round quickly. ‘Goin’ to find Jack, ain’t we? Find Jack?’ He peered at Herne. ‘Twins,’ he said, as if the fact were important.
‘Sure,’ said Herne, levering the blade under one edge of the wood. ‘Sure, we’ll find Jack.’
He lifted the wood high enough to be able to slip his fingers under the edge. Slid the bayonet back down into his boot. The door moved stiffly at first, too close a fit, then swung high fast. Herne straightened and threw the heavy wooden square back. Stared down. Something was down there sure enough, only it wasn’t silver. Not any kind of treasure at all. Except for the worms.
Jess Williams had been right to say that for a twin, his brother Jack didn’t look a lot like him. Still there was enough for Herne to be certain instantly whose body was cramped down into that tight space. The thick, matted beard, the unkempt hair, the sores that clung to what was visible of his face and hands. One thing that Jack Williams showed real clear and that Jess lacked was a cut throat. More than half way round, tearing the gullet so that the head lolled over at a strange angle. Blood congealed darkly in ridged contortions down his chest.
Herne didn’t want Jess to see, but even with one good eye there wasn’t any disguising what had happened. The already trembling hands began to shake feverishly and his body quivered and Herne was sure he was going to fall. Quickly, he ducked towards him, arms reaching out The shot cracked out in the same instant and what Herne caught hold of was an already dying man, a .44 shell through the right side of his chest.
For a second Herne’s hands seemed to freeze on Jess Williams’ body and then he let him go and whirled away, diving for the ground.
Left to its own devices, the body swayed a little, almost as if held up by the force of the wind; then gradually it buckled and gave and toppled down across the open space of the church cellar, sagging onto the corpse of his twin.
Herne’s hand had clawed out the Colt as he’d hit the ground and now he lay flat, waiting for something that would tell him where the bushwhackers were. It came quickly, a volley of shots from one of the buildings off to the right, and a couple of single rifle shots from lower down on the opposite side. Herne put one man with the rifle, two maybe three using handguns at the other flank. That ruled out Waco and Rose, so unless someone else had found a reason for horning in, it had to be Zac Peters and his buddies. Herne already owed them plenty.
He shifted his legs so as to give himself the leverage for a fast spring and straight off he was on his feet and running, not bothering to weave, just heading for that right hand building like a bullet. He ran with his head down, body crouched, the Colt held tight in his hand. A few shots whipped about him, but he ignored them. There was a gap in the roof more than three feet wide and beyond that he could see movement. It was enough.
Herne jumped through the roof, landing on rickety boards and having to lean to his left, balancing his fall with the flat of his hand. That didn’t stop him from using his right. He glimpsed a man with long gray hair trying to angle round a sawn-off Winchester and shot him through the shoulder, cursed inwardly for not making it the chest. A shout at the other side swung Herne round and he sent a second shot skidding along the underside of the rafters, chasing the head of a man with thick, curly hair, whose short-brimmed hat went flying as he ran.
Herne went after him fast, his shoulder driving into a wooden upright and knocking it out of place, a clatter of falling boards at his back and a vast shower of dirt and dust. The man was approaching the door and as he neared it, he turned and leveled his pistol at Herne.
He might have been better off keeping going, though it likely wouldn’t have made a deal of difference.
This time Herne didn’t miss. The slug smashed through the front of P.J. Armitage’s skull and burst it apart. Fragments of bone splintered out in all directions and a thin, gray splodge spurted against the door frame and began to slide slowly down. Blood littered the floor and P.J. pitched into the midst of it, knowing nothing.
Herne jumped over him and looked along the bare and empty street. Nothing but the ghosts of old buildings and the tracks of a man who’d been running as fast as his legs would take him. Herne knew before it came that the next thing he’d likely hear would be the sound of a pair of horses and a few moments later, when he was back with the wounded Tex, it was.
The bullet had torn through the muscle at the top of Tex Blakely’s arm and was causing him a great deal of pain and losing a good deal of blood. The old man gritted his teeth and looked at Herne with uncertain eyes, wondering if he might be about to finish the job there and then. But instead Herne holstered his Colt and saw to fixing a tourniquet around the arm.
‘Ain’t got no whiskey, have you?’
Herne shook his head.
‘Okay,’ Herne said, squatting down in front of the wounded man. ‘I’ve spent too long not knowin’ what’s going on. Time I got told.’
Tex grimaced at some twist of pain in his arm and looked past Herne at the caved-in building. ‘Nothing I can tell you, mister.’
Herne’s voice tightened. ‘You can tell me what all the chasin’ and killin’s been over. I know it weren’t no buried silver, but I don’t know what You can tell me just where Waco Johnny Young fits into the whole thing.’
Tex turned his head the other way and Herne drew the Colt slowly from its holster. He held it close before Tex and let him hear the hammer click back.
‘No use, not that way,’ said Tex. I’ll likely die anyway.’
Herne nodded at the shoulder. ‘Not from that, you won’t’
Tex shrugged, ‘Today, next day, I’ve got enough years behind me so’s it don’t matter too much.’
‘Bullshit!’ snapped Herne. ‘I’m offering you the chance to ride out of here alive, get that patched up and get the Hell out of the territory. You tellin’ me you ain’t interested?’
It didn’t take him too long to make up his mind. ‘Got any whiskey?’ he asked again.
Again Herne shook his head.
‘Okay,’ agreed Tex with a reluctant shake of the head, ‘it was like this. We took the Kansas Pacific not far off a month back, fifty miles short of Denver. Went down the cars fleecing the passengers, blew the strong box in the freight car. There was one hell of a lot of money.’ He broke off into a sharp coughing fit, which wrung the pain through his arm.
Herne waited, knowing that at last he was going to find out what was happening. He looked at the deep lines on the wounded man’s face, concentrated on them, anything rather than let the ache at the side of his face take over.
‘Must’ve been some special bank delivery of notes, we never knew what. Didn’t hang around to ask. Waco, he started givin’ orders about splitting up, dividing the money and layin’ low. Law was pushin’ us pretty damned hard about then.’
Another cough racked through him and his body shook; he seized his arm and as he did so the material of the shirt sleeve darkened perceptibly with a fresh flow of blood. Herne adjusted the tourniquet; waited. Without him willing it, the end of his tongue pressed against the gum by the bad tooth and aggravated the pain.
‘Anyway, we never got through listening to Waco’s orders. Afore we knew it there was this damned posse ridin’ down on us like it was Bull Run all over again. Edwards, he grabbed at the sacks with most of the bills in an’ took off. No one was goin’ to stick around and argue. We hightailed it out of there in different directions and no goodbyes.’
‘You didn’t have no place to meet up?’ asked Herne. ‘Nothin’ regular?’
Tex nodded, but even that slight movement wasn’t without difficulties. ‘Sure we did. Zac and Savannah, P.J. an’ myself, all rode up inside two, three days. We hung round for Waco, thinkin’ he’d get there any time, but he must’ve had a hard time with that damned marshal’s posse.’
‘And Edwards?’
Tex Blakely looked at Herne hard, and then turned his head aside and spat venomously; the saliva was streaked with blood.
‘That thievin’ bastard never had no mind to meet up with us.’
‘You sure of that?’
‘Sure as I need be. We fin’ly got to lookin’ for him an’ soon as we found him, he was ridin’ hard the other way with that money stashed someplace he weren’t tellin’.’
‘That was when you bushwhacked him?’
Tex spat again. ‘Bushwhacked! Is that what the snivelin’ liar said? He knew we was houndin’ him and laid up in the hills. Tried to pick us off with a rifle.’ Tex snorted a laugh. ‘Never could shoot a dime’s worth of horse shit! We tried to roust him out but only winged him. Lost him for a time. We was closing on him when we run into you.’
‘You don’t reckon he was holdin’ out, to split up with Waco?’
‘And leave the rest of us empty-handed? Not Waco. He’s straighter’n any man I ever rode with.’
‘For a killer,’ added Herne softly.
Tex either didn’t hear the remark or chose to ignore it. ‘He had his reasons, clear enough,’ he said.
‘Go on.’
‘Fool woman he married some time back, ’cept that she weren’t no fool. Let him pick her up out the gutter an’ soon as she found she could walk on her own two feet without slippin’ back down again, she told him she didn’t want to see him no more. Edwards, he still hankered after her but by then she was high rent an’ he couldn’t afford to pay.’
‘Until he found himself ridin’ hard and fast with a couple of sacks bulging with dollar bills.’
‘That’s right. Stashed it away up here an’ figured on gettin’ Nadine to go back to him.’ Tex shook his head slowly, almost sadly. ‘Poor dumb bastard! He never stood a chance.’
Herne pressed his fingers gently against the outside of his cheek and winced. It really was beginning to swell out now, no doubt about it.
‘Tooth?’ Tex asked.
‘Yeah.’ Herne massaged his face a little more but it only made things worse. ‘Tell me about Rose?’ he asked.
Tex shook his head again, thinking about her. ‘Her an’ Waco, they’ve been with one another off an’ on four, maybe five years. She went with us for a time, stayed around, everythin’. Only after the law started gettin’ so damn close, Waco made her move into town. She didn’t like it, but I guess she was too frightened of him to cross him.’
‘You mean, till she got a good reason.’
‘Like a few thousand dollars. Yeah.’
Herne straightened up and walked across the uneven floor; he looked over the deserted town and saw nothing moving except pieces of rotting timbers, shifting haphazardly in the wind.
‘Where’ll they have gone?’
Tex thought about it for a long time, whether to tell him or not. When his face suggested he’d decided to keep his mouth shut, Herne leaned down and pulled the bayonet from his boot.
‘I’ve got beating to take payment for,’ Herne said. ‘I could do a lot of damage with this before you’d lost enough blood to pass out. It wouldn’t be pretty.’
Tex stared at the blade, unsure whether Herne was the kind of man who’d carry out that sort of threat. The size of the blade, the apparent sharpness of its curved edge, decided his mind for him. He wasn’t going to take any more chances.
‘Two places,’ Tex said, ‘trading post by Pinter’s Ferry. Half a day’s ride past that, up river, there’s this shack in the hills. Waco always reckoned if things got bad he could hide up there an’ hold off a small army.’ Tex chuckled, winced. ‘If he’s got that far, you’re already wastin’ your time.’
But Herne was already picking his way down through the dilapidated building, heading back to where he’d tethered the gelding. If it came to it, he had time to waste but he didn’t think that was what it’d be.