The Black Widow (8 page)

Herne
saw his target throw up his arms and
topple forwards. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Whitey’s man
also go down. There was a shout from someone, and a scream, fading
away. But Jed wasn’t concerned with that.

He was busy reloading the heavy gun. He
dropped the block and pushed the enormous cartridge, already
prepared and to hand, along the wide breech-groove. The spent
casing tinkled on the rocks at his side. The only drawback with the
Sharps was the cloud of smoke sent out by the black powder. But it
cleared in the rising wind, bringing with it yet another flurry of
snow. Big wet flakes that clung to your skin.

As he looked up ready for his next
shot he saw the reason for the peculiar scream, fading away to
nothing. His first shot had hit home. Poised on the edge of the
drop, the wounded man had involuntarily set his spurs to his horse,
kicking it forwards over the snow-swirling void to crash to a
mangling death a half mile straight down.

Although Jed had been quick in reloading,
Coburn had already fired twice more. Bringing down another man and
a horse. The scene that Jed looked at was chaos. There was a
squealing horse, lashing sparks from the stones with its flailing
hooves. And a man staggering clear, holding a dangling arm, with
blood pouring from the ends of his fingers.

Two men lying still among the stones.
Horses rearing and bucking, with the two men who had been foolish
enough to dismount trying to mount again. Carefully, Herne adjusted
his aim to center on the gunman who seemed to be most in control of
his horse, and who had actually managed to get a snap-shot off at
the hidden ambushers.

Finger lying on the filed trigger, gentle
as opening a virgin’s legs. Squeeze. The butt of the gun crunching
into his shoulder with the satisfying kick of the powerful bullet.
And the man disappearing from his horse, scarlet flowering from his
throat.

‘
High,’ muttered Coburn on
his right

‘
Still counts,’ he replied,
laying down the rifle and picking up the Colt.

The survivors were getting ready to
make their break for safety, but it meant riding along a snowy
trail, with visibility shrinking every second, past the men with
the guns. But it was that or be gunned down like dogs against that
barrier of stone.

‘
Let them come, Whitey,’ said
Herne, as Coburn sent another bullet from the Winchester cracking
into the group, catching one of the riderless horses in the
shoulder, toppling it helplessly on its side.

One of the other horses galloped past them
with its mane streaming. Eyes starting from its sockets with fear
at the noise and smell of blood and death. There were now only two
men left in one piece, plus the one with the broken arm. Herne
nodded his approval as he saw one of the mounted men swing down an
arm and heave the wounded man bodily into the saddle.

‘
I’ll
take the hero,’ said Coburn, standing
up and drawing his Colt. There was no danger from frightened men on
horseback, riding head down out of a trap.

Herne
also stood, bracing his front foot
against the side of the boulder in front of him, noticing that it
was veined with a silvery metal. Pyrites, he guessed

The albino was like some terrifying
avenging angel of death, the wind whipping his hair about his long
white face, the Colt in his hand spitting lead at the oncoming
horseman. Snow blew into Jed’s face and he blinked it away, taking
careful aim at the horse’s chest as it came towards him. Squeezing
the trigger three times. Actually seeing all the bullets hit home,
bringing the poor beast foundering to its knees, throwing the rider
clean over its near shoulder to land with a dreadful crack on the
earth of the trail.

Whitey fired five times.

Aiming at the men rather than the
mounts, using the most difficult and least-tried technique of the
hired gun. Fanning the hammer of the Colt with the heel of his left
hand, keeping the trigger depressed with the right forefinger.
Although it was lightning fast, it also presented problems of
accuracy. In a situation with men on horseback coming past at the
gallop, it was a reasonable way of putting as much lead as possible
into a small area in a short time.

Jed registered the shots, noting that
even at the height of the battle that Whitey was still the careful
professional. Only using five of the six bullets. Just in
case.

Both men toppled off their mount,
falling together on the snow-covered stone of the trail, tangling
together in a jigsaw of arms and legs. The one who’d originally
been wounded was clearly dead, half his head leaking blood and
brains in the trampled whiteness. His companion, who’d tried to
save his life was hit in stomach and left thigh, and was trapped by
the corpse of his fellow gunman.

‘
Help me, Mister! I never done
nothing to you, whoever you are.’

He was very young, his pale face
turned up to them showing the faintest beginnings of a fuzzy
moustache. Ignoring him, Coburn started to reload his gun. Jed
looked down at the boy, remembering back to times when he might
have died like that. Gutshot and helpless. It was one Hell of a way
to die.

‘
Please, Mister. Don’t shoot me
again. I’m hurtin’ real bad. Help me!’

‘
We don’t have a lot of time,
Jed. Waste him and let’s get to it.’

Whitey was right. They had to get the
man who lay groaning and semi-conscious near them. The one whose
horse had been shot from under him by Jed. He was what they needed
to make the day a complete success. The other men from the house
would have heard the burst of shooting. It wouldn’t be long before
there were reinforcements on the way from Mount Abora.

‘
Mister. I’m only
twenty-one.’

He looked younger, vulnerable, and in
pain.

Jed carefully took aim with the Colt and
shot him between the eyes, watching the blood-rose flower in the
center of the boy’s forehead. The body twitched once and then lay
quite still in the snow.

There were two more shots from near the
earth-slide as Coburn put the finishing touches to their ambush.
With the one man who was now sitting up, watched by Herne, they had
succeeded in wiping out half of the Stanwyck’s hired army of young
killers in one simple attack. With no real way in or out of Mount
Abora, the odds had come down in their favor.

‘
What the fuckin’
h
ell
happened?’ Jed stepped forward and tugged the holstered gun away
from the gunman. Apart from a scalp wound that was bleeding
profusely, he seemed unmarked.

‘
You’re comin’ with us, friend,’
said Herne. ‘On your feet now and climb up there, behind those
boulders. We got a mite of waitin’ to do.’

Unsteady on his feet, the boy got up and
did what he was told, menaced by the two guns of the attackers. He
was clearly terrified by the grim-faced men, especially so by the
shocking appearance of the albino. The wind was rising as the
afternoon faded away towards evening, and more snow filled the air
with a downy, icy softness.

Coburn joined them on the narrow ledge and
crouched down, checking his guns, waiting for the relief party from
the house to arrive, glancing down at the carnage below, the bodies
already starting to blur at the edges with the driving
blizzard.

‘
Good that. Real good,
Jed.’

The prisoner looked up at the
name.

‘
Jed?’

‘
That’s right, son. Jedediah
Herne.’

‘
Oh, God! Sweet Lord Jesus!
Herne the Hunter.’ Turning to look at Coburn. ‘And you’re the
bounty hunter we heard of. Whitey Coburn.’

Without changing his expression, Coburn
swung an open-handed slap at the boy’s face, slamming him back
against the rocks behind, nearly knocking him out.

‘
Name’s Isaiah Coburn, boy. And
you better not forget it again.’

‘
I ...
I didn’t ... Truly ... Truly ... They
never told us that it’d be both of you ... We ... I swear to God we
didn’t know ... Not like this.’

‘
Hush up, boy. There’s goin’ to
be some of your friends comin’ soon, to find out what’s happened to
you. And I wouldn’t want them knowin’ we was up here. Jed here’s
got a knife ... show it him, Jed... There. That’ll go through your
throat like a trail-hand through a Denver whore. Not a
word.’

They waited in the falling
snow.

Coburn whispered to
Hern
e. ‘That
kid you shot through the head.’

‘
Yeah.’ Herne didn’t
particularly want to be reminded of it.

‘
When he said he was twenty-one
you should have told him that bit of poetry in Birch Wells.
Remember?
“This verse on your grave won’t be read by you. Your
killings done, you’re twenty-one, you won’t see
twenty-two.”’

Jed nodded. He remembered the verse.
Even remembered the boy. Should have done. He’d put him in that
graveyard.

Outside their shelter,
Herne could hear
Becky vomiting in the snow.

Retching and crying at the same time,
coughing as she brought up the thick soup that she’d cooked for
them all with the makings Coburn had brought from the store. Inside
the shelter, Jed and Whitey crouched each side of the young gunman
they’d taken prisoner. He was tightly bound, with ropes round his
ankles and wrists tied behind his back. He was bare to the waist,
and despite the cold his body was covered with a slick coat of
sweat.

Sweat and blood.

Their main enemy in getting the man, whose
name was Mel Tarrant, back to their camp was the weather. They
waited for more men to ride out from Mount Abora, huddled down
behind the rocks, the tip of Herne’s bayonet pricking Tarrant’s
throat. They’d heard hooves, but only one man had appeared round
the bend, peered cautiously through the driving sheets of snow, and
galloped back to safety. Jed didn’t blame him.

At least half of the force slain, by
nobody knew how many gunmen. Killers who might still be hiding in
the rocks waiting to carry out further slaughter. It made a lot of
sense not to wait around within rifle range.

Once darkness fell, it was
comparatively easy for the two gunmen to hustle their prisoner back
through the white carpet of snow, now well over ankle deep, and in
places over the knees. Past the brightly-lit front gate, and in
among the trees, stepping cautiously. Pushing Tarrant in front of
them, and treading in his footprints, so that if there were any
traps in the way it would be the boy who would lose his
leg.

Becky was almost beside herself with
worry, and grabbed Herne tightly round the neck, squeezing him to
her. The fire had been well tended and there was a fresh pot of
coffee steaming away brightly. It was good to be back out of the
snow and in the warm.

‘
They’ll know now that
we’ve arrived. They’ll guess that you aren’t alone, Jed. Not with
that many downed. So they’re going to stay holed up inside, jumping
at every shadow.’

Herne
nodded, cupping the hot mug in his
hands, letting his mind and body relax after the tension and
violence of the afternoon. Glanced across the fire to where the boy
sat, blood dried brown over much of his face. Becky had made a move
to help him, and wipe it clean, but Coburn had stopped her. Quite
rightly, thought Herne. It didn’t do when you were about to ask
someone some questions he might not want to answer to show him too
much kindness.

As soon as he’d finished his coffee,
Whitey began on Tarrant.

‘
Right, Mel. You did say
your name was Mel, didn’t you? Don’t want to get things wrong. Not
right at the start like this.’

‘
What do you want to know,
Mister Coburn, sir? Just ask me and I’ll tell you.’

Lips pulled back from his teeth in what he
thought passed for a reassuring smile, Coburn leaned forwards.
There was a hiss in the air, and faster than the eye could follow,
the albino had drawn a knife and cut the boy’s coat open, slashing
the shirt and red vest underneath, nicking the flesh. Tarrant
whimpered with the sudden violence, and tried to roll away. But
Coburn reached out and locked his fingers in the damp tangled hair,
tugging him right forwards, so that their faces were only inches
apart. His voice dropped to the faintest whisper, so that only the
boy and Herne could hear.

‘
You sit right still, boy. I’m
just going to cut away all these clothes you got on.’

‘
Whitey!’ interrupted Herne.
‘Remember the girl’s here.’

‘
Yeah. Like my partner here
says. There’s a young lady with us. But it’s mighty hot with this
fire, so I’ll just slice away the clothes from above the belt, and
keep the decencies. Right.’ The voice dropped even lower. ‘And if
it wasn’t for the girl, you stinkin’ little bastard, I’d cut off
your cock and burn it in front of you!’

Shamed and bare, the boy had been right on
the edge of tears, but Herne had felt no pity for him. A hired gun
was paid on results. If the going got tough, then he shouldn’t
snivel about it. Neither he nor Whitey had ever wept over screwing
up on a contract.