The Black Widow (15 page)

Although they only stood three paces
from each other, Jed could hardly see his old friend. Just the
splash of whiteness that was his face and the swirl of silver that
was his hair.

‘
I don’t reckon on there
being another way.’

‘
R
ound the top.’

‘
Clear over those cliffs?
By the top of that frozen fall and down the other side?’

‘
Yeah. I scouted it before we
met. The Rich Stream River comes spouting over the top about a half
mile from here. The Falls drop sheer for a thousand feet. Normally
to rocks, but there’s a pile of snow drifted up there now. We go
another quarter mile and I reckon we can scramble down a path I
seen.’

Herne
looked around him. Coburn made good
sense. It was dangerous enough risking the traps in daylight. At
night it could be fatal.

‘
Right. You know the way,
Whitey. So you go first.’

Back up on the track round Mount
Abora. The mansion lay still and silent, with lights blazing in
several of the rooms, but not the least sight nor sound of life.
Along past the main gate, with its stiffening corpse still on
guard, sightless eyes rimed with ice.

Then the climb up over broken rocks
towards the ridge of the hillside, with the moon playing
hide-and-seek among the scattered clouds.

‘’
Ware barbed wire,’ said Coburn,
stepping carefully over the rusted remnants of an earlier attempt
to fence in the house. Ice hung in clusters from the points of the
wire, catching the pale light.

Herne
paused for a moment, bending to peer
at the wire. ‘It’s Allen Two Line Four Point wire, Whitey. Had some
like it on my spread.’

‘
Wish I could have seen
that place. Always did want some kind of spread of my own,
Jed.’

Panting a little from the effort of
climbing at that altitude, Herne joined him, a hundred feet or so
beneath the stark edge of the ridge.

‘
Guess we all wanted that kind
of thing. Best most of us get is six foot of earth in Boot Hill.
With a belly full of lead for our last meal.’

‘
It was good? Wasn’t it?
Your spread, with Louise? It was good like you wanted it to be,
wasn’t it, Jed?’

Herne
thought back to the summer sun
shimmering off the brown earth, and a day’s work done. His
beautiful young wife coming smiling from their porch, with a tin
dipper full of clean cool water. And the warmth and sweetness of
her lips, her hair filled with the scent of baking.

‘
Y
es. It was good.’

‘
Envied you. Some ways.
Some times. I figure to finish up on a spread. Running water and
shady trees. Somewhere a man can live free. Breathe free. Not
always look over his shoulder for the next punk with a store-bought
Colt and skinful of cheap booze.’

‘
Got to stop somewhere,
Whitey.’

‘
Y
eah. True, Jedediah. It’s all got to stop
somewhere. Some time.’

It still lay between them.

Herne
had been conscious of it ever since
they’d fought against the boys back at Coburn’s camp. The deal to
go together against the Stanwycks had worked out well. Better than
he could have hoped. Without Whitey, it would have been a whole lot
harder and taken a whole lot longer.

But both of them knew that it had to end.
The part against the Stanwycks had ended well. But the contract out
on Herne was still open. He knew Coburn well enough to guess that
it wouldn’t be long before the albino made his move.

He wondered if it would come out of
the darkness, or if it was going to be an open
challenge.

The wind was rising, whistling off the
peaks around them, scattering ice crystals against their faces,
stinging tears from their eyes. It crossed his mind that it would
be as well to make his own move first. Wait until they were both up
there on that hogback, then just a good kick and it would be over.
On that surface of packed snow and ice there would be no hope on
earth for anyone.

He thought back to the many years he’d
known Whitey. Without much effort he could think back to at least a
half dozen times that he’d saved his life. And maybe the same
number of times that Coburn had done the same for him. It came hard
to murder a man like that.

But still...

Gradually he closed the gap between
them as they struggled up the steep hillside, their boot-heels
slipping in the snow, forcing them on to their hands and knees.
They were only twenty or thirty feet from the crest of the mountain
and Jed had climbed to within reaching distance of his
partner.

Near enough to stretch out and touch
him.

Suddenly, they were at the edge of the
mountain, with only space and snow toppling away in front of them,
and the narrow spine of rock leading round to their left, towards
the glistening ribbon of the Rich Stream.

They were completely exposed on the
ridge, the wind shrieking and tugging at them, as though it was
trying to shake loose the rocks from under their feet. Whitey
turned round to make sure that Jed was safe behind him, when
somehow he stumbled.

Or maybe Jed slipped and fell against
him.

Or maybe...

Whatever caused it, the result of the
accident was instant and spectacular.

Jed slid forwards on his stomach, reaching
into space with his gloved hands, trying to see in the darkness
where Whitey had vanished. There hadn’t been more than a short
muffled cry before the dark shape disappeared over the edge. That
side of the ridge the valley dropped away sheer and
sharp.

‘
Here!’

It was only then that Jed saw him. Coburn
had fallen about eight feet, but for his chances of climbing out
without help, it might as well have been a hundred feet. He had
slithered down the steep face, landing on a ledge no wider than a
man’s shoulders and about the length of an over-mantel, slightly
undercut. He had to stand pressed hard against the wall of iced
rock to avoid plunging to his death in the freezing darkness
beneath.

‘
Here, Jed.’

By straining up, Coburn could nearly, so
nearly, reach over the crest, but it was covered in snow. He had no
way of getting a grip, and the overhang meant that he couldn’t jump
to try and get a better grip. All Herne had to do to save his life
was stretch over the edge of the drop and extend his hand. With
that bit of extra purchase, it should be possible for Whitey to
heave himself up and out.

‘
I see you, Whitey.’

If he left him, the cold combined with
the icy wind would kill him within a couple of hours. And there
would no longer be any danger from him. No threat of the attack to
claim the bounty on the contract from Nolan.

It would be so easy to walk away and
leave him. Easier than shooting him down.

‘
Thanks, Jed.’

The rescue had been more difficult than
Herne had thought it would be. The crust of snow on the very edge
of the drop was wafer-thin, and crumbled each time Jed tried to lie
stretched right out and pull Coburn clear. Twice they locked grips,
and twice Jed had to tell him to let go and risk the slippery drop
back on the narrow ledge. Each time Coburn did what he told him.
Trustingly and unquestioningly.

At the third attempt Jed was able to
find a better purchase, bracing his heels into the bare rock of the
ridge, leaning far out into blackness. Unable to see Whitey, and
with the albino stretching up blind. Both men had taken off their
gloves, hoping to get a better grip. But they were both sweating
hard with the exertion, fingers slipping.

Groaning deep in his chest Herne pulled
back, forcing his left hand into the snow to try and get better
leverage. Gradually dragging Coburn up and over. Not even looking
up when his head and shoulders loomed over the edge. They finally
slithered a few feet down the safe side, both landing against a
jagged boulder in a confused tangle of limbs.

‘
Yeah. Thanks, Jed,’ Coburn was
panting, head down, trying to pull his gloves on again.

‘
We’re gettin’ too damn old for
this sort of thing, Whitey,’ gasped Herne.

‘
Maybe you’re right. If ... if
this didn’t lie between us, then maybe we could have got us a place
somewheres together.’

The silence stretched between them,
with only the howling of the wind to break it. The pale clouds
scudded across the face of the moon in a wild chase, throwing the
valley deeps into waves of light and dark.

‘
I sure appreciate what
you done, Jed; I want you to know that.’

‘
Hell. I guess you’d have
done about the same for me, Whitey.’

Coburn laughed. ‘Guess I would at
that. Yeah, I guess I would. Must both be crazy.’

The Rich Stream River was completely
iced over. Sheltered from the wind in the lee of the plateau, safe
off the hogsback, it was just possible to hear the tinkling of
water, still bustling busily under the ice. Most of the time the
Rich Stream was only a thread of clear water, sliding across the
bare rock and tumbling over the edge of the valley wall in a
drifting curtain of frothy lace to the lakeside far
below.

Occasionally the flash floods came and
it became a growling killer, spitting a solid bar of water
horizontally out from the cliff-top.

Now it was quiet, trapped in by the
ice. Not more than seven or eight feet wide.

Herne
and Coburn stood together at its
nearer side. They leapt easily across it. There was a simple path
away down the cliff-side, visible in the patchy moonlight,
finishing up near the lake on the far side of the valley. Way back
in the gloom it was just possible to see the bulk of Mount Abora,
now with only a single golden light burning in one of the upper
windows.

Somewhere ahead and to their left,
clear across the lake, and up through the trees, Becky would be
waiting for them to return. Sitting in that tiny shelter, the wind
tugging at the trees, spooking the horses. Waiting for them both to
return.

‘
Jed?’

‘
Yeah?’

‘
I guess this is going to
have to be it.’

‘
Figured you might say
that, Whitey. Seems as good a place as any to me.’

‘
Can’t both be going back
there. Not like this.’

‘
Nope. One place is just about
as good as another, isn’t it?’

The small open space on the side of
the river was about forty feet long by eight feet wide. The
mountain cut sharply downwards at that point, protecting them from
the wind.

‘
How you reckon on playing
this one, Whitey? Guns?’

Coburn laughed. ‘Hell! You reckon I
want to get myself wasted up here as well as you? We draw against
each other, it won’t matter much who wins.’

‘
That’s right. Guess there’s
about that much,’ snapping his fingers with little success in the
thick gloves, ‘between us. Course, I got the edge on you. Always
have had.’

‘
Bullshit,
Jedediah.’

‘
But I reckon that you might
just have enough speed to wing me on the way down. And I don’t
fancy trying to get down that path with a bullet in me. Or gettin’
out of the Sierras with the girl.’

‘
Jed. Whatever happens
here, I want you to know that I’ll take her on. I’ll get out of
this killin’ game and raise her proper. You got my word on
it.’

‘
Makes me feel easier.
That is if I’d trust a child like her with an old goat like you,
Isaiah. But thanks. Now, how are we to do it?’

Casually, Coburn pulled off his gloves and
tucked them in his back pocket. ‘How ’bout knives?
Border-style?’

‘
Just as bad. Anyways, if you
and me stood up here with a corner of a ’kerchief stuck between our
teeth, I guess we’d maybe start grinnin’ at each other and drop the
damned thing. If we didn’t we’d cut each other up some on the way
to the killin’.’

‘
Hard, ain’t
it?’

Herne
also finished taking off his gloves.
‘Only one way out of this, Whitey. Fists. If’n you beat me so I
can’t stand, then I come with you to be handed over to
Nolan.’

Coburn moved a step closer. ‘Not good
enough, Jed. Only way out’s down there.’

He pointed towards the gaping jaws of
the ravine, spinning in blackness clear down to the packed drifts
at the bottom.

‘
Loser goes down there?’ asked
Herne.

‘
Right. Shake on it’

Ceremoniously, the two men shook
hands, then broke away to stand a few paces from each
other.

‘
Whitey?’

‘
Y
eah?’

‘
Kickin’ and
gougin’?’

‘
Guess so.’

‘
Right.’

There were no more preliminaries to the
fight. Both men started to circle, trying to get the other with his
back to the drop, avoiding closing for two or three minutes.
Finally, Herne spoke. ‘We keep this up, Whitey, we’re goin’ to be
here all night Becky’ll take to worrying.’