Claude considered the bottom of his shot glass with squinted eyes. He turned the glass in one rough fist, then put it down very gently, and pushed it away as he straightened back to shoot a wondering look up at Arch. “It’s a fair notion,” he conceded. “What d’you think, Newt?”
“Sure worth a try, Claude. Otherwise, we got to sit here and wait, got to let Bríon make the first move, and that’s never too good in a mess like this.”
Mather was nodding in agreement even though no one had asked him for an opinion. The roadside doors flew open and seven men walked in, two of them cowboys, the other five sleepy-eyed, armed townsmen. Mather boomed a relieved welcome and offered free drinks on the house. The newcomers dutifully filed on up.
Ten minutes later another little band of townsmen walked in, also armed but seeming drowsy. This time Barney Whitsun and Hank Smith were accompanying them. After that, an almost steady stream of men filed into Mather’s saloon. The place began to resemble some secret rendezvous of brigands there were so many guns in evidence. Not just carbines and six-guns, but even rifles and shotguns.
Clayton smiled. “Close to thirty men already,” he told Claude and Newt, “and they’re still coming.”
It was true. Before the last bunch entered the place the number had risen almost to forty. Eventually, there were close to fifty armed, whisker-stubbled, grim-faced men congregated. Claude’s eyes brightened from despair and dogged dourness to grim pleasure. Barney and Hank talked loudly, explaining what was happening. Now and then Jack Mather’s deep voice rumbled a resolute oath or a grisly promise.
Claude went among them, selecting ten men for the pseudo posse. In absolute silence he explained what these men were to do. “Ride northward for a few miles up the stage road like you’re seeking sign of ’em. Then swing westerly … but be damned careful after you leave the road. The idea’s not for you to find ’em, but for them to find you. Don’t make any armed contact if you can prevent it. There’s enough moonlight for them to figure you’re a posse being led by me, which is exactly what we want ’em to think so they’ll slip around you and head straight for town.” Claude smiled broadly, the first such expression Arch Clayton had ever seen him display. “After you’ve made a big enough sashay around the countryside to be pretty sure you’ve been spotted, ride easterly until you’re darned sure you’re far enough over there, then cut southward and come back into town from down below. By then Bríon ought to be attacking. If he is, you’ll sure as hell hear the shooting.” He looked at them. “You boys understand?”
They understood and mumbled to that effect, then Claude sent them on their way to get mounted and head out. He and Arch and Newt Douglas strolled outside to watch those men gather together in the roadway and silently lope up the roadway out of Springville. Afterward, returning to the saloon, the three of them laid their plans for the defense of their town. Newt was to take some of the men and string them out east and south. Claude would take more men and string them along the outskirts from west to south. Arch Clayton was to take the remaining men and cover the north end of town. This, Claude thought, would cover Springville completely and all round. If any one large body of riders was sighted, the men were to challenge once, then open fire on them.
Mather shed his apron and took up his carbine from its corner. When he reached for the lamp, though, Claude told him to leave it burning. He then led the exodus out the back way and Jack’s saloon quietly emptied of customers.
That thickening little old moon was up there riding as serenely as always. It was a clear midsummer night with all the stars turned blue from the dust in the air. There wasn’t a breeze stirring anywhere, but all the soft scents of the desert were in the atmosphere around them, and the warmth was pleasant for a change.
Newt took his part of their men and struck out with them. Claude lingered a little longer, going over in his mind anything that might occur for which he’d made no provision. Arch, sensing what was keeping the sheriff, said, “There are no guarantees, it’s like riding a green colt. You figure you know everything he’ll do, and you take all the precautions, but beyond that you sort of have to meet each emergency just like you’d never met it before. Good luck, Sheriff.”
Claude nodded, still pensive, called some names, and took his men around to the main roadway and on across into the darkness around the buildings and homes on the west side of town. There, he detailed the most reliable men to string out southward until they met some of Newt’s men. After that he slipped away and hastened on up through the alleyway gloom to make certain Arch Clayton was in his place.
Arch was—at least he was aligning his men across the upper end of town so they’d make contact on both ends of their strung-out line, with the others.
Claude had a strong hunch Bríon would come out of the northwest. He didn’t have much factual reason to expect this beyond a feeling that Bríon would be up there somewhere, since that particular part of the desert was especially empty and untraveled, plus the fact that riders arriving in the Springville country who’d traversed Dead Man’s Cañon would find this their easiest route of access.
He returned along the westerly side of town and at once was hailed by two disheveled cowboys from Newton’s cow camp, who’d come over to the far side of town with him. They had a lumpy figure upon the ground between them. They hissed to attract Claude’s attention and frantically flagged for him to come over, using their gun arms to signal with.
They had a Mexican, one of the cowboys explained while he also stuffed his shirt back into his trousers. Evidently there’d been quite a scuffle. “We heard his horse out there, walking along real soft and easylike, so we hunkered down and waited. We figured it might be a spy, but we also figured it could be someone who rode out with the fake posse. Then he dismounted and come a-skulking in among the buildings. That’s when we caught sight of them crossed cartridge belts slung across his chest, and jumped him.” The cowboy finished with his shirt tail and made a face at the unconscious man upon the ground. “By golly, he put up a pretty fair fight for a Mexican. Even drew a foot-long bowie knife on us.”
Claude knelt, flopped the unconscious man over, and looked closely at him. He didn’t recognize him, but then he probably wouldn’t have recognized the man anyway. He went through his pockets, found only the usual assortment of unimportant, personal things, then asked where the horse was. One of the range riders remained with the Mexican while the other one took Claude out between some rickety, old, abandoned sheds and showed him a tethered horse carrying one of those Mexican saddles with their enormous horns and split seats. There was a carbine in the boot, a bedroll aft of the cantle, and a small set of ornate saddlebags with some tortillas, extra ammunition, and four carefully wrapped tamales in them.
Undoubtedly the man they’d captured was one of Bríon’s reinforcements. He was equipped like any Mexican cowboy, who, when the occasion demanded, also became a guerilla raider.
Claude returned. The captive was sitting up, probing the top of his head where he’d evidently been clubbed down with a pistol. When Rainey knelt, the man’s jet-black eyes fell upon his badge, and rolled upward to the tough, seamed, and uncompromising face above. Claude and the two kneeling cowboys saw the Mexican’s eyes turn slowly, fatalistically dark and muddy as despair gripped the man.
In English one of the range riders asked the Mexican his name. He turned a perfectly blank look upon his interrogator. Claude asked the man in Spanish how many others had come up out of Mexico with him. In the same language the prisoner said twenty-five. Claude pursed his lips; it was a larger number than he’d anticipated. He then asked where Bríon now was, with his little army. The Mexican pointed straight west, not northwest as Claude had thought he might point. He asked one more question: “Is Bríon going to attack this town?”
The Mexican dropped his arm and also dropped his eyes. Indian-like, having decided he’d said all he had to say, and also assuming he was now to be kil
led in any case, he simply sat there all limp and beaten.
Claude asked once more if Bríon meant to attack. When he got no answer, the cowboy nearest lifted out his six-gun, pointed and cocked it. The Mexican lifted his face, gazed at the weapon, gazed at the face of the man holding it, and slumped again.
“Put the gun away,” said Claude in Spanish, for the Mexican’s benefit, then repeated it in English for the cowboy’s sake. He then reached over and tapped the captive on his chest. “Answer my question, little one,” he said in Spanish. “You’re not going to be shot. Just answer. Does Fernando Bríon mean to assault this place?”
The Mexican raised his black eyes to search Claude’s face for some sign of deceit. Evidently he found none because he answered, finally: “Sí, señor, only he believes you are out looking for us. We had some spies out and they came upon this party of armed men riding back and forth in the night as though hunting us.”
“And you, little one, what of you?”
“I was sent ahead to find out whether you had sentinels guarding your town. If I found this not to be so, I was to give the call of an owl.” The Mexican raised and pointed one last time toward the west. “They are waiting out there, perhaps a half mile. Perhaps a full mile.”
Claude stood up, looking westerly. “One of you take him down to the jailhouse and lock him in with the other one.” He handed over his keys and looked at the other cowboy. “Trot southward and pass the word. Trouble is on the way.”
Chapter Sixteen
Claude waited nearly half an hour. He was reluctant to make the owl call anyway, whether everyone was prepared or not. No one, except perhaps professional soldiers, enjoyed seeing a battle start, and if they are the men who have to stand there and swap lead with an enemy, even professional soldiers aren’t eager.
The cowboy who’d jailed the captive returned. He told Claude the other Mexican, already in the cell, greeted the newcomer like a long-lost friend. The cowboy also said that although he couldn’t understand much Spanish, he made it out several times when the incarcerated one told the newcomer the yanquis did not mean to shoot them after all.
The second cowboy also returned. He reported that everyone was warned and ready. Claude listened to the night. There wasn’t a sound anywhere. Even the corralled animals out back of some nearby houses were quiet. Earlier, a little feist inside a picket fence had yapped ceaselessly, but even he was silent now. Claude left the pair of cowboys walking out beyond the last building upon the dusty desert. He cupped his hands, raised his head, and gave the repetitive, haunting cry of the burrowing little desert owl, stood a moment in waiting silence, then repeated the sound, dropped his hands, and stood briefly before turning and starting back. He’d neglected to ascertain from the prisoner whether Bríon was to answer back or not.
It didn’t really matter; he’d given the all-clear signal and that was what mattered. Bríon would come now. When he saw the waiting pair of cowboys, he growled for them to get back to their places and pass the word for everyone to keep both eyes wide open.
It was both a long and grueling wait. Try as he might, Claude could detect no sound out there upon the westerly desert. He began to worry, very naturally, because he wasn’t up against just some two-bit renegade from south of the border, or some gold-hungry outlaw from above it. Bríon was a man who planned big, a man who thought in terms of toppling governments and armed nations.
A drowsy mourning dove whimpered to the northwest. Another mourning dove answered it from the southwest. Claude stiffened. They were coming now, but as he had not anticipated, they were coming on foot. That made him more uneasy than ever. The normal way for Mexican guerillas to arrive in an enemy town was with their plunging horses on a loose rein, with shouts of peril upon their lips, and a blazing gun in at least one hand. Sometimes they hit like a whirlwind, guiding mounts with their knees and shooting indiscriminately with both hands.
This attack, Claude thought, was more Indian-like than Mexican-like. But he didn’t long speculate on that; the prize, in Fernando Bríon’s eyes, was more than enough incentive to use every ruse, every deceit, each tactic that was likely to succeed.
A carbine cracked southward, then, to Claude’s surprise, two guns opened up over on the east side of town. There was a very short lull before several more guns opened up across town to the east where Newton Douglas had his men strung out. For a moment longer that brisk, stubborn exchange continued, then it dwindled off into another little period of quiet.
Claude stepped back and trotted over as far as the main roadway. He thought that eastward gunfire was coming from out behind Barney’s store, and that of course gave him a fresh line of speculation. Inside the store, in a gloomy corner of Barney’s old office, stood the big steel safe with Clayton’s cache inside it.
Bríon would have heard by now that the cache in that old jacal south of town had been cleaned out. It wouldn’t be very hard for him to know the rest, either. Anyone, including transient Mexicans passing through Springville, would know about the only steel strongbox in town.
Bríon, Claude told himself bleakly, was every bit as shrewd an opponent as any lawman would want. Perhaps even too shrewd.
He turned as Arch Clayton emerged from the night alongside him, also peering over across toward the east side of town. “He knows where it is,” murmured the younger man. “I wish to hell we had twenty more men.”
“While you’re wishing,” muttered disgruntled Sheriff Rainey, “make it a hundred.”
Gunfire erupted again to the southwest. It crackled back and forth, then began shifting farther southward. Claude turned to go back into the eastward alleyway. Arch Clayton headed back for the northern end of town where, thus far, Bríon had not attacked. He seemed to be probing for an opening, but there could be little doubt but that he had his best attackers over along the east side of town.
Someone southward yelled, “Push ’em back!” and the gunfire stepped up, crackling up and down the lower end of town. Claude thought it had been Mather who’d yelled out in strong anger, and swore to himself. He didn’t want any of the men to carry the fight too far forward on to the desert for fear Bríon, who was more experienced at this sort of thing than Claude or any of the other defenders, might pull a quick ruse, then duck into town through the gap left in their defensive line.
He listened anxiously to the angry gunfire coming up from the south, and breathed a little easier when it began to slacken off, to dwindle down as Bríon’s men faded out in the yonder darkness, leaving the defenders no more worthwhile targets. He heard Newt Douglas’ growl down there, in the ensuing silence, warning his men to stand fast, not to try and chase the Mexicans.
The fighting over on the east side of town began again, but in dead earnest this time, as evidently Bríon led all his men around there. Claude heard the yelling out upon the desert amid the gunfire. Bríon’s men were hooting and cursing and shouting grisly threats the way Mexican guerillas normally did, and while this no doubt contributed much to their successes among poorly defended towns and terrified people below the border, in Springville, Claude knew perfectly well, it would have no such effect at all.
But he worried nonetheless as Bríon’s men stepped up the gunfire until it was one long, deafening crash and rattle of deadly sound. Some dogs in town were excitedly barking but otherwise the houses and stores were as still as death while people crouched low and swore, or patiently waited, or prayed, if that was their way under fierce adversity.
Arch Clayton evidently stripped his northerly line and reinforced the easterly defenders. At least that’s what Claude thought as he began to hear the increasing gunfire among the buildings over there. That worried him some more. Bríon would know these fresh fighters had come from somewhere, either north or south. He just might try breaking into town from a fresh direction.
Bríon did, but he made the wrong guess. He suddenly drew back and hurled his men at the south end of
town. Mather’s booming roar rang out. So did the excited profanity of Newt Douglas as he ordered his men to hold fast as they poured a withering fire into the attackers.
Claude used this pitched battle to race across, find Arch’s men, and order them to get back up to the north end of town again. He made that trip none too soon, for as quickly as Bríon guessed he’d made a wrong guess, he sucked back and led his men northward.
Claude was back on the east side of the roadway, panting, when he heard the firing up north begin to swell and roar. He spat dust and headed on out where his own line was standing ready.
The firing suddenly stopped, but at the south end of town someone fired off one lone shot and got back a fierce string of invective followed by a man’s name. Claude strained to hear, then several other men shouted in what sounded to the sheriff like relief and pleasure. He caught some of the louder words being bandied back and forth down there—the decoy posse was returning!
One of Claude’s men slipped back to relate what was happening. Claude nodded, and sent the man back to his position. Afterward, he fished out his makings and worked up a cigarette that he popped between his lips but never lit. He was beginning to feel a little better. Those decoy posse men were badly needed.
Now there came a long lull. It lasted nearly twenty minutes. Claude used it to make a circuit of the town. Newt Douglas had one man slightly wounded. He also had some hard comments to make about the attackers.
“They’re good shots, Claude. We have to stay down most of the time and even then they come uncomfortably close.”
He went up the east side and found two more injured. He also met some of the returned posse men who told him they’d almost blundered into the Mexicans and renegade border gunmen when the latter were shifting from the south end of town to the north end.
Dead Man’s Cañon Page 12
