Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1)

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘Mountford?’ asked Green. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘One o’ the smaller ranchers over on the South Bend side. Yu’ll be meetin’ him one o’ these days,’ Tate told him.

  That the meeting was to be much sooner than any of them expected he could hardly have foreseen.

  Chapter Three

  The little town of Hanging Rock lay torpid under the blasting heat of the summer sun. All along the single street the board-walks were empty, and only a mangy dog, lying in the ineffective shade of Diego’s saloon, gave any indication that there was life in the town. All the citizens of the little cow town were prudently avoiding the midday heat in the cooler corners of either their own homes or one of the two saloons. A true frontier settlement, Hanging Rock looked like any of a hundred other dusty cow towns. Its buildings were of adobe or wood or both, with an occasional ‘dugout’ here and there along the straggling street, while the spaces in between these inglorious edifices were littered with tin cans, empty bottles, and even an occasional iron bedstead discarded by itinerant pilgrims. Hanging Rock made no claim to being the garden spot of the West, and presented in main an unlovely aspect to any newly arrived traveler. Its residents were wont to remark that ‘them as don’t like it don’t need to stay’, and most of those arriving for the first time in Hanging Rock by means of the stage line, its only link with the outside world, were apt to take one quick look at the town and take the advice of its citizens at face value. Hanging Rock relied for its existence upon trade from the ranches in the valley and upon the miners on Thunder Mesa who came in once a month on payday and scattered their hard-earned dollars in an all-out spree which often ended in a brawl or a killing. Hanging Rock took these as a small price to pay for the turnover. Of the various buildings scattered along the street, very few were of any importance. The biggest was Burkhart’s saloon and Dance Hall, which possessed an imposing false front behind which crouched the one-storey reality, an L-shaped building of thick adobe construction whose thirty-six-inch walls were a guarantee of coolness on the hottest day and a fair degree of warmth when the ‘northers’ swept down along the side of the Needles. To everyone except its owner, Burkhart’s was known as ‘Dutchy’s’ thanks to the universal western custom of calling anyone with a foreign accent by that sobriquet. Directly opposite Dutchy’s was the Traveler’s Rest, an hotel and rooming house run by a fiercely independent Irish widow named Mulvaney. Here food and lodging was dispensed for overnight travelers on the stage, or visiting miners, cowboys, and other itinerants. Mrs. Mulvaney was a strict disciplinarian and there wasn’t a man in the valley who would have dared to walk along one of her highly-polished hallways with his boots on. Down the street a little, on the same side as Dutchy’s, stood the City Bank—the most solidly-built structure in Hanging Rock, and the only one of two storeys.

  Adjacent to it was another saloon called ‘The Square Deal’, but more frequently referred to as Diego’s, its owner being a Mexican so named. Most of the cowboys in the valley were traditionally customers of Dutchy’s, prior to the arrival of Barclay. His hard-bitten crew had, however, taken to frequenting Diego’s, which gave Jacob Burkhart no sleepless nights at all. He was a realistic man, and knew that Barclay’s men would have given him more trouble than a barrel full of rattlers if they had ever come into the saloon when—say—the Slash 8 boys were in town. In fact, it was Gimpy who had once acidly remarked of Diego’s hostelry that ‘the only square deal you get there is on the sign outside’.

  The rest of the town comprised a pair of general stores, a livery stable with a blacksmith’s shop, and the various shacks and dugouts which housed the permanent residents of Hanging Rock.

  On this particular day, some twenty-four hours after Sudden and Dave Haynes had undergone their ordeal on the mesa, four men rode into Hanging Rock from the direction of Summerfield, the next town on the road to Santa Fe. The hock deep dust of the street muffled the sound of their horses' hoofs. They looked like four cowpunchers on their way for a drink at Diego’s, although it was a rarity to see punchers in off the range so early in the day. An onlooker might have been mildly surprised by the fact that they did not, however, stop outside the saloon, but proceeded to the bank, where they dismounted and hitched their horses. The same onlooker—had there been one—might have been even more surprised to see three of the men go into the bank, leaving one of their number outside with the horses; this man lounged carelessly against the hitching rail, watching the silent street from beneath the shaded brim of his sombrero.

  For perhaps eight or ten minutes there was silence, and then the thunder of a shot shattered the stillness. In the same moment, as the echoes of the shot lingered in the still air, the door of the bank opened to allow two of the men to back outwards, their shoulders stooped under the weight of heavy satchels. A second or two later, their leader—a big man, solidly built-backed out, a still—smoking six shooter clasped in his meaty paw. With a quick nod to his companions the leader vaulted into the saddle, and in a whirl of dust the four men rode headlong towards the edge of town.

  A moment more passed; then a tall, sallow man rushed to the door of the bank, a heavy pistol in his hand, which he emptied in the direction of the fleeing bandits. His shots seemed to have no effect other than to cause one of the fugitives to turn in his saddle and fire several hasty shots over his shoulder. One of the shots shattered splinters from the wooden verandah post and whined away across the street; another flicked a scar across the wall of the bank. The fusillade of shots had awakened the dozing townspeople, and men poured from the buildings into the street, running in the direction of the Bank, until Hanging Rock resembled nothing so much as a kicked-over anthill. One citizen, late in leaving the welcome coolness of Dutchy’s, grabbed the arm of a passer-by and asked a question.

  ‘Four masked men,’ shouted his informant, without stopping. ‘They just cleaned out the Bank an’ shot Charley Clark.’

  Charley Clark, of course, was well known to the solvent of Hanging Rock as the cashier of the City Bank, and the news that this timid, mousy-looking little man had been shot down inflamed the crowd. There were shouts of ‘Let’s get after them!’ and ‘Somebody bring a rope!’ as the crowd milled around the steps outside the Bank. This clamor was partially stilled by the appearance of the Sheriff of Hanging Rock, his normal unpopularity forgotten in this moment of crisis. Sheriff Brady called for posse men to, pursue the robbers, and within minutes, had fifty mounted men behind him, ready to ride. With many shouts and oaths, this motley cavalcade swept out of town in hot pursuit of the raiders.

  The town’s only practitioner of medicine of any sort, an unkempt character who rejoiced in the nickname of ‘Patches’, was called to minister to the dying Clark. The cashier was promptly taken to a quiet room at the Traveler’s Rest, where the curious found Mrs. Mulvaney an insuperable obstacle to their attempts to gain more intimate information than could be obtained from those left behind in the now half-empty town’s only street.

  Some hours later, Brady and his posse returned to Hanging Rock, dusty, saddle sore, and completely unsuccessful. They had trailed the bandits-——who had made no attempt to disguise their tracks——in a huge circle out of the town, over the foothills to the north, across the northern part of the Box B—Barclay’s range and to the edge of the rolling Badlands. There, in hock-deep sand and flint-like rock formations, they had lost the trail completely and finally retraced their route to town, arguing hotly among themselves as to the probable destination of the thieves, cursing themselves as fools, and Brady who had led them. The arguments were continued at equal, if not higher pitch, in the welcome coolness of Dutchy’s; while Brady conferred with the town’s banker, Jasper de Witt, to obtain what little information could be gleaned about the four men who had, in one swift, smooth operation, lifted some twenty thousand dollars in cash from the Bank of Hanging Rock.

  The news of the robbery was relayed to the Slash 8 that evening by Tom Gunther, one of the riders on Mike Mountford’s spread over on t
he far side of South Bend. Gunther had been in town on ranch business when the disgruntled posse had returned to Hanging Rock after its fruitless chase. He had heard all the details that were available, and then hopped on his horse to make tracks for the Double M, Mountford’s place.

  ‘Hell an’ damnation, that’s bad news,’ swore Tate. ‘I’m wonderin’ what de Witt’ll do if he’s cleaned out.’

  ‘That’s what I rode by to tell yu,’ said Gunther. ‘Brady’s called a meetin’ of all the local people for tomorrow afternoon, an’ I jest bet myself a dollar de Witt is goin’ to be the star speaker.’

  ‘No bet,’ said Tate gloomily. ‘Gunther, I’m shore obliged to yu for stoppin’ by. Won’t yu light down an’ eat?’

  ‘Thank yu kindly, but I better get on back to the ranch,’

  Gunther said. ‘As for stoppin’ by, hell! Mike woulda kicked me from here to Hangin’ Rock if I hadn’t!’

  Promising to see them in town the next day, Gunther thundered off down the valley with his bad news. Tate turned to face Sudden.

  ‘Jim, I got a feelin’ this is gonna be bad for us. If de Witt calls my mortgage now, I’m sunk. I ain’t got the coin, an’ sellin’ beef’ll shore cut my yield at this time o’ year.’

  ‘Maybe we just oughta wait an’ see what this banker fella has in mind,’ offered Sudden. ‘If he’s a banker, he oughta see the sense o’ not pushin’ yu for the coin now an’ lowerin’ the value of yore herd. That’d be bad economics an’ bad bankin’ both. Yu don’t wanta look on the black side till yu got to.’

  Tate’s gloom lifted momentarily. ‘Maybe yo’re right, Jim.Leastways, we can talk to de Witt first, an’ worry after we hear what he has in mind.’

  ‘De Witt,’ mused the cowboy. ‘Unusual handle.’

  ‘Easterner,’ agreed Tate. ‘Finicky sorta gent, although I ain’t sayin’ he don’t deal square. I never had no reason to complain with either him or Clark.’

  Sudden looked his question, and the rancher went on to explain, ‘Clark—that’s the cashier that’s cashed—used to run the bank until de Witt came out here a couple o’ years ago. He’d been sent special by the Bank’s trustees to expand the business or somethin’—some kind o’ financial director. Wizard with figgers. Anyway, he shore expanded. Persuaded Pat Newman, who runs the mines up on Thunder Mesa, to let the bank handle the mine’s payroll, which shore brung some extra business into Hangin’ Rock. Them merchants down there’d kiss de Witt’s boots if he told ’em to.’

  ‘I’m takin’ it yu still ain’t one o’ his admirers, though? hazarded Sudden.

  ‘Well, like I said, Jim, he’s allus dealt fair an’ square with me. I can’t put my finger on what it is I don’t like about the man. I guess I’m just gettin’ old an’ crotchety.’

  To this observation Green made no reply, determining to make up his own mind about the banker at the first opportunity.

  Next morning, leaving the others at the ranch lest word of the meeting in town encourage the so-called Shadows to chance a strike at the Slash 8, Sudden and his employer saddled their horses and rode into Hanging Rock. The streets were packed with horses and wagons, and every conceivable kind of complexion and style of dress was represented on the streets. Here a swarthy Mexican in conical sombrero and multi-colored serape lounged against a verandah, while next to him a group of tough-looking miners in their billycock hats and tight-fitting blue suits argued furiously. Heavily armed riders from outlying ranches had heard the news and ridden into town, and the saloons were filled to overflowing with men discussing the robbery with more vehemence than accuracy. Tate and Sudden plunged into the babel of noise and people that was Dutchy’s saloon, and the oldster ploughed his way through the crowd to reach the side of a roly-poly man of middle height, perhaps fifty years of age, whose hair was white at the temples and whose vest was liberally dusted with ashes from the evil-smelling cigar in his mouth.

  ‘Well, here’s Tate now,’ said the man. ‘This is a right how-de-do, George. What do you make of it?’

  Tate shrugged his shoulders and Sudden asked the group of men whether anyone knew how much had been stolen. ‘Twenty thousand, I heard,’ answered a nearby man over his shoulder.

  The roly-poly man looked at Sudden quizzically, and Tate hastened to make the introductions.

  ‘Jim,’ he announced, ‘this yere’s Mike Mountford, the biggest liar in the Territory.’

  ‘That’s takin’ in a fair amount o’ ground, seh,’ smiled Sudden. ‘Yu must tell a pretty tall story.’

  ‘I never tell nothin’ but the truth, boy,’ boomed Mountford.

  ‘It’s just these small-minded folk around hyar that don’t believe it ’less they’ve seen it with their own peepers.’

  ‘Tales yu tell, I wouldn’t believe yu if’n yu told me an ass was an animal with four legs,’ grinned Tate, good-naturedly.

  ‘Wal, that’s as may be,’ Mountford allowed. ‘I c’n point to an ass with two legs right about now, however, an’ I’m bettin’ yu’ll believe me.’

  He pointed with his chin at a fat, ungainly man using a stool to climb up on the bar—a performance which was not allowed to pass unnoticed by the habitués of Dutchy’s bar, who raised a ribald cheer to greet it.

  ‘Our Sheriff,’ Mountford told Sudden, ‘referred to by those who know an’ detest him as “Shady” Brady?’

  Sudden watched the fat man’s reaction to the jeers of the spectators which accompanied his unedifying scramble on to the bar. The man’s weak mouth and piggy eyes revealed his discomfort—and his hatred of—the attentions of Hanging Rock’s citizens.

  ‘Shore looks like a misfit,’ he observed to his employer.

  ‘Like I told yu,’ nodded Tate. ‘If brains was blastin’ powder, Shady wouldn’t have enough to assassinate an ant.’

  They turned back towards the bar as Jake Burkhart, the burly, bearded owner of the saloon, pounded upon the bar with a wooden mallet which was normally used for opening beer kegs. After a few moments of this, the noise level dropped sufficiently for the Sheriffs squeaky voice to be heard.

  ‘For them as don’t yet know the details,’ Brady announced, ‘the bank was robbed yesterday by four masked men. They shot Charley Clark, an’ cleared off with around twenty thousand dollars in cash.’

  One or two awed whistles punctured the silence which followed these words; there were still many in the town who did not know the details of the robbery. Brady waited for silence, then continued.

  ‘They musta known that the payroll for the mines had arrived. That was the biggest part o’ the loot. The rest was cash on hand. Mr. de Witt’ll tell yu all about that later. I raised a posse—’

  ‘—Yu mean it raised yu, don’t yu, Sheriff? called a dry voice from the back of the room, raising general laughter. Brady’s predisposition to take a siesta during the hottest hours of the day was well known to everyone in town. The discomfited Sheriff cast a black look in the direction from which the jibing voice had come, and went on, ‘Like I said, we raised a posse an’ trailed the robbers. They took a big wide sweep across the back o’ town, across the north foothills o’ the Needles, an’ then headed across the Barclay range an’ into the Badlands. That’s where we lost ’em. Tryin’ to find a trail in that country is as hard as—’

  ‘—Tryin’ to get yu to buy a drink!’ came the same voice that had previously spoken. Brady whirled towards the direction from which it had come, his hand flying to the gun strapped around his ample middle.·

  ‘Yu better watch yore lip, unless yu want to spend a few days in jail,’ he shrilled. ‘Let’s see who yu are, anyway.’

  To Sudden’s surprise the crowd parted to allow a disheveled-looking man to step forward.

  ‘Patches, the town medic,’ whispered Tate. ‘Yu watch Shady back down.’

  Sure enough, the appearance of his tormentor had removed all of Brady’s bluster. ‘Patches’, as he was called, was not a figure to inspire this reaction, Sudden thought. Dressed in a frock coat which had once been blac
k and was now a mottled dirt grey, a collarless boiled shirt soiled by months of wear, and greasy corduroy trousers tucked into the tops of cracked, scuffed half boots, the town’s doctor looked anything but prepossessing. His chin was unshaven, his eyes bleary, and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse. All in all, he had the aspect of faded gentility in its final stages of decay, and his thin, dissipated features added strongly to the illusion of age. He regarded Brady with studied contempt.

  ‘Well, Shady, my friend, are you going to lock me up?’

  Snatching at his only opportunity to save face, Brady snapped, ‘Yu know I ain’t goin’ to lock yu up while yo’re sick, Patches. But one o’ these days yo’re goin’ to let that tongue o’ yours run a mite too fast, an’ when yu do—’

  ‘Oh, step down, you blustering fool!’ snapped the doctor, impatiently. ‘Let us hear from someone with something to say. I’m sure Mr. de Witt can make more sense in one sentence than you could if you wrote a book. That,’ he finished savagely, ‘is always supposing that you can write.’

  The Sheriff, with a look of pure hatred for his tormentor, scrambled awkwardly down from the bar. Sudden turned to his employer with a question.

  ‘I dunno, Jim,’ Tate told him. ‘Brady wouldn’t lock Patches up because his life would be hell if Patches was in the cells behind the office. He’s got a mean tongue, has Patches. An’ anyway, couple of hours from now he’ll be blind drunk again.’

  ‘Pity—he must have been quite a man, once.’

  They fell silent again as a new speaker took Brady’s place on the bar.

  ‘That’s de Witt,’ said Tate. Sudden nodded, without replying, and cast an appraising look at Hanging Rock’s banker. De Witt was tall and painfully thin, so that even standing erect, his figure seemed hunched. His complexion was yellowish and jaundiced; his hands, bony and claw-like, hung by his sides as if they did not belong to him. Only the dark, deep-set eyes were truly alive; they flicked hither and yon above and around the assembly, watching every movement from beneath low, heavy brows and cavernous eye sockets. The forehead was noble and high, sloping backwards slightly to thick, black, straight hair. The whole figure was dressed in somber black, relieved only by the white of a good linen shirt.