‘What’s happenin’ out there in the street, Bob?’ he asked.
‘Nothin’,’ mumbled Davis. ‘They’re keepin’ their heads down.’
‘Right smart o’ them,’ growled Billy. ‘Although they was quite keen to come out an’ see what yu was up to, Jim.’ He smiled again. ‘We kinda convinced ’em it warn’t healthy.’
Sudden grinned. ‘I’m bettin’ yu did, too. Thanks just the same.’
‘No thanks needed,’ said Billy jauntily. ‘It was purely a pleasure.’
Davis shifted uncomfortably at his post and Sudden regarded the storekeeper with narrowed eyes. Davis was living on his nerves, the puncher surmised. A faint twitch at the corner of one eye revealed the pressure the man was under, and his words confirmed it.
‘What’s keepin’ Hight?’ he muttered. ‘He’s been gone long enough, ain’t he?’
‘Give him a chance,’ Sudden told the storeman. ‘He ain’t loiterin’ none, yu can bet.’
Davis nodded, but his face was still set. He passed a hand over his eyes.
‘My Gawd, I’m tired,’ he confessed. ‘Shore seems like a hell of a long day.’
His companions nodded quietly in agreement. Sudden did not feel it wise to voice his private thought — that somehow he was sure the worst was yet to come. Such a remark would scarcely help Davis, to whom such incessant tension was totally alien.
His thoughts turned to the medico. Hight, too, was unused to gun war, and so was the boy. Both of them had shown remarkable fortitude, but that would be of little help if they did not soon replenish their waning stocks of ammunition. He had divided the bullets retrieved from the men in the arroyo into three piles, each containing fourteen bullets.
‘I’m hopin’ Sim Cotton don’t plan on rushin’ us,’ he thought. ‘Otherwise it’s goin’ to be a short war.’
He wondered for the tenth time how the doctor was faring.
Chapter Seventeen
Buck Cotton was not dead.
When Billy Hornby’s panic-stricken horse had stampeded off the street, dragging him behind it screaming, and helpless as a sack of flour, the half-Indian boy who worked as a horse-wrangler for Sim Cotton had been with the Cottonwood remuda. All of Cotton’s men had tethered their horses behind the sheriff’s shack, the boy Pasquale posted with them to prevent their being startled into stampeding away by the shooting.
As the horse hurtled around the house, Pasquale had acted almost without conscious volition, for his life’s training had been in controlling half-wild animals. He had leaped forward, throwing his wiry arms like steel bands around the animals’ neck, clamping fingers like iron into the flaring nostrils, plunging his high heels deep into the yielding, slowing dirt, dragging the horse to a sun-fishing, snorting stop almost by brute force. Eager hands had held the plunging, trembling animal; a razor-edged knife had parted the lariat in one sweeping slice. And they had pulled Buck Cotton to safety away from the murderous hoofs, carried him into the sheriff’s rude abode, and laid him upon the lumpy bed. There Buck Cotton lay now. His face was raw and pulped, a mass of torn flesh; the skin of his arms and hands had been stripped off, ripped away by the scouring dust and stones of the street. His clothes were in tatters, ragged and blood spattered, and his hair was matted with dirt and gore. Buck Cotton tossed feebly on the bed, moaning, cursing with pain. Sim Cotton stood regarding him dispassionately.
‘Pity yu wasn’t killed,’ he told the half-conscious figure on the bed. ‘Yu shore ain’t no help to us this way.’
Art Cotton moved across the room, his expressionless eyes fixing those of his older brother.
‘Take it easy, Sim he said. ‘It warn’t his fault.’
‘Not his fault?’ snarled Sim Cotton. ‘Yu think I give a damn whether it was his fault or not? All I know is that this whole stinkin’ town seen my kid brother paraded in here like a ‘Pache squaw, with a rope round his neck. Damn him! An’ damn that misfit cowboy who started all this!’ He stalked across the room, glaring out of the window at the blank wall of the stable across the street.
‘He was on’y doin’ what yu told him to do remonstrated Art Cotton. ‘Tryin’ to get the kid’s sister…’
‘An’ he made a mess of it, o’ course,’ jeered Sim. ‘That two-bit nester kid outsmarted him.’
‘He outsmarted all of us, Sim,’ the other pointed out. ‘It was as if they knowed all along what we’d do.’
‘Bah, pure luck!’ flung Sim Cotton. ‘They’re fools for luck, but I ain’t through yet by a long chalk. Not by a long chalk,’ he muttered, as if confirming his own thoughts. He sat down heavily in a wicker chair, staring moodily at his own boots.
Art Cotton touched his younger brother’s shoulder.
‘Yu all right, Bucky?’ he asked, helplessly.
A groan was his only reply. Art looked at the half-Indian boy, who had been trying to clean Bucky’s bloody face. Pasquale regarded him impassively.
‘Bucky hurt bad,’ he offered.
‘I know it, damn yu!’ ground out Art.
‘Need doctor.’ added Pasquale imperturbably.
Sim Cotton jumped to his feet, his brows lowered, his gaze intense, almost insane. He had no feeling for his young brother’s hurt, and was only conscious of the deep wound to his own pride witnessed by the town he had thought of as his own personal property.
‘Doctor him, then!’ he thundered. ‘Quit yammerin’ about it.’
Pasquale shook his head, his expression wooden.
‘I not doctor,’ he said.
‘Pasquale’s right Sim,’ Art Cotton added. ‘He needs a real medico.’
Sim Cotton took a deep, deep breath, then released it as a growl of exasperation.
‘Art, yu goin’ soft in yore old age?’ he grated. ‘So the kid needs a medico. Yu can’t be so stupid that yu don’t know there’s only one medico in this fleabag of a town, an’ yu been tradin’ slugs with him for nigh on an hour. Yu fixin’ to amble over to that stable an’ ask him real nicely to come out an’ tend to Bucky?’ He laughed; an ugly, mirthless sound. ‘He’d spit in yore face, an’ so would I in his place.’ He went on, larding his voice with heavy, cutting scorn. ‘But don’t let me stop yu. Go on over an’ try it. Yu’ll get a slug in yore gizzard, but it’s yore gizzard. Go ahead — fly at it. There’s the door — go fetch the doc.’
He made an expansive bow, and gestured towards the door. Art Cotton looked at him, flat, expressionless, for a long moment.
‘Don’t yu care none about Bucky?’ he asked eventually.
‘Not much,’ was the callous reply. ‘Not any more. He got hisself into this. Come to think of it, he got all of us into it.’
Pasquale stood up. A man better schooled in observing men than Sim Cotton might have seen the disgust behind the boy’s impassive expression, but not the owner of the Cottonwood, consumed as he was with hatred.
‘Could get into doctor house,’ he offered. ‘Get to river. Arroyo on other side of bridge lead to doctor house. Mebbe get med’cine.’
Art Cotton stood up as the Indian boy delivered himself of this, for him, unheard-of colloquy.
‘Pasquale’s right, Sim,’ he said. ‘A man could edge down to the river bottom, then work up the arroyo. Jackson an’ the others’d be coverin’ the stable. It could work.’
His brother nodded, his mind occupied with other thoughts.
‘Go ahead if yu want to,’ he said unfeelingly. ‘I don’t reckon it matters much whether yo’re here or not. Yu ain’t been worth a dime since that drifter whipped yu.’
His voice had suddenly turned cutting and cold, and he turned to face his brother once more.
‘I allus figgered that when the chips was down I’d be left to do the real fightin’ on my own,’ he went on. ‘Bucky never was worth a damn, an’ yu — yu was only muscle at the best o’ times. When there’s brainwork to be done, the Cotton family ain’t up to much. Go on,’ he sneered. ‘Get some ointment for yore ickle brudder. Damn if I don’t put yu in skirts when yu come
back.’ His voice rose to a thunder. ‘Get out, get out o’ here! Damned nester kid’s got more guts than all o’ yu put together!’
Without a word, Art Cotton got up and went out of the back door. His mind was black with hatred of his older brother. For all these years he had mindlessly obeyed Sim’s commands, carried out without question the orders to oppress, to beat, to harass, and even to murder, never expecting to hear praise, doing it simply because Sim was Sim, and you no more questioned Sim Cotton’s commands than anyone had ever questioned while he was alive the orders of Zeke, their father. And now this casual, slow-talking drifter had blown Sim Cotton’s world apart and Sim himself was teetering on the edge of madness. Art considered for a moment. Supposing … the thought was frightening, then the whiplash words his brother had just spoken stiffened his resolve. He pursued the thought which had insinuated itself into his head. Just suppose … suppose that Sim did go over the edge? Suppose that something happened to him — something else? Something fatal, or even for that matter something crippling. Who then would lead the Cottonwood men? Who would reap the rich, fat rewards for which Sim Cotton had planned all these years? A wolfish grin turned Art Cotton’s thin lips downwards. Yes, he thought, who? Would Bucky back Sim, if he knew how Sim had dismissed him, consigned him to death without a thought? No, Bucky would not. Would any of the Cottonwood men care who led them? Those who were left would follow the strong man, the man who could pay their gunfighter’s wage. Yes. And yes again. If this rebellion of the town was crushed, then he, Art Cotton, would assume control. Providing something happened to Sim. It might happen anyway. Sim looked ragged at the edges now. It wouldn’t take much more.
And if he survived?
‘He won’t,’ grated Art Cotton, unaware that he had spoken aloud as he stood in the shadow of the house, his brow lowered in thought.
‘He won’t what, Art?’ asked one of the riders, a thickset, heavy-mustached fellow called Whitey. Art recovered himself rapidly.
‘Bucky,’ he told the rider. ‘He won’t live. Unless we get some stuff for his wounds. Yu better back me, Whitey. Yu, too, Nick,’ he said to a second rider who was keeping a watchful eye on the stable from his post at the corner of the house.
‘What’s up, Art?’ asked the latter.
‘Bucky,’ explained Art Cotton. ‘He’s bad hurt. I aim to slide over an’ get some medicine an’ stuff from Hight’s place. Yu boys’re comin’ with me. I’ll be needin’ someone to cover me. Hight’s in the stable with the puncher an’ the kid, so I ain’t expecting’ no trouble at the house but — I might need some cover fire if they spot me. I ain’t plannin’ on gettin’ boxed in there.’
Whitey and Nick nodded. Theirs was not to question the wisdom of Art Cotton’s plan — they were paid to do his bidding and no questions asked. Exposing themselves to danger was part of that. They fell in alongside him, and together the three of them moved cautiously back behind the house, using the jail building as further cover as they edged down towards the river. They reached the brush-speckled, shelving bank without incident and Art Cotton led the way down, sliding a little on the clay-slick earth, half crouching, sloshing ahead of his two riders towards the bridge carrying the road out of town which lay on their left.
‘Jackson an’ Platt is up there behind the stable with Caldecott,’ Art told them. ‘But they won’t see us from where they’re cached.’
‘Yu better be right,’ mumbled Whitey grimly. ‘I ain’t hankerin’ after bein’ cut down by one o’ my own sidekicks, an’ that’s whatever.’
Art Cotton half turned, his face contemptuous.
‘Cold feet, Whitey?’ he jibed.
‘It ain’t cold feet to be careful about gettin’ a slug in yore belly,’ retorted Whitey unabashed.
‘Hell,’ scoffed Nick, whistling past the graveyard, ‘They got more sense’n that, shorely?’
‘I allus reckoned Bill Hickok had more sense than enough,’ Whitey recalled, ‘but he still managed to shoot down his own deppity in Abilene one time.’
‘Keep quiet!’ hissed Art Cotton. ‘Yu fools jabber worse’n two kids on a picnic!’
The two riders lapsed sullenly into silence as Art sloshed out of the riverbed and, bending low, scurried up the bank and dived face forward to the ground in the shallow arroyo. He wormed forward, Whitey and Nick close behind him. Presently they were opposite the rear of Hight’s house. The open space between their shelter and the back door of the house gaped before them. Art Cotton surveyed it warily.
‘Can’t see the boys none,’ he muttered. ‘An’ them jaspers in the stable ain’t advertizin’ which window they’re at, neither.’ He lay on the sloping arroyo wall, whipping his nerve.
‘Hell,’ he decided aloud. ‘They can’t see us none.’ He got to his knees, crouching low. ‘Come on!’
He clambered up over the arroyo edge, scuttling forward over the dusty open ground towards Hight’s house. The two Cottonwood riders, after a moment’s hesitation, darted after him. They reached the house in a bunch, panting, sweat drenching them. No shots broke the silence.
‘Told yu so!’ gasped Art Cotton. ‘Come on.’
Within another minute they were in the house. It was hot and close inside, for the blinds had not been drawn and the sun’s fierce rays had inexorably raised the temperature in the building.
‘Keep yore eyes skinned,’ Art Cotton ordered his men. ‘Yu, Whitey, take the front window. Nick, yu watch the back. No shootin’ unless yu got to. Yu hear me? I’m goin’ to see if I can find anythin’ that’ll help Bucky.’
He barged into the small room which Hight used as a study and for seeing his patients. In it were only a desk, a small leather-covered table, a swivel chair and two wooden upright chairs by the window. Against the wall stood a glass-fronted cupboard. In it were some simple surgical instruments, an array of bottles and boxes. Art Cotton slid over to it, careful to avoid showing himself at the uncovered window.
‘Ought to be somethin’ in here,’ he muttered. A swift blow from his pistol barrel shattered the pane of glass fronting the cupboard, obviating the necessity of finding a key for the small padlock on the door hasp. A vicious curse escaped Cotton’s lips. His gaze revealed that the labels were all incomprehensibly inscribed in some unreadable scrawled language. Had he been able to, Art Cotton might have recognized it as Latin, but as it was, his reaction was simply to clumsily grab whichever of them looked as if it might contain what he needed. He began to thrust them into the deep pockets of his chaps.
‘I’ll sort ’em out later,’ he muttered. ‘Damn that medico for a quack, labelin’ his junk thataway…’ He swept aside the gleaming instruments, grinding their delicate forms to a twisted mass of metal beneath his angry heel. Wheeling around, he kicked over the leather–covered table, reducing it to kindling against the remains of the cupboard.
He was looking wildly about for something else to break when without warning a blasting of shots from somewhere to the back of the house brought his head up like that of a hunted animal.
‘What the h—’ he snarled as he whirled about, moving in haste into the larger area of the living room. He found Nick and Whitey peering anxiously through the back windows, their bodies flattened against the wall of the house.
‘What in the name o’ Satan’s goin’ on?’ he barked. ‘I told yu—’
‘It warn’t us, Art,’ interposed Nick. ‘Sounded like it come from the arroyo.’
‘Mebbe they tried to make a break for it, an’ the boys made ’em think again hazarded Whitey. ‘It’s shore stopped now.’
They listened in silence for another few moments, then Art Cotton nodded.
‘Yo’re probably right at that he conceded. ‘Anyways, I got what I come for. It’s time to get out o’ here.’
He moved over to the door, and was about to turn the handle when a stifled exclamation escaped the lips of Whitey, who was still peering out of the window.
‘Hold it, Art!’ snapped the man. ‘Somethin’s up!’
&n
bsp; Cotton leaped over to the window, his eyes slitted, his figure tense.
‘What was it?’ he rapped out.
‘I seen that Green feller harin’ across towards the stable from the arroyo — hell?’
Art Cotton followed Whitey’s pointing finger, and a thin whistle escaped through his teeth. Slowly, a grin of unholy glee appeared on his face. He laughed like a jackal.
‘It’s the medico!’ he gasped unbelievingly. ‘Green musta made some kind o’ diversion to give him time to break out.’ He pulled back from the window, gesturing the two riders to do likewise.
‘The medico,’ he breathed, and the cold flat light was back in his eyes for the first time since he had confronted Green in the street of Cottontown. ‘An’ he’s walkin’ right into our hands!’
Chapter Eighteen
‘Howdy, Doc!’
Art Cotton’s voice was wicked and level and low and Hight recoiled, his hand moving back from the door handle as if it had suddenly turned into a rattlesnake. He half turned as though to break and run for it, his mouth opening to yell a warning.
‘Don’t yu.’
Art Cotton’s voice had hardly changed, but Hight sensed the evil desire in it now, the just-suppressed urge to kill, as distinct as the rock-steady revolver in the Cottonwood man’s hairy paw. Its bore yawned at Hight; and he could see the whiteness of Cotton’s trigger-finger knuckle. One fraction of an ounce of pressure and he was a dead man. His mind raced. How had they known? How had they foreseen what Sudden would do? How had they got here? Did they know how short of ammunition the beleaguered men were? He let his muscles go slack, allowing a puzzled frown to settle on his face.
‘What are you doing here?’ was all he said.
‘Oh, we just dropped in,’ grinned Cotton evilly. ‘Seemed like a nice day for visitin’.’ He motioned with the gun. ‘Get in here afore yore pards start wonderin’ why yore loiterin’ on yore own doorstep.’
Sudden--At Bay (A Sudden Western #2) Page 12
