The Night McLennan Died (A Big Jim Western Book 1)

by Marshall Grover

  “But his damnedest,” countered Jim, “won’t be enough. And that’s something you can count on.”

  “Block B could wipe out every psalm-singin’ do-gooder in Libertad!” asserted Arnie, gesticulating wildly. “You and that slow-brained sheriff—and all his no-account friends ...”

  “If your pappy aims to lead an attack,” Jim dryly remarked, “he’d best not send any more of his hired guns to Libertad—not one at a time, anyway. I calculate there are only a half-dozen left out at Block B.” He added, casually, “Excluding Cousin Clegg, of course.”

  “Clegg wouldn’t ...!” began Arnie. And then, realizing that he had been prodded into a rash word, he hastened to make amends. “Clegg? Who—who’s Clegg?”

  “It seems all you Burdettes have bad memories,” jibed Jim. “Can’t even recall the names of your own kin, huh, boy?”

  He grinned mirthlessly, as he moved on along the corridor and into the front office. As he re-secured the cellblock door, Durrance turned away from one of the front windows and reported:

  “Somebody just now hightailed it out of town—somebody in one helluva hurry.”

  “Any guesses, Luke?” asked Deitch.

  “Some friend of Block B,” shrugged the sheriff. “Some sneakin’ sonofagun that hankers to find favor with old Cyrus.”

  “Calvert,” grunted Nash, “would be my guess.”

  Jim stood in the center of the room, thumbs hooked in his cartridge belt, his cigarette working from side to side of his mouth, as he indulged in some deep thinking.

  “About Celie,” he frowned. “If Old Man Burdette does come a’raiding ...”

  “I know what’s in your mind, and I already took precautions,” Hillary assured him. “He’d find my house empty. I sent Celie a message. She’s sleepin’ at the Giddons house tonight. Doc’s wife and sister will take good care of her.”

  “That makes me feel a sight easier,” said Jim. “All right now—you’re the boss-lawman ...” He eyed Hillary expectantly. “What’s your next move?”

  “What can I do?” fretted Hillary, “except hold my prisoners—defend this jailhouse as best I can ...?”

  “It would help,” Jim suggested, “if the circuit-judge could make a fast run south to Libertad.”

  “That’d help plenty,” the sheriff warmly agreed, “but there’s not much hope of it, Jim. Like I told you before. Judge Ford ain’t as young as he used to be, and the Burdettes scared him off.”

  “You ever think of arranging an escort for the judge?” asked Jim. “He doesn’t have to wait for a southbound stage. All he needs is a rig and a driver. A buckboard would do.”

  “But how do I hire an escort-party?” demanded Hillary. “Look around you, Jim. The only men I can count on—the only men willin’ to risk their lives in this fight—are right here in this room.”

  “I wasn’t going to suggest you should send anybody to meet the judge,” muttered Jim. “There’s an easier way.”

  “You tell me about that easier way,” offered Hillary, “and I’ll sure as hell go along with it.”

  “Request co-operation,” said Jim, crisply.

  “From …?” prodded Hillary.

  “From a mighty reliable organization.” Jim grinned a wistful grin. “The United States Cavalry.”

  “Well ...” began Hillary.

  “Where would Judge Ford be, this time of the month?” asked Jim.

  “Tucson,” said Hillary, “for sure.”

  “Bueno,” grunted Jim. “San Marco is only a few hours south of Tucson. Let me handle this my way, Luke, and I guarantee the judge’ll be here in Libertad by tomorrow’s sundown. First I’d telegraph the officer commanding my old outfit. That’s the Eleventh Cavalry, stationed just outside San Marco. If he’ll consent to have a half-dozen troopers and an N.C.O. meet the judge in San Marco and bring him to Libertad, I’ll wire the good word to the judge. All you have to do for a starter,” said Jim, “is tell me where to find the local telegrapher.”

  Eight – Shadow of Reprisal

  The new deputy wondered at the reaction to his last statement. Hillary’s face clouded over. Durrance grimaced and Deitch mumbled a curse. Nash, usually the taciturn one, told Jim:

  “Our telegrapher is a hombre name of Abe Latham, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw you.”

  “Western Union operators,” Jim protested, “have a good reputation.”

  “Almost every telegrapher I ever knew was trustworthy,” the sheriff conceded. “But Latham? I don’t know about Latham.”

  “If you know of anything positive ...” began Jim.

  “That’s the hell of it,” growled Hillary. “All I got is suspicions.” He explained his attitude one point at a time. First, Travis Burdette often paid for Latham’s liquor at the Rialto. Second, the gang that raided the southbound stage six months ago knew exactly where to find a shipment of cash consigned to the Libertad Settlers’ Bank. Not in the strongbox, but hidden in a sack of grain on the coach roof. “Who knew the shipment would be camouflaged that way? Only the Tucson headquarters and the Libertad manager of the bankin’ company. And how did the bank manager know? He got a telegraph from Tucson. Third—Latham had plenty dinero in his jeans, right after that hold-up.”

  “And, to this day,” frowned the blacksmith, “he always acts friendly with Block B.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Jim asked the sheriff. “Do you think Latham would only pretend to transmit these messages?”

  “Something like that,” nodded Hillary. “You’d be at a disadvantage, Jim. This Latham is the only telegrapher within seventy miles of Libertad.”

  Jim grinned bleakly and retorted, “Guess again.”

  “You mean ...?” began Hillary.

  “I couldn’t qualify for a job with Western Union,” said Jim, “but the signals sergeant of the Eleventh was a good friend of mine. I taught him poker and he had beginner’s luck, so he insisted on teaching me Morse code. Now, I don’t say I could transmit like a professional ...”

  “But you’d know,” prodded Deitch, “if Latham pulled any fancy tricks?”

  “I’d know,” nodded Jim. “Well? Where do I find him?”

  “Jim, it was a lucky day for Libertad when you stopped by,” Hillary fervently asserted. “Go ahead. You’ll find Latham at the telegraph office. A block uptown, this same side of the street. His bedroom’s in back of the office.”

  “Lock and bar the door after me,” muttered Jim. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  After descending from the law office porch, Jim turned right and began striding along the boardwalk. A narrow alley separated the jailhouse from the next building. As he drew abreast of that alley, the familiar voice halted him in his tracks with a mumbled greeting.

  “Saludos, Amigo Jim. You got a match?”

  He sighed in exasperation, fished a vesta from his shirt-pocket and scratched it to life on his thumbnail. His runty, self-styled “close and dear friend” was lounging in the alley-mouth, grinning, chewing on an unlit cigarillo. He held the match to the cigarillo, waited for Benito to take a light, then flicked the match away and asked:

  “How long have you been snooping around the sheriff’s office?”

  “Long enough, amigo,” grinned Benito. “Long enough to know that I am one grande—how you say—hunch-player? I was right, no? This muy malo old lobo—he send this pistolero to kill you, no?”

  “He surely did,” Jim admitted.

  “Where do we go now?” asked Benito.

  “In different directions,” Jim curtly assured him. “Me thataway—you some other way. That clear, boy? You tag me, and it’s gonna cost you all your front teeth.”

  “I am one hombre that never goes where he is not wanted,” retorted Benito, self-righteously.

  “In that case,” scowled Jim, “you’ll never get to go any place.”

  But, as inevitably as the rising and setting of the sun, the little Mex was still close behind him a few moments later, when he rapped
at the front door of the Western Union building. It was now three thirty-five a.m., with Calle Central so tomb-quiet that his rapping on the door sounded as the booming of a battering ram. A few moments later, a lamp was lit in the office and the door was unlocked and opened by a thin, bleary-eyed man garbed in nightshirt, robe and boots.

  “You’re Latham—the telegraph-operator?” Jim demanded. He didn’t wait for an answer, nor for an invitation. With Benito at his heels, he moved past the telegrapher and into the office. “Shut the door. I want you to open your transmitter and get a couple of messages off. Urgent official business. I’m Rand—the new deputy.”

  Latham closed the door, eyeing him askance.

  “You—uh—the feller that arrested Arnie Burdette?”

  “Don’t sell me short,” chided Jim. “I took brother Travis and some gunslick name of Kramer along with Arnie. And now my score is four, because a raw amateur called Waco Sammy tried to kill me a little while ago, and ...”

  “Sammy Harbin ...?” blinked Latham. “You call him a raw amateur?”

  “Let me put it this way,” drawled Jim. “I’m still alive, and Harbin’s sitting in a cell nursing a sore jaw.” He jerked a thumb to indicate Latham’s desk and the transmitter and prepared to dispatch the message now being composed by Jim, who had helped himself to pad and pencil. By the time the machinery of communication was ready to function, Jim was ready with his first message. He tore it from the pad and handed it to Latham, while Benito seated himself nearby and watched with seemingly casual interest.

  “This first one is for Camp Allison—the officer commanding,” Jim explained.

  He propped an elbow on the counter and, as Latham read through the message, studied his reaction. As a poker player, the telegrapher couldn’t have kept himself in tobacco; his face was an open book.

  “Well—uh ...” he began.

  “And here’s the second one.” Jim handed him the second page. “That’s for Judge Ford in Tucson—if I get an affirmative answer to the first one. You savvy, Mr. Latham?”

  Having read both messages, Latham spent a moment in deep thought. And then, somewhat hesitantly, he began transmitting. Jim’s eyes narrowed. He waited a few moments, listening to the chattering of Latham’s key, before remarking:

  “That’s just fine—if all you want is to keep in practice—but when are you gonna start sending the message?”

  The color drained from Latham’s face. He turned, stared over his shoulder at the big man.

  “I was—just ...” His voice choked off; he swallowed a lump in his throat.

  “Yeah, sure.” Jim nodded soothingly. “Just warming up the set, huh? That’s okay by me. We won’t quarrel, Mr. Latham, so long as you transmit that message exactly as I’ve written it down!”

  “Please, Amigo Jim ...” Benito decided to lend his wit to this unfriendly persuasion, “do not become angry with Señor Latham—like back in Ladera City—three years ago ...?”

  Jim had never heard of Ladera City; it happened to be naught but a figment of Benito’s imagination. Even so, his wit was as agile as the Mexican’s.

  “It’s funny,” he mused, “but I’ve plumb forgotten about Ladera City.”

  “That operator made one foolish mistake,” opined Benito.

  “Trouble with this Ladera City operator,” shrugged Jim, “he didn’t know I savvy Morse.” Elaborately casual, he glanced at Latham’s equipment. “You keep your gear in good shape. That’s fine. I see your transmitter has all the improvements brought in year before last.”

  “Uh—yeah—sure,” panted Latham.

  “That Ladera City telegrafista.” Benito frowned sadly at Jim. “You did not have to beat him so badly, my friend. You could have shown him some mercy.”

  “Well ...” Jim gestured nonchalantly.

  “To break both his arms,” chided Benito, “after he was already almost unconscious—bleeding from mouth and nose and ears. And then ...” Another mournful sigh, “to dent his head with the pistola—to smash the window—by throwing him through it ...” He shook his head, looked at Latham again. “It was a second-storey window.”

  “Oh my gosh ...!” breathed Latham.

  “Mr. Latham,” frowned Jim, “would you answer me a question?”

  “Anything!” gasped Latham. “Anything at all!”

  “Would you tell me why you’re stalling?” demanded Jim. “Why in blazes you don’t go right ahead and send my message?”

  “Rightaway!” panted the telegrapher. “At once! Immediately!”

  “Well,” said Jim, “I reckon that’ll be soon enough.” That first message was transmitted rapidly and with scrupulous accuracy. The reply came through some fifteen minutes later, and Jim was reminded that an all-night watch was kept on the Camp Allison signals office. In his mind, he could easily picture the scene—an N.C.O. hustling to the private quarters of Colonel McCord—the colonel roused from slumber to read the request—the few muttered words of assent—the N.C.O. returning to the signals office at the double.

  The answer was exactly as he had anticipated. It was, after all, a small request. He would have been surprised if McCord had refused.

  “Bueno,” he grunted. “So the army says ‘okay’. Start transmitting again, Mr. Latham. Let’s find out how Judge Ford feels about a rush trip to Libertad—now that we’ve organized an escort for him.”

  By four-thirty a.m., it was all over; every message acknowledged, every question answered. Judge Julian Ford would leave Tucson at sunrise and rendezvous with his military escort mid-morning at San Marco. Allowing for meal pauses, he could reasonably be expected to arrive in Libertad before sundown. All the formalities required in the preparation of Arnie Burdette’s trial could then proceed. There would be ample time for the father of the accused to arrange for his son’s defense; he could hire an attorney right here in Libertad or import counsel from Tucson, Bisbee or Prescott. He could, but, in Jim’s opinion, it wasn’t likely. Cyrus Burdette had no trust in courts of law.

  “The old buzzard will bring all that’s left of his outfit to town,” he predicted to Benito, after they had quit the telegraph office. “He’ll stake his men out, and then he’ll order Sheriff Hillary to turn his prisoners loose. Hillary will refuse—he has to refuse.”

  “And so there will be one big batalla campal, uh?” prodded Benito.

  “A full-scale siege,” nodded Jim. “And I’m sorry I won’t be here to lend Hillary a hand.”

  Benito eyed him incredulously, as they paused under a street-lamp.

  “No comprendo,” he protested.

  “I don’t care two cents if you comprendo or not, boy,” growled Jim.

  “You are not a hombre who would turn his back on such a conflict,” argued Benito.

  “It’s none of your doggone business,” muttered Jim. “But I’ll tell you this much. While Hillary and his friends are trading shots with the Block B bunch, I hope to be starting a little war of my own—with just one hombre.”

  “But ...” began Benito.

  “¡Silencio!” hissed Jim.

  He seized the runty thief’s arm in a vice-like grip and hauled him clear of the light thrown by the street-lamp. They were in the shadows by the time the horseman emerged from the side alley and into the street, to wheel his mount and begin riding northwards out of town. The rider was undoubtedly the telegrapher, Abe Latham.

  “I figured he’d do that,” grinned Jim. “Well, here’s where we really part, little Benny. You go your way—I go mine.”

  “Always we must say ¿‘adios’?” Benito heaved a forlorn sigh. “Ah—this causes me great sadness—mucho tristeza.”

  He was still standing in the shadows, voicing his deep regrets, when Jim hustled back to the law office. Hillary and his supporters began firing questions at him as soon as Durrance admitted him. He gestured impatiently.

  “I mightn’t have much time, so skip the questions and lend me your ears.” In a few terse sentences, he offered them the gist of his telegraphic commu
nications with Judge Ford and the O.C. of the 11th Cavalry. “And one thing you can count on,” he concluded. “Old Man Burdette will damn soon know what I’ve done, and he’ll be forced to make a wild move.”

  “You mean—ambush an army escort?” frowned Hillary. “Hell, no. Not even old Cyrus would take such a risk.”

  “He won’t risk a fight with the army,” Jim agreed, “but he’ll certainly try to bust his boys out of jail. That escort won’t just see the judge into some Libertad hotel and then head back to camp.”

  “You think they’ll hang around awhile?” demanded Deitch.

  “If they think there’s gonna be fighting,” nodded Jim. With a hint of pride, he added, “And especially if I ask ’em to stay.”

  “So—if the old man hankers to raid the jailhouse,” mused Durrance, “he’ll have to make his move before the army gets here.”

  “Any time after sun-up is my guess,” said Jim. He studied the front windows a moment, nodded pensively. “Well, you barricade those windows, load every gun you can scare up and, when the shooting starts, keep your heads down and make every shot count.”

  “You talk as though you aim to be someplace else when the shootin’ starts,” remarked Durrance.

  “I’ll be someplace else,” Jim grimly assured him, and he turned to face the sheriff. “Well, Luke, you know the score. If you can loan me some field glasses, I’ll be on my way.”

  “I don’t savvy ...” began Deitch.

  “No time for explanations now, Oscar,” muttered Hillary. “I don’t reckon Jim’ll mind if I tell you the score—but after he’s gone.”

  “I’ll try to get back in time to lend you a hand,” said Jim.

  “What will you do out there?” prodded Hillary. “Stake out on a rise? Spy on Block B till they all ride out?”

  “That’s what I had in mind,” nodded Jim. “And then I’ll move in and find out if your hunch was right.”

  “If Seymour, is there,” said Hillary, “and if he proves to be the man you’re lookin’ for, he won’t surrender quiet. You’ll have a fight on your hands.”

  “I know it,” frowned Jim. “But I’ll still try to get back in time for the showdown.”