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

by Marshall Grover

  He didn’t need the warning; he hadn’t forgotten about the bloodthirsty and mule-headed Cyrus Burdette. Even if he had forgotten, the old man was now offering a reminder of his presence. A Colt roared from somewhere in the region of the barn’s smoke-filled doorway. The bullet whined past Jim and embedded in the facade of the building this side of the law office. He went to ground again, rolled across to the nearest drinking trough. As he crawled around behind it, the old man cut loose again, triggering a slug that ricocheted off the edge of the trough. Jim re-cocked and called to him.

  “Come on out, old man! This is your last chance! Or do you hanker to still be in there—and feel your own flesh burning—when the walls and roof fall in?”

  “I saw your star!” raged Burdette. “You’re the smart-aleck sonofabitch deputy that arrested my boys ...!”

  “And I’m waiting to arrest you, Burdette!” called Jim. “You’re all through, so don’t try ...!”

  “Burdettes are never through!” shouted the old man. “Never defeated! Burdettes are gonna rule this territory—!”

  “Stop dreaming!” chided Jim. “Come on out with your hands up!”

  He studied the blazing roof of the barn. Portion of it was sagging already, and the left wall beginning to lean inward. How was the old hellion surviving in that holocaust? Well—it could be argued that fire was the natural habitat of a devil. Smoke was billowing from the doorway and, now that all shooting had ceased, a few nervous locals were showing themselves, gingerly advancing from east and west of Calle Central to view the scene of chaos.

  “Burdette!” yelled Jim, rising to his feet. “That roof won’t last another half-minute!”

  He began counting the seconds and, just as he reached forty, the scrawny old hardcase emerged from the almost gutted building—a somewhat startling sight; the face blackened from ash, the beard badly singed, the clothes actually smoldering as though about to burst into flames. He was toting a coiled gunbelt and, while Jim watched intently, he hurled it to the ground. It fell on the far side of the body of one of his hirelings and was lost from Jim’s sight, but it never occurred to him that the belt might have been coiled around an empty holster; Old Man Burdette looked to be unarmed. Straight-backed, he began crossing the street to where Jim stood. His arms were held away from his sides, and Jim could see no sign of a weapon, so he hammered down and holstered his own Colt.

  “This way,” he frowned, jerking a thumb towards the law office porch.

  There was a grinding, groaning, crashing sound, as the barn roof collapsed and the blazing walls fell inward. All that now remained of that building was a sizeable mound of burning timbers. Jim noted, and was thankful, that the wind was blowing from the south; there appeared little danger that the next building—Oscar Deitch’s store—would catch fire.

  He looked at Burdette again. The old man was now less than fifteen feet from him, and there was something strangely disquieting about the expression in those glaring, red-rimmed eyes.

  “Crazy for power,” Jim was thinking. “He wanted to be boss-man of this territory—wanted it so badly that it unhinged his brain.”

  The eyes of a madman were surveying him balefully from a distance of less than a dozen feet. And then, as swiftly as the head of a striking sidewinder, Burdette’s right hand darted behind his back and reappeared filled with death, a cocked six-gun. The weapon had been thrust into the rear of his pants-belt; he had never intended to surrender.

  Jim’s scalp crawled. He sidestepped hastily and was beginning his draw, when the guns roared from the front windows of the law office. Hillary and his volunteers, he now realized, must have had a bead on Burdette from the moment he emerged from the barn. Even though no weapon had been visible, they knew better than to trust this treacherous old terror. A rifle barked, a six-shooter boomed and a shotgun roared almost simultaneously, and that was the end for Cyrus Burdette. His Colt discharged skyward, as the impact of the buckshot, the .45 slug slamming into his chest, the rifle bullet striking his head, lifted him and hurled him backwards. Jim sighed heavily and released his grip of his Colt; it slid back snugly into his holster.

  While Doc Giddons was hustling along the boardwalk towards the law office with an anxious Celie in tow, Jim moved among the men sprawled in the street in front of the smoking ruin of the barn. Only one still lived, and he had the good sense to get rid of his six-gun, when Jim approached. Jim toted him over to the law office. Glancing to his left, as he carried the wounded hardcase up the steps, he saw Benito advancing towards him, leading the laden Capitan Cortez.

  The law office was a shambles, yet Hillary was restoring order at surprising speed. Smashed glass littered the floor. Durrance wore a head-bandage but appeared steady on his feet. Nash squatted on the couch, bleeding from a wound in his side, puffing on a cigar, cursing fluently and showing no sign of losing consciousness. Oscar Deitch was limping back and forth lending aid to the sheriff. He bled from no fewer than three wounds. His neck had been gashed by a sliver of flying glass, a ricocheting slug had creased his right leg, a rifle-bullet had grazed his left shoulder. Of course these were superfluous wounds; but Deitch, like Nash and the blacksmith, had surely done his share as a volunteer deputy. As for Hillary, by some quirk of fate he had emerged unscathed from this bloody siege. He dryly enquired of Jim:

  “Did you ever try to work a rifle or a shotgun left-handed?”

  “I hope I never have to, Luke,” grinned Jim. “I’m like you—a right-hander.”

  It was Celie, not Giddons, who tended Jim’s own wound. The rough doctoring offered by Benito at the Block B ranch house had been a temporary expedient at best. Using dressings, balm, antiseptic and bandages supplied by the medico, she did an almost professional job of cleaning and binding his bullet-gashed left arm. Giddons was in the cellblock administering to the wounded prisoners, with Durrance standing guard with a shotgun. For the Block B gang, the end had most certainly come; a reign of terror had ended.

  “Before this day ends,” Hillary told Jim, “I aim to ride out to Block B and search that ranch-house from attic to cellar—and I’m ready to bet a half-year’s salary that I’ll find loot from all the raids north of the border these past few months.”

  “Don’t say that while Benito can hear you,” cautioned Jim. “He’s apt to beat you to it.”

  “All right, I give you one last official order,” drawled Hillary. “I know you’re ready to resign, now that you’ve found and punished the jasper that killed your brother, but I’m askin’ you to keep your eye on the Mex till I get back from Block B.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jim. “I won’t let him out of my sight.”

  “Your distrust causes me mucho pesar,” Benito haughtily complained. “I am inconsolable.”

  ~*~

  The mortal remains of Dan McLennan, that peace-loving cowpoke whose wanton, wasteful murder had sounded the death-knell to the Burdette regime, were laid to rest at three-thirty that afternoon. The mourners were, for the most part, Circle T men. The ranch-boss and his family, also the foreman, came to Libertad with the hired hands to pay their last respects. And, because McLennan had vaguely reminded Jim of his own dead brother, Jim insisted on attending. Tomorrow, there would be more funerals—including that of Clegg Seymour.

  Sheriff Hillary had returned to town in the early afternoon with a bulging gunnysack slung to his saddlehorn. For many weeks to come, he would grapple with the chore of contacting all victims of the border raiders—banking companies, stagelines, express offices—and offering descriptions of the retrieved valuables, jewelry, etc., as well as arranging an adequate distribution of the cash unearthed from under a loose floorboard in Old Man Burdette’s bedroom.

  The lawman was awaiting Jim at the cemetery entrance, after the conclusion of the burial service for Dan McLennan. With Hillary were his niece and a man Jim had never seen before—youngish, but alert looking, a husky six-footer, soberly attired in a town suit that showed a layer of trail-dust, and with a metal shield gleaming o
n his vest. Jim had seen such badges before. Hillary’s companion was a deputy U.S. marshal, a Federal law officer. As he came through the gateway, Celie smiled hesitantly and slid a hand through his undamaged right arm.

  “We’re hoping you’ll decide to stay on in Libertad,” she murmured, “now that the trouble is over. It’s a good town, Jim, a fine place for a man who wants to settle down.”

  “I sure appreciate the offer,” Jim assured the girl, “but I’ll be leaving tomorrow, heading back to Camp Allison and hoping my commanding officer will tear up my resignation.”

  “Jim,” said Hillary, while Celie tried to hide her disappointment, “this here is Vince Davis—deputy U.S. marshal all the way from Prescott. He’s been huntin’ Clegg Seymour ever since the El Paso trouble. Davis—say ‘howdy’ to Jim Rand.”

  “I hope you heal fast, Rand,” smiled Davis, as they shook hands. “The sheriff tells me I got here just a few hours too late for a shooting war.”

  “It might’ve lasted all day,” opined Hillary.

  “No,” said Jim. “Burdette’s crew would have quit when the judge and his escort arrived.”

  “About Seymour,” said Davis. They began strolling back towards Calle Central. “I had hoped to take him in alive, but maybe it’s just as well he’s dead. As well as being a thief, he was a killer. Yes siree. One mighty treacherous hombre was Clegg Seymour.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” muttered Jim. “He killed my brother—shot him in the back.”

  “You have my sympathy,” frowned Davis.

  “At that time,” said Jim, “he was calling himself Jenner, but I guess that isn’t important anymore.”

  “No,” said Davis. “He was tricky—never at a loss for a nom de plume. But Seymour was his real name, and he was kin to the Burdettes. That’s what brought me to Libertad. Well ...” He shrugged nonchalantly, “all I need do now is make sure of the identification. It’s fortunate I arrived before Seymour’s funeral.”

  When they reached the main street, the sheriff urged his niece to return to their home.

  “I’m invitin’ Jim and the deputy-marshal to eat with us, Celie, so how’s about you cook up somethin’ special? With so many towners volunteerin’ to guard my prisoners, I reckon I can afford to take it easy awhile.”

  Having farewelled Celie, the three men walked downtown to the premises of undertaker Simon Gill. There, the mortician conducted them to the rear room in which the bodies of Seymour, Old Man Burdette and the other hard cases killed in the siege were laid out for burial. Davis stood beside the table bearing the dead embezzler-turned-murderer and, after only a cursory examination, nodded and said:

  “Good riddance. He was bad medicine, this one.” Frowning across at Jim, he added, “The other man he killed—I don’t know if it was before or after he killed your brother—wasn’t even armed. It happened in a small town south of Prescott in late January.”

  “My brother was armed ...” Jim’s face clouded over, as the bitter memories assailed him, “but his back was turned. He was playing poker when it happened. The date was March seventh. The place was the Silver Dollar Saloon in San Marco.”

  “Well,” said Davis, nodding to the sheriff, “the identification is complete, as far as I’m concerned. We may as well leave.” Then, just as he was about to move towards the door, he darted a sidelong glance at Jim and came to an abrupt halt. “You said—March seventh?”

  “I’m not apt to forget the date,” frowned Jim.

  Davis shoved his Stetson to the back of his head, tucked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and studied Jim thoughtfully.

  “You weren’t a witness to the murder, of course. You’ve been working on a description of the killer ...?”

  “As supplied by reliable witnesses,” said Jim. “The three men playing poker with Chris.”

  “Rand—I’m damn sorry,” said Davis, “but Seymour wasn’t the man you want. He couldn’t have been Jenner. He couldn’t have murdered your brother on that date. He couldn’t be in two places at once.”

  “The description ...!” began Jim, with his scalp crawling.

  “I don’t doubt it was a good description, nor that it almost fitted Seymour,” muttered Davis. “But the simple truth is this. I caught up with Seymour after he’d murdered and robbed a storekeeper in that small town near Prescott. It was called Little Rock Gulch. We were just a few miles north of Purdyville when I ran him down. I took him on to Purdyville because he winged me with his last bullet. As well as placing him in temporary custody of the Purdyville town marshal, I had to have my wound properly doctored.”

  “What you’re saying makes no difference to ...!” began Jim.

  “It makes a lot of difference—that’s the hell of it,” said Davis, and he sounded humbly apologetic. “Your brother was killed on March seventh. It was March sixth when I reached Purdyville with my prisoner. Seymour managed to escape from the Purdyville lock-up and I’ve been hunting him ever since—but he didn’t escape until the morning of March ninth. From the sixth to the ninth, he was behind bars in a jail a long ways north of San Marco.” He gestured helplessly. “I wish I didn’t have to tell you, Rand. On the other hand, it’s only fair you should know the truth.”

  “Yeah—sure,” said Jim, between clenched, teeth. “Only fair.”

  At sundown, when the circuit-judge and his escort arrived, Jim was on hand for a brief reunion with the troopers and their N.C.O., being closely acquainted with all of them.

  But he did not remain in Libertad for the trials. Arnold Burdette would undoubtedly be found guilty and would pay the supreme penalty for his treacherous slaying of the hapless Dan McLennan, but it would not be necessary for ex-Deputy Rand to testify, because the actual witnesses to that murder—Nash, Gearey, Varez and the four old men—were all more than willing to stand up in court and describe exactly what they had seen—now that the malevolent influence of Cyrus Burdette was forever dispelled from the local scene.

  Upon his departure to continue his search for the elusive Jenner, Jim was presented with a handsome gold watch, a Waltham. Its outer casing was inscribed with his initials—three letters. Not J.C.R. for James Carey Rand, but B.J.R.—Big Jim Rand. By that nickname—“Big Jim”—the people of Libertad would always remember him.

  He showed the handsome timepiece to Benito who, less than ten minutes later, tried to steal it from him. It was then that he forced the scruffy little Mex to take a bath, probably his first in many a long week, by lifting him bodily and dumping him in a horse-trough.

  The big charcoal was saddled and ready to move out. As Jim stepped up to leather and ambled the animal past the trough, he called a last warning to the spluttering, cussing Benito.

  “Let that be a lesson to you, cucaracha. You and me are quits. You saved my life. I saved yours. If you ever try robbing me again, I’ll kick you so hard you’ll fly across the border and land in Mexico—where you’re probably wanted for theft.”

  At Libertad’s eastern outskirts, he reined up for a few final words with a saddened but still amiable Celie Kilminster. Attired in her riding clothes and looking very appealing in the morning sunshine, she rode out of a clump of brush and onto the trail, to draw rein beside him.

  “Somehow,” she wistfully confided, “I feel a lot older than when I first saw you.”

  “I’ve made you age prematurely, huh, Celie?” he grinned. “Heck—that’s quite an accusation.”

  “You know what I mean,” she murmured. “I tried to charm you into staying on. I was selfish, because all I wanted was the thrill of being courted by the biggest man who ever came to Libertad.”

  “You pay me a high compliment,” he muttered, “and it’s too bad I have to move on—but I have no choice, Celie. I have to keep looking for Jenner.”

  “I know how it is,” she nodded. “Well, at least you’ll have something to remember me by.” And, from the pocket of her blouse, she produced a silver chain to which a medallion was affixed. “I want you to wear this always
, Jim, and not merely as a remembrance of me. It’s a Saint Christopher medal. You’ve heard of ...?”

  “Sure.” He accepted the gift with a solemn expression on his sun-browned countenance. “The patron saint of all travelers.”

  He slipped the chain over his head and about his neck, letting the medal dangle under his shirt. As he re-donned his Stetson, he thanked her warmly. She pressed her lips to his cheek, wheeled her mount and rode back into the mesquite, and that was the last he ever saw of her.

  But he couldn’t say the same for a certain buck-toothed little Mexican riding a slow-plodding burro. In the late morning, riding the rim of a vast basin, he glanced backwards and spotted the other rider. Benito Espina was keeping well to the rear, but was undoubtedly following him. He rolled and lit a cigarette, spent a few moments in deep thought. There could be no denying that this unscrupulous, itchy-fingered, ugly little wetback had taken a liking to him—on his own peculiar terms. He could dump him in horse troughs, kick him, spurn him, beat him senseless, maybe, but the Mex would always come back for more, and would always tag after him.

  He made his decision. One hour later, after Benito had travelled the basin-rim and was rounding a bend of the east trail, he found the tall man on the rangy charcoal awaiting him. The big black was blocking the trail. Big Jim sat relaxed with one long leg hooked over his saddlehorn. Warily, but grinning his sly grin, Benito halted Capitan Cortez and called a greeting.

  “Saludos, Amigo Jim.”

  “Saludos yourself,” growled Jim, “and let’s keep moving. I have places to go, and I don’t aim to be slowed down.”

  “We go together, no?” Benito eagerly suggested.

  “We go together—yes,” nodded Jim. “But not because I enjoy your company—you thieving little sonofagun.”

  “If you do not admire me,” shrugged Benito, “why do you permit me to ride with you?”

  “I don’t know what to make of you, and that’s a fact,” muttered Jim. “Any man who’d save my life—and then rob me—well, the hell with it. I don’t want you at my back. I want you riding along with me, where I can keep an eye on you. That’s about the only way I can be sure what you’re doing—¿comprender?”