Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘Yo’re right,’ Green agreed. ‘I’ll skedaddle over to Taylor’s now. I can be there an’ back in about two hours. I’ll eat here, then ride over an’ spread the word to the others.’

  Without further ado he saddled up his horse and in a few more minutes was thundering westward towards the Lazy T.

  Green had been gone about an hour when the sound of a wagon coming across the open plain brought Harris once more to the door, his hand shading his eyes as he scanned the prairie. He recognized the wagon immediately, and called in to his daughter reassuringly, ‘It’s Reb Johnstone’s wagon – no need for alarm.’

  A few minutes later the gangling Virginian was jumping down from the wagon seat, his cheerful Southern drawl bringing a smile to Harris’s face. With him was his neighbor, Stan Newley, smiling nervously as always, and saying little. Harris rapidly described the events of the previous day, and the tall Southerner’s face was dark as he listened.

  ‘He better not come snoopin’ around man place,’ he said. ‘I ain’t afeared o’ no damyankee gunman an’ that’s whatever.’

  ‘Yu see him, yu stay away from him, Reb,’ warned Harris. ‘He’s pizen mean an’ he’s fast enough with that gun to kill any of us afore we got rightly started.’

  The Virginian’s cheerful visage was serious as he listened to this warning.

  ‘Mebbe yo’re right at that, Jake,’ he admitted. ‘If’n Ah run into him, mebbe I’ll pussyfoot some. Now: anything I c’n bring yu from Yavapai?’

  ‘Yo’re goin’ into town?’

  ‘Got to,’ Newley said. ‘Reb an’ me got some fencin’ to fix. We ordered some o’ them reels o’ fencin’ wire from Kansas City, an’ Lafferty’s has got them down there.’

  ‘Need some vittles, too,’ Johnstone added. ‘An’ by cracky, I need me a good bottle o’ sourmash. I’m plumb outa drinkin’ likker.’

  Harris shook his head. ‘I hate to sound like a Jeremiah, Reb, but yu be sure an’ tread lightly in town, hear? Nice an’ easy, like. Any o’ the Saber boys down there, any sign o’ this Cameron hombre an’ yu just turn aroun’ real quiet an’ head for the Mesquites.’

  ‘Hell, Jake, yu sound like an ol’ woman,’ complained Johnstone. ‘We ain’t lookin’ for no fight.’

  Harris nodded and turned to Newley. ‘Stan, I’m puttin’ it to yu. It’s yore responsibility, yu hear me? Any sign o’ trouble an’ yu git. Okay?’

  Newley blinked nervously and nodded, don’t … don’t yu worry, Jake. There’ll be no trouble. We’ll just pick up our stuff an’ …’ As usual, his sentence ended unfinished.

  Grumbling to himself about being ‘treated like some half-wit infant’, Reb Johnstone mounted his wagon. When Newley was aboard he swung the team around and cursed them up the trail into the pines at a hair-raising speed.

  ‘Damn’ fire-eatin’ Rebel,’ muttered Harris, shaking his head.

  He stamped back into the house, where Susan, seeing his frown, asked, ‘Do you think that man will be in Yavapai, Daddy?’

  ‘I shore hope not,’ said her father heavily. ‘I shore as hell hope not.’

  When Green reached the Lazy T, he wasted no time in observing the social niceties but told the astonished Taylor about the events of the preceding day. Taylor wasted no more time than his visitor in confirming that he would take his men across to the Harris place immediately.

  ‘There’s naught here that would interest a manhunter, Jim,’ he said. ‘An’ I’ve the feelin’ that we’ll all have a better chance together. I’ll get my boys to ride over an’ bring Kitson, Newley, an’ Johnstone in to the JH as well. It’ll be interestin’ if our gun-totin’ friend shows his face again.’

  Green agreed to this arrangement gratefully; and Taylor agreed to explain to Harris that his rider had one more chore to do which would probably take him another twenty-four hours.

  ‘Get on with whatever yu want to do, laddie,’ Taylor told him. ‘I’ll tell Jake as soon as I get over there.’

  The dour Scot’s unexcited reaction to the bad news from Harris’s place was a welcome tonic to Sudden, for he had been worried that Cameron’s threats had shaken the old homesteader more than he cared to admit. With his friends beside him Jake would stand firm come hell or high water.

  Sudden leaned forward and patted the glossy neck of his mount. ‘Night, we got some hard work ahead of us, an’ yo’re goin’ to do most of it.’ The horse nipped playfully at his hand as Sudden extended it, and he pulled the horse’s ear, smiling. ‘G’wan, yu walkin’ gluepot, ’bout time yu worked for yore eats.’ He pointed the black stallion’s nose towards the northwest, where the frowning peaks of the Yavapai mountains towered against the sky.

  Three-quarters of an hour later the sound of water echoing in a canyon reached his ears, and, spurring Midnight forward, the puncher came to a flat, open area. Ahead of him, like a giant crack in the earth’s crust, was a canyon. Sudden dismounted and approached the edge. Down below, perhaps sixty or seventy feet, the waters of the Yavapai River boiled whitely over rapids.

  ‘That’ll be Apache Canyon,’ he told himself. ‘We go north.’

  Mounting again, he followed the edge of the canyon northwards, noting that the ground here sloped sharply downwards. Soon the canyon was behind, and the river was a broad, flat stream which raced down from the mountains ahead. Trout leaped like flashes of rainbows out of the water, and once the cowboy caught a glimpse of a big bear lumbering through the brush. Off to the right was a spur of the range of high mountains ahead, lying like the paw of an animal across the foothills. Veering towards them, Sudden could see that the spur was scored by deep ravines on its western side; and he nodded to himself at this confirmation of his own thinking.

  ‘Some o’ them gullies will be deep enough to be used for pennin’ cattle,’ he soliloquized. ‘My Gawd! but ain’t they purty?’

  This exclamation was elicited as the sun, slipping down in the west, touched the rims of the mountains with fire. The spur of hills which were the object of Green’s attention turned bright ochre, brilliant orange, deep red, with dark black streaks where the gullies scored the rock.

  ‘Purty or not, however, we got to take a gander at ’em a mite closer than this, Night. Let’s get at it.’

  Responding to the light touch of his rider’s heels, the black stallion lifted his heels and thundered towards their destination.

  Chapter Twelve

  REB JOHNSTONE and Stan Newley got to Yavapai at about four o’clock, and the Virginian hitched his wagon team outside the general store. Stan Newley cocked an eye at the far-off mountains. The first dark mass of thunderheads that presaged one of the valley’s sudden summer storms was piling up over the Yavapais.

  ‘Better not stay too long, Reb,’ he told his companion. ‘Fixin’ to storm some come nightfall.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ grinned Johnstone. ‘Anythin’ for a quiet life. Let’s get them store goods.’

  The two men spent the next hour and more choosing supplies for their homesteads, and loading the big, awkward spools of fencing wire into the bed of the wagon. A couple of bags of flour, some treacle, dried apples, a side of bacon, Arbuckle’s coffee, some bags of chili beans. They covered the load with a tarpaulin; the wire spools were too bulky to cover properly.

  ‘Hell with it,’ Johnstone said. ‘Lash ’em down. If they won’t take a few drops o’ rain on the way back they ain’t goin’ to be much use as fencin’, are they?’

  They lashed the tarp down, then stumped back into the store to settle their bill. When their business was completed Johnstone pounded his smaller companion on the back and said, ‘Come on, Stan, an’ I’ll buy y’all that drink.’

  Newly peered nervously down the street towards the lights of Tyler’s saloon, already bold in the soft twilight easing its silent way into the valley. He squinted up at the Yavapais again.

  ‘I’m worried about that storm, Reb,’ he told the Southerner. ‘If she rains afore we leave town we’ll never get across Borracho with the wagon
. We’ll haveta detour all to hellangone around the edge o’ the Badlands afore.’

  ‘It won’t rain afore we leave,’ Johnstone told him. ‘I got the word from one o’ those rainmaker fellers on’y this mornin’.’

  Newley hesitated still. ‘Mebbe we oughta skip it, Reb.’

  ‘Dang me if yu ain’t wuss’n an ol’ broody hen!’ exploded the tall Virginian. ‘Worry, worry, worry! Lissen: I’ll tell yu what we-all goin’ to do. We-all goin’ to wander down to Tyler’s, right? If we-all see any hosses at the rail belongin’ to Saber we turn aroun’ an head straight home. If they’s no Saber nags we take our drink. Fair enough?’

  Newley smiled for the first time, relief showing on his narrow face. ‘Sounds fair,’ he admitted. ‘I just don’t want no trouble.’

  ‘Hell, Stan,’ laughed Johnstone, ‘yu oughta know by now it’s allus the feller who says that who gets the most. Come on, cheer up! One li’l drink ain’t goin’ to hurt yu none!’

  A quick inspection of the horses at the hitching-rail revealed that none of them bore the Saber brand, although both men noticed a badly used bay standing, head down, and remarked on it.

  Shaking their heads at the way some people treated good horse-flesh, the two homesteaders pushed into the saloon. The place was packed, with a heavy knot of people at the far end of the bar noisily celebrating, clustered around someone they couldn’t see. Newley hesitated on the threshold, sensing the tense, brittle atmosphere of the place. A quick inspection of the room showed him no reason for this rising of his hackles and he shrugged and followed his friend into the bar. Johnstone called for drinks for both of them, and when Tyler had poured them said, ‘Yu know whose that bay stallion outside is?’

  The bartender cringed visibly, and an abrupt silence fell upon the entire saloon. Johnstone looked about him in amazement, unable to understand the reason for this cessation of all conversation, and unaware that his words had caused it.

  As he stood, open mouthed, the knot of people at the end of the bar parted and a medium-sized, compactly built man pushed through the crowd towards him.

  ‘Hoss is mine, mister,’ said the man coldly. ‘What of it?’

  Johnstone, still nonplussed by the bated silence about him, regained a measure of his composure as he smiled down at the man in front of him. The man lounged easily against the bar, and there was no threat in his stance.

  ‘Well, hell, mister … meanin’ no offence … but he’s shore in need o’ rubbin’ down. That’s a mighty fine an—’

  The words froze on his lips as the man tossed a silver dollar on to the bar. It rang in the silence as it spun and slowly settled on the polished wood.

  ‘There’s a dollar,’ the man sneered. ‘Yu look like yu need it. Go out and rub the hoss down.’

  Johnstone stood stock still for a moment, then took a step forward. As he did so, two things happened: he saw for the first time the cut-away holster low on the man’s hip; and the saloon-owner, Tyler, laid a hand on his arm, blurting out, ‘No, Reb! That’s Wes Cameron!’

  The Virginian stopped as if he had walked into a wall. Stan Newley, making sure that Cameron could see his hands plainly, touched his friend’s arm.

  ‘Come on, Reb. Reb – let’s get out o’ here,’ he whispered.

  Johnstone looked around uncertainly. He didn’t want to back down from such a calculated insult, yet at the same time he was far from being so foolish as to think he could match this satanic killer.

  ‘Ah … Ah’m beggin’ yore pardon, mister,’ he mumbled, hating himself for saying the words. ‘Ah shore didn’t mean nothin’ personal.’

  Cameron did not deign to acknowledge the apology; the sneer on his face merely sharpened a fraction.

  ‘What’s yore name, Reb?’ he grated.

  ‘Name’s Johnstone. Got a small place up in the Mesquites,’ the big man stammered. ‘Thisyere’s m’ neighbor, Stan Newley.’

  ‘Yu men run big outfits? I’m needin’ a job.’

  ‘We only run small spreads, mister,’ blurted Newley. ‘We couldn’t pay … I mean we ain’t got no need of…’ He fell silent as he realized the construction that might be placed upon his words by a man spoiling for trouble.

  Cameron shrugged. ‘Pity. I’d admire working for a man who worries about horses the way Reb here does. I bet he thinks some animals is better than men, don’t yu, Reb?’

  With a flash of his old spirit Johnstone retorted, ‘There’s plenty o’ men no better than animals.’

  Cameron looked up at him sharply, and Johnstone fell back a pace. Once again Newley tugged at his sleeve, and he half turned to go. Cameron moved to place himself alongside Johnstone. ‘Mebbe I’d better take a look at this hoss yo’re so het up over,’ he said.

  The onlookers watched in silence as he shepherded the two men towards the door. Many of those watching would frankly not have been at all upset if a couple of the homesteaders were given a lesson in manners – at best they were only tolerated in Yavapai. Even if you didn’t have anything good to say about Wes Cameron, they told each other, at least he was a cattleman.

  As the trio pushed through the batwings there was a concerted rush for the windows. Wide-eyed, the patrons of Tyler’s watched Cameron duck under the hitching-rail and start to look over his mount, allowing Stan Newley to half pull, half push his tall friend up the street towards where their wagon and team stood patiently awaiting their return. Newley clambered into the seat, and the Virginian took the bit of the lead horses in hand in order to swing them around on the street to point them north, where the first rumbles of thunder were threatening the rain-clouds over the mountains. As Johnstone swung the team out into the street the lights of the saloon fell upon him and the wagon with its half-covered load. It was at this moment that Cameron looked up, as if coincidentally, from his task.

  ‘Yu! Nester!’

  Cameron’s voice cut the night like a north wind. The Virginian looked around, startled; Newley went rigid in the wagon seat. Behind Cameron, whom they could only just see against the bright blaze of the saloon’s lights, the two men could see the entire patronage of Tyler’s saloon awaiting their further discomfiture. Reb Johnstone’s lips set in a thin line, and his back went straight.

  ‘Reb, don’t yu start nothin’ now,’ pleaded Newley. ‘Please don’t yu get into nothin’, Reb!’

  ‘Yu! Nester! What yu got in that wagon?’ Cameron’s voice was flat and accusing.

  ‘Wire,’ Johnstone told him, equally flatly. He stood facing the gunman, his hand still holding the bit in the lead horse’s mouth. His attitude was one of calm fearlessness.

  ‘Wire? Yu stringin’ wire in cattle country? By Gawd, where I come from yu’d be hung for that.’

  ‘We ain’t where yu come from,’ Johnstone said tonelessly. ‘Is that all yu wanted to know?’

  ‘No,’ Cameron said evilly. ‘There’s one more thing. How come a man who strings wire in cattle country has got the nerve to tell a cattleman how to take care o’ his hoss?’

  Johnstone shrugged.

  ‘Cameron, Ah know who yu are an’ Ah know what yore reputation is. Yu ain’t goin’ to prod me into no gunfight. If yu’ve said yore piece Ah’m about ready to leave.’

  Cameron nodded. His voice was soft and hardly carried as far as Johnstone; most of those inside the saloon did not hear it at all, so quietly were the words spoken. But Johnstone heard them. Cameron said, ‘No wonder yu’s lost the war.’ With a muted curse the big Southerner dropped his hand from the bit and pawed for the gun at his side. Cameron did not move until Reb’s hand had closed on the butt, lifted the gun clear, and cocked it. Before Reb could complete the last part of his draw, and bring the gun level to fire, Cameron made his play. Nobody watching saw his hand move, but there was his gun belching fire: once, twice, three times. Reb Johnstone was hurled backwards against the horses by the force of the bullets, and the horses shied violently. They reared upwards and away from the sound of the shots, throwing the half-paralyzed Newley into the street. John
stone half rose on his elbow as Newley scrabbled towards him on hands and knees while the wagon and team thundered down the street. Unthinkingly Newley reached towards his hip pocket for a bandanna with which to staunch the great gouts of blood staining his friend’s chest, and in a cold, clear split second realized as he did so what he had done.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ he heard Cameron yell, and then he heard the shot that hammered him backwards. His last thought was that he had given the gunman a permit to shoot him and the last word he uttered was ‘stupid’.

  Cameron stood by the hitching-rail, his body tense, half-crouched; the two bodies lay still and silent in the dust. Tom Appleby came racing up the street, gun in hand. He slid to a stop as Cameron wheeled around, the light glinting on the ready gun, and for a cold instant the lawman braced himself against the shock of a shot as the thought touched his mind: ‘He’s killin’ mad!’ Then the light behind Cameron’s eyes died, and he straightened slowly, holstering his gun. A cold smile played about his mouth.

  ‘Pure self-defense, Marshal. There’s about sixty people here saw the whole thing. The tall one went for his gun first. When I downed him the other one tried to draw on me.’ He waved a hand at the still-silent watchers, a few of whom were edging out into the street for a closer look at the scene of the killing. ‘I’m bettin’ all these folks’ll tell yu it was self-defense,’ Cameron repeated.

  ‘I’m aimin’ to ask every one o’ them,’ Appleby told him. ‘If it was self-defense yo’re clear. But don’t think o’ leavin’ town for a few days.’

  Cameron grinned with evil enjoyment. ‘Why, Marshal, yu know I wouldn’t dream o’ disobeyin’ yu.’

  Appleby stood for a moment regarding Cameron. He knew that the witnesses would swear it was self-defense: Cameron had bought enough drinks to ensure sympathy, and he had no doubt that Johnstone and Newley had made the first move. Cameron would have seen to that. A wave of disgust touched his face for a moment, and then he turned away to get help in moving the bodies off the street. As the crowd returned to the saloon the first real thunder rolled down from the Yavapais like a rock slide and the sticky rain started to fall.