Sudden--Dead or Alive (A Sudden Western #4)

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘That hijo,’ ground out Yancey. ‘I’ll gut him! I’ll carve his—’

  ‘—like yu done afore, yu mean?’ queried the old man, harshly. ‘Shet yore face an’ tell me what he looks like.’

  ‘Damn yu!’ rasped Yancey,’ what the Hell does it matter? I’m goin’ to—’

  ‘—get a hand across yore fool cub’s mouth if yu don’t do what I tell yu!’ screeched the old man, sitting upright in his chair and glaring at the boy. ‘It’s enough that he whupped yu an’ the town seen him do it. No wonder they think he’s some kind o’ merricle-man. Severn, he calls hisself? Now let’s hear the rest of it!’

  ‘Nothin’ much to tell yu don’t awready know, Pa.’ Yancey’s defiance had turned to a whine. ‘He’s about six foot. Wears two guns tied low, an’ he knows how to use them. Rides a black horse — big bastard, too. Looks like any ordinary puncher. Jest a drifter, if yu ask me.’

  ‘Never ast yu, sonny, but yo’re a fool if yu think so,’ the old man spat out. ‘Now I heerd about a jasper like that gave Black Bill Morrison his come-uppance down San Jose. Took off for the high country with some gambler Bill was takin’ to the waterin’ hole. Main, was his name. Mebbe this could be the same jasper.’

  ‘If it was, he’s shore goin’ out o’ his way to hunt trouble,’ put in a third speaker. This was a compactly-built young man of perhaps twenty five who had the same red hair as Yancey, and features which stamped him indelibly as a son of the old man.

  ‘Glenn, yo’re the on’y one around here with a lick o’ sense,’ the old man said. ‘Damn shame yu ain’t got no guts to go along with it, but yo’re right. Now what’s this jasper try in’ to prove?’

  ‘Mebbe he’s just a troublemaker,’ said the youngster in the far corner of the room. Thin-lipped and by far the smallest of the family as well as the youngest, this was the son named after the old man, Billy. Slim and short, with long fair hair and faintly protruding teeth, he wore ordinary range garb and affected a low slung holster with an eagle bill Colt’s .38, after his hero, the young outlaw whose name he liked to be called, Billy the Kid. His eyes were flat and snakelike, without soul, and his lips were twisted now into a sneer.

  Old Billy shook his head.

  ‘No, boy. Man who makes his trade the gun don’t usually go huntin’ trouble: he jest has to sit around an’ it comes a-lookin’ for him anyways. No, he ain’t one o’ those. I got a hunch it’s somethin’ else.’

  ‘What, in God’s name?’ burst out Marco. ‘He ain’t known here. He even hired old Dad Poynton as a deppity he’s that desperate. Unless ...’

  The old man looked up sharply, his eyes alight with malice.

  ‘Unless ...?’

  ‘Unless ... Hell, I know it sounds stupid, but yu don’t think Shearer or one o’ them rabbits in San Jaime sent for a town-tamer, do yu?’

  The sound of the old man’s laughter was like the noise a snake makes in dry leaves.

  ‘Marco,’ he cackled. ‘Yu ain’t got the brains of a pee-ant.’ He cackled a little longer. ‘Yu think them sheep in San Jaime would have the nerve? Even if they had the nerve, where would they get the kind o’ money they’d need?’

  ‘They got money down there,’ Marco said, sullenly.

  ‘Hell, boy, yu think they could do all that an’ me not know about it?’ The old man shook his head once again. ‘No. It ain’t that. It’s got to be the other thing.’

  What other thing, Pa?’ asked Glenn.

  ‘Mebbe he was sent,’ the old man said flatly.

  ‘Sent?’ squealed Yancey. ‘Who’d send him, for Godsake?’

  ‘That’s what I ain’t figgered yet,’ the old man said, but there was dogged conviction in his voice as he continued. ‘Jest the same, that’s the feelin’ all this gives me.’

  ‘Feelin’, feelin’!’ burst out Yancey. The Hell with yore feelin’! Let’s saddle up an’ ride in there, an’ bust that sonofabitch wide open! I want to see his stinkin’ carcass swingin’ on Yope’s barn beam, an’ the sooner we get at it the better!’

  ‘Yancey, yo’re a fool,’ the old man told his son flatly. ‘In fact, yo’re all stupid. By God, if any one o’ yu had half the brains yu oughta bin born with — ah, the Hell with it: I want to know more about this Severn. Who he is. Where he come from. An’ most of all why he’s here. Any fool can break open a hornet’s nest. I aim to do it keerful.’

  ‘Yu, Pa? Keerful?’ There was a cutting sneer in the voice of young Billy Cullane as he spoke. ‘Next thing, yu’ll be sashayin’ down to say yore prayers with that priest that’s sidin’ with this Severn hombre!’

  ‘Father Malcolm’s sidin’ with him? Silly ol’ fool,’ spat Yancey. ‘He ought to stick to his church, an’ leave men’s work alone.’

  ‘Don’t yu underestimate that priest, boy,’ growled the old man. ‘He’s more hombre than yu’ll ever be. Was yu ever to make the mistake o’ writin’ him off as one o’ them meek, tea-drinkin’ jaspers, yu’d end up gettin’ a mighty big shock.’

  ‘Father Malcolm!’ spat Yancey. ‘One o’ these days I’ll wrap up his damned prayer books an’ shove ’em down his preachin’ throat!’

  Old man Cullane got wearily to his feet and walked over to where Yancey sat. He put his hand upon his son’s shoulder and looked into the younger man’s eyes.

  ‘Yancey, boy, yu will never learn, will yu? Lay a hand on that priest, and the people o’ San Jaime would tear you limb from limb with their bare hands, then walk out here and take this canyon and break it into tiny bits.’

  Young Billy sniggered at these words, and a grin split Yancey’s bruised face.

  ‘Are yu out o’ yore mind?’ he snickered. Them — sheep?’

  A brutal blow with the flat of the old man’s hand wiped every trace of the smile from Yancey’s face. The old man towered above his sprawling spawn, rage working in the jaw muscles, madness flaring in the eyes. ‘Books here by the dozen, yet yu never read! All I’ve ever told yu, yet yu never learn! Damn yore eyes, read this! The old man snatched up a Bible off the table, and smashed it down into Yancey’s lap. ‘Read it, damn yu! Every story in it is about fools like yu who made the same mistake! Yu lay a hand on that priest, boy, and I promise yu — if the people leave anything of yu to burn, I’ll set fire to it my own self!’ Then, as suddenly as it had flared, the old man’s rage evaporated. He ran a hand through his thatch of hair, and the bushy eyebrows knitted. ‘I want to know more about this Severn jasper,’ he said, finally. ‘Glenn, get yo’re horse saddled: yo’re ridin’ up over the border, to ask a few questions I want answered.’

  Glenn hastened out of the room to do his father’s bidding, while the old man turned now to his favorite son.

  ‘Meantime, I want to know who’s sidin’ with this Severn,’ he announced. ‘Not the townspeople. They’ll run like the sheep they are when he’s taken care of. What I want to know is who’ll back him in trouble right now. Marco - yu take Chapman, Nixon, an’ Chuck Allen down into San Jaime. There won’t be enough o’ yu to make the whole town go to war: they’ll figger Severn can handle four o’ yu on his own.’

  ‘Shore, Pa,’ Marco rumbled, ‘but I ain’t so hot with a gun.’

  ‘Yu dumb ox,’ the old man said, half affectionately. ‘Yu think I’d send yu up against him with a gun? No, that wouldn’t do it, even if yu could take him that way. He has to be broken, and he has to be seen to be broken. I want him whipped an’ bloody on the floor of Diego’s cantina, an’ I want the town to see it! The others’ll take care o’ anyone who tries to interfere. Break Severn, an’ the townspeople will fold up an’ creep away. Marco — yu know what I mean?’

  The big man grinned. Flexing his huge fists, he turned and without warning smashed a fist into the back of the heavy armchair in which his father had been sitting. It went over like a skittle, smashing up against the wall while Marco’s grin grew wider and the expression on his face altered to one of savage anticipation.

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure, Pa,’ he rumbled, deep gloating in his voice
.

  ‘Now hear me, boy!’ snapped Old Man Cullane. ‘I don’t want him killed. Just ... hurt! Yu hurt him bad, but don’t yu kill him.’

  ‘Why not, Pa?’ put in Yancey, ‘why not kill the bastard an’ be done with it?’

  ‘Because I say so,’ rasped the old man. ‘Because I got a hunch about Mister Severn, an’ I got my reasons for not wantin’ him killed in San Jaime. If my hunch is right, we can kill two birds with one stone. Smashing him in San Jaime will be all we need to do there. Killing him…’ His voice tailed off, and his eyes went mad and far away. ‘Killing him ... somewhere else ... would be...’ He shook his head as if to clear it, and then cleared his throat.

  ‘Marco, do like I said. Mind what I told yu!’

  ‘Don’t yu worry Pa,’ mumbled Marco, unholy lights glinting in the evil eyes. I won’t kill him. But by the time I’m finished, yore Mr. Severn is goin’ to wish I had!’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I’d say the town was pretty much on yore side, Severn.’

  The speaker was the gambler, Rick Main, and he was sitting on a chair tilted back against the wall beneath the ramada outside the jail on the southwestern corner of the plaza. The early morning sunshine was bright and warm; a gossiping group of women were busily washing clothes around the fountain in the center of the square, and their children played games around the old rusted cannon which stood as a monument to the men of the placita who had fallen in long-forgotten wars. From inside the jailhouse, the sound of old Ray Poynton stumping about making coffee and muttering to himself could be heard. Severn grinned; whether at Main’s announcement or the old man’s not too successful attempts to stifle his curses at Severn’s continued foolhardiness Main could not be certain, and the gambler made a gesture of remonstrance.

  ‘When I say that, however, I reckon I oughta add that I ain’t shore it’s worth much more’n a plugged nickel.’

  Severn shook his head. ‘No, yo’re wrong. It’s worth plenty. Tell me more.’

  ‘Ain’t much more to tell,’ the gambler replied. ‘I been wonderin’ around, listenin’, playin’ a quiet game o’ cards, bein’ “unobtrusive” or whatever the Hell it was yu told me to be, an’ it allus sounds like the same thing. “Señor Severn ees a wonnerful hombre. He will protect us against the Cullanes. We will be mighty caballeros, not a man afraid.” Hell, Severn, yu know three out o’ four o’ these people ain’t never so much as fit a bad cold.’

  ‘I know it,’ Severn answered quietly. ‘In fact, I’m bankin’ on it.’

  Main’s chair tipped forward, and he took off his hat to allow himself more freedom to scratch his head. He looked at the Marshal with complete bewilderment.

  ‘I’m damned if I foller yu!’ he burst out.

  Severn pointed towards the plaza with his chin.

  ‘Look at it,’ he told the gambler. Main shrugged, and looked at it. The big church on the northern end of the square, the two rows of dwellings running south from each side of it, and Diego’s cantina, with the livery stable alongside it, at the southern end.

  ‘Okay, I looked at it,’ he said. ‘So?’

  ‘It’s built like a fort,’ Severn told him. ‘Look again: can’t yu see it?’

  ‘Don, for Gawd’s sake stop playin’ mysterious an’ tell me what yo’re on about!’ said Main finally, in exasperation.

  ‘Wise ol’ jasper once remarked that the first blow is half the battle,’ Severn told him. ‘I been thinkin’ on it.’

  Main leaned forward.

  ‘Yu got a plan?’ he said, his voice dropping.

  ‘Sort of a one,’ Severn agreed. ‘She’s some loose, but I reckon she might jest work.’

  ‘Well what is it, for Gawd’s sake?’ exploded Main. ‘Don’t sit there like some fat cat! Tell me!’

  ‘Yeah, an’ tell me, too!’ interrupted Poynton, opening the door of the jail. ‘C’mon inside an’ git the Java while she’s hot. Yu can talk jest as well in here.’

  They rose and went inside the tiny jailhouse. It was a simple two-roomed adobe. In the room they were now in were a desk, several bentwood armchairs, a gun rack, and a few rickety shelves. Everything was covered in fine dust. In one corner stood a huge, cast-iron potbelly stove with a hotplate on which a battered black coffeepot now chuckled. Set in the wall directly opposite the door which led to the street was another door, a solid door of heavy planking, three or four inches thick and reinforced with strips of iron and heavy metaled studs. There was a square window, perhaps a foot wide and nine inches high, with two bars, let into the door. Behind it was the single cell of the jail: an empty room with only two bunks and a chair. It was windowless and deeply shadowed.

  The three men sat with their coffee, and Main turned expectantly to Severn.

  ‘Yu was about to tell me how yu was plannin’ to give the Cullanes a surprise when they come in after yore scalp,’ Main remarked.

  ‘He said that?’ barked old Poynton. ‘Severn, yo’re as barmy as a hoot-owl. I keeps on tellin’ yu the on’y way is to lie for them outside o’ the town, an’ cut ’em down as they ride in.’

  ‘Too risky by a mile,’ Severn said, shaking his head. ‘Besides, there ain’t enough cover for a gopher out on the prairie.’

  ‘They surround this town, yu’ll find someplace to hide jest as hard to find,’ was Main’s grim rejoinder. ‘I don’t reckon so, if we play her right,’ Severn said.

  ‘Yu see!’ Main turned to Poynton. ‘I be damned if I ever met a more exasperatin’ jasper. Yo’re so damn clever — explain it to us dumb ones!’

  ‘Yeah, added Dad Poynton. ‘Lay the news on us. I’m jest too old an’ ignorant to unnerstand these yere fine-p’inted argyrnents.’

  Severn sighed, as if in despair.

  ‘I don’t reckon no town Marshal ever had dumber helpers, at that!’ he grinned, dodging a mock blow which Dad Poynton aimed at him. ‘Look at this.’ ‘This’ was a broken square which he traced in the dust on the desk top with his finger. The two uprights met a horizontal at the lower end, with two small gaps to each corner. At the top, instead of a horizontal, Severn traced a small square.

  ‘Very interestin’,’ said Poynton, in the voice of one humoring someone extremely ill.

  ‘But unfathomable,’ added Main. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a plan o’ the town, yu knuckleheads,’ smiled Severn.

  The little square here at the top is the church. The two uprights are the rows o’ buildin’s runnin’ north an’ south. The bottom line is the saloon an’ the stable.’

  ‘So yu got almost a square. That ain’t exactly the year’s most important discovery, Don,’ said Main.

  ‘Yo’re wrong,’ Severn said. That’s just about what it could be. All we got to do is close off the corners an’ we got ourselves a fortress. Why d’yu think the early settlers allus built their plazas in a square?’

  ‘Defense?’ guessed Main.

  ‘Shore ’nough,’ confirmed Poynton. The early Spaniards allus knowed they’d have Injuns skulkin’ around, an’ they took out their own kind o’ insurance.’

  ‘In fact, yu’ll find old cities all over the world built that way to start with,’ Severn added. ‘When they had no natural defenses, that is.’

  ‘Which is what yu ain’t got anyhow, boy,’ put in Poynton. ‘Yu got yoreself a fort all right. All yu need now is a few so’jers.’

  ‘I think we can even manage that,’ Severn said. ‘All we got to worry about is gettin’ the Cullanes mad enough to come after us in force.’

  His companions regarded Severn as if he had gone completely insane and had started chewing the desk top. After a moment of complete silence, Dad Poynton removed his battered old hat and held it reverently to his breast.

  ‘Gentlemen, hush,’ he said. ‘Our Marshal just went off his chump. He thinks the Cullanes ain’t mad enough!’

  Severn smiled. ‘Oh, they’re hoppin’ mad, I’d say. They ain’t goin’ to set still an’ let someone run a Cullane out of his own town, an’ then take over. B
ut—’

  ‘But not mad enough to come in in force?’ asked Main.

  ‘I reckon not,’ Severn confirmed. He enumerated his reasons, ticking them off on the fingers of his right hand. ‘One: we hurt their dignity, but nobody got killed. Two: that ol’ pirut ain’t so green as not to be able to put two an’ two together an’ come up with mebbe six. He’s prob’ly linked what happened in San Jose to me — mebbe yu, too, Rick. So he’ll be askin’ hisself: what are we tryin’ to prove? Which brings me to three: I reckon we can expect him to try one or two other ways o’ rootin’ me out afore he comes in to make war.’

  ‘That’s mighty chancy figgerin’, Don,’ remarked Main.

  ‘Chancy enough,’ agreed the Marshal. ‘But the way I see it, the Cullanes need this town. They can take it any time they’ve a mind to. So mebbe the old man’ll see if he can’t jest take care o’ me an’ keep the town afore he decides to go the whole hog.’

  Main pursed his lips. ‘Yu could be right at that,’ he said. ‘But she’s mighty long odds.’

  ‘An’ yu could be wrong,’ grumbled Poynton, ‘an’ if yu are, yu won’t jest be wrong, yu’ll be dead wrong!’

  Severn grinned. ‘Mebbe I’ll have to pickle my skin like that feller I knowed once.’

  The two men looked at the Marshal in consternation.

  ‘Pickle yore skin?’ gasped Poynton. ‘What in Hell are yu on about?’

  ‘Feller I knew did her,’ Severn went on. ‘Queer jasper, allus up to some trick for makin’ a dishonest dollar. Anyways, he got hold o’ some Injun recipe for tannin’ hides, an’ plumb bathed in that stuff till his hide was as tough as an ol’ boot. I’m tellin’ yu, that feller had a hide that’d turn the edge of a Bowie knife. Nothin’ couldn’t make a dent in him.’