Sudden--At Bay (A Sudden Western #2)

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘No gunplay!’ he snapped. ‘I ain’t come here to fight.’

  ‘Be interestin’ to know why yu did come,’ suggested Green, but his voice lacked any sign of interest.

  ‘Oh…’ Cotton pursed his lips. ‘A talk. An exchange of views. An arrangement, maybe.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Yo’re a good man, if yu licked Art an’ sent Helm packin’. I can use good men. It’s that simple. I thought we could discuss…’

  ‘Yu thought wrong!’ Sudden’s voice was flat and final, and for a moment cold anger exhibited itself in his mien. ‘Yu may be a big man, Cotton, but yo’re a long way off the trail. Mebbe yu own a big ranch an’ run a hard crew, an’ mebbe yu pay ’em well for doin’ what yu tell ’em to do. Mebbe that makes a lot o’ people do things they don’t like doin’, but it don’t make yu God, mister. Yore fat-faced sheriff aimed to have me Pecossed, an’ I’m guessin’ yore man Helm wasn’t plannin’ on no picnic with the kid, here, when he planned to ride along with him to Santa Fe. Yo’re outside the fence, Cotton. Yu got to be put down like a wild animal. No talk, no deal, no nothin’!’

  Helm laughed into the chilled silence. ‘He talks awful big for a man in such a tight. Look at him! What’s he got to buck us with? A kid, a barkeep, a grocer an’ a cripple. Hell, I could take all of ’em with one hand tied —–’

  ‘Yu want to try it now?’

  Sudden’s eyes had narrowed to slits and he faced Helm squarely, his body falling into a menacing half-crouch, his very stance instinct with a deadly menace that sent a shiver into the veins of every man watching.

  Helm laughed again. ‘Hell, I’ll take yu any time I want to,

  Green,’ he sneered. ‘But my way, not yores.’

  ‘In the back, yu mean?’ was the cutting reply.

  ‘Now, see here, Green interposed Cotton, ‘I come here in good faith —–’

  ‘Yu came here to see what was happenin’,’ jibed the puncher, ‘an’ now yu know what yo’re up against. Yu don’t own this town any more, Cotton. We aim to stay here until the U.S. Marshal arrives.’ This remark hit Sim Cotton harder than anything said so far. Was the man bluffing, or had he really sent for the Federals? If he had, then the game was getting out of hand. Even Sim Cotton wasn’t big enough to tangle with the United States Government —-not yet, anyway, he told his pride. Something of what was passing through his mind must have communicated itself to the saturnine figure on the porch of the Oasis, for Cotton saw that Green was smiling–a wintry smile, but a smile nonetheless.

  ‘That’s right, Cotton, yu better think careful,’ Sudden warned the rancher. ‘Yu can’t buck a U.S. Marshal.’

  ‘I can damned well buck yu, though!’ Cotton’s mien changed. Blood darkened his visage, and the veins stood out upon his throat and brow. ‘Yu better get out o’ this town. Yu better ride far an’ fast, because I’m comin’ back here, an’ I’m takin’ this town. I’m takin’ it an’ if yo’re still here I’m goin’ to hang yu in the street an’ leave yu there to rot, yu an’ these snivellin’ backbiters who’ve sided with yu! Cottons built this place an’ by the Eternal! Cottons can unbuild it! I’ll burn down every house, every buildin’! I’ll line up every snivellin’ cur in the place an’ shoot him down —- the man don’t live that can cross me an’ tell the tale!’ Spittle flecked his lips, and madness made his eyes roll white. The man was wild, far gone out of reach, uncontrollable and murderous. Sudden snapped him back with a cutting query.

  ‘Yu through?’

  Cotton’s eyes cleared. He blinked once or twice, as if unsure of where he was. Only the gloved hand, closing and unclosing incessantly upon the saddle pommel, indicated the struggle for control that the man was exercising. Cotton took a deep breath.

  ‘No, Green,’ he said, his voice still thick with rage, but quietly now and correspondingly more threatening. ‘T’ain’t through—isn’t even begun yet. But I will. Yu want war? Yu shall have it. The peace is over. Yu’ll die afore sundown!’

  He jerked the horse’s head around and spurring the animal wickedly, thundered off up the street, pursued by his foreman.

  Harry Parris stood uncertainly in the middle of the street, dust drifting down on him, looking after Cotton and patently wondering what to do — whether to mount and follow Cotton, or remain in the town.

  He looked pleadingly at Green and the others. They returned his gaze expressionlessly, then turned and walked into the Oasis without a word. Parris stood there for a long time before he shuffled off towards his cabin.

  Blass watched him go through his window.

  ‘There goes a worried hombre,’ he told the silent group who stood by the bar.

  ‘Hell,’ said Billy with a nervous laugh. ‘He’s worried?’

  Sudden smiled, feigning a confidence he was far from feeling.

  ‘Wal,’ he drawled. ‘He had a better job than we did.’ But their laughter had no heart in it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cottontown had a still and empty air. Most of the men in town, after the maniacal threats of Sim Cotton, had taken Sudden’s advice and locked their womenfolk and children securely in their homes. For perhaps an hour there had been a tremendous bustle of activity on the curving street, but now all was silent. Billy Hornby’s lip curled derisively as he surveyed the deserted street. ‘This shore is a yaller-bellied town,’ he sneered. ‘Damn if I know whether she’s worth fightin’ for.’

  ‘That ain’t why yo’re fightin’,’ Sudden reminded him. ‘Don’t go judgin’ these folks too hard. They ain’t been pushed the way yu have; an’ none o’ them’s any kind o’ hand with a gun, I’d guess. I’m willin’ to bet most of ’em don’t fire one from one month to the next. Yu can’t expect them to stick their heads into this kind o’ fracas.’

  A thin silence ensued, a weird, unnatural stillness unbroken by the everyday sounds of children playing, women gossiping in the street, horses and wagons passing outside. Over the town hung an almost tangible apprehension, while men watched from their doorways or through windows, their eyes fixed on the road entering town from the north. To the north lay the Cotton ranch. It was from the north they would come. Sudden had made his plans. Now he deployed his forces.

  ‘Billy,’ he told the youngster. ‘I want yu to sneak out mebbe half a mile from town along the trail towards the Cotton spread. Take a water canteen. Stash yoreself in the rocks someplace where yu can see the trail without bein’ seen. As soon as yu spot riders comin’, duck out o’ sight. Let ’em pass, yu hear? Don’t try to stop ’em, whatever yu do. Just let ’em come in. When they’re well past, pull yore gun an’ fire her three time s in the air, fast. That’ll be our warnin’ that they’re on their way in.’

  Billy’s expression was crestfallen. Then it brightened.

  ‘Listen, Jim, why don’t I take a rifle out with me? I could pick ’em off afore they get into town.’

  Sudden looked at his young friend in mild exasperation, then asked Doc Hight a question.

  ‘How many men can Sim Cotton raise if he needs to?’

  Hight considered for a moment, lips pursed.

  ‘Maybe fifteen, if you count Bucky an’ Art,’ he replied.

  ‘Yu aimin’ to take on fifteen men all by yoreself?’ Green asked the boy. ‘Or would yu ruther do it my way?’

  Billy grinned. ‘Okay, okay. I was just tryin’ to help.’

  ‘Then do what I tell yu. This ain’t no game we’re playin’. Give us the warnin’. Then skedaddle back into town. That’ll give us a man in back o’ them if we need one. Come in careful. Don’t take no chances. Yu hear me?’

  Billy nodded. ‘Watch ’em go by. Fire three shots. Then follow ’em in, not too close, slow an’ careful. Hell, Jim, yu could train a monkey to do that.’

  ‘Then I’m pickin’ right,’ was the smiling retort. ‘Git movin’.’

  When the boy had gone, Sudden turned to the remaining three men and gave them their dispositions. The bartender and storekeeper he told to take up positions on the fl
at roof of the saloon behind the tall false front.

  ‘Yu’ll be well hid,’ he told them. ‘Don’t show yore faces until the waltz begins. As soon as yu’ve done shootin’ get down out o’ there. Once yo’re spotted, that’ll be somewhere yu don’t want to stay.’ Blass and Davis nodded, and the latter purposefully levered his Winchester.

  ‘By the Eternal!’ he growled. ‘I hope they do start somethin’. I shore owe them boys a lick or two.’

  ‘Don’t be too eager,’ Sudden counseled him. ‘Wait for me to start the ball. An’ yu, Doc: I want yu over in the Sheriff’s house. Keep an eye on him, make shore he don’t give us no trouble. If yu got to, tap him one with yore gun barrel.’

  ‘Where will you be, Jim?’ asked the medico.

  ‘Me?’ said Green with mock surprise. ‘Why, I’ll be over by the jail, mindin’ my own business.’

  ‘Yo’re goin’ to make yoreself the bait?’ gasped Blass.

  ‘Yu might say that,’ Sudden told him, his face sobering. ‘I’m relyin’ on yu boys to see I don’t get hit.’

  ‘Yu reckon Sim is goin’ to rush the town, Jim?’ asked Davis.

  ‘He never said,’ Sudden grinned. ‘But I reckon not. Cotton knows he’s on the wrong side o’ the law now. He got mighty edgy when I mentioned the U.S. Marshal. If he thinks he might have to explain what happened later on, he’s going to make it look as right as he can. That don’t include no massacree.’

  ‘Was you serious about havin’ sent for the Marshal, Jim?’

  Hight said. ‘I don’t recall…’

  ‘Just a bluff Sudden replied. ‘Like I said, Cotton’s on the wrong side o’ the law, an’ he might just fall over an’ break his neck tryin’ to make it look like he’s on the right side.’ He walked over to the window, and peered out into the street.

  ‘All quiet,’ he announced. ‘Try an’ get to yore posts without attractin’ too much attention. It would be a shame to spoil the surprise.’ His thin smile boded ill for the men who were to be the recipients of this surprise.

  While his companions hastened to their positions, Sudden crossed the street to the jail. He sat there on a rocked-back chair, tilted against the wall, his hat pushed forward over his eyes. Beneath the shaded brim, however, the keen gaze missed no movement on the street.

  ‘Shore hope I’m figgerin’ that Cotton jasper,’ he soliloquized. ‘If he hits this town hard, we’re goin’ to know we’ve been in a fight.’ And saying this, his gaze wandered to the unguarded southern end of the town, and the line of dusty green which marked the banks of the river. His mind was busy. ‘If I was Sim Cotton, how would I play her?’ he asked himself. ‘What would I expect me to think I’d do?’ The nonsensical character of his unspoken question brought a smile to his lips. After sitting for a while deep in thought, he stepped out into the street, pacing purposefully. A quick glance showed him that Blass was in position, and a moment later he glimpsed the storekeeper on the opposite side of the false front of the saloon, their rifles commanding the whole length of the street. Sudden glanced now towards the Sheriff’s small shack. Hight waved from behind the closed window, a quick signal that all was well. Sudden nodded.

  ‘Well, we’re all set to go to the ball. All we need now is the music’

  He walked back towards the jail and leaned casually against the porch rail, relaxed and waiting.

  Up on the saloon roof the bartender shook his head.

  ‘Look at him,’ he told his companion. ‘Yu’d think he had nothin’ more on his mind than the next drink! That jasper ain’t got no nerves!’

  Davis grinned and said, ‘Wal, it’s probably just as well. I reckon we got enough for us an’ some left over for him.’

  Blass shook his head wonderingly. ‘He shore is a cool sort o’ cucumber. I’ll tell yu one thing: he ain’t ordinary no forty an’ found cowpoke.’

  ‘Yu ain’t whistlin’ Dixie,’ agreed the storekeeper. ‘I still ain’t figgered out why he ain’t skedaddled. This yere fight ain’t none o’ his never-mind. I’d say he done considerable more than he needed to when he bruk the kid out o’ jail. Why for yu reckon he’s pitchin’ in this hoedown?’

  Blass shrugged. ‘No good reason I can see,’ he said. ‘Unless he just enjoys a scrap.’

  ‘He better had,’ was the rejoinder. ‘For we’re shore as hell in for one.’

  With this remark silence fell between them, and they turned their eyes towards the street, empty and yawning below them, except for the motionless figure of James Green, standing alone and waiting.

  Chris Helm smiled like a wolf at the three shots rang out behind him.

  ‘Sim was right,’ he told the three men with him.

  ‘Figgered,’ agreed the villainous-looking half-breed on his right. ‘They must have us down as pretty stupid if they reckon we’re goin’ to ride into a whipsaw.’

  ‘I don’t reckon they know what to expect,’ Helm told him. ‘That’s why we’re playin’ it the way I told yu afore we left the ranch.’

  ‘Yu reckon yu can drag it out until we get around?’ asked a short, narrow-eyed man wearing his gun on the left side, butt forward.

  ‘Yu just get there, Hitch,’ Helm said. ‘An’ come in fast when I take Green.’

  ‘Yu sound awful shore he’ll come out after yu alone,’ Hitch argued.

  ‘I am,’ was the unemotional reply. ‘Who else could he send?’ The quartet reined in their horses. Over a rise perhaps a hundred yards in front of them the town could be clearly seen, spread unprettily across the gray-green prairie like toy houses dropped by a tired child. Beyond and to the southwest the thin line of trees marking the course of the river laid a strip of brighter color across the land.

  ‘Yu boys got it straight, now?’ Helm asked, harshly. ‘I don’t want no slip-ups. When yu see me set him up, yu come up that street fast, Felipe, yu take the saloon side. Bann, yu take the middle. I want yu on the jailhouse side, Hitch. Keep yore eyes on the roofs, all o’ yu. They may have more men than we figger. Okay, move out!’

  The three Cottonwood riders thundered off at a tangent across the area between the town and the river. Helm drew his guns, spun the cylinders, checked the action, and thrust them back into the tooled leather holsters. He slapped his horse into motion and moved slowly ahead towards the northern end of the town.

  The three shots rang out, flat and emphatic, in the open prairie beyond the northern edge of town. The two men on the roof saw Sudden straighten up and step slowly forward into the centre of the street. They scanned the northern end of the street, and presently the lone horsemen moving in a leisurely fashion towards the edge of town.

  ‘One man alone,’ frowned Davis. ‘Are they mad?’

  ‘Mebbe, mebbe not,’ was the terse reply. ‘Keep yore sights on him regardless. Jim,’ he called. ‘One man. Looks like the big feller, Helm.’

  ‘Nobody else in sight, no dust?’ called the man in the street without taking his eyes off the rider now visible at the far end of town.

  ‘Nary a thing,’ came the reply.

  Sudden nodded and gestured them to conceal themselves again. He watched as the lone rider dismounted outside the general store and tied up his horse. Helm looked as if he were no more concerned than if he were really going into the store for some tobacco as Green paced slowly forward, up the street past the saloon now and drawing level with the bank.

  Helm stepped away from his horse’s side into the middle of the street, perhaps fifty yards away from the approaching Green. He smiled thinly, settling on his heels, letting Green come to him.

  ‘Keep comin’, cowboy,’ he said softly to himself. ‘Keep comin’.’ Aloud, he called, ‘Yu got any last words for yore tombstone, Green?’

  Sudden stopped, measuring the man. Helm’s confidence was no real surprise, for the man was a professional gunfighter, had been through this before so many times that it must almost be a ritual by now. Green’s mouth went grim as he thought of the men, innocent men, unskilled in the use of guns, who had fallen dead at
this killer’s feet.

  ‘Yeah,’ Green told him, stopping about twenty feet away from the gunfighter. ‘Yu might make shore they put “alias Sudden” on it.’

  Consternation touched Helm’s face for a moment, but then confidence reasserted itself.

  ‘So yo’re Sudden,’ he sneered. ‘I thought I knew yu. They say yo’re fast.’

  Sudden noted that for a fraction of a second, Helm’s eyes were focused on some distant point behind him down the street, but his cold gaze did not leave the man before him.

  ‘Yu got the choice o’ findin’ out or gettin’ out, Helm,’ Green told him. ‘Make it.’

  ‘In my own time, Mr Sudden,’ Helm smiled. He was almost relaxed, only the cat eyes wary and watchful. ‘I’ll take yu when I’m good an’ ready.’

  The two men stood for a frozen second, as if time itself was standing still. Then a door banged open and in that same moment, all hell broke loose on the street of Cottontown.

  Chapter Twelve

  Doc Hight had watched Sheriff Parris like a hawk from the moment he heard the three warning shots echo flatly across the town. The old man had given him no trouble, but had remained where Doc had told him to stay, flat against the far wall of the shack, his hands behind his neck.

  In the suspenseful moments following Helm’s arrival in town, which Hight could not see, Parris played on the medico’s taut nerves with telling comments.

  ‘Yore sidekicks will run out on yu, Doc,’ he cackled, evilly. ‘Yo’re goin’ to look mighty sick when Sim Cotton’s boys get yu.’

  ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ rapped Hight. ‘I might just take Green’s advice and tap you one with this.’ He gestured with the gun barrel. The Sheriff was unabashed by this threat, however.

  ‘Yu lay into me, an’ yu’ll get twice yore value when Sim’s done with yu, boy,’ he jibed. ‘Yu better turn me loose while yu got a chance.’