‘Gettin’ late,’ he mused aloud. ‘Be dark in a couple of hours.’
They sat in silence for several minutes, each busy with his own thoughts, both knowing that their thinking was along parallel lines. It was Billy who put them into words.
‘Yu reckon they’ll hit us again afore nightfall, Jim?’
Sudden shrugged.
‘Hard to tell,’ he admitted. ‘They must know we’re alone in here. Sim Cotton’ll probably reckon he don’t need to wait, but it depends on how many guns he can muster.’
‘If they wait until it’s dark, we ain’t got much of a chance,’ the boy murmured. ‘Have we?’
‘There’s allus a chance, Billy,’ the puncher told him gravely. ‘Yu just have to wait until she pops her head up, then grab ’er.’
The faintest of whimsical smiles touched his lips as he spoke, but Billy’s gloom was not to be so easily shifted.
‘Hell, I’d feel better if we could do somethin’,’ he growled. ‘I shore don’t go much on this waitin’ game.’
Guns ready at their sides, the two besieged men quickly scanned the empty street of Cottontown. At the far end, one or two lights were already glowing. It was very still.
‘It’s the on’y game we got,’ was Sudden’s quiet comment on the boy’s complaint.
Chapter Twenty
Alone in the cool gloom of the livery stable the two men waited. Billy sat with his back against the wall, the window to the right of his head. Without moving too much he could quickly scan the street to ensure that their enemies made no sneaking dash towards them. The town had stayed silent now for over an hour. No shots had been fired, no attack mounted on their redoubt. Sudden had taken advantage of the lull to stanch the flow of blood from the youngster’s reopened wound by the simple expedient of stripping off the blood-stained bandage which Doc Hight had put on, soaking it in water and twisting it dry. Billy had set his lips tight as Sudden bound up the ragged wound, and had even essayed a tight grin as the puncher had then stripped off his own shirt to dab water on the six-inch bullet burn across his ribs.
‘They won’t get no closer to yu than that without interferin’ with yore breathin’,’ remarked the boy. ‘Need any help?’
Sudden grinned. ‘If I feel faint, I’ll yell,’ he said.
His medical chores completed, the puncher hunkered down on a bale of straw and began to roll a cigarette. Billy’s cheerful words were good to hear. The kid had nerve enough for six men, but nerve alone was not going to get them out of this box. He pondered the reaction of the town to the wicked blows dealt to Cotton’s prestige. Would anyone in this cowed little valley back them when the final attack started? That it would come, and soon, he did not doubt. There was no way of knowing when, or how. Cotton’s force might be reduced but he still had enough guns to give two lone men, one of them able to use only his left hand properly, a pretty bad time of it when he struck.
As if divining Sudden’s thoughts, Billy spoke aloud, his voice pensive and musing.
‘I shore can’t figger this burg,’ he began. ‘They musta seen all that’s happened; they shore knowed we was buckin’ Sim Cotton an’ his toughs. Why ain’t they pitched in to give us some support, Jim?’
Sudden shrugged. ‘Hard to say. It’d go ag’in them if Sim Cotton come out on top — I’m guessin’ he’s a man with a long memory for things o’ that nature.’
‘I know that,’ remonstrated Billy. ‘But if we’d had six men in here who could use a gun, we coulda sent Sim Cotton an’ his paid guns skedaddlin’ for the hills an’ set this town free o’ him.’
‘Mebbe that’s the problem, Billy,’ Sudden suggested quietly. ‘Have yu given any thought to what happens to this town if Sim Cotton is broken?’
‘Shore!’ replied Billy stoutly. ‘Every man jack in the place’ll be his own man again, makin’ his own livin’, sellin’ or buyin’ as sees fit to anyone he wants to. That can’t be bad, can it?’
‘Depends,’ his companion said. ‘It’s pretty easy to get into the habit o’ lettin’ someone else do yore thinkin’ for yu. Once that happens, every day that passes makes it tougher to think for yoreself ag’in.’
‘Shucks, Jim,’ scoffed Billy. ‘I ain’t never felt thataway.’
‘Yu ain’t, mebbe,’ Sudden reminded him, ‘but mebbe a few o’ the men in this town has. An’ they ain’t shore that gettin’ rid o’ one problem ain’t just takin’ on another. So they’re sittin’ tight, waitin’. If we come out o’ this alive, they ain’t no wuss off than afore. If we don’t, then they ain’t goin’ to have Sim Cotton takin’ after them for sidin’ with us.’
Billy made a rueful face. ‘I hadn’t given it much thought along them lines,’ he admitted. ‘Could be yo’re right. Yu’ve bin right about ’most everythin’ else.’ He bent a frowning gaze upon his friend. ‘I dunno how yu do it. Yu ain’t exactly elderly—’
‘Well, thanks for that,’ murmured Green.
‘An’ yet yo’re wise to the way all kinds o’ different folks see things. I ain’t never seen a man so fast on the draw as yu are, but yu ain’t that much older than me. How come, Jim?’
‘Just luck, I guess,’ came the reply, but Sudden’s voice was far from light. Behind it Billy Hornby sensed a deep sadness and knew, without being sure why, that his words had burned deep into some corner of his companion’s thoughts like salt rubbed into an open scratch.
‘Hell, Jim, I shore didn’t mean to pry—’ he began, but Sudden cut him off with a gesture.
‘Forget it,’ he smiled. ‘Yu wasn’t to know. Some fellers has to learn the ropes in different schools to others, that’s all.’
His mind went back into his own past. He saw himself again as he had once been, a thin, half-starved youngster roaming around the southwestern territories, more or less the property of the old Paiute horse-trader who had raised him. He recalled the nomadic life, the slow turning of the seasons as they had moved from place to place, the eventual discovery that the Indian was not his father. And then the years with Bill Evesham. The kindly old rancher had taken a fancy to the nameless boy and ‘bought’ him from the old Paiute, given him a name, a name which Sudden had discarded after the events which set him upon the trail of the two men he had vowed to his dying benefactor that he would find.’
‘I shore can’t believe that all this has happened in on’y one day,’ Billy began again tentatively. ‘Seems like half a lifetime to me.’
At these hesitantly spoken words, Sudden shook off his thoughts of the past. ‘I’m gettin’ worse’n an old-timer,’ he chided himself. ‘Next thing yu know I’ll be chatterin’ about the good ol’ days.’ To the boy he said: ‘Yo’re right. She’s been a’mighty long day. Makes yu realize what them men in the Alamo went through when Santy Anna was tellin’ his band to play the deguello.’
Billy knocked on the wooden wall and whistled. ‘I hope she don’t come out the same way,’ he said, with a shiver.
‘We got a fifty-fifty chance, anyways,’ Sudden told him. ‘Sim Cotton shore ain’t got the weight he had when all this started. He’s lost twelve men to our two.’
‘That still leaves him mebbe three or four—not countin’ hisself, an’ I’m thinkin’ yu’d have to hump yoreself, good as yu are, to beat Sim Cotton to the draw, Jim.’
Sudden looked up. ‘He’s fast, is he?’
‘Like a rattler,’ confirmed Billy. ‘He don’t make no play about it, but some as have seen him in action reckon he could’ve given that Texas outlaw, Sudden, a run for his money.’
To this last remark the puncher made no reply, but the grim lines around his mouth deepened slightly. For the fiftieth time he wondered how, and when, the next move would come.
Chapter Twenty–One
It came about half an hour later.
Billy Hornby had eased himself carefully upwards to peer out from his vantage point at the window. As his eyes swept the empty street, he straightened quickly, gun cocked and ready. Noting the boy’s reaction, Sudden was already r
ising swiftly and moving to his own window as the boy hissed excitedly, ‘They’re wavin’ some kind o’ flag out o’ the jailhouse window.’
A glance confirmed to Sudden that a disembodied arm was indeed waving a dirty white rag tied to the end of a stick from the window across the street.
‘Flag o’ truce?’ he muttered. ‘What the devil—?’
Even as the words left his lips, the figure of a man stumbled out of the jailhouse door, faltering on the threshold as though unwilling to move further. Obviously someone had ordered him to go out into the silent, unwelcoming street, and was now insisting that the man proceed, however reluctantly. There was no mistaking the furtive stance, the unshaven visage, the stained and disreputable clothes.
‘Kilpatrick!’ breathed Billy. ‘An’ he shore ain’t keen on his work.’
The decrepit old lawyer stepped tentatively towards the street, the sagging banner raised high in one hand.
‘Parley!’ he called hoarsely. ‘Flag o’ truce!’
‘Looks like they wanta palaver,’ suggested Billy. ‘If that ol’ goat can make hisself heard over the noise o’ his knees knockin’.’
Sudden smiled. ‘He looks a mite nervous,’ he allowed, then raising his voice, called ‘Come ahead, Judge — but come careful!’
‘I ain’t heeled!’ screeched Kilpatrick, stopping in mid-stride in the center of the dusty street. ‘Don’t shoot! I ain’t heeled!’
‘Yu better not be!’ rapped Sudden. ‘Come ahead an’ say yore piece — but yore friends better not get any ideas: I’m tetchy jest now, an’ if anyone makes me jump I’d just nacherly shoot yu right through the gullet.’
Kilpatrick’s scrawny Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed deeply. Billy Hornby squinted along the barrel of his gun laid steady on the sill of the window. ‘Shore is a real temptin’ target,’ he suggested.
‘It is at that,’ agreed Sudden, ‘but yu couldn’t pull the trigger any more’n I could.’
Billy sighed. ‘Yo’re right, o’ course. I’m thinkin’ I may regret it, just the same, afore tomorrow.’
Kilpatrick stood stock still in the street. Sweat trickled down his wrinkled jowls, glistening on his stubbled cheeks, soaking his shirt. It was clear to those watching that he was even having trouble holding the flag steady.
‘Nerves playin’ yu up, Judge?’ called Sudden, sardonically. ‘Yu wasn’t so shaky this mornin’.’
A fleeting expression of hatred twisted Kilpatrick’s face, to be quickly concealed. But Sudden had seen the look and knew his jibing words had found their mark.
‘I ain’t shaky now, damn yu!’ snapped Kilpatrick, a vestige of his old asperity returning to his voice. ‘I’m offerin’ yu a chance to ride out o’ this town afore it’s too late.’
‘Yo’re offerin’ us a chance?’ Sudden’s voice was stiletto cold.
‘Sim Cotton is willing to let you ride out of here and no hard feelings,’ continued the old man.
‘Mighty generous o’ him,’ retorted the puncher. ‘What’s the catch — there’s gotta be one.’
‘The terms are simple, Green. Turn the boy over to Sim and you ride out of here alive. Refuse, and you’ll be carried out dead — both of you.’
The old voice was dry with venom. Kilpatrick squinted up at the blank windows of the stable. ‘You hear me, Green?’
‘I hear yu,’ came Sudden’s flat reply. ‘Now yu hear me, yu mangy ol’ goat. Get back off the street afore I put a slug in yore worthless hide, an’ tell yore boss I’d sooner make a deal with Satan!’
Kilpatrick made one more attempt, his voice quavering.
‘Yo’re making a mistake, Green!’
Sudden’s reply was not in words. Without seeming to aim, he planted a shot within an inch of Kilpatrick’s right toe, the bullet chunking a gout of dust upwards. The old man leaped as though stung, his eyes bugging, a shrill screech issuing from his throat as he broke in voiceless terror, dropping the grubby flag of truce and scuttling back towards the jailhouse like a frightened rabbit. A ragged rattle of covering fire spattered into the walls of the stable as the two men ducked down.
Sudden grinned across at Billy, who grinned back. Then Billy’s face turned serious.
‘Jim, I’m thankin’ yu again,’ he essayed. ‘Yu coulda rid out o’ here.’
‘Shucks, I wouldn’t get twenty yards afore I got a slug in the back, an’ yu know it,’ Sudden said, ‘so don’t bother thankin’ me none. I’m allus inclined to play things safe.’
‘Shore,’ Billy said, mock scorn in his voice. ‘Yu play things safe. An’ I’m Ulysses S. Grant.’
The puncher’s smile widened. ‘Thought yu looked familiar,’ he said. ‘Must be the beard.’ Then before the boy could suitably reply he went on, ‘Sim Cotton must be gettin’ worried to try somethin’ like that. What yu reckon he’s up to?’
‘Search me,’ said Billy, ‘but whatever it is, it ain’t no good.’ It was not to be many minutes before the two men were to discover the truth of this statement.
While Kilpatrick had distracted the attention of the two men in the livery stable, Sim Cotton’s men had been busy. Two of them had sneaked up to the northern end of the town, using the houses as cover. One of them was the man called Ricky, a dirty bandanna tied around the lacerated scalp which had been the result of his earlier collision with the puncher. The other Cottonwood man, a burly fellow named Rolfe, lumbered along behind. They entered the vacant general store, where Rolfe appropriated two large metal drums of kerosene. Then they scuttled across the empty street, out of sight of the two men in the stable, and worked their way down behind the bank, then the saloon, until they were close to the blind northern wall of the stable. They could see Kilpatrick in the street, and hear his exchange with the puncher.
Rolfe, the kerosene drums swinging at his side, looked questioningly at Ricky, who was piling refuse, dried leaves, bits of brushwood and any other rubbish which he could lay his hands upon, against the wall of the stable. When Ricky at last nodded, Rolfe swung the drums to the ground. Tearing the cap off one, he sloshed its contents heedlessly upon the pile of refuse. Ricky, following suit, splashed the contents of the second drum up against the walls, soaking the dusty timber and the ground around the bonfire. The canister, now half empty, he laid upon the top of the pile, and then and then stood back, hands on hips, surveying the results of their efforts.
‘Yu think it’ll work?’ whispered Rolfe hoarsely.
‘It better,’ his companion told him grimly, ‘or Sim Cotton’s finished, an’ so are we.’
Rolfe nodded. Sim Cotton’s plan had been murderously simple: to distract the men in the stable with a phony parley while giving his men the opportunity to prepare this last-ditch attempt at forcing the besieged men into the open.
Ricky raised a hand as a signal, and then with a gesture to Rolfe to move out, struck a match and tossed it on to the kerosene-drenched pile. The kerosene ignited with a slight whoomp and then the seeking flames bit deeply into the pile of rubbish and brushwood. Within a few seconds, long hungry tongues of questing flame were reaching up the side of the livery stable, blistering the ancient paintwork, feasting joyously upon the bleached wood of the building, as Sudden’s contemptuous shot put Martin Kilpatrick to flight, and the two Cottonwood men faded back and headed by their circuitous route towards the jailhouse.
Sim Cotton, from his vantage point in the jailhouse, had watched the developments in the street with a cold and pitiless smile. Kilpatrick’s discomfiture — he did not deign to turn as the old man stumbled in from the street, fighting for breath and rigid with fear — was a tiny price to pay for the chance to lay these two rebels by the heels. Sim Cotton’s mind had callously totaled the odds and found them wanting. Somehow, incredibly, this sardonic drifter and a dirt-poor youth had broken his hold on this valley, had cut his crew down until now there was only himself and two riders. His lip curled: he knew exactly how long he would have the loyalty of the remaining two if this last, desperate gambit failed.
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‘Dawgs,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Yeller dawgs. They figger if I win they’ll get a bigger cut, an’ if I lose they can crawfish out.’ His black brain planned, twisted, discarded, appraised. The cowboy, Green, had he sent for the U.S. Marshal? Was he bluffing or not? Sim Cotton shook his head. He could not take that chance. If a U.S. Marshal was on his way, then Green and the boy must be dead before he arrived.
He glanced contemptuously at the huddled figure of Martin Kilpatrick, wheezing still in the darkened corner of the room.
‘Old fool,’ he thought, callously. ‘Pity that slug didn’t put him out o’ his misery.’
At this moment the rear door opened, and Ricky and Rolfe came in. Cotton lowered his quickly-cocked gun.
‘How’s she goin’?’ Ricky said, easing over to the window. A coarse laugh escaped his lips as he surveyed the result of his handiwork. ‘Pretty good he continued. ‘Like a house on fire, yu might say.’
Sim Cotton nodded but did not speak. He moved again to the window and peered out, his eyes reflecting the mad, dancing flames roaring now, crackling as they greedily bit into the desiccated wood of the stable. A half-insane chuckle gurgled in Sim Cotton’s throat, freezing the blood in Ricky’s veins, hardened though the man was. There was gloating triumph in Sim Cotton’s voice when he spoke, when he hissed out:
‘Burn, damn yu, burn!’ The insane laughter swelled. ‘Fry the bastards!’
Chapter Twenty–Two
‘Fire!’ yelled Billy Hornby. ‘They’ve fired the stable.’ He started to scramble down from his post by the window as the first heavy black plumes of smoke surged into the building and the dull crackle of the flames made itself heard.
‘Stay where yu are!’ rapped Sudden. ‘Keep yore eyes on that street — I ain’t pinin’ to be rushed.’
He vaulted down to the floor, and as he did so, Billy’s gun spoke twice.
‘Right again, Jim,’ he crowed. ‘One o’ them just stuck his head up for a look-see. I reckon he’s plumb discouraged. How is it?’
Sudden--At Bay (A Sudden Western #2) Page 14