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

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘We told him somethin’ about what had been goin’ on Billy continued the story. ‘He said he’d met Sim Cotton. The way he said it made it sound like he’d spotted Sim for what he was.’

  ‘And now, dear Jim, thanks to you everyone in the valley will share in the future,’ Jenny Hornby told him. ‘Every acre of scrubland will be irrigated, and the whole valley will be rich, fertile land.’

  ‘Worth a fortune,’ added Hight. ‘Which explains why Sim Cotton wanted to keep the town under his thumb. As soon as the dam was given the go-ahead, he’d buy up every building, every acre of land — everything would have been in his hands.’

  ‘Until yu happened along Billy finished. And then, with a quizzical frown. ‘Or did yu just happen along?’

  Sudden regarded his young friend with a level gaze.

  ‘How d’yu come to think somethin’ like that?’ he asked. His voice was lazy, but Hight detected something in it which Billy did not.

  ‘Hell, Jim, I dunno foundered the boy. ‘It was … just, well, as if someone’d known what was goin’ on here, an’ had sent yu to come an’ put an end to it.’

  ‘Shore scoffed Sudden. ‘Someone who knowed I’d get here on the day that he knowed yu was goin’ to make a play against Buck Cotton. Someone who knowed I’d be able to handle Sim Cotton an’ all his boys, an’ knowed that if they nearly burned me to a cinder in a blazin’ stable, it’d be okay, because I’d get out an’ then not get beefed, on’y creased. Shore he finished, ‘someone sent me, I reckon. Ol’ Lady Luck, kid. Nobody else.’

  ‘Well, anyway,’ Billy argued. ‘It makes no never-mind — it shore was a good thing for this town that yu happened along. The Cottons was aimin’ to eat this valley whole.’

  ‘They nearly made it,’ Sudden reminded him quietly.

  ‘Aw, shucks, Jim,’ protested Billy, ‘they had no chance agin’ yu. I never seen anythin’ like that fight in the street. Three o’ them, an’ one o’ them Sim Cotton, an’ yu—’

  ‘Was within one millimeter of cashin’ in my chips,’ Sudden said grimly. ‘If Doc here hadn’t turned up — an’ I ain’t yet had a chance o’ thankin’ yu, Doc — by the way, just where in Hades did yu come from?’

  ‘From my own house,’ smiled Hight. ‘I woke up lying on the floor, stiff as a board from the beating Art Cotton had given me. I was surprised to find myself still alive, and astonished when I discovered I was able to walk. I found a bottle of whiskey and took a drink of that, which helped. Then I looked through the window. It all came flooding back, the fight, the siege. I could see the stable all but burned down. I could see men in the street. I imagined that yu and Billy must both be dead, and I went out to find out what had gone on. I must have not been thinking too clearly for it never occurred to me that the Cottons would kill me knowing that I’d been with you. But then I saw you, and Buck Cotton ready to kill you. I didn’t know what to do but I just kept walking, automatically, I suppose. I saw Billy’s gun laying there in the dust. I didn’t know really what was happening, but I was terribly tired and suddenly very angry, impatient almost, and I just threw a shot at Buck. To my surprise, it disarmed him. I thought he had already shot you, you see: you looked dead on your feet.’

  ‘It’d been a hard sort o’ day,’ admitted Green with a smile.

  ‘An’ then the Doc yells out that if they want it to be their town, them watchin’ had better do somethin’ about it,’ Billy interposed. ‘The crowd tore Buck Cotton to pieces.’

  Jenny Hornby shuddered. ‘It must have been awful,’ she shivered. ‘Even though they were so hateful, I could not wish such a death on any man.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t pretty,’ Hight agreed, ‘but it was necessary. If this town was ever going to have any self-respect again.’

  ‘I remember the crowd yellin’,’ Sudden told them. ‘What happened after that? I must’ve been dozin’ at the time.’

  ‘Yu shore were,’ chortled Billy. ‘Sleepin’ Beauty had nothin’ on yu.’

  ‘They found Martin Kilpatrick in the jailhouse,’ Hight told his listener. ‘The townspeople wanted to hang him, but in the end he was stripped, tied to a horse, and pointed north. He left the town without a single possession.’

  ‘At that, he was lucky,’ growled Billy.

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed the doctor. ‘But they all agreed that Kilpatrick had been nothing but a tool.’

  ‘Hah, listen to him!’ snorted Billy.’ ‘“They agreed”, he says, as if it had been some kind o’ sewin’ circle discussion. Jim, Doc stood over that shiverin’ old misfit with a cocked gun in his hand, an’ told that lynch mob the killin’ was over — unless someone tried to lay a hand on Kilpatrick. They took his word for it, an’ backed off.’

  During this recital, Jenny Hornby regarded the medico with adoring eyes, while that worthy flushed crimson and fidgeted in his seat. Unable to contain his embarrassment he protested ‘Those men were only looking for a scapegoat. By hanging Kilpatrick they would be hanging their own guilt, their own refusal to fight the Cottons until it was almost too late.’

  Sudden shook his head. ‘That psychology stuff’s too deep for me, Doc. But I’ll take yore word for it. What happens now?’

  ‘We’ve elected a council,’ Hight told him. ‘Land in the valley will be allocated to everyone in the town according to how long they’ve lived here. After that, new settlers will be entitled to file on the usual hundred and sixty acres allowed by the Homestead Act. For the time being, I’m acting as Mayor. And in that office, I want to tell you that we all felt that as soon as you were on your feet properly, we’d offer you the job of town Marshal, Jim.’

  ‘Yu don’t need me,’ he murmured. ‘The town is free.’

  ‘It’ll still be wide open for a while,’ persisted Hight, ‘as the new settlers come in. We’ll need help, Jim. And later … well, you could hang up your guns for good.’

  Sudden smiled sadly. It was a tempting offer, indeed, to a lonely man. To put behind him the empty outlaw trails, the long and endless quest upon which he had embarked, to live in a friendly town, with good people for neighbors. But it could not be, and he knew it.

  ‘If I’d lost my memory for good, it might’a’ been possible,’ he told them. ‘But now, I can’t. I got a job to do.’

  Hight smiled and did not press Sudden further. He dissolved Billy’s puzzled frown by saying ‘We’ll manage. I have another man who I think will handle the job admirably — Billy, here.’

  ‘Me?’ ejaculated the boy. ‘Town Marshal? An’ who’s goin’ to look after the Lazy H?’ He looked at his sister who smiled at him slowly and then looked towards the doctor. Billy finally grinned. ‘Oh, I see he nodded. ‘It looks like town Marshal or workin’ for Doc an’ Jenny. In which case—’

  ‘Yu’ll take it, I suppose?’ finished Hight, joining in the general laughter at Billy’s predicament. Jenny turned again to Sudden.

  ‘And you, Jim? Won’t you stay awhile with us — at least for the wedding?’

  ‘I’d admire to,’ Green told her. ‘But I oughta be moseyin’ on, soon as Doc tells me I can ride.’

  ‘Oh, David, tell him he can’t ride until after the wedding,’ pouted Jenny Hornby, charmingly.

  ‘I don’t imagine he’d believe me, somehow,’ replied Hight. ‘He probably knows as well as I do that he could be in the saddle a couple of days from now. The loss of memory was purely temporary, and Jim’s as healthy as a horse. I don’t think I could fool him — but I’m still hoping he’ll stay.’

  But in the end, their arguments availed them nothing, and they reluctantly realized that their friend was going to leave them. They had one final surprise left for him, however, which Jenny whispered to him that evening as they had supper.

  ‘They’re doin’ what?’ he asked, amazed.

  ‘It’s true, Jim,’ she dimpled. ‘Ask David.’

  ‘Consider yoreself asked, Doc,’ Sudden said. ‘What’s this about changin’ the name o’ the town’?

  ‘Oh, it was just an idea
we had,’ Hight said airily. Billy stifled a giggle.

  ‘Come on, Doc — give!’ growled the puncher threateningly, and Hight smiled.

  ‘They want to call the town Green Valley, Jim — if it’s okay with you. As a permanent reminder to those who were here of what happened.’

  Sudden’s face was unreadable; his friends looked puzzled.

  ‘Yu don’t like it?’ queried Billy, anxiously.

  Sudden’s voice, when he finally spoke, was husky with emotion.

  ‘It’s a fine thought, Doc. But … yu ought to name it for Davis, mebbe, or Blass. They belonged here. They gave their lives for this town. Me, I was just ridin’ through, like that Ishmael fella in the Bible — a born drifter. Not the kind o’ jasper to name yore town after.’

  ‘I’ll tell the council,’ Hight said, finally. ‘But I’m thinking they won’t change their minds.’

  ‘Talking of changing minds, have you changed yours, Jim?’ asked Jenny Hornby. ‘You promised to think about staying for the wedding.’

  Sudden shook his head. ‘The doctor says I can ride in a couple o’ days, Jenny. I reckon I’ll mosey.’

  ‘This town will find it mighty hard to part with you,’ Hight told him. Sudden shook his head.

  ‘Nobody’s indispensable,’ he said, and Hight thought he detected sadness in the voice. He mentioned the fact later, as he and Sudden sat on the porch smoking a last cigarette before turning in. Inside the house, Jenny could be heard squealing as her brother splashed water at her during the chore of dishwashing.

  ‘I hate to see you go, Jim,’ Hight ventured. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Leave it alone, now, Doc,’ Sudden said quietly. ‘I’m shore.’

  ‘Hell, Jim, you may never find those two men you’re looking for!’ snorted Hight, disgustedly.

  ‘Not if I wait for ’em to come to me. Doc’ Then his voice dropped. ‘Yu ain’t told Billy — about me?’

  Hight shook his head. ‘Never a word. Why?’

  ‘Don’t yu. Not for a long, long time. Mebbe if yu ever hear I’ve done what I’ve set out to do, tell him then.’

  Many years later, when the news finally reached this sheltered valley that Sudden’s quest was indeed over, Hight was to recall their quiet conversation, sitting on the darkened porch beneath the brilliant stars.’’

  ‘You want to tell me why the boy shouldn’t know, Jim?’

  ‘Shucks, that’s easy, Doc. If he was to hear some o’ the tales that are told about Sudden, he might just want to defend me —in my absence, like. It ain’t worth it.’

  ‘Jim, your thinking does you credit,’ Hight told him, ‘but you sell yoreself short. Why, I’d be proud to stand up and tell the world I know you.’

  Sudden’s smile was wry. ‘Well … don’t do it in Texas,’ was all he said.

  A few days later, the three men rode into town, gathering for their final farewell on the porch of Hight’s little house. The busy sound of hammering, and the yells of working men came from the skeleton frame of a new stable, being built upon the cleared site of the charred ruin.

  ‘When she’s finished, nobody’ll know that any o’ this ever happened,’ Billy Hornby remarked almost petulantly.

  ‘Just as well, that way,’ Sudden replied. ‘The town’s had its operation. Now the scar’s healin’. The sooner folks forget the Cottons, the better the place’ll be.’ He thrust out his hand, the other on the boy’s shoulder.

  ‘So long, Billy,’ he said, gruffly. ‘An’ don’t pick any more fights until I’m long gone, yu hear?’

  ‘So long, Jim,’ muttered Billy. He could not, finally, meet the level eyes of his friend without revealing the tears lurking in his own. Billy watched as the medico and his protector clasped hands, neither speaking. Then Sudden mounted the big black, the magnificent stallion impatient to set out on to the open road after his enforced idleness. Sudden looked down at his good friends.

  ‘Green Valley, huh?’ he grinned. ‘Shore is a hell of a name to give a town.’

  He lifted a hand in final farewell and turned the horse towards the north. They watched him thunder up the street, and within moments the curve hid him from their view. Before them lay the everyday bustle of the town, with people going about their business in complete normality. Hight nodded to himself.

  Had Green been sent to help them? Was it possible that the infamous gunfighter Sudden was perhaps some kind of undercover trouble-shooter? Nonsense, he told himself. He turned to find Billy frowning at him.

  ‘I was just wonderin’ about what Jim said, Doc,’ Billy started. ‘Yu reckon he was agreein’ to us callin’ the town Green Valley or not? Like he said: it’s kind o’ out o’ the ordinary, ain’t it?’

  Hight nodded in agreement.

  ‘You’re right, Billy,’ he told the youngster. ‘But the name stays. It’s out of the ordinary, all right — but so is the man we’re namin’ it after.’

  Piccadilly Publishing

  Piccadilly Publishing is the brainchild of long time Western fans and Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling Western writers Mike Stotter and David Whitehead (a.k.a. Ben Bridges). The company intends to bring back into 'e-print' some of the most popular and best-loved Western and action-adventure series fiction of the last forty years.

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  If you enjoyed this book we recommend others in the series:

  SUDDEN STRIKES BACK

  SUDDEN AT BAY

  SUDDEN -APACHE FIGHTER

  SUDDEN -DEAD OR ALIVE

  Also by Frederick H Christian

  the Angel series

  FIND ANGEL!

  SEND ANGEL!

  TRAP ANGEL!

  HANG ANGEL!

  About the Author

  Frederick Nolan, a.k.a. 'Frederick H. Christian', was born in Liverpool, England and was educated there and at Aberaeron in Wales. He decided early in life to become a writer, but it was some thirty years before he got around to achieving his ambition. His first book was The Life and Death of John Henry Tunstall, and it established him as an authority on the history of the American frontier. Later he founded The English Westerners' Society. In addition to the much-loved Frank Angel westerns, Fred also wrote five entries in the popular Sudden series started by Oliver Strange. Among his numerous non-western novels is the best-selling The Oshawa Project (published as The Algonquin Project in the US) which was later filmed by MGM as Brass Target. A leading authority on the outlaws and gunfighters of the Old West, Fred has scripted and appeared in many television programs both in England and in the United States, and authored numerous articles in historical and other academic publications.