As Yancey lunged after him, someone hit him on the side of his head and he staggered. He had lost sight of Cato now and the women too. All he could see were brawling, swearing, moving men, all around the room. Glass shattered, furniture splintered. Men shouted and women screamed. There was a resonant crash as the piano fell victim to the brawl and was overturned by a bunch of brawling men. They stomped all over it, a weird assortment of non-musical sounds emanating from the innards of the instrument. A wire broke with a ‘ping!’ Wood splintered and a man cursed as his leg was caught in the wreckage.
Yancey was carried back by a surging mass of fighting, swearing men. Blows rained down on him and he struck out wildly, left and right, hacked at legs with his boots, rammed elbows into ribs, chopped blows onto the necks of men shorter than himself. He stumbled, almost went down, grabbed at a man for support. Hands struck at him and he cursed as his lips smashed back against his teeth. He hoped he hadn’t cracked his teeth; there was plenty of blood flowing inside his mouth. Knees drove against his ribs. A boot stomped on his belly and his hands went up to protect his head as he went all the way down and all he could see were stumbling, dusty boots. He felt them stomping all over him and he rolled and lashed out and finally managed to double-up his own legs and then kick out. He knocked the legs from under some of the men and, cursing, they crashed down beside him. He casually hooked an elbow into one man’s face, thudded his fist against another’s temple, and then kicked out again. He rolled up onto his shoulders, floundering but continuing to kick, and managed to make enough space so that he could do a complete somersault and bounce to his feet. He found himself against a wall that fairly shook with the shock of bodies slamming into it.
The din was tremendous and the whole room was now a seething mass of fighting men. He was momentarily awestruck by the magnitude of the brawl; it seemed to him that the walls of the saloon must soon collapse outwards from the press of the violent men. He caught a glimpse of Cato, slamming at two men who were closing with him. The small Enforcer’s face was streaked with blood; one eye was swollen almost shut; his clothes were torn and shredded, hanging from his belt like rags. But Cato was putting up a good fight, though it was obvious that he was tiring, too. Then Yancey caught a blow on the side of the jaw that turned his head violently on his shoulders and he heard something go ‘crack!’ in his neck. He rolled along the wall, felt a fist thud against his chest, then he swung back, using the knuckles on the back of his arcing fist like a hammer. They connected with the nose of the man who had hit him and there was a soft, squelching sound, a pulpy feel beneath his knuckles, and the man seemed to disappear as he went down and was swallowed by the surging crowd.
The novelty had long gone out of the fight. There was no exuberance or excitement or stimulation left now. Men simply slugged away at whoever appeared in front of them. Glass still shattered occasionally but nowhere near as often as at first. There wasn’t a lot of furniture left to be trampled and splintered. Yancey battered, punched and kicked his way around the room towards Cato who was taking more blows than he was dishing out now, tiring fast, staggering from fatigue as much as from the punishment he had taken. Yancey felt a hammer-blow against his spine, stumbled, kept his feet somehow and spun back to face his attacker. He was surprised to find it was the tall man in the corduroy coat who had first objected to Cato’s attentions to the woman with the bleached hair. The coat was blood-spattered now and hanging from one shoulder in rags. The man himself was battered and bleeding and his eyes had a kind of glazed look as he swung wildly at Yancey. He was fighting by pure instinct. The Enforcer ducked the blow easily, placed his spread hand on the man’s bloody face and shoved violently. The man shot back, slammed into the wall so hard that the back of his head snapped back against the woodwork. His eyes rolled up and showed white and he sagged towards the floor. Yancey whirled and continued on his way towards Cato, heaving men bodily aside, smashing a path with bloody fists and clubbing blows.
“C’mon ... You’ve had enough, pard!” Yancey panted as he reached the embattled Cato’s side. He hammered the two men flat who had been attacking Cato, lifted the small man completely off the ground and threw him over one shoulder. Cato fought and protested feebly, almost out on his feet.
Yancey started towards the stairs. He swung right and left, using Cato’s dangling legs as a weapon, the boots clunking against heads and faces, clearing a path. At the foot of the stairs, a group of men fought. Yancey bored through them like an express train, slamming out with his free fist, using Cato’s legs, ducking his shoulder into the group and breaking it up. A man cursed him and lunged forward. Yancey lifted an elbow and rammed the point squarely into the middle of the man’s face. He went backwards and down as Yancey started up the stairs, Cato dangling over his shoulder, the small man’s blood darkening Yancey’s clothes. He was mumbling, still occasionally striking half-heartedly at something, a machine that was fast running down ...
The big Enforcer reached the top of the stairs and a bouncer, clutching a pickaxe handle, came rushing at him. Yancey swayed to one side, stuck out his leg and the man yelled wildly as he catapulted headfirst down the stairs.
He crashed and clattered and thudded his way to the bottom where he lay still, as bloody men staggered and fought all around him. Yancey moved on down the passage towards his room, opened the door and walked in. He dumped Cato unceremoniously on his bed and the small man bounced and groaned and snatched at the edge of the bed for support.
“Great day!” he breathed. “Take it easy, man!”
“I aim to,” Yancey said feelingly, examining his bloody face in the mirror now that he had a lamp lit. He eased one of his front teeth gently and swore when he felt it moving in the gum. Then he stumbled across and dropped onto the edge of his own bed, sighing and groaning, shaking his head slowly. “Damn you, Johnny!”
Cato managed a grin through the signs of battle. “You should’ve stayed upstairs.”
“Amen to that!”
Cato stood up gingerly, arching his back painfully. “Guess they won’t want to send up any hot water for a spell, so I better wash-up in cold ...”
Yancey mopped at his face with a kerchief and watched as Cato sluiced water from the basin over his raw face and hands. Then he tore off the rags of his clothing, went to his warbag and dragged out his trail clothes, looking at them distastefully. “Guess they’ll have to do for tonight,” he muttered.
“Hell, why bother with ’em now?” Yancey asked. “Just get into bed and pull the sheet up. That’s all I aim to do after I wash up.”
Cato looked at him steadily. “Well, you do what you want, amigo. But the bed I’m aimin’ to get into ain’t this one here!”
Yancey stared at him incredulously. “You’re joking!”
Cato grinned at him through split and puffed lips. “You reckon?” he asked, starting to pull on his trail shirt. “I didn’t buy that blonde all them drinks for nothin’.”
“Hell’s flames!” breathed Yancey falling back across his bed. He lay there, staring at the ceiling and, a few minutes later heard Cato going out the door.
“Buenos noches, amigo!” Cato called quietly.
Yancey shook his head. “Guess I’m not the one gonna have a good night,” he muttered as he heard the door close behind his pard, marveling at the little man’s stamina and determination. Speaking for himself, he felt absolutely beat.
Chapter Three – A Man Called Cayuse
Sometime during the night, Sheriff Kirby Steele returned to Rifle Ridge and, it was assumed, soon learnt of the happenings during his absence. He appeared at the door of Yancey’s and Cato’s room in the saloon about eight the next morning and his hammering on the woodwork brought Yancey out of a deep sleep. He hobbled to the door like an old man, as always, hating these first moments the morning after a brawl.
“Kirby Steele,” the lawman said curtly, gesturing to the badge on his shirt as he pushed past Yancey and entered the room without being asked. “Where’s the other
hombre? Cato, ain’t it?”
“He’ll be along, I guess,” Yancey said, closing the door and moving stiffly to a chair. He looked at the grim-faced lawman as he sat down with a grunt. The man was tall, but wide enough to make him look blocky. He was in his mid-fifties, Yancey judged, and there was a shiftiness about his eyes that he didn’t like. This man could be mean and treacherous. The sheriff wore twin guns and he sat down on the edge of Cato’s bed, motioning to it.
“Ain’t been slept in.”
“Mebbe he’s an early riser and got up and made it,” Yancey said.
Steele frowned, thinking about that. “Mebbe,” he said unsmilingly. “You hombres are right handy with guns, I hear. Bounty men.”
Yancey said nothing, stood up and began moving his arms and shoulders to try to get some of the stiffness out of his muscles. He grabbed a shirt and pulled it on. The lawman watched his every move.
“Must’ve been somethin’ to see, two of you downin’ all them gunnies ... Makes me wonder how come I ain’t heard tell of a couple of bounty hunters who are that good.”
“Could be it’s because we haven’t hunted much in Texas, sure never before in your territory, Steele.”
“Could be,” Steele allowed soberly. “Suppose you’re wonderin’ how come I didn’t do anythin’ about nailin’ those hombres when they was wanted so bad, huh?”
Yancey shrugged. “Had crossed my mind.”
Steele frowned, looking closely at the big Enforcer. “You speak different to the usual ranny. Educated. You from back East?”
“I’m from all over,” Yancey said enigmatically. “Why didn’t you pick up those gunslingers, Sheriff?”
“Well, they’d been in town a few days and I’d been makin’ up my mind whether to go up against ’em or not. Only two or three at first, you see, then the others drifted in and I got this call about rustlin’ out in the Breaks and a settler who’d caught a bullet in the back. I figured that was more important.”
“So you let ’em have the run of the town while you rode out to the Breaks?”
The lawman stiffened, his eyes narrowing as they regarded Yancey coldly. “Don’t sass me, young feller. I called it the way I saw it. I ain’t loco. I don’t want to die yet. I’d no hankerin’ to commit suicide by going up against them fellers alone and the townsfolk reckoned they weren’t gettin’ paid to risk their necks, but I was.”
Yancey shrugged, having finished dressing. He reached for his gunrig to buckle it on, but froze when Steele abruptly drew one of his own six-guns.
“Just leave that, Bannerman,” Steele said quietly. “We’ll talk a sight easier if you let that gun hang where it is. Savvy?”
Yancey didn’t like it but he nodded, regarding the sheriff warily. “All right, you’ve tried to justify your running out of town. I’m not interested. But I am interested in what you got in mind for me now.”
“You and your pard,” the sheriff told him crisply. He swung the gun-barrel towards the door as it opened and Cato walked in. He froze when he saw the gun and looked swiftly at Yancey, who shrugged. Cato had his Manstopper rammed carelessly into his waistband but checked in his instinctive movement towards its butt when he saw the star on Steele’s chest. “Come on in, mister,” invited the lawman.
Cato whistled softly as he stepped into the room and turned and closed the door after him. He faced back into the room.
“Guess that’s the hand-cannon I been hearin’ about,” Steele said, gesturing to the Manstopper. “You lift it out gentle-like, between thumb and forefinger, and drop it on the bed ... Pronto!”
Cato did as he was told and stood beside Yancey. He winked and Yancey marveled that the man seemed to have no after-effects from the brawl or whatever else he had been doing all night. In fact, he seemed to be bursting with health and energy.
“Now, you two are a bit of a mystery to me and I ain’t a man who can abide mysteries,” Steele said. “I’ll accept for now that you’re a couple of bounty hunters like you say, so I guess you’ll be wantin’ to make your claim for the rewards on them gunfighters, right?”
“Damn right!” Cato told him. “You break out them forms, Sheriff, and we’ll put our John Henrys right where you say.”
Steele looked at him unsmilingly and nodded. “Okay, I’ll do that. I can identify the dead men and you’ve got half the town as witnesses that you killed them unaided, just the two of you. Guess you’ll be sticking around town till I get authority from the Capitol to pay out, huh?”
“Right again,” Cato said briskly.
“All right. But first, you square away with the saloonkeeper for the damage done in that brawl last night.”
Cato and Yancey both stiffened. “All of it?” Yancey asked.
“All of it,” Steele replied.
“We didn’t cause all of it!” Cato protested.
“You started it. Without you none of it would’ve happened. So you two pay for it ... You'll be able to afford it out of the bounty money.” He raked them both with his cold eyes. “In fact, I aim to deduct the damages from the money before I pay it over.”
“Not strictly legal, Sheriff,” Yancey said quietly.
“How would you know? You a lawyer or somethin’?”
“Worked with an attorney once,” Yancey hedged. “Picked up a good knowledge of the law. Enough to know you can’t touch that bounty money once the claim’s in our names.”
Steele looked at Yancey steadily and was silent for a long moment. Then there was a very faint, almost imperceptible softening at the corners of his mouth, an embryo smile. “There’s one thing wrong, friend. Your claim ain’t in ... Yet.”
“You can’t do that!” Cato said. “That’s blackmail!”
Steele looked innocent. “I never threatened you in any way, mister.”
“All right, Sheriff,” Yancey said abruptly. “We get you. If we don’t agree to pay, the claim gets lost.”
“Could happen,” Steele allowed.
“Who estimates the damages?” Cato asked quietly.
Again there was that slight quirking of the lawman’s mouth. “I do, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Cato said bitterly, looking sharply at Yancey who merely shrugged.
“You fellers better come on down and get them claim forms filled out right away. I’ll telegraph ’em through so there won’t be much delay.”
“Big of you,” Cato growled.
~*~
In the law office, after the papers were signed and Steele had read them through, the sheriff looked at both men hard. “You ain’t aimin’ to leave town for a spell, are you?” he said. “Guess not,” Yancey said. “We want that money, Sheriff.”
“Shouldn’t take long, providin’ you two behave yourselves. I’ll just keep your guns here till the money comes through and the saloonkeeper’s happy. Oh, yeah, and I’ve arranged for your horses to be stabled in the courtyard behind the jailhouse here. They’ll be well looked after.”
Cato and Yancey exchanged glances. Steele was making sure they hung around town, all right. They wondered why. Maybe it was just as he claimed, that he wanted the saloon damages paid for, using this as a show of his power, proving to the town that he could still control the destinies of the men who had gunned down the outlaws. Maybe ...
Whatever the reason, they seemed stuck here for a spell. “How about our guns, Sheriff?” Yancey asked. “Those gun-rannies could have friends. If they come gunning we’ll be caught flat-footed.”
Steele smiled openly this time. “Well, then, in that case, you’ll just have to come to me for protection, won’t you? I mean, that’s my job, ain’t it? Protectin’ citizens! You told me as much in your room, Bannerman.”
So that was the way it was going to be, Yancey thought as he drilled his bleak stare into the lawman’s face. He continued to stare until Steele looked away, flushing, and then Yancey glanced at Cato and they turned and walked out of the office into the street, now washed by the early morning sun.
“What’s he playin
’ at, Yance?” Cato asked.
“Not sure. Could be just like he said, something to do with him being big-headed and wanting to show the town that he’s still top man. But he wants us around for a day or so, looks like.”
“That part I don’t mind so much,” Cato said. “Reckon, I can find some way of passin’ the time that’s to my likin’, but I hate like hell walkin’ around without my Manstopper.”
“Which reminds me ... Where’d you get it from? Last I saw, it was skidding through the sawdust under about a hundred stomping boots.”
Cato grinned. “The blonde had it. She gave it back. In exchange for me.”
Yancey smiled. “I dunno how you do it.”
Cato looked shocked. “At your age, amigo? Hell, we’ve got to put that right! The blonde’s got a room-mate who—”
“All right, all right!” Yancey said, still grinning. “Forget I spoke! I reckon I’ll see if I can pick me up at least a derringer until Steele feels like handing back our guns.”
“Good idea.”
But it wasn’t, as it turned out. Obviously the sheriff had already seen the storekeepers. They were fresh out of any kind of firearm. On Steele’s orders.
Intrigued now and on the alert for trouble, Yancey and Cato went on their way, still wondering what in hell Steele was up to ...
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