Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) (7 page)
Read Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) Online
Authors: Frederick H. Christian
Tags: #cowboys, #western fiction, #range war, #the old west, #piccadilly publishing, #frederick h christian, #oliver strange, #sudden, #the wild west
The rest
of the town comprised a pair of general stores, a livery stable
with a blacksmith’s shop, and the various shacks and dugouts which
housed the permanent residents of Hanging Rock.
On this particular day, some twenty-four hours after Sudden
and Dave Haynes had undergone their ordeal on the mesa, four men
rode into Hanging Rock from the direction of Summerfield, the next
town on the road to Santa Fe. The hock deep dust of the street
muffled the sound of their horses' hoofs. They looked like four
cowpunchers on their way for a drink at Diego’s, although it was a
rarity to see punchers in off the range so early in the day. An
onlooker might have been mildly surprised by the fact that they did
not, however, stop outside the saloon, but proceeded to the bank,
where they dismounted and hitched their horses. The same
onlooker—had there been one—might have been even more surprised to
see three of the men go into the bank, leaving one of their number
outside with the horses; this man lounged carelessly against the
hitching rail, watching the silent street from beneath the shaded
brim of his sombrero.
For
perhaps eight or ten minutes there was silence, and then the
thunder of a shot shattered the stillness. In the same moment, as
the echoes of the shot lingered in the still air, the door of the
bank opened to allow two of the men to back outwards, their
shoulders stooped under the weight of heavy satchels. A second or
two later, their leader—a big man, solidly built-backed out, a
still—smoking six shooter clasped in his meaty paw. With a quick
nod to his companions the leader vaulted into the saddle, and in a
whirl of dust the four men rode headlong towards the edge of
town.
A moment
more passed; then a tall, sallow man rushed to the door of the
bank, a heavy pistol in his hand, which he emptied in the direction
of the fleeing bandits. His shots seemed to have no effect other
than to cause one of the fugitives to turn in his saddle and fire
several hasty shots over his shoulder. One of the shots shattered
splinters from the wooden verandah post and whined away across the
street; another flicked a scar across the wall of the bank. The
fusillade of shots had awakened the dozing townspeople, and men
poured from the buildings into the street, running in the direction
of the Bank, until Hanging Rock resembled nothing so much as a
kicked-over anthill. One citizen, late in leaving the welcome
coolness of Dutchy’s, grabbed the arm of a passer-by and asked a
question.
‘
Four masked men,’ shouted his informant, without stopping.
‘They just cleaned out the Bank an’ shot Charley Clark.’
Charley
Clark, of course, was well known to the solvent of Hanging Rock as
the cashier of the City Bank, and the news that this timid,
mousy-looking little man had been shot down inflamed the crowd.
There were shouts of ‘Let’s get after them!’ and ‘Somebody bring a
rope!’ as the crowd milled around the steps outside the Bank. This
clamor was partially stilled by the appearance of the Sheriff of
Hanging Rock, his normal unpopularity forgotten in this moment of
crisis. Sheriff Brady called for posse men to, pursue the robbers,
and within minutes, had fifty mounted men behind him, ready to
ride. With many shouts and oaths, this motley cavalcade swept out
of town in hot pursuit of the raiders.
The
town’s only practitioner of medicine of any sort, an unkempt
character who rejoiced in the nickname of ‘Patches’, was called to
minister to the dying Clark. The cashier was promptly taken to a
quiet room at the Traveler’s Rest, where the curious found Mrs.
Mulvaney an insuperable obstacle to their attempts to gain more
intimate information than could be obtained from those left behind
in the now half-empty town’s only street.
Some hours later, Brady and his posse returned to Hanging
Rock, dusty, saddle sore, and completely unsuccessful. They had
trailed the bandits-——who had made no attempt to disguise their
tracks——in a huge circle out of the town, over the foothills to the
north, across the northern part of the Box B—Barclay’s range and to
the edge of the rolling Badlands. There, in hock-deep sand and
flint-like rock formations, they had lost the trail completely and
finally retraced their route to town, arguing hotly among
themselves as to the probable destination of the thieves, cursing
themselves as fools, and Brady who had led them. The arguments were
continued at equal, if not higher pitch, in the welcome coolness of
Dutchy’s; while Brady conferred with the town’s banker, Jasper de
Witt, to obtain what little information could be gleaned about the
four men who had, in one swift, smooth operation, lifted some
twenty thousand dollars in cash from the Bank of Hanging
Rock.
The news
of the robbery was relayed to the Slash 8 that evening by Tom
Gunther, one of the riders on Mike Mountford’s spread over on the
far side of South Bend. Gunther had been in town on ranch business
when the disgruntled posse had returned to Hanging Rock after its
fruitless chase. He had heard all the details that were available,
and then hopped on his horse to make tracks for the Double M,
Mountford’s place.
‘
Hell an’ damnation, that’s bad news,’ swore Tate. ‘I’m
wonderin’ what de Witt’ll do if he’s cleaned out.’
‘
That’s what I rode by to tell yu,’ said Gunther. ‘Brady’s
called a meetin’ of all the local people for tomorrow afternoon,
an’ I jest bet myself a dollar de Witt is goin’ to be the star
speaker.’
‘
No bet,’ said Tate gloomily. ‘Gunther, I’m shore obliged to yu
for stoppin’ by. Won’t yu light down an’ eat?’
‘
Thank yu kindly, but I better get on back to the
ranch,’
Gunther
said. ‘As for stoppin’ by, hell! Mike woulda kicked me from here to
Hangin’ Rock if I hadn’t!’
Promising to see them in town the next day, Gunther thundered
off down the valley with his bad news. Tate turned to face
Sudden.
‘
Jim, I got a feelin’ this is gonna be bad for us. If de Witt
calls my mortgage now, I’m sunk. I ain’t got the coin, an’ sellin’
beef’ll shore cut my yield at this time o’ year.’
‘
Maybe we just oughta wait an’ see what this banker fella has
in mind,’ offered Sudden. ‘If he’s a banker, he oughta see the
sense o’ not pushin’ yu for the coin now an’ lowerin’ the value of
yore herd. That’d be bad economics an’ bad bankin’ both. Yu don’t
wanta look on the black side till yu got to.’
Tate’s gloom lifted momentarily. ‘Maybe yo’re right,
Jim.Leastways, we can talk to de Witt first, an’ worry after we
hear what he has in mind.’
‘
De Witt,’ mused the cowboy. ‘Unusual handle.’
‘
Easterner,’ agreed Tate. ‘Finicky sorta gent, although I ain’t
sayin’ he don’t deal square. I never had no reason to complain with
either him or Clark.’
Sudden
looked his question, and the rancher went on to explain,
‘Clark—that’s the cashier that’s cashed—used to run the bank until
de Witt came out here a couple o’ years ago. He’d been sent special
by the Bank’s trustees to expand the business or somethin’—some
kind o’ financial director. Wizard with figgers. Anyway, he shore
expanded. Persuaded Pat Newman, who runs the mines up on Thunder
Mesa, to let the bank handle the mine’s payroll, which shore brung
some extra business into Hangin’ Rock. Them merchants down there’d
kiss de Witt’s boots if he told ’em to.’
‘
I’m takin’ it yu still ain’t one o’ his admirers, though?
hazarded Sudden.
‘
Well, like I said, Jim, he’s allus dealt fair an’ square with
me. I can’t put my finger on what it is I don’t like about the man.
I guess I’m just gettin’ old an’ crotchety.’
To this
observation Green made no reply, determining to make up his own
mind about the banker at the first opportunity.
Next
morning, leaving the others at the ranch lest word of the meeting
in town encourage the so-called Shadows to chance a strike at the
Slash 8, Sudden and his employer saddled their horses and rode into
Hanging Rock. The streets were packed with horses and wagons, and
every conceivable kind of complexion and style of dress was
represented on the streets. Here a swarthy Mexican in conical
sombrero and multi-colored serape lounged against a verandah, while
next to him a group of tough-looking miners in their billycock hats
and tight-fitting blue suits argued furiously. Heavily armed riders
from outlying ranches had heard the news and ridden into town, and
the saloons were filled to overflowing with men discussing the
robbery with more vehemence than accuracy. Tate and Sudden plunged
into the babel of noise and people that was Dutchy’s saloon, and
the oldster ploughed his way through the crowd to reach the side of
a roly-poly man of middle height, perhaps fifty years of age, whose
hair was white at the temples and whose vest was liberally dusted
with ashes from the evil-smelling cigar in his mouth.
‘
Well, here’s Tate now,’ said the man. ‘This is a right
how-de-do, George. What do you make of it?’
Tate
shrugged his shoulders and Sudden asked the group of men whether
anyone knew how much had been stolen. ‘Twenty thousand, I heard,’
answered a nearby man over his shoulder.
The
roly-poly man looked at Sudden quizzically, and Tate hastened to
make the introductions.
‘
Jim,’ he announced, ‘this yere’s Mike Mountford, the biggest
liar in the Territory.’
‘
That’s takin’ in a fair amount o’ ground, seh,’ smiled Sudden.
‘Yu must tell a pretty tall story.’
‘
I never tell nothin’ but the truth, boy,’ boomed
Mountford.
‘
It’s just these small-minded folk around hyar that don’t
believe it ’less they’ve seen it with their own
peepers.’
‘
Tales yu tell, I wouldn’t believe yu if’n yu told me an ass
was an animal with four legs,’ grinned Tate,
good-naturedly.
‘
Wal, that’s as may be,’ Mountford allowed. ‘I c’n point to an
ass with two legs right about now, however, an’ I’m bettin’ yu’ll
believe me.’
He
pointed with his chin at a fat, ungainly man using a stool to climb
up on the bar—a performance which was not allowed to pass unnoticed
by the habitués of Dutchy’s bar, who raised a ribald cheer to greet
it.
‘
Our Sheriff,’ Mountford told Sudden, ‘referred to by those who
know an’ detest him as “Shady” Brady?’
Sudden
watched the fat man’s reaction to the jeers of the spectators which
accompanied his unedifying scramble on to the bar. The man’s weak
mouth and piggy eyes revealed his discomfort—and his hatred of—the
attentions of Hanging Rock’s citizens.
‘
Shore looks like a misfit,’ he observed to his
employer.
‘
Like I told yu,’ nodded Tate. ‘If brains was blastin’ powder,
Shady wouldn’t have enough to assassinate an ant.’
They
turned back towards the bar as Jake Burkhart, the burly, bearded
owner of the saloon, pounded upon the bar with a wooden mallet
which was normally used for opening beer kegs. After a few moments
of this, the noise level dropped sufficiently for the Sheriffs
squeaky voice to be heard.
‘
For them as don’t yet know the details,’ Brady announced, ‘the
bank was robbed yesterday by four masked men. They shot Charley
Clark, an’ cleared off with around twenty thousand dollars in
cash.’
One or
two awed whistles punctured the silence which followed these words;
there were still many in the town who did not know the details of
the robbery. Brady waited for silence, then continued.
‘
They musta known that the payroll for the mines had arrived.
That was the biggest part o’ the loot. The rest was cash on hand.
Mr. de Witt’ll tell yu all about that later. I raised a
posse—’
‘—
Yu mean it raised yu, don’t yu, Sheriff? called a dry voice
from the back of the room, raising general laughter. Brady’s
predisposition to take a siesta during the hottest hours of the day
was well known to everyone in town. The discomfited Sheriff cast a
black look in the direction from which the jibing voice had come,
and went on, ‘Like I said, we raised a posse an’ trailed the
robbers. They took a big wide sweep across the back o’ town, across
the north foothills o’ the Needles, an’ then headed across the
Barclay range an’ into the Badlands. That’s where we lost ’em.
Tryin’ to find a trail in that country is as hard as—’
‘—
Tryin’ to get yu to buy a drink!’ came the same voice that had
previously spoken. Brady whirled towards the direction from which
it had come, his hand flying to the gun strapped around his ample
middle.·
‘
Yu better watch yore lip, unless yu want to spend a few days
in jail,’ he shrilled. ‘Let’s see who yu are, anyway.’
To
Sudden’s surprise the crowd parted to allow a disheveled-looking
man to step forward.
‘
Patches, the town medic,’ whispered Tate. ‘Yu watch Shady back
down.’
Sure
enough, the appearance of his tormentor had removed all of Brady’s
bluster. ‘Patches’, as he was called, was not a figure to inspire
this reaction, Sudden thought. Dressed in a frock coat which had
once been black and was now a mottled dirt grey, a collarless
boiled shirt soiled by months of wear, and greasy corduroy trousers
tucked into the tops of cracked, scuffed half boots, the town’s
doctor looked anything but prepossessing. His chin was unshaven,
his eyes bleary, and his voice, when he spoke, was hoarse. All in
all, he had the aspect of faded gentility in its final stages of
decay, and his thin, dissipated features added strongly to the
illusion of age. He regarded Brady with studied
contempt.
‘
Well, Shady, my friend, are you going to lock me
up?’
Snatching at his only opportunity to save face, Brady
snapped, ‘Yu know I ain’t goin’ to lock yu up while yo’re sick,
Patches. But one o’ these days yo’re goin’ to let that tongue o’
yours run a mite too fast, an’ when yu do—’
‘
Oh, step down, you blustering fool!’ snapped the doctor,
impatiently. ‘Let us hear from someone with something to say. I’m
sure Mr. de Witt can make more sense in one sentence than you could
if you wrote a book. That,’ he finished savagely, ‘is always
supposing that you can write.’
The
Sheriff, with a look of pure hatred for his tormentor, scrambled
awkwardly down from the bar. Sudden turned to his employer with a
question.
‘
I dunno, Jim,’ Tate told him. ‘Brady wouldn’t lock Patches up
because his life would be hell if Patches was in the cells behind
the office. He’s got a mean tongue, has Patches. An’ anyway, couple
of hours from now he’ll be blind drunk again.’
‘
Pity—he must have been quite a man, once.’
They
fell silent again as a new speaker took Brady’s place on the
bar.
‘
That’s de Witt,’ said Tate. Sudden nodded, without replying,
and cast an appraising look at Hanging Rock’s banker. De Witt was
tall and painfully thin, so that even standing erect, his figure
seemed hunched. His complexion was yellowish and jaundiced; his
hands, bony and claw-like, hung by his sides as if they did not
belong to him. Only the dark, deep-set eyes were truly alive; they
flicked hither and yon above and around the assembly, watching
every movement from beneath low, heavy brows and cavernous eye
sockets. The forehead was noble and high, sloping backwards
slightly to thick, black, straight hair. The whole figure was
dressed in somber black, relieved only by the white of a good linen
shirt.
‘
Can’t help his looks, I suppose,’ was Sudden’s unspoken
thought, ‘but if I didn’t know better, I’d say he had some Injun
blood in him.’
De Witt
now raised his right hand, and the murmur of conversation which had
greeted his appearance was stilled. The crowd waited avidly for his
first words, which came in a voice unexpectedly reedy and
flat.
‘
Gentlemen,’ began the banker, ‘I will begin by confirming what
you have already heard—that the amount stolen from the bank was
twenty thousand dollars in cash. What the Sheriff did not say, and
indeed, did not know, was that this amount comprised almost all of
the money in the bank.’ He held up his hand again to stem the
growing swell of speculation that followed this revelation. ‘I
have, therefore, no alternative but to call in all outstanding
debts to the bank. It will be some weeks before a sufficient sum of
money can be called in from Santa Fé to replace the payroll of the
mine which, as you all know, was the main bulk of the money stolen.
There is outstanding to the bank more than the amount required to
meet the mine payroll, and I must consider that they, and the
people who have money on deposit at the bank, are my first
priority. Let me say now, your money is quite safe. Nobody will
lose his money. Our head offices can more than guarantee these
losses. But I must meet the mine payroll, and to do that I must—I
am sorry to say it, but unpleasant as it is, it must be said—I must
call in any debts now outstanding to the bank. I am referring
particularly to anyone who has short term mortgage loans from the
bank, improvement loans, or similar arrangements with the bank, and
I would appreciate anyone having such an arrangement who is here
now coming to see me as soon as possible. I will not mention any
names, as this might be embarrassing for the individuals
concerned.’
The
level of noise rose again as he finished his speech; a multitude of
conversation and speculation was bandied about the
saloon.
‘
Yu think it was the Shadows robbed yu, de Witt?’ called
someone from the back of the room. Silence fell as the crowd
awaited the banker’s answer.
‘
They gave me no indication of who they were,’ was de Witt’s
dry answer.
‘
Yu get a look at them?’ asked someone else.
‘
No they were all masked. The leader was a very big man,
but—well, I have given all this information to Sheriff Brady. If
there are no further questions, I would like to get back to the
bank. If anyone wishes to discuss their problems with me
personally, I shall be there!