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

Hornby looked at him, his eyes flat and
expressionless.

‘
Get on with it, Parris,’ he
rapped. ‘Don’t bother tryin’ to make
it
look good. Do what Sim Cotton pays yu for.’

Blass, the bartender, interposed at this point.

‘
Billy, don’t talk like that,’ he
said. ‘Yu’ll get a trial. Won’t he,
Harry?’

‘
Shore he will,’ said Parris.
There was no inflexion in his voice.

‘
Yu can say yore piece then, boy,’
the bartender continued. ‘A
jury…’

‘
Jury! Cotton’s handpicked
verdict-makers! Yu know the ropes
around
here, Blass. The Cotton’s’ll have me killed tryin’ to escape like
they’ve done with half a dozen oth—’

‘
Shut yore lyin’mouth!’ As he
screeched these words, Buck
Cotton hurled
an open-handed blow at Hornby, rocking him backwards and drawing a
trickle of blood from a split lip. Hornby’s muscular young frame
tensed and almost automatically, the right hand drew back, bunched
into a fist. In the same second, the old sheriff slid close in
behind him, and he felt the uncompromising hardness of the gun
barrel in the small of his back. His hand fell to his side and as
it did so, Cotton, his eyes gleaming now with hatred, once more
rocked the prisoner’s head with an open-handed slap.

‘
Here now, wait a min—’ began the
bartender. He fell silent as Parris swung the six-gun barrel
towards him.

‘
Stay out o’ this, Blass!’ Parris
warned.

Again Buck Cotton slapped the man in front of
him.

‘
Tough as all get-out, ain’t yu?’
raged Buck Cotton. ‘Big man! Yu an’ that high an’ mighty sister o’
yores. Well, she ain’t so high an’ mighty any more, is
she?’

He fell back as he uttered these
words, for an ugly, almost insane growl of hatred was issuing from
Billy Hornby’s throat. All expression was gone from the boy’s eyes,
which held the same pale empty glare as those of a hunting puma.
Without volition, Hornby’s hands reached forward for Buck Cotton’s
throat, the shoulder muscles stiff with killing rage.

‘
Yu … dirty…’ Hornby took a step,
two steps forward, his fingers clutching for this hated thing
before him. In the same moment, Buck Cotton lurched backwards very
rapidly, his eyes wide with ungoverned terror, pulling up the gun
to ward off this nemesis, while Sheriff Parris, a cold smile on his
mouth, cocked his pistol to blast Billy Hornby down from
behind.

And in that moment, two shots rang out like
thunder.

One of them ripped the old Colt’s
Army model out of Buck Cotton’s hand and sent it hurtling across
the bar, smashing into a bottle on the shelf there and yanking a
curse from Buck’s twisted mouth. The second, fired so close as to
seem part of the first shot, ripped into the forearm muscles of the
sheriff’s right arm, knocking him spinning to the left, the cocked
.45 exploding harmlessly into the air and leaving him reeling
against the polished bar, struggling to turn and face this
unexpected attack. Buck Cotton’s hand flashed towards the holstered
gun at his side as he, too, wheeled around.

‘
Think about it for a moment was
the sardonic warning. Though the words were quietly spoken, they
conveyed a threat which the would-be killers dared not
ignore.

‘
What the … who the hell are yu,
mister?’ Parris managed.

‘
I’m called Green,’ was the
monosyllabic reply. ‘But don’t bet
on it.’
Parris surveyed the speaker, who leaned against the wall of
the saloon with the easy grace of the trained
athlete, the smoke from a cigarette dangling in his mouth spiraling
undisturbed towards the ceiling. Green looked like any other
drifting cow-puncher. Still in his twenties, a slim-hipped, broad-
shouldered
hombre
dressed in worn cowboy rig—blue shirt, silk bandanna, heavy
leather chaps, high-heeled boots—that was neat and
ser
viceable. Only the twin gun belts, the
holsters tied down to his
thighs with
rawhide thongs, set him apart. There was a look about
him. His lean, clean-shaven, deeply-bronzed face
was saturnine, almost Indian except for the absence of the typical
high cheek
bones of the race. There was a
difference too in the level eyes, as
cold
now as Polar seas, and in the quirk of humor which softened the
hard lines of the mouth. Parris observed these details and drew a
wrong conclusion.

‘
Stranger in town, doesn’t know
what he’s gettin’ into,’ was his
unspoken
thought. He turned to the bartender.

‘
Blass, tell this jasper what he’s
pokin’ his nose into.’

‘
Trouble, I’ll bet,’ jeered Green.
‘Allus been my downfall.
Every time I see
someone tryin’ to gun down an unarmed man I
go an’ do it again. Keep still, yu!’

This snapped command froze Buck Cotton, whose hand
had been stealthily easing towards his holstered gun.

‘
I ain’t tellin’ yu because yu
deserve the warnin’,’ he told Cotton
coldly. ‘I just hate shootin’ skunks out o’ season.’ His words
brought the blood rushing to Buck Cotton’s cheeks.

‘
Yu better be able to fight as
good as yu can talk, mister,’ he sneered. ‘Yu don’t know it yet,
but yu just bought into more trouble than most men avoid in a
lifetime.’

‘
There yu go again,’ Green said
mildly. ‘Scarin’ me to death. Yu’ll have my knees knockin’ if yu
keep it up.’ He addressed himself to young Hornby. ‘Step away from
them polecats, kid, and move over by the door.’

Hornby did as he was told, and then
Green backed over until he
stood alongside
him.

Now that the imminent threat of
death was seemingly past,
Buck Cotton’s
confidence was returning. Parris, too, was strug
gling to put on a more dignified expression.

‘
Yu better head for the border,
Green,’ jibed Cotton. ‘Yu stay
in these
parts an’ yore life ain’t worth a plugged nickel.’

‘
He’s right, Mr Green,’ whispered
the boy. ‘This is Sim Cotton’s town. They catch us here an’ we
ain’t got a prayer.’

Green nodded. ‘Yore hoss
outside?’

Billy replied affirmatively.

‘
Then we better be moseyin’.’ He
turned to face the men in the saloon. ‘I can usually hit what I
shoot at,’ he warned them. ‘Don’t go makin’ the mistake o’ stickin’
yore head out o’ the door for a few minnits if yu aim to keep it on
yore neck.’

‘
Git while the goin’s good,
stranger,’ screeched Buck Cotton. ‘My brothers’ll hunt yu down like
dawgs.’

‘
That’s about how I’d expect them
to hunt,’ grinned Green mirthlessly. He nodded to the boy and
backed carefully towards the door. At that same moment, the head
and shoulders of a very tall man appeared above the frame of the
batwings. Green saw the expression on Sheriff Parris’ face change,
and wheeled to face this unseen threat but the man outside had
already assessed the situation and was acting. His gun barrel
crashed down on Green’s head, sending him stunned to the floor, and
in a continuation, of the movement, the man slashed sideways,
catching Billy Hornby above the left ear, jarring the boy into
insensibility. A second blow dropped Billy prostrate alongside his
protector. Within another few minutes they were trussed like
turkeys and dragged senseless by the heels across the street to the
jail.

‘
If this is Paradise, I shore am
disappointed.’ Green’s pained comment as he regained consciousness
brought a wry smile to the blood-streaked face of Billy Hornby. He
surveyed his new-found friend and shook his head.

‘
Mr Green, yu look about the way I
feel,’ he vouchsafed. Indeed, both of them were sorry sights. Their
clothes were dusty and stained, and the trickle of dried blood on
Billy Hornby’s forehead was matched by one which had oozed from the
split in Green’s scalp. Their hands and faces, too, were scratched
from their unceremonious dragging across the wheel-rutted street of
Cottontown.

‘
Looks like they drug us in here
by the feet,’ commented Green. He tested the ropes which bound his
hands and feet. ‘I shore am hawg tied.’ There was no slack in his
bonds; they had been expertly tied. ‘This the jail?’ he
asked.

Hornby nodded, glancing gloomily about the tiny
cell.

‘
Stands about opposite the
saloon,’ he told his companion. He hesitated for a moment. ‘Mr
Green … I never got a chance to thank yu for what yu done back
there …’

‘
Shucks, no call to,’ interrupted
Green. ‘An’ my friends call me Jim’. He looked keenly at the
youngster for a moment, then asked a question.

‘
Buck is the younger brother out
o’ three,’ Billy told him. ‘The other two are Art an’ Sim. Art’s
about yore age, I’d reckon, an’ Sim’s the oldest. He’s about
thirty-five.’

‘
Then the town’s named after their
ol’ man, I’m takin’ it. He still around?’

Billy shook his head. ‘Ol’ Zeke
died a few years back. He settled this valley. Built the ol’
Cottonwood ranch back in the hills north o’town after he came back
from the War. There used to be an old Army post about fifty miles
south o’ town—Fort Lane. Zeke was a good businessman. Figgered the
Army boys needed a place they could relax in, take a smile when
they wanted to. He built a store, an’ a saloon, about halfway
between his ranch an’ the Fort. Brung some o’ his relations in from
Texas to run ’em. Town just growed up around them. Natural enough,
they called it Cottontown.’

Sudden nodded his understanding. Many a man had
grown rich and fat on Army custom.

‘
I expect he was supplyin’ the
Fort with beef an’ horses, too?’ he hazarded.

‘
Yu bet he did,’ Billy replied.
‘He had all the contracts sewed up. Nobody else in these parts
could get a look-in. An’ then the Army pulled out.’

‘
When was this?’ asked the tall
puncher.

‘
About seventy-three, durin’ the
depression. Fort’s ruined now. A few Mex sheepherders live there.
Ain’t another settlement within a hundred miles, an’ this valley
bein’ a sort o’ bowl, Cottontown keeps it alive. Folks who live in
these parts toe the line the Cottons draw, or git. When ol’ Zeke
died, Sim took over. It’s his town now. What he says goes. The
Cottons do what they like. Any arguments, an’—’ He drew a
forefinger across his throat.

‘
An’ yu …?’ prompted
Green.

‘
I run a small place south o’ town
— the Lazy H. My old man ran it until he died — that was the same
year ol’ Zeke Cotton cashed in his chips. I been tryin’ to make the
place pay ever since, but it ain’t easy.’

‘
Where’s the market for yore
beef?’

‘
Silver City,’ Billy told him.
‘But we ain’t allowed to sell independent. The Cottons sell all the
beef out o’ this valley. We got to drive our cattle on to
Cottonwood range, an’ they pay their price for beef. Then they pool
the herd an’ sell down in Silver City.’

‘
Yu mean they fix the prices, an’
yu can’t kick? Ain’t anyone tried to drive his own herd to Silver
City?’

‘
Shore, one or two o’ the local
men tried it,’ continued Billy. ‘They was either hit by raiders in
the night an’ had their herds run off, or they was ambushed. One
man —-old vinegary gent by the name o’ Bert Williams, swore nobody
was goin’ to tell him how much he could sell his beef for —-got
burned down from behind. That put an end to it. Nobody needed it
spellin’ out. From then on, everyone sold their beef to the
Cottons, allasame good boys.’

‘
The Cottons never had any trouble
on the trail, I’m takin’ it?’

‘
They claim nobody’d dare hit an
outfit o’ their size. No, they
ain’t never
been touched.’

Sudden pondered for a moment, his
lips pursed. He shifted on
the rude bunk
bed into a more comfortable position, easing his cramped arms and
legs.

‘
These ropes musta bin tied by an
Injun he complained.’ Though he felt easier, his body was one big
ache.

‘
So the Cottons git yu both ways,’
he proposed.

‘
They cut yu to
the bone on yore cattle prices, an’ then hold yu
up on prices o’ supplies. Right?’

‘
Right!’ nodded Billy grimly.
‘Anyone squawks, an’ he winds up in an alley with his head
broke.’

Sudden’s mind was busy. The pattern
of the Cottons’ power was not at all unfamiliar. A similar set of
circumstances had obtained in many of the unsettled areas of the
West — in Lincoln County they had brought about range war when the
people rebelled. ‘Ain’t the townsfolk ever shown any opposition, or
any o’ the smaller ranchers?’ he asked.

‘
Once.’ Billy told him, his voice
unemotional. ‘Few years back,
just after
Zeke Cotton died, the town doctor, Dave Hight, tried
to get a Townspeople’s Committee together. One
mornin’ he was
found behind the livery
stable, about ten yards from his own back door, beaten within an
inch o’ his life, an’ one o’ his legs broke. He ain’t never walked
right since. They found a piece o’ paper pinned on his shirt. It
just said “Be warned!” Ever since then, the Cottons have had this
town buttoned up.’