Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) (25 page)

‘
Brady, yo’re a disgrace to that star yo’re wearin’.’ Sudden’s
cold words stopped the lawman in his tracks. ‘I had my doubts about
yu—I figgered yu must be a part o’ this deal somewheres, but it
looks like yu was just stupid. Which is probably natural to yu. But
I’m warning yu: get out o’ my way. I want some words with that
mealy-mouthed polecat over there!’

So
saying, he thrust his way to the side of the Slash 8 contingent,
who beamed a welcome for their foreman, slapping his back, glad to
see him. In a few swift sentences, Dave explained what had preceded
Sudden’s arrival; the foreman’s face tightened at the sight of
Barclay’s sprawled figure. He bent to have a whispered conversation
with the old judge, nodding from time to time as the old man told
him the things he wanted to know. Then Sudden drew himself
upright.

‘
So yu salivated Barclay,’ he said to de Witt.

‘
That was in self-defense, Mr. Green.’ Some of the fright had
gone from the banker’s face, and arrogance began to alter his
stance. ‘I must say I find the remark you addressed to me improper
and offensive.’

‘
I’ll lie awake tonight an’ fret about it,’ the Slash 8 man
said, coldly. ‘But for now, I’ll add to what I said. Yo’re a liar,
Mister Banker. Yo’re also a cheat, a thief, and a
murderer.’

A gasp
of sheer amazement escaped the crowd at this statement, and Brady
bustled forward once more. ‘Green, yu’d shore better be able to
back up that kind o’ talk with somethin’ more than those guns. Mr.
de Witt just got through explainin’.’

‘
Don’t tell me,’ jeered Sudden. ‘I’m likely to cry. If yu’ll
quit interruptin’ there’s a few things I’d like to ask our
banker.’

‘
Yeah, stand back, Shady, yo’re blockin’ the view!’ yelled
someone. A chorus of jeers descended upon the unfortunate Sheriff’s
head and he scuttled aside.

‘
You may ask any questions you like, Mr. Green,’ said de Witt
with considerable dignity. ‘I regret to tell you, however, that I
have no intention of answering you. You have neither the right nor
the power to make me do so.’

‘
Wrong again, de Witt,’ Sudden told him. ‘I got both.’ From a
secret pocket in the lining of his gun belt, he produced a silver
badge, which he tossed carelessly on the table. Brady picked it up,
and in an awed voice read the words inscribed upon it. ‘Deputy
United States Marshal!’

‘
So that was his game,’ muttered Dave. ‘The ol’
son-of-a-gun.

No
wonder he played his cards so close to his chest!’ He glanced at
Grace, who was covering her confusion as well as she could; he
smiled to himself. ‘She’s recallin’ what she thought o’ Jim when he
first met her,’ he thought.

De Witt,
however, was stricken harder by the sight of this mark of Green’s
power than any man in the room, and his bearing showed it. The
cringing stance fell once more upon his shoulders, and the man
looked positively ill.

‘
I’ll ask yu them questions now, banker,’ Sudden told
him.

De Witt
nodded, his eyes blind. His mind was racing. How much did this
devil know? ‘First off, yu was Barclay’s banker?’

De Witt
nodded again. ‘Then yu’d know all about his business transactions,
right?’

De Witt
nodded a third time. Where was this leading?

‘
Yet yu try to tell these people that Barclay was the owner of
all the ranches in the Sweetwater Valley?’

De Witt
drew himself up. ‘To the best of my knowledge, that was true,’ he
said.

Sudden
ignored him, and turned to Judge Pringle, who withdrew from his
case a sheaf of documents. Sudden held them up for everyone to see.
‘These are certified copies of registration certificates for the
ownership of the Sheppard ranch, the Carpenter ranch, Stackpole’s
Diamond S. All o’ them in the same name. Yu want to make a guess at
whose name, banker?’

De Witt
essayed a look of surprise. ‘Barclay’s of course.’ How had this
confounded gunfighter found out about the registrations? Not that
it mattered; nothing could be proved. Judge Pringle stood up. ‘When
Green asked me to go to Mesilla and look at these land certificates
I thought he was crazy. He told me that the assumption of truth is
not enough, and I see now that he was right. The name on the
registrations was not Zachary Barclay, but that of a man named Seth
Miller. Nobody of that name is known in this area.’

‘
Bah! It was probably some false name Barclay used to cover his
own identity,’ interjected de Witt. ‘He was very cunning and
devious about his business transactions. Surely you don’t think he
told me everything?’

‘
He seems to have told yu everythin’ else,’ said Sudden,
sardonically. ‘But it makes no never-mind. Barclay couldn’t have
registered that land without identification that he was really Seth
Miller.’

‘
Maybe he was,’ said de Witt, coolly. ‘He didn’t tell
me.’

‘
An’ yu’ve made shore we can’t ask him,’ came the dry comment.
‘Another question. Do yu know a man called Bull Pardoe?’

‘
No. I’ve never heard the name.’

‘
Funny. He knows yu.’

‘
Lots of people know me, Green. I am well known
hereabouts.’

As
Midnight escaped some of the audience, and de Witt grew more
confident. He would best his cold-eyed inquisitor even
yet.

‘
In which case, that would explain why Burley Linkham knows yu,
too?’

‘
I know Linkham. He was Barclay’s foreman. Barclay sent him in
to me with messages—orders, sometimes.’

‘
He says he wasn’t Barclay’s foreman.’

‘
What do you mean?’ So! Green had already questioned Linkham.
Caution!

‘
Linkham says that bein’ Barclay’s foreman was a blind. He says
that he was workin’ for yu, and that yu promised him he’d get the
Box B to run when yu owned the valley an’ Barclay was
dead.’

In the
utter silence of the room, de Witt stood silent while his mind
scurried around like a rat in a maze. Somehow this devil had made
Linkham talk; but the day was DOI yet lost! It was still only
Linkham’s word against his own, the word of a rough-neck against
that of the respected town banker. While de Witt stood speechless,
Sudden turned to Dave, and a quick word sent that worthy pushing
through the crowd and out of the saloon.

‘
I really cannot understand why you persist in this tissue of
invention, Green,’ de Witt said smoothly. ‘Now you are asking these
people to take the word of a blackguard like Burley Linkham against
mine. Whatever your authority, I am sure you are exceeding
it!’

A murmur
of sympathy arose from the watchers. Hearing it, Sudden realized
that slowly the banker was winning the crowd’s support, and that so
far he had failed to penetrate the man’s defenses, force the banker
to make a slip. He turned as Dave came back into the saloon,
herding before him two shuffling, bound, sheepish-looking men. A
shout arose from someone.

‘
Hey! That’s Burley Linkham!’

‘
Who’d yu get the worst of, Burley?’

Linkham
indeed looked like the sole survivor of a train wreck, and Pardoe,
his arm in a sling, his clothes in tatters, looked scarcely more
prepossessing. Dave shoved the two men forward into the cleared
space by the bar.

‘
Yu claim yu never seen this man afore?’ Sudden gestured at
Pardoe.

‘
Never!’ De Witt’s reply was categorical.

‘
An’ yu know Burley Linkham only slightly? Again, the banker’s
cool nod.

‘
Well, I know yu!’ growled Linkham. ‘I know yu damn’
well.’

‘
Bah!’ snapped de Witt. ‘The man’s an obvious liar and a tough.
How would I know anyone of his kind?’

‘
Because Burley Linkham was the leader of the Shadows,’ Sudden
told him, ‘an’ Pardoe here was his second-in-command.’

A rumble
of anger spread across the room. Here, for the first time, the
people of Hanging Rock could see before them two of the men who had
terrorized the area all these months. Someone at the back jumped up
on a chair and shouted ‘Get a rope! String the sons up!’

Sheriff
Brady leaped to his feet and held up a hand for silence. ‘Any more
talk like that an’ the man that makes it goes to jail
now!’

For
once, the rotund Sheriff was not laughed at, and the spectators
fell silent. Easily swayed at any time, their tempers were at fever
pitch now that two of the hated Shadows were in their midst. It
would take only a spark to ignite the powder-barrel, and Sudden,
realizing this, changed the course of his questioning.

‘
Linkham, who was yore boss? Who gave yu yore
orders?’

‘
Why, him!’ Linkham pointed at the banker. ‘De Witt. I told yu
that already!’

A
perfect bedlam of noise followed this statement, as the crowd began
to argue furiously among themselves. There were those who felt
that, since Linkham had nothing to gain by lying, he must be
telling the truth; while others vehemently defended the banker,
claiming that Linkham’s word was about as good as a four dollar
bill.

‘
This is becoming intolerable, Green!’ snapped de Witt. ‘I
refuse to stand here and be blackguarded by these cut-throats,
these renegades.’

‘
Renegades, is it?’ hissed Linkham. ‘Damn yore eyes, de Witt,
yo’re not goin’ to let me swing alone. I’ll take yu with me—I swear
it!’

Sudden
turned to face the spectators.

‘
There’s one way to settle this. Linkham an’ Pardoe have
confessed to robbin’ the bank. Linkham ambushed George Tate.’ A
small gasp of dismay burst from Grace Tate’s lips as

Sudden
made this revelation. ‘They acted, they say, on de Witt’s orders.
Barclay was just a stooge. On the other hand, the banker here says
they’re liars, an’ Barclay was behind the whole rotten deal. But
maybe we can still get at the truth. Neither Linkham nor Pardoe was
in here when Judge Pringle read out the name on those registration
papers he found in Mesilla. So: has either o’ yu two ever heard the
banker here called any other name except Jasper de
Witt?’

Linkham’s brow furrowed; and as the big man racked his brain,
de Witt realized how cleverly the hated Slash 8 man had maneuvered
him into this corner. If Linkham had ever overheard . .
.

‘
I refuse to stand for this!’ screeched de Witt. ‘I am leaving
immediately.’

‘
Seth!’ Linkham’s gravelly voice broke into the banker’s
wailing speech. ‘Barclay once called him Seth!’

De Witt
had taken several steps across the cleared space as this damning
name spilled from Linkham’s lips. With an inarticulate squeal of
rage, de Witt wheeled and thrust his shoulder into the chest of the
gawking Sheriff Brady, who reeled sideways into Sudden, blocking
for a vital few seconds any effective action on the part of the
Slash 8 man. In those seconds, de Witt had dragged Grace Tate off
her chair, and the six-gun he had snatched from Brady’s belt was
pressed against the girl’s temple.

‘
Not a move from any of you!’ he hissed, ‘or the girl dies. Ah,
would you?’ Dave Haynes, thinking de Witt’s attention elsewhere,
had sidled to one side to intercept the banker. The six-shooter
boomed, and Dave reeled backwards, clutching his arm, blood pumping
from between his fingers.

‘
You all thought you were so smart,’ sneered de Witt, unable to
resist this final moment of glory. ‘Yet none of you ever realized,
none of you ever knew! Yes, I was the leader of the Shadows. I am
Seth Miller. I came here with nothing—keep still, you!’ He gestured
with the pistol, and Gimpy MacDonald froze as the menacing bore
stilled his imperceptible movements towards de Witt.
‘Nothing—except one piece of knowledge. You fools! You sheep! There
will be a railroad through this valley, and I owned all the land.
It will be worth millions, millions! And it would have been mine.’
His darting eyes settled on Sudden. ‘Except for one man. You are
going to pay for your meddling interference. Die, damn
you!’

The
barrel of the pistol lifted, but even as the banker started to
press the trigger a voice rang out behind him.

‘
Seth Miller!
’

All eyes
turned to the doorway, in which stood framed the figure of the town
Doctor, Patches, a shotgun leveled at his hip. But a totally
different Patches to the unshaven drunk they had formerly known.
This man was sober, clean-shaven, well-dressed. There was no tremor
in his stance.

‘
Seth Miller, I’ve been waiting for this day for two years,’
the doctor said. His tone was Hat, deadly. ‘I knew who you were. Do
you know me, Miller?’

The
banker’s face had gone ghastly.

‘
De Witt!’ he gasped.

‘
Yes, Miller, Jonathan de Witt, the man whose son you murdered
to usurp his name, his position, and his reputation. Are you ready
to meet your Maker, Seth Miller?’

‘
No—don’t! I’ll—I’ll kill the girl!’ screeched
Miller.

‘
And then I shall kill you,’ said the doctor
inexorably.

‘
No … no, look—I surrender. I’m dropping the gun.