Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 (9 page)

‘Whisky,’ snapped the man.
‘¡
Pronto
!’ Tyler
hastened to obey the curt command, pouring a generous drink into
the shot glass with a slightly shaking hand. He was about to cork
the bottle when the stranger laid a hand firmly on his arm and
said, ‘Leave the bottle. I ain’t gonna be able to stomach this town
without a few drinks. Gawd! What a hole!’

Tyler edged away, and
busied himself polishing glasses to an unaccustomed luster which
would have startled any regular drinker in Yavapai’s only saloon.
The few patrons of the establishment, after their initial covert
survey of the newcomer, had gone back to their drinks, their cards,
and their murmured conversation.

‘Yu!’

Tyler’s head jerked up from
his polishing as the
stranger’s cold voice
broke the near-silence. ‘Me? Yessir, what can I do for
you?’

‘Mighty little, if this is
yore best likker,’ snapped the stranger. ‘This burg got a
Marshal?’

Tyler nodded. ‘Name’s
Appleby.’

‘Go get him,’ commanded the
stranger.

Tyler nodded
unquestioningly, and hastened out of the building. As the
bartender’s footsteps receded, the stranger turned and hooked his
elbows on the bar. He eyed the citizens of Yavapai with an
expression of infinite distaste on his face.

‘Get the hell outa here!’
he told them. ‘Move!’

Wide eyed, the half dozen
men in the bar, stumbling into chairs and bumping each other in
their rush to comply with this narrow-eyed stranger’s command,
hastened out into the sunlit street. They foregathered on the porch
of the saloon, and the man inside smiled to himself as he heard
their muted protests at this treatment. ‘Sheep!’ he said, pouring
himself another drink. He tossed it down as Tyler and Tom Appleby
came in through the batwing doors, affecting not to notice the fact
that Appleby remained near the wall, thus leaving no opportunity
for the man in the saloon to hold him silhouetted against the
bright sunlight outside.

‘Yo’re a careful man,
Marshal,’ said the stranger.

‘I got to be,’ was the cool
reply. Appleby surveyed Tyler’s customer. The excited saloon-keeper
had come rushing into Appleby’s office gabbling about a man coming
into the saloon, looking as deadly as a tarantula, apparently
spoiling for trouble. What he saw was a shortish man of about
thirty, with a fancy gun rig and an expression of disdain that
looked as though it might be the man’s permanent
expression.

‘So yo’re the Marshal,’ the
man said.

‘I’m the Marshal. Name’s
Appleby.’

‘Marshal, I ast yu to come
over so I could introduce myself proper. I didn’t want to give the
impression I was huntin’ yu up.’

‘All right,’ Appleby said
shortly. ‘Yu made yore point.’

‘I’m Wesley Cameron,
Marshal,’ the man said.

A collective gasp escaped
the lips of the knot of onlookers clustered outside the saloon. The
news of their
summary ejection by the
stranger had spread quickly, and perhaps thirty men were now
gathered on the sidewalk, craning their necks to see what was going
on inside.

‘It’s Wes Cameron,’ the
oldster nearest the door announced to the others in an awed voice,
and the name was passed in a whisper around the group as they
craned their necks even harder to catch a glimpse of this
cold-faced stranger, owner of a name to strike a chill into the
most hardened of hearts. Wesley Cameron! Few present had not heard
the name. The man was a walking legend, one of the breed that had
included Hickok and Billy the Kid and Johnny Hardin. Cameron, it
was said, had cleaned up Galeyville, had been on the losing side in
the Lincoln County troubles, and had won a reputation as a
cold-blooded killer in the Texas Salt Wars. He was always just on
the right side of the law, was said to have always given his man an
even break. It was also rumored – although no one had ever dared to
voice the rumor in Cameron’s presence – that he was a hired gun,
one of that bloodless breed who would, for pay, force another man
into a situation which could only be resolved by gunplay. All of
this, and more, was part of the gabble of whispering that
circulated in the crowd outside Tyler’s as Tom Appleby digested
this news.

‘I’ve heard o’ yu,’ the
Marshal told the newcomer. ‘What do yu want with me?’

‘Just declarin’ myself,
Marshal,’ Cameron said with a wolfish smile. ‘I’m aimin’ to spend a
while in yore delightful mee-tropolis, an’ I wanted to start off
right.’ Appleby nodded, and Cameron continued. ‘I’m a
peaceful
hombre
,
Marshal, an’ I ain’t huntin’ no trouble.’ He spread his hands. ‘But
yu know how it is. I turn up someplace, an’ some damn’ fool has to
try an’ find out if I’m as fast as they say.’

‘Yu ain’t likely to run
into that kind o’ trouble here,’ Appleby said levelly.

‘I shore hope not,’ Cameron
said. His smile was nearly sincere as he added, ‘But just in case …
well, I been in some towns where the Law warn’t exactly …
impartial.’

‘Cameron,’ the Marshal
said. ‘Yu’ll get the same treatment in Yavapai that any peaceable
citizen gets – as long
as yu stay
peaceable. If there’s any trouble’ He pointed a finger at Cameron’s
pearl-handled revolver. ‘Yu better have a good reason for bein’ in
it! Yu step out o’ line an’ I’ll have to take yu in.’

‘Hell, Marshal,’ Cameron
smiled, the wolfish expression back on his face, ‘I’d hate that. I
ain’t never killed a Marshal yet.’

The insult hovered in the air, bait waiting
to be taken; but the Marshal did not rise to it.

‘How long yu figger to
stay?’ he asked.

‘Long as it
takes.’

‘Yu mind tellin’ me yore
business here?’

‘Shore do.’ The reply was
flat and cold and Cameron’s manner was baitingly watchful. Appleby,
however, just shrugged.

‘Yore business,’ was all he
said. ‘But remember what I said: yu pull one more stunt like
treein’ Tyler’s saloon an’ I’ll run yu in.’

Cameron nodded, a faint
smile lingering about his lips. ‘Just wanted a mite o’ privacy,
Marshal,’ he said. Raising his voice he called out, ‘Hey! Yu gents
out there come on in! I’m buyin’ drinks for everyone! Come on, come
on in!’

The crowd outside looked at
each other for reassurance, and those in front shuffled their feet
hesitantly as the gunman repeated his invitation, louder this time.
One man, bolder than the rest, pushed in through the doors, and
then, slowly, the others followed, almost mesmerized by the fact
that the famous, the infamous Wes Cameron was here in Yavapai, and
not only that but about to buy drinks for them all. Gradually they
came sheepishly in. Cameron was as good as his word, and soon there
was a sizeable knot of men standing alongside him at the bar,
drinking in his words, eager to be near him, to slap his shoulder,
to watch his every movement so that later they would be able to
boast that they had drunk at the same bar as Wesley
Cameron.

Appleby watched the crowd
sourly for a moment as they clustered around the gunman, and nodded
to himself. Cameron would be a ten-day wonder; the same mob would
as cheerfully hang the gunman if they were given enough cause, and
led to it. For some reason the thought
seemed to amuse him. He smiled briefly and then turned and
pushed his way out into the street. Over the heads of the
clustering sycophants around him Cameron watched the Marshal leave,
and a sardonic smile touched his lips. Good actor, he told himself.
Wonder if he’s got any nerve when the chips are down? Probably not,
otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. He turned back to his new
‘friends’ with inward distaste, forcing a smile on to his
face.

SEVERAL UNEVENTFUL
days had passed; Green had told Harris to pass the
word along to his neighbors to be double careful, after the
bushwhacking attempt on Susan and the youngster. Philadelphia had
been constantly plaguing the cowboy with questions about his foray
on to the Saber. What had he done? What had he seen? What had he
found? To these and all the boy’s queries Green turned a deaf ear.
‘Yu’ll know soon enough,’ he told Philadelphia. ‘Meanwhile, yu keep
yore eyes skinned for anyone pokin’ around these parts who don’t
belong up here.’

Indeed, the cowboy was in
no mood for questions. He was himself unable to properly explain
what he had discovered on the Saber. It appeared that someone on
the ranch was responsible for the attempt on Philadelphia’s life,
but it seemed very unlikely that Lafe Gunnison knew about it. The
man was bluff and forthright; he was not the kind of actor who
could carry off a deception of such magnitude, Green was convinced.
If Gunnison was ignorant of the fact that someone in his employ was
responsible for the ambush, then it followed that the motive which
could have been attributed to the bushwhacker – that he was working
for Gunnison, trying to throw a scare into Harris in order to make
the homesteader move off his land – no longer applied. That being
so, what was the motive? Why had Philadelphia and the girl been
fired on? These and other thoughts
occupied
the puncher’s mind as he went about his daily tasks until in the
end he revealed them to Harris.

‘Yo’re sayin’ that Gunnison
don’t know someone on his ranch tried to kill my gal?’ the
homesteader asked.

Green nodded. ‘Can’t
rightly rigger it out,’ he said. ‘She don’t make sense. Unless
there’s some other reason for gettin’ yu off this land that ain’t
got nothin’ to do with Gunnison …? ’

The old man shook his head.
‘Beats me, Jim. This land just don’t seem worth all the
trouble.’

‘Tell me about when yu
first come here, Jake,’ suggested Green. ‘It might just give me
some ideas.’

‘Not much to tell,’ the
homesteader told him. ‘Reb Johnstone an’ Stan Newley was the first
to file on land up here. When I came out from Missouri it seemed a
likely thing to file alongside ’em. Kitson came next, then
Taylor.’

‘How long ago was all
this?’ the cowboy wanted to know.

‘Gettin’ on three, four
years now,’ Harris told him. ‘Reb’s been here longest: just over
four years.’

‘Yu all built yore own
places?’

Harris nodded. ‘No, wait a
minnit,’ he corrected himself. ‘Reb Johnstone moved into an old
cabin when he first come up here. His place stands where the cabin
used to be. Some kind o’ line shack, I think it was.’

Green nodded again. ‘This
trouble – the raids, the horse-stealin’ that Kitson mentioned: when
did all that start?’

‘Oh … mebbe eighteen months
ago, more or less. Difficult to say, exactly. Never took notice at
first: figgered it was just wanderin’ bucks liftin’ a few o’
Terry’s hosses. On’y got wise to it when it kept on happenin’. When
Reb Johnstone an’ Stan Newley had night riders on their land we
knew it warn’t no accident.’

‘An’ Gunnison started
complainin’ about losin’ beef around the same time?’

The homesteader looked at
Green for a long moment, a light dawning in his eyes. ‘I’m
beginnin’ to
get
yore
drift, Jim,’ he said. ‘Yo’re
figgerin’ mebbe the same outfit’s behind the whole
thing?’

‘Could be,’ Green told him,
‘but who? If it ain’t
Gunnison, an’ it
ain’t any o’ yore people – who is it?’

The homesteader shook his
head. ‘I keep goin’ around in the same tracks yu do, Jim, an’ I
keep comin’ up with the same answer: I dunno.’

The old man poked a twig into the flickering
fire and lit an old black pipe with the brand. He puffed away in
silence for a while, looking reflectively into the flames.

‘Jim,’ he began hesitantly.
‘We ain’t talked much, yu an’ me.’

The puncher nodded, not speaking.

‘I got the feelin’ there’s
somethin’ yu wanted to tell me,’ Harris said. ‘Yu reckon now might
be a good time for it?’

Green looked at the old
homesteader for a long moment and then a bitter look crossed his
face. ‘Yo’re better off not knowin’,’ he said harshly.

‘Never figgered exactly why
a feller like yu would want to work for a farmer,’ Harris continued
imperturbably. ‘Yo’re a top hand, Jim. Yu coulda got good wages on
any spread in Arizona. Yet yu come here. Why?’

‘I heard down in Tucson
that there was some tough hombres gatherin’ in these parts,’ Green
told him. ‘I figgered mebbe the men I’m lookin’ for might be in
Yavapai.’ Harris looked his interest, and the cowboy continued,
‘Their names is Webb an’ Peterson. Yu ever run across
them?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ Harris
admitted. ‘What yu want ’em for?’

‘They’ve lived too long,’
Green said, and there was a deadly coldness in his words that sent
a chill across the rancher’s heart.

‘Yu ain’t on the dodge,
Jim?’

Green shook his head. ‘Yu
better hear the whole story, Jake,’ he told his employer. ‘Yu know
me as Jim Green, but back in Texas they call me Sudden.’

Sudden! Jake Harris looked
as if for the first time at this quietly spoken man who sat beside
him. So this was the daredevil whose exploits were a legend, the
man whose speed with a six-gun was talked about with bated breath
wherever men spoke low over a game of cards or a
drink. Sudden, who
had
cleaned out Hell City!’ Harris
had heard
about his lightning speed on the draw, his amazing adventures. And
a chord in his memory told him that Sudden was wanted for murder.
‘Yu said yu wasn’t on the dodge,’ he pointed out. His voice was
mild, but Green did not miss the reproachful note.