Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 (22 page)

‘Yu know Cameron killed two
homesteaders in town, o’ course.’

‘I know it. An’ I know what
happened to Cameron because of it.’

Bleke’s gavel again raped
as Dancy’s insult prompted a murmur from the spectators.

‘Yu don’t reckon Gunnison
hired Cameron, then?’ asked Green.

‘I don’t know,’ Dancy said.
‘He mighta done.’

Sudden wheeled to face Randy Gunnison, who
had returned to his seat in the front row of the court.

‘Yo’re still on oath,
Gunnison,’ he snapped. ‘Did yore ol’ man hire Wes Cameron to kill
them two men?’

‘Certainly not!’ came the
emphatic denial. Sudden nodded grimly and motioned Jake Harris to
come forward and take the stand.

‘One question, Mr. Harris,’
he told the homesteader. ‘Did yu hire Wes Cameron to kill two o’
yore friends?’

‘By God, Jim, if any other
man but yu had asked that I’d kill him, court or no court! The
answer’s no! No!’

Bleke leaned forward as the old homesteader
rose from the chair.

‘You were probably
justifiably angry at the way in which the question was put, Mr.
Harris. Nevertheless, I draw attention to your outburst only to
point out that I will not tolerate another in this
court.’

Appleby stepped forward.

‘Just a minute, Jake, I got
a question for yu.’ He rocked on his heels, waiting a moment for
the tension to grow before he asked, ‘Did yu hire this Sudden
feller knowin’ his reputation?’

‘I did. I reckon he’s
probably not guilty o’ half the things they say he
done.’

‘Nevertheless, yu hired
him. A known killer. I’ll ask yu the question that Mr. Sudden
forgot. Did yu hire him to kill Lafe Gunnison?’

This time Jake Harris had his temper firmly
under control, although a vein throbbed in his forehead and the
muscles of his neck bulged with the effort.

‘Certainly not,’ he
managed.

‘If he did, he isn’t likely
to admit it,’ sneered Randy Gunnison.

Bleke rapped the bar.
‘Another remark like that, my boy, and you’ll do thirty days for
contempt of court. Hold your tongue!’

Gunnison subsided, but
Sudden knew that Jake’s denial had been offset by the sly remark.
He stood up and turned to Appleby.

‘Would yu take the stand,
Marshal?’

Appleby looked his
surprise, but his confidence was high. Yo’re on the run, Mr.
Sudden, he gloated inwardly. He leaned back in the chair and faced
his questioner.

‘Yu already heard Gunnison
there say he was shore his old man didn’t hire Cameron. Yu heard
Jake Harris swear on oath that he didn’t either. If neither o’ them
hired Cameron, who did?’

‘I ain’t heard anyone say
anything to show Cameron was hired at all,’ Appleby said with a
cold smile.

‘Yu think he just rode in
here by accident, picked a fight with Johnstone an’ Newley, killed
’em for no reason?’

‘He killed ’em in
self-defense, far as I recall,’ Appleby reminded him. ‘So where
does that leave yu?’ His voice was gloating.

‘The same place it leaves
yu, actually,’ Green said. His smile was cold and mirthless, and
for a moment Appleby felt an icy finger of panic touch his
spine.

‘What yu drivin’ at,
Green?’ he spat.

‘Yu ain’t answered the
question yu asked everyone else, Marshal,’ Sudden said reasonably.
‘Where was yu when Gunnison was killed?’

Appleby’s jaw dropped. Too
late he saw the hole in his plan, the one false step which this
smiling devil had seen from the start. His mind raced furiously as
he tried to anticipate Green’s questions and think
simultaneously.

‘Yu left the Harris place
an’ rode towards Saber,’ Sudden said inexorably. ‘At the same time
yu was leavin’ the JH, Gunnison was leavin’ the Saber. Yu both
took
the
same
trail.
Yet you didn’t see
him
.
How come,
Marshal?’

Appleby shrugged, maintaining an outward air
of calmness which he hoped concealed his desperation.

‘Search me,’ he said.
‘Mebbe he didn’t use the trail. Mebbe he seen me an’ thought I was
one o’ the homesteaders, an’ dodged me.’

‘Funny,’ Sudden snapped.
‘Yu arrest me claimin’ I ran into Gunnison an’ bumped him off – an’
he don’t even try to sidestep me – yet yu claim he dodges off the
trail to avoid a man he knows well. Does that sound
likely?’

A constant murmur of
speculation washed around the room as the spectators, for the first
time, realized that Appleby was in a position from which he could
not extricate himself. Somehow the dark-haired cowboy had turned
the tables; now it was the Marshal who was on trial, not
Sudden.

‘I’m goin’ to repeat
somethin’ yu said to me,’ Sudden told him, advancing to place
himself squarely in front of the lawman. ‘I got a man who had the
time, the opportunity, an’ the reason.’

Appleby’s eyes swept the
courtroom wildly, seeking support from the faces of the spectators.
None could he see; every face was set, and they awaited Sudden’s
next words with tense anticipation. It was Appleby who spoke first,
however, biting back the terror that threatened to rise in his
throat.

‘Yo’re out o’ yore mind,’
he croaked. ‘Why would I want to kill Lafe Gunnison?’

Sudden turned to the
Governor. ‘I got a surprise witness, seh.' He turned and pointed
with his chin to where Terry Kitson was shepherding in an old man
with graying hair and a silvery beard. Randy Gunnison half rose in
his chair, a strangled sound coming from his throat. Appleby sat
stock still, only his eyes moving.

Speculation about the old
man’s identity created a buzz of talk in the room, but silence fell
immediately Sudden started to speak.

‘Thisyere is Shorty
Willis.’ he told Bleke. ‘Tell us yore story, Shorty.’

The old man nodded, and in
a dry, cracked voice recounted the details which Sudden had heard,
those many nights ago, in the little shack up in the mountains.
There was dead silence as the spectators listened to the old man’s
unvarnished account of how he had been fooled into looking after
the Saber cattle, and of the involvement of Randy Gunnison and his
foreman. There were harsh murmurs from some of the men watching,
for treachery of this sort was outside even their easy-going set of
moral rules. When the old man had finished speaking Sudden whirled
to face Randolph Gunnison. ‘What have yu got to say,
Gunnison?’

Randy Gunnison’s mouth
opened but no sound came out. He tried to say something, but before
he could utter the words another voice cut harshly in. It was the
deep voice of Jim Dancy, and every word was a whiplash of
contempt.

‘That damned ol’
desert-rat!’ he laughed. ‘He used to herd a few head for us up in
the hills. I fired him about ten months ago when I found he was
sellin’ beef to anyone who’d buy it! I would’a’ strung him up,
’ceptin’ for the fact he’s half crazy. Anyone takes his word for
anything got to be more’n half loco hisself!’

Shorty Willis looked
stunned as Dancy hurled these words into the silent room, stilling
instantly the murmurs which, a moment before, had been directed
against him and the son of Saber’s owner. Sudden muttered an oath
beneath his breath. If Dancy had stayed silent a moment longer,
Gunnison might have broken. Now, the man’s color was back, and he
sat once more erect in his chair, his confidence bolstered by
Dancy’s well-timed lies.

Bleke leaned forward to
speak to Shorty. ‘Can you prove any of what you say?’ he
asked.

Shorty shook his head.
‘It’s my word agin his,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t prove none of it.
But them cattle is in that canyon, an’ Jim Dancy brung ’em up
there!’

All eyes turned again to
the burly Saber foreman, but his face was wreathed in a
contemptuous sneer.

‘They’s no cattle in the
Yavapais belongin’ to Saber!’ he stated flatly, and with sinking
hearts Sudden’s friends
realized that
Dancy’s obvious confidence indicated that he had made sure the
cattle were no longer in the canyon.

‘Hold yore hosses a moment,
Dancy!’ Sudden’s voice was clarion clear, and halted the Saber man
in his tracks as he swaggered back to his seat, amid the
congratulations of his hangers-on.

Dancy turned, a frown
appearing on his face. ‘What now?’ he growled. ‘Yu goin’ to make
some more wild claims?’

‘Wait an’ see,’ Sudden
advised him. He turned to face the jury. ‘A while back,’ he told
them, ‘Susan Harris an’ Philadelphia, the kid workin’ on the Harris
place, was shot at from ambush.’ An astonished murmur greeted this
news; many of those present had not heard of this event.
‘Philadelphia an’ me tracked the bushwhacker as far as the Yavapai,
where he crossed. It looked like he’d ridden to the Saber, so we
rode over an’ talked to Lafe Gunnison about it.’

‘An’ got sent off with a
flea in yore ear!’ said Dancy scornfully, to the accompaniment of
laughter from some of the hearers, who could imagine old Lafe
Gunnison’s reaction to the suggestion that the puncher was
making.

‘Somethin’ happened yu
don’t know about, Dancy,’ continued Sudden. ‘When we left the
ranch, I doubled back an’ took a look in yore stables. I found a
hoss that had been ridden hard, with sign on him that showed he’d
been acrost the Yavapai. The jasper we’d trailed hadn’t bothered to
cover his sign much. Anyway, I marked that hoss so I’d know him
again.’

Dancy looked startled for a
moment, then his bravado returned. ‘So what?’ he said.

Sudden turned to a
bystander. ‘Would yu take a gander at Dancy’s sorrel outside? See
if yu can find a hair-brand o’ my initials under the saddle – “JG”,
it oughta be right easy to find.’

The man hastened to do
Sudden’s bidding, while Dancy stood glaring at the puncher. His
mind seethed as the whole room waited in silence for the verdict.
It came like a thunderclap when the man at the door shouted in,
‘The hoss is branded just like this feller sez!’

There was immediate
commotion in the courtroom,
which lapsed
into reluctant silence as Bleke pounded insistently with the
hammer. The Governor turned towards Dancy.

‘Do you have any comment,
Dancy?’ he queried, iron in his voice.

‘Hell, Governor,’ Dancy
said querulously, ‘I ain’t denyin’ my hoss could be carryin’ this
jasper’s brand. We on’y got his word for it that he done it when he
said he done it.’

‘When else could I have
done it, Dancy?’ Sudden asked relentlessly.

‘Makes no never mind when
yu done it!’ snapped the foreman of the Saber. ‘It shore don’t
prove I bushwhacked them kids up in the Mesquites!’

‘We trailed a bushwhacker
to the Yavapai, an’ figgered he’d come from Saber. We find yore
hoss hard used, with sign he’d been across the river. An’ yu deny
yu know anythin’ about it?’ There was deep scorn in Sudden’s voice
which found an echo in the babble of speculation his words loosed
among the watchers.

‘I’ll tell yu all I know,’
Dancy rasped. ‘But it won’t do yu no good, mister. Yo’re tryin’ to
throw sand in people’s eyes by takin’ their attention off the fac’
that yu killed Lafe Gunnison! Well, the hell with yu, Mr. Sudden! I
wondered whether someone had been monkeyin’ around when I found one
o’ my men buffaloed in the stables a few hours after yu’d left
Saber. But nothin’ was stolen, an’ the man claimed he’d seen
nothin’, so I let it ride. Now yu tell me yu marked my hoss, an’
expect these people to believe that it
proves I took a shot at yore frien’s. Yo’re loco!’ He hurled
the last two words at Sudden with undisguised venom, and the
puncher saw the answering flash of triumph appear in Appleby’s
eyes. He shook his head. Once again evidence of complicity had been
negated by what amounted to brazen defiance. He could not prove
that Dancy had been the ambusher, and Dancy knew it. At this
juncture the Marshal rose to his feet.

‘Governor, this
play-actin’s gone on long enough! This Sudden feller’s wastin’ time
tryin’ to throw up enough dust to fog the minds o’ thisyere court.
But every bit o’ so-called evidence he trots out is as phony as a
three-dollar
bill! I’m sayin’ we orta get
on with what we come here for – to try a killer!’

There were several shouts
of ‘Attaboy, Tom!’ and ‘That’s tellin’ him, Marshal!’ from the back
of the saloon at this speech, and Sudden realized that so far he
had done nothing to weaken the solid foundation which Appleby and
his tools had built in this town. The uproar was stilled by Bleke,
whose ice-cold voice silenced the angry cries within
seconds.

‘Marshal, I think it fairly
well established that on the face of the evidence either Green or
yourself had the opportunity to kill Lafe Gunnison,’ rapped the
Governor. ‘I do not appreciate your attempts at rabble-rousing.
Don’t make the mistake of trying it again in front of me!’ He
rapped the bar again for silence. ‘Is there any further evidence
against this man you wish to present?’

Appleby shook his head sullenly. He took
three steps and faced Sudden, his face contorted.

‘Well, Mr. Sudden,’ he
hissed. ‘I ain’t got yu, but yu ain’t got me. Yu’ve accused me o’
killin’ Lafe Gunnison when every man in this town knows I’ve done
my best to keep things peaceful here for two years. Yu’ve made
other claims which ain’t done anythin’ except make yore standin’ in
this town worse. Yu ain’t out o’ the woods yet, Sudden! I’m still
aimin’ to find Lafe Gunnison’s killer, an’ I’m bettin’ on it bein’
yu!’