Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) (6 page)

‘
An’ which now belongs to Barclay. He give yu any trouble
collectin’ ’em?’

‘
Not this far he ain’t,’ was the answer.

‘
Let’s hope we can keep it that way,’ Sudden said. ‘Let’s mosey
on down.’

His
companion looked at him for a moment, then asked mischievously, ‘Yu
shore yu can manage her, ol’ feller?’

Green
grinned. ‘Well, without my walkin’ stick, she looks a mite
difficult, but I’ll give ’er a whirl.’

‘
I could allus lower yu down on a rope. If I had a
rope.’

‘
I’d ruther jump an’ do her quick,’ replied Sudden. Together
the two men made their way carefully down the none too distinct
path, Sudden in the lead. It was treacherous going. The face of the
cliff was sun-dry and brittle, and the ever-present wind tugged at
their bodies on the exposed corners and juts of the winding track.
They were about half-way down when Dave, prattling away behind
Sudden, turned his heel upon a small stone, and with a cry of
amazement mixed with fear, found himself plummeting downwards off
the path. By sheer luck, he managed to twist his body in mid-air,
and grasp one of the stunted briars clinging for sustenance to the
bare face of the cliff. The wicked spikes tore his hands, face, and
body cruelly, but he gritted his teeth and hung on as Green, lying
Hat on the path above, leaned over the edge and called his
name.

‘
Dave—Dave, yu all right?’

‘
No … yu idiut. I’m dead as a doornail.’ Dave strove to keep
his voice level, but a cold sweat broke out of every pore on his
body as the small tree lurched slightly. Its meager roots,
unaccustomed to this strange extra weight, were beginning to pull
slowly from their precarious grasp in the crevices of the rock.
Risking another movement, Dave shifted his body slightly. He could
see Green’s anxious face about ten feet above. Sudden meanwhile had
been thinking rapidly.

‘
Can yu get yore gun belt an’ pants belt off without movin’ too
much?’ he called down.

‘
Expect so,’ was the exasperated reply. ‘Though I’d as lief
not.’

‘
Take ’em off, buckle ’em together, an’ don’t argue,’ snapped
Sudden. ‘I’m gonna link my belts together an’ lower ’em to yu. Try
to buckle yore belt to mine.’

Divining
his friend’s plan to make an improvised rope, Dave began to
unbuckle his belts. Every movement he made was slow and deliberate,
but even so the bush swayed dangerously as he moved. His fingers
were slippery with sweat, but eventually he was ready. Green,
dangling head and shoulders over the precipice, lowered his
connected belts down towards Dave. Dave slowly stretched his hand
upwards, his fingers extended. The belts were just out of reach. He
moved just slightly, and a thin trickle of earth slithered down
past his head as the bush again lurched. ‘She’s no use, Jim,’ he
called, hoarsely. ‘Every time I move, this durned tree moves
too.’

Without
another word, Green pulled himself back on to the path. In a moment
he had slipped off his boots, and in another, was lowering his body
downwards off the path and on to the face of the cliff, his feet
probing for footholds in the rock.

‘
Jim, for Godsakes don’t try it!’ cried Dave.

Sudden
did not answer. His whole attention was riveted on the exploring
toes and lingers which held him, spread-eagled, on the cliff face.
Once he looked down, and the sheer drop below brought a clammy
sweat to his forehead. Still lower he inched, and lower, until he
was a few feet above Dave’s head. Holding on to a small outcropping
of rock with one hand, he extended the linked belts, which he had
been carrying gripped in his teeth, down to Dave, who fastened them
in a few moments to his own and carefully lifted them upwards until
Sudden could reach them. Sudden then transferred the buckle to his
teeth again, and began the far more difficult task of retracing his
descent. Inch by agonizing inch he moved, crabwise, his fingers
torn and bloody from the needle-sharp rocks, his socks torn to
shreds on his gory feet. Dave watched him as he slowly climbed,
sweat staining the blue shirt as the powerful muscles coiled and
bunched beneath it. It seemed like an eternity before Green finally
found a full purchase for his hands on the path, and with an aching
gasp of relief, hoisted himself back on to the comparatively level
ground.

Despite
the pain it caused him, he forced his lacerated feet into the
tight-fitting boots, and, digging the heels firmly into the path,
took the full weight of his companion. Within moments, Dave had
climbed hand over hand up their improvised rope and was safe on the
path where both men sat, bathed in sweat, gasping together in near
exhaustion.

When
they had recovered their breath somewhat, Dave turned to
Sudden.

‘
Jim,’ he vowed, ‘I ain’t forgettin’ this—never.’

‘
See yu don’t,’ was the smiling reply. ‘Us old fellers can’t
keep pullin’ yu kids outa trouble all the time. In the first place,
it’s mighty hard work, an’ in the second’—he assumed a quavering
voice—‘it could durn near kill me.’

A few
more minutes’ rest, and both men were fully recovered from their
ordeal, thanks to their wonderful constitutions, and continued
their way down to the foot of the mesa. Once, Dave glanced over the
side of the path and gulped at the thought of how near to a
dreadful death he had been. If it had not been for this
slow-smiling man … he shook his head. ‘I’d shore be shakin' hands
with Old Nick right now,’ he muttered. When they reached the
horses, he bent down and reverently kissed the ground.

‘
Shore am glad I didn’t hit yu no harder than this,’ he
said.

Green,
limping to his horse, turned, and said over his shoulder, ‘Shucks,
there was on’y a fifty-fifty chance o’ yore gettin’ hurt even if
you’d fell all the way down.’ It was Dave’s turn to be puzzled and
he looked his question at Green.

‘
Yu might have landed on yore head,’ explained that worthy. ‘In
which case yu’d have suffered no damage at all.’

Dave’s
reply to this insult was neither pretty nor printable, but Sudden
only grinned and led the way on to the trail towards the Slash
8.

The
little town of Hanging Rock lay torpid under the blasting heat of
the summer sun. All along the single street the board-walks were
empty, and only a mangy dog, lying in the ineffective shade of
Diego’s saloon, gave any indication that there was life in the
town. All the citizens of the little cow town were prudently
avoiding the midday heat in the cooler corners of either their own
homes or one of the two saloons. A true frontier settlement,
Hanging Rock looked like any of a hundred other dusty cow towns.
Its buildings were of adobe or wood or both, with an occasional
‘dugout’ here and there along the straggling street, while the
spaces in between these inglorious edifices were littered with tin
cans, empty bottles, and even an occasional iron bedstead discarded
by itinerant pilgrims. Hanging Rock made no claim to being the
garden spot of the West, and presented in main an unlovely aspect
to any newly arrived traveler. Its residents were wont to remark
that ‘them as don’t like it don’t need to stay’, and most of those
arriving for the first time in Hanging Rock by means of the stage
line, its only link with the outside world, were apt to take one
quick look at the town and take the advice of its citizens at face
value. Hanging Rock relied for its existence upon trade from the
ranches in the valley and upon the miners on Thunder Mesa who came
in once a month on payday and scattered their hard-earned dollars
in an all-out spree which often ended in a brawl or a killing.
Hanging Rock took these as a small price to pay for the turnover.
Of the various buildings scattered along the street, very few were
of any importance. The biggest was Burkhart’s saloon and Dance
Hall, which possessed an imposing false front behind which crouched
the one-storey reality, an L-shaped building of thick adobe
construction whose thirty-six-inch walls were a guarantee of
coolness on the hottest day and a fair degree of warmth when the
‘northers’ swept down along the side of the Needles. To everyone
except its owner, Burkhart’s was known as ‘Dutchy’s’ thanks to the
universal western custom of calling anyone with a foreign accent by
that sobriquet. Directly opposite Dutchy’s was the Traveler’s Rest,
an hotel and rooming house run by a fiercely independent Irish
widow named Mulvaney. Here food and lodging was dispensed for
overnight travelers on the stage, or visiting miners, cowboys, and
other itinerants. Mrs. Mulvaney was a strict disciplinarian and
there wasn’t a man in the valley who would have dared to walk along
one of her highly-polished hallways with his boots on. Down the
street a little, on the same side as Dutchy’s, stood the City
Bank—the most solidly-built structure in Hanging Rock, and the only
one of two storeys.

Adjacent
to it was another saloon called ‘The Square Deal’, but more
frequently referred to as Diego’s, its owner being a Mexican so
named. Most of the cowboys in the valley were traditionally
customers of Dutchy’s, prior to the arrival of Barclay. His
hard-bitten crew had, however, taken to frequenting Diego’s, which
gave Jacob Burkhart no sleepless nights at all. He was a realistic
man, and knew that Barclay’s men would have given him more trouble
than a barrel full of rattlers if they had ever come into the
saloon when—say—the Slash 8 boys were in town. In fact, it was
Gimpy who had once acidly remarked of Diego’s hostelry that ‘the
only square deal you get there is on the sign outside’.