Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 (21 page)

‘He’s been stirrin’ things
up a mite, too,’ growled the old man angrily. ‘Not to mention that
loud-mouthed son o’ Gunnison’s. It’ll go bad if they find yu
guilty, Jim.’

‘Hell, I ain’t expectin’
it,’ Sudden had smiled, but in truth he was perturbed that the
tenor of the town might be conducive to violence which would
involve his friends. The shave made him feel much better, and he
sat down to eat the bacon and beans Smithy had heated up. After he
had finished he rolled a cigarette and leaned back against the wall
of his cell.

‘Yu shore don’t act like a
man might be hanged by sunset,’ the old man observed.

‘Ain’t plannin’ on it, ol’
timer,’ Sudden told him with a smile.

‘They says yo’re as guilty
as hell.’

‘No sign o’ Gunnison’s body
yet, then?’

‘Nary a one. Appleby’s had
men out in the Mesquites every day. Ol’ Lafe Gunnison’s just plain
disappeared.’

‘Yu know Gunnison well?’
asked the captive.

‘Know everyone in this
town,’ boasted Smithy. ‘Been here a slew o’ years. Worked for Tom
Appleby’s predecessor, afore he was killed.’

‘When was that?’ asked
Sudden.

‘Two year or more ago.
Rock-slide caught him up in the Yavapais. He was a good man, George
Rogers.’

‘How come Appleby was made
Marshal?’

‘Don’t recollect exackly,’
Smithy said, scratching his stubbled chin. ‘He arrove
in
town, applied for the
job. Randy Gunnison spoke for him, as I recall. Knowed him in Santa
Fe, or some such place. He had some references. Been a good
Marshal. How come yo’re askin’ so many questions?’

‘On’y way to get answers,’
Sudden told him, grinning.

‘I hope yu got a few for
the trial,’ Smithy retorted, his sly old face grim. ‘Yo’re shore
goin’ to need ’em, boy.’

By the time ten o’clock,
the hour advertised for the opening of the trial, arrived the
entire population of Yavapai and not a few strangers were crowded
into Tyler’s saloon. The milling spectators jostled each other for
the best vantage points from which to see the trial, and the
atmosphere was almost one of holiday. Jovial insults, curses,
greetings were being tossed backwards and forward across the room
as various denizens of the town recognized their cronies and hailed
them. Against the wall at the back of the room the homesteaders
arrayed themselves; absent were Philadelphia and Susan Harris, who
had stayed with the boy because she could, as she put it, ‘take
better care of him than he could of himself.

The faces of Sudden’s
friends were glum. They had spent the preceding evening going over
and over the accusations against their friend, without ever being
able to suggest a suitable alternative to put to the Sheriff. Their
knowledge of the involvement of Randy Gunnison and Jim Dancy in the
thefts of Saber beef was their only ace-in-the-hole, and they had,
at Sudden’s suggestion, refrained from playing that card until they
were forced to. Now, they could only hope that the young puncher
himself would convince the jurors that the case against him was too
fragile and flimsy to support a verdict of guilty.

The jury was arrayed on
chairs set in two rows at right-angles to the bar, in front of
which was a table and two chairs for the prisoner and his captor.
Behind the bar a raised platform had been placed, which made of the
long bar a kind of judicial bench behind which Harvey Mattingley,
the circuit judge, would sit. He was, so one patron of the saloon
informed a neighbor, due this morning from Tucson. An open space in
front of the prisoner’s table had been left clear, presumably for
anyone wishing to address or approach the bench, and at the side
opposite the jury a witness-box consisting of a chair and an old
reading lectern loaned by the Yavapai Valley Bank had been
placed.

Shortly after half past
nine a coach pulled to a halt in a cloud of dust outside the
Marshal’s office. The few passers-by remarked on the fact that the
horses had been punishingly used, and conjectured upon the identity
of the visitor. They waited to see a short, rather corpulent
man descend from the coach. Dressed in a suit of
dark broadcloth, trousers fitted neatly into the tops of shining
boots, a narrow-brimmed black hat and a soft white shirt with black
four-in-hand, he looked like a preacher or a gambler except for a
certain air of authority in his bearing which set him apart from
these professions. The passers-by hurried to Tyler’s with the news
that the judge had arrived as the short man went into Appleby’s
office.

The Marshal rose to meet his visitor, an
oily smile upon his face.

‘Yu’ll be Judge Mattingley,
I’m guessin’,’ he said. ‘I’m Appleby, the Marshal.’

The visitor appeared not to
see the proffered hand, and said, ‘Judge Mattingley was detained,
I’m afraid. I have come to take his place. My name is
Bleke.’

Appleby’s mouth fell open.
This quiet little man with the shrewd grey eyes was an almost
legendary figure. To have the Governor of Arizona come personally
to superintend the trial was a surprise of such magnitude that
Appleby was lost for words.

‘Don’t stand there with
your mouth open, man,’ snapped Bleke, with just a shade of
irritation in his voice. ‘Where does the hearing take
place?’

Appleby took hold of
himself. This could be turned to real advantage. If Bleke endorsed
the verdict of the jury, and Appleby had taken certain steps to
make that verdict a foregone conclusion, then Harris would be
ruined and forced to leave the country. The hanging of the outlaw,
Sudden, was incidental to Appleby’s plans. His thin mouth curved in
satisfaction at the thought, none the less.

‘Right this way, Governor,’
he fawned. ‘We rigged up the saloon the best we could. They’ll
bring Sudden over as soon as yu give the word.’

Bleke nodded and
accompanied the Marshal to Tyler’s saloon. A hush fell on the
audience as they entered, and Appleby nodded to Smithy to bring in
the prisoner. Bleke took his seat behind the bar and surveyed the
crowded room with cold eyes.

‘My name is Bleke,’ he told
them, ignoring the hum of comment which his announcement caused. ‘I
will be conducting this hearing and I want it known at the
outset
that I will
tolerate no rowdiness or disorder. Let me make it quite clear. I
can live up to my name when I have to.’ After a pause in which he
let his double-meaning sink in, he turned to Appleby.

‘Where is the
prisoner?’

‘He’s right here, Guv’nor,’
cackled old Smithy, leading in the tightly bound cowboy.

Bleke’s face
tightened.

‘Why is this man tied up?’
he snapped.

‘Why … he’s … he’s a wanted
murderer, Governor,’ stammered the Marshal.

‘I understood he was
accused of murder, not guilty of it,’ Bleke rapped out. ‘Or have
you tried him already?’

Appleby shook his head dumbly, and Bleke
gave the order to cut Sudden loose.

‘Phew, he’s an ol’ tyrant,
ain’t he?’ one spectator whispered to his neighbor. ‘I wonder
what’s bitin’ him?’

‘Search me,’ retorted the
listener. ‘Whatever it is, I bet he bit it first.’ They returned
their attention to Bleke, who was leaning now across the bar,
addressing the prisoner.

‘You are Sudden, the
outlaw?’

‘Men call me that,
seh.’

‘James Green is your real
name?’

‘It’s the one I use,’ was
the reply.

‘You understand that we are
not interested in the fact that you are wanted in Texas, Mr.
Green?’ Sudden nodded, his eyes veiled. The Governor asked him who
would conduct his defense.

‘I reckon I’ll do ’er
myself, seh,’ was the puncher’s reply, at which Bleke nodded to the
Marshal.

‘We are ready,
Marshal.’

Appleby stepped forward.
‘It’s my intention to show that the accused, James Green, alias
Sudden, murdered’

‘Dispense with the icing,
Marshal.’ The cold voice of the Governor cut into Appleby’s speech
with an irritable intonation. Startled by the interruption Appleby
turned to face Bleke.

‘That’s somewhat
unconventional, Governor,’ he protested.

‘I’m inclined to be
unconventional, Marshal,’ was the
unsmiling
reply. ‘Get on with it.’

Appleby nodded, and motioned to Randy
Gunnison to enter the witness-box.

‘Tell the court what
happened on the mornin’ o’ the day yore ol’ ma – yore father
disappeared.’

‘Well … my father had been
getting more and more upset about the steady losses the Saber had
been suffering through rustling. He always thought that the nesters
were behind it, but it was impossible to prove without starting a
full-scale range war, and he did not want that. He told me that
morning that he thought maybe if he talked to Jake Harris on a
man-to-man basis they might get it settled.’

‘Did he tell anyone else
about this?’

‘Not to my knowledge,
no.’

‘Anyone else see him leave
the ranch?’

‘Jim Dancy, our – my
foreman, saw him go.’

Appleby turned to face the
Governor. ‘Dancy’ll so state if yu wish, Governor.’

Bleke nodded. ‘Proceed,’ he
said.

‘What time o’ day was it
yore father left Saber?’

‘Just after breakfast.
About seven, maybe seven-thirty.’

‘Yu tried to persuade him
not to go?’

‘I told him he was mad
to
go
up there
alone. He said that if he took the men with him the nesters’d think
it was a war party, and he didn’t want any shooting.’

‘What happened
then?’

‘You know all this,’
protested Randy.

‘Shore, I was there,’
Appleby nodded. ‘But the Governor here ain’t heard the facts. Yu
tell it just like it happened.’

‘Well … yu came in about
ten o’clock. We were having coffee when Dancy came yelling in from
the corral that my father’s horse had come home with blood on the
saddle.’

Appleby turned to face the
bench. ‘There was a lot o’ blood on the saddle,’ he told the
Governor. I found pine needles caught in the hoss’s shoes, so I
knew he’d been up in the Mesquites. That’s the only place yu can
find needles that thick. We figgered something had happened, but we
didn’t know what. I sent Dancy to try to back track the old man,
but it was no use, he couldn’t find
anythin’. I rode back into town for help.’

‘Why did you do that rather
than wait for the Saber riders to come in off the range?’
interposed Bleke.

‘We figgered if Saber
blundered up into the Mesquites in force the same thing Gunnison
had feared would happen. In addition it was gettin’ dark. We didn’t
know where to start lookin’ – that’s a fairly big area up
there.’

The Marshal nodded to
Gunnison and then turned to his prisoner. ‘Ask any questions yu
want to,’ he said. Sudden got slowly to his feet and walked across
the space to the witness-box. He stopped with his narrowed eyes
only a foot from Randy Gunnison’s and shot out a
question.

‘With yore father dead, who
owns the Saber now?’

‘I don’t quite see … I
suppose I do.’

‘How much would yu say
Saber was worth?’

Gunnison turned towards Bleke, appealing for
his support.

‘I don’t see what this is
about,’ he remonstrated. Bleke’s expression did not
change.

You will answer,’ he told
Gunnison.

‘Oh, not that it matters,’
sniffed Randy. ‘About a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars. It would need an expert appraisal.’

‘So yu’ll be a rich man?’
pursued Sudden.

‘I don’t follow
you.’

‘I’m suggestin’ that mebbe
yu had a motive for killin’ Lafe Gunnison yoreself!’

Randolph Gunnison leapt to
his feet. ‘How dare you say that!’ he screeched. ‘How dare you!’
Appleby was on his feet, too, protesting Sudden’s tactics, while
Governor Bleke pounded on the bar for order.

‘Do you have any evidence
to support such an accusation, Green?’ barked Bleke.

Sudden shook his head and returned to his
seat, content to have planted a seed of doubt in the minds of those
watching the proceedings.

A buzz of conversation
arose as Appleby motioned Jim Dancy to the stand. It ceased
abruptly at one rap of Bleke’s mallet.

‘Yu saw Lafe Gunnison leave
the Saber?’ asked Appleby. Dancy nodded. ‘Now tell us: did Randolph
Gunnison leave the ranch at any time after his father
had gone, or up to the time I arrived?’

Dancy shook his head.
‘Nope. Not at all.’

‘He couldn’t’ve slipped out
without yore seein’ him?’

‘Not possible,’ Dancy said
emphatically.

Appleby sat down, and Sudden again stood.
This time, however, he remained behind the table.

‘Did yu ever hear Wes
Cameron mentioned by Lafe Gunnison?’

‘Not so as I can recall,’
Dancy said.