Blood at Sunset (A Sam Spur Western Read online

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Doolittle said. ‘You stay here in my house. That way everybody’ll know you’re under my protection. That could be useful to you. The sheriff carries weight around here.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you. Might I inquire – who ... that is, there is the matter of remuneration.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about a thing,’ Doolittle told him. ‘I imagine Spur has the means himself. If he doesn’t, why I’ll guarantee it.’

  Doolittle went to bed that night wondering what the hell he had let himself in for. The trouble with him was that he had been born a quixotic fool. Besides, he had liked old Rube Daley. And what, he asked himself, had that to do with his wanting to help his possible murderer? Logic had never been his strong point. If you used logic in human relationships, you never got anywhere.

  He slept.

  His last thought was not of Sam Spur chained in Carson’s store-room. It was of Carson’s daughter, Lydia. She had never given him much more than a glance, but he’d sure looked at her. He had worked up a nice line in freighting, he had money in the bank in Crewsville. But none of it amounted to much if he didn’t possess Lydia Carson as well.

  He arose in the morning to breakfast on a cup of black coffee and a stogie much to the disapproval of Serafina who maintained that a man should break his fast in a proper Christian manner. That is he should eat at least a pound of steak. She was gratified that their guest, young Morley, who had been on short rations for some months now owing to lack of business, proved to be capable of consuming over his allotted amount of steak and washing it down with several cups of her excellent coffee. With the inner man fortified, he accompanied his host through Mex Town and to the store of Mangan Carson.

  Here young Morley came face to face with Lydia Carson and became at once helplessly in love. Doolittle saw the reaction, didn’t like what he saw and hauled the confused attorney to the rear of the store where they came face to face with Stace, grim-faced, short-tempered because he was ready for his breakfast and hadn’t had it, and armed to the teeth.

  Doolittle halted and said: ‘We want to see the prisoner, Stace.’

  The deputy said: ‘You know nobody sees the prisoner, Doolittle. Sheriff’s holding him incommunicado.’

  ‘Come off it, Stace,’ Doolittle said, ‘you know me. All I want is a few words with him. Won’t take more’n a minute. You can stand there an’ hear every word said.’

  ‘More’n my job’s worth,’ maintained the deputy.

  ‘I asked nicely,’ Doolittle said.

  There were several people in the store. They, Carson and Lydia came to listen to what was going on.

  Stace said: ‘Git outa here, Doolittle.’

  Doolittle said: ‘You know perfectly well that in law you don’t have a leg to stand on. If the judge hears about this he ain’t goin’ to like it one little bit.’

  ‘I take my orders from the sheriff.’

  Hansard Morley stepped forward.

  ‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Hansard Morley. I’m an attorney-at-law duly appointed by the court. I have been retained to look after Mr. Spur’s interests.’

  ‘Ain’t that nice for you?’ the deputy said.

  ‘I demand to see the prisoner.’

  ‘Go see the sheriff.’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ said Doolittle. ‘Let’s go, Morley.’ They walked out on to the street. There Doolittle said: ‘We’ll go dig the turd out of his blankets. He’s the laziest sonovabitch off a reservation.’

  They walked to the hotel. In the lobby was a middle-aged man with a cow-lick, a bald head and a white face. When they demanded to see Gaylor, he said that the sheriff was not to be disturbed. When Doolittle marched up the stairs, he protested vigorously but to no effect. Doolittle found the sheriff’s room and marched in without knocking.

  The sheriff was in a deep sleep.

  Doolittle pulled the bedclothes off him and waited.

  Gaylor opened his eyes and stared unbelievingly at the man who stood over him. He was wearing his longjohns and he looked ridiculous. When he sat on the edge of the bed, he said in outraged voice: ‘You better have a damn good reason for this, Doolittle.’

  ‘The best,’ Doolittle told him. ‘I have been to see Spur and your deputy had refused to let me.’

  ‘On my orders,’ Gaylor snarled. He was still no more than half-awake.

  ‘Give the order to let me in an’ you can go back to sleep again.’

  ‘Like hell I do.’

  ‘This gentleman here is Mr. Hansard Morley,’ Doolittle informed him. ‘He is Spur’s attorney. He wishes to interview his client.’

  Gaylor glared at Morley who quailed under the terrible eyes.

  ‘You git that pip-squeak outa here an’ send him back where he came from. I ain’t toleratin’ no damn lawyers nosin’ into my business.’

  ‘Sheriff,’ Morley said bravely, ‘I demand to see my client. And I have every right to do so. My right will be upheld by every judge in the land.’

  ‘Izzatso?’ the sheriff said and reached for his pants. He dressed slowly. ‘You prove you’re what you say you are. You could be anybody. This could be a plot to break Spur outa jail. I know his kind. He’s a killer. He was a killer before they made him a federal lawman. Once a killer always a killer in my book.’

  ‘I have papers to prove my identity,’ Morley said, reaching into his coat pocket.

  Gaylor told him what he could do with them. They could be faked. Nothing was easier. They weren’t dealing with a simple-minded cow-country sheriff. He knew all the tricks. He had Spur right where he wanted him. He had killed a much-beloved member of the community in cold blood and he was going to pay for it. Neither they nor anybody else was going to stop him.

  Morley stood there speechless. He had never met a situation before this in his life. He didn’t know what to do next.

  Neither did Doolittle apparently.

  He said: ‘I’m gettin’ in to see Spur.’ He walked to the door. ‘I don’t know how I’m going’ to do it, but I’ll do it an’ you won’t stop me, Gaylor.’

  ‘You interfere with the course of justice,’ Gaylor told him, stamping his feet into his boots, ‘an’ you’ll find yourself alongside him. That clear?’

  ‘That’s clear. It’s also clear that it is Spur’s right to see a lawyer and to be medically examined. I shall write to the federal authorities.’

  Gaylor laughed.

  ‘By the time they git around to it,’ he said. ‘Spur’ll have his neck stretched.’

  They walked out.

  On the street, Morley wailed: ‘I never met this kind of thing before in my life. Why, the man has no respect for the law at all. The whole situation is insufferable.’

  They went back to Doolittle’s place and opened a bottle of whiskey. It was early in the day for that kind of exercise, but they didn’t care.

  Gaylor went down to Carson’s place and told Stace to open up. The deputy opened the door and they found Spur lying on the shelf. They knocked him off it. Gaylor questioned the prisoner some more, but it didn’t get him anywhere. Shortly after that Juanita Morales brought some food for Spur. They drove her away. They locked Spur in again and Gaylor went back through the store. Here he was stopped by Mangan Carson who said that it wasn’t very satisfactory from his point of view having a man of Spur’s type chained up in his store-room. It was unsanitary for one thing. He had food stored in there. Gaylor said that it was every law-abiding citizen’s duty to aid the law. It should make Carson very happy. Carson didn’t look very happy. Smiling to himself, Gaylor went out on to the street and headed for the saloon.

  An hour later, the Crewsville stage came in amid a cloud of dust. Among the mail was one for the sheriff. This informed him that Judge Hugh Maiden would be arriving at the beginning of the following week. That made Gaylor’s day. Maiden was a hanging judge. He would give Spur short-shift. In the same mail was a letter from Wilton Cantrell the public prosecutor in reply to one from Gaylor. He said that he wo
uld be coming to Sunset in two days to prepare his case against the notorious outlaw. He was a man who loved his work. In a postscript he added that he had always said that a leopard didn’t change his spots and that the governor had been a fool to think that you could pardon a killer and make him a lawman. Once a killer, always a killer.

  Every man likes to have his opinion confirmed and this pleased Gaylor immensely. With Maiden and Cantrell lined up against him, Spur didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

  He thought this called for another drink and he went back into the saloon and had it. He never paid for his drinks.

  Chapter Seven

  The Cimarron Kid sat on the topmost corral rail and watched Cusie Ben working out one of the wild ones. It was a little bay and showed signs that it wouldn’t be wild much longer. Cusie Ben had a way with horses. He and the Kid had them a nice little thriving business up here in the hills. While the mustangs lasted, they made enough money for their needs. Though the Kid missed to some extent the excitement of his former lawless life, this new life had its compensations. Now he could sleep at night without fearing every faint sound he heard. He need no longer fear that every approaching horseman could be the law to arrest him or shoot him on sight. Some of the terror had gone out of life. Along with Sam Spur and Cusie Ben, the governor had pardoned him.

  One of the greatest assets of this new life was that he could eat regularly and Cusie Ben was a supreme cook. Ben’s stew was the work of angels. The Kid had never lived so well in his life.

  To look at the Kid was an undersized shrimp of about twenty who tried in vain to make himself look tall. He prided himself on his looking dangerous. And his pride was well-founded. He looked dangerous all right - as dangerous as a rattler. His face was vicious and he had the eyes of a killer. His eyes didn’t lie either. He was a killer and legend said that he had slain a man for every year of his life. Legend often lies but Cusie Ben reckoned it didn’t in the Kid’s case. Even a useless little punk like the Kid could shoot any number of men in the back without getting himself killed.

  Cusie Ben was of a different stamp.

  He was a Negro, he was bow-legged as are all perpetual horsemen and even his mother would be forced to admit that his face was plain ugly. He was a badman of many years standing, ever since years before some race-proud Texas man had carelessly called him ‘nigger’ and failed to notice that the butt of his gun was well-worn from frequent use. Ben had braced him and killed him before his gun could clear leather.

  From then on he didn’t look back. From then on he never took an insult from any man. As the years passed and his reputation grew, the men who would dare insult him grew less. He had in those days of killing and running shunned the company of men, particularly that of white men. Then he had run into Sam Spur on the Cimarron Strip. He had saved Spur’s life and that had forged an unbreakable bond between the two men.

  That he didn’t have much time for the Kid he made plain from the start, ever since Spur had saved the boy wounded from the hands and possibly the rope of a sheriff’s posse. He suffered the Kid for the simple reason that Sam Spur somehow thought the Kid worth looking out for. To Cusie Ben, the Kid was a treacherous snake who would be better stamped on. He was forced to admit however that, under pressure, there had been times when the Kid had been of invaluable service to Spur and that on more than one occasion Spur had owed him his life.

  But that didn’t mean he had to like the Kid.

  The Kid gazed past Cusie Ben and looked down into the valley. His sharp little eyes caught the faint whisp of dust.

  ‘Rider comin’,’ he called.

  Ben paid no heed, rode the little bay to a standstill and stepped down from the saddle. The horse tried to bite him. Ben laughed and cuffed the animal. He stripped off the saddle and blanket and placed them on the top pole of the corral. He left the hackamore on the animal and hitched to the rail. Then he strolled to the far side of the corral and gazed out over the valley.

  ‘That man sure is tryin’ to kill that pony,’ he said.

  He crossed the corral, went into the house and came out with his Spencer carbine. He checked the loads. Sure, he was pardoned and this probably wasn’t the law coming, but care became a habit with a man in his boots.

  When the horseman rode slowly up the rise to the cabin, man and horse looked as if they had come a long way, fast. The Kid turned himself to face the stranger and kept his hand near the butt of his gun. Ben stayed in the doorway with the rifle held ready.

  The rider halted his horse and looked from one to the other of them. He was a small dark man, much burned by sun and wind. Cusie Ben didn’t think he was a Mexican.

  The man spoke and neither the Kid nor Ben understood the words. The Kid climbed down from the fence and tried him in Spanish, slowly. The Kid’s Spanish wasn’t too bad. He’d always been befriended by the Mexican’s in his owl-hoot days.

  The man replied in a language which the Kid at first could not understand, but after a while he discovered that it was bad Spanish. He found that the man wanted Cusie Ben. He had ridden from Sunset and, indirectly, was from Sam Spur. The Kidd told him to step down and the man obeyed. Ben’s Spanish wasn’t too good, but he now joined in the conversation. It turned out that the stranger carried a letter from a man named Doolittle. He produced it and handed it to Ben. The Negro looked at it right way up and upside down.

  ‘You know you never learned to read,’ the Kid said.

  ‘Hush up in front of a stranger,’ Cusie Ben said, strangely embarrassed. He handed the paper to the Kid and said: ‘Read it.’

  Reading wasn’t the Kid’s strong point, but he could make out if he took it slowly and mouthed the words. Cusie Ben listened in silence, concentrating hard, his lips moving a fraction of a second behind the Kid’s as they struggled through the letter. When the Kid finished, Cusie Ben pushed his hat to the back of his head and scratched.

  ‘A hell of a note,’ he murmured. ‘Sam in jail an’ like to be hung. It don’t seem possible.’

  ‘Possible,’ said the Kid, ‘it’s natural. If ever I seen a man born to be hung, it’s that Spur. All this goin’ around pertendin’ he’s a goddam lawman. Jesus, he wasn’t no great shakes at bein’ a badman.’

  ‘You be still,’ Cusie Ben warned.

  The stranger looked from one to the other, puzzled, not understanding a word.

  Cusie Ben said: ‘You’n’me best ride and ride hard. They could have a rope around Sam’s neck any day now.’

  The Kid snorted.

  ‘I ain’t movin’ from here for no Spur,’ he said. ‘What did he ever do for me I should stir my butt? Hell, I don’t owe him a damn thing.’

  ‘Only your worthless life,’ Ben said.

  The Kid snarled.

  ‘I paid him for that. A dozen times over,’ he shouted.

  ‘Speak soft, boy,’ Ben said, ‘or I put you-all acrost my knee.’

  The Kid took up the stance of a gunfighter about to draw.

  ‘I don’t take that kinda talk from no man,’ he said through his teeth in the traditional manner.

  ‘You take it from me,’ Ben said offhandedly. ‘Quit standin’ that way, you look like you messed your pants.’

  The Kid was beside himself. The stranger looked worried.

  ‘This is it,’ the Kid screamed. ‘The moment of truth.’

  Ben laughed.

  ‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you plumb in your ugly face,’ he said. He beckoned to the stranger and said: ‘Come on in, friend, we’ll feed you.’

  The stranger followed him in. The Kid stayed where he was for a moment holding his pose. Then he straightened up and said: ‘Yaller, That goddam nigger’s yaller,’

  Then he trembled a little. Maybe Ben had heard that. If he heard the Kid call him ‘nigger’, he just might take up the challenge and the Kid knew in his heart he couldn’t clear leather before the Negro had put two shots through him. He walked into the cabin, bristling, hating Ben.

  The Negro sat
the stranger down at the table and served one of his wonderful meals. He was the only man the Kid had ever known who could work horses all day and yet somehow produce first-class chow in the evening. The smell of the stew was so delicious that he postponed his show-down with Ben and ate his fill. When the meal was finished and the stranger was belching appreciatively, Ben said: ‘We ride tonight. We don’t have no time to waste.’

  The Kid said: ‘Count me out.’

  To his surprise, Ben said: ‘All right. I don’t fancy you along nohow any road. This is man’s work.’

  The Kid was suspicious.

  ‘What you aim to do?’ he demanded.

  ‘Not that you’d be interested,’ Ben said, ‘but I aim to bust Sam outa there.’

  The Kid’s eyes opened wide. Spur and Ben between them had insisted since they had all three of them been pardoned, in his keeping to the straight and narrow.

  ‘You mean you ain’t goin’ to get him outa there legal?’ he demanded.

  ‘You read that there letter,’ Ben said. ‘This sheriff’s goin’ to hang him. For a murder he didn’t do.’

  ‘How do you know he didn’t do it?’

  ‘I know Sam. This Rube Daley was a friend of his. Any road, Sam ain’t no murderer. Sure, he’s fast with a gun. Fastest man I ever did see. But he ain’t no killer an’ we both know that. No, son, he didn’t do it. There’s some dirty work goin’ on down in Sunset an’ I ain’t foolin’ around with no due legal process. I’m gettin’ Sam outa there, then we can argufy about the rights an’ wrongs of it.’

  ‘Christ,’ the Kid said, ‘you know what you’re sayin’, man? We do that an’ it could be the owl-hoot for us again.’

  ‘Sure, I know that. But who said any thin’ about “we”? I’m in this on my lonesome. You jest chickened out.’

  ‘You didn’t say nothin’ about goin’ up against the law. That makes it different. That’s my line of country.’

  Ben sneered.

  ‘I ain’t too sure I wants juveniles along.’

  ‘You can’t stop me. This is a free country.’

  Ben picked his teeth.