‘I’d say the town was pretty much on yore side, Severn.’
The speaker was the gambler, Rick Main, and he was sitting on a chair tilted back against the wall beneath the ramada outside the jail on the southwestern corner of the plaza. The early morning sunshine was bright and warm; a gossiping group of women were busily washing clothes around the fountain in the center of the square, and their children played games around the old rusted cannon which stood as a monument to the men of the placita who had fallen in long-forgotten wars. From inside the jailhouse, the sound of old Ray Poynton stumping about making coffee and muttering to himself could be heard. Severn grinned; whether at Main’s announcement or the old man’s not too successful attempts to stifle his curses at Severn’s continued foolhardiness Main could not be certain, and the gambler made a gesture of remonstrance.
‘When I say that, however, I reckon I oughta add that I ain’t shore it’s worth much more’n a plugged nickel.’
Severn shook his head. ‘No, yo’re wrong. It’s worth plenty. Tell me more.’
‘Ain’t much more to tell,’ the gambler replied. ‘I been wonderin’ around, listenin’, playin’ a quiet game o’ cards, bein’ “unobtrusive” or whatever the Hell it was yu told me to be, an’ it allus sounds like the same thing. “Señor Severn ees a wonnerful hombre. He will protect us against the Cullanes. We will be mighty caballeros, not a man afraid.” Hell, Severn, yu know three out o’ four o’ these people ain’t never so much as fit a bad cold.’
‘I know it,’ Severn answered quietly. ‘In fact, I’m bankin’ on it.’
Main’s chair tipped forward, and he took off his hat to allow himself more freedom to scratch his head. He looked at the Marshal with complete bewilderment.
‘I’m damned if I foller yu!’ he burst out.
Severn pointed towards the plaza with his chin.
‘Look at it,’ he told the gambler. Main shrugged, and looked at it. The big church on the northern end of the square, the two rows of dwellings running south from each side of it, and Diego’s cantina, with the livery stable alongside it, at the southern end.
‘Okay, I looked at it,’ he said. ‘So?’
‘It’s built like a fort,’ Severn told him. ‘Look again: can’t yu see it?’
‘Don, for Gawd’s sake stop playin’ mysterious an’ tell me what yo’re on about!’ said Main finally, in exasperation.
‘Wise ol’ jasper once remarked that the first blow is half the battle,’ Severn told him. ‘I been thinkin’ on it.’
Main leaned forward.
‘Yu got a plan?’ he said, his voice dropping.
‘Sort of a one,’ Severn agreed. ‘She’s some loose, but I reckon she might jest work.’
‘Well what is it, for Gawd’s sake?’ exploded Main. ‘Don’t sit there like some fat cat! Tell me!’
‘Yeah, an’ tell me, too!’ interrupted Poynton, opening the door of the jail. ‘C’mon inside an’ git the Java while she’s hot. Yu can talk jest as well in here.’
They rose and went inside the tiny jailhouse. It was a simple two-roomed adobe. In the room they were now in were a desk, several bentwood armchairs, a gun rack, and a few rickety shelves. Everything was covered in fine dust. In one corner stood a huge, cast-iron potbelly stove with a hotplate on which a battered black coffeepot now chuckled. Set in the wall directly opposite the door which led to the street was another door, a solid door of heavy planking, three or four inches thick and reinforced with strips of iron and heavy metaled studs. There was a square window, perhaps a foot wide and nine inches high, with two bars, let into the door. Behind it was the single cell of the jail: an empty room with only two bunks and a chair. It was windowless and deeply shadowed.
The three men sat with their coffee, and Main turned expectantly to Severn.
‘Yu was about to tell me how yu was plannin’ to give the Cullanes a surprise when they come in after yore scalp,’ Main remarked.
‘He said that?’ barked old Poynton. ‘Severn, yo’re as barmy as a hoot-owl. I keeps on tellin’ yu the on’y way is to lie for them outside o’ the town, an’ cut ’em down as they ride in.’
‘Too risky by a mile,’ Severn said, shaking his head. ‘Besides, there ain’t enough cover for a gopher out on the prairie.’
‘They surround this town, yu’ll find someplace to hide jest as hard to find,’ was Main’s grim rejoinder. ‘I don’t reckon so, if we play her right,’ Severn said.
‘Yu see!’ Main turned to Poynton. ‘I be damned if I ever met a more exasperatin’ jasper. Yo’re so damn clever — explain it to us dumb ones!’
‘Yeah, added Dad Poynton. ‘Lay the news on us. I’m jest too old an’ ignorant to unnerstand these yere fine-p’inted argyrnents.’
Severn sighed, as if in despair.
‘I don’t reckon no town Marshal ever had dumber helpers, at that!’ he grinned, dodging a mock blow which Dad Poynton aimed at him. ‘Look at this.’ ‘This’ was a broken square which he traced in the dust on the desk top with his finger. The two uprights met a horizontal at the lower end, with two small gaps to each corner. At the top, instead of a horizontal, Severn traced a small square.
‘Very interestin’,’ said Poynton, in the voice of one humoring someone extremely ill.
‘But unfathomable,’ added Main. What is it?’
‘It’s a plan o’ the town, yu knuckleheads,’ smiled Severn.
The little square here at the top is the church. The two uprights are the rows o’ buildin’s runnin’ north an’ south. The bottom line is the saloon an’ the stable.’
‘So yu got almost a square. That ain’t exactly the year’s most important discovery, Don,’ said Main.
‘Yo’re wrong,’ Severn said. That’s just about what it could be. All we got to do is close off the corners an’ we got ourselves a fortress. Why d’yu think the early settlers allus built their plazas in a square?’
‘Defense?’ guessed Main.
‘Shore ’nough,’ confirmed Poynton. The early Spaniards allus knowed they’d have Injuns skulkin’ around, an’ they took out their own kind o’ insurance.’
‘In fact, yu’ll find old cities all over the world built that way to start with,’ Severn added. ‘When they had no natural defenses, that is.’
‘Which is what yu ain’t got anyhow, boy,’ put in Poynton. ‘Yu got yoreself a fort all right. All yu need now is a few so’jers.’
‘I think we can even manage that,’ Severn said. ‘All we got to worry about is gettin’ the Cullanes mad enough to come after us in force.’
His companions regarded Severn as if he had gone completely insane and had started chewing the desk top. After a moment of complete silence, Dad Poynton removed his battered old hat and held it reverently to his breast.
‘Gentlemen, hush,’ he said. ‘Our Marshal just went off his chump. He thinks the Cullanes ain’t mad enough!’
Severn smiled. ‘Oh, they’re hoppin’ mad, I’d say. They ain’t goin’ to set still an’ let someone run a Cullane out of his own town, an’ then take over. But—’
‘But not mad enough to come in in force?’ asked Main.
‘I reckon not,’ Severn confirmed. He enumerated his reasons, ticking them off on the fingers of his right hand. ‘One: we hurt their dignity, but nobody got killed. Two: that ol’ pirut ain’t so green as not to be able to put two an’ two together an’ come up with mebbe six. He’s prob’ly linked what happened in San Jose to me — mebbe yu, too, Rick. So he’ll be askin’ hisself: what are we tryin’ to prove? Which brings me to three: I reckon we can expect him to try one or two other ways o’ rootin’ me out afore he comes in to make war.’
‘That’s mighty chancy figgerin’, Don,’ remarked Main.
‘Chancy enough,’ agreed the Marshal. ‘But the way I see it, the Cullanes need this town. They can take it any time they’ve a mind to. So mebbe the old man’ll see if he can’t jest take care o’ me an’ keep the town afore he decides to go the whole hog.’
Main pursed his lips. ‘Yu could be right at that,’ he said. ‘But she’s mighty long odds.’
‘An’ yu could be wrong,’ grumbled Poynton, ‘an’ if yu are, yu won’t jest be wrong, yu’ll be dead wrong!’
Severn grinned. ‘Mebbe I’ll have to pickle my skin like that feller I knowed once.’
The two men looked at the Marshal in consternation.
‘Pickle yore skin?’ gasped Poynton. ‘What in Hell are yu on about?’
‘Feller I knew did her,’ Severn went on. ‘Queer jasper, allus up to some trick for makin’ a dishonest dollar. Anyways, he got hold o’ some Injun recipe for tannin’ hides, an’ plumb bathed in that stuff till his hide was as tough as an ol’ boot. I’m tellin’ yu, that feller had a hide that’d turn the edge of a Bowie knife. Nothin’ couldn’t make a dent in him.’
‘This yere sounds mighty unlikely to me,’ growled Poynton.
‘What was this jasper’s name, allus supposin’ he ever drew breath?’
‘Oh, he drawed breath all right,’ Severn said gravely. ‘His name was Owen, as I recall, Nige Owen. Short, thickset feller with long black hair. I come across him in Golden, near Denver. Used to back his hide ag’in the bullet from any gun, buffler rifles barred o’ course. I can see him now, standin’ up ag’in a tree — so the shock wouldn’t knock him back-asswards — chest bared, jinglin’ a poke o’ gold eagles an’ darin’ any man in the crowd to take a chance — even money, peso for peso, that no man in the crowd could put a slug through him. Well, they rolled up. I should smile: every jasper with enough dinero for a .45 slug aimed to lift that poke an’ go on a hoot, but Owen collected every time. He was what yu call plumb impervious.’
‘Nige Owen, yu say?’ queried Poynton irritably. ‘I’m damned if I ever heared o’ nobody like that!’
‘No matter,’ chuckled Severn. ‘Let me finish the tale. After each contest, Owen would pick up all the slugs what had flattened after hittin’ him. Mostly they was nice an’ round, so he’d trim ’em up a mite, polish them some, an’ use them to trade with Injuns, sayin’ they was Mex pesos. Them pore dumb Redskins’d fall for it every time, an’ Owen would win twice around: first time the money, an’ then some pore warwhoop’s winter catch o’ pelts for the flattened slugs. Anyways, he finally slipped up an’ got done fer.’
‘What happened?’ The two listeners were agog now with interest in the Marshal’s outlandish story.
‘Well sir, this half-starved Injun comes a-mopin’ along, an’ puts up his pack o’ skins for a crack at Owen. Owen allows he’ll bet, an’ takes up his position by the tree, a-grinnin’ like a Chessy cat, on account o’ the Injun ain’t got nothin’ more than an ol’ muzzle-loader, which Owen calculates couldn’t shoot a hole in a wet newspaper. Well, he was right an’ he was wrong. The redskin sets up an’ aims, an’ puts about half a pound o’ ball right through the roof o’ Owen’s mouth.’ He paused a moment for effect. ‘Owen died with that big fat grin pasted all over his face, what little brains he had spread half across Colorado, an’ the Injun is explainin’ to everyone how sorry he is, he plumb forgot his ol’ Betsy pulled a mite high. Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do about it, so he picks up Owen’s poke an’ skedaddles, an’ they bury pore ol’ Nige right there under the tree. Put a purty stone on the grave too, with a right purty message. In fact, that’s why I’m tellin’ yu this story. What was on that stone is somethin’ yu boys ought to keep in mind.’
Ray Poynton raised his sweat-stained old hat high above his head and then dashed it to the floor.
‘Damblast yu to Hellangone, Severn!’ he shouted. ‘Tell us what the Hell it said.’
Severn grinned, edging towards the doorway.
‘It said: if yu ain’t got anythin’ to say, keep yore big mouth shut.’
And he was outside before they could lay hands on him.