‘If this is Paradise, I shore am disappointed.’ Green’s pained comment as he regained consciousness brought a wry smile to the blood-streaked face of Billy Hornby. He surveyed his new-found friend and shook his head.
‘Mr Green, yu look about the way I feel,’ he vouchsafed. Indeed, both of them were sorry sights. Their clothes were dusty and stained, and the trickle of dried blood on Billy Hornby’s forehead was matched by one which had oozed from the split in Green’s scalp. Their hands and faces, too, were scratched from their unceremonious dragging across the wheel-rutted street of Cottontown.
‘Looks like they drug us in here by the feet,’ commented Green. He tested the ropes which bound his hands and feet. ‘I shore am hawg tied.’ There was no slack in his bonds; they had been expertly tied. ‘This the jail?’ he asked.
Hornby nodded, glancing gloomily about the tiny cell.
‘Stands about opposite the saloon,’ he told his companion. He hesitated for a moment. ‘Mr Green … I never got a chance to thank yu for what yu done back there …’
‘Shucks, no call to,’ interrupted Green. ‘An’ my friends call me Jim’. He looked keenly at the youngster for a moment, then asked a question.
‘Buck is the younger brother out o’ three,’ Billy told him. ‘The other two are Art an’ Sim. Art’s about yore age, I’d reckon, an’ Sim’s the oldest. He’s about thirty-five.’
‘Then the town’s named after their ol’ man, I’m takin’ it. He still around?’
Billy shook his head. ‘Ol’ Zeke died a few years back. He settled this valley. Built the ol’ Cottonwood ranch back in the hills north o’town after he came back from the War. There used to be an old Army post about fifty miles south o’ town—Fort Lane. Zeke was a good businessman. Figgered the Army boys needed a place they could relax in, take a smile when they wanted to. He built a store, an’ a saloon, about halfway between his ranch an’ the Fort. Brung some o’ his relations in from Texas to run ’em. Town just growed up around them. Natural enough, they called it Cottontown.’
Sudden nodded his understanding. Many a man had grown rich and fat on Army custom.
‘I expect he was supplyin’ the Fort with beef an’ horses, too?’ he hazarded.
‘Yu bet he did,’ Billy replied. ‘He had all the contracts sewed up. Nobody else in these parts could get a look-in. An’ then the Army pulled out.’
‘When was this?’ asked the tall puncher.
‘About seventy-three, durin’ the depression. Fort’s ruined now. A few Mex sheepherders live there. Ain’t another settlement within a hundred miles, an’ this valley bein’ a sort o’ bowl, Cottontown keeps it alive. Folks who live in these parts toe the line the Cottons draw, or git. When ol’ Zeke died, Sim took over. It’s his town now. What he says goes. The Cottons do what they like. Any arguments, an’—’ He drew a forefinger across his throat.
‘An’ yu …?’ prompted Green.
‘I run a small place south o’ town — the Lazy H. My old man ran it until he died — that was the same year ol’ Zeke Cotton cashed in his chips. I been tryin’ to make the place pay ever since, but it ain’t easy.’
‘Where’s the market for yore beef?’
‘Silver City,’ Billy told him. ‘But we ain’t allowed to sell independent. The Cottons sell all the beef out o’ this valley. We got to drive our cattle on to Cottonwood range, an’ they pay their price for beef. Then they pool the herd an’ sell down in Silver City.’
‘Yu mean they fix the prices, an’ yu can’t kick? Ain’t anyone tried to drive his own herd to Silver City?’
‘Shore, one or two o’ the local men tried it,’ continued Billy. ‘They was either hit by raiders in the night an’ had their herds run off, or they was ambushed. One man —-old vinegary gent by the name o’ Bert Williams, swore nobody was goin’ to tell him how much he could sell his beef for —-got burned down from behind. That put an end to it. Nobody needed it spellin’ out. From then on, everyone sold their beef to the Cottons, allasame good boys.’
‘The Cottons never had any trouble on the trail, I’m takin’ it?’
‘They claim nobody’d dare hit an outfit o’ their size. No, they ain’t never been touched.’
Sudden pondered for a moment, his lips pursed. He shifted on the rude bunk bed into a more comfortable position, easing his cramped arms and legs.
‘These ropes musta bin tied by an Injun he complained.’ Though he felt easier, his body was one big ache.
‘So the Cottons git yu both ways,’ he proposed.
‘They cut yu to the bone on yore cattle prices, an’ then hold yu up on prices o’ supplies. Right?’
‘Right!’ nodded Billy grimly. ‘Anyone squawks, an’ he winds up in an alley with his head broke.’
Sudden’s mind was busy. The pattern of the Cottons’ power was not at all unfamiliar. A similar set of circumstances had obtained in many of the unsettled areas of the West — in Lincoln County they had brought about range war when the people rebelled. ‘Ain’t the townsfolk ever shown any opposition, or any o’ the smaller ranchers?’ he asked.
‘Once.’ Billy told him, his voice unemotional. ‘Few years back, just after Zeke Cotton died, the town doctor, Dave Hight, tried to get a Townspeople’s Committee together. One mornin’ he was found behind the livery stable, about ten yards from his own back door, beaten within an inch o’ his life, an’ one o’ his legs broke. He ain’t never walked right since. They found a piece o’ paper pinned on his shirt. It just said “Be warned!” Ever since then, the Cottons have had this town buttoned up.’
Sudden shook his head. ‘Shore sound like a mean bunch!’ he opined.
‘There’s a few folk ain’t scared to speak their minds —-up to a point.’ Billy informed him. ‘But yu got to walk pretty wary.’
‘Which is a sight more’n yu did,’ grinned Green. ‘Yu want to tell me what it was I got myself into?’
Billy’s young face set into hard lines. ‘I’d as lief not talk about it, Jim.’ Then his expression softened an iota. ‘Still … I reckon yu got a right to know. I got home from checkin’ the range this mornin’. I found my sister —-she’s eighteen, Jim, eighteen years old! —- lyin’ in the house, on the floor. Her clothes was in tatters. She was sobbin’ like a ’Pache squaw…’ His voice broke, and he struggled briefly, ineffectually, against his bonds, as if his very rage would burst them. Green managed to find somewhere else to look while the boy fought for control. ‘She was pretty bad scared, but she hadn’t been … hurt. Told me that Buck Cotton had come to the house. Didn’t want to tell me more —-she knowed what I’d do. She said he had been waitin’ until I was gone afore he come a-visitin’. Then he just…’ A shudder of suppressed anger shook his shoulders.
‘I took her down to the ol’ Fort an’ got a Mex woman to look after her. Then I lit out like a bat out o’ hell for town. Sent Doc Hight out there, an’ then I went lookin’ for Buck Cotton. Yu know the rest.’
Green bowed his head. The boy’s unreasoning anger had precipitated a smoldering confrontation. ‘Gonna be interestin’ to see what these Cotton jaspers dream up for us he told himself. He watched the youngster as an expression of disgust crossed Billy’s face.
‘I oughta’ve killed him when I had the chance!’ spat the boy.
‘Been a pretty empty gesture if yu’d got killed doin’ it, wouldn’t it?’ was Green’s reasonable reply. ‘That Parris was shore achin’ to put a slug atween yore shoulder blades.’ Changing the subject, he asked Billy who would look after his sister.
‘I reckon Doc Hight’ll take care o’ Jenny,’ Billy told him. ‘I’d guess them two is goin’ to get married afore long. They shore get all moony-eyed when they’re settin’ on our front porch.’ This with the typical disgust of the young man for such ‘romantic foofarraw’. Green smiled to himself.
‘This Doc Hight sounds like a good man. Any others in town we can hope for a square deal from?’
Billy’s expression was glum. ‘Not many,’ he admitted. ‘The barkeep, Blass, is a fair man, but he works for the Cottons. They own the Oasis. Mebbe Bob Davis who runs the general store an’ one or two o’ the men on the smaller spreads south o’ town. That’s about all. This is Cottontown, Jim. I shore am sorry I got yu into this.’
Green did not reply. He was busily inspecting their cell more closely and was not inspired to hope by what he saw. The tiny room was no more than six feet square. Straw covered the tamped dirt floor, and a tiny barred window set in one wall about seven feet from the ground let in light and air. The door looked like solid oak, and was studded with iron bolts. There was no Judas window, nor any kind of break in its surface. The walls of the cell were of adobe, the universal building bricks of the Southwest, and he guessed that they would be at least three feet thick.
‘Not a hope o’ breakin’ out,’ he muttered. ‘Even if our hands was free —-which same they ain’t.’
Billy watched his friend’s careful inspection of the cell wordlessly. When Green was finished he said:
‘I could’a’ told yu not to bother, but I didn’t figger yu’d take any notice, anyway.’
Green smiled. ‘Allus like to look for myself. Just to be shore.’
‘What I said,’ replied his cellmate. ‘The on’y place built stronger than the jail is the bank.’
Before Green could comment further, they heard heavy footsteps in the corridor outside their cell, and the jangling of keys, followed by the grating metallic sound of a heavy bolt being pulled back.
The door swung outwards to reveal Sheriff Parris, hands on hips, regarding his two prisoners with a self-satisfied smile. Behind him stood two heavily-built men, both armed with shotguns.
‘Well, well, if it ain’t the remains o’ the Rebel Army,’ he gloated. ‘Yu boys look like somethin’ fell on yore heads.’ He turned to the man on his left. ‘Cut their feet loose, an’ mind how yu do it! Yu two jaspers —-take it slow an’ easy! Jackson, here, is a nervous sort o’ feller, an’ yu don’t want his finger twitchin’. These walls take a lot o’ scrubbin’ if one o’ them cannons goes off.’ This macabre reference to their fate in the event of any show of resistance was not lost on the two prisoners.
After their feet had been freed, and they had stamped around for a moment to get the circulation moving again, Green asked a question.
‘Where are yu goin’?’ Parris laughed, a hearty, evil laugh. ‘Why yo’re not bein’ kept waitin’ around, wonderin’ what’s to happen. We’re takin’ yu over to the saloon, an’ yo’re goin’ to be tried.’
‘Tried?’ cried Billy Hornby. ‘Tried for what?’
Parris grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth glinting crookedly beneath his grizzled moustache. He held up a hand and ticked off the charges on his fingers.
‘Obstructin’ an officer in the course o’ his duty, assault with a deadly weapon, breach o’ the peace, firin’ a gun inside town limits, felonious woundin’ of an officer o’ the law, incitin’ a riot, attempted murder, vagrancy —-hell, take yore pick. We got enough to hang yu two hombres higher’n Haman!’