‘The way I hear it, he’s got the town on his side.’ The speaker was a giant of a man. Six feet seven inches tall in the high-heeled cowboy boots, he towered over every other man in the room, and this in a country where tall men were the rule rather than the exception. Arms like the arms of a gorilla dangled loosely at his sides, huge hands covered with matted hair brushed the ash from a smoldering cigar off the mighty thighs. In many ways, the resemblance to some huge gorilla continued: deep set, piggish eyes lurked beneath jutting brows, bushy eyebrows almost meeting the thicket of hair which fell across the shallow forehead. Every inch of the man spoke of huge, brute force, animal cunning, and an apelike simplicity of reasoning. This was Marco Cullane, oldest of Old Man Cullane’s sons, and the one whom he loved more than any other living thing.
Marco was speaking to his father now. The old man sprawled in a battered armchair near a wide stone fireplace in the big living-room of the huge cabin set hard against the canyon wall, lost in the vastness of the Sierra, the epicenter of the impregnable fortress which the Cullanes called their stronghold.
Who had first built the stone cabin in the canyon no man knew. The Cullanes had added rooms to it over their years there. The building was now a great sprawling stone edifice, built directly against the towering cliff behind, unassailable from above, impregnable from in front. Its walls were two and a half feet thick; its roof nearly four feet of solid earth upon which bushes and grass grew in profusion, camouflaging the house from above, softening its outlines to blend with the natural features of the canyon. The ground before it and to both sides was razed and cleared, the earth stamped to flat hard rocky dirt by generations of horsemen, containing not enough cover for a gopher.
The big living-room was cluttered and dirty. Saddles, rifle scabbards, old pieces of bridles, discarded clothes, boxes of ammunition, cans of food were stacked and piled in corners, on shelves, tables, everywhere. The floor was gritty with unswept dirt which had lain there since Marco’s mother had died in the cabin many years before. If the old man was ever conscious of the clutter and grime, he made no mention of it; and since he did not, no other man dared.
Old Man Cullane sat now staring out of the fly-speckled window with its heavy shutters, down the canyon, past the tumbled boulders between the towering cliffs on both sides, as though his piercing gaze could reach as far as San Jaime unaided. He knew as well as any man in the Stronghold what his unseeing gaze now surveyed: the U-shaped canyon with this house at its head, the strange malformation of rock at the open end of the U which was just wide enough to admit two horsemen side by side, forcing them to turn first sharply right and then as sharply left, totally visible from the heights above, without a rock or a boulder to hide them. The strange rock formation could be held by two men against an army, and rendered the Stronghold impregnable, even had anyone been either rash enough to attack it or clever enough to discover its whereabouts.
Cullane saw, without seeing, the bunkhouses opposite the big house, wood frame buildings to house the men who were the floating, ever-changing body of the gang: bushwhackers, rustlers, robbers, murderers, convicts, outlaws, the cream of the scum of the border, the men who joined up with the Cullanes for the rich pickings and who in joining dedicated their skills, their guns, and their lives to the old man in the armchair.
He was about sixty-seven now. Tall, rangy, moving with surprising speed and grace, he could still outride and outshoot many of the riffraff who followed his flag. His hair was iron grey, abundant and flowing; the deep-set eyes were shaded by eyebrows which grew in every direction, bushy and undisciplined. There were deep lines around the sides of the mouth -lines of decision, lines put there by years of power, years of cunning, of using men and discarding them, years of knowing no law but his own law, and no God but himself. The deep-set eyes were a washed-out blue, flat now, without expression. But many men had quailed before the madness which could light them; and they had watched as many more die.
Of all of his domain, the old man was entirely unconscious. He did not see the clutter; ignored the filth. When he wanted comfort - or a woman - he went to El Paso or New Orleans and bought whatever he needed. No living man knew what went on in his mind.
‘Got the town on his side, has he?’
The old man’s rasping voice commanded instant attention.
‘That’s what I hear.’
‘Well, we got enough spies in San Jaime,’ snapped the old man. ‘What’ve ye found out about the man Severn?’
‘Nothin’, Pa,’ mumbled Marco, ‘Nobody knows nothin’ about him.’
‘Fools!’ rasped Cullane. ‘He roughs up yore brother, kicks him an’ Flatman out o’ town, an’ invites us to do somethin’ about it — an’ nobody knows nothin’ about him. Fools! Fools! There aren’t ten men like that in the West. Yu, boy! Tell me again what he looks like!’ Every eye in the room turned towards young Yancey Cullane, slouched in a chair near the door, his hat tilted back on the flaming red hair, and the purple-blue marks of his encounter with Severn vivid and vicious on his head.
‘That hijo,’ ground out Yancey. ‘I’ll gut him! I’ll carve his—’
‘—like yu done afore, yu mean?’ queried the old man, harshly. ‘Shet yore face an’ tell me what he looks like.’
‘Damn yu!’ rasped Yancey,’ what the Hell does it matter? I’m goin’ to—’
‘—get a hand across yore fool cub’s mouth if yu don’t do what I tell yu!’ screeched the old man, sitting upright in his chair and glaring at the boy. ‘It’s enough that he whupped yu an’ the town seen him do it. No wonder they think he’s some kind o’ merricle-man. Severn, he calls hisself? Now let’s hear the rest of it!’
‘Nothin’ much to tell yu don’t awready know, Pa.’ Yancey’s defiance had turned to a whine. ‘He’s about six foot. Wears two guns tied low, an’ he knows how to use them. Rides a black horse — big bastard, too. Looks like any ordinary puncher. Jest a drifter, if yu ask me.’
‘Never ast yu, sonny, but yo’re a fool if yu think so,’ the old man spat out. ‘Now I heerd about a jasper like that gave Black Bill Morrison his come-uppance down San Jose. Took off for the high country with some gambler Bill was takin’ to the waterin’ hole. Main, was his name. Mebbe this could be the same jasper.’
‘If it was, he’s shore goin’ out o’ his way to hunt trouble,’ put in a third speaker. This was a compactly-built young man of perhaps twenty five who had the same red hair as Yancey, and features which stamped him indelibly as a son of the old man.
‘Glenn, yo’re the on’y one around here with a lick o’ sense,’ the old man said. ‘Damn shame yu ain’t got no guts to go along with it, but yo’re right. Now what’s this jasper try in’ to prove?’
‘Mebbe he’s just a troublemaker,’ said the youngster in the far corner of the room. Thin-lipped and by far the smallest of the family as well as the youngest, this was the son named after the old man, Billy. Slim and short, with long fair hair and faintly protruding teeth, he wore ordinary range garb and affected a low slung holster with an eagle bill Colt’s .38, after his hero, the young outlaw whose name he liked to be called, Billy the Kid. His eyes were flat and snakelike, without soul, and his lips were twisted now into a sneer.
Old Billy shook his head.
‘No, boy. Man who makes his trade the gun don’t usually go huntin’ trouble: he jest has to sit around an’ it comes a-lookin’ for him anyways. No, he ain’t one o’ those. I got a hunch it’s somethin’ else.’
‘What, in God’s name?’ burst out Marco. ‘He ain’t known here. He even hired old Dad Poynton as a deppity he’s that desperate. Unless ...’
The old man looked up sharply, his eyes alight with malice.
‘Unless ...?’
‘Unless ... Hell, I know it sounds stupid, but yu don’t think Shearer or one o’ them rabbits in San Jaime sent for a town-tamer, do yu?’
The sound of the old man’s laughter was like the noise a snake makes in dry leaves.
‘Marco,’ he cackled. ‘Yu ain’t got the brains of a pee-ant.’ He cackled a little longer. ‘Yu think them sheep in San Jaime would have the nerve? Even if they had the nerve, where would they get the kind o’ money they’d need?’
‘They got money down there,’ Marco said, sullenly.
‘Hell, boy, yu think they could do all that an’ me not know about it?’ The old man shook his head once again. ‘No. It ain’t that. It’s got to be the other thing.’
What other thing, Pa?’ asked Glenn.
‘Mebbe he was sent,’ the old man said flatly.
‘Sent?’ squealed Yancey. ‘Who’d send him, for Godsake?’
‘That’s what I ain’t figgered yet,’ the old man said, but there was dogged conviction in his voice as he continued. ‘Jest the same, that’s the feelin’ all this gives me.’
‘Feelin’, feelin’!’ burst out Yancey. The Hell with yore feelin’! Let’s saddle up an’ ride in there, an’ bust that sonofabitch wide open! I want to see his stinkin’ carcass swingin’ on Yope’s barn beam, an’ the sooner we get at it the better!’
‘Yancey, yo’re a fool,’ the old man told his son flatly. ‘In fact, yo’re all stupid. By God, if any one o’ yu had half the brains yu oughta bin born with — ah, the Hell with it: I want to know more about this Severn. Who he is. Where he come from. An’ most of all why he’s here. Any fool can break open a hornet’s nest. I aim to do it keerful.’
‘Yu, Pa? Keerful?’ There was a cutting sneer in the voice of young Billy Cullane as he spoke. ‘Next thing, yu’ll be sashayin’ down to say yore prayers with that priest that’s sidin’ with this Severn hombre!’
‘Father Malcolm’s sidin’ with him? Silly ol’ fool,’ spat Yancey. ‘He ought to stick to his church, an’ leave men’s work alone.’
‘Don’t yu underestimate that priest, boy,’ growled the old man. ‘He’s more hombre than yu’ll ever be. Was yu ever to make the mistake o’ writin’ him off as one o’ them meek, tea-drinkin’ jaspers, yu’d end up gettin’ a mighty big shock.’
‘Father Malcolm!’ spat Yancey. ‘One o’ these days I’ll wrap up his damned prayer books an’ shove ’em down his preachin’ throat!’
Old man Cullane got wearily to his feet and walked over to where Yancey sat. He put his hand upon his son’s shoulder and looked into the younger man’s eyes.
‘Yancey, boy, yu will never learn, will yu? Lay a hand on that priest, and the people o’ San Jaime would tear you limb from limb with their bare hands, then walk out here and take this canyon and break it into tiny bits.’
Young Billy sniggered at these words, and a grin split Yancey’s bruised face.
‘Are yu out o’ yore mind?’ he snickered. Them — sheep?’
A brutal blow with the flat of the old man’s hand wiped every trace of the smile from Yancey’s face. The old man towered above his sprawling spawn, rage working in the jaw muscles, madness flaring in the eyes. ‘Books here by the dozen, yet yu never read! All I’ve ever told yu, yet yu never learn! Damn yore eyes, read this! The old man snatched up a Bible off the table, and smashed it down into Yancey’s lap. ‘Read it, damn yu! Every story in it is about fools like yu who made the same mistake! Yu lay a hand on that priest, boy, and I promise yu — if the people leave anything of yu to burn, I’ll set fire to it my own self!’ Then, as suddenly as it had flared, the old man’s rage evaporated. He ran a hand through his thatch of hair, and the bushy eyebrows knitted. ‘I want to know more about this Severn jasper,’ he said, finally. ‘Glenn, get yo’re horse saddled: yo’re ridin’ up over the border, to ask a few questions I want answered.’
Glenn hastened out of the room to do his father’s bidding, while the old man turned now to his favorite son.
‘Meantime, I want to know who’s sidin’ with this Severn,’ he announced. ‘Not the townspeople. They’ll run like the sheep they are when he’s taken care of. What I want to know is who’ll back him in trouble right now. Marco - yu take Chapman, Nixon, an’ Chuck Allen down into San Jaime. There won’t be enough o’ yu to make the whole town go to war: they’ll figger Severn can handle four o’ yu on his own.’
‘Shore, Pa,’ Marco rumbled, ‘but I ain’t so hot with a gun.’
‘Yu dumb ox,’ the old man said, half affectionately. ‘Yu think I’d send yu up against him with a gun? No, that wouldn’t do it, even if yu could take him that way. He has to be broken, and he has to be seen to be broken. I want him whipped an’ bloody on the floor of Diego’s cantina, an’ I want the town to see it! The others’ll take care o’ anyone who tries to interfere. Break Severn, an’ the townspeople will fold up an’ creep away. Marco — yu know what I mean?’
The big man grinned. Flexing his huge fists, he turned and without warning smashed a fist into the back of the heavy armchair in which his father had been sitting. It went over like a skittle, smashing up against the wall while Marco’s grin grew wider and the expression on his face altered to one of savage anticipation.
‘It’ll be a pleasure, Pa,’ he rumbled, deep gloating in his voice.
‘Now hear me, boy!’ snapped Old Man Cullane. ‘I don’t want him killed. Just ... hurt! Yu hurt him bad, but don’t yu kill him.’
‘Why not, Pa?’ put in Yancey, ‘why not kill the bastard an’ be done with it?’
‘Because I say so,’ rasped the old man. ‘Because I got a hunch about Mister Severn, an’ I got my reasons for not wantin’ him killed in San Jaime. If my hunch is right, we can kill two birds with one stone. Smashing him in San Jaime will be all we need to do there. Killing him…’ His voice tailed off, and his eyes went mad and far away. ‘Killing him ... somewhere else ... would be...’ He shook his head as if to clear it, and then cleared his throat.
‘Marco, do like I said. Mind what I told yu!’
‘Don’t yu worry Pa,’ mumbled Marco, unholy lights glinting in the evil eyes. I won’t kill him. But by the time I’m finished, yore Mr. Severn is goin’ to wish I had!’