Mike Turnbull and his companions had decided to have a few farewell drinks at the cantina before they picked their guns up at the jail and hit the trail for the border. It was a quiet evening; a few people talking at tables around the place, a young gambler whom Turnbull had not seen before quietly playing solitaire beneath the wall lamp on the far side of the room. Once, the Marshal looked into the cantina as he made his now obligatory circuit of the plaza, quietly checking that all was in order in the little town, always tipping his hat to the ladies, passing a few words with the men he saw, keeping without overtly seeming to do so to the well-lit parts of the ramadas, checking doorways. Severn did not know when, where, or how the next assault would come; but he would not be caught off guard when it did. Turnbull’s boys raise their glasses in salute as he looked in briefly, and when he had gone, Ogston remarked That boy’s mama didn’t raise no fools.’
‘Said it afore,’ was Long’s laconic observation.
‘Yu reckon he’s got a chance in Hell against the Cullanes, Mike?’ put in Les Lawrence.
‘Nary a one,’ Turnbull replied. ‘But that’s his own look-out, not our’n.’
‘Yo’re damn tootin’,’ agreed Ogston. ‘Diego! Set ’em up here again, will yu?’ Ogston turned towards the old bartender, frowning as he saw the expression which was on the man’s face. Diego Cruces was looking towards the batwing doors of the cantina with a face filled with horror, fear, and disbelief. Ogston swung around to see what had caused it.
‘What the—!’ burst from his lips, only to be stilled as he saw what Diego had seen, and what every man in the cantina now saw almost simultaneously.
There were four men just inside the cantina. All of them were big men, out three were dominated by the sheer size of the fourth. Marco Cullane stood there in the flaring light of the coal-oil lamps and his voice was as harsh as a rasp file on a horseshoe.
‘Everybody sit still an’ nobody will get hurt!’
There was a silence in the cantina which could have been ripped apart by a sigh, and the men at the bar stood as if turned to stone.
‘Is that ... is that. ...?’ whispered Dickie Drew out of the side of his mouth. Turnbull inclined his head forward just a fraction to signify assent. ‘Marco Cullane!’ he hissed ‘An’ some o’ the boys.’
Marco Cullane prowled forward towards the bar, reaching across it with a ham like hand and grasping the front of Diego’s shirt, twisting it into a lump and hauling the old man up on tiptoe.
‘Yu — greaser:’ he snarled. ‘Get some drinks!’
A contemptuous thrust of his huge arm sent the old man staggering backwards, to crash into the wall of rough shelves behind the bar. A spasm of panic crossed Diego’s face, and he cried out in pain at the force of Marco’s push and the impact of the collision. A trickle of blood spread across his chin as he inadvertently bit into his lower lip; the old man’s eyes glazed and he reeled forward against the bar, catching hold of it to steady himself.
‘Drinks, yu damned mestizo!’ roared Marco, sweeping his right hand across in a backhanded blow which caught old Diego on the side of the head and smashed him into an unconscious heap at the far end of the bar.
‘Damn pig!’ shouted Marco Cullane, and his wicked eyes glared at the men ranged in front of him at the bar. His arm shot out and a finger as thick as a rifle barrel jabbed into Turnbull’s chest.
‘Yu!’ snapped Marco. ‘Git around behind that bar an’ get me some drinks.’
Turnbull did not move. He took a half pace backwards, and held up a hand pacifyingly.
‘Mister, I don’t want trouble. I ain’t even armed. But I ain’t no barkeep, neither.’
Marco turned to face his followers, who had sidled up behind him. He let out a roar of forced laughter.
‘Yu hear what this whelp sez, boys?’ he grinned. ‘He sez he ain’t a barkeep.’
‘Ha ha,’ said one of the men, a compactly built fellow with dark hair and a face which would have been handsome but for a certain curl of the mouth which bespoke innate cruelty. ‘Funny,’ said Marco Cullane almost musingly. He was half turned away from Turnbull, and his next action was therefore all the more unexpected. Moving with a treacherously fast half turn, Cullane whirled around, and his huge fist slammed into Turnbull’s face, smashing the man’s nose into a bloody pulp sending him flailing, careering backwards, to slam up against the wall with a sickening thud. Turnbull slid to the floor, face downwards in his own blood.
For a still, long, unbelievable moment there was a silence and then Turnbull’s men launched themselves at the huge man like screaming devils out of the depths of Hell. Their sheer weight of numbers drove Cullane backwards one step, two, three; every man of them was rangy, hard, toughened by a lifetime in the saddle, and their flailing blows smashed against Cullane’s body with meaty, telling thuds. But three steps was all that Marco retreated. Then with a huge, animal roar, and feral grin on his face like that of some berserk creature, he literally picked up Dickie Drew by the middle and using the smaller man as a bludgeon hurled him downwards on to his companions.
The sheer, astonishing impact drove Bronco Ogston to his knees, half conscious, with Drew inert across him. Marco Cullane roared again, an animal bellow without any human sound in it. His right fist crashed into Tom Long’s stomach, well below the belt, and the laconic puncher went down on the floor retching and heaving. One of Cullane’s sidekicks stepped into the fray, and a well-aimed kick behind the ear put Long out of it completely.
‘Get the Hell back, damn yu, Chapman!’ roared Marco, as he reached backwards for Lawrence, who had leaped upon him from behind, his sinewy arms wrapped around Cullane’s throat, exerting all the stranglehold pressure that the wiry tracker could muster. But his grip was no match at all for Cullane’s huge strength, and the big man whirled Lawrence around, turning on his heel and holding Lawrence’s arm, threw the tracker away from him and then, still holding Lawrence’s right arm, pulled it backwards. A scream burst from Lawrence’s throat as the bones in his shoulder dislocated, and he slumped ashen-faced on his knees. As he did so, Cullane brought up his own huge thigh, and his knee crashed into the side of Lawrence’s head. Lawrence went back and sideways, smashing into a table, sending it rolling aside as he hit its heavy edge. He lay without moving on the floor, and Marco Cullane wheeled around, the fiery light of madness and rage in his eyes, hands closing and unclosing, ready for the further attack which did not come.
The saloon was a shambles. It had all happened so quickly that none of those watching could be altogether sure of the evidence of their own sight; yet there stood Marco Cullane, a trickle of blood coursing from a gash on his cheek, while before him and around him five fully-grown men lay broken, crushed by his incredible strength.
‘Chicken farmers!’ yelled Marco Cullane, glorying in the destruction he had wrought. ‘Sheepherders! Peasants! Ain’t there a man among yu?’
He glared at the men who had witnessed the awful brawl. They sat or stood where they were, absolutely still, not one of them daring so much as to blink for fear of incurring the awful wrath of this insane giant.
‘Not one, huh?’ grunted Marco Cullane. ‘Yeller, every man jack o’ them: So be it: Yu — Chapman: give me a hand, here!’
The dark man, Chapman, hurried to do Marco Cullane’s bidding. Between them they went behind the bar and systematically worked their way along the shelves. They smashed every glass, every bottle, everything moveable. The other two men joined in with enthusiasm, tearing down the shelves, reducing them to so much kindling.
When they had finished, Marco Cullane stood amid the wreckage, his chest heaving, a bottle of tequila clutched in his huge fist.
‘Chapman — get to the door!’ he snapped. ‘Allen, over by the back door. Nixon — by the wall.’ His red, piggy eyes glared under the beetling brows towards the batwing doors. With a curse, he smashed the top of the tequila bottle on the edge of the bar and poured a drink into one of the few glasses left intact. Marco Cullane drank the fiery liquid down as if it were so much water, and sloshed another drink into the glass, then hurled the bottle through the window into the street.
‘Damn and blast yore eyes wherever yu are, Mister big-time Marshal!’ he yelled. ‘We’re takin’ the town back! Come an’ see if yu can stop us!’
Over against the far wall beneath the lamp at the table where he had been playing solitaire until the astonishing fracas which had just transpired, Rick Main edged by inches towards the window through which Cullane had just hurled the tequila bottle. If there was a chance of warning Severn before …
‘Where in Hell are yu goin’, tinhorn?’
Main went rigid at the wicked growl; that Cullane had seen him was almost unbelievable. That the big man had so swiftly crossed the room and was now towering over him like some astonishing prehistoric monster, aching to kill, was beyond his comprehension.
Main opened his mouth, but even as he did so, Chapman at the door hissed a warning, diverting the giant’s attention.
‘Marco!’ Chapman signaled. ‘It’s him. It’s Severn. He’s comin’ across the plaza now!’