Severn stepped through the batwing doors in one smooth, deceptively simple movement. Both his guns were in his hands, and he took in the whole scene in one swift, all-encompassing glance.
The place was a ruin. Broken furniture, splintered tables and chairs, shattered glass littered the floor. The sprawled bodies of several men lay in various corners of the cantina. One of them, sitting up against the far wall, retching and groaning, he recognized as Tom Long, one of Mike Turnbull’s men. All this he saw, but in a moment’s glance; for all his attention was fixed upon the man who stood glaring at him in the center of this astonishing scene. Legs astride, arms akimbo, huge chest heaving, black hair matted with sweat, the man was like some creature from a deep jungle.
Marco Cullane or I’m a Navajo, was Severn’s immediate conjecture; but surely not alone?
Too late he sensed the movement behind him and to his right. Chapman moved forward in a sidling movement, the barrel of his forty-five pressed firmly against the Marshal’s spine.
‘Let go yore guns or I’ll blow yu every whichway simultaneously!’ the gunman snarled.
There was no alternative but to do exactly as he was bidden. The Marshal would face the longest odds with a wry smile, but he was not foolish enough to try to outwit the threat of a .45 slap against his spine fully cocked. He eased the hammers of his own weapons forward, and let them fall to the ground.
‘Get in there!’
With a rough push, Chapman thrust the Marshal forward into the littered space in front of the splintered bar. Severn, off-balance, half slid on the floor, stumbling over the leg of one of the pulverized tables. He stopped, half stooped, about two feet in front of Marco Cullane who stood waiting with a smile on his face like a steel trap. With a gesture almost negligent, the big man swept his fist upwards, catching the Marshal off-balance, striking him a terrible blow on the temple which all but plunged him into unconsciousness there and then.
Severn reeled upright, on his heels for a moment, then lurched back into the arms of Chapman, who caught the victim, bending his arms, and thrust him once more forward towards the waiting Marco Cullane. Senses reeling, Severn managed, with a desperately agile movement, to move an inch below the lopping haymaker which Cullane hurled at his head. The man’s bearlike arm caught the Marshal on the top of his head, tearing his scalp, knocking him sideways to trip and fall across broken furniture. Fighting to clear his brain, Severn knew he was in deadly peril. He could not see clearly. His focus was shot, and there was a roaring in his ears like some mighty torrent. Instinctively, he rolled away and backwards, jarring his shoulder against the sharp edge of a broken chair, seeking to avoid the expected smashing blow which Cullane would be aiming at his defenseless head. To his astonishment he heard a roar of laughter. In the same moment, his eyes cleared, and he looked up to see Marco Cullane standing in the center of the shattered cantina, his hands on his hips, roaring with amusement at the scuttling creature which sought to escape a danger which was not there.
‘Don’t yu be afeared, Marshal,’ cawed the big man soothingly. He made a beckoning gesture. ‘C’mon, get up on yore feet. I want yu to know what happens to yu. Get up, get up. We got all the time in the world. Yore greaser amigos ain’t goin’ to help yu none tonight!’
Severn got slowly to his feet, trying to act more hurt than he actually was. Both Cullane’s blows had been punishing ones, but they were not crippling. Any advantage he could achieve in this desperate situation would be a major one. His eyes hastily moved along the line of awed spectators. He saw Rick Main, and in the same moment the man who held his gun aimed almost negligently at the gambler. One there, he thought, Chapman is two. Any more? One at the back door. Four altogether.
Cullane caught the movement of the Marshal’s eyes, and another brute roar of laughter tore itself from his thick lips.
‘Lookin’ for help, Marshal?’ Marco Cullane jeered. ‘Well don’t bother yoreself none. Ain’t nobody goin’ to interrupt this little shindig.’
He moved forward, and Severn as instinctively moved back. he did so, a pistol roared, and the bullet whirked! by his right foot, blasting a sliver of wood out of the floor. Chapman idly blew the smoke from the barrel of his gun, and said reproachfully, ‘Yu better stand real still, Marshal, or yo’re liable to lose a toe or three. Marco ain’t needin’ no dancin’ lesson.’
‘No, by God!’ snarled Cullane. ‘If there’s any lessons to be give tonight, then it’s Mister High an’ Mighty Severn as is goin’ to get one!’
He came forward at Severn like some great stalking animal.
‘Señor Poynton, Señor Poynton, pronto, pronto!’
The woman was almost hysterical; she had been passing the cantina and, stopped by the sounds of conflict within, had witnessed in terror the events which had transpired there. She did not know how she could help, and so she ran across the plaza like some demented thing, hammering on the door of the jail until old Ray Poynton came grumbling to answer her repeated pleas.
‘¿Que pasa, Dolores?’ he said, his pulses quickening when he saw the woman’s distraught features. ‘What is it?’
‘The señor Marshal,’ the woman panted. ‘They have heem preesoner. The Cullanes. The beeg one, Marco, he weel keel Señor Severn. You must come quick and help heem!’
She tugged importunately at the old man’s sleeve, but he shook her hand away. In the dim glow of the lamp in the little room his face was ashen.
‘Yu — yu got to get someone else, Dolores,’ he managed, his voice cracking. ‘I — get Señor Shearer. Get Yope. The priest. Go on, woman, get them!’
‘You — you will not help heem?’ The woman’s voice faltered.
‘Damn yu, never mind about me!’ the old man snapped. ‘Get Shearer and Yope as fast as you can. How many o’ them is there?’
‘I do not know, senor,’ the woman sobbed. ‘You must go quick, quick. They weel keel heem!’
‘Vamos! Dolores!’ the old man said, his voice shaking. Tell the alcalde, muy pronto! Yu hear me? Muy pronto!’
He thrust her away from him as if she were some she-devil and went back into the jail. Extending his hands in front of him, the old man gazed at them as if they belonged to a stranger.
‘Tremblin’ like a baby,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘A baby!’
He lurched across the room to a shelf, and took down a bottle of whiskey. With a curse, he pulled the cork and tilted his head back, letting the golden, fiery liquid rush down his throat.
Severn inched backwards as Marco Cullane prowled forward towards him, the huge, hairy hands reaching like those of a creature from a nightmare. The Marshal’s brain was working like some well-oiled machine. He knew that for those hands to land upon him would mean the end; this was no ordinary man, but a terrible beast who would smash the life from any opponent with as little compunction as a normal human being would step upon a bug. He would have to weigh every movement, time every action, and fight to cripple and wound. There was no question of its being anything other than a battle to survive.
Cullane threw back his head and gave a mighty roar of impatience, and hurled himself at the lawman. Severn let him come for a moment, then letting the hands touch his shoulders, went over backwards with his knees bent, and his high heels upwards. Cullane came on, on to him and down, and Severn felt the man’s enormous weight on his legs, moving backwards in a rolling movement and simultaneously straightening his legs. Heavy as Marco Cullane was, the leverage and the weight of his own movement assisted the lawman, and Severn’s leg muscles were like spring steel, toughened by years in the saddle. He saw the agony in Cullane’s face as the boot heels gouged deep into the bigger man’s belly, and then Cullane was going up and over Severn’s head, flipping upwards and back, to land with a terrible smashing impact on the nape of his neck. It was a impact which would have finished another man on the spot, but this was no ordinary man. Cullane rolled over, and pushed himself up on his forearms, his pig eyes wild and stunned for a moment, glaring with madness as they sought the instrument of this unexpected reversal. He saw the swift movement of something to his right, and reached out a questing hand. Severn moved easily away from the clumsy movement, and without compunction smashed his fist into the side of the big man’s throat as Cullane tried to lurch to his feet.
Cullane gave a horrible choking screech, and slumped down to the floor once more, his huge body contorted with the terrible effort of merely breathing. Severn stood just outside of the giant’s reach, waiting, waiting like some light-armored knight of old beside some awful dragon, knowing that he had delivered what should have been a killing punch, and knowing too that Cullane was only stunned, far from destroyed or beaten.
Cullane’s body heaved, and then his forearms straightened, his shaggy head came up, the pig eyes peering upwards at Severn.
‘Damn — uchhh — good!’ croaked the giant. ‘Ucchhh’ The beastly sound in his throat was totally inhuman. Cullane retched and spat blood, and drew himself to his knees.
Severn moved warily into a position in front of the man, and at that moment, Main shouted in desperation.
‘For God’s sake, Don, get him now!’
Severn heard the shout, and unconsciously shook his head. He would not fight that way, even though he knew that to fight any other way was sheer madness. Yet if the people of this town saw the Cullanes broken any other way, they would remain unconvinced. Just as this inhuman hulk had come here to break and destroy, so he must be destroyed and broken. But not while he was on his knees.
Cullane dived forward. He gave no warning, no sound, no indication that he would move, but he came up off the floor in a long, sweeping, flailing movement, arms spread wide, aiming his whole weight and strength at the lawman’s legs perhaps four feet away. Any other man might have been caught unawares, but Severn had been awaiting just such a move, and he was ready for it. He clasped his fists together at his right shoulder as Cullane moved, and in the short quarter-second that Cullane’s body was in mid-air those clubbed fists moved in a fast and wicked arc downwards and to the left, landing with a terrible thwuck on the back of Cullane’s neck. At the same time, Severn moved his hip slightly so that the weight of Cullane’s dive was diverted from his body, and the result of these two movements was that Cullane’s neck smashed into the rigid left hipbone of the unbudgeable lawman, at exactly the same moment as the dreadful impact of the clubbed fists smashed downwards at the base of Marco Cullane’s skull.
Again, the giant slammed to the floor; moving slightly, he groaned, then twisted, and those watching gasped with astonishment. Surely no human being could take punishment like that and still be conscious? Yet it was true: Marco Cullane was hurt now, and hurt badly, but there was still an enormous reservoir of energy contained in that giant frame. Once more, he labored to his hands and knees, his head hanging like some beaten ox, saliva and blood dripping from his smashed mouth, shaking the matted head. Severn, however, was not waiting this time; he stepped close to the half-conscious Cullane, and from behind, half-lifted, half-dragged the man upright Cullane lurched a little, his head lowered, trying like some tortured beast to see his tormentor. Severn stepped into the line of Cullane’s vision, and the man roared, huge torment and rage in the sound.
‘Just — uchhh — stand—’ coughed the giant. Severn shook his head. Without warning, he stepped into the range of the giant’s reach, and with every ounce of skill and strength that he had, he smashed his right fist into the pit of the big man’s belly. Big as Cullane was, and strong, he could not take a blow like that. The breath rushed out his mouth in a long whooping wheeze, and he stumbled forward, bent double. Severn stood waiting; the club of his doubled fists cocked and ready to deliver yet again that pole axing chop. In the briefest of moments, as if time itself were extended, he saw in the corner of his eye a threatening movement, and moved slightly away from it. Chapman’s pistol barrel smashed down on to his left shoulder, grazing his ear, and bringing a moment of white and blazing pain as the collarbone snapped. He saw the man’s dark visage, crazed with killing lust, and in complete desperation drove his fist towards it. The jarring pain set his entire upper body on fire, and for a moment his vision blurred. When it cleared, he saw Chapman reeling back, his face a contorted and bloody mask, but that was all he saw because then Marco Cullane’s brutish fist crashed into the side of his head, and Severn went backwards, hitting the edge of the bar and letting himself go over it backwards, putting it between him and the mad and vengeful animal which Cullane had now become.
The shock of impact as he landed on his back brought such agony that the lawman thought for a moment he would pass out. He felt the sticky touch of blood coursing down the side of his face, and there was a deadly numbness in his left hand. Scrambling to his feet, he edged back along the bar as Cullane came around the far end of it, lurching like a wounded grizzly, his face puffed and almost unrecognizable, and the huge ham like hands stretched out, reaching to rend and tear. Severn looked behind him, and saw that there was no way out from the narrow corridor behind the bar. At the end towards which he had moved, the bar formed a right angle joining to the wall. Amid the shattered woodwork lay the supine body of old Diego, still unconscious.
There was nowhere to run, and Cullane was almost upon him. At that moment, Severn’s entire body, beaten and wracked as it was, surged to final, magnificent strength, the strength born of desperation and the innate determination to die on his feet like a man if he had to die at all.
Turning slightly to defend the broken bone on his left side as best he could, Severn braced himself for a moment, and then instead of retreating, he came forward. There was no thought in his mind now but survival, no instinct remaining except the instinct to destroy the monstrous thing which was trying to destroy him, and when he came forward, he was completely and without question a supreme example of the most deadly animal on the face of the earth: man the killer.
Those who saw what happened next watched it as if in some strange, unbelievable dream in which every sickening sound, every subtle movement is magnified and emphasized to the levels of nightmare. It was awesome, inhuman, and superb.
Severn came off the edge of the bar, his right hand held level across his chest, loose and open, and as he did the hand went rigid and as Marco Cullane reached forward to grab the lawman that hand moved. It moved perhaps six inches in a terrible chopping arc and Marco Cullane screamed like an animal as the bones of his forearm were smashed like matchwood. Flinching involuntarily away from this smashing pain, his left hand moving instinctively to clutch the broken right arm, Cullane never saw the hand which had broken his arm move back to Severn’s chest level and then outward and upwards in the same venomous, cobra-speed arc. The rigidly held edge of Severn’s right hand, fingers tightly clenched, hit Marco Cullane between the chin and the Adam’s apple. Cullane’s eyes started out like organ stops in his head as the astonished brain tried desperately to signal air into itself past the paralyzed windpipe.
Cullane reeled backwards, throat working convulsively and a puling, mewing, broken sound coming from the gaping mouthy There was terror in the huge, distorted eyes, terror of this paralyzing pain and even more, terror of the ice-eyed nemesis which now came at him.
Marco Cullane shook his head, and made a piteous and almost pleading sound, but his battered larynx could not form the words. There was a cold and empty light in the eyes of the man confronting him, and Marco Cullane recognized it, for there was not an ounce of mercy in it. He held up his left hand and shook his head again, his knees buckling as he sank to the floor retching, weeping. As he came level with Severn’s shoulder the lawman, with a final titanic effort, crashed his clenched fist into the giant’s temple, slamming Cullane sideways into the matchwood remnants of the back of the bar and clear of it into the open area before the doors. So complete was Severn’s effort that he all but fell on top of the fallen giant, and he stood for a moment, lurching, head down, lungs bursting.
Cullane’s men had watched all of this transfixed; it was beyond comprehension that any man could have bested Marco Cullane, and for a long moment they stood stock still, Chuck Allen near the back door of the cantina, Nixon gaping at his fallen chieftain alongside Rick Main, the six-shooter drooping in his hand. And within three feet of his fallen companion, Chapman was just starting to get to his feet, shaking his head to clear it, when the batwing doors burst open and a wiry figure launched itself at Chapman like some hunting catamount, wrapping a thin arm around the hook-nosed gunman’s throat, pulling him backwards over a bent knee, chin reared back and throat exposed to the wickedly glinting Bowie knife which caught winking highlights from the flaring lamps.
‘Make one move an’ I’ll slit yore stinkin’ gizzard:’ rasped Ray Poynton. Chapman’s eyes rolled in terror as the words were hissed in his ear.
‘Poynton?’ he whispered hoarsely, in disbelief.
That’s right, Chapman, it’s me,’ spat the oldster. ‘An’ yu’d best tell yore boys to drop their guns. I used to be a fair hand with one o’ these Texas toothpicks, but my hands is kinda shaky right now on account o’ all that cheap liquor yu an’ yore scurvy crew been feedin’ me these years. So don’t yu even twitch, Chapman! Don’t blink, even, or yo’re liable to find yourself sittin’ on the floor with yore head in yore lap!’
‘No!’ Chapman’s hoarse voice burst out. ‘Boys! Drop yore guns!’
‘Good idea, Chuck,’ interposed another voice. Paul Shearer had taken advantage of the tableau by the door to slip in through the rear door behind Chuck Allen, and now poked the sawn-off shotgun he was carrying into Allen’s ribcage. Think o’ yore dear old mother.’
The sardonic tone did little to conceal the deadly earnestness of the threat, and Allen hastily obliged by letting his six-gun clatter to the floor. Nixon, over by the window, shrugged and let his weapon fall also. Rick Main moved quickly across, scooping the weapon up and standing ready beside the gunman with his own little nickel-plated revolver already cocked.
‘All squared away, Don!’ he called. ‘Ray, let ’im go!’
Poynton either did not hear or did not choose to listen. He held Chapman in the same choking grip, the glinting edge of the Bowie no more than an inch from the man’s jugular vein. Chapman was ashen with the struggle to breathe and the fear that any move he might make would simply precipitate his own suicide.
Severn stepped wearily over the prostrate Cullane, and picked up his own guns, thrusting them back into the holsters. He touched Poynton softly on the shoulder.
‘Let him go, Ray,’ he said. Then, more sharply: ‘Let him go!’
The old man’s eyes changed; the lambent fire in them dimmed, and they glazed. He released Chapman and stepped back, while the gunman slumped to the floor, sobbing for breath. Poynton stared at the Bowie knife in his hand as if it were some kind of device from another planet, from an age in which he had never lived.
‘Damn me to Hellanbeyond,’ he muttered. ‘I never knowed I could do it.’
‘Yu couldn’t have found out at a better time,’ grinned Severn, wearily. ‘I was jest about wiped out.’
Shearer shepherded the recalcitrant Allen across the room towards the Marshal; Main followed suit with Nixon.
‘What yu aimin’ to do with ‘em, Don?’ he asked.
‘String the bastards up!’ spat Poynton venomously. His words stirred the men watching inside the cantina, and as if on signal all those who had witnessed Severn’s terrible battle with Marco Cullane surged into the place, shouting, waving their fists, calling for the summary execution of the Cullane men. Chapman licked his battered lips and cowered back, and both the other riders looked edgily about them. Severn stepped forward.
‘There’ll be no hangin’!’ he announced flatly. ‘We’ll put them in the hoosegow!’
‘Hell, Severn,’ put in a weak voice. ‘Yu shore yu won’t jest turn ’em loose for me an’ my boys?’
Severn turned to see Mike Turnbull regarding him owlishly. Turnbull was standing, holding the bar, swaying slightly, his face swollen and caked with blood and dirt. Next to him stood Long, and behind them ranged the other three men, their faces and clothes in various stages of disrepair.
Despite himself, Severn grinned.
‘Yu boys lookin’ for a second go-round with Marco?’ he asked artlessly. Turnbull held up his hands in mock fear.
‘Thankee, no!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m tryin’ to give it up!’
‘Jest the same, we’d be happy to offer them other gents a turn around the floor,’ Long suggested. ‘Friendly, like.’
‘Yeah,’ muttered Ogston, darkly.
Severn turned to his prisoners. ‘Well, what do yu say? Yu can go into the juzgado now — and rot there until Hell freezes over — or take yore chances with Turnbull an’ his boys. Bare fists. No guns. Winners walk away. What about it?’
Chapman shook a sullen head.
‘We ain’t stupid enough to believe that kind o’ guff, Severn,’ he rasped. ‘Anyways, the jail ain’t built that can keep a Cullane in it!’
Severn cocked his head. ‘So I’ve heard said,’ he remarked.
‘Well, the proof o’ the puddin’s in the eatin’, as a feller I used to know was fond o’ sayin’. Rick - Ray! March ’em off. Stick ’em in the jail!’
‘Goin’ to be a mite crowded for ’em in there,’ warned Poynton, with a wicked grin. ‘Very hot an’ sweaty. Mighty uncomfortable.’
‘Ain’t it awful, though?’ grinned Main. ‘C’mon, I’ll give yu a hand. Some o’ yu boys get a couple o’ them planks, an’ we’ll cart Goliath there across the way.’
Several of those watching made haste to help the gambler in the task of manhandling the limp and battered form of Marco Cullane on to a hastily improvised stretcher, and they bustled out of the cantina with many jovial cries of ‘Make way, thar!’ and ‘Make room for a real big feller!’, laughing and joshing. The people of San Jaime smiled and nudged each other, and grinned shyly at the tall man in the saloon who had effected this second miracle. When he held up his hands for silence, they reacted like obedient schoolchildren.
‘Yu folks go on home,’ he told them. ‘Party’s over an’ there won’t be no more trouble tonight. Yu’ve seen that the Cullanes are no bigger than anyone else. They can be hurt. O’ course,’ he grinned wryly, making a diffident gesture towards his own battered face, ‘they don’t stand around waitin’ for us to do it. But—’ he raised his voice through the ripple of laughter, ‘—it can be done! Go on home, now. Just remember what I said. We can beat the Cullanes. An’ we’re goin’ to!’
A ragged cheer broke out of the throats of those nearest to Severn, and was immediately taken up by the rest as the Marshal finished speaking. That the words were bravado, rabble rousing, he was well aware. What their effect would be, he had no way of knowing. But the Cullanes would come back, and next time they would come in force. If the townspeople stood and faced them it would only be because they believed they could do it.
‘Paul’, he said quietly. ‘I got to see a doctor. I reckon something broken in my left shoulder.’
‘Hell, why in tarnation didn’t yu say so!’ exclaimed the alcalde, with quick concern. ‘C’mon, an’ we’ll get the padre to look at it.’
Severn frowned him to silence. ‘Don’t make no noise about it,’ he warned sibilantly. ‘I ain’t over keen on anyone knowin’ one o’ my wings is clipped.’
He turned towards the doorway, only to find Mike Turnbull planted squarely in his path. Bayed behind him were Turnbull’s companions, and Turnbull’s face was grim.
‘Severn,’ he announced. ‘I’m hopin’ I ain’t goin’ to have any trouble with yu.’
The Marshal looked at the man with some surprise.
‘Trouble?’ he echoed. With me?’
‘Yeah,’ put in Ogston. ‘Yu better not buck us, Severn. We’re plumb determined!’
‘Well, fine,’ the Marshal said, bewildered. ‘Determined to do what?’
‘Why — back yore play, yu fine-haired hoss-thief,’ chortled Turnbull, his face breaking into as wide a smile as was possible amid the contusions and congealed blood.
‘Back yore play from here to Hellangone, Marshal!’ added Bronc Ogston. ‘Never really liked them Cullanes much anyways.’
‘An’ after tonight, why, we positively dislike ’em!’ growled Long, rubbing his stomach with a slow smile on his face.
‘Yo’re throw in’ in with us?’ blurted Shearer.
‘Shore as Christmas is comin’,’ confirmed Turnbull. We owe Severn here a favor, an’ we owe the Cullanes one, as well. I reckon that means we’re stayin’ until they’re both paid off.’
‘In full, boy!’ growled Bronco Ogston, scowling.
‘Well, boys, that’s mighty good news!’ Shearer said, with a fair amount of relief in his voice. Severn added a rider, however.
‘Yu boys know what yo’re lettin’ yoreselves in for, I’m takin’ it? The next fight ain’t goin’ to be fists an’ feet. The wild bunch is goin’ to ride in here, an’ what they can’t kill they’re goin’ to burn. They’ll be hoistin’ the black flag an’ playin’ the degeuello!’
‘Hell or high water, Severn!’ replied Turnbull. ‘We’re stickin’!’
Thrusting out his hand, he pumped Severn’s up and down, stopping only as the Marshal grimaced in concealed pain.
‘Hell, yo’re as beat up on as me,’ Turnbull said, with concern in his voice. ‘Let’s get ourselves patched up an’ have a drink!’
‘Good idea!’ added Dickie Drew. ‘An’ mebbe somebody ought to get word to old man Cullane not to send boys on men’s work!’
‘Yee-haw!’ Turnbull shouted. ‘C’mon, Don! Let’s find the hoss liniment:’
The old man had his spy in San Jaime, and the word of what had happened was soon brought to him. For perhaps an hour he raged like some demented demon. No one dared to enter the house; none of his sons would face the white-faced wrath or the mad eyes. But after a while, they were relieved to hear the cursing cease, the ranting slacken. Later, astonished, they heard a chuckle. In a little while young Billy Cullane plucked up enough nerve to peep around the huge oaken door into the room, and saw to his astonishment that the old man was sitting, a glass of whiskey in his hand, rocking contentedly in an old wicker chair by the fireplace, smiling and chuckling, talking to himself.
‘Never send a boy on a man’s job,’ the old man muttered, smiling. ‘There’s allus truth in them old saws, Mister Whoever-yu-are - allus truth. Well—’ and here the old eyes went flint-hard and wicked, ‘—I got a better one than that, damn yore interferin’ soul!’