Glenn Cullane killed two horses getting back to the stronghold with his news. The third horse, cruelly raked with vicious spurs, lathered and broken, was all but dead when he reined up outside the big stone house in the canyon and ran inside.
Within ten minutes the old man had summoned his entire brood to the house; they gathered in the huge room and the old tyrant faced them, standing with his legs astride before the fireplace, his eyes glowing with hatred and excitement.
‘What’s up, Pa?’ queried his youngest son impatiently. T was fibrin’ to break that little pinto mustang—’
‘Shet yore face, Billy,’ snapped the old man. ‘What I heerd today has made all this San Jaime business make sense for the fust time. Glenn — tell ‘em what yu jest told me.’
Full of importance with the news he had brought, Glenn Cullane let a moment pass to build the suspense before he made his startling announcement.
‘That jasper in San Jaime — that Severn. Yu know who he is?’
‘Aw, quit play-actin’ Glenn,’ snapped Yancey Cullane, his empty eyes fastening on his brother with contempt. ‘Say you’re piece, dammit!’
‘Yeah, brother, I’ll do that,’ leered Glen Cullane, ‘an’ mebbe yu’ll say a prayer o’ thanks that yo’re still around to hear me when I tell yu who yu pulled a gun on in San Jaime.’
‘Who, Severn?’ said Yancey, puzzled.
‘Severn,’ confirmed Glenn, ‘better known as that damned Texas outlaw, Sudden!’
Sudden! Nothing Glenn Cullane could have said would have been more likely to create the reaction which this one word effected. Severn was Sudden, the outlaw! Not a man in the room had not heard of the legendary gunfighter, and his astonishing speed with six-shooters. If Yancey Cullane had drawn a gun on Sudden, he was indeed a fortunate man to still be walking the face of the earth. The silence was broken by a snort of derision from young Billy Cullane.
‘Hell, Pa, Glenn’s gone off of his chump!’ he sneered. ‘I mean, everybody knows that Sudden’s dead. He disappeared about four, five years ago. I heard someplace he’d been killed up Arizona way.’
‘Yeah, I heard that,’ put in Flatman, who stood near the door. ‘Some one-hoss jerk town. Hatchett’s Folly, was it?’
There was a chorus of agreement from the other men in the room, and Yancey Cullane got up from his chair and made for the door.
‘If that’s yore big news, brother Glenn, yu shore have half-kilt that nag outside for nothin!’
‘Sit down, Yance!’ The old man’s voice was like a thunderclap, and the startled Yancey found himself back in his chair before he realized he had moved.
‘Well, Hell, Pa, I got things to do—’ he remonstrated.
‘—Yu got nothin’ to do less’n I say yu have!’ raged Old Billy Cullane. ‘Now muzzle yore lip an’ hear the rest of it! Yu, Glenn: Get on with it. Stop pickin’ daisies!’
‘Shore, Pa, shore,’ agreed Glenn, hastily. ‘Yu see, boys, it was like this ’ere. Pa figgered there was somethin’ funny about this jasper Severn an’ so he reckoned it wouldn’t be a bad idea to backtrack him to whar he come from. Figgered there might be more to his bein’ in San Jaime than meets the eye.’
‘Allus figgered it. Got a nose for niggers in woodpiles,’ muttered the old man. ‘Go on, boy, get on with it!’
‘Well, I tracked him back to San Jose. Shore ’nough, he was in a ruckus there with Black Billy Morrison, an’ when the smoke cleared, Billy was deader’n a mackerel, and Severn had lit out with some gamblin’ man name o’ Main.’
‘Who’s now in San Jaime,’ observed young Billy.
‘Backin’ Severn’s play,’ added Flatman.
‘Right,’ confirmed Glenn. ‘Well, sir, I pushed on up into Arizona, an’ poked around some in Tucson. Give his description at hotels, told ’em he’d come into some money, an’ I was a lawyer lookin’ for him.’
‘He’s comin’ into something’,’ growled Yancey darkly, ‘but money is what it ain’t.’
‘Wait, now, listen,’ Glenn told him. ‘Finally tracked down he’d stayed at the Shoo Fly a couple o’ nights, an’ the next thing I hear is he’s been a-visitin’ the Governor.’
‘Bleke?’ Flatman’s voice was incredulous. ‘Yu sayin’ this Sudden jasper’s been sent here by Bleke of Arizona?’
‘I’m sayin’ just that,’ smirked Glenn Cullane, ‘an’ more besides. Bleke’s got a secretary, nice lookin’ gal. I spent some time gettin’ to know her. Lavinia, her name was. Real Sunday-go-to-meetin’ type of lady. I brung her flowers, and talked up a real storm. Got her talkin’ about her work. Finally it comes out: this Severn has been sent for by Bleke. An’ most interestin’ of all: he was there at the same time as another hombre named Coffey.’
‘So who’s Coffey when he’s havin’ his dinner?’ sneered Yancey. ‘My Gawd, yu take a year to tell a tale, boy.’
‘Coffey. Big Eddie Coffey. Used to run a saloon in a town called Fronteras,’ Glenn told him meaningfully.
‘We didn’t leave nobody alive in Fronteras!’ burst out Yancey.
‘That’s what yu told us, Yancey,’ growled the old man. ‘Seems like yu was half-doin’ yore work like always.’
‘I swear it, Pa — we put half a dozen slugs into every man in that goddamned town!’ expostulated Yancey Cullane.
‘Oh, shut yore whinin’ face!’ snapped the old man. ‘If yu was half as good at doin’ what yo’re told to do as yu are at makin’ excuses, we wouldn’t be settin’ here now lissenin’ to all this. Coffey would never’ve gotten to Bleke, an’ Bleke would never’ve sent this goddamn Severn hombre down here to stir things up.’
‘Well, it still comes down to the same thing,’ Yancey said, stubbornly. ‘Wipe out Severn an’ that’s the end o’ that. Even Sudden ain’t proof agin a forty five slug in the back o’ the head. Allus supposin’ he really is Sudden.’
‘Oh, he is, all right,’ Glenn told him triumphantly. ‘I rode up around Hatchett’s Folly way, an’ poked around there as well. This Severn has a ranch up there, which same is bein’ run now by some jasper named Lunt. Folks around there like to talk about what happened up around them parts a few years back, when they had some big troubles, and this Sudden feller rode in an’ cleaned the place up. Then he disappeared.’
‘And?’
‘An’ suddenly, out o’ nowhere, there’s a new owner o’ the YZ brand — jasper name o’ Donald Severn!’
‘That clinches it for me,’ breathed Flatman. ‘Severn must be Sudden!’
‘An’ what’s more interestin’ than all that, he’s workin’ for Bleke of Arizona,’ interjected another rider.
‘That double-dyed old sonofabitch!’ rasped old Billy Cullane.
‘He’s brought grief enough to me in his time: He hung one o’ my boys in San Carlos. Then Jimmy was killed in Fronteras by one o’ his damned lawmen. Now he’s sent this black-haired bastard Sudden to make war on me! He’s locked up my boy in that stinkin’ little town. But he’s makin’ a mistake if he thinks he’ll get away with it. I know about Bleke. I know all about him and his precious Sudden. That’s the big thing, an’ I’ll make him cry blood for what he’s done to me an’ mine!’
The old man shook his fist at the ceiling, like some ancient god challenging the skies. His sons watched him in awed silence; they had seen the old man like this before, and were far too well schooled in his rages to dare to speak while this mood was upon him.
After a moment, the rage subsided, and the old man’s eyes focused normally once more.
‘Bleke — so Glenn’s discovered — has been usin’ this Severn jasper, or Sudden, or whatever he’s called, for years. Some kind of special deppity. Troubleshooter. Sent him to clean up Hell City. Brought that Davis girl back out of Apacheria. He was Marshal in Lawless. An’ all Bleke’s doin’! From what we hear, this Severn is like a son to Bleke, on’y bein’ a flinty-hearted old sonofabitch, he don’t like people to know it. Well, I know it, an’ I’m goin’ to make him regret the day he ever thought to send his pet gunman after me!’
‘What yu aimin’ to do, Pa? asked Glenn, hesitantly.
‘Do, boy? Yu think I’ve been settin’ here petrified while yu was gallivantin ‘around in Tucson with some secretary? What I’ve done I’ve done. Yu’ll know when the time comes. In the meanwhile, I don’t want no slip-ups. Stay away from San Jaime. Especially yu, Yancey!’
‘Aw, Pa, I could ride in there an’ take Severn alone,’ Yancey said, sulkily. ‘Last time he was just lucky.’
‘If anyone was lucky yu was,’ snarled Cullane. ‘Now hear me! My plans is laid. In a couple more days we’ll hear what I want to know, and then we’ll be ridin’. We’re goin’ to take San Jaime an’ tear it to pieces. I’m goin’ to lay that town to waste; take yore brother out o’ there, an’ then burn every stick and stone to the ground. An’ then I’m goin’ to take what’s left o’ Mister Sudden-Severn, an’ deliver him personal to Bleke in a sack, and watch while that old tyrant breaks his Goddamned tightwadded heart!’
He threw back his head and roared with mad, cackling, throat-jerking laughter, startling the men in the room into astonishment by the unexpectedness of it. They stole out of the room into the daylight, one or two shaking their heads, pursued by the unearthly insane noise of Billy Cullane’s uncontrollable, incomprehensible mirth.