Big Jim 5 Read online

  He talked to everybody, including Jeb Parsons’ wife and children, Jim and Benito, and the taciturn, impassive driver. Rarely had Jim seen a stage-crew of such contrasting personalities. The driver was as lean as Hartnett, and there all similarity ceased. He was unsmiling. He spoke hardly a word and seemed completely disinterested.

  Having satisfied himself that the relief team was secured, Parsons joined his visitors and offered them a drawled description and cataloguing of the passengers now moving back to the coach. Jim wasn’t especially interested in the travelers; only in the identity of the verbose shotgun guard.

  “Asa Harnett,” Parsons told him. “And the driver is Barney Steele. Him and Asa been partners many a long year. I don’t know much about Barney on account of he’s a feller never says much. But Asa! Shucks, everybody knows Asa! You could search all over Texas and I swear to Betsy you’d never find a hombre as talkative as old Asa. Gab, gab, gab. And friendly, too. If he ever pounded your back, you’d feel like you got kicked by a mule. Yeah ...” He nodded and grinned, “Asa’s a man that likes folks. He’s interested in people. I guess there’s some who’d call him inquisitive and say he ought to mind his own blame business, but Asa don’t really mean no harm.”

  “Well,” shrugged Jim, “so long as he’s harmless.”

  “Got a real friendly nature he has,” asserted Parsons. “Nary a mean bone in his body. But ...” he chuckled softly, “… he sure can talk. They do say that, when you travel on the Talbot route, there’s only two ways you can be wounded. You get shot by a bandit or you get earache from all Asa’s gabbin’.”

  “’Board ...!” yelled the guard.

  The fat man, last to climb aboard, was helped on his way by a lusty slap to the middle of his back. Asa Harnett then swung back up to his perch, settled himself beside Steele with his shotgun across his knees and waved so long to Parsons.

  “Be seein’ ya, Jeb!”

  “Be seein’ ya, Asa,” nodded Parsons.

  Steele kicked off his brake and cracked his whip. The teamers leaned into their harness, straining, scrabbling. To the accompaniment of a clatter of hooves and much groaning of woodwork and jingle of harness, the eastbound of the Talbot Line got under way again, quitting Parsons Well and rolling across the great plain. A few moments later, Deputy Shelton hustled out of the house and, without a glance in Jim’s direction, mounted his sorrel gelding and took off after the stage.

  “He’ll tag it a ways,” drawled Parsons, “and then he’ll head for Alvarez through the War Drum Hills, or maybe across Grant Creek and along the cattle route. And every so often, he’ll catch a sight of the stage, just to be sure Asa and Barney don’t run into trouble.”

  “Many hold-ups in this area?” asked Jim.

  “Been a long time since we’ve had any trouble,” said Parsons, “but then you never know when owlhoots’ll come a’ raidin’, do you? Sometimes a Talbot stage totes gold— sometimes a cash transfer. I wouldn’t mention that if I hadn’t already guessed you’re an honest man.”

  “Jebediah, I thank you for the compliment,” said Jim.

  And then, casting a glance toward Benito, Parsons was moved to add, “But I swear I can’t figure how a feller like you could be saddle pard to that ugly little wetback. He looks like he’d steal from his own mother.”

  Fortunately, Benito was out of earshot during the short time it took Jim to offer Parsons an explanation. It had been said many times and, no doubt, he would be obliged to. say it again—many times.

  “We’re tied together by an obligation, Jebediah. He once saved my life. At about that same time, I saved his life. So we each feel beholden to the other.”

  “You sure are a strange pair, you and the Mex,” frowned Parsons.

  After eating their fill, and having rested and watered their horses, Jim and Benito said their goodbyes to the Parsons’.

  Because they followed the stage route, because they were unfamiliar with the short cuts to Alvarez and did not wish to overtire their mounts in the heat of a Texas summer’s day, they did not reach the county seat until four-twenty of that afternoon. Perspiring and with the alkali clinging to their garments, they idled their animals along the broad and dusty main street of Alvarez. The big man was eager to follow his usual procedure of visiting the office of the local law, showing the sketch of the elusive Jenner and requesting the sheriff to check his records, but so great was his thirst that he decided they should first patronize a saloon.

  The strangers were unaware, as they reined up outside the New Union, that baleful eyes were focusing on them, that their arrival had aroused more than casual interest among the locals. They looped their reins over the hitch-rack, stepped up to the boardwalk and disappeared into the saloon while, on the opposite boardwalk, a couple of heavy-set men traded grim glances.

  “By thunder,” said one of them, his eyes gleaming in fury, “you wouldn’t think they’d have the nerve!”

  “I thought sure we’d have to ride out and hunt ’em,” growled the other. “Well, this makes it easier.”

  A few moments later, having downed a tall beer, Jim crooked a finger at the barkeep with the intention of ordering a refill. The Mex lounged beside him at the bar, still swigging at his tequila. There were only a few other drinkers present. The barkeep seemed friendly and, in such a tranquil and convivial atmosphere, the violent challenge hurled at the strangers sounded unnaturally vicious. The man who voiced it was livid with rage, trembling in fury.

  “One drink is all you’ll have time for, big man! Stand real still! If you or the greaser budges an inch, we’ll blow you to Kingdom Come!”

  Jim’s scalp crawled as, by means of the long mirror behind the bar, he eyed the three burly men who had just entered. Each of them hefted a shotgun—a formidable weapon under any circumstances, but particularly at such short range. The rage in their eyes was naked, something malevolent and all consuming. He set his empty glass down, quietly muttered a warning to the bug-eyed, badly scared Benito.

  “Just freeze. Leave all the talking to me.”

  Two – The Hard-Hitter

  Twice in one day—twice too often. Thus it seemed to Big Jim, as he placed his hands on the bar and studied the reflections of his challengers. Deputy Shelton hadn’t been such a harrowing problem; he had been immature and vulnerable. These three men were of similar age to the deputy, but not vulnerable, not while they kept those double-barreled scatterguns aimed at him.

  “Face us!” barked the tallest of the three.

  “And, when you turn around,” muttered the second man, “you unstrap the hardware—and do it awful careful, mister.”

  The barkeep blinked uneasily at Jim, then edged away to the far end of the counter. The other drinkers sat very still. Slowly, Jim and the Mex turned to face the trio. They unbuckled their gunbelts, let them drop. Jim asked, quietly, but with increasing anger,

  “Just who the hell are you—and what do you want?”

  “As if he ain’t guessed,” sneered the third man.

  “I knew he’d try to talk his way out of it!” breathed the tall one. “Well, the hell with him! I’m through with talk!”

  He placed his shotgun on a table, bunched his fists and began advancing on Jim. “Let’s see how he takes punishment!”

  Ugly grins showed on the faces of the other two. One of them drawled a warning to Jim.

  “Don’t try to hit back at Marty—not unless you crave a belly fulla buckshot.”

  “Before I take a beating,” said Jim, “I have to know why.”

  “You know why!” snarled Marty, who was now almost within arm’s reach of him.

  “This is some kind of crazy mistake,” frowned Jim. His eyes narrowed, as Marty drew back his bunched left. “Don’t try it!”

  But his would-be assailant was in no mood for sweet reason. The heavy fist was swung at Jim’s face, hard and fast, and if all the shotguns ever made had been pointed at him, he would still have reacted as he did. He crouched low letting the swinging fist mis
s his head by a full three inches. And then, while Marty was thrown forward by the impetus of the swing, he jabbed a savage blow to the exposed midriff. Marty gave vent to an anguished gasp. Benito, noting the expressions on the faces of the other men, feared the worst and promptly sidestepped to position himself behind Jim. A great deal seemed to happen in a very short space of time, mere fractions of a second, because Jim had spun Marty around and had crooked his left arm about his neck.

  “Break those scatterguns!” he harshly ordered Marty’s companions. “I want to see the cartridges fall out, and then I want to see those cannons thrown away! Do it fast, boys. I’m strong enough to choke the life out of this galoot. Don’t make me prove it!”

  The other two spent a moment of shocked indecision. Then, as they obeyed Jim’s command, one of them muttered loud enough for Jim to hear,

  “I’d as soon take him with my bare hands, anyway.” The shotguns were thrown aside. They came at Jim at a rush and, for a starter, he used Marty as a missile, releasing his arm-hold on his neck, thrusting him forward and swinging a powerful kick to his rear. With a howl of chagrin, Marty hurtled forward to collide with one of the oncoming attackers. The third darted in quickly, landing a blow to Jim’s ear, following it with a badly timed swing that missed by all of six inches. He made a third try, but that punch was checked in mid-swing; Jim put him to sleep with a driving right to the jaw, and the force of it sent him reeling to a table. He draped over it grotesquely, as Marty and the other man rushed the big stranger.

  When, a few moments later, the two lawmen came striding into the barroom, Jim was still very much in command of the situation. Benito was crouched by the bar, his buckteeth revealed in an admiring grin; it always pleased him to see his brawny travelling companion repulsing attack. Such hassles were invariably spectacular. The barkeep was calling upon the fighters to desist. The other drinkers were yelling encouragement. One of Jim’s assailants was clinging to his back, having foolishly supposed that he could force Jim to the floor by his weight. The tallest of the three, Marty, was stumbling away from Jim’s pounding fists, his face a wreck.

  “That’s all!” called the senior lawman. “Let go of him, Ike! We’re taking him in!”

  But the persistent Ike was still endeavoring to pull Jim to the floor, when Jim bent and heaved. Yelling, Ike pitched over his head and collapsed to the floor. Jim straightened up, not gasping for breath, not cursing or perspiring. His voice was very steady, as he advised that last hard case to, “Stay down. Don’t try to get up. If you do—heaven help you.”

  Ike stayed down. Benito chuckled elatedly, as his gaze travelled over the prone figures of Jim’s victims.

  “Magnifico!” he declared. “In all of my life, never do I see a hombre who hits so hard as my amigo Jim!”

  Warily, Jim eyed the lawmen. Though senior in authority, the sheriff looked to be somewhat younger than the deputy. By no stretch of the imagination could the man with the rifle be considered anything better than a hanger-on. He was scrawny, with pig-like eyes, lank hair and a slack jaw, and Jim had known many such types during his long career as a sergeant of cavalry. This deputy possessed little imagination, little initiative. The younger man, he of the blocky build and close-cropped gingery hair, was a far more formidable proposition, keen-faced, alert-eyed. He was studying Jim intently, while covering him with a cocked .45.

  “Don’t look for congratulations from us, stranger,” he muttered.

  “I can manage without congratulations,” Jim curtly assured him. “I’ll settle for a plain and simple explanation. Just what the hell is happening here? Why did these three fools try to ...?”

  “Shuddup!” snarled the deputy. “You talk when Sheriff Carmody says talk—and not before!”

  “That’s enough talk, Andy,” frowned the sheriff, “from you as well as from him.” He gestured with his Colt. “Move around back. Use your manacles on the big one—his hands behind him.”

  “Now—just a damn minute ...!” began Jim.

  “You’re under arrest!” snapped Carmody. “Whatever you want to say, save it till we get to the jailhouse!”

  “What’s the charge?” demanded Jim. “I’m entitled to know that much.”

  “I don’t argue with my prisoners in barrooms,” scowled Carmody. “We’ll do our talking at my office. Now stand mighty still, big feller. It would pleasure me to put a bullet through your no-good carcass.”

  Jim had sized Carmody up. This angry-eyed lawman would cut him down with one slight squeeze of his trigger-finger, at the first hint of a hostile move, so he stood very still, his hands behind him, while the deputy moved around to snap the manacles over his wrists.

  “Now pick up their gunbelts, Andy,” nodded Carmody, “and let’s get out of here.”

  Always willing to be helpful, Benito gathered up Jim’s Stetson. To replace it on Jim’s head, he had to stand on a chair. Then, hefting his guitar and shrugging philosophically, he moved out of the saloon in front of the deputy’s prodding rifle-muzzle, tagging Jim and the sheriff.

  The Alvarez County jail proved to be a sturdy structure of brick and clapboard connected to the sheriff’s office by a dealwood door set into the rear wall. Before unlocking Jim’s manacles, Deputy Andy Morse traded his rifle for a shotgun. He stood with that heavy weapon covering the big man and the runty Mex while, in obedience to the sheriff’s commands, they emptied their pockets onto his desk. Carmody had not yet holstered his Colt; he kept the bulk of the desk between himself and the prisoners while entering their names on the charge sheet.

  “I asked you a fair question,” Jim impatiently reminded him. “On what charges are you arresting us?”

  “Is that everything?” Carmody asked the deputy.

  “Uh huh,” grunted Morse.

  “Right,” nodded Carmody. “Get that cell-block door unlocked and march ’em in.”

  When that dealwood door swung open, its hinges squealing, Jim weighed his chances and decided that a cocked Colt held by a coldly-angry sheriff and a cocked shotgun hefted by a shifty-eyed deputy were too formidable a combination to allow for rash heroics. Benito eyed him uneasily, and mumbled,

  “Is best we do not argue, eh amigo?”

  “I got plenty of arguing to do,” scowled Jim, “but I’ll pick my own time.”

  “Move in,” ordered Carmody.

  They were marched along the corridor of the jailhouse, empty except for a sleeping drunk in the end cell. Two adjoining cells were unlocked for them. They moved in and the doors were pulled shut. Morse’s keys rattled in the locks. Then and only then did Carmody hammer down and sheath his six-gun. He bit the end off a cigar, clamped it between his teeth, scratched a match for it and puffed a blue cloud toward the grim-visaged Jim.

  “Well,” he frowned, “it seems you have plenty of gall—as well as an instinct for brutality. I swear none of us believed you’d ever show up in Alvarez. At least not voluntarily.”

  “How long do I have to wait,” Jim sourly demanded, “before you start making sense?”

  “Señor Rurale,” protested Benito, “you speak in riddles.”

  “What happened to my other deputy was no riddle,” said Carmody.

  “You’re talking about Shelton?” challenged Jim.

  “You know it, mister,” sneered Morse.

  “The three hard-cases that jumped you at the New Union,” Carmody grimly informed Jim, “are a brother and two cousins of Wayne Shelton. It’s only natural they hankered to square accounts for poor Wayne.”

  “Beats me how you got the nerve to come ridin’ into Alvarez,” scowled Morse, “after what you did to Wayne.”

  “Now look,” growled Jim. “I admit I had a run-in with Shelton, but I didn’t know he was a lawman. His badge was under his jacket.”

  “That’s your story,” jeered Morse.

  Jim ignored the deputy and stared hard at the sheriff. “All this hullabaloo, three fools trying to beat my brains out, you arresting us—and all because I blacked Shelton’s eye? I
call that a mite far-fetched, Sheriff.”

  “How’s that again?” Carmody eyed him suspiciously.

  “Shelton had it coming to him,” said Jim flatly. “He was proddy and he was shoving a rifle-muzzle into my back—and his star was out of sight. Sure I tangled with him, and he ended up with a black eye and a dent in his pride.”

  “You should’ve taken a closer look at him,” countered Carmody, “after the tenth or eleventh time you hit him. He came riding in a little while ago hanging onto the saddlehorn—near dead from loss of blood. His face was gashed, three broken ribs and he was delirious from that head wound. What did you use—a rock?”

  Jim and the Mex traded wondering glances. The fury was still there, naked and ugly in the eyes of Carmody and the deputy; the atmosphere was thick with it. Rarely had the big man encountered such loathing and indignation, even from raw recruits being whipped into shape. The short hairs of his neck tingled. Something was very wrong here. He forced himself to remain calm, at least outwardly. He had nothing to win by cursing these badge-toters.

  “What makes you so sure that we’re the guilty ones?” he challenged. “Who identified us?”

  “Wayne Shelton identified you,” Carmody heatedly declared. “He wasn’t talking very clearly, but some of it made sense. I asked, ‘What happened to you?’ and he said, ‘Big man on black stallion—a giant—with a Mex runt on a burro’.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Jim warned him. “The last time I saw Shelton, he was riding away from the relay-station at Parsons Well. He had a black eye and a chip on his shoulder—otherwise he was mighty healthy.”

  “You’ll get your chance to tell your lies under oath, when the circuit-judge hears the case,” said Carmody. As he turned away, he added, bitterly, “And the charge could be murder, because Doc Flood says there’s an even chance Wayne will never regain consciousness.”

  He walked out front to the office. Morse, after another scathing appraisal of Jim and the Mex, consulted his watch and moved along to the cell occupied by the sleeping drunk. That prisoner was roughly awakened and frog-marched out to the office. They were alone now, the only inmates of the Alvarez County jail, and facing the grim prospect of being tried for murder.