Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) by Frederick H. Christian

of
coolness on the hottest day and a fair degree of warmth when the
‘northers’ swept down along the side of the Needles. To everyone
except its owner, Burkhart’s was known as ‘Dutchy’s’ thanks to the
universal western custom of calling anyone with a foreign accent by
that sobriquet. Directly opposite Dutchy’s was the Traveler’s Rest,
an hotel and rooming house run by a fiercely independent Irish
widow named Mulvaney. Here food and lodging was dispensed for
overnight travelers on the stage, or visiting miners, cowboys, and
other itinerants. Mrs. Mulvaney was a strict disciplinarian and
there wasn’t a man in the valley who would have dared to walk along
one of her highly-polished hallways with his boots on. Down the
street a little, on the same side as Dutchy’s, stood the City
Bank—the most solidly-built structure in Hanging Rock, and the only
one of two storeys.
    Adjacent
to it was another saloon called ‘The Square Deal’, but more
frequently referred to as Diego’s, its owner being a Mexican so
named. Most of the cowboys in the valley were traditionally
customers of Dutchy’s, prior to the arrival of Barclay. His
hard-bitten crew had, however, taken to frequenting Diego’s, which
gave Jacob Burkhart no sleepless nights at all. He was a realistic
man, and knew that Barclay’s men would have given him more trouble
than a barrel full of rattlers if they had ever come into the
saloon when—say—the Slash 8 boys were in town. In fact, it was
Gimpy who had once acidly remarked of Diego’s hostelry that ‘the
only square deal you get there is on the sign outside’.
    The rest
of the town comprised a pair of general stores, a livery stable
with a blacksmith’s shop, and the various shacks and dugouts which
housed the permanent residents of Hanging Rock.
    On this particular day, some twenty-four hours after Sudden
and Dave Haynes had undergone their ordeal on the mesa, four men
rode into Hanging Rock from the direction of Summerfield, the next
town on the road to Santa Fe. The hock deep dust of the street
muffled the sound of their horses' hoofs. They looked like four
cowpunchers on their way for a drink at Diego’s, although it was a
rarity to see punchers in off the range so early in the day. An
onlooker might have been mildly surprised by the fact that they did
not, however, stop outside the saloon, but proceeded to the bank,
where they dismounted and hitched their horses. The same
onlooker—had there been one—might have been even more surprised to
see three of the men go into the bank, leaving one of their number
outside with the horses; this man lounged carelessly against the
hitching rail, watching the silent street from beneath the shaded
brim of his sombrero.
    For
perhaps eight or ten minutes there was silence, and then the
thunder of a shot shattered the stillness. In the same moment, as
the echoes of the shot lingered in the still air, the door of the
bank opened to allow two of the men to back outwards, their
shoulders stooped under the weight of heavy satchels. A second or
two later, their leader—a big man, solidly built-backed out, a
still—smoking six shooter clasped in his meaty paw. With a quick
nod to his companions the leader vaulted into the saddle, and in a
whirl of dust the four men rode headlong towards the edge of
town.
    A moment
more passed; then a tall, sallow man rushed to the door of the
bank, a heavy pistol in his hand, which he emptied in the direction
of the fleeing bandits. His shots seemed to have no effect other
than to cause one of the fugitives to turn in his saddle and fire
several hasty shots over his shoulder. One of the shots shattered
splinters from the wooden verandah post and whined away across the
street; another flicked a scar across the wall of the bank. The
fusillade of shots had awakened the dozing townspeople, and men
poured from the buildings into the street, running in the direction
of the Bank, until Hanging Rock resembled nothing so much as