Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 by Frederick H. Christian Page A

balance, and with all his strength drove a wicked
uppercut to the gunman’s jaw. Cameron cartwheeled backwards,
sprawling in the dust of the yard. Cursing, spitting blood from his
gashed mouth, he struggled to sit upright,
shaking his head to clear it. Philadelphia stepped forward as
Cameron got groggily to his feet and again hit the man, this time
on the side of the head. Cameron went down like a pole-axed steer.
The boy turned and raced to help Susan Harris, who was struggling
to her feet.
    Philadelphia knelt down to
lift Jake Harris’s head as the old man stirred, moaning feebly.
Susan ran into the house and emerged with a bowl of water.
Philadelphia poured it unceremoniously over the old man’s face, and
spluttering, Jake Harris sat up. In a few moments the light was
back in his eyes, as Philadelphia assured him that Susan was
perfectly safe. The girl went back into the house for more water.
None of them paid any attention to the prone form of Cameron. Had
they been doing so they would have seen him stir, then carefully
roll his head to see where they were. A rictus of hatred contorted
the man’s face, and with a smooth movement, cursing as pain shot
through his bruised jaw, Cameron was on his feet. At the same
moment that Cameron regained his feet Susan Harris appeared in the
doorway of the house, and her mouth opened in astonishment as she
saw the crouched, menacing figure behind her father and
Philadelphia.
    Philadelphia wheeled, then
halted as he saw Cameron. The gunman’s smile was as inviting as
death.
    ‘Yo’re careless, boy,’ he
told Philadelphia. ‘Never turn yore back on a man ‘less’n yo’re
shore yu’ve put him down for good.’
    The boy’s face was a study
in self-disgust. He took a step forward, but Jake Harris laid a
detaining hand on his arm.
    ‘No, Philly,’ he said
firmly. ‘That’s Wes Cameron – he’s a paid killer an’ mighty fast.
Don’t yu go up agin him.’
    The boy looked uncertainly from Cameron to
his employer and back again.
    Cameron let a wolfish smile
play on his features. ‘You wonderin’ if yo’re fast enough, ain’t yu, boy?
Well, I ain’t … so don’t try it. I ain’t in
the kid-killin’, business. However, I owe yu somethin’’ He fingered
his swollen jaw, and his eyes were merciless. Faster than the
watchers could follow, his hand darted to the cut-away holster and
two shots blasted from his hip. Philadelphia reeled backwards and
fell to the ground; Susan Harris screamed, and a curse exploded
from her father’s lips.
    ‘Yu murderin’ scum I’ he
ground out, his eyes moving helplessly to the shotgun lying in the
dust about ten feet away.
    Cameron smiled. ‘He ain’t
dead, Harris. I just made shore he don’t sneak up on me again for a
few weeks.’
    A closer look at the boy,
beside whom Susan Harris was kneeling, showed that the gunman’s
shots had in fact both pierced the thick muscles of the thigh on
both the boy’s legs. Blood stained the youngster’s bleached Levi’s,
but he was already sitting up, cursing weakly. Harris stared at the
gunman, as if trying to divine from the man’s face some secret that
lay behind it. Noticing the old man’s gaze, the gunman
laughed.
    ‘Yo’re worryin’, Harris,’
he laughed. ‘That’s the first sensible thing yu’ve done since I
came. Yo’re thinkin’ about what woulda happened if I’d come up here
when yu wasn’t around, or if I’d made less noise to let yu know I
was comin’.’ He nodded at the girl. ‘She’s right purty. Yu think
about what I said about the climate up here. Mention it to yore
neighbors. I’ll be around.’
    Without another word, he
wheeled about and walked to his magnificent stallion. Mounting, he
turned the horse’s head and thundered off away from the Harris
ranch, while the old homesteader looked at his daughter with
stricken eyes.
    The events of the day were
still plaguing him as Susan bustled about, preparing new dressings
for Philadelphia’s wounds. After a