Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 03 - The Marshal of Lawless(1933) (22 page)

 
          
“Yo’re
a suspicious jigger, but it ain’t a bad notion,” the other agreed.

 
          
When
his guests had departed on the following morning, Andy set out for the Double S
to take Tonia riding. He soon noticed that Reuben Sarel was not his jovial
self, and that there was a tiny crease between the girl’s level eyebrows.

 
          
“What’s
troublin’ Uncle this bright mornin’?” he asked as they trotted away. “Not
losin’ weight, is he?”

 
          
“Losing
cows, Andy,” she told him, “and we don’t know how. I think, too, he’s worrying
about that Mexican.”

 
          
The
young man snorted. “That fella’s becomin’ a menace to the country,” he said,
and told of the guerrilla’s latest exploit.

 
          
The
girl shivered; she knew what the victim of it must have endured. “Are the men
around here going to stand for that?” she asked indignantly.

 
          
“They
ain’t,” Andy assured her. “When I get my drive through something goin’ to be
done; but, for now, the marshal wants it kept quiet.”

 
          
“I
shall be glad when you are back, Andy,” the girl said. “I’m a bit scared, I
think.”

 
          
“Of
that dirty Greaser?” he asked.

 
          
“No—not
altogether,” she said slowly. “I can’t explain it, but I’ve had a ‘breakers
ahead’ sort of feeling, and that man Raven has begun visiting the Double S.”

 
          
Bordene
laughed. “Nothin’ to that, Tonia,” he replied. “I s’pose he had business with
Reuben.”

 
          
“That’s
the excuse, of course, but if it weren’t so absurd I’d say he came to see me,”
Tonia told him. “Yesterday he brought me a box of candy, and—he pays me
compliments.”

 
          
Andy’s
eyebrows rose. “Yu think he’s courtin’ yu?” he gasped incredulously. “Why, he’s
a breed. Ain’t Reuben showed him the door?”

 
          
“He
sings praises; I think he’s afraid of him in some way,” Tonia replied.

 
          
“My
Gawd!” the young man exploded.
“Seth Raven shinin’ up to yu—a
Sarel?
Well, if that ain’t the frozen limit.” He looked at her closely.
“Yu still don’t like the fella, Tonia?”

 
          
“I
detest him,” was her emphatic reply. “To me he always suggests what they call
him,

 
          
‘The Vulture,’ rapacious, cruel, a bird of prey.”

 
          
For
some time the rancher rode in moody silence; he was getting a new angle on the
man he had hitherto regarded as a good sort. The seeds of doubt sown in his
mind by the marshal were beginning to germinate, fed by this latest factor. Had
the note been tampered with? Was the breaking up of his drive herd the word of
the 88? He recalled the poker game, in which he had a shrewd suspicion that Green
had saved him from being skinned—for he now knew that Pardoe was a not too
scrupulous professional gambler.
Were
these all part
of a plan to put a rival out of the running? The questions milled in his mind
and he could find no satisfactory answers. It was the girl who spoke first:

 
          
“Too bad to bother you with my little troubles, Andy.
Especially when you have bigger ones of your own.”

 
          
“Shucks!
I hope yu’ll allus come to me, Tonia, Yu know I’d do anythin’.”

 
          
There
was an undercurrent of feeling in the voice and the girl steered from the
subject.

 
          
“You
drive tomorrow?” she asked.

 
          
“Yeah.
I’ve got a good bunch—all hand-picked—an’ if I lose
‘em this time I’ll be comin’ to yu for a job, Tonia.”

 
          
For
an instant she looked at him in startled surprise, but his grin reassured her,
and she replied in the same vein: “What sort of job would you like, Andy? But
there, you’ll make it this trip; bad luck, like lightning, never strikes twice
in the same place.”

 
          
The
soft, sweet voice and the heartening warm smile in her eyes were almost
irresistible; he ached to take her in his arms and tell her that the job he
wanted was to care for and shield her all the days of his life. But his man’s
pride kept him silent. When he came back, his ranch cleared of debt—

 
          
So
the golden moment passed.

 
          
The
marshal’s return to Lawless excited a great deal of curiosity which had to
remain unsatisfied. His own explanation was that he had been absent on business
connected with his office, and he treated any suggestion that he had been
kidnapped by El Diablo with a tolerant smile, an attitude which aroused Pete’s
personal wrath.

 
          
“What’s
the grand idea?” he enquired. “
Here’s
me workin’ up a
case agin the Greaser an’ yu percolate in an’ knock it flat.
Makes
me look a fool.”

 
          
“I
can’t see that yore appearance has altered the littlest bit,” the marshal told
him, with that disarming grin of his. “We gotta walk in the water, ol’-timer;
yu watch Raven’s face when I say my little piece.”

 
          
They
had not long to wait, for the saloonkeeper came in soon afterwards.

 
          
“‘Lo,
marshal, so yo’re back again all safe an’ sound,” he began, with a crooked
smile.

 
          
“We’ve
shore bin some worried ‘bout yu. Barsay
here,
reckoned
yu’d bin carried off by Moraga.”

 
          
“Hold
yore hosses, Raven, it sticks in my mind that suggestion come from yu,” the
deputy protested.

 
          
“That so?
Well, mebbe yo’re right,” Raven admitted easily.
“Yore high-falutin’ yarn made it seem likely.”

 
          
“Pete’s
a born romancer,” the marshal said. “Hear him tell of his past an’ yu look for
his wings.”

 
          
“So
it warn’t the Greaser?” Raven asked.

 
          
“Senor
Moraga has not yet settled his little account with me,” Green smiled, adding,
“I’ve been at the Box B.”

 
          
This
was not all the truth, but it served, for the marshal saw the visitor’s eyes
widen. All he said, however, was:

 
          
“Andy’s
drivin’ to-day, I hear. Where’s he campin’ this time?”

 
          
“Same
place as before, I understand. It’s a good beddin’ ground an’ he reckons there
ain’t
no
storms around.”

 
          
Raven
nodded. “Weather seems likely to stay put,” he agreed.

 
          
When
he had gone Pete turned aggressively on his chief. “Why
d’yu
tell
him where Andy was campin’?” he asked.

 
          
“I
didn’t,” the marshal grinned.

 
          
“But—”
the deputy began, and then comprehension came to him and he grinned too.

 
          
“Awright,
Solomon,” the little man said. “What yu goin’ to do now?”

 
          
“Put
some money in the bank,” Green told him.

 
          
Barsay
dropped into the nearest chair. “Savin’ coin, the hawg, an’ me with a thirst,”
he ejaculated in mock horror. “Wonder which of us he can’t trust, me or the
Injun?”

 
          
To
which query he got no reply, the marshal being already on the way to execute
his financial errand. Arrived outside the bank he hung about until he saw the
clerk emerge and then entered. As he had hoped, Potter was alone. He took the
money Green tendered and wrote out a receipt.

 
          
“Ain’t
got on the track of that outlaw yet, I suppose?” he remarked, and when his
customer admitted that his supposition was correct, he added, “I was saying to
Raven yesterday that you hadn’t much to go on, and that probably he’s hundreds
of miles away by now.”

 
          
“Raven
is a hard man to satisfy,” the marshal stated.

 
          
“You
are right,” the banker agreed harshly. “He’s—” he paused suddenly, and then, in
an altered tone, went on, “a good customer, and I ought not to be discussing
him, but I know you won’t chatter, marshal.”

 
          
Having
assured him on that point, Green came away, wondering. A comparison of the
receipt with the mysterious note showed a similarity in the writing; they might
have been done by the same person, but why, Green asked himself, should the
banker help Moraga? For the rest, all he had discovered was that Potter
disliked but feared Raven, an attitude common to many of the citizens of
Lawless. Additional proof of this was afforded that same evening. The marshal
was nearing the bank when he heard Seth’s voice, and, curious as to his
business there so late, slipped round the corner of the building and waited. In
a moment the door opened and he heard the banker say, in. a tone of abject humility:

 
          
“I’ll
do as you wish, sir.”

 
          
“Yu’d
better,” the saloonkeeper said contemptuously, and went up the street.

 
          
From
his door the banker watched until the other was out of hearing and then his
pent-up bitterness burst its bonds:

 
          
“And
may God damn your rotten soul,” he hissed, and shook his fist at the retreating
figure.

 
          
Not
until the door slammed did the marshal resume his way. One thing the incident
told him—Potter was in The Vulture’s power, and might therefore have been
compelled to write the decoy message.

 
          
“Odd
number that,” he ruminated. “The banker is a bet I mustn’t overlook.”

 
          
A
week slid by and the marshal was no nearer the solution of the problem he had
set himself to solve. Though there had been no further activity on the part of
Sudden the Second, Green did not agree with Potter’s suggestion that the outlaw
had departed for fresh pastures; the black horse was still in its hiding-place.
In the meanwhile, he had plenty to occupy his mind.

 
          
Two
attempts had been made on his life, and though he believed that the
saloonkeeper had something to do with them, he had no proof. Since his escape
from death in the desert, the autocrat of Lawless had treated him with jovial
friendliness, a circumstance which aroused suspicion in the object of it. So
marked indeed was the change that Pete was moved to caustic comment.

 
          
“If
yu was a turkey I’d say he was fattenin’ yu up for the killin’,” the deputy
said. “Looks like Andy
has
made it this time.”

 
          
The
marshal nodded. “Jevons was at the Red Ace last night,” he said. “An’ his boss
didn’t seem none pleased ‘bout somethin’.”

 
          
Green’s
guess was a good one. The 88 foreman had come on an unpleasant errand—the
admission of his own failure, and that this was due to wrong information
supplied by his employer, though it would have excused him with most men, did
not do so with Raven.

 
          
“Well,
how many d’yu get?” was his opening question, as the foreman entered the
private room.

 
          
“Not
a hoof,” Jevons replied. “Whoever told yu they aimed to bed down in The Pocket
got it wrong.”

 
          
The
half-breed gritted out an oath as he remembered where he got the information.