Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) (12 page)

 
          
The
completeness of his information struck her dumb. She did not doubt him, for she
knew how seldom he went abroad. It was incredible—and disturbing.

 
          
“I
trust you did not tell him anything about yourself?” he continued.

 
          
“You
should know,” she answered.

 
          
“I
do,” he said quietly. “You even refused his escort, which was wise. I only
asked—”

 
          
“To
see if I would lie to you,” she cut in passionately. “Precisely,” he confessed.
“I have faith in none, save, perhaps, Silver, who would die rather than betray
me.”

 
          
“A mere brute.”

 
          
“True,
but one who, at a word from me, would tear you to shreds,” he replied. “Now, I
must find a way to thank this man who has put me in his debt.” The sneering
smile expressed anything but gratitude. “In future, you must not ride alone—it
is too dangerous.”

 
          
“Life
here is so damned dull, Jeff,” she urged. “One might as well be—”

 
          
“In
a penitentiary, were you about to say?” he enquired icily.

 
          
The
blood left her cheeks and she said no more.

 
          
A
week passed and life on the Double K ranch pursued the even tenor of its way.
The two punchers continued to patrol the northern boundary, but encountered no
further sign of rustlers. Twice Sudden climbed again to Battle Mesa. His
explanation to his companion—received with profane disbelief—was that the lady
might give information of use when it came to an open clash with Hell City.

 
          
“Just
wastin’ yore time,” Frosty said. “If she’s Satan’s woman, she’ll be talkin’ on
his side; yu’ll on’y get lies.”

 
          
“Dessay
yo’re right, for once,” the other conceded. “Allasame, she could let slip a
pointer, unmeanin’.”

 
          
A
small discovery puzzled Sudden.
Rummaging in his.
war-bag
one evening, he found that something was missing.
This was a roughly printed notice offering the sum of five hundred dollars for
the capture of—
himself
, wanted for robbery and murder.
Though it had been issued some years earlier, the descriptions both of man and
horse were sufficiently near to make recognition almost inevitable. It bore the
name of the sheriff of Fourways, Texas. Sudden had brought it for a definite
purpose, and he wished to use it in his own way. He went at once to the
ranch-house.

 
          
“Well,
Green, what’s the trouble?” his employer asked. “None a-tall, seh—yet,” Sudden
replied, adding, “Yu hired me in the dark.”

 
          
“I
backed my judgment.”

 
          
“Yeah,
an’ I’m askin’ yu to keep on doin’ that, no matter what tale comes to yu. Mebbe
yu’ll be shown what ‘pears to be, an’ is, certain proof, but I want yu to
remember I’m playin’ straight with yu, right to the end o’ the game.”

 
          
The
rancher sat silent, considering the maker of this odd request, but he could
read nothing in the lean, tanned, immobile face. From the first he had taken to
this competent-looking stranger, instinct with youth yet moulded by experience
into a man. Had his own son been of this
type ..

 
          
He
dismissed the thought with a gesture of impatience.

 
          
“This
is all very mysterious, Green,” he said.

 
          
“I’m
askin’ a whole lot, seh,” the puncher admitted.

 
          
“Very
well,” Keith said. “After all, a person’s past is no concern of other folks,
except perhaps—a sheriff’s.”

 
          
Sudden
was not to be drawn. “I’m thankin’ yu, seh.”

 
          
From
his seat on the verandah the Colonel watched his visitor return to the
bunkhouse, moving with a long swinging stride which told of supple joints and
perfectly coordinating muscles.

 
          
“He
moves like a cougar,” he murmured. “Wonder what he’s done? Doesn’t look a
desperate character, but …” The gravel crunched as the foreman came hurrying
up.
“Anything to report, Steve?”

 
          
“Betcha
life,” Lagley replied triumphantly. “That fella vu took on, who calls hisself
Green, dropped this.
Might interest yu.”

 
          
The
rancher read the damning document slowly. “The descriptions arc certainly
similar, but that may be just a coincidence,” he said.

 
          
“What’s
he totin’ it around for, then?”

 
          
“As a curiosity, perhaps.
If it really concerned himself, I
imagine he would have destroyed it.”

 
          
“Oh,
these killers have their pride,” Lagley fleered. “As for it bein’ him, there
ain’t no doubt; Turvey was in Texas ‘bout the time this hombre was raisin’ hell
there, an’ had to skip ‘cause things got too lively. No, he never seen him, but
afriend o’ his was rubbed out tryin’ to stop this Sudden when he made a getaway
from San Antonio, with a sheriff’s posse behind him.”

 
          
Keith
deliberated. This was the tale he had been warned might come to him. The new
hand had discovered his loss and acted promptly; that was the kind of man he
wanted. “What do you suppose brought him here?” was his question.

 
          
“Headed
for Hell City, I’d say,” the foreman replied. “Then he runs into trouble with
Roden an’ figures it ain’t goin’ to make him over-welcome there, so when yu
push a job at him he naturally jumps at it.”

 
          
“Admirably reasoned.”

 
          
“An’
yu can add that Mister Satan would be damn glad to put on his pay-roll a fella
already on yourn.”

 
          
“That
seems possible.”

 
          
“Shore
as death,” the other rejoined. “Point is, what yu goin’ to do? Me, I’d boot him
off’n the ranch.”

 
          
“Having
first obtained his permission, of course,” the Colonel said drily. “No, if he’s
the man you claim, he’s dangerous, and it would be poor policy to present him
to the enemy. Here, we can keep an eye on his activities. Do the men know?”

 
          
“I
ain’t told
nobody
, but Turvey may have talked.”

 
          
“If so, it can’t be helped.
Give Green to understand that
his past doesn’t matter, and especially, that I am ignorant of it. Keep him
tied to Homer—I think that lad is loyal, and we shall have news of any
treachery.”

 
          
“Well,
yo’re the boss, but it’s takin’ a devil of a risk,” Lagley grimaced.

 
          
For
some time after the foreman had departed, Keith sat in the gathering gloom,
chewing at the butt of his cigar, thinking the situation over. He could not
doubt what he had heard, for Green himself had admitted that the tale would be
true. The puzzling point was the presence of a notorlous outlaw, presumably
fleeing from justice, in that part of the country, if it were not to seek
sanctuary in Hell City. Texas was a long way off, but other offences might have
been committed since, perhaps in Arizona, necessitating a hiding-place.

 
          
“It
certainly seems that Steve must be right,” he mused aloud. “All the same, I
don’t believe it.”

 
          
“Don’t
believe what, yu ol’ slave-owner?” boomed a big voice from a few yards distant.
“That the North beat the South? Well, they did; I was there, an’ seen it.”

 
          
Keith
stood up. “Hello, Martin, I hear you’ve been rustling some of my cows,” he
retaliated. “Come right in.”

 
          
“Druv over a-purpose to pay yu for ‘em.”

 
          
“Why?”
the Double K man snorted. “You and your damned Yankee Government didn’t mind
stealing my niggers, so—”

 
          
A
slim form slipped from the lighted window which led on to the verandah. “If you
two are going to fight the Civil War all over again, supper will be ruined,”
Joan said. “Good evening, Mister Merry; I fancied I recognized your voice.”

 
          
“Yu
know darned well there ain’t another like it in Arizony,” the visitor
responded, and shook a warning finger at her. “Don’t yu go gettin’
sarcastic—one in yore family is aplenty. An’ yu needn’t to `mister’ me neither,
just because yu got a good-lookin’ new rider; he ain’t half the man I am,
anyways.”

 
          
“Just
about, I should guess,” she dimpled, with a calculating glance at the other’s
squat bulk, “but he’s more—distributed.”

 
          
“Yu
sassy young chipmunk—”

 
          
The
voice of the host intervened. “Stop wrangling, you—infants; I’m hungry. And
Joan, you’d better hear what I have just learned before you decide to fall in
love with Green.”

 
          
“I
haven’t the remotest intention of doing so,” she laughed. “It would break
Martin’s heart.”

 
          
“Shore
would,” the fat man agreed. “I’d have to shoot him up, an’ I’m admittin’ that’s
a task I wouldn’t fancy.”

 
          
“You’ll
fancy it less presently,” Keith said sardonically. During the meal, he told his
news. The Twin Diamond owner nodded his head, as though not surprised.

 
          
“A
gunman, huh?” he commented.
“Guessed he warn’t just an ornery
cowpunch.
Sudden! Seem to have heard of him some time, but … What arc yu
goin’ to do, Ken?”

 
          
“Watch
him,” the rancher replied, “an’ if he’s straight, use him to clean up that den
of infamy in the hills.” Merry looked at the girl, whose face was now pale; he
knew of what she was thinking. His own expression belied his name.

 
          
“A
clean-up means on’y one thing to such a man,” he stated.
“Does
he know about—Jeff?”

 
          
Keith’s
aristocratic features might have been carved in white marble. “Yes,” he said,
in a cold, passionless tone which effectually closed the subject.

 
          
In
the bunkhouse, Sudden soon sensed an air of restraint in regard to himself. He
caught some of the outfit eyeing him furtively, and, while no one deliberately
avoided him, even the men he knew best appeared to be afflicted with a feeling
of awkwardness utterly foreign to their care-free souls. Evidently the
purloiner of the placard had lost no time in making use of it. Frosty was not
there, having gone to Dugout, and Sudden speculated, rather bitterly, whether
the new friendship would stand the strain. Presently the foreman threw back the
door and called him outside.

 
          
“They
figure I’m goin’ to be fired,” he reflected.

 
          
Lagley
went to the point at once. “The 01’ Man sent for me,” he began. “Someone has
told him that yo’re a Texas outlaw named Quick, no, that ain’t it—Sudden—knowed
it was somethin’ to do with speed. He’s mighty sore, said for me to give yu
yore time, pronto.”

 
          
The
darkness hid the cowboy’s smile; he knew the man was lying, and had his answer
ready. In an aggrieved tone, he said: “So that’s his sort? All right, I’ll take
the trail straight away; Black Sam’ll put me up.”

 
          
This,
as he had expected, was not to Lagley’s liking. “Hold on,” he cried. “Hell,
they got yu named right. I spoke up for yu—told Ken he was doin’ a damn-fool
thing, seein’ yo’re the kind o’ fella we can use. He give in—usually does, when
I stand up to him,” he concluded boastfully.