Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) (26 page)

 
          
“True,
he was weak,” she said carelessly, and he did not detect the tremor in her
voice. “I had almost forgotten him. The Chief would not dare do that to you.”

 
          
The
liquor and flattery were beginning to take effect. “He threatens me,” he
growled. “Me, that could break him wlth my two hands, easy as snappin’ a
stick.”

 
          
His
great paws rose in the air and dropped suddenly, portraying the act with such
savage realism that the woman shivered. She was playing with something worse
than fire, but she did not falter.

 
          
“He
would not have you whipped,” she said quietly, “but he might keep you shut up,
as he does one other.”

 
          
“What
you know o’ that?”

 
          
“Nothing,
save his existence, and that he is seen only by the Chief, and you, who take
him food.”

 
          
“Why
do you ask? Is this fella anythin’ to you?” the dwarf asked thickly.

 
          
She
laughed at him. “A man I’ve never seen? No, my
friend,
put it down to a woman’s curiosity. Don’t you like my whisky?”

 
          
She
passed the bottle and he helped himself liberally. “Best not meddle with what
don’t concern you,” he warned. His covetous eyes dwelt on her. “You an’ me’d
make a good team,” he said. “Allus wanted a woman o’ my own.”

 
          
Anita
shrugged. “
you
travel too fast,” she replied. “I’m not
a dance-hall drab, and I’d never take up with one who wouldn’t trust me
completely.”

 
          
Silver
was silent. He had to choose between a man who mocked him as a monstrosity and
a woman who seemed blind to his physical defects and admired the one attribute
on which he prided himself—his strength. In some such way his drink-bemused
brain reasoned it out. He could take her, she was at his mercy, and since the
passing of Pedro, she had no friends, but mere possession would not satisfy his
craving; she must come to him willingly.

 
          
Inwardly
trembling, but outwardly calm, the woman watched him as might a desperate
gambler the spinning wheel which spelled riches or ruin. She saw the huge
claw-like fingers open and reach for her.

 
          
“It’s
a bargain, girl,” Silver said, and breathed heavily. “You an’ me—”

 
          
She
swayed back. “You must have patience, amigo,” she murmured, but her smile was
kind. “Women like to be wooed, you know, and besides, you have not trusted
me—yet. There is still some whisky; drink to our future.”

 
          
With
a raucous chuckle of triumph, Silver clutched the bottle, drained and flung it
to the floor. Anita knew that the act signified surrender, but she had the
wisdom to wait. He bent towards her, and in a low rumble, like far distant
thunder, said: “There is a fella—I dunno who he is, but the Chief calls him his
`ace in the hole,’ an’ he’d ruther lose an eye than let him go.”

 
          
“What’s
the poor devil done?”

 
          
“Ain’t a notion, suthin’ bad, likely.”

 
          
“His
`ace in the hole,’ ” Anita mused. “That means he’s saving him for some special
purpose. I’d like to see this man; ake me with you one time, Silver.”

 
          
The
massive shoulders shook with mirth. “I ain’t
no
wizard, glrl. To do that I’d have to get you through the Chief’s room, there’s
no other way ‘less yo’re a bird,” Silver wheezed, and anxious to prove that she
was asking the impossible, went on to explain that the captive was confined in
a cavern below Satan’s, and only to be reached by padlocked trapdoors. “He
keeps the keys hisself,” he finished.

 
          
Her
face fell. “But he goes away sometimes,” she urged.

 
          
“An’
takes ‘em with him,” was the reply. “Mebbe he won’t come back one time an’ that
hombre’ll just starve.”

 
          
“A terrible death.”

 
          
Hell,
we all gotta go, sooner or later, but you an’ me’ll have a good innin’s first.”

 
          
He
stood up, staggering a little on his stumpy legs, and made an awkward attempt
to seize her. She evaded him easily enough and shook her head.

 
          
“Not
yet, amigo, I am only half won,” she smiled. “The Chief will be missing you.
Come again—if you wish.”

 
          
Greatly
to her relief, he went docilely enough; the reminder that his dreaded master
might be waiting somewhat sobered him. When his lurching, tipsy figure had
disappeared, she sank down on a stool.

 
          
“God,
what a weapon to have to use,” she muttered, and fell to thinking. Had she
found a way of striking at the man who had flogged her lover to death and
humiliated her? It seemed so, but she could see little hope of using her
information.

 
          
“That
brute has no brain, and fears his keeper,” she decided.

 
          
Alone,
she was impotent. She must find a man
wo
was not
afraid of the bandit chief, and where, in Hell City, was he to be found? With
knitted brow, she puzzled over the problem, and then the strange cowboy who had
buried her dead occurred to her. He appeared to be on good terms with the Red
Mask, and
yet ..

 
          
“At
least, he would not betray me,” she told herself.

 
          
Sudden’s
survey of the scene of the hold-up produced little. The ambushing party, he
reported, consisted of four riders—he had doubled the number—and having
obtained the money, they had taken the northern trail. The latter was true, but
he omitted to mention that after a couple of miles, they had swung south in the
direction of the Twin Diamond. The Chief received the particulars with
indifference.

 
          
“It
is, after all, a small matter,” he said. “I was annoyed at the time because I
do not like my plans to miscarry, but …”

 
          
Sudden,
suspecting something behind this
attitude,
spent the
next two days in the town. He would have liked to see Frosty or Merry but it
was too dangerous; he had more than a dim suspicion that if he rode out, he
would be followed.

 
          
It
was on the second evening, as he was returning to the saloon, that a whispered
invitation from the darkness took him into Anita’s dwelling. A guttering candle
served only to show the discomfort of the place.

 
          
“I
gotta thank yu for the word about Butch,” he said. “It was real useful.”

 
          
“I
couldn’t let you be tricked,” she replied quietly.

 
          
It
was a different woman to the one who had cajoled Silver. Anita divined that her
present guest was not one to allow his senses to be deadened by drink or snared
by desire; he would be more likely to appreciate frankness.

 
          
“What
are you to this mountebank who hides behind a mask?” she asked.

 
          
“Just
one of his men,” was the reply. “Holm’ up,
like
the
rest of ‘em.” - Her gestute showed that she was dissatisfied with the answer.
“You may have reasons for hiding, but you are different,” she said. “Why does
Satan want you killed?”

 
          
Sudden
was silent for a moment. This woman had rendered him a service, but she might
be playing a part, and his position in this den of desperadoes was too
precarious for further risk.

 
          
“News
to me,” he said stolidly.

 
          
“Butch
was sent for on purpose,” she stated. “You
don’t :rust
me, and I cannot blame you, but I am going to put my cards on the table. Odd as
it may seem, I cared for Pedro—he was my one friend, and yet, it was because of
me he died. I have vowed to avenge him and am ready to run any hazard.”

 
          
In
the frail light of the flickering candle he saw her sombre eyes gleam and
realized that she was in earnest. But what could a mere woman do against one
who was all-powerful? She read something of his thought.

 
          
“You
are thinking I am mad,” she went on. “That a weak creature like
myself
cannot injure him. But I have already dealt a blow,
for you are alive, and I know of another and greater one that will wound him
far more deeply than the loss of his stolen steers, or the plunder from
Bosville.”

 
          
“How
do you know these things?”

 
          
She
laughed contemptuously. “Men drink—and talk. If Satan wants his secrets kept,
he should ban liquor and women from Hell City.”

 
          
“Why
are yu tellin’ me?”

 
          
“It
is something I cannot do myself, and you do not like the beast any better than
I do.” She raised her head as she spoke, looking him squarely in the face, but
learned nothing. “You should win at any card game. Listen.” She gave him the
gist of her interview with
Silver
, ending, “Who is
this man, and why is he buried alive?”

 
          
“I
reckon we’ll have to ask him that, ma’am,” Sudden said. Instantly her face lit
up with a fierce joy. “
you’ll
help me?” she cried.
“Then we shall succeed.”

 
          
“I’m
obliged for yore good opinion, ma’am,” the puncher said a trifle ironically.
“All we gotta do is
steal
the key from Silver or his
master, get ‘em both out’n the road …”

 
          
“Hopeless,”
she decided, and sat, her face cupped in her hands, thinking. “Silver said
there was no other way
save
for a bird,” she mused.
“What did that mean?”

 
          
“Plain
enough,” was the reply. “All these caverns have holes for light an’ air.”

 
          
“That
will be it,” Anita said eagerly. “Could a man clever with a rope climb up?”

 
          
“In
the daylight, mebbe, but at night he’d need the eyes an’ claws of a cat,”
Sudden told her. “Allasame, it seems to be the on’y chance. That big ape might
win out—he’s built for it.”

 
          
“He
fears the whip and would turn traitor,” she said.

 
          
“I’ll
look it over in the mornin’,” the puncher promised.

 
          
In
the seclusion of his room at the saloon, he dwelt again on the strange story.
The mysterious prisoner could not be one of Bleke’s men; the body of the first
had been returned, and Sudden himself had accounted for the second. Satan’s
“ace in the hole”—the phrase recurred to him; if indeed the unknown was a
winning card in the bandit’s crooked game, he must be spirited away, and
hidden—where?

 
          
“The Double K?
No, Steve would talk,” he muttered. “I guess
Merry could use another band.”

 
          
Having
settled this point, he turned in and slept as though Hell City and its problems
did not exist.

 
          
“Nigger,
it’s goin’ to be dead easy—to break my fool neck.”

 
          
At
sunrise, Sudden had slipped out of the town by the ‘western
exit,
followed the beaten track for over a mile and then struck north until he
reached an open strip of sand and scrub. Crossing this, he hid in the bushes
and
waite
Presently, satisfied that his movements were
not being spied upon, he circled round and was now at the foot of the precipice
on the brink of which stood Hell City. He had no fear of discovery here, for
the trees and undergrowth afforded complete cover even for a horseman, Before
him rose the vertical cliff, bare save for occasional clumps of cactus, coarse
grass, and, here and there, a shrunken shrub, mesquite or sage, fighting
tenaciously for life against the inhospitable surroundings. At a first glance,
the task of scaling the height appeared
an impossibility
,
but the puncher knew what to look for. One by one, his experienced eye picked
out tiny crevices and ledges which might serve as hand or footholds. He noted
too that, twenty feet up, the wall was a little less abrupt and more broken.