Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) (39 page)

 
          
“I
had to choose between hanging and—this.”

 
          
Joan
looked aghast. “Hanging?” she repeated.
“But what—?”

 
          
“Oh,
I just killed a cur,” Belle said brazenly. “He deserved to die, but your
man-made laws don’t take that into account.” With a bitter grimace, she pointed
to the bed. “Sleep sound. Hell City has had a taste of its master’s medicine
to-day and will be quiet.”

 
          
The
assurance was of no avail, and it was long ere rest came to the overwrought girl.
Fears for her father, and forebodings as to the future kept her staring for
hours into the blackness. There seemed to be no hope. Even if her whereabouts
became known, what could a handful of cowboys do against Satan’s well-armed
horde of desperadoes, entrenched in this rock
citadel.

 
          
Consternation
reigned at the Double K that evening, and each rider as he came in from his
day’s work was met by a worried foreman and received the same order.

 
          
“Change
yore hoss an’ git busy. Miss Joan rode out around two an’ ain’t showed up. We
gotta find her.”

 
          
From
all he got “Hell!” and prompt obedience. He despatched the last of them and
went into his shack for his rifle. As he came out, a warning voice said: “Keep
yore
han’s
mighty still, Steve.”

 
          
He
looked round. Sudden, sitting on his black, gun drawn, was just behind him.

 
          
“I’ve
come to talk, not fight,” the visitor went on. “What about it?”

 
          
The
foreman propped his rifle against the side of the hut. “Come inside,” he
invited.

 
          
Sudden
slid down, without losing the drop, and followed him into the shack. “Why are
yu sendin’ the boys out?” he asked.

 
          
Lagley
told him. “She’s a good rider, but a hoss can find a hole an’ break a leg.
What’s yore guess?”

 
          
“That
she’s in Hell City.”

 
          
The
foreman looked relieved. “If that’s so, she’ll be all right; Jeff would never
let her come to harm.”

 
          
“That’s
comfortin’,” the puncher said sarcastically, and then, “Steve, I’m goin’ to put
some straight questions an’ I want the same sort o’ answers.
Just
why are yu doublecrossin’ yore boss?”

 
          
The
veins on Lagley’s forehead swelled up, he shut his jaw, and for a moment it
seemed there might be trouble. Then he said angrily, “It’s none o’ yore damned
business.”

 
          
goin
’ to be ,” Sudden replied sternly, and reading the
desperate thought, “Don’t gamble, Steve; yu’ll be outa luck.”

 
          
Lagley
hesitated; this man was his master with a gun, and there was no help within
miles. He made his decision.

 
          
“Because
o’ the way he served young Jeff,” he burst out. “I’m admittin’ the boy was
skittish—what colt that’s worth anythin’ ain’t?—but he never give him a chance.
Whipped him allatime with that sharp tongue o’ his, like he
does all of us, an’ fair drove him to rebel.
I wanta see him an’ Miss
Joan runnin’ this ranch, that’s what. So now yu know.”

 
          
Sudden
nodded. “An’ if another fella was tryin’ to grab it vu wouldn’t help?” he
queried.

 
          
“Anybody but a Keith at the Double K?”
Lagley snorted. ‘I’d
help him into the next world with a slug in his gizzard.”

 
          
“Good.
yu
an’ me haven’t been too friendly—I expect we got
off on the wrong foot—but I’m beginnin’ to like yu a lot better. Now, get ready
for a jar: that masked fella in Hell City is not Jefferson Keith.”

 
          
The
foreman gazed at him, eyes and mouth wide open, and exploded in a guffaw. “Yu
ain’t expectin’ I’ll swaller that, are yu? Me, what’s knowed the boy sence he
was knee-high, an’ made him the good cattleman he is. I wouldn’t reckernize
him, huh? A fine joke that.”

 
          
“Is
it?” the puncher asked. “Well, laugh this one off, too: the Colonel’s hurt was
no accident, he was deliberately shot by the man yu claim is Jeff Keith.”

 
          
“But
Jansen said—”

 
          
“What
he was told to say; the 0I’ Man would not have it knowed.”

 
          
The
derision died out of the foreman’s face. “Jeff would never do that,” he
muttered perplexedly.

 
          
“He
was miles distant from Dugout when it happened.”

 
          
“Where
is Jeff now?”

 
          
“I
ain’t sayin’—yet,” was the reply. “But he ain’t in Hell City,
nor
coverin’ up his face. I came over because I guessed yu
were on the wrong trail. How many Double K men will line up to smoke out that
thieves’ nest?”

 
          
“If
what yu say is true, all of us. That is—”

 
          
“Except Turvey.”

 
          
Lagley
looked uncomfortable. “It’s a fact he’s different,” he confessed. “Kind o’ new,
bin here less’n twelve months.”

 
          
“Wasn’t
it Turvey who suggested yu should get in with Satan?” Sudden asked, and when
the other assented, “I found out that he was in Hell City afore he came to yu.”

 
          
Lagley
swore forcibly.
“He gits his time in the mornin’.”

 
          
“No,
that will tell them too much; we gotta lie low till we’re ready to strike.
Don’t whisper a word to anyone ‘cept Frosty —he’s wise.”

 
          
“I’ll
be dumb as the dead,” the foreman promised, and awkwardly, “Green, I’ve treated
yu mean, that bill ‘bout yu, an’ the frame-up, but honest, I thought I was
helpin’ Jeff. That devil had his tricks o’ speakin’, movin’, an’ remembered
happenin’s when he was a li’l lad that on’y Jeff could ‘a’ knowed. Anyways, I’m
sayin’ to yu that I’m sorry, an’—”

 
          
“Forget
it, Steve, he fooled us all, even Miss Joan,” the puncher said. “Now I’ll fade,
in case any o’ the boys drift in; it won’t do for them to see yu shakin’
han’s
with me.”

 
          
The
foreman did not comprehend at once, but then he saw the proffered fist and took
it eagerly. “Yo’re a good fella, Green,” he said. “Wish I’d found it out
earlier.”

 
          
He
waited until the visitor had disappeared in the dusk and then sat down to
digest the astounding news he had received. Looking back, he could see nothing
which might have raised real doubt. The perpetual mask was typical of one prone
to extremes, and the harsh, insulting manner merely an accentuation of the
father’s caustic habit. One thing he had never been able to explain; why the
regard he felt for the boy he taught to ride and throw a rope should be, akin
to fear in the presence of the man.

 
          
“Steve
Lagley, if any hurt happens to that gal yu’ll deserve to be roasted at a slow
fire,” was his final decision.

 
          
Darkness
came and brought riders but no news. The last to arrive was Frosty, and they
heard the drum of the pounding hooves long before he could be seen.

 
          
“Sounds
like he’s got her,” the foreman said hopefully. “There’s on’y one hoss an’ it
wouldn’t be carryin’ double at that pace,” Lazy objected.

 
          
He
was right, for when the white-headed cowboy shot out of the gloom and reined
in, sending the gravel flying, it was seen that he was alone. Leaping from the
saddle, he thrust a paper at Lagley.

 
          
“Found
it in Coyote Canyon,” he said. “As I read the sign, she was waitin’ there an’ five
riders grabbed an’ took her north.”

 
          
They
perused it in turn. Only Turvey had anything to say.

 
          
“
Skittles !
we’ve
had our trouble
for nothin’. Her lover is gittin’ impatient, an’ when a woman has to choose
between an old man an’ a young ‘un, it’s an easy guess. I’ll bet she went
willin’.”

 
          
“Yo’re
a dirty-minded liar,” Frosty told him. “It was plain enough she tried to git
away.”

 
          
“Yu
an’ yore sign—” Turvey began, but the foreman told him sharply to shut up.
“We can’t do nothin’ more tonight,”
he added. “Git yore
grub
an’ hit the hay. Frosty, I wanta speak with yu.”

 
          
The
two men entered the foreman’s hut. Lagley came to the point at once. “I’ve had
a pow-wow with Green, an’ he shore told me plenty. It seems I’ve bin a fool—an’
worse. Ye see, believin’ like the rest, that young Jeff was behind that red
mask, I was sort o’ backin’ his game, but mebbe yu knew this?”

       
“No, I had my own ideas, but Jim never
let on.”

 
          
“An’
he knew,” Lagley said. “He’s one white man. If yu know where to find him, take
this paper along in the mornin’. What else can we do?”

 
          
“Carry
on as usual till Jim gives the word—it won’t be long a-comin’—after this.” He
tapped the paper, and turned to go.

 
          
“He
shook han’s with me when he went,” Steve said.

 
          
Frosty
understood. In silence their hands met in a grip which wiped out past
misunderstandings. Neither of them saw a furtive shadow, which had been
crouching at the rear of the shack, slink swiftly in the direction of the
bunkhouse.

 
          
Almost
before the sun had made its appearance, Frosty was pounding on the Twin Diamond
ranch-house door. The owner opened it himself.

 
          
“Yu
again?” he greeted. “Why’n hell don’t yu come an’ live here? Yu wouldn’t have
to knock the house down to get in.”

       
“I’m allus forgettin’ yore scrap-heap’s
feeble constitution,” Frosty grinned. “I got news.”

 
          
“If
yu hadn’t I’d do somethin’ to yu,” was the dry reply. “I shore thought them
rapscallions from Hell City was makin’ a massed attack. Awright, fellas, it’s
on’y that quiet, well-behaved young gent frdm the Double K.” This as Sudden and
Jeff hurried in.

 
          
“What’s
the, trouble?” the puncher asked.

 
          
“Yu
were right, Jim, he’s got her,” the cowboy replied. One by one, they read the
missive, Keith last, with shaking fingers and face the colour of chalk.

 
          
“The
swine can even imitate my writing,” he cried. “By Christmas, if he makes her
shed only one tear I’ll have his heart’s blood. What can we do, Jim?”

 
          
Sudden
shook his head. “We can’t move—yet; we’re not strong enough.”

 
          
But
to leave her in the power of that—devil!
if
no one
else will go—”

 
          
“Listen,”
Sudden said sternly. “Here’s how I figure it. The shootin’ at Dugout was done
to pull yu in. The Colonel’s care for his name trumped that trick, so now he’s
baitin’ the trap with the girl. An’ yu want to rush into it. She’ll be safe.
Remember, he believes that, to her, he is still Jeff Keith, an’ I’ll bet she
won’t let him know different.”

 
          
“That’s
the straight of it, boy,” the rancher agreed. “Yo’re the king-pin; if he gets
yu again, we’re done.”