Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) (45 page)

 
          
“Yu
don’t have to say a word, Ken,” Merry assured him. “We’re mighty glad to be
able to see yu a-tall. How’re yu makin’ it?”

 
          
The
Colonel replied that he was progressing favourably, and asked for details of
the strange happenings of which he had been given only an outline. He listened
as each added his quota to the tale, but his gaze was on the door. Presently it
opened,
Jeff stepped in, and stood, waiting. Instantly
the deep-sunk eyes in the sick man’s gaunt face became obdurate, relentless.

 
          
“What
do you here?” he asked harshly. “Have you come slinking back to see if there is
still a hope of regaining the inheritance you threw away?”

 
          
The
thunderstruck company saw the boy’s face turn as white as that of the man who
hurled this cruel question at him, but there was no anger in it.

 
          
“No,
sir, I came to beg a father’s forgiveness and nothing -more,” he answered
quietly.

 
          
“Very
touching, but a lie,” was the searing retort. “I happen to know that, in case I
decline to be duped, you have provided yourself with a second chance by
persuading this foolish girl that you care for her.”

 
          
“Oh,
Daddy Ken,” the “foolish girl” murmured, and hid her shamed face.

 
          
Merry
stood up. “Ken Keith, yo’re my friend, but if yu wasn’t crippled, I’d shake the
eternal lights out’n yu. Of all the—”

 
          
The
Colonel did not let him finish. “Attend to your own affairs, Mart, and allow me
to deal with mine,” he snapped. “As for you Joan, if you marry that fellow, you
go to him empty-handed. That makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

 
          
The
girl’s wet eyes met his steadily. “No,” she replied.

 
          
“Joan
is more to me than all the ranches in Arizona,” young Keith said. “I have
learned my lesson, sir, and I’m sorry you—feel this way.”

 
          
He
was turning to leave when Merry spoke again: “Hold yore hosses, I’m comin’
along. We’ll go to the Twin Diamond, an’—” He stopped, and the belligerent look
faded when he saw the change in the Colonel’s face; the sternness had gone, and
with a smile which was like the sun bursting through a cloud, the old man said:

 
          
“Would
you rob me of my boy, Mart?”

 
          
The
fat man stared open-mouthed, but Jeff understood. With a bound he was at the
bedside, gripping the thin white hand waiting for him.

 
          
“Dad!”
he cried.

 
          
“Forgive
me, lad,” Kenneth Keith said. “I had to try you —for Joan’s sake; I couldn’t
trust her to a weakling.” Taking the girl’s hand, he placed it in that of his
son. “There must always be a Keith at the Double K, Jeff.”

 
          
“I
hope there will be, sir,” the young man replied, with a look which brought the
blood back into Joan’s cheeks.

 
          
By
this time Merry had recovered. “Well, yu of fraud, I’m free to admit yu had me
razzle-dazzled,” he remarked. “Shore thought yu meant it, an’ I ‘most wish yu
had; I was figurin’ on gettin’ me a son an’ daughter at the ranch-house.” He
sensed the significance of Frosty’s grin. “O’ course, she’d want repairin’
some.”

 
          
“All
she needs is new floors, walls, roof, an’ fixin’s,” the white-headed cowboy
suggested. “The ground’s good.”

 
          
This
produced a laugh in which the owner of the maligned edifice joined heartily.
Then the Colonel spoke.

 
          
“My
friends, I owe a great debt to all of you, but especially to James Green, whom
I woefully misjudged.”

 
          
The
Twin Diamond man could not resist the opportunity. “I put one over on yu there,
Ken; said all along he was straight.”

 
          
The
Colonel turned on him sharply, and—smiled. “That is so,” he agreed, and
Mart—who had expected a prompt contradiction—was sorry he had spoken. Then,
divining Sudden’s evident discomfort, the invalid went on, “We must have a long
talk, Green, when I am stronger. Now, I see my nurse is looking severe …”

 
          
Jeff
lingered behind the others. “Dad, you’re being very good to me,” he said.

 
          
“Nonsense,
son,” was the reply. “When a man is ill, he has time to think, and I have found
much to regret. Run along and entertain our guests.”

 
          
Later,
Sudden encountered Lazy and enquired about Anita.

 
          
“She’s
here, goin’ to be Miss Joan’s maid—for a spell,” the cowboy told him, and
reddened at the
other’s
, “Good luck to yu.”

       
Staring after the tall, loose-limbed
figure as it swung towards the corral, he muttered, “How’n th’ devil did he
guess? Hope he ain’t interested—I wouldn’t have a chance.”

 
          
The
sheriff of Red Rock shouted a welcome as “Mart Merry’s visitor” stepped into
his office some weeks after the effacement of Hell City. Then he looked out of
the window and saw that the black had a blanket roll strapped to the saddle.

 
          
“Ain’t
leavin’ us, are you, Jim?” he asked.

 
          
“Shore
am, an’ sorry to be,” the puncher told him. “They let you go?”

 
          
“It
warn’t easy; the Colonel an’ Mart made me han’some offers, Jeff an’ Frosty damn
near pulled guns on me, an’ Miss Joan cried, which was wuss’n all.”

 
          
“Then
why in the nation …?”

 
          
“Somebody’s
waitin’ for me in Tucson.”

 
          
Dealtry
thought he understood. “An’ she’ll be anxious, huh?”

 
          
Sudden
grinned. “
Yo’re way
off the trail, sheriff. The person
waitin’ for me is a shortish, middle-aged fella, with grey hair an’ a
persuasive manner. They call him `
Bloke,’
an’ he can
be—times.”

 
          
“The Governor?”

 
          
“Yeah,
an’ he’ll be wonderin’ if he oughta send a wreath.”

 
          
“So
you’re from him? You kept it mighty close.”

 
          
“I’m
the third.” He told the fate of his predecessors. “I expect they talked too
much.”

 
          
The
sheriff breathed hard. “An’ we thought he was doin
‘ nothin’
,”
he said. “I’ll bet he’ll be pleased with you.”

 
          
“Just
a shake an’ a `Well done, Jim,’ but I reckon them’s the best words a man can
hear in this li’l of world.”

 
          
Dealtry
reached into a drawer, produced and passed over a familiar folded paper. “Found
it on Lander. Mean anythin’ to you?”

 
          
Sudden
laughed. “Shore, it’s my letter of introduction to Hell City.
A long story, sheriff.”

 
          
“I
never was curious,” the officer replied.

 
          
He
got out a bottle and they drank together, solemnly, as men do when they have to
part, and regret it. Their farewell was a mere hand-clasp and a “So long”—it
was an undemonstrative land.

 
          
Standing
in his doorway, Dealtry watched the black horse pace slowly along the street.
When, at length, it disappeared in the distance, he said softly:

 
          
“Well
done, Jim.”

 
          
The
End