Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (14 page)

 
          
“What’s
doin’, Rat? Want any help?”

 
          
“No,”
Sudden gritted, and sent a slug crashing through the glass.

 
          
He
heard the front door slam, and the same voice asked: “You got it?”

 
          
“Yeah,
in the shoulder—that cursed gun-wizard showed up. C’mon, beat it.”

 
          
A
scuffle of hurrying hooves told the rest.

 
          
The
puncher returned to the kitchen to find that the injured man had recovered his
wits and was sitting up tenderly feeling a large bump on the back of his head.

 
          
“Glory
be, an’ phwat’s happenin’ this noight,” he wanted to know.

 
          
“S’pose
yu tell me,” Sudden suggested.

 
          
“An’
that won’t take long,” Paddy replied. “I’m settin’ in me chair, an’ hears
someone come in by the front dure. I
thinks
it’s
yerself an’ stan’s up to welcome ye. An’ thin, the roof falls on me.”

 
          
The
festivities at Rainbow were in full swing by the time the Circle Dot contingent
arrived and had deposited hats, spurs, and guns. Desks had been removed from
the floor, forms arranged against the walls, thus leaving space for the
dancers. At one end of the room, a pianist and a fiddler—loaned from Sody’s
saloon—struggled for the lead in a polka, and bets were laid as to which would
win. Trenton, his harsh countenance contorted in what he would have called a
smile, had presented his niece to the more important of the townsfolk, and she
was now dancing with Malachi. Her glance rested on Dover as the rancher and his
men entered, but she at once looked away. The doctor danced well, and had taken
the trouble to improve his appearance. But he was his usual flippant self.

 
          
“I
will wager a waltz that I can guess your thoughts,” he said: “Is it a bet?”

 
          
“Why,
yes,” she smiled.

 
          
“You
are wondering what I am doing out here in the wilds.” The girl flushed. “You
win,” she said. “Now tell me.”

 
          
“I
might answer with your own question,” he parried. “Mister Trenton is my sole
remaining relative.”

 
          
“Tough
luck,” he murmured, and noting the tiny crease between her level brows, “I
mean, of course, being reduced to one. Now I had too many relations, and they
all had ideas as to what I should do with my life, so I ran away.”

 
          
“But
why choose such a—sordid place?”

 
          
“Sordid?
Well, I suppose to Eastern eyes it would seem so; a wit once said that Rainbow
started with a saloon to supply the necessaries of life, and the store came
later to provide the luxuries. But have you reflected that this same sordid
settlement may one day become a great city, of which—as an early inhabitant—I
may be regarded as a foundation stone?”

 
          
“Now
you are laughing at me,” she protested.

 
          
“No,
I’m serious. Ìmperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, may stop a hole to keep
the rats away.’ At present, I’m only stopping the holes these foolish people
make in one another.

 
          
Which reminds me, you must see our cemetery—it is really pretty.
”

 
          
“You
would naturally be interested in it,” she replied, paying him in his own coin
of raillery.

 
          
“Very
little,” he smiled. “Most of those within it required no aid from my profession
to enter the other world. Ah, the fiddle has beaten the piano by a whole bar.
Hello, Dan, you’ve met Miss Trenton?”

 
          
The
young rancher, by whose side they had stopped, looked into the girl’s cool,
unsmiling eyes, and said, “No.”

 
          
“Well,
you have now,” Malachi replied. “Ask her prettily and perhaps she’ll dance with
you.”

 
          
He
left them, and Dan’s gaze travelled over the slender, simply but perfectly-clad
figure.

 
          
“Will
you?” he queried.

 
          
She
made
a pretence
of consulting her card. “I have no
vacancy,” she said icily. “Besides, only a skunk can dance with a skunk.”

 
          
Dan’s
mouth hardened; it had been an effort to ask, and the scornful reminder of his
rudeness made him reckless. His eyes swept the room, noting that many
Wagon-wheel riders were present.

 
          
“You
shore fetched along plenty partners,” he flung back, and turned away.

 
          
Garstone
found her red and angry. “I don’t like that young man,” she told him.

 
          
“That’s
something else we have in common,” he said. “I hate the sight of him.”

 
          
He
slid a possessive arm about her and steered into the throng. He was easily the
best-dressed and most striking man in the company, and in spite of his bigness,
light on his feet.

 
          
Dan,
watching with narrowed eyes, was conscious that they made a perfect pair. He
was also painfully aware that everyone else seemed to be having a good time. As
usual, on these occasions, males predominated, but this did not trouble the
cowboys, for when ladies were lacking, they just grabbed another of their kind
and jigged about, exchanging quaint expletives when a collision occurred.
Blister and Slow—the late fracas now only
a matter for
mirth—were
performing together, and a fragment of their conversation
reached him. Blister was the gentleman.

 
          
“Never
seen you lookin’ so peart, pardner,” he complimented in dulcet tones. “You bin
washin’, or somethin’?”

 
          
“Yeah,
y’oughta try
it,” the “lady” instantly retorted.

 
          
“You’d
dance well too, if you knowed what to do with yore feet,” Blister went on.

 
          
“I’ll
shore know what to do with one if you trample on ‘em any more,” was the
spirited response.

 
          
At
any other time this, and the sight of Tiny, carefully convoying the
school-mistress—an austere-faced lady of uncertain age—and holding her bony
form as though it were a piece of delicate china, would have moved him to
merriment, but now…

 
          
“Might
be goin’ to his own funeral,” he muttered. “Hell, I’ll get me a drink.”

 
          
Again
he met with disappointment; he ran-into Maitland - and had to be introduced to
the banker’s wife—a colourless little woman with a tired face. Then he found
himself dancing with the daughter.

 
          
“When
we came here, I didn’t think I was going to like it,” she confided, “but I am.
The cowboys are so picturesque, and I’m longing to see a ranch.”

 
          
“You’d
be disappointed,” he told her. “Just a lot o’ land, with some cows sprinkled
around.”

 
          
The
expected invitation not having materialized, she changed the subject. “Isn’t
Miss Trenton charming—quite the prettiest girl here, but perhaps you don’t care
for brunettes?”

 
          
“If
a fella likes a woman I reckon the
colour of her hair don’t
matter,” he fenced.

 
          
“See,
she’s dancing with that sick-looking boy; she must be real kind.”

 
          
Miss
Maitland was right, and wrong. Beth, anxious to humiliate the man who had again
been rude to her, had hit upon a means; the honour he had solicited should be
conferred upon the least important of his outfit. Yorky, feeling rather unsure
of himself, despite his contempt for the “hayseeds,” suddenly found the belle
of the evening sitting by and looking kindly at him.

 
          
“You
must be the boy Doctor Malachi was telling me about,” she said. “Like
myself
, you come from the East.”

 
          
“Yes’m,
li’l ol’ Noo York,” he stammered, and added, “Allus sump’n doin’ there.”

 
          
“Far
too much doing,” she smiled.
“Unending noise and hustle,
never any rest.
I didn’t like it.”

 
          
This
was another blow to the boy’s faith in “li’l ol’ Noo York.”

 
          
“Jim
don’t
neither,” he admitted.

 
          
“And
who is Jim?”

 
          
“He’s
my pal,” Yorky said proudly. “I useter loaf aroun’ the house all th’ time, but
Jim sez, ‘Quit smokin’, go a-ridin’ an’ git th’ breath o’ th’ pines.’ So I done
it, an’ I’m better a’ready.”

 
          
“The
breath of the pines,” she repeated. “Your friend must be something of a poet.”

 
          
“Not
on yer life,” the boy defended.
“Nuttin’ slushy ‘bout Jim.
Gee!
y’oughter
see him stripped—I mean, he’s—”

 
          
“A
finely-made man,” she helped him out. “You must tell me about him, and
yourself, while we dance. You do dance, don’t you?”

 
          
“I
c’n shake a leg,” he said; and conscious that he had omitted something, “but I
dasn’t ask—”

 
          
“Nonsense,”
she smiled. “I am going to enjoy it.”

 
          
And
enjoy it she did, for her partner had the gamin’sinstinct for rhythm in his
toes. Thus she learned how Old Man Dover had brought the boy to the ranch, and
how he had hated it until a black-haired hero had come to change his outlook
entirely. She was told about Flint, and what “fine guys” the boys were.

 
          
“And
Mister Dan, is he a fine guy too?” she asked.

 
          
“Shore
he is, white clean t’rough,” Yorky said loyally.

 
          
Miss
Trenton stole a glance at the rancher as he passed, and failed to experience
the exultation she had expected. When the music ceased, she dismissed her
partner with a gracious word of thanks. Garstone stepped to her side.

 
          
“Why
on earth were you dancing with that tramp?” he asked.

 
          
There
was a warning flash in the dark eyes. “I believe it is a lady’s privilege to
select her partner.”

 
          
“Of
course, but if you must take one of the opposite camp, surely it need not be
the stable-boy.”

 
          
“The
stable-boy behaved like a gentleman,” she said coldly. “No, I am tired, and
wish to rest a little. Miss Maitland is looking appealingly in this direction;
I am sure she will oblige.”

 
          
“That’s
a good suggestion—we have to keep in with the fellow who holds the
purse-strings,” the big man laughed, but there was a frown on his face when he
had turned away.

 
          
Meanwhile,
Yorky’s sharp eyes had noticed something, and he disappeared to investigate. He
returned during the next interval, and got Dan’s attention.

 
          
“Say,
Boss,” he whispered. “Five or six o’
th
’ Wagon-wheel
fellers, includin’ Flint, has beaten it.”

 
          
“Gone
to Sody’s to tank up,” Dan suggested.

 
          
“They
ain’t—I’ve bin ter see. Their hosses is missin’ too,” the boy replied. “Man I
asked said he hadn’t seen Flint since soon after the second hop.”–