Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (20 page)

 
          
“Me,
walk?” Bundy protested angrily. “You can’t do that.”

 
          
“Not
likely, but yu can,” Sudden grinned. “An’ I hope, for yore sake, we don’t have
to go far.”

 
          
The
prisoner’s fury deprived him of caution. “How’n hell should I know where the
brat—”

 
          
He
stopped, aware that he had been betrayed into a folly. The grim faces of the
three men apprised him that he was in grave peril. An inspiration came.
“Awright, I’ll tell, though I promised not to,” he said. “I met the hobo kid
totin’ that gun, which I figured he’d pinched. He sold it to me for twenty
bucks—told me he was sick to death o’ the West an’ wanted to git to Noo York.
Last I see of him he was makin’ for the Bend.”

 
          
Sudden
stepped forward, snatched out the man’s gun, and examined it; one chamber
contained an empty shell. “I shot at a rattler—an’ missed,” Bundy explained.

 
          
Bleak
eyes bored into his. “Another lie from yu an’ I’ll be shootin’ at one, an’ I
won’t miss,” Sudden rasped. “Climb yore hoss; if we don’t find Yorky, alive an’
well, yu hang.”

 
          
“Say,
Jim, why not string him up now, an’ if the kid’s all right, we can come back
an’ cut him down,” Blister suggested.

 
          
Bundy’s
expression became more uneasy; he knew that the proposal was not
so
jocular as it sounded; there was no mirth in the
speaker’s voice.

 
          
“There
was nothin’ the matter with him when we parted,” he said. “I’m tellin’ you.”

 
          
“What
yu tell us ain’t evidence,” Sudden replied dryly. “Lead on to where yu last saw
him, an’ if yore memory fails yu, pray—hard.”

 
          
Grey-faced,
the prisoner got into his saddle, and Tiny dropped the loop of the lariat over
his shoulders again. He was trapped, and the only hope of saving his skin lay
in finding that accursed boy. For this saturnine, black-haired stranger, who
had thwarted him for the second time, had not the appearance of one to make
idle threats. So he obeyed the order, conscious that, at the least sign of
treachery, the drawn guns behind him would speak. Fifteen minutes later he
halted his horse.

 
          
“It
was somewheres aroun’ here,” he said. “Wanted the way to the Bend, he did, an’
I told him to point for that block o’ pines, an’ keep goin’.”

 
          
They
reached the trees, dark and forbidding in the fading rays of the sun.

 
          
“He
wouldn’t go through,” Sudden decided. “Which way round did yu tell him?”

 
          
“To
the left,” Bundy returned sullenly.

 
          
“We’ll
try the right—
he may not have believed yu neither
.”

 
          
They
circled the little forest, and had gone less than half a mile when the search
ended; at the sight of the boy lying beside the body of his pony, Sudden rapped
out an oath, and the grip on his gun tightened; the Wagon-wheel foreman was
very near to death at that moment. Had not Yorky lifted his head…

 
          
“Jim,”
he cried. “I knowed yer’d come.” His red, swollen eyes rested on Bundy, and
then travelled to the new scabbard hanging on the puncher’s saddle-horn. “Gimme
my gat,” he added hoarsely.

 
          
“Easy,
son,” Sudden replied. “What happened?”

 
          
The
tale was soon told. He had strayed further than he intended, and had the bad
luck to meet Bundy, who chased, roped, and threw him. When he stood up, he was
knocked down again, despoiled of his rifle, and ordered to get out of the
country for good, or he would be shot. “Then he killed pore of Shuteye, the
rotten, cowardly—” The quavering, high-pitched voice trailed off in a venomous
string of epithets to terminate in a spasm of coughing.

 
          
“Yu
didn’t go,” Sudden said.

 
          
“I
started, but when he rid off, I come back—ter my pal.”

 
          
Bundy
saw the faces of his captors grow more and more rigid as the damning recital
proceeded. He must say something, or wish the world good-bye.

 
          
“All
lies,” he said. “I bought an’ paid for his gun, an’ he asked me to finish off
the hors—claimed to be scared the Bend folk might think he’d
stole
it.”

 
          
“Blister,
search the boy, an’ his saddle pockets, an’ see how much coin he has,” the
puncher ordered.

 
          
The
cowboy did the job thoroughly, even making Yorky take off his boots. “One
dollar an’ two bits,” Blister announced, when the operation was completed.

 
          
Sudden
looked at the convicted liar. “Get down,” he said. A turn of the wrist sent the
noose clear of the captive’s head, and the puncher coiled the rope as he walked
towards him, and threw it on the ground.

 
          
“I’ve
met up with some pretty scaly reptiles, but yu top the list, Bundy,” he began
quietly.

 
          
“Yu
know this lad is in pore health, yet yu yank him out’n the saddle, beat him up,
steal his gun, shoot his hoss, an’ turn him loose to tramp to the Bend. Even if
he knowed the way, with night comin’ on, no food an’ no blanket, it was a shore
thing he’d never make it, an’ yu meant he shouldn’t. What yu aimed at was plain
murder. Got anythin’ against him, or was it just because he belongs to the
Circle Dot?”

 
          
The
foreman’s face grew darker. “He’s a dirty little snitch; it was him wised you
up ‘bout the Bend affair, an’ lost me twenty-five thousand bucks,” he growled.
“Ain’t that enough?”

 
          
Sudden
was surprised, but did not show it. Where had Bundy obtained this information?

 
          
Only
he, Dan, Burke, and Yorky knew the inner history of the hold-up; perhaps the boy
himself had boasted. Anyway, that problem could wait; there was a more pressing
one on hand. He replied to the ruffian’s question.

 
          
“Dessay
yu’ve killed for less,” he said acidly, and paused, weighing up the situation.
“I oughta leave yu on a tree, but mebbe yu were a man once, an’ yu shall have a
chance to die like one.” He threw Bundy’s gun on the grass. “If yu get me, yu
go free. Pick her up.”

 
          
“An’
be downed while I’m stoopin’,” the other jeered.

 
          
“I
won’t draw till yo’re all set,” Sudden said contemptuously.

 
          
The
promise—which he did not doubt—made the Wagon-wheel man think. To offer such a
great advantage, his opponent must be infernally fast or a
fool,
and Bundy had good reason to know that he was not the latter. His confidence in
his own prowess was shaken. Another thought came, a desperate expedient; if he
could kill Green, he did not fear his companions—they would be taken by
surprise and unable to act immediately.

 
          
He
bent quickly, grasped the gun and, instead of rising, tilted the muzzle upwards
and pulled the trigger. Even as he did so, Sudden—watching for some such act of
treachery—drew and fired. Bundy’s shot missed by a bare inch, and before he
could repeat the attempt his weapon was driven from his grip by the puncher’s
bullet. He clawed for it with his other hand, but Sudden sprang in, kicked it
away, and sheathing his own gun, cried:

 
          
“Stand
up, yu yella dawg, an’ take what’s comin’ to
yu.
”

 
          
Bundy
was ready enough; he knew that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would instantly
have driven a bullet through him after the failure of his dastardly trick; he
had been lucky to meet the hundredth; but with the passing of the shadow of
death, his hatred of the man who had spared him increased. Truly, with some
natures, a favour from a foe is a bitter pill to swallow.

 
          
Bandy
had one more remark to make.
“Them friends o’ yourn keepin’
outa this?”

 
          
“They
won’t be my friends if they interfere,” Sudden said.

 
          
“Good
enough,” the foreman replied. His confidence in himself was returning. He had a
well-earned reputation as an exponent of the rough and tumble frontier method
of settling quarrels. “I’ve bin waitin’ to put my paws on you for an
interferin’ houn’.”

 
          
“Yu
couldn’t find me, o’ course,” Sudden sneered. “I bide my time. I got the kid,
an’ yo’re here.”

 
          
“Well,
what are yu waitin’ for, the dark, so that yu can run away again?”

 
          
The
taunt got through the foreman’s hide, tough as it was. “No,” he bellowed. “Here
I come,” and rushed in with fists flying.

 
          
“An’
there yu go,” Sudden retorted, as he drove a lightning left to the face which
sent the man reeling.

 
          
He
staggered to his feet and fought back with blind fury, reckless of the hurt he
received, driven by an insensate desire to get his enemy by the throat and
slowly squeeze the life out of him. But he had little chance against one who
used his head as well as hands; straight jolts to the jaw and body met his wild
rushes, and battered down his feeble defence. Opposed to that scientific
hammering, his savage lunges were of no avail.

 
          
Once
only a swinging fist got past the Circle Dot man’s guard, and floored him. But
he was up instantly, and when Bundy, with a shout of exultation, dashed in, he
was met with a tempest of blows which drove him back, foot by foot, until, with
every bone in his body aching, and both eyes nearly closed, he dropped his
arms. Only for a second, but like a flash, Sudden’s right came over and sent
him, spent and apparently helpless, to the ground. There he lay, breathing
heavily, and making no effort to rise.

 
          
“I
reckon he’s through,” Tiny remarked. All of them had watched the combat in
silence.

 
          
“There
ain’t a kick left in him.”

 
          
Tiny
was wrong; no sooner had he voiced the thought than Bundy’s head lifted.

 
          
“Yo’re
a damn liar,” he mumbled through puffed lips. “I’m goin’ to show you.”

 
          
Incredible
as it seemed, after the punishment he had taken, he heaved himself upright,
shook as a dog might after rolling, and stood, long arms swinging. Then he bent
and plunged forward. Sudden waited, wondering; there could be no more fight in
the fellow, and yet … The menacing figure was on him, fists raised, before he
realized the fell design—he had but a second to act; the ruffian’s right foot
was sweeping up to deliver a savage kick in the stomach which might kill, or
disable a man for life. Quick as thought, Sudden jumped aside, seized the
ascending limb behind the ankle and forced it upwards. The foreman, thrown
completely off his balance, struck the ground violently with the back of his
head; this time, there was no movement.

 
          
The
victor cold, inscrutable, stood over him.

 
          
“Ain’t
bruk his neck, have you, Jim?” Tiny asked.

 
          
“No,
that still remains for a rope,” Sudden replied. “Put Yorky’s saddle an’ bridle
on this brute’s hoss.”

 
          
Bundy
heard the order, and had sufficient life left in him to understand what it
meant.

 
          
“You
settin’ me afoot—after this?” he snarled.

 
          
“Yo’re
gettin’ a taste o’ what yu cooked up for the boy, an’ lucky at that—we oughta
be plantin’ yu.”

 
          
The
foreman knew it, and said no more. Not until they had melted into the growing
dusk did he struggle, with many groans and curses, to his feet, and, carrying
his riding-gear, set out on the nightmare journey to the Wagon-wheel. For to
one who spent nearly the whole of his waking hours in the saddle, and whose
body was one big bruise, the long march over rough ground could only be
unspeakable torture.