Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (8 page)

 
          
With
obvious reluctance, Yorky climbed clumsily to the saddle; Sudden adjusted the
heavy wooden stirrups so that the rider was almost standing in them, and gave
him the reins.

 
          
Shuteye
swung his head round, discovered that this new burden did not hurt, and again
relapsed into apathy. The rest of the cowboys cheered and proffered advice.

 
          
“If
you wanta git off quick, Yorky, don’t slide over his tail or he’ll h’ist you
into kingdom come,” was Blister’s contribution.

 
          
“Keep
him awake,” Tiny urged. “He snores awful.”

 
          
“Talks
in his sleep too,” added another. “He’s wuss’n Noisy for chatterin’.”

 
          
The
boy patted the neck of his now docile mount. “He can’t answer,” he grinned. “He
dunno
how ter bray.”

 
          
Amid
the laughter the retort evoked, Sudden stepped into his saddle and the
incongruous couple set out, the boy bumping awkwardly up and down.

 
          
“Hold
the reins short, an’ shove yore feet well into the stirrups to take yore
weight—yu don’t need to ride like a sack o’ meal,” his tutor advised.

 
          
Moving
at little more than a walk, they covered somc three miles of plain, and reached
a patch of pines. Sudden dismounted, trailed his reins, and told the boy to do
the same. “He won’t stray then,” he pointed out. “Reckon this’ll be far enough
to begin with, time yu get back. But first, yu gotta rest.”

 
          
Lying
on the soft, springy bed of pine-needles, Yorky gagged and choked as he drew in
the odourful air. “Hell, this’ll kill me,” he gasped.

 
          
“No,
cure yu,” the puncher assured. “A dose o’ this every day’ll heal them lungs o’
yores, but its strong medicine, an’ you have to get accustomed; it’s the breath
o’ the pines.”

 
          
“I
ain’t
no
sucker—trees don’t breath.”

 
          
“Every
livin’ thing
breathes,
trees an’ plants too, an’ when
they’re crowded, the weaker ones pass out for want of air,” Sudden explained.

 
          
He
rolled himself a cigarette and held out the “makings.” Yorky’s eyes gleamed,
but he shook his head.

 
          
“I’m
layin’
off smokin’ fer a bit,” he said.

 
          
“Good
notion,” Sudden agreed. “Give the clean air a chance.” He pondered for a
mement.

 
          
“Did
Flint have anythin’ against yu?”

 
          
“He
was sore ‘
cause
I cleaned him at poker. Say, you
sports don’t know nuttin’ ‘bout cyards. I was playin’ th’ game fer real money
when I was a
kid,
an’ I c’n make ‘em talk.”

 
          
“Was
that all?”

 
          
The
boy hesitated. “Yep,” he replied.

 
          
The
puncher knew it was a lie, but he was of those patient people who can wait. He
pinched out his cigarette and got up. “I have to be movin’,” he said. “Stick
around here for a while—no sense in gettin’ saddle-sore.”

 
          
With
envious eyes Yorky watched the fine black lope away and vanish into the depths
of a deep arroyo. “He’s a reg’lar guy,” he muttered. “Mebbe I’d oughter told
him.”

 
          
Sudden’s
mind too was upon his late companion, this pitiful product from the stews of a
great city, pitchforked by circumstance into surroundings utterly at variance
with all he had known, and where his handicap of ill-health told most heavily.

 
          
“Some
folks
is
born to trouble, Nig,” he mused. “Others,
like you an’ me, go huntin’ it.

 
          
An’
we’ve shorely found some, spelt with a big T, if I’m any judge, an’ I oughta
be.” A saturnine smile broke the line of his lips as he recalled the events of
the last forty-eight hours, and he lifted his shoulders. “Fate deals the cards,
an’ a fella has to play ‘em, win or lose.”

 
          
Emerging
from the arroyo, he crossed a stretch of plain and came to a double row of
willows between which a clear stream moved unhurriedly. This must be the source
of the dispute. It seemed a peaceful thing to war over, but the puncher was
well aware of the value of water to a cattleman. Half a mile away on the other
side, the land rose abruptly in a ragged ridge of rock running parallel with
the creek. Groups of cows were grazing there; he was about to go over and
investigate the brands when Dover rode up.

 
          
“Lost
Yorky?” he asked.

 
          
“No,
left him bedded down among the pines,” Sudden smiled.

 
          
“You
must be a magician. After that one trip to town, even Dad couldn’t get him a
hundred yards from the house.”

 
          
“He’s
never had a break,” Sudden said, and pointed to the ridge.
“Yore
boundary?”

 
          
“Yeah,
this is the strip Garstone was speakin’ of, but that wouldn’t satisfy ‘em. The
Trentons is rotten right through, an’ I’ll never trust nor help one of ‘em. As
for that prinked-up Easterner—” He spat disgustedly.

 
          
“Garstone
will need watchin’, he got all the points of a rattlesnake bar the good
one—he’ll strike without warnin’,” was Sudden’s opinion.

 
          
They
rode along beside the creek, silent, the rancher studying this man of whom he
knew nothing save that he could shoot like a master, used the saddle and long
stirrup of the Californian “buckaroo,” but spoke with the slow drawl of the
South. Western etiquette forbade a question, but there was no need.

 
          
“Tryin’
to figure me, Dan?” Sudden asked, with a dry smile, and when the quick flush
told he had hit the mark, added, “Shucks!
yu
have a
right to know.”

 
          
He
spoke of a dying man, who, with his last breath, bequeathed a legacy of
vengeance upon two scoundrels who had wronged him sorely, and of his own
promise to pay the debt.

 
          
“That’s
why, like the creek there, I’m allus on the move,” he said. “I ain’t struck
their trail yet, but I shall—one day.”

 
          
How
that day did indeed come has been told elsewhere. Dover looked at the set face
of the speaker; measured by time, he was not so many years older than himself,
but in experience, twice his age. The similarity of their cases bred a feeling
of brotherhood in his breast; he too had a score to settle. Impulsively he
thrust out a hand, which was gripped in silence.

 
          
“Makin’
for anywhere in particular, Jim?”

 
          
“Figurin’
to have another look at the ravine—mebbe I missed somethin’.”

 
          
“Then
we part here,” Dan said. “
yore
line bears to the
right.”

 
          
Sudden
had not gone far when a faint call of “Help!” reached him. It appeared to come
from the vicinity of the creek and, swinging his horse round, he rode in that
direction. A repetition of the cry served as a further guide, and in a few
moments he was again beside the stream, at a point where, after passing over a
miniature’ Niagara, it widened out into a largish pool. The sight which greeted
him was a singular one: a pale-faced girl, who appeared to be sitting in the
water,
and by her side a young man standing in it. The
latter was Dover.

 
          
“Hey,
Jim, don’t come in,” he warned. “Will yore rope reach this far?”

 
          
“Yeah,
but it’ll mean a rough passage for the lady.”

 
          
“Can’t
be helped—it’s our on’y chance. This damn quicksand has got us good.”

 
          
Sudden
leapt from his horse, walked to the water’s edge.
and
swung his lariat. Carelessly as the rope seemed to be thrown, the loop dropped
neatly over the girl’s head. “Fix it under her arm-pits,” he directed, and when
this had been done, began to haul in swiftly. With a splash the girl struck the
water, and in a brief space reached the bank, a limp, bedraggled specimen of
humanity. The puncher helped her to stand up and removed the rope.—,

 
          
“Ain’t
no way to treat a lady, but I had to work fast,” he apologized.

 
          
She
fought for breath to answer, but failed to find it; this man who could throw an
eight-hundred-pound steer had yanked her across the strip of shining water at
incredible speed, and to her great discomfort. Sudden was not waiting for
thanks.

 
          
“Hi,
cowboy, need a hand?” he called out.

 
          
The
leverage the empty saddle gave him had enabled Dan to free his feet from the
clutching sand, and he was now astride the horse, only the head of which was
visible.

 
          
“I
can swim back,” he replied.

 
          
By
this time the girl had regained her breath. “Must I lose my pony?” she asked
wistfully.

 
          
“A
sideways pull would break his legs,” Sudden pointed out. A big cottonwood, one
huge branch of which jutted out over the water, suggested something. “It’s a
chance,” he said, and to Dover, who was preparing to plunge in, “Hold on a
minute.”

 
          
He
sent his rope hurtling out again, and following his instructions, Dover
contrived to pass it under the pony’s belly and tie it securely. Then he
slipped into the stream and came ashore. In the meantime, Sudden had attached
Dan’s rope to his own.

 
          
“What’s
the idea?” the young man asked, as he emerged and shook himself like a wet dog.
“That bronc is meat for the fishes.”

 
          
“I’m
one o’ them obstinate folk an’ need convincin’,” was the reply.

 
          
Swinging
himself into the cottonwood, he crawled along the great limb, passed the end of
the joined lariats through a fork, and returned to the ground. The head of the
pony was now almost submerged, and conscious of impending doom it uttered a
shrill cry of fear.

 
          
“Awright,
of fella, we’re doin’ our best,” Sudden said, as he fastened the loose end of
the ropes to the saddle-horn of his own mount. “This’ll give us an almost
straight lift, an’ if the pore beggar’s still got a kick in him, it may serve,”
he explained. “Steady, boy.”

 
          
This
to the black, which, with braced limbs, leant forward until the rope was at
full stretch. The two men, intent on the operation, took no notice of the girl,
but she too was watching anxiously. At a word from his master, Nigger advanced
a pace, the muscles bunching beneath the satiny skin; the rope became taut as a
bow-string, but apparently without effect. Asecond pace, another scream from
the drowning animal, and Sudden chuckled.

 
          
“He’s
loosenin’, ‘less we’ve pulled his legs off,” he said. “I can see the horn o’
the saddle.”

 
          
It
was true; as the big horse slowly advanced, the smaller beast at the other end
of the rope was raised clear of the quicksand to hang suspended, twisting in
the air, and obviously beside itself with fright.

 
          
“Well,
we got him, an’ we ain’t,” Dan remarked quizzically. “What’s the next move?”

 
          
“Drop
him back in the water, an’ yell,” Sudden replied. “He won’t stay to get mired
again, an’ he’s carryin’ no weight.” The rope was released and a piercing
cowboy call rent the air; that, and the feel of the water sent the rescued
beast scrambling frantically for solid ground, on reaching which it stood
still, shivering and dejected. The lariat and saddle
removed,
however, it proceeded to roll contentedly in the grass, apparently little the
worse.