Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) (3 page)

‘
Any message you want us to take to our boss, Tate?’ jeered the
leader, amid the guffaws of his cronies.

‘
You—can—go-·plumb—to-hell!’ croaked the old man. The man
reacted with a curse and swung his arm back to slap the horse
across its haunches. His hand never completed its downward
movement, for in that split second a shot rang out which spun him
backwards on to the ground, cursing and clutching a shattered arm.
The other three whirled in the direction from which the shot had
come, hands flashing towards their holsters.

‘
Don’t even think it,’ was the icy warning, and one look at the
slit-eyed stranger holding the still-smoking six-shooter was enough
to make them jerk their hands away from their weapons as if they
had suddenly become red hot. They were three to one, but they were
all well aware that a bullet travels faster than the hand of the
greatest gunman, and this black-haired intruder had the look of a
man who would shoot first and ask questions later. Green accepted
their obedience as a matter of course.

‘
First, shuck yore gun belts.
Pronto
!’ He emphasized
the order with a gesture of the six-shooter, and the three men
complied rapidly. Green thereupon directed one of them. to unbuckle
and throw to one side the gun belt of their wounded leader, who was
now sitting upright, nursing his wounded arm and cursing in a
steady monotone. In a moment, still keeping the unwholesome quartet
covered, Green had stepped beside Tate and with a quick slash of
his knife freed the old man’s hands. Tate slid easily out of the
saddle and dipped a pistol from one of the discarded belts. Then he
backed over beside Green.

Meanwhile, the big man had staggered to his feet. His face
was white with pain, but he faced his captors without fear. To
Green, he said, ‘Mister, yo’re new in these parts, an’ maybe you
don’t know what yo’re gettin’ involved in. Take my tip—move on, or
you’ll regret it till the day you die. Which will be very
soon.’

Green
grinned mirthlessly. ‘You shore are long on threatenin’ folk,’ he
murmured. ‘Anyone’d think you had some kinda ace-in-
the-hole.’

‘
Yo’re damned right.’ snarled the leader, raising his voice.
‘Let him have it, Ray!’

Green
did not move a muscle, although the captives flinched in
anticipation of the shot from the house which never
came.

‘
Ray can’t let me have it,’ grinned the cowboy. I took it off
him.’ Seeing the look of consternation on his prisoner’s face,
Green went on,. ‘Yo’re a bushwhacker shy. Ray’s lyin’ down on the
job.’ He paused to let his double meaning sink in, and then the
bantering tone had left his voice when he spoke again. ‘Now’—the
voice was flat and menacing as the hiss of a cobra—‘who are you,
mister man, an’ who sent you?’ The wounded bandit sneered, and then
invited Green to perform a long and rapid journey in obscene
language.

‘
Tut, tut!’ interposed George Tate, stepping forward. ‘You
mustn’t say things like that, or somebody’ll shore ’nough do this
to you!’ “This” was a wicked swinging uppercut delivered with all
the force in Tate’s wiry frame and backed by his pent-up feelings.
It lifted the big man back on his heels and sent him reeling
backwards into the arms of his comrades. Tate blew thoughtfully
upon his skinned knuckles. With a wry grin he turned to Green and
said, ‘Sorry, Jim. But I shore figgered I owed him that
one.’

‘
One day you’ll pay for that,’ spat the leader of the gang. ‘In
spades.’

‘
One more yap outa you an’ we’ll be employin’
some spades to pat you in the face with,’ Green told him.
‘From
above
.’ He
faced the cowering group squarely, and addressed them collectively.
‘Just so you won’t think I’m foolin’—watch!’

The
sound of his gun was like rolling thunder. The awed watchers saw a
half-stomped tin can picked up by the first bullet, smashed by the
second a further fifty yards, thrown at an angle by the third, and
carried off over the corral fence by a fourth. None of them had
been able to detect any interval between the shots, nor had this
saturnine cowboy apparently troubled to aim his pistol. Wreathed in
smoke, Green stepped a pace forward. ‘Now you know I can hit what I
shoot at, I’m tellin’ you: I’m countin’ to three. At three, you all
lose yore left toes.’ The bandits looked at each other in
consternation. This loose-lounging figure surely meant every word
he said; there was no hint of humor in the clamped jaws and
mirthless lips. Green began counting.

‘
One.’

One of
the outlaws whispered urgently to the leader.

‘
Two.’

The
leader shook his head. The others joined in. Their conversation was
plainly audible now as they forgot their need for secrecy in the
face of Green’s count.

The
leader lurched forward. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘
First, yore name.’

‘
Pardoe. Bull Pardoe. Much good it’ll do you to know. Yo’re a
dead man, mister. I’ll tell you anythin’ you want to know, because
tomorrow you’ll be dead meat for the buzzards. I’m Bull Pardoe.
These others are my men. We call ourselves The Shadows.’

‘
Sidewinders’d be a better name, I’d say,’ Green told him
coldly. ‘I’m not interested in yore label, Pardoe. Who sent
you?’

‘
Nobody sent us. We don’t run anyone’s errands, an’ we don’t
need to.’

‘
You expect me to believe that?’ snapped Tate. ‘Why you lyin’
scum, I know yo’re Barclay’s hired guns, so why bother to deny
it?’

‘
Barclay don’t own us, mister,’ was the vicious reply. ‘Nobody
owns us.’

‘
I can see where nobody would want to,’ observed Green dryly,
‘but me, I wouldn’t believe you if you told me it was goin’ to snow
next winter.’

‘
Then don’t ask yore smart questions, stranger. Save yore
breath, because when yo’re dyin’ you’ll need it.’

Green
regarded the big man thoughtfully for a moment. He nodded, as if
coming to some decision. A quick word with George Tate sent that
worthy hurrying up to the ranch house, and in a few moments he
reappeared, this time with Cookie, prodding the still-groggy Ray
with that worthy’s own six- shooter. ‘Git on, you sidewinder,’ the
cook was snapping, ‘an’ don’t keep all yore sidewinder buddies
waitin’. Git!’ The order was emphasized by another jab from the gun
barrel. The old cook herded the sullen Ray over with the others,
then turned to Green with a pleased smile on his face. The cowboy
returned his attention to the prisoners.

‘
You made yore play, an’ it come unstuck. Yore loudmouth friend
Pardoe has made it plain that lettin’ you go would be a mistake. So
I reckon I better kill you.’

Gasps of
consternation broke from the group in front of him. One of the men,
a small, pock-marked individual, railed at Pardoe. ‘You an’ yore
big yap—now look what you done!’ Pardoe faced Green,
frowning.

‘
You wouldn’t do it.’ It was a statement, not a
question.

‘
Nope. I don’t reckon I would,’ was the reply, which produced a
visible relief among Pardoe’s comrades. ‘I sure oughta. However, I
wasn’t treatin’ you to a shootin’ display for fun. I can hit
someone yore size easier’n a tin can, an’ I will if you come pokin’
around here again. And since I’m by nature a forgetful man, I’m
aimin’ to make shore I know you if we meet up again.’

Without
a word, his hand flashed to the left hand holster, and the pistol
was talking fire before the watchers had fully appreciated that he
had drawn. Each of the gang screeched in fear as the bullets burned
furrows along their cheekbones, nicking the tips of their left
ears.

Green
regarded the cringing figures before him with distaste as they
attempted to stem the trickles of blood from their ears.

‘
Now you got my mark on you,’ he told them coldly. ‘If I see
any o’ you again, I’ll start in shootin’ without any o’ the jawin’.
Now, fork yore cayouses and keep movin’. An’ don’t make the mistake
o’ comin’ back.’

A
gesture from the right-hand six-shooter hastened the thoroughly
cowed gang on their way. Pardoe stopped, his foot in the stirrup.
‘I’ll remember you, cowboy,’ he growled, menacingly.

‘
For your own good health, you better,’ was
the expressionless reply. ‘
Fade
!’

Wordlessly, the five men turned their horses and pounded away
into the darkness now settling like a mist on the valley. Behind
Green, George Tate let out his breath in a long whistling sigh.
‘Jim, I’m owing’ you—’

‘—
an extra piece o’ that apple pie Cookie promised me?’
interrupted Green. ‘An’ I’m aimin’ to 'take full settlement.
Shucks, Mr. Tate, I’m glad I was around. Them fellers wasn’t
joshing’ none about stringing’ you up. You shore you ain’t never
seen any o’ them afore?’

‘
Not as I recall,’ was the reply, ‘bur that don’t mean much. I
don’t know any o’ Barclay’s crew by sight, ’cetin’ Burley Link ham,
Barclay’s foreman. Then, there’s hundreds o’ men working’ up on the
Thunder Mesa in the silver mines. Why?’

‘
I got a hunch we’d End that we could currycomb Barclay’s crew
and never find a one o’ those jaspers in it. They got some other
axe to grind, but just what it is . . .?’

‘
Whatever it is, is shore doin’ Barclay no harm,’ put in
Cookie. ‘They don’t have to work on his home ranch to be on his
payroll.’

‘
Cookie’s right, Jim, Barclay’s shore been the only one to
benefit by what these Shadders have been up to,’ pointed out the
rancher.

‘
Well like the feller said,’ remarked Green, ‘when you find a
trout in the milk, suthin’s wrong.’

‘
You figger there’s a trout in this bailing’ o’ milk,
Jim?’

‘
Well, seh,’ Green smiled, ‘let’s say a toddler. An’ it’s shore
got me interested.’

Cookie
had been watching the two men open mouthed during this exchange. At
the close of it, he snapped his mouth shut, and then turned and
stomped into the house, muttering as he went. ‘Two dang fools,
that’s what. Standin’ there talkin’ about trout in the milk when I
got work to do, a whole meal to cook, all they talk about is fish
.... ’ The slam of the kitchen door punctuated the old cook’s
grumbles, although he could still be heard rattling and banging his
pots and pans.

Green
and the old rancher walked back towards the porch, and were just
settling down in the wicker chairs set on the verandah when, for
the second time, approaching horses were heard. Tate rose to his
feet and drew his six-shooter. It came as no surprise to him after
seeing the man in action that Green was already on his feet, and
that the deadly Colts’ were already in the cowboy’s hands, cocked
for firing.

‘
Probably my lads,’ Tate told the cowboy, ‘but let’s make
shore.’

In a
cloud of dust, five riders swung into the yard and dismounted in
the haphazard, careless way of the born rider. One of them, a tall
young fellow with the expression of one who has never had anything
to hide, tossed his reins to a grizzled old puncher of about fifty,
who walked with a pronounced limp.

‘
Yore turn to be stable boy,’ grinned the youngster. ‘If you
ain’t too tired after racin’ the best rider in the
valley.’

‘
That’s Dave Haynes.’ whispered Tate. ‘He’s a good kid. The old
feller is Gimpy MacDonald—been with me for more years ’n I care to
recall. Stove up in a stampede one time, busted his leg up real
bad, but he’s still a top hand.’

The
young man mounted the porch steps still savoring the victory of the
race which had meant he didn’t have to unsaddle his own horse. His
face fell, and mock terror replaced the grin as he caught sight of
Tate’s drawn gun.

‘
Hey!’ he said, ‘I done my chores, boss—honest! How come the
reception committee?’

‘
Dave, quit foolin’, an’ step over here an’ meet Jim Green.
Lucky for me he was around. Had a mite o’ trouble while you was
gone.’

The
others joined them and one by one shook Green’s hand, while Gimpy
came trudging across the yard, grumbling to himself. Tate
introduced the old puncher to Green. Gimpy’s eyes flicked quickly
over Green’s serviceable range gear and the two low-tied guns. He
said nothing more than ‘howdy’, but Green knew he had been weighed
and judged by the old timer. Tate meanwhile was busily retailing
the events of the preceding hours.

‘
Shore was lucky you happened by, Jim,’ opined
Gimpy.

‘
Luck was all it was,’ Green told him. ‘I just wanted to water
my hoss.’

‘
You got any idea who they was, boss?’ asked the cowboy who had
been introduced by Tate as Ben Dobbs. The old man described the
men, especially the leader, to his riders, who one by one shook
their heads.

‘
Never seen anyone around town hittin’ them spessyfications
remarked a pudgy little rider whose sobriquet was Shorty. ‘Have
you, Curt?’ This to a good looking rider of medium height, whose
handsome countenance was spoiled only by a weak mouth which came
close to giving his face a permanent sneer. This man, Green knew
from the introductions, was Curt Parr.