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

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘Shore is a dandy spot,’ he told himself. ‘A man could ride out here live times a week an’ still nor spot it.’

  Midnight was waiting patiently where his master had tethered him; he greeted Sudden’s arrival with a quiet nicker and tossed his head impatiently when Green mounted.

  ‘Honin’ for action, are yu?’ grinned Sudden. ‘Well, where we’re goin’, yo’re shore likely to get some. Git along, yu ol’ crowbait.’

  The faint, almost indistinguishable trail led among tall thorn trees and beneath the gloomy face of the rock cliff. Nothing moved in the canyon except the horse and the rider; here and there a slow seepage of water had marked the red rocks, but no birds sang in this dark place. Ahead, however, was a bright shaft of sunlight, and in a few moments, Sudden rode into a wide clearing. He looked about him with interest. The meadow was not more than half a mile wide, and on both sides, steeply sloping shale hills ran to meet almost vertical buttes of red sandstone. The valley was perhaps a mile and a half long, and almost directly through its centre ran a clear, burbling stream of mountain water. All around were sleek, well-fed cattle; the little valley was crowded with livestock.

  ‘She shore is a natural corral,’ Sudden thought. ‘An’ I’m I bettin’ that these dogies ain’t as near home as they oughta be.’

  Turning the horse, he cantered over to one of the nearest bunches. A quick glance showed him that the brands were all new; all of them were unknown to him: Box 48, Diamond 8 were two he saw. His eyes narrowed, and controlling Midnight with his knees, he unlooped his lariat from the saddle pommel.

  Moving quickly in among the herd, he smoothly cut out a two-year-old and neatly dropped his loop about its ears. No sooner had the loop settled than Midnight, well-trained cowpony that he was, stopped dead in his tracks, and the steer catapulted over as the line tautened. Sudden was already on the ground and ran down the line, flipped a loop over the cow’s hindquarters before it could rise. The beast lay bellowing in protest as Sudden examined its brand more closely.

  ‘Botched the job,’ he told himself. ‘Runnin’ iron, for shore. I wonder whose brands these are?’

  It was obvious whose they had been; the Diamond 8 was a continuation of the Slash 8 brand. A few deft strokes, a new brand. Box 48 could be easily made from Box B. Who owned I these brands?

  A frown creasing his forehead, Sudden remounted, and a shake of his arm released the loops which held the steer prisoner, and pointed Midnight towards where the canyon curved slightly to the north. When he reached the bend, he pulled Midnight to a stop and dismounted. Ahead, perhaps fifty yards away, stood a small cabin. Smoke spiraling from its tin chimney attested to the fact that the house was occupied, and Sudden settled down behind a clump of bushes to wait for darkness.

  An hour went by; then two. The sun was now starting its de- scent and its lengthening rays threw long shadows under the eastern walls of the canyon. Two men came out of the house; one of them went to a small corral behind the house, and a fourth came out and stood on the porch. The man who had gone into the corral came out leading a saddled horse; and all four stood talking together for a moment. Sudden half-rose; it looked as if one of the outlaws was about to ride out, perhaps to relieve the guard whom he had stunned. He edged backwards, around the rock face, his eyes still upon the house and the men outside it. A jarring voice stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘Come a-visitin’, have yu?’

  And then he knew that there had been a second guard.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The urgency of his mission had lent wings to Dave’s feet; he reached South Bend that same night, and found the old judge busy writing in his study. Breathlessly, Dave told his story; of Grace’s visit to the bank, the unexpected reversal of de Witt’s friendship, the call-in of the mortgage; of the ambush attempt by Parr and what Parr had confessed; and all the rest. Judge Pringle listened without expression until the Slash8 cowboy had finished.

  ‘You say that de Witt has asked for an extra three thousand dollars on the mortgage?

  ‘That’s right,’ Dave nodded. ‘Grace—uh, Miss Tate was shore that fifteen hundred dollars was the correct amount, but de Witt trotted out the papers and there it was in her daddy’s fist, an IOU for four thousand five hundred.’

  ‘And de Witt has kept this paper at the bank?’

  Dave nodded again. ‘I can’t believe the Old Man woulda borrowed that kinda coin, Judge,’ he blurted. ‘He shore never spent nothin' like that much on improvements at the ranch.’

  ‘I’m sure of that,’ growled the older ma-n. ‘What you’ve told me tied in with some other things I’ve discovered. Now, when did you say the deadline is?’

  ‘Brady said he’d hold the auction in Hanging Rock day after tomorrow, midday.’ Dave informed the lawyer.

  ‘I see. Then you will forgive me if I suggest that we do not need to ride overnight to the Slash 8? I am not as young as I was, Mr. Haynes, and you’ll forgive me if I say that you look as if you need some rest yourself. I learned some years ago that the haste we make is often lost when we get where we are going.’

  The old man tempered his words with a smile, and Dave nodded glumly.

  ‘I guess yo’re right, Judge, although I had kind of figgered—’

  ‘I know, my boy. I haven’t quite forgotten what it’s like to be young. But rest assured, nothing is going to happen tonight at the Slash 8 if you stay here. Perhaps I should get my housekeeper to look at that bandage on your arm and then make you up a bed. We can start at first light tomorrow.’

  Dave nodded again.

  ‘And don’t be downcast,’ the Judge rallied him. ‘I think I can promise you that we shall be able to put a halt to Mr. de Witt’s plans. Now … how about a nice hot cup of cocoa?’

  Dave did his best to hide his feelings from the kindly old man.

  Even while Dave was on his way to South Bend, the Slash 8 had another visitor. Watching the latest arrival, Dobbs remarked to Shorty that the ranch was getting to be a regular meeting place.

  ‘Shore, an’ we get all the best people comin’ to call,’ replied that worthy, waspishly. ‘His Majesty King Barclay. Yu reckon we oughta curtsey?’

  Gimpy broke up their chatter with a promise that the first such inviting target either of them presented would be the recipient of his well-aimed boot, and walked out into the open yard to meet Barclay. The big rancher nodded to him curtly. ‘Miss Tate here?’ His eyes roamed across the front of the house as if he were assessing its value.

  ‘That’d depend,’ grated Gimpy, ‘on who’s askin’. In yore case, I ain’t shore whether she is or not, but … I’ll ask.’

  Leaving the burly Box B man to swallow the insult as best he could, Gimpy went into the house. He returned a few moments later with Grace at his side, and called, ‘ ’light down, Barclay. The boss-lady sez she’ll see yu, although I’d’ve thought she’d be a mite more partickler.’

  Barclay’s rage finally broke through his surface control, and he hissed, ‘Yu’d better mind yore manners, damn yu. When I’m—’ Here, he stopped abruptly, as though suddenly aware that he had overstepped himself.

  ‘Go on, Mr. Barclay,’ Grace said sweetly—too sweetly, had the big man had but the wit to see it—When you’re what?

  ‘Why, I was goin’ to say … when I’m visitin’ a lady I don’t expect to have to swaller insults from stove-up freeloaders,’ Barclay said quickly. ‘Look, girl, I don’t want to argue. I came up here for one reason only: to see you.’ The emphasis upon the personal pronoun brought a faint flush to the girl’s face.

  ‘What for?’ was her direct question.

  Without replying, Barclay dismounted and tethered his horse. His mind was seething with questions. The girl was obviously going to be hostile, and that was bad. There was so little time now; he had to get control of this ranch, or de Witt would have everything, and he would be paid off with a pittance, a tenth of the fortune that the banker would make. He had hoped that his proposal of marriage had intrigued her; th
at, in view of her circumstances, she might yet agree to it. He chose his words carefully as he mounted the porch steps.

  ‘To offer yu my help,’ he began. ‘Listen, girl, I made no secret o’ the fact that I wanted yu, the very first time I sat here an’ talked to yu. I know of yore trouble: Brady is tellin’ everyone in town how he’s goin’ to enjoy seein’ that high-stepping Slash 8 crowd eat dirt. Is it right that yo’re still shy three thousand dollars?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Grace said, ‘although what—’

  Barclay held up a beefy hand. ‘Let me finish, girl. Here’s the way I see it. I told yu once that with your ranch an’ mine combined, we could make an empire out o’ this valley, an’ it’s still true. Yu could be queen o’ the Sweetwater Valley. Marry me. I’ll pay off yore debts, we’ll join our ranches together, an’ I’ll treat yu like the queen yu deserve to be. What do yu say?’ It was a masterly speech, Barclay told himself, and he could see that he had impressed the girl. He was congratulating himself on his performance when Grace Tate’s voice cut in on his reverie.

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Shucks, girl, yu know what’ll happen. The bank will foreclose, an’ I’ll get the Slash 8 anyway. The ranch itself don’t mean anything to me. It’s yu I want to protect: I don’t want to see yu humiliated in front o’ the whole riff-raff o’ Hangin' Rock.’

  ‘Are you so sure that I cannot pay off the mortgage? Grace asked sharply.

  ‘Grace, girl, I’m the biggest man in this valley. I know to within five dollars what every man within fifty miles has in that bank. I’d be a mighty pore businessman if I didn’t.’ Barclay was growing expansive. He felt now that he was sure to win; nevertheless he constantly guarded against giving the girl any indication of how important it was to him that the Slash 8 was not sold in auction. She must surely see that whichever way the chips fell he would get the ranch (she could not know more). The fact that he did not own the Box B, or, for that matter, the fine suit he was wearing, bothered Barclay not a bit.

  Grace, meanwhile, struggled to control her mounting distaste for this puffed and ugly man. She asked another question.

  ‘Surely I would have to get my guardian’s permission to marry?’

  ‘Shucks, that don’t matter,’ Barclay smiled. ‘We could marry in secret, an’ yu could spring it on them later. That way, if Green is tryin’ to ruin yu, I’d be around to protect yu.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Grace said. ‘I must have time.’ She watched the rancher’s reaction from beneath lowered lids, saw the explosive anger that reached his eyes, made the veins bulge in Barclay’s forehead.

  ‘Girl, I ain’t the waitin’ kind,’ Barclay told her brutally. ‘Tomorrow, they’ll be sellin’ yore ranch by auction. If yu want to avoid that, if yu want to hold on to what’s yores, marry me today. Yu don’t really have much choice.’

  ‘You are right, Mr. Barclay,’ Grace said, rising. He looked at her in bewilderment. ‘Of the two disgraces, however, I prefer the public to the private. I would rather be sold at auction myself than marry a liar and a cheat and a criminal, all of which I believe you to be. I will now thank you to leave this ranch.’

  Barclay jumped to his feet, brow black as thunder, fists clenching and unclenching.

  ‘Girl, yu just made the biggest mistake o’ yore life. I was goin’ to be kind to yu. Now, I’ll see yu in hell afore I’d help yu. Tomorrow I’ll throw yu out of here personally.’

  ‘That’s tomorrow,’ cut in a dry voice. ‘Today, it’s the other way around. Grab him, boys!’ The speaker was Gimpy, and behind him were grouped the rest of the crew, who wasted no time in grabbing Barclay’s arms, and frog marching him down the porch steps and across the yard, to where Dobbs had his horse waiting.

  Gimpy drew his gun and told the boys to turn Barclay loose.

  ‘Damn yu, I’ll see yu all in hell for this!’ raged Barclay.

  ‘If I see yu in hell, dammed if I don’t ask for a transfer to Paradise.’ grinned Gimpy, and without expression, he fired his gun under Barclay’s horse’s belly. The explosion sent the animal rocketing away down the trail to the river, with Barclay failing to hang on. Gimpy stomped up to the house.

  ‘He’s gone, ma’am. Kinda faster than he intended, I reckon,’ he grinned.

  Grace’s face was sober. ‘He’ll never forgive me for what I said to him,’ she said. ‘I pray that David has discovered something to help us. And what has happened to Green?

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Sudden whirled to face the man who had caught him unaware, he found himself looking down the barrel of a Remington held in the rock steady hands of a hulking, broken-nosed brute of a man whom he recognized immediately as Bull Pardoe, the leader of the gang which had tried to hang George Tate that fateful night at the Slash 8. Pardoe evidently recognized his prisoner, too, for an evil smile of satisfaction creased his face.

  ‘Well, well,’ he sneered, ‘if it ain’t the two-gun hero himself. So you sneaked past Smitty! What brings yu up thisaway, hero?’

  ‘Snake-huntin’,’ was the laconic reply, ‘an’ I reckon I’ve found a real nest of ’em.’

  ‘Yo’re probably goin’ to wind up gettin’ bit, too,’ was the sharp retort. ‘I’ been hopin’ to get the chance o’ salivatin’ yu, hero, an’ dammed if now ain’t just as good a time as any .... ’

  So saying, Pardoe’s finger tightened on the trigger of the repeating rifle. Before he could add the extra ounce of pressure his prisoner, who still stood as though it were he who held the gun, remarked quietly,

  ‘Don’t yu reckon yu’d better wait until yore boss sees me?’

  ‘He ain’t—’

  ‘Here—I know. It ain’t no use lookin' dumb, I know yu ain’t the ramrod o’ this cozy li’l group,’ interjected Sudden. ‘Yu ain’t I got the brain.’

  ‘Yu better shut yore yap,’ growled the big man, ‘afore I shut it. I got half a mind −’

  ‘An’ that’s about all,’ snapped Sudden. ‘Ain’t yu given a thought yet to how I found this place?’

  Confusion pursued puzzlement across Pardoe’s face, and the Slash 8 man pressed home his advantage.

  ‘Curt Parr talked,’ he told his captor. ‘I’ve passed the word on, so it don’t make no never-mind what happens to me. My advice to yu is to start thinkin’ o’ skippin’ out o’ this neck o’ the woods. Yo’re goin’ to be up to yore navel in law mighty soon.’

  ‘Yo’re bluffin’,’ growled Pardoe uneasily.

  ‘In which case, yu got nothin’ to worry about,’ said Sudden airily. ‘Go on an’ shoot.’ He watched his man carefully. Pardoe regained his composure very quickly, and, moving without warning, he swept the barrel of the rifle up and across, catching Sudden a glancing blow on the temple. Had the Slash 8 man not been ready for such a move, the blow might have been more damaging; as it was, he dropped to his knees, shaking his head and giving every appearance of being half-stunned. Anything which might make Pardoe relax his guard slightly was a good thing. Pardoe did not make the mistake of coming any closer, though. Instead, he jeered, ‘Come on, hero, tell me some more. Yo’re bluffin’, an’ I nearly swallered it. Git on yore feet.’

  Sudden got up, acting as though it was a painful struggle. In truth, his head was throbbing from the blow he had received. Pardoe gestured with the rifle. ‘Shuck yore gun belt. Drop it an’ step away from it.’ Sudden complied with the order and Pardoe rasped, ‘Now march! Lead the way to the cabin, an’ don’t try no tricks or I’ll beef yu shore.’

  With Pardoe four paces behind, the rifle cocked and ready, Sudden had no choice but to comply with the order. As they neared the cabin the men Sudden had been watching came towards them.

  ‘Look what I found snoopin’ around,’ announced Pardoe. ‘Our two-gun friend from the Slash 8—only he don’t look so tough without his guns.’ The others gathered around in a circle, and Sudden noted that one of them sported a purple bruise on his cheekbone and jaw.

  ‘Hello, Ray,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Bump into a
door?’

  The man addressed allowed his face to twist into ugly rage, and he took a step towards the Slash 8 man, fist upraised. A word from Pardoe stopped him.

  ‘We all owe him,’ Pardoe snapped. ‘I got his mark on me, same as you others.’ He touched the bullet burn along his ear-lobe. ‘An’ then there’s Morley.’

  ‘Oh, which one was Morley?’ asked Sudden brightly. ‘The one who took the slug in Thunder Ravine?’

  ‘Morley’s dead, damn yore eyes,’ snarled Pardoe, ‘but yo’re goin’ to be meetin’ him shortly?

  ‘Don’t lose yore temper, Bull,’ Sudden advised, coolly. ‘Remember that Linkham will want to decide what do with me.’

  ‘I reckon Linkham will decide to blow yore head off, which is what I aim to do anyway,’ snapped Pardoe. ‘What do yu say, boys?’

  A chorus of agreement arose from the outlaws.

  ‘Why waste a bullet on him,’ hissed Ray. ‘String him up. Give him a dose o’ what Tate was goin’ to get.’

  ‘Good idea,’ enjoined a lanky man on the right. ‘Get a rope.’

  The subject of these deliberations stood unmoved by the threatening atmosphere about him, not a muscle of his face betraying the churning thoughts flashing through his mind. Mentally he put names to the men in front of him. Ray he knew. The guard, Pardoe had revealed, had been Smith. The tall lanky man, with the slight Irish burr in his voice would be Callaghan. Morley was dead. That meant the short, bearded man in the center and the fourth man, the one with the horse were Roberts and MacAlmon. Which of these was which Pardoe resolved with his next words, addressed to the man with the horse.

  ‘Mac,’ he grated. ‘Give me yore rope.’ Once again he prodded Sudden with the rifle barrel. ‘Mebbe yu won’t act so cool when yu start dancin’ on air, hero!’ he jeered. Prod. ‘What-d’yu say, hero?’