Sudden Law o The Lariat (1935)

by Oliver Strange

  "Goo'-night, Bart; pleasant dreams."

  As if electrified, the fallen giant got to his feet and sprang at Severn.

  This time, the foreman, insteadofretreating, came to meet him, and the next few minutes were an orgy of sheer ferocity; neither man made any attempt to guard himself, each being intent only on hurting the other. Severn knew that he was mad to do it, but the lust to pound the poisonously puffed faceofthe coward who had tried to kick him when he was down was too strong. In this he had succeeded, for oneofBart's eyes was closing, and the blood was streaming from a cut in his cheek; Severn's face also was bruished and gashed. He felt, too, that he was weakening, his head throbbed, and his arms were like lead, but he knew his opponent was in no better shape. In truth, Bartholomew's fall had shaken him; he was finding it difficult to get air enough into his lungs, his blows no longer had the same elasticity, and he moved more slowly.

  "Even money the little 'un," shouted the man who had wished Bart "good-night".

  If his purpose was to spur the big fellow to renewed efforts he accomplished it. Amidst the yells and oathsofthe nearly demented audience, who had by now reduced the space for the battle by more than half, Bart closed, and the fight became a medleyofflying fists again, from which came the thudofbone meeting bone, the sobofstarved lungs, and the grunt which toldofa blow successfully given. Suddenly Bartholomew drew himself up and swung his right arm. Severn saw the blow coming and stepped back, only to stumble over an outstretched foot and stagger sideways. The fist whistled harmless over his shoulder, but ere he could recover his balance, two great hands closed on his throat, the thumbs sinking in until they seemed to be crushing the bones. Choking, the lightsofthe saloon and the bestial ringofeager, writhing faces faded out, and he could see only thatofhis foe, a livid, malignant maskofsavagery. With a last effortofexpiring consciousness, he dashed his fist into it. For an instant all went dark, and then he opened his eyes to find Ridge and Callahan supporting him. Awkwardly sprawled on the floor lay the formofBartholomew, breathing stertorously but senseless. Some of the crowd frankly smiled and gave him a cheer; others, if they felt hostile, took care not to show it. Severn grinned feebly; he was all in, and his throat made speech difficult.

  "What happened?" he inquired.

  "What happened?" repeated Ridge, his face split by a wide smile. "Oh, nothin' much. Yu just tapped him on the chin an' he lay down to think it over. I reckon he's got his needin's for tonight, anyways. Come along to Bent's an' git cleaned up; yore face looks like an Injun massacre."

  Almost unheeded by the milling throng round the fallen fighter, the three of them left the saloon. One man only watched them covertly--a short, middle-aged cowboy, with a dried-up wizened face, legs badly bowed by constant riding, and two worn, black-handled guns which hung low on his thighs. Severn saw him but took no notice.

  "The sonofa gun," muttered the stranger, with a twisted smile, and went in searchofhis horse.

  An hour later, the foreman, having removed the traces of the combat as far as possible, set out for the Lazy M. Bitterly bruised and aching as he was, his principal feeling was one of deep satisfaction; he had set himself a task and had done it, and the recollectionofthe battered hulk he had left on the saloon floor paid in full for his present pain. About a mile from town his horse whickered, and an indistinct form showed from behind a bush at the side of the trail.

  "H'ist 'em," said a voice, but there was chuckle behind the command.

  "H'ist nothin'," the traveller retorted. "Come outa that, yu ornery little runt, an' explain yoreself."

  The bow-legged puncher who had been in the "Come Again" stepped into view.

  "Orders from the boss," he grinned.

  "So I ain't yore boss no longer, huh?" Severn queried. "Didn't I say for yu to stay at the YZ?"

  "Orders from yore boss. Yessir, Miss Norry--" He paused at the other's laugh, and then resumed, "Oh, I know she's bin married two-three years, but she's still `Miss Norry' to the outfit, an' allus will be. Well, she says, `Snap, I got a letter from that man o' mine tellin' me everythin' is ca'm an' peaceful, an' things is workin' out fine. It's shore too good to be true; the better he makes it, the wuss it is. Yu fork a cayuse an' mosey along.' Reckon yu overplayed yore hand some."

  The foreman grinned ruefully. "I'll never understand women," he said. "Yu can't fool 'em. If I'd told her things were a bit promiscuous, she'd 'a' sent yu just the same. How's everybody at the old homestead?"

  "Fine as silk," Snap Lunt replied. "That yearling o' yores gets bigger while yu watch. I misdoubt he'll be a wuss hellion than his daddy. Tried to take my gun off'n me the other day, an' shore raised the roof when he couldn't have it."

  "I'll bet he did--there ain't nothin' the matter with that young fella's lungs," the foreman agreed with paternal pride. "When d'yu get here, Snap?"

  "Just in time for the show," Lunt said. "Yu ain't forgot how to use yore paws, Don."

  "I ain't `Don' around here, Snap; I'm Jim Severn, even whenwe seem to be alone," the other warned him. "Yu come near bein' in time for my funeral--I shore thought he'd got me."

  "That last was a daddyofa wallop--me, I'd sooner be kicked by an outlaw hoss," Lunt told him. "I'm glad I come; things don't seem so painfully peaceful around here."

  "To tell yu the truth, old-timer, they ain't all Sunday school," Severn admitted. "Listen, this is the wayofit."

  As briefly as possible he explained the situation, and the little gunman listened patiently to the end. Then in a rasping tone he said :

  "Did I hear yu mention a fella called Shady?"

  "Shore, a square-built chap, wide as he is long, pretty nigh. Know him?"

  Snap's eyes gleamed. "His finger's the on'y square thing about him," he said huskily. "He bushwhacked a bunkie o' mine for his roll years ago. I'm damned glad I come. What yu want I should do?"

  "Hang about in Hope, an' remember yu don't know me for now," Severn answered. "Bent, who runs a saloon, is one white man, an' Ridgeofthe XT is another. Yu'll be my ace in the hole, an' I shore got a good one. Better be driftin' now. S'long."

  The newcomer climbed into his saddle and with a waveofhis hand trotted towards town, while Severn went on his way to the ranch.

  "Snap an' Larry an' m'self--that's three to draw to insteadofa pair," he informed the air, and playfully pulled his pony's ears. "Boy, we'll beat 'em yet, an' it ain't no good yu standin' on one leg; use all four of 'em, yu misfit, an' get agoin'."

  In fact, the unexpected adventofSnap Lunt, the grirn little gunman from his own ranch, the YZ, constituted a notable addition to his forces, and one that Severn, confident as he was in himself, was well content to have.

  Chapter XIV

  AT breakfast in the bunkhouse next morning, the foreman's battered appearance excited speculation but no comment. Larry, whom he visited later, and whose room he managed to reach without encountering Miss Masters, was not so discreet. The invalid, sitting up in bed with one arm in a sling, was discovering that even a slug from a .45 may have compensations. He regarded his friend with frank amazement.

  "Who might yu be?" he inquired truculently.

  "I might be nhe President o' the United States, but I ain't," retorted Severn.

  Larry looked at him critically. "I don't like 'em," he said. "Don't like what, yu jackass?"

  "Them alterations to yore face; it warn't nothin' to chuck a chest about afore, but yu ain't improved it any. It don't balance. Hi ! get off that hat, yu Siwash ! "

  For the foreman, sitting down, had deliberately selected the chair on which Larry's Stetson reposed. He stood up and lifted the crushed headgear.

  "Time yu had a new one," he commented, and then, "There, there, sick folk mustn't get all het up. How's the Princess treatin' yu these days?"

  "She's a lady, Don," the boy replied.

  "Yu call me that again an' I'll--tell her yo're a friend o' mine," Severn threatened.

  "For the love o' Mike don't do that," the invalid implored. "I'm sorry, Jim, I forgot. Yu ain't
told me the reason for the disguise yet."

  It ain't a disguise, yu chump. I had a triflin' argument with Mister Bartholomew last night, that's all."

  "I might 'a' knowed it," Larry said disgustedly, when he had heard the details. "The minute I ain't around to look after yu--" He chortled joyously. "I'll bet he's feelin' sore this glad mornin'."

  "He's got company there," the foreman reminded him. "Gosh ! he ain't a man--he's a gorilla." He rose to go. "By the way, when yo're around again, if yu meet up with Snap in town, remember yu don't know him. Savvy?"

  "Hi! what yu talkin' about?" queried the surprised youth. "Where's yore blamed hurry? Why can't yu tell a fella--" But Severn had vanished, and Larry swore in vain.

  Greatly to his satisfaction, the foreman managed to retreat without meeting the mistressofthe house. In truth, the girl was sitting in her bedroom, staring blankly at the window, and wondering whether she was awake or dreaming. About no pay her customary visit to the sick man, she had paused at the door on hearing Severn's voice, and, though she blushed now to thinkofit, had stayed there to listen. She had heard enough to convince her that the foreman was masquerading under an assumed name, and that her patient was an old friend. Helplessly she strove to fathom the meaningofit all, but had to give it up in despair. The one clear point seemed to be that Larry had deceived her, and at the thought of this she melted into angry tears; there seemed to be no one she could trust.

  Larry's surmise as to the ownerofthe Bar B was correct--he was sore both in body and mind. Ashamed to show his damaged face, he sulked in the ranch-house, brooding over his defeat. Penton found him so engaged, and there was a flickerofcontempt in the foreman's expression as he listened.

  "Cussin' ain't goin' to git us nowhere," he said quietly. "I think I got some news for yu--an' mebbe it ain't good news, neither."

  "There ain't no good news nowadays seemin'ly," Bart growled. "Spill it, an' don't take a week."

  "We got all the time there is, an' anyways, I ain't shore," Penton returned calmly. "Yu've allus been reckoned more than middlin' swift with a gun, Bart, ain't yu?"

  "I never met up with a swifter," the other admitted.

  "Till last night, huh?" Penton proceeded. "Severn made yu look slow. But yu wasn't--I never seen yu quicker, an' yet he beat yu to it--easy."

  "Well?" said the big man sourly, for he did not relish this rubbing inofhis discomfiture.

  "Who cleaned up Tarman's gang over to Hatchett's Folly?" the foreman asked, and Bartholomew straightened up in his chair.

  "Sudden," he said. "Yu tellin' me that Severn is--"

  "I'm on'y guessin'," Penton broke in. "It sticks in my mind that Sudden's front name turned out to be Donald, an' that young side-kicker o' Severn's called him `Don' that night in the `Come Again'."

  The Bar B owner's swarthy face went a shade paler. If his foreman was right, he himself must have stood on the very brinkofthe Valley of Shadows when he had tried to draw on Severn. After the utter destruction of Tarman's bandofrange thieves,* Sudden, the so-called outlaw, had vanished, merged in the personalityofa law-abiding cattleman, but his fame as a fighter was not forgotten.

  Bart sat silent, his damaged lips pursed into an ugly pout. When at length he looked up there was dogged determination in his outthrust jaw.

  "Sudden or no, he's human, an' I'll get him," he snarled. "If the yarns about him is true, he come mighty near bein' stretched once or twice, an' his luck can't last for ever. Now, see here, keep this notion behind yore teeth; if it gets known in Hope, some o' them cowardly coyotes'll eat outa his hand from sheer funk."

  "That's Gawspel truth," Penton agreed. "As for gettin' him, we gotta, or he'll get us. My medicine is a bullet in the back, but mebbe vu has other ideas."

  "I gotta card up my sleeve no one else knows f," Bart said. "When the time comes I'll play that same; it's a shore winner, an' will take the pot."

  Long after Penton had gone, the rancher sat there, chewing the buttofhis cigar, his forehead ridged in a heavy frown. Despite his boastfulness, his foreman's news had shaken him. But the Lazy M was a prize worth fighting for, and--he hungered for the girl. A curse broke from his lips as he recalled their last meeting.

  "I'll have her, willing or unwilling," he grated. "An' as for that damned interloper--"

  Big Boy, having zigzagged his pony up the steep, sandy sideofa gully and forced his way through the thick scrub at the top, suddenly pulled up with an oathofastonishment. Five or six hundred yards away on the open range, half a dozen men were leisurely gathering a herdofsteers which he knew to be the property of the Lazy M. He did not recognise the men, but the white handkerchiefs concealing the lower part of their faces told him all that was necessary. He tried to back into the brush unseen, but the vicious humofa bullet past his ear warned him that they had been on the watch. Snatching out his rifle, he dived from the saddle and gained the shelterofa tangled tussockofgrass. He had no sooner accomplished this than there came the thudofa striking slug, followed by the report, and his horse crashed down, quivered and lay still.

  Thrusting the muzzleofhis Winchester through the grass, he fired three rapid rounds, and had the satisfaction of seeing oneofthe strangers lurch in his saddle.

  "Yu got me, yu coyotes," he snarled, "but I'll shore make yu pay first."

  For he knew his situation was hopeless; they could surround and shoot him down at their leisure. To his surprise, however, they seemed more intent on getting the cattle outofrange, and though he fired several times without doing any more damage, no shots came in reply. As quickly as possible, the herd was rounded up and driven off by the horsemen. When the raiders had become a mere blot on the plain, the cowboy arose from his placeofconcealment.

  "Well, if that don't beat ice in hell," he ejaculated. He surveyed his dead mount ruefully. "Yu warn't never a prizewinner, old fella, but I'd shore give a coupla months' pay for yu now," he said. "I must be near ten miles from the ranch, cuss the rotten luck ! "

  To men who almost live on horseback, walking is an abomination, and the puncher shuddered at the prospectofa longtramp under the blazing sun in his tight high-heeled boots, and carrying a forty-pound saddle in addition to his rifle and other trappings. But it had to be done; the newsofthe robbery must be got to the Lazy M with all speed, and bestowing another hearty curse on those responsible, he set out.

  The journey proved to be all he anticipated, and more. The first mile or two brought blisters on his feet, and every step became an agony. The saddle, which for convenience and as a protection from the sun, he carried on his head, seemed to weigh double what he knew it did, and the heavy wooden stirrups banged his body as he staggered over the stretchesofsand and bunch-grass, and every bump brought blasphemy until his parched throat could no longer form the phrases.

  Plugging doggedly on, sometimes only at the pace a man could crawl, he estimated he had done half the trip. Then he came upon a little stream, fringed with willows and cottonwoods, and after drinking and refilling his canteen, he flung himself down to rest in the welcome shade. The approachofevening brought relief from the scorching sun, but none for the blistered extremitiesofthe traveller. Staggering, stumbling, and whispering strange oaths, he plodded on, and at last, through the gathering gloom, he glimpsed a light shining amidst the black bulk of buildings. He almost crawled the final few hundred yards, and lurching into the bunkhouse, flung the saddle on the floor and flopped into the nearest chair.

  "What yu bin walkin' for?" Linley asked.

  "'Cause I ain't got no wings, yu lunkhead," retorted the weary one. "Gimme some grub an' fetch Jim."

  Severn heard the story in silence.

  "White Masks again, huh?" he said. "An' they took about fifty head?"

  "Me an' the little old gun made gettin' more a chancy business," Big Boy explained.

  "Wonder they didn't wipe yu out first," Darby said. "They hadn't the guts; I'd 'a' got some of 'em."

  Severn shook his head. "I'm guessin' that don't explain it," he said dubiously.
"Anyways, we go after them cows at daybreak, an' in case it's a trap, we'll be full strength."

  On the eastern horizon, a golden glow which deepened and spread betokened the dawn of another day. Over the plain and foothills a purplish mist hovered, and in the distance, from the peaksofthe Pinnacles, great streamersofvapour drifted across the sky like smoke from mammoth chimney-stacks. The Lazy M was bubbling with excitement. With the exceptionsofLarry and the cook, Severn was taking the whole outfit. He meant to be in a position not only to regain the stolen stock, but to punish the thieves. That he was playing into the handsofhis enemies he had yet to learn.

  The most disgruntled man at the ranch was Larry. Long after the departureofthe outfit, he continued to bewail his misfortune, even the presence of his lady failing to console him.

  "Cuss this shoulder," he grumbled. "I'm a-missin' all the fun." Instantly from Phil's expression he saw that he had said the wrong thing. "Aw, o' course I don't quite mean that, but--"

  "You would rather be riding with the boys," she finished quietly--too quietly, had Larry been versed in the waysofwomen.

  Big Boy, who, refreshed by food and a few hours' sleep, had insisted on joining the party, guided them to the spot where he had been so ignominiously "set afoot". They found the carcaseofthe horse, already picked clean, and soon struck the trail of the stolen steers. It led northwards towards the mountains, the first mile or so being over level prairie. Then it turned sharply to the right, taking them into a jumble of tree-clad slopes, gorges scooped out of the living rock, thorny thickets, and little savannahsoflush grass through which the horses waded belly deep.

  "They shore wanted a job, takin' cattle through here," old Rayton said. "Must be tryin' to lose 'em."

  Severn had already seen that the rustlers were breaking fresh trail; apparently they were not taking the steers to the valley below the Cavern. The fact that they had gone to all this trouble and had made no effort to hide their tracks was giving him uneasiness. He began to wish he had brought only half the outfit, but it was too late now for regrets; he could only go on.