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

by Oliver Strange

  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.

  “He ain’t hurt none,” Sudden said, adding with a grin, “an’ what a tale he’ll have to tell in the corral to-night.”

  “He’s not the only one,” a sweet but rather rueful voice remarked.

  Engrossed in their task, the other rescuee had been forgotten, but now they turned to find her seated on a tuft of grass, trying to restore some sort of order to a wet mop of short, curly black hair. Little clouds of steam arose as the fierce rays of the sun licked up the moisture from her soaked attire. She was, as Dover confessed in an aside to his companion, “Sorta soothin’ to the sight.”

  The description did her less than justice, for, despite her bedraggled state, even one of her own sex would have allowed her charm, at least. To the men, she was beautiful, and the fact that she could find a smile for them showed that she possessed the quality they most admired, courage. Sudden was the first to speak:

  “How’re yu feelin’, ma’am?”

  “Rather as though I ought to be pegged out on a line to dry,” she replied. “The stream looked shallow enough to ride through, but halfway across I realized that my mount was in difficulties, and turned to go back, but it was too late. You see, I can’t swim.”

  “You picked the wrong place,” Dan told her. “The ford is a bit further down; there’s a couple o’ white stones to mark it.”

  “Being a stranger, I am afraid they wouldn’t have meant anything to me.” Her dark, long-lashed eyes regarded the tree-shadowed pool reproachfully. “Who would have dreamed that so charming a spot could be treacherous?”

  “The Rainbow ain’t to be trusted,” Dan grinned. “She’s as various as a—” He stopped abruptly.

  “Woman,” she finished, with a light laugh. “Please don’t mind me—I am well aware of the failings of my own sex.”

  She stood up, her clinging garments revealing the youthful lines of her slim body. “I want to thank you both,” she went on, her voice grave again. “But for your help, I might have …” She broke off, with a little shudder, and then, “My uncle will want to thank you too, and he’ll be glad to see you at the Wagon-wheel—why, what is the matter?”

  For Dan’s face had suddenly become bleak. “Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

  The girl’s eyes flashed. “I am Beth Trenton,” she replied. “And you?”

  “My name’s Dover, if that tells you anythin’.”

  “All I want to know,” she returned coldly. “But I am still grateful for what you have done.”

  “Then don’t be,” the young man said vehemently. “Helpin’ one o’ yore family—even in ignorance—is somethin’ I wanta forget.”

  “I have been here only a week, and have received nothing but courtesy from the men I have met; I am sorry to find an exception,” was the cutting reply. She looked at Sudden. “If you will be good enough to bring my horse …”

  When the puncher had roped and saddled the animal, she mounted with graceful ease, and without another word, rode in search of the ford. Dan’s moody gaze followed her, noting how the proud, straight figure swayed easily to the movement of the beast beneath it; she could ride, and for a reason he did not attempt to analyse, the fact made him still more angry.

  “Why in hell didn’t I go some other place this mornin’,” he fumed. “Zeb Trenton’ll laugh hisself sick over this.”

  “He oughta be mighty grateful.”

  “Ought means nothin’ to him; he won’t even pretend to be,the slimy of toad. Bet he’s told her a pretty tale about the Dovers. If I’d knowed who she was—”

  “Yu’d ‘a’ done just the same,” Sudden smiled. “I’m allowin’ it’s rough it had to be yu, but rescuin’ folks in distress seems to be a habit in yore family.”

  “She must be the niece I heard was comin’ to live with him. I’d forgot about it. Damn the luck.”

  Sudden understood; the girl was very attractive, and had she been related to anyone

  else … His advice took a prosaic form:

  “Better head for home an’ get into some dry duds. I’ll be on my way.”

  As he neared the scene of the murder, he left the beaten trail and approached obliquely, keeping under cover. It was unlikely that anyone could know of his intention to visit the place, but he was not one to take unnecessary risks. Peering through the branches of a tall bush, he could see where the body had lain. Someone was there, stooping over the spot, apparently examining the ground intently. Presently the figure stood up, and Sudden recognized the bent shoulders, white hair, and big axe thrust through the belt.

  “Hunch! What in the nation is that of tarrapin doin’ here?”

  Evidently he was engaged on the task Sudden himself had performed, that of reading the “sign” left by the assassin, for he climbed the bank of the arroyo at the same place and vanished.

  Sudden waited, but the other did not reappear, and the puncher returned to the Circle Dot in a reflective mood.

  Chapter VI

  An uneventful week passed. Sudden spent the time, as he put it, getting acquainted with the country. Somewhat to his surprise, Yorky was ready each morning to accompany him part of the way. The boy had made the most of his mount, which, carefully groomed, and with mane and tail combed, presented a much improved appearance. When the puncher remarked on this, Yorky flushed, and said:

  “Th’ boys figure he’s played out but they’s wrong; all he wanted was a bit of attention.

  We’re pals, ain’t we, Shuteye?”

  He stroked the pony’s muzzle and Sudden smiled as he saw the piece of sugar pass from the boy’s palm.

  “A horse is a good friend to have—‘specially in the West,” he said gravely. “Treat him right an’ he’ll not fail yu. I’m for
Rainbow this mornin’. Comin’ along?”

  Yorky looked at his tattered raiment, and shook his head. “Nuttin’ doin’. Me fer another dose o’ th’ pine-breath; I’m gittin’ so I don’t cough me heart up—mos’ly.”

  “Good. Can I bring yu any smokin’?”

  “Nix on that. T’ought I told yer I ain’t usin’ it.”

  “So yu did—I done forgot,” the puncher lied. “So long, son.”

  “So long, Jim, an’—thanks,” Yorky replied, and turned quickly away.

  Sudden watched him trot off in the direction of the little pine forest. Still an awkward figure in the saddle, he was clearly improving. “The hell of it,” he muttered softly, and started for the town.

  He found the Parlour devoid of customers save for the unkempt person of Malachi, who, draped against the bar, was chatting with the proprietor. The latter welcomed the newcomer warmly.

  Lo, Green, you know the Doc, I reckon,” he said. “On’y by reputation,” Sudden replied.

  “Then you don’t know him,” Malachi said dryly.

  “Well, I’m hopin’ he’ll drink with me allasame,” the cowboy smiled.

  “Sir, I’ll drink with the Devil himself if the liquor is good—and there’s no doubt of that here—but I warn you I am not in a position to return your hospitality.”

  “Aw, yore credit’s good too, Doc,” Bowdyr assured. “Thanks, Ben, but I don’t sponge on my friends,” Malachi returned, and to the puncher, “Folks in this locality are too healthy.”

  “I’ve been wantin’ to speak to yu ‘bout one who ain’t,” Sudden replied. “That kid at the Circle Dot.”

  The other nodded. “Old Dave got me to look him over, and that spawn of a city sink called me everything he could think of, and it was plenty. He finished by saying he didn’t want to live in a God-forsaken place like this, and he’d be everlastingly something if he swallowed one drop of any blanket-blanked medicine I sent. My advice to Dave was to ship him back East and let him die in the gutter he had come from.”

  “He certainly can cuss,” Sudden grinned. “Is there a chance for him?”