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

by Oliver Strange

  “Yes, if he spends all his time outdoors, and stops poisoning his system with nicotine—which he won’t; he isn’t the sort you can scare into doing a thing.”

  “But he might for a friend,” the puncher suggested. “Well, Doc, I’m obliged for yore advice.” He slid a ten-dollar bill along the bar, adding, “I think yu told the sheriff that was yore fee for consultation.”

  Malachi stared in amaze, and then a slow smile overspread his thin features; he pushed the bill back. “That was a special charge for Foxy,” he said. “Besides, I’ve told you only what you knew already.”

  “Yu confirmed my own ideas, an’ that’s allus worth payin’ for,” Sudden insisted. “Yu can throw in a few doses o’ physic if it will ease yore mind any; I’ll see he takes ‘em.”

  Malachi argued no further. “Next time you get shot up, I’ll mend you free,” he promised.

  “Ben, we shall need a bottle of your best to celebrate this unexpected appreciation of the medical profession in Rainbow.”

  Both the saloonkeeper and the puncher declined more than one small drink and the doctor tucked the bottle under an arm, bade them farewell, and hurried away. Bowdyr shook his head.

  “It’s a terrible pity,” he remarked, “for, drunk or sober, he’s a damned good physician.”

  Sudden’s reply was cut short by the arrival of another customer, a tall, gangling man nearing sixty, who walked with a limp. He was harsh-featured, with a jutting, high-bridged, predatory nose, and close-cropped beard. Though dressed in range-rig; his garments were of better quality than those affected by the average rider. A heavy revolver hung from his right hip.

  “Mornin’, Trenton,” Bowdyr greeted, in his tone more than a suspicion of coolness.

  “Mornin’,” the other said curtly. “Whisky—good whisky.”

  “If you can stand the stuff they peddle at Sody’s, mine’ll be a treat for you,” Bowdyr said.

  The rancher shrugged and looked at the cowboy. “Join me?” Sudden pointed to his unfinished glass. “Obliged, but I’m fixed,” he replied.

  Trenton helped himself from the bottle before him, sampled the liquor, but made no comment. He turned again to the cowboy.

  “I don’t use this place, but I heard you’d ridden in, an’ I wanted to see you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It appears I’m in yore debt for gettin’ my niece out of a jam the other day,” the rancher went on.

  “Nothin’ to that—I’d ‘a’ done as much for one o’ yore steers,” Sudden replied. “Besides, Dover—”

  A scornful laugh interrupted him. “All that young fool did was to get himself in the same mess,” Trenton jeered. “If it hadn’t been for you, the pair of ‘em might have drowned.”

  “Oh, Dan would ‘a’ found a way,” Sudden defended. “I guess he was a mite impulsive.”

  “If he’s expecting thanks from me he’s liable to be disappointed; I don’t owe him any.

  Yore case is different. What’s Dover payin’ you?”

  The puncher chuckled. “Nothin’,” and when the other’s eyebrows went up, “Yu see, we ain’t mentioned the matter as yet. I s’pose it’ll be the usual forty per.”

  “I’ll give you double that to ride for me.”

  “That’s a generous offer to a stranger.”

  “I am under an obligation to you,” Trenton explained. “Also, I can use a man who has ideas and acts promptly.”

  Sudden was silent for a space, and then, “I’m not in the market,” he said. “Yu can forget about that obligation.”

  “But damn it all, I’m offerin’ you more than I pay my foreman,” Trenton cried.

  “Which wouldn’t make me too popular with him,” was the smiling reply. “No, seh, money never meant much to me; I’m stayin’ by the Circle Dot.”

  The rancher’s face took on an ugly snarl. “That one-hoss ranch is might near the end of its rope. I’m beginnin’ to think I misjudged you after all.”

  “It’s happened before,” Sudden said gravely. “I reckon I must be a difficult fella to figure out.”

  Trenton glared at him, realized that he was being gently chaffed and, with an oath, stalked out. The saloonkeeper looked at his remaining customer dubiously.

  “It was a good offer,” he commented. “Zeb ain’t regarded as a free spender; he must want you bad.”

  “No, he’s just tryin’ to weaken Dan. At the end of a month, his foreman fires me, an’ I’m finished round here,” Sudden explained. “He must think I’m on’y just weaned.”

  “Nobody never does know exactly what Zeb Trenton thinks,” Bowdyr replied. “It’ll pay to remember that there’s another way o’ deprivin’ Dan o’ yore services.”

  The warned man laughed, but he paused at the door and took a quick look up and down the street before stepping out. Then he made his way to the store, to emerge presently with a bulky parcel which he strapped behind his saddle. He returned to purchase cartridges.

  “Got many customers for thirty-eights?” he asked casually.

  “Not any,” the tradesman replied disgustedly. “Used to get ‘em ‘specially for a Circle Dot rider, Lafe Potter. He’s bumped off, an’ I ain’t sold none since. Let you have ‘em cheap.”

  “No use to me. Storekeeper I knowed once got landed the same way, an’ I just wondered if he had company.”

  As he rode back to the ranch, he was thinking it over. The calibre of the weapon which had slain Dave Dover was not quite so common as the sheriff had attempted to imply; apparently nobody in Rainbow possessed one.

  “O’ course, a fella could buy his fodder elsewhere—the Bend, mebbe,” he debated.

  “Wonder what became o’ Potter’s gun?”

  That evening, after supper, he put a question.

  “Yeah, Potter was wiped out some months back,” Dan informed. “He was night-ridin’ on what we call the creek line, an’ was found in the mornin’, after his bronc had sifted in without him. Same of story, shot, an’ no evidence.”

  “What happened to his belongin’s?”

  “He owed money in the town, an’ the sheriff claimed ‘em,” Dover said. “I never heard of any sale, but Evans was paid a matter o’ ten dollars, an’ I’ll bet Foxy pouched the rest.”

  Which, having seen the officer, Sudden thought likely enough. The dead cowboy probably did not own even the name he was using, and there would be no one to make enquiries.

  Sudden saw that the trail had petered out for the present.

  When he and Yorky set out in the morning, the boy was mildly facetious about the gunny sack tied to the puncher’s cantle.

  “That’s a mighty gen’rous meal yo’re packin’, Jim. Gain’ a long ways?”

  “Bit further than usual. Can yu swim, son?”

  “Yep, but I don’t s’pose I c’d tackle the Pacific.”

  “Yu mean the Atlantic—we’re headin’ East, yu numskull.”

  “Shore I did. They’s a chunk o’ th’ Atlantic in Noo York harbour. I useter go down ter see th’ big liners come in. Oh, she’s a swell city. I wish—”

  “Yu were back there?”

  Yorky shook his head. “Not now, it’s different here these days, but I’d like fer yer to see Noo York.”

  “I have,” Sudden grinned. “Wasted two whole weeks there once, an’ was thunderin’ glad to get away. Them brick canyons they call streets—”

  “Th’ fines’ ever.”

  “Mebbe, but they stifled me—I like fresh air. An’ the crowds, everybody on the tear, like the end o’ the world was due any minute.”

  The boy digested the criticism in silence. This capable man, who had handled Flint as though he were an infant, would not give an opinion lightly. Perhaps the one city he had known was not quite an earthly paradise after all.

  “She shore is a busy li’l dump,” he said, but less enthusiastically. “I’ll bet yer met some smart folks.”

  “A few,” Sudden smiled. “One of ‘em tried to sell me a gold brick, but got peeved when I
started to scratch it with my knife. Another said he’d returned recent from the ‘per-aries’ an’ claimed to have met me somewheres, but after I allowed it was likely, as I’d been there, he lost interest.”

  Yorky wriggled delightedly. “He’d be àcon’ man; they’s a slick gang.”

  “Shore,” Sudden grinned. “Then three more invited me to play poker with ‘em. Real nice fellas, they were—paid all my expenses, an’ a bit to spare.”

  The boy’s eyes went wide. “They let yer git away with it?”

  “I had all my clothes on,” the puncher replied, and Yorky had been long enough in the West to know what that meant. They passed the customary stopping-place and about a couple of miles further came to a grassy hollow, shaded by pines. At the bottom of this, rimmed by sand, and shining in the sunlight like a huge silver dollar, was a tiny lake.

  “There’s yore Atlantic, an’ if yu know of a better place for a swim, I’m listenin’,” Sudden remarked as he dismounted.

  In five minutes they had stripped, and the puncher, with a short run, shot into the water and vanished, to reappear ten yards from the bank, laughing and splashing. “C’mon, it’s fine,” he called. Yorky tried to emulate the feat, but only succeeded in falling flat on the surface and driving most of the breath out of his body. Then he struck off in the direction of his friend, beating the water with feverish rapidity which soon had him gasping.

  “Take it easy,” the puncher advised. “A slow stroke’ll carry yu further, an’ give yu a chance to breathe some.”

  Presently they came out, to lie stretched on the sand, where the increasing heat of the sun’s rays soon dried them. Yorky was surveying his ragged shirt ruefully, prior to putting it on, when Sudden, reaching down the gunny sack, pitched it over.

  “Ain’t hardly worth while, is she? See what yu can find in this.”

  The boy groped in the bag, and produced a new, striped, flannel shirt, which he slipped into.

  “Them pants o’ yores is plenty ventilated but sca’cely decent,” the cowboy went on.

  “Mebbe— Yorky was already searching; the pants appeared, followed by socks, and then something which made him gasp—a pair of the high-heeled boots affected by range-riders, and a broad-brimmed hat, the tall crown pinched in the approved fashion. Petrified, the boy stared at the garments, until Sudden’s voice aroused him.

  “Climb into ‘em, yu chump. What d’yu reckon clothes is for?”

  Dumbly, but with averted face, he obeyed; apart from Old Man Dover’s, it was the only kindness he had received since coming West, and he was ashamedly conscious that his eyes were wet. The things fitted easily, but well, a tribute to the donor’s gift Of observation. When at length he spoke, his voice was shaky.

  “Jim, I dunno—”

  “Forget it, son. What’s a few duds anyway? All yu gotta do now is get strong, eat more, an’ fill out yore dimples. We’ll make a cowboy of yu yet.”

  Yorky was silent; there was something he wanted to say, and it was difficult. With an effort he made the plunge:

  “I’m feelin’ mean. Jim, yore swell ter me, an’ I bin holdin’ out on yer—‘bout Flint. It warn’t the cyard game; he wanted fer me to spy on the Ol’ Man. I telled him where he c’d go.”

  “Good for yu,” Sudden said. “Glad yu came clean about it. Flint was likely planted on us a-purpose. Yu see, the Wagon-wheel is out to bust the Circle Dot, so we gotta keep an eye liftin’. Sabe?”

  “I get yer,” the boy replied. “We’ll beat ‘em.”

  “Shore we will,” Sudden smiled. “Now, I must be off; Dan don’t pay me just to dry-nurse yu.”

  “An’ them Noo York smart Alecks played him for a sucker,” Yorky grinned, when he was alone, and went to survey his new finery in the mirror Nature had provided.

  Beth Trenton sat on her pony regarding the scene of her recent discomfiture. She did not quite know why she had ridden there again except that, reviewing the incident in a calmer frame of mind, she had experienced qualms as to the way she had behaved. After all, the men had probably saved her life, and the fact that they were opposed to her uncle did not justify ingratitude. Looking at the placidly-moving surface of the stream, the danger beneath seemed incredible. Acting on a sudden impulse, she sent her mount down the shelving bank. At the very edge of the water, the animal shied away. She turned it again, and with a sharp blow of her quirt, tried to force it into the river, but with forefeet dug into the sand, the pony refused to budge. A satirical voice intervened:

  “Well, of all the fool plays I ever happened on.”

  Angrily she jerked her mount round and saw one of the men of whom she had been thinking. Lolling in his saddle, hat pushed back, he was regarding her with unconcealed disapproval.

  “It pleases you to be rude, sir,” she said, with an attempt at dignity.

  “It don’t please me to see a hoss punished for showin’ more sense than its rider,” he replied brusquely. “What in blazes made you want a second dose o’ that deathtrap?”

  “I didn’t, but I was curious to find out if the animal remembered,” she said stiffly.

  “An’ if he’d lost his head an’ rushed into the water, you’d ‘a’ been in the same pretty mess.”

  “From which you, as a gallant gentleman, would doubtless have extricated me.”

  “Yeah, at the end of a rope,” Dan retorted. “You’d ‘a’ come out lookin’ like a dish-rag, an’ lost yore pony.”

  “Ah, yes, your clever friend not being with you.” The gibe brought a flush, and her next remark deepened it. “What, may I ask, is your business on my uncle’s land?”

  The young man smothered his mounting wrath; after all, she was a stranger, and damnably pretty; and even as he loved spirit in a horse, he could appreciate it in this girl, lash him as she might.

  “The land is mine,” he told her quietly. “That rib o’ rock is the Trenton boundary.”

  She did not doubt him, and the knowledge that he had scored in their verbal battle brought an added tinge of red to her cheeks, and took some of the harshness from her tone.

  “Then I am trespassing?”

  “You can come when you please, but that don’t go for them other skunks at the Wagon-wheel.”

  Instantly he knew the slip had delivered him into her hands; the slow smile had begun, and it was too late to retract that one superfluous word.

  “Other skunks,” she said sweetly. “That means—”

  “Yore uncle an’ his outfit,” Dan finished.

  “Also—myself,” she added, and waited for his apology.

  She had mistaken her man; he was far too angry now, both with himself and her, to do anything of the kind. “Mebbe I ain’t clever at stringin’ words together, but I’m tellin’ you this: on’y a skunk can live with a skunk,” he retorted, and with an ironical sweep of his hat, spurred his horse, and was gone.

  Beth Trenton stared after him in dumb amazement, and then—she laughed. “Maybe I did rowel him quite a lot,” she murmured. “And I was a fool about the pony. All the same, you must pay for that, Dan Dover.”

  The Wagon-wheel ranch-house was a roomy, rambling one-storey building, standing at the top of a scrub-covered slope through which some sort of a road had been cut. It was flanked by the usual bunkhouse, barns, and corrals. A raised veranda extended along the front. On this, the ranch-owner was sitting when Beth, having handed her mount to a boy, approached the house.

  “Where you been this mornin’, girl?” he asked.

  “Re-visiting the scene of my misadventure—I wanted another shiver,” she smiled. “By the way, Uncle, did you thank those men?”

  “I’ve seen Green, an’ offered him a job here at twice what he’s gettin’,” Trenton replied.

  “He—”

  “Refused,” she said.

  “How do you know that?” he asked sharply.

  “Just a guess—he didn’t seem the sort to be bribed.”

  “No question of that; he’d done me a service an’ it was one w
ay of payin’ him; I didn’t want the fella. As for that whelp, Dover—”

  “He risked his life,” she reminded.

  Trenton laughed sneeringly. “I wish he’d lost it,” he said savagely. “He’ll rot in his boots before he gets a word of gratitude from me.”

  The girl did not argue; she was beginning to discover unknown depths in this only relative who had befriended her since the passing of her father some years earlier, paid for her education, and was now giving her a home. Evidently the feud between the two ranches was more bitter than she had suspected. The knowledge both saddened and dismayed her.

  Chapter VII

  Trenton, Garstone, and the foreman were closeted in a small room used by the rancher as an office.

  “So Green turned you down?” Garstone remarked. “It’s a pity—we could do with him.”

  “An’ we can do without him,” Bundy growled. “There’s other an’ cheaper ways o’ dealin’ with his kind if he gits awkward.”

  “I’ll have no bushwhackin’, Bundy,” Trenton said curtly. “There’s been too much already, an’ it’s a game two can play.”

  “I warn’t sayin’ any different,” the man lied. “But this fella man-handled Flint a hit back an’ if he tries to level up that’s no business of ourn.”

  Trenton took his pipe from his mouth and spoke through clenched teeth: “If he does, an’ I know it, I’ll hand him over to the sheriff right away.”

  “That’ll shore scare him most to death,” Bundy rejoined, with an impudent leer.

  Garstone gave a gesture of impatience. “You said you had some news for us, Trenton,” he reminded.

  “I have information which may be of value—if we can use it,” the rancher said. “It comes from Maitland, the new manager of the bank here. As you know, the cattle industry has had a rough time for some years, an’ we’re all working on borrowed money. The Circle Dot is in so deep that the bank holds a mortgage on the whole shebang, an’ it runs out in less than two months’ time.”

  Garstone looked sceptical. “They’ll renew—these small-town concerns have to take risks.”

  “I doubt it; Maitland is scared—every rancher around owes him money, includin’ myself.”