Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 01 - The Range Robbers(1930)

by Oliver Strange

  “Did yu get him?’ asked the Frying Pan owner.

  “Yes,’ replied the puncher. “Yu ‘pear to have cleaned up here too.’

  “All but them, an’ they won’t take long,’ said Job grimly, pointing to a group of five men, sitting on their horses but with their hands bound behind them. One of these was West, and the rustler grinned cheerily when he saw Green looking at him.

  “Good-bye, partner,’ he called. “Glad yu got her—an’ him.’ Painfully the hurt man raised himself on an elbow. “That man goes free, Job,’ he said. “He saved my life an’ turned me loose to follow Tarman.’

  “He was in the house with ‘em,’ Leeming said. “He helped steal my cattle an’ mebbe shot some o’ my men.’

  “Aw, partner, I’ll take my medicine with the rest,’ the Californian said.

  “He goes free,’ Green repeated stubbornly. “But for him I’d be cashed, an’ Miss Norry’

  Leeming gave in, and when the condemned were conducted into the forest by half a dozen of the Frying Pan boys the Californian was not among them. To the surprise of his captors, however, he made no attempt to get away.

  “I’m stayin’ around,’ he explained to Larry. “I reckon I’ll be able to thank him when he’s good an’ well again.’

  For having paid his debt to the rustler, Green had lapsed into unconsciousness, and was giving his friends a good deal of anxiety.

  Chapter XXIV

  SOME three weeks later it was “visiting day’ at the Y Z ranch-house; for the first time since he had been carried there, a limp, unconscious form, Green was allowed to see his friends. One at a time the punchers came into the room, chatted for a few moments and then, at a nod from Noreen, who was in charge of the invalid, went out again. Stereotyped as the inquiries and wishes were, the girl sensed the genuine feeling which prompted them, and her pride in her patient grew. The pale-faced man, propped up by pillows, had a smile for all and there was a look in his eyes which told the girl that he too realised the affection beneath the awkwardness. When West came in and gripped his hand, all the usually loquacious Californian could find to say was: “I’m thankin’ yu, partner.’

  “S’pose we call it square,’ suggested the sick man.

  West shook his head. “Not yet,’ he said, and then, “I’m stayin’ here.’

  “I’m right pleased,’ Green replied. “I was hopin’ yu would.’

  Then came Old Simon, who had nearly recovered, and with him Job Leeming. The Frying Pan owner, having regained his cattle, and as he put it, “cleaned up the country,’ was in the best of humours. He grinned at the occupant of the bed.

  “Humph!’ he remarked. “I shall certainly know where to come for a nurse when I get shot up.’

  “Miss Noreen has been wonderful; I reckon I wouldn’t ‘a’made the grade but for her,’ Green replied, and the girl flushed at the warmth in his tone and the look which accompanied the words. Job’s eyes went from one to the other. Then, with a chuckle, he said :

  “I’ve been havin’ an argument with Simon here, an’ I’d like yore opinion, Green. Three o’ my best punchers, who came to me after bein’ given their time at the Y Z, want to renig an’ come back, an’ Simon is encouragin’ them revolutionary notions. I say it ain’t fair.’

  Green looked at the twinkling eyes and his own crinkled at the corners as he replied :

  “Mebbe it ain’t, but it’s cold common sense all the same. We shore can’t get along without Ginger, Dirty, an’ Simple.’

  “We can’t, eh?’ queried the other.

  “He’s the new foreman o’ the Y Z, on shares,’ explained Old Simon. “I figure I owe him that.’

  “Yu shore do an’ then some,’ returned his friend bluntly. “But durn me if I ever see such a feller as yu for grabbin’ everythin’ in sight. Here’s me short-handed, an’ wantin’ a housekeeper—’ He looked quizzically at the girl, who laughed and shook her head at him.

  “As I said, grabbin’ ‘everythin’,’ he repeated, and then, more soberly, “Say, yu ain’t forgettin’ that our friend here is totin’ a past, are yu?’

  The abrupt reminder swept the merriment from their faces, but before anyone could speak, the door opened and in walked Tonk. Close on his heels came Larry.

  “The marshal insisted on comin’ up an’ not wantin’ to start a ruckus, I let him,’ announced the puncher. “If yu say the word, boss, I’ll be pleased to throw him out on his ear.’

  “It’s all right, Larry,’ replied the ranch-owner quietly, and when the puncher had regretfully withdrawn, “What do you want, Tonk?’

  “That,’ replied the marshal, pointing to the sick man, his pig-like eyes gloating over the ravages illness had left behind. “He is still too weak to be moved,’ Noreen said, her face almost as white as that of her charge.

  “Oh, I reckon not; yu don’t have to be fit an’ well to be hanged, anyway.’ The brutal retort brought Old Simon to his feet, one hand on his gun, and the marshal shrank back. “Now, see here, Simon,’ he protested, “it ain’t no use yu a-kickin’ agin the law. That feller is wanted, an’ I got a posse of a dozen outside awaitin’ to take him.’

  The rancher sank back in his chair. “What yu aimin’ to do with him?’ he asked.

  “Tote him to Big Rock, an’ then by rail to the capital—they got a fine gaol there,’ was the reply.

  “Surely you can wait until he’s fit to travel,’ the girl said indignantly.

  “An’ give yu a chance to turn him loose agin?’ sneered the officer. “No, he comes with me now.’

  “He does not,’ rasped Simon. “Get the boys together, Job: we’ll call this feller’s bluff:

  The old man’s eyes were blazing, and Leeming, whose touchy temper needed but a spark, was already on his feet when a calm voice from the bed interposed: “As the most interested party in this discussion, I reckon I oughtta have a say in it,’ the invalid began. “There’s no need to call the boys. If Miss Norry will hand me my vest…’

  The marshal’s hand flew to his pistol “Yu give him his gun an’ he dies now,’ he screamed at the girl.

  “Don’t be a fool, Tonk; I’ve had yu covered since yu came in,’ retorted the puncher. “It don’t need a gun to crush a toad like yu.’

  Over the edge of the sheet peeped the muzzle of a Colt, and the marshal’s hand came away from his gun-butt with laughable celerity. Green took the garment the girl passed to him, tore open the lining, and produced some papers and a shining metal star which he tossed on the bed cover.

  “That’s the badge of a deputy-sheriff, an’ here’s my authority to wear it, duly made out an’ signed by Governor Bleke,’ he said. “That gives me the power to arrest yu if I want to, marshal.’

  With a shaking hand the officer picked up the document; it might be a bluff, but a glance showed him that it was genuine.

  “But yo’re Sudden, the outlaw,’ he stammered. “I reckon the Governor don’t know

  “Let me tell yu a little story, marshal,’ interrupted the man in the bed. “Some years ago there was a couple o’ men I was anxious no meet up with.’ He smiled at the rest of his audience. “Not knowin’ where they’d drifted to, it meant p’raps a long search, an’ I’d gotta live. Well, I heard that the Governor was lookin’ for a feller to weed out certain gangs o’ desperadoes who were gettin’ too busy in the country, an’ I reckoned the two jobs, mine an’ his, would fit in, so I applied and was appointed. I didn’t flash my star about as much as some folks, in fact, nobody knew I was a deputy, so I soon got a reputation as a bad man; every crime that couldn’t be otherwise explained was plastered on me, though sometimes I was hundred o’ miles from where it happened.

  I talked it over with the Governor an’ we figured it would help me in my work to let the cards go as they lay, but he gave orders that Sudden was to be taken alive an’ sent to him; that was for my protection. So yu see, marshal, the Governor knows all about me, an’ here’s a letter from him in reply to one I sent a while ago from Big Rock, askin�
�� me to come an’ see him as soon as I’ve cleaned up here.’

  He tossed another paper towards the pop-eyed, staggered officer, but that hitherto pompous person allowed it to flutter to the ground unheeded. His chicken-hearted body was waiting for the blow he knew was coming.

  “P’raps yu don’t know Governor Bleke,’ resumed the puncher easily. “A mighty nice man, marshal, though lawbreakers, I’ve heard, find him pretty aptly named. I’m bettin’ he’ll want to see yu, ‘specially when I show him certain papers we found on Tarman an’ Poker Pete. They didn’t pay yu any too well, did they, marshal, but I s’pose yu were to share in the plunder?’

  At this direct charge the usually purplish face of the badgered bully turned to a bluish tinge. He tried to utter a denial but his shaking lips refused to do their office. All his bluster was gone and he resembled nothing so much as a pricked bladder. The cowpuncher surveyed him with disgust for a few moments, and then said reflectively: “Dunn as he’d thank me, after all—yu ain’t a very pleasant sight. If I was yu, Tonk, I’d travel; they say it improves the mind an’, Gawd knows, yores needs a lot o’ that. So yu better take steps—long, quick ones—for another stamping-ground.’ He suddenly dropped his sardonic, bantering tone, and pointing to the door, said harshly, “Get! an’ remember this, if I find yu pollutin’ the scenery when I’m around again, I’ll—wipe—yuout.’

  Utterly cowed and broken, the marshal lurched unsteadily from the room. As the door closed behind him the invalid said, “Well, that’s the last of ‘em. There’s a few sots in Hatchett’s that backed the marshal for the drink he bought ‘em, but I’m gamblin’ they’ll be good now.’

  “I allus reckoned Tonk wasn’t straight, but I didn’t guess Tarman bought him,’ Simon said. “That feller was swingin’ a wide loop for a rustler.’

  “Tarman wasn’t after cattle—he only wanted them to pay his men,’ Green said. “He was aimin’ for the land. His plan was to steal the Y Z an’ starve the Frying Pan down to his figure, an’ then pay for it with a bullet, like as not. Have yu ever thought what yore land would be worth if the railway extended the Big Rock to Hatchett’s Folly?’

  Leeming whistled. “So that was it, eh? But it ain’t likely.’

  “It’s all that, an’ Tarman knew,’ Green assured him.

  “Well, young feller, yu keep a-pilin’ up the debt,’ Simon said. “An’ I don’t see no way o’ payin’ it. Me an’ Job was figurin’ that Suddeh would want our influence with the Governor, but seems like yu got more than we have. I’m almighty glad of it too.’

  Someone else was “almighty glad’ and the soft eyes which rested on the sick man made no secret of it. While he smilingly protested that there was no debt, she noticed that one hand was fumbling at his throat in search of something.

  “Is this what you are looking for?’ she asked, holding up a narrow strip of rawhide upon which hung a flat little locket of gold, with a steer’s head engraved on one side. “It was round your neck when you got hurt, the bullet had cut the thong almost through, and I feared it would get lost,’ she explained.

  “Where d’yu get that?’

  With the words Old Simon almost snatched the trinket from the girl’s grasp; his trembling fingers found a secret spring and the locket flew open, disclosing a miniature of a young and pretty woman. One glance and the old man dropped into his chair as though shot.

  “My God !’ he groaned, and sat gazing at the portrait in his hand. Then he looked at the puncher, and said, “I’m askin’ how yu come by this?’

  “I’ve allus had it—long as I can remember. I kept it hidden, even Bill Evesham never saw it. The Piute squaw who brought me up guessed it was a picture o’ my mother.’

  “An’ o’ my wife,’ said Old Simon. “Our baby, Donald, was wearin’ it the day he disappeared.’ He held out his hands to the man in the bed. “Son, son, can yu ever forgive me? If it hadn’t been for Norry, I’d have handed yu over to the hangman.’

  The old man’s voice shook with emotion and Green saw that in his weakened state he was perilously near to breaking down. Shaken to the depths himself by the revelation, he thrust aside his own feelings, and called up one of his whimsical smiles.

  “Why as to that, seh,’ he said softly, “I reckon we break even; I came here to shoot yu.’

  Leeming saw the puncher’s object and promptly backed him up. “But yu didn’t, an’ yu wouldn’t have,’ he said cheerily. “Somethin’ would’ve stopped yu. Providence is shore mysterious. Why, Simon, don’t yu recollect tellin’ me yu couldn’t help likin’ this feller, even when yu thought he was stealin’ yore cows?’

  “I did, an’ I couldn’t understand it,’ Simon admitted. “An’ his face at times seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place it, but he favours his mother—yu can all see it now.’

  They could; looking from the portrait to the invalid it was easy to trace the likeness. The cowpuncher told the story of his youth as he knew it. His early wanderings over the country with the Indian horse-dealer and his band of ponies, of his adoption by Evesham and life on his ranch, until the treachery of Webb robbed his benefactor of everything and practically killed him. Of his vow of vengeance and the troubled trail it forced him to follow. Finally, how Governor Bleke, hearing of the rustling,had sent him to Hatchett’s Folly. When the story was ended, Old Simon rose and clasped the teller by the hand.

  “Son, I’m feelin’ plumb ashamed,’ he said. “If yu had shot me it would’ve been only just, but I reckon if what the preachers tell us is right, Bill Evesham knows the truth now an’ understands. To think it should have been him that found yu. I can’t never forgive myself.’

  His voice trembled and broke, and both Noreen and Leeming saw that the events of the last hour had shaken him to the core. They exchanged a meaning glance, and then Job said : “Come along, old friend, I reckon the patient has had all the excitement he can stand for the present. Yu an’ me’ll go down an’ tell the boys, an’ we’ll all drink the health of yore son, Donald.’

  “An’ my daughter,’ Simon added, with a fond look at the girl. “It ain’t goin’ to make any difference, Norry, is it?’

  She flung her arms round his neck. “Of course not, you dear old silly,’ she replied brightly. “Now you run along or I shall have two of you on my hands again.’

  She bustled them out of the room and returned to her place at the head of the bed. Her patient, leaning back against the pillows, appeared to be thinking deeply. Presently he spoke, with the slow drawl she had come to associate with his whimsical moods.

  “This findin’ o’ parents is a right upsettin’ business,’ he stated. “Larry will smile—he christened me Don—claimed I was a born disturber o’ yore sex; but he was wrong there, I never had any time for women.’

  “Except the Pretty Lady, of course,’ the girl ventured.

  The puncher smiled. “Now who could have told yu about her?’ he questioned.

  “Yu told me yourself when you were feverish,’ she replied, blushing under the scrutiny he gave her.

  “I guess I talked a lot o’ nonsense—a man is apt to at them times,’ he reflected, and when she did not rise to the bait he went off at a tangent. “Tarman would ‘a’ finished me if yu hadn’t made yore hoss jump; he wasn’t shore.’

  Before she could reply, a burst of cheering and a volley of pistol shots shattered the air. The girl started up in alarm, but the patient was smiling.

  “He has told the boys, an’ I reckon they’re pleased,’ he said. “I wish he had waited.’

  “But why?’ she asked, unable to follow this new line of thought.

  “It’ll make it harder when I go,’ he replied, and when she stared at him in bewilderment, he added almost fiercely, Did yu figure I’d stay here an’ rob yu o’ yore inheritance—yu who have been a real daughter to him all these years? Why, I’d be near as bad as Tarman.’

  “But it would break his heart to lose you again,’ she cried, conscious that she was fighting too for her own happine
ss. “He had been the kindest of fathers to me, but always he has grieved for the boy who should have been here to follow him.’

  The puncher lay silent for a while, thinking, but watching the thin, set face, the girl knew that her pleading had not succeeded; he had solved the problem according to his own idea of right and wrong. When he spoke again she knew she had read him correctly.

  “It shore is tough, but I can’t stay here an’ take yore ranch,’ he said dully. “I gotta go—it’s the on’y trail out.’

  Noreen had come to a decision. Smiling tremulously, she laid a hand on his, and whispered :

  “Are you sure—Don? Couldn’t we stop talking of my ranch, your ranch, and agree to think of it as—ours?’

  For a moment he did not comprehend, and then his hand closed over hers, and before the light in his eyes she hid her rosy face in his shoulder.

  “Girl,’ he whispered huskily, “do yu mean it?’ Then, though he got no answer, his arms stole round her, and he muttered : “This shore has got me beat.’

  The End