Sudden: Takes the Trail

by Oliver Strange

  “The gal’s gone,” he said. “Sark fetched her, an’ they’re off to git married at Drywash.”

  The statement produced an oath from Dave, and an incredulous shrug from the marshal. “We’ll see for ourselves,” the latter replied.

  “Then you’d better come a-shootin’,” Jake snapped. “An’ here’s one to begin with.” With the words, he swung his rifle up and fired, the mis sile failing to find the mark by a mere inch.

  Sudden replied, shooting from the hip, but Jake was taking no more chances, and his bullet only buried itself in the slammed door. Immediately, gun-barrels were thrust from the unglazed windows, and a succession of spiteful cracks awoke the echoes. The fight was on.

  The early exchange of shots did no damage; the light was still poor, and the necessity for avoiding exposure interfered with accuracy. Movement on either side received instant attention, and both parties being chary of providing opportunities, the firing became spasmodic.

  Moments passed and then the sun glinted on a cautiously pushed-out rifle-barrel. They fired together, saw the weapon slide forward as though released by nerveless fingers, and flash to the ground.

  “That’s one to me,” Sudden said. “An’ one less to them. I figured the Bar O would be here by this,” he added.

  “They got twice the distance to travel. How did yu hit on the other way?”

  “Got Jake to lay a trail for me,” Sudden smiled, and then explained.

  “Cunnin’ like a fox,” the young man complimented. “I dunno why I trust yu.” Time dragged on, the sun became more searching, and the position of the assailants correspondingly uncomfortable. Cramped with crouching behind scanty cover, with parched throats—they had not thought to bring water-bottles into the fray—they sweated and suffered, but not in silence.

  Nippert, remembering his cool bar, with its shelves of satisfying beverages, spoke feelingly of the unusual state to which he was reduced, and ended:

  “We’d oughta rushed ‘em right away, Jim.”

  “If we had yu might be needin’ a drink still more,” was the sardonic reply. “With the Dumbbell crowd, they’re all of two to one. Pass the word to cripple the door.” The Welcome citizens, glad of a definite mark, obeyed the order eagerly, and sent a hail of lead into the unoffendingtimber. This outburst of activity provoked an immediate response from the defenders.

  “Leave the door to the others,” Sudden told his companion. “If them woman-stealers think we’re concentratin’ on that, they may get careless.” They did; finding no bullets came towards the windows, and anxious to reply to the bombardment, several of the besieged showed themselves for an instant and paid penalty. The door itself, one hinge demolished, was sagging drunkenly, and attempts were being made to barricade it when a burst of gun-fire from the rear of the building advised those within that they were in danger of being surrounded. The Bar O outfit had arrived and was getting to work. Mullins, comprehending what had happened, inquired for Sark.

  “Seen him go upstairs,” Galt informed.

  With a black scowl, Jake took the steps three at a time. The door of Mrs. Gray’s prison was ajar, and he heard Sarks’ voice:

  “This is our chance to git off—I’ve bin waitin’ for the moment. My hoss is hid in the brush handy. All the men is busy at the front; they won’t see us.”

  “You are ready to desert your riders?”

  “They can take care o’ theirselves. I’m thinkin’ o’ you.”

  “My friends are outside,” she replied. “I shall wait here for them.” The contempt in her eyes, coupled with the knowledge that time was precious, stripped him off his mask. In a voice trembling with exasperation, he cried, “They’ll be too late. Yo’re comin’ with me, like it or not, an’ before we’ve bin long together, you’ll …” A burst of flame drowned the remainder of the sentence, and also the footsteps of the man who slid into the room, gun in hand. He saw the bound girl cowering on the bed, the insenate bully standing over her, and struck once, swiftly and surely, with the butt of his weapon. Sark crumpled at his feet, and he kicked the inert mass in sheer savagery.

  “A double-dealin’ coyote,” he said. “But he’s right about one thing—this ain’t no safe place for you—nor me.”

  “Have you—killed him?” she whispered.

  “Reckon not,” he replied, with a hard grin. “But I will if you say so.” She shuddered but did not reply. The jarring crash of the firing was becoming incessant, but so far the window of this room had escaped attention. Jake tested this by allowing his hat to be visible—having first removed his head from it; no shots came. He then picked up a rope from the floor; it had been Dave’s the girl remembered with a sigh, and a portion of it had served to bind her. Working swiftly, he looped it beneath her armpits.

  “If you sing out, or struggle, I’ll stop yor mouth with—kisses,” he threatened.

  Silently she suffered herself to be carried to the window and lowered to the ground, where Mullins immediately followed her. As yet, they had been unobserved, but now, with twenty yards of clearing to negotiate, discovery was inevitable. The abductor had thought of this.

  Slinging the helpless girl across one shoulder, he strode forward, a jeer of triumph on his face; they would not dare to risk hitting the burden he carried.

  And so it proved, but at the instant he disappeared among the enveloping trees, the marshal and his deputy sprang up, and regardless of the bullets which greeted them, sprinted after him. They reached the shelter of the brush safely, and thrusting through, were in time to see the quarry fling the girl on the neck of a horse, leap into the saddle, and drive home the spurs.

  “Damnation, he’s done us,” Dave panted.

  Sudden dropped to one knee, levelled his rifle, and squeezed the trigger. The horse staggered and went down, but the rider jumped clear, dragging his captive with him. One sweeping slash severed the cord confining her ankles, and she was forced to her feet.

  “Run!” Jake hissed. “If those hombres catch us, you die.” He flashed the knife before her eyes, and gripping an arm pulled her after him. “Hell burn their souls, I’ll beat ‘em yet.” That he would stop at nothing, even murder, in his desperation, she did not doubt, and strove to obey, stumbling blindly at his heels through thorny thickets which tore her garments and lacerated the flesh. In and out they wound, and she divined that her captor was chiefly concerned to baffle pursuit, while at the same time, heading in a definite direction. Unnoticed, she contrived at intervals, to let fall a fragment of her tattered frock. The din of the battle behind them was growing fainter when they emerged into the open again. Torn, breathless, with aching limbs, she sank wearily. But the ruffian gave her no respite.

  “Get on, if you wanta live,” he ordered.

  They had come out on a scrub-and tree-studded declivity, along the face of which ran a narrow ledge, a perilous passage even for a pedestrian, since one slip could send the traveller hurtling down the steep slope to the pine-tops hundreds of feet below. The girl gave one glance and shrank back. Jake gripped her shoulder and pointed to some black wheeling dots high in the sky.

  “Them’s buzzards—waitin’ for one of us to fall,” he told her. “Now, git goin’ an’ watch out, or it’ll be you.” Meanwhile, the marshal and his deputy were floundering in the labyrinth of undergrowth into which the cunning cattle-thief had led them. Broken twigs and trodden grass were all they had for guidance, and these must be searched for, causing delay. Came a time when even these slight indications ceased and they looked at one another in dismay. Then Sudden chanced upon a shred of cotton material impaled on a thorn. Dave recognized it.

  “Mary’s dress,” he said. “C’mon.” A few yards further they found a second, and others followed.

  The pointers enabled them to put on speed, with the result that they reached the ledge in time to see the hunted man and his companion vanish round a bulge some distance along it. The marshal swept the high ground which commanded the path the fugitives were taking, and came to a decisi
on.

  “Yu keep on his tail, Dave,” he said. “This looks like a hump in the mountain, an’ if I can cut across it, there’s a chance o’ headin’ him off.” He began to climb, while Dave resumed the chase. Unhampered, save by the necessity for care, he soon had the satisfaction of sighting the quarry. Goaded by curses and threats, the girl was doing her best, but the exertion in the terrific heat would have taxed the powers of an ox, and she was utterly spent. Aware of this, and confident he had thrown off his pursuers, Jake told her she might rest a moment.

  She slumped to the ground and closed her heavy eyes. A low curse made her open them again; Jake’s face was towards the trail they had traversed; he was listening intently. Round a curve less than fifty yards away a familiar figure appeared, moving steadily towards them. With a murderous glare the bandit snatched out his revolver and fired. The deputy saw the movement, and pulled the trigger of the rifle he had no time to raise. He felt the wind of a bullet on his cheek, and then saw the other’s weapon jerk into the air and drop into the abyss; his lucky shot had torn it from the fellow’s fingers.

  Dave pressed on, his rifle ready; the miscreant might have a second six-shooter, and be waiting to make a better job of it. But Jake’s one thought now was to save himself. With only a knife, he was no match for an armed man who had every right and reason to shoot him like a dog. Dragging his prisoner behind him so that her body should shield his own, he resumed flight, revolving in his crooked mind a desperate expedient to secure his freedom. With that, and the ransom money, he could make a start elsewhere. It involved sacrificing Mary Gray, but there were other women, and she had been, largely, a means to an end.

  “I’d tire of her in a month,” he muttered, and snatched a glance backwards.

  Dave was overhauling him; he must act soon. Just ahead was a likely spot for his diabolic design; the descending slope was less abrupt and about thirty feet down was a clump of scrub-oak, jutting out from the inhospitable surface of the mountain. Opposite this he stopped, lifted the girl, and laying her lengthwise on the ledge, deliberately pushed her over and darted off, ducking to avoid possible shots.

  But the sole spectator of this undreamt-of-development was too stunned to shoot.

  Horror-stricken, he watched the fragile form of the woman rolling helplessly to what seemed to be certain death. Only when she collided with the oaks and hung there, perilously poised on the verge of a deep vertical dip, did he find his voice.

  “For God’s sake, lie still,” he shouted.

  There was no sign that she heard; if she had fainted, came to her senses, and stirred …

  The possibility sent a chill along his spine. Slinging his rifle, he lay down, face to the incline, and edged himself over the brink of the ledge, clinging with fingers and toes to any inequality which might lessen the speed of his descent. Outspread, clawing at the rock-face with cut, blistered hands, he gradually lowered himself.

  “If I get outa this, I’ll never be mor’n a yard away from a rope again,” he communed.

  He screwed his head round to find the bunch of gnarled trees only a few feet below, and a moment later he was squatting beside the girl, calling her name, and gently wiping the blood from a cut on her forehead. Fearful that she might move, he put an arm about her, and soon her eyes opened.

  “Oh, Dave, thank heaven you’re safe,” she murmured. He was deeply stirred; after all she had suffered, her first thought was for him. His clasp tightened.

  “There’s no fella in the world worthy of yu,” he said softly. “But will yu let me try, Mary?” Bending, he kissed the upturned lips. “Yu don’t mind me doin’ that?” The question brought a tremulous smile. “I couldn’t—very well—slap your face, Dave,” she whispered.

  “I’m plumh loco,” he said contritely, as he released her wrists, and noting the angry red weals the cord had caused, added viciously, “I hope Jim ain’t too late.” For a while he was silent, cudgelling his brain to find a way out of their predicament. To go for help would mean leaving Mary alone, and that he would not do; Jake, finding himself intercepted, might come back, and there was another danger—Argus-eyed—in the sky. Sudden would come in search of them unless

  … He dismissed that thought too. He shifted a little and an ominous crack warned him of the risk they ran by remaining there; the trees could not be deeply-rooted.

  “We gotta climb up,” he announced, and was aware of a shiver she could not conceal. “It ain’t far, an’ I’ll be right ahead o’ yu. Scared?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “But with you …”

  “We’ll make it,” he assured her.

  Standing up, he drew his knife and set about the task of cutting footholds, as far as he could reach, at short distances where the rock was sufficiently soft. Then he helped her to rise.

  “Hang on to my belt whatever happens,” he cautioned. “Tread where I do, an’ don’t look down.” Inch by inch, as it seemed to the rescuer, they crawled up, resting every few moments while, clutching with one desperate hand, he scooped fresh primitive steps with the other.

  Though she strove to lessen it, the dragging weight of the girl imposed a terrible strain, and before long every nerve and muscle of his body was pulsing with pain.

  The fierce sun swept the sweat from his skin almost before it was formed, and the stone he had to grip burned his hands. Eyes glued to the cliff, he had no means of measuring their progress, but he appeared to have been climbing for endless hours when at length his fingers found the edge of the pathway. With a final effort, he pulled himself andhis burden to safety, and collapsed, conscious only of a blessed release from exertion. An anxious whisper aroused him.

  “Dave, you are not hurt?” Mary was bending over, endeavouring to remove the caked dust from his face, and there. was that in her eyes which restored strength to his overtaxed frame.

  He stood up, shakily.

  “I’m all right,” he protested, “but I feel as if I’d been drug at the end of a rope for about a million mile.” The smiling eyes sobered. “I’m worried ‘bout Jim. Figure yu can walk a bit—if I help yu?”

  “You’ve done enough of that already,” she returned. “I can manage quite well.”

  Notwithstanding, when he slipped an arm around her, she seemed content to let it remain.

  The marshal, also, was having a testing time. His experiment of taking a short cut over the hump of the hill was sound enough, but not easy of accomplishment. Nevertheless, he hurried, for soon after he had left Dave, two reports, one faint and the second a little louder, had reached him, and he was troubled.

  He stumbled on down the incline and presently saw that his deduction had been correct—the ledge lay before him. Concealed behind a bushy shrub, he waited. The moments slid by, and he was beginning to fear that he was too late after all when, out of the silence, came the crunch of hasty feet. Sudden stood up, his rifle directed at the unsuspecting traveller.

  “Reach for it, Mullins,” he ordered.

  The fugitive stopped as though struck by a bullet, gazed in amazed consternation, and slowly raised his hands. How in the Devil’s name the marshal had contrived to be there he could not guess, but with the hate in his heart was now a sickening dread.

  “Where’s Mrs. Gray?” Sudden asked sharply.

  “Left her back on the trail—she was hamperin’ me,” Jake said sullenly. “I was on’y takin’ her from Sark.”

  “Yeah, dawg robbin’ dawg,” was the caustic retort. “We’ll go find her. If I hadn’t promised to hang yu, I’d use a ca’tridge right now. March, an’ don’t do nothin’ to make me change my mind.” Mullins marched, his captor close at his heels. His situation was critical, as well he knew.

  He tried to arrange his jumbled thoughts and hit upon a loop-hole, only to return to the one appalling fact—he was walking to his death.

  As they drew nearer to the spot where he had so inhumanly sacrificed the Widow, his haggard face hardened into a despairing resolve to risk all on one last throw—a gamble to s
ave the life already forfeit. But the man behind must not suspect.

  Head down, shoulders drooping despondently, he slouched wearily along until they came to where the path doubled in width for a few yards, giving him space to carry out his design, and, with a grunt of pain, clasped his hands to his middle, and nearly fell. Then, as his guard stepped closer to investigate, he straightened, knocked aside the muzzle of the rifle with one hand, snatched his knife from behind his belt with the other, and aimed a lightning stab at Sudden’s breast. Unexpectedly as was the attack, it did not take the marshal entirely unawares. Flinging up the rifle, he parried the knife-stroke with such force that both weapons left their owners’ grasp, and before he could draw one of his guns, Jake’s long arms were pinioning his own.

  Locked in a close embrace, the men struggled for mastery. Powerfully-built, tough as hickory, each knew that he was fighting for his life. Mullins, infuriated by the fact that he had again failed to outwit the man who so often baulked him, seemed to be imbued with the strength of a madman.

  Slipping, slithering, sometimes almost on the dizzy brink of the chasm, they wrought on, now one, now the other, gaining some slight advantage. There was no sound save of hard-drawn breath and rasp of boots trying to keep a hold on the ground. In vain Sudden strove to free an arm, but the bandit clung like a limpet, forcing him to the edge of the trail. The man’s physical power was phenomenal, and the marshal realized that unless he could break that hold the pair of them would perish. His heel turned on a loose stone, a braced knee gave, and he saw the unholy gleam of triumph in the ferocious, bloodshot eyes.

  “You lose, Sudden,” Jake gasped. “Go feed the buzzards, you bastard.” His exultation was premature. The marshal glimpsed the void just behind him and knew he was within seconds of death. With a supreme effort he thrust the other back, swinging round on to solid ground again. With a savage roar of disappointment, Jake—who now seemed careless of his own life—made another violent attempt to hurl both to destruction. He was within an ace of succeeding when the marshal spoke: