During the morning, Sudden made an opportunity to tell Sandy of his meeting with Rogue.
“I’m relieved he took it that way,” the boy said. “An odd mixture, Rogue. At times, a fiend from the Pit itself, an’ yet, he can be real folks. Navajo now, he’s bad all through, an’ he hates Rogue. I’m glad to be clear o’ that crowd, Jim.”
Sudden regarded him sardonically. “yo’re tellin’ me news.”
“Yu know what I mean,” Sandy replied.
Sudden did. He had already noted that his companion’s gaze was never long away from a certain graceful figure riding ahead. His eyes twinkled with mischief as he said gravely:
“Shore I do, but what’s worryin’ me is”—he paused, and Sandy looked up expectantly—“does she like red hair?” He was yards away before the boy realized the significance of the question and then it was too late to do anything but swear softly.
“Yu damned pirut,” he smiled. “But Gosh! I’m mighty pleased I met up with yu.”
Chapter XI
THE days oozed by, days of long, lazy hours in the saddle under a scorching sun, for the fine weather held. Jeff was too good a cowman to hurry the herd but he took care that the animals were healthily tired and ready for sleep when they reached a good average.
They had crossed the Brazos River without much difficulty, being fortunate in finding it low, and, as Tyson had predicted, no “trouble” had materialized. Moreover, the wounded man was progressing favourably, so that the outfit generally was in high good humour. Only the foreman refused to join in any jubilation.
“Everythin’ is goin’ too slick—it ain’t natural,” he grumbled, pacing behind the wagon as it bumped its way over the cracked and rutted surface of the plain. “Just when yo’re feelin’ careless an’ contented is the time Lady Luck chooses to give yu a kick in the pants.”
The cattleman pulled a wry face. “If yu was lyin’ here yu wouldn’t think it was all so hunky, yu of death’s-head,” he replied. “How’re the new men pannin’ out?”
“Green an’ Sands is awright but I don’t like Lasker,” Jeff said bluntly. “Does his work but …” He did not finish. “Wish I knowed who put that pill in yu, Sam.”
“Yu ain’t thinkin’ it was one o’ the outfit, are yu?”
“I’m in the dark,” the foreman admitted. “Sands or Lasker could ‘a’ done it—they weren’t in camp or with the cows.”
“Forget it,” Eden said irritably. “I’m here, ain’t I? Why should any o’ the boys want to crab the drive? I figure it was a war-whoop, the one that got away from Green, likely; Injuns never let up when it’s a case of evenin’ a score.”
“Dessay yo’re right, but I’m wonderin’,” Jeff insisted. “Then stop it, yu fool,” his employer told him. “All yu gotta worry about is the cows; they’re goin’ through if we have to carry ‘em one at a time. yu sabe?”
In his excitement he raised both his voice and his body, only to sink back with an oath.
Instantly the hard-faced woman on the driver’s seat thrust her head through the canvas flaps. “Yu, Jeff, pull yore freight, pronto,” she ordered. “Ain’t there critters enough out there to pester but yu gotta come here an’ git my patient all het up? If yu didn’t wear a hat yu’d have no use for yore head.”
The foreman made no reply; he knew better than to engage in verbal warfare with the lady. Sam Eden, however, promptly protested:
“Jeff’s doin’ his duty, reportin’ to me, Judy,” he said. “It ain’t his fault if I’m restive, lyin’ in this damn wagon day after day.” He looked at her slyly. “Mebbe, if I could have a
smoke …”
“Sam Eden, yo’re plumb crazy,” she snapped. “Here’s yu with yore innards all tore up an’ yu want baccy. Where’d yu be if it makes yu cough an’ starts a bleedin’?” She looked at Jeff.
“Beat it,” she added.
The foreman obeyed, leaving them wrangling, but there was a smile on his face. Riding beside the wagon he stooped and peeped through a hole in the cover. The patient had a pipe in his mouth and his nurse was striking a match.
“Pure gold, that woman,” Jeff murmured. “But her tongue cuts like a bowie.”
Quickening his pace, he rode after the herd. As he passed the remuda, he spoke to Lasker:
“We must be near Injun country now. Best not let yore hosses stray far tonight. Yu can have help if yu want it.” The wrangler nodded sullenly. “I can manage,” he said. “Been this way afore?” Jeff asked.
“Nope, it’s new to me,” the man replied.
Two or three miles were covered and their eyes were gladdened by the sight of trees in the far distance. For days past they had seen no timber—for the sparse scrub-oak and stunted mesquite could not be so designated—and they knew the line of foliage indicated a river.
“Reckon that’ll be the Red,” Sudden remarked to Sandy. “She’ll be high,” Sandy predicted.
Their fears proved to be well founded, when, a little later, Sudden and the foreman—who had ridden ahead—halted on the bank of the river. Jeff’s face fell as he surveyed the swift-moving, eddying torrent, murky with the red sediment which stained the timber and driftwood along the banks and gave the river its name. He shook his head.
“She’s all of six hundred yards acrost an’ with the drift that means swimmin’ near twice as fur, an’ she’s carryin’ too much sand,” he said. “We’ll never make it as the cards lie.”
“Better play it safe, ol-timer,” Sudden agreed. “These streams, I’ve heard, rise an’ fall in a day.”
He was studying the ground; there were cattle-tracks in plenty but his experienced eye told him that they had not been recently made.
“S’pose them jaspers in front of us beat the floodwater, but I’m guessin’ they didn’t cross here,” he remarked.
“They may still be this side—further downstream,” the foreman suggested. “The trail forked a few miles back. Well, we gotta wait, whether Sam likes it or not.”
The wagon was drawn up beneath some tall pines, and the cook was busy with his pots and pans when a horseman rode in from the gloom. Sudden, watching the leaping flames of the big fire, stepped forward.
“This Sam Eden’s outfit?” the new arrival queried, and then, peering from his saddle, “but of course it must be, unless you’re riding for someone else. Isn’t your name Green?”
Sudden did not reply. Directly the rider had come within the circle of firelight he had seen that it was Jethro Baudry, and, for some reason he did not attempt to track down, the aversion he had experienced on first meeting the man returned.
“And where is Sam? Not working while his men warm their hands, I hope?” Baudry went on, with clumsy facetiousness. “yu’ll find Mister Eden in the wagon, seh,” the cowboy said stiffly, and walked away.
The gambler’s eyes followed him and their expression was scarcely amiable. “Starchy, eh?” he muttered. “Odd about Sam though.”
He rode over to the wagon, got down, and looked in. By the light of a hanging oil-lamp he saw the invalid, pale and haggard, but obviously on the mend.
“Hello, Sam, what’s the meaning of this?” he greeted. “Howdy, Jethro,” the cattleman responded. “Come right in an’ I’ll tell yu.”
Squatting on a sack of meal, chewing a black cigar, the visitor listened in silence to the story and then gave his opinion:
“Looks like redskins; who else would want to lay you out?”
“Yu can search me. But how come yu here, Jethro?”
“Meeting a man at Doan’s Store—some way down the river.
Got news of a herd arriving and suspicioned it might be the S E. you’re making good time, Sam.”
“Barrin’ this,” Eden tapped his chest, “we’ve been lucky. Mebbe all our troubles is to come.”
“Likely enough, and that’s one reason I wanted to see you,” Baudry said. “I’ve been told there’s some pretty tough gangs haunting the trail, waiting for herds, and I thought I’d warn you to be on the lo
okout.”
“Mighty good o’ yu, Jethro,” the rancher said warmly. “I’ve had word a’ready to the same effect but”—his eyes twinkled—“if they wait for the S E they’re liable to get tired o’ the job.”
Baudry looked puzzled.
“We’re aimin’ to turn west and cut our own trail,” Eden explained triumphantly.
“You’re a sly old fox, Sam,” the gambler said. “But isn’t it risky? you may euchre the rustlers but you’ll certainly run into the redskins.”
“I figure them varmints will be watchin’ the trail too,” the cattleman argued. “As for bein’ risky, the whole damn drive is that. Seen anythin’ of another herd this way?”
“Yes, they crossed some miles lower down—just beat the flood. The river’s dropping—you’ll get over tomorrow, I’d say.”
“Hope so. I fair hate hangin’ about. Comin’ with us, Jethro?” The gambler shook his head, and rose. “Have to wait for my man,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you later. Good luck to ye, Sam.”
He was about to mount when he saw Carol talking to one of the outfit and walked towards them, leading his horse. The cowboy turned away when he saw the newcomer. The girl asked the inevitable question and got the same explanation her father had received.
“Of course, I had no notion of Sam being hurt,” Baudry said. “He’s not looking too bad.”
“His recovery is wonderful,” Carol agreed.
The man’s eyes dwelt on her, absorbing the straight slimness of her figure and the healthy freshness of her young beauty. She stirred him, and there was warmth in his usually cold voice when he said:
“He’s had a wonderful nurse.”
There was a mischievous gleam in Carol’s eyes. “He certainly has. If ever you fall sick, Mister Baudry, I can recommend Judy.”
The gambler’s lips tightened. Was the girl playing with him? But a man who depends upon cards for a living must learn to mask his emotions and Jethro Baudry was no novice.
“You have some new faces,” the gambler remarked. “I don’t recollect the young fellow you were talking to.”
“Oh, you mean Sandy—the boys call him that,” she added rather hastily. “He’s a friend of Mister Green.”
Baudry had a black moment; the use of the cowboy’s nickname did not please him, the less so since he knew it had been involuntary.
“Looks a likely lad,” he said carelessly.
But the girl was on her guard. “We’ve a good outfit,” was her reply.
“Well, the hardships of the trail seem to suit you. Never seen you look so bonny.” Again there was warmth in his tone and it made her flush a little.
“I love it,” she replied, and with a smile, “Dad always says I ought to have been a boy.”
“I can’t agree with Sam on that, and he won’t find another man that will,” the gambler said gallantly. “There’s plenty boys but only one Carol Eden.”
With a wide sweep of his hat, he hoisted himself into the saddle and rode away, leaving her pondering. She did not like the man, though she could have given no reason. He was a friend of her father, who was under a considerable obligation to him, and to her he had always been courteous and respectful, and yet…
The river next morning showed an appreciable fall, but there still was a vast volume of reddish, sand-laden water sweeping swiftly between the bluff banks, and to the group of men studying the swirling currents it was clear that the crossing would be a difficult and perilous undertaking. Danger to themselves would not deter them; they were thinking only of the herd.
“I guess we gotta take a chance, boys,” the foreman decided. “What’s yore opinion, Jim?”
“Me an’ Sandy ‘ll try her out,” Sudden offered.
Stripped to the waist and riding bareback they entered the stream at a point where the bank shelved. In a few moments the horses were swimming, Nigger’s black head in the lead.
Progress was slow, for the current was strong and the crossing had to be made in a long slant.
The soupy state of the water and floating driftwood which had to be avoided added to the task, but at length the riders emerged on the opposite bank and turned to wave to their watching comrades. A short rest and they again plunged in for the return journey.
“She’s a gamble, with the odds against us,” was Sudden’s verdict. “But we’ve played in luck, so far.”
The foreman had already made up his mind and presently the leaders of the herd appeared, trotting briskly, for in view of the crossing they had been kept thirsty. At the sight of the turgid flood, however, they baulked and would have turned but for the riders on both flanks, who drove them into the water. There they stood, knee-deep, snorting and bawling with fright, the force of the stream almost sweeping them from their feet. Beyond this they would not budge until Sudden splashed in, roped the foremost steer round the horns, and slipping the other end of his lariat across the broad breast of Nigger, headed for the far bank.
Willy-nilly the captive was dragged headlong into the flood and struck out lustily, seeing which—after a brief hesitation —those behind followed. In a few moments, a steady string of horned heads was moving across the river. Sudden, having pulled his victim up the far shore, removed the loop, and grinned at the disgruntled-looking brute, which seemed disposed to go “on the prod.”
“G’wan,” he said, and slapped it over the nose with the end of his wet rope. “What yu gotta belly-ache about? Yu had the easiest trip of any, an’ yu’ll be Big Chief Show-‘em-how to them four-footed friends o’ your’n from now on.”
For a while he sat watching the curving line of black blobs in the water, shepherded by horsemen on the downstream side.
After drying himself in the, warm sun, he recrossed the river. The foreman met him, his face beaming.
“Jim, that was a daddy of an idea,” he said. “Yu shore know cows.”
“Shucks,” Sudden smiled. “The critters is like humans—give ‘em a lead an’ they’ll go most anywheres. It warn’t nothin’.”
“No?” Jeff said. “Allasame, I’m damn glad we got yu in the outfit, son.”
Chapter XII
“SAY, Jim, do yu figure we’ve razzle-dazzled Rogue?” Sandy asked.
“Mebbe, but he’s a foxy fella an’ now he knows we ain’t workin’ for him he’s probably trackin’ us,” Sudden replied. “But I expect we’ve put one over on other gents watchin’ the trail.”
They were riding some five hundred yards ahead of the herd, for being in Indian territory, scouts were deemed necessary, and, since they were no longer following a used trail, the easiest route had to be selected. More than a week had passed since they left the Red River and during most of the time they had travelled westwards before turning north again. Not one of the outfit had more than a vague notion of their location, for save to the Indians and a few trappers and buffalo hunters, this was unknown country. Moreover, wide detours to avoid difficulties had been made, and they had only the sun and stars to guide them.
“Plenty lonesome in these parts,” Sandy remarked presently. “We ain’t seen a soul since the Red.”
“Suits me,” his friend replied. “Anybody we met would likely be hostile. What yu think o’ Lasker?”
“I don’t,” Sandy grinned. “Not never.”
“Huh! I’m forgettin’ that yu got a single-track mind these days,” Sudden said gravely.
“Allatime it circles round a certain hatchet-faced”
“Shurrup, yu idjut; here’s Carol a-comin’.”
Sudden’s eyebrows lifted at the familiarity, but before he could offer any comment, the girl reined in beside them.
“Jeff sent me for you, Sandy,” she said. “I’m to take your place for a spell.”
The boy’s face fell. “Shore it wasn’t Jim he wanted?” he asked.
Carol’s eyes twinkled teasingly. “Quite sure,” she told him, and when he had wheeled his mount and loped back towards the herd she murmured, “He seemed to just hate leaving you.”
“Yeah,” Sudden said. “Wonder if Jeff wants him bad?”
She saw the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes and laughed herself. “I’m afraid he doesn’t,” she confessed. “You I te. Jeff I’d like to ride ahead for a while and he said, Send Sandy back; a fellow scouting needs his eyes in more than one place.’ Now what did he mean by that?”
“I ain’t a notion,” was the mendacious reply, and then, with a sly smile, “Mebbe he figures Sandy ain’t very dependable.” The girl bridled instantly. “Then I think it’s too mean,” she cried. “Dad said something of the sort last night. Just because Sandy is gay and light-hearted”
She stopped, and her cheeks went red beneath their tan as she saw the quirk of amusement on his lips. Then she smiled also. “That was too bad of you,” she accused.
“I’m askin’ yore pardon, ma’am,” Sudden said. “Yu see, Sandy is my friend; he can have anythin’ I got, an’ there’s no limit.”
“You have known him long?”
“That don’t follow. Friendship is a funny thing; it ain’t a matter o’ time. Yu know one fella for years an’ in the end he’ll disappoint yu; yu know another for hours an’ yu can gamble on him.”
So he closed the subject. In those wild days a person’s past was his or her concern and it was neither polite nor prudent to probe into it.
The foreman having agreed to call it a day, camp was made near a thicket of oak and mesquite, while the cattle were bunched on the flat top of a swell not far away. There was no water but the animals had had a sufficiency the night before, and the longhorn could travel forty-eight hours without drinking. Nevertheless, the lack of it made the herd restive and Jeff anxious. Sudden, giving the cook a hand with his team, offered a word of advice:
“I’d hobble them critters an’ keep ‘em handy, Peg-leg. This is Injun territory an’ them red devils would ruther eat mule-meat than prime beef.”
“All a matter o’ taste, I reckon,” the cook replied.
“More a matter o’ teeth, I’d say,” the cowboy grinned, as he swung into his saddle and went to help with the herd. Some hours later Sandy came to relieve him and even in the darkness Sudden could see that the young man was not his usual bright self; slouched in his saddle, head down, he appeared moody and depressed.
Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 04 - Sudden Outlawed(1934) Page 9
