Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 01 - The Range Robbers(1930) (50 page)

 
          
“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regretfully withdrawn, “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.