Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (11 page)

 
          
“Yo’re
a cheerful lot o’ locoed pups,” he said. “Just bite on this—the foreman has
made me segundo, an’ if yu don’t watch yore steps I’ll shake shinin’ hell outa
yu.”

 
          
The
grin on his weathered features belied the threat, and with one accord they fell
upon him. Under this human avalanche Bill disappeared, and furniture flew in
all directions as members of the struggling mass sought for a bit of him to
pat. “Hi, that’s my ear yo’re pulling off,” came faintly from the depths of the
heaving heap of profanity, and then, “Take yore blame’ foot outa my mouth, yu
mule,” from another sufferer. “Don’t yu go chawin’ it—I ain’t
no
dawg-food,” panted the owner, striving desperately to
recover limbs which appeared to have left him. In the height of the confusion
the new foreman entered unobserved.

 
          
“Seen
anythin’ o’ Yago?” he asked quietly, and then, as the tangled mass
disintegrated into units again, permitting the breathless, dishevelled victim
to emerge, he added softly, “An’ a good time was had by all. Why for the
celebration?”

 
          
“We
was
just congratulatin’ Bill,” Curly explained.

 
          
“On bein’ the foreman’s friend?”
Sudden asked slyly.

 
          
“No,
we’re all hopin’ to be that,” the boy flashed back with a quick smile. “On
bein’ made segundo; an’ I wanta say yu have shore picked the right man, an’
that goes for all of us, I reckon.”

 
          
A
chorus of assent came from the others, and Sudden’s eyes swept over them
approvingly. “Purdie told me he had a good outfit—he was damn right,” he said,
and turning to his second in command, “Good thing they didn’t each want a lock
o’ yore hair, Bill,” with a sardonic glance at the sparse covering of his
friend’s cranium. “Yu feel able to hobble outside a minute?”

 
          
Yago
was soon back. “Who’s next on the slate for the line-house?” he inquired

 
          
“Me
is, an’ thank Gawd it’s a day off yet,” Moody replied.

 
          
“It
ain’t,” Bill told him. “Yu start right after supper; there’s allus to be two
there in future.

 
          
‘Nother
thing, we gotta take turns watchin’ the ranchhouse, nights.”

 
          
“What’s
the notion, Bill?” Curly wanted to know.
“Anybody liable to
steal it?”

 
          
“Dunno,
but Jim don’t do things for no reason,” Yago said.

 
          
“I’ll
bet he
don’t
,” the boy agreed. “He has a thoughtful
eye, that Jim fella.” He nodded his head. “I’m thinkin’ King Burdette’s throne
mebbe ain’t
so
secure as he reckons.”

 
          
Yago
grinned. “There’s times when yu come mighty near sayin’ somethin’ sensible,” he
complimented.

 
          
At
supper that evening the foreman met the only member of the outfit he had not
yet seen, a hatchet-faced youth with a beak of a nose and a saturnine
expression, who was presented to him as “Flatty.” Sudden’s look was a question.

 
          
“Real
name is Watson, but a piece ago we had to rechristen him,” Yago said, and
chuckled. “It was shorely funny.”

 
          
“Tell
the yarn, Bill; we didn’t all see it,” someone urged.

 
          
“Well,
it was this away,” Yago began. “Flatty goes out without his slicker—which was
plumb careless—gets wet, an’ complains plenty persistent o’ pains in his back.
It’s clear he’s sufferin’ from rheumatism. Moody claims to know a shore
cure,
an’ Flatty admits he’s willin’ to try anythin’ —once.
Ònce’ll be enough,’ Moody tells him, an’ as things turned out he was dead
right. Follerin’ instructions, the patient strips to his middle an’ lays face
down on the bunkhouse table. Moody spreads a blanket over him, fetches a hot
flat-iron from the kitchen, an’ begins to run it up an’ down Flatty’s back.
`Which if I had a straight iron I could brand you good an’ proper,’ he remarks.
The patient makes noises signifyin’ satisfaction.

 
          
“But
it ain’t too long before Moody discovers that pushin’ a heavy flat-iron aroun’
is tirin’ to the wrist. `This launderin’ o’ humans is shorely no picnic,’ he
says, an’ stops to spit on his
han’s
an’ take a fresh
holt. But he forgets that a hot iron gets in its best work standin’ still. It
don’t take the invalid no time a-tall to find this out; he lets go a whoop that
would ‘a’ turned an Injun green with envy an’ arches his back like a buckin’
pony. The iron mashes two o’ Moody’s toes, but he don’t wait; Flatty’s face, emergin’
from under the blanket, looks to him like the wrath o’ God, an’ he aims to be
elsewheres when the lightnin’ strikes. He makes the door a healthy flea’s jump
ahead an’ points for the small corral, plannin’ to climb a hoss, but Flatty is
crowdin’ him, an’ he has to run round it. His busted foot handicaps him, but
the pursuin’ gent ain’t got
no
suspenders an’ has to
hold his pants up, which evens things some. Also, Flatty ain’t savin’ his
breath, an’ the things he asks his Creator to do to Moody yu
wouldn’t
hardly
believe.

 
          
“It
was shorely funny to see them two skippin’ round the corral like a coupla
jackrabbits, Flatty without a stitch above his middle, an’ the big red brand o’
the iron showin’ clear on his back. They does the first lap in record time, an’
then Flatty’s luck breaks—he stubs his toe on a stump an’ flings his han’s up
to save hisself. An’, o’ course, that’s the minit Miss Nan appears, comin’ to
get her pony. Flatty gives her one horrified look, grabs his slippin’ pants,
an’ streaks for the bunkhouse. Moody pulls up an’ tries to look unconcerned.

 
          
“What
on earth is the matter with Watson?” Miss Nan asks.

 
          
“Just
a li’l race,” Moody explains. “I bet I could beat him even if he stripped.

 
          
“Yo’re
the poorest liar in the outfit,” Miss Nan smiles, an’ to this day Moody don’t
know whether she meant it as a compliment. We
gets
Flatty smoothed down after a bit—not with the iron this time—an’ he consents to
let Moody go on breathin’, but he’ll carry that brand till he caches.”

 
          
“Which
Miss Nan shorely saved yore triflin’ life,” Flatty grinned at the other actor
in the comedy.

 
          
“Shucks,
I had yu beat a mile,” Moody retorted. “What yu gotta belly-ache about,
anyways—I cured yu.”

 
          
The
wrangle went
on,
good-humoured, mordant jests which
showed the men were real friends. Sudden listened with a smile; he felt he was
going to like this outfit.

 
          
About
two hours later the new foreman of the C P rode into Windy, added his horse to
the dozen or so already attached to the hitch-rail outside “The Plaza,” and stepped
inside. Smaller than “The Lucky Chance,” the saloon differed in little else
save that it was rather more ornate; mirrors, and pictures of a sort, adorned
the walls, which were of squared logs, and the tables and chairs were of better
quality. In many little ways the hand of a woman made itself evident.

 
          
But
if “The Plaza” was no more than a commonplace Western saloon, it possessed one
feature which raised it above the rut—its owner. Seated behind the bar, she
looked like a fine jewel in a pinch-beck setting. Her beautiful black hair,
plaited and coiled upon her small head, was held in place by a great Spanish
comb set with red stones. A flame-coloured dress of silk revealed neck and
arms, and on her white bosom, suspended by a slender chain of gold, was a
single ruby, gleaming like a new-spilt spot of blood. She had been chatting to
the bar-tender and regarding the scene with the indifference of use, but her
eyes lit up when Sudden, hat in hand, stepped up to the bar.

 
          
“Ah,
my so brave caballero has come to veezit ze poor —how you say—tenderfoot?” she
greeted.

 
          
“Shucks,”
he smiled, as he took the slim white hand she extended. “I ain’t
no more a caballero than yu are a Greaser, an’ that pony warn’t
wantin’ to get away from yu—hosses
have sense.”

 
          
She
clapped her hands softly. “A compliment, not so?” she laughed.

 
          
“Yu
oughta know,” he said. “Reckon yu get aplenty.”

 
          
A
little shadow flitted across her face. “True, my friend,” she said soberly.
“And what are they worth? I’d give them all for one honest word of censure.”
Then the dancing lights came back into her eyes. “Not that I don’t get any of
that, you know. Oh yes, from my own sex especially. I am a wicked woman, a
brazen hussy, and you’ll lose your character if you speak to me.”

 
          
The
cowpuncher grinned. “Fella can’t lose what he ain’t got—I’m a pretty desperate
person my own self,” he bantered, for the bitterness behind her gay tone was
very apparent.

 
          
“Also,
I never did allow anyone to pick my friends for me.”

 
          
He
saw her face change. “Hell! What’s that fool trying to do?” she cried.

 
          
Trouble
had started at a neighbouring table. A big, blue shirted miner with a coarse,
liquor-bloated face was on his on his feet fumbling for a gun at his hip and
mouthing curses.

 
          
In
an instant the girl had slipped from her seat.

 
          
“Lemme
‘tend to this,” Sudden suggested.

 
          
“No,
I can handle it,” she replied.

 
          
Raising
the flap, she stepped from behind the bar and three quick strides brought her
to the trouble-maker just as his weapon left the holster. The men he had been
playing with were standing, hands on their own guns, watching him uncertainly.

 
          
“Put
that gun back and get out of here,” the woman said sharply.

 
          
The
man looked at her, standing slim and straight before him, and for a moment it
seemed that he would obey. Then from somewhere in the room came a laugh which
bred shame in the drink-sodden mind.

 
          
“Yu
go to hell,” the fellow said thickly. “Think I’m goin’ to be ordered about by a
booze-slingin’…”

 
          
Hardly
had the vile epithet left his lips when the girl’s hand swept across his cheek
with a slap which rang out like a pistol-shot and drew an oath of pain and
surprise from the recipient.

 
          
“You
dirty beast!” she cried, her tone tense with passion. “Vamoose, or I’ll send
you out on a shutter.”

 
          
For
a few seconds the bloodshot, liquor-glazed eyes fought with the flaming black
ones, and fell. In the girl’s left hand, held steadily at her hip, was a tiny
nickel-plated revolver—a toy, a man would have said—but it was sufficiently
powerful to take life at such close range. Without another word the drunkard
turned and staggered weavingly from the saloon. When Mrs. Lavigne returned to
her place behind the bar her look at the puncher was defiant, as though she dared
him to criticize her action.

 
          
“I
won’t stand for that sort of thing here,” she said.

 
          
“Yu
shore have nerve, ma’am,” Sudden said, and meant it. His admiration brought the
smile back to her lips.

 
          
“Pooh!
He knew the boys would blow him to bits if he laid a finger on me,” she pointed
out.

 
          
“Fella
in that state is liable to act without thinkin’,” he said, and then, “For a
tenderfoot, yu got that gun out pretty pronto.”

 
          
“I
was born and bred in the West,” she explained, and when he smilingly suggested
that she had lost a customer, shrugged her dainty shoulders.