Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (9 page)

 
          
They
had almost reached the door when it swung back to admit a man who would have
attracted attention in any gathering. Over six feet in height, with a perfectly
proportioned frame, he moved with the ease and grace of an athlete. The
yellowish hair which reached to his shoulders, pale blue eyes, long drooping
moustache, and clean-cut features were offset by a calm confidence and dignity
of bearing which stamped their possessor as no ordinary individual.

 
          
His
attire added to the impression.
A tailed cutaway coat of dark
cloth, wide trousers narrowing towards the feet, a fancy vest, high-heeled
boots, and a “boiled” shirt with a narrow black tie.
Buckled round his
middle was a leather belt with two white-handled Colt’s revolvers.

 
          
The
hum of conversation ceased at his appearance and every eye followed him as he
stepped quietly, with a nod here and there, to where Bizet was standing. The
little Frenchman hurried to meet him.

 
          
“Who
is that?” Sudden asked a bystander.

 
          
The
man’s eyebrows lifted. “Say, friend, where you been hidin’?” he asked. “It’s
Wild Bill, o’ course—thought everybody knowed him.”

 
          
“I’m
a stranger here,” Sudden explained, and led the way to the street.

 
          
For
a while he was silent, his mind full of the man they had just seen.
Wild Bill, the most famous gunman in the West.
Sudden found
himself dwelling on the big man’s draw, wondering if he himself could beat it.
Then he laughed; Sudden, the gunfighter, had been left behind; here, he was
just Jim Green, a cowpuncher and miner. Mason’s voice broke in:

 
          
“Yu’d
never take him for a killer, would yu?
Looked just an
ordinary fella.”

 
          
“An’ why not?
D’yu expect every man who shoots another in
self-defence to have the brand o’ Cain burned on his forehead?” Sudden
retorted, with unusual bitterness.

 
          
“I’ve
seen some what didn’t need
no
brand,” Mason answered,
and changed the subject.

 
          
“Wonder
why that s’loonkeeper hombre was so dern glad to see us?”

 
          
“One
cattleman is allus pleased to meet up with another,” his friend said. “I’ve a
hunch he’s white. Here’s another big joint; let’s go in an’ see if we can scare
up a Waysider.” The Monte—like the opposition establishment—was full and with
the same class of customer. It was a replica of the other on a rather larger
and
more showy
scale. Despite the crowded state of the
room, they experienced no difficulty in reaching the bar—people seemed almost
eager to make way for them—and Sudden again had the uneasy feeling that he was
the object of general interest.

 
          
Mason
was grinning.

 
          
“Yu
might be Wild Bill hisself these toughs is so perlite,” he remarked.

 
          
“And
yu might be King Solomon if yu had any brains a-tall,” Sudden told him. “Lesurge
an’ Angel-face seem to have got themselves some friends.” They were sitting at
a table in a far corner and with them were several others, notably a fat, blond
fellow, flashily dressed, with a heavy watch-guard made of gold nuggets slung
across his vest. Interested as he was in the conversation, his pig-like eyes
roamed restlessly round the room and he saw all that was taking place.

 
          
“Reuben Stark, the owner o’ this shebang,” Sudden informed.
“Dunno
the others but I’ll gamble they ain’t cyphers in this city o’ sin. Mister
Lesurge
don’t
waste his time an’ he’s whirlin’ a wide
loop. I’m goin’ to buck the tiger.” They strolled over to the roulette table
and again they had no trouble in getting near to it though there were plenty of
eager speculators. The puncher won about forty dollars in a few careless throws
and to the surprise of his companion, cashed in and turned away.

 
          
“But,
Jim, luck’s tannin’ yore way,” he protested.

 
          
“That’s
when to stop,” the other replied.

 
          
He
had fully expected to hear jeers at his lack of nerve from some of the
coarse-faced, half-intoxicated men around him, but not even a shoulder was
shrugged.

 
          
“You
got this town tamed,” Mason remarked, and hid a smile. “Yu oughta be in a show,
puttin’ the lions through their tricks.”

 
          
“It
has me beat,” Sudden said. “Wonder where Snowy is?” They met him outside and he
greeted them with boisterous expressions of goodwill. He reeked of whisky, but
there was no slur in his speech, no unsteadiness in his gait. It was Snowy’s
boast that he was never drunk until his back teeth were submerged.

 
          
“Paul
about?” he asked, when he had informed Mason that Miss Ducane was “fighting
fit.

 
          
“He’s
inside, with Stark an’ some others,” Sudden told him. Snowy nodded. “One smart
guy, Paul,” he said. “Won’t be long afore he’s runnin’ this yer burg an’ it’s
shorely time somebody took a
holt
, the killin’s an’
robberies is gittin’ too mighty prevalent.”

 
          
“Found
yore mine yet, Snowy?” Gerry inquired.

 
          
“No,
young fella, an’ I ain’t going to look for it till we got some sort o’
protection. It’ll keep; I ain’t in
no
hurry.”

 
          
“Some
other jasper may light on it,” Gerry persisted. “‘Tain’t likely, but if it did
happen that way I’d get me another; I can allus find gold—I smell it.” With a
wild laugh he pushed open the door of the saloon, turned and whispered, “Keep
handy,” and vanished.

 
          
“Mad
as a loon,” Mason decided.

 
          
“I
ain’t so shore,” his friend replied. “What I can’t savvy is why folks side-step
me like I was a rattler?” He got the solution to the problem a few nights later
as he was returning from the store where they obtained their supplies. A thin,
weedy shrimp of a man, whom he recognized as one of the group with Lesurge in
the Monte, stopped him.

 
          
“Say,
Mister Green, c’n I have a word with you?” he asked. The man shuffled his feet
and cast an oblique glance at a nearby dive. Obviously he did not want to talk
in the open, and Sudden therefore determined that he should.

 
          
“I
ain’t drinkin’,” he said. “Yu can trail along o’ me an’ sing yore song. I’m shy
yore name.”

 
          
“Berg,”
the other replied, and then went on with a rush, “You know Bill Hickok? Well,
he
don’t
like you.”

 
          
“No
reason why he should, we’ve never met.”

 
          
“Mebbe,
but he
says
he’s goin’ to get you—heard him my own
self, an’ so did others.” The cowpuncher cogitated over this amazing statement
and then, “What’s he sore about?” he inquired.

 
          
“Sore
nothin’,” was the reply. “You know what these big gunmen are. He’s cock o’ the
walk around here an’ he ain’t goin’ to let anyone else crow, that’s what.”

 
          
“But
why pick on me—I ain’t let out a chirp?”

 
          
“Hell,
he’s scared—yo’re Sudden, ain’t you?” The puncher stopped as though one of Wild
Bill’s bullets had struck him. Then his iron nerve came to his aid. “Sudden?”
he sneered.

 
          
“Where’d
yu get that fool notion?”

 
          
“Why,
all the
town knows,” Berg retorted. “Yore pard told
young Ginger when you stopped him baitin’ of Jacob.” This cleared the air
somewhat but not entirely; how did Gerry know? Sudden had never breathed a word
of his past. He turned to the man who had flung this bombshell at him.

 
          
“My
pard was joshin’—he’s a born humorist,” he said.

 
          
Berg
smiled sourly. “He’ll be a dead humorist when the boys find out an’ if you owed
me money I’d be askin’ for it now,” he said with sinister emphasis.

 
          
Sudden
knew it was true; the town would never forgive what it must regard as a
deliberate imposture.

 
          
“So
yu are here to warn me, just a kindly act, huh?”

 
          
“I
came to warn you, yes, an’ give you a chance o’ pickin’ up a nice piece o’
change.
There’s big men
in Deadwood who got no use for
Hickok. Put him outa business—any way you choose—an’ there’ll be a thousand
bucks for you an’ no comeback, see?” The cowboy’s fists bunched at this
infamous proposal but he controlled his anger and asked coolly, “Who are these
big men?”

 
          
“I
ain’t sayin’,” was the expected reply. “Put the job over an’ the cash will be
ready for you at my shack.” The cowpuncher glanced round; they were clear of
the street and had almost reached Jacob’s cabin. With a quick snatch he had the
other by the throat.

 
          
“Yu
dirty rat,” he rasped, and shook him till the teeth of the wretch rattled in
his jaws.

 
          
“So
yu take me for a hired killer? I’d twist yore rotten neck if I hadn’t a use for
yu. Go back to the cowards that sent yu an’ tell ‘em to come along an’ I’ll
kill ‘em one after the other—for nothin’.”

 
          
With
a powerful thrust he hurled the almost senseless form into the dust and strode
away. His frowning face when he entered the cabin apprised his friend that
something was wrong.

 
          
“Been
fightin’?” he asked.

 
          
“No,”
came
the snapped answer. “What possessed yu to tell
that fool boy I was

 
          
‘Sudden’?”
Gerry started to grin but changed his mind. “It seemed a good jape to put over
on him and mebbe saved a ruckus,” he explained. “I couldn’t know he’d chatter
but it’s goin’ to make things easy for us, seemin’ly.”

 
          
“It’s
goin’ to make things damned difficult. Why did yu pick on Sudden?”

 
          
“I’d
heard of him; he’s a Texas outlaw an’ the least likely to show up, I figured.
Yu ain’t tellin’ me he’s here?”

 
          
“I
am—just that,” Sudden retorted, grimly gratified at the result the statement
produced.

 
          
The
boy’s face became a picture of consternation as he realized that his little
comedy was likely to have a tragic ending. “My Gawd, Jim, I’m sorry,” he groaned.
“By all accounts, he’s reckoned the worst hell-raiser in the south-west, a
heartless hound who shoots folk just to see ‘em
kick
.
I guess yu’d better head for the woods an’ let me take the medicine—I got yu in
the jam.”

 
          
His
perturbed gaze rested on the other. “Yu certain he’s here?”

 
          
“Dead
shore,” was the reply, and with a hard smile, “Yo’re lookin’ at him.”

 
          
“Quit
it, Jim, this ain’t
no
time for foolin’,”

 
          
“I
am givin’ it to yu straight,” was the harsh answer. “I am the man they call ‘Sudden,’
outlawed in Texas, an’
lied
about everywhere else.” He
waited for the expected look of repulsion, but Gerry’s face expressed only
astonishment, admiration and relief.

 
          
“Then
it’s all right,” he cried, and grinned widely. “No call for yu to run away from
yoreself.”

 
          
“That’s
what I was tryin’ to do when I came here,” Sudden said moodily. “‘Pears it can’t
be done. No, Gerry, it ain’t all right, it’s all wrong—for yu.” He hesitated a
moment. “We will have to tread different trails.”