Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 08 - Sudden Takes The Trail(1940) (12 page)

 
          
“Stay an’ keep ‘em interested.
I’m goin’ to try an’ get
another angle on ‘em. If yu fire, make it two quick shots so’s they’ll figure
we’re both here.”

 
          
“Right,
but don’t take chances; these hombres ain’t usin’ guns for the first time,”
Dave warned.

 
          
Sudden
slid backwards down the slope and, leading his horse, followed the bend of it.
He had not gone far when four shots rang out, the last two in rapid succession.
Dave was right.

 
          
Presently
he paused, crept up the incline on hands and knees, and took a peep between two
large stones. As he had suspected, the brush rampart behind which the unknown
marksmen were concealed was much thinner on this side, and he could see the
gleam of a levelled gun-barrel. He fired, aiming where he judged the holder
should be, and a dark form showed
itself
and vanished
before he could press the trigger again. A moment later, two horsemen burst
into the open, and, flattened over the necks of their mounts, raced for the
nearest gully. Sudden’s rifle spoke again and one of the animals went down,
throwing its rider heavily. The other man, without even a backward glance,
gained cover. By the time Sudden reached the fellow who had fallen, Dave joined
him.

 
          
“So
yu nailed one,” he said.

 
          
“He’s
on’y stunned—the hoss got the lead. Take charge of him. I’m goin’ after his
mate.”

 
          
He
had marked down the spot where the fugitive had disappeared, and for a little
while, hoofprints—the deep ones of urgent haste—helped him, and then, as he came
on harder ground, a dangling, freshly-broken branch pointed the way. But no
more of these tell-tale signs presented themselves, until, circling round, he
found the prints again, only to lose them on the bank of a creek, thickly
fringed with willow and cottonwood.

 
          
Arguing
that the man would go westwards, he followed the stream in that direction, and
was presently confronted by an insurmountable barrier, a wall of rock nearly
thirty feet in height, over which the water cascaded in a broad sheet which the
sun turned to molten silver. Trees hemmed in the fall, and for some distance
from the wall, the ground was weathered stone, a surface upon which to search
for tracks could only be a waste of time. In ordinary circumstances, the
marshal would have admired the natural beauty of the spot, but now he surveyed
it with disgust.

 
          
“Hang
the luck,” he muttered. “A cat couldn’t climb up there, an’ it’s a hell of long
way round, seemin’ly. Mebbe we can persuade the other jasper to talk.”
Convinced that he could do no more, he returned to Dave. The prisoner, who had
regained consciousness, was squatting on the ground, weaponless, his elbows
neatly trussed with his own rope.

 
          
“Most
unsocial beggar I ever met up with,” the deputy remarked. “Won’t give
no name, so I’ve christened him Pockmark.’
His hoss is
unbranded, an’ there’s nothin’ suspicious ‘bout him ‘cept his looks an’—this.”

 
          
“A
straight-iron, huh?” the marshal said. “Well, that’s enough to hang him. Yu’d
best find yore tongue, fella.”

 
          
“What
right you got to down my bronc an’ tie me up?” the stranger demanded.

 
          
Sudden
flipped open his vest, disclosing the badge. “Plenty,” he replied. ” ‘
Specially
as yu opened the ball by tryin’ to bump us off.
What’s yore business around here?” Receiving no reply, he added, “P’r’aps the
Bar O can loosen your lips.” Fear flickered in the sullen eyes, but the said
lips were only clamped the tighter.

 
          
“Why
bother Owen when there’s a mort o’ good trees right here?” Dave asked, with
studied callousness. “S’pose we feed an’ think it over?” Sitting a little
apart, so that their conversation could not be heard, they began the meal the
Widow had provided. The prisoner watched enviously.

 
          
“Don’t
I eat?” he asked querulously.

 
          
“Yu
gotta find another use for yore mouth first,” the marshal replied.

 
          
“An’
remember that dyin’ on an empty stomach is a mighty dangerous thing to do,”
Dave supplemented.

 
          
His
solicitude earned him only a scowl. They finished eating, smoked a cigarette,
and made a start, the prisoner walking between the riders. The sun’s rays had
now become shafts of fire, and since their way led across the open range, there
was no respite for man or beast. Mile after mile through the blinding heat the
man on foot stumbled doggedly until they had covered two-thirds of the journey,
and then he dropped like a stone.

 
          
“I’m
all in,” he gasped, through parched, cracked lips. “Have a swig at this,” Dave
said, passing his water-bottle.

 
          
The
sufferer drank eagerly, and after sitting for a while, stood up. Rustler or no,
he was possessed of a stubborn determination, and Sudden—who had forced this
ordeal upon him in the hope of breaking down his obstinacy—began to doubt its
success. Fists and teeth
clenched,
eyes half-shut, and
body limp with fatigue, the tortured man dragged one blistered foot after the
other until at length the Bar O building came in sight. A hail brought the
owner, Reddy, and some of the outfit.

 
          
“‘Lo,
marshal, what you got there?” Owen asked.

 
          
Sudden
explained, and the rancher’s face grew dark. “Good,” he said, and turned to the
prisoner. “What you gotta say?”

 
          
“Nothin’.”

 
          
“Right.
You’ve till sunrise; if you ain’t opened up hy then,
you swing. Lock him up, Reddy.”

 
          
“Yu
think he’ll squeal?” Sudden asked. “That tramp would ‘a’ busted the nerve o’
most; he’s tough.”

 
          
“A
hemp rope is tougher,” the rancher replied. “Pity the other got away.”

 
          
“He
certainly chose the right place,” the marshal admitted, and described it.

 
          
“Ah,
the Silver Mane
fall
, plenty o’ hidin’ there.”

 
          
“He
would ‘a’ tried to pot me.”

 
          
“That’s
so. Well, I dunno how he got clear; that barrier —which we call The Step—runs
for a mile or more each side o’ the stream, an’ she’s straight up, ‘cept at the
south end.”

 
          
“What’s
back of it?”

 
          
“Sort
of plateau, with some biggish cracks. The Step is my western boundary; past it
is Dumh-bell range, but they don’t use it, the feed bein’ poor.” When they got
up to go, the cattleman pressed them to stay the night, but Sudden shook his
head.

 
          
“Gotta
make a show o’ earnin’ our pay,” he smiled.

 
          
On
the way back, the marshal was unusually silent. In truth, his mind was far away
on the Mexican Border. There, too, what appeared to be a simple case of
cattle-rustling, had uncovered a deep-laid plot to steal a range, and he was
wondering …

 
          
THE
marshal and his assistant were enjoying an after-breakfast smoke when a pony
scuttered to a stop outside and the Bar O foreman strode in. He had not shaved,
and his customary cheerful expression was missing. Dropping into a seat, he
began to construct a cigarette.

 
          
“He’s
gone,” he announced, and added a fervent wish as to the delinquent’s ultimate
destination. “Helped hisself to a hoss—one o’ my string, blister his hide.”

 
          
“
But ”
both the hearers began.

 
          
“Listen,”
he interrupted. “I left him tied as he was, locked in a cabin with a window
less’n a foot square. When I
goes
to fetch him this
mornin’ the door is still fastened, but the place is empty.”

 
          
“Who
kept the key?”

 
          
“There
ain’t but one an’ the Ol’ Man had it,” Reddy replied. “An’ is he wild?”

 
          
“Can’t
see there’s anythin’ to be done, but we’ll come along with yu,” the marshal
decided.

 
          
They
found the Bar O in an unwonted state of inactivity; the men were grouped round
the bunkhouse discussing the mystery, and the owner was impatiently striding to
and fro, awaiting Reddy’s return. He welcomed the visitors with an explosive
oath:

 
          
“Shinin’
hell, here’s a fine kettle o’ fish. After all the trouble you an’ Dave went to,
we go an’ lose the skunk, though how he got out beats me.”

 
          
“Where’d
yu put him?” Sudden asked.

 
          
The
foreman led the way to a stout little log structure, the door of which was
secured by a padlock and staple. Sudden looked closely at the latter, slipped a
finger through it, pulled, and the staple came away in his hand.

 
          
“There’s
the key that was used,” he said, pointing to a rusty iron bar lying a few yards
away. “That means he had outside help. S’pose none o’ yu heard anythin’ in the
night?” A negative came from all save one, a man nearing forty, whose dark hair
and beard were patched with grey.

 
          
“Now
you mention it, mister, I did hear the whicker of a hoss, but I reckoned it
come from the corral,” he said. “If I’d thought it was this sneakin’ houn’
escapin’ …”

 
          
“Shorely,”
Sudden agreed, and to the rancher, “No sense in keepin’ yore fellas here—the
bird has flown.” Having despatched the men to their various duties, Reddy
joined the other three indoors.

 
          
“Well,
you’ve showed us how he got loose, but we don’t know who made it possible,”

 
          
Owen
said.
“Any ideas ‘bout that, Jim?”

 
          
“
There’s
on’y two answers: either his buddy trailed us an’
waited for dark, or—it was one o’ yore outfit.”

 
          
“You
can wipe out that last; my boys are loyal—every damn’ one o’ them,” the rancher
asserted.

 
          
“I
ain’t sayin’ otherwise—just statin’ facts. That hombre who heard the hoss now,
has he been with yu long?”

 
          
“Pinto?—they
call him that ‘count of his piebald hair—why, no, a matter o’ three-four
months, but he was the sickest of any over this getaway.”

 
          
“Yeah,
I noticed that,” Sudden asked.

 
          
“What
do you think, Reddy?” Owen asked.

 
          
“I
got nothin’ agin Pinto,” the foreman admitted. “He don’t quite mix in, but I
put that down to his bein’ older’n most of us. He’s no shirker on his job.”

 
          
“Dessay
I’m wrong,” the marshal said. “But a stranger couldn’t ‘a’ knowed he would have
a staple to deal with an’ fetched along just the thing to beat it.” Meanwhile,
a conversation was taking place not many miles distant. On the other side of
The Step, south of the fall, the plateau—by some fantastic freak of Nature—was
broken by a great fissure, narrow and steep-sided, the bottom hidden by a
seemingly impenetrable jumble of boulders, trees, and dense brush. This was
Dark Canyon, the overhanging walls fully justifying the name. It was never
used, being difficult to enter, and without an exit. At the nearer end to The
Step, Mullins, Javert, and five others were sitting round the embers of a fire.
The man with the pitted face was finishing his story: