Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (10 page)

 
          
“Yeah?”

 
          
“It
appears I’m in yore debt for gettin’ my niece out of a jam the other day,” the
rancher went on.

 
          
“Nothin’
to that—I’d ‘a’ done as much for one o’ yore steers,” Sudden replied. “Besides,
Dover—”

 
          
A
scornful laugh interrupted him. “All that young fool did was to get
himself
in the same mess,” Trenton jeered.
“If it hadn’t been for you, the pair of ‘em might have drowned.”

 
          
“Oh,
Dan would ‘a’ found a way,” Sudden defended. “I guess he was a mite impulsive.”

 
          
“If
he’s expecting thanks from me he’s liable to be disappointed; I don’t owe him
any.

 
          
Yore
case is different. What’s Dover payin’ you?”

 
          
The
puncher chuckled. “Nothin’,” and when the other’s eyebrows went up, “Yu see, we
ain’t mentioned the matter as yet. I s’pose it’ll be the usual forty per.”

 
          
“I’ll
give you double that to ride for me.”

 
          
“That’s
a generous offer to a stranger.”

 
          
“I
am under an obligation to you,” Trenton explained. “Also, I can use a man who
has ideas and acts promptly.”

 
          
Sudden
was silent for a space, and then, “I’m not in the market,” he said. “Yu can
forget about that obligation.”

 
          
“But
damn it all, I’m offerin’ you more than I pay my foreman,” Trenton cried.

 
          
“Which
wouldn’t make me too popular with him,” was the smiling reply. “No, seh, money
never meant much to me; I’m stayin’ by the Circle Dot.”

 
          
The
rancher’s face took on an ugly snarl. “That one-hoss ranch is might near the
end of its rope. I’m beginnin’ to think I misjudged you after all.”

 
          
“It’s
happened before,” Sudden said gravely. “I reckon I must be a difficult fella to
figure out.”

 
          
Trenton
glared at him, realized that he was being gently chaffed and, with an oath,
stalked out. The saloonkeeper looked at his remaining customer dubiously.

 
          
“It
was a good offer,” he commented. “Zeb ain’t regarded as a free spender; he must
want you bad.”

 
          
“No,
he’s just tryin’ to weaken Dan. At the end of a month, his foreman fires me,
an’ I’m finished round here,” Sudden explained. “He must think I’m on’y just
weaned.”

 
          
“Nobody
never
does know exactly what Zeb Trenton thinks,”
Bowdyr replied. “It’ll pay to remember that there’s another way o’ deprivin’
Dan o’ yore services.”

 
          
The
warned man laughed, but he paused at the door and took a quick look up and down
the street before stepping out. Then he made his way to the store, to emerge
presently with a bulky parcel which he strapped behind his saddle. He returned
to purchase cartridges.

 
          
“Got
many customers for thirty-eights?” he asked casually.

 
          
“Not
any,” the tradesman replied disgustedly. “Used to get ‘em ‘
specially
for a Circle Dot rider, Lafe Potter. He’s bumped off, an’ I ain’t sold
none
since. Let you have ‘em cheap.”

 
          
“No
use to me. Storekeeper I knowed once got landed the same way, an’ I just
wondered if he had company.”

 
          
As
he rode back to the ranch, he was thinking it over. The calibre of the weapon
which had slain Dave Dover was not quite
so
common as
the sheriff had attempted to imply; apparently nobody in Rainbow possessed one.

 
          
“O’
course, a fella could buy his fodder elsewhere—the Bend, mebbe,” he debated.

 
          
“Wonder
what became o’ Potter’s gun?”

 
          
That
evening, after supper, he put a question.

 
          
“Yeah,
Potter was wiped out some months back,” Dan informed. “He was night-ridin’ on
what we call the creek line, an’ was found in the mornin’, after his bronc had
sifted in without him.
Same of story, shot, an’ no evidence.”

 
          
“What
happened to his belongin’s?”

 
          
“He
owed money in the town, an’ the sheriff claimed ‘em,” Dover said. “I never
heard of any sale, but Evans was paid a matter o’ ten dollars, an’ I’ll bet
Foxy pouched the rest.”

 
          
Which,
having seen the officer, Sudden thought likely enough. The dead cowboy probably
did not own even the name he was using, and there would be no one to make
enquiries.

 
          
Sudden
saw that the trail had petered out for the present.

 
          
When
he and Yorky set out in the morning, the boy was mildly facetious about the
gunny sack tied to the puncher’s cantle.

 
          
“That’s
a mighty gen’rous meal yo’re packin’, Jim. Gain’ a long ways?”

 
          
“Bit further than usual.
Can yu swim, son?”

 
          
“Yep,
but I don’t s’pose I c’d tackle the Pacific.”

 
          
“Yu
mean the Atlantic—we’re headin’
East
, yu numskull.”

 
          
“Shore
I did.
They’s
a chunk o’ th’ Atlantic in Noo York
harbour. I useter go down ter see
th
’ big liners come
in. Oh, she’s a swell city. I wish—”

 
          
“Yu
were back there?”

 
          
Yorky
shook his head. “Not now, it’s different here these days, but I’d like fer yer
to see Noo York.”

 
          
“I
have,” Sudden grinned. “Wasted two whole weeks there once, an’ was thunderin’
glad to get away.
Them
brick canyons they call
streets—”

 
          
“Th’ fines’ ever.”

 
          
“Mebbe,
but they stifled me—I like fresh air. An’ the crowds, everybody on the tear,
like the end o’ the world was due any minute.”

 
          
The
boy digested the criticism in silence. This capable man, who had handled Flint
as though he were an infant, would not give an opinion lightly. Perhaps the one
city he had known was not quite an earthly paradise after all.

 
          
“She
shore is a busy li’l dump,” he said, but less enthusiastically. “I’ll bet yer
met some smart folks.”

 
          
“A
few,” Sudden smiled.
“One of ‘em tried to sell me a gold
brick, but got peeved when I started to scratch it with my knife.
Another said he’d returned recent from the ‘per-aries’ an’ claimed to have met
me somewheres, but after I allowed it was likely, as I’d been there, he lost
interest.”

 
          
Yorky
wriggled delightedly. “He’d be àcon’ man; they’s a slick gang.”

 
          
“Shore,”
Sudden grinned. “Then three more invited me to play poker with ‘em. Real nice
fellas, they were—paid all my expenses, an’ a bit to spare.”

 
          
The
boy’s eyes went wide. “They let yer git away with it?”

 
          
“I
had all my clothes on,” the puncher replied, and Yorky had been long enough in
the West to know what that meant. They passed the customary stopping-place and
about a couple of miles further came to a grassy hollow, shaded by pines. At
the bottom of this, rimmed by sand, and shining in the sunlight like a huge
silver dollar, was a tiny lake.

 
          
“There’s
yore Atlantic, an’ if yu know of a better place for a swim, I’m listenin’,”
Sudden remarked as he dismounted.

 
          
In
five minutes they had stripped, and the puncher, with a short run, shot into
the water and vanished, to reappear ten yards from the bank, laughing and
splashing. “C’mon, it’s fine,” he called. Yorky tried to emulate the feat, but
only succeeded in falling flat on the surface and driving most of the breath
out of his body. Then he struck off in the direction of his friend, beating the
water with feverish rapidity which soon had him gasping.

 
          
“Take
it easy,” the puncher advised. “A slow stroke’ll carry yu further, an’ give yu
a chance to breathe some.”

 
          
Presently
they came out, to lie stretched on the sand, where the increasing heat of the
sun’s rays soon dried them. Yorky was surveying his ragged shirt ruefully,
prior to putting it on, when Sudden, reaching down the gunny sack, pitched it
over.

 
          
“Ain’t
hardly worth while, is she? See what yu can find in this.”

 
          
The
boy groped in the bag, and produced a new, striped, flannel shirt, which he
slipped into.

 
          
“
Them pants o’ yores is
plenty ventilated but sca’cely
decent,” the cowboy went on.

 
          
“Mebbe—
Yorky was already searching; the pants appeared, followed by socks, and then
something which made him gasp—a pair of the high-heeled boots affected by
range-riders, and a broad-brimmed hat, the tall crown pinched in the approved
fashion. Petrified, the boy stared at the garments, until Sudden’s voice
aroused him.

 
          
“Climb
into ‘em, yu chump. What
d’yu reckon
clothes is for?”

 
          
Dumbly,
but with averted face, he obeyed; apart from Old Man Dover’s, it was the only
kindness he had received since coming West, and he was ashamedly conscious that
his eyes were wet. The things fitted easily, but well, a tribute to the donor’s
gift
Of
observation. When at length he spoke, his
voice was shaky.

 
          
“Jim,
I dunno—”

 
          
“Forget
it, son.
What’s
a few duds anyway? All yu gotta do now
is get strong, eat more, an’ fill out yore dimples. We’ll make a cowboy of yu
yet.”

 
          
Yorky
was silent; there was something he wanted to say, and it was difficult. With an
effort he made the plunge:

 
          
“I’m
feelin’ mean. Jim, yore swell ter me, an’ I bin holdin’ out on yer—‘bout Flint.
It warn’t the cyard game; he wanted fer me to spy on the Ol’ Man.
I telled him where he c’d go.”

 
          
“Good
for yu,” Sudden said. “Glad yu came clean about it. Flint was likely planted on
us a-purpose. Yu see, the Wagon-wheel is out to bust the Circle Dot, so we
gotta keep an eye liftin’.
Sabe?”

 
          
“I
get yer,” the boy replied. “We’ll beat ‘em.”

 
          
“Shore
we will,” Sudden smiled. “Now, I must be off; Dan
don’t
pay me just to dry-nurse yu.”

 
          
“An’
them Noo York smart Alecks played him for a sucker,” Yorky grinned, when he was
alone, and went to survey his new finery in the mirror Nature had provided.

 
          
Beth
Trenton sat on her pony regarding the scene of her recent discomfiture. She did
not quite know why she had ridden there again except that, reviewing the
incident in a calmer frame of
mind,
she had
experienced qualms as to the way she had behaved. After all, the men had
probably saved her life, and the fact that they were opposed to her uncle did
not justify ingratitude. Looking at the placidly-moving surface of the stream,
the danger beneath seemed incredible. Acting on a sudden impulse, she sent her
mount down the shelving bank. At the very edge of the water, the animal shied
away. She turned it again, and with a sharp blow of her quirt, tried to force
it into the river, but with forefeet dug into the sand, the pony refused to
budge. A satirical voice intervened: