Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 05 - Law O' The Lariat(1935)

by Oliver Strange

  “Shore am sorry to have butted in,” he said, and there was that in his tone which made the remark an insult.

  Receiving no reply, he loped slowly on, and with a mocking wave of the hand vanished round a further curve. Phil, stealing an embarrassed glance at her companion, saw that he was staring after the intruder, his eyes bleak and his jaws clamped together.

  “Who’s that fella?” he asked, almost roughly.

  “Devint,” she replied. “I wish he hadn’t seen us; he’s sore at the Lazy M because the foreman fired him, and he’ll—talk.”

  “Huh! We better be gettin’ back,” Larry said.

  The ride home was made almost in silence. The cowboy was forcing the pace, as though in a hurry to get home. He spoke seldom, and all the gaiety had gone from his face, to be replaced by a grim intentness. The girl tried to rouse him.

  “You look as if you were going to kill someone,” she bantered. His head came round with a jerk, and she saw his cheeks redden. Then he laughed.

  “I am,” he said. “I’m agoin’ to just naturally slay Jonah if he ain’t got a good meal ready.”

  Phil said no more; the jocular reply had only served to deepen her doubts; she felt uneasy, frightened. When they arrived at the ranch, Larry took the ponies to the corral straight away, which was unusual, and presently she saw him, mounted on a fresh horse, shoot out on the trail for town; he had not waited to feed. Her feeling of unrest pursued her, and when Severn returned with the outfit, she called him aside and related the incident of the afternoon.

  “Larry looked as if he recognised Devint, and—hated him, yet he asked me who he was,” she said. “Of course, the man was insolent, but I somehow feel it wasn’t only that.”

  “Damnation,” swore the foreman, and forgot to apologise. “I reckon yo’re right, Miss Masters. For some reason or other, he’s gone to find that scallywag. Devint’s yellow, an’ a bad actor, but he’s reckoned fast with a gun.”

  “Oh, hurry, perhaps you’ll be in time to prevent their meeting,” she urged.

  “If I ain’t, an’ anythin’ happened to Larry, Mister Devint won’t see another sunrise,” was Severn’s sinister promise.

  Striding down to the corral, he caught and saddled a horse and set out for the town at full speed. He had no hope of catching Barton, but there was a chance that the two men had not yet met.

  The “Come Again” was filling up for the evening festivities, and Muger, the fat, oily-faced proprietor, rubbed his hands and smirked contentedly as he glanced over the gathering; it looked like being a profitable night.

  “Wonder what’s bitin’ Bart?” he muttered.

  In truth, the Bar B owner’s face justified the title by which he was commonly known. Standing apart, he was talking in low tones to Devint, and it was very evident that the conversation was not of a pleasing nature so far as the rancher was concerned. The cowboy had, in fact, been relating his encounter with Phil in the afternoon, and with the savage malice of one who delights in giving pain, he had lied, cunningly but convincingly. Bartholomew’s rage, fanned to fury by the recital, showed plainly in his distorted features.

  “I’ll give five hundred bucks to the man who puts that pup outa business,” he said vehemently, and then seeing the satirical look of inquiry on the other’s face, he added, “I’d do it myself an’ be a heap pleased to, but iI’d get me in wrong with the girl.”

  Devint nodded, satisfied with the explanation and the chance of earning the money. The fact that he had to extinguish a human life to do so meant nothing to him; he had killed men before, and for less reward. It was at this moment that Larry entered the saloon.

  “There’s the fella himself,” Bart whispered, and immediately left the man whose gun he had hired and went out of the saloon.

  Larry’s quick eye had seen the movement, and he guessed that Devint had wasted no time in telling his tale. He looked round the room, nodded to Ridge, who was playing poker with two of his outfit and the storekeeper, Callahan, and then fixed his attention to Devint, who was now talking to three other men.

  “Bah! Wimmeln is all alike,” the bully sneered. “Take that Masters girl, f’r instance; I come on her this afternoon in Snake Coulee, a-kissin’ an’ cuddlin’ one of her own men, a ornery forty per cowpunch, who ain’t been in the outfit more’n a month or so.”

  He leered triumphantly at his audience, some of whom sniggered. Others who had been only half listening, suddenly became aware that there was a purpose behind the talk, and ceased their games to watch. Utter silence seized the room, and all eyes were turned upon the alert, tense figure of the Lazy M cowboy, at whom it was evident the slander had been directed.

  “Devint!”

  The word came like a shot from lips tightly set, and was followed by a scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet, as those in the vicinity unostentatiously withdrew from the line of fire between the two men. Larry, his right hand hanging by his side with fingers apart, glared at the bully through slitted eyes, oblivious to all else. The rage which filled him was not patent to the spectators, he was not even conscious of it himself; all he knew was that something evil stood before him and he must destroy it.

  As for the traducer, his brutal face betrayed one feeling only —that of venomous satisfaction; he had obtained the necessary provocation to justify the killing. So he grinned insolently as he answered :

  “My name. Why, gents, if it ain’t the guy I bin tellin’ yu about—Phil Masters’ latest fancy. Look at him a-blushin’.”

  In truth, Larry’s face was red, but his voice was ice-cold, cutting, and charged with deadly menace; the added insult did not cause the loss of self-control.

  “Devint, yu are a liar an’ a coward,” he said deliberately. There could be only one reply to that. Stung as by the lash of a whip, the bully snatched at his gun.

  “Yu damned whelp ! ” he roared.

  The guns spat flame at the same second, and the Lazy M cowboy spun half-round as from a blow under the impact of a heavy slug in his left shoulder. Devint spluttered an oath, rocked on his feet, and pitched sideways to the floor, his pistol clattering beside him; he had been shot through the chest. Seeing that he was not yet dead, Larry staggered forward, and kicking away the weapon, knelt beside him.

  “Devint,” he said. “There’s somethin’ I want yu to know.”

  He whispered a few words and the eyes of the dying man opened in wide surprise. “Hell ! ” he gasped. “Yu—” A raucous rattle in his throat choked further utterance, and his head fell back. Devint was done with bullying.

  Larry climbed painfully to his feet and slumped into a chair someone pushed forward. His wound was bleeding, and he felt sick and giddy. Ridge and his men pounced upon him and began to bandage the hurt. The hush that had endured ended, and the spectators of the duel began to discuss it, crowded round to look at the stricken loser and the wounded victor. In the midst of the excitement the sheriff arrived.

  Some of the crowd made way, and at the sight of the body, the sheriff gasped in surprise. “Why, it’s Devint,” he said. “I thought—they told me it was someone else.” An unprejudiced observer might have said that he was disappointed.

  A dozen eager witnesses of the fight gave him the details and the officer’s bilious eyes turned with evil satisfaction to the hurt cowboy.

  “Well, yu’ve shore bin askin’ for trouble, an’ now yu got it,” he said. “I’m guessin’ this will put yu in the pen.”

  “Better guess again, sheriff, an’ mebbe yu’ll be right,” suggested the drawling voice of the Lazy M foreman.

  He had come in unobserved, and now stood leaning idly against the bar, his thumbs hooked in his belt, and a look of mingled amusement and contempt on his face. Tyler jerked round, his hand flying to his gun-butt.

  “Don’t yu,” urged the newcomer gently. “Yu ain’t no more fit to die than yu are to live.”

  Tyler’s face turned a pasty yellow; his gesture had been a bluff, and he was conscious that the other man knew it.
He had no intention of forcing a fight with this cold-blooded, mocking devil. The entry of the Bar B owner heartened him, and he tried to gather together the shattered fragments of his dignity.

  “As sheriff o’ thisyer town—” he began.

  “Yo’re a hopeless failure—yu needn’t tell us,” Severn interposed. “Now, see here, sheriff. Our distinguished citizen, Mister Bartholomew, has joined us. He don’t know nothin’ o’ this ruckus, o’ course. S’pose yu ask his opinion.”

  By this time Bartholomew had elbowed his way through the company, and Severn had not failed to note his fleeting expression of chagrin when he saw Devint’s body, nor the poisonous flash of hatred directed at Larry. But he instantly got control of his features again, and listened unmoved while the sheriff, anxious to transfer his burden of responsibility, related the facts. He saw at once the position into which Severn had so astutely jockeyed him. As a friend of Phil Masters he could not condemn the action of her defender. He did not hesitate.

  “The skunk deserved to die, an’ if this fella hadn’t rubbed him out I’d ‘a’ done it myself,” he said, with a savage emphasis which convinced many of his hearers. “If there’s a man here who ain’t satisfied that Devint was lyin’, p’raps he’ll step forward.” No one responding to the invitation, he turned to the sheriff. “Yu say it was an even break?”

  “I didn’t see the scrap, but I’m told so,” Tyler had to admit.

  “There ain’t nothin’ to do then,” the rancher said, and with a sneer to Severn, “Yu can take yore man away, but he’d better watch out; mebbe he won’t be so lucky next time.”

  “I reckon the Lazy M can take care of itself,” the foreman told him.

  With the help of Ridge and his two riders, the wounded man was conveyed to the ranch. This time Phil, hearing them arrive, thrust aside her scruples and went to meet them. At the sight of Larry held on his horse by two of the others, her heart seemed to turn over.

  “What is the matter?” she asked.

  “Barton had a run-in with Devint, an’ is drilled through the shoulder—nothin’ serious,” Severn assured her.

  “And Devint?”

  “Cashed,” was the brief reply.

  The girl shuddered and asked no more. Larry had killed a man. Barton was carried to the ranch-house and installed in Philip Master’s bed. As she explained to Severn, it would be easier for Dinah and herself to tend him there than in the bunkhouse. The invalid himself, though weak and in pain, made light of his injury. What hurt him much more was the cold and alof attitude of the girl. When his wound had been re-dressed, he seized a moment when he was alone with her.

  “I’m right distressed to give yu all this trouble,” he said. “Yu oughta let the boys look after me.”

  She shook her head, and then, “Oh, why did you do it? To cold-bloodedly go in search of a fellow-creature to kill him; it is horrible.”

  She saw his pale face flush and the lines about his mouth harden.

  “Devint’s kind ain’t fellow-creatures no more than a rattler is,” he said slowly. “Let me tell yu somethin’ about him. He an’ some others once hanged an old man on a charge they knew he was innocent f. Devint put the noose round his neck, an’ because he spoke, struck him in the face. That’s a true story.”

  “But why should you punish him—there’s a law to do that,” she protested.

  “What I’ve told yu happened ten years ago; the law is a mite slow,” he said, and after a pause, “I would do the same again.”

  She knew that he was right; but she would not admit it. She knew, too, that had anyone but Larry done the killing it would not have affected her so deeply, but this again she would not admit, even to herself.

  It was not until the following morning that she heard the real story of the shooting. She had ridden in to Hope, and had just dismounted in front of Callahan’s store when Bartholomew came along. His face grew darker at the sight of her.

  “‘Lo, Phil,” he said. “Reckon yu’ll allow now that I was right. Yu see what’s come o’ yore foolishness, ridin’ around with a hand; one man dead an’ another perforated.”

  “But that had nothing to do with it,” she cried.

  “It had everythin’ to do with it,” Bartholomew said angrily. “Devint’s in the `Come Again’ shootin’ off his mouth ‘bout seein’ yu an’ that pup kissin’ an’ cuddlin’ in Snake Coulee, an’ Barton tells him he is a liar.”

  Phil’s heart sang within her. Larry had fought for her good name; he was not a cold-blooded slayer.

  “I got there too late, or I’d ‘a’ wiped the houn’ out myself,” the Bar B owner went on. “O’ course I don’t believe it, but it ain’t a very nice tale for a fella to hear about his future wife.”

  The girl looked up quickly. “I am not that, Mr. Bartholomew,” she said. “If I have ever given you any reason to think I might be, I am sorry. You must forget it.”

  Her tone was cold and decisive, and a spasm of rage contracted the rancher’s features. He knew that she meant every word, but he would not allow himself to think so. With an effort he forced a smile.

  “Aw, don’t get sore at me, Phil,” he said placatingly. “I haven’t got the trick o’ makin’ pretty speeches, but I want yu, girl, an’ I ain’t takin’ that as yore final answer.”

  “I shall not change,” she said quietly, and walked away.

  Bartholomew stared after her for a moment, his rage again uppermost, and then turned and strode up the street. Blind with passion, he blundered into a pedestrian coming the other way, and with an oath and a sweep of his fist, hurled him from the board sidewalk into the dusty roadway. The victim of his wrath, a smallish man who wore a stubble of grey beard and a patch over one eye, picked himself up and glared malevolently. He was wearing a gun, and Phil fully expected to see the bully shot down, but with a rumbled threat the stranger went on his way, directing a curious glance at the girl as he passed her.

  Chapter XIII

  THE discovery of Phil’s real state of mind regarding him was a bitter blow to Bartholomew’s hopes and his vanity. So that for the rest of the day his outfit had a trying time, and when Penton dropped in at the Bar B ranch-house in the evening, he found the owner in anything but a pleasant frame of mind. The foreman, who had not seen him for twenty-four hours, came to the point at once.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Damn near everythin’,” was the surly reply. “Heard about Devint?”

  “I just met up with him,” Penton said.

  “What? Devint’s dead. Yu ain’t drunk are yu?” snapped he rancher.

  “Not so as yu’d notice it,” Penton told him. “Like I said, I met up with Devint—he’s hangin’ on the tree by Forby’s shack, an’ there’s a fourth notch cut.”

  Bartholomew glared at him. “Severn’s still playin’ that of of game, is he?” he growled.

  “Yu oughta done what I said an’ bumped Severn off right away,” Penton told him. “The girl would ‘a’ found some means o’ gettin’ round Embley. It ain’t too late now—she’d soon forget, him.”

  “Damnation! She don’t care no more for Severn than a cat likes swimmin’,” Bart burst out. “It’s that cursed pup what downed Devint.”

  He related his meeting with Phil in the morning.

  “So she gave you the frozen mitt, eh?” Penton said. “That’s a hoss with a different brand, ain’t it? I reckon yu gotta say farewell to the Lazy M, Bart, an’ be content to be second-best man at the weddin’.”

  The big man looked at the bitter, sarcastic face of the speaker, and his own grew blacker.

  “I ain’t feelin’ funny, Penton,” he warned.

  “I don’t see nothin’ humorous about it my own self,” his foreman rejoined. “I thought mebbe I was expressin’ yore own sentiments, though I gotta admit I ain’t ever found yu a quitter before.”

  “An’ I don’t aim to be now,” the Bar B owner said harshly. “What I go after, I get, come hell or high water. It ain’t goin’ to be as e
asy as I hoped, that’s all. We gotta take chances.”

  “Well, we’ve done that afore an’ got away with it,” Penton allowed. “No means o’ gettin’ Embley on our side, I s’pose?” Bartholomew’s smile was satanic. “Yu must be a blighted thought-reader, Pent,” he said. “Yes, there is a way, but I ain’t got it worked out yet. For now, just keep on puttin’ it about that Severn likely rubbed out Masters.”

  Penton nodded. “Can’t pin Stevens on him too, eh?” he asked.

  “It wouldn’t do,” Bart said. “He could easy prove he warn’t in the neighbourhood then.”

  “Gettin’ rid o’ Stevens to make room for Severn didn’t do us no good,” the foreman remarked.

  “Yo’re damn right, it didn’t, but who’d ‘a’ thought Masters would bring in a stranger?” Bartholomew growled. “We reckoned on his givin’ the job to Devint.”

  “Masters warn’t quite so dumb as we figured,” Penton said as he went out.

  Bartholomew’s grunt was one of affirmation; he was beginning to realise that he had underrated the late owner of the Lazy M.

  It was a message from Ridge, conveyed by one of his riders, that brought Severn into Hope several days after the shooting. On his way to Bent’s, where the XT man had arranged to meet him, the foreman sensed a difference in the attitude of the inhabitants towards himself. Several men to whom he had nodded or spoke before, passed without apparently seeing him. Ridge, who was waiting, soon explained the reason for this.

  “Ain’t wantin’ to make more trouble for yu, but I reckon yu oughta know that it’s bein’ generally spread around that yu downed Masters,” the rancher said bluntly.

  “Bart’s men seem to be doin’ the talkin’,” Bent added. “Me an’ Ridge thought yu might have a word to say about it.” Severn’s eyes darkened. “I have,” he said quietly. “I’m agoin’ up to the `Come Again’ right now to say it—to Mister Bartholomew.”