“Sorry?” Slocombe cried. “You lumberin’, club-footed elephant—they oughta hang a bell on you to tell folks when yo’re movin’ around; yo’re a danger to the c’munity, an’ why in hell did you try to slice the face off’n me with that sanguinary handle?”
“I acted for the best, Slow, honest I did,” the big man replied, but his contrite expression was too much for the audience and a storm of merriment broke out.
Slow looked murder for a moment, and then—being a good sport—joined in. The appearance of Sudden stilled the tumult, and he had to be told the story.
“Yo’re dead right, Slow,” was his decision. “Tiny oughta have a corral all to hisself.”
“You’ll be late, Jim, won’t you?” Blister asked, noting that the puncher had made no preparations.
“I ain’t goin’,” was the reply. “Someone has to stay an’ keep house, if on’y to see that nobody steals our cook.”
“Huh, they’d have to fetch a wagon to take him away,” Slim chimed in.
“We’ll cut the cards to see who stays home ‘stead o’ you,” Tiny said, and the rest voiced approval.
“Mighty good o’ yu, but it’s all settled,” Sudden repliedt “An’ I don’t care for dancin’, anyways.”
Later, as Dan mounted to follow his men, he said, “Why not come along, Jim. Paddy can hold down the ranch.”
“I’m playin’ a hunch; mebbe there’s nothin’ in it.”
When the hilarious whoops died away in the distance, he had an idea. Returning to the living-room, he opened the desk. Knowing where to look, it did not take him long to find the hidden drawer. Then, the paper in hand, he pondered. On a shelf, amid a dusty litter of odds and ends, was a spike file of paid bills. Sudden removed half, thrust on Rufe Dover’s letter, and replaced them. Then he saddled his horse, leaving it picketed just outside the corral. These preparations made, he returned to his lonely vigil. Paddy was singing in the kitchen, and away over the plain the weird call of a prowling coyote came to him.
“The boys would say there ain’t no difference, an’ they’d be damn near right,” he chuckled, as he lit a cigarette and settled down in his chair by the fire.
The hours crept by and the watcher was beginning to think he had foregone an evening’s amusement vainly when a rifle-shot brought him to his feet; something was happening on the range. He stepped swiftly to the kitchen and awoke the drowsing cook.
“Get a gun an’ keep yore eyes peeled,” he said. “Somethin’ odd goin’ on.”
He hurried to the hut by the wood-pile; its occupant was squatting by the fire.
“Hunch, I want yu to fork a hoss an’ fetch Dan an’ the boys; they’re at the schoolhouse in Rainbow. Say there’s trouble, an’ hurry. Understand?”
The old man nodded, and the puncher wasted no more time. He reached his horse, coiled the picket-rope as he ran, mounted, and spurred into the open. He had not gone far when he saw a flash, followed by a crack—this time, of a revolver—and the bellow of a frightened steer.
Rustlers! Sudden clamped his teeth on an oath and slowed down—he had no desire to run into a trap. Soon he could hear the beat of galloping hooves, and discern shadowy forms scurrying to and fro in the gloom. They were rounding up cattle in readiness to drive.
Sudden dragged out his Winchester, waited until he could see one of the vague figures, and squeezed the trigger. The crash of the gun was succeeded by a muttered curse which brought balm to the marksman; the bullet had not been entirely wasted. Three fingers of flame stabbed the darkness, but the Circle Dot man had moved immediately he had fired, and the lead hummed harmlessly past him. He replied, aiming at the flashes, three quick shots from different positions, to convey the impression that he was not alone. Apparently he succeeded, for a hoarse voice said:
“Better be movin’—we’ve given ‘em time enough. C’mon.” The puncher sent a couple of slugs to hasten their departure and then rode forward. A dark blot on the ground proved to be a dead horse from which the saddle had been removed. Nearby about a score of steers were milling. Sudden broke and scattered them; if the rustlers returned, they would have to start all over again. But he did not think they would; the remark, “given ‘em time enough” was sticking in his mind, and realizing the impossibility of running down the raiders in the dark, he headed for the ranch-house.
Approaching quietly, he dismounted and slipped in by the back door. On the floor of the kitchen the cook was lying senseless. Sudden dashed into the living-room in search of whisky.
The place might have been struck by a cyclone. Chairs and table overturned, the desk and secret drawer open, rug thrown aside, papers and other articles scattered broadcast. Sudden grinned as he saw that the shelf and its dusty burden had not been touched. There was no whisky, and a smashed bottle on the hearth supplied the reason. He was looking at this when a voice came from the doorway:
“Don’t stir if you wanta go on breathin’.”
There was no need to turn; a small mirror over the fireplace told him that a masked man, with a levelled gun, had followed him in from the darkened passage without. Sudden obeyed a further order, but did not raise his hands very high.
“Where’s the letter from Rufe Dover?” the unknown barked.
“On the shelf behind me—there’s a file,” the puncher said.
In the glass he watched the fellow move, noted that as he reached for the shelf, his eyes instinctively followed his hand.
This was the moment Sudden was waiting for. His own right dropped, whisked out a gun, reversed it, and fired over his shoulder, the whole action taking seconds only. He saw the intruder stagger under the impact of the bullet, drop his weapon, and lunge from the room. At the same moment a voice outside the window said:
“What’s doin’, Rat? Want any help?”
“No,” Sudden gritted, and sent a slug crashing through the glass.
He heard the front door slam, and the same voice asked: “You got it?”
“Yeah, in the shoulder—that cursed gun-wizard showed up. C’mon, beat it.”
A scuffle of hurrying hooves told the rest.
The puncher returned to the kitchen to find that the injured man had recovered his wits and was sitting up tenderly feeling a large bump on the back of his head.
“Glory be, an’ phwat’s happenin’ this noight,” he wanted to know.
“S’pose yu tell me,” Sudden suggested.
“An’ that won’t take long,” Paddy replied. “I’m settin’ in me chair, an’ hears someone come in by the front dure. I thinks it’s yerself an’ stan’s up to welcome ye. An’ thin, the roof falls on me.”
The festivities at Rainbow were in full swing by the time the Circle Dot contingent arrived and had deposited hats, spurs, and guns. Desks had been removed from the floor, forms arranged against the walls, thus leaving space for the dancers. At one end of the room, a pianist and a fiddler—loaned from Sody’s saloon—struggled for the lead in a polka, and bets were laid as to which would win. Trenton, his harsh countenance contorted in what he would have called a smile, had presented his niece to the more important of the townsfolk, and she was now dancing with Malachi. Her glance rested on Dover as the rancher and his men entered, but she at once looked away. The doctor danced well, and had taken the trouble to improve his appearance. But he was his usual flippant self.
“I will wager a waltz that I can guess your thoughts,” he said: “Is it a bet?”
“Why, yes,” she smiled.
“You are wondering what I am doing out here in the wilds.” The girl flushed. “You win,” she said. “Now tell me.”
“I might answer with your own question,” he parried. “Mister Trenton is my sole remaining relative.”
“Tough luck,” he murmured, and noting the tiny crease between her level brows, “I mean, of course, being reduced to one. Now I had too many relations, and they all had ideas as to what I should do with my life, so I ran away.”
“But why choose such a—sordid place?”
“Sordid? Well, I suppose to Eastern eyes it would seem so; a wit once said that Rainbow started with a saloon to supply the necessaries of life, and the store came later to provide the luxuries. But have you reflected that this same sordid settlement may one day become a great city, of which—as an early inhabitant—I may be regarded as a foundation stone?”
“Now you are laughing at me,” she protested.
“No, I’m serious. Ìmperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, may stop a hole to keep the rats away.’ At present, I’m only stopping the holes these foolish people make in one another.
Which reminds me, you must see our cemetery—it is really pretty.”
“You would naturally be interested in it,” she replied, paying him in his own coin of raillery.
“Very little,” he smiled. “Most of those within it required no aid from my profession to enter the other world. Ah, the fiddle has beaten the piano by a whole bar. Hello, Dan, you’ve met Miss Trenton?”
The young rancher, by whose side they had stopped, looked into the girl’s cool, unsmiling eyes, and said, “No.”
“Well, you have now,” Malachi replied. “Ask her prettily and perhaps she’ll dance with you.”
He left them, and Dan’s gaze travelled over the slender, simply but perfectly-clad figure.
“Will you?” he queried.
She made a pretence of consulting her card. “I have no vacancy,” she said icily. “Besides, only a skunk can dance with a skunk.”
Dan’s mouth hardened; it had been an effort to ask, and the scornful reminder of his rudeness made him reckless. His eyes swept the room, noting that many Wagon-wheel riders were present.
“You shore fetched along plenty partners,” he flung back, and turned away.
Garstone found her red and angry. “I don’t like that young man,” she told him.
“That’s something else we have in common,” he said. “I hate the sight of him.”
He slid a possessive arm about her and steered into the throng. He was easily the best-dressed and most striking man in the company, and in spite of his bigness, light on his feet.
Dan, watching with narrowed eyes, was conscious that they made a perfect pair. He was also painfully aware that everyone else seemed to be having a good time. As usual, on these occasions, males predominated, but this did not trouble the cowboys, for when ladies were lacking, they just grabbed another of their kind and jigged about, exchanging quaint expletives when a collision occurred. Blister and Slow—the late fracas now only a matter for mirth—were performing together, and a fragment of their conversation reached him. Blister was the gentleman.
“Never seen you lookin’ so peart, pardner,” he complimented in dulcet tones. “You bin washin’, or somethin’?”
“Yeah, y’oughta try it,” the “lady” instantly retorted.
“You’d dance well too, if you knowed what to do with yore feet,” Blister went on.
“I’ll shore know what to do with one if you trample on ‘em any more,” was the spirited response.
At any other time this, and the sight of Tiny, carefully convoying the school-mistress—an austere-faced lady of uncertain age—and holding her bony form as though it were a piece of delicate china, would have moved him to merriment, but now…
“Might be goin’ to his own funeral,” he muttered. “Hell, I’ll get me a drink.”
Again he met with disappointment; he ran-into Maitland - and had to be introduced to the banker’s wife—a colourless little woman with a tired face. Then he found himself dancing with the daughter.
“When we came here, I didn’t think I was going to like it,” she confided, “but I am. The cowboys are so picturesque, and I’m longing to see a ranch.”
“You’d be disappointed,” he told her. “Just a lot o’ land, with some cows sprinkled around.”
The expected invitation not having materialized, she changed the subject. “Isn’t Miss Trenton charming—quite the prettiest girl here, but perhaps you don’t care for brunettes?”
“If a fella likes a woman I reckon the colour of her hair don’t matter,” he fenced.
“See, she’s dancing with that sick-looking boy; she must be real kind.”
Miss Maitland was right, and wrong. Beth, anxious to humiliate the man who had again been rude to her, had hit upon a means; the honour he had solicited should be conferred upon the least important of his outfit. Yorky, feeling rather unsure of himself, despite his contempt for the “hayseeds,” suddenly found the belle of the evening sitting by and looking kindly at him.
“You must be the boy Doctor Malachi was telling me about,” she said. “Like myself, you come from the East.”
“Yes’m, li’l ol’ Noo York,” he stammered, and added, “Allus sump’n doin’ there.”
“Far too much doing,” she smiled. “Unending noise and hustle, never any rest. I didn’t like it.”
This was another blow to the boy’s faith in “li’l ol’ Noo York.”
“Jim don’t neither,” he admitted.
“And who is Jim?”
“He’s my pal,” Yorky said proudly. “I useter loaf aroun’ the house all th’ time, but Jim sez, ‘Quit smokin’, go a-ridin’ an’ git th’ breath o’ th’ pines.’ So I done it, an’ I’m better a’ready.”
“The breath of the pines,” she repeated. “Your friend must be something of a poet.”
“Not on yer life,” the boy defended. “Nuttin’ slushy ‘bout Jim. Gee! y’oughter see him stripped—I mean, he’s—”
“A finely-made man,” she helped him out. “You must tell me about him, and yourself, while we dance. You do dance, don’t you?”
“I c’n shake a leg,” he said; and conscious that he had omitted something, “but I dasn’t ask—”
“Nonsense,” she smiled. “I am going to enjoy it.”
And enjoy it she did, for her partner had the gamin’sinstinct for rhythm in his toes. Thus she learned how Old Man Dover had brought the boy to the ranch, and how he had hated it until a black-haired hero had come to change his outlook entirely. She was told about Flint, and what “fine guys” the boys were.
“And Mister Dan, is he a fine guy too?” she asked.
“Shore he is, white clean t’rough,” Yorky said loyally.
Miss Trenton stole a glance at the rancher as he passed, and failed to experience the exultation she had expected. When the music ceased, she dismissed her partner with a gracious word of thanks. Garstone stepped to her side.
“Why on earth were you dancing with that tramp?” he asked.
There was a warning flash in the dark eyes. “I believe it is a lady’s privilege to select her partner.”
“Of course, but if you must take one of the opposite camp, surely it need not be the stable-boy.”
“The stable-boy behaved like a gentleman,” she said coldly. “No, I am tired, and wish to rest a little. Miss Maitland is looking appealingly in this direction; I am sure she will oblige.”
“That’s a good suggestion—we have to keep in with the fellow who holds the purse-strings,” the big man laughed, but there was a frown on his face when he had turned away.
Meanwhile, Yorky’s sharp eyes had noticed something, and he disappeared to investigate. He returned during the next interval, and got Dan’s attention.
“Say, Boss,” he whispered. “Five or six o’ th’ Wagon-wheel fellers, includin’ Flint, has beaten it.”
“Gone to Sody’s to tank up,” Dan suggested.
“They ain’t—I’ve bin ter see. Their hosses is missin’ too,” the boy replied. “Man I asked said he hadn’t seen Flint since soon after the second hop.”–
“That’s certainly odd, Yorky; it ain’t like cow-hands to run off from a dance—they don’t get so many. Hello, Bill, wantin’ me?”
“Hunch is outside—Jim sent him; sez there’s trouble,” the foreman said.
“Round up the boys, an’ we’ll be goin’.”
In ten minutes they h
ad left Rainbow behind and were riding for the Circle Dot. Silently, and with eyes alert, they pressed on through the still, dark night. When, at length, they reached the ranch, all seemed as usual. Then Sudden’s voice challenged:
“Who’s there?”
Dover replied, and a shaft of light appeared as the door opened; the puncher, gun in hand, stepped out.
“Sorry to have busted in on yore fun, boys,” he said. “The excitement’s all over, I guess, but when I sent Hunch I didn’t know what was afoot.” Dan asked a question. “Rustlers. I downed a hors. They didn’t get any steers.”
“Durn the luck, it would ‘a’ bin a good finish to have a run in with cow-thieves,” Tiny grumbled. “Jim had the best of it after all.”
When Dover and the foreman followed Sudden into the living-room they got a shock, and had to be told the rest of the story. Dan’s face fell when he saw the empty secret drawer.
“So they got it,” he said dejectedly.
Sudden grinned, reached down the file and stripped off the bills until he came to the letter. “Like hell they did,” he replied. “I had a feelin’ someone might know o’ that hidey-hole an’ come for it, so I put it in the least likely place for anythin’ o’ value. Now we’ll make shore; three of us know the contents o’ that bit o’ paper, so we’ll—burn it.”
“Yo’re right, Jim, an’ I don’t know how to thank you,” Dan said. “It was a smart move.”
“Shucks,” the puncher replied, and dropped the document in the fire.
“Settles that,” Burke remarked. “How did you get on to their plans, Jim?”
“I didn’t, but I got to wonderin’ why Trenton was keen on an affair which would leave the Circle Dot wide open. Some o’ his fellas could show theirselves, ride here, an’ get back before the dance finished; no one could prove they hadn’t been in town all the time.”
“Which is how it was planned,” Dan said, and told of Yorky’s discovery. “The raid on the cattle was a fake?”
“Yeah. When Trenton learned I wasn’t comin’—he had a list, yu know—they had to get me away from the ranch-house. Why, they even fired a gun in case I didn’t hear ‘em. Havin’ played safe with the paper, I went along; yu see, there was just a chance someone was after the cows.”
Sudden: Makes War Page 8