For a moment it seemed they had not; the confident audacity of the challenger had a paralysing effect; they could not credit that, facing odds of four to one, he had willingly placed himself at a disadvantage. Scar was the first to recover. His eyes gleamed.
“Fancyin’ yoreself, huh?” he said. “C’mon, boys, we’ll soon trim this young cock’s comb for him.”
With muttered oaths, they began to move towards the man leaning indolently against the bar. He did not wait for them. One swift stride brought him to the nearest, his right fist shot out with all the momentum of the movement behind it. to land with a dull thud on the fellow’s jaw. As though kicked by a mule, he tottered on his heels for an instant and crashed senseless.
“Tally one,” the cowboy called, and stepped lightly to the middle of the room, where they would be unable to hem him in. “On with the dance, hombres, or do I have to fetch yu one at a time?”
The jeer brought about the result he desired—they made a concerted charge, rushing blindly forward, only to receive another lesson. Jumping back, Sudden overturned a table in their path, which not only checked but split up the attack. Scar and Squint elected to pass the obstacle on one side; the third man took the other, to his own undoing, for Sudden—expecting just such a move—sprang in, drove a left to the face, and, as the recipient’s head snapped back, followed up with a perfect punch on the solar plexus. Under that venomous blow the man collapsed like a hinge and rolled in agony on the ground, gasping for breath.
“Tally two,” the cowboy chanted grimly.
This further depletion of their force produced a certain hesitancy on the part of the attackers, and then Squint evolved what he regarded as an inspiration. Stooping behind his comrade’s back, he snatched up and hurled one of theheavy stools. Sudden saw it coming, ducked, and the missile struck the log wall and became kindling-wood. That was a game two could play at, however, and Sudden’s stool came so swiftly that Squint, unable to dodge, was rapped sharply on the forehead by one of the whirling legs, and ceased to take any further interest in the proceedings.
“Tally three,” Sudden grinned. “Sorta evens things up, huh? Come an’ get yores, crooked face.”
Staggered as he was by this speedy removal of his supporters, Scar did not refuse the invitation. So far the stranger had sprung the surprises; now it was his turn. But he advanced slowly, and sideways, stepping on the balls of his feet in case retreat became necessary. Sudden watched him edging closer, wondering what the game was. A cry from Black Sam told him.
“Min’ de knife, sah.”
So that was it? The curious crab-like approach had enabled the ruffian to keep his right hand out of sight, so concealing the six-inch blade gripped in it.
The warning came only just in time, for at the very moment it was uttered, Scar flung himself forward and struck. A swift snatch and Sudden caught the descending wrist with his left hand, thrusting it upwards, while his right fist impacted on the other’s chin with the force of a battering-ram. The knife sang on the boards, the owner’s head swayed on his shoulders, and another raking right sent him down in an untidy heap. The negro, his eyes like saucers, came from behind the bar to survey the battlefield.
“Sam, a little more an’ I’d ‘a’ lost my temper,” the victor confessed.
“My lan’, sah, I done think yo’ kill ‘em all,” Sam said, in an awed tone.
“Shucks, they ain’t hurt—much,” Sudden replied, returning to his belt the guns the saloon-keeper had brought him. “They’re comin’ round a’ready, but I figure they’ve had enough. Well, seein’ I made the mess, I s’pose I gotta clear it up.”
The prostrate forms on the floor were showing signs of life, and the man whose internal economy had been so rudely assailed had already climbed slowly to an upright position. He had no more than achieved this when he felt himself seized by collar and belt, propelled to the door, and hurled down the steps into the street, the soft sand of which he ploughed with his face, a feat which evoked ironical cheers from a group of loungers who witnessed it.
The applause brought others, popping out of their holes like rabbits, to learn what was happening. They arrived in time to see a second form catapulted from the saloon entrance.
“Black Sam has hired a bouncer, an’ boy, does he know his job?” one of them exclaimed admiringly.
A third figure thudded into the sand, then a fourth, and when this last scrambled to his feet and shook a furious fist, he was recognized and the enjoyment of the onlookers gave way to an expression of unease.
“Scar Roden,” the blacksmith, Naylor, muttered. “That fella can’t know what he’s takin’ on. This’ll mean trouble for Dugout.”
The puncher had appeared, standing in the doorway, his thumbs hooked in his belt. The saloon-keeper was hovering fearfully in the background. Sudden had a word to say:
“I’m stayin’ in this neck o’ the woods a piece an’ I’m givin’ notice that if anythin’ unpleasant happens to Sam here, I’ll send yu four misfits to hell so fast yu’ll singe on the way. Now, beat it.”
He watched until they disappeared among the low hills which masked the western approach to the town, and then turned to his host.”I reckon I’ve lost yu four customers,” he said, but his grin was anything but repentant.
“Yo’ done save me money, sah,” Sam replied. “Dem Imps neber pay nobody.”
Men were heading for the saloon, eager for information, and Sudden slipped away to his room, leaving the negro to make what explanations he chose.
Chapter IV
His apartment was not luxurious, for it contained only a pallet-bed, a chair, a bucket of water, soap and towel, but it was spotless. He smiled as he remembered Frosty’s attempt to mislead him.
“An’ me a stranger,” he said reprovingly, though it was the very thing he would have done himself. “Allasame, I’ll gamble he’s white, an’ somethin’ is sayin’ mighty loud that I’ll need friends.”
His window overlooked the corral and he could see his horse, Nigger, placidly nibbling the grass. He raised the sill and looked down; the ground was but a dozen feet below—it would be easy to leave that way if necessary. So far, save for Lagley, things had gone well. The men he had punished belonged to the mysterious “Satan” he had come to find and deal with, and he had deliberately made the most of the opportunity the girl’s advent offered.
“If he’s the sort I figure, he’ll wanta see the man who, single-handed, beat up four of his toughs,” he reflected aloud. “An’ it’s possible Keith might be grateful, which’ll level up for Lagley.” His mind reverted to material needs. “Fightin’ must make a fella peckish; I could eat a hoss—a’most.”
He went downstairs to find a meal waiting for him in the parlour behind the bar, and a shining-faced, buxom negress who bobbed a curtsey when he entered.
“Suah hope it ain’t spoiled, sah,” she said. “Done ask dat man o’ mine to tell yo’ but he don’ think o’ nothin’ but de ol’ bar.”
“It was my fault, ma’am,” Sudden smiled. “I was just dreamin’. My! that steak looks good.”
She waited while he ate a mouthful, and departed with his praises ringing in her ears. The puncher had made another friend, unmeaningly, for the meal was perfect. Having despatched it, he went into the bar. Business was booming, and evidently the proprietor had been talking, for the afternoon’s fracas appeared to be the sole topic of conversation. The smith, a big fellow, with a rugged but not unpleasing face, stepped at once to the cowboy.
“Mister, my name’s Naylor, an’ I’d like to shake with you,” he said. “The way you played with them sots was good to see.”
They shook hands, Sudden mentioned his name, and was, in turn, presented to Jansen, the store-keeper, Polter, who ran an eating-house, and a dried-up, rather silent little man called Birt, who owned a freight-wagon, and was the town’s link with the outside world.
“It was time someone showed ‘em they don’t own the place,” the store-keeper supplemented. “Few week
s ago, Roden comes in, selects some goods, an’ starts to walk out. When I remind him he ain’t paid he looks ugly, an’ sez, `Ain’t my credit good?’ I tells him I don’t give none. `Yo’re be beginnin’ to-day,’ he replies, an’ backs out with his gun on me. Well, life’s worth more’n ten dollars.”
“They got a lesson this afternoon, but there’ll be doin’s when the news of it gits to Hell City,” Polter opined.
Sudden asked a question; it was the smith who answered:
“It’s the stronghold of the worst band of rustlers an’ road-agents in Arizona, the last refuge o’ the hunted outlaw. The blacker a man’s record is, the warmer his welcome. Satan, their leader calls hisself, an’ it ain’t no boast. Him an’ his Imps has got this country buffaloed. That was four of ‘em you manhandled.”
“Yu think they’ll talk?” the puncher asked. “Me, I’d be dumb as a clam.”
“Satan fin’ out, sah,” Sam said dolefully. “He hear eberyt’ing—he have de magic.”
Sudden laughed and slapped a gold piece on the bar. “That’s his magic, ol’-timer,” he replied. “The most powerful in the world, save this.” He drew a cartridge from his belt and stood it beside the coin. “Lead lets the life out’n a man an’ all the gold in creation won’t put it back. If he does hear, I guess yu needn’t to worry—he won’t have any sympathy for four men who let one send ‘em packin’.”
“Somethin’ in that,” Jansen admitted. “By all accounts, they’ll be lucky to git off with a tongue-lashin’.”
“What’s he like?”
“Young—’bout yore age, I’d say—middlin’ size, an’ allus wears a mask, even amongst his own men,” was the reply. “He’s reputed to ride an’ shoot like Old Nick hisself.”
“An’ that’s all yu know?”
The freighter spoke for the first time. “Not quite,” he said. “We know he don’t like bein’ discussed.” He looked sardonically at the stranger. “Lem Roberts opened his mouth pretty wide a month back an’ two days later we found him hanging from a tree on the trail-side with one o’ them little red devils pinned to his vest.”
This ended the subject. Sudden replaced his cartridge, and pointed to the gold coin. “Sam, I believe yo’re a bit of a wizard yore own self,” he smiled. “Just pass a hand over that an’ see if yu can turn it into liquor; I’m settin’ ‘em up for the company.”
This generous gesture sealed the cowboy’s popularity and did much to dispel the suspicion with which a frontier community was wont to receive a stranger. Even Black Sam forgot his fears for the future and regained his customary broad smile. It was not until later, when the saloon was closed, that his face grew gloomy again. Sudden went straight to the point:
“Yu fellas are holdin’ out on me,” he said. “Who is this jasper yu all ‘pear to be so scared of?”
The negro shook his head. “I dunno, sah—nobody dunno, but it’s claimed he’s Kunnel Keith’s son, young Massa Jeff.” Sudden’s eyebrows rose. “Keith o’ the Double K?” he cried. “How come?”
“Keith lose his wife when de chile is born,” Sam explained. “I don’ reckon he eber forgive de boy for dat—he was mighty ‘tached to her. It mak’ him hard like de flint, an’ young Jeff he grow up de same, bot’ proud an’ obst’nate as de mule. It was when de boy comes back from college dat de big trouble begins, mebbe four-five years back. ‘Stead o’ bein’ de owner’s son, Jeff has to work as one o’ de outfit, an’ for de same pay. Well, he don’ kick, but I ‘spect he found it middlin’ dull aroun’ heah after de East, an’ he spends a lot o’ time at Red Rock, thirty mile no’th. De tales come o’ drinkin’, high play, an’ den a man is hurt at de card-table. Foh his own name, de Kunnel gits him out’n de mess, but done tells him he neber wants to see his face agin. `Yo’ shan’t,’ Jeff sez, `but dat don’ mean I’m leavin’ de country like a whipped houn’ at yore biddin’.”
“Which might explain the mask, huh?”
“Suah looks dataway, sah. We don’ heah no news o’ Jeff for a good whiles an’ den a herd o’ Double K steers is stole; one o’ de rustlers has his face hid by a red bandanner. Next, word comes dat folk is livin’ in de ol’ Injun dwellin’s an’ dat’s de start o’ Hell City.”
“An’ what d’yu think yoreself, Sam?”
“I’se feared it’s true, sah,” was the reluctant reply. “Satan visit Dugout onct, an’ he look like Jeff; same size, voice, dress, an’ use his favourite queer cuss-word, `By Christmas.’ “
For some moments Sudden was silent, pondering over the singular story, and then he put a question.
“She de orphan chile of an ol’ friend—de Kunnel took charge of her ‘bout ten year back,” Sam told him. “I guess he hoped she an’ Jeff’d tie up an’ dat was suthin’ else he had agin de boy.”
“She’s pretty enough to please most men,” the puncher said.
“A mighty sweet gal,” the saloon-keeper agreed, “an’ if de 01’ Man hadn’t showed his han’ so plain …”
Sudden nodded. “Ever been to this Heil City?” he asked.
“Lordy, no sah,” Sam said. “I don’ want no truck with dal outlaw trash. ‘Sides, a fella snoopin’ roun’ dere is li’ble to catch a bullet.”
The obvious warning had no effect. “I must have a look at it,” Sudden smiled. “I’m curious, an’ I might wanta join up with Mister Satan, after all.”
He left his host scratching his woolly poll in perplexity over this last disturbing proposition.
Sudden had just finished his morning meal in the parlour when he heard a loud and cheerful voice in the bar.
“‘Lo, Sam, yu got a cow-person stayin’ here—tall fella with hair as black as yore hide—who looks like a rustler an’ probably is one?”
“Mistah Green, sah,” the saloon-keeper began.
“That’s the name,” chimed in the cheerful one. “Yu go tell the gent that the sheriff o’ Dugout needs him right away.”
“How long dis town own a sher’ff?” Sam queried. “‘Bout ten minutes—I just bin app’inted a-purpose, an’see, if he tries to leave by the back window, smoke him up.”
“De debbil! What he wanted foh, Frosty?”
“Just murder, arson, robbery with violence, cheatin’ at cyards, desertin’ his wife an’ kids, an’—”
“Consortin’ with a low character by the name o’ Rud Homer,” put in a quiet voice from the doorway leading to the rear of the premises. “Howdy.”
Frosty stared at him open-mouthed. “Musta bin romancin’ —yu ain’t marked,” he muttered, and then, “Told Naylor just now that I’d come in to git yu an’ he advised me to fetch the rest o’ the outfit. Said yu fought four o’ Satan’s toughs yestiddy an’ threw ‘em out on their ears.”
“He was stringin’ yu,” Sudden said, and added, “I hope there’s somethin’ yu do better than lyin’.”
“Shore there is,” Frosty said eagerly. “Set ‘em up, ol’timer.” He dived into a pocket and a look of dismay followed the action. “Hell, I won’t have a nickel till pay-day.”
“Yu can hock yore gun,” Sudden suggested, with a sly wink at the man behind the bar. “That’s the rule, ain’t it, Sam?”
“Suah is, gents,” was the reply.
Frosty turned belligerently upon him. “An’ who in blazes is goin’ to fall for that in this country?” he asked.
“Scar an’ three of his friends fell for it,” Sudden said. “Fell considerable hard, too.”
Light came to the Double K rider. ‘Then Naylor told the truth—yu did mix it with them scallawags?”
“There was a li’l argument,” Sudden admitted. “They left in a hunry an’ forgot their shootin’-irons.”
Frosty grinned and slammed his gun down. “Trot out the pain-killer, Sam,” he said. “The new rule goes.”
The saloon-keeper pushed the weapon back. “Not foh mah fren’s, sah,” he corrected. “Dey’s on de house.”
“Well sheriff,” Sudden began.
-Aw, forget it,” the other smiled. “Du
gout’s got no use for one anyways, she’s dead, an’ on’y needs an undertaker.” Later, as they rode in the direction of the Double K ranch, Sudden said bluntly, “What’s Keith want with me?”
“Hell, yu ain’t gotta have four eyes to see that,” came the reply. “Didn’t yu git his gal out’n a jam? Any o’ the boys would ‘a’ given a month’s pay for the chance. Yu must be one o’ those lucky guys.”
“Shore, lucky don’t begin to tell about me,” Sudden retorted, with such emphatic bitterness that his companion stared. “Shucks, I don’t need any thanks; I’ve a mind to go back.”
“Then I’ll have to bring the outfit,” Frosty said.”When the 01’ Man wants a thing it has gotta be got, come hell or high water. Are yu goin’ to make me fall down on my job?”
The puncher’s respect for his new friend’s shrewdness increased; this was an argument to which there was only one reply.
“Yu win,” he said, and presently, “They were talkin’ in the bar last night ‘bout Hell City; ever seen it?”
“From the outside on’y, an’ that’s aplenty.”
“Is the boss of it young Keith?”
The Double K cowboy shrugged. “Common talk sez so, an’ all the signs read that way,” he replied. “Allasame, I dunno. Time he left here, Jeff warn’t bad, just wild an’ headstrong. When yu ride a colt too hard yu break its spirit or turn it into an outlaw. The Colonel didn’t savvy what he was doin’. He’s a good rancher, an’ square, but, if he gits to Paradise—which is some doubtful—I’ll bet he’ll want to run it.”
“Stiff-necked, huh?”
“Brother, yu said it; I don’t reckon that fella ever does see his own feet. He wants Jeff an’ Miss Joan to make a match, an’ a blind man could tell they’s headin’ that way, but he gives the boy orders, puttin’ him on the prod immediate. If he’d waited, but there, Ken Keith never could wait, an’ I’ll wager he’s cussin’ me out right now because I can’t ride twenty mile in as many minutes.”
Chapter V
The Double K range occupied an expansive tract of open country towards the end of the big basin and about ten miles south of Dugout. The ranch-house faced a long, grassy incline, and was protected from the sun by lofty pines. It was a wide, one-storied building of trimmed timber, with a roofed verandah along the whole front, and chimneys of stone. The bunkhouse, smithy, storage-barns and corrals were about a hundred yards distant. As the riders aproached, they could see a tall figure striding up and down le verandah.
Sudden: Rides Again Page 3