“What’s the idea, yu snowy-pated pie-eater, tryin’ to bust our necks thataway?” he demanded.
“I just remembered somethin’,” the culprit spluttered, suppressing a second outburst with difficulty.
“Must be a helluva joke if yu’ve on’y just seen it.”
“Shore is,” his friend grinned. “Might them letters, B D, stand for `Bewitchin’ Damsel’?” Getting no response, he went on, “She’s a good-looker all right, but so is a cactus or a cougar an’ they’re safer to have truck with.”
Sudden spoke to his steed. “Don’t yu never eat locoweed, ol’ hoss, now yu see what it does. Here’s a fella who looks a’most intelligent at times, an’—”
“Quit joshin’, Jim,” Frosty broke in. “B D means Belle Dalroy, an’ her address is Hell City. Come clean.”
Whereupon Sudden told his adventure, which drew a long whistle from his companion. “She’s reputed to be hand and glove with Satan an’ as cold-blooded as a frawg,” he said.
“She seemed very grateful; might be useful if ever we go visitin’ there.”
“If ever we go? Leave me out, cowboy; I’d as soon try the real place.”
“Oh, I dunno; it’d be kind o’ interestin’.”
“Yeah, Scar an’ his crew would make it that for yu.”
He got no reply; Sudden’s mind was busy with the woman, wondering what had brought her to this refuge of the reckless. Was she, too, in hiding? It was more than possible, for with all her beauty, he had sensed a hardness which told of contacts with a world which had not been too kind. He became aware that Frosty was speaking.
“If I hear o’ yu tryin’ to go there alone, yu an’ me’ll take the floor together.”
At which Sudden laughed and was well content.
The guard at the entrance to Hell City did not keep Belle Dalroy waiting, the ponderous gate swinging back as she reached it. With a smile of thanks she passed through and rode to the Chief’s quarters. Here again she encountered no difficulty; even before she knocked, the door opened. She passed the dwarf with a mere glance and failed to see the look of desire in the animal eyes.
The Chief was standing at one of the deep, curtained openings which did duty as windows, from which could be seen a considerable portion of the great basin. Less than a dozen miles distant, to the east, lay the settlement of Dugout. From the windows themselves, the cliff face fell, almost vertically, to the tree-tops a hundred feet below.
“Did you have a nice ride, Belle?” he asked.
“Yes, and no,” she replied. “I wish you wouldn’t wear that hideous disguise when I come to visit you.”
Her petulance appeared to amuse him. “Hideous?” he repeated. “I think it rather intriguing, and—as I am tired’ of telling you—I have made a vow. And it is useful to me; the unknown fascinates the ignorant and keeps them interested; you know, one can weary of even the most lovely things, and it is a theory of mine that if married couples wore masks there would be fewer unhappy unions.”
The quaint suggestion made her smile. “If I thought you were serious, Jeff, I would get one,” she replied.
Instantly his humour changed. “I think I referred to married couples,” he retorted crushingly, and laughed at the furious look the reminder evoked. “Ah, now you are angry—a beautiful wild-cat, who would use her claws—if she dared.”
The pale blue eyes challenged her; they had, at times, the curious quality of appearing to be dead, expressionless, as though made of stone. The girl was silent, held by the unwinking gaze of those lifeless orbs.
“Where did you ride?” he asked.
“South, through the gorges, to a high, flat-topped hill. I don’t know the name.”
“Battle Mesa,” he told her. “Many years ago, the Hopi Indian tribe which dwelt in these commodious but somewhat incomplete apartments was almost exterminated there by Apaches—hence the name. Foolish of them to fight in the open—this rock stronghold is impregnable.”
“You are very sure of yourself, Jeff, but one day the Governor will move,” she said.
“When he does I shall know of it, and all his plans,” he boasted. “You do not believe me. Listen: didn’t I warn you that the mountain lion could be dangerous? Well, you know now that it is so. But for the advent of a stranger the coyotes would be wrangling over your broken bones at the foot of the Mesa cliff.”
“You saw?” she cried in amazement.
“I have not been out of this place,” he replied. “Yet I watched your pony, crazy with fear, carrying you to destruction. Luckily, a tall, dark cowboy, on a black horse, arrived in time to rope your mount and shoot the beast pursuing you. A capable fellow, that Mister Green, of the Double K.”
The completeness of his information struck her dumb. She did not doubt him, for she knew how seldom he went abroad. It was incredible—and disturbing.
“I trust you did not tell him anything about yourself?” he continued.
“You should know,” she answered.
“I do,” he said quietly. “You even refused his escort, which was wise. I only asked—”
“To see if I would lie to you,” she cut in passionately. “Precisely,” he confessed. “I have faith in none, save, perhaps, Silver, who would die rather than betray me.”
“A mere brute.”
“True, but one who, at a word from me, would tear you to shreds,” he replied. “Now, I must find a way to thank this man who has put me in his debt.” The sneering smile expressed anything but gratitude. “In future, you must not ride alone—it is too dangerous.”
“Life here is so damned dull, Jeff,” she urged. “One might as well be—”
“In a penitentiary, were you about to say?” he enquired icily.
The blood left her cheeks and she said no more.
Chapter IX
A week passed and life on the Double K ranch pursued the even tenor of its way. The two punchers continued to patrol the northern boundary, but encountered no further sign of rustlers. Twice Sudden climbed again to Battle Mesa. His explanation to his companion—received with profane disbelief—was that the lady might give information of use when it came to an open clash with Hell City.
“Just wastin’ yore time,” Frosty said. “If she’s Satan’s woman, she’ll be talkin’ on his side; yu’ll on’y get lies.”
“Dessay yo’re right, for once,” the other conceded. “Allasame, she could let slip a pointer, unmeanin’.”
A small discovery puzzled Sudden. Rummaging in his. war-bag one evening, he found that something was missing. This was a roughly printed notice offering the sum of five hundred dollars for the capture of—himself, wanted for robbery and murder. Though it had been issued some years earlier, the descriptions both of man and horse were sufficiently near to make recognition almost inevitable. It bore the name of the sheriff of Fourways, Texas. Sudden had brought it for a definite purpose, and he wished to use it in his own way. He went at once to the ranch-house.
“Well, Green, what’s the trouble?” his employer asked. “None a-tall, seh—yet,” Sudden replied, adding, “Yu hired me in the dark.”
“I backed my judgment.”
“Yeah, an’ I’m askin’ yu to keep on doin’ that, no matter what tale comes to yu. Mebbe yu’ll be shown what ‘pears to be, an’ is, certain proof, but I want yu to remember I’m playin’ straight with yu, right to the end o’ the game.”
The rancher sat silent, considering the maker of this odd request, but he could read nothing in the lean, tanned, immobile face. From the first he had taken to this competent-looking stranger, instinct with youth yet moulded by experience into a man. Had his own son been of this type ..
He dismissed the thought with a gesture of impatience.
“This is all very mysterious, Green,” he said.
“I’m askin’ a whole lot, seh,” the puncher admitted.
“Very well,” Keith said. “After all, a person’s past is no concern of other folks, except perhaps—a sheriff’s.”
Sudden was not
to be drawn. “I’m thankin’ yu, seh.”
From his seat on the verandah the Colonel watched his visitor return to the bunkhouse, moving with a long swinging stride which told of supple joints and perfectly coordinating muscles.
“He moves like a cougar,” he murmured. “Wonder what he’s done? Doesn’t look a desperate character, but …” The gravel crunched as the foreman came hurrying up. “Anything to report, Steve?”
“Betcha life,” Lagley replied triumphantly. “That fella vu took on, who calls hisself Green, dropped this. Might interest yu.”
The rancher read the damning document slowly. “The descriptions arc certainly similar, but that may be just a coincidence,” he said.
“What’s he totin’ it around for, then?”
“As a curiosity, perhaps. If it really concerned himself, I imagine he would have destroyed it.”
“Oh, these killers have their pride,” Lagley fleered. “As for it bein’ him, there ain’t no doubt; Turvey was in Texas ‘bout the time this hombre was raisin’ hell there, an’ had to skip ‘cause things got too lively. No, he never seen him, but afriend o’ his was rubbed out tryin’ to stop this Sudden when he made a getaway from San Antonio, with a sheriff’s posse behind him.”
Keith deliberated. This was the tale he had been warned might come to him. The new hand had discovered his loss and acted promptly; that was the kind of man he wanted. “What do you suppose brought him here?” was his question.
“Headed for Hell City, I’d say,” the foreman replied. “Then he runs into trouble with Roden an’ figures it ain’t goin’ to make him over-welcome there, so when yu push a job at him he naturally jumps at it.”
“Admirably reasoned.”
“An’ yu can add that Mister Satan would be damn glad to put on his pay-roll a fella already on yourn.”
“That seems possible.”
“Shore as death,” the other rejoined. “Point is, what yu goin’ to do? Me, I’d boot him off’n the ranch.”
“Having first obtained his permission, of course,” the Colonel said drily. “No, if he’s the man you claim, he’s dangerous, and it would be poor policy to present him to the enemy. Here, we can keep an eye on his activities. Do the men know?”
“I ain’t told nobody, but Turvey may have talked.”
“If so, it can’t be helped. Give Green to understand that his past doesn’t matter, and especially, that I am ignorant of it. Keep him tied to Homer—I think that lad is loyal, and we shall have news of any treachery.”
“Well, yo’re the boss, but it’s takin’ a devil of a risk,” Lagley grimaced.
For some time after the foreman had departed, Keith sat in the gathering gloom, chewing at the butt of his cigar, thinking the situation over. He could not doubt what he had heard, for Green himself had admitted that the tale would be true. The puzzling point was the presence of a notorlous outlaw, presumably fleeing from justice, in that part of the country, if it were not to seek sanctuary in Hell City. Texas was a long way off, but other offences might have been committed since, perhaps in Arizona, necessitating a hiding-place.
“It certainly seems that Steve must be right,” he mused aloud. “All the same, I don’t believe it.”
“Don’t believe what, yu ol’ slave-owner?” boomed a big voice from a few yards distant. “That the North beat the South? Well, they did; I was there, an’ seen it.”
Keith stood up. “Hello, Martin, I hear you’ve been rustling some of my cows,” he retaliated. “Come right in.”
“Druv over a-purpose to pay yu for ‘em.”
“Why?” the Double K man snorted. “You and your damned Yankee Government didn’t mind stealing my niggers, so—”
A slim form slipped from the lighted window which led on to the verandah. “If you two are going to fight the Civil War all over again, supper will be ruined,” Joan said. “Good evening, Mister Merry; I fancied I recognized your voice.”
“Yu know darned well there ain’t another like it in Arizony,” the visitor responded, and shook a warning finger at her. “Don’t yu go gettin’ sarcastic—one in yore family is aplenty. An’ yu needn’t to `mister’ me neither, just because yu got a good-lookin’ new rider; he ain’t half the man I am, anyways.”
“Just about, I should guess,” she dimpled, with a calculating glance at the other’s squat bulk, “but he’s more—distributed.”
“Yu sassy young chipmunk—”
The voice of the host intervened. “Stop wrangling, you—infants; I’m hungry. And Joan, you’d better hear what I have just learned before you decide to fall in love with Green.”
“I haven’t the remotest intention of doing so,” she laughed. “It would break Martin’s heart.”
“Shore would,” the fat man agreed. “I’d have to shoot him up, an’ I’m admittin’ that’s a task I wouldn’t fancy.”
“You’ll fancy it less presently,” Keith said sardonically. During the meal, he told his news. The Twin Diamond owner nodded his head, as though not surprised.
“A gunman, huh?” he commented. “Guessed he warn’t just an ornery cowpunch. Sudden! Seem to have heard of him some time, but … What arc yu goin’ to do, Ken?”
“Watch him,” the rancher replied, “an’ if he’s straight, use him to clean up that den of infamy in the hills.” Merry looked at the girl, whose face was now pale; he knew of what she was thinking. His own expression belied his name.
“A clean-up means on’y one thing to such a man,” he stated. “Does he know about—Jeff?”
Keith’s aristocratic features might have been carved in white marble. “Yes,” he said, in a cold, passionless tone which effectually closed the subject.
In the bunkhouse, Sudden soon sensed an air of restraint in regard to himself. He caught some of the outfit eyeing him furtively, and, while no one deliberately avoided him, even the men he knew best appeared to be afflicted with a feeling of awkwardness utterly foreign to their care-free souls. Evidently the purloiner of the placard had lost no time in making use of it. Frosty was not there, having gone to Dugout, and Sudden speculated, rather bitterly, whether the new friendship would stand the strain. Presently the foreman threw back the door and called him outside.
“They figure I’m goin’ to be fired,” he reflected.
Lagley went to the point at once. “The 01’ Man sent for me,” he began. “Someone has told him that yo’re a Texas outlaw named Quick, no, that ain’t it—Sudden—knowed it was somethin’ to do with speed. He’s mighty sore, said for me to give yu yore time, pronto.”
The darkness hid the cowboy’s smile; he knew the man was lying, and had his answer ready. In an aggrieved tone, he said: “So that’s his sort? All right, I’ll take the trail straight away; Black Sam’ll put me up.”
This, as he had expected, was not to Lagley’s liking. “Hold on,” he cried. “Hell, they got yu named right. I spoke up for yu—told Ken he was doin’ a damn-fool thing, seein’ yo’re the kind o’ fella we can use. He give in—usually does, when I stand up to him,” he concluded boastfully.
“Why, that’s mighty good o’ yu, Steve. Who put him wise?”
“I dunno; all he said was that one o’ the boys reckernized yu, an’ that don’t tell much—we git ‘em from all over.”
Sudden nodded. “I’m obliged to yu. I warn’t honin’ to travel; this is a good ranch.”
“It would be a better one if young Jeff was in charge,” the foreman said meaningly. “Some of us would like to see it. Keith has changed a lot of late; goin’ loco, I’d say. If anythin’ happened to him, well, I don’t fancy bein’ bossed by a gal.”
“Wouldn’t suit me neither,” Sudden replied. “Yu figure the boy ain’t such a hard case, huh?”
“Oh, he’s tough all right, an’ yu can’t wonder. But he’s a swell leader an’—generous. I ain’t askin’ yu to take my word; go see for yoreself.”
The puncher laughed grimly. “I guess I wouldn’t be very popular in Hell City.”
&nb
sp; “That needn’t to worry yu. If yo’re there to see him, nobody will dare cock an eye at yu; he’s got the whole b’ilin’ waitin’ on his word.”
“Yu seem to know him.”
“Know him?” Lagley repeated. “Shore I do, since he was a pup; worked with him on the range, an’ hope to again. Now, see here, Green, I didn’t cotton to yu right off—mebbe it was that trick yu played when we first met, but a fella’s a fool if he can’t change his mind for good reason. I guess we understand one another better now. Think over what I’ve said, an’ if yu wanta see Satan, I can fix it. Yu sabe?”
Sudden did. He had learned what he wanted—that the foreman was a traitor, willing to doublecross his employer, and that he and others of the outfit were already planning to put the son in the father’s place. The idea of Lagley interceding with Keith on his behalf amused him; either he was making the best of what he regarded as a bad job, or setting a trap for a man he did not like.
“An’ that man is goin’ to walk right into it,” he told himself. “But not with his eyes shut, Mister Steve.”
When he returned to the bunkhouse, he found the atmosphere altered, evidently the foreman had been talking. Genial looks greeted him from all save one—Turvey’s warped, malignant mind retained its rancour despite the instructions he had received.
“I’m told yu come from Texas, Green,” he said, in his high-pitched, reedy voice. “A fine country.”
“Shore is,” Sudden replied, and waited.
“Over-run with sheriffs, though—fair lousy with ‘em,” the other went on.
Sudden smiled sweetly. “Well now, I was wonderin’ why yu didn’t stay.”
A ripple of laughter proclaimed that he had scored and Turvey’s expression was not pretty.
“Who told yu I ever was there?” he grated.
“Why, yu seemed to know the place,” Sudden retorted, and shot a shaft at a venture, “Didn’t meet up with Rogue’s Riders, I s’pose?”
He saw the man’s eyes flicker, but the denial came promptly. “Never heard of ‘em,” and the sneer, “Friends o’ yourn?”
“I knew Rogue,” was the quiet reply. “He was as crooked as they make ‘em, but he played straight with those who trusted him. I’ve met worse men, an’ how that fella could use a six-gun!”
Sudden: Rides Again Page 7