Sudden: The Marshal of Lawless

by Oliver Strange

  Their entry, a little later, into the bar of the Red Ace aroused small interest in the crowded room. Here and there a card-player looked up, muttered something in an undertone, and went on playing.

  The Box B boys, seated at a table near the bar with a bottle between them, took no notice until a whisper reached their ears that it was the new marshal who had come in. Then heads went together, and presently one of them, a merry-looking youth whose red hair and profusely-freckled face had earned him the name of “Rusty,” rose amid the laughter of the other three.

  Green was alone, leaning against the bar, his deputy being a few yards away, watching the play at a poker-table. The Box B rider lurched up, planted himself so that he faced his quarry, and, with a wink at his companions, opened the conversation.

  “Is it true yo’re the new marshal?” he asked.

  “It’s a solemn fact, seh,” Green replied gravely.

  The young man teetered on his heels, eyeing the officer truculently. Had he been a little less under the influence of liquor he would have recognized that this quiet, lazy-looking man was not one to take liberties with.

  “Me an’ my friends don’t like marshals nohow—can’t see any need for ‘em,” he pursued.

  “But if we gotta have one‘s important to make shore he’s good, yu unnerstan’? I’ve made a li’l wager I c’n beat yu to the draw.” He suddenly crouched, his right hand hovering over his weapon. “Flash it!” he cried.

  Hardly had the words left his lips when a gun-barrel jolted him rudely in the stomach, while his hand, clawing at his holster, found it empty. Looking down, he saw that the marshal’s weapons were still in his belt and that the gun now threatening his internal economy was his own. Instantly the drink died out as he realized that the man he had dared possessed every right to blow him into eternity. His companions started up in alarm.

  “Don’t shoot, marshal, he was on’y joshin’,” one of them called out.

  “Do yu still think yu can beat me to it?” the marshal asked, and without waiting for a reply slipped the borrowed pistol back into its place. “If yu do, well, have another try.”

  There was a sardonic smile on his lips, but his eyes were friendly, and the beaten man was now sober enough to see it. He achieved a difficult grin.

  “Not any more for me, thank yu all the same,” he said. “I ain’t a hawg, an’ I wanta say I’m sorry we shot up yore shingle this evenin’.”

  Green’s eyes twinkled. “Shucks! a coat o’ paint’ll put that right,” he said meaningly.

  Rusty looked at his friends. “We shore owe him that,” he suggested. “I’m stayin’ in town to-night, boys, an’ it’s up to me.”

  After a round of drinks the Box B party returned to its game, and Green found his deputy beside him. Pete’s wide grin moved the marshal to mirth.

  “If it warn’t for yore ears that smile would go clean round yore haid,” he commented.

  Barsay ignored the insult and produced a five-dollar bill. “Which yu shore earned it, yu ol’ he-wizard,” he said. “How d’yu work it?”

  “All done by kindness,” Green told him. “Hello! who’s wantin’ me now?”

  Andy, who had just entered the saloon, was heading straight for the marshal. He plunged at once into his business.

  “I’m Bordene o’ the Box B, an’ I’m supposin’ you’re the man Miss Sarel spoke to this afternoon,” he began, and when Green nodded; “If yo’re still huntin’ that job—”

  “I’m obliged to her, an’ yu, but—” the marshal flipped aside his vest, disclosing his badge.

  The young man’s eyebrows rose. “Yo’re the new marshal?” he asked, and then he smiled.

  “Congratulations,” he added.

  “Thank yu, seh,” Green smiled back. “Yo’re the first; the others just asked which was my favourite flower.”

  “Well, Lawless certainly takes a whole man to ride her, but I wish yu luck, an’ if yu want help, yu’ll find it at the Box B,” Andy replied.

  The marshal thanked him, and meant it; Bordene might have all the recklessness and inexperience of youth, but the stuff of which good men are made was there also. The Box B boys greeted their young boss with a familiarity that showed he was one of them.

  “Say, Andy, don’t yu get to presumin’ any with that marshal fella; he’s a friend of ours, an’ bad medicine to fool with. Yo’re liable to lose out: ask Rusty,” said one.

  “This fella’s white,” the culprit confessed. “I sized him up all wrong. I’m stayin’ in town to-night.”

  The young rancher nodded, and then, hearing his name called, turned to find Seth Raven, with a stranger. The latter had ridden into town during the afternoon and had at once proceeded to the Red Ace. Raven, seated in his office, did not welcome the visitor too effusively.

  “‘Lo, Parson, what yu wantin’?” he asked.

  “A stake, Seth,” the man in shabby black replied. “That damned hold-up skunk cleaned me out. But I’ll get him, curse his thievin’ hide, if I spend the rest o’ my life at it.”

  He snarled the words out savagely, and his little eyes gleamed with hatred. The saloonkeeper’s thin lips curled contemptuously as he replied, “Better forget it, Parson; yu’d stand one hell of a chance against Sudden, wouldn’t yu?”

  “I’ll get him,” the other repeated doggedly: “But to do that I gotta live. What about it?”

  “Oh, I’ll stake yu,” Raven returned carelessly, as he took a wad of bills out of a drawer, counted, and passed them over. “I’m givin’ yu a word o’ warnin’; Lawless has got its growth an’ won’t stand for any raw stuff, see? Also, what I say goes around here, an’ I won’t stand for it neither.”

  The gambler sensed the covert threat in both words and tone. He knew that by accepting the money he had made himself the creature of this hunched-up, malignant devil, but he did not care; he was not a squeamish person.

  “Anythin’ yu want to tell me?” was how he asked for orders.

  “Why, no,” Seth replied with affected surprise. “There’s a young fella I’ll introduce yu to who fancies his brand o’ poker; it wouldn’t do him no harm to be educated some, but you’ll remember he’s a friend o’ mine.”

  The Parson nodded. “Don’t happen to have a spare gun, do yu?” he asked. “That swine Sudden took mine.”

  Raven pulled out another drawer in the desk. “Yu can have this; I never carry one,” he said.

  The gambler took the six-shooter and slipped it into his shoulder-holster. “All right for yu,” he said. “Folks come an’ give yu their money; yu don’t never have to argue with ‘em. Pussonally, I don’t feel dressed unless I’m heeled. Thanks, Seth; see yu later.”

  So it came about that Bordene met the newcomer, presented as “Mister Pardoe,” and accepted the saloonkeeper’s proposal for a “little game.” Youth is rarely critical, but he was not favourably impressed by the stranger. Moreover, as they moved towards a vacant table, he saw the marshal was watching them, and fancied he caught a slight shake of the head. Was it a warning? He looked again, but Green was apparently no longer interested. Nevertheless, when a fourth man had been found and the game had started Andy became aware of Green and Barsay just behind him.

  “Yessir,” the marshal was saying. “It was in Tombstone, and they catched him dealin’ from the bottom o’ the pack.”

  “Oughta shot the coyote,” Pete said.

  “Well, mebbe he was lucky thataway,” the other conceded. “They just took his clothes off, poured a barrel o’ molasses over him, rolled him in the sand, an’ rid him outa town on a rail. It oughta been a complete cure.”

  Pardoe was facing Bordene and the latter was astounded at the sudden flush on the gambler’s bilious face and the vindictive look he cast at the speaker. In a second, however, his eyes were on his cards again. Andy glanced at Raven, but the saloonkeeper’s features were an expressionless mask. All at once he looked up.

  “Sit in, marshal,” he invited.

  Green shook his head. “I
’m on duty,” he said, and smiled.

  “Huh! It’s quiet to-night—there’ll be nothin’ startin’,” Raven replied.

  “Just the time to watch out,” the officer said.

  Even as he spoke, the door of the saloon was thrust open and a wild figure sprang in.

  Snaky black hair hung beneath the pushed-back hat, bloodshot eyes glared behind the levelled six-shooter, and a snarling mouth showed teeth like yellow fangs. For an instant the man stood, his head turning from side to side as he surveyed the room, and then he let out a savage screech; most of the hearers knew it for the Apache war-cry.

  “I want a man,” he shouted. “I ain’t killed one to-day, an’ I’m that pizenous that when rattlers bite me they crawl away an’ die. Where’s this yer marshal I bin hearin’ about?”

  Green noted furtive smiles on some of the faces. Had this fellow been primed with drink and put up to this silly prank to try the new officer out? Such a notion was quite in keeping with Western humour, and if the fool forgot that it was a joke… He stepped forward.

  “Yu wantin’me?” he asked quietly.

  Silence fell upon the room; the flip of cards and the rattle of poker chips ceased; the hum of conversation died out; everyone was intent on what was taking place. The moment Green had spoken the stranger froze, his gun covering the marshal’s broad chest. The latter, making no attempt to draw his own weapon, advanced until a bare three yards separated the pair.

  “Git down an’ say yore prayers,” the intruder ordered. “I’m Wild Bill Hickok, an’ a shootin’ fool. I’m agoin’ to send yu down the Long Trail.”

  The marshal’s laugh rang out. “Yore name’s ‘Hiccup’ an’ yo’re a shoutin’ fool. Now”—with a speed that baffled the eye his gun swept up, the muzzle within a few inches of the one covering him—“shoot, yu false alarm!”

  As though dazed by a blow the ruffian glared at him. How it had come about he did not know, but he realized that he had been outplayed. To fire now would be suicide; he might slay the marshal but assuredly before he did so, lead would be tearing through his own body. At the thought his nerve failed. Green saw the indecision in his eyes.

  “Drop it,” he rasped, and there was more than an order in the words.

  For a second the fellow hesitated, and then the gun clattered on the board floor. At the same instant the marshal’s left fist came round and up, landing on the jaw with all the force of his body behind it; the man dropped like a pole-axed steer. Sheathing his gun, Green set the door open, and gripping the senseless one by neck and belt, flung him headlong into the street.

  “If that fella’s got any friends here they’d better tell him to hit the trail ‘bout daylight,” he said, and walked back to the bar.

  CHAPTER V

  Pete Barsay sat on a tilted chair, his back against one jamb of the marshal’s office door and his upraised feet on the other. Green had gone riding somewhere, and to lighten his solitude Pete sang as he rolled himself a smoke:

  An’ speakin’ o’ women, yu never can tell. Sometimes they’s heaven, an’ sometimes they’s…

  “Oh, sir!” reproved a low, sweet voice, before he could complete the verse.

  The vocalist’s heels thumped the floor and he grabbed his hat from his head as he swung round to face the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Her smile added to his confusion.

  “What is the name of that song?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”

  The deputy was not surprised at this, but he did not say so. Instead, he lied nobly. “I dunno, ma’am; that’s all of it I ever learned my own self.” He grinned with returning courage. “I guess I’ll have to leave that last bit out when yo’re around.”

  “I’m afraid you are a flatterer, Mister—?” the girl said.

  “My name’s Barsay, an’ my friends call me Pete,” he volunteered. “I’m bettin’ yo’re Miss Tonia Sarel.”

  “You win,” she replied. “Do you sing much?”

  Pete regarded her with a suspicious eye, but save for a distracting dimple, she seemed quite serious. “I do not,” he confessed. “Speakin’ general, I on’y inflicts my vocal efforts on longhorns when they’re a-beddin’ down. Mebbe yu’d call it cruelty to animals, but cows ain’t noways critical, an’ my voice ain’t started a stampede yet. Won’t yu set down?”

  “I just called to see the marshal,” she said. “I suppose he is busy?”

  “Not so as yu’d notice it,” Pete said gloomily. “The durned town is dead—nothin’ happens.

  Ever since me an’ the marshal took office”—he grinned pridefully at the phrase—“folks here has been asleep. Yu’d think we were keepin’ Sunday school. I’m tellin’ yu, we got this town so tame we’ll be losin’ our jobs. If suthin’ don’t bust loose soon—”

  He broke off suddenly as a rider dashed into view at the western end of the town. Bent low in the saddle, he was almost invisible in the clouds of dust which rose beneath the hammering hoofs of his horse. Barsay thrust the girl inside the door.

  “That gent has pressin’ business with somebody, an’ mebbe it’s me,” he apologized.

  “Bullets ain’t got no respect for beauty.”

  It appeared that he was correct in his surmise, for on reaching the marshal’s office, the rider pulled down his panting pony and leapt off. Barsay then saw that it was Andy Bordene, his face grimed with dust and perspiration, drawn and haggard, his eyes wild.

  “Where’s the marshal?” he cried hoarsely.

  At that moment Green came up, having just turned his mount into the Red Ace corral.

  “Who wants me?” he asked, and then, recognizing the young rancher. “What’s the trouble, Bordene?”

  “Dad’s been shot—murdered!” came the broken answer. “Marshal, I want yu to help me find the dog who did it.”

  With a pitiful cry Tonia ran to the side of the stricken boy, striving to comfort as she forced him to sit down, for the shock and subsequent punishing ride had taken a heavy toll and he was all in. Green slipped into the saloon and came back with a glass.

  “Drink this, and then tell us about it,” he said.

  The raw spirit gave Andy strength and steadied his shattered nerves. After a moment or two he looked up, and in a dull monotone, told his story.

  “Dad started for town early this mornin’,” he began. “I suppose he got here?”

  “Yeah. I saw him myself, goin’ into the bank,” Green told him.

  The boy. nodded. “He told me he was drawin’ some money an’ he intended to come back pretty prompt,” Andy said. “I set out for Lawless ‘bout two hours later, an’ when I got to the Old Mine I found him lyin’ in the trail. His hoss was grazing close by, an’ at first I thought he’d been pitched or had a sunstroke. Then I saw the blood—he’d been shot in the back. Just as I stooped over him, he opened his eyes, said one word, an’ was—gone.”

  His voice tailed away to a whisper, and as he finished his head dropped despairingly.

  Tonia’s arm pressed his shoulders in silent sympathy. She knew how he felt; she herself had faced the same tragic happening.

  “What was the word?” the marshal asked.

  “Sudden,” was the reply. “That damned outlaw has bushwhacked my dad for a few paltry dollars. Marshal, we gotta get him; I’ll never rest till—” His voice rose hysterically as he strove to stand up. Green pressed him back into his seat.

  “We’ll get him, sooner or later,” he promised, and his voice was stern. “Yu stay with Miss Tonia till we fetch our bosses.”

  They returned in a few moments to find Andy sitting tight-lipped, his dull gaze staring into vacancy. The girl stood silently by, her eyes filled with the tears she would not shed until the bereaved boy had gone. Clasping her two hands in his—he could not trust himself to speak—Andy mounted his pony and the three men set out for the scene of the tragedy, first calling at the bank, where they learned that the murdered man had drawn out five thousand dollars.

  Slumped in his saddle, Bo
rdene led the way at a fast lope. The shock of this, his first real rebuff in life, had driven the youthfulness from his face, leaving a grimness mingled with the grief. The marshal and his deputy followed in silence.

  Less than an hour’s riding brought them to the Old Mine, a little group of low, rocky mounds shrouded in small timber and brush through which the trail passed. A saddled horse was tied to a tree, but there was no body.

  “I carried him into that hut,” Bordene explained, pointing to a rude cabin at the foot of one of the hillocks, the pathway to which was almost obscured by undergrowth.

  Pushing their way through they came upon the murdered man. Green stopped and made a quick examination. “Shot in the back—twice,” he said. “An’ the cash is missin’, though there is some small change in the pockets; a Greaser wouldn’t ‘a’ left that.” He rose and looked round.

  Two shining objects attracted his attention—used shells. “Forty-fives,” he commented, slipping them into the pocket of his chaps. “Pistol-work. Whereabout did yu find him, Andy?”

  The young man pointed to where a bit of the trail lay in plain view, and Green began to examine the floor of the hut, which was of packed sand. Presently he stood up.

  “I figure it was this way,” he said. “The bushwhacker hid in here by the door—yu can see the marks of his heels—an’ when the old man passed, he got him. Musta waited some time too, for he smoked three cigarettes.” He picked up the ends and broke one open. “Good Bull Durham,” he added, sniffing the tobacco. “No Mexican trash. We gotta find where he left his hoss.”

  “What’s the use of all this, marshal?” broke in Bordene querulously. “We know who did it.”

  “Do we? Any fella can call hisself Sudden,” Green retorted, and his tone was so harsh that Pete looked at him in surprise. “It would be a damn easy way o’ blottin’ a trail.”

  The young man bit his lips. “I didn’t think o’ that,” he admitted.

  It did not take them long to find where the killer had hidden his horse. Just behind the hut the lower foliage of a tree had been nibbled, and a branch bore traces of having been chafed.