“Sorry I’m late, gents,” he said. “On’y just heard o’ the meetin’. Hope I ain’t missed much?”
“Not a thing, ‘cept the election of an honest man to take yore place,” Raven told him.
Green looked round the room. “An honest man,” he said wonderingly. “Leeson, I’m congratulatin’ vu on—yore reformation.”
This produced a laugh from some and a scowl from the saloonkeeper. “I’m meanin’ Mister Pardoe,” he said.
“What, the Parson?” Green smiled. “Converted hisself, has he? Yu’ll shorely have to watch out, Raven, or he’ll have yu at the mourners’ bench afore you know it.”
Durley and several of the tradesmen came in at that moment and joined heartily in the mirth the remark evoked. Raven’s contribution was a savage snarl: “He’ll have yu at the Seat o’
Judgment afore then, an’ you’ll go there through the loop of a rope.” He looked at the cowpuncher curiously. “Why didn’t vu keep a-travellin’?”
“Never was scared of a dawg yet—specially a yellow one—so I came back,” the marshal drawled, and then the humour died out of his face and he said sternly, “Put yore cards on the table, Raven; I’m seem’ yu.”
The half-breed grew livid at the taunt, but he did not reply at once; he was watching the door. Soon came a scurry of hoofs outside, and a moment later Strade walked in. As though he had waited for this, Raven rose.
“Glad to see yu, sheriff; come right up,” he called, and pointed to a seat on the platform.
Strade cast an appraising look at the audience and dropped on a bench beside Andy. “I’ll do very well here,” he said.
“Please yoreself,” the saloonkeeper replied. “I got news for yu.” He turned to Green.
“Where was yu the day the stage was held up?”
“In yore bar, drinkin’ the rotgut yu call whisky.”
“An’ where was yore side-kicker, Barsay?”
“Can’t tell yu. I met him for the first time the day after.”
Pete spoke for himself. “I was in Lawless too, swallerin’ hocussed hooch at Miguel’s,” he explained.
Raven’s face took on a heavy sneer. “Miguel says he never seen yu till the time yu demanded money an’ Green blew in with a gun an’ forced him to pay it.”
“Then Miguel’s as big a liar as he looks,” Pete retorted. “If yo’re aimin’ to pin that hold-up on to me, I gotta remind yu that I ain’t a bit like the fella the driver described.”
“Huh! A mask an’ hoss make a lot o’ difference, an’ I reckon Eames was some flustered.
Pardoe here was one o’ the passengers an’ he says it might ‘a’ bin yu—in fact, he thinks it was.”
“An’ Pardoe might be a truthful man, but in fact I don’t think he is,” Pete parodied.
“Well, we’ll let that ride for a spell,” the half-breed resumed. “Where was yu when Bordene was shot, Green?”
“Ridin’ in from the direction o’ yore ranch.”
“What were yu doin’ out there?”
“Lookin’ for steers I suspected yu o’ stealin’,” came the instant retort.
Someone laughed; all the men present had not benefited by the saloonkeeper’s generosity over the bank’s debts. Raven’s face was wooden.
“An’ yu knew Bordene was carryin’ cash—yu saw him come outa the bank.”
“He mighta been payin’ in,” Andy pointed out.
“Yu shut yore yap,” the saloonkeeper snapped. “Yu can talk later. I’m doin’ this.”
“I’ll speak when I please. I ain’t takin’ orders from yu, Raven, an’ that’s whatever,” the rancher replied.
“Yu’ll take ‘em when yu step off the Box B,” the half-breed reminded him, and then, to Green, “Leeson saw a rider on a black horse near the Old Mine ‘bout the hour the killin’ musta took place.”
“Useful fella, Leeson,” the marshal said. “Has he just remembered it?”
“He told me at the time. I kept it quiet—for reasons o’ my own.”
“I can guess ‘em. Well, there’s the hold-up an’ the bumpin’ off o’ Bordene all nicely doped out. Yu goin’ to saddle me with the bank robbery too?”
The saloonkeeper laughed hoarsely as he replied, “Yu’ve said it. What was yu doin’ that night?”
“Watchin’ yore men steal Double S steers,” came the cool response.
The smiles the answer brought deepened the scowl on the questioner’s face. “Likely story that, when I saw you sneakin’ outa Lawless after midnight,” he sneered. “That black o’ yores is plenty outstanding.”
It was Green’s turn to laugh. “Shore is, if yu saw him that night,” he said. “Nigger was in the Box B corral; I rode a paint hoss I borrowed from Andy.”
If Raven was disconcerted he did not show it. “Mebbe I was mistook about the hoss—there warn’t much light—but it was yu right enough, I’ll swear to that,” he said.
“Which, of course, convinces everybody,” Green said satirically, but conscious that he spoke little more than the truth. For he knew that, up to now, Raven was winning. He was well aware of his danger. The flimsiest evidence could be made damning to unagile minds, and the resultant action would be swift and terrible.
Raven, studying his audience with cunning eyes, decided that the moment had come for his final blow. He saw Strade stand up, and raised a warning hand.
“Hold on, sheriff, in case yu say somethin’ yu might be sorry for,” he called out. “I got one more card to play.” He bent forward, one finger of his yellow, claw-like hand stabbing the air in the direction of the marshal. “This fella calls hisself Green, but in Texas he’s better known as Sudden, an’ he can’t deny it.”
Oaths and gasps of astonishment greeted the announcement, and all eyes were turned on the man whose reckless courage and deadly gun-play had already made his name known throughout the South-west. Necks were craned to see one who had been a familiar figure to most of them for many weeks. Somehow this long-limbed, lean-faced, confident young man did not suggest a noted desperado, and they waited breathlessly for his reply.
“I ain’t denyin’ it,” he said quietly.
Raven looked round triumphantly. “I reckon that settles it,” he said. “Yo’re a cool cuss, Sudden; most fellas, after wipin’ out Tony Sarel, lootin’ the Sweetwater bank, an’ holdin’ up Sands would ‘a’ scratched gravel, but yo’re a hawg. A right smart play gettin’ yoreself made marshal—I gotta hand it to yu; it was a good joke on the town an’”—his voice was acrid—“we’re all laughin’ at it.”
“Like hell we are,” came a surly growl from one of the listeners.
“Well, if Lawless don’t feel amused, Sweetwater will,” the half-breed went on. “Specially when it learns that its respected sheriff has been hobnobbin’ with the very man he’s been scourin’ the country for.”
Strade sprang to his feet. “Hold yore hosses, Raven,” he cried. “Yo’re travellin’ wide o’ the trail.” He waved a hand towards Green. “I’ve knowed who this man is pretty nigh since yu appointed him as marshal.”
This admission provided almost as big a sensation as the announcement of Green’s identity. Strade waited calmly until the incredulous chorus of curses and ejaculations had died down. Raven was the first to speak.
“Yu knew?” he shouted. “Why in hell didn’t yu arrest him?”
“When I want yu to tell me my business I’ll shore ask yu, Raven,” the sheriff replied tersely. “Green come to me an’ explained who he was an’ why he happened to be in these parts.
Afterwards I checked up on what he told me an’ found it was correct. I’m admittin’ he has a hard reputation, but he got some of it as a deputy-sheriff in the service o’ Governor Bleke, an’ more was plastered on him like it has been here, which is what. brought him. He warn’t around when the Sweetwater plays was pulled off.”
“Yu mean he didn’t show up till after,” Raven sneered. “What about his pardner, Barsay? Yu checked up on him too?”
“No, I ain’t,” Strade had to confess. “Green told me he only met him the day he was made marshal.”
Ironic cheers greeted the remark, and it was easy to see that the sheriff’s defence had produced little effect. Green realized that his reputation was likely to cost him his life. Some of the better type of citizen were now regarding him dubiously, and a whispered argument was going on among the cowboys from the two ranches. Then the voice of Rusty rang out with startling distinctness:
“I don’t care if he’s the Devil hisself, he’s a man, an’ I’m backin’ his play agin that squaw’s pup on the platform.”
The saloonkeeper’s cruel lips tightened at the insult and his voice was thick with passion when he replied: “Yappin’ curs never did bother me. Well, boys, yu’ve heard my side an’ Strade’s.
What yu goin’ to do about it?”
“Hang the bushwhackin’ thief an’ send his pardner along for company,” came from Leeson’s direction. “Where’s the sense in all this chatter?”
Raven’s lips twisted in a Satanic smile. “We gotta be fair,” he purred. “All in favour o’ swingin’ Sudden an’ his accomplice hold up the left hand.”
The result was what he expected, fully three-quarters of those present hoisting their hands. No counting was necessary.
“Reckon that fixes it,” the half-breed said. “Sudden, yu ain’t as popular as I thought yu was.” He turned to the new officer and there was more than a touch of malice in his tone as he said: “Marshal, do yore duty.”
The order fell upon Pardoe like a thunderbolt, and his puny soul shrivelled within him as he realized what it meant. He was to arrest and hang Sudden, and there he was, only a few yards away, his thumbs hooked in his belt in close proximity to the smooth butts of the guns he could use with such speed and accuracy. Despite the danger he was in, the gunman’s narrowed eyes twinkled with mischievous mirth at the new marshal’s predicament, and Pardoe inwardly cursed his own ambition. To fall down on his first job would be fatal to his prospects, but—he wanted to live. His appealing look at Raven proved abortive, for the half-breed was enjoying himself in his peculiar fashion—he had put a white man in an awkward position. Succour came from an unexpected quarter; it was Green who broke the silence:
“Before The Parson officiates at his own funeral, I’ve got’ somethin’ to say,” he began.
A murmur of impatience ran round the room; there were loud imprecations and jeers from men whose minds were already made up. The eyes of the condemned man were chilled steel, his jaw firmed, and his lounging figure became instinct with purpose. Although they saw no movement, a gun seemed to leap into his right hand; before its menacing muzzle the murmurs died down.
“Yu listened to Raven pretty patient, an’ I’m aimin’ to say my piece without interruption,” the wielder of the weapon said sardonically. “What Strade told yu about me is true. I’m Sudden, but I ain’t the man who’s been operatin’ round here. I came to search out that fella an’—I think I’ve found him.”
He paused for a moment, his gaze travelling over the faces before him. Most of them expressed an amused incredulity, but not one ventured to voice it. The keen, alert glance and levelled gun kept them silent and still. By concerted action they could overwhelm him, but it would mean death to many, and no man of them was prepared to die. for the half-breed. Raven knew this, and conscious too that the threatening gun never moved far from his own breast, he sat down.
“We’ll hear yu,” he said.
Green’s smile had no mirth in it. “Eames an’ Sands both say the hold-up’s hoss had a white stocking on the near fore,” he began. “How d’yu know Sudden’s mount was marked like that?”
“I sent to Texas to find out,” Raven returned.
“Painstakin’ fella,” commented the other. “Sudden’s hoss is outside now, an’ if yu wash away the dye yu’ll find the white stockin’ on the off fore. Pete wouldn’t ‘a’ made that mistake, an’ it’s shore odd that both yu an’ the hold-up should ‘a’ got the wrong information.”
For an instant the half-breed looked disconcerted, and then he shrugged his shoulders.
“Had it from the same source, I s’pose,” he said. “Yu suggestin’ I robbed the stage?”
“Why not?” came the cool retort. “Yu weren’t in Lawless then, nor when Bordene was shot.”
“I was at the 88 with my foreman both times.”
“Huh! Kinda pity yu wiped out Jevons, ain’t it?”
“I saw the boss there each o’ them days,” Leeson called out.
Green flashed round on him. “Shore o’ that?” he asked, and when Leeson—who had not seen the black look Raven shot at him—replied that he was, Green went on, “Raven told us a while back that yu were near the Old Mine when Bordene was killed; yu say yu were at the 88; yu ain’t twins, are yu?”
A loud guffaw greeted the statement, and was not lessened by the man’s stammering attempt to explain. The late marshal cut him short.
“A liar should have a long memory, Leeson,” he said curtly, and turned to the rest of the company. “The mornin’ he was murdered Bordene drew five thousand from the bank an’ went to the Red Ace to pay the money to Raven. Not findin’ him there he set out for the Box B, an’ yu know what happened. Later on, Raven claims fifteen thousand from young Andy.”
“The note I held was for that amount,” the saloonkeeper interposed.
“It was an easy document to alter,” Green said. “Andy didn’t dispute it, but he couldn’t pay till he’d sold his cattle. He don’t get no chance to do this—his herd is stampeded, not far from the 88—an’ a few days on I find four o’ Raven’s men shepherdin’ about four hundred Box B steers towards the Border. They claim they’s takin’ ‘em back to Andy, but the trail’s as crooked as the story.”
“I had no knowledge o’ that; I left the runnin’ o’ the ranch to my foreman,” Raven snapped.
“Who bein’ conveniently dead can take all the blame yu put on him,” Green pointed out.
“Well, Andy still ain’t got the coin, an’ at Raven’s suggestion he mortgages his ranch with the bank. Then he puts a herd through an’ brings back the cash to clear hisself. He has to leave on the jump after Moraga, havin’ handed the dinero to Potter.”
“Of which there was no record in the bank books,” the half-breed sneered.
“Mebbe not, after yu’d handled ‘em,” Green said bluntly. “When Andy comes back he finds his money gone an’ his mortgage in the possession of Mister Raven.”
“Who paid for it,” that worthy added.
“Talkin’ o’ mortgages,” Green went on imperturbably, “Raven holds one on the Double S which he didn’t mention when the man who signed it, Anthony Sarel, was shot, an’ he’s threatenin’ to turn Miss Tonia out unless—she marries him.”
This revelation met with a mixed reception, coarse mirth from the rougher element and growls of resentment from the better class of the audience. Raven saw he must temporize.
“Bah, she got uppity; I had to put a scare into her,” he said carelessly.
“Yu were about to strike her when I happened along,” Green reminded. “Miss Sarel ain’t no squaw, Raven.”
The oblique reference to his origin, as always, infuriated the half-breed. “Damn yu, what have my private affairs to do with it?” he screamed. “Look here—”
But the object of his wrath was looking at Leeson, watching the fellow’s stealthy attempt to draw his gun behind the back of another man. He waited until the weapon was out and then fired. Leeson’s pistol bumped on the board floor, while its owner stared dazedly at his perforated wrist, the throbbing agony of which brought a stream of curses to his trembling lips. The gunman, blue smoke eddying round him, swept the room with a glance, and every man grew rigid under the menacing, cold eyes.
“Another trick like that an’ yu take the long hop to hell, Raven,” he warned.
“I didn’t tell the fool to fire. Yo’re takin’ a high hand, but yore neck ain’t outa the noos
e yet. We’re four to one, I reckon, an’ if it comes to a showdown—”
“This town’ll need a nice new graveyard.”
The saloonkeeper gave a gesture of impatience. “Yu’ve told us a lot we knew afore,” he said. “What’s yore point?”
“Just this, Raven,” Green said meaningly. “Yu an’ this fella I’ll call Sudden the Second both had the same wrong description o’ my hoss, an’ every crime he committed around here has been to yore benefit.”
“Then I oughta be mighty obliged to yu—Sudden,” the saloonkeeper sneered.
There was laughter at this, but it was by no means general and Raven began to realize that he was losing ground. He stood up.
“All these hints an’ suspicions don’t prove anythin’,” he said. “Yo’re just ryin’ to blind yore own trail. If Potter could on’y speak—”
“Potter won’t ever speak again,” interrupted a new voice, that of the little doctor, who had just come in.
Green turned quickly. “Shore o’ that?” he asked.
“I think I know a corpse when I see one, seh,” Pills returned stiffly. “Potter’s as dead as Pharaoh.”
“Sorry, doc, I warn’t doubtin’ yore ability, but it may make a difference,” the late marshal smiled. “I’m hopin’ yu’ll do me a favour.”
The medico, who was already busy bandaging Leeson’s wound, looked up with a whimsical grin. “So long as you make work for me instead of the undertaker I can’t very well refuse,” he said.
The job finished, he listened to Green’s whispered instructions, nodded his head, and went out.
CHAPTER XXVI
In the dance-hall men waited, wondering what new development the doctor’s errand portended. Muttering voices, shuffling feet, and an occasional hoarse laugh accentuated the silence. Curious eyes travelled from one to the other of the principal actors. Raven, leaning back in his chair, lit a cigar and affected an air of derision. Actually, he was uneasy. He knew that Green’s indictment had damaged him, that some of his supporters now had doubts, and, for all his hatred, cursed him for coming back.
Sudden: The Marshal of Lawless Page 20