by Matt Rand
Sitting there, hugging his knees, a grin on his upturned face, he looked like a mischievous youngster. She had hard work not to smile, but instead she said reprovingly:
“I wasn’t referring to that. I meant for being—” She paused confusedly.
“Drunk,” he assisted, and the engaging grin was again evident. “Don’t you mind my feelin’s—the barkeep inside didn’t when he threw me out on my ear. Drink is a shore deceiver; it lifts a fella up, but it sets him down again mighty hard.”
“Knowing that, why do you do it?”
“You got me guessin’,” he smiled. “I reckon men is like hosses—even the steadiest’ll buck once in a while. Now I’ve put up my kick, I’ll get me a job an’ be a respectable citizen for a piece.”
She had a suspicion that he was amusing himself, and her next remark was a little ironical.
“Oh, do you work?”
“Shorely,” he grinned. “I got a healthy appetite to provide for.”
She smiled too at this, and then, as she glanced down the street, he saw a little more color steal into her cheeks. A tall, rather carefully-clad young cowpuncher was swinging along towards them. The girl prepared to depart.
“If you come to the Double S my uncle might be able to use you,” she said.
“I’m obliged to you,” the man said. “If I don’t get the job I’m after, I’ll shore remember that.”
With a little nod she went on her way and his eyes followed her with a gleam of admiration. The newcomer’s greeting was an elaborate sweep of his sombrero, and after chatting for a moment, they turned and went along the street together.
The door of the saloon opened, the posse from Sweetwater came out and took saddle again. The sheriff followed their example, after one contemptuous glance at the hunched-up figure on the sidewalk. The latter watched until the visitors, with a shrill cowboy yell, vanished in a cloud of dust.
“Good huntin’, sheriff,” he muttered, for through the open window of the saloon he had heard the story of the stage robbery. “Wonder what you’d ’a’ said if I’d claimed to be Sudden? Called me a liar, I betcha, seein’ I was in the Red Ace when the holdup happened. But it would ’a’ been the sober truth all the same, though I ain’t the man yo’re lookin’ for; he’s Sudden the Second, an’ I’m hopin’ to meet him my own self.” He climbed unsteadily to his feet, staggered round the corner of the building, and straightened up. “Guess I got this burg thinkin’ what I want it to, but we’ll play the hand right out,” he continued. “Mebbe that jasper is still hankerin’ for my hoss.”
Dropping his shoulders, he lurched away to the corral behind the saloon. Here he found a short, stocky rancher saddling a horse and studying the other animals in the enclosure. One of them, a big, rangy, black mustang seemed to get most of his attention. He looked up as the cow-puncher approached.
“Changed yore mind ’bout sellin’?” he asked, with a twinkle in his good-humored eyes.
“Nope, but I’ll gamble with you,” the puncher replied. “You put up fifty bucks agin the hoss an’ we’ll cut the cards—highest wins. What you say?”
The rancher considered the proposition for a moment. He was a lover of horses, and he wanted the animal, but Andrew Bordene, of the Box B ranch, was a man of slow decisions. To give himself time, he asked, “I don’t know the brand. Where’d you get him?”
“From a fella who catched him in Texas. I took him wild, broke him myself, an’ branded him J. G.—my name bein’ James Green,” the cowpuncher told him. Bordene hesitated no longer.
“I’ll go you,” he said, and diving into a pocket, produced a pack of cards.
The puncher shuffled them carelessly and held them out for his opponent to cut. Bordene’s card was the jack of diamonds; Green cut the ten of hearts.
“That busts me wide open,” he said, and then, “No, it don’t, mebbe. See here, the round-up’ll be comin’ along an’ you’ll want more help. I’ll stake two months o’ my time against the saddle an’ bridle. I know cattle.”
Bordene looked at him in surprise, almost suspecting a jest; but though the puncher was grinning he was quite in earnest. Somehow, the rancher’s heart warmed to this gay loser.
The play was resumed. The puncher won the first cut, lost the next, and then won the two following, thus regaining both saddle and horse. He looked quizzically at his opponent.
“We ain’t got nowhere,” he remarked. “One more flip, fifty cash against the hoss, to finish it.”
He cut and displayed the three of spades.
“Poor luck, friend,” said the older man. “I’m thinkin’ you’ve lost yore mount.”
With a grin of commiseration and confident of success he exposed his own card. His face changed with ludicrous rapidity as he saw it: he had cut the two of spades.
“Well, may I be tee-totally damned if you don’t win!” he cried regretfully, and then his eyes twinkled. “No matter. I like the way you play, an’ if yo’re huntin’ a job in these parts come an’ see me at the Box B.”
“I certainly will, seh,” the cowpuncher smiled. “I like the way you lose.”
He took the money the other tendered and waved a farewell as the rancher swung into the saddle and loped for the trail. Then he smiled contentedly. He knew the story would get around, and that he would be regarded as a stray puncher, who, having overdone his spree, had to risk losing his horse to rehabilitate himself.
“Reckon that will blind my tracks aplenty,” he muttered, and made his way to the Red Ace.
The saloon was empty, save for the bartender, whose face at once assumed a surly expression when he recognized the visitor. Green walked to the bar, slammed down a twenty-dollar gold piece, and said sharply, “Gimme my guns.”
With some uneasiness of mind, Jude produced the pawned weapons—two forty-fives, the almost black walnut butts of which showed signs of much use. “Durn yore cowboy,” he reflected. “Drinks enough to drownd a steer an’ in two-three hours turns up as lively as a flea on a hot plate.”
“Whisky,” came the next order, as the cowboy, examining the guns to make sure they were still loaded, thrust them into his holsters.
Jude pushed forward bottle and glass, concealing his satisfaction. The fellow would get soaked again and the guns would soon return behind the bar. With a saturnine smile he watched the customer pour his drink and raise the glass to his nose. Then the spirit was coolly dumped on the sanded floor.
“Hey, you, what’s the matter with my whisky?” asked the astonished and outraged supplier of the drink.
“You see, fella, it can be did,” he remarked to the astounded Jude. “Ol’ Man Booze can be beat. You wanta get yore think-box workin’ an’ reorganize yore ideas some. Sabe?”
He strolled casually out of the saloon, leaving an almost petrified bartender giving a lifelike impersonation of a newly caught codfish. After a visit to the barber, Green purchased a new shirt and kerchief, which he donned in the room behind the store, and emerged looking and feeling a very different individual. There were still some hours of daylight remaining, and having nothing else to do, he sauntered along to the eastern end of the town, which was also the Mexican quarter. Passing a dumpy, adobe building which he rightly guessed to be a drinking dive, he heard a voice speaking English:
“Well, you got me fixed. Go ahead an’ finish it, you scum.”
Noiselessly pushing open the door he saw a curious sight. In the center of the earthen floor a short, stout cowpuncher was standing, his gun out. In front of him, right and left, were two Mexicans with drawn knives. Behind him, leaning over the rough wooden bar, was another, an older man, who had a shotgun trained on the cowboy’s back. Green entered just in time to see the hand of the fellow on the left flash up, and promptly fired. The bullet, shattering the thrower’s elbow, spoiled his aim and sent the knife thudding into the front of the bar, where it quivered, winking wickedly in the sunlight. The would-be assassin cursed vividly in Spanish as he clutched his damaged arm and glared venomously a
t the intruder.
“Drop it,” Green said sharply to the other knife expert, and when the weapon tinkled on the floor and its owner had frozen into immobility, he turned to the man at the bar. “Push that gun over an’ hoist yore paws, pronto!”
The command was obeyed with ludicrous promptness. Green looked at the puncher.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“Friend, yo’re as welcome as a fourth ace—these skunks shore had me cold,” was the reply. “I was in here yestiddy, an’ I don’t just remember what happened. S’pose they hocussed my liquor. This mornin’ I wakes up with a head like a balloon, way out on the desert under a mesquite, an’ my roll was missin’. I walks in, an’ nacherally calls to inquire. Bein’ hoppin’ mad, I don’t look at my gun first; o’ course, they’d drawed the shells an’ if you hadn’t happened along I reckon I’d be tryin’ to twang a harp about now. An’ I never had no ear for music,” he finished whimsically.
“Which of ’em, would you say, has yore mazuma?” Green asked.
“They was all here, but I’m guessin’ the old piker has it—he’s the boss, the other two are just relations,” the puncher explained.
Green looked at the proprietor. “Ante up,” he said. “If this hombre don’t get his roll, I’ll have to ask yore widow about it.”
The Mexican, his beady eyes full of hate but his body trembling like a jelly, reached into a drawer beneath the bar and threw out a roll of bills secured by a rubber band, the while he jabbered a string of excuses. The señor had been seized with illness; he had taken care of the money lest the señor be robbed; it would have been returned in due course; it was only a joke—
“Yore brand o’ humor’ll get you fitted with a wooden suit one o’ these fine days,” Green grimly warned him, as he backed out of the door the puncher was holding ajar. They stood outside for a moment, waiting, but there was no demonstration from the dive. As they turned up the street the rescued man said quietly, “I’m obliged to you.”
“Shucks! Nothin’ to that,” Green returned hastily. “I’m bettin’ that, like myself, yo’re a stranger hereabouts.”
“Yeah, drifted in coupla days back—just moseyin’ round the country,” explained the other. “I’m stayin’ here; what about comin’ in for a pow-wow?”
He had halted before an unpretentious log and shingle two-story building, above the door of which a rudely lettered board announced, “Durley’s Rest House. Good Food and Likker.” Green read the notice and smiled.
“I hope he cooks better’n he spells,” he said.
“Shore does, an’ I reckon he’s square at that,” responded the stranger, as he thrust open the door.
The bar they entered was small but neat and clean. A man of middle age, with a round, red, jovial face greeted the smaller of the pair with a reproving shake of the head.
They were seated at one of the small tables, and the rescuer had an opportunity to study the man whose life he had probably saved. The round, plump face, with its twinkling eyes and generous mouth suggested good humor, and there was strength in the squat figure and slightly bowed legs. Despite the fact that he must have passed the mid-thirties his manner showed the irresponsibility of a boy. He swallowed half the cup of thick, black beverage the landlord had just put before him.
“That’s the stuff,” he said appreciatively. “Now s’pose we get acquainted; my name is Barsay, but my friends call me—
“Tubby?” queried the other, with a grin.
The little man stopped rolling a cigarette and stared in open-mouthed astonishment. Then he grinned too.
“Hell! I was goin’ to say ‘Pete,’” he pointed out. “How’d you guess ’bout that infernal nickname?”
“Mine is Green, but I’ve been told I don’t look it.”
“An that’s terrible true,” Barsay grinned. “If you got any other I’m aimin’ to use it.”
“I answer to ‘Jim’,” came the reply. “What you doin’ in this prairie dog’s hole of a town?”
“Well, I’ve punched cows from the Border to Montana an’ back again. I s’pose I’d be chasin’ a job right now if you hadn’t rescued my roll for me.”
“I’ve done considerable harassin’ o’ beef my own self, an’ I want a change.”
“This is cattle country.”
“Shore it is, but I hear there’s a vacancy for a town marshal.”
The little man sat up suddenly. “Sufferin’ serpents!” he cried. “You must be tired o’ life! Say, if yo’re as broke as that, half o’ what I got is yores.”
“Thank you, but I ain’t busted, an’ I come here apurpose to land the job,” the other told him. “What’s more, I got my eye on the deputy I want—short, fat fella, ’bout yore size.”
“Take that eye off,” gasped the “fat fella.” “Me a deputy? Why, I wouldn’t fit nohow. I’ve bin a hold-up, hoss thief, rustler—”
“I knowed I was right,” Green interrupted. “You got all the qualifications. Yo’re shore elected, amigo.”
Barsay shrugged resignedly. “Why didn’t you let them Mexicans finish?” he asked plaintively. Then his face brightened. “But you ain’t roped her yet,” he added.
“I’m goin’ to,” Green said confidently. “Point is, how do we go about it?”
Barsay called the landlord over. “Hey, Durley, my friend here is hot on bein’ marshal o’ this burg. What’s his best move?”
The innkeeper’s face lost its jovial expression. “His best move is to fork a cayuse an’ ride straight ahead till he forgets the notion,” he said seriously’. “Bein’ marshal o’ Lawless is just plain suicide.” He saw that his advice would not be taken and added, “Well, ‘The Vulture’ is the kingpin; if he gives it you, the job’s yores.”
“That’s Seth Raven—who runs the Red Ace, huh?” Green asked.
“Why the fancy name?” asked Barsay.
“Some feller Seth had treated mean give it him,” Durley explained. “Said a vulture was the on’y sort o’ bird he resembled. Seth went up in the air at that, an’ o’ course, the boys pinned it on him. You don’t wanta overlook no bets when yo’re dealin’ with him.”
“Guess I’ll call on the gent right now; I’m needin’ that job,” Green said. “You stay put, Pete,” he added, as Barsay rose. “Back soon.”
When Green reached and entered the Red Ace the expression on the bartender’s face was anything but welcome. Nevertheless he reached for a bottle. The customer waved it away.
“Yo’re pullin’ the wrong card, ol’-timer,” he grinned. “Business before pleasure is my motto; I wanta see Mister Raven.”
“What for?” came the surly question.
The grin disappeared from the puncher’s face. “If you’d do I wouldn’t be askin’ for yore boss,” he said acidly.
Jude’s bluster left him. He could bully on occasion, but here was a man who, sober, was always his master, and he knew it. Sullenly he went to a door marked “Private,” stuck his head in for a moment, and then beckoned to the visitor. Green stepped into what was evidently the saloon-keeper’s office. Seth Raven was sitting at the desk. He was about forty, and looked it. Tall and lean, his hunched shoulders made him appear shorter than he really was and threw his head forward into a curiously birdlike attitude, the impression being accentuated by a hooked nose, small, close-set eyes, thin Ups, and lank, black hair. His yellow skin seemed tight-stretched over the high cheek-bones.
“Well, what you want?” Raven asked curtly.
The puncher leaned nonchalantly against the door, his thumbs hooked in his belt. “I’m told this burg is shy a marshal,” he said. “I’m shy a job, an’ there you have it.”
The saloon-keeper studied him in silence for a moment. He knew the applicant’s history from the time he had arrived, including the incident of the wasted whisky and the affair at Miguel’s. Little happened in Lawless that did not come to the ears of “The Vulture.”
“We don’t know nothin’ about you,” he said.
“My name is James Green, o’ Texas, an’ lately I’ve been livin’ mostly under my hat,” the puncher told him.
“Which don’t make us much wiser,” was Raven’s comment.
“Yore last marshal, Perkins, lit outa Nevada a flea’s jump ahead o’ the Vigilantes, an’ Dawlish, the man afore him, had been in the pen for cattle-rustlin’. Ain’t you gettin’ a mite particular?” Green asked sardonically.
The saloon-keeper’s thin lips lengthened, which was his nearest approach to a smile. He had not expected to get any details of the fellow’s past, and in reality he cared little. Lawless was a sanctuary for the law-breaker, and only a man of that type could hope to keep any semblance of order. The puncher’s lean, hard face, level eyes, and firm lips were not those of a weakling.
“Yo’re kind o’ young,” Raven objected.
“Suffered from that since I was born,” Green said lightly. “The doctors say I’ll grow out of it. Well, what’s the word?”
“The pay is two hundred dollars a month,” the other said.
“Which ain’t overgenerous,” Green commented.
“An’ pickin’s, the same bein’—to the right man—considerable,” Raven slowly added.
“With another hundred for a deputy,” the puncher suggested, and when the saloon-keeper shook his head, “See here, I ain’t a machine; there’s times when I wanta sleep some.”
“Awright, a deputy goes. You better pick a good one an’ tell him to shoot first an’ argue afterwards,” Raven said. He dipped into a drawer of the desk. “It so happens I got a coupla stars, an’ here’s the key to yore quarters.” Handing the articles to Green, he dismissed the new officer.
For a little while Raven sat thinking, weighing up the man who had just left him. He recognized that Green was not the ordinary type of desperado; his cool, smiling confidence contrasted oddly with the blustering, bullying attitude of the average gun-fighter.
“A useful fella if he comes to heel—an’ if he don’t—” His lips twisted in a sinister sneer. “Bet there’s a sheriff somewheres who’d be glad to meet him.”
And in this he was entirely right.