The Second Western Novel

by Matt Rand

  The deputy’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.

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

  “You win,” she replied.

  Pete regarded her with a suspicious eye, but save for a distracting dimple, she seemed quite serious. “Won’t you set down?”

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

  “Not so as you’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. You’d think we was keepin’ Sunday school. Why, I went along to Miguel’s yestiddy—that’s the Mexican who tried to desecrate me with a shotgun—an’ he smiled all down his neck when I walked in. I’m tellin’ you, 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 you 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 trailed 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 bushwhacked my dad! 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. “You stay with Miss Tonia till we fetch our hosses.”

  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, Bordene 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 grief. As yet, it was hard for him to realize that the big, strong man he had always relied on and looked up to was no more. Death by violence was no new thing to him, but this time…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 few tumble-down shacks and heaps of gravel were the only remaining evidence of the feverish activity which had once possessed the place. A saddled horse was tied to a tree, but there was no body.

  “I carried him into that hut,” Bordene explained, pointing to a crude cabin at the foot of one of the hillocks.

  Entering the cabin they came upon the murdered man. Green stooped 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.” He rose and looked around. Two shining objects attracted his attention—used shells. “Forty-fives,” he commented, slipping them into the pocket of his chaps. “Pistol work. Whereabouts did you 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 straightened up.

  “I figure it was this way,” he said. “The bushwhacker hid in here by the door—you 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.”

  “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. However, in the bark of the trunk, Green’s quick eye discerned several hairs and the hoofprints showed that the animal had been restive. The hairs were black.

  “Sudden is said to ride a black, ain’t he?” Andy questioned.

  “Yeah,” the marshal replied.

  He was on his knees, studying the hoofprints carefully. Presently he stood up, and they went to the spot where the body had been found. The ground here was matted with the marks of both men and horses. Green pored over them for some time, gradually picked out the ones he wanted—those of the murderer’s mount—and noted that they went south. Then he announced his decision.

  “I’m goin’ to follow his tracks,” he said. “Pete, you’ll stay here while Andy goes to the Box B for a wagon an’ some of his boys to take the old man to town; there’ll have to be an inquiry.”

  When the boy had gone, the marshal rolled and lighted a cigarette, and selecting a small rock, squatted and smoked in silence. His deputy stood it for a while and then, “Bordene is hard hit,” he said.

  “He’ll get over it,” Green replied. “Ol’ Man Trouble sits lightly on the shoulders o’ youth an’ is easy shook off.”

  Silence again ensued, and presently the deputy tried once more:

  “Ever run acrost this jasper, Sudden?” he asked, and this time he got a surprise.

  “Yeah, I know him pretty well,” the marshal returned. He looked at his assistant reflectively for a moment, and then, with the air of one who has at last come to a decision, he went on, “Pete, you ain’t got no more brain than a sage hen, but I’m goin’ to gamble on it. You heard me pull up young Bordene
pretty brisk just now an’ mebbe wondered why?”

  “Shore did,” Pete agreed.

  “Well, here’s the reason,” Green resumed. “The fella that did this job an’ brought off the other plays in this part o’ the country ain’t the genuine Sudden; he’s just shovin’ the blame on another man, you Sabe?”

  “How’d you know?” queried the deputy.

  “Because I happen to be the real Sudden,” came the amazing answer.

  For some moments Pete stared goggle-eyed at the man who had calmly claimed to be one of the most famous—or infamous—outlaws in the Southwest, and then he shook his head knowingly and laughed.

  “I’d never ’a’ guessed it—me havin’ no brain,” he grinned. “Mighta suspected you o’ bein’ Julius Caesar or Ol’ King Cole, but—” He stopped short as he read the other’s expression.

  “May I be whittled to chips if he don’t believe it hisself; musta bin eatin’ locoweed.”

  “I’m givin’ you the straight goods, you idiot,” the marshal said seriously. “I’m the man they call Sudden down in Texas an’ New Mexico. I came here to find Mister Sudden the Second—the fella who’s buildin’ me a reputation an’ doin’ well out of it. I don’t claim to be no plaster saint, but I’ve had too many things hung on me a’ready an’ I aim to stop it.”

  Barsay got up, and if there was a smile on his face it was but an attempt to hide the feeling in his voice. “Jim,” he said, “I don’t care if yo’re forty outlaws rolled into one; I’m backin’ yore game to a fare-you-well.”

  The marshal gripped the outthrust hand. “I knowed I wasn’t makin’ a mistake,” he said. “I’m thankin’ you, Pete. What I’ve told you has gotta be kept tight behind yore teeth. If Lawless gets to know there’ll be a necktie party an’ we’ll be the guests. Now, I’m goin’ to trail Mister Bushwhacker. You go back with the body an’ see if you can learn anythin’ in town.”

  This arrangement was not to Barsay’s liking, but his chief smiled away all his objections and forthwith departed. He left the little man with plenty to occupy his mind. Remarkable as was the revelation to which he had listened, doubt of it never occurred to him. So this tall, lithe young fellow, with the good-humored, sardonic face which could, on occasion, become granite, was the man whose cold courage and marvelous mastery of his weapons had already ranked him with the greatest gunmen of the West.

  “I just knowed he warn’t no ordinary puncher,” he muttered. “Sudden, huh? He’s all o’ that, I reckon. Some o’ them toughs in Lawless is due to git a surprise if they start rough-ridin’ him. I’m bettin’ Raven didn’t know…”

  CHAPTER V

  For a mile or more the marshal was able to maintain a fair pace, the tracks of the horse which had been tied behind the shack being plain. Presently, however, they turned off the beaten trail to the Box B, following a mere pathway which twisted tortuously through the brush. Green noted that the fugitive was heading south and making no effort to hide the fact. Pausing at the top of a slight ridge, he scanned the surrounding country. It was flat for the most part, but broken in places by deep gorges, patches of forest, and stretches of low, hummocky rocks. Miles away to the left lay a range of forbidding hills, the Spaniards, beyond which, the marshal knew, was the Mexican line.

  There was no sign of his quarry, and, indeed, he had not expected there would be; in such country, the man might have been but a few hundred yards distant and still be unseen. The marshal moved down the slope of the ridge, threaded a narrow arroyo, and pulled up again. In front lay an expanse of semi-desert, a broad stretch of sand relieved only by clumps of bunchgrass, cactus, and mesquite. The trail led straight on to this and abruptly vanished. For a moment the trailer was at a loss, and then he noticed that his hoof-prints had also gone, the fine granular sand trickling back and filling up the depressions almost as soon as they were made.

  “This fella ain’t no stranger,” the marshal muttered. “Well, if he’s headin’ for the Border we gotta go on.”

  Holding a straight line, he crossed the little desert, and after a short search picked up the trail again on the other side. Two miles brought him to a wide-banked, slow-moving river which he guessed must be Lazy Creek; the opposite bank was Mexico. At this time of the year the stream was shrunk to half its winter width and he had no difficulty in crossing. He found the familiar hoof-prints on the other side only to lose them soon afterwards in a long narrow cleft, the floor of which consisted of weathered rock, fallings from the walls on either side.

  “I reckon he’s razzle-dazzled us, ol’-timer,” Green told his horse. “But we gotta make shore.”

  He rode through the gully, emerging into a strip of park-like country interspersed with wooded knolls. Passing one of these, he heard a voice, harsh, rasping, speaking in Spanish.

  “See if you can loosen his tongue, Lopez,” it said.

  Trailing his reins, the marshal crept cautiously up under cover of the chaparral. The sight was a singular one. At the side of a little glade an Indian was standing, his wrists tied behind him to a sapling. He was a tall fellow, of indeterminate age, his body emaciated by illness or starvation. He was naked save for a ragged pair of deerskin trousers, worn moccasins, and the vulture’s wing-feather which dangled from his scalplock. But for the fierce eyes he might have been a statue of bronze. Facing him was a yellow-skinned Mexican of the lowest type, in a huge sombrero, dirty blue shirt and tattered overalls. He was holding a wicked-looking quirt, passing the lash through his fingers and eyeing the Indian gloatingly.

  A few yards distant was the man who had spoken, a dark, swarthy fellow of middle age and stature, whose straight black hair framed one of the cruelest faces Green had ever seen. His attire was parody of a uniform; a slouched hat pinned up at one side with a silver brooch; a flaming red tunic loaded with gold braid; faded blue pants tucked into high boots garnished with huge wheel spurs. From the gaudy sash round his middle peeped the butts of two pistols and the haft of a dagger.

  At a nod from this man, and before the marshal could interfere, the peon swung his quirt and lashed the Indian savagely across the chest, the thong, knotted at the end, cutting an open wheal from which blood flowed. Before the force of the blow the victim staggered, but instantly drew himself up and became again an inanimate thing. Only the clamped lips and bunched jaw muscles betrayed his agony.

  “Speak, dog, where is the gold?” thundered the man in uniform.

  The Indian remained silent, his face a mask of pride, hatred, and contempt. The man in uniform read the expression aright, and it goaded him to fury.

  “Continue, Lopez,” he hissed. “I’ll find his tongue if I have to strip the flesh off his bones to do it.”

  With an eager grin the peon swished his bloodstained lash round his shoulder, but ere he could bring it down Green’s gun crashed and he dropped in a huddled heap; his torturing days were ended. At the sound of the shot, the other man’s hand went to his belt but came away empty at the sight of the newcomer’s blazing eyes and leveled weapon.

  “Reach for the sky, you yellow skunk,” came the terse order.

  The man complied, but his expression was poisonous. “May I point out, señor, that you are on the wrong side of the line?” he observed.

  “I’m on the right side o’ this gun,” Green grimly retorted. “What hellish work are you up to?”

  The Mexican shrugged his shoulders. “Hah! Only an Indian,” he sneered. “He knows where there ees much gold, señor, but the dog ees obstinate.”

  The marshal did not reply. Stepping up to the man he drew the pistols from his sash and flung them, one after the other, into the brush. The dagger he used to free the captive and then turned again to the Mexican.

  “Take off yore coat,” he ordered.

  An expression of surprise showed in the sallow face. “It may interest the señor to learn that I am El Diablo,” he said softly. “He weel have heard of me?”

  If the marshal was interested he did not show it; his narrowed eyes continued to
regard the ridiculous figure with cold contempt So this was the guerrilla leader whose reputation for savage cruelty was unequaled in Northern Mexico, and who, at the head of his band of so-called revolutionaries, robbed, murdered, and ravaged along the Border, even crossing it at times to raid the ranches for cattle and horses.

  “El Diablo, huh?” he sneered. “Well, if you don’t shuck that coat I’ll send you home so fast you’ll get singed on the way.”

  That the guerrilla leader understood the grim witticism is doubtful, but the menacing movement of the speaker’s gun could not be mistaken and he obeyed the order. The marshal turned to the Indian, impassively waiting, and pointed to the quirt lying beside the body of Lopez. A gleam of fire shone in the black eyes as the redskin realized the white man’s intention. El Diablo also understood, and his dark face grew first pale with fear and then red with shame. His voice shrilled out as the Indian picked up the whip and came towards him.

  “Señor, theenk what you do,” he cried desperately. “I am a white man like yourself. I am not a peon, as he”—with a gesture towards Lopez—“but a caballero, a descendant of Old Spain.”

  “I don’t care a plugged peso whether you come from Old Spain or Old Nick,” the marshal told him sardonically. “If you don’t keep them paws up you won’t be a descendant a-tall, you’ll be an ancestor.”

  Jocular as the voice was, no humor showed in the granite-hard features of the speaker, and the Mexican knew he might just as well hope for mercy from his late victim, who now stood before him, whip in hand. The marshal nodded to the redskin, the whip whistled through the air, and the Mexican shrieked as the knotted lash cut away the uniform from his body.

  Green turned just in time to see the redskin take two stumbling steps and fall prone.

  “Agua,” he whispered as Green bent over him. The marshal grabbed a canteen slung about the body of Lopez. The water proved effective, and in a few moments the Indian was able to stand up. The marshal pointed to the guerrilla leader’s horse which, elaborately saddled and bridled, was tied to a nearby bush.