“What else did you think?” the gambler retorted. “Yes, I am going to get it—the money, the ranch, the girl, trample Eden in the dirt, and kill that damned gunman.”
The mask was off now, showing a face white with rage, hatred in the eyes, and the thick lips drawn back in a feral snarl.
“Why not run the herd. off too, while yo’re about it?” Navajo asked mockingly.
“Too risky—we’d have the whole damn place on our tails,” snapped the other. “Besides, it wouldn’t hurt Eden—he’s been paid—and it’s his scalp I’m after. If you don’t care to come in, I can swing it alone.”
“Oh yeah,” the half-breed gibed. “Yu’ll do some swingin’ alone if yu show yore face in town; that frame-up ain’t made yu one bit popular. Well, let’s hear yore plan.”
For some time Baudry talked earnestly, and when he had finished, sat back and looked triumphantly at his confederate.
Navajo nodded. “Yu can count me in,” he said shortly.
His malignant gaze followed the gambler as he went out. “yellow-bellied coyote,” he muttered. “Yu’d sell yore own sister for ten cents, an’ right now yo’re figurin’ to double-cross me.
That’s a game more’n one can play at, an’ when I pull a gun runnin’ won’t save yu.”
Then he too left the place, slinking along behind the buildings until he reached his destination.
Chapter XXVI
SOON after dark that same evening, a Mexican lad slid into the Palace Saloon and made his way to where Eden and Sandy were watching a game of poker in which Karson was taking part. Twitching the rancher’s sleeve, the boy whispered:
“Meestair Green wantin’ yu, pronto—outside.”
Without waiting for an answer he darted away. Telling his friend he would be back, Eden started for the door, and Sandy stepped after.
“No need to drag yu away, boy,” the cattleman said.
“I’m comin’,” Sandy replied. “Jim’s word was to stick to yu like yore shadow.”
“Shucks, I’ve had too much nussin’ lately,” Eden laughed, and as he stepped into the street and looked round, “Where in blazes is he?”
A blurred shape detached itself from the gloom, an arm snapped viciously down and the rancher dropped like a poleaxed steer. Sandy grabbed at his gun, but before he could get it out three men sprang upon him. Uttering a lusty yell for help, he flung his fists right and left, and had the satisfaction of hearing a grunt of pain follow each blow. His shout brought other citizens and these hurled themselves enthusiastically into the battle. Since they knew neither the cause nor the combatants, they were soon fighting each other and were of no use to those they had come to assist.
Standing astride his employer’s body, Sandy struggled on, wrenching himself free from clutching hands and driving his fists vengefully into indistinct faces. But it could not last. From behind came a bitter oath in a voice he remembered, and ere he could turn, a sweeping blow with the barrel of a pistol sent him down.
It was at this moment that Sudden, who—deeming the rancher safe with the other two—had gone to comb the town in search of Rogue or Navajo, heard that there was trouble at the Palace and came to investigate. He found an excited group outside, many bearing marks of the conflict, gathered about two senseless men.
“What happened?” he asked a bystander, who was wiping blood from his cheek.
“Durned if I know,” was the reply. “There was a shindy, so I sat in—never could keep out’n a scrap, nohow. Then three-four fellas ran away an’ I found I was fightin’ a friend. Do yu know them hombres?”
The light of a match confirmed the cowboy’s fears. “Hell, yes, one of ‘em is my boss,” he said, and made a hurried examination. “They ain’t cashed, anyways.”
Karson was found and the injured men carried to the hotel. “This is a bad business, Green,” the cattle-buyer said. “I s’pose they got the money?”
“Reckon so—it’s gone.”
“He was askin’ for it; yu can’t keep anythin’ quiet in this place. It was known he’d sold his herd an’ these scallywags took the chance he’d have a fat wallet. I oughta stayed with him, but poker’s a fair curse with me.”
Sudden did not undeceive him. His own mind was full of conflicting conjectures. Baudry, Navajo, or even Rogue might have planned this latest development, and that it was one or more of them he was convinced. Bitterly he reproached himself for allowing the gambler to escape.
At the hotel they found Aunt Judy in a state bordering on frenzy: Carol was missing.
When she saw the two unconscious men, her hands went up in the air and she called down a curse on Abilene which should have wiped the town off the face of the earth. Having acquitted herself like a man in this direction, she promptly became a woman again.
“Lemme look at him.” She scrutinized the rancher’s injury. “Huh! Must ‘a’ bin a stranger; nobody as knowed him would try to kill Sam Eden by hittin him on the head.”
She bathed and bandaged the hurts and was just through with Sandy when he sat up and asked weakly:
“Where’s Jim?”
“Dunno,” Judy snapped. “Gone to get his head busted, I reckon. ‘Pears to be the on’y use yu men got for ‘em.”
The sarcasm was excusable, but applied to Sudden, unjust. He unearthed a grubby urchin who ran errands and did chores at the hotel, and learned that a lady had called to see Miss Eden about two hours earlier and that they had gone out together. Asked if he knew the visitor, the boy hesitated.
“She gimme a dollar not to say,” he admitted.
“I’ll give yu two dollars,” Sudden offered, and reading the youthful mind, added, “Yu can give hers back an’ say yu changed yore mind; that’ll make it right”
This somewhat specious reasoning satisfied the boy. “They call her `Lily Gold’ an’ she rooms with Mammy Porter, opposite the drug store,” he said. “I -guess she ain’t much class.”
Sudden returned to the sick-room. Eden was still unconscious but breathing easily. Sandy was in a fever to see his friend.
“Jim,” he cried, “Navajo was there—I heard his voice. Damnation, they’ve got Carol.
What we goin’ to do?”
“Yu’ll stay here,” Sudden replied. “I’ve got a line on the girl an’ I’m goin’ after her, right now.”
He told what he had learned and Aunt Judy snatched up her bonnet. “I’m a-comin’,” she stated. “No use yu arguin’, Jim Green; yu may be able to tackle a man but it takes a woman to handle a woman. I can’t do nothin’ more for these two saps.”
With a face which might have been carved from a block of wood she followed the cowboy down the street. They found the house, a two-storied, ramshackle frame building. The door was opened by a stout, middle-aged negress.
“Mis’ Gold is upstairs but she ain’t seein’ nobuddy,” she told them.
“She’ll see us,” Sudden said, and slipping a coin to the woman’s hand, pushed past.
They found Miss Gold smoking a cigarette and lolling in an arm-chair. Not yet thirty, she still had charm of a kind, but her once pretty face had become hard, predatory, and her yellow hair was obviously dyed. The silken frock which revealed too much of her opulent figure was shabby and the high-heeled satin shoes were rubbed and worn. She greeted her unannounced guests with a stare of surprise.
“And who the hell may you be?” she asked belligerently. “That don’t matter,” the cowboy said. “We wanta know what yu’ve done with Miss Eden?”
“Don’t know the lady,” the girl replied insolently, but there was a flicker of fear in her eyes.
“Lyin’ won’t help yu,” Sudden said evenly. “We know that yu called on her an’ that she left the hotel with yu.” Lily Gold studied him appraisingly. Usually she found cowboys easy to handle, but this one seemed different; her wiles would have no effect on him.
“Oh, that kid,” she said. “I showed her round a bit and then she said she wanted to do some shopping. I expect she had a fellow to mee
t.”
Her sneering laugh was rudely cut short. Aunt Judy thrust Sudden aside. Her eyes were blazing.
“Lemme talk to her,” she said. “Listen, yu dance-hall drab. Do yu know how the Injuns serve women o’ yore sort? They slice their noses off, an’ yu can take it from me it don’t improve their looks any—I’ve seen ‘em.” Her left hand shot out and fastened like a claw on a bare shoulder, digging into the soft flesh and forcing the girl back in the chair, while her right jerked an eight-inch bowie knife from the bosom of her dress and flashed it before her prisoner’s frightened eyes. “Come clean, yu slut,” she raged, “or by the livin’ God I’ll make yore face somethin’ for men to shudder at.”
The harsh discordant voice, fierce angular features, and set grim lips told that it was no mere threat, and the dance-girl who would have face a furious man and told him to do his worst—shrank back in stark terror from this fiend in female shape. Out of the raddled, bloodless mask on which the patches of paint stood out with startling distinctness, her terrified gaze travelled to the cowboy.
“She’ll do it,” she whimpered. “She’s mad. Call her off.”
“I ain’t interferin’,” Sudden said sternly. “It’s up to yu.” The girl was shaking. “There’s men in town who’ll hang you for this,” she panted.
“Mebbe, but that won’t put yore nose back,” Judy retorted, and raised the knife.
The story came tumbling out. She had been paid to lure the victim to a certain Mexican dive, the bait being that a cowboy named Sandy had been badly hurt in a brawl. Two men had met them there, seized Miss Eden and ridden away. One of the men was Baudry; the other a stranger.
“Where have they taken her?” Sudden barked.
“How the hell do I know?” the woman snapped, and then shrieked as the steel gleamed before her eyes.
“There’s an old shack out on the plain, about two miles due north,” she gasped. “I heard them mention it. That’s all I know. Get out, damn you. Get out!
Aunt Judy looked at her. “If yu’ve lied, or they’ve harmed Carol, I’ll find yu an’ cut yore rotten heart out if I swing for it,” she promised.
When they had gone, the woman staggered to her feet, flung open a cupboard, and pouring out a stiff dose of spirit, gulped it eagerly.
“Christ! I wanted that,” she muttered. “What a devil, and she meant it! I’ll have to get away, pronto. If they’ve hurt that kid”
Hurriedly she began to throw her few possessions into a bag. Miss Gold was taking no more chances; she was attached to her nose and wished to remain so.
When Sudden and Aunt Judy reached the hotel the cowboy turned to her and said meaningly:
“I’m gettin’ my hoss an’ follerin’. This is a man’s job.”
To his great relief, she uttered no protest. Her violence seemed to have evaporated; she had resumed her sex. “yu’ll bring her, Jim, won’t yu?” she pleaded. “An’ yu won’t say nothin’ to nobody ‘bout me gittin’ peeved back there?”
“Why, yu done noble,” Sudden replied. “I’d never ‘a’ got the truth outa that dame.”
“Mebbe, but I misdoubt I behaved like a lady oughta.”
Sudden, saddling his horse a few moments later, was moved to express his thought:
“Nig, I reckon in choosing a hoss, a friend, or a wife, looks oughta come way down in the list, ol’-timer.”
In a lonely, tumble-down cabin to the north, lit by a guttering candle stuck with its own grease to the rickety table, two people were facing one another. Carol Eden, her hands bound, leaned against the wall, contemptuous, defiant.
Baudry, seated upon an up-ended box, regarded her with a fiendish smile of exultation.
As the fitful light set the shadows dancing about the room, now revealing and then half concealing her disdainful form, his sense of satisfaction grew. He had sworn to have her and here she was. Soon they would be away—headed for civilization, and by the time they reached it …
Affairs had not gone quite as he had planned, but with the girl, the herd-money, and the mortgage on the S E in his possession, he would take most of the tricks. But first he must deal with the half-breed, the man who had jeered at and taunted him.
“Sit down,” he ordered, pointing to a second box on the other side of the table.
“I prefer to stand,” Carol replied. “I can keep farther away from you.”
The man smiled tolerantly. “When you’re my wife, you’ll know me better,” he said.
“Impossible!” she cried. “What else are you besides liar, cheat, and coward?”
This time the scorn in her low vibrant voice seared him. He stood up and stepped towards her, slowly, like some wild beast about to pounce on its helpless prey. Staring at him with fear-wide eyes, she backed away until she could retreat no more. The gambler’s gaze dwelt gloatingly on the lissome, rounded form.
“I’m a man who can tame women and make them do as I wish,” he said softly. “In a little while you’ll come creeping to me for a kind word and be happy if you get it, though now you dislike me.”
“Dislike?” the girl echoed passionately. “I hate and despise you.”
The nearness of her intoxicated him and he laughed evilly as his hands darted out, prisoning her arms. The feel of the firm flesh beneath his fingers fired his blood and sent his hot lips questing for hers. Mad with terror and loathing, she fought to avoid them, but bound, and held in that grip of steel, could do little. Drunk with desire, he tore open her shirt-waist and rained kisses on her bared neck.
“I’ll teach you, my beauty,” he panted thickly.
And then, when she had given up hope, he flung her violently from him. A horse had whickered outside.
Chapter XXVII
DAZED and weak, Carol saw her assailant fall into a half-crouch his gun drawn, death in his eyes. She tried to shout a warning but no sound issued from her dry, throbbing throat. The door was flung open, Baudry fired, and the newcomer stumbled, coughed, and slithered to the floor, a pistol dropping from nerveless fingers. After a moment’s pause, the killer bent over him.
“Rogue?” he muttered. “Wonder how he got wise? Well, that’s a debt I was afraid I’d have to leave unpaid. Where the hell is Navajo?”
“Right here,” the half-breed replied from the doorway, and stepped noiselessly into the cabin. His mean eyes rested callously on the supine form of his late leader. “That saves me a job but I ain’t thankin’ yu.”
“Did you get Eden?”
“I reckon–‘less his head’s made o’ rock,” the ruffian replied. “The crack I gave him would ‘a’ split the skull of an ox.”
“Hope you haven’t overdone it,” Baudry said viciously. “It will hurt him more to live.”
“Mebbe, but that fella Sandy came out o’ the saloon with him an’ fought like a wildcat.
With townsfolk joinin’ in we had to do the best we could,” the half-breed explained, and tapped his pocket. “We corralled the cash.”
Dull despair took possession of the prisoner. Her father injured, probably dying, and Sandy…. For since the woman Gold had brought that lying message, Carol had comprehended what the cheerful young cowboy had come to mean to her, and the thought that she might never see him again turned her heart to lead.
“You did well, Navajo,” the gambler said. “If we’d got that devil, Sudden, it would be a clean-up.”
“I’ll tend to him,” the other said darkly. He threw a roll of bills on the table. “We split that two ways an’ then settle about the gal.”
Baudry jerked round as though he had been spurred. “She goes with me,” he answered harshly.
“Mebbe, after we’ve cut the cards for her,” Navajo replied.
In the flickering light of the candle he could not see the murderous gleam in the other’s eyes, but he knew it was there. At the moment he saw Rogue’s body he divined that the outlaw had saved his—Navajo’s—life, and that Baudry would kill him if he could. So, when his proposal was agreed to, he watched yet mor
e warily.
“Have it your way,” the gambler said quietly. He produced a pack of cards and squared them up on the table. “Help yourself. Highest wins. Sudden death.”
“Yu said it,” the half-breed assented.
The fingers of his left hand closed over the cards, gripping them gently. A touch told him they had been prepared—the ends and sides of some of them treated with a file, so that the man who knew what had been done could cut high or low as he desired. He knew now why Baudry had given in, but it made no difference to his plan. He hesitated only for an instant and then lifted the whole pack and hurled it in the other man’s face.
“Cold-deck me, would yu?” he cried, and snatching out his gun sent two bullets into the gambler’s breast.
Grimacing horribly, hands reaching blindly for support, the stricken man collapsed like a house of cards, shuddered convulsively once, and was still. Navajo’s smile was that of a demon.
“Sudden death it was,” he said hoarsely, and turned to the girl, only to find her unconscious upon the floor. The tragedies she had witnessed, added to the mental torture of the past few hours, had proved too much for even her Western nerves.
Stuffing the roll of money into a pocket, the half-breed stood gloating over his captive for a moment or two, his lewd eyes dwelling on the graceful curve of her neck and the rounded white shoulder which Baudry’s brutality had left exposed.
“A pretty piece—an’ mine—now,” he exulted evilly. “Well, beautiful, we’ll be on our way.”
Lifting the limp form, he carried it to where the gambler’s horse was hitched outside the hut, and roped it to the saddle. He was about to mount his own beast when he remembered something; both the dead men would have money. He went back and was kneeling by the side of Baudry when a word rang out like a pistol-shot:
“Navajo!”
Sudden was standing in the doorway, a gun levelled from the hip. The icy passionless voice fell on the outlaw’s ears like a death-knell. Though he had bragged to Baudry, he feared this cold-eyed young cowboy who had so quickly gained a reputation as a gunman. “Sudden death!” The phrase recurred to him with a new and ominous significance. Bitterly he cursed himself for his delayed departure; but for his greed…
Sudden: Outlawed Page 21