Sudden

by Oliver Strange

  On the morning after the burial, Luce entered the big living-room and found his eldest brother awaiting him.

  “What is it, King?” he asked. “Sim said yu wanted me.”

  The other nodded, and after a short pause, snapped out, “How come yu to shoot Purdie?”

  The Range Robbers, Geo. Newnes, Ltd.

  “I didn’t,” was the quiet reply.

  King grinned unpleasantly. “That tale’s all very well for town, Luce,” he said. “Here yu needn’t be afeared to tell the truth.”

  “Which is what I’m doin’,” the boy retorted, a shade of heat in his tone.

  “Shucks, we ain’t blamin’ yu,” his brother shrugged. “It was a damn good riddance, an’ if of Purdie goes on the prod it gives us an excuse to show the C P where it gets off; we’ve owed ‘em that ever since they downed Dad—an’ before.”

  “It was never proved they did; an’, anyways, the fella who shot Kit was a cowardly cur,”

  Luce protested warmly. “Yu get this straight, King : if it was the work of a Burdette I’m ashamed o’ bein’ one, an’ I’m through with ‘em.”

  The older man’s face grew dark with rage. “Takin’ that tone, huh?” he sneered. “Well, let me tell yu–” He stopped, a sudden cunning in the fierce eyes. “All right, take yore truck an’ clear out—the Burdettes is through with yu; we don’t want traitors here,” he finished savagely.

  “I ain’t that, an’ yu know it,” the younger man replied. “An’ I’m not likely to raise my hand against my own flesh and blood, but that don’t go for the bunch o’ bar-scourin’s yu got ridin’ for yu now—toughs that Dad would ‘a’ quirted off the ranch, an’ he warn’t noways finicky.”

  King ripped out a blistering oath. Until this moment his authority, since his father’s death, had been supreme at the Circle B, and to be defied by the one from whom he least expected opposition made him furious.

  “Pull yore freight, pronto, or I’ll use a whip on yu,” he rasped.

  Luce looked at him levelly. “Will yu?” he said quietly. “Not while I’ve got a gun, King; there’s a limit to what I’ll take, even from yu.”

  Getting no reply, Luce went out, and presently, from the window overlooking the valley, King watched him ride down the road. A bulky roll at the cantle of the saddle brought a sneer to the older man’s lips.

  “So yo’re obeyin’ orders, huh?” he muttered. “Well, yu got a lot o’ things to learn yet, an’ one of ‘em is that it don’t pay to cross me.” He frowned at a thought. “Hell! I must be gettin’ old—I nearly told him; that would ‘a’ been a bad break. As it is we’ve got him tied, an’ can ride him till he drops. Didn’t shoot Kit Purdie, eh? Wonder how far that’ll get yu when yore own family ain’t denying it?”

  In the hope of gaining information before it became generally known that he had joined the C P, Sudden again spent the evening in “The Lucky Chance.” He was sitting about half-way between the door and the bar, watching a game of poker, when Luce Burdette slouched in.

  Without a word to anyone, the boy paid for a drink and draped himself against the bar, indifferent to the glances—some of them far from friendly—sent in his direction. Almost on his heels came a party of three, two Mexicans and a half-breed named Ramon, who having been “given his time” by Purdie some months before, was now riding for Slype. These men ranged themselves next to Burdette, ordered liquor, and began to talk in low tones.

  Sudden, suspecting that these men had a definite purpose, gave them all his attention. He saw the vaquero’s malicious eyes furtively scanning the solitary figure by the bar, and noted that his voice was gradually becoming more distinct. Presently, in reply to a muttered remark by one of his companions, he laughed aloud.

  “Nan Purdie?” he said derisively. “I tell you somet’ing ‘bout her. At ze C P ze boys ‘ave to lock ze bunk’ouse door nights to keep her out.”

  This infamous statement struck the room to an amazed silence, and then the brooding man at the bar came to life. His left hand gripped the traducer’s shoulder, swinging him round, while his right fist, with fiendish fury, crashed on the fellow’s jaw and sent him staggering and clutching to the floor; he looked up to find Burdette’s gun covering him.

  “Yu dirty liar,” the young man grated. “Eat yore words, pronto, or yu go to hell right now.”

  The evil black eyes looked up into the flaming blue ones and found only death there; one twitch of the finger aching to press the trigger and the world would know Ramon the vaquero no more. He did not like to back down, but life was sweet. The half-breed had vanity, but no pride; there is a difference. He began to mutter.

  “Speak up, yu bastard,” Burdette warned. “This is yore last chance.”

  “W’at I say was a lie—I make it up,” Ramon called out. “I not know anyt’ing against Mees Purdie.”

  With a shrug of contempt, Luce holstered his gun and turned back to the bar. Ramon got slowly to his feet, and then, as he saw the jeering expression on many of the spectators’ faces, madness seized him. His hand flashed up, a wicked blade lying along the palm. Ere he could despatch it on its deadly errand, however, an iron clasp fell on his wrist, forcing the arm down and round behind his back.

  “Drop it!” came the curt order. “Or I’ll shore bust yore wing.”

  Mouthing Mexican curses, the captive twisted like an eel, but he could not break that hold, and when his wrist began to nudge his shoulder-blades he squealed in agony and the weapon tinkled on the boards.

  “Will some gent kindly open the door?” Sudden requested, and when this had been done, he forced the helpless half-breed to it, placed a foot in the small of the fellow’s back, and straightened his leg. As though propelled from a gun, the victim shot over the sidewalk and ploughed into the dust of the street on his face. Sudden looked at the saloon-keeper.

  “Sorry to make a ruckus in yore joint, Magee,” he said.

  “Ye done the roight thing, son,” the Irishman replied. “I hope ye’ve bruk his lyin’ neck.”

  The puncher picked up the dropped weapon; it was a short-handled, heavy throwing-knife, a deadly instrument in the hands of an expert. He balanced it for a moment in his fingers, his eyes on Ramon’s companions, who were watching him uneasily.

  “I guess that’s a bullet-hole by the door there,” he said. “Shure it is,” smiled the proprietor. “Not the only wan neither.”

  Sudden’s arm moved, and like a shaft of light itself the blade flashed through the air and sank deeply into the wall about half an inch from the target he had selected. He looked apologetically at his audience.

  “I’m outa practice—ain’t throwed a knife for quite a spell,” he said. “Allasame, if it had been a fella’s throat …” He went on conversationally. “An old Piute chief taught me the trick—claimed he’d let the life outa ten men thataway. Dessay he was boastin’ some—Injuns mostly do—but he certainly knew about knives.” He turned to the Mexicans. “Yore friend is mebbe waitin’ for yu,” he suggested meaningly.

  They slunk out like dogs who feared the whip, casting curious glances at the weapon in the wall, which they knew was there as a warning to themselves. With their disappearance the tension relaxed and interrupted games were resumed. Luce Burdette came over to the puncher.

  “I’m obliged, but I dunno why yu interfered,” he said. “If yo’re ridin’ for Purdie, as I hear, he won’t thank yu.”

  “I ain’t sold him my soul, an’ if I had, Purdie would understand—he’s a white man,” the C P foreman said quietly. “Yu must be tired o’ life to turn yore back on a snake like that; don’t yu know his sort allus carries a sticker? ‘Sides, if he’d pulled his gun he’d ‘a’ got yu, shore thing.”

  “Lot o’ grief that would ‘a’ caused, wouldn’t it?” the boy asked bitterly.

  “I dunno,” Sudden told him; “but I reckon that with skunks like that around Miss Purdie needs all her friends.”

  His chance shot hit the mark; this aspect of the matter brought a quick
flush to Burdette’s cheeks. “I hadn’t looked at it thataway,” he admitted, and pointing to an unoccupied table in a far corner of the room, added, “Can I have a word with yu?”

  For some moments after they were seated the boy was silent, his moody eyes staring into vacancy. Then, in a low, strained voice, he began to talk:

  “Just now yu saved my life, an’ I expect I didn’t seem none too grateful. Well, I wasn’t, an’ I’m goin’ to tell yu why. Pretty near everybody in town figures I killed Kit Purdie; some are sayin’ it openly, others think it but dasn’t say so till they know how my brothers are goin’ to take it. My refusin’ to draw on Chris has got around, an’ is regarded as a confession o’ guilt. I wish I’d pulled an’ let him get me.”

  “That ain’t no way to talk. What do yore brothers think?”

  The boy flushed angrily. “They allow I did it,” he blurted out.

  Sudden nodded comprehendingly. “It suits them,” he pointed out. “I understand they’ve been tryin’ to get Purdie to r’ar up for some time.”

  “I’m done with ‘em—when King told me this mornin’ to pull my freight from the Circle B he said somethin’ he can’t ever take back,” Luce said passionately. “Ramon musta knowed ‘bout that, or he’d never ‘a’ had the nerve to frame me. Yu shore yu didn’t get a blink at the fella who fired the shot?”

  “If I had I’d ‘a’ put a crimp in his getaway.”

  “Yu don’t think it was me?”

  “No, an’ I told Purdie so.”

  Burdette’s face cleared a little. “Thank yu,” he said gratefully. “That’s two friends I got.”

  Sudden fancied he could have named the other, but what he said was, “What yu aimin’ to do?”

  “Stick around an’ clear myself,” Luce said. “I’ll be at the hotel if yu want me any time. I—I’d like to see yu,” he finished with boyish eagerness.

  “I’ll be along,” the puncher promised. “Mebbe we can help one another.”

  “Shore, but get me right,” Luce insisted. “Though the Burdettes have shook me I’m not roundin’ on ‘em nohow, but”—he grinned mirthlessly—“I ain’t related to their outfit. yu’ll have to watch out for those hombres, an’ that half-breed, Ramon, is pure pizen. ‘Fraid I’ve fetched yu right up against Ol’ Man Trouble.”

  “Him an’ me have met afore, an’ yu’ll notice I’m still here,” the puncher smiled.

  When the boy had gone, Sudden drifted over to the bar, and Magee pushed forward a bottle, a look of perplexity on his face.

  “Shure I can’t foller your play, sorr,” he said. “ye’re a C P man, an’ ye save the loife of a Burdette; that’ll puzzle Purdie, I’m thinkin’.”

  Sudden looked at him quizzically. “I start with the C P to-morrow mornin’,” he pointed out, “an’ Luce finished with the Circle B to-day. Yes, sir, his family has turned him down cold.”

  The landlord whistled. “Odd that,” he commented. “The Greaser knew av it too, or he’d niver ‘a’ dared raise a hand to a Burdette.” He sipped his drink contemplatively. “So Luce is at outs wid his brothers, eh? Well, he was allus different to the rest av thim, an’ I’ve seen the Old Man look queerly at him, as if wonderin’ how he come to be in the nest. There’ll be somethin’ back o’ his leavin’ the Circle B, shure enough.”

  The puncher nodded, but did not pursue the topic. He liked Magee, and felt that he was straight, but he knew that he must walk warily in Windy for a while.

  Chapter VI

  WHEN the new foreman arrived at the C P ranch on the following morning, he found that the story of his little difficulty with the half-breed had preceded him, two of the outfit having been in town, and heard of, though they had not seen, the incident. Chris Purdie’s face was not quite so genial when he greeted him.

  “I didn’t know the Burdettes was friends o’ yores,” was the oblique way he approached the subject.

  Sudden’s look was sardonic. “Did yu get all the story?” he asked.

  “I heard yu saved young Luce’s life, an’ that was aplenty,” retorted the ranch-owner.

  “Mebbe I did, an’ I’m bettin’ yu’d ‘a’ done the same,” was the reply, and the foreman went on to give the details.

  When he heard of the vile insult offered to his daughter, Purdie’s face flamed with fury.

  “The dirty scum,” he began.

  “It was a plain frame-up,” Sudden interrupted. “I’d say he was actin’ on orders, an’ whoever gave ‘em knew Luce had left the Circle B.”

  “Left the Circle B?” the rancher repeated in surprise. “How come?”

  “After the fracas I had a talk with young Burdette, an’ he told me he was through with his brothers; they won’t believe that he didn’t kill yore son.”

  “An’ they’re dead right, too, though it’s the first time I ever agreed with a Burdette,” the old man said caustically.

  “Yo’re wrong, Purdie,” the puncher urged. “I ain’t no Methuselah, but I’ve met a mort o’ men, an’ I’ll gamble that boy is clean strain. Why should he risk his life for yore girl’s good name?”

  “Dunno, ‘less it was to avert suspicion.”

  Sudden shook his head. “He’d have to be a mighty quick thinker, the way it happened.

  No, sir, I’m so shore he’s straight that in yore place I’d offer him a job to ride for the

  C P.”

  The cattleman laughed aloud at this amazing suggestion. “Yu bein’ a stranger hereabouts, there’s some excuse for yu,” he said. “If I did that, folks would think I’d gone plumb loco, an’ they’d be right. A Burdette workin’ for the C P, huh? He’d be damn useful to them, wouldn’t he?

  Why, it’s more’n likely that’s what they’re playin’ for. I ain’t fallin’ for that foolishness. Now, come along an’ meet the men.”

  Sudden followed him to the bunkhouse; he was not convinced, but he recognized the futility of further argument. The morning meal was over, and the riders were awaiting orders.

  There were eight of them present, all young, and they looked a capable crew. Their employer’s speech was brief and to the point:

  “This is Jim Green, boys. Yu’ll take orders from him in future, all same it was me.”

  Some of them nodded, others said “Howdy,” and all of them studied the new foreman with narrowed, appraising glances. His eyes too were busy, and he early decided that none of the looks directed towards him was hostile.

  “Where’s Bill?” asked the rancher.

  “He went down to the corral,” said one. “I’ll go fetch him.”

  “He’s the daddy o’ the outfit, an’ the on’y one yu may have trouble with,” Purdie said, for the foreman’s ear only. “Been actin’ sorta segundo to Kit, an’ he’s mebbe got ambitions. I’m leavin’ yu to deal with him, yore own way; when I put a fella in charge I don’t interfere.”

  He went out, nodding to an embarrassed outfit, and a foreman who, nonchalantly rolling a smoke, awaited the coming “trouble.” For he felt pretty sure that the absence of the oldest hand was a premeditated gesture, the first move in a plan of protest against his appointment. There was an air of expectancy about the waiting men. From outside came a hail :

  “Hey, Bill, the noo foreman wants to see yu.”

  “Is that so?” a rumbling voice replied. “Which I’m shorely sorry to keep His Royal ‘Ighness waitin’. What’s he like, this foreman fella?”

  They could not hear the answer, but the deep voice was not so reticent. “So we gotta be bossed by a boy, huh?” it said.

  “Well, Kit warn’t no greybeard.”

  “He was the Old Man’s son—future owner o’ the ranch, which is some different. How do we know this yer hombre ain’t been planted on us by the Circle B? He may’ve pulled the wool over Purdie’s eyes, but he’s gotta talk straight to me, yu betcha. Just yu watch yore Uncle Bill.”

  He swaggered through the bunkhouse door, and the new foreman’s eyes twinkled when they rested on the short, sturdy figure, with its bro
ad shoulders, long arms, and slightly-bowed legs, of this man he might have trouble with. The amusement was only momentary, and his face was gravity itself when he nodded to the newcomer. None of the outfit noticed that in removing his cigarette his fingers had rested for an instant on his lips; their attention was centred on their companion. What had come over him they could not imagine, but at the sight of the new foreman the belligerent frown had vanished, and his craggy, clean-shaven features expressed only goggling amazement.

  “Yu wantin’ me?” he had growled on entering, and straightway become dumb, one hand pushing back his big hat and revealing the straggly wisps of hair beneath.

  “Glad to meet you, Mister…?” The foreman paused. “Yago—Bill Yago,” the man replied like one in a dream.

  “Shore,” the newcomer nodded. “Purdie said yu would put me wise. Now, yu tell the boys what needs doin’ today, an’ then yu an’ me’ll take a look at the range.”

  “I’m a-watchin’ yu, Uncle,” whispered a voice.

  Yago whirled round. “Yu, Curly, go get some wire an’ mend the fence round The Sump,” he ordered. “I had to pull two critters out’n her yestiddy.”

  The joker’s face dropped in dismay; a coil of barbed wire is awkward to handle on foot; on horseback it becomes a pest; moreover, it was some distance to the quagmire, and if there is anything a cowboy thoroughly detests it is making or mending a fence.

  “Aw, Bill…” the victim began.

  “Beat it,” Yago snapped, and proceeded to apportion work to the rest of the outfit.

  Ten minutes later he and the new foreman were riding up the slope at the back of the ranch. Not until they were hidden by the pines did either of them speak, and then Yago turned to his companion.

  “Jim, I’m almighty glad to see yu, but what in thunderation brung yu to these parts?” he asked.

  Sudden’s reply was incomplete.

  “As for bein’ glad, yu looked more like yu’d been struck by lightnin’,” he smiled. “There’s me, shiverin’ in my shoes, waitin’ for a big stiff to come an’ crawl my hump, an’ in sifts a ornery little runt like yu.”