“It was shorely funny to see them two skippin’ round the corral like a coupla jackrabbits, Flatty without a stitch above his middle, an’ the big red brand o’ the iron showin’ clear on his back. They does the first lap in record time, an’ then Flatty’s luck breaks—he stubs his toe on a stump an’ flings his han’s up to save hisself. An’, o’ course, that’s the minit Miss Nan appears, comin’ to get her pony. Flatty gives her one horrified look, grabs his slippin’ pants, an’ streaks for the bunkhouse. Moody pulls up an’ tries to look unconcerned.
“What on earth is the matter with Watson?” Miss Nan asks.
“Just a li’l race,” Moody explains. “I bet I could beat him even if he stripped.
“Yo’re the poorest liar in the outfit,” Miss Nan smiles, an’ to this day Moody don’t know whether she meant it as a compliment. We gets Flatty smoothed down after a bit—not with the iron this time—an’ he consents to let Moody go on breathin’, but he’ll carry that brand till he caches.”
“Which Miss Nan shorely saved yore triflin’ life,” Flatty grinned at the other actor in the comedy.
“Shucks, I had yu beat a mile,” Moody retorted. “What yu gotta belly-ache about, anyways—I cured yu.”
The wrangle went on, good-humoured, mordant jests which showed the men were real friends. Sudden listened with a smile; he felt he was going to like this outfit.
About two hours later the new foreman of the C P rode into Windy, added his horse to the dozen or so already attached to the hitch-rail outside “The Plaza,” and stepped inside. Smaller than “The Lucky Chance,” the saloon differed in little else save that it was rather more ornate; mirrors, and pictures of a sort, adorned the walls, which were of squared logs, and the tables and chairs were of better quality. In many little ways the hand of a woman made itself evident.
But if “The Plaza” was no more than a commonplace Western saloon, it possessed one feature which raised it above the rut—its owner. Seated behind the bar, she looked like a fine jewel in a pinch-beck setting. Her beautiful black hair, plaited and coiled upon her small head, was held in place by a great Spanish comb set with red stones. A flame-coloured dress of silk revealed neck and arms, and on her white bosom, suspended by a slender chain of gold, was a single ruby, gleaming like a new-spilt spot of blood. She had been chatting to the bar-tender and regarding the scene with the indifference of use, but her eyes lit up when Sudden, hat in hand, stepped up to the bar.
“Ah, my so brave caballero has come to veezit ze poor —how you say—tenderfoot?” she greeted.
“Shucks,” he smiled, as he took the slim white hand she extended. “I ain’t no more a caballero than yu are a Greaser, an’ that pony warn’t wantin’ to get away from yu—hosses have sense.”
She clapped her hands softly. “A compliment, not so?” she laughed.
“Yu oughta know,” he said. “Reckon yu get aplenty.”
A little shadow flitted across her face. “True, my friend,” she said soberly. “And what are they worth? I’d give them all for one honest word of censure.” Then the dancing lights came back into her eyes. “Not that I don’t get any of that, you know. Oh yes, from my own sex especially. I am a wicked woman, a brazen hussy, and you’ll lose your character if you speak to me.”
The cowpuncher grinned. “Fella can’t lose what he ain’t got—I’m a pretty desperate person my own self,” he bantered, for the bitterness behind her gay tone was very apparent.
“Also, I never did allow anyone to pick my friends for me.”
He saw her face change. “Hell! What’s that fool trying to do?” she cried.
Trouble had started at a neighbouring table. A big, blue shirted miner with a coarse, liquor-bloated face was on his on his feet fumbling for a gun at his hip and mouthing curses.
In an instant the girl had slipped from her seat.
“Lemme ‘tend to this,” Sudden suggested.
“No, I can handle it,” she replied.
Raising the flap, she stepped from behind the bar and three quick strides brought her to the trouble-maker just as his weapon left the holster. The men he had been playing with were standing, hands on their own guns, watching him uncertainly.
“Put that gun back and get out of here,” the woman said sharply.
The man looked at her, standing slim and straight before him, and for a moment it seemed that he would obey. Then from somewhere in the room came a laugh which bred shame in the drink-sodden mind.
“Yu go to hell,” the fellow said thickly. “Think I’m goin’ to be ordered about by a booze-slingin’…”
Hardly had the vile epithet left his lips when the girl’s hand swept across his cheek with a slap which rang out like a pistol-shot and drew an oath of pain and surprise from the recipient.
“You dirty beast!” she cried, her tone tense with passion. “Vamoose, or I’ll send you out on a shutter.”
For a few seconds the bloodshot, liquor-glazed eyes fought with the flaming black ones, and fell. In the girl’s left hand, held steadily at her hip, was a tiny nickel-plated revolver—a toy, a man would have said—but it was sufficiently powerful to take life at such close range. Without another word the drunkard turned and staggered weavingly from the saloon. When Mrs. Lavigne returned to her place behind the bar her look at the puncher was defiant, as though she dared him to criticize her action.
“I won’t stand for that sort of thing here,” she said.
“Yu shore have nerve, ma’am,” Sudden said, and meant it. His admiration brought the smile back to her lips.
“Pooh! He knew the boys would blow him to bits if he laid a finger on me,” she pointed out.
“Fella in that state is liable to act without thinkin’,” he said, and then, “For a tenderfoot, yu got that gun out pretty pronto.”
“I was born and bred in the West,” she explained, and when he smilingly suggested that she had lost a customer, shrugged her dainty shoulders.
“He’ll be in to-morrow to beg my pardon,” she told him confidently. “Liquor, if he takes enough of it, will make a fool of any man.”
“An’ yet yu sell it,” he said, and was immediately sorry when he noted the tiny furrow between her brows.
“Someone else would if I didn’t, and I have to live,” she retorted, and then the even white teeth shut down on a single word, “Damnation!”
A newcomer had entered the saloon, a tall, dark man, carefully dressed in cowboy costume and wearing two guns. Though this was the first time he had seen him, Sudden knew this must be Kingley Burdette. With a condescending nod here and there, the fresh arrival strode to the bar and swept off his hat so elaborately as to make the gesture a mockery.
“Evenin’ honeybird. Who’s been rufflin’ yore pretty plumage?” was his familiar greeting, and then, without waiting for a reply, “Gosh, but I’m thirsty.”
“Ted will serve you,” she said coldly, and beckoned to the bar-tender.
“He will not,” Burdette answered. “A drink poured by yore fair hands will taste ten times nicer than one from Ted’s paws, which, though doubtless useful, are far from ornamental.”
“As you will,” she said indifferently, and filled a glass.
“Here’s how, carissima,” he toasted. His eyes dwelt possessively upon her and then travelled to the cowpuncher?”
“Yo’re Green, I reckon; I wanted to see yu.”
“Yo’re King Burdette, I reckon; take a good look,” Sudden mimicked, in the same insolent tone the other had used.
“I hear yo’re huntin’ a job,” Burdette went on, and the sneer was very palpable.
“Someone’s been stringin’ yu—I ain’t doin’ no such thing,” the puncher replied.
“Well, it don’t matter, but Luce havin’ cut adrift from the Circle B I could use another rider,” King said carelessly. “When yu get tired a’ washin’ dirt yu might look me up.”
Sudden smiled sardonically; the patronizing air both galled and amused him. He struck back. “Mebbe I wi
ll, but I warn yu I’m shy o’ practice with a runnin’ iron.”
He saw the blood show redly in the sallow cheeks and the dark eyes narrow to pin-points.
Burdette’s voice now had an edge on it.
“Meanin’?”
“Just what I said. Dessay I could change a C P into a Circle B—it’s an easy play. See yu later—mebbe.”
He lifted his hat to Mrs. Lavigne, nodded casually to Burdette, and went out. The Circle B man stared after him, perplexed and scowling.
“Fresh fella, huh?” he growled. “What the hell was he drivin’ at? An’ where does the C P come in?”
“He’s riding for Purdie,” Lu Lavigne pointed out.
“The devil he is,” King said, and his frown was darker. “Damn him, he was laughin’ at me.” He glanced up and found that the puncher was not the only one to take such a liberty; there was a demure twinkle in the girl’s eyes; she was avenging herself for his insolence in the presence of a stranger.
“Tickles yu, does it?” he sneered. “Think yu got another admirer? Forget it. When he’s been at the C Pa day or so an’ met Nan Purdie he won’t give yu a second thought. She’s growed up, that kid, without anybody noticin’, an’ I’m tellin’ yu, she’s the prettiest bit o’ stuff this side o’ the Mississippi. Add too, with Kit outa the way that she’ll get the C P, an’ is good, an’ yu can reckon up yore chances.”
The colour flamed in her face at the coarse, insulting speech. She knew that he was payin’ her back—that he meant to hurt—he was that kind of man. When possessed by passion he was ruthless, hard, ridden by the bitter temper he could usually control.
“You brute,” she raged. “I hate you!”
“No, yu love me, little tiger-cat,” he smiled, content that the lash of his tongue had stung her. “Though at the moment I do believe yu’d like to stick a knife in me. Now Nan Purdie would never think o’ doin’ that.”
“Damn Nan Purdie, and you,” she stormed. “She’s welcome to you if she can swallow the murder of her brother.”
King laughed lightly; he was in a good humour again now that he had made her angry.
“An unfortunate incident,” he said. “The Circle B has made its position clear by turnin’ Luce adrift an’ disownin’ him. If Purdie forces trouble it’ll be his own—funeral.”
Though his lips smiled there was a sinister emphasis on the last word, and the girl’s eyes sought his in an endeavour to read the truth, but learned nothing. Then, as he looked at her, his ill-temper seemed to vanish like a storm from a summer sky. Leaning across the bar, he whispered tenderly:
“Come, sweetness, we mustn’t quarrel. I’m sorry I hurt yu, but it was yore own fault—yu didn’t oughta waste those star-like eyes on no-‘count punchers.”
Lu Lavigne was used to these sudden changes; the warmth in the pleading voice, the devotion in the dark eyes, were no new things to her, and yet she allowed herself to be persuaded by them; jealousy is a potent advocate with a woman. But vanity demanded a small victory.
“You said—Nan Purdie—was prettier,” she pouted.
“Shucks, Lu, I didn’t mean that,” the other protested. “Yu got me goin’. She’s a good-looker, shore enough, but too pussy-kitten for my taste.”
“Even with the C P thrown in?” she asked with a tremulous smile.
“Yeah, even then,” he replied, and his voice became harsh again. “Listen to me, girl. If I want the C P ranch I’ll take it, an’ without any apron-strings tied to it. Sabe?”
He swallowed another drink, and refusing several invitations to join in a game, went out of the saloon. The eyes of the woman behind the bar followed him, and had he been able to read their expression rightly, he might not have felt quite so pleased with himself.
On leaving “The Plaza,” Sudden went to the hotel, where he found Luce Burdette, moping alone in his room. The young man welcomed him eagerly; he was finding the part of a pariah a bitter one to play.
“I’m damn glad to see yu, Green,” he said. “Ain’t got no news, I s’pose?”
“I have, sort of, but let’s hear yore’s first,” the visitor replied.
“I’ve nothin’ fresh to tell yu,” Luce returned despondently. “I’ve been all over the ground, an’ it happened like yu said. Two fellas was firm’ at Kit, an’ one of ‘em holds him while the other injuns round an’ drills him from behind. Couldn’t follow their tracks, they’d took care o’ that. Found some .38 an’ .44 shells where they cut down on him first, an’ that’s the sum total.”
“Where’d yu happen to be yesterday afternoon.?”
“Right here in town.”
“An’ yore hoss is a grey an’ ain’t shy a nail on the off fore?”
“Silver is a grey, an’ the on’y hoss I possess. Weldon shod him all over las’ week.”
“That means there’s another fella in these parts who uses a .38 rifle an’ rides a paint hoss with a nail missin’ in the off fore,” Sudden said, and told of the attempt on Strip Levens.
“There’s paints aplenty, an’ nails can be replaced,” Luce commented hopelessly. “We gotta find that gun.”
“Keep a-smilin’; we’ll do it,” the C P foreman said.
Chapter VIII
A WEEK slipped quietly by, and Sudden found himself settling down at the C P. He liked Purdie, liked the men he had to work with, and the companionship of his old friend, Yago, meant much to one who, for the last year or two, had lived the semi-solitary life of the wanderer.
Convinced that the Burdettes meant mischief, and uncertain what form it would take, he had been constantly on the alert and had not visited the town. Luce, he knew, was still about, and must be having a lonely time, for the fact that he had been driven away from the Circle B, and was being ignored by his three brothers, convinced most of the citizens of his guilt. It was Nan Purdie who put it in the foreman’s mind to ride into Windy. Meeting him on her way to the corral, she put a plain question :
“Have you heard anything of Luce Burdette, Mister Green?”
He told her what he knew, and added, “Seems kinda hard when nothin’s been proved.”
“It is cruel,” the girl said hotly. “Even his own brothers condemn him—the cowards. The Burdettes are bad, root and branch, but Luce is—different.”
She made a very pretty picture, her face flushed and her eyes flashing with indignation.
The foreman smiled sardonically at the reflection that, after all, perhaps Luce was not so much to be pitied. All he said, however, was, “I reckon yo’re right, ma’am; the Circle B has some reason for pinnin’ the deed on Luce. I’ll be in town this afternoon; mebbe I’ll see him.”
Her eyes thanked him, and as she went away the foreman’s gaze followed the trim, shapely figure speculatively.
“Must be kinda nice to have a pretty girl that concerned about yu,” he mused, and then, savagely, “Come alive, yu idjut.”
When, late in the afternoon, he reached Windy, he found the place bubbling with excitement over a new outrage. Goldy Evans, a prospector, had been struck down on his way back to town, and robbed of about a thousand dollars in dust. Goldy’s claim was situated on the lower slope of the southern wall of the valley. His story was that, having worked all day, he started to trudge the three miles home. The trail, which he had made himself by his daily journey, passed through a narrow rift in the rock.
“It’s damned dark in that gully,” the robbed man had explained when he told his tale.
“The blame’ walls near meet overhead, an’ I was no more than in it when I thought they’d fell on me. Dunno how long I was out, but the sun warn’t much lower when I come to. My belt was gone an’ my head felt like someone had parted my hair with an axe.”
“An’ I’m tellin’ yu, Goldy warn’t on’y sore in the head,” continued the citizen who had supplied Sudden with the news. “He’s lost a hefty stake, but there’s a chance he’ll git it back.”
“Did he see the fella?” the foreman asked.
“Reckon
so,” was the reply. “Goldy staggered along through the gully, an’ when he reaches the open, he sees a chap on a grey hoss ridin’ lickety-split for town. He was over a mile away, but Goldy says it was Luce Burdette. Him an’ the marshal is up at the hotel now.”
“Guess I’ll trail along an’ see what’s doin’,” Sudden said casually.
In the parlour of the hotel he found Luce, Slype, a red-faced, angry-looking fellow whose head was bandaged, and a crowd of curious onlookers. The accused man was glaring at them defiantly. On the table lay his six-shooter, a small doe-skin bag, and various other articles.
Evidently he had been disarmed and searched.
“I ain’t denyin’ I was up that way this afternoon, an’ I dessay it was me Evans saw,” Luce was saying as Sudden elbowed his way into the room.
“What was yu doin’ around there?” Slype asked.
“Mindin’ my own business,” snapped the boy.
“How’d yu git that dust?” growled Evans, pointing to the bag on the table.
“Worked for it,” Luce replied. “I’ve been diggin’ myself.”
“Yeah, in my belt,” sneered the miner. “An’ I s’pose yu got a hole in the ground all ready to show us?”
“I reckon it’s an open an’ shut case, Luce,” the marshal said. “Better come clean an’ tell us where yu cached the rest o’ the plunder.”
Sudden Page 7