Sudden

by Oliver Strange

  “Flash it, yu white-livered sneak,” croaked the killer.

  For an instant he thought his prey would escape after all, for the puncher half turned as though about to decline the challenge. Then recollection came; he saw a picture from the past, and the clammy fingers of fear clutched at his heart. He knew that movement, knew too that he was about to suffer the same fate as those he had himself wantonly destroyed. It was too late to retract; even as the thought darted through his brain he was dragging at his gun with the desperation of despair. He got it clear of the holster…

  All the nearest spectator could afterwards say was that, following a bang and spurt of flame from the puncher’s left hip, he saw Whitey stagger, double up at the knees, and sink slowly down to lie grotesquely sprawled on the sanded floor, his weapon clattering beside him. “Never see Green go for his gun a-tall, but he musta done, o’ course,” he added. “An’ fast? I’m tellin’ yu, I believe he could make lightnin’ hump itself.”

  The crash of the shot ended the tension. Forgetful of their games, the gamblers crowded round the bar, jostling one another to get a glimpse of the dead man. One of them picked up the dropped revolver and ran a finger along the nicks in the butt.

  “Kept his tally—six of ‘em,” he remarked. “If there’s the same number on the twin, he’s sent twelve fellas to wait for him on the other side.”

  “He tried for one too many,” was Weldon’s comment. “Me, I’m sooperstitious thataway; when I’ve bumped off a dozen, I’m stoppin’.”

  The remark, despite the presence of death, raised a laugh. Men who made it their business to kill received small sympathy when they paid the penalty. In Western idiom, Whitey had “got what was comin’ to him,” and there was no more to be said.

  Sudden went to the marshal, who was looking curiously at the body. “Yu know where I’m to be found if yu want me,” he said.

  “This hombre asked for it,” the officer replied. “I ain’t wantin’ yu, but—others may,” he added meaningly.

  The cowpuncher shrugged his shoulders and went out. Gradually the players returned to their games, the corpse was removed, and the episode, for the time being, was ended. When, a little later, Mart Burdette came in, there was nothing to show that a man had but just died.

  Standing near the door, the newcomer looked the room over.

  “Know where Whitey is?” he asked the blacksmith.

  “Well, I dunno how long it takes to get to hell, but I guess he’s there by now; he started half an hour back,” was the grim reply.

  Mart stared at him. “Yu mean he’s—dead?” he asked incredulously.

  “Shore I do,” Weldon told him. “He’s most awful dead, that Whitey fella.”

  The Circle B man’s breath whistled as he drew it in. “How come?” he inquired.

  “He got to domineerin’ that stranger—the one what fetched in Kit Purdie,” the smith explained.

  “An’ he beat him to it?” the other cried amazedly.

  “Yu might call it that,” Weldon grinned. He was enjoying himself—he did not like the Burdettes. “Green let him get his gun out an’ then—well, Whitey sorta lost interest, as a fella will with a slug between his eyes.”

  Mart turned away, and his informant, with a sardonic smile, watched him go.

  “He seems quite astonished—an’ upset,” he remarked to his neighbours. “Didn’t know the Circle B was that fond o’ their riders.”

  Mart went straight to where Slype was sitting. “I hear Green has shot Whitey. What yu goin’ to do about it?” he asked truculently.

  “Bury the body,” the marshal said. “Whitey would have it, an’ he drawed first.”

  Mart frowned. “Is that what I’m to tell King?”

  “Shore an’ yu can add that Whitey warn’t good enough,” Slippery said meaningly, and there was a gleam of satisfaction in his foxy eyes.

  Burdette gulped a drink and went in search of his elder brother. He found him in “The Plaza,” exchanging pleasantries with its fair owner. Drawing him aside, Mart told what he had learned and delivered the marshal’s message. King’s eyebrows grew black as he listened.

  “Whitey’s gun musta snagged,” he suggested.

  “Nary a snag,” Mart assured him. “He had it out afore the other fella made a move, an’

  Whitey could pump lead quicker’n anyone I ever see, not exceptin’ yu.”

  “If Green’s as good as that we gotta try somethin’ else,” King said musingly.

  “Get Luce to plug him from behind like he did Kit,” Mart proposed jocularly.

  To his surprise his brother took him seriously. “That’s an idea,” he said.

  “Shucks, I was jokin’,” the big man protested. “Why, him an’ Green are friendly.”

  “An’ yu are a chump, Mart,” King grinned, slapping a genial hand on his shoulder. “It’s a good thing the Burdette family has me to do the thinkin’.”

  With a smile on his face he went back to his philandering. He had staked, lost, and must stake again; that was all there was to it. But, next time, he would see to it that the deck was stacked.

  “Honey,” he said. “Do yu think it possible to bring down two birds with one stone?”

  “It must be difficult unless the birds are close together,” Lu Lavigne laughed.

  “In the case I have in mind, they would be some distance apart, which shorely adds to the merit o’ the performance.” Burdette chuckled, and would tell her no more.

  Chapter XI

  MRS. LAVIGNE tripped daintily along the clumsy board sidewalk, not in the least unconscious of the admiration she aroused. The wide, floppy straw hat she wore shaded her face from the searching rays of the sun, but in no way concealed its attractiveness, and from every citizen she encountered came a smiling greeting or a respectful salutation, for the owner of “The Plaza” was not only a pretty woman but—among the sterner sex, at least—a popular one. So that it was a shock when a man she knew, head hunched and hatbrim pulled low, endeavoured to pass without a word. Impulsively she caught his arm.

  “Luce Burdette!” she cried. “Which have you lost—your eyesight or your manners?”

  The boy stopped instantly, dragging his hat from his head. “Folks ain’t anxious to know me these days, Lu,” he excused. “It mightn’t do yu any good to be seen speakin’ to me. King…”

  She snapped her fingers. “That, for King. I choose my own friends,” she said, and shrugged her shoulders. “For the rest, well, my reputation is beyond repair, you know,” she laughed, albeit a trifle bitterly.

  Her kind, quizzical eyes studied him, noted the newborn lines in the young face, and divined the deep-seated misery which possessed him.

  “Yo’re a good fella, Lu, an’ if ever I hear a man say different I’ll make him wish he’d been born dumb,” Luce told her.

  “Thank you, Luce, but you won’t hear much from the men,” she replied. The acid touch in her tone deepened. “It takes a woman to damn a woman.”

  “An’ a man to damn a man,” he said with a wry smile. “Well, it’s shore good to know I got one friend, Lu, an’ I’m thankin’ yu.”

  “You have more than that, boy. I’m guessing there’s another across the street right now and—I’m sorry I stopped you.”

  On the other side of the churned-up, dusty strip which separated the buildings Nan Purdie had just climbed to her saddle and was riding slowly away. To all appearances, she did not see Luce and his companion. Mrs. Lavigne’s shrewd eyes read the young man’s face.

  “I don’t think she saw you,” she said, well aware that this was not the truth. “If you want to speak to her, don’t mind me.”

  Luce shook his head. “Miss Purdie ain’t got no use for a Burdette,” he said, also meaning to mislead.

  The lady laughed. “You are terribly young, Luce,” she told him. “Some day you’ll learn that a woman has a use for the Devil himself if she cares for him. There, I’m getting sentimental in my old age, and forgetting one of the reasons for
stopping you. Tell your friend Green that a certain outfit is rather peeved at losing its star gun-fighter, and will take any chance to even the score.”

  “I’ll give him the message, but if King knew yu sent it…”

  “Oh, shucks,” she responded. “Your big brother may have this town buffaloed, but I’m not scared of him.”

  “That’s mighty interestin’,” drawled a harsh voice behind her, and King Burdette stepped from the store outside which they were standing. How long he had been there they had no means of knowing. He did not appear to be in a pleasant humour, but his scowling face did not daunt the lady. Her shapely head lifted and she faced him unflinchingly.

  “‘Lo, King, eavesdropping, eh?” she gibed. “Well, you know what they say about listeners.”

  Ignoring her, he spoke to his brother. “So yo’re still around, huh?”

  “Yu see me,” Luce retorted. “Get yore guns back?”

  The red surged into King’s cheeks at the taunt. “Yu’ll step in my way once too often, yu fool,” he threatened. “For now, make yoreself scarce; I’ve got somewhat to say to this—lady.”

  The girl’s eyes flashed at the sneer on the last word, but with the sweetest of smiles, she held out her hand to the younger man.

  “So long, Luce, and the best of luck,” she said. “Come and see me whenever you like.”

  When he had gone, she turned to King and said lightly, “And what does your Majesty want with me?”

  He was silent for a moment, his sullen gaze roving over her, absorbing the dark beauty, noting how her soft draperies, wafted by the wanton wind, outlined her perfect figure. She was a picture to stir the pulse of an anchorite, and King Burdette was not that. But she must have a lesson—women, like horses, had to be mastered. So he veiled the admiration in his bold eyes and said brusquely.

  “What were yu sayin’ to that pup?”

  “So you didn’t listen?” she countered.

  “I was at the back o’ the store, an’ on’y come out in time to hear yu tellin’ the town how brave yu are,” he said heavily.

  “If it requires courage not to sit up and beg at your order, I have it,” she replied.

  “However, I don’t mind informing you that I was trying to cheer up that poor boy, and also, I asked him to warn Green that your outfit is not particular how it squares an account.”

  “Yu dared?” King stormed.

  “Oh, I’m brave—you said so yourself,” she mocked. “It is almost my only virtue.”

  “What’s yore interest in that damned cow-wrastler?” he rasped.

  She smiled contentedly; he was jealous, and therefore victory was hers. “I like him,” she said easily. “We have one quality in common—courage; he gave your hired killer more than an even break.”

  “I had nothin’ to do with that—it was a private affair—I reckon they had met afore,” King defended.

  “Oh, yeah,” she murmured.

  “Yu don’t believe me?” he queried.

  Her eyes twinkled. “As if I could doubt you, George Washington Burdette,” she reproached.

  The man glared at her. “Lu Lavigne,” he said thickly, “One day I shall twist that slim neck o’ yores.”

  “That would be a pity—it has been admired,” she smiled. “Now, I’ve a score of purchases to make. If Your Majesty has no further commands …” She slanted her eyes at him and waited, demurely obedient.

  Burdette was recovering his poise. “Yo’re a provokin’ little devil,” he said. “Lemme come an’ help with the shoppin’.”

  The girl elevated her hands in horror. “Mercy me! And what of my character?” she cried.

  “It would be all over the town that we were setting up housekeeping together.”

  “An’ why not?” King said eagerly. “Come to the Circle B an’—”

  “Take the peerless Miss Purdie’s leavings, were you going to say?” she asked sweetly.

  The change in his face astounded her; stark fury flamed from his eyes. Through his clenched teeth he hissed, “So the young skunk blabbed, did he? Well, that’ll be all, for him. I’ll…”

  Terrified at the result of her shot in the dark, she hastened to repair the damage. “If you mean Luce, he said nothing to me of Miss Purdie and yourself,” she urged. “It was a guess, King, just to tease you, and I’m sorry.”

  He scowled at her in savage doubt, but the dark eyes met his steadily, and he knew that, whatever her faults, Lu Lavigne was not a liar. He nodded, as though in answer to his own thought.

  “I’m takin’ yore word. If yu wanta do Luce a good turn, get him to punch the breeze; this place ain’t big enough for both of us—an’ me, I’m aimin’ to stay. Shall I see yu to-night?”

  “I can’t prevent you. I shall be attending to my business of helping men to forget they are men,” she said wearily, and turned away.

  King Burdette strode up the street, his mind filled by two women. Honey-coloured hair and blue eyes warred with black hair and eyes until, with a sardonic grin, the man decided there was only one way out of the difficulty—he wanted, and would have, both. “What King Burdette goes after, he gets,” he muttered darkly. As for that cursed cowpuncher and Luce, they were obstacles in his way, and must be dealt with. Whitey had failed, and even now that staggering fact seemed hardly credible. A lurid oath escaped his lips, and a small urchin trailing behind, trying to ape the great man’s walk, garnered with glee the—to him—unmeaning words.

  “Gee! I’ll spring that one on Snubby,” he promised himself. “Bet it’ll make his eyebrows climb some.”

  The passing of Whitey and the manner of it aroused great excitement in the hunkhouse of the C P, and at once put the new foreman on a pinnacle. The prowess of the dead gunman was not mere hearsay, two of the notches on his guns having been acquired since his appearance in Windy, and it was commonly believed that only one man in the district would have any chance against him in an even break. This was King Burdette, and though the test had never been made, there were those who held him the faster of the two. At supper, on the night following the killing, the point was being discussed.

  “King is fast all right, but yu gotta remember that Green let Whitey git his gun a’most clear before he started,” Curly pointed out.

  “A left-handed shot, an’ he put the pill plumb atween the eyes,” Moody contributed.

  “That’s shootin’.”

  “Shorely is,” Flatty agreed. “Hi, Bill, why didn’t yu warn us that the noo foreman was a six-gun wizard? One of us mighta called him.”

  “He’d ‘a’ boxed yore ears,” Yago grinned. “Shucks, Jim ain’t so much; o’ course, I’m not sayin’ he’s slow exactly …”

  His deprecatory drawl was drowned by a volley of scathing expletives which brought a broad smile to his leathery countenance; his friend had made good, and the boys would follow him to hell and back again. The talk veered to other topics, and Moody began to relate a snake episode. Now snake stories in the West rank with fishing yarns in the East, and get much the same credence. This one proved no exception.

  “I was ‘bout half a mile from the line-house when I a’most rode on to a coupla big rattlers thrashin’ about in the grass,” Moody began. “The funny thing was that though they were fightin’ they seemed to be tryin’ to git away from one another. Pretty soon I savvied the trouble: they musta bin wrastlin’ an’ some way had got their tails tied together; o’ course, the more they pulled the tighter the knot got, an’ there they was, tuggin’ an’ strikin’ like all possessed.”

  “An’ yu got down, untied ‘em, an’ they lifted their hats, bowed politely, an’ went off arm in arm,” Curly suggested.

  “I did not,” the narrator replied. “I blowed the heads off’n them reptiles. If yu don’t believe me, ask Strip; I showed ‘em to him when we passed the place later. Ain’t that so, Strip?”

  Levens grinned widely as he said, “Yeah, but I figure yu shot them varmints first an’ tied their tails afterwards.”

  A yell of
derision greeted the statement and a rush was made for the tale-teller. In the midst of the ensuing hubbub Yago slipped away and went in search of his foreman. He found him sitting in front of his own quarters, smoking and gazing reflectively at the valley, over which the last rays of the sinking sun were shedding a golden radiance. Squatting beside him, he rolled a smoke, and for a time there was silence. Then, when the red disk had disappeared behind the shoulder of Old Stormy, and the purple shadows were deepening in the hollows, Yago said:

  “It was a frame-up, Jim; the Burdettes meant to get yu.”

  The foreman’s slitted eyes rested on him. “Yo’re that bright to-night, Bill, I can’t hardly bear to look at yu,” he said with gentle sarcasm.

  “Quit yore foolin’,” his friend retorted. “They’ll try again; yu gotta keep cases.”

  “I had a message from Luce sayin’ just that,” Sudden said.

  “From Luce Burdette?” Bill cried amazedly.

  “Through him, I oughta said. Actually, it was sent by Mrs. Lavigne.”

  Yago emitted a snort of disgust. “Hell’s bells, Jim, don’t yu get cluttered up with a petticoat,” he urged.

  “I ain’t no right to, anyway, till I’ve found them ferias,” the foreman mused, his mind on the past.

  Yago was silent for a while; he knew of the strange quest which had made a wanderer of his companion. Then he blurted out: “They say she’s King Burdette’s woman.”

  “Liars are plenty prevalent in places like this,” Sudden told him, and smiled into the thickening gloom. “Allasame, ol’-timer, she sent me the warnin’.”

  Even had Yago any reply to this, the appearance of Purdie and his daughter would have closed his mouth. The rancher nodded to both.

  “Well, yu scotched one snake, Green, but there’s others in the nest,” he said. “Yu’ll need to watch out.”

  “I’m aimin’ to,” the foreman smiled, “but yu’ll have me all scared to death. Yu just said what Yago was rammin’ home, an’ before him, Luce Burdette.”