Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (12 page)

 
          
“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 will, 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.

 
          
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.”