Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (20 page)

 
          
“That
lid’s an old one which I left at the Circle B when I cleared out,” Luce
explained. He pointed to the chair beside him. “There’s the one I’m usin’.”

 
          
Slype
laughed nastily. “Bright
boy,
ain’t yu?” he sneered.
“But it
don’t
go this time. Twice yu bin lucky an’ got
away with it, but this is yore finish.” He surveyed the crowded room, narrowed
lids hiding the malevolent triumph in his gaze. “Some o’ yu mebbe ain’t got the
straight o’ this; here it is,” he said, and went on to give a brief summary of
the facts as he knew them. His concluding words were, “I reckon that’s good
enough for us to go ahead an’ try this fella right away.”

 
          
“Try
him?” echoed a hoarse voice. “Oh, yeah, an’ give him a chance to lie hisself
out of it again. Yo’re mighty fussy, marshal, ‘bout stringin’ up a cowardly
coyote who kills from cover.

 
          
Mebbe
it’s ‘
cause
he’s a Burdette, huh?”

 
          
The
speaker was Goldy Evans, still sore at the loss of his dust, and a chorus of
approval showed that he had plenty of support. The marshal drew himself up with
a farcical attempt at dignity.

 
          
“A
Burdette gets the same treatment from me as any other man,” he announced. “I
represent the law, an’ there’ll be no necktie party—if I can prevent it.” The
pause and the lowered tone of the last few words told the turbulent element in
the crowd all it wanted to know. Slype had made his protest; if they forced his
hand …

 
          
Magee,
who, arriving late, had only contrived to make his way just inside the door,
threw up a hand.

 
          
“Aisy,
boys, give the lad a hearin’,” he shouted. “Shure it’s agin all nature he
should do this thing—Green saved his life, ye mind. Lavin’ th’ hat behind looks
purty thin to me.”

 
          
But
for once the saloon-keeper, popular though he was, found himself powerless;
only a few voices backed him up, and these were drowned by the opposition.

 
          
“Aw,
Mick, one customer won’t make much difference,” a miner gibed, and the
Irishman’s protest ended in a burst of laughter.

 
          
The
brutal witticism, typical of a land where tragedy and comedy frequently stalked
hand in hand, conveyed no hope to the accused. He knew that these men, having
decided by their own rough and ready reasoning that he was guilty, would hang
him with no more compunction than they would have in breaking the back of a
rattlesnake. The old Biblical law, “An eye for an eye,” was perhaps the only
ordinance for which they had any respect. Nevertheless, the boy faced them
boldly, making no resistance when two of them grabbed his arms and hustled him
towards the door.

 
          
“Hand
the prisoner over to me,” Slype blustered, and made a belated attempt to draw
his gun, only to find that some cautious soul in the press behind him had
already removed it.

 
          
“Best
not interfere, marshal,” the fellow—a red-jowled, stalwart teamster—warned. “Yu
can have yore shootin’ iron when this business is settled.”

 
          
The
officer shrugged his shoulders resignedly; he had put up a bluff, but with no
intention of trying to make it good. He saw the condemned youth vanish through
the door in a medley of heaving bodies, and presently followed, to make a final
effort, not to save the victim’s neck, but his own face. The fools, he
reflected; they thought they had beaten him, and were only doing just what he
wanted them to. He strode after the jeering, shouting crowd, and like peas from
a pod, men popped from the buildings on either side of the street and joined
the procession. By the time it stopped, nearly every man in the place was
present.

 
          
The
halt was made at a cottonwood which shaded the last shack—going east—in the
settlement, and had the distinction of being the one tree the actual town could
boast. It was a giant, only its great girth having saved it from transformation
into building material. Round it the spectators milled, jockeying to get a good
view of the tightlipped, grey-faced boy who flushed a little and then proudly
straightened up when the rope, with its running noose, was dropped over his
head. The other end was pitched over an outflung branch above him and three men
gripped it.

 
          
“Anythin’
to say, Burdette?” ripped out Goldy Evans, who had constituted himself leader
of the lynching party, and added, “Yu might as well tell where yu cached my
dust—it won’t be no use where yo’re goin’.”

 
          
The
prisoner looked at the ring of threatening, ghoulish faces thrust eagerly
forward to see him die. “I never had yore dust, Evans, an’ I didn’t shoot
Green,” he replied firmly. “Yo’re hangin’ an innocent man.”

 
          
Magee
and several of the more solid citizens believed him, but could do nothing
against the overwhelming odds. The bulk of the crowd received the statement
with ornate expressions of unbelief; the lust for blood was in their nostrils;
nothing short of a miracle would stop them now.

 
          
The
marshal knew it; this was not the first Western mob, with its weird ideas of
justice, its mad desire to destroy, that he had seen. He voiced one more feeble
protest.

 
          
“Boys,
I can’t let this go on—it ain’t reg’lar. Yo’re robbin’ the law of its rights.”

 
          
“Git
to hell outa this an’ take yore law with yu,” snarled the teamster who had
threatened him in the hotel. “That there branch’ll bear two, an’ we can easy
find another rope.”

 
          
Slype
turned away with a well-simulated gesture of despair, and the teamster plunged
again into the jostling throng, anxious not to miss the climax of the drama.
Every eye was now fixed on the slim, youthful figure waiting tensely for the
word which would hurl him into eternity. No one noticed the approach of two
riders who, about to enter the town, had pulled up at the sight of the
gathering. Evans was about to give the fatal signal when another command rang
out :

 
          
“Drop
that rope, yu fellas!”

 
          
Heads
turned and oaths sprang from amazed lips when it was seen that the speaker was
none other than the man whose murder they helieved themselves to be avenging.
The C P foreman’s face was of beaten bronze, and out of it his slitted eyes
gleamed frostily upon the executioners; they let go the rope as though it had
been red-hot.

 
          
“What’s
Burdette been doin’ now?” Sudden asked.

 
          
A
dozen voices told him the story, and as he heard it, the cowpuncher’s lips
curled in a sneer of disgust. Then he drawled, “Seein’ as I ain’t dead none to
speak of, I reckon the prisoner can shuck that rope an’ stand clear.”

 
          
In
a flurry of dust Mrs. Lavigne pulled her pony to a stop at Sudden’s side.
Returning from a ride, she had only just heard the news. When she saw the
puncher’s contemptuous smile and Bill Yago’s broad grin, the colour crept
slowly back into her cheeks.

 
          
“They
told me you were—dead, and that they were going to hang Luce,” she said
breathlessly.

 
          
“All
a mistake, Mrs. Lavigne,” Sudden said lightly. “As yu see, I ain’t cached, an’
the lynchin’ will—not—
take
place.”

 
          
The
marshal fancied he saw a chance to reassert his authority. “Hold on, Green,” he
snapped. “What right yu got to call the turn? If this fella didn’t bump yu off,
he tried to, an’ I’m holdin’ him on that.” A murmur from the rougher element in
the assembly encouraged him, and he went on, “As marshal o’ this yer burg…”

 
          
“
Yo’re a false alarm
,” came the acid interruption. “Yu stand
there like a bump on a log while a man who ain’t been tried is strung up.” The
speaker’s quick eye saw the empty holster, and he laughed aloud. “Cripes! So
they took away yore gun?” He turned to the crowd in mock reproof. “Boys, that
warn’t noways right—it don’t show a fittin’ respect for the law. How’d yu know
he don’t want to argue with somebody—or somethin’?”

 
          
This
brought a cackle from one of the audience, and the merriment spread. Conscious
that they had nearly committed a terrible blunder, the men were willing to
forget it in ridiculing Slype, whose sallow face grew
more
sour
as the jesting voices rose.

 
          
“Give
the man his gun,” someone cried.
“Whats a good of a marshal
without a gun?”

 
          
“Huh!
Whatsa good o’ some marshals with one?” another wanted to know.

 
          
Sudden
had one more thing to say. “Someone tried to get me to-day, marshal, but it
wasn’t this Burdette,” he said meaningly. “Don’t let anyone persuade yu
different. It’s mighty lucky for yu I came along in time; yu sabe?” The marshal
did, and the chill in the quiet voice made him shiver. The foreman turned to
Luce. “I’m a-goin’ to the hotel; yu better come with me, if there ain’t
no
objections.”

 
          
There
were none; this satirical, long-limbed young man who had beaten Whitey to the
draw was clearly not a person to take chances with, and the squinting, hopeful
eyes of Bill Yago, who was known as a willing and enthusiastic fighter, did not
add to the attractiveness of the proposition. So the crowd opened to let
through the man it had come to hang, and, with the volatile spirit of the time
and place, was grimly humorous.

 
          
“We
was
plenty near puttin’ one over on you, Luce,”
grinned a miner. “Yu shore oughta sell that grey; what’ll yu take?”

 
          
“Damn
good care yu don’t get him,” retorted the youth, and looked at the marshal. “Yu
can tell yore boss, King Burdette, that yu’ve fallen down again on the job o’
gettin’ rid of me. I’m stayin’.”

 
          
Without
waiting for a reply from the rageful, stuttering officer, he joined Sudden,
Yago, and Mrs. Lavigne, walking beside them as they paced up the street. At the
door of “The Plaza” the girl spoke,

 
          
“Didn’t
you get any warning?” she asked.

 
          
“Yes,
an’ I’m thankin’ yu, ma’am,” Sudden replied. “I allow I was plumb careless—an’
fortunate.”

 
          
“A
man can play his luck too long,” she said, and with a wise little nod, left
them.

 
          
Yago’s
gaze followed her. “She’s too good for that skunk,” he remarked. “Got guts,
that gal has.”

 
          
Which
inelegance, coming from a confirmed misogynist, was indeed a
compliment.
The foreman regarded his friend with surprise, and then a mischievous twinkle
danced in his eyes.

 
          
“Pore
of Bill,” he murmured. “
It’s
wuss’n measles when yu
get it late in life, love is. Look at him a-blushin,’ Luce.” Which was an
obvious
libel,
since Yago’s leathery skin was as
incapable of blushing as a boot-sole. “Rotten trick for Master Cupid to play on
a fella what’s been damnin’ women all his life,” the tormentor went on. “Yu
ain’t got a chance, ol’-timer, but
never
yu mind,
slick yoreself up, buy a new shirt—yu can do with one, anyway—an’ —”

 
          
“Aw,
go to hell, yu—yu blatherskite,” Yago shouted.

 
          
“Let’s
make it the hotel—they tell me drinks ain’t too plentiful where yu said, an’
I’m as dry as the Staked Plain,” his foreman smiled.

 
          
THAT
same evening, on the verandah at the C P, Sudden related the day’s happenings
to an interested audience of two. The rancher’s brow grew black when he learned
of the attack on his foreman. Angrily he struck in on the story,