Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (9 page)

 
          
“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 broad 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.”

 
          
Yago’s
face creased up. “I shore declared war, didn’t I?” he grinned, and then another
aspect of the affair occurred to him. “Say, Jim, yu’ll have to let me tell the
boys who yu are.”

 
          
“Yu
breathe a word o’ that an’ I’ll take yu to pieces an’ put yu together again all
wrong,” the foreman threatened.

 
          
“But
I gotta explain,” the little man protested. “Hell’s bells, Jim, they’ll laugh
the life out’n me.”

 
          
“Yu
can say I’m an old friend, an’ seem’ yu’ll be my segundo, I reckon they’ll let
yu off light,” Sudden conceded.

 
          
“Can’t
I just mention how yu stood up the posse that time an’ kept my neck out of a
noose?” Bill pleaded.

 
          
“Yu—can—not,”
was the decided answer. “Time yu forgot it yoreself. Yu an’
me
rode the same range back in Texas, an’ so yu let me off that callin’ over yu
promised.
Sabe?”

 
          
“Awright,”
Yago said resignedly. “Yu ain’t told me why yu come here.”

 
          
“For
the same reason yu
did,
yu of pirut. The climate down
south was gettin’ hotter an’ hotter, an’ my medical man advised a change.”

 
          
“Yu
ain’t on the dodge, Jim, are yu?” Bill asked anxiously. “Yu see, I heard o’ yu
from time to time.”

 
          
Sudden’s
face grew grim. “I’ll bet yu did—an’ nothin’ good,” he said bitterly. “Bill,
I’m shorely the baddest an’ cleverest man in the south-west; I can rob a bank
with one hand an’, at the same time, hold up a citizen two hundred miles away
with the other. I expect they are still fatherin’ felonies on me right now.”

 
          
Yago
nodded understandingly; he knew how it was. Though his own past had been fairly
hectic, he was credited with crimes he had not been guilty of. In the West, if
the dog got a bad name he was hanged—if they could catch him. It was Sudden who
broke the silence.

 
          
“D’yu
figure Luce Burdette shot young Purdie?”

 
          
“Nope,”
was the instant
reply.
“Luce ain’t like the rest of
‘em—
don’t
know how he come to be in Ol’ Burdette’s
litter a-tall.
More likely one o’ the other boys, or some o’
that gang o’ cut-throats ridin’ for ‘em.”

 
          
They
had reached a point on the mountain-side where the trees thinned and became
more stunted. Far below they could see the town, a huddled, unlovely collection
of tiny boxes; a blot on the beauty of the valley with its varied green of
foliage and grass; and stretches of grey sage.

 
          
Behind
them rose the bare, rocky fastnesses of Old Stormy.

 
          
“The
C P range reaches to four-five miles out o’ town,” Yago explained. “Thunder
River is our south boundary, an’ our east line is Dark Canyon, the other side
o’ which lies the Diamond S, the marshal’s lay-out.”

 
          
Sudden
nodded. He was studying the salient features of the mighty panorama before him;
Battle Butte, bold and forbidding, at the far end of the valley, a fitting home
for the Burdettes, unless their reputation belied them; the craggy, broken,
jumbled country to north and south, with the black forests, stony ridges, and
deep ravines. His first impression had been correct—it was a fierce and
spacious land.

 
          
“Who’s
doin’ the rustlin’?” he asked abruptly.

 
          
“How’d
yu know ‘bout that?” Bill said. “Purdie tell yu?”

 
          
“It
was just a guess,” the foreman admitted. He waved at the surrounding scenery.
“The durned place was made for it.”

 
          
“Yu
allus was a good guesser, Jim,” Yago told him. “Fact is
,
we are losin’ some—few head at a time.”

 
          
“It
don’t need
no
artist with a runnin’ iron to turn a C P
into a Circle B,” Sudden said reflectively. “An’ it would be a good way o’
rilin’ up Purdie.”

 
          
“Which
it didn’t
do,
Purdie havin’ the same idea.”

 
          
“So
they try somethin’ stronger, an’ shoot his son, huh?”

 
          
“Jim,
yo’re whistlin’,” Yago ejaculated. “They’ve allus wanted this range—it’s worth
five times their own, an’ besides”—he hesitated—“it’s generally reckoned that
somewheres in these rocks behind us is the source o’ the goldfound in the
river. Yes, sir, the Burdettes are out to drive the Purdies off an’ glom on to
their property; it ain’t just a matter o’ revenge.”