Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 03 - The Marshal of Lawless(1933) (4 page)

 
          
“I’m
stayin’ here; what about comin’ in for a pow-wow?”

 
          
He
had halted before an unpretentious log and shingle two-storey building, above
the door of which a rudely-lettered board announced, “Durley’s Rest House. Good
Food and Likker.”

 
          
Green
read the notice and smiled.

 
          
“I
hope he cooks better’n he spells,” he said.

 
          
“Shore
does, an’ I reckon he’s square at that,” responded the stranger, as he thrust
open the door.

 
          
The
bar they entered was small but neat and clean. A man of middle age, with a
round, red, jovial face greeted the
smaller
of the
pair with a reproving shake of the head.

 
          
“Yore
bed don’t
appear to ‘a’ bin used any last night,” he
said. “Sleepin’ out in thisyer town ain’t supposed to be healthy. No business
o’ mine, o’ course, but—” He pushed forward the customary bottle and glasses.
The little puncher shuddered visibly at the sight of them.

 
          
“Not
if yu paid me, ol’-timer,” he said earnestly. “I’m feelin’ like a warmed-up
corpse right now.”

 
          
“Yu
look it,” the landlord told him. “Been to Miguel’s, I s’pose? Yo’re old enough
to know better.”

 
          
“I
do know better, but I went there—wanted suthin with a kick in it.” He grinned
ruefully.

 
          
“I
got the kick awright, on my head from the way she aches. If you had a cup o’
strong coffee now—” He looked enquiringly at Green.

 
          
“Coffee
sounds good to me too,” that young man replied. In a few moments they were
seated at one of the small tables, and the rescuer had an opportunity to study
the man whose life he had probably saved. The round, plump face, with its
twinkling eyes and generous mouth suggested good-humour, and there was strength
in the squat figure and slightly-bowed legs.

 
          
Despite
the fact that he must have passed the mid-thirties his manner showed the
irresponsibility of a boy. He swallowed half the cup of thick, black beverage
the landlord had just put before him.

 
          
“That’s
the stuff,” he said appreciatively. “Now, s’pose we get acquainted; my name is
Barsay, but my friends call me—”

 
          
“Tubby?”
queried the other, with a grin.

 
          
The
little man stopped rolling a cigarette and stared in open-mouthed astonishment.
Then he grinned too.

 
          
“Hell!
I was goin’ to say ‘Pete,’” he pointed out. “How’d yu guess ‘bout that infernal
nickname?”

 
          
“You
told me yoreself—back there in the dive,” Green smiled. ” ‘To be or not to be,’
yu said, an’, lookin’ at yu, it was easy to find the answer.”

 
          
The
other man raised his hands in ludicrous despair. “Awright, I’ll be good,” he
said.
“Yu see, it’s thisaway.
Years back, I’m punchin’
for the Bar 9 in Texas, an’ I go to see a play by a fella named Shakespeare.
That bit of it sticks in my noddle, but every while or so she slips out through
my mouth. The boys plastered the name on me, an’ I can’t lose it. I reckon,” he
added sadly, “she does kinda fit my figure.”

 
          
“Shore
does,” Green laughed; “but I wouldn’t worry. That same fella, Shakespeare, also
says, ‘What’s in a name?’ Mine is Green, but I’ve been told I don’t look it.”

 
          
“An’
that’s terrible true,” Barsay grinned. “If yu got any other I’m aimin’ to use
it.”

 
          
“I
answer to ‘Jim’ when the right fella says it,”
came
the reply. “What yu doin’ in this prairie-dog’s
hole
of a town?”

 
          
“Well,
I’ve punched cows from the Border to Montana an’ back again. I s’pose I’d be
chasin’ a job right now if you hadn’t rescued my roll for me.”

 
          
“I’ve
done considerable harassin’ o’ beef my own self, an’ I want a change.”

 
          
“This
is cattle country.”

 
          
“Shore
it is, but I hear there’s a vacancy for a town marshal.”

 
          
The
little man sat up suddenly. “Sufferin’ serpents!” he cried. “Yu must be tired
o’ life; marshals here don’t last as long as a dollar in a cowboy’s pocket.
Say, if yo’re as broke as that, half o’ what I got is yores.”

 
          
“Thank
yu, but I ain’t busted, an’ I come here a-purpose to land the job,” the other
told him. “What’s more, I got my eye on the deputy I want—short, fat fella,
‘bout yore size.”

 
          
“Take
that eye off,” gasped the ‘fat fella.’
“Me a deputy?
Why, I wouldn’t fit nohow. I’ve bin a hold-up, hoss-thief,
rustler
—”

 
          
“I
knowed I was right,” Green interrupted. “Yu got all the qualifications. ‘Set a
thief to catch a thief,’ they say. Yo’re shore elected, amigo.”

 
          
Barsay
shrugged resignedly. “Why didn’t yu let them Greasers finish?” he asked
plaintively. Then his face brightened. “But yu ain’t roped her yet,” he added.

 
          
“I’m
goin’ to,” Green said confidently. “Point is
,
how do
we go about it?”

 
          
Barsay
called the landlord over. “Hey, Durley, my friend here is hot on bein’ marshal
o’ this burg. What’s his best move?”

 
          
The
innkeeper’s face lost its jovial expression. “His best move is to fork a cayuse
an’ ride straight ahead till he forgets the notion,” he said seriously. “Bein’
marshal o’ Lawless is just plain sooicide.” He saw that his advice would not be
taken and added, “Well, ‘The Vulture’ is the king-pin; if he gives it yu, the
job’s yores.”

 
          
“That’s
Raven—who runs the Red Ace, huh?” Green asked. “Is he white?”

 
          
“Claims
to be on his father’s side, though I reckon
it’s
on’y
Mex white at that,” Durley replied. “His mother was a Comanche squaw.”

 
          
“Why
for the fancy name?” asked Barsay.

 
          
“Chap
Seth had treated mean give it him,” Durley explained. “Said a vulture was the
on’y sort o’ bird he resembled. Yu don’t wanta overlook no bets when yo’re
dealin’ with him.”

 
          
“Guess
I’ll call on the gent right now; I’m
needin’
that
job,” Green said. “Yu stay put, Pete,” he added, as Barsay rose. “Back soon.”

 
          
He
went out, and Durley’s eyes followed him reflectively. “Knowed yore friend long?”
he enquired.

 
          
“Never
seed him till ‘bout an hour ago, but, believe me, I met him at the right mink,”
the plump puncher replied, and proceeded to tell of his recent predicament.

 
          
Meanwhile
the subject of their conversation had reached and entered the Red Ace; the
expression on the bartender’s face was still anything but a welcome.
Nevertheless he reached for a bottle. The customer waved it away.

 
          
“Yo’re
pullin’ the wrong card, ol’timer,” he grinned. “Business before pleasure is my
motto; I wanta see Mister Raven.”

 
          
“What
for?”
came
the surly question.

 
          
The
grin disappeared from the puncher’s face. “If yu’d do I wouldn’t be askin’ for
yore boss,” he said acidly.

 
          
Jude’s
bluster left him. Sullenly he went to a door marked “Private,” stuck his head in
for a moment, and then beckoned to the visitor. Green stepped into what was
evidently the saloonkeeper’s office. It was plainly furnished with, a desk,
several chairs, a safe, and a shelf for books. Seth Raven was sitting at the
desk. He was about forty, and looked it. Slight of frame, his hunched shoulders
made him appear shorter than he really was and threw his head forward into a
curiously bird-like attitude, the impression being accentuated by a hooked
nose, small, close-set eyes, thin lips, and lank, black hair. His yellow skin
seemed tight-stretched over the high cheek-bones.

 
          
“Injun
an’ Mex or bad white, like Durley said, reg’lar devil’s brew,” was Green’s
unvoiced criticism.

 
          
“Well,
what vu want?” Raven asked curtly.

 
          
The
puncher leaned nonchalantly against the door, his thumbs hooked in his belt.
“I’m told this burg is shy a marshal,” he said. “I’m shy a job, an’ there yu
have it.”

 
          
The
saloonkeeper studied him in silence for a moment. He knew the applicant’s
history from the time he had arrived, including the incident of the wasted
whisky and the affair at Miguel’s.
Little happened in Lawless
that did not come to the ears of The Vulture sooner or later—generally sooner.

 
          
“We don’t know nothin’ about yu,”
he said.

 
          
“My
name is James Green, o’ Texas, an’ lately I’ve been livin’ mostly under my
hat,” the puncher told him.

 
          
“Which
don’t make us much wiser,” was Raven’s comment.

 
          
“Yore
last marshal, Perkins, lit outa Nevada a flea’s jump ahead o’ the Vigilantes,
an’

 
          
Dawlish, the man afore him, had been in the pen for
cattle-rustlin’.
Ain’t yu gettin’ a mite particular?” Green asked
sardonically.

 
          
The
saloonkeeper’s thin lips lengthened, which was his nearest approach to a smile.
He had not expected to get any details of the fellow’s past, and in reality he
cared little. Lawless was a sanctuary for the law-breaker, and only a man of
that type could hope to keep any semblance of order. The puncher’s lean, hard
face, level eyes, and firm lips were not those of a weakling.

 
          
“Yore
kind o’ young,” Raven objected.

 
          
“Suffered
from that since I was born,” Green said lightly. “The doctors say I’ll grow out
of it. Well, what’s the word?”

 
          
“The
pay is two hundred dollars a month,” the other said.

 
          
“Which
ain’t over generous,” Green commented.

 
          
“An’
pickin’s, the same bein’—to the right man—considerable,” Raven slowly added.

 
          
“With
another hundred for a deputy,” the puncher suggested, and when the saloonkeeper
shook his head, “See here, I ain’t a machine; there’s times when I wanta sleep
some.”

 
          
“Awright,
a deputy goes. Yu better pick a good one an’ tell him to shoot first an’ argue
afterwards,” Raven said. He dipped into a drawer of the desk. “It so happens I
got a coupla stars, an’ here’s the key to yore quarters.” Handing the articles
to Green, he dismissed the new officer with a curt “See yu later.”

 
          
For
a little while Raven sat thinking, weighing up the man who had just left him.
He recognized that Green was not the ordinary type of desperado; his cool,
smiling confidence contrasted oddly with the blustering, bullying attitude of
the average gun-fighter.

 
          
“A
useful fella if he comes to heel—an’ if he don’t—” His lips twisted in a sneer.
“But there’s a sheriff somewheres
who’d
be glad to
meet him.”