Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 05 - Law O' The Lariat(1935) (28 page)

 
          
He
did not hear the answer, for the street door was in front of him, and in a
moment he was outside.
Slouching
his hat over his
eyes, he slid round the corner of the first building he came to and picked his
way along the backs of the others. It was darkish now, but there was a moon,
and he had to slink quickly from shadow to shadow. Presently he reached the
rear of Bent’s saloon, and saw what he had hoped to find—the tethered horse he
knew the owner usually kept there. He wondered whether Bent’s friendship had
been strong enough to survive the apparently conclusive evidence of his guilt.
He believed it would be, but he dared not run the risk of making himself known.

 
          
“If
he ain’t changed, he won’t mind my borrowin’ the cayuse,” he reasoned. “If he
has, well, I ain’t carin’.”

 
          
Hauling
in the picket-rope, he fashioned a hackamore, and without waiting to search for
the saddle, mounted the animal and spurred for the nearest cover in the
direction of the Bar B. He had just ridden in among the trees when a confused
medley of shouts from the buildings behind informed him that his escape had
probably been discovered.

 
          
Well
aware that the regular trails would be searched, he took care to keep clear of
the one to the Bar B, forcing his way through the brush and zigzagging along
draws and gullies to avoid showing himself on the skyline. He did not trouble
to hide his trail, knowing they could not track him in the night, even with the
help of the moon. Beyond a general sense of direction he had nothing to guide
him, and presently, without realizing how he had come there, he found himself
passing the ruined cabin of the nester Forby. The big cottonwood, with the 4 B
brand and the sinister row of notches, looked eerie in the moonbeams. The Lazy
M man gave it but a glance, and was about to ride on when a horseman loped out
of the trees and pulled up with an oath, only a few yards away. It was Penton,
and at the sight of Severn, he snatched out his gun and covered him.

 
          
“Put
‘em up, pronto,” he ordered, and laughed in his throat when he saw that the
other man was unarmed. “This is yore finish,” he continued. “Bart wants to see
yu danglin’ from that tree, an’ so do I. The on’y difference is he’s hopin’ to
string yu up alive an’ I ain’t pertic’ler, so I’m goin’ to shoot yu first.
Anythin’ to say?”

 
          
His
face twisted with malignant hate, he leaned forward and menaced the man with
his gun, exulting in the power chance had given him, and hoping to detect fear
in the eyes of his foe. But he saw only an expression of cold contempt, and in
stark cruelty he struck savagely with his left fist. The blow was
his own
undoing. With a low snarl, a long, lean, grey shadow
shot across the open space and leapt for his throat. The force of the impact
flung the man backwards to the ground. Severn seized his chance and slipped
from his mount. He was on his feet just as Penton beat off the beast which had
thrown him and turned to finish his work. He found the conditions altered;
Severn was erect, facing him with folded arms and a sneer on his lips.

 
          
“Penton,
the tree is waiting for yu,” he said.

 
          
Callous
as he was, the threat chilled the man’s spine, but he remembered that the
speaker was weaponless, and with a laugh of scorn he raised his gun. He was
actually pressing the trigger when Severn’s hand flashed out, fire flamed from
it, and Penton reeled and dropped. The grey shadow came up wagging a joyous
tail.

 
          
He
looked at the dog. “Yu shore do pay a debt, don’t yu?” he said, and going to
where the Bar B man’s pony was standing, he lifted the rope from the saddle.

 
          
Ten
minutes later he was on his way again. He had not gone far when he heard the
sound of hofs, and waited, gun drawn. He grinned and concealed it again when he
saw the newcomer was Larry.

 
          
“How
the hell—?” he began.

 
          
“Followed
the dawg, yu chump,” the young man explained impolitely. “Started for town to
see
yu,
an’ that four-legged fleabag sneaked
after—artful too, didn’t show up till it was too late to take him back. When I
got to Hope it was just a-hummin’. They’re offerin’ five hundred bucks for yu,
dead or alive.”

 
          
“That’s
a right useful sum,” the foreman said reflectively.

 
          
“Thinkin’
o’ earnin’ it?” Larry quizzed.

 
          
“I
might be,” his friend replied. “Get on with yore recitation.”

 
          
“Well,
I’m ridin’ past Bent’s—past it, I said,” he repeated as he saw the other’s
grin, “when Quirt goes off like Old Nick was after him. O’ course I guessed
he’d struck yore trail an’ followed. Good thing yu wash sometimes, or the scent
would ‘a’been that strong I’d ‘a’lost him.

 
          
“What
yu want to see me for?” Severn asked, ignoring for the time the slur on his
habits.

 
          
“Didn’t
want to see yu—had to,” Larry smiled. “Snap’s hoss bruk a leg on the way from
Desert Edge, an’ he had to hoof it. He was all in when he got to the ranch. I
come in to tell yu the Judge ain’t there.
‘Pears that
two-three nights ago, four fellas called to see him an’ he rode away with ‘em.
Hard-looking lot, with their faces pretty well hidden, his landlady said; she
didn’t know ‘em, but she fancied one o’ the party had been there before. Embley
ain’t been heard of since.”

 
          
This
was bad news for the foreman, but he took the blow with his customary calm.

 
          
“So
they’ve got him too,” he said. “They ain’t overlookin’
no
bets, I’m tellin’ yu.”

 
          
“Yu
ain’t tellin’ me. Who is `they’ an’ where have they got him?” Barton asked
peevishly.

 
          
”
`They’ is the unknown quantity we’re a-lookin’ for, an’ the Judge is in the
Pinnacles with the girl,” he was told.

 
          
The
reminder that the actual whereabouts of his lady was yet to be discovered moved
Larry to express himself. Severn regarded him sardonically.

 
          
“When
yu’ve finished poisonin’ the atmosphere, we’ll push along,” he suggested.

 
          
Larry
subsided. “Where yu headin’ for?” he asked.

 
          
The
foreman told him, and the boy promptly swore again. “Yu must be loco,” he said.
“Don’t yu know that half the town is spraddled over the country searchin’ for
yu right now, an’ yu make for the very place—”

 
          
“Where
they wouldn’t expect to find me,” Severn finished. “Anyways, I’m goin’—I got
business there.”

 
          
“Yu
got no business there, an’ yu know it,” grumbled the other. “Yore on’y business
is to be punchin’ the breeze for parts unknown. Like as not yu’ll find Mister
Penton at the Bar B, waitin’ for yu with a gun in his paw.

 
          
“I
guess not,” his friend said. “Didn’t yu come past the old shack?”

 
          
“Nope;
heard yu an’ took a short cut. Gawd knows yu was makin’ noise enough,” Larry
accused. “What’s the shack gotta do with it?”

 
          
Severn
told him why Penton would not be at the Bar B to welcome them, and the boy’s
face hardened to granite as he listened. Then he looked at the dog trotting
contentedly beside them, and it stiffened again.

 
          
“Good
old Quirt,” he said. “T take it back; yu ain’t no fleabag—yo’re folks.”

 
          
Half
an hour later they halted in the brush fifty yards from the Bartholomew ranch.
Telling his companion to stay there with the horses and to keep the dog quiet,
Severn stole forward. No lights were showing, and as he cat-footed past the
bunkhouse, no sound came from within.

 
          
“Pretty
plain Bart ain’t scared o’ the White Masks,” the intruder smiled to himself.

 
          
Though
this was his first visit to the place, he guessed that the two windows in the front
were probably those of the living-room, and a glance through one of them told
him he was right. Pushing up the sash, which was unfastened, he climbed in and
looked round. At one side of the room was a writing-desk littered with books
and papers. Hurriedly turning them over, he found what he was looking for—an
old account book, one of the numbered pages of which was missing. He then tried
the drawers of the desk, and finding one fastened, forced it open with the
blade of his knife, lately the property of Penton. Lying just inside the drawer
as though it had been put there in
haste,
was a roll
of notes. Severn snatched them out, and by the light of the moon was able to
decipher the numbers; they were the ones he had received frorn Rapson when he
withdrew the herd money.

 
          
“Yu
certainly stacked the cards good, Mister Bartholomew, but the hand ain’t played
out yet,” he soliloquised. “I’m bound to admit yu got somethin’ besides sawdust
in that ugly head o’ yores.”

 
          
Having
methodically searched the rest of the drawers and found nothing of moment, he
rejoined Larry, who was getting impatient.

 
          
“Ain’t
yu fetched the ranch with yu?” he asked. “Yu’ve been long enough to pack it
up.”

 
          
“Sunset,
there’s times when yu don’t show no more sense than a sage-hen,” the foreman
reproved. “I got what I wanted, an’ here it is.”

 
          
He
produced his plunder, and the boy’s eyes opened as Severn explained their
significance.

 
          
“That
means Bart is in cahoots with the White Masks,” he said.

 
          
“I
was hopin’ I wouldn’t have to tell yu that,” the elder man smiled.

 
          
“Aw
right, Solomon, what’s the next move?”

 
          
“Climb
yore cayuse an’ carry these things to Bent; he’ll take care of ‘em an’ have ‘em
handy when they’re wanted. Take Quirt with yu an’ keep off the trails.”

 
          
“What
yu aimin’ to do?”

 
          
“Go
back to the sheriff, o’ course, to claim than five hundred wheels.”

 
          
Larry
stared at him in doubt, which changed to blank astonishment when he saw that
Severn was entirely serious. “Yu are loco,” he declared. “Plumb loco.”

 
          
“I
should be if I ran away,” the other pointed out. “Why, it would be twin-brother
to ownin’ up. Even yu oughna be able to see that.”

 
          
Larry
could see it, but he was not going to say so, and he knew that when Severn
spoke in that tone it was useless for him to argue. He mounted, called the dog,
and turned to depart.

 
          
“Yo’re
every sort of a damn fool, Don,” he said. “They’ll stretch yu, shore.”

 
          
“Shucks,
I’ll dance at yore weddin’ yet, yu red-faced little rooster,” the foreman
replied affectionately, and swinging his horse round, headed for town.

 
          
He
took his time, for he had no desire to get back before the early morning, and
it was necessary to avoid any zealous reward-hunters, for to be ignominiously
conducted back to confinement was no part of his plan. So he ambled along by a
circuitous route, and a golden glow was spreading in the sky behind the eastern
range when he again sighted the unlovely, squalid huddle of huts which the
optimists who dwelt there called “Hope”.

 
          
Under
cover of the brush, Severn dismounted, turned the horse’s head in the direction
of the Bar B, and gave it a vigorous smack on the rump; he knew the beast would
drift homewards. He then threw pistol and knife into the undergrowth and made
his way to the open street, stopping at the sheriff’s quarters. Picking up a
lump of rock he hammered upon the door.