Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 08 - Sudden Takes The Trail(1940) (9 page)

 
          
“Well,
Sark, what’s yore errand?”

 
          
“We
want the criminal yo’re plannin’ to set free.”

 
          
“That’s
not true. I’m handin’ the marshal over to Pinetown; it’s their job to deal with
him.”

 
          
“We
ain’t trustin’
you. Fetch him out, or take the
consequences.” The saloon-keeper looked at the row of threatening rifles, one
volley from which might well wipe out himself and his friends. It would be
hopeless. He glanced up the street, but there was no sign of the Bar O. He must
make a last desperate bid for time.

 
          
“You
win, Sark,” he said. “I’ll git him.”

 
          
“No,”
Jake snapped. “Throw me the key.”

 
          
“I’ll
see you in hell first.”

 
          
“Then
you’ll be waitin’ for me,” the other jeered, and drew his gun. “Out with it, or…”

 
          
The
big man was still hesitating when a voice from inside the calaboose said
calmly, “Better let him have it, or-timer; no sense in a ruckus which can on’y
end one way.” With a curse of disgust, Nippert flung the key on the ground. “An’
that’s the man you claim is a bloodthirsty murderer,” he cried passionately.

 
          
“That
kind o’ talk won’t buy you anythin’,” Jake retorted.

 
          
He
unlocked the door and stood back, revolver in hand. A moment of silence and the
prisoner
stepped out into the sunlight to be welcomed
by a storm of execration. He heard it with contemptuous indifference; if he had
his guns …

 
          
“Git
agoin’,” Jake ordered.

 
          
The
marshal looked at the men who had tried to save him. “I’m thankin’ yu,” he
said, and head up, staring stolidly before him, moved forward.

 
          
Some
of these men had praised him when he thrashed Mullins; they would condemn him
with the same enthusiasm when he dangled lifeless from a tree. Once he turned
his head and saw that his few friends were tramping along with the others. He
spoke his thought:

 
          
“They
can’t do a thing.”

 
          
“You
bet they can’t, ‘cept go with you for comp’ny,” a cowboy beside him agreed. “We
got ropes to spare.” Sudden did not reply. The top of a tall cottonwood was now
in sight, and the imminence of death was upon him. He knew that to be hauled
off the ground and left hanging until the tightening noose checked the breath,
must, to a healthy man, mean many minutes of agony. He dismissed the thought
with a shrug.

 
          
The
tree was reached, and the victim thrust under a stout outflung branch over
which the man who had jeered at him on the journey proceeded to throw one end
of his lariat. He then adjusted the loop and stood back, surveying his work. “All
set,” he announced.

 
          
At
these words the spectators closed in, eager to feed their animal appetite with
every detail of the drama.

 
          
To
the condemned man it all seemed unreal. Above his head, birds were chirping,
and the sunlight, filtering through the foliage, threw dancing shadows on the
ground. The world appeared, in truth, a fair place, and he was about to leave
it—shamefully. Then into his consciousness came something very real indeed—Javert’s
poisonous features, alight with triumph, within a foot of his own.

 
          
“So,
Mister Sudden, our game is finished, an’ I take the pot,” he hissed. “I
promised myself to get you an’ that coyote cub,
Masters ”
He got no further, having—in his eagerness to vent his spleen—overlooked the
fact that the man he taunted was unbound. With all the fury of one who has
nothing to lose, Sudden’s right fist came up and smashed into the leering face
like a battering-ram, and Javert went down as though he had encountered a
cyclone. Mouthing mad blasphemies, he scrambled to his feet and clawed at his
gun, but Jake clutched his wrist.

 
          
“Don’t
be a
fool !
” he cried. “Can’t you wait a few minutes?
That’s what he was playin’ for—an easy death.” The stricken man spat out a
tooth and wiped the blood from his gashed lips.

 
          
“I’ll
make it easy for him,” he snarled. “Listen, you with the rope: when he’s
half-choked, lower him to the ground again so’s he can fill his lungs, an’ keep
on doin’ it; he shall die ten times for that blow.” This diabolical suggestion
brought an angry protest from the saloon-keeper, and some of the more sober in
the crowd supported him.

 
          
“We’re
here to see justice done, Sark,” one of them said. “But we ain’t Injuns, an’
won’t stand for torture.”

 
          
“An’
I don’t reckon that Pinetown has the say-so in these proceedin’s neither,”
another added, a sentiment which brought a still blacker look to Javert’s
damaged countenance, but was promptly taken up and repeated.

 
          
More
joined in, and the argument as to whether a man should die slowly or quickly
became general.

 
          
SHORTLY
after the band of self-appointed executioners had departed on its grisly
errand, a solitary horseman loped into Welcome. Young, attired in range-rig, with
a good-humoured, not unpleasing face, there was nothing remarkable about him
save his pallor, unusual in a land of sunburnt skins. At Gowdy’s store he
dismounted, entered, and asked for “smokin’.”

 
          
“This
is the most lonesome place I’ve struck,” he remarked. “Yu ain’t the on’y
inhabitant, are yu?”

 
          
“All
the men are gone to the lynchin’, I s’pose,” Lucy told him, with a feminine
shudder.

 
          
“Beasts,
I call them.” The visitor stared at her. “Yu don’t say.
Who
they string-in’ up, an’ why for?”

 
          
“Our
new marshal,” she said. “They say he shot a man.”

 
          
“Well,
a marshal has to do that—times. I
ain’t never
seen a
hangin’. Where’s it takin’ place?”

 
          
“On
the road to the west—there’s no trees here.”

 
          
“What
had the dead man done?”

 
          
“I
don’t know—it happened a long ways off, before the marshal came here.” Her eyes
filled. “You see, it was
owin’
to me he got the job.
If I hadn’t told him of the vacancy maybe …

 
          
Oh,
it’s too bad. I can see him now, ridin’ up to the Red Light on that great black
horse.”

 
          
“A
black hoss?” the cowboy cried.
“With a white face?”

 
          
“Why,
yes, do
you ?”

 
          
“Hell’s
flames!” he swore, and darted for the street leaving his purchase and the
dollar he had put down in payment lying on the counter.

 
          
Amazement
held her for a moment,
then
she ran to the door, only
to see a diminishing cloud of dust travelling west.

 
          
“He
must be awful anxious to see a hangin’,” she decided.

 
          
In
this she did the young man an injustice, for that was precisely what he
fervently desired not to see. Therefore he plied spurs and quirt—though not
cruelly—in the effort to drag a little more speed from his tired mount.

 
          
“Which
I’m shorely sorry, Splinter, but we just gotta make it,” he panted. “O’ course,
he may’ve sold his hoss, but no, he’d never part with Nigger.” Soon they
sighted the tree, and the black knot of people. A decision had been arrived at—Javert’s
inhuman proposal had found few supporters, and Sudden was to die only once.

 
          
“Someone
a’comin’ an’ ain’t losin’ time neither,” Dutch called out.

 
          
Jake
glanced down the trail; one man only, but he was taking no chances. “Haul on
that rope,” he ordered.

 
          
The
burly fellow holding it was bracing himself to obey when a hard round object
was jammed into the small of his back and a harsh voice whispered, “If you do,
you’ll die before he does.” A half turn of the head told him that the owner of
the Red Light was standing behind him, and being well aware that Nippert was no
bluffer, he froze. Before Jake could investigate, the newcomer arrived, leapt
from the saddle, and shouldered his way unceremoniously through the onlookers.

 
          
“Jim!”
he cried.

 
          
Sudden
stared at him in utter bewilderment, unable to believe his eyes. The face of
one other betrayed a like incredulity, that of Javert, who gazed open-mouthed
at this man who had apparently risen from the grave to defeat him.

 
          
“Dave,”
the marshal breathed. “It can’t be—yo’re dead.”

 
          
“Not
very,” the other returned lightly.

 
          
“But—I
killed yu.”

 
          
“Skittles!
It was a pore shot—on’y creased me.” He pushed
his hat back, showing a scarcely-healed wound along the side of his head. “I
didn’t bat an eyelid for most twenty-four hours—concussion, the doc said. Soon
as I was able to climb a hoss, I set out in search o’ yu, an’ I seem to ‘a’ got
here at the right moment.” He stepped to the condemned man and lifted the loop
from his neck.

 
          
“Who
the devil are you to come buttin’ into our business?” Mullins rasped.

 
          
The
young man grinned at him. “I’m Dave Masters, the corpse in this case, an’ if
anybody wants to argue, he’ll find me the livest corpse he ever tackled.” The
challenge passed unheeded, but Nippert joined the two men beneath the tree. “Here’s
yore belt, marshal,” he said. “Mebbe you’ll feel more comfortable wearin’ it.”
The act aroused Sark’s malignity. “Hold on there,” he growled. “We’ve on’y got
this fella’s word that he’s Masters.” The cowboy’s face grew bleak. “I’ll
remember that, Mister Whatever-yore-name-is,” he retorted, and looked around. “Ask
the skunk who came to yu with a lyin’ tale to hang the man he had failed to
murder; there he stands—Javert; he’s the one yu oughta swing.” A threatening
murmur warned the Pinetown citizen that he might be in danger—mobs were
mercurial, easily swayed. In his anxiety to save his neck, he fell into the
trap.

 
          
“It
warn’t
no
lie,” he blurted out. “I left with the posse
an’ we all figured you
was
cashed.

 
          
I
ain’t bin in Pinetown since, so how would I know?” Dave’s grin was back again. “Well,
gents, Mister Javert havin’ admitted I’m me—which a’most makes me doubt it
myself—I guess that settles the cat-hop,” he remarked.

 
          
“Not
any,” Sark snapped. “That fella”—pointing to the marshal—“is a notorious
outlaw, an’ I’m going to turn him over to the sheriff at Drywash.”

 
          
“You
gotta git him first,” Nippert said.
“Loose yore dawgs as soon
as you like, Sark.”
The defiance brought a deeper frown to the rancher’s
face.

 
          
Many
of the Welcome men were stepping aside and would take no part in an affray, but
he would have two for one. Nevertheless, lives would be lost, and there was
that cursed gunman.

 
          
Sark
had an uneasy feeling that the marshal’s first bullet would render the result
of the fight a matter of indifference to him. Then Providence intervened. A
growing thunder of hammering
hooves,
and along the
trail a compact body of riders raced into view. Nippert drew a deep breath of
relief; the Bar O had come. A few more seconds and they were at the scene.