Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (23 page)

 
          
“The
first thing I learned out here was not to judge by appearances. Ben is a fine
fellow, and one day, when settlements like Rainbow become cities, such men will
be sent to Congress, and have a word to say, not only in the affairs of our
country, but of the whole world.”

 
          
“Still
your dream,” she smiled. “Why, isn’t that Yorky?” Malachi stared as the boy
came to them. “By all that’s wonderful, it is.”

 
          
“I’m
hopin’ yer ain’t hurt much, ma’am,” Yorky said. “I seen it all an’ shore
t’ought yer was a goner.”

 
          
“Thanks
to Mister Dover, I am not a—goner,” she smiled. “And how are you, Yorky?”

 
          
“
Fine,
an’ I’m on th’ pay-roll,” he blurted out. “S’cuse me,
I got a message for Ben.”

 
          
“An
amazing improvement,” she said. “There’s a case to make you proud of your
profession.”

 
          
“Not
my work,” he told her. “I prescribed a cessation of nicotine poisoning and
fresh air—”

 
          
“The
breath of the pines,” she murmured.

 
          
“Precisely,
but I didn’t put it so prettily.”

 
          
“No,
I remember it was his friend, Jim.”

 
          
“Really?
After all, why shouldn’t a puncher be poetical—he’s
at grips with Nature all day long. Anyway, Green saved that lad’s life, by
supplying the missing ingredient in my treatment.”

 
          
Her
look was a question. “Yorky had lost his self-respect, and lacking that, my
dear lady, a human being is—finished; he cannot fight disease.” Then, in a
flash, his gravity was merged in a laugh, as he added, “I should be a
preacher.”

 
          
She
was about to reply when Dover came in, and before the door swung to again, she
saw Miss Maitland pass.

 
          
“I
must be going,” Malachi said rather hurriedly, and
ashe
departed spoke in an undertone to the rancher, “Not leaving town yet, are you?”

 
          
“I’ll
be here for a while,” Dan replied, and stepped to where the girl was seated.
“Doc tells me you ain’t injured. I’m glad. Is there anythin’ else I can do?”

 
          
His
manner was stiff and distant, and she suddenly comprehended that the red-haired
youth who so impulsively rushed to rescue her from the quicksand had—short as
the time was—become a man. Grief and responsibility had brought about the
transformation.

 
          
“I
think you have done enough, and more,” she replied. “It is hard to find words
to express my thanks.”

 
          
“Then
don’t try,” he said bluntly. “I don’t want ‘em, an’ if it will ease yore mind,
I would ‘a’ done just the same for any tramp in the town.”

 
          
“Very
well, but you cannot prevent me feeling grateful,” she said. “
you
risked your life.”

 
          
“Which
is no more than I’ve done many times for one o’ my father’s steers,” he told
her.

 
          
“I’m
not meanin’ to be rude, Miss Trenton, but to be forced to help one o’ yore
family is plain hell to me.”

 
          
“I
understand,” she said coldly. “But you must remember that to be forced to
accept your help is also plain hell to my family.”

 
          
With
a slight inclination of her proud little head, and a smile of thanks to the
saloonkeeper, she walked out. The rancher’s gloomy gaze followed her. What had
possessed him to speak that way? He recalled how his heart had seemed to stop
beating when he saw her in the path of the cattle. Perhaps it was the reaction
at finding her unharmed when he had feared.

 
          
Or
maybe it was the encounter with the sheriff, which still rankled? Well, what
did it matter—she was a Trenton anyway. He went to the bar, and Bowdyr’s first
remark might have been an answer to his last thought.

 
          
“She’s
a fine gal—even if she is kin to Zeb,” he said.

 
          
“Looks
ain’t much to go on,” the young man observed cynically. “The meanest hoss I
ever owned was a picture.”

 
          
The
saloonkeeper, being a wise man, kept his smile and his thoughts to himself.

 
          
Malachi,
returning presently, found them drinking together, and to the surprise of both,
declined their invitation.

 
          
“How’s
the arm?” he enquired.

 
          
“Fine,
it was just a touch.”

 
          
“Yes,
touch and go; if you’d been two seconds later the horn would have pierced your
heart,” the doctor said. “I didn’t tell Miss Trenton that.”

 
          
“I’m
obliged—she’s over-grateful a’ready. You ain’t here to ask after my health, are
you, Phil?”

 
          
“No,
my errand concerns my own. When are you going away?”

 
          
“So
you’ve heard that damn silly rumour too?”

 
          
“I
pay no attention to idle chatter, and get it into your head that I’m on your
side,”

 
          
Malachi
said seriously. “Listen: I happen to know—never mind how—that you have to raise
a large sum of money in a short time.”

 
          
Dan
swore. “So my financial position is common property?” he said bitterly.

 
          
“Whose
isn’t, in this place?” was the rejoinder. “Where are you going for it? With the
cattle business as it is, your chance with the Eastern capitalist is nil; north
and south are only ranches in the same predicament as yourself; in the west,
there is Rufe’s Cache—if you can find it.”

 
          
“What
do you know about that?” Dan demanded.

 
          
“The
story is common property also,” the doctor reminded. “Your father himself gave
me the facts, and asserted that if necessity arose, he could go to the spot.
Probably that is why he did not worry about his debt to the bank.”

 
          
Dan
was silent; it was disturbing to think his affairs and plans were known. Then
he said,

 
          
“Who
told you I was leavin’ Rainbow?”

 
          
“No one.
Aware of the difficulty you are in, I tried to
reason out a line of action, that’s all.

 
          
The
Cache would appear to be your best bet.”

 
          
“What’s
yore interest?”

 
          
“The purely selfish one of wanting to go with you.”

 
          
Bowdyr
had been called away, so Dover got the full shock of the surprise, and it
certainly was one. That this man, whom he liked, but had always regarded as an
effeminate, should desire to undergo the danger and discomfort of a journey
into the mountains seemed quite incredible.

 
          
“It’ll
be damned hard goin’, we’ll have to break trail a lot, live rough an’ sleep in
the
open,
an’ its cold too, nights,” he warned. “Also,
there’s a risk o’ fightin’ if—

 
          
“Trenton
gets the idea. Yes, he needs cash as much, and perhaps more, than you do. Well,
I can ride and shoot, I’m fitter than I look, and I’ll obey orders. Also, if
anyone gets hurt …” The rancher voiced his last and chief objection. “You’ll be
a devil of a long way from a saloon,” he said pointedly.

 
          
“Which
is exactly why I want to come,” Malachi smiled. “It is an experiment, Dan, and
I’m asking you to help me.” They shook hands on the bargain.

 
          
Beth
Trenton returned to the Wagon-wheel sound in body but perturbed in mind.

 
          
Naturally
generous by nature, the attitude her rescuer had adopted distressed and
saddened her.

 
          
Coming
from the East, she could not comprehend the stark animosity which could keep
two families at war for years. And rude, primitive as he seemed, there was much
that was likeable in Dan Dover. If only she could bring about a peace.

 
          
Her
uncle was alone in the living-room. As she related her adventure, she saw
concern, relief, and then both were swept away in a gust of anger at the
mention of her preserver’s name.

 
          
“That
fella again?” he stormed. “What cursed ill-luck arranges for him to be handy
every time you get into trouble?”

 
          
“I
am afraid I cannot regard it as ill-luck,” she replied. “He saved me, and might
have died himself.”

 
          
“Bah!
Only one thing kills that breed—a bullet,” was the brutal rejoinder. “I’m not
ungrateful, girl; any other man could ask what he liked of me, but Dover …”

 
          
“He
does not want even thanks,” she said. “He threw my own back in my face.”

 
          
“The
insolent young hound,” Trenton growled. “He needs a lesson, an’ by Christopher,
I’ll see that he gets one.”

 
          
“Uncle,
what was the beginning of the trouble?” she asked.

 
          
“Oh,
it’s a long story; I’ll spin it for you one day, but you can take this to go on
with—a Dover murdered my father,” the rancher said, and stood up. “Yo’re a
Trenton, Beth, an’ our enemies must be yores too; we don’t forget or forgive.”

 
          
He
had meant to tell her of the coming trip into the hills, but judged this was
not the time; better to let the memory of this latest obligation to Dover fade
a little. Women were kittle cattle, and he wanted her wholly on his side. He
struck another blow.

 
          
“Have
you noticed Bundy’s face?”

 
          
“Why,
yes, he seems to have met with an accident.”

 
          
“Yeah,
the accident of runnin’ into three o’ the Circle Dot riders out on the range,”

 
          
Trenton
said. “They threw an’ savaged him, stole his
horse,
an’ he had to foot it home, over ten miles, in the dark.”

 
          
“Three
to one?” she cried.
“The cowards!
Was Mister Dover
there?”

 
          
“No,
but his new man, Green, was, so you can be certain his boss approved; probably
it was a put-up job, an’ they were waitin’ for the chance.”

 
          
“But why?”

 
          
“Simply
because he’s foreman here; it’s a blow at me.” She could not doubt, although
she found it hard to credit that Green, of whom the doctor had spoken highly,
could take part in such a sordid enterprise. But she was learning that the
Westerner was a creature of fine impulses, strong in his likes and dislikes.

 
          
“Isn’t
there any law?” she ventured.

 
          
“No,
only a sheriff,” was the satirical answer. “Now, don’t you worry yourself about
these things, my
dear.
Bundy can take care of himself,
an’ so can the Wagon-wheel.”

 
          
Dover
also journeyed home in a worried state of mind. He had called on Maitland
before leaving town, and the interview had been anything but helpful. It was,
the rancher moodily reflected, a fitting climax to a thoroughly imperfect day.
So Yorky, to whom it had proved exactly the opposite, found him a morose and
pre-occupied companion. Jocular references to his encounter with young Evans
met with no encouragement. In the bunkhouse, it was much the same
;the
boys listened to his story, but it failed to arouse the
amusement he had looked for.