Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (10 page)

 
          
Sudden
was staring at Battle Butte, remembering the limp, pitiful form he had packed
into town like a piece of merchandise. His face was hard, merciless, no trace
of youth remaining.

 
          
Yago
knew that expression; he had seen it when the wearer was years younger—no more
than a boy.

 
          
“We’re
goin’ to have suthin’ to say about that, Bill, yu an’ me,” the foreman said
harshly.

 
          
“Outfit to be depended on?”

 
          
“Shorest
thing yu know,” the other replied.

 
          
“Purdie
said there was one of mosshead who would mebbe
make
trouble,” Sudden said slyly, and Bill Yago swore.

 
          
“Yu’ll
have that trouble yet if yu overplay yore hand,” he threatened. “What’s that
smoke mean?”

 
          
They
had worked northwards, and were riding down the lower slope of the mountain,
passing over rolling, grassy country studded with thickets, and broken here and
there with brush-cluttered depressions. It was from the midst of one of these
that a smudge of smoke corkscrewed into the still air, and they heard, faintly,
the cry of a calf. The foreman looked at his companion.

 
          
“Any
o’ the boys carry irons?” he asked.

 
          
“Nope,”
Yago said, and even as he spoke, the tell-tale smoke died out. “We better look
into this.”

 
          
Side
by side they raced for the spot, slowing up as they neared it. A wall of dense
scrub sent them circling in search of an opening. They found it, a narrow,
cattle-trampled path which zigzagged downwards to where a rude pole hurdle
blocked the way. Removing this, they reached the edge of the brush, and saw
that the floor of the hollow was grass-covered and bare of trees.
A dozen cows and as many calves were grazing, but there appeared to
be no humans.
For some time the two men watched.

 
          
“They’ve
punched the breeze,” Bill said. “We just missed ‘em, cuss the rotten luck!”

 
          
They
walked their mounts to the nearest of the feeding beasts. One glance told the
story; the C P brand had been rather clumsily changed to a Circle B. The state
of the wounds showed that this had only just been done.

 
          
“Raw
work,” Bill commented, as he studied the rough conversion of the C into an
indifferent circle and the added lower loop to the P. “But if they stayed
cached here till the scars healed who’s to say it ain’t but a careless bit o’
brandin’?”

 
          
“Mebbe,”
Sudden said thoughtfully, “though I’ve a hunch they was meant to be found.

 
          
Guess
we’ll leave ‘em here—there’s plenty feed an’ a spring.
Don’t
say nothin’ to anyone.
If Purdie hears o’ this he’ll paint for war
immediate an’—if I’m right—play into their hands.”

 
          
On
the far side of the hollow they found another narrow pathway, which accounted
for their not having seen the brand-blotters. Following this up through the
scrub, they emerged again into the open. Sudden smiled grimly.

 
          
“She’s
a neat little trap, all nicely baited, but the C P ain’t goin’ to be catched,”
he said.

 
          
“
Them
poles was newly-cut.”

 
          
Pushing
further north, grass and sage gradually disappeared, their place being taken by
sand, cactus, and mesquite. Presently they pulled up on the edge of a desolate
welter of grey-white dust, the undulations of which, in the shimmering
heat-haze, seemed to move like the surface of a troubled sea. To the far
horizon it reached, dead, menacing, pitiless.

 
          
“She’s
thirty miles acrost, they say, an’ me,
I’m believin’
it,” Yago said in answer to a question. “Sandover is on the other side, but I
ain’t been there; I don’t like deserts nohow. Cripes!
Makes
me thirsty to look at her.”
His eyes followed those of the foreman to
where the skeleton of a steer
gleamed
white in the
sunshine. “No, we don’t lose many thataway—the critters stay with the feed,” he
offered.
“Went loco, mebbe.”

 
          
They
rode along the edge of the desert, heading east, and sighted a log shack with a
sodded roof.

 
          
“Our
line-house,” Yago stated. “Wonder if Strip Levens is to home? Yu ain’t seen him
yet.”

 
          
In
answer to his hail, a long, lanky cowboy emerged from the
shack,
hand on gun, his narrowed, humorous eyes squinting at them from beneath the
brim of his big hat.

 
          
“‘Lo,
Bill,” he greeted. “Come to take over?—if so, you’re damn welcome.”

 
          
“We
aim to feed with yu, Strip,” Yago informed him, and waved in the direction of
his companion. “This is Jim Green, our new foreman.”

 
          
“Glad
to meetcha,” Strip smiled, and retired to make additions to the meal he was
already preparing.

 
          
“He’s
a good fella, but he don’t like this job; none of us does,” Yago explained. “We
takes
her in turn, three-day spells; it’s damn
lonesome.”

 
          
“What’s
the idea of a line-house out here?”

 
          
“We
was
losin’ cows, an’ Purdie figured Greasers from
Sandover was snakin’ ‘em across the desert.”

 
          
The
appointments of the shack were primitive. A packing-case served as a table, and
up-ended boxes, which had contained “air-tights,” provided the seats. Two
bunks, a stove, and shelves for stores of food and ammunition comprised the rest
of the furniture. The fried bacon, biscuits, and coffee occupied the attention
of all three men for a time, and then Yago asked a question.

 
          
“Anythin’ new, Strip?”

 
          
“That
there ventilation in my lid weren’t there night before last,” the cowboy
replied, pointing to the Stetson he had pitched on one of the bunks.

 
          
The
visitors examined the two bullet-holes through the crown of the hat; obviously
the wearer had escaped death by a bare inch.

 
          
“How come?”
Bill inquired.

 
          
“Yestiddy
afternoon I was siftin’ through Split-ear Gulch when some jigger cut down on me
from the rim. The brush is pretty thick up there, yu know, an’ all I could see
was the smoke.”

 
          
“Yu
didn’t stay to argue, I betcha.”

 
          
“I’m
here, ain’t I?” was the grinned retort. “No, sir, when Mister
man
with the gun is all hid up an’ yo’re in the open is one
time to find out if you’re hoss has any speed. I did, an’ he had, or yu’d ‘a’
cooked yore own eats.”

 
          
“This
is a two-man job,” the foreman decided. “S’pose Levens had been crippled, we
wouldn’t ‘a’ knowed till his relief came out.”

 
          
Leaving
Strip greatly cheered by the prospects of a fellow-sufferer, the other two
continued their journey. A few miles brought them to the brink of a winding
chasm, a mighty crack in the earth’s crust, which stretched left and right for
miles. Less than a hundred yards in width, the bare, precipitous walls dropped
steeply down to the stony floor beneath. Gazing into the shadowy depths, the
foreman put a query.

 
          
“Dark
Canyon—there’s places where she’s mighty gloomersome even in daylight,” Yago
told him.
“Makes a good eastern boundary till the range drops
down into the valley.
The other side is Slype’s land.”

 
          
“What
sort o’ place has he got?”

 
          
“Pretty
triflin’—on’y runs a few hundred head. Ramon an’ his two Greasers must have an
easy time.”

 
          
At
Sudden’s suggestion they made their way to Split-ear Gulch and, after a
painstaking search, found the spot where the bushwhacker had lain in wait for
Strip. In the flattened, broken grass lay a spent cartridge—a .38. Not far away
were the prints of a standing horse, and the surrounding bushes had been
nibbled; a few hairs adhering to one of the branches afforded further evidence.

 
          
“Paint
pony, nail missin’ from the off fore, tied here a considerable spell,” the
foreman decided. “What sort o’ hoss does Luce Burdette usually ride?”

 
          
“A
grey an’ he’s a good ‘un,” Yago replied. “Yu don’t think…?”

 
          
“Why not?
It ain’t so difficult,” his friend grinned. “Yu
oughta try it, Bill.
After a bit o’ practice.”

 
          
Yago’s
reply was a short but pungent description of his new foreman, who laughed as he
listened.

 
          
“Yore
cussin’ ain’t improved any,” he commented. “Yu repeated yoreself twice; yu
gotta watch that, Bill. What say we call it a day?”

 
          
Yago
agreed, and they headed for the ranch.

 
          
WHEN
Yago parted from his foreman at the corral he approached the bunkhouse with
slowing steps. He knew perfectly well that the outfit would ride him
unmercifully and that the only excuse he had to offer would be received with
jeers. That there would be no malice in the proceedings helped a little, but
Bill was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and did not welcome the
prospect of having it rubbed in, even good-humouredly. Most of the boys were
there when he entered. For a moment silence reigned, and then Curly
spoke :

 
          
“Bill,
I’m right sorry; I’ve looked everyhere an’ can’t find it?”

 
          
“Can’t
find what, yu chump?” Yago incautiously asked.

 
          
“That
nerve yu lost when yu saw the new foreman,”
came
the
swift answer.

 
          
“Aw,
Bill didn’t lose
no
nerve—he’s kind-hearted, an’ saw
the foreman was young an’—Green,” sniggered another.

 
          
“That warn’t it neither,” Lanty Brown
chimed in. “Ain’t yu
never heard o’ the power o’ the human eye? Yu fix yore optic on a savage beast
an’ it stops dead in its tracks. That’s what the foreman done.”

 
          
“I’ve
heard o’ the power of the human foot on a silly jackass,” the badgered man
retorted.

 
          
“If
yu gotta know, I recognized Jim Green as an old friend.”

 
          
As
he had known, a yell of derisive laughter greeted the explanation.

 
          
“I
knowed it was that,” remarked a quiet, unsmiling youth, who, being named
“Sankey,” was known as “Moody” wherever he went. “Lemme tell yu the sad story.
Long, long ago, Bill loved the foreman’s mother—this, o’ course, was before she
was his mother—an’ they were to be married. But, alas! Along comes a real
good-lookin’ fella, an’ Bill lost out. So when he sees the boy whose daddy he
oughta been…”

 
          
A
storm of merriment cut the narration short, and in the midst of it Curly’s
voice made itself heard : “Yu got it near right, Moody, but it was the
foreman’s gran’mother Bill loved.”

 
          
The
improvement met with vociferous approbation, and when the uproar had subsided a
little, Bill managed to get a word in.