Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (23 page)

 
          
Meanwhile,
Riley, having found his man, had also dismounted and was creeping up on him.
Save for keeping under cover, he had no need for caution, the roar of the river
drowned every sound, and the foreman had no thought of company in that wild
spot. The Circle B man’s eyes were gleaming vengefully, and his brain was busy.

 
          
“Bet
he’s the on’y one the ol’ fossil has yapped to,” he muttered. “With him outa
the way, Cal could be made to talk. Gawd! What a chance; wish I could swing it
alone, but it’s too big—I’ll have to let King in.” He looked round suspiciously
as he suddenly realized that he was speaking aloud, and then he laughed. “I’m a
plain damn fool,” he went on. “Why, fella could shout an’ yu wouldn’t get a
whisper. Here’s where we even up for Whitey.”

 
          
He
had reached the last clump of foliage between himself and his unsuspecting
victim, only a few yards separating them. For a moment Riley paused, his lips
drawn back in a vulpine snarl, his slitted eyes gauging the distance he had to
spring. Sudden, poised almost on the edge of the chasm, was rolling a smoke,
his mind mulling over what the prospector had told him. If the Burdettes
learned of the mine they would stop at nothing to get possession of the C P. He
had warned California not to chatter, but he knew the type. Liquor would loosen
his tongue and he would boast; many a miner who had made a lucky strike had
lost all, even life itself, because he could not keep his mouth closed.

 
          
He
had snapped
a match alight
and was applying it to the
cigarette between his lips when a jarring thrust from behind sent him
staggering towards the abyss. For an instant he tottered, trying to regain his
balance, and then, realizing that he must fall, pitched headlong. Riley,
crouching above, watched the body drop like a stone and plunge into the depths.
It had been easy; three long strides, a push, and the deed
was
done. He waited till the puncher rose to the surface, dragged out his gun and
fired—twice. He saw the man in the water fling up his hands, and sink. Dropping
to his knees, he waited, scanning the stream closely; there was no sign. Riley
stood up; his hands were shaking.

 
          
“Reckon
I fixed yu, Mister Green,” he said hoarsely. “Gotta go an’ break the bad news
to King now; he’ll be some grieved—mebbe.”

 
          
At
the moment that he mounted and rode away the man he believed he had murdered
slid his head above water and eagerly gulped air into his aching lungs. The
initial plunge into the icy stream had driven the breath from his body and he
had been forced to come up immediately.

 
          
Then,
though he had not heard the reports, he had seen the spit of the bullets in the
water beside his head and gathered that the man above meant to make a job of
it. Promptly sinking again, he swam beneath the surface, his own efforts and
the powerful current taking him a considerable distance. Sudden was an expert
swimmer, and water itself had no terrors for him. With his nostrils just clear
he waited for the ominous “plop” of a bullet; it did not come, and he smiled
grimly.

 
          
“Lucky
for me I ain’t redheaded or bald—that jasper would ‘a’ got me,” he told
himself.

 
          
“Wonder
who it was? Mebbe California got sorry he talked so much, but I’m bettin’ it
was a younger an’ stronger man gave me that jolt.”

 
          
Satisfied
that the would-be assassin had departed, he raised his head and looked about.

 
          
The
dark walls between which the stream was swiftly swinging him held out no hope
whatever.

 
          
Rising
sheer, they presented for the first ten feet a smooth, polished surface, the
work of the springtime floods.

 
          
“I’ll
need wings to beat this proposition,” Sudden reflected, adding sardonically,
“an’ I’m liable to get ‘em, but it’ll be too late.”

 
          
Conserving
his strength for the struggle he knew must come, he let the current carry him,
content just to keep afloat. Soon he noticed that the reverberating roar of the
river was becoming louder; that must mean only one thing —another fall, and he
knew it could not be a little one.

 
          
Desperately
he searched the walls of his watery prison, but no crack or cranny affording
hand-or foothold presented itself; a cat could not have climbed them. Then, as
he swung round a bend, he saw a sight at which even the bravest might well have
quailed.

 
          
Little
more than a hundred yards ahead, the sides of the gully closed in, forming a
narrow, tunnel-like passage through which the stream swept at incredible speed.
Along the centre of this outlet Sudden could see a tumbled, boiling ridge of
foam, tossing like the wind-worried mane of a huge white horse. He knew the
meaning of that; rocks there—jagged teeth which would tear him to bits when the
cruel current hurled him upon them. Even if he escaped this fate, the deafening
thunder told him that it would only mean death in another form, beaten and
pounded in the fury of the larger fall.

 
          
The
prospect spurred the puncher to action; he now began to savagely fight the
force he had hitherto submitted to, heading for the rock wall, where he hoped
to find the current less powerful. It was not long before he realized that his
efforts were futile. He was a strong man, his open-air life had endowed him
with muscles of steel, but his soggy clothing and the numbing chill of the
water werebeginning to tell, and against the terrific thrust of the torrent he
was impotent. Fight as he might, he felt himself being forced nearer and nearer
to that awful gully of death. Thrashing out with leaden limbs, his hand struck
something, and he clutched desperately; it was a submerged needle of rock. With
an effort he got his other hand to it and held on, though his arms seemed to be
leaving their sockets. Conscious that he must soon let go from sheer
exhaustion, he fought his way round to the up-stream side of the rock, and was
immediately flattened against it. The pressure was enormous, but the position
eased his aching muscles.

 
          
“Guess
I know now how the meat in a sandwich feels,” he mutttered, and made
an
heroic attempt to grin. For some moments he clung there,
breathless and gasping, while the galloping stream, like a live malignant
thing, strove to tear him away. He was now perilously near the danger-spot. Idly
he watched the stump of a tree whirl past to vanish in the welter of warring
waters, saw it leap into view again, white streaks showing where it had been
riven on the rocks, disappear, and emerge once more still further shattered.
Sudden knew that it would be spewed out of that deadly maw as splintered
fragments. That would be his fate unless …

 
          
Lifting
himself a little in the water, he searched again. Twenty yards distant, at the
foot of the dank wall on his left, there appeared to be a small ledge, thinly
covered by the stream; if he could reach that he would, at least, be no longer
in danger of being swept over the fall. He decided to take the risk, and in a
moment was again at the mercy of the current. This, fortunately, carried him
straight to the spot, and a lucky snatch kept him from going past it. The
struggle to climb up took his last ounce of strength.

 
          
Slimy
and water-swept, the ledge was heaven itself after the incessant battle with
the river, and for a long time

 
          
Sudden
lay there like a log, conscious only of one fact—the necessity for violent
exertion had, for the time, passed. Spent both in body and mind, he was
satisfied with the present, and the point that his prospect of escaping was as
minute as ever did not trouble him. Lying full length on the ledge, his eyes
closed, the greedy stream clawing feebly at his wracked body, he was content to
rest. A flick of something across his face aroused
him :
he sat up, and for a moment fancied that a snake had fallen from the cliff
above. Then he saw a dangling rope with a noose at the end. A slight bulge in
the rock-face prevented him from seeing the rim from which it had been dropped.

 
          
“Somebody’s
invitin’ me to hang myself,” he reflected.

 
          
Climbing
cautiously to his feet, he adjusted the loop under his armpits and shook the
rope. In a few moments he was dragged sprawling over the edge of the chasm. At
the other end of the taut rope was his own horse, Nigger, and looking down upon
him was Yago, whose anxious countenance split into a broad grin when he saw his
foreman stand up and throw off the loop.

 
          
“This
yer passion for bathin’ is likely to be yore finish one o’ these days,” he
remarked.

 
          
“Yu
ol’ fool,” Sudden smiled. “How in hell did yu find me?”

 
          
“Just
luck,” Bill said offhandedly. “Ran into Cal, who said he’d seen yu, an’ come
across Nigger, with the reins hitched round the saddle-horn. Knowed yu wouldn’t
leave him thataway, so I scouted round some an’ found a place where it looked
like yu’d took a high dive. Then I
come
down-stream
hopin’ to find yore remainders.”

 
          
“It
musta’ been a disappointment for yu,” the foreman said gravely.

 
          
“Shucks,
yu know what I mean,” Yago replied hastily.

 
          
A
listening stranger would have deemed one man ungrateful and the other
indifferent, but they understood one another, these two. Sudden knew that his
friend had purposely followed him in case of danger, and Bill was well aware
that the foreman would give his life for him if occasion demanded, but, for
untold gold, neither of them would have admitted this.

 
          
When
the rescued man’s clothes had dried somewhat and he had smoked several
much-needed cigarettes, they rode along to the end of the Sluice and viewed the
fall. With all his nerve, the foreman could not repress a slight shudder as he
looked at the narrow gut, with its twisting, tearing, racing torrent of water,
fighting its way through to pitch, a sheer forty feet, into a tossing,
tormented smother of spume and spray. The rolling roar of the river made speech
impossible and it was not until they were some distance away that yago heard
the whole of the story. His expressed intentions regarding the unknown
assailant were definite and lurid. The foreman listened with a quizzical
expression.

 
          
“There
was once a lady who wrote a piece ‘bout cookin’ a hare,” he remarked. “It
started off with, `
First
catch yore hare.’ ”

 
          
“Aw,
go to hell,” was Bill’s inelegant rejoinder.

 
          
HAVING,
as he believed, successfully disposed of the rider, Riley turned his attention
to the man’s mount, patiently awaiting his master’s return. Reluctantly he
knotted the reins and flung them over the saddle-horn; the animal might return
to the C P, but being almost a stranger there, it was more likely to drift
around.

 
          
“An’
mebbe I’ll `find’ yu later,” the Circle B man muttered. “Just now it wouldn’t
be noways safe.”

 
          
With
a flick of his quirt he started the horse off, mounted his own beast, and set
out for the ranch on Battle Butte. He found King Burdette in the living-room,
and chuckled inwardly when his entry was received with a black look; his news
would soon change all that, and he meant to make the most of it.

 
          
“What
the blazes do yu want?”
came
the surly question.

 
          
The
visitor seated himself on the side of the table, rolled a smoke, and swung a
nonchalant leg. He still bore the mark of King’s fist on his face, but he was a
different man.

 
          
Burdette
sensed the change and watched him narrowly.

 
          
“I
got news,” Riley began. “They’ll
be needin’
a new
foreman at the C P.”

 
          
King
straightened up with a jerk. “How come?” he
asked.
“Has
Green gone?”

 
          
“Yu
could put it that way,” Riley said. “He slipped into the Sluice s’mornin’.”