Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) (40 page)

 
          
“Whatsa
matter?” asked his companion, from the other side of the bush. “Yu hit?”

 
          
Getting
no reply, he added anxiously, “Ain’t dead, are yu? Can’t yu say somethin’?”

 
          
Moody
could and did; he said a great deal, quickly and emphatically, his topics
comprising bloody-minded bandits, catclaw bushes as cover, and jackass
cowpunchers who selected them as such. Incidentally, Flatty gathered that the
bullet had driven sundry thorns into his friend’s cheek. He listened spellbound
until, from sheer lack of breath, the speaker paused.

 
          
“Sounds
like yu was a bit peeved,” he said, and when the storm of words began again,

 
          
“Awright,
I heard yu the first time. Where did that jasper fire from? Let’s argue with
him.”

 
          
“End
upstairs window to the left,” Moody growled, whereupon the pair of them
directed an unceasing stream of lead at the window. The man crouching behind it
had his hat snatched from his head, his shoulder perforated, and when he poked
his rifle out to reply to this scandalous onslaught, the weapon was jerked from
his tingling fingers, a ruined, useless thing.

 
          
Cursing,
he went in search of a bandage and a safer position.

 
          
“Guess
if we ain’t got him he’s discouraged a whole lot,” Flatty chuckled.

 
          
Moody
did not reply. He was extracting further thorns from his epidermis, and the
painful process moved him to speech again—vitriolic speech.

 
          
SUDDEN’S
first conscious thought was that someone was banging his head on the floor and
causing a cracking kind of explosion each time. Then, as the mist cleared from
his brain, he recognized that though his head throbbed with pain, he was alone,
and the noise came from without. He understood—the cleaning up of the Circle B
was in progress. He tried to get up, but his bonds would not permit this; he
could only lie and wait. So far as he could remember, he was in the room from
which he had rescued Nan Purdie. He wondered if the pair had got
away?

 
          
“Guess
they made it, or Purdie would ‘a’ been forced to let up,” he reasoned. “Why
didn’t Burdette bump me off at once?
Aims to use me to
bargain with, if things go against him, mebbe.”

 
          
For
some time he lay there, listening to the intermittent crash of rifle-fire. He
did not know the hour, but it was almost full daylight, and the fight must have
been on for some time.

 
          
Presently
his quick ear caught the sound of a stealthy step outside the door. Were they
coming to finish him off?

 
          
“Massa
Luce, yo dah?” asked a low, quavering voice.

 
          
A
woman—it could only be Mandy, the black cook; Sudden had heard the boy speak of
her. A strange voice would frighten her away; Sudden groaned. His ruse
succeeded, a key turned in the lock, and the Negress entered; she had an open
clasp-knife in her hand. At the sight of the bound figure she started back in
alarm.

 
          
“Yo
don’t
be Massa Luce,” she said.

 
          
“I’m
his friend—I came here to help him an’ got catched myself,” the puncher
explained.

 
          
“Yu
must be Mandy; Luce has told me of yu; I reckon he would like for yu to cut me
loose.”

 
          
She
was shaking with fear, but she stooped and hacked through the thongs on wrists
and ankles. Sudden hoisted himself to his feet, weak and tottery, one hand feeling
gingerly at the back of his head, which throbbed incessantly. He found a noble
bump, but no blood.

 
          
“So
it ain’t really fallin’ apart,” he said, and grinned. “We gotta get away from
here plenty quick.”

 
          
“Yassuh,
dat King
neah
kill me for dis,” Mandy said, her eyes
big with terror.

 
          
“I’m
figurin’ he’s got his hands middlin’ full just now,” the foreman assured her.

 
          
Noiselessly
they stole down the stairs. The frequent crack of a rifle and the thud of
striking lead told that the battle was not yet over. As they passed the door of
the living-room a choking cry and a curse announced that a bullet had found a
billet. A voice called a hoarse question.

 
          
“Solly’s
got his—plumb through the throat,” came the reply. “The damn fool would take a
risk—I done told him them hombres could shoot.”

 
          
They
found the back door unguarded—with the steep Butte behind him, King had no fear
of heing outflanked—darted across the cleared space and plunged into the
welcome shelter of the trees. For a long ten minutes, Sudden led the way,
twisting and turning in the densest of the scrub, and then he paused.

 
          
“Reckon
yo’re safe now, Mandy,” he said. “Wait here till the firin’ stops an’ then come
in; we’ll take care o’ yu.

 
          
“Yassuh,
I suah will do jus’ dat,” she replied, and with the fatalistic resignation of
her race, sat down to
await
whatever the gods might
send.

 
          
Sudden
headed for the scene of the conflict. Around him birds were chirping, the
slanting rays of the early suntrickled through the trees, a tiny rivulet
bubbled with mirth as he stepped across it, and his lips set in a wry smile as
he reflected that only a few hundred yards away men were striving to slay their
kind. Far up in the sky a great hawk swept in a wide circle.

 
          
“Another
killer,” he mused. “But he’s gotta live. Well, so’ve we, an’ if Burdette’s sort
… Shucks! Mebbe it’s hard to justify, but it’s gotta be did.”

 
          
Which
sage conclusion brought him to a little rise from whence he could see the
ranchhouse
verandah.
Even as he looked, a stick with a
soiled white rag tied to it was thrust from a shattered window, and a voice
called out.

 
          
“Hey,
Purdie, I got somethin’ to say.
Yu willin’ to listen?”

 
          
“Speak
yore piece,” came the rancher’s reply.

 
          
Sim
Burdette stepped into view. He carried no gun, and there was much of his elder
brother’s jaunty impudence in his attitude as he rested his hands on the
verandah rail and coolly faced the foes he could not see. There was a smear of
blood on his dark, sneering face, and his voice, when he spoke, had the harsh,
dominant note characteristic of the Black Burdettes.

 
          
“We’ve
got yore foreman, Green, hawg-tied upstairs,” he began. “If yu wanta see him
again—alive—yu better call this fight off right now. That’s—”

 
          
Somewhere
in the scrub a rifle barked, and the slim figure on the verandah staggered as
from a blow and fell forward across the rail, sagging limply, head down,
arms
swinging. A howl of rage came from the ranchhouse, and
above it the voice of Chris Purdie rang out:

 
          
“Who
fired? By God, I’ll hang the skunk
who
did that with
my own hands!”

 
          
With
the spring of a panther, King Burdette leapt through the window, lifted the
body of his brother, and shook a furious fist.

 
          
“Purdie,
yu’ve signed Green’s death-warrant,” he shouted. “Do yore damnedest, yu dirty
coward.”

 
          
Savagely
he struck down the white flag and slowly bore his burden back into the
building.

 
          
“King,
I had nothin’ to do with it,” the cattleman called out. “I’d ‘a’ give my right
hand sooner than it should ‘a’ happened.” A jeering laugh was the only answer he
received. Turning helplessly to Yago, he said, “What in hell am I to do?”

 
          
The
appalling tragedy had produced a paralysing effect on all save two of the
spectators.

 
          
One
of these was the assassin, and the other, Sudden himself. The fatal shot had
been fired but a bare dozen yards from where he was standing. He had seen the
sun glinting on the gun-barrel without a suspicion of what was to follow. The
foul deed stirred him to instant action, and he hurried towards the spot. A
natural hedge of prickly pear, with its shining armour of spines, forced him to
circle round, and he arrived only in time to see the killer, a wisp of smoke
still curling from the muzzle of his weapon, vanish in the thick brush. Sudden
stared.

 
          
“The
marshal,” he ejaculated. “What the devil…?”

 
          
He
did not pursue the man; it was of more immediate importance to let Purdie know
he was at liberty. He hurried along the slope and appeared on the scene just as
the rancher asked his despairing question.

 
          
“Burdette
is four-flushin’, Purdie,” he said quietly. “The card he thinks he has up his
sleeve is here. Yu can call his bluff.”

 
          
The
effect of his arrival was ludicrous. Yago slapped his back, swore in sheer
delight, and turned triumphantly to his employer.

 
          
“Didn’t
I tell yu he’d make it?” he crowed.
“Got as many lives as a
cat, this fella.”

 
          
Purdie
wiped beads of cold sweat from his brow. All he could say was, “Jim, I’m damned
glad to see yu,” but his hand-clasp spoke volumes.
“An’ Nan?”

 
          
“Safe
somewheres with Luce,” the foreman told him.

 
          
The
rancher’s face clouded for a moment, and then, as he realized what the news
meant, he said grimly, “Then we can finish the job. Bill, tell the boys to give
‘em hell.”

 
          
“So
yu fetched the marshal along after all,” Sudden remarked.

 
          
“I
certainly did not—gave particular orders to prevent his knowin’.”

 
          
“Somebody’s
got a loose tongue; it was Slype who shot Sim Burdette.”

 
          
“Slype?”
ejaculated the rancher. “But he’s a Burdette man hisself. If he’d downed me
now…”

 
          
“There’s
depths to that fella yu ain’t plumbed yet,” Sudden told him. “When we’ve
cleaned up here there’s another mess waitin’ in Windy.”

 
          
Purdie
was hardly listening; his mind was puzzling over what he had just heard. “Can’t
see why he should kill Sim,” he muttered.

 
          
“He
wanted the ruckus to go on, an’ he figured it would mean my finish—which it
shorely would if I’d waited,” the foreman pointed out. “He
don’t
like me a lot.”

 
          
“The
cowardly coyote,” Purdie growled. “I said I’d hang the cur, an’ I will, star
an’ all.”

 
          
Meanwhile,
in the Circle B ranchhouse, King was also getting a surprise. Having laid his
brother’s body on a form, he strode from the room, his handsome face distorted
to that of a devil.

 
          
His
men watched him in stern silence. Only when he had vanished did one of them
speak:

 
          
“Good-bye,
Mister Green,” he said, and added an ugly laugh.

 
          
As
King raced up the stairs the firing outside recommenced, a perfect hail of lead
spattering the building. He shouted a scornful gibe:

 
          
“Shoot,
yu fools; yu won’t save him thataway.”