Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 03 - The Marshal of Lawless(1933) (31 page)

 
          
He
held the document out and she saw that he was speaking the truth. For a moment
the revelation stunned her and then she rallied.

 
          
“That
is not my father’s writing.”

 
          
“No,
Potter drew it up an’ witnessed yore dad’s signature.
Nothin’
crooked ‘bout that, huh?”

 
          
She
could find no answer; the news had hit her like a landslide, sweeping away all
hope.

 
          
She
forced herself to speak:

 
          
“Why
have you kept silent about this?”

 
          
“Didn’t
wanta worry yu, Tonia,” he replied, and his voice was less harsh. “Hoped I’d
git the Double S in a pleasanter way, an’ tear this up.” He tapped the deed.
“I’m still hopin’,” he added.

 
          
Tonia
drew herself up, and the look that had been her father’s shone in her steady
eyes.

 
          
“Please
remember that I am ‘Tonia’ only to my friends, Mr. Raven,” she reminded.
“As for your proposal, why I’d sooner marry a Gila monster.”

 
          
The
bitter scorn and contempt stung him like a knotted whiplash, rousing the
dormant savage in his nature. Leaping to his feet, his face a mask of fury, he
poured out a stream of threats and curses, his clenched fist raised as though
to strike her.

 
          
“Yu
damned Jezebel,” he raved, “I’ll tame yu—I’ll lower yore pride. I’ll get—”

 
          
“Outta
here, if yo’re wise.”

 
          
An
iron hand seized his collar, shook him like a rat, and flung him backwards so
violently that he catapulted over the veranda rail and spread-
eagled,
face downwards, in the dust. Looking up, he saw the
marshal standing above him, a gun in his hand, and death in his eyes. Visiting
Renton, he had walked up from the bunk-house and come upon the scene
unobserved.

 
          
“Fade,
yu yellow dawg,” Green rasped, and kicked the man’s hat towards him. “If I
catch yu speakin’ to Miss Sarel again I’ll make yu dumb for keeps. Now, climb
that bronc and vamoose; yu don’t improve the scenery, none whatever.”

 
          
Seth
Raven picked up his hat, dusted himself, and moved towards his mount. For an
instant he glanced at the girl as though about to speak, but the marshal was
not one to utter idle threats and he thought better of it. Only when he was
some hundreds of yards away did he turn and shake a furious fist at them. The
marshal grinned as he saw the action.

 
          
“Played
it safe, didn’t he?” he said. “What’s the coyote been doin’ to upset yu, Miss
Sarel?”

 
          
“He
wants to marry me,” she told him.

 
          
“Wish
I’d broken his neck,” Green said fervently. “I reckon yu set him back some.”

 
          
“I
said I’d rather marry a Gila,” she confessed, a glint of a smile lightening her
woebegone face.

 
          
“Which
shorely showed yore good taste,” the marshal laughed. “Well, I’m bettin’ he
won’t bother yu no more.
” .
“But he will—both Andy and
myself are in his clutches,” she said miserably, and related the rest of her
conversation with Raven. The marshal’s face lengthened.

 
          
“That’s
bad—that’s awful bad,” he admitted, when he had heard it all. “No reason to
doubt the genuineness o’ that paper he showed yu, I s’pose?”

 
          
“It
looked like Daddy’s signature.”

 
          
“Potter
is the king-pin,” Green mused. “If he could speak—”

 
          
“I’m
sorry to have made trouble for you.”

 
          
“Don’t
yu worry yore head about
that.
I never was a popular
fella anyways. I’m on my way to Sweetwater to see Strade. Keep a-smilin’; Raven
ain’t got yore ranch yet.”

 
          
She
watched him swing up into the saddle with the easy grace of the born horseman,
and ride away. Three times this long, lithe puncher, with his slow Southern
drawl and level, smiling eyes, had, like a veritable knight of the plains, come
to her rescue, and it heartened her to know that he was on her side.
Nevertheless
,,
the future looked bleak enough, and the
mere thought of losing the home she loved brought a lump into her throat.

 
          
As
the marshal rode along the street of Sweetwater a shabby, hard-featured woman
came out of a store, and at the sight of him, stood staring.

 
          
“Say,
mister, who’s that fella?” she asked of a passer-by.

 
          
The
Parson, for he it was chance had thrown in her way, pulled up and eyed her
curiously. “Town marshal o’ Lawless—calls hisself Green,” he replied. “Why, do
yu know him?”

 
          
“Not
by name,” she said. “Over to Texas they used to call him Sudden.”

 
          
The
passer-by became alert. “The outlaw?” he queried.

 
          
The
woman nodded. “He had a hard reputation, but I reckon it warn’t deserved; he
did me a mighty good turn onct, an’ I’ve heard of others.”

 
          
Pardoe
thought rapidly. “Unless yu wanta do him a mighty bad turn yu’ll keep mum ‘bout
him,” he urged. “It’s all right with me—I ain’t sayin’ a word; but if folks
here found out who he is they’d hang him quicker’n scat.”

 
          
“My
land, mister, I’m obliged to yu for the warnin’,” she said earnestly. “Yu can
reckon me dumb, if I am a woman. I wouldn’t have harm come to him through me
for all the gold in Mexico; he’s a good fella, say what they like.”

 
          
The
gambler’s cunning eyes watched her hurry away, and saw the subject of their
conversation enter the sheriff’s office. Then he slid into the nearest saloon,
bought a drink, and sat down to think things over, keeping a wary eye on the
sheriff’s door.

 
          
“If
I take him in Raven will be tickled to death,” he reasoned. “Make me marshal,
likely, and mebbe I’ll find where he cached the plunder.”

 
          
The
matter satisfactorily decided, he absorbed another drink, and departed by the
back door to make the necessary preparations.

 
          
The
sheriff leaned back in his chair and regarded his visitor thoughtfully. He had
just heard the latest news from Lawless, and his frown showed that he did not
like it.

 
          
“Allus
had doubts ‘bout Raven—dunno why—‘count of his mixed blood, I reckon; sooner
trust an honest-to-God Injun
myself
,” he said. “He
certainly ‘pears to have them two ranchers roped.”

 
          
Green
asked an apparently irrelevant question: “Was it ever found out who bumped off
Anthony Sarel?”

 
          
The
sheriff shook his head. “No evidence a-tall,” he replied. “The body warn’t
robbed an’ he had no known enemies; Tony was a good fella an’ well liked.”

 
          
“Where
was Raven at the time?”

 
          
“Couldn’t say—no one knowed quite when the killin’ took place.
Tony left town ‘bout midday an’ he warn’t found till evenin’, when one o’ his
outfit happened on him. Yu don’t think—?”

 
          
“I’m
shootin’ in the dark; but, holdin’ that mortgage, he had a good reason for
wantin’

 
          
Sarel
out o’ the way, an’ he wasn’t in town when the stage was held up nor when
Bordene was bushwhacked. Then there’s the hoss.”

 
          
“What
hoss?” the sheriff enquired.

 
          
Green
told of the tracking of Andrew Bordene’s murderer over the Border and back
again, and the finding of the hidden black in the little valley. Strade’s
eyebrows went up.

 
          
“Odd,
that,” he admitted. “Near the 88 too. Yu figure that Raven is yore double?”

 
          
“Can’t
go as far as that, but yu gotta allow that if he’s tryin’ to corral the
ranches, Sudden the Second has helped him a whole lot. O’ course, it might be
someone workin’ for him. I thought o’ Leeson but he ain’t got the
guts,
an’ Jevons—wish I knew what he was goin’ to tell us.”

 
          
“Five
minutes’ talk with Potter would clear the air some, I’m thinkin’.”

 
          
“That’s
the cussed luck of it—every leak stopped,” the marshal grumbled, and suddenly
sat up. “Hell’s bells, he mighta robbed the bank hisself.”

 
          
“But
he’s returnin’ the money,” the sheriff protested.

 
          
“Not
Andy’s thirty thousand, the loss of which practically gives Raven the Box B,”
Green pointed out. “An’ if Potter was gettin’ dangerous—” He ruminated for a
moment. “It was on’y Raven who saw a fella on a black hoss sneakin’ outa town
that night.”

 
          
The
sheriff whistled softly. “Puttin’ her thataway, it seems you might be right,”
he agreed.

 
          
“But
provin’ it is somethin’ else.”

 
          
The
marshal nodded moodily. “Most o’ them damn fools in Lawless wouldn’t hear a
word against him just now. Can yu imagine Raven givin’ money away?”

 
          
“He’s
gettin’ good value,” Strade said. “He’d sell what he might call his soul for
power.

 
          
As
an Injun, he’d ‘a’ been chief of his tribe, or nothin’; that’s the kind o’ man
he is.”
Which showed that the sheriff had gauged the
saloonkeeper correctly without divining the basic hatred behind his obsession.
“Wonder why he made yu marshal?”

 
          
“He
took it that bein’ down an’ out I’d dance to his tune,” Green replied. “He
pretty near said it, an’ mebbe I didn’t contradict him.”

 
          
“Yu’ll
need to watch out now yu’ve shown yore hand,” Strade warned.

 
          
“Yu
don’t have to tell me that,” the marshal said grimly. “I saw Jevons die.”

 
          
The
sheriff held out his hand. “So long, yu blame’ outlaw,” he
smiled
.“
Send when you want me. By the way, there’s a Lawless man here
to-day—they call him the ‘Parson.’ Know him?”

 
          
“Yeah,
tin-horn cardsharp,” Green said scornfully. “He ain’t dangerous—even at poker.”

 
          
It
would have certainly surprised him to know that the man who was not “dangerous”
was even then riding the trail to Lawless, seeking diligently the best place to
“hole up” and wait with a levelled gun for the “outlaw” who had, as he
believed, despoiled him. He found what he wanted where the trail traversed a
tiny hollow, the sides of which were masked by brush sufficiently high and
dense to cover both man and mount. Selecting a spot to his liking, the
bushwhacker squatted down, his rifle ready, his cold, expectant gaze on the
road to Sweetwater.

 
          
Half
an hour passed and he heard the dull thud of hoofs again; this time there could
be no mistake. The big, black horse was moving at a fast lope, his rider
sitting slackly in the saddle, deep in thought. Now that the moment had come
the gambler’s nervousness left him. Planting his feet firmly, he trained his
weapon on a point in the trail immediately opposite and when the horseman
reached it, fired. The marshal, jarred out of his meditations by the crash of
the report and the passage of a slug through his hat, snatched out a gun, drove
a bullet into the puff of smoke in the brush, and, realizing the futility of argument,
spurred the black. His chance shot, though it did no more than cut a furrow in
the bushwhacker’s cheek, disconcerted him so much that by the time he was ready
to fire again horse and rider were a diminishing dot on the trail.