Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 05 - Law O' The Lariat(1935) (4 page)

 
          
The
men were busy unsaddling, but they paused when they saw that their employer had
something to say. The introduction was brief and to the point.

 
          
“This
is Jim Severn, boys. He’s come to take Stevens’ job, an’ he’s in charge from
now on.”

 
          
Some
of the men said “Howdy”, others nodded, and a few looked only, and Severn
fancied that the looks were not entirely friendly. He himself was silent,
watching.

 
          
“
There’s yore quarters
, Jim,” Masters said, pointing to a small
log house standing apart from the other buildings. “It’s been made ready, but
if there’s anythin’ else yu want, the cook’ll get it for yu.
So
long.”

 
          
Severn
put his horse in the corral and carried his saddle and war-bags to the
foreman’s hut. This consisted of one room only, containing a bed, table,
cupboard and several chairs. There was a window at both back and front. Quirt,
having sniffed inquiringly all
round
, curled himself
up on the foot of the bed and lay there blinking at his master. The man grinned
at him. “Suits yu, eh?” he queried.

 
          
Having
removed the dust of his journey, he sauntered down to the bunkhouse. As he
approached the door he heard voices.

 
          
“I
don’t like dawgs no time an’ I’se done skeered of ‘em at night,” Jonah, the
cook, was explaining.

 
          
Severn’s
entrance, followed by the subject of the conversation, put an end to it. The
new foreman smiled when he saw the big
negro
shrink
away from Quirt.

 
          
“I
can tell yu a better plan, Jonah,” he said. “You give the dawg a chunk o’ meat
to chew on an’ he’ll be yore friend for life. Dawgs ain’t like humans—yu treat
a dawg right an’ he
don’t
ever forget it.”

 
          
The
black man’s face split into a wide grin. “Yessah, I’ll suah feed him,” he said.

 
          
So
it came about that when the rnen sat down to supper Quirt lay by his master’s
chair at the head of the long table, contentedly gnawing a big beef bone.
Severn himself was silent, studying the men with whom he had to work. There
were ten of them, and the foreman learned that three more were line-riding in
distant parts of the range. Youth and middle-age were both represented, and
Severn decided that on the whole they appeared a capable crew. One of them in
particular claimed his attention at once, “Bull” Devint. A medium-height,
chunkily-built man of around forty, with a heavy-jowled, somewhat bloated face,
small eyes and a long moustache which accentuated
an
habitual sneer. Severn guessed that his nickname was short for “bully”—the man
looked it. He was one of those whose eyes had not welcomed the new foreman.
With a similar expression he was now regarding his coffee.

 
          
“Hey,
yu lump o’ black rubbish, what d’yu call this?” he shouted.

 
          
Severn
smiled and sampled his cup. “Seems pretty fair coffee to me,” he said mildly.

 
          
“Think
so?”
sneered
the bully. “Depends what yu bin used to, I
s’pose. Stevens wouldn’t ‘a’ stood for it—knew his job, he did. We won’t get as
good a foreman as him in a hurry.”

 
          
The
clumsy effort to be offensive was apparent, but before Severn could reply,
Linley, a boy who was always chaffing the cook, took up the cudgels.

 
          
“Snevens
was a good man all right, but yu
shore are
a mite late
discoverin’ it, Bull,” he grinned. “I didn’t notice that yu shed any tears or
went into mournin’ when he was fetched in.”

 
          
Severn
thought it was time to interrupt the verbal warfare before worse befell.

 
          
“Masters
was tellin’ me that Stevens’ death was an absolute mystery,” he said, speaking
to the table generally.

 
          
“Mystery
nothin’,” said a lanky rider whose name was Bailey, but who was known as “Bones”
because he consisted of little else. “The White Masks done it, I’ll betcha.”

 
          
“Yu
advertise that idea an’ yu’ll be able to ask Stevens yoreself,” Devint warned.

 
          
“Who
are these White Masks?” queried Severn. “That’s a new one on me.”

 
          
“Funny
the Old Man didn’t tell yu,” Devint said, and his tone implied that the
omission was in some way not complimentary to the new foreman. Severn ignored
the innuendo and looked a question at Bailey.

 
          
“They’re
a gang o’ bandits operatin’ all round an’ nobody knows who they is,” replied
that worthy. “It’s said they got a hideout which they call The Cavern somewhere
in the Pinnacles. A fella in Hope claimed to have bin there an’ offered to lead
a posse to it, but Tyler, the sheriff, laughed an’ told him to go sleep it off.
Well, he’s doin’ that now—in the graveyard.”

 
          
“How
come?” asked the foreman.

 
          
“Oh,
he got into a knife-throwin’ contest with a stranger in the `Come Again’—an’ he
lost,” was the grim explanation. “
They holdin’
anythin’ against Stevens?” Severn asked. “Reckon not, but he may have drifted
too near their hideout,” Bailey suggested. “White Masks is shore enough bad
medicine,
an’ I reckon even Black Bart ain’t anxious to
offend ‘em.”

 
          
“Huh,
Bart’ll go up there an’ eat ‘em one o’ these days when he’s got time,” sneered
Devint, and Severn made a mental note of the remark. It was probable that he
had found one of the men who had been wished on the Lazy M by the local
autocrat. “He’s quite a while findin’ time,” put in Rayton, a sober, elderly
man. “I reckon if Sudden, who cleaned up the Hatchett’s Folly gang, was
around,
yu’d see them coyotes point for the skyline immediate.”

 
          
“They
say he was quick,” Linley contributed.

 
          
“Quick?”
echoed Rayton scornfully. “Well, I s’pose yu might call lightnin’ that.”

 
          
“Huh,
I’m bettin’ he ain’t so fast now; gettin’ tied slows a man up, I’ve heard,”
Devint said cynically.

 
          
“Mebbe,
but if I bumped into him he should have the road,” the other smiled.

 
          
Sitting
at the head of the table, Severn listened to this conversation with inward
amusement. So Sudden was not forgotten. He wondered if Rayton had met him
before, but could find no sign of recognition in the puncher’s face. He did not
think that “getting tied” had slowed his gunplay, but time would show. Anyway,
it was good to be in the game again.

 
          
He
remained for a while chatting with the men after the meal was over, and then
retired to his own shack, followed by a satisfied Quirt—the cook had seen to that.
For an hour he
sat,
smoking and turning things over in
his mind. That Masters was a badly-scared man was obvious, though why, and how
he proposed to evade the threatened loss of his ranch, Severn could form no
conjecture. The only clear thing seemed to be that he had picked a rough trail
to follow. Well, he had guessed as much when his old friend, Judge Embley, had
first appealed to him, but he had his own reasons for accepting.

 
          
IMMEDIATELY
after breakfast on the following morning Severn found the men assembled near
the corral awaiting orders for the day’s work. Devint, a man named Darby, and a
Mexican he had heard called Ignacio, were standing in a little group apart, and
the new foreman scented trouble. He walked straight up to them.

 
          
“I’m
told yu been actin’ straw-boss since Stevens passed out,” he said to Devint,
and when the man nodded sulkily, he added, “Yu can go on doin’ it.”

 
          
In
the bully’s eyes came a gleam of malicious triumph; if this new fellow wasn’t
afraid of him, he at least didn’t want trouble. He squared his shoulders and
thrust his chest out aggressively.

 
          
“Yu
got the job that oughta come to one of us,” he began. “I reckon the Old Man has
played it low down on the outfit, bringin’ in a stranger this away.”

 
          
The
other men stood round watching. Plainly Devint had been talking, and they had
known that he intended to test the new foreman. Severn’s mind worked quickly.
He did not want an open rupture with any of them just yet, but he recognised
that he must show the men he had to handle that he was capable of doing it. He
looked at Devint and there was a glint of amusement in the glance.

 
          
“What’s
it gotta do with me?” he asked. “Yu ain’t expectin’ me to tell Masters he’s
appointed the wrong man, are yu?”

 
          
Several
of the onlookers sniggered, and the bully glared at them; he did not at all
relish being made game of, and he also realised that in
a
warfare
of words with this man he would have no chance.

 
          
“I
can tell Masters all I want to tell him myself,” he said, the scowl on his face
deepening.

 
          
“All
yu gotta tell him is that I’ve fired you,” Severn said easily, and then, as
Devint made a threatening movement, “Take yore hand off that gun—yu haven’t the
pluck to pull it.” For a few seconds the two men stood, less than a couple of
yards apart, half-crouched, their eyes watching alertly for the first sign of
action. Then the bully’s gaze wavered and fell. The foreman had forced the
issue and found him unprepared.

 
          
“Like
I said—yellow,” Severn sneered, and half turned away.

 
          
“Damn yu,”
yelled Devint. “I’ll—”

 
          
But ere he could get the snatched-at gun
from its holster Severn’s expectant eye had caught the movement, and his left
hand darted out, gripping the wrist with a clutch of steel, while his right
seized the would-be slayer’s throat.

 
          
He
shook the powerless man savagely, sinking his fingers still more deeply in the
flesh of his neck. Devint, his eyeballs bulging and his face a dark purple, was
on the point of suffocation when, with a sudden thrust, Severn flung him
headlong into the dust, where he lay gasping, his labouring lungs sucking in
the air in great gulps. It was some moments before he could get on his feet,
and then the foreman said
shortly :

 
          
“Go
up to the house, get yore time, an’ hit the trail.”

 
          
With
an evil look and a muttered threat the beaten man slouched away. Severn turned
to the others; the anger had gone from his face but there was still an acid
touch in his voice.

 
          
“Anyone
else got notions?” he asked.

 
          
“I
go wiz Meester Devint,” the Mexican said.

 
          
Severn
nodded, and looked at Darby, who answered the unspoken question with a grin.

 
          
“I’m
stayin’ put,” he said.

 
          
“Good
enough,” replied the foreman, and proceeded to detail the duties for the day.

 
          
“My
Gawd !
” said Linley, as he rode away with Darby. “Did
yu see? He was actually laughin’ when he guzzled Bull.”

 
          
“Laughin’?”
retorted Darby. “Yes, laughin’ like a wolf does when it’s pullin’ down a calf.
I reckon hangin’ won’t be
no
surprise to Bull now.”

 
          
Having
sent the men off, Severn went up to the ranch-house. He found Masters and his
daughter in the front room. The girl was dressed for riding and her forehead
creased in a little frown when he entered.