Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 06 - Sudden Gold-Seeker(1937) (10 page)

 
          
“Not
on yore life,” Mason said instantly. “We’re pards, an’ I’m stick in’ to yu like
a tick on a cow, that’s whatever.” Sudden shook his head, but he saw the boy
was in earnest and made no further protest. That he could count on one friend
dispelled some of the gloom which had enveloped him when he learned his evil
reputation had, by a mere chance, dogged him even to far-off Deadwood.

 
          
“Then
it’s
on’y fair yu should know who yo’re hookin’ up
with,” he replied, and proceeded to give a brief recital of how Fate had
foisted his infamous notoriety upon him.’ Mason listened in stupefied silence
to the story of a promise to a dying man, the blind search for two villains it
entailed, and the false accusation of murder which sent a youth no older than
himself wandering in the West with a price on his head, and every man’s hand
against him.

 
          
The
relation of his interview with Berg evoked a long whistle of dismay.
“The swine!”

 
          
Gerry
exploded. “I hope yu bruk his neck.”

 
          
“I
made myself plain,” Sudden said, with a wintry smile. “The fellas who sent him
won’t like it.”

 
          
“D’yu
reckon
Hickok is really after yore scalp?”

 
          
“Dunno,
but he ain’t the breed o’ gunman who goes around with a chip on his shoulder.

 
          
I’ve
heard that he never draws till his hand is forced, but he’s probably been told
I’m here to get him. That’s why I’m callin’ on him in the mornin’.” Mason
sprang to his feet. “Are yu plumb crazy?” he inquired. “Why, he’ll down yu on
sight; I’m goin’ along.”

 
          
“Yu’ll
stay here,” was the definite reply. “If I don’t show up in a coupla hours, yu
can make arrangements for the buryin’.”

 
          
“An’
there’ll be two holes needed,” Gerry said savagely. “Wild Bill may be a wizard
with a six-shooter but a load o’ buckshot fired from behind
..”

 
          
“Shucks,
there’ll be no battle,” Sudden interrupted. “He’s white, I tell yu.” But Gerry
was not so confident, and it was with a glum face that he watched his partner
set out in the morning.

 
          
Jacob
found him idly smoking in the doorway.

 
          
“Taking
a holiday?” he asked.

 
          
“Jim
has business in town,” Gerry explained, and then, unable to keep silent. “He’s
gone to meet Hickok.” The old man’s face showed his concern. “That’s bad,” he
said. “No man has ever beaten Wild Bill to the draw, and I doubt if even Sudden—”

 
          
“Yu
know?” Gerry broke in.

 
          
“All
Deadwood
knows,” was the reply. “I found it very hard
to believe—he doesn’t look like a desperado.”

 
          
“He
ain’t,” Gerry said eagerly, and told something of what he had learned the night
before.

 
          
The
elder man nodded his comprehension. “Fate plays fantastic tricks with some of
us,” he said. “Don’t worry; despite his terrible toll of human life, Hickok is
not a butcher. All will be well; they are both sane men.”

 
          
An
unpretentious log-hut erected apart from the others and owned by a miner,
served as
a lodging
for the famous gunman. Sudden
found him seated at the door, polishing one of his pistols with a silk
handkerchief. Hickok paid particular attention to his weapons, which was hardly
to be wondered at, for his life might at any moment depend on their being in
order. He looked up as the man on the black horse dismounted, threw the reins,
and walked unhurriedly towards him.

 
          
“Mornin’,
seh,” the visitor said. “I’ve had word yu wanted to see me.” Hickok gathered
the import of the greeting, noted the brown nervous fingers hanging loosely
over the gun-butts, the effortless, panther-like motion of a body ready to
become instinct with action at a second’s notice. He gave his gun a final rub,
looked at it critically, slipped it into the holster, and stood up.

 
          
“Mister
Green, I have always held courage to be the greatest of human virtues,” he
began, “because, in this ill-contrived world of ours, it is shorely the most
needed. I am pleased to meet yu.” Then he added gravely, “I could have killed yu
five times while yu were addressin’ me.”

 
          
Sudden’s
eyes twinkled. “Once would ‘a’ been a-plenty,” he replied. “I had to take the
chance.”

 
          
“The
sun is fierce,” Hickok observed. “It is cooler inside—an’ more private.” Seated
on stools in the rudely furnished living-room of the hut, these two men who
carried death in their hands faced one another.

 
          
“I
was told that yu had come to Deadwood to kill me,” Wild Bill said.

 
          
“Berg
has been busy,” Sudden suggested.

 
          
“Yes,
it was Berg,” the gunman admitted. “I’m guessin’ he brought yu the same story
about me?” He saw that his surmise was correct, and went on, “What’s his game?”

 
          
“Obeyin’
orders,” the puncher stated. “He offered me a thousand dollars to get yu.”

 
          
“One—thousand—dollars,”
Hickok repeated softly. “Not very flatterin’ to either of us, Mister Green; I
should have said the job was worth more. Yore refusal made him sore, I expect?”

 
          
Sudden
smiled. “It certainly did,” he confessed. “Berg was all shook up.” Hickok
smiled too, and then his expression became thoughtful again. “That vermin is of
no account—he’s on’y bein’ used,” he said. “I must find out who is behind him.”

 
          
“In
the meantime, yu’ll need eyes in the back o’ yore head, seh,” the puncher
warned. “I was told that however it was done there would be no trouble—after.”

 
          
“I’ll
be careful,” the big man promised, hesitated for a moment and, with a smile,
said,

 
          
“I’ve
heard surprising statements about yore speed in gettin’ yore gun workin’. Now
that’s my best suit an’ I’ve yet to meet the man who is faster. Call it vanity
if you like but—I’m curious.”

 
          
“Shucks,
I expect yu can give me a start,” the puncher replied. “I’m willin’ to try.”

 
          
“Good,”
Hickok said.

 
          
Standing
face to face, a few paces apart, Hickok gave the word. With a speed which
baffled sight, the guns flashed to the men’s hips and the snap of the falling
hammers sounded like one. With something like a sigh, Wild Bill thrust his
weapon back into its holster.

 
          
“Lucky
it was on’y play or we’d have crossed the Divide together,” he said. “I’ve
never seen a quicker draw. Mister Green, if the town knew of this …” He paused
in embarrassment, conscious that he, Wild Bill, was almost asking a favour. “Forget
I said that,” he finished.

 
          
“I
don’t advertise,” Sudden replied. “Anyways, I was
fortunate,
four times outa five yu’d get the edge on me.” Hickok shook his head. “If I can
help yu, don’t hesitate to ask,” he said.

 
          
“Yu’ll
find me here or at Bizet’s—he’s a good fella, that Frenchy; yu can trust him.”
He watched the black horse and its rider turn into the street.

 
          
“An’
it wasn’t that I’m gettin’ old an’ slow,” he muttered, his mind still on the
astonishing fact that he had found a man as fast as himself.

 
          
Some
days later, Paul Lesurge and Reuben Stark foregathered in the
latter’s
private room at the Monte.

 
          
“So
Berg’s plan failed, as I feared it would,” Lesurge remarked. “Hickok is too old
a hand to tumble into such a trap, and this fellow, Green appears to have
intelligence; they will now both be against us—a dangerous pair to draw to.”

 
          
“Bah!
they
don’t know about us, an’ anyway, Bill is past his
best,” Stark said. “The other fella can be—attended to. What’s his interest in
the game?”

 
          
“I’ve
no idea, except that his partner, Mason, has the infernal impudence to admire
my ward, Miss Ducane,” Paul replied.

 
          
“I
expect he ain’t alone in that,” Stark laughed, and as a rap sounded on the
door, “Come in.” It was Berg who entered, or rather, crept into the room, his
evil, ferrety face more malignant than usual. He slid into a chair, and, at a
nod from the host, helped himself from the bottle on the table.

 
          
“It’s
the man I thought,” he began.
“Calls hisself `Rogan’ but he’s
‘Lefty’ Logan, the Californy killer, shore enough.”

 
          
“Never
heard of him,” Stark said. “Is he fast?”

 
          
“He’s
here because he ain’t knowed in these parts,” Berg pointed out. “Yeah, he’s
fast a-plenty, but he fools ‘em—uses the hand they ain’t watchin’, which is
usually the left; that’s how he
come
by his name.”

 
          
“We
don’t care how he does it. Will he tackle the job?”

 
          
“He
won’t take on Hickok, though he’s workin’ for day wages.”

 
          
“Afraid
of him, like the rest o’ you,” Stark sneered.

 
          
For
once the rat showed his teeth. “Like the rest of us,” he snapped. “He’s willin’
to tangle up with Green for a thousand.”

 
          
“A
thousand bucks?” the saloonkeeper cried. “Tell him to go to hell.”

 
          
“No,
tell him to send Green there,” Lesurge interposed, and turning to Stark, “If he
succeeds it will be worth the coin; if he fails—” he shrugged his shoulders—“it
will cost you nothing. I feel in my bones that the puncher is going to be—awkward.”
The other assented, but with an ill grace; he had an insatiable lust for
wealth, and all it would bring, and it was upon this passion that Paul was
playing.

 
          
“Very
well,” Stark told his go-between, “but you tell this friend o’ yores”—there was
an insulting emphasis on the three last words—“that we don’t want no raw work.
It’s to be done at Bizet’s, an’ I
ain’t needin’
to see
him before or after, savvy? You’ll pay him, keepin’ a rake-off for yoreself, I
s’pose. That’s all.” Without a word, Berg shuffled out. Lesurge refilled his
own glass, his dark eyes rather contemptuously studying the bloated figure
before him.

 
          
“The
town seems all stirred up over the latest robbery,” he remarked. “Something
ought to be done.”

 
          
“Yeah,”
Stark said irritably. “Have to hang someone, I s’pose.”

 
          
“Having
first caught your hare, of course,” Paul reminded. “Someone, I said,” Stark
replied. “It
don’t
much matter—Gosh! That’s an idea.”
Lesurge smiled superciliously. “You are not, by any chance, thinking of making
Wild Bill the culprit, are you?”

 
          
“Why not?” the saloonkeeper demanded.

 
          
“My
dear fellow, I have no more use than
yourself
for
James Butler Hickok, but even his worst enemy would not believe him capable of
putting a knife in a miner’s throat to steal his dust.

 
          
You
would be laughed at, my friend, and ridicule kills. We shall find a better way.”
Stark grunted. He could not fathom this polished, satirical person, who,
through his handsome sister, had so quickly gained an ascendancy over him, and
who—though apparently deferring to him—always contrived to get his own way.