Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) (3 page)

 
          
“Howdy,
gents,” he greeted. “I’m glad to see yu.”

 
          
“Mebbe,”
the one who had spoken before said dryly. “What’s goin’ on here?”

 
          
He
was a short, weedy fellow of middle-age, whose naturally cunning expression was
enhanced by a pronounced obliquity of vision. A straggling moustache drooped
around and over a weak mouth and inadequate chin. Even the star, prominently pinned
to his flannel shirt, could not endow him with dignity. Sheriff Foxwell,
commonly called “Foxy” by friend and foe, was not a likeable person.

 
          
“Mile
or so back on the trail I heard a shot, an’ then I find—this,” Sudden replied,
pointing to the dead rancher.

 
          
“Why,
it’s Ol’ Man Dover!” one of the party cried.

 
          
They
closed in on the prostrate-figure, thereby cutting off possible retreat by the
man standing beside it. If he sensed the significance of this manoeuvre—and he
could scarcely fail to do so—his demeanour was unchanged. The sheriff climbed
clumsily from his horse.

 
          
“Shore
is,” he said, “an’ cashed all right. Plugged in the back, an’
his own
gun in the holster. Where’s his rifle?”

 
          
“On
his hoss,” Sudden informed.

 
          
“Huh!
Looks like a bushwhackin’, but why?” Foxy questioned. He stooped and explored
the dead man’s pockets, producing a sizeable roll of currency. “That don’t
point to robbery, unless—the fella was interrupted.” His squinting eyes rested
on the stranger.

 
          
“Nobody in sight when I arrived.”

 
          
“Mebbe
this gent’ll tell us somethin’ about hisself,” an older man suggested.

 
          
The
sheriff looked sourly at him. “I’m handlin’ this, Hicks,” he reminded, “but as
you’ve butted in we might as well know what this hombre is doin’ around here.”

 
          
“I’m
on my way to the Circle Dot,” Sudden said quietly, and anticipating the obvious
question, “I was hopin’ to land a job.”

 
          
The
officer’s eyes were sharp with suspicion. “Happen to be acquainted with Dover?”

 
          
“Never
heard of him till this mornin’,” was the indifferent reply. “But I happen to be
acquainted with cattle.”

 
          
The
sheriff shrugged his shoulders. “‘Pears
an
open an’
shut case to me,” he said. “You admit yore errand was to meet him, an’ we find
you standin’ over his dead body, just about to search him, seemin’ly. Well,
there’s plenty trees, an’ you got yore rope, Jed, I see.”

 
          
The
man
addressed,
a lanky, rawboned individual, nodded,
and patted the looped lariat on his saddle-horn. Sudden looked at the puny
maker of this swift decision with satirical disdain.

 
          
“If
yo’re tryin’ to throw a scare into me I’m tellin’ yu it’s a waste o’ time—I’m
no greenhorn,” he remarked.

 
          
“Nary
scare,” was the cool retort. “We’re just naturally goin’ to hang you,
that’s
all.”

 
          
“Well,
it’s a relief to know yu ain’t aimin’ to roast me at a slow fire, but has it
occurred to yu that as I entered the gully from this end, an’ the shot—by the
position o’ the body—must ‘a’ come from the other, there’s a flaw in yore
evidence? Any one o’ yu might ‘a’ done it, but I couldn’t.”

 
          
“Skittles!
You’d make yore arrangements, o’ course, shiftin’
the corp to fit yore story.”

 
          
“Knowin’
yu
were
comin’, no doubt.”

 
          
“Now,
that’s where you slipped up,” Foxwell countered, an ugly grin on his thin lips.

 
          
The
threatened man realized that the fellow was in earnest, and would carry out
this monstrous injustice. He appealed to the others.

 
          
“Yu standin’ for this?”

 
          
Hicks
answered. “It’s the sheriff’s business, but what about takin’ him in, Foxy,
an’—”

 
          
“Like
you say, it’s my business,” the officer cut in angrily. “Here’s a respected
citizen foully done to death, an’ we catch the culprit red-handed. Rainbow’s
had too many o’ these killin’s an’ I’m goin’ to stop ‘em.
Jed,
git ready.’
Before any of them could move, Sudden leapt backwards, thus
bringing all the men in front of him. At the same instant, his hands swept his
hips and both guns came out. So swift and unexpected had the action, been that
the riders had no time to level the rifles held across their knees. Now it was
too late; the man they had deemed to be in their power, had them in his; and it
was a different man, a tense, half-crouching figure instinct with menace.

 
          
“Get
ready yoreself, Sheriff, to hop into hell,” he said. “I can down the four o’ yu
in as many seconds.” And to the horsemen, “Drop them guns an’ reach for the
sky,
or by the livin’ God …”

 
          
The
weapons fell into the sand, and four pairs of hands were uplifted, but not in
prayer.

 
          
The
sheriff’s face had become a sickly yellow, and he was the first to obey the
order, a fact which brought a cold smile from the giver of it.

 
          
“That’s
better,” he commented. “Now yu be good li’l boys an’ no harm will come to
yu—mebbe.”

 
          
“Yo’re
resistin’ the Law,” Foxwell spluttered fatuously.

 
          
“Me?”
was the surprised retort. “Why, I ain’t resistin’ any. Start the game, Sheriff;
it’s
yore deal.”

 
          
The
taunted officer was saved the necessity of replying by the arrival of a new
factor.

 
          
Into
the ravine from the Sandy Bend direction loped a rider. He pulled up when he reached
the group of men. Sudden swore under his breath; it was young Dover.

 
          
“You
caught me up after all,” he said.
“But yo’re too late.”

 
          
The
boy gave one glance at the body, sprang from his saddle, and knelt beside it.
“Dad!” he cried, and then, as the full extent of his loss seeped in. “So
they’ve done it, the murderin’ curs; I should never ‘a’ left you.”

 
          
He
looked up fiercely. “Whose work is this?”

 
          
The
sheriff started to lower a hand but changed his mind and nodded towards the
stranger. “That fella, I guess.”

 
          
The
reply came in a bitter sneer. “Yo’re guessin’ is like the rest o’ yore
doin’s—pretty triflin’. So that’s why yo’re all lookin’ paralyzed. You
fools
, this man wouldn’t know Dad from Adam, an’ moreover,
he was expectin’ to ride for the Circle Dot.”

 
          
“That
don’t prove anythin’,” the sheriff said sullenly. “Road-agents ain’t in the
habit o’ askin’ yore name an’ address afore they
salivate
you. Anyway, the 0I’ Man could have turned him down. He was robbin’ the body
when we arrove.”

 
          
With
shaking fingers, Dan felt in his father’s pockets, and drew out the roll of
bills.

 
          
“Seems
to have made a pore job of it,” he replied acidly. “Even a beginner couldn’t
‘a’ missed this.”

 
          
Hicks
spoke: “Do you know this fella, Dan?”

 
          
“I
met him this mornin’ at the Bend, an’ sent him along; we’re short-handed.”

 
          
The
sheriff’s mean eyes glittered. “Did you arrange for yore dad to come an’ meet
you?” he asked.

 
          
It
was a moment before the shameful implication penetrated, and then the boy leapt
to his feet, fury struggling with the grief in his face, and stepped towards
his traducer.

 
          
“Pull
yore gun, you coyote,” he rasped.

 
          
The
officer had no intention of doing anything of the kind.

 
          
“I’ve
got my han’s up, Dover,” he reminded.

 
          
Sudden
had watched the scene in silence, but now he spoke:

 
          
“Yu
can take ‘em down, Sheriff—if—yu—wanta.”

 
          
The
drawl of the last three words made them a plain insult, but Foxwell had a thick
skin, and an inordinate desire to preserve it; he did not avail himself of the
permission, preferring to take refuge behind his badge.

 
          
“I
was app’inted to keep the peace, not break it,” he said, and looked round at
his following. “You’d think a son whose father had been bumped off would be
anxious to have the guilty party brought to justice, huh?”

 
          
“I
am, an’ I know what he was after, an’ where to seek for him,” Dover said
savagely. “So do you, an’ that’s why you’d like to pin it on a stranger. Don’t
you worry; evenin’ up for Dad is somethin’ I can take care of. Now, get back to
yore murderin’ master an’ tell him that you did all you could to blot his
tracks—an’ failed.”

 
          
Sudden
spoke again. “They’re leavin’ rifles an’ six-gum here,” he said quietly.
“There’s a heap too much cover, and they may get notions.”

 
          
Under
the threat of his levelled weapons, they let fall their pistols, wheeled and
rode down the ravine. The sheriff shouter a parting:

 
          
“Rainbow
will have somethin’ to say ‘bout this.”

 
          
“Shore,
tell it how one man held up an’ disarmed the four o’ you,” Dover retorted. “The
town ain’t had a laugh lately I’ll send yore guns to Sody’s; they’ll know then
you ain’t lyin’.”

 
          
When
they had vanished through the entrance to the ravin his anger evaporated,
leaving only the dull ache of sorrow. In a voice hoarse with emotion, he asked:

 
          
“You
ain’t backin’ out?”

 
          
“Not
any. That imitation sheriff has got me real interested.
Might
as well be movin’.”

 
          
The
grisly task of roping the dead rancher on the back of his pony was accomplished
in silence. Then Sudden put a question:

 
          
“Yu
said yu knowed what the killer wanted. D’yu
reckon
he
got it?”

 
          
“I
dunno, but likely Dad wouldn’t be carryin’ it. Did you see any tracks?”

 
          
“On’y
that.”

 
          
He
pointed to a kind of path, running at a right angle to where the dead man had
lain, the sandy surface of which seemed to have been recently disturbed.
Following it, they came to a bush at the side of the ravine. A white scar
showed where a branch had been wrenched off, and in a moment or so they found
it; the withering leaves were gritty.

 
          
“Wiped
his trail out as he backed away,” Sudden commented, and scanned the slope
keenly. “He came down an’ went up here—them toe an’ heel marks is plain as
print. I’ll see if I can trace him. Yu fetch the hosses along an’ meet me.”

 
          
He
climbed the bank and soon found indications that someone had preceded him.
Trifles which would have escaped an untrained eye—bent or bruised stems of
grass, a broken twig, the impress of a foot on bare ground, were all-sufficient
to enable him to follow the path of the previous visitor along the rim of the
ravine. For some two hundred yards he thrust his way through the fringe of bush
and came to the place he was seeking. Shadowed by a scrub-oak, and screened
from below by a rampart of shrubs, was a trampled patch of grass. Two flattened
hollows about a foot apart caught his eye. He knelt down in them and looked
along the ravine; the spot where he had found the body was plainly visible.