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  Oliver Strange ~ Sudden Rides Again

  (Book 07 in the Sudden Westerns series)

  Chapter I

  “It may be that I’m sending you to your death.”

  Ominous words, delivered in a quiet, even tone by one to whom the masking of emotion had become a habit. Short, stockily built, of middle age, attired in a suit of sober black, with a “boiled” shirt and neat cravat, there was little to distinguish him from the common herd. But looking into the shrewd grey eyes, one realized the sound judgment, courage, and determination which had placed him in authority. For this was Governor Bleke, of Arizona, a name respected, feared, or hated throughout that lawless land.

  “Ain’t tryin’ to throw a scare into me, are yu, seh?”

  The whimsical question evoked a flicker of a smile on the Governor’s grave face; the speaker had not the appearance of one to be easily frightened. The long, wiry, narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered frame, clean-cut, tanned features, level, spaced, grey-blue eyes and firm jaw, all proclaimed that here was one with whom it would be unwise to trifle. Two guns, hanging low on his thighs, the holsters secured to his leather chaps to ensure swift withdrawal, supplied a further warning. His range-rider’s garb was plain and serviceable.

  For a moment the elder man was silent, studying his companion, noting the curious glances at the shabby parlour, which was the best accommodation he had been able to find in the primitive little settlement dumped down in a waste of sagebrush desert.

  “Wondering why I wanted you to meet me here, Jim?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, “Well, Tucson would have been too risky—my movements are watched—and it is important to my purpose that your connection with me should remain a secret.”

  The cowboy smiled as he recalled the directions he had received: he was to be at Sandy Creek on a day named; in a saloon bar he would meet a “stranger,” who would challenge him to a bout of poker, for which they would adjourn to the so-called hotel.

  “I sorta guessed yu wouldn’t travel a hundred miles to this dog’s-body of a town just for a hand o’ cards,” he said.

  “No, it’s a much more serious game and the stakes are high,” Bleke replied. “You may lose your life, and I—a friend.”

  “Thank yu, seh,” the cowboy said. “I’m sittin’ in.”

  A gleam of appreciation shone in the Governor’s eyes, but what he said was, “Damnation, I knew it, and I hate to ask you, but I believe you’re the only man who can put it across.”

  “Shoot, seh,” the other invited coolly.

  Bleke lit a cigar, rolled another over the table to his guest; and, after a few contemplative puffs, began:

  “There is a man in north-west Arizona who is defying me, the law I represent and was appointed to enforce; he has to be dealt with.” His keen gaze was on the younger man’s face, but it told him nothing. “Have you heard of Hell City?”

  The cowboy’s eyes widened just a fraction. “Word of such a place has come to me, seh,” he said. “Sorta hideout where a desperate man can find a welcome an’ safety, no matter what he’s done. I set it down as just a tale for a tenderfoot.”

  The Governor’s face was grim. “Unfortunately, it is a true tale,” he replied. “It accounts for most of the outrages in that part of the Territory and for the continued existence and activity of some most undesirable citizens.”

  “yu know the location?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t help much. Hell City has been described to me as a walled fortress which would need an army and artillery for its capture; I have neither. From it, bands of armed ruffians raid and rob in every direction, and for a hundred miles or more the country is in a state of terror. When complaints first began to come in, about a year ago, I sent a man to investigate. For months I had no news, and then he came back—in a coffin. Pinned to his breast was a jeering note inviting me to try again.”

  “They ain’t very well acquainted with yu, seh.”

  The Governor’s voice hardened. “No, the challenge was unnecessary,” he went on. “I sent again, and now I have—this.” He passed over a sheet of paper and the cowboy read:

  DEAR GOVERNOR, your second spy was as clumsy as his predecessor. I shall return him when he ceases to be useful. He makes a fine target for pistol-practice, as the enclosures will show. Why not send a good man?

  Adios, SATAN.

  “That is the fantastic title this master-brigand has assumed,” The Governor explained. “His followers he calls `Imps,’ and their vengeance is so feared that no man dares to offend one of them.”

  The cowboy was still studying the document. The writing was neat—that of an educated person—and the signature flaunting in its bold freedom. The callous ferocity, however, raised a doubt.

  “Mebbe he’s just puttin’ up a bluff,” he suggested.

  “The enclosures were ears; a pair, perforated by bullets,” Bleke replied. “Well, if it’s a bluff, I’m calling it. I’ll send a good man—my best—if he will go.”

  “Third time lucky,” the other smiled. “Them ears has kinda got me interested.”

  The Governor’s expression remained grave. “Thank you, Jim,” he said, but his tone betrayed a lingering reluctance; the very readiness of this reliant young fellow perturbed him, though he had depended upon it. “You don’t have to,” he continued. “Think it over. This is a dangerous job; the man is reputed to be a marvellous shot.”

  “King Burdette an’ Whitey didn’t waste much lead neither,” came the reminder, a reference to a previous exploit’ which brought a ghost of a smile to the older man’s lips.

  “Oh, I know you can shoot, boy,” he said, “but there’s more than gun-play in this. The soundrel is clever and well organized. You’ll need to play your cards mighty close, but there will be an ace amongst them which may turn the trick. Can you guess what it is?”

  “If yu mean my name …?”

  “Exactly, this is one time when your bad reputation should help us. The others failed because, in some way, it became known they belonged to me, but I doubt if even the devil himself would suspect me of employing `Sudden,’ a noted outlaw, wanted for robbery and worse in Texas. It is more than likely that this Satan fellow will welcome you; join his band and gain his confidence.”

  The cowboy’s face bore a bitter expression. “I guess that won’t be difficult,” he said. “He’s the on’y sort that has any use for me.”

  The Governor nodded soberly; he knew something of the story of this black-haired young man who called himself “James Green,” but was more widely known as “Sudden,” a name already beginning to rank with those of the great gunmen of the West for daring and dexterity with his weapons.

  Though he had no proof, he was convinced that the charge which had put a price on the youth’s head was unfounded. “I’m using you, Jim,” he said quietly.

  The grey-blue eyes were instantly contrite. “I’m right sorry,” Sudden said. “Yu saved my self-respect; I ain’t goin’ to forget that—ever.”

  “Nonsense, I got me a good man, that’s all,” Bleke rejoined hastily—he had all the Westerner’s aversion to being thanked—adding, with a dry smile, “and I’m doing my best to lose him.”

  “Shucks, I’ll make it,” the cowboy said, with a confidence which was in no way boastfulness. “I can’t get over them ears; sort o’ caper yu might expect from a Greaser, but yu say he’s white.”

  “His skin, yes, but his soul must be as black as the Pit,” the Governor replied. “But he has a brain, a madman’s, possibly, but the more cunning on that account. Move cautiously, Jim; remember that he’ll suspect every stranger of coming from me, so don’t show any eagerness to join him. I’m guessing that is where both my fellows
slipped up, though I warned Dolver—the second—against it.”

  Sudden smiled sardonically. “Governor, I never knowed any parents,” he said. “I was raised by redskins, an’ the first thing they taught me was how to walk in the water. Mister Satan will have to ask me, an’ mebbe more than once—before I throw in with him.”

  Bleke nodded approvingly. “I expect I can leave you to make your own plan of action. All the same, I wish I didn’t have to send you, but you’re my best bet, and this snake has to be scotched. Also, I’m worried about Dolver.”

  “Any ranches around there?”

  “Several, and, of course, they are losing stock. The biggest appears to be the Double K, owned by Kenneth Keith. The nearest settlement is a place called Dugout.”

  Sudden stood up. “I guess I got all I want,” he said.

  The older man smiled and shook his head. “Not quite, I think,” he replied, producing a bag which clinked musically as he set it on the table. “Golden bullets, Jim. you’ll need them; sometimes they’re even more effective than those you feed to your gun.”

  “I got money,” the cowboy objected.

  “Glad to know it, but you’re working for me. Also, you are about to make war, and that can’t be done without a well-provided pocket. That’s all I can do except give you a free hand: clean that gang up if you have to shoot every crooked scamp in it.” The grey eyes were hard as granite, the firm lips clamped like a vice. “I’m wishing you luck.”

  “Thank yu, seh,” the puncher said, and gripped the proffered palm.

  Through the murky pane of the window, Bleke watched him swing lightly to the saddle of the waiting horse and ride slowly down the sordid little street, unconcerned, inscrutable.

  “Damned if I can fathom him,” he muttered. “For all his record, I’ll wager he’s white, and nerve—you might think I’d just sent him to the store for baccy. If anyone can outwit and outshoot that fiend …”

  Chapter II

  The man on the black horse halted at the crest of the steep bluff which for nearly half an hour he had been laboriously climbing, and sat, rolling a cigarette, taking in the view. It was Nature in the raw. Immediately before him, the ground fell away in a long, rocky slope, sparsely clad with storm-stunted vegetation and terminating at the bottom of a vast basin like the crater of a gigantic extinct volcano. The floor of this enormous hollow was scarred and fissured with what looked to be cracks but which he knew for deep gorges, twisting and mounting to the encircling rim-rock. Forests of black firs, stretches of green park carpeted with tall grass and flowers, small deserts, their yellow sand greyed with sage, provided a bewildering panorama. In the far distance, a range of purple hills.

  “Shore is a good country to hide in,” the rider soliloquized. “A fella could be real lonesome here, if he was honin’ to be.”

  As if in direct contradiction, the report of a rifle rang out and the bullet whined through the air above his head. Immediately following it came a command:

  “That’s just a warnin’. H’ist yore han’s, come right ahead an’ explain yoreself.”

  The face of the man to whom the words were addressed wore a comical look of chagrin. “Just ‘cause yu ain’t glimpsed a soul for twenty-four hours yu act like yu was never goin’ to again,” he told himself. “Why didn’t yu toot a horn, light a fire, or somethin’—not but what standin’ there on the skyline was just as good.” A querulous call interrupted his self condemnation. “Gettin’ impatient, huh? Well, seein’ yu got the drop …”

  Dissipating wisps of smoke some hundreds of yards below showed whence the shot had come, and with a shrug of his shoulders, he began the descent of the slope. He was angry, not only with himself for his lack of ordinary caution, but with the other man. That bullet was entirely superfluous. Missing him by little, had he moved at the moment he might have got in the path of it.

  “I said for yu to put yore paws up,” came a rough reminder.

  “Shore yu did, but my hoss needs ‘em—he ain’t no catamount,” the other retorted, as he picked a way down the decline. “Allasame, I’d as lief break my neck as be shot.”

  Having complied with the command he leaned back in the saddle, guiding the animal with his knees towards the boulder behind which the ambusher was waiting. He was within a few yards of it when the black slithered on a strip of shale and almost fell. The violent lurch appeared to nearly unseat the rider, who only saved himself by a quick snatch at the saddle-horn. When his hands went up again they did not go far and each held a six-shooter. The face of the fellow who emerged from his retreat to see what had caused the clatter was ludicrous with surprised disgust. It was not an attractive face, the eyes were set too close, and the uncared-for beard failed to conceal a loose-lipped mouth garnished with tobacco-stained teeth in which there were gaps. His rifle was in the crook of his arm, a fact which drew a hard smile from the man on the black.

  “Thought yu had a shore thing, huh?” he said. “Drop that gun, pronto, an’ then unbuckle yore belt an’ step away from it. Any funny business an’ yu’ll be rappin’ at the door o’ hell just as soon as it takes yu to get there.” When the order had been obeyed, he sheathed one of his guns and pointed his remarks with the other. “One ca’tridge is all I need to kill a coyote, an’ there’s six in this li’l persuader. What’s the idea, holdin’ up an unoffendin’ traveller?”

  “Wanted to know suthin’ about yu, that’s all,” the other said sullenly. “There’s queer doin’s around here.”

  “yo’re tellin’ me,” was the sarcastic rejoinder. “Yu don’t chance to be a sheriff, marshal, or any vermin o’ that kind, do you?”

  “I’m Steve Lagley, foreman o’ the Double K, an’ if yo’re aimin’ to stay in these parts it won’t pay yu to be at outs with me,” was the snarling reply. “Speakin’ o’ names, who might yu be?”

  “There’s a whole jag o’ folk I might be, from the President o’ the United States down, or up, accordin’ to yore political views,” the stranger retorted. “If it’s any o’ yore damn business, I’m James Green, a puncher from Texas.”

  “Travellin’ for yore health, I reckon,” Lagley said, with a heavy sneer.

  “yu reckon good—been to school, mebbe. Yeah, the doc said my nerves was all shot up—any quick noise or movement sets ‘em jangling an’ I have to grip my fists to control ‘em. Edgin’ nearer that belt is on’y takin’ yu into temptation; yu’d never make it, hombre, an’ I hate diggin’, ‘specially without a spade.”

  The badgered man, well aware that he was entirely at the mercy of this sardonic person who had so neatly turned the table upon him, expressed his feeling with more force than elegance. His audience listened with an expression of shocked reproof.

  “That settles it—couldn’t ‘a’ been a Sunday school,” Sudden reflected aloud. He slipped a forefinger through the trigger-guard and revolved the weapon rapidly—the “road-agent’s roll.” Lagley gazed with fascinated eyes, acutely conscious that the circling muzzle did not deviate in the least, and that at any moment, either by accident or design, hot lead might be ventilating his vital parts. The drawling voice went on, “Yu fired at me, an’ missed.”

  “I meant to miss.”

  “That’s yore tale; I ain’t believin’ it.”

  “I could ‘a’ downed yu any time on the slope.”

  “I might ‘a’ done the same any time in the last ten minutes, so we break even on that.” The speaker pondered a while, and then, “I’m huntin’ a job an’ here’s one handed to me. All I gotta do is wipe yu out, dump yore remainders in a hole, wait a coupla days till they’ve done lookin’ for yu, an’ offer myself to the Double K. Mebbe they’d make me foreman—they don’t seem hard to please. Why, it’s easy—like money from home.”

  Though he had courage, Lagley became anxious. The cold eyes, imperturbable voice, and the twirling gun, the barrel of which seemed to wink in the sunlight each time it slanted down upon him, had a mesmeric effect. Easy? He knew it; there were scores of spots
at hand where his body would remain—if prowling beasts permitted—until it resolved again into the dust from which it sprang. He looked at his weapons, lying only a few feet distant, and back again at the winking warning; he hadn’t a chance.

  “See here, stranger, yu don’t look the kind to kill a fella in cold blood ” he began, and as he saw the dawn of a satirical grin on the other’s lips, added, “I’m sayin’ agin I didn’t try to get yu—just wanted to ask a question or two, an’ played it safe. Now, I’ll make a dicker with yu: forget about this, show up at the Double K tomorrow, an’ yu shall have that job yu were speakin’ of. What yu say?”

  “I’ll take yu up on that—mebbe,” Sudden replied, after a brief consideration.

  “Right,” Lagley said, with obvious relief. “Let’s be goin’.”

  He had taken but one step when he noticed that the rotating gun had stopped, with the muzzle pointing towards him.

  “Just a minute,” came the correction. “I’ll be goin’, yu’ll follow—presently.”

  The foreman’s face grew dark with anger. “Yu don’t trust me?” he snapped.

  “Shore I do,” Sudden answered. “Ain’t I takin’ yore word about that job? But I’m playin’ safe, like yu did. Yu won’t have a lot to walk.”

  He got down, still contriving to keep the other covered, scooped up the rifle and belt, hung them over the horn of the owner’s saddle, and mounted again.

  “How far to Dugout?” he enquired.

  “Six mile—near enough,” was the surly reply. “Yu can save a couple of ‘em by cuttin’ through Dead Tree Gulch, which’ll be on yore right when yu get outa the pines.”

  “I’m obliged,” Sudden said. “Yu’ll find yore hoss an’ trimmin’s a piece along. I’ll be seem’ yu.”

  He moved away, by no means oblivious to the ugly scowl which followed him. When he had covered about half a mile, he tied the led horse to a branch, and, circling round from a point where the trail crossed a patch of gravel, returned to hide himself in the undergrowth. Only a few yards separated hint’ from the spot where Lagley’s pony stood, swishing its tail in conflict with the flies.