Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 04 - Sudden Outlawed(1934)

 
          
“I’m
pretty near down to my last chip, son, an’ before I get outa the game there’s
somethin’ I wanta say.”

 
          
The
voice was weak, little more than a whisper, and the breath came with difficulty
from the speaker’s labouring lungs. Out of the gaunt, angular face, deeply
graven with lines of suffering, hard eyes rested approvingly upon the youth
who, with downcast head, stood beside the bed. Tall, slim, and supple,
wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped, strength showed in every line of him. In his
eyes lay a deep-seated misery.

 
          
“I’ve
allus had the name for a square shooter, but I ain’t done right by yu, Jim,”
the sick man went on.
“There won’t be nothin’ for yu—but a
debt-to two men.”

 
          
“Yu’ve
been mighty good to me,” the boy muttered, and despite his iron effort for
control there was a quaver in his voice.

 
          
The
other was silent awhile, fighting for breath, and then, “Peterson stole my li’l
gal an’ broke my heart,” he said slowly. “An’ when yu was East, gettin’ some
larnin’, that houn’ Webb stripped me.” His voice was harsh, pregnant with
passion; hatred gave him a last spasm of strength. “
yo’re
the fastest fella with a gun I ever see, an’ I’ve knowed some o’ the best; I’m
leavin’ them two skunks to yu.”

 
          
The
younger man’s bronzed face remained impassive as a redskin’s, save that the
muscles of the square jaw firmed up and the grey-blue eyes became icy.

 
          
“I’ll
get ‘em,” he promised, and this time there was no tremor in the low vibrant
voice.

 
          
A
gleam of fierce satisfaction flitted over the pallid features of the dying man
and then his head sagged sideways. The boy just caught the whispered words,
“S’long—Jim.”

 
          
For
a moment he stood dazed, hardly realizing that all was over. Death he had seen
before, but not in this guise. Now, as he looked down upon the stark form of
the man who had been his only friend, a convulsive sob tore at his throat.
Gently he drew up the sheet to cover the glazed expressionless eyes, and went
out.

 
          
Seated
on a bench in front of the ranchhouse, he mechanically rolled and lighted a
cigarette, his mind delving into the past. He saw himself, a half-starved,
lanky lad, parentless, nameless, friendless, practically the property of an old
Piute brave, travelling the country with a band of ponies. How he had come to
be with them he had never learned, but he knew that he was white—the Indian
woman had once told him as much, after a successful sale when her lord and
master became drunk before the fire-water was finished, an unusual occurrence
of which she promptly took advantage. The nomad life toughened the boy, gave
him self-reliance, and the ability to stay on the back of anything that wore
hair. He was not unhappy, for the Indian
couple were
kind enough when sober. And he loved the horses.

 
          
With
the advent of Bill Evesham had come a complete change, for the kindly-faced,
lonely rancher took a fancy to the boy and bought him, together with a string
of ponies, from the Indian horse-trader. So Jim—Evesham called him that—had
come to the ranch at Crawling Creek.

 
          
The
ensuing years were happy ones. He acquired some rudiments of knowledge at a
school fifteen miles distant, and learned the cattle business. Then Evesham
sent him East to complete his education and for nearly two years he paid only
flying visits to the ranch. He had returned finally a few months ago to find
his benefactor ailing and broken, a glum, dispirited man who remained
obstinately silent respecting his troubles.

 
          
“Things
ain’t gone none too well, Jim, an’ I’ve had to sell stock,” was his grudging
explanation when the young man remarked on the depleted herds.

 
          
“Yu
should ‘a’ fetched me back—I’ve been spendin’ coin yu couldn’t afford,” Jim had
protested.

 
          
“Shucks!
Had to give yu yore chance.
We’ll make the grade,” the
rancher had replied.

 
          
But
although Jim had applied himself whole-heartedly to work on the range, matters
did not improve, and the cattleman’s failing health proved a heavy handicap.
One by one the few remaining riders had drifted until only Limpy, a disabled
cowboy who acted as
cook, and Jim, were
left. And now
… .
A halting step on the porch aroused him.

 
          
“Jim,
he’s—gone,” Limpy announced in a shocked voice. The boy nodded miserably. The
older man put a hand on his shoulder.

 
          
“I’m
powerful sorry,” he said. “Bill was a good fella—one o’ the best I ever knowed.
‘S’pose the place’Il
be
yores now?”

 
          
Jim
shook his head. “Reckon not, Limpy,” he replied. “I figure the ranch is pretty
well hawg-tied. I expect I’ll be ridin’.”

 
          
The
following afternoon found Jim again on the porch seat, brooding, restless, his
eyes on the
blue mountains
which rimmed the horizon
and hemmed in the broad undulating stretches of sun-scorched grass. Though he
had seen Evesham buried that morning, he still found it difficult to believe
that the man who had been
all the
father he had ever
known was gone.

 
          
Presently
a tiny blot appeared on the trail to town, gradually growing in size until it
became a rider, jog-trotting leisurely towards the ranch. The visitor proved to
be a short, stout man of more than middle age, dressed in rusty black, and
obviously ill at ease in the saddle. He got down clumsily, tied his mount to
the hitch-rail, and mopped his moist face.

 
          
“Damn
hosses anyway,” he complained. “Why didn’t the A’mighty give us wings?”

 
          
Despite
his sadness, a glint of a smile wrinkled the corners of the young man’s mouth
as he tried to vision the stumpy form of the speaker flapping its way through
the air.

 
          
“You’ll
get ‘em in the next world, Pyke—mebbe,” he said, sardonically, adding, “There’s
liquor inside.”

 
          
Pyke
shook his head. “On’y makes yu hotter,” he said, and plumped himself down on
the bench.

 
          
Neither
spoke for a while. The visitor filled and lighted a pipe and the other
constructed a cigarette. Pyke did not seem in a hurry to open the conversation,
and Jim sensed the reason. He had seen him at the little cemetery in the
morning and had noticed his constraint.

 
          
“Well,
ol’-timer, spill the beans,” he said quietly. “Come to tell me to pull my
freight, huh?”

 
          
Pyke
looked still more uncomfortable. “Hell, no, Jim,” he protested. “Stay as long
as yu’ve a mind to, but—” He paused awkwardly and then went on with a rush.
“Pore of Bill owed a lot o’ coin an’ this yer ranch is all there is to show for
it. Won’t cover the debt no how; he didn’t own more’n a section o’ the land,
an’ if what I’ve heard is correct, he’s been losin’ cattle, so …”

 
          
“There’ll
be no pickin’s for me,” the young man helped him out.
“I
knowed that a’ready.”

 
          
“Yu
see, Jim, I ain’t alone in this,” Pyke said hastily. “Two —three of us chipped
in to tide Bill over. If it was just me I’d be willin’ to let the debt run,
but—”

 
          
The
other smiled sombrely. “
yu
don’t have to tell me,” he
replied. “What’s come o’ Webb?”

 
          
“Ain’t
a notion,” was the answer. “He faded ‘bout the time yu was due to get back.
Never liked the fella m’self but Bill usted him—too much, I reckon.”

 
          
Jim
nodded a gloomy acquiescence. He had seen the man on the last of his brief
visits from the East, and recalled him as big-built, redheaded, and something
of a blustering bully.

 
          
Evesham
had made him foreman, and with increasing ill-health, had left things largely
in his hands.

 
          
“I
didn’t oughta gone away,” he muttered, voicing an ever-present regret.

 
          
“He
was dead sot on yore goin’,” the elder man consoled. What yu aimin’ to do,
Jim?”

 
          
“I’ve
got a job,”
came
the instant reply, rasped out through
enched teeth.

 
          
Pyke’s
mild gaze noted the set, out-thrust jaw, the frosty gleam in the grey-blue
eyes, and shook his head as he guessed the boy’s intention.

 
          
“She’s
a large country,” he offered. “Now, I was thinkin’ we’ll want someone here to
run the ranch….”

 
          
Jim
stood up. “
It’s
mighty kind o’ yu, Pyke, but …” He
looked at the familiar scene. “No, I couldn’t stand it—without —him,” he said.
“I reckon I’ll scratch gravel.”

 
          
“Well,
chew it over—there’s no hurry,” Pyke told him, as he climbed into his saddle.

 
          
The
young man’s smile was tight-lipped. “I’ll be away early in the mornin’,” he
said.

 
          
“Mebbe
I’ll be back—some day.” There was
a finality
in his
tone which conveyed that further argument would be futile. Pyke had no more to
say; the West held that “a man must skin his own meat,” and advice, unless
plainly asked for, was seldom offered. So, with a nod of farewell, he rode
away.

 
          
Jim
watched the visitor dwindle to a mere speck and vanish where the trail dipped
into a hollow, but he was not thinking of Pyke; his mind was milling over the
last few days. For the first time he had had the bitter experience of standing
helplessly by while a dear one passed over the Big Divide, and now—as at the
time—the thought of his impotence filled him with a blind, unreasoning rage,
the rebellion of youth and strength against the immutable law of Nature. There
was nothing he could have done then, but there was something he could do—now.