Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) (18 page)

 
          
Little
as he wished to witness such a spectacle, the puncher could not refuse. A deed
of violence was no new thing to him, and in the course of his adventurous
career he had encountered men who, spurred on by greed or revenge, would commit
any crime in the calendar, but never had he met the like of the inhuman devil
at his side. Throughout the mock trial he sensed that the Red Mask was
revelling in his power to
hurt,
and his so-called
promise of mercy was no more than calculated cruelty to a culprit already
doomed.

 
          
They
stepped out into the sunlight to find a curious scene awaiting them. At a point
where the street widened, stood a stout post, and beside it, fixed to the
cliff, a big bell. Sudden had noticed them earlier but without suspecting their
sinister purpose. Tied to the post, stripped to the waist, his bound
wrists-high above his head, was the half-breed, and by hisale a burly fellow
holding a short-handled whip of plaited rawhide, the tapering end of which was
knotted at intervals. Ringed round the pair were some two-score onlookers,
summoned by the sonorous notes of the bell. Mostly men, their coarse, cruel
faces were alight with anticipation. They were about to be entertained, and
Sudden, seeking for some sign of sympathy, remembered that the condemned had
endeavoured to rob these people; there could be no compassion from them.

 
          
The
excited chattering ceased and the circle opened as the Red Mask and his companion
appeared. A little behind where they stood the cowboy could hear two men
muttering. “Five dollars he
don’t
stand twenty-five
strokes.”

 
          
“Yo’re
on; Pedro is tougher than he ‘pears.”

 
          
“But
he got the gal Muley wanted an’ that hombre ain’t the forgettin’ sort. Look at
him.”

 
          
The
man with the whip was drawing the lash almost caressingly through his fingers,
with a gloating expression which only too plainly betrayed eagerness to begin
his ghoulish task. Sudden’s remonstrance brought only a sneer to the Chief’s
thin lips.

 
          
“I
picked him for that reason,” he said coldly. “I shall get good service.”

 
          
He
was about to give the awaited signal when, from behind a group of spectators, a
woman rushed forward and flung herself at his feet. Not yet thirty, she had a
bold kind of beauty, but now her face had the pallor of death, the cheeks
sunken, the eyes filled with bitter anguish.

 
          
“Spare
him,” she pleaded. “He did not want the gold—he took it for me, because I
taunted him with his poverty. It was my fault, let me take the punishment. I do
not fear the whip, but Pedro is ill—it will kill him.”

 
          
The
impassioned appeal might have been made to a statue. One piteous glance at
those implacable eyes told her that she had failed.

 
          
“Take
her away,” Satan ordered.

 
          
The
woman stood up. Despair had transformed her from a broken suppliant into a
raging fury. She raised a hand heavenwards.

 
          
“You
devil!” she raved. “May God’s fire strike you—
”

 
          
Ere
she could finish, the words were stifled in her throat. The men who had seized
her were about to drag her from the scene when the Chief stayed them.

 
          
“Let
her remain,” he said harshly. “She shall see her lover suffer, and if she
utters but one word, I will double the sentence.”

 
          
But
the spirit of passion was spent; with a low moan, the woman sank to the ground
and buried her face in her hands. The man with the whip, whose advances she had
rejected, gazed at the bowed form with brutal satisfaction; every blow he dealt
would lacerate her also; his vengeance would be complete.

 
          
A
curt command and the lash whistled through the air, sweeping across the bared
back and cutting a livid weal from shoulder to hip. The half-breed’s whole
frame quivered and from his ashen lips sprang a shriek of agony.

 
          
“I
figured Muley would draw blood at the first lick,” one of the wagerers
commented.

 
          
“Bah!
He ain’t started yet—that was just a taster,” the other replied. “He
don’t
want Pedro to pass out too soon.”

 
          
The
cruel work went on, blow succeeding blow, and with fiendish accuracy the
wielder of the weapon contrived that each should fall on a new spot, so that by
the time a dozen had been delivered, the victim’s back became a red, raw mass.
The pain must have been atrocious but after the first cry there was no further
sound save the hiss of the lash. Dangling limply from his bound
wrists,
head bowed between hisbiceps, the sufferer was
spared the sight of the brute beasts gathered there to witness his torment.

 
          
“Gittin’
tired Muley?” one asked jeeringly. “Somebody did oughta spell you.”

 
          
The
flogger, already exasperated by the silence of his subject, spat an oath at the
speaker and, measuring his distance, rained stroke after stroke, slashing the
pulped flesh to ribbons and sending the blood flying. Then he paused, panting,
his eyes glaring murder. But his work was done; the drooping head of the
half-breed sagged sideways. Muley darted forward and grasped it by the hair.

 
          
“Cashed!”
he cried disgustedly. “He’s cheated me, damn him.”

 
          
With
a gesture, the Chief stilled the babel which broke out. “Justice is done,” he
said grandiloquently.

 
          
As
they walked away, the puncher was aware that his companion was eyeing him
closely.

 
          
“Well,
what do you think of my method of treating traitors?”

 
          
“‘Pears
to make yu popular with yore people,” was Sudden’s non-committal answer.

 
          
Satan
laughed mockingly. “They hate, but are afraid of me,” he boasted, “and that is
how I would have it. Poets prate of love, but fear is the strongest of the
passions; it is the great governing factor of life; fear of pain, punishment,
death and damnation turns us all into cowards and makes so-called civilization
possible. Have you ever thought of that?”

 
          
“Too
high-falutin’ for me,” Sudden said. “What I’m worryin’ about right now is where
I’ll sleep an’ put my hoss; I ain’t due back at the Double K till tomorrow
evenin’.”

 
          
“Silver
will see to it, and there is a corral at the other end of the place.”

 
          
“I’ll
take Nigger along, an’ have a look round.”

 
          
“Better
wear this,” Satan replied, producing one of the red badges. “It will tell the
men that you are now one of us, and may save you trouble.”

 
          
Sudden’s
truculent tone was back. “If anybody starts somethin’ I hope yu got a good big
graveyard.”

 
          
The
cold eyes glinted. “There’s room in it,” was the answer.

 
          
It
did not take the cowboy long to find the corral, formed by fencing an
indentation in the cliff on the left of the street. There was a trough of
water, and scanty tussocks of coarse grass afforded some sort of feed. Sudden
surveyed it whimsically.

 
          
“Short
commons, of friend,” he said, as he turned the black loose, “but yu ain’t gotta
live here—yet. Don’t yu go to learnin’ bad habits from them other
roughnecks.
”

 
          
By
the side of the corral was a largish timber building, a weather-worn sign on
which announced it as “Dirk’s Saloon.” Carrying his saddle and rifle, Sudden
went in. A middle-aged, pock-marked man behind the bar was the sole occupant;
he promptly produced a bottle.

 
          
“Drinkin’
alone is a poor kind o’ pastime,” the customer said genially, and when the
other had helped himself, added, “Got a bed for me tonight?”

 
          
“Guess
I can fix it,” was the reply.
“Seen you with the Chief.
New chum, huh?”

 
          
“Yu
might call it that,” the cowboy agreed. “So yu were there? It warn’t a pretty
sight, but a fella who doublecrosses his pals don’t deserve pity.”

 
          
“You
said it. Pedro got what he shorely asked for.”

 
          
They
drank again, and Sudden, having dumped his belongings in his bedroom, went out.
Turning westwards, he discovered that the street narrowed again to a mere
defile closed by a gate similar to that by which he had entered. He stopped
short of it, and retraced his steps. A little beyond the saloon, on the
opposite side, the sound of sobs arrested him. Acting upon an impulse, he stole
along a burrow-like passage outside which he had halted. It led to one of the primitive
caves, and there he found the woman, Anita, on her knees by some scattered
blankets. Two
stools,
and a few tattered cooking
utensils comprised all the furniture. She looked up as he entered, and said
dully: “What now? Haven’t you done enough?”

 
          
“Somebody
seemed to be in trouble,” Sudden replied. “I thought mebbe I could help.”

 
          
“Help?”
she repeated harshly.
“From one who wears the Devil’s
trade-mark?
Can you bring the dead back to life, you who stood by and
laughed as he died?”

 
          
“Yu
got me wrong, ma’am,” he said gently. “I ain’t much given to laughin’ an’
doin’s like that
shore don’t
amuse me. I couldn’t stop
it—they’d got the goods on him.”

 
          
She
hesitated, her tear-drenched eyes still suspicious. “It’s true,” she murmured
at length. “That hell-dog knows everything—he has a spirit. Even at this moment
maybe—”

 
          
“
Shucks !
he’s
no more’n an ornery
human bein’—a mighty ornery one at that. He’s got spies an’ I’m bettin’ he pays
‘em well. Go an’ tell him what I’ve said an’ make yore peace.”

 
          
Her
eyes flashed.
“After what he did?
I would die first,”
she cried passionately. “Wasn’t it enough to take life without …?”

 
          
She
broke down, but he gradually learned the story. They had brought the dead man
to his wretched abode, and when she had begged them to let her bury the body,
had hurled it headlong through the opening which provided light and
ventilation, with the cruel gibe that the coyotes would save her the trouble.
Sudden looked out; more than a hundred feet below he could see the tossing tops
of trees above the undergrowth. Satan had spoken truly; there was indeed room
in the graveyard.

 
          
“Mebbe
I can find an’ bury him for yu,” he said.

 
          
She
stared at him, wonderingly. “Stranger, if you’ll do that, I—”

 
          
“Shucks,”
he interrupted hastily, and beat a retreat. Getting his horse, he rode to the
western gate, which the man in charge opened without demur. For a mile the
wagon-track rose and fell, swinging round then where it dipped down into the
valley which the bandit town overlooked. Thrusting through the thick brush
along the foot of the cliff he arrived near the place where he judged the body
must fall. Presently he found it—a shapeless heap in a patch of tall grass. He
had no implement to dig a hole but there was a convenient crevice and in this
he laid the poor broken frame, piling heavy stones to defend it from
desecration. Then, with his knife, he carved a rude cross to mark the spot.

 
          
Night
was nigh when he again entered the town, and in the shadows opposite the
saloon, saw the woman waiting. He told her what he had done and the drooping
figure straightened.