Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1)

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Sudden Strikes
Back

‘
Stay off the Slash 8 range — or stay on it —
permanent!’

When Jim
Green signed on as foreman of the Slash 8, the smell of range war
was already in the air. Then the Slash 8’s owner was bushwacked,
and with its back to the wall, Green’s fighting crew made its
declaration; Stay off the Slash 8 range — or stay on it —
permanent!

Green knew that when a showdown came it would come with
blazing guns. He was ready for that. What his embattled riders
didn’t know was that down in Texas he was known by another name —
Sudden.

SUDDEN STRIKES BACK

First
Published by Transworld Publishers Limited in 1966

Copyright
©
1996 by
Frederick H Christian

Published by
Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords:
November 2012

Names, characters and incidents in
this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely
coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
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person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If
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and purchase your own copy.
Cover image © 2012 by Westworld
Designs

This is
a Piccadilly Publishing Book

Published by Arrangement with Frederick Nolan.

‘
Back off, mister, or I’ll blow yu to hellangone!’

The
voice quavered slightly, but only because the speaker was no longer
a young man. No trace of fear showed in his upright bearing. The
late sunlight caught his white hair, and picked out wicked
highlights on the twin barrels of the shotgun presently threatening
the rider facing him. This was a tall, black-haired cowboy dressed
in neat, but well-worn range clothes, indistinguishable from the
average cowpuncher except for the twin revolvers in crossed belts
strapped about his hips.

‘
Steady, ol’ timer,’ said the cowboy, raising his hands. His
voice came low-pitched but steady, and without anxiety. ‘Yu might
sneeze an’ plumb ruin my health?’

‘
I might just do that anyways,’ snapped the old man. ‘Back
off!’

‘
Be obliged if you’d let me water my horse first?

‘
Git!’ repeated the oldster. He emphasized his succinct speech
with an expressive gesture from the shotgun. ‘Crawl back to yore
boss Barclay an’ tell him next time to come hisself, ’stead o’
sendin’ a boy on man’s work.’

The tall
cowboy shrugged. ‘Okay, seh,’ he said, his voice still mild.
‘Wouldn’t do no good to tell yu I never heard o’ anyone called
Barclay, I suppose?

‘
Nope. I may be gittin’ on in years, but I shore ain’t gittin’
feeble-minded.’ The old man hesitated for a moment. ‘Barclay send
yu down here to git me while my boys was on the range?’

‘
Look, mister, I told you once-I don’t know any
Barclay.’

‘
Shore. An’ I’m the Queen o’ Sheba,’ tapped out the old
man.

‘
You slipped up if you figgered to catch me alone, gunman. Take
a look at the second window to the right o’ the door.’

The
cowboy’s eyes scanned the windows of the ranch house quickly, and
his keen gaze immediately caught the gleam of light on a rifle
barrel protruding from the designated window.

‘
My cook,’ explained the rancher. ‘He’s a good cook. He’s even
better at shootin’. Take two steps the wrong way an’ yo’re a dead
man. Allus supposin’ that yo’re stupid enough to try it. Which you
might be.’

‘
No, thanks,’ grinned the tall cowboy. ‘You shore convinced me.
You must figger someone wants yore hide pretty bad.’

‘
I figger yore skulkin’ boss Barclay wouldn’t stop at nothin’
to get what he wants, but he’s got a way to ride afore he throws a
scare into me. I was on this land when you was in diddy-pants, an’
no Johnny-come-lately is goin’ to threaten me off it.

Now—’
Once again the gesture with the shotgun. ‘We’re through palaverin’.
Roll yore tail and report to yore boss that you got faced
down.’

The
cowboy sighed, his face a study in tried patience.

‘
Look, I’ll try her once more. My name’s James Green—you can
see the brand on the hoss here-and I’m from Texas. Most o' the time
I live under my hat, an’ I’m doin’ it now on my way to Santa Fe. I
stopped here because I figgered you’d let me use yore water. I
never heard o’ nobody named Barclay, an’ I shore ain’t over keen to
get to know him on the basis o’ what yo’re sayin’. But if I’d’a
been tryin’ to salivate you I shore wouldn’t have ridden up to yore
front yard an’ knocked afore I tried.’

The old
man looked at the black-haired cowboy for a long, long moment, and
his gaze slid slowly to the butts of the six-shooters nestling low
in their holsters, the dull-shining handles eloquent testimony to
much use. The cowboy returned this piercing scrutiny calmly. With a
short nod, as if coming to a decision, the old man eased the
hammers of his shotgun down, half-turned towards the house, calling
‘Cookie, you put down that shootin’ am an’ lay out a cup o’ java
for this young feller. He shore ain’t got the cut o’ one o’
Barclay’s bar—scourin’s now as I think about it.’ Then turning back
towards the cowboy, he smiled and thrust out his hand. ‘I’m George
Tate, owner o’ this spread—the Slash 8. Light an’ water yore horse,
Mr. Green.’

‘
That’s the formal handle, seh,’ admonished the smiling cowboy
as he dismounted. ‘Jim comes a sight easier.’ The two men shook
hands warmly.

‘
Think I might enjoy a cup o’ that cawfee,’ Green confided with
a smile. ‘Throat seems powerful dry for some reason or
other.’

George Tate chuckled and led the way into the house. Green
followed him after loosening his horse’s saddle-girth and allowing
the stallion a quick drink at the watering trough. He found himself
in a spacious living room, dominated by a huge stone fireplace
before which lay scattered several mountain lion pelts. The wood
floor was bare, but scrubbed to a bone white. The furniture was
simple and robust, and the generally cluttered and untidy air spoke
of a bachelor establishment. Green, covertly assessing his host,
guessed that Tate was a widower of many years standing and the old
man, as if guessing the thoughts of the younger, said gruffly,
‘Wife’s been dead a heap o’ years, Jim. Apaches.’ The one single
grim word and the way it was spoken were enough. Green knew that
this man’s blood was in the land here. He would die before he’d
run.

The
short silence was interrupted by the entrance of a small, wrinkled,
dark-visaged man of uncertain age, who surveyed the cowboy with
eyes snapping with humor. ‘Shore glad you didn’t get the twitches
while you was a-sittin’ out there,’ he grinned, showing evil, brown
teeth, ‘or I’d just by-cracky nacherly salivated you. Mind you,’ he
continued, ‘I’d a been right sorry when I found out you wasn’t one
o’ King’s men.’

Green
looked a question, and his host explained, ‘Everyone calls Zack
Barclay “King”, account o’ he claims he’s King o’ the valley. That
four flusher. He’s—’

‘—
Out for yore blood, by the look o’ the reception you gave me,’
Green smilingly interrupted the tirade. ‘You care to tell me
suthin’ about him. What’s he like?’

‘
Big, beefy, dresses like a rich gambler. Come to these parts
about two years ago. Had nothin’ but trouble since, an’ he’s behind
it or my name’s not Tate.’

‘
What kind o’ trouble?’ asked Green.

‘
Ev’ry darn kind there is, Jim .’ Tate put down the coffee cup
which his cook had handed him, and lit up a battered old
pipe.

‘
Not that there’s anythin’ provable. But we’ve had rustlin’,
an’ killin’, an’ this Shadders gang .... ’

‘
Suppose you tell Jim the story from the beginnin’, boss,’
interjected the cook. ‘He don’t rightly know what yo’re talkin’
about.’

The old
man glared at his cook, who smiled back unperturbed.

‘
Dang me, Cookie . . .’ his mock anger subsided into another
chuckle, ‘if you ain’t about right. She was like this, Jim Barclay
come to these parts about two years ago. Full o’ his own
importance, an’ a direct account on the Yewnited States Mint,
seemed like. Bought the old Casey spread lock, stock, an’ barrel.
Rebuilt the ranch house, restocked the range, hired a tough
crew—small, but tough—an’ an even tougher foreman to run it. I
figgered Barclay knowed as much about cattle as I do about
needlework, but he seemed likely to mind his own business, so it
warn’t no skin off my nose.’

‘
Tell him about the rustlin’,’ interjected Cookie.

‘
Ain’t you got no chores to be doin’?’ growled Tate. ‘I was
about to, if you’ll let me git on. Where was I … oh, yes. About
two, three months after Barclay arrove, we—that’s me an’ the others
hereabouts—noticed we was losin’ cattle. Nothin' serious. Ten head,
twenty. Now and then maybe fifty head. It was unusual, but it
didn’t bother none o’ the bigger spreads. Hangin’ Rock—that’s the
nearest town to here—started buzzin’ with rumors about some outlaw
gang called the Shadders that’d holed up on the southern end o’
Thunder Mesa, them mountains over to the south, there.’

‘
The Shadows, you say?’ Green looked pensive. ‘Can’t say I ever
heard tell on any gang o’ that name?

‘
Neither had I,’ continued Tate. ‘Sounded like plumb nonsense
to me an’ the others. So we decided to take no notice. Figgered the
rustlin’ was just some Injun bucks liftin’ some beef.’

‘
I’m talkin’ it that it warn’t no rumor, then,’ put in
Green.

‘
Yo’re durn right it warn’t,’ flashed the old rancher. ‘After a
while, it got more obvious. Took on a pattern, sorta. They was only
hittin’ the smaller ranchers. One by one, them people found they
didn’t have enough beef to market. No beef, no money. No money, you
can’t pay yore debts. Then the Bank has to foreclose. Afore you
could say Jehosophat, Barclay bought up them ranches for a
song.’