Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) (5 page)

Cookie
nodded, once, then quickly scribbled his signature beneath that of
his employer. ‘From what I seen today, I figger yo’re probably
right. I just hope he ain’t gonna get frightened off if things get
tougher.’

The old
man shook his head, his tired eyes bright.

‘
Somethin’ tells me he’s a hard man to frighten, Cookie. Very
hard, indeed.’

Immediately after breakfast next morning, George Tate
accompanied Sudden to the corral, where the men were readying their
horses prior to receiving orders for the day’s work. Tate told them
of his decision to make Green his special lieutenant.

‘
I ain’t figgerin’ on gettin’ bushwhacked,’ the old man told
his riders, ‘but if anythin’ happens to me, Jim will take over the
runnin’ o’ the Slash 8. For now, he’s one of you. Any questions?
Gimpy limped forward. ‘Boss, up to now I been foreman. You want to
change that, it’s okay with me. If there’s any shootin’ war
startin’ I figger Jim here can teach us all a trick or
two.?

‘
Gimpy, you been my foreman a number o’ years,’ Tate said. ‘I
figger yo’re about the best man in the Territory, an’ that includes
Jim here—meanin’ no offence, Jim.Gimpy knows this range like his
own hand, an’ you don’t. I’m talkin’ about what happens
if—’

‘
Hell, boss, don’t go on about it,’ chipped in Dobbs, ‘you make
a man right mournful. Me, I figger Jim knows which end of a horse
is the front. We can show him anythin’ else he needs to know.
Speakin’ for myself, I’m shore glad he’s joinin’ the Slash
8!’

The
chorus of agreement which had followed this remark had made Green
feel completely welcome among the Slash 8 riders, and after a few
further remarks, Tate had stumped back into the house, leaving
Gimpy to allocate the day’s chores. Gimpy suggested that Dave
Haynes accompany Green on a brief tour of the Slash 8 range, to get
the lay of the land, a suggestion which met with both Green’s and
Dave Haynes’ approval.

‘
I’ll saddle up an’ be right with yu,’ he told the young
cowboy.

‘
No need for that, Green,’ Curt Parr called out. ‘I already
saddled a horse for yu.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder
towards the corral, saying “I figgered yore nag probably needed a
rest, so I got Ol’ Sleepy ready for yu. He’s a mite long in the
tooth, but if yu get lost, he’ll shore show yu the way home.’ The
sneering smile which accompanied these remarks, and the barely
concealed grins of the other riders, who were making no attempt to
depart about the business which Gimpy had outlined to them,
deepened Green’s suspicions. Sudden surmised that Parr had
concocted a special welcome for him. He did not miss Dave Haynes’
worried frown at the sight of the seemingly placid horse which now
stood, eyelids drooping, tail twitching despondently. The grinning
Parr led the animal out into the yard and handed the reins to
Sudden. With a shrug, he accepted the reins from Parr and vaulted
into the saddle.

Even
before he had got his feet settled firmly in the stirrups, the
pony, with a vicious squeal of rage, dropped its head and leaped
into the air, coming down on legs as rigid as steel rods. Sudden,
who had been partially prepared for something of the sort, did not
lose his seat, however, but gripped with his knees and hauled up on
the reins, sawing at the animal’s head until, by sheer strength, he
brought it up. Instantly, the pony reversed its tactics and reared
upwards and backwards, intending to roll over with its full weight
upon the hated rider upon its back.

Sudden
drove home his spurs and threw his weight forward, and again the
maddened beast’s purpose was foiled. Undeterred, however, it now
began to buck, sunfish, swap ends, and generally employ what Dave
Haynes referred to later as ‘all the tricks in the book, plus a few
that ain’t been invented yet’, in its attempts to dislodge the
rider on its back. Yet still the grim-faced Sudden kept his seat.
His lean visage, jaw tautly set, snapped back with each jolt, and a
trickle of blood appeared from his nostrils. Only the steely grip
on the reins, forcing the bit back into the animal’s mouth, kept it
from getting its head forward.

Once
again, the horse reared backwards, but this time the rider was
ready for such a maneuver, and drawing his pistol with lightning
speed, brought the barrel crashing down between the brute’s ears
with a force that jarred the creature into near insensibility.
Another attempt received the same treatment, and this time the
horse, with a scream of rage, began to thunder around the yard,
scattering the watchers, while Green’s ruthless grip on the reins
hauled its run into a tight circle. A few moments more and the
animal came to a standstill, sides heaving and white with foam, its
eyes rolling, but none the less, mastered. In another few seconds,
Green vaulted down from the saddle, and stroked the flaring muzzle.
Dave Haynes stepped forward.

‘
This warn’t none o’ my doin’, Jim,’ he said. ‘That hoss is a
killer.’

‘
Shucks,’ said Sudden. ‘A mite frisky, mebbe, but he’s all
right.’ Then turning to Parr, he eyed that worthy coldly. ‘Yu
satisfied? The half-sneer faded abruptly from Parr’s face, and he
shuffled his feet and avoided Green’s gaze. Then with an air of
bravado, he looked up and replied, ‘Just a joke, Green—hell, we rim
that one on every new hand.’

‘
Which is a lie,’ snapped Gimpy flatly. ‘Nobody ever rode that
hammerhead, an’ yu know it, Curt. Not,’ he finished with a grin,
‘that one or two ain’t tried?

Green’s
smile was wintry, and Parr took false assurance from it. ‘Yu ridden
him, Parr?’ Green asked.

‘
Who, me? Not on yore life!’ was the retort.

‘
Well, let me show yu what woulda happened if yu had, an’ he’d
thrown yu,’ said Sudden, and with a smooth, swift movement which
Parr had no chance to evade, clutched the fellow by the front of
his shirt with one hand, and by the belt with the other, and with a
sweeping, deceptively-easy-looking lift, took Parr off his feet and
tossed him over the corral rail into the littered horse pen. Parr
landed on the back of his neck in a cloud of dust, sprawling
awkwardly over. Cursing, the man scrambled to his knees, clawing
for the gun which had been twisted around behind his body by the
force of his fall. He actually had his hand on the butt before
Green even moved, but when Parr looked up it was straight into the
muzzle of a six-gun. Sudden, divining Parr’s intention, had lightly
vaulted the fence, drawing his gun with his free hand as he did so.
There were perhaps two feet between them.

‘
A joke’s a joke, Parr,’ snapped Sudden. ‘If yu want to take it
further, Hell’s a good piece distant.’

Parr
shook his head and forced a weak smile on to his face. Green waited
silently until Parr had relinquished his hold upon the butt of the
gun before returning his own weapon to its holster. Parr got to his
feet, slapping vigorously at his clothes, his head bent to hide the
hatred that twisted his face. When he had regained control of
himself, he came across the corral to where Green was standing, and
held out his hand.

‘
No hard feelin’s, Green,’ he said, with a twisted
smile.

Green,
affecting not to see the proffered hand, simply shook his head. ‘No
hard feelin’s,’ he agreed. ‘Yu had yore joke. Don’t make the same
mistake twice.’ And with this remark he turned away from Parr to
continue his conversation with Haynes. The dark-faced Parr slouched
away, mounting his horse without another word to anyone, and rode
out of the yard.

Dave
Haynes watched Parr go, and as the others mounted up and streamed
out on their appointed duties, observed, ‘I’d say yu ain’t made a
friend o’ Curt.’ His grin indicated that he hardly considered it a
calamity, and Sudden’s reply was in the same vein. ‘I’d say a man
could try harder--but he’d shore have to be short on friends to
want to.’ Then, ‘Whose was that fool idea with the horse,
anyway?

‘
Curt thought her up while yu was havin’ breakfast with the
boss,’ Dave told him. ‘We was all against it, but at the same time…
well, yu know how it is. We figgered yu’d get piled off afore yu
got aboard. Nobody ever rid Ol’ Sleepy afore.’

Sudden
grinned. ‘Be a while afore I want to try her again, either—my back
feels like somethin’ Sherman marched over goin’ South.’ He put a
question to Dave about Parr.

‘
Tate hired him, oh, about a month ago,’ was the reply. ‘He
worked on the Stackpole place up to Jess Stackpole was killed. —
Afore that he worked for Tom Sheppard. The boss took him on because
Curt said he was on the chuckline, an’ he’d ruther starve than ride
for Barclay.’

‘
He shore don’t bring his employers much luck,’ was the
sardonic comment.

‘
Yu meanin’ . . .?’

‘
Nothin’. But he’ll bear watchin’. Come on, let’s get this yere
conducted tour started.’

After
Green had saddled his own horse, the two men set out from the ranch
in a southerly direction, until the prairie began to show a slight,
but distinct slope ahead of them. Here and there stunted pine trees
clung to the sandier soil, and a line of flat-topped mesas appeared
high on the horizon. It was to the foot of the nearest of these
that Dave was heading, and after about ninety minutes of steady
riding, the sharply rising table mountain lay athwart their path.
‘

‘
This trail used to lead to South Bend—long way around,’ Dave
explained. ‘But they mined the mountains out, an’ all the
dynamitin’ and blastin’ loosened the rocks high up on the pass.
She’s mighty dangerous to go through. There’s a better route down
the valley.’

Sudden
nodded. ‘I come in that way. I take it this road ain’t used these
days?’

‘
Oh, yu get the occasional prospector pokin’ around for a
pokeful o’ silver, but otherwise, folks travel to South Bend
through the canyon. We’ll have to leave the horses here—’ He
pointed at some stunted bushes growing at the foot of the cliff
face, and without waiting for a reply, dismounted and tethered his
horse. ‘How are yu at mountaineerin’?’

‘
’
Bout the same as needlework,’ Sudden told him.
‘Not much good.’

‘
Here’s yore chance to learn, then,’ Dave grinned, and started
up the faint path which led up the face of the steeply sloping
escarpment. The sun, formerly cooled by the breeze as they rode,
was now hot and brassy against the rock. Soon both men were
sweating freely.

‘
Shucks, if I’d known we was going climbin’ I’d have saddled
Pegasus instead o’ Midnight.’

‘
Pegasus? Who’s he, some Injun chief?’

‘
Nope. Pegasus was a flyin’ horse, in some Greek
story.’

‘
Huh. Feller writing about flyin’ horses. He musta been
drinkin’ snake oil.’

The two
men toiled on up the slope.

‘
I’m takin’ it there’s a reason for this—exercise we’re
doin’?’Green asked.

‘
Shore,’ panted Dave. ‘I can show yu the whole range from up
here!’

‘
It better look good,’ was the dark reply.

Soon the
two men were on the summit of the mesa, and true to his promise,
Dave was able to show his companion a magnificent vista across the
whole of the valley.

‘
We’re lookin’ north,’ he told Sudden. ‘Now over there to the
left—that’s the west—that long line o’ hills runnin’ down towards
the river is Thunder Mesa. It breaks where the Sweetwater goes
through Thunder Ravine, which is about where yu can see that dark
line o’ trees, an’ then on up northwest. Other side o’ Thunder
Ravine is South Bend, an’ between us and there, on the other side
o’ Thunder Mesa are the silver mines.’

Shading
his eyes, Sudden could just make out the trail along which he had
entered the valley.

‘
I recall seein’ some rough-lookin' country on the north side
o’ the river,’ he prompted.

‘
The Badlands,’ Dave told him. ‘They run between Barclay’s
range an’ the Mesas·—about where the shimmer is, there.’ He pointed
to the northwest. ‘Yu can see the Slash 8 down below us there. Now
look to the right a ways—see that sort of finger o’ rock stickin’
up?’

In the
sun-hazed distance, Green could indeed see a jutting pinnacle of
rock which leapt upwards from the end of the mountainous mesa
formation on their right, which extended in a sweeping curve from
north to south across the right-hand end of the valley.

‘
That’s Hangin’ Rock,’ explained Dave. ‘She’s a great big
boulder that stands on a smaller one, looks like a kid could push
her over, but I reckon it would take more like a couple o’ sticks
o’ dynamite. Just behind, there, is the metropolis o’ Hangin’
Rock-two saloons, two stores, an’ enough houses for them fool
enough to want to live there.’

Sudden
nodded, then asked Dave where the Slash 8 boundaries
lay.

‘
Shucks, that’s easy,’ replied his companion. ‘On the north, yu
got the river. On the south you got the mountains, like this mesa
we’re a—standin’ on. Over on the east there’s The Needles o’ which
Hangin’ Rock is the end bit-an’ over there on the west yu can see a
small crick. We call it the Bonito, an’ she’s our western boundary,
although natcheral enough we often find some o’ our beef over on
what used to be Stackpole’s land.’