Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 03 - The Marshal of Lawless(1933) by Oliver Strange Page A

his voice rose to a shrill shriek as he cursed and
threatened.
                 “I’ll
keel him—keel him by inches!” he cried, and his claw-like fingers opened and
shut as though he held his enemy’s throat.
                 “I
ain’t sayin’ yu mustn’t,” Raven said quietly, “but yu can’t do it now or here.
He’s the marshal, an’ the way the fellas out there look at it yu’ve tried to
run a blazer on the town. Hark to ‘em.” Through the partition they could hear
loud and angry voices. “If yu wasn’t my guest, senor, yu’d be dancin’ a
fandango on nothin’ right now, an’ yu can stick a pin in that,” the
saloonkeeper went on. “Yu better slide outa the back door, climb yore cayuse,
an’ hike for the Border.”
                 Possessed
by passion as he was, the visitor knew that Raven was right. So when, in
response to a message, the marshal entered the office, there was no sign of the
Mexican. Raven, slumped in his chair, greeted him with a frowning brow.
                 “Pretty
damn mess yore blasted Injun has got us into,” he began. “What’s the idea,
shootin’ strangers up thisaway?”
                 The
marshal’s eyes grew frosty and his jaw stiffened. “See here, Raven,” he said,
and his tone had an edge, “if yu think any yeller-skinned thief can pull a gun
on me an’ get away with if yu got another guess comin’. O’ course”—and there
was a suspicion of a sneer—“I didn’t know he was a friend o’ yores.”
                 “Friend
nothin’,” the saloonkeeper replied testily. “He buys cows, pays a good price,
an’ saves me the trouble an’ expense o’ drivin’ ‘em to the rail-head. But it
ain’t that I’m thinkin’ of.
                 That
hombre can raise more’n hundred men. S’pose he comes back an’ stands the town
up, what yu goin’ to do?”
                 “Yo’re
scarin’ me cold,” Green said sarcastically. “Me? I should run like hell, o’
course. Anythin’ else yu wanta say to me?”
                 Raven
shook his head, and for some time after Green had gone sat there deep in
thought, inwardly cursing the new marshal and himself for having appointed him.
It was becoming all too evident that this saturnine, self-reliant young puncher
was not likely to “come to heel,” and that—despite Raven’s assertion to the
contrary—he had quite a good notion of his responsibilities.
                 Although
he had given him the position, Raven knew he could not take it away without a
very good excuse, and the fracas with Moraga, far from furnishing that, had
only made the marshal more popular. When at length he got up there was an ugly
expression on his face.
                 From
the bunk-house of the Box B, Rusty watched the approach of a horseman along the
trail, which, emerging from the thicket of spruce and cottonwood, zigzagged across the open stretch in front of the ranch. Presently the visitor
was sufficiently near to be identified.
                 “The
Vulture, huh?” murmured the cowboy. “I’m damned if he don’t look like it too.”
                 And,
in fact, Raven, with his dark slouched hat, and long black coat-tails flapping
in the light breeze, presented quite a resemblance to the bird he had been
named after. He pulled up opposite the bunk-house.
                 “Andy
around?” he asked curtly.
                 “I
reckon,” came the equally short reply.
                 Raven
nodded and rode up to the ranch-house, a large one-storied log-building with a
wide, roofed-in porch. His hail brought Bordene to the door.
                 “‘Lo,
Seth,” he greeted. “Get down an’ spoil yore thirst. Takin’ exercise to pull
yore weight down, huh?”
                 The
saloonkeeper joined in the laugh—though his contribution was a mere