Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) by Oliver Strange

lively. No, he never seen him, but
afriend o’ his was rubbed out tryin’ to stop this Sudden when he made a getaway
from San Antonio, with a sheriff’s posse behind him.”
                 Keith
deliberated. This was the tale he had been warned might come to him. The new
hand had discovered his loss and acted promptly; that was the kind of man he
wanted. “What do you suppose brought him here?” was his question.
                 “Headed
for Hell City, I’d say,” the foreman replied. “Then he runs into trouble with
Roden an’ figures it ain’t goin’ to make him over-welcome there, so when yu
push a job at him he naturally jumps at it.”
                 “Admirably reasoned.”
                 “An’
yu can add that Mister Satan would be damn glad to put on his pay-roll a fella
already on yourn.”
                 “That
seems possible.”
                 “Shore
as death,” the other rejoined. “Point is, what yu goin’ to do? Me, I’d boot him
off’n the ranch.”
                 “Having
first obtained his permission, of course,” the Colonel said drily. “No, if he’s
the man you claim, he’s dangerous, and it would be poor policy to present him
to the enemy. Here, we can keep an eye on his activities. Do the men know?”
                 “I
ain’t told nobody , but Turvey may have talked.”
                 “If so, it can’t be helped. Give Green to understand that
his past doesn’t matter, and especially, that I am ignorant of it. Keep him
tied to Homer—I think that lad is loyal, and we shall have news of any
treachery.”
                 “Well,
yo’re the boss, but it’s takin’ a devil of a risk,” Lagley grimaced.
                 For
some time after the foreman had departed, Keith sat in the gathering gloom,
chewing at the butt of his cigar, thinking the situation over. He could not
doubt what he had heard, for Green himself had admitted that the tale would be
true. The puzzling point was the presence of a notorlous outlaw, presumably
fleeing from justice, in that part of the country, if it were not to seek
sanctuary in Hell City. Texas was a long way off, but other offences might have
been committed since, perhaps in Arizona, necessitating a hiding-place.
                 “It
certainly seems that Steve must be right,” he mused aloud. “All the same, I
don’t believe it.”
                 “Don’t
believe what, yu ol’ slave-owner?” boomed a big voice from a few yards distant.
“That the North beat the South? Well, they did; I was there, an’ seen it.”
                 Keith
stood up. “Hello, Martin, I hear you’ve been rustling some of my cows,” he
retaliated. “Come right in.”
                 “Druv over a-purpose to pay yu for ‘em.”
                 “Why?”
the Double K man snorted. “You and your damned Yankee Government didn’t mind
stealing my niggers, so—”
                 A
slim form slipped from the lighted window which led on to the verandah. “If you
two are going to fight the Civil War all over again, supper will be ruined,”
Joan said. “Good evening, Mister Merry; I fancied I recognized your voice.”
                 “Yu
know darned well there ain’t another like it in Arizony,” the visitor
responded, and shook a warning finger at her. “Don’t yu go gettin’
sarcastic—one in yore family is aplenty. An’ yu needn’t to `mister’ me neither,
just because yu got a good-lookin’ new rider; he ain’t half the man I am,
anyways.”
                 “Just
about, I should guess,” she dimpled, with a calculating glance at the other’s
squat bulk, “but he’s more—distributed.”
                 “Yu
sassy young chipmunk—”
                 The
voice of the host intervened. “Stop wrangling, you—infants; I’m hungry.