Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 09 - Sudden Makes War(1942) by Oliver Strange Page A

he joined Sudden and
Burke at the fireside—for the nights were chilly—he shared the burden which had
been on his mind all day. The effect on the foreman was shattering.
                 “Goda’mighty,
Dan, it can’t be true,” he cried. “Them bank sharks must be framin’ you.”
                 “I
saw the deed,” the rancher replied. “It’s straight enough.
                 We
have to pay up, or let Trenton grab the Circle Dot.”
                 “Is
the Wagon-wheel in debt to the bank?” Sudden asked. “Shore to
be, but not up to the neck, as we are.”
                 “Then
they won’t find it easy to put up the price.”
                 “Not
unless Garstone can get it back East.”
                 “That’ll
take time, an’ gives us a fightin’ chance to heat ‘em to it,” the puncher
responded.
                 “Mebbe
if yu reduced the amount …”
                 “I
offered that, but he wouldn’t listen. Trenton has painted a pretty gloomy future
for cattle.”
                 “Awright,
we gotta make it so—for him,” Sudden said grimly. “Meanwhile, we’d better keep
this to ourselves; sometimes there ain’t safety in numbers. Yu got anythin’ in
mind, Dan?”
                 “Yeah, but it’s such a long shot that—well, it’ll sound hopeless.”
                 “Long
shots come off—times.”
                 The
rancher pondered for a moment, and then, “Bill, you’ll have heard o’ Red Rufe’s
Cache?”
                 “Shore,
but I never took much stock in it,” Burke replied.
                 “It’s
true,” Dan said, and went to an old desk in a corner of the room. They heard a
click, and he returned with a creased half-sheet of paper. “Here’s what it sez:
`Dear Dave,—I’ve made a lot o’ money an’ a good few enemies. In case one o’
these last gets me, I’m lettin’ you know that my pile is cached in the hills.
When you reach the bowl on Ol’ Cloudy’s knees, watch out. West is north, an’
north is noon, one half after will be too soon. I’m sendin’ the rest o’ the
instructions by another hand. Yore brother, Rufe.’ That was the last news we had of him, some three years ago.”
                 “An’
the second messenger never arrived?” Sudden asked. “I dunno. A stranger was
found two-three miles out on the Cloudy trail a little while later; he’d been
shot an’ robbed. The first chap got drunk in the town an’ may’ve talked some.
Anyway, the story of the cache oozed out, an’ there’s been more than one try to
find it, but Cloudy is big an’ hard country.”
                 “Yore
father didn’t attempt it?”
                 “I
ain’t shore; he was away for a week or more several times, but without the rest
o’ the directions, it’s almost hopeless.”
                 “An’
it was this paper that—”
                 “Dad
was killed for,” Dan said gruffly. “Yeah, someone has the other. I figure Flint
was sent here to steal it.”
                 “That
means Trenton has the other?”
                 “That’s
my belief, but I’ve no proof,” the rancher admitted. “Yeah, I guess I could
find this place the paper mentions, but without the further instructions …” He
shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
                 “Well,
it’s a forlorn hope, like yu said, Dan,” Sudden remarked. “We gotta keep eyes
an’ ears open. One good pointto bite on is that whoever has the second message
is wuss off than we are—he don’t know where to begin.”
                 “If
on’y we could put our paws on that missin’ paper,” the foreman lamented.
                 “If—that’s
one hell of a word, ol’-timer,” Sudden smiled. “Just the most
provokin’ one in the whole