Read Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) Online
Authors: Frederick H. Christian
Tags: #cowboys, #western fiction, #range war, #the old west, #piccadilly publishing, #frederick h christian, #oliver strange, #sudden, #the wild west
‘
An’ which now belongs to Barclay. He give yu any trouble
collectin’ ’em?’
‘
Not this far he ain’t,’ was the answer.
‘
Let’s hope we can keep it that way,’ Sudden said. ‘Let’s mosey
on down.’
His
companion looked at him for a moment, then asked mischievously, ‘Yu
shore yu can manage her, ol’ feller?’
Green
grinned. ‘Well, without my walkin’ stick, she looks a mite
difficult, but I’ll give ’er a whirl.’
‘
I could allus lower yu down on a rope. If I had a
rope.’
‘
I’d ruther jump an’ do her quick,’ replied Sudden. Together
the two men made their way carefully down the none too distinct
path, Sudden in the lead. It was treacherous going. The face of the
cliff was sun-dry and brittle, and the ever-present wind tugged at
their bodies on the exposed corners and juts of the winding track.
They were about half-way down when Dave, prattling away behind
Sudden, turned his heel upon a small stone, and with a cry of
amazement mixed with fear, found himself plummeting downwards off
the path. By sheer luck, he managed to twist his body in mid-air,
and grasp one of the stunted briars clinging for sustenance to the
bare face of the cliff. The wicked spikes tore his hands, face, and
body cruelly, but he gritted his teeth and hung on as Green, lying
Hat on the path above, leaned over the edge and called his
name.
‘
Dave—Dave, yu all right?’
‘
No … yu idiut. I’m dead as a doornail.’ Dave strove to keep
his voice level, but a cold sweat broke out of every pore on his
body as the small tree lurched slightly. Its meager roots,
unaccustomed to this strange extra weight, were beginning to pull
slowly from their precarious grasp in the crevices of the rock.
Risking another movement, Dave shifted his body slightly. He could
see Green’s anxious face about ten feet above. Sudden meanwhile had
been thinking rapidly.
‘
Can yu get yore gun belt an’ pants belt off without movin’ too
much?’ he called down.
‘
Expect so,’ was the exasperated reply. ‘Though I’d as lief
not.’
‘
Take ’em off, buckle ’em together, an’ don’t argue,’ snapped
Sudden. ‘I’m gonna link my belts together an’ lower ’em to yu. Try
to buckle yore belt to mine.’
Divining
his friend’s plan to make an improvised rope, Dave began to
unbuckle his belts. Every movement he made was slow and deliberate,
but even so the bush swayed dangerously as he moved. His fingers
were slippery with sweat, but eventually he was ready. Green,
dangling head and shoulders over the precipice, lowered his
connected belts down towards Dave. Dave slowly stretched his hand
upwards, his fingers extended. The belts were just out of reach. He
moved just slightly, and a thin trickle of earth slithered down
past his head as the bush again lurched. ‘She’s no use, Jim,’ he
called, hoarsely. ‘Every time I move, this durned tree moves
too.’
Without
another word, Green pulled himself back on to the path. In a moment
he had slipped off his boots, and in another, was lowering his body
downwards off the path and on to the face of the cliff, his feet
probing for footholds in the rock.
‘
Jim, for Godsakes don’t try it!’ cried Dave.
Sudden
did not answer. His whole attention was riveted on the exploring
toes and lingers which held him, spread-eagled, on the cliff face.
Once he looked down, and the sheer drop below brought a clammy
sweat to his forehead. Still lower he inched, and lower, until he
was a few feet above Dave’s head. Holding on to a small outcropping
of rock with one hand, he extended the linked belts, which he had
been carrying gripped in his teeth, down to Dave, who fastened them
in a few moments to his own and carefully lifted them upwards until
Sudden could reach them. Sudden then transferred the buckle to his
teeth again, and began the far more difficult task of retracing his
descent. Inch by agonizing inch he moved, crabwise, his fingers
torn and bloody from the needle-sharp rocks, his socks torn to
shreds on his gory feet. Dave watched him as he slowly climbed,
sweat staining the blue shirt as the powerful muscles coiled and
bunched beneath it. It seemed like an eternity before Green finally
found a full purchase for his hands on the path, and with an aching
gasp of relief, hoisted himself back on to the comparatively level
ground.
Despite
the pain it caused him, he forced his lacerated feet into the
tight-fitting boots, and, digging the heels firmly into the path,
took the full weight of his companion. Within moments, Dave had
climbed hand over hand up their improvised rope and was safe on the
path where both men sat, bathed in sweat, gasping together in near
exhaustion.
When
they had recovered their breath somewhat, Dave turned to
Sudden.
‘
Jim,’ he vowed, ‘I ain’t forgettin’ this—never.’
‘
See yu don’t,’ was the smiling reply. ‘Us old fellers can’t
keep pullin’ yu kids outa trouble all the time. In the first place,
it’s mighty hard work, an’ in the second’—he assumed a quavering
voice—‘it could durn near kill me.’
A few
more minutes’ rest, and both men were fully recovered from their
ordeal, thanks to their wonderful constitutions, and continued
their way down to the foot of the mesa. Once, Dave glanced over the
side of the path and gulped at the thought of how near to a
dreadful death he had been. If it had not been for this
slow-smiling man … he shook his head. ‘I’d shore be shakin' hands
with Old Nick right now,’ he muttered. When they reached the
horses, he bent down and reverently kissed the ground.
‘
Shore am glad I didn’t hit yu no harder than this,’ he
said.
Green,
limping to his horse, turned, and said over his shoulder, ‘Shucks,
there was on’y a fifty-fifty chance o’ yore gettin’ hurt even if
you’d fell all the way down.’ It was Dave’s turn to be puzzled and
he looked his question at Green.
‘
Yu might have landed on yore head,’ explained that worthy. ‘In
which case yu’d have suffered no damage at all.’
Dave’s
reply to this insult was neither pretty nor printable, but Sudden
only grinned and led the way on to the trail towards the Slash
8.
Later
that evening, when all the hands were assembled at the supper table
Shorty was the first to draw attention to the multiple scratches
and cuts on Dave’s hands and face, and to Green’s wounded fingers
and limping gait.
‘
Yu boys been plowin’, or somethin’ equally repulsive? He
asked.
‘
Naw,’ put in Dobbs, ‘they been stringin’ bob-wire.’
‘
Or down in the mines, mebbe, diggin’ silver,’ chimed in
Gimpy.
Only
George Tate did. not join in the general banter, which was accepted
without any attempt at self-defense by the two men. Sudden had
already related to him in the barest detail the events of the day;
afterwards, Tate had wormed the full story out of Dave. It had
taken some doing: Green had enjoined the younger man to secrecy.
Tate surveyed his new hand as Sudden settled back in his chair, his
face crinkling into a grin.
‘
Wa—a-a-l, gents, to tell yu the truth, it wasn’t none o’ those
things—although it was no Sunday school outin’.’
Seeing
that he had the complete attention of the crew, Sudden threw an air
of mystery around his next words, so that the silence brought
Cookie in from the kitchen. So effective was the spell Sudden cast
that he made no move to leave. ‘We was up high in the mesas, Dave
an’ me,’ Sudden was saying. ‘High up, away from the paths an’
trails. Lot of pine forest up there—dark, an’ deep, an’ mighty
spooky. Horses was nervous. Dave was nervous. I was a mite uneasy
myself. Had that feelin’ o’ somethin’ goin’ to happen; didn’t know
what. Anyways, there we was when, without so much as a
by-yore-leave, the biggest mountain lion I ever hope to see jumps
straight out of a tree an’ on to Dave’s back.’ He paused for
effect, then went on, ‘Without even thinkin’, I piled off my bronc
an’ danced around tryin’ to get in a good clean shot. T’warn’t no
use ; him an’ Dave was close to each other as a snake an’ his skin.
All this time, Dave was a-bellerin’ an’ a-hollerin’ “Git him offa
me, git him off!” so I done the only thing I could—I threw my gun
down and got a-hold o’ that big ol’ cat with my bare hands.’ The
listeners waited with bated breath as he paused again. ‘Course,
that ol’ cougar was so intent on tryin’ to get a bite—sized piece
o’ Dave, he just kinda shrugged me off. That ol’ cat’s pelt was
like a Mex rowel—took all the skin off my fingers, but he shore
didn’t scare me none—not while he was a-chewin’ on Dave, anyway. I
thunk a moment, then ran back a step, an’ hauled off an’ gave that
cat just about the hardest kick I ever gave any animal in my life,
an’ that includes a skunk once came to a picnic I was at. Well,
sir, I durn near broke my foot on that cat’s rump, so he turns
around to see who was a-bootin’ him, which allowed Dave to roll
clear from underneath. Cat looks back to see what’s a-happenin’ to
his meal and see’s old Dave’s face for the first time. He took one
look, an’ then, boys, he let out a yowl I bet they heard clear to
San Antone. Next think I knowed, he was boltin’ into the forest
like all Hell was on his tail. I guess Dave there must have given
him a powerful mean look.’
By this
time, laughter was loud in the warm room, with George Tate slapping
his thigh, so Green concluded, ‘Anyway, boys, that’s how Dave got
his scratches an’ I got my limp. She ain’t much of a story, but
she’s the only one we got.’
When the
laughter had subsided somewhat, George Tate said to everyone,
‘Boys, it looks like we’ve been took. Green gets a free drink next
time we’re in town.’ A chorus of agreement greeted this remark, and
Gimpy added, ‘A man that can tell tall ’uns like that oughta meet
Mike Mountford, an’ see who can come out on top.’
‘
Mountford?’ asked Green. ‘Who’s he?’
‘
One o’ the smaller ranchers over on the South Bend side. Yu’ll
be meetin’ him one o’ these days,’ Tate told him.
That the
meeting was to be much sooner than any of them expected he could
hardly have foreseen.
The
little town of Hanging Rock lay torpid under the blasting heat of
the summer sun. All along the single street the board-walks were
empty, and only a mangy dog, lying in the ineffective shade of
Diego’s saloon, gave any indication that there was life in the
town. All the citizens of the little cow town were prudently
avoiding the midday heat in the cooler corners of either their own
homes or one of the two saloons. A true frontier settlement,
Hanging Rock looked like any of a hundred other dusty cow towns.
Its buildings were of adobe or wood or both, with an occasional
‘dugout’ here and there along the straggling street, while the
spaces in between these inglorious edifices were littered with tin
cans, empty bottles, and even an occasional iron bedstead discarded
by itinerant pilgrims. Hanging Rock made no claim to being the
garden spot of the West, and presented in main an unlovely aspect
to any newly arrived traveler. Its residents were wont to remark
that ‘them as don’t like it don’t need to stay’, and most of those
arriving for the first time in Hanging Rock by means of the stage
line, its only link with the outside world, were apt to take one
quick look at the town and take the advice of its citizens at face
value. Hanging Rock relied for its existence upon trade from the
ranches in the valley and upon the miners on Thunder Mesa who came
in once a month on payday and scattered their hard-earned dollars
in an all-out spree which often ended in a brawl or a killing.
Hanging Rock took these as a small price to pay for the turnover.
Of the various buildings scattered along the street, very few were
of any importance. The biggest was Burkhart’s saloon and Dance
Hall, which possessed an imposing false front behind which crouched
the one-storey reality, an L-shaped building of thick adobe
construction whose thirty-six-inch walls were a guarantee of
coolness on the hottest day and a fair degree of warmth when the
‘northers’ swept down along the side of the Needles. To everyone
except its owner, Burkhart’s was known as ‘Dutchy’s’ thanks to the
universal western custom of calling anyone with a foreign accent by
that sobriquet. Directly opposite Dutchy’s was the Traveler’s Rest,
an hotel and rooming house run by a fiercely independent Irish
widow named Mulvaney. Here food and lodging was dispensed for
overnight travelers on the stage, or visiting miners, cowboys, and
other itinerants. Mrs. Mulvaney was a strict disciplinarian and
there wasn’t a man in the valley who would have dared to walk along
one of her highly-polished hallways with his boots on. Down the
street a little, on the same side as Dutchy’s, stood the City
Bank—the most solidly-built structure in Hanging Rock, and the only
one of two storeys.
Adjacent
to it was another saloon called ‘The Square Deal’, but more
frequently referred to as Diego’s, its owner being a Mexican so
named. Most of the cowboys in the valley were traditionally
customers of Dutchy’s, prior to the arrival of Barclay. His
hard-bitten crew had, however, taken to frequenting Diego’s, which
gave Jacob Burkhart no sleepless nights at all. He was a realistic
man, and knew that Barclay’s men would have given him more trouble
than a barrel full of rattlers if they had ever come into the
saloon when—say—the Slash 8 boys were in town. In fact, it was
Gimpy who had once acidly remarked of Diego’s hostelry that ‘the
only square deal you get there is on the sign outside’.