Read Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 Online
Authors: Frederick H. Christian
Tags: #cowboys, #outlaws, #gunslingers, #frederick h christian, #oliver strange, #sudden, #jim green, #old west pulp fiction
‘
Oh, Philly,’ she said,
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry …’
‘
Shucks, that’s all right,
Miss Susan. I wanted yu to know, anyways,’ he told her. He said no
more, but Susan, wise beyond her years, knew that there was much
left unsaid. They were silent for a long moment, and then she rose,
her manner thoughtful.
‘
I can understand how your
mother must have felt,’ she told him as they untethered the horses.
‘Often, I think about what will happen to me—’
‘
Gosh, ma’am, I thought yu
loved it here!’ blurted Philadelphia.
‘
I do,’ she told him. ‘I
love the country, and the people. But marriage …’ Her voice tailed
away, and then her chin lifted. ‘I’m going to look after Daddy,’
she said. ‘No quarter section as a cowboy’s wife for me. I want to
see the world, have fine clothes, and a lovely home. I don’t want
to turn into an old woman before my time, looking after a house
full of children.’
Having thus crushed the
seeds of every dream, hope, and ambition in her escort’s mind, the
lovely Susan Harris mounted her horse and turned him towards home.
She was leading the way out of the little glade at a canter when a
shot rang out and her horse fell, screaming, throwing her heavily
from the saddle.
Philadelphia reined his
horse in sharply, so sharply that the shot which followed, and
which might have blasted him out of his saddle, buzzed by his head
like an angry hornet. His gun already in his hand, the youngster
charged full tilt at the hillock about fifty yards distant from
behind which he had caught a flash of light. Without thought he
emptied his gun in the direction of the would-be assassin as he
careered towards the ambuscade. Another shot rang out and
Philadelphia cartwheeled backwards out of his saddle to the ground,
a thin trickle of blood oozing from his scalp. He lay there, half
unconscious, as the muffled thunder of hoofs receded and the unseen
assailant made good his escape. Then a quick, dark cloud descended
over his mind, and he plummeted into a dark, never-ending
abyss.
James Green had been
checking the herd with Jake Harris when faintly in the distance
they heard the shots, the flatter crack of the rifle followed by
the popping of Philadelphia’s six-shooter, then the final flat
sound of the rifle again. The two men looked at each other
grimly.
‘Sounds like it came from
over that way,’ Green offered, nodding towards the low hills to the
South. Harris nodded. ‘Probably down by – my God! Philly an’ Sue
rode down that way! Come on!’
He dug in his spurs and
rocketed away, Green thundering in his wake. Together they swept
across the open plain for two or three miles until a fringe of
trees broke the horizon. ‘Glade … Susie often goes there …’ Green
heard Harris shout as they thundered along. Within a few more
minutes they were on the scene of the ambush, and Harris gave a
mighty cry of relief as he saw his daughter sitting upright on the
ground, shaking her head. Green espied his young friend lying off
to the right and swung Midnight around. Dismounting, and turning
the boy over, he breathed a sigh of thanks as he saw that the
trickle of blood across the boy’s brow stemmed from a raw gash
across the side of his head.
‘Creased,’ he muttered.
‘But who …? ’
His brow furrowed, he
lifted down his canteen from the saddle and was forcing some water
between the youngster’s lips as Jake Harris came over with the
still-dazed Susan.
‘Some jasper threw shots at
the pair of ’em,’ Harris growled. ‘Dropped Susie’s hoss an’ then it
looks like he tried to kill the kid.’
Philadelphia’s eyes
fluttered, and he suddenly sat up.
‘Sue!’ he cried, trying to
struggle to his feet.
‘It’s all right, son,’
Harris reassured him. ‘Take it easy. She’s fine.’
The boy relaxed as Green
poured water on to his bandanna, wincing as the puncher cleaned the
gash on his head. In a few terse words he described what had
happened, while Harris and Green looked grimly at
each other.
‘They’re stoopin’ pretty
low, shoot in’ at girls an’ kids, now,’ rumbled the old
man.
‘Daddy, Philly’s not a
kid,’ said Susan with passion in her voice. ‘If it hadn’t been for
him …’ She stopped, and for no apparent reason blushed.
For the first time a trace
of a smile touched Green’s lips, but vanished immediately as he
stood up and said, ‘Let’s take a look-see if Mr. Bushwhacker left
any sign.’
Striding across to the hillock that
Philadelphia had indicated, Green scanned the area with keen eyes.
From this vantage point the trail leading out of the glade was
easily covered, and he nodded to himself.
‘Mr. Bushwhacker knowed his
spot,’ he murmured. ‘He musta hunkered down here someplace.’
Casting around for a few more moments, he found a place where the
earth was scuffed and the indentation of two boot-heels was clear
in the earth. Back-tracking, mentally putting himself in the
ambusher’s place, it did not take Green long to discover where the
would-be killer had hidden his horse. The lower foliage of a tree
had been nibbled, and several branches bore evidence of chafing.
The hoof-prints showed that the animal had been restive. He was
kneeling, studying these marks, when Harris, his daughter, and the
now fully recovered Philadelphia came up.
‘Nothin’ much to go on,’ he
announced. ‘Our bush-whackin’ friend was mighty careful to pick up
his shells, an’ almost anyone coulda left those
heel-marks.’
‘Hell, Jim, who else could
it ‘a’ been except one of
Gunnison’s
hirelin’s?’ demanded Harris, ‘Who else’d want to take a shot at my
gal?’
‘Yu so shore it was Miss
Susan they was really after?’ queried the puncher.
‘Why, Jim,’ said
Philadelphia, surprise in his voice, ‘I don’t know anyone in these
parts! Why’d anyone want to take a shot at me?’
‘Philadelphia, I figger yu
rattled Mr. Bushwhacker chargin’ at him like that. Mebbe all he
aimed
to do was
throw a scare into Miss Susan. Likely she’d tell her daddy an’
he’d get the message.’
‘Yu think mebbe this was a
warnin’, Jim?’ asked the
old man. ‘To keep
me mindful o’ the fact that I could be hurt other ways
than—’
‘I ain’t sayin’ that’s it,’
Green said. ‘It just might be, that’s all.’
He hunkered down again and studied the
tracks. Then he announced his decision.
‘I’m goin’ to follow his
tracks,’ he said. ‘Jake, yu take Philly an’ Miss Susan back to the
JH.’
Harris nodded, his face
somber. ‘Susie, yu can ride double with me. Let’s go,
Philly.’
‘Not me,’ declared that
young worthy stoutly. ‘I’m goin’ with Jim.’ His friend turned to
remonstrate, but the boy said, ‘Don’t yu argue none with me – I’m
the one got shot at, remember. I reckon I got a right.’
Green smiled. ‘Mebbe yu do,
at that. Okay, Jake, the kid stays. Yu ride on back. We’ll see
where Mr. Bushwhacker leads us.’
When they had gone, Green rolled and lit a
cigarette. He sat down on a small rock and smoked in silence, the
furrows deep between his brows.
‘Harris is hard hit,’ said
his companion. Green nodded. Silence again ensued, and presently
Philadelphia tried again:
‘I reckon he hadn’t thought
they’d try to get at him through Miss Susan.’
‘Mmm,’ said Green, still
busy with his thoughts.
‘Dang me if yu ain’t the
tightest man I ever met with a word,’ exploded Philadelphia. ‘What
does a feller have to do around here to get some reaction out o’ yu
– get shot through the head?’
His mentor looked up, and
for the first time a wide grin crossed his face. ‘Yu oughta thank
yore lucky stars yu got a crease in yore scalp,’ he told
Philadelphia.
‘How come?’ that worthy
wanted to know.
‘Shucks, that’s easy to
answer,’ was the reply. ‘If yu’d been hit anyplace else it mighta
done some damage. I reckon our bushwhacker didn’t know he was
aimin’ at yore thickest part.’
Before his young friend
could suitably reply to this insult the tall puncher was on his
feet and striding across the clearing to where Midnight stood
patiently cropping the grass.
‘Come on, slowpoke,’ Green
admonished. ‘What yu standin’ around with yore mouth open
for?’
Philadelphia’s reply was
extremely unflattering, and Green grinned. ‘Yo’re learnin’ more
than I figgered,’ he told Philadelphia. ‘Let’s ride. That
back-shootin’
hombre
mighta just been boogered enough to leave a trail we can
follow.’
FOR
SEVERAL miles Green was able to follow the trail he had
selected without difficulty. The tracks of the horse which had been
tethered to the tree behind the hillock were clear; Green noted
that the would-be assassin had headed south without making any
attempt to conceal his passage. Drawing rein as he and Philadelphia
crested a slight ridge, he scanned the country ahead of them. Down
below them, perhaps a mile away, he could see the dark line of
trees and the faint silvery glint of water which marked the course
of the Yavapai. Off to the east the white scar which was the trail
running from the Saber to the Mesquites could be faintly descried,
and Green pointed it out to his companion.
‘I’m bettin’ our friend
aimed like an arrow for that,’ he told Philadelphia. ‘Be mighty
hard to track any thin’ once it hit that trail.’
Philadelphia nodded glumly.
‘I reckon we might as well turn back,’ he said, the slump of his
shoulders ample evidence of his disappointment.
‘Hold hard, there,’ Green
told him. ‘Let’s mosey down an’ take a look at the river-bank.
Mebbe Mr. Bushwhacker crossed the river an’ maybe he didn’t. If he
did, he might just ‘a been careless about it.’
They moved down the slope
from the ridge, threaded a long arroyo, and found themselves on
flat, open scrubland. The trail lay off to their left, and within a
few more minutes it cut diagonally across their path. When they
reached it Green dismounted and spent long
minutes studying the churned, sandy earth. Remounting, he
shook his head. ‘Impossible,’ he told the youngster. ‘Let’s head on
down to the river.’
Where the trail actually met the river, the
Yavapai ran wide and shallow, with broad sandy banks sloping gently
to the water.
‘She’s a natural ford,’
Green told his friend. Tethering Midnight, he squatted down and
inspected the various tracks which had been made in the sand, his
keen eyes narrowed. Slowly, he moved carefully, about a foot at a
time, away from the center of the crossing towards its outer
edge.
Philadelphia watched him in wonder. The edge
of the river was, to his unaccustomed eyes, a morass of churned
hoof-marks, some made by cattle, others by horses, and for all he
knew, a few made by wild animals which might use this shallow part
of the river as a watering hole.
‘Jim, how could yu tell one
o’ the hoof-marks yo’re lookin’ for if yu seen it?’ he
asked.
Green, still carefully
inspecting the ground, looked up briefly and grinned. ‘There’s an
easy way, if she works,’ he told his companion. ‘Yu think about it
a minnit or two.’
Philadelphia frowned.
Surely, unless the horse had some special kind of shoes, any horse
track would look like any other? He said as much. Green refrained
from answering, but instead rose to his feet and announced, ‘He
crossed the river here.’
The boy looked at him in
sheer amazement. ‘I expect yo’re goin’ to describe him to me as
well,’ he said, disbelief in his voice.
Green shook his head.
‘Might be able to, but I won’t,’ he said. ‘Come an’ take a look for
yoreself.’ He pointed to the hoof-mark he had been studying. ‘What
d’yu see?’
Philadelphia shrugged.
‘Just another hoof-mark.’
‘Naw,’ Green persisted.
‘You’re lookin’ but yu ain’t seein’. Take a closer
gander.’
The boy kneeled down and peered closely at
the track. Now, this close, he could see clinging to the wet sides
of the hoof-mark a few dark flecks. Picking them off with a
fingernail he inspected them, then laughed.
‘Pine needles,’ he said,
standing up. ‘I’m apologizing
Jim. Although
I still don’t know how yu can say it’s our man.’
‘Wrong again,’ Green told
him. If that track had been here since yesterday it would ‘a’
soaked up moisture from the ground. Them pine needles is still dry.
It ain’t conclusive, but it’s enough. Let’s cross the
river.’
Philadelphia hesitated.
‘That’s Saber land over there, ain’t it?’
‘It ain’t Californey,
that’s for shore.’ grinned Green, mounting his horse and leading
the way down to the water. ‘Come on, Philadelphia. Let’s see what
that sign over there says.’
They splashed across the muddy Yavapai and
trotted up the opposite bank to where a stark, sun-bleached board
bore a faded legend in red paint.
THIS IS SABER
LAND
If you haven’t been
invited turn around
The Saber brand was burned
on to the wood below this unfriendly message. Green grinned over
his shoulder. ‘Friendly cuss, this Gunnison feller.’