Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 (7 page)

Without apparently
bothering any further to search for tracks he swung off down the
trail towards the Saber ranch. After a moment’s hesitation
Philadelphia spurred his horse after his friend. ‘Never seen such a
feller for pokin’ in hornet’s nests,’ he muttered; but he kept his
sentiments to himself as they rode along. As they crested a bluff,
a horseman suddenly appeared off to their right about five hundred
yards. He made no attempt to come closer, and matched his speed to
the pace of the two men from the Mesquites.

‘Don’t put yore hands
anywhere near yore gun,’ Green told the youngster. ‘That jasper’s
totin’ a Winchester, an’ he’s pointin’ it our way.’

A closer look revealed to Philadelphia that
their shadow, although he appeared to be riding negligently, was,
in fact, carrying a rifle ported across his saddle bow in their
direction. No threatening move was made as they cantered on; the
rider stayed at the same distance from them.

Presently they hove in
sight of the house, down below them in a natural hollow, shaded by
big cottonwoods, the limed adobe walls almost dazzlingly bright in
the pale sunlight. Now their ‘shadow’ spurred on ahead of them,
moving around in a semicircle until he reached the trail. There he
reined his horse about and sat waiting, rifle trained on them
casually, as they approached. He was a squat, surly-looking
individual with a low forehead and unshaven jaws. As they drew
within fifteen feet, he cocked the Winchester in one smooth,
menacing movement. The click-clack of the action rang loudly in the
stillness.

‘Hold it right there,’ the
squat man told them. ‘Shuck yore guns.’

With a nod to Philadelphia, Green unbuckled
his belt and let the guns fall to the ground. The youngster
followed his example and the man nodded, his jaws working on the
cud of tobacco in his loose-lipped mouth.

‘What’s yore business?’ he
rasped.

‘Want to talk to Gunnison,’
Green informed him coolly.

‘What about?’

‘If yu’d do I wouldn’t
wanta talk to yore boss,’ snapped Green.

The man’s eyes gleamed in
anger, and he kneed his horse forward until he was alongside the
puncher. He jabbed Green with the barrel of the
Winchester.

‘Yu talk outa turn, mister,
an’ I’ll blow yu four ways to onct,’ he threatened. Green smiled,
and half turned his body in the saddle as though to avoid the
jabbing gun-barrel. With an evil smile the man jabbed again,
opening his mouth to say something which died still-born as Green’s
hand suddenly grasped the gun-barrel and the guard realized he had
let himself be lured off balance in the saddle. By the time he had
done so, however, he was spilling in an untidy heap on the ground,
and his former prisoner was smiling coldly down at him from behind
the receiver of the Winchester.

‘Well, well, how are the
mighty fallen,’ quoted the puncher; then, his voice cold, he
ordered the man to take three steps backwards and to unbuckle his
gun belt. When the thoroughly cowed guard had complied with
this order Green ordered him to get back on his
horse.

‘Philadelphia, get the
guns.’ he said to the youngster, who had sat open-mouthed at the
speed with which this quiet-spoken man had turned the tables on his
armed opponent.

He dismounted and passed
Green’s guns up to him. Buckling on his own pistol he remounted,
and kept the guard unwaveringly covered as Green buckled on his own
gun belt.

‘Tie like mother made,’
Green told the guard. ‘Yu wanta remember not to crowd yore luck.
Lead on in, an’ no fancy footwork. I got a nervous disposition when
I’m trespassin’.’

They rode down the slope
towards the house below. It was not until they were actually in the
yard that anyone noticed anything untoward; then, with a roar of
rage, one man turned and started to run towards the bunk-house,
obviously to get a gun, since he was not wearing a gun belt. Green
whipped the Winchester around and fired, and fired again. Two gouts
of sand leaped up on both sides of the man, inches from his feet,
and he froze.

‘Stay put!’ Green ordered
him. The shots had drawn several men into the yard, and on the
porch two men stood. The thickset one Green and Philadelphia
recognized instantly as Dancy. The other was a tall, rangy man with
cold grey eyes and iron-grey hair, dressed in unassuming range
clothes. Only the air of a man accustomed to giving orders and
having them obeyed set him apart.

‘Yu’ll be Lafe Gunnison,
I’m guessin’.’ said Green as they rode up to the
hitching-rail.

‘Yu’ll be dead in five
seconds if yu don’t throw down yore guns,’ snapped the rancher. I’m
warnin’ yu, mister; I’m goin’ to count five. If them guns ain’t on
the floor by then yu’ll be ridden outa here on a rail.’

‘If you was fool enough to
start countin’, I’m guessin’ I could drop yu an’ Dancy afore yu got
to two,’ Green told him levelly, and as the old man’s mouth opened
for another tirade he continued, ‘If yu’ll lissen for a moment
instead o’ makin’ war talk yu might find I got somethin’ worth yore
hearin.’

Gunnison’s mouth closed
like a trap. He was not
accustomed to being
addressed in this manner, but neither was he fool enough to chance
calling this sardonic young stranger’s bluff.

‘All right,’ he snapped.
‘Speak yore piece, an’ make it short.’

In even tones, and without
emphasis, Green described the events which had brought them to the
Yavapai, and of the tracks he had found at the
edge
of the river.

‘What’s all this got to do
with Saber?’

The speaker was a newcomer
who had come out of the house as Green spoke. He was a slim young
man, expensively dressed in fine broadcloth, a soft-collared shirt,
and dark four-in-hand, his boots gleaming richly in the muted
sunlight. The handsome face was marred only by a weak, spoiled
mouth; the hands were long, as slim as a woman’s, and he gave every
appearance, as Philadelphia was to later remark, of ‘never havin’
done a hard day’s work in his life’. Gunnison turned, saw who it
was, then faced Green once more.

‘My son Randolph,’ he said
by way of introduction, ‘an’ he’s hit the nail on the head. What’s
it got to do with us?’

‘Mister, the
hombre
who tried to kill
the kid here shore didn’t head for Yavapai,’ Green said. ‘Which
wouldn’t leave him many other places to head for in these
parts.’

‘Are you,’ asked young
Gunnison coldly, ‘suggesting that he came here?’

At Green’s failure to react
to this question Randy Gunnison’s face set, and his lips became a
thin, bloodless line. He turned to his father.

‘Are you,’ asked young
Gunnison coldly, ‘suggesting tramps ride in here and all but tell
you that the Saber hires women-killers?’

These words struck a chord
in the older man’s mind, and anger played across his narrowed
eyes.

‘My son’s convinced that
yore nester friends are behind all the troubles in these parts,
mister, an’ I ain’t shore he’s wrong. They are, they got plenty of
enemies. An’ not all of ’em live on the Saber. But yu can bite on
this: Saber don’t war on women.’

‘You heard what my father
said,’ Randy Gunnison
spat. ‘He is hampered
by some old-fashioned notions about hospitality and fair play, but
I’m not! You’re lucky you got this far without being shot down. For
two cents …’

Green’s hand had moved as
the younger man spoke, and there was a stunned silence as two coins
chinked at Randolph Gunnison’s feet, tossed there by the tall
puncher.

‘There’s yore two cents,’
snapped Green. ‘What now?’ His eyes were like chips of steel, and
menace was instinct in his very posture.

Gunnison paled and moved a
step backwards. ‘Are you going to stand for this?’ he squeaked to
his father.

The old man looked from
Green to his son nonplussed, then a look of distaste crossed his
face. ‘Randy, if yu don’t like the heat – stay outa the kitchen.
Don’t skedaddle ahind o’ me when someone calls yore
bluff.’

‘I’m no gunfighter,’ Randy
Gunnison said, a surly look on his sulky face.

‘Then don’t talk like one,’
said his father shortly. ‘I’m tellin’ yu now, mister …?’

‘Green,’ supplied the
cowboy. ‘The kid’s called Philadelphia.’

For the first time Gunnison
looked fully at the youngster; Philadelphia had been watching the
proceedings from the side, unobtrusively covering his partner’s
flank in case any of Gunnison’s men made a threatening move. As
Philadelphia turned, the old rancher’s face changed. He went pale,
and put out a hand to steady himself against the upright of the
porch. He pointed a shaky finger at Philadelphia.

‘Yu, boy,’ he croaked.
‘What’s yore name?’ When the youngster told him he shook his head.
‘No, yore real name.’

‘Henry Sloane, sir,’
Philadelphia told him. ‘Why d’yu ask?’

‘Just … just for a moment,
yu put me powerfully in mind o’ someone I used to know.’ The old
man shook himself, as though shedding some haunting thought, and
drew himself up. ‘Trick o’ the light, I’m guessin’. Now, yu: Green!
My son mighta given yu the impression that Saber’s long on wind an’
short on action. It ain’t so.

What he said still goes,
just like what I said when yu started jawin’. Yu ain’t told me no
news I want to hear. Turn around an’ get off my land. Tell yore
nester friend to keep his gal indoors if he ain’t got anyone can
take care o’ her. An’ don’t make the mistake o’ thinkin’ I’m allus
this lenient. Next time my men’ll have orders to shoot yu or this
wet-eared kid on sight.
¿sabe?
’

Green nodded, regret in his
expression. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told the old rancher. ‘I was told yu
might be a man who’d lissen to reason, but yo’re so bull-headed I
doubt if yu’d know good sense if it jumped up an’ bit yu. No’ – he
held up a hand – ’don’t get all riled up again. We’re ridin’. Afore
we go, Gunnison, ponder a mite on this: if our bushwhackin’ friend
didn’t come back to the Saber, where’d he go?’

Wheeling his horse, the
puncher spurred the big stallion out of the yard, followed closely
by his young partner, leaving the old man frowning furiously. Dancy
sidled over eagerly. ‘Yu want me to get a couple o’ the boys an’
follow ’em, boss?’ He leered. ‘Teach ’em some manners for next time
they come a-callin’, mebbe?’

Gunnison turned on the big
foreman with rage on his face. ‘I just told them men we don’t war
on women,’ he thundered. ‘We don’t send a gang o’ men out to set on
two, neither. When we make war, we’ll do it in the open. Until I
give yu any hints otherwise, yu play it that way, hear
me?’

A snarl of anger crossed
Dancy’s face, but he replaced it with a servile sneer. ‘Yo’re the
boss,’ he told the rancher.

‘Don’t yu forget it none,
either,’ was the retort as the old man stamped into the ranch
house. Dancy spat in the dirt and returned to his work, throwing a
glance of hatred in the direction of the retreating back of his
employer.

When they were out of sight of the ranch
Green reined in; his companion pulled up alongside, puzzlement on
his face.

‘What’s up, Jim?’ he wanted
to know.

‘We didn’t find out what
happened to our bush-whackin’
amigo,’
Green informed him coolly. ‘I
reckon I’ll just mosey back an’ do a mite o’ checkin.’

Philadelphia regarded his friend as if he
had just announced his imminent departure for the moon.

‘Jim – are yu loco? They
catch yu an’ they’ll skin yu alive an’ feed yu to the
buzzards.’

Green grinned. ‘I ain’t
aimin’ to be caught.’

‘Then I’m comin’ with yu,’
announced Philadelphia resolutely.

‘Oh, no, yu ain’t,’ Green
replied with a smile. ‘Yu may be learnin’ fast with that
six-shooter, but I ain’t had time to teach yu how to “Injun”
without bein’ spotted. Yu stay here with the horses. When I arrive,
we’ll be wantin’ to leave fairly pronto. Yu be ready.’

He pointed out a clump of
rocks off to the left of the trail where Philadelphia could hide
with the horses until his return. Then, slipping off his
high-heeled boots and socks, he padded away in the direction of the
ranch, leaving the unwilling Philadelphia behind. The boy watched
Green’s lithe, almost effortless gait as he moved across the
prairie for a short while. He turned to tether the horses, and then
looked again. There was no sign of Green. The cowboy had
disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed
him.

When he was within two
hundred yards or so of the ranch once more, Green ducked behind a
clump of brush and surveyed the area below. Off to the right of the
big house as he faced it was a long, low building in which there
were several tar-paper windows; a faint plume of smoke arose from
the chimney. ‘Bunkhouse,’ he told himself, moving his gaze across
the yard to another, slightly higher building. ‘That’ll be the
stables,’ he said to himself, and his keen eyes swept over the
terrain between himself and his objective. A narrow gully seemed to
offer the best means of approaching the stables unseen, and
crouching low, moving as fast as he could, Green drew to within
about twenty yards of the building. He could hear voices quite
plainly within the stables; one of them was Dancy’s.