Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) Read Online Free PDF

broad-shouldered man of around fifty. His strong, clean-shaven
face, which should have expressed good-humour, was now drawn and haggard.
Before his advance the crowd opened, and in a moment he was beside the body.
                 One
glance was enough.
                 “ God ! ” he muttered. “It’s true, then.” He dropped on one
knee and touched the pallid face. “My lad—my only lad,” he whispered brokenly.
                 For
some moments there was silence; men who had not thought of it before furtively
removed their hats. Then the bereaved father heaved himself to his feet,
tragedy in every line of his face, his eyes shining wetly in the half-light.
But there was no weakness in voice or bearing when he turned to the marshal.
                 “Who
did this?” he asked harshly.
                 “Yu
know near as much as I do, Chris,” Slype replied. “This fella fetched him
in”—he jerked a thumb at the cowpuncher. “Claims he saw it
happen.”
                 Purdie
turned his misted eyes on the stranger; his look was an invitation. Sudden
repeated his story of the shooting.
                 “Yu
didn’t see the skunk?” the old man asked.
                 “No,
I caught the flash of a grey hoss through the brush an’ took a chance,” the
puncher told him. “The shell I found was a .38 an’ the bullet bears that out.
If I could ‘a’ sat in the game I’d ‘a’ been right pleased.”
                 “I’m
obliged to yu, friend,” Purdie said.
                 From
the outskirts of the crowd a voice rang through the gathering gloom : “He’ll take the Black Burdettes.”
                 The
cattleman’s head jerked up. “Yu said it, whoever yu are,” he grated. “This is
their work, shore enough.”
                 “Hold
yore hosses, Purdie,” the marshal broke in. “We got mighty little to justify
that.”
                 “The
hoss an’ the gun tally, an’ Luce was seen headin’ that way a bit before it
happened,”
                 Purdie
said bitterly. “Yu call that mighty little, huh?”
                 “It
ain’t conclusive,” Slype insisted. “If yu want me to deal with this”
                 The
other whirled fiercely upon him. “I ain’t askin’ yu to, Slype; keep out of it.
The C P can fight its own battles an’ pay its own scores. By God! it’ll settle this one in full.”
                 “That
ain’t no way to talk, Chris,” the marshal
remonstrated. “I’m here to administer the law”
                 “Yo’re
here to do what the Circle B murderers tell yu,” was the angry retort. “Yu can
save yore breath; I ain’t a-goin’ to back down before all the Burdettes that
ever was pupped, an’ that goes.”
                 There
was no passion in the challenge—it was the stark defiance of one whose life had
been a battle; who had faced indomitably all the difficulties and disasters
which the early pioneer in a savage untamed region must expect. Nature in her
wildest moods, Indians, rustlers, starvation, thirst —Chris
Purdie had fought and beaten them all. And now, in his mellowing years, when
Fate had dealt him the bitterest blow of all, he was still unsubdued, still
full of fight. There were many such men among the early pioneers; their names
are forgotten, but their work survives; they made Western America.

  Chapter
IV
                 SUDDEN
passed the night at the hotel, and in the morning attended the sorry farce of
an inquiry into the death of young Purdie. The verdict that deceased met his
end in a gun-fight with a person or persons unknown appeared to satisfy the
marshal, though it aroused murmurs in some quarters. None of the Burdettes was
present, a citizen informed the puncher, but when that young man suggested that
this was perhaps good policy on their