Sudden--Strikes Back (A Sudden Western #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

heard of a boy’s promise to a dying
man, of a blind search for two killers which had ensued, and of the
false accusation that had sent Green, then a mere youth, wandering
in the West with a price on his head and every man’s hand against
him. At the end of the story, Tate shook his head and said, ‘What I
said goes, Jim. If yo’re Sudden, then there’s been some damn lies
told about you. In the meanwhile’—he held out his hand—‘I’m backin’
you to a fare-thee-well. You’ll take the job?’
    ‘ I’ll do the best I can, seh,’ promised Sudden. The two men
shook hands gravely.
    ‘ Never expected nothin’ else,’ was Tate’s gruff
rejoinder.
    They
said goodnight and Sudden left the old man alone with his pipe in
the comfortable room. ‘So that’s Sudden,’ Tate reflected. ‘He’s all
o’ that, I reckon. I’m mighty glad he’s on my side o’ the river.’
Nodding to himself, he knocked out the ashes of his pipe in the
huge fireplace, and sat down at the battered old roll top desk,
pulling out pen and paper. He scratched away laboriously for some
time until what he had written was entirely to his satisfaction,
and then stood up, stretching. He walked over to the kitchen door
and called for Cookie, who came in wiping his hands.
    ‘ Want you to read that,’ Tate nodded at the letter, ‘an’
witness my signature.’ Without comment, Cookie picked up the letter
and read what Tate had written. Surprise came and went in his
expression, but he finished the letter before asking, ‘You know
what yo’re doin’, I hope?’
    ‘ I hope,’ was the non-committal reply.
    ‘ What’s this bit mean here?’ the cook asked, ‘ “When Green is
ready to tell you about himself, be prepared for a surprise,
perhaps a shock, but judge him by his actions up to then as you I
know them and nothing else.” ’
    ‘ It means I ain’t tellin’ you no more’n I told Judge Pringle,’
was the waspish reply. ‘Just sign the letter.’
    ‘ I’ll sign,’ muttered the cook, ‘but yo’re shore puttin’ a lot
o’ trust in a man you only met today. He could be planted by
Barclay, you ever think o’ that?’
    ‘ Shore,’ was the equable reply. ‘I’m gamblin’ on it not bein’
so. In fact, you might say I was stakin’ everything I own on
it.’
    Cookie
nodded, once, then quickly scribbled his signature beneath that of
his employer. ‘From what I seen today, I figger yo’re probably
right. I just hope he ain’t gonna get frightened off if things get
tougher.’
    The old
man shook his head, his tired eyes bright.
    ‘ Somethin’ tells me he’s a hard man to frighten, Cookie. Very
hard, indeed.’

 
     
ChapterTwo
     
    Immediately after breakfast next morning, George Tate
accompanied Sudden to the corral, where the men were readying their
horses prior to receiving orders for the day’s work. Tate told them
of his decision to make Green his special lieutenant.
    ‘ I ain’t figgerin’ on gettin’ bushwhacked,’ the old man told
his riders, ‘but if anythin’ happens to me, Jim will take over the
runnin’ o’ the Slash 8. For now, he’s one of you. Any questions?
Gimpy limped forward. ‘Boss, up to now I been foreman. You want to
change that, it’s okay with me. If there’s any shootin’ war
startin’ I figger Jim here can teach us all a trick or
two.?
    ‘ Gimpy, you been my foreman a number o’ years,’ Tate said. ‘I
figger yo’re about the best man in the Territory, an’ that includes
Jim here—meanin’ no offence, Jim.Gimpy knows this range like his
own hand, an’ you don’t. I’m talkin’ about what happens
if—’
    ‘ Hell, boss, don’t go on about it,’ chipped in Dobbs, ‘you make
a man right mournful. Me, I figger Jim knows which end of a horse
is the front. We can show him anythin’ else he needs to know.
Speakin’ for myself, I’m shore glad he’s joinin’ the Slash
8!’
    The
chorus of agreement which had followed this remark had made Green
feel completely