Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 03 - The Marshal of Lawless(1933) by Oliver Strange Read Free Book Online Page B

bin
hearin’ about?”
                 Green
noted furtive smiles on some of the faces. Had this fellow been primed with
drink and put up to this silly prank to try the new officer out? Such a notion
was quite in keeping with Western humour, and if the fool forgot that it was a
joke… He stepped forward.
                 “Yu
wantin’me?” he asked quietly.
                 Silence
fell upon the room; the flip of cards and the rattle of poker chips ceased; the
hum of conversation died out; everyone was intent on what was taking place. The
moment Green had spoken the stranger froze, his gun covering the marshal’s
broad chest. The latter, making no attempt to draw his own weapon, advanced until a bare three yards separated the pair.
                 “Git
down an’ say yore prayers,” the intruder ordered. “I’m Wild Bill Hickok, an’ a
shootin’ fool. I’m agoin’ to send yu down the Long Trail.”
                 The
marshal’s laugh rang out. “Yore name’s ‘Hiccup’ an’ yo’re a shoutin’ fool.
Now”—with a speed that baffled the eye his gun swept up, the muzzle within a
few inches of the one covering him—“shoot, yu false alarm!”
                 As
though dazed by a blow the ruffian glared at him. How it had come about he did
not know, but he realized that he had been outplayed. To fire now would be suicide;
he might slay the marshal but assuredly before he did so, lead would be tearing
through his own body. At the thought his nerve failed. Green saw the indecision
in his eyes.
                 “Drop
it,” he rasped, and there was more than an order in the words.
                 For
a second the fellow hesitated, and then the gun clattered on the board floor.
At the same instant the marshal’s left fist came round and up, landing on the
jaw with all the force of his body behind it; the man dropped like a pole-axed
steer. Sheathing his gun, Green set the door open, and gripping the senseless
one by neck and belt, flung him headlong into the street.
                 “If
that fella’s got any friends here they’d better tell him to hit the trail ‘bout
daylight,” he said, and walked back to the bar.

  CHAPTER
V
                 Pete
Barsay sat on a tilted chair, his back against one jamb of the marshal’s office
door and his upraised feet on the other. Green had gone riding somewhere, and
to lighten his solitude Pete sang as he rolled himself a smoke:
                 An’
speakin’ o’ women, yu never can tell. Sometimes they’s heaven, an’ sometimes they’s…
                 “Oh,
sir!” reproved a low, sweet voice, before he could complete the verse.
                 The
vocalist’s heels thumped the floor and he grabbed his hat from his head as he
swung round to face the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Her smile added to his
confusion.
                 “What
is the name of that song?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”
                 The
deputy was not surprised at this, but he did not say so. Instead, he lied
nobly. “I dunno, ma’am; that’s all of it I ever learned my own self.” He
grinned with returning courage. “I guess I’ll have to leave that last bit out
when yo’re around.”
                 “I’m
afraid you are a flatterer, Mister—?” the girl said.
                 “My
name’s Barsay, an’ my friends call me Pete,” he
volunteered. “I’m bettin’ yo’re Miss Tonia Sarel.”
                 “You
win,” she replied. “Do you sing much?”
                 Pete
regarded her with a suspicious eye, but save for a distracting dimple, she
seemed quite serious. “I do not,” he confessed. “Speakin’ general, I on’y inflicts
my vocal efforts on longhorns when they’re a-beddin’ down. Mebbe yu’d call it
cruelty to animals, but cows