Sudden--Troubleshooter (A Sudden Western) #5 by Frederick H. Christian

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,