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

solid hour of arguing he had
agreed to allow her to nurse him only when, teeth chattering, he
had been unable to argue more. The fever of shock that had followed
the shooting had now abated and Philadelphia was sleeping in an
adjoining room. Despite his daughter’s outburst Harris still
wondered where the dark-haired cowboy in whom, he realized, he had
come to place such complete faith, had gone. He wanted to seek
Green’s slow-spoken reassurance, for the cold threats that Cameron
had delivered had for once weakened the homesteader’s determination
never to be pushed off his land.
    ‘It’s one thing when they
fight man to man,’ he muttered. ‘But makin’ war on women … that’s
no better’n Injuns.’ Again he pondered the long talks he had
already had with Green – he could still somehow not quite bring
himself to think of his employee as ‘Sudden’ – about
Gunnison.
    ‘That ol’ devil could be
playin’ a mighty clever double game,’ he told himself. ‘Mebbe Jim’s
figgerin’ is too simple. Mebbe it’s a whole lot deeper than we all
think.’ These thoughts and others like them occupied his mind as he
paced the floor puffing furiously on his old pipe, a frown of
concentration upon his weather-beaten face. And all the time, in
his mind’s eye, he saw the sneering face of Wes Cameron, and heard
the unspoken threats the man had made upon Susan. The reputation
that was Cameron’s was such that the old man wondered whether even
Sudden, whose speed on the draw was said to be lightning fast,
could match it.
    ‘He’s the on’y hope I got,’
the old man told himself; but there was a touch of resignation, a
hint of defeat in his voice as he said it.

Chapter
Eleven
    SUDDEN ARRIVED back at the JH on the morning after Cameron’s visit
and its aftermath. Stunned by the events which the old homesteader
recounted, the puncher listened in silence as Jake told him of
Cameron’s thinly veiled threats.
    ‘Mebbe we ought to send
Miss Susan away, at that,’ he said thoughtfully, but that young
lady tossed her head spiritedly in dismissal of such a
suggestion.
    ‘This is my home, and no
thug with a gun is going to frighten me away,’ she said calmly.
‘Jim, Daddy , I appreciate your concern. But I’m
not going. Anyway,’ she added in a lighter voice, ‘who’d look after
our invalid?’
    Green went into the little
bedroom where Philadelphia lay. The fever had paled the youngster’s
complexion, and he looked startlingly like the thin-faced
tenderfoot who had so nearly been the victim of Jim Dancy’s liquor
rage that day in Yavapai.
    ‘Yu shore got the easy
life,’ Sudden told him with a smile. ‘Pretty nurse, good food, an’
no work.’
    Philadelphia smiled
ruefully. ‘Any time yu wanta change places, Jim, speak up,’ he
said. ‘I’d give a couple o’ years’ pay to be able to go out huntin’
for that coyote Cameron.’
    ‘Yu take yore medicine,’
Sudden told him. ‘Cameron’ll keep. There’s bigger fish fryin’ in
these parts. Get yoreself fit: I’ll be needin’ yu.’
    ‘Yu bet, Jim,’ said the
boy, his face glowing.
    Susan Harris bustled in and
shooed the tall puncher out of the room. ‘No more of that war talk,
you two,’ she scolded. ‘Philly, yu’ve got to sleep. Lie down,
now.’
    ‘Hel – heck, I ain’t tired,
Miss Sue,’ he complained. ‘I just got through sleepin’ a whole raft
o’ hours.’
    ‘Now don’t you argue with
me, Mr. Philadelphia Sloane’ the girl was saying as Green left the
room, leaving the boy grinning ruefully after him.
    ‘Take about six months o’
that to make him sick,’ Green told his employer, who smiled
fleetingly.
    ‘Creates a few problems,
though, Jim,’ the older man said. ‘I can’t talk Susie into goin’
into town, an’ while she’s here I’m not keen on goin’ far from the
house. Yet someone ought to ride over to tell the others that this
Cameron’s skulkin’ around, in case anyone tries to take him on
afore they know