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IN A MATTER OF NUISANCES

By Raymond S. Spears

Author of “A Sheriff’s Gun,” “A Sheriff Apologizes,” etc.

Sheriff Bill Ludden sets a nuisance to catch a nuisance and gets
results a-plenty!


Of course Croup Kadem had to break out bad right in the middle of
Court Week. It was always that way with that trouble maker. Whenever
Sheriff Bill Ludden was as busy as he could be with official,
clerical or other duties, this dad-blasted Kadem would ride into
Tipping Rock and helletty larrup all over the place. And the honest,
and voting, storekeepers of the outlying town never knew how to
handle him as a customer.

Kadem was bad. He lived over in Praying Canyon where everyone else
had starved out or died of violence. But Sheriff Bill Ludden knew as
well as he knew his own name that Kadem was yellow through and
through. The fellow was just a boastful, loud-mouthed, troublesome
bag of hot air, who would only terrorize a town like Tipping Rock
where most of the people were peaceful and went unarmed.

“Say, Sher’f!” Putt Purcell, storekeeper of Tipping Rock, called on
the telephone. “Croup’s come in barking and shooting worse’n eveh.
Cain’t you do something with that man before he kills somebody?”

“Well, I reckon,” Ludden sighed.

“Well, _do it_, then!”

Putt hung up. Putt was one of Ludden’s best friends and supporters
over at Tipping Rock. He owned the General Store, and his being
provoked was a bad sign. Croup was not only after gamblers, saloon
keepers, rough business outfits, but he was bothering the
reputables.

Ludden had been after Kadem before, and personally could handle him
so that Kadem would cool down and behave himself. By leaving his
official business and riding all night, Ludden could catch Kadem
sleeping off whatever he had been drinking, but a fine of $100 or a
month or two in jail for disorderly conduct was all any justice
could legally assess the fellow who had bothered the happiness of
five or six sheriffs, never with any terrible violent trouble; and
yet always that exasperating, impudent, spiteful and inopportune
messing around would break out just when the sheriff’s department
had all it could attend to, conveniently, somewhere else.

Sheriff Ludden was provoked. He had to leave his office in the
middle of planning a campaign against a gang of rustlers who were
slipping away with several head of cattle a day. He went over to the
sidewalk and started strolling around the Court-House Square,
looking through the crowd gathered there for an inspiration. Once
and for all time Croup Kadem needed handling—handling right. And
sure enough, there loafing near the court-house was Dud Pilarn.

Now Dud Pilarn was nearly six feet tall, slim, dandy and lippy as
they make them. He had killed two men and come clear and had been
mixed in a couple of other petty, shady affairs. Also he was proud
of his record and wore a large revolver with notches cut on the
outside of the ivory grips and the notches filled with tar, so
they’d be conspicuous. In his own way, and because he had already
killed a couple of men, Pilarn was a bigger nuisance than Kadem. And
Pilarn lived and was always blowing off his mouth closer to the
county seat. But, like Kadem, the sheriff knew the fellow was yellow
and just a show-off.

“Howdy, Sher’f!” Pilarn greeted Ludden. “You know, Sher’f, I never
did see quite such an ornery bunch of deputies as you’ve got! Take
about three of ’em to make real, honest-to-gosh specimens of my idea
of what a deputy sher’f should look like.”

“You know, Dud,” Ludden took the remark seriously, “I’ve been
thinking we needed something to tone up our general average? I have,
for a fact. How’d you like to be deputy sher’f yo’-se’f?”

“What!” Dud perked right up, “Yo’ don’t mean that, honest, do you
Sher’f? Yo’ wouldn’t put me on as deputy?”

“I need a deputy,” Ludden hesitated. “’Course, three years ago you
were tried for murder. Same time, the evidence showed Dander had
better than an even break. I’ve a warrant I’d like to have served.
We can’t put a man on, ’thout trying him out. I’ll ’point you
special deputy, give you a badge and all you got to do is go get
your man.”

“What man?” Pilarn inquired, suspiciously, “Butch Cassidy, Sundance
Kid—some of them that’s in Chubut, South America, I suppose.”

“No, Dud,” Ludden shook his head, “You ought to know me better than
that. I never play jokes. I’m busy. All my deputies are busy. And
Croup Kadem is cutting up over at Tipping Rock. ’Course, if you
don’t want to I’ll send somebody else.”

“Croup Kadem?” Dud Pilarn laughed, talking loudly. “Sure, I’ll go
get him! He’s jes’ one of those loud-talking, bluffing and bragging
scoundrels that makes noisy nuisances of themselves. You don’t have
to think no more about Kadem. I know him. I never knowed such a
plumb disgusting immodest feller in my life as him! Always did want
a chance to slap his mouth for him.”

Accordingly, Dud Pilarn took his horse out of the stable, rode twice
around the Court House Square and headed out the west road for
Tipping Rock wearing a Special Deputy badge and waving his hat.
Quite a lot of people who heard about the spectacle of Bill Ludden’s
new deputy sheriff just couldn’t believe the information. Probably a
dozen different friends of Bill’s came and made it a point to ask
him if it was really so that he had made that mouthy scallawag
Pilarn a special deputy? And they all gave the sheriff such a look
of doubt and sorrow that he knew he had suffered immeasurably in his
reputation for common sense.

Everyone around the Court House knew what was going on. It wasn’t
half an hour after Dud started away with such a noisy and ambitious
flourish that the sheriff heard word had been telephoned to three or
four different people in Tipping Rock that Dud Pilarn had been
appointed special deputy, and sent with a warrant for Croup Kadem’s
arrest, and to perform whatever other duties of quieting and making
orderly Tipping Rock might need or desire. Putt Purcell telephoned
to Bill Ludden, presently.

“Sher’f! Is it actually so that you sent that—that Dud Pilarn over
here in response to my message asking for something to be done about
Kadem?” he asked.

“I sure did, Putt,” Ludden admitted, “The way it happened, I didn’t
have a foot-loose man here, and you know Dud’s active and he was
available. So I ’pointed him. Between you an’ me,” the sheriff added
when he heard Putt’s gasp of disgust, “I figger them two fellers is
both so yellow that maybe they’ll laugh each other out of the
county. It would sure help me a lot if they both was showed up and
got out.”

“An’ I carried Tipping Rock in yo’ favor!” Purcell sighed, “’Course,
you was an experiment, Ludden. Everybody knows experiments
generally are failures, and the main hope is they ain’t going to
cost too much!”

The road to Tipping Rock was long and gave anyone riding over it
plenty of time to think things over and plan what should be done.
Special Deputy Pilarn was in a hurry. Every ranch he passed, he
traded horses, in the name of the Law, and he covered the distance
in about half the time of the best previous record. He came to
Tipping Rock before ten o’clock, that night. He had a fresh horse,
and he made a crow-landing from the saddle as the mount came to a
halt, striking on both feet and coming up running in two jumps into
Putt Purcell’s general store, Putt being the chief complainant,
though that fact was confidential between the department and Putt.

Putt told Pilarn the facts in the matter. Kadem had come to town,
ridden into several saloons on his horse, and drunk in his saddle.
He had been raising hob, shootin’ and breaking windows ever since.
Just at the moment he was reported to be over in the south side of
town, where at the outskirts was a cluster of buildings devoted to
amusement and difficulty.

With this information, Pilarn leaped again to his horse and raced to
the rescue of whatever imperiled dance hall, saloon or green room
might need prompt assistance as regards Croup Kadem. Purcell, on the
store balcony, heard Kadem whooping to the noisy strains of square
dance music, presumably in the ball room of the Bijou Amusement
Palace. Now that Special Deputy Pilarn had arrived in a cloud of
dust and with every indication of performing his duty with as much
action as possible, a lot of people started over to the scene.

Pilarn leaped from the saddle and landed on the wide wooden platform
of the Bijou, his boots striking the boards with a boom like a huge
drum. He paused to give his chaps a hitch and swing his belt to just
the right angle, taking a loop around his right leg with a latigo
string, to hold the muzzle of his holster down, tight, so when he
should draw, he would be able to do so with speed.

Pushing back his broad-brimmed hat, squaring his shoulders, and
taking note of the spectators Dud parted both the swing doors and
headed in, left shoulder first, his large right hand gripped tightly
about his ivory revolver butt.

The galloping horse had been heard within. All had taken note of the
thud of feet as the new arrival landed on the ground. The music
played on but the square dancing had ceased and the couples were
scattering hither and yon, nervously, like frightened birds
uncertain whether to skulk or fly.

Kadem was at the head of the set, close to the music platform. He
stood with the clear space of the ball room between him and the
entrance from the barroom. Along both walls to right and left stood
the anxious spectators as with heavy, jumping tread the special
deputy came in a hurry, wasting no time; his jarring rattled the
barroom glassware, some of which rang like tiny bells, so heavy were
his footsteps.

As he crossed the green room he brushed over two four-hand poker
tables, threw a waiter headlong out of his way, and overturned a
tenderfoot, chair and all. He leaped with two quick strides ten or
twelve feet into the ballroom, sweeping it with his glance, seeking
his quarry. Kadem stood straight ahead of him, dubious, eyes
bulging, cornered and uncertain just what he should do.

Dud stopped short as he discovered the man he was seeking. Their
glances met, their gaze came to a focus, look to look, and each saw
in the other’s countenance the doubts and worries, the fear of the
other fellow. Two bold talkers, loud bluffers, cowtown show-offs had
met face to face with grinning, if timid and wondering, spectators
on either side. A greater fear than the torments afflicting them
seized both, that of being humiliated by a braggart. Twisting,
stirring, each sought the slight but deadly advantage of a gun
started from its holster.

“I got a warrant for you!” Pilarn declared, his voice hollow and
quavering.

“Yeh!” Kadem snarled, “Luden sent _yo’_ after a _man_?”

“Yeh!” Pilarn exclaimed, his sniffle cat-like, “Don’t yo’ tech that
gun, Cro-Croup!”

Color came and went in their cheeks. Their lips twitched and they
licked their tongues about their teeth. They blinked, squinted,
bulged their eyes by turns, just plumb scairt stiff as the
old-timers who were watching realized. The side-lines relaxed,
smiling, laughing silently at the spectacle of two cowards face to
face, trembling and gasping for breath. Yet along the walls men who
had seen that kind of trouble before edged along, stooping low,
nervously, knowing that it is by such scoundrels that innocent
bystanders are usually killed.

The time which had passed, perhaps thirty seconds, seemed
interminable, and a woman’s shrill, jeering laughter suddenly broke
the quiet. Startled the two scared men facing each other jerked
their guns, and neither could stop, then, so they began to shoot
furiously.

The first two bullets slapped into the floor between them. The next
two whacked the wall behind Kadem and shattered a window behind
Pilarn in the barroom. The next four whacks were lost in frantic
speed, the reverberating gunfire suddenly ending in the simultaneous
and terrible thwacking of heavy lead bullets hitting flesh and bone.

Kadem stood, struggling to hold his revolver against the drag down
of gravitation, a look of astonishment and alarm on his countenance,
his eyes fluttering in their sockets. His wrist reached toward his
brow to wipe its cold sweat but he collapsed.

Special Deputy Sheriff Dud Pilarn stepped back and forth trying to
hold his balance against the sway of his frame like that of a dead
tree stub about to fall. He looked around, confused, gulping,
bewildered by what had happened so suddenly, grinning stupidly for
he had fought a gunfight. Great weariness afflicted him, and he
staggered toward a chair, dropped to his knees, sat back on his
heels and then tipped over on his right shoulder to fall face
downward, like a man going to sleep with his head on his elbow.

Putt Purcell looked the scene over and then telephoned to Sheriff
Bill Ludden from the Bijou office.

“Say, Sher’f!” Purcell said, “This is Putt, at Tipping Rock. That
special deputy arrived here——”

“Not already!” Ludden exclaimed, astonished.

“Yes, sir, come, got his man and done gone!” Purcell declared with
enthusiasm.

“_Killed_ Kadam?” Ludden cried. “You mean to say Pilarn _killed_
that man Kadem? They actually shot it out together?”

“They sure did, Sher’f!” Putt answered, “They swapped bullets, an’
Kadam’s hit above the heart. Pilarn’s hit below the heart. They’re
both dead, doggone near on their feet—evenest exchange yo’ eveh did
see!”

“Shu-u-u!” Ludden breathed, “I neveh expected that. Why, I thought
they were both jes’ sure ’nough cheap, bluffers.”

“Reckon that’s what they thought of each other,” Putt said, “Fact
is, I expect they was both sure astonished, carrying hit through
man-fashion to the bitter end!”

“I see,” Ludden sighed, “That’s what comes of satisfying a man’s
curiosity. I’ll send the coroner out, and the undersheriff. Much
obliged, Putt. Sorry it broke thataway, adding likely some to
Tipping Rock’s reputation, such as it is.”

“Well, anyhow, these yere parts are rid of two talking and fighting
nuisances!”

“If you put it thataway, I expect,” Ludden said, “_Good_ night!”


                           Transcriber’s Notes:

1. This etext was produced from WEST magazine, August 20, 1930.

2. Obvious typographical and printing errors have been corrected without
note. Period spellings, inconsistent hyphenation, and the author’s
punctuation and dialect have otherwise been left as printed.

3. Italics in the text are marked _like this_.

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