The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox
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Название: The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox
Автор: Ernest Haycox
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066380090
isbn:
"No, suh. I'm a dam' rascal, like I once told you. But I don't sleep with snakes. Well, yo' had yo' minute of grace. I'm wipin' yo' out now."
Lispenard saw death across the interval and his whole face twisted into lines of agony. "Here—let me get my gun. You tricked me out of it. Fair fight."
"I don't fight fair," said San Saba, each word falling sharp and rhythmically across the space, "unless I've got to."
The girl averted her head from the ex-foreman. She felt the movement of Lispenard's body; there was a single smashing echo, and the Blond Giant was on the ground, threshing his life away. She had never heard a cry wrung out of any creature half so shrill or so despairing; San Saba's boots advanced, quite slowly, each slap and squeal of leather cutting a deeper furrow into her nerves. He passed behind her, he stopped. The fallen man's breath came in tremendous gulps. There was one more shot, and then utter silence descended upon the glade, and the girl sat on her knees, hands over her face as if she was praying. Out of that silence, as long as a century, came San Saba's brittle words.
"Yo' have nothin' to fear from me, ma'm. I don't traffic in women."
She thought she heard a shuttering sound away down the slope. San Saba spoke a little more quickly. "Ma'm, yo' got nothin' to fear. Stand up. Did the dawg do an—?"
There was a break to the sentence. She looked up to see the man facing north, slightly bent, and his little eyes running back and forth over the trees. The drumming became plainer, more insistent, brush broke and crackled. San Saba shook his head at her. "Keep still. No sound from yo'." He retreated and presently was in the thicket. Lorena got to her feet, meaning to run over and meet the oncoming horsemen; before she could move Gillette swept into the clearing, hatless, and a streak of crimson fresh on his face. Lorena flung up her arms, crying, "Tom—look out—watch the bushes!"
She saw him sway. A shot blasted the glade. Gillette was pat against his saddle, gun speaking along the far side of his horse. There was a rumbling yell, and Quagmire spurred on across the opening. More shots ran into each other, and a swift exchange of words rumbled and died out there beyond sight. The brush smashed, Quagmire sounded again, farther off; at this Tom slipped from his saddle and gathered the girl toward him, saying not a word.
Quagmire returned, wrath simmering on his morose face. "San Saba. Pullin' consid'ble leather. Waitin' to take a bite at yo', Tom. Looks like he got a stray skunk befo' he lit out, though. Durnedest fella ever I met. One shot an' run. Shucks, I couldn't ketch him with this hay burner."
"Let's turn back," said Gillette. He stepped around the girl, shielding her from the sight of the dead Lispenard; he put her into his own saddle and took the dead man's horse. The three of them rode down the slope single file.
"One chore done, another to do," murmured Quagmire. "Allus a little bit o' scandal left over. It ain't creation's pu'pose ever to let mortal man get a square deal. All we do from cradle to grave is play a rigged game. Ain't it foolish?"
XVII. ALL TRAILS CROSS
They came back to the cabin. The horses and wagon stood in the clearing, the preacher sat on a stump trimming himself a switch; and when Lorena saw him her tired, troubled face turned to Tom in a mute appeal. He helped her to the ground, murmuring:
"I know it's been a mighty hard day. Can't blame you for not wanting to be married after all this water's gone under the bridge. If you'd rather postpone it until tomorrow..."
She shook her head slightly and motioned toward the cabin. Once inside she closed the door and faced him. "It's not so much that, Tom. I know I should be sorry for the man, but after all's happened I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy. It had to happen, he was doomed to die; all I regret is that San Saba was so cruel about it—so cruel, Tom!" She stopped a moment, and he saw her fighting for control. He was about to support her; she shook her head again. "I'm strong—nothing can hurt me. It isn't that, but..."
"You've changed your mind?" he asked, the words running together.
"Tom, I can't ever change my mind as far as I'm concerned with you! What's in me will always be there. But why do other people live so securely while with us everything goes wrong? The very moment I saw you, Tom, trouble started for you and everyone near you. I know it. Treachery and bloodshed and bitter feeling—and now you are about to lose all that you own."
"You've had nothing to do with it," he interrupted almost roughly. "What's to be is to be. All this is in the cards. A man's got to fight to live. What you saw to-day is on your mind—it'll die out."
"I'm not sure. Sometimes I think it's a warning for me not to marry you. What can I bring to you, Tom? The other girl, she's more of your kind—she's beautiful and she's educated. She can talk of the things you know, she's been a part of your life. What am I? Oh, Tom, I don't know..."
"I won't hear any more of that," muttered Gillette. "There's more in your little finger than in her whole body. I know who I want, don't I? By George, I reckon I've got to marry you by force before you let these queer notions get the best of you."
She seemed not to hear him. There was a set to her chin and a remote light in her eyes. She had come to a decision. "I'll not marry you here, Tom. I'm going back with you. I'm going to see that girl. Call it queer if you want, but I can't disobey my instincts. I'd—I'd feel almost unclean..."
"Look here, Lorena..."
"It's settled. Now let's go, Tom."
There was nothing more to be said; he saw that nothing on earth would move that stubborn ruling. Lorena Wyatt was no half- heart; every fibre in her was steel true; she owned a courage and a will, and now she used them, no matter how it hurt her. Gillette dropped his head, unable to meet her eyes. She was whispering something to him that he didn't hear, her arm touched him and slid away. Then he swung on his heel and went out.
"Let's go," he told Quagmire. And to the preacher he added a short phrase. "Reckon we won't be needin' your help to-day."
Lorena's effects went into the wagon, she climbed to the seat beside Tom. He turned the team and wound down-hill through the trees. Quagmire followed a-saddle leading Gillette's horse. And the caravan dropped through Deadwood's rutty street and on out into the swelling land that stretched northeast.
It was a long and tedious trip, the blazing sun pouring out of the cloudless sky by day and the sharp winds slicing across the prairie by night. Ahead of them was uncertainty, behind was nothing but the memory of disaster, of a dead man and of a man who deserved to die yet still lived. What none of the three knew was that this man followed them like a stalking beast all across the leagues of sand; and at night he closed up the interval and lay on the crest of a swell or in the shelter of an arroyo, watching their camp fire with his round, unblinking eyes. He might have come within revolver shot, he might have made his attempt at Gillette's life in the darkness, but he never so much as harboured the idea; for San Saba had tried to kill Tom Gillette on four different occasions by stealth, each time failing. He was a hard-headed renegade, yet there was in him a trace of that mysticism known as the gambler's hunch. The hunch told him he never would master Gillette by that method; therefore he would try another—he would wait, and he would face Gillette, and he would match guns openly. Thus he kept to the shadows, and at day waited until the wagon had dropped out of sight before taking up the pursuit.
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