Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ hate to, Tom. Only, we've got to have things to eat. Anything you want?"

      "Go ahead. What I want is a preacher to perform a chore for us, Lorena girl, but that'll have to wait till I'm able to argue."

      Her hand dropped on his forehead and skittered away. "Perhaps there won't be an argument, Tom." With that, she got her basket, closed the door to the cabin and went quickly down the trail. There had been a prowler around the cabin for she marked the boot prints in the ground; that worried her all the way to town and speeded her actions. The doctor was still away, and nobody knew when he was to return. At the restaurant she explained her absence on the ground of sickness and arranged for more or less of a vacation. She filled her basket and talked the cook out of some fresh apples and a pitcher of milk—both rarities in the camp. At the general store she bought a canvas bed tick and a pair of blue army blankets. Men were gossiping in the store, and she tarried over her bargaining to pick up the news, for she knew Gillette would like to hear something of what went on in the world. Most men did. Then she went back up the slope as the sun fell and shadows closed around the trees.

      She thought she was being followed, and with a swift sidestep she dropped off the trail and waited a little while; it was only a man on a horse going upward toward the diggings. A hundred yards farther she swung from the main trail to the smaller trace leading toward the cabin. Something moved out from the concealing shadows, and a man barred her way. It was Lispenard.

      His bold, swollen face rolled forward, and as he got a clear view of her he stepped closer, muttering his surprise. "Well, by Godfrey, are you the girl they say lives up here alone?"

      "What do you want?" Lorena snapped, muscles gathering. She had dealt with this man before, and she knew what slack and brutal impulses stirred behind his heavy-lidded eyes. Somewhat more than two weeks had elapsed between this meeting and the last; even in that short interval he had grown more slovenly, he advertised more clearly the breakdown of what once had been a will. With this type of man, disintegration was swift once it set in.

      "So it's you," he muttered again; she saw the sudden dilation of his nostrils. "Our prairie spitfire. Gad, what luck!"

      "Then you're the one who's been skulking around my cabin," said Lorena. "I never knew any human being could be so rotten. If I were a man I'd be ashamed you belonged in the same..." A sudden fear stabbed her. "Have you been rummaging around while I was gone?"

      "My interest," replied Lispenard, "is confined solely to you, dear girl."

      "Keep those terms off your tongue. And don't come any closer! I won't stand being mauled by you again, hear me?"

      "Oh, come. Virtue so high grows dev'lish wearisome. What am I to believe? Here you live alone—you've knocked around the world quite a bit, I'm bound. Lord, girl, don't be uppish. I'm no leper. I'm a man, and you'll look a long while before you find another one able to measure me. Listen, it's a dam' dreary and monotonous world, and why shouldn't we be agreeable to each other? Put it this way: I'll apologize for my last little outbreak and we'll start all over again. There's my word. Give me that luggage and I'll pack it."

      "Get away from me!"

      "Well," muttered Lispenard, now within arm's reach and growing angry, "who is to stop me? You've got no hero hiding behind the trees this time. I'm going up to the cabin with you."

      "No, you are not. Stand aside."

      He was grinning. The girl stepped back a pace, her arm dropped into the basket and came up again, holding a revolver. Lispenard's head reared, and all the forced pleasantry left him. "You wouldn't have the nerve to pull the trigger," he jeered.

      "Haven't I? Come another step and find out. Let's try that fine courage of yours—you filth!"

      "Some day I'll punish you for all that abuse!" cried Lispenard. He stared at her for several moments. "Believe you would fire, at that. Spitfire is the right designation. But you can be tamed, my dear, and I'm the man to do it."

      "Get out of the path," she insisted. "Go around me and or down the trail. Don't ever come near my cabin again. If I see you I'll shoot."

      She saw a sudden widening of his bold eyes. "I smell rat," he muttered. "I believe I've stumbled onto something. By Gad, I know I have! Who is hiding behind your petticoats? What's all those blankets for—and the grub? You'd better be a little nice to me."

      "Must I stand and take all that abuse!" stormed the girl. "How brave you are to be cruel to a woman, how very brave! You are yellow clear through to the bone, Mr. Lispenard. I doubt if a dog would walk beside you!" There was a click of the gun as she cocked it. Her voice shook. "Go around me and down the trail! If ever you come again, I'll kill you!"

      He said nothing for a time, but he obeyed the order, circling back of a tree and stepping some yards away. She turned, watching for trickery. His mocking voice floated through the shadows. "Don't protest your virtue too much, my dear. You can ill afford it."

      She never stirred until the sound of his retreat was lost somewhere in the main trail. Then she turned up the slope with a heavy heart, came to the cabin, and let herself inside. It was growing darker, and Tom had no word of welcome for her. She dropped the barrier into its sockets with a quick rise of alarm and groped over to hang the blanket across the window again. The lamp wick flared to a match; Gillette was asleep, his hand curled around the gun.

      It seemed to her that some special providence watched over this man. How could it be otherwise when Lispenard stood within a few yards of the cabin yet had not entered? And should she tell Tom of the other man's presence? She debated this silently. He needed to know it for his own safety, yet the knowledge would only add another worry to an already long list. She was strong—she could fight this thing out until Tom stood ready to take it over. She wouldn't tell him until he walked again.

      After Tom Gillette discovered he was a sick man and a woefully weak man he made no more attempts to force the recovery. There was a hard wisdom in him. He knew when to fight, and he knew when to ride with the current, so he mustered his patience and for better than a week he rested flat on his back, saying very little; alternately sleeping and drowsing along with his eyes half closed. During these latter hours he seemed to be in a profound study, staring straight up to the ceiling. These were sombre hours, the girl knew, and she respected his silences. That was the way he had been fashioned, he was no hand to talk; as for herself, she had little enough to say now that the crisis was past. What went on in her heart, what was stored there, would never come out, and she was content that it was to be thus. But on occasions she turned to find him looking at her so quietly and so steadily that a queer runner of emotion swept though her and the quickened tempo of her heart sent the telltale blood to her cheeks. Time and again she saw the very words trembling on his lips, yet he never spoke them. It puzzled her, as the days went on, and presently a doubt and a dread came to her. What was he thinking? A man's code was sometimes unfathomable, sometimes judgments were passed in secret by that code, and then never again were things the same. What was he thinking?

      But she was soon to find out. For, one day in the second week, he turned toward her, wide awake and with an unusual intentness on his face. "Come over here, Lorena."

      She came beside him. "Yes?"

      "Take hold of my hand. Squeeze it as tight as you can."

      She obeyed, wondering. Gillette seemed to be experimenting with himself. "Fine. Now let me see what I can do." So she let her fingers grow limp while his own slowly closed in, then relaxed. He rested a moment. "I reckon I've been a pretty good Indian—played 'possum to help old lady Nature. You go outside a minute, Lorena girl."

      "Now, СКАЧАТЬ