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

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СКАЧАТЬ are you taking me?"

      "Don't you wish you knew?" was his mocking retort. "You will never see Deadwood again, you will never see your charming hero again. My great regret is that I had to watch him day after day and couldn't shoot."

      "Put me down!"

      "You had better save your breath. There is one great lesson in my life, my dear girl, I wish to impress upon you. Never judge a man by appearances. I may have looked simple..."

      The horse carried them upward and on. Once Lispenard dragged harshly at the reins and set the horse on its haunches. The man was muttering to himself and staring around at the trees. "Where's that rustling?" Then he went on, sinking his spurs deep into the animal's flesh. They fell over a rise and started down a pocket. The courage was out of the girl, she felt cold, pulseless; somewhere, deep down, hope was dying and all her fine dreams shrivelled and scattered. There was no good in this man—not an honest impulse, not a single saving grace. He represented the most debased point to which a human being could fall, he was the most brutal and degenerate specimen upon the earth—a man trained to be civilized, reared in the graces and knowing right from wrong, yet deliberately throwing all this overboard and reverting to the jungle. There was no element in Lispenard to which she could appeal, she was utterly defenseless. Even the animals had a code of a kind; this creature with the wild, bulging eyes, racked by passion and swayed by sullen anger and petty spites and raging thirsts, had no code.

      They swept out of the depression and smashed through the brush, Lispenard never ceasing his mutter of talk and his weaving inspection of the forest around him. Something was on his mind, and the farther they travelled the harder he gripped her and the more he punished his horse, raking his spurs all along the animal's flanks, sawing at the reins. As badly as she herself was placed she felt sorry for the beast; the man was killing it with his temper. And presently she began to feel ashamed of her own lack of spirit.

      "Let me down! You can't go on with this. You'll be caught sooner or later."

      "Ha—you think so? Well, I'm not the tender Easterner any more, girl. I've studied under good heads. D'you think your blessed Tom Gillette will ever catch up? He can't do more than sit in a saddle. By Godfrey, I wish he would follow! There's a debt I'd like to pay. Oh, but I'll pay it! I'll leave him in torment the rest of his life!"

      "Let me down!"

      "Stop that screeching, or I'll give you something to cry about!"

      "You'll never get away, you swine!"

      "Don't believe all you read in the story books," he jeered. "I've got a nice little retreat picked up here. And you'll wash and mend and cook for me while they search till the very pit freezes over. You'll see 'em within hand's reach, too, but I'll have you whipped then! You won't have enough spirit to raise your head!"

      They swept into another small depression, ringed around by the pines. The horse swerved, and Lispenard sat back in his saddle to curb the animal, his grip on the girl relaxing. She had been watching for such a moment; her whole body gathered into one last effort, she wrenched the encircling arm free and flung herself outward and down, landing asprawl on the uneven ground. Lispenard's cry of rage broke like a bomb in the glade, the horse came to a swirling halt, and the man sprang from the saddle. Lorena rose and ran. If she only could reach the shelter of the trees and just for a moment put him off the trail...She heard his heavy body pounding in pursuit, she heard his laboured breathing nearer and nearer; she knew she had no right to look around, but the fear she had of him was stronger than her reason. So she turned her head just as his great arm came swinging outward. It struck her on the temple and she collapsed, crying like a child with a broken heart.

      Lispenard stood over her, watching her face. But for the moment she was done, she had no tricks left in her. The brush rattled behind him, and he whirled about, yanking the gun from his belt and challenging.

      "Who's that?"

      There was no answer. Lispenard's rolling eyes passed around the circle; a patch of sun came through the aperture of the trees and sparkled along his sweat-beaded face. In the hard light he seemed more gross, more frenzied than before; the great muscles of his neck stood out sharply, and his immense chest rose and fell to his laboured breathing. Presently he became aware that he made a fair target, and the thought sent him tramping around the edge of the glade, knees springing at each step and his gun veering from side to side. Down went his yellow head, like that of an enraged and trapped bull. Near the girl he stopped.

      "Get up!"

      He saw her tremble; it seemed only to rouse the last vile dregs of his temper. "Get up, you spitfire! Don't sham with me! I've got you and I'll keep you! Next time you try that I'll break bones! Get up!"

      The brush stirred behind him; he swung on his heels, every flabby muscle of his face cutting a seam across the white flesh. Lorena rose to her knees and turned her head. Across, on the opposite side from Lispenard, San Saba stood framed between two small pines; the ex-foreman's little red eyes were affixed to Lispenard's back and his thin features were set and drained of emotion. Even as she looked, his arms dropped and rose, and there was a gun levelled in his palm.

      "Turn aroun', yella-belly."

      Lispenard revolved, the breath blasting out of his mouth. "By Godfrey!"

      "Drop that gun."

      Lispenard appeared rooted; his eyes rolled and flashed. "No by a..."

      "Drop it or yo' die this minute."

      The gun fell. San Saba stood straighter, and there was an imperceptible flickering of emotion across his gray lips. "Yo' been deceivin' me right along, man," said he, droning out the words. "Yo' knew Gillette was in that cabin. Yo' tricked me to he'p yo' own plans."

      "Well," snapped Lispenard, "he's still there. Go back and get him if you want him. Don't interfere with me."

      "Trash. Yo' jest trash. I don't traffic with women, and I got no use fo' a man as does."

      "Don't be pious! Get out of my affairs!"

      "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, СКАЧАТЬ