Trail Smoke (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ and two hours later came to a bald knob high on a ridge where two roads crossed and an ancient signboard pointed northward, reading: "Carson's Ford." He went on out into the clearing—and stopped.

      Eastward the timber rose in continuous green folds. But elsewhere, from this high vantage point, the hill country lay clearly visible under the gold streamers of the sun. Far to the west the desert rolled on beneath its own sultry flashing—on to copper and blue horizons. Nearer, crowded against the trees, the housetops of Morgantown made a rectangular pattern against the tawny earth. He caught all this in one sweep, and turned then to look directly below him. He had climbed the southern side of the ridge and saw at his feet a valley running away from the north slope of the ridge. Narrow and summer-yellow, it lay between stiff-pitched hill walls, with fences setting off its surface in square design and one long ranch house sitting in the center of it, surrounded by outbuildings. A river cut a black-green serpentine course down the valley's middle, crossed by a bridge; on the road beside the river were the lifting dust puffs of some stray rider. He considered the picture with a definite approval, and then looked regretfully to the high east, where the Gray Bull peaks marked the boundary of some far country. There was a feeling in him to be on his way, to run with the days and leave his campfires behind him, one by one, until the rash and foot-loose mood in him turned cold. But even as he thought of it, he remembered his obligation to Sam Torveen and turned back to the trees.

      A woman sat on a roan mare and waited for him, just inside the trees. When he came up to her and stopped—because she barred his way—he saw that her eyes, gray as his own, were direct and strong with interest. She wore the same clothes he had seen on her the morning before in Morgantown, a man's denim overalls stuffed into boots, a man's wool shirt loose across a firm and rounded chest. She held her hat across the saddle horn, and deep-yellow hair ran faintly lawless back from features as serene and fair as he had ever seen on a woman. Restlessness swayed her a little.

      He said, "Good mornin', Miss Cameron," and lifted his stetson.

      There was a smile lying behind the contour of her lips. "I wondered if you'd remember me."

      "Why not?"

      She said: "Well, you had your mind full of other things yesterday morning."

      "My name," he told her quietly, "is Buck Surratt."

      "I was about to ask you," she murmured.

      He said: "What is that valley down there?"

      "It belongs to my people."

      "What's beyond the ridge?"

      "Another valley, where the Peyrolles run." Her head turned and indicated the timbered masses in the higher east. "If you ride that way you'll run into Head country. Martin Head. Bill's father." She looked at him with a more direct interest. "Leslie Head's father also—the boy that was shot near your campfire the other night."

      He said: "My campfire was out."

      Her chin lifted with a certain resoluteness. Her voice at the moment had the candid directness of a man. "I came here to talk to you about that."

      "How'd you know I'd be here?"

      "I've been following you ever since you left Sam Torveen's place."

      Admiration was strong in him. She had a poise and a serenity. Good breeding defined all the regular features of her face and made them expressive and stirring. He kept his peace, waiting for her to go on.

      "Were you curious about that shot, Buck?"

      He reached for his pipe and packed it and lighted it. He swept a gust of good smoke into his lungs. His mind was on the question, but he noticed the sudden gravity on her smooth cheeks. He said finally: "I did a little looking around."

      "You went down to the cabin?"

      "Yes."

      "Inside?"

      He said, "Yes," again, very slowly.

      Her question was rapid and concerned: "Did you find something in that cabin, Buck? Something you put in your pocket and carried away?"

      Her hands, he observed, were long and slender and supple; and she held them quietly folded on the saddle horn. A slanting beam of sunlight reached through the trees to accent the yellow luster in her hair; and that rich color deepened the ivory tints of her skin. But there was something breaking through the rough man's clothing she wore—the fire of a womanliness that touched him and fed his senses powerfully. It played tricks with him, unsettling the cool run of his thoughts, disturbing his ease. He had known many women, but not the kind of a woman this tall, graceful girl was.

      She said: "Give it to me, Buck."

      A slow wistfulness got into his answer. "Many people have trusted me."

      She straightened. Her words came back almost impulsively—and quite direct. "I trust you, if that is what you want me to do."

      "What kind of a man was this Leslie Head?"

      Her face was in the bright sunlight, but her thinking cast a shadow across it. It wasn't fear he viewed there; it was the memory of a thing bitter and unpleasant. She murmured: "Speak no evil of the dead, Buck."

      "He had enemies?"

      "He had no friends."

      The need to have things clear made him go on. "Did he live in that cabin?"

      "No. Up at the Head ranch."

      "What would he be doing in the cabin, then—at night?"

      Her eyes remained on him, but she didn't speak and it was Surratt who broke that long stillness. He relighted his pipe. His head inclined toward the road running up to the Gray Bull peaks. His words were faintly regretting. "For a fellow like me the world is wide and all trails lead over the hill. I should be riding now, for if I stay here the answer will be the same answer as always. A man carries his fortune with him. It is like printed instructions written on his chest, for everybody to see."

      She said gently: "Then why do you stay?"

      He said: "Sam Torveen did me a favor."

      The softness, the melody of her voice was enormously stirring. She was a woman, full of hidden riches for some man who one day would capture the fidelity that was in her and command the high loyalty of her heart. For that man, Surratt thought sadly, there would be no more trails beckoning. She was the end of that man's trail.

      She said: "You pay your debts, don't you?"

      "If I didn't there'd be no pride in me, and I'd be a miserable man without pride. It is a thing my kind has to have—since we have nothing else."

      "I thought it was that way," she told him. "I thought so in Morgantown, when you stood against Bill Head." She lifted her arms and the round curves of her body changed. "Sam Torveen's all right. You may doubt his crew, but Sam's—" She thought about the proper word and afterwards looked at him with a small surprise. "He's like you. You are a pair, except that he keeps the world away with a smile—and you keep the world away with a poker face."

      "I like him," said Surratt.

      "You're a pair," she repeated softly. She scanned the green corridors of the forest with a quick СКАЧАТЬ