The Big Dry. George Garland

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      “I’m going to find out who shot my father.”

      “You should have done that first. Now just what else are you going at backwards?”

      “Suppose your father had a hand in it?”

      “You’re mighty sure of that,” she said.

      “What would you think if you were in my place, Bonnie?”

      She looked up at the summer stars as if they had overtaken her, trapped her into a state of incertitude. Her voice was less calm when she said, “I’m sure father had no part in it.” When she spoke next there was a sharp edge to her low voice. “And I’ll fight against you. Young West, as hard as I’ve fought for you, if you want it that way—until you prove he did.”

      “Then we’ll leave it that way,” he said, nudging his horse forward.

      A burning anger flowed in him, made worse by the knowledge that it wasn’t entirely justified. But she wasn’t at all wise in thinking she could dominate him on the strength of her desire for peace.

      They rode on to the edge of the river and let the horses drink. This was the parting place. She knew it and he knew it, and she realized that the ruse was thin when she said her saddle was loose. But she was thinking that he must cool off and look at trouble as something to avoid. What she felt was different, a personal indignation of neglect and a tremble of hurt, then a rush of anger to her brain. Against feuds and the men who refused to meet peace halfway. But these were all mere advance emotions to the one she was trying to suppress.

      He was standing by her saddle with a hand on the horn. A vast sense of weakness in her was followed by a warm surge of blood that beat life into her pulses. She was drawn to him, fighting back, trying her utmost to restrain the hand that was falling to his.

      She managed to draw her hand away, though he was not of the same mind. The touch of her fingers went through him like fire, and he grasped her hand, looked up into her face, searching for all that it gave and all that it withheld. He saw a pair of eyes gazing into his, unguardedly. Excitement stirred in them, vaguely in the pale mask of evening, but enough for expression. She was talking to him without spoiling what she said with inadequate words, telling him how she felt, asking if he could feel it as well.

      He could not remember afterward how he drew her out of the saddle, whether she came or whether he lifted her bodily to the earth. But she was standing before him and his arms were drawing her closer to him. Her head went back and she stared into his face with trust and entreaty in her shining glance.

      Her mouth was soft when he touched it. Warm and alive and like the hot winds that formed and whirled about him and through him, possessing him completely. And she returned all that he gave with clinging eagerness and little contented sighs. With the break, he seemed to know, as she did, that they were fused into one spiritual being. No matter what might follow this night, trouble or pain or broken ties, or open enmity between them, what had been done could never be undone.

      She stepped back from him. He stood stock still looking at her, wondering what she had done to him, if he would ever again be the same. Everything seemed swept aside, as in a desert flood in which arroyos run rampant with water for a few hours today and look up dusty at the sun tomorrow. Then he was saying things he had no intention of saying:

      “So you’d fight against me, Bonnie. I could take that payroll sack and hole up in some canyon and tell you where. You’d do nothing against me. Not you, Bonnie McQueen.”

      The next thing he knew he was standing with thumbs in belt, frowning as though suddenly awake and aware of what he had said.

      He got into the saddle and sat there for a few seconds. Then he said, “So long, Bonnie.”

      She watched him go, heard the splashing in the shallows until it suddenly ceased. A muted shuffle of hoofs, a casual gait, and all sound died. He was gone. Still she stood there, motionless, knowing that nothing must happen to him.

      4

      EXIT THE SACATON KID

      YOUNG RODE STRAIGHT for the lights of Bacon. Bonnie was too much in his mind for any clear thinking, and he rode on beyond the town for a time, feeling in fresh memory her clinging hands at his neck and the sweet pressure of her lips. But she was deeper than touch, and he was looking into her mind, at purpose which matched his in strength, and the firm decision in her that spoke in threat and entreaty in a bid for peace. And he knew her to be right. Like Sack, the things she said were for his own good. Trouble was easy to find.

      He felt the presence of it as he tied his horse before the Frontier Saloon; a number of A-T horses were there ahead of him.

      He entered the saloon and looked it over. The bar ran down the right wall. Behind it a big mirror framed in gingerbread work was flanked by shelves and open stained-glass doors, and topped with pictures, the largest of which was an artist’s conception of the Battle of Gettysburg. Young took these things in at a glance, as he did the fat barman with a black club beard, the tables about which men played poker and talked and drank.

      Suddenly he realized that all eyes had turned on him.

      Only one face was familiar. It was big-boned and full with stretched thin lips under a sweat-circled range hat. Young felt a sense of sharp warning as he met Charlie Wyatt’s glance, seeing in it a shrewd and ominous perversity at work. The A-T foreman had already warned him to “put some distance between him and these parts.”

      Young moved carelessly to the bar through hanging layers of smoke. The black eyes of the barman dug into his as he ordered a drink, and continued to gaze at him for a second or two. Then the barman broke the quiet with a question:

      “What about it, Charlie?”

      “The man asked for a drink, Jase,” Wyatt said, in a slow pleasant drawl.

      Jason Muench placed a bottle and a small glass on the bar. Young poured slowly, lifted the glass, with his left hand, turned about and said, “Thanks, Charlie.”

      Wyatt said nothing, though the humoring smile left his face. He sat still, his bull chest lifting and falling. His men caught on, and Young saw them move slowly away from the bar until he was the only man between the crowd and the mirror. A little man moved to the yellow-white piano in a corner, looked at the keys, raised his hands, then apparently thought better of it, until Charlie Wyatt said:

      “Go ahead and play, Big Man. Something sad like.”

      An old bearded man jumped up and asked for a song. A laugh followed, and soon a man said: “Sure, Big Man. Loco Tom will give you a piece of solid silver rock from his secret vein.”

      Then Charlie Wyatt told them to leave Loco Tom alone. Big Man hit a chord and found his way. Young downed his drink in a gulp, paid for it, surveying the crowd through the mirror. Then he turned around.

      “Ask him who he is, Jase,” Wyatt said.

      “Who are you?” the barman asked.

      “Young West.”

      “Ask him if he ain’t the Sacaton Kid, Jase.”

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