Way of the Lawless. Max Brand

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      Every moment was bringing on the dawn more swiftly, and the eyes of Andy were growing more accustomed to the gloom in the house. He found the door of the girl's room at once. When he entered he had only to pause a moment before he had all the details clearly in mind. Other senses than that of sight informed him in her room. There was in the gray gloom a touch of fragrance such as blows out of gardens across a road; yet here the air was perfectly quiet and chill. The dawn advanced. But all that he could make out was a faint touch of color againt the pillow—and that would be her hair. Then with astonishing clearness he saw her hand resting against her breast. Andy stood for a moment with his eyes closed, a great tenderness falling around him. The hush kept deepening, and the sense of the girl drew out to him as if a light were brightening about her.

      He stepped back to the table against the wall, took the chimney from the lamp, and flicked a match along his trousers, for in that way a match would make the least noise. Yet to the hair-trigger nerves of Andy the spurt and flare of the match was like the explosion of a gun. He lighted the lamp, turned down the wick, and replaced the chimney. Then he turned as though someone had shouted behind him. He whirled as he had whirled in the hall, crouching, and he found himself looking straight into the eyes of the girl as she sat up in bed.

      Truly he did not see her face at first, but only the fear in it, parting her lips and widening her eyes. She did not speak; her only movement was to drag up the coverlet of the bed and hold it against the base of her throat.

      Andy drew off his hat and stepped a little closer. "Do you know me?" he asked.

      He watched her as she strove to speak, but if her lips stirred they made no sound. It tortured him to see her terror, and yet he would not have had her change. This crystal pallor or a flushed joy—in one of the two she was most beautiful.

      "You saw me in Martindale," he continued. "I am the blacksmith. Do you remember?"

      She nodded, still watching him with those haunted eyes.

      "I saw you for the split part of a second," said Andy, "and you stopped my heart. I've come to see you for two minutes; I swear I mean you no harm. Will you let me have those two minutes for talk?" Again she nodded. But he could see that the terror was being tempered a little in her face. She was beginning to think, to wonder. It seemed a natural thing for Andy to go forward a pace closer to the bed, but, lest that should alarm her, it seemed also natural for him to drop upon one knee. It brought the muzzle of the revolver jarringly home against the floor.

      The girl heard that sound of metal and it shook her; but it requires a very vivid imagination to fear a man upon his knees. And now that she could look directly into his face, she saw that he was only a boy, not more than two or three years older than herself. For the first time she remembered the sooty figure which had stood in the door of the blacksmith shop. The white face against the tawny smoke of the shop; that had attracted her eyes before. It was the same white face now, but subtly changed. A force exuded from him; indeed, he seemed neither young nor old.

      She heard him speaking in a voice not louder than a whisper, rapid, distinct.

      "When you came through the town you waked me up like a whiplash," he was saying. "When you left I kept thinking about you. Then along came a trouble. I killed a man. A posse started after me. It's on my heels, but I had to see you again. Do you understand?"

      A ghost of color was going up her throat, staining her cheeks.

      "I had to see you," he repeated. "It's my last chance. Tomorrow they may get me. Two hours from now they may have me salted away with lead. But before I kick out I had to have one more look at you. So I swung out of my road and came straight to this house. I came up the stairs. I went into a room down the hall and made a man tell me where to find you."

      There was a flash in the eyes of the girl like the wink of sun on a bit of quartz on a far-away hillside, but it cut into the speech of Andrew Lanning. "He told you where to find me?" she asked in a voice no louder than the swift, low voice of Andy. But what a world of scorn!

      "He had a gun shoved into the hollow of his throat," said Andy. "He had to tell—two doors down the hall—"

      "It was Charlie!" said the girl softly. She seemed to forget her fear. Her head raised as she looked at Andy. "The other man—the one you—why—"

      "The man I killed doesn't matter," said Andy. "Nothing matters except that I've got this minute here with you."

      "But where will you go? How will you escape?"

      "I'll go to death, I guess," said Andy quietly. "But I'll have a grin for Satan when he lets me in. I've beat 'em, even if they catch me."

      The coverlet dropped from her breast; her hand was suspended with stiff fingers. There had been a sound as of someone stumbling on the stairway, the unmistakable slip of a heel and the recovery; then no more sound. Andy was on his feet. She saw his face whiten, and then there was a glitter in his eyes, and she knew that the danger was nothing to him. But Anne Withero whipped out of her bed.

      "Did you hear?"

      "I tied and gagged him," said Andy, "but he's broken loose, and now he's raising the house on the quiet."

      For an instant they stood listening, staring at each other.

      "They—they're coming up the hall," whispered the girl. "Listen!"

      It was no louder than a whisper from without—the creak of a board. Andrew Lanning slipped to the door and turned the key in the lock. When he rejoined her in the middle of the room he gave her the key.

      "Let 'em in if you want to," he said.

      But the girl caught his arm, whispering: "You can get out that window onto the top of the roof below, then a drop to the ground. But hurry before they think to guard that way!" "Anne!" called a voice suddenly from the hall.

      Andy threw up the window, and, turning toward the door, he laughed his defiance and his joy.

      "Hurry!" she was demanding. A great blow fell on the door of her room, and at once there was shouting in the hall: "Pete, run outside and watch the window!"

      "Will you go?" cried the girl desperately.

      He turned toward the window. He turned back like a flash and swept her close to him.

      "Do you fear me?" he whispered.

      "No," said the girl.

      "Will you remember me?"

      "Forever!"

      "God bless you," said Andy as he leaped through the window. She saw him take the slope of the roof with one stride; she heard the thud of his feet on the ground below. Then a yell from without, shrill and high and sharp.

      When the door fell with a crash, and three men were flung into the room, Charles Merchant saw her standing in her nightgown by the open window. Her head was flung back against the wall, her eyes closed, and one hand was pressed across her lips.

      "He's out the window. Down around the other way," cried Charles Merchant.

      The stampede swept out of the room. СКАЧАТЬ