Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

He halted by a restaurant and got out of the saddle, both stiff and weary. This was a strange land, and as he met the faces of the men bobbing in and out of the patches of light he was conscious of being out of his proper environment. They dressed differently, they had a different twang to their speech, the stamp of a distinctive profession was plain upon them. A supply wagon lumbered past, eight oxen at the traces; a bull whip cracked like the explosion of a gun, and the wheels groaned in the ruts. He shouldered into the restaurant and sat up to the counter. The time of eating was past, the waitress out in the kitchen. He dropped his head and passed a hand across his face; he wanted nourishment, and he wanted a long sleep before beginning his hunt. The kitchen door opened, light steps tapped across the boards.

"Something—anything you've got to eat," muttered Gillette, head still bent. There was a swift intake of breath, and he raised his eyes.

Lorena Wyatt leaned across the counter. Her hand fell on his arm, and it seemed to him she looked through and through him.

"Why—Tom..."

It was astonishing how the depression and the grime of the long journey vanished. And because he had carried one thought and one desire in his head for so long a time, the phrase that came first to his tongue was a question. "Lorena, I—what did you run off for?"

Her hand retreated and she relaxed. "What's happened to your forehead, Tom? You've been in trouble."

He turned that aside. "What did you run away for? Is your dad here?"

"He went back to Texas. I will never see him again, Tom. Never. Here I am, making my own living."

"All by yourself—among these men?"

"Why not? Look at me. Don't you see how strong I am?" She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin, her cheeks the colour of pink roses. "Why shouldn't I work? What can happen to me? Nothing can hurt me—nothing. Oh, I know what you are thinking. Men sometimes forget the bridle on their tongues—and sometimes they mistake me when I smile at them. I've quit smiling because of that. But what does it matter? All that griminess doesn't hurt me. It doesn't get into my heart, Tom. After work is done I forget it, and I'm free again for another night."

"If I ever heard a man say..." It shook him profoundly, it woke a blind anger. What right had some of these guttersnipes to bully her, to take advantage of their power and her helplessness? "—I'd kill him!" Men of the range, no matter how rough they might be, were trained in rigid courtesy; but the mining camps brought the dregs of the earth along with the decent.

Her small hands formed a cup on the counter. "I know. All good men feel the same toward a woman and it isn't as bad as you believe here. All I'd have to do is speak about it and there are plenty of fine gentlemen to protect me. But we can't live without getting our shoes in the mud. Only—mud doesn't scar. It can be washed away. And at night I'm free."

"Free for what?" he demanded, half angry. "Are you happy here, doing this?"

There was a piece of a smile on her lips, a small quirk at the corners that might have meant anything. She shook her head, refusing to answer. "You're hungry. But I won't let you eat here. I'm through now. Wait for me."

She went back to the kitchen. Tom Gillette moved to the outer door and looked along the street. Deadwood was on the crest of the night, and the yellow dust gutted from the hills during the day now passed across the counters and bars in commerce. A piano somewhere was being hammered, and a crowd roared the chorus of a popular song while the sharp-edged notes of a soubrette sheared through the masculine undertone. This was the dance girl's harvest and the professional man's harvest. And among these men San Saba stalked. Well, a night's rest...Lorena was beside him with a basket. He took it from her, and they passed out and along the street to where the hillside began to climb, Gillette leading his horse.

"Now where?"

"To my cabin. It's only a half mile along the trail and a little to one side."

"And you walk it every night alone, in this darkness? Lorena, you're crowding your luck."

"I have a gun and I've always known how to shoot. Nothing can hurt me, haven't I told you? Nothing—any more." It seemed to him there was a trace of bitterness in the last words, but she quickly covered it by a more practical explanation. "The diggings are travelling on up the canon and farther back into the hills. Some of the old cabins have been abandoned. I use one—it's cheaper."

He shook his head. It was dark along the trees, though here and there the quarter moon shot its silver beams through the branches and created little lakes of light on the ground. The trail grew steeper, and once she slipped. Gillette caught her arm, and her body for the moment swayed against him—swayed and pulled away. "To your left, Tom," she murmured. They walked another hundred yards on a lesser trail. A cabin stood dimly before them, and Lorena opened the door and preceded him. Presently lamplight flooded the place; he went in.

"I have a home," said she, with again that wistful pressure of lips. "It's my own. I don't owe a soul for it. I said I never again would ask a favour in this world. Sit in the chair, Tom. It's a guest chair. I'm going to cook you a meal."

The cabin was old, with a hard dirt floor, a cast-iron stove, a pine bunk, and a pine board table. The chair was nothing more than a dry-goods box; there was but a single window, across which hung a square of burlap for a shade. A bare place, this cabin, yet swept clean and impressed, in the odd arrangements of her effects, by this girl's hand. She had spread an army blanket on the floor for a carpet, and somewhere in this corner of a man's world she had found white sheets and a slip for her bed. The smell of fresh paint hung over the room, a single red meadow flower decorated the table.

She built a fire, she rummaged the basket and placed the dishes with a kind of sweet formality. She was humming quite softly to herself, and from time to time she glanced toward him, and again he had the feeling that she marked his features for her memory. There was a grace to her moving hands, a sturdiness to her small shoulders.

"Say, you ought to be tired," he protested. "How about my wrangling this meal?"

"This is my party—the first party I ever gave. I was tired. I'm not tired now."

He went to the door. A small wind sighed in the treetops and eddied into the room. Away down the slope a camp fire cut an orange pattern in the night; coyotes howled along the distant ridges. What kind of a place was this for a girl like her? Things prowled these shadows. And here she was, all that was desirable in a woman, unprotected except for her own abundant courage. And that wasn't enough.

"Sit down, Tom. Supper's ready. I ate mine at the restaurant."

He closed the door. She had drawn the dry-goods box around to the far side of the table and when he sat down she dropped to the bunk and watched him.

"Well..."

"Not now. This is my party. You eat. Whatever is to come must wait. That was the best steak in the restaurant, Tom. I want you to enjoy it."

All during the solitary supper she watched him, yet when he came to return the glance her eyes fell away. So it went until he had finished and made himself a cigarette, the questions rising. She saw them come, and she staved them off with a trace of confusion.

"Now tell me what brought you here."

"San Saba's in or about Deadwood," said he.

She sat up. "Here? I haven't seen him."

"Well, he wouldn't be the one to advertise himself. It may be he turned off the trail before he got this far, but I don't think so. For a man of his kind Deadwood is too good a hunting ground to pass."

"What are you going to do, Tom?"

His shoulders rose. The girl bent forward with so intent and sober a glance that it bothered him. And she divined his answer. "You don't mean to gamble on your life, do you?"