Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection - Western Classics & Historical Novels

"Think he's pulled back for shelter. I'm going over to find out."

She protested so sharply that he delayed the move. "Supposing he's still lying in those pockets? He'll kill you the first shot. Let me ride around to that ridge on the right and scout from the high ground while you close in. I can keep him entertained if he's still opposite us."

"No. My Lord, Lorena, this isn't your fight. What made you cross the river?"

"Oh, nonsense, this is a free country, isn't it? You talk like all the other men! I can take care of myself."

"It's not your quarrel," he repeated, irritable. "Now lie flat while I inch along."

"If you are going to be that foolish, then I'll circle toward the ridge."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," was his flat answer.

"I will so!"

That stopped him. Turning on his side he looked back to where she lay; her eyes were snapping and a rose colour filled her cheeks. He had never seen her so aroused—or so striking. And presently he crept back, reaching for a cigarette and broadly smiling.

That definitely took the edge from her temper. "Well," she demanded in a fainter voice, "what are you laughing at? It's a Chessy cat laugh."

"You'd think we'd been married ten years the way we scrap. Lorena, don't you reckon I can take care of my own skin?"

"You'd been shot down in the river if I hadn't made him duck," said she.

"I'm thanking you for it now."

He said it so gravely and so humbly that her resentment instantly evaporated. "Well, it was a rash thing to do—but I liked it. Tom, I'll apologize."

"For what?"

"When I saw you first I thought you didn't have too much sand. It's been bothering me—up till now." She hesitated. "Seemed to me you rode around sort of doubting yourself. I hated to see it—truly I did."

That sharp and certain penetration. He flipped the cigarette through the air, considerably disturbed. "All right, Lorena. Now, I've got to pay that gentleman a social visit. You can't cross the river again until I clear the landscape a little. Do you think I want to pack a dead girl back to the Diamond W?"

She avoided his face, writing lines in the sandy ground. When she lifted her eyes it was with so troubled an expression in them that his amusement vanished. Her sturdy little shoulders rose, and her arm rested a moment on his wrist. "All right, Tom. I'll be good. But you watch carefully."

"Sure—sure."

He crawled across the rolling earth, scanning the rim of the hillocks for the mark of a hat brim or the gleam of a gun barrel. Nothing disturbed the profound stillness of the hot day; when he arrived at the first depression he slid into it for a brief moment and studied the flanking angles. The girl was prone on the ground, between the two horses, her chin cupped in her palms. But he noted that her revolver rested directly in front of her and even at the distance he clearly saw the pinched intentness of her oval face. Crawling up and down the contour he at last slid from her view, and at once commanded the whole sweep of ground as it marched to the bluffs edge. Nobody there. He relaxed his vigilance and circled the area until he found the gouged spots along the soil where the ambusher's boot heels left their prints; the fellow had swung from one point to another in his effort to get a fair shot, and then had fled toward the protecting ridges on the right. The deep set of the toe and the faint mark of the heel indicated the hurry he had been in. Probably he'd left a horse beyond that ridge and now was riding for distant shelter. Gillette thought about pursuing, but decided against it. That rough country was an effective cloak for the ambusher; the sun stood well up in the sky, and he had a long trip to town and back. No time right now for going on a hunt that might take him several days. He rose and waved his arm at Lorena. She jumped into the saddle and galloped toward him.

"He's skipped over there, then," said she, indicating the ridges. "Going to follow?"

He shook his head. "No time now. More important business on tap."

"Do you have an idea who it is?"

"Somebody trying to smoke me out, I reckon."

"San Saba?"

He thought not. "San Saba wouldn't stick to this country with a price on his head."

"Don't be too sure," she warned him. "That man is thoroughly bad. Snaky."

He grinned. "I'll wait right here till you cross the river. Friends again, ain't we?" And he extended his arm.

She took it, her hand slipping into his greater one and resting there a fleeting instant without pressure. The touch of it disturbed him, and he must have displayed it, for she drew away and turned to her horse. Five minutes later she rested on the opposite bank of the ford, her arm raised to him in salute; then the pony fled over the prairie, and Gillette walked to his own animal.

As for her, all the pent emotions of womanhood broke down the barriers she had so carefully preserved and gathered into one passionate cry. "Oh, if it were only so—if it only were! But it isn't! He doesn't see me that way! And I won't trick him! I hate that! He's got to see it with his own eyes—and he never will! Some dam' woman back East hurt him! I'd like to see her for a minute!"

She raced madly over the swelling earth, her teeth sunk into the nether lip.

After the girl had gone, Gillette swung away from the Nelson road and took the high ground along the ridge. He saw nothing to westward indicating the path of the ambusher. But, within five miles of town he found the dust rising off the main trail to the east and made out three horsemen and a buckboard travelling toward the ford. In town he went directly to the post office for his mail and then to the surveyor's. But before he reached that purveyor of gossip he came face to face with Barron Grist, the P.R.N. agent, and immediately that gentleman drew him aside.

"My proposition," Grist reminded him, "still holds."

"So does my answer," said Gillette. "I like Dakota."

"Man—there's plenty of Dakota left you. I'm offering a top price."

The foreman was so pleasant, so friendly that Tom betrayed himself more than he otherwise would have done. "The price isn't a consideration," he explained. "Grist—there's a Gillette buried on my range. Do you see?"

Grist nodded, thoughtfully impressed. "I admire you for it. Really I do. But here—my company wants that strip of ground. Damnably bad. I'll not mince with you. They want it. Here I stand with an offer. I'll raise the ante a clear three thousand, pay you for the beef on your own count—on your own count, mind—and give you your own estimate on the improvements. You stand to gain from every angle. You're free to prospect Dakota to the four walls. Anyhow, you've got a poor piece of range. The poorest on the south side of the river. I'm only buying you out of a bad bargain."

"Then why should the P.R.N. want it so badly?" questioned Gillette.

Grist smiled—an unimpressive, unrevealing smile. "Say, you can search me. I don't know. I only work for 'em. But they want it."

"Well, just you write and tell the gentleman back East I'm not selling."

"Persuasion and money won't do it, eh?"

Gillette marked the added sharpness. "It won't," he agreed.

"Listen to me," broke in Grist "I've got all the other five sewed up. Taking 'em over right down to the last can of beans. Eapley and Diggerts already gone. Rest going. Your nearest neighbour, Wyatt, will be gone before fall roundup."

"It will leave me the less crowded."

"There's where you are mistaken," said Grist emphatically. "I'm going to throw cows across the stream until the grass roots groan. You understand what that means?"

"I presume you're hinting that you'll overcrowd the range. All right, my boy. But remember, when it comes to starving out beef you'll lose more cows than I—because you've got more to lose."