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

"I'll wait here fo' yo', friend. When yo' come we'll go. They's still a bone to pick, understan'? But it can wait. Ain't no hurry. It's a long life."

"Bully. United we stand—divided we doubt. You'll be wanting grub, old-timer. Hiding in the hills on an empty belly is a cursed poor vacation."

San Saba permitted the wisp of a smile to pass his colourless lips. "Yo' learn fast, friend. I give yo' credit Where'll yo' get it?"

"I'll drop into Nelson in the morning and load up. See you here to-morrow at dark. Providing you're not afraid of my bringing the posse."

San Saba rose. "It's a bet. As to the posse..." He raised and lowered his thin shoulders, and Lispenard had an uncomfortable sensation of fitting too snugly with the man's purposes. There was now and then the hint of death about this character. It popped out, unsuspected, in those catlike gestures, in the occasional sidewise flashes of eye. He dismissed the thought. He outweighed San Saba a full fifty pounds; he had learned something of the rough and tumble himself. Let San Saba walk the narrow path with him. He, too, had his plans. San Saba spoke again. "Then we pull freight, eh, friend?"

"Not to-morrow. Give me a couple more days."

"She's a pretty wench," ventured the ex-foreman.

"Damn your sly tongue, she is," grunted Lispenard. He extended his arm. "Bargain signed, sealed, and notaried." San Saba's hand was clammy, there was no pressure to the grip. Lispenard felt the reservations in that bargain, but he dismissed his fears, got to his horse, and rode off, flinging back a casual arm. Beyond sight of the renegade he wiped a drop of sweat from his temple and grinned.

"By the Lord, I'll have my cake and I'll eat it too. That gentleman will be good to me. I can be sly as well. And he's an old enough head to teach me a few things."

He crossed the ford and unsaddled, throwing the horse into a corral. And when he came inside the door of the main cabin and saw the girl he threw up both arms in pleased surprise.

"Kit Ballard—of all the beautiful happenings!"

She bad a brilliant smile for him as he crossed the room and took both her arms. "Still the same gallant Apollo," said she gaily. And then, seeing how quiet Tom had turned, she disengaged her hands. "How like the old times. If we only had another lady we might put on one of those cotillions."

Lispenard threw his hat across the room. "There is another, by George! Thomas, I command you to ride over and get the prairie beauty."

Christine Ballard's smile tightened, though it was wholly imperceptible to Tom. She threw a swift glance at Lispenard—a glance that he perfectly understood—and murmured:

"Yes? Tell us about her, Tom. You have been keeping something from me."

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Tom roused himself from a study; and though he was still a little under the spell of this girl's brilliant, elusive beauty, he felt a strong irritation at having Lorena Wyatt's name introduced into the conversation. It put him on the defensive, and he answered almost curtly, "There is nothing to tell."

"Ah," murmured Christine, and with her feminine instincts perceiving the danger signals she turned the subject gracefully. "It's good to see you, Claudie. The same impetuous hero. Did you ever know how many hearts you broke with that conquering air of yours? The figure of romance! Oh, yes!"

Lispenard grinned. "Happy days. Wouldn't it be great sport to spend that time all over again?"

"No," said she, each word bearing its full burden of thoughtfulness, "I'm not sure I'd care to." Tom, blunt man as he was, caught the lingering wistfulness, and it made him the more uncomfortable.

"Each day unto itself. Why look backward?"

"I—I hope so," she agreed. Her hand made a slow gesture. "Claudie, wasn't Tom always the contemplative figure, though? What was it you men called him—the barbarian? Why was that?"

Lispenard rolled a cigarette. "Well, he was always ready to fight. That overweening Texas honour of his put us all on nettles. He also had an extremely matter-of-fact way in speaking of murder and sudden death. A hair-raising calm, so to speak. Some of those wild, weird yarns I used to disbelieve—until I came West."

"Well," said she, appraising Gillette between half-closed lids, "he hasn't changed a whit except to grow more sober. His native heath agrees well with him."

"Oh, he's built for ruling his kingdom," murmured Lispenard. His smile grew somewhat shorter. "I could always whip him—until I touched him too hard. Had more weight, more science, a cooler head than he ever dreamed of having. But when I stung him a few times—"

"The specimen being thus dissected, we will now pass to other things," drawled Tom. "Render your verdict on Blondy."

"Quite fit—quite the same debonair heart disturber."

"Thanks," said the Blond Giant; he rose, made a profound bow, and started out. "But you see only the surface calm. On my honour, Kit, I'm a rough and tough character; a seething furnace roars beneath this placid mug. Oh, you have no idea."

She waited until he was outside before raising her palms in plain distaste. "Ugh! How he has hardened."

"Pay no attention to what he tells you, Kit," said Tom.

"I see it!" she flashed back. "Once that boldness fascinated me. Now it's actually repulsive. How thick his chin is—how heavy his eyes!"

Gillette doubled his hands, looking somberly at her. "Why did you come?"

"I like that, sir! If I am not welcome..."

"Don't fence with me, Kit. You do it too easily."

She seemed half inclined to be sober, yet not for a moment did she allow the tantalizing smile to desert her. "I told my father I needed a change of climate. He was shocked—oh, very much so. But I have a little Ballard stubbornness in me, you know. That was my professed reason. But one day I ran across Jimmy Train, and he showed me a letter you had written him. So I came to plead."

"Kit!"

"Oh, I have no modesty left. My suitors are all married—I grow old and lonely."

The colored cook stepped inside the place and cast one comprehensive glance at the pair, vanishing with a twist of his body. "Boss sho' looks 'sif he got a mizry," he murmured. Quagmire, loitering by the corral motioned him to stay away from the house; Old Mose's white teeth flashed.

Gillette's fingers were laced together; he sat forward in his chair, studying the floor, and the girl noted how his hair curled back from the temples as well as the dogged and resolute set of his lips. And for the first time in her life she lost faith in her ability to command men. No hint of that doubt, however, crept into her half-bantering words. She was relaxed, her head thrown back, looking across the interval with a slanting gaze—such a look as he had once said distinguished her from all other women. How was it he did not notice it now? And, fearing his silence, she broke through it "I would give more than a penny for your thoughts, Tommy."

"It's good to see you again, Kit. But, my dear, you must not drag any more string across the floor for me to grasp at."

"Meaning—I have played with you?"

The answer was so sudden, so vehement that it startled her, "Can you doubt it—can you consider it anything else?"

"We all make mistakes, Tommy. Perhaps I—"

"No, don't say it that way, Kit. You are fencing again. Listen, my dear, I have thought of you all along the trail. Every day, every night. Never a sunset or a sunrise but what your picture wasn't somewhere in it. Once there was a stampede, a man was killed, and even when I saw the boys throwing mud over him, I thought of you. Do you see? Lord, I couldn't help myself. I wanted you. Up until the moment I stepped inside this cabin I wanted you."

"But, Tommy, here I am."

He broke through with a swift move of his hand, and to her that was another mark of the change in him. Once he would have been quieted at her least whisper; and now he commanded her not to interrupt.