Nelson Nye - Rafe

She looked shocked, and then indignant. She came out of the chair with her eyes like daggers and, with her cheeks white and stiff, marched out of the room, pausing only to slam the door shut behind her.

III

Rafe, somewhat abashed though not honestly ashamed, rather nervously wondered if she'd gone after that twin-barreled field piece. When after several moments she hadn't reappeared he cautiously let the rest of his breath out. If he was going to build a dust now was certainly the time to get started. With the sheet gathered round him he slipped over to the door.

After standing for a bit with his ear squeezed against it he caught a series of thumps, the bang of a stovelid, followed by the clatter of tinware and china. Fixing lunch he decided, and eased the door open.

He saw an oilcloth-covered table, another God Bless sampler, four chairs primly lined up in front of the wall beneath it. He guessed this was where they generally put on the feed bags, and moved out a step to scan the rest of the room. Straightaway he saw all washed and ironed, carefully folded on the seat of a horsehair sofa, his missing clothes; his disreputable hat was on the floor nearby, along with his runover boots and scuffed shell belt. Vastly relieved he scooped them up and lost no time getting back to the girl's room where he clapped on his hat, stomped into the boots, and hurriedly flung on the rest of his outfit.

Beaded with sweat from so much exertion he stood there a moment, hanging onto the wall, waiting for things to settle back into focus. Being down on his back had sure taken it out of him. He got his gun belt around him and buckled it. He still felt a little woozy, but he daren't let that stand in his way now. Out of habit he slipped the Walker Colt from its holster, checked the mechanism, replaced the loads from the loops of his belt and moved to the window.

Pouching the big pistol he sleeved the sweat off his cheeks. The upper half of the window was open but, shaking like he was, the acrobatics involved in such a mode of departure required more faith than Rafe could summon. He got the upper sash back where it belonged and, gasping for breath, was about to tackle the lower when he heard Bunny's step making straight for the door.

He'd have given something then to have been safe back in bed; but this, of course, was out of the question. With a muttered curse he flung up the screeching sash, threw a leg across the sill, squeezed hatted head and chest through and, frantically hauling the other leg up, levered himself out.

It wasn't much of a drop but he lit all spraddled like a shotgunned duck. Bunny's startled cry jerked him back to the realities. He got himself up and stumbled toward a corner of the house, half falling round it. Directly before him was a shed built of shakes from which an inquiring whinny lent him the additional strength to find the door and drag it open. Bathsheba, his black-and-white spotted mare, sidled around with an impatient nicker.

Rafe found his brass-horned brush-scarred saddle, carbine still in the boot, and got it on her. Gagging for breath, scared to waste further time in a hunt for his bridle, he scrambled aboard, banged her ribs with his heels, and lit out like hell emigrating on cart wheels.

As he peered over his shoulder Bunny, her arms waving wildly, burst from the house. What she called was lost behind the rush of the wind. Something flashed in her hand that looked like his spurs, but he wasn't going back—not for all the tea in China.

He jerked his face to the front. Still using his heels, he caught a glimpse of peaked roofs and tall false fronts poking up from scrub oak maybe half a mile ahead. And right in his path, coming down the road, was a horse and buggy—Pike on the seat.

The girl's father, shouting, made a grab for the whip.

Leaning wide for the turn, left hand locked in her mane, Rafe kneed Bathsheba hard around and sent her snorting through the crackle of brush.

"Hold on, you fool!" Pike yelled, standing up; but Rafe had had all of their care he could stomach. He might not be showing the right sort of spirit, but he meant to get clear of that pair if it killed him. Ducking into the guard of his arms he kept going, booting the mare harder every time she hit ground.

He reckoned they must have made a rare sight popping up and down through the whip of that brush. He suspected he was lucky Pike hadn't a rifle. Enraged at the thwarting of so much endeavor there was no telling what a damn Yankee might do.

A quarter mile farther on Rafe came out of the brush on the flank of a ridge. Peering back he saw no evidence of pursuit. The only dust he could spot was ballooning up through the trees back in the neighborhood of the house he'd escaped from. He reckoned that was Pike rushing home to see about Bunny.

It came over him then if he meant to slip into Dry Bottom at all he'd never have a better chance. It was dollars to doughnuts, once Red Nose got back, every able-bodied gent in reach would be put to beating the brush to retake him—they might even send for the soldiers! There wasn't nothing a Yank wouldn't do to skin a Rebel!

Just the same Rafe kept on without slacking off till he'd crossed the hump and worked far enough down along the far slope to make sure any change in direction was covered.

"Whew!" he gasped, pulling up, all a-tremble.

He sure enough felt like he'd been hauled through a hornput. He wasn't scairt so much at the old boozer himself as he was of what Pike stood for, those damned two-legged vultures, greed and skullduggery, that was standing so much of the South on her beam ends. Maybe if they hadn't killed Lincoln things might have been different. But the way it stacked up, with Grant in the White House and them tycoons at him every hour of the night, any poor misguided Rebel that had enough savvy to punch sand down a rat hole would go to almost any lengths to keep himself clear of the blue-bellied skunks that had got themselves put in charge of this country.

He thought of Bunny again. He plain couldn't help it, but that didn't mean he didn't know better. There was things about a diamondback a feller could admire, but that didn't signify he figured to get in bed with one! If she hadn't been a Yankee—but she was, no getting around it.

He followed the line of the ridge due north till he arrived at an outcrop thatched with juniper and, through the branches, saw the town's roofs spread out below him. Didn't look too much. Wasn't even built around a plaza. Just a single dirt street with some lanes straggling off it; hardly bigger, he thought, than Flat Rock, Kentucky, even if it was a county seat town—he could take her word for that, anyhow. If he ever was to get reunited with his folks, county seat towns was the likeliest to hear of them.

So he had to go in, no matter what Pike had got up his sleeve. Today was a Saturday, best time of all. Be some risky asking questions but at least, this being a market day, he wasn't so like to be the only stray cat.

He eased Bathsheba onto the grade, letting her pick her own way. She'd been raised in the mountains and could wheel on a dime and, though she mightn't look it, she had a heap of speed. Her pappy had been a Billy horse, according to what that breed had told him, and everybody knew Billy horses was fast. Short coupled, long underneath, plenty of muscles inside and out. Hadn't been for all that hair on her legs and that broomy tail with the burrs matted into it some Yank would have stole her long before this.

Dry Bottom, seen up close when he got into it, was even less impressive than it had been from the ridge. Marple's Mercantile, aside from the courthouse, took up more room than anything else. It was housed in a huge rambling barn of a place, and next on the right was the Bon Ton Cafe, then a harness shop, gunsmith, a pool hall and barber. On the other side was the courthouse, two-storied, all the second floor windows having bars across them. The next lot was vacant, grown to tin cans and weeds. On the far side of this was what had all the earmarks of being a honky-tonk. Foot high letters across its front said: COW PALACE—Jack Dahl, Prop.