Читать книгу The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Страница 27

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There was a windstorm brewing in the south; Tom Gillette, poised on a ridge, saw the gray screen of sand in the distance. Presently it would be on him, beating against him like so many needles, choking the wind down his throat. Reluctantly he turned ranchward; for a week the far edge of his daily ride had brought him to this high point separating his range from that of the Wyatts. And here he tarried, not sure why he waited, yet always looking eastward for a telltale fluffing of dust against the sky and the view of Lorena's lithe body swaying in the saddle like that of an Indian. She had formerly kept a casual rendezvous with him, and the sight of her clear, grave face had always made the day a little more pleasant, even though she had the trick of puzzling him with odd emotions now and then mirrored in her black eyes. But for a week, since the fight with Lispenard she had forsaken this ridge; and no news came from the Wyatt ranch.

He travelled back, uneasy and dissatisfied. In the distance he caught a glint of the river, a thin trickle above the porous sands; alkali dust stung his throat, the blazing, blistering sun beat against the dun earth until the eye wearied of the sight The prairie quivered under shimmering heat waves; southwest the dark folds of the Black Hills reared against the brazen sky. Over there in the heart of the hills men dug yellow metal and a town was in the full tide of a boom.

News came slowly to his section of the territory; he heard that all the Texans along the river were gone, save Wyatt. According to the P.R.N. resident agent Wyatt likewise had sold, but Tom Gillette only half believed the tale. Wyatt had been too anxious to acquire that strip, and Lorena, who swayed her father to some extent, bucked the idea of moving. Why was it she kept away from him? Whatever she thought of Christine Ballard and his relations with the girl was wrong. He wanted to tell her she was wrong.

"What difference does it make?" he muttered. "But couldn't she see for herself there's nothing between Kit and me?"

It left him irritable. He was a man; he didn't understand women, and he knew he never would be able to understand them. They muddied up the current of life, they cut across the established order of things, they acted out of impulse—or if it were not impulse then it was some obscure motive he couldn't grasp. Kit always had been elusive and enigmatic, but he thought Lorena moved more straightforwardly, that she had no contradictions in her nature. He had thought so until the fight. And then, when her cool hand slid over his face and those queer muffled words reached him he knew all women were essentially alike.

The van of the windstorm swept across the prairie, sage stalks rolling along before. "Mosey," said Gillette, and raised his bandana. At the moment of action he saw scuffed hoof prints on the ground, and he checked his horse, bending over to study them. They came out of the northeast and struck directly into his range. Slightly stale hoof prints. In another ten minutes the wind would erase them completely. Tom touched his spurs, and the pony bunched to a gallop. That made the second time he had found strange spoor on his territory; Circle G men didn't often travel in pairs, and they didn't cover this end of the range.

"Mosey!" The wind bore down of a sudden, and the word was whipped out of his mouth. There was a sound like canvas slatting; the perspective of the land changed, the horizon was wiped out. A gray driving pall slanted past him, the spraying sand sheered against his neck. Breathing became more difficult.

"Mosey!"

The horse raced on, pushed by the storm; up and down the rolling prairie. A gray row of skeletons marched through the unnatural dusk, and he was in the heaven of his home buildings. He left the pony in a shed and himself quartered to the house. Christine Ballard stood in the middle of the room, one hand pressed against her breast, white of face. "What is it, Tom?"

He lowered his bandana and shook out the sand. "Dry storm. Nothing to get worried about."

She had been reading a book. One finger marked the page. Stirred by fretfulness, she threw it across the room and sank into a chair. She had a peculiar manner of drawing herself together, of tucking her legs beneath her; and thus she sat, chin cupped, staring at Gillette while the shadows weaved across her expressive eyes. Gillette loaded his pipe and smoked, sitting on the table.

"And this is your country, Tom?" Her slim shoulders rose. "Well, a man can find pleasure in odd places. I was frightened out of my mind until you came in. It's too raw, it's ungenerous. There's no sport to it. It's cruel. Listen to that wind—do you hear what it says, Tom?" Suddenly she threw back her head and the white triangle of her throat gleamed; one fist was clenched. Tom Gillette marked that picture well, for there was beauty in it. And Christine's eyes were sombre, a rare mood for this girl who seldom let herself be touched by too deep an emotion. "It's telling me I'm small, I'm nothing, and that I can be crushed. Hear it?"

Gillette nodded. "It's been in my ears all my life, except the time I spent East. You bet. But what's wrong with knowin' yourself to be a humble thing, walkin' under a canopy that's got no corners and no ceilin'?"

Her answer was almost aggressive. "I hate to be reminded of it. I like to think I amount to something."

"Sho'. In the East folks lose sight of the truth. Inside a house they're little tin gods—but the house makes a servant of 'em. Out here we walk abroad. We know we're small potatoes, but we're free."

"Do you really like it that well?" she asked, bending forward. "Or are you just talking?"

He knocked the ashes from his pipe, the old reticence returning. After all, she was an outlander. She couldn't catch his point of view. No more than Lispenard did. "All I am belongs to it. It made me. It's in my system, and I couldn't get rid of it if I wanted to. If you lived here long enough you'd feel the same way."

She was gay and provocative instantly. "I haven't been invited to stay indefinitely, Tom. Are you meaning to invite me now?"

He met her glance stubbornly. "I'm reachin' for no strings, Kit. That's over."

"Oh, why must you be so stolid, so dense?" she cried. "Look at me!"

He shook his head. The wind ripped at the house savagely, a voice trailed past the eaves, weird and meaningless. It was growing darker.

Christine's laugh was like the touching of crystal pendants. Her question barely carried to him. "Am I, then, so undesirable?"

"It's apt to be the other way around," said Tom, turning. And after a moment he flung a hot phrase at her. "Do you think I'm made of wood, Kit? What have you come here for—under the same roof with me?"

"Oh, I have no pride left. I have come a-begging to make up for a mistake." Then she slipped away, in one of those characteristic changes, to another topic. "Back home at this time I would be going out. And there would be a dance at the Coopers. Do you remember those dances, Tom?"

He nodded. It was quite dark and he lighted the lamp. Christine lay back in her chair, relaxed, studying him. "Do you recall Harry Cooper? He stood for the assembly in the eighth district. My father backed him, and now Harry is at Albany and well on the way to political honours. My father always helps a good man, Tom."

"Every fellow to his liking."

"You could do anything you set your mind to do," was her quick answer. "Anything."

She stopped there. Tom was smiling at her, humour wrinkling around his eyes. She caught her breath, the colour rising to her cheeks. Still, she displayed a courage and a directness he had not suspected she owned. Her tapering fingers spread apart; a diamond flashed in the amber light. "Must I surrender everything, Tommy? Isn't it generous in the winner to allow a little?"

He stood up, tall and rugged against the lamp's glow. "Kit, I have always said you were more beautiful than any woman I knew. I begin to think you are brave as well. But you surrender nothing. Don't do it. You are only tormenting a man meant to be a cowpuncher the rest of his days."

She was out of her chair and before him, one hand striking his chest again and again. "You are a fool, Tom Gillette! You are a fool!"

The door rattled. Christine moved back to her chair as Quagmire let himself inside, coated with sand, red-eyed. "I rode over to where yo' stationed Baldy Laggett, Tom. He met tracks this mo'nin'—two hosses tailin' around the broken top buttes. It's the second time a-running'. Night work, Baldy says."

"I saw those tracks away east of the buttes not more than an hour ago," replied Gillette. "Looked as if the parties were travelling fast. You get the idea, don't you, Quagmire?"

Quagmire nodded; his homely face pinched together. "I comprehend plenty, as the parson would say."

"How many cows have we got over that way now, Quagmire?"

"Three-four hun'red." After a pause the foreman added, "They's sorter bunched up the last few days. Driftin'. Baldy Laggett says they shifted overnight to'rds them arroyos that fork."

"Tracks there?"

"Yeah—tracks. 'Sif somebody was scoutin'!"

Kit Ballard stood in a corner and watched them. She sensed the undercurrent of conflict behind the words, the slow gathering of a decision; and she admired the casualness with which the two covered themselves. Tom's head dropped forward, there was a tightening of his features and a harder glow down in the wells of his eyes. She saw him in a fighting mood, and this new point of character left her with mixed emotions. He was beyond her power to sway, beyond her ability to cajole. Quagmire's hand described an Indian sign that meant nothing to her but seemed to impress Gillette. "P.R.N. cattle crossin' the river four days ago. Saw a travellin' puncher this mo'nin' headin' to'rds Deadwood. He told me. All Tejanners gone from the south bank. Wyatt lef las' week."

Gillette's head came up. "Where to?"

The girl caught the bite of that question; she stirred, wanting to speak yet not able to break in. How much aside they placed a woman out here—how much of a man's world it was! No time for philosophy, no time for that exchange of wit she was so accustomed to. No time for playing at all. They moved slowly, they seemed to drift with the elements. But she began to see they were not drifting but fighting. Always fighting the treachery of nature and the treachery of man. Struggle was the warp of their lives, it left its stamp on every one of them.

"Dunno," murmured Quagmire; "puncher didn't remark. All gone, though. An', like I say, they's P.R.N. stock with P.R.N. punchers on all them ranches now."

Gillette's pipe disappeared in his pocket. He was drawling, "Tell Whitey Almo he's to stick on the ranch. Rest of us ride."

Quagmire's eyes strayed toward the girl and bashfully dropped. "Yo' hunch runs with mine," he murmured and went out.

The wind was dying, it was dark, and the day's heat had gone. Tom Gillette touched a match to the kindling in the fireplace; the colored cook entered like a shadow and stood questioningly on the threshold.

"Get it on the table, doctor. We pull out early."

The black man left. "Where to, Tom?" asked Christine.

"Out along the range, Kit."

"Trouble?"

"Just a little night riding, Kit."

They stood at opposite corners, looking at each other across the interval while the old cook slid in and out with his dishes and his platters; they seemed to be unconscious of him. Christine had a trick of putting her hand up to her breast when disturbed. She did it now, and the yellow light revealed the trouble in her eyes. Once, when the black man was out of the room, she half whispered to him, "You are not the same man I knew back East."

"Clay to clay," muttered Tom Gillette, cheek muscles snapping.

"No—you are bigger. I am sorry—you will never know how much—that I made you dance to my tune. Tom—isn't it Western to forget and forgive a mistake?"

The crew came filing in, and there was no more between them. Christine took the head of the table, and even her wit was damped; they disregarded her this night, they ate with intolerant haste and they were gone again; twelve homely faces grim set, twelve sets of eyes burning in the lamplight; rough men, illiterate men—men whose lives made queer and sometimes shameful patterns along the past. Intuition told her that. Yet they were brave. The wind had gone, and outside she heard a slapping of saddles and a murmuring—a soft murmuring and now and then a slashing oath in the darkness. Quagmire's face appeared a moment in the doorway, his head dropped and he was gone. Tom's cigarette sailed into the fireplace; he squared toward her.

"Be back before midnight, I'm thinkin'. Whitey Almo and doctor will be camped outside this door."

"I am not deceived," said Christine, coming forward. "You are going out to fight."

"I'll not be denying it," said he, soberly. "We've got no constables to summon hereabouts, Kit, when the law is broken. Maybe a fight—maybe only a false alarm. My back's to the wall. I'm not crying about it, understand. I'm only doing what my dad would have done, or any other man would do. That's the law of the range."

"To kill or be killed!" she cried. "I don't understand it! Here in America in this century—I don't believe it! You are not cold enough to take a life, Tom!"

"The fellow that rustles another fellow's cattle dies. I'm telling you it is range law. You're a long, long ways from New York, Kit. Do you know what the old fur trappers used to say? North of Leavenworth there is no law. Well, there's law now—but it never catches up with us folks running west."

"How many are they, Tom?"

He turned to the door, broad shoulders rising. "Ample, Kit. But they don't know the temper of Texans. They don't know..."

She was in front of him. Her hand fell across his arm. "God keep you, Tom! Oh, it's a brutal land! I hate it! Be careful!"

Again that pressure drawing him down toward her lips and the sweet smell of her hair and the gripping beauty of her face. It was like wine to him, it brought back every old memory, and some of the old desire. He pulled himself free and crossed the threshold, half blind. Quagmire murmured. "All set." He swung up to his saddle and reined around. The cavalcade led off, and the cold air cleared his brain. "Stretch out," he muttered; they galloped southward into the night, and the girl, supporting herself in the doorway, listened until the drum of their ponies' hoofs was absorbed in the vast vault. She turned inside then, oppressed by the stark blackness of the heavens; there was a power pressing, her down, sapping the courage from her veins. Mystery swirled just beyond the threshold. Out beyond lay men waiting to kill other men. The colored cook entered, muscles rippling beneath his torn shirt; Whitey Almo's face appeared vaguely across the doorway, taciturn and watchful.

The Circle G riders swept steadily onward through the swirling shadows, silent save for the chafe and tinkle of their gear and the rhythmic pound of the horses. Arrow straight for an hour; Quagmire rode abreast Tom Gillette, stirrup touching stirrup, and it was the pressure or withdrawal of Quagmire's thigh that gave Gillette the course. He knew the land well; but Quagmire, who loved the night and who seemed to be able to see through the utter blackness of it, knew it even better. And it was Quagmire who gradually turned the cavalcade from south to southwest and then slowly eastward. The moon was a thin arc of silver, the ancient stars grew more and more remote. Onward they galloped, up and down the swells, the night breeze cold against their faces and the sound of the coyotes in their ears, howling out of the distance with the sadness of ages quivering in that lonely song. Ahead, the shadows piled thicker and the dim strip of the horizon was broken. They were falling downward, or the presence of the butte in front made it seem so. Gillette sat back in the saddle.

"Halt."

They stopped. He got to the ground and pressed his ear against the sand. The invisible telegraph carried no messages. Quagmire's voice croaked mournfully, "Not far now. At a walk, uh, Tom."

"At a walk."

They swung along a circle, the massed shadow turning their right flank. Twice they stopped to listen; and presently the shadow was behind and they were in the bed of an arroyo. Cattle moved directly to the front. They dismounted and stood silent.

"My shoulder aches," murmured Quagmire, following a long quiet. "It's a plumb bad sign. Was a man once in Tucson with a trick toothache. Trouble allus follered. He got to depend on it and sorter bragged about it. First time his mother-in-law died. Second time his wife died. Third time it ached nothin' happened and it sho'ly aggervated him. Looked like the dam' tooth wasn't nowise dependable. But they took him up an' hung him fo' murderin' said mother-in-law an' wife. On the scaffol' the gent says: 'I die happy. Didn't I tell yo' somethin' allus happened when it ached?' That's what yo'd call infallible." He moved nearer Gillette. "Reckon I overlooked a bet. Didn't know yo' wanted Wyatt's new location or I'd of asked."

"I'll find her, Quagmire."

"Woman—the star which leads up the hill. And sometimes down the other side. The gent which classed 'em with wine an' song must've been an old burnt fool like me. If a woman looked at me twice she'd faint. If she didn't faint I would."

"Which side of the slope is Baldy Laggett on?"

"He ain't more'n three hundred yards off at this moment, I'm bettin'."

Silence again, the silence of infinity pressing down. And then a whisper and a hint of things moving out beyond the arroyo's rim. Gillette's arm touched Quagmire in signal. Circle G mounted, the soft rubbing of leather running along the line. The moments trailed one upon the other, and a shadow appeared a moment and sank back into the screen of darkness. Presently riders moved along the earth in faint silhouette—a line of them—and passed to the right. One soft phrase exploded like a shell in the stillness. "Easy, boys."

Quagmire's murmur was in Tom Gillette's ear. "We're bunched now. Set?"

"Wait for evidence. Hold it, Quagmire."

And beyond, men spoke more freely. "What's the idea, Gib? How many of 'em? Which way?"

"Never mind all them questions. Save yore breath. Spook an' Ray—you circle and push. Easy—plenty of time."

Quagmire's arm touched Gillette twice, impatient Gillette reached for his gun and pulled himself upright And he spoke in a tone that carried across the night like the clapper stroke of a church bell. "Guns out, boys! Let's go!"

A challenge spat across the interval. "Who said that?"

"Rustlers die!"

"Still hunt, huh? A trap! Damn the Texans, let 'em have it!"

"Let's go! Come on, Circle G!"

The Circle G line tore up the arroyo side; and without parley the shroud of this black summer night was pricked in twenty places by mushrooming purple flame points, and the smash and the beat and roar of that crisscross fusillade twirled around the area like the funnel of a cyclone.

"Let's go!"

"No Texans wanted in Dakota! Come on, boys! Down the skids to hell!"

Gillette shoved himself directly onward and into the flickering muzzle flames; as for the rest of his men, he gave them free rein. They were old hands, they had survived border feuds, they were schooled in range war. Gun smoke rolled against his face, a thick and passionate cry beat against his ears; he was struck broadside by one of the rustlers slanting across the debated ground; the man's horse reared and came down with its front feet hooked over his own pony's neck. The rustler rolled against him, a gun barrel slashed along his flank and as he jerked away a bullet tore into the saddle horn. The rustler's shadow was broad and fair; Gillette raised his piece and fired at that shadow. The man was down, soundless; the man was dead.

Quagmire's yell bore up from a remote quarter. Gillette sent a reply ricochetting back. He had drifted off from the Circle G men, he was barricaded from them by the rustlers, and now, hearing his yell, they closed in, twisting shapes ringing him around. A bullet's backwash fanned his cheek, and on the instant he was in the vortex of a whirpool and men were baying like bloodhounds.

"By God, knock him down there!"

"Watch that cross fire! Crowd 'im—crowd 'im!"

He brought his horse dead about. Then he was thigh to thigh with them. An arm struck and stunned him, another arm hooked about his neck, and somebody's breath belched against his face. He let the reins go and clung to the horn, weaving and bending, fighting clear of that encircling elbow. Quagmire's boom came up as from a distance, but for Gillette there was no breath to waste. They were trying to knock him beneath the trampling hoofs.

"Drop that guy!"

"Oh, hell, pull the trigger!"

"Hold that wild talk, yuh fool!"

He shook himself free. Somewhere else was a sudden spattering of fire; a man screamed. They were crowding closer, trying to pinion him once more. Point-blank he pulled the trigger, and the spewing bullets made room for him; there was a ringing of angry oaths and the guns broke loose in fresh fury, but he was clear, and Quagmire's voice thundered near at hand. Gillette turned back.

"Come on, Circle G! The rustlers die!"

Confusion. The purple points of light flickered and faded. Saddles were empty this night, and men were down, some dead, some crying up out of the dust. And the echo of all this grim, bloody strife straggled into the sky and was lost in the cold immensity of creation. The stars were remote, remote...

"Oh, for a crack o' light!"

Quagmire thundered back. "Go repo't to yo' corporation, yo' yaller dawgs! Better thank yo' Lord it ain't light!"

The gunfire crashed to a climax; somewhere was the sough of a man's last breath. Once more was the shock of men and horses locked together while the very dregs of rage came spewing up. A riderless pony careened by Gillette; of a sudden the tide turned and the rustlers were in flight.

"Light?" yelled Quagmire. "Yo' light is sulphur an' brimstone! Who tol' yo' to fight a Texan, daylight or dark?"

"Come on," said Gillette. "This is a lesson for all Dakota rustlers. Pull in these flanks, boys. Let's ride."

They raced in pursuit, and now and then the stray flash of a gun showed them the way. They crept up, they lost ground. But always they kept to the trail as the night deepened and the miles dropped behind. The rustlers stopped firing altogether. At this point Gillette halted his party and heard the drum of hoofs receding.

"They's splittin' a dozen ways," advised Quagmire.

Gillette called roll, snapping at the names. Two were without answer, though he called them a second and a third time. Quagmire sighed like a man dog-tired.

"Man is mortal. It's the only lesson I learnt in forty years. Man is mortal."

"Quagmire, you take five of the boys and go back. Hunt around and see what you find. Then strike back to the ranch. I'm taking the rest with me to finish this job."

A moment's parley. Gillette renewed the pursuit, though the sound of the rustlers had dwindled and died in the distance. He veered north and after a half hour came to a ford of the river; he stopped there and went to the edge of the water, striking a match. The stream ran clear, but along the moist sand were deep prints with water standing in them. Fresh. Single file the Circle G riders crossed and held their course until the lights of Nelson glimmered up from the prairie. They swept into town and down the street. Gillette dismounted before the principal saloon and strode inside.

The place was nearly empty; but up at the bar two men stood side by side—Barron Grist and his foreman. Grist was angry and erect; the foreman's body sagged against the bar for support and his head was down on the mahogany top, rolling from side to side in evident pain. A bottle, half empty, was gripped in one fist. They were talking when Gillette entered. And then, aware of his presence, both of them turned toward him, Grist in a rage that lifted him out of his negative self and put a definite character upon his smooth cheeks. The ranch boss pulled himself together, one hand whipped away a patch of blood congealed on his temple. The very sight of Gillette affected him like the presence of a ghost; he crouched.

The light played on Gillette. He was gray with dust, his face was a mask—a mask once seen not to be forgotten. He had harried the rustlers as he would have harried a pack of wolves, he had killed, and the fury of all this was settled along the rugged features. He was like his kind, slow to wrath and slow to forgive and the lees of the fight flared out of the deep eye sockets; his words sang resonantly across the dead, silent room.

"I told you, Grist, I didn't want war. You're a powerful outfit, we're just a handful. But you started it, and we'll see it to a finish. The kind you'll remember to your last day."

"Don't know what you're talking about!" was Grist's irritable answer. "You're drunk."

"You sent your men to rustle my cattle and break me. Well, some of those men are still out there. And they'll be there till you go bury 'em. Down in Texas we kill rustlers. This is a lesson for Dakota renegades, Grist."

"You're crazy," muttered Grist. "Trying to pin something on me to cover up your own dirty tracks? Don't stare at me like that, man! I resent it."

Gillette turned his attention to the ranch boss. That man swayed and his elbows straightened; a pinched gravity covered his face; his half-closed eyes clung doggedly to Gillette's right arm. "Maybe you've had your medicine, friend. Who told you a Texan wouldn't fight? We called your bluff tonight. How did you like it?"

The ranch boss was rigid from his shoulders to his hips; his head tipped. "It ain't finished yet," he grumbled.

"Shut up!" snapped Grist. "You talk too much."

But the ranch boss was beyond bridling. "It ain't finished yet! Somebody's goin' to pay. You foot the bill, you wild, blood- swillin' savage!"

His arm blurred in the light; Gillette swayed on his heels. A table crashed to the floor, chips scattered, and Barron Grist pulled himself backward, crying: "I'm out of this—I'm out..." Whatever else he said was lost in the roar that ran along the space and up to the ceiling. Gillette's gun tilted upward. The ranch boss of the P.R.N. staggered and tipped against the bar, elbows hooked over it. He seemed to be nodding, and then his head sagged and he fell to his knees and for another instant tried to gather himself. It was of no use. He was dead before the gun dropped from his fingers.

"I'm out of this!" repeated Grist.

"If you've got a conscience, may God give you pity," said Gillette. "These fellows died at your orders. If you try to rustle another Circle G cow I'll come after you personally."

He passed out. In the darkness of the street he stopped and leaned against the saloon wall. The sand trickled out of him, and the cold air went through him like a knife. He was sick, physically sick, and the muscles of his arms and legs trembled. He wanted a drink, yet he hadn't the heart to go back there and see the ranch boss lying in the puddling blood. What had he done? Only what the country demanded of him, nothing more, nothing less. And as be looked towards the heavens he felt a thousand years old. He was not the man who had come out of the East with fine ideas in his head. How soon all that insecure stuff faded. All that remained now was the simple rules he had been reared in: never to go back on his word, to give all humans the right to live the way they wanted to live in return for the same right for himself. To respect rights and to see his own respected. That was all.

He drew a breath. A man got scarred in the process of passing through the world. That was inevitable, that was life. Only a fool expected to dwell in paradise; nobody had a right to dodge his chores, no matter how dirty they might be. A man paid as he went. He moved from the wall, seeing his crew patiently waiting. Boots scuffed along the walk, and a strange voice arrested his progress.

"You Gillette of the Circle G? Yeah. Was you a-lookin' for a gent by name of San Saba? Yeah. Fella built like a cotton wood an' sorrel by complexion?"

The man was old and seamed and obscured in the shadows. Gillette stared at him. "How do you know?" was his blunt reply.

"Heard you advertisin' same hereabouts some time ago. Well, be you still lookin'?"

"Where is he?"

The man's voice trailed off. "On the trail to Deadwood. Saw him four days ago. With a yaller-haired podner." And the man vanished into an alley.

Gillette mounted and rode homeward with his men. Here was another chore he had staved off as long as he could. Seemed like these things came in bunches. Oh, it was easy enough to forget them, to excuse himself from performing them. Yet if he did he would never have another moment's peace. A man had to play with the rules. On over the ford they went, and along the familiar trail to the ranch house, a light shining out to them. Quagmire already was in from the prairie, morose and subdued.

"A long ride for Nig Akers. Joe Blunt is only pinked. But Nig's done. Man is mortal. Tom, this is val'able country. Texas men is buried in it."

Gillette studied the southwestern sky. Deadwood was over there. He nodded and went into the house. Kit Ballard waited for him, framed in the bedroom door; the girl's black hair tumbled down in rippling ropes, and she held a robe around her.

"Go back to bed, girl. I can't talk to-night."

"To do what—to sleep? How can I sleep? I prayed tonight, and I never prayed before. Whatever you have done, I don't care. Wherever you choose to stay, I don't care. Tom—come here to me!"

He shook his head, the weariness pulling his shoulders down. "I'm leavin' to-night."

"For where?"

"Deadwood. San Saba's in Deadwood."

She knew the story, she knew the purpose of that journey. Her face went dead white, and when she raised her head the higher yellow light pooled in the triangle of her throat. As he looked at her all the loneliness and hunger of his solitary nature rose to torment him. No man living could miss the beauty or the allure of Christine Ballard. What was lacking in her for such a man as he was? What more could he want? The sacrifice was all hers, the surrender all hers. So he thought while the hunger grew to an obsession. A man was only flesh and blood. He pivoted on his heels and started for the door. She was in front of him instantly, throwing herself against him. He had never known what strength lay in a woman's arms once they were around a man's neck; he had never heard a woman cry in this suppressed manner. It seemed to put her on the torture rack. And all the while the incense of her hair and the warmth of her body assailed his senses.

"Kit—why couldn't this have happened a long time ago?"

The crying stopped. She stepped aside, and her echo of his question rang passionately through the room. "Why couldn't it have happened, Tom? People have to live to learn, don't they? Where else will you find another woman any better?"

He stood divided. And it took a full mustering of his strength to walk to the door and let himself out.

"Quagmire—where are you?"

"Here—right in front o' yo', Tom."

"Get me the buckskin. Get it in a hurry. You're boss here. San Saba's in Deadwood."

Twenty minutes later he rode from the ranch on into the darkness lying southwest. He was running away as much as anything else, and he knew it. There would come a time when he must return and face it. But not now. He needed to break the chains Christine was forging around him. He tipped his head to the remote stars and seemed to see there the clear, grave face of Lorena Wyatt looking down at him. He felt the pressure of her hands wiping the blood from his mouth. Where was she?