Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 29

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San Saba came into Deadwood that night for the first time, though he and Lispenard had been camped just outside the town more than a week, watching its lights by night and edging around the hills by day. That was the ex-foreman's wary way. He didn't believe anybody in Deadwood knew him, but he had no desire to expose himself for identification. San Saba well understood his was a figure to attract a certain amount of attention. Somebody would be sure to mark and remember him.

In the back of that little nutshell head was a crafty scheme; a scheme that amounted to nothing less than a guerrilla warfare on the roving miners. There were many such men already in operation around the hills—in fact, San Saba had established a kind of informal partnership with the group led by Hazel. Yet nearly all of these renegades operated with a certain degree of openness; most of them were known and suspected, and San Saba's plan was never to reveal himself. He knew the temper a mining camp could reach, he had experienced mob justice before, and from this experience he drew his profits. So he would never have entered Deadwood if the supply of grub hadn't been exhausted and if Lispenard, an apt pupil but an unruly and sullen one, hadn't grown restless for whisky. That was the extent of his mission.

He had bought his supplies and his whisky and was on the point of leaving when he saw Tom Gillette coming out of the stable. It was only a fraction of a glance; Gillette's head swept his way and then turned about. San Saba moved like a cat, a single retreating lunge carried him out of the light; thus, when Gillette looked a second time, the ex-foreman was concealed in the shadows along the building fronts. San Saba's narrow-set red eyes watched Gillette move off. For a considerable length of time he stood absolutely still, the thoughts flashing across his brain. Had Gillette recognized him? Well, it didn't seem likely, for Gillette would have stopped and closed in. San Saba was under no illusions as to Tom Gillette's courage or to his state of mind. Only one thing could have brought the Circle G owner to this place.

"On my trail, by Judas," muttered San Saba. A party of miners filed past him, and he retreated farther into the darkness. "He's caught wind o' me somehow."

His impulse was to follow. Caution stayed him. Gillette was already out of sight, and there was a remote possibility of a trap. Time enough to handle this—to-morrow was another day. So he turned and quickly put Deadwood behind him. Up the slope and on foot—a rare thing for San Saba—he carried the gunnysack of provisions; on through the trees and to the edge of a small clearing where a fire pricked the darkness. Lispenard crouched by the blaze, a slovenly figure from all this riding and camping out. The Easterner's hair had grown down over his shoulders, and there was a thick stubble of whiskers on his gross face. San Saba paused a moment, and his lips curled in plain contempt. No matter how hard he lived or how little he valued the Commandments, San Saba possessed a measure of fastidiousness. He had a grain to him, a cold self-possession and a certain pride. Lispenard seemed without any of these elements; he grew more unkempt each day, and his appetites rode him like a scourge; he was sullen and spiteful by turns and San Saba in a very short space of time had grown disgusted with the man. Only Lispenard's possible usefulness kept him from severing the partnership. Even so the ex-foreman saw the day when Lispenard would pass a certain mark and try to kill him. When that time came he must kill Lispenard.

"All right," he drawled, as a warning of his approach.

Lispenard half rose from his seat, hand falling to gun butt. "Who's it?" he snapped.

"Me," murmured San Saba and advanced. Lispenard swore querulously. "Next time I go to town, old-timer. By God, I'm weary of living up here like a rat."

San Saba said nothing. Lispenard's eyes followed the ex- foreman's hand as it dropped inside the gunnysack, and he reached for the produced whisky bottle with plain greediness. San Saba watched the man gouge out the cork and tip the stuff down his throat. He drank himself, on occasion he got drunk, yet only by degrees. This avid guzzling added to his sardonic contempt.

Lispenard let the bottle fall. "That's better. Where's the rest of it?"

"Only one bottle," grunted San Saba. "Figgerin' on takin' a bath in it?"

"Hell, I told you to get three or four. Have I got to go back there to-night myself?"

"Yo' won't," was San Saba's short answer.

Lispenard glowered at him. "Don't tell me what I won't do, you dam' scoundrel. I'll go if I choose."

"Yo' won't go," repeated San Saba.

Lispenard's yellow eyes rolled in a fit of uncontrollable anger. He was about to rise and start away; but there was something so cold and so grisly on San Saba's face that his rage simmered awhile and died. He nursed his bottle again, the muscles of his great throat standing out like cables.

San Saba dropped to his haunches and stared sourly into the fire. "Gillette's in Deadwood."

Down came the bottle. "What's that?"

"Yo' heard my words. He's in Deadwood."

"What for?"

"Fo' to see me, I'd reckon," murmured the ex-foremaa. "But he ain't yet, I saw him first. Which suits me fine."

Lispenard swayed over the fire, half drunk. Yet he was still sober enough to feel the weight of Gillette's name and to nurse his old grievances afresh. His pendulous lips moved across his teeth. "Then let's go get him!"

"Fine," was San Saba's dry answer. "When yo' get that Dutch courage outen yo' guts maybe we will."

"I've got a score to settle, and by Godfrey I'll mark him so his own mother wouldn't recognize 'im!"

"Two gallant gentlemen see alike," murmured San Saba with the same ill-veiled contempt. His head turned slightly, and in a moment he rose and stepped away from the fire, hands dropping to his guns.

"What's that for?"

"Get away from that light yo' fool."

Saddle gear murmured up the slope, an iron hoof struck stone. A rider halted along the outer rim of the light and called brusquely. "Well?"

San Saba came into sight again, walking loosely. "Come on down, Hazel."

The renegade leader rode into the fire's circle, his pockmarked face strangely yellow above the coal-black beard. He looked only once toward Lispenard as he slipped from the saddle. To San Saba he dropped a covert wink which the ex-foreman received with a slight drop of his small head. Hazel rolled a cigarette and lighted it from the fire; Lispenard stared at him sullenly and went back to his bottle. Hazel grunted in open scorn. "What yuh doin' with that liver-fed trout, anyhow?"

San Saba kept his peace. Hazel swung quickly to another topic. "Missed out las' night. Stage took another trail. We ain't got the right information any more. Need a man closer to town. When you throwin' in with us right?"

"I'll play it like she runs now," droned San Saba.

"Too good to mix in the shootin', huh?" growled Hazel.

"Too wise," said San Saba. "Let it ride, Hazel. We can be useful to each other. I'm under cover. I can drag business yo' way when it's too big fo' me to swing—me an' that..." pointing toward Lispenard.

"I can plumb use another old head," muttered Hazel, "an' another good gun. I got the Kid, an' he's rattle-brained. Us two'd make a pair. Why can't you stick in Deadwood and augur out the dope for me?"

"Maybe," was San Saba's noncommittal answer. "First off, I want a man killed."

"If that's yore price for joinin', all right," acceded Hazel. "What's his name?"

"Gillette—cowman from Nelson way. He's on my track."

Hazel's face screwed into a knot. "Must be the same gent that ran into my camp. Tall, black-haired? Yeah, well, by Joe, I want his number, too. What's so big about him you can't do a pers'nal chore?"

"Why take a chance?" parried San Saba. "He's a Texas man—which maybe don't mean nothin' to yo' but it's ample to me. He's watchin' fo' me—he's slick as a lobo."

"We'll get him," growled Hazel.

San Saba nodded. "Keep yo' men near town tomorrow night. I'll watch him all day an' let yo' know. We'll ketch him outside somewhere and..."

"Is that yore price for joinin'?" repeated Hazel.

"Make it that," agreed San Saba, adding a silent reservation.

Hazel pointed toward Lispenard, who was stretched full length on the ground, in a stupor. "Hell, I can't use him. It's you I want."

San Saba made a slight motion with his thumb, whereat Hazel nodded grimly. "Me an' the boys'll be jus' above the far side o? town, waitin' for yuh." He looked again toward Lispcnard, and for a moment all the evil in him flashed up to the surface of those intensely black eyes. Then he turned, mounted, and rode out of the light. San Saba circled the fire and kicked the unresisting Lispenard with his boot toe.

Deadwood by daylight was half asleep, as if recovering from the carousal of the night before; the street seemed more cluttered, and the unpainted shelters more garish. Men moved sluggishly, the miners were out along the creek and back up the canon slopes. Here and there a pack mule stood waiting; an occasional newcomer entered the town, an occasional prospector trudged up the slope that led into the heart of the hills. Tom Gillette sat inside the livery stable and watched the street closely.

All the morning he sat there, his attention roving from door to door; at noon the street grew crowded again and he drew back a little farther inside the stable, grimly waiting. If San Saba were within fifty miles of town he would sooner or later appear on that street. Gillette understood this well, for Deadwood was the Mecca toward which all turned, and San Saba was the kind to be attracted by the vision of easy wealth. It was only a matter of patience, and Gillette, who had ridden five days with the fever of haste warming his blood, felt he had time enough to carry this game to its blazing conclusion; not only because the desire for retribution had been forged in him like a piece of steel, but because he played still another game that required patience. He had spoken the truth to Lorena. Until she accepted him or drove him away he would be by her; that there might be another end to the affair he never realized.

Past noon he ate at the restaurant; Lorena had little to say, nor did he try to make talk. There was something of the bulldog in Tom Gillette—once he had established himself he hung on in silence, letting his fortunes ride with the events. As for the girl, she seemed reserved, she held herself back from him, her eyes inscrutable. She understood clearly the main mission that drew him here, and as she looked upon his tall figure and the settled determination of his face something like dread took possession. She knew more about San Saba than he did; she knew the ex-foreman's uncanny power with the gun, and she had heard men of the Wyatt outfit discuss his cold and nerveless presence of mind when in a fight. What chance, then, did Tom Gillette have in an open encounter? She wanted to argue it, but she checked the impulse. She had said all she ever would to Tom; anything more would only make the struggle harder for him. This was the code Lorena had been born and bred into. Tom would never turn now.

He slipped from the stool. "I'll be ridin' up the gulch," said he. "See you to-night."

Her cherry lips pressed together; he caught a flash from her eyes as he swung out the door. Saddling his horse he left the town and cruised up the slope and through the pines while the sun went westering. The trail took him along the creek, climbing away from it until the water was but a ribbon unwinding below, flashing like silver under the sun. Men toiled down there, men picked at the hillsides, men moved in and out of the drifts they burrowed; and always more men moved through the trees. Pack trains went along the trail bound still farther into the recesses of the Black Hills.

He studied all this with a shrewd eye; he made note of how watchful and taciturn were those miners he passed on the trail. And presently he turned back from his tour and returned down the grade as the sun dipped beyond the ragged hills. Twilight, then dusk with its blue shadows swirled among the trees. A halloo echoed through the woods like a trumpet. Somewhere was a gunshot. Deadwood's lights winked below. A man passed him on the trail at a gallop, and he became aware of another horseman sitting silent in the saddle, twenty yards off the road. All he saw was the figure welded to the horse and a beard standing around the lighter skin. He thought the man watched him, but of this he wasn't sure. Dropping into the street he stabled his horse and went to the restaurant for supper. As before, Lorena kept aloof from him. But when he was about to leave she came near enough to say:

"There has been a man watching along the street all afternoon. I saw him directly after you left here. He's been across in the alley looking toward the restaurant and the stable."

He nodded. She added a quick warning. "Don't meet me at the restaurant to-night. Go on up the trail a quarter mile till I come. Watch yourself, Tom."

He slipped out. In the next patch of shadow he ducked back into an alley and circled the whole line of buildings, crossing to the far side of the street at one end. Once more he travelled through the cluttered boxes of debris until he stood in the alley approximately opposite the restaurant. A man stood in the mouth of the alley, and presently, as he turned and his face was silhouetted against the light from across the way, Gillette recognized the Kid, the white savage of Hazel's gang. He withdrew quietly and later emerged through another alley to the street, farther along. Here he rolled a cigarette and waited. Was Hazel trying to get him for last night's affair at the camp by the creek? If this happened to be the case, it further complicated an already tangled situation.

"The hounds are on the trail again," he murmured. His life had been violently turned from its accustomed channel these last few months. Nothing came easy. At Dodge City his youth fell away from him, never to return, and he had been plunged into mystery and deceit and struggle. "Either I'm so soft I notice it too much, or else I was born to fight. Damn Hazel."

A saloon door opened. Men spewed out, brawling like strange dogs, and there was the spat of fists against flesh. Somebody went sprawling backward and fell into the street; when the door next opened to emit its momentary light a knife flashed in a weaving hand.

"Stop it or I'll gore yuh!"

"Put that stabber away, yuh yella dago! Get yore possibles and skin the camp. I'm through prospectin' with yuh!"

"Gimme my half or I'll write my mark in yore fat skin, Fluger!"

"Go join Hazel's gang," was the hot retort. "It's yore style."

A cool, unexpected interjection emerged from another angle of the street. "Better handle that easy, partner. The walls have ears, an' yore apt to lose yores."

Gillette's muscles tightened at the sound of the voice. He moved backward, face turned toward the voice. A moment later he was on the other side of the street and in the deeper shadows. By and by he made out Hazel. Hazel moved across a lane of light. Gillette drew a deeper breath.

"The man keeps his promises. Has he got the camp wound around his finger?"

He travelled on, keeping abreast of Hazel and at intervals catching a sight of the renegade. Then the man dropped completely out of view. The restaurant was abreast Gillette, and he saw the place was dark. Lorena would be about ready to go; he took to the alleys once more, reached the stable, and got his horse. He rode through a path of light and arrived at the trail. Fifty yards farther up he turned in time to see a lantern rise and dip; horses drummed behind him. Out of a growing caution he drew off the trail and rested silent while they swept past and galloped on until the echo of their progress no longer rolled back through the pines. After this he travelled more discreetly, stopped to mark some stray movement near by, and went on again. The night wind rustled through the boughs of the pines, the moon was shrouded, the notes of a banjo carried across the air. He halted, judging it time to wait for the girl.

But he remained still only a moment. Uneasiness gripped him so strongly that he turned and started toward town. The air was tainted to-night, there was too much traffic on the road and too many noises in the brush. No woman was safe here. The thought of the girl breasting the darkness alone, as well as living in that bleak hut alone, only added to the uneasiness. She was brave. But that wasn't enough. She judged men too leniently. In this melting pot there were always a certain number of human wolves watching.

"It won't do," he murmured. "I can't let her go on. Reckon I'll have to find some better words or some stronger words."

The wind seemed to rise and shake the scattered bushes. Shapes sprang from nothing to confront him, and a familiar voice spat through the darkness, metallic and deadly. "Let him have it!"

It was then too late—too late for him to escape. And, like the unrolling of a panoramic picture, he saw a great many scenes out of his past; foremost was San Saba's evil face studying him across the tip of trail fire. That was San Saba's voice over there. He knew it as he knew no other. Even while his hand dropped and the whole hillside roared to the enfilading bullet he filled his lungs and shouted:

"San Saba, you dog, I've come to get you!"

Smoke belched in his face, the crack of the guns was in his ears. San Saba spoke back, but he couldn't hear then what the man said. He was firing—that he knew. How many times he didn't know, never found out. For this was to Gillette one of those blind passages in life when all things merge to a shape or a sound or a single vivid impression. He thought something fell on his head; the sap flowed out of him, and the weight of his gun became too great to manage. The saddle horn grazed his cheek, he was lying flat, both arms around the pony's neck, tasting his own blood. How had he got into such a shape as this? He should be sitting up. And still they fired. San Saba was speaking more clearly.

"Not me, yo' don't get. I'm puttin' a curse on yo' soul, Gillette. May yo' burn in hell a thousan' years. Empty those guns—empty 'em! He ain't dead yet. I want him dead! Make him fall, knock him outen that saddle! That's the last Gillette yo' trying to kill!"

He heard all this, though it sounded remote and unreal. There was a trickle of strength in him yet, but life ebbed swiftly, and his strongest desire was to get away—to defeat San Saba's vicious desire to see him stretched dead. All his will went into one arm. The horse moved downhill; he held on, the horn jarring on his temple and his feet losing the stirrups. Confusion behind and more firing. They would never quit, it seemed. Somebody yelled, Deadwood's lights were below him. He sank his teeth into his tongue to stay the advancing paralysis, he talked to himself but heard nothing of the words. One by one the wires went down and cut him off from life. He fell to the ground, rolled over and over, and brought up against a stump.

He wasn't dead yet, he wasn't out yet. This he thought with a dim pride. Of course the Gillettes were tough. They died hard. Now, where had he been hit? Maybe he could stop the blood and hold on a minute longer. Astonishing how a man clung to life. He sent an order down to his arms, but they wouldn't obey, and he knew that for him the fight was over. More he couldn't do. The gang was beating around the brush, and there was somebody still nearer calling his name in a thin and frightened voice.

"Tom—where are you?"

Lorena. Out of all this blackness she came. He framed her name in his throat with a painful care. One more effort—that was all, just one more effort.

"Where are you—where are you?"

The energy to speak that name was gone. And then in dead despair be gave up. She was forever lost to him. She was alone and he would never be able to help her. How a man missed the sun once it was gone. Nothing but blackness down this new trail, nothing but blackness...

Lorena left the restaurant a moment after Tom Gillette started away from the town. She knew he was somewhere along the trail, and thus, when the burst of shots rocketed down the slope, she instantly understood what was happening up there in the shadows. She heard San Saba's voice lashing into the night, she heard him call the Gillette name. At that she dropped her basket and broke into a run. A horse galloped toward her, more shots woke the echoes; she sprang out of the trail to let the horse go by, and she heard Gillette fall to the ground directly to the rear. She wasn't exactly sure that it was Gillette lying there until the renegades started in pursuit. Then she ran back and began to call, muffling her voice.

There was no answer. She marked the spot in her mind and weaved back and forth in a narrowing circle repeating his name over and over again, while the very weight of the night smothered her and her heart pounded unbearably. She found him; found him all in a huddle on the ground just as the beams of a lantern shot along the trail. The renegades were at a halt, parleying among themselves.

"Go on—go on, Hazel. His hoss is halfway to town by how."

"Yeah, but he fell offen the brute. We got him clean. He's back there, rolled in the brush."

"I brought this lantern so's I'd look in his face and see him dead," droned San Saba. "Now, we're goin' to find the man and plant the last bullet in his neck."

"Judas, but I never saw a fella as wanted another man so bad as you. Well, let's beat around, then."

"Hustle it. Might be a posse collectin'."

Hazel's laugh exploded and echoed up to the tree-tops. "Nobody's goin' to be in any hurry to investigate a burst of shots. Not when they know Hazel's night-hawkin'."

All this came to the girl on successive waves of sound, rising and falling, sometimes plain, sometimes only a murmur. She was on her knees, her hands running across Gillette's body, touching his heart, passing over his face. And still again she repeated his name while the lantern dipped in and out of the trees, its outflung beams striking a little nearer at each swing. They would find her in a little while. In despair she caught his shoulders and shook him. The warm blood trickled across her palm, and it took all the courage she owned to suppress the cry that caught in her throat. His horse had stopped the moment the saddle emptied and now waited on the trail; if she could only get him into the saddle once more...

He was too heavy to lift. Hazel's gang swept down the incline at a faster pace, the rays of the lantern touched the ground a scant ten yards off.

"He ain't far away, bet yore hat. Shucks, man, what's the itch? I know we got him."

"I'll look in his dam' face befo' I believe it," droned San Saba. "I got to see him dead with my own eyes. Wait a bit."

The lantern bobbed; they smashed through the brush, back- tracking. Lorena's hand dropped to Gillette's heart. He still lived, and that was all.

"Oh, dear God, why can't you help me? Why can't you?"

She made a swift calculation. It was only a matter of yards to the creek's edge. Once she got him down there she could hide him in one of the innumerable prospectors' pits and cover him with a loose layer of gravel. She could hide until they passed. But the horse was on the trail and they would see it. After that they'd never leave until they had thoroughly covered the adjacent ground. And then it would be too late; Tom would be dead. Nevertheless, she got her arms about his chest and lifted him; dragged him across the earth five yards before stopping. He was far heavier than she supposed. She could go no farther.

They were back from the side hunt. Forward swung the lantern, forward came the trampling boots. Lorena was on her knees again, both hands stretched across his body. She thought of fighting back, but there was no gun in his holster and her own was in the basket she had dropped on the trail. Thus she crouched, a hand seeming to squeeze her heart. San Saba's voice rose and fell in a round, savage phrase. "Yo' hear me, Hazel. I'll put my heel in his dam' face an' grind the sight outen him! It's the last Gillette. I'm tromplin' the breed out..."

The veering beams almost touched her. Lorena shifted, and one exploring hand touched and closed about a rock. Closed about it so tightly that its jagged corners bit into her palm. She rose, stepped to the trail and threw the rock as she would have launched a lariat. It went high, carried beyond them and struck a tree. The lantern twisted and dropped; instantly it was smashed and the light extinguished by a grinding boot heel.

"Behind!"

"Yo' brash fool, what about a light now?"

"He's playin' possum behind. Stretch back there!"

The horse was a few yards removed. Lorena went toward him cautiously. She caught the reins, she swung to the saddle and in a flash she wheeled away from the trail and deeper into the trees. The noise betrayed her, as she wished it to do. San Saba was volleying words; words that were drowned by a double explosion. The bullets were low; she heard them racing toward their own horses.

All this was blind riding to her, she never had gone far from the trail or very deep into these woods; but she pushed the horse as fast as it would go, marking the town lights now and then as they appeared between the pines. These lights sank as she kept her course upward. It took time for the renegades to get a-saddle and in pursuit, and when she heard them smashing along she made a quick foray at right angles to her course, brought up by the shelter of a thicket she felt against her stirrup, and waited. They swept past her, near enough at one moment to have heard her breathing. Then they were tangled in the pockets and the underbrush of the higher ground; she waited a moment before turning back. The sound of their own progress covered hers. And they wouldn't return—not for a little while.

The horse took her back to the trail, but the exact location of Gillette was another matter, and she felt, for a little while absolutely helpless. Then the animal's shoes crunched against the glass of the shattered lantern and instantly she was on the ground, zigzagging through the brush. The renegades were out of hearing, but a traveller came along the trail from town, his approach marked by a belled burro. That meant a prospector going into the hills; directly after hearing this new sound in the night her foot touched Gillette's body. She dropped.

"Tom—oh, my dear! I can't lift you, I can't let you stay here!"

There was a smallness to his breathing that frightened her. The belled burro neared her covert, and she rose and stepped into the trail. There was no other alternative. This man she would have to use.

"Who are you?"

The bell stopped jingling; a gruff voice answered. "Do'ee hear now? Ab's cat, is it a woman in this tarnal black night?"

"Who are you?"

"Ma'm, what mought be the difference? Gabe's my handle. Old Gabe. Ask ary old-timer in the Hills about me."

"You've got to help. No questions to be asked, understand? And you must never say a word to anyone. Will you do it?"

"Rags an' bottles. Mystication's what it sounds like. But if it's a lady I'll be singed if I won't."

"Come behind me. There's a man dying here in the brush."

"Better die in the brush than die in a bed," muttered the prospector. He skirted her and stooped down to run a hand across Gillette. "Dyin' be about the proper term for the sitooation."

"You've got to carry him a quarter mile for me. Hurry. He's been here too long now."

The prospector settled to a knee and expelled a great sigh as Gillette's bulk fell on his shoulders. The girl led away, up the trail, and along the lesser path to her cabin. The prospector murmured beneath his burden, and at the cabin door he let Gillette down suddenly and whistled. "A hunnerd ninety pounds solid. Nary ounce less. It'll take a big coffin, ma'm."

"Not here—inside!"

She guided the prospector through the door and to the bunk. The man swung Gillette on the blankets. "A leetle light, girl. We'll see the extent o' the perforations. Old Gabe's looked at a plenty in forty years. If his lips is putty colour they ain't a speck o' use..."

"I'm grateful. You can't see him. You must forget this cabin. Never say anything about it. Do you remember?"

"Wal..."

Unwillingness trailed through the word. She shoved him back across the door sill. "Hazel tried to kill this man. I'm hiding him. If Hazel should ever find out he'd come back..."

"Oh, ay. That's a different set o' drills. Old Gabe ain't int'rested. Didn't hear nuthin', see nuthin', do nuthin'. Ma'm, thankee. Yore a fine girl."

"There's a horse standing on the main trail. Take him along with you."

"A hoss thief? Wal, not yet."

"Take him. Strip off the saddle and hide it somewhere before morning. Drive the horse away up along your trail and let him go."

"That's a level head. Fine girl—fine girl."

She heard him go away. Closing the door she laid the barrier into its sockets—a contrivance she herself had made since living here—and crossed to the centre of the room. The burlap curtain wasn't protection enough, so she pulled the blanket rug from the floor and impaled it on the nails serving as window rods. Thus secured she lighted the lamp and went to the bed. What she saw there undid most of the courage she had summoned this eventful night. Tom Gillette lay face upward, coated with dust and streaked with blood. It lay freshly congealed on his temples, and all along one shoulder it fashioned a crimson badge; one arm was askew, as if it were broken, and it seemed to her he had dropped down into that deep level from which the earthborn never return.

She was crying again. She had only cried twice since childhood, the other time being on the eve of her flight from her father's shelter when the memory of Christine Ballard was fresh in her mind. And as she stood there, shaken and helpless, she thought it a bitter and cruel piece of fortune that of all men he had to be the one to hurt her so badly. So badly that she had given way to the emotion she most despised in a woman. Tom Gillette had the power to make her cry, to break through whatever armour she might put on.

She lighted a fire. While the water heated in the kettle she ripped a sheet into strips and with the butcher knife cut Gillette's shirt away from him.