Читать книгу The Road to Nowhere - Maurice Walsh - Страница 12

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Rogan Stuart with a fresh young girl in his arms—and she only rods and scorpions! Oh, but this was ridiculous! This led nowhere. What was he to do now? Hold her till she cooled? Hell! Suddenly he smiled into her eyes. ‘You poor kid!’ he whispered, loosed his grip, swung her round and gently pushed her towards the tent. ‘Go on with it, then!’

He turned his back on her, strode up the slope, and slumped into the heather against his shady boulder. He looked up at the lazy horseman, who was grinning unashamed.

‘You are no blasted use,’ said Rogan warmly, for that was how he was feeling.

But the horseman did not rise to the taunt. He grinned amicably. He had a habit of grinning amicably. ‘Kicked you for a goal, son,’ he drawled.

‘You for a referee!’

‘No control—only her husband.’

‘You unfortunate—mutt!’ said Rogan Stuart.

Below them the young woman stood for a moment looking down at the tent-pegs. Somehow, Rogan’s words had checked the first hot flood of temper, but now the aftersurge carried her on. The guy-ropes flew, the pole swayed and leant over, and the collapsed canvas made a hump over the camp beds beneath it. She came round that lop-sided hump, bent, straight-legged from the hips, to pick up her hat, and faced the slope towards Rogan.

‘You will have that tent out of here on my return,’ she ordered definitely.

‘You—you great big bully!’ Rogan mocked her softly.

She stopped in front of him, legs firmly apart; and he looked up at her smilingly. That deep red neckerchief suited her dusky cheeks, the sun had bestowed its tan approvingly, and her black hair had tossed itself attractively. But what in heaven’s name could be the matter to whirl her into this tantrum? Surely her life must have gone all askew, and she be on the wrong road to get anything worth while out of it—if there was anything worth while in life.

On her part, she contemplated Rogan curiously. There was disapproval in her look, but there was speculation too. His eyes, deep-set under brow, were so steady, so cool—wise, tolerant, aloof, not caring about her or her temper. She had been in his arms and knew how futile had been her own vigour against their iron; and then he had carelessly loosed her, pitied her, ignored her. She was in that reaction that realises too keenly the disastrous display of temper, and—and she usually did not give way to tempers.... But this man could not know that.

But this man knew. Well he knew the secret, gnawing anger that will sometimes explode on the first unlucky object. He could read the turn of her sensitive lips, the shadow across her eyes. And there he was on his feet and his hat off to her.

‘I am sorry, dark lady,’ said he. ‘It was surely all my fault.’

Her mouth quivered, but she turned away so quickly that he did not see. She strode to her pony, threw reins over lowered head, set hand on peak, and was in the saddle with one lithe twist; and next instant the pony was off in that peculiar fox-trotting walk-amble. Never had a man been ignored so completely as the young horseman who had proclaimed himself only her husband.

Rogan gazed up at him—so easily aslouch in his saddle, so serenely drifting smoke through his nostrils—and, for some unfathomable reason, a feeling of dislike arose within him.

But the horseman only grinned his grin, threw his leg over saddle-horn, and some touch of knee set the pony in motion. ‘Better get it out of there, fellah,’ he called back, gesturing a hand towards the tent.

‘I don’t like you,’ murmured Rogan, and kicked a foot in the heather. And then he realised that he had been fully alive for a matter of five minutes, knowing anger, scorn, the desire for war, as he had not known these things since life went into the abyss, as he had been certain he would not know them again; and all dealt him from the hands of a woman. ‘Blast it all!’ swore Rogan Stuart, and turned his attention to the fallen tent.

‘Silly fathead!’ he chided himself. ‘You’ve gone and put two decent men into a nice hole.’ And what was to be done now? He rubbed the back of his head, he gazed over the green peace of the bay, he surveyed the bulging ribs of Slievemaol. For inspiration came a small temptation. Better go while the going was good! How easy it would be to set up that tent, take oneself away, and let any new tempest break where it liked!