Читать книгу Soft Metal - Max Brand - Страница 4

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He was through the door like a thrown stone, and with almost as noiseless a rush. There was not even time for a gasp from the other, before the shoulder of Givain went home and the figure went down in the dark. Givain reached, with a wolf's instinct, for the throat, and found it.

But he loosed his grip the instant his fingertips sank into the flesh, for there was never a man who had so soft a skin. Then he lifted the inert burden in his arms and ran back into the light of the lamp. He cried out with horror, for it was a girl, with her head hanging back as though her neck were broken, and her hair streaming down to the floor—long black hair that dropped like a coiling pool upon the floor.

Just as his heart was frozen with the thought that she might be dead, indeed, she stirred. Givain laid her carefully in the chair and stepped back to the wall, still weak, still sick at heart. So she opened her eyes and looked out at him.

It was as though the lamp was turned upon her face for the first time to bring it out of the darkness, that opening of her eyes. Before he had simply seen that she was a woman, that she was young, that she was good to see. Now he found a pale, young face in which the only beautiful feature was the eyes. For the rest, her nose was too short, and her mouth was too wide. She was astonishingly pretty, but no one could ever have called her beautiful.

She did not scream, although he had set his nerves to endure it. She did not even fall on her knees and beg him not to murder her, although he had prepared his eyes for that. All that she did was to stare at him for a moment and then suddenly to smile. The smile began at the eyes first, and then touched the corners of her lips. If it did not make her lovely, at least it made her fascinating. That smile sent a trickle of warmth down to the innermost heart of the gambler.

"I guess we were both surprised," she said. "But it was a foolish thing to faint. I didn't mean to, really."

It was the turn of Givain to stare, and then, of course, he laughed. Perhaps the tail of his eye took note of the hair, tumbling to one side and slipping off her shoulder. She twisted that hair into shape and skewed it into place with a hairpin.

"I thought that a great panther had jumped at me," she said, shivering. "When you came through the door, you came so fast that I had no time to even think. I wonder what a man would have done."

"The same thing," said Givain rather grimly. He added hastily: "That sounds a bit boastful, I guess."

"Not at all," she said politely, and then added more slowly, considering: "Not a bit."

If he could move with such tigerish speed, even a man, even a strong man, might be as helpless before him as before a thunderbolt in the fabled hand of the Titan.

"But tell me why you have come here?" she asked suddenly.

"I've a good mind to ask you the same thing."

"Oh, but I have a right to come."

"Perhaps I have a right to be here, then."

"Ah!" she said. "That was what I had hoped."

"Eh?"

"That you belonged here."

"Thank you."

"Because, of course, then you can give me the news about Jim."

"I suppose so."

"Where has he gone—why isn't he here—didn't he expect me?"

"That's a lot for me to answer," said Larry Givain. "I don't know that Jim would be any too glad for me to talk right out."

"But, of course, he has told you all about me, if you live right here with him."

"I'll tell you," said Givain, "Jim can be mighty close-mouthed about some things."

"No, no! Why, he rattles away about anything and everything. I'd rather trust a secret to a baby than to Jim."

Givain took refuge in the making of a cigarette and in a glance through the window at the mare and at the stars above the eastern hills. How many minutes would he be left to keep up this chatter with the girl?

"That's the way a girl will do," he said. "She judges a man by what he does in the little things. Not what he does in the big things."

"I'm afraid that we know different Jims," she said with a sudden anxiety. She looked around and shook her head. "And yet, what are you doing here, if you are not a friend of Jim's? You certainly are not—"

"A thief?" suggested Givain, grinning.

"Thieves don't sit down and read books before they've robbed a place," she said with assurance.

"Thank you," he said.

"I have an idea," she said, "that you're laughing at me all of this time."

"On my word, I'm not."

"Then why don't you tell me about Jim?"

"Do you think that Jim wants to be talked about to everyone?"

She hesitated, studying him darkly. Then she took hold of a thin, gold watch chain that hung around her neck and that had been effectively masked by the collar of her blouse hitherto. She drew out a small locket. She snapped it open and held it up.

"I suppose that will show you that I'm—a friend of Jim's?"

He leaned to look more closely. There was not a shadow of a doubt. This was the man who had sat in with him at that last game in the town. This was the man who had risen and flung down the cards when a friend stooped and whispered something hurriedly in his ear. This was the man who had jumped up from his chair and refused to play another second with him.

This was the man whom Givain, swinging out of his own chair, had clipped underneath the chin with a driving fist and dumped in a comer of the room with staring eyes. This was the man who had risen, shooting, with a gun in either hand, and with that gun smashed at least two windows while Givain was going through the door. This was the man who had shouted for a horse and men to follow the gambler. This was the man who had led the pursuit all the day, riding a tall, red roan horse. A dozen times Givain had caught him in the clear circle of his field glasses. He had studied that face so intimately that he could almost see the lump that must have grown out where his own hard knuckles had landed. And this was the girl's Jim.

It was a long, strong face. There was a high, aquiline nose, a prominent and square-tipped chin, a bull throat. He was a very big fellow. No doubt he could have crushed Givain to bits in close encounter, if it had not been that the latter had struck that first, blinding blow. But, after all, that was Givain's speed. He struck with hand or knife or gun as the whiplash strikes after its length has once started through the air.

"So you," said Givain, sitting back in the chair once more, "so you are the girl?"

She blushed, and looked fondly down to the locket. "I suppose that I am," she said.

"And you've come out here to drop in on Lucky Jim?"

"Of course. But do you know that I've been waiting here all day, and not a sign of him yet?"

"Really?"

"I don't know what to make of it. I nearly died in the sun—it was so hot!"

Tears of self-commiseration gathered in her eyes.

"Why didn't you come into the house and wait?"

"I did come in, but it was so deadly quiet that—that it really frightened me, and I had to run out again."

Givain laughed, and she smiled back, cheerfully enough.

"Men never know what's going on in the minds of girls."

"I suppose not," said Givain. "I've said that myself a good many times."

At this she laughed in turn.

"It's something important that's brought you here," said Givain.

"Of course. One wouldn't plow this horrible stretch of sand—"

"Just to see Jim?"

She flushed quickly. "Did Jim ever tell you my name?" she asked.

"He's described you over and over again," said Givain blandly.

"Ah, did he do that?"

"By the hour. He used to drive me out of the house with his talk."

"Hmm," said the girl. "And yet he never told you my name?"

"And didn't he ever mention mine when he wrote?" asked Givain.

"Not a syllable."

"You see, he's mighty secretive. My name is Larry Givain."

He looked at her squarely in the eyes—that name was widely known, but let heaven be thanked that it was a new name to her.

"I am Rose Mundy."

They nodded their pleasure to one another.

"But where is Jim?" she asked.

"Gone into the hills."

"The hills!"

"For a vacation. He had me here to take care of things."

There was a groan of despair from her.

"What's wrong? You need him?" asked Larry Givain, with a foolish hope rising in him.

"More than I can ever need him again."

"He'll be back in a couple of days, then."

"A couple of centuries."

"Suppose," said Larry, "that I were to take his place?"