Nothing In Her Way (5 page)

By the time Saturday came I was so full of the fact that I was going to see her that night that I had a hard time concentrating on anything. I went to the post office and mailed the two boxes. This time the clerk stared at me curiously, and when I went out two of the loafers who had been talking near the door broke off abruptly and fell into an awkward silence as I walked past. Somebody had begun to wonder if I was sending my laundry home a sock at a time.

After lunch I took the gun and started east of town on the highway, swung off it before I got to the dunes, and circled toward the rifle range. Before I got there I could hear the big rifles. It was an open flat with a low ridge about four hundred yards behind it to stop the lead. As I came across the road I could see there were four of them taking turns on the firing line, shooting at a two-hundred-yard target. They had a spotting scope set up to check the shots.

When I got near enough to see them, I knew I was in luck. One of them was Goodwin. Another was the clerk from the hardware store. I didn’t know the other two. I sat down on the ground well back out of the way and just watched, smoking a cigarette.

The clerk looked back after a while, and when he recognized me he grinned. “Got any jacks yet?” he asked.

“Not a one,” I said. “Can’t seem to hit them.”

“They’re tricky.”

He came over in a few minutes and asked for a light. “Your name’s Reichert, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Mine’s Carson.”

I got up and we shook hands. He called to Goodwin, who wasn’t shooting at the moment. “Hey, Howard, why don’t you let Reichert here shoot that bull gun once? I’m trying to sell him a rifle.”

Goodwin came over and I shook hands with him, keeping my face still. It wasn’t easy. There’s a lot of Spanish blood in the family.

He was very pleasant, and there was a quiet sort of self-possession about him. “Here,” he said. He slid a cartridge into the chamber of the gun and handed it to me. “Try it.”

“You don’t mind?”

He shook his head and smiled. “If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you.”

I walked over and lay prone on the sand, sliding my arm into the sling.

“You’ve shot them before?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Only in the Army,” I said.

“Hold right on,” he said. “It’s sighted for two hundred.”

I didn’t ask him about the trigger pull. It was lighter than I’d expected, and I missed the bull. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to look like a sharpshooter. I worked the bolt, throwing the empty shell out on the sand, and watched to see if he picked it up. He did.

“Oh, you save those?” I asked innocently.

He grinned. “Sure. I reload them.”

“You do?” I did a big take on it, as if I’d never heard of it.

“Yes. It’s cheaper. And you can put up just the load you want.”

“I never thought of that,” I said. “It sounds interesting.”

He agreed politely that it was, and I let it drop. To hurry now would be stupid and dangerous. But I had found the opening I was looking for.

The night was still and cold, and the sand looked like snow in the moonlight. I flicked the cigarette lighter and looked at my watch. It was seven-ten.

I was standing near the highway about two miles east of town, where a dirt road turned off and ran south through the dunes I was supposed to meet her here at seven. Having her come into town would be too risky, since she had spent a week there talking to practically everyone in that phony survey of hers. We couldn’t be seen together.

A few cars went past, going very fast. I waited. In about five minutes I saw one coming more slowly. I watched eagerly. It might be Cathy, looking for the turnoff. It was. I was on the inside of the turn so the lights wouldn’t swing across me, just in case it was somebody else. The car pulled off and stopped twenty or thirty yards from the highway. I could see the Cadillac fishtails and the New York license plates. I jumped into the ruts and started trotting toward her.

The second pair of lights almost hit me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw them swinging as the other car made the turn, faster than she had, and I dived for the brush. I made it off the left side of the road just as they straightened out and spattered against the rear of the Cadillac. And then the car was beyond me and sliding to a stop almost bumper to bumper with hers.

I came to my feet and onto the road, running toward them. There had been no time to think. It might be Charlie or Bolton, or both—but why another car? They’d have been with her. I couldn’t even make myself say the other name. I was still eight or ten yards away, running desperately and silently on the sand, when the car door opened and a man got out. He was a small black figure in the moonlight and he was carrying something in his hand.

“All right, sweetie,” he said. “Pile out.”

I heard the low-throated rumble of power as she gunned the Cadillac. The rear wheels spun for an instant and sand flew up like spray. He shouted something, and was bringing up the thing he held in his hand. Moonlight glinted on it. It was too big to be a revolver, and now he had both hands on it. I was still a long leap from him when I saw what it was. The car was moving now, at last, as he swung it, and then I fell on him.

I fell on him all over at once. It was like tackling an empty overcoat. He was just a bagful of light bones inside and he folded like a swatted spider. One barrel of the sawed-off shotgun went off with a roar as we crashed down, and then it was either under us or loose somewhere in the sand. I got to one knee, grabbed him by the shoulder, flipped him onto his back, and swung. He jerked and straightened out. It was Donnelly. In the moonlight he looked like a child who’d been starved to death.

I was raging, throwing my hands in every direction, trying to find the gun. It was right in front of me, oily-shining and black and deadly against the white gleam of the sand. I’d been to wild to see it. I grabbed it up and rammed the sawed-off barrels into his face. I heard a tooth let go so I shoved it, hard, and groped for the triggers. Then I thought a mountain lion had jumped on me.

My face was full of fur. I seemed to be wrapped in it. It was in my eyes and mouth, cool and suffocating and smelling faintly of perfume, and a voice was screaming in my ear. “Mike! No! Stop it, Mike!”

I had forgotten about her. She had her shoulder against my face and was trying to push me back while we grappled for the gun. I had sense enough left to throw it before we fell on it. Then I grabbed her.

“He tried to kill you!” I raged.

“You hot-headed Spanish idiot!”

“Are you hurt? Cathy, are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt!”

“Well, stand back. Look the other way if you want to.”

“Mike, stop it! Oh, my God, can’t you see—”

“See what? He tried to kill you, didn’t he?”

She straightened up, trying to get her breath. Her hair was wildly tousled and the big eyes were flashing angrily. “Listen, for the love of heaven, Mike. We’ve got more important things on our minds than that stupid hoodlum. Do you want to ruin everything?”

“You want to let him keep on till he gets lucky someday and hits you?” I asked furiously.

“He probably wasn’t trying to shoot me. He was trying to scare me. That’s how stupid he is.”

The anger was turning against her now. At bottom, of course, it wasn’t anger at all; it was fear. I’d been so scared when I saw him swinging that shotgun after her I was sick at my stomach now. “Well, do you mind,” I asked coldly, “if I unload his gun before I give it back to him? I mean, if I’m very careful not to scratch it?”

She was suddenly contrite. “I’m sorry, Mike,” she whispered. “Forgive me for screaming at you like that. But I didn’t want you to kill him. I was scared.”

I grabbed her. “You were scared?” That was as far as I got.

It was a few minutes before I thought of him. I looked down. “What are we going to do with this?” I said, and then suddenly became conscious of something I’d been hearing for the past minute or two. It was a freight train, laboring across the desert to the north of us. I heard it whistle for the yards at Wyecross. It was westbound, and it would probably stop there for water.

“Wait here,” I said to Cathy, and stooped down for him.

She put a hand on my arm. I turned, and I could see her eyes go wide in the moonlight. “What are you going to do? Mike, you’re not—”

“No,” I said. “You’re right. I’m just going to put him in the mail. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

I pulled his big overcoat together in front for a handle and picked him up like a bundle of old rags. He probably didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds. The door of the car was still open. I heaved him in and pushed him over, away from the wheel. He sagged, and I leaned him against the other door.

“Be careful, Mike,” she said anxiously.

The road was too narrow to turn around in, but there was enough moonlight to see my way out, backing. There were no cars in sight. I rammed out onto the highway, stopped, and shot ahead toward Wyecross. Just before I got into town I turned off to the right and went north toward the tracks. I could see the train and hear the brake shoes squealing as it slowed.

There wasn’t anything out here except an abandoned work train on a siding. The water tank and station were several hundred yards to my left. I cut the lights and stopped. The freight was passing the other side of the cars on the siding, but I could hear it bumping and shuddering to a stop.

It won’t be good, I thought, if I get caught loading something like this on a train. I got out of the car and looked carefully around. I could see the running lights of the caboose about a hundred yards away to my right, and a swinging lantern going up the other side of the train as a brakeman headed for the front end. He’d be past in a minute.

I opened the door and dragged Donnelly out. He was so limp he was hard to handle. I got him across my shoulder and hurried toward the work train. If I went around I’d pass too near the caboose, so the only thing to do was go under. I was panting now, and sweat was breaking out on my forehead. It was hard getting him up onto the roadbed with the ballast turning under my shoes.

I set him down at the end of one of the work cars. We were in shadow now, and I looked around again to be sure no one had seen me. The moonlit plain was empty except for Donnelly’s car. As I bent down to roll him under the coupling between two cars he groaned and tried to sit up.

“What the hell?” he mumbled. Then he looked up. “Hey, you—”

“Remember me?” I asked, and swung. He didn’t see the hand.

I massaged my hand and felt it for broken bones, then got down and rolled him between the rails. I crawled over the coupling and dragged him out on the other side. We were between the trains now, in deep shadow. Remembering the brakie, I squatted down on the ballast and looked for the lantern. It was far up near the front end.

I left him lying there and moved along the cars, looking for an empty. The third boxcar had a door open. I walked back and got him, letting his feet drag. The floor of the car was chest high, and I was getting tired now. I finally got him high enough and rolled him in. I took a long breath and leaned against the door for a moment, completely winded.

It took only a minute to slide the door in place, but I had to tug and push to get it positioned correctly so I could fasten the latch. Then I thought about the other one. It had been closed, but it might not be fastened. I ran to the end of the car and climbed through, across the coupling. The lantern was still far up at the other end of the train. I fastened the door and came back again.

Next stop, California, I thought, and then went back under the work train.

I ditched the car beside the highway near the dirt road, left the keys in it, and walked back to where she was. She was sitting in the Cadillac smoking a cigarette, and when she saw me coming she got out.

“Darling, is everything all right?”

“He’s on his way to Los Angeles in his private car,” I said. I walked over and picked up the gun and broke it to take out the two shells. Before I threw the unfired one into the brush, I looked at it, and it made me a little sick. It was a ten-gauge Magnum, with Number 2 shot. Anything hit at close range with that would look like a dish of raw hamburger. I buried the gun in the sand.

I walked back and stood looking at her. “Start giving,” I said. “I want to know about Donnelly.”

“Darling,” she said innocently, “I’ve already told you. He’s just a stupid thug who thinks he can scare money out of me.”

I caught the fur coat with both hands and pulled her toward me. “Don’t try any innocent double talk on me, you redheaded little hellcat. Maybe he can’t scare you, but he can scare me. I want to know who he is and why he’s following you, so we can do something about it. I saw him swinging that shotgun on you, and I don’t intend to go through that again. Not twice in one lifetime.”

“Mike,” she said softly, “you do still like me, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” I said.

“I’ve missed you so terribly.”

I shook her. “Who is Donnelly?”

“Mike, darling, it isn’t anything, really. He just claims Jeff owed him some money before he was killed, when those men held him up. He hasn’t got any proof of it, and I won’t pay it.”

It sounded fishy, and still it didn’t. At least one part of it rang true—that about not paying it. Anybody who tried to fast-talk her out of a buck was odds-on to kill himself before he got through if he really took it seriously. And then, somewhere in all the anger and the fear for her going around in my mind, I was conscious of that same old crazy question: How could you be this much in love with a girl you fought with all the time and who kept the world in perpetual uproar? But I was. God help me.

It must have made me angrier. “All right,” I said. “But how in hell does he manage to find you everywhere you go? He located you in New Orleans, and now out here in the middle of nowhere in this sand pile. How does he do it? Do you write to him or something?”

She gestured impatiently. “Who cares, Mike? I tell you, he’s just a cheap chiseler. Quit worrying about him. As for his finding me here, he probably just followed me from San Antonio.”

“Well, you’ve got to get out of San Antonio before he can get back there.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mike,” she flared up, “quit being such an old woman. We’ve got a job to do.” Here we go, I thought.

“Look, Cathy,” I said. “For the love of Pete, let’s quit knocking ourselves out, just for an hour or two, shall we? God knows why, but I’ve looked forward all week to seeing you. Maybe I’m just stupid that way. And in five minutes we’re going at each other like a couple of punch-drunk pugs. I’m sorry I lost my temper. It just scared me. Donnelly, I mean. Let’s try to forget the whole damn thing for a little while.”

“All right, Mike,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry too.”

We got back in the car and drove on down the road about a mile until we were out of sight of the highway and lost in the rolling white immensity of the sand. I saw the dry remains of an old mesquite, and broke off enough limbs to build a fire behind one of the dunes. There was a robe in the back of the car, and I spread it on the sand, up against the slope before the fire. It was beautiful and incredibly still in the wintry moonlight. It was wonderful. She had a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses in the car. I opened it and we drank some of it, watching the fire and talking. Firelight was shining in her eyes, and she was still the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. It occurred to me that this was corny, that girls were always having firelight shine in their eyes while they turned beautiful, but when I tried to look at it objectively, nothing changed. She was still beautiful, and I was in love with her.

“How did we ever manage to make such a mess of things, Cathy?” I asked after a while. “Let’s go to El Paso for the weekend. Look, we could be married again.”

“That would be wonderful, Mike,” she said. “But not until after we get through here. You can’t leave now. This is too important to take any chances.”

That about sums it up, I thought, trying to suppress the anger and not start another battle. Trifling incidentals like being blasted at with a ten-gauge shotgun, or brushing off a package-deal proposition and proposal, are entirely beside the point and can’t be allowed to interfere with the main objective. Nothing mattered except sandbagging Goodwin and then ganging up on Lachlan.

No, that wasn’t quite fair, I reminded myself. The thought of the two of them getting away with what they had done haunted me too, and if it didn’t ride me all the time the way it did her, it was probably because I was lazy and inclined to take the easy way. Maybe if I’d quit trying to pick her to pieces and take a good look at myself…Maybe I was the one who wasn’t so hot. I always let things slide.

“You see, don’t you, Mike?” she said. “I mean, that we’ve got to do this first?”

“All right,” I said wearily. “I just forgot for the moment that you’re the girl of destiny. I’ll take it up through channels.”

“You’re a lamb,” she said, making a face at me. “And I do love you. Why do you think I’m staying in San Antonio so I can be near you?”