I said, “Maybe you're right, Pat. I'll see about the horse. Then
maybe we'll cover some ground before daybreak.”
“Whatever you say.” He had torn off a piece of his shirttail and was
using it to clean that new .44 I had given him.
“You'll be all right here,” I said. “The cavalry won't get around
tonight.”
“Don't worry about me.” He looked up. “You're the one that better
watch out the bluebellies don't get you.”
It was completely dark now. I went outside and got the bay saddled,
and Pat came to the door and watched as I rode off.
It wasn't a smart thing to do, I knew that. Pappy Garret would have
skinned me alive for pulling a “fool stunt like that... but it was one
of those things that I had to see all the way through. Before long—if
I didn't set things straight with Laurin—I'd be snapping at Pat, and
we'd end up the same as me and Ray Novak, riding our own separate
trails. And I needed Pat. One man wasn't any good on the run. Pappy had
been proof of that. It occurred to me that I had already learned to
think the way Pappy Garret thought. I didn't really give a damn for Pat
Roark, but I could use him, and that was what I meant to do.
That shocked me for a moment. A few days ago I had never even thought
of killing a man, and now I had four to my credit, a longer string than
a lot of well-known badmen could boast. I felt nothing for them. They
could have been calf-killing coyotes, and not human beings.
I tried to work back in my mind and find the beginning of it. Paul
Creyton—there was nothing I could have done about that. He had been
trying to steal my horse, and that was reason enough for killing
anybody in this country. And Thornton—nobody could blame me for that.
And the other two—they had been pulling on me, and if I hadn't killed
them they would have killed me. I hadn't started any of it. They had
all brought it on themselves.
But still I could taste the uneasy tang of doubt, and I wondered if
it all would seem so clear-cut and inevitable to Laurin as it did to
me.
Coming out of the hills, I rode straight east, heading for our place.
I would have a hard time explaining it to Pat, if I came back without
that red horse, and, besides, for some strange reason, I wanted to put
off seeing Laurin until the very last.
There was no sign of cavalry or police as I crossed the open range.
Probably, I thought, the Cameron ranch would be the last place they
would look for me, especially if Old Man Garner had told them we were
headed for Indian Ridge.
The ranch house was dark when I got there. The only light I could see
was in the bunkhouse. When we reached the rear of the ranch yard, I got
down and led the bay toward the barn where I figured Red would be.
“Tall.”
It was just a whisper, but there in the darkness it came at me like a
bullet. I dropped the reins and wheeled.
“It's me, Tall! My God, be careful with that gun!”
It was Bucky Stow, coming from the far side of the barn. I didn't
remember pulling my pistol, but there it was, in my hand, the hammer
pulled back and ready to fall. I heard somebody breathing hard, breath
whistling through his teeth. After a moment I realized it was me.
“You want to be careful how you slip up on people,” I said weakly.
Bucky would never know how close he came to being number five on my
string. I shoved the pistol back in my holster.
“Tall, what in hell are you doin' here, anyway? There's cavalry and
police all over this part of Texas.”
“I came after that red horse,” I said. “Is he ready to go?
Bucky screwed up his face. “I reckon,” he said. “But he could stand
fattening up. A horse like Red ain't supposed to take that kind of
treatment.”
“Never mind about Red, he can take it. Is Ma doing all right?”
“She's over at the Novak place now,” he said, rubbing his chin sadly.
“She kind of figured that maybe you'd come back here. She wanted me to
tell you to come to Virginia as soon as you get a chance.”
I looked at him. “Virginia?”
“She's selling the ranch and moving back there with her people.
Runnin' a ranch is too big a job for a woman. And since your pa...”
His voice trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. Now that Pa
was gone, and I couldn't stay here to help her, there was nothing else
for her to do. It hurt me at first, thinking about giving up this ranch
that Pa had worked so hard for. But Ma had never really liked it. She
only wanted to be where Pa was. It was the best thing, I thought, for
her to move back with her own people until I could clear myself with
the Texas courts.
I said, “Tell her I'm all right, Bucky. Tell her not to worry about
me, and I'll see her in Virginia as soon as this thing blows over.”
Bucky said, “Sure, Tall. Now I'll get that horse for you.”
He went in the barn and in a few minutes he came back with Red, all
saddled and ready to go. I slapped the horse's glossy rump. “You ready
to travel, boy? You got your belly full of corn?”
Red switched his head around and nuzzled the front of my shirt. I
thought wryly, That's the first sincere gesture of welcome I've had
since I got back.
I didn't try to go to the Novaks' and say good-by to Ma. That would
be pushing my luck too far. I got on Red and we headed west again,
crossing the Bannerman wagon road just in case the cavalry was up in
that direction, then we went north, cross-country, until the big ranch
house and barns loomed up in the darkness. I didn't have any guarantee
that there weren't any soldiers in one of those barns just waiting for
me to pull a fool stunt like this, but that was a chance I had to take.
As I got closer, I saw that there was a light in the back of the house,
in the kitchen.
I left Red at the side of the house, and the back door opened.
“Joe, is that you?”
Then I stepped into the light, and Laurin gasped. Her hands and arms
were white with flour, and there was a pale powdery smudge on the side
of her nose. She was just beginning to bake the week's supply of bread.
“Tall!” Her voice was frightened. “Tall, you can't come here. The
cavalry left only an hour ago, looking for you.”
“The cavalry can't keep me away from you,” I said. “Nothing can.”
Quickly, she dusted her hands and arms on her apron and came down the
steps. I put my hands on her shoulders and I could feel her shiver as I
drew her close and held her tight. “Oh, Tall,” she cried, “it's no
good. Meeting this way, in darkness, afraid to be seen together.”
I kissed her lightly and we stood there clinging to each other. I
pressed her head to my shoulder and the clean smell of her hair worked
on me like fever. “I'll come back,” I said. “It won't always be like
this.” Then I asked the question that I was half afraid to ask.
“Laurin, will you wait for me? Will you trust me to straighten things
out in my own way?”
For a moment she didn't say anything. Her body was rigid against me
and I knew that she was crying.
“You know I'll wait,” she said at last. “Forever, I suppose, if I
have to. It's just that I'm afraid... something awful and wrong is
happening to us.”
I knew she was thinking about those three men.... She didn't know
about the fourth. “Can't you see, I had to do it?” I said. “I couldn't
just stand by and let them get away with it—doing what they did. You
see that, don't you?”
“I don't know,” she breathed. “I just don't know.”
“I'm not going to get into any more trouble,” I said. “Don't be
afraid of that. I'll join a trail herd and go up to Kansas until the
bluebellies are out of Texas courts. Then I'll come back and stand
trial.”
She raised her head and looked at me for a long tune. And at last she
began to believe it.
“I'll wait,” she said quietly. “If you'll do that, I'll wait as long
as I need to. It won't be too long.”
That was the way I remembered her, the way she looked as she said,
“I'll wait.” And then her face softened, and for a moment it seemed
that she was almost happy. “I'll get you some bacon,” she said, “and
some fresh bread. You'll need something to eat while you're traveling.”
“We'll get supplies,” I said. I didn't want to go, but the time had
come and I couldn't put it off any longer. Then I kissed her—hard
enough to last as long as it had to last. “Don't you worry,” I said.
“I'll come back.” It seemed that I was saying that more often than was
necessary to convince her. Maybe I was trying to convince myself.
I looked back once as I rode away, and she was still standing there
with the lamplight streaming out the door and falling over her like a
veil of fine silk. She half lifted her hand, as if to wave, and then
let it drop. After a while, she went back into the house and that was
the last I saw of her.
It was a quiet trip riding back to the shack. There was no sign of
soldiers or police anywhere, and I made up my mind to get out of this
part of Texas as soon as I got back to where Pat Roark was. I was
afraid that we had stretched our luck about as far as it would go.
I judged that it was about midnight by the time we reached the hills.
I nudged Red down into the gully that was Daggert's Road and stopped
for a moment to listen, but there was still no sound except the faint
night wind and the faraway bark of a coyote. We had almost reached the
cabin when Red started shying away from something in the darkness.
I pulled up again and listened. There still wasn't anything that I
could see or hear, but that didn't mean that there was nothing out
there in the darkness. I felt of Red's ears. They were pricked up,
stiff, his head cocked to one side. I reached far over and felt of his
muzzle. It was hot and dry.
That worried me. Normally a horse's nose is cool and moist; it's only
when he senses danger that it gets that hot, dry feel. Then I felt
little ripples of nervousness in the long muscles of his neck. I knew
something was wrong. But before I could do anything about it, a voice
shouted:
“Throw up your hands, Cameron. We've got you surrounded!”
Instinctively, I drove the steel in Red's ribs and he jumped forward
with a startled snort. I didn't know who was doing the shouting, but I
could guess. I dumped out of the saddle as we neared the cabin, and Red
spurted on like a scared ghost, heading for higher ground. I hit the
ground hard, rolled, and scrambled for the door of the shack. If I had
stayed on Red, they would have cut me down before he could have taken a
dozen jumps, and besides, that gully of a road led to a dead end about
a hundred rods up in the hills.
A rifle bellowed in the darkness, another one answered it, and then
the whole night seemed to explode to life. Carbines, I thought as I
crawled the last few yards to the doorway on my hands and knees.
Cavalry carbines. Why the hell doesn't Pat shoot back?
Then my foot hit something soft and wet and sticky, and I had my
answer. Pat Roark was dead. I didn't have to make an inspection to know
that. I tried hurriedly to roll him over and it was like rolling a limp
sack of wet grain. I let him stay where he was, got the door closed,
and fumbled in the darkness for the window.
The shooting had stopped now. They saw that they had missed me on the
first try, and now they were ready to think up something else. I
wondered why they hadn't placed a man in the shack to shoot me as I
came in—but I got my answer to that, too, as I was fumbling around
looking for an extra box of cartridges. There was a man in here.
But he was dead, the same as Pat. The hard-visored forage cap on the
floor told me that he was a soldier, probably a cavalryman. I felt for
his head and jerked my hand back as I touched the clammy sticky mess
that had leaked out of the hole in his skull. Well, they had done a
good job on each other, I thought grimly.
I went back to the window and tried to see something. They hadn't
started to move in yet. Probably, they were in positions on high ground
overlooking the cabin, but I hadn't had time to notice that much when
the shooting was going on. There was a little clearing all around the
shack and I could watch three sides from the windows and door. But the
rear was blind.
I took another look to make sure that they hadn't decided to rush me,
then I went to the rear wall and began to knock out the 'dobe plaster
between the logs. In a minute I had a porthole cleaned out big enough
to shoot through and see through. But I wasn't sure how much good that
was going to do me. I couldn't be in four places at once.
“Come out with your hands up, Cameron,” the same voice shouted, “and
we'll see you get a fair trial in court!”
I could imagine what kind of a trial I'd get in a carpet-bag court,
after killing three state policemen. I went back to the west window and
looked out carefully. The voice, I judged, was coming from behind a
rock up above the gully. An officer, probably.
“This is your last chance, Cameron!”
“Go to hell,” I shouted. “If you want me, come and get me.”
Nothing happened, and I began to wonder what they were waiting on.
They had me surrounded. I wasn't questioning their word about that.
Then why didn't they close in and begin shooting me to pieces? That's
what I would have done if I had been in their place. Or maybe burn the
cabin down. That would make a clean job of it.
But they were still waiting on something. I felt my way across the
shack again and got my other pistol out of Pat Roark's dead hand. I
rolled the soldier over against the wall to get him out of the way,
and, as I was giving him the last nudge with my boot, the answer came
to me.
The reason they were reluctant to start any wild shooting or burning
was that they thought their man was still alive. I went back and
inspected Pat Roark a little closer this time. Sure enough, he was
still warm, lying there in the doorway with a bullet in his gut. It all
began to make sense now. I could almost see it, the way it must have
worked.