Tough to Kill (11 page)

“Come back for it some other time.”

The man looked bitter.

“Markham's goin' to have somethin' to say about this,” Foley put in.

Carlotta smiled.

“Markham has something to say about everything,” she said.

Foley hesitated for a moment, gave McAllister a baleful look and started walking across the flat to his grazing horse. Slowly Ransome followed. When he had gone a short way, Foley stopped and turned.

“It's the only way you could of done it, McAllister. With a woman's help,” he said.

McAllister didn't say anything, but just looked at him bleakly. He and Carlotta watched the men walk to the horse, mount double and go slowly along the base of the mesa into the north. Finally, she turned to him.

“It sticks in your craw, being saved by a woman.”

Without a smile, he said: “Why should it? I'm always bein' saved by women.”

“Rem,” she said, “was I supposed to stand by and watch them hang you?”

“You were supposed to be on your way home so those two wouldn't talk about you. Now your name'll be bandied about in every cow-camp in the country.”

“I don't care,” she said. “Had it been any man but you I would have cared. But it was you.”

McAllister knew that he should have felt good when he heard that, but he didn't. He felt like he had been suckered in some way.

“All right,” he said. “I owe you one life.”

She came close to him and touched his face with a cool hand, smiling up at him.

“That's the life I want.”

He softened to her a little then and said: ‘It's just I usually make things happen. This time things happened to me. It ain't so good for my confidence. You spoiled everything, Carlotta. Now your brother'll know you rode out to meet me. You've given him a weapon against you.”

“I don't give a damn for my brother. At last, I'm not afraid of him any more.”

He put an arm around her and she rested her head against his shoulder.

“You can't go back,” he told her softly. “You'd best come into the hills with me.” She looked up at him.

“That would be wonderful,” she said. “But that's not the way we'll do it. I'm not running away from Markham. I have to beat him.”

“It's your decision,” he said. “Now I'll ride aways with you.”

“You'll do no such thing. You're in enough danger without riding straight for it.”

“I respect your decision not to come into the hills with me,” he told her. “You gotta respect mine to ride along with you.”

She didn't argue. Night was coming down fast and she knew there could be safety in darkness. He went down into the canyon to fetch his horse, she walked across the flat to the mare. Shortly, they were riding side by side through the starlight. He rode with her till they saw the twinkling lights of Markham's headquarters and then she halted.

“No further,” she said. “Turn back now.”

“You've got to face an awful lot of music down there.”

“I'm familiar with every note of it.”

“If you can't take it, ride into town an' take a room at the hotel. Jess Rose, the boy at the livery'll bring word to me. I'll come an' fetch you.”

She rested a hand on his.

“It's all right now you're around,” she said.

He bent from the saddle and kissed her.

“I never thanked you for savin' my life,” he said.

“It was a life I wanted,” she told him and rode slowly forward into the darkness.

McAllister stayed still until the sound of horse had died away, then he wheeled the dun and set off south at a brisk trot. He felt like singing.

Markham set down his glass.

He heard the sound of a walking horse.

Slowly, he walked out onto the stoop and peered into the starlight night. He heard the horse come along the edge of the corral and stop at the door of the bunkhouse.

“Who's that out there?” he shouted.

“Foley.”

He saw a dim shape get down from the horse and then another. Two men on one horse. He bristled.

“Come here. Both of you.”

They tramped across the yard and he knew from the way they walked that they were bitter men. They came into the light of the lamp hanging on the stoop and gazed up at him out of bleak eyes.

“What happened?”

“We followed Miss Charlie like you said we should.” “You bet your sweet life you did. When I order a thing done… Where is she?”

“Back yonder someplace near the mesa.”

“Alone?”

Foley stared at him in sullen silence for a moment before he said: “No, with McAllister.”

Markham looked like a man stricken.

“Jesus,” he said, “there's two of you, ain't there? You have guns, don't you?”

Foley's anger flared.

“We had a gun on him. We had a rope around his neck.”

“Why didn't you hang the varmint?”

“Miss Charlie threw down on us.”

For a moment, Markham was speechless. They didn't know if he was mad at Carlotta or them or both.

Finally, he said: “A woman! You let a damned woman take a man away from you?”

“It don't matter who holds a gun,” Ransome said, “it can still cut you down.”

Markham turned on him like a wounded bull.

“Don't you sass me, boy, or I'll knock your head off'n your shoulders.”

Ransome went white to the mouth.

“Well,” Foley asked, “what do we do?”

“Do?” Markham bellowed. “You don't do nothin'. You lost a horse, a man an' showed you couldn't handle a woman even. Get to your bunks an' stay outa my sight. I'll handle this from here on in. The only way to get anythin' done right around here is do it your Goddam self.”

They turned and walked away. He whirled and stalked back to his office and poured himself a stiff drink. Never had he needed one more. He sat at his desk and stared at the quirt lying on its top. He would like to use it on Carlotta. He had watched over her carefully through all those years and now she had turned out to be a common whore. By God, he would use it on her. He'd make an example of her to the other two girls. He took the bottle and the quirt and sat on the stoop waiting for her to return.

It was late when he heard the sound of her horse. He tensed and was surprised by the emotions that flooded through him. They came so violently that, violent man though he was habitually, he was shocked by their strength. Memories of their mother and father came back to him. They had both been no good; they had been shiftless and incapable of making
money. He often wondered how two such indifferent folk had managed to bring a man of his drive and character into the world. Just as he wondered how they could have managed to produce a woman as beautiful as Carlotta.

He remembered the day his father had died. He had been no more than fifteen and Carlotta had just begun to walk. The old man had said: “Look out for the little one.” Then he had died. It had been the Comanches who had done that. His mother had been taken off by the fever the year before. He had honored his father's last wish, though he had never honored the man who made it. He had looked out for Carlotta. He had kept her clean and decent, just as he had kept his two girls the same way after their mother had left him. Now Carlotta had turned out to be a whore. His mind flicked to Alvina and he ground his teeth together so the sound of them was audible. The suspicion came to him that his authority was waning. It brought with it bitterness and a dull rage.

He stayed still where he was as Carlotta walked her roan mare into the circle of lamplight. He didn't move when she dismounted gracefully and ground-hitched the tired animal. She came and stood with one foot on the step of the stoop and stared at him levelly. Their eyes met and held.

“You shouldn't ought to of come back,” he said. “You'd of done best for yourself to of stayed away.”

“That would have been easy,” she said. “You're not the only Markham around here.”

She mounted the stoop and went to walk past him.

He reached out and flicked her lightly with the tip of the quirt. She stopped and looked at him.

“Stay put,” he told her. “You don't get off so easy as that I got something to say to you.”

She said: “What you have to say doesn't concern me. But I have something I want to say to you.”

“Hold your tongue when I'm talkin'.” He felt his anger running away with him.

“You hold your tongue,” she snapped. “I've been listening to your gab for too long. I've heard you laying down the law till I'm sick of it.”

He stood up and smacked the quirt against his boot top.

“Don't sass me,” he growled, “or I'll whip you like I used to when you was a kid. I'm still boss around here.”

“Tell me,” she said, “how you dare have the gall to send two of your hired men to spy on me?”

He raised his voice. The men in the bunkhouse would have been deaf if they couldn't hear him.

“They followed you because you been a-whorin'. Is that plain enough for you.”

She curled her lip at him in a way that sent the blood to pounding in his temples.

“I should think it's plain enough for all the men in the bunkhouse to understand. It also shows that you've come as low as even you can come. Rock bottom, you're trash, Markham, and this time you've shown it.”

He swung the quirt and shouted: “No woman talks to me that way.”

“I'm talking to you that way.”

He swung the quirt back and in the next second would have slashed at her with it, but he froze to immobility when he saw the gun in her hand.

“Put down that quirt or I'll shoot you.”

Markham could not believe that this was happening to him. That the quiet and withdrawn Carlotta should have suddenly and without warning produced a facet of her character that was so close to his own dumbfounded him.

“My God,” he whispered, “you'd threaten your own brother?”

“I'm your sister. You're threatening me.”

“Put the fool thing away. You'd never dare use it.”

“Try me.”

They measured each other. It did not seem possible that this was the compliant girl that he had raised. But he saw that she was speaking the truth. She would use it.

He said: “You know what this means? You leave this house. You get outa here and you stay out. I don't have no sister. You're no kin of mine. You've got use to livin, purty high off the hog. Now you see how you like it out in the cold world makin' your own way. Go on, get out.”

She took a step toward the door and he shouted: “You don't go in there. You don't take nothin' away with you. You go just as you are.”

“You forget I'm holding the gun as I've heard you say so often in the past.”

She walked on into the house.

He turned and smashed his fist onto the wall of the house. The sudden pain brought him partially to his senses. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and stumbled along the stoop toward the door of his office.

In her room, Carlotta stood for a moment in the darkness to collect herself. Her heart was pounding in her breast. McAllister had done all this to her. She had met him and suddenly, alarmingly, her attitude to her old life had changed. It had become no longer bearable. But now she was faced with a wide open and dangerous world. She had never had to work anywhere else but in her brother's home. She had been extraordinarily cut off from the world. Now she was out in the world alone with no more than … She lit the lamp and searched in an old bag of hers where she kept her meager savings. Here she found thirty dollars. All the money she had saved in all the years.

She swung around in alarm as the door opened. But she saw that it was Alvina. Her niece's face was flushed and concerned.

“Charlie,” she said crossing the room quickly to her aunt and catching at her hand, “I heard everything from my window. Are you really going?”

Carlotta nodded. “I have to.”

“How will we get by without you?”

“You'll manage, honey.”

“But we may never see you again.”

“You'll see me again,” Carlotta said, sounding tar more confident than she felt. “Your father's going to come down hard off his high horse and things will be different.”

“I'm scared. It's been bearable here with you around.”

Carlotta patted her hand, worried. The selfishness of her actions came home to her. She hated leaving Alvina and Lucy to Markham's mercy.

“I'm sorry, Vina, I truly am. But I have to go. I reckon I can't take any more.”

“Will you go to Mr. McAllister?”

“I haven't gotten around to thinking about that yet.”

“Did you really go to meet him? Was it wonderful?”

“What was it like when Mr. McShannon was m your room?” Carlotta asked with a smile.

“Wonderful.”

“There's your answer.”

Alvina helped her pack. This did not take more than a few minutes. Carlotta had only to throw a couple of dresses and some odd articles of clothing in a valise and she was ready. She felt like crying when she looked at Alvina to tell her goodbye. She saw that there were tears in the girl*s eyes. She put an arm around her.

“It's all for the best,” was all she could think of to say. “You'll see.”

Alvina kissed her. Carlotta returned the kiss.

“Tell Lucy goodbye for me, honey,”

“I will.”

Carlotta picked up the valise and walked to the door. This had been her room for a long time, it seemed. Yet it had never seemed hers and she had never liked it. Even as she looked at Alvina's sad face, her thoughts were in the future and she experienced a sudden lifting of her heart.

“I'll see you soon, Vina. Bank on it.”

She turned and went then. There was nobody on the stoop or in the yard. She thought of changing her saddle to a fresh horse because the mare was almost played out, but she decided against it. The mare was her own property and her brother couldn't prevent Carlotta from taking her. She fastened the valise to the saddle and stepped aboard. When she turned the horse and looked back she saw that Markham stood in the doorway of his room, silhouetted against the light, watching her go. She rode out into the darkness.