by Max Brand
CHAPTER XVII
BUTCH RETURNS
He reminded Nash of some big puma cub warming itself at a hearth like acommon tabby cat, a tame puma thrusting out its claws and turning itsyellow eyes up to its owner--tame, but with infinite possibilities ofdanger. For the information which Nash had given seemed to remove allhis distrust of the moment before and he became instantly genial,pleasant. In fact, he voiced this sentiment with a disarming franknessimmediately.
"Perhaps I've seemed to be carrying a chip on my shoulder, Mr. Nash. Yousee, I'm not long in the West, and the people I've met seem to be readyto fight first and ask questions afterward. So I've caught the habit, Isuppose."
"Which a habit like that ain't uncommon. The graveyards are full offellers that had that habit and they're going to be fuller still of thesame kind."
Here Sally entered, carrying the meal of the cowpuncher, arranged it,and then sat on the edge of Bard's table, turning from one to the otheras a bird on a spray of leaves turns from sunlight to shadow and cannotmake a choice.
"Bard," stated Nash, "is going out to the ranch with me to-night."
"Long ride for to-night, isn't it?"
"Yes, but we'll bunk on the way and finish up early in the morning."
"Then you'll have a chance to teach him Western manners on the way,Steve."
"Manners?" queried the Easterner, smiling up to the girl.
She turned, caught him beneath the chin with one hand, tilting his face,and raised the lessoning forefinger of the other while she stared downat him with a half frown and a half smile like a schoolteacher about todiscipline a recalcitrant boy.
"Western manners," she said, "mean first not to doubt a man till hetries to double-cross you, and not to trust him till he saves your life;to keep your gun inside the leather till you're backed up against thewall, and then to start shootin' as soon as the muzzle is past theholster. Then the thing to remember is that the fast shootin' is fine,but sure shootin' is a lot better. D'you get me?"
"That's a fine sermon," smiled Bard, "but you're too young to make aconvincing preacher, Miss Fortune."
"Misfortune," said the girl quickly, "don't have to be old to do a lotof teachin'."
She sat back and regarded him with something of a frown and with foldedarms.
He said with a sudden earnestness: "You seem to take it for granted thatI'm due for a lot of trouble."
But she shook her head gloomily.
"I know what you're due for; I can see it in your eyes; I can hear it inyour way of talkin'. If you was to ride the range with a sheriff on oneside of you and a marshal on the other you couldn't help fallin' intotrouble."
"As a fortune-teller," remarked Nash, "you'd make a good undertaker,Sally."
"Shut up, Steve. I've seen this bird in action and I know what I'mtalking about. When you coming back this way, Bard?"
He said thoughtfully: "Perhaps to-morrow night--perhaps--"
"It ought to be to-morrow night," she said pointedly, her eyes on Nash.
The latter had pushed his chair back a trifle and sat now with downwardhead and his right hand resting lightly on his thigh. Only the place inwhich they sat was illumined by the two lamps, and the forward part ofthe room, nearer the street, was a sea of shadows, wavering when thewind stirred the flame in one of the lamps or sent it smoking up thechimney. Sally and Bard sat with their backs to the door, and Nash halffacing it.
"Steve," she said, with a sudden low tenseness of voice that sent achill up Bard's spinal cord, "Steve, what's wrong?"
"This," answered the cowboy calmly, and whirling in his chair, his gunflashed and exploded.
They sprang up in time to see the bulky form of Butch Conklin rise outof the shadows in the front part of the room with outstretched arms,from one of which a revolver dropped clattering to the floor. Backwardhe reeled as though a hand were pulling him from behind, and thenmeasured his length with a crash on the floor.
Bard, standing erect, quite forgot to touch his weapon, but Sally hadproduced a ponderous forty-five with mysterious speed and now crouchedbehind a table with the gun poised. Nash, bending low, ran forward tothe fallen man.
"Nicked, but not done for," he called.
"Thank God!" cried Sally, and the two joined Nash about the prostratebody.
That bullet had had very certain intentions, but by a freak of chanceit had been deflected on the angle of the skull and merely ploughed abloody furrow through the mat of hair from forehead to the back of theskull. He was stunned, but hardly more seriously hurt than if he hadbeen knocked down by a club.
"I've an idea," said the Easterner calmly, "that I owe my life to you,Mr. Nash."
"Let that drop," answered the other.
"A quarter of an inch lower," said the girl, who was examining thewound, "and Butch would have kissed the world good-bye."
Not till then did the full horror of the thing dawn on Bard. The girlwas no more excited than one of her Eastern cousins would have been overa game of bridge, and the man in the most matter-of-fact manner, wasslipping another cartridge into the cylinder of the revolver, which hethen restored to the holster.
It still seemed incredible that the man could have drawn his gun andfired it in that flash of time. He recalled his adventure with Butchearlier that evening and with Sandy Ferguson before; for the first timehe realized what he had done and a cold horror possessed him like theman who has nerves to walk the tight rope across the chasm and faintswhen he looks back on the gorge from the safety of the other side. Thegirl took command.
"Steve, run down to the marshal's office; Deputy Glendin is there."
She took the wet cloth and made a deft bandage for the head of Conklin.With his shaggy hair covered, and all his face sagging with lines ofweariness, the gun-fighter seemed no more than a middle-aged man asleep,worn out by trouble.
"Is there a doctor?" asked Bard anxiously.
"That ain't a case for a doctor--look here; you're in a blue faint. Whatis the matter?"
"I don't know; I'm thinking of that quarter of an inch which would havemeant the difference to poor Conklin."
"'Poor' Conklin? Why, you fish, he was sneakin' in here to try his handon you. He found out he couldn't get his gang into town, so he slippedin by himself. He'll get ten years for this--and a thousand if they holdhim up for the other things he's done."
"I know--and this fellow Nash was as quiet as the strike of a snake. Ifhe'd been a fraction of a second slower I might be where Conklin is now.I'll never forget Nash for this."
She said pointedly: "No, he's a bad one to forget; keep an eye on him.You spoke of a snake--that's how smooth Steve is."
"Remember your own motto, Miss Fortune. He saved my life; therefore Imust trust him."
She answered sullenly: "You're your own boss."
"What's wrong with Nash?"
"Find out for yourself."
"Are all these fellows something other than they seem?"
"What about yourself?"
"How do you mean that?"
"What trail are you on, Bard? Don't look so innocent. Oh, I seen you wasafter something a long time ago."
"I am. After excitement, you know."
"Ain't you finding enough?"
"I've got two things ahead of me."
"Well?"
"This trip, and when I come back I think making love to you would bemore exciting than gun-plays."
They regarded each other with bantering smiles.
"A tenderfoot like you make love to me? That would be exciting, allright, if it wasn't so funny."
"As for the competition," he said serenely, "that would be simply a goodbackground."
"Hate yourself, don't you, Bard?" she grinned.
"The rest of these boys are all very well, but they don't see that whatyou want is the velvet touch."
"What's that?"
She was as frankly curious as some boy hearing a new game described.
"You've only been loved in one way. These rough-handed fellows come inand th
row an arm around you and ask you to marry them; isn't that it?What you really need, is an old, simple, but very effective method."
Though her eyes were shining, she yawned.
"It don't interest me, Bard."
"On the contrary, you're getting quite excited."
"So does a horse before it gets ready to buck."
"Exactly. If I thought it would be easy I wouldn't be tempted."
"Well, if you like fighting you've sure mapped out a nice sizeablequarrel with me, Bud."
"Good. I'm certainly coming back to Eldara. Now about this method ofmine--"
"Throwing your cards on the table, eh? What you got, Bard, a royalflush?"
"Right again. It's a very simple method but you couldn't beat it."
"Bud, you ain't half old enough to kid me."
"What you need," he persisted calmly, "is someone who would sit downand simply talk good, plain English to you."
"Let 'er go."
"In the first place I will call attention to your method of dressing."
"Anything wrong with it?"
"I knew you'd be interested."
She slipped into a chair and sat cross-legged in it, her elbows on herknees and her chin cupped in both her hands.
"Sure I'm interested. If there's a new way fixin' ham-and, serve itout."
"I would begin," he went on judiciously, "by saying that you dressed infive minutes in the dark."
"It's generally dark at 5 a.m.," she admitted.
"You look, on the whole, as if you'd fallen into your clothes."
The wounded man stirred and groaned faintly.
She called: "Lie down, Butch; I'm busy. Go on, Bard."
"If you keep a mirror it's a wall decoration--not for personal use."
"Maybe this is an old method, Bard; but around this place it'd be aquick way of gettin' shot."
"Angry?"
"You'd peeve a mule."
"This was only an introduction. The next thing is to sit close besideyou and shift the lamp so that the light would shine on your face; thentake your hand--"
He suited his action to his word.
"Let go my hand, Bard. It's like the rest of me--not a decoration butfor use."
"Afraid of me, Sally?"
"Not of a regiment like you."
"Then of my method?"
"Go on; I'm game."
"But this is all there is to it."
"What d'you mean?"
"Just what I say. Having observed that you haven't set off any of youradvantages, I will sit here and look into your face in silence, which isas much as to say that no matter how you dress you can't spoil a veryexcellent figure, Sally. I suppose you've heard that before?"
"Lots of times," she muttered.
"But you wouldn't hear it from me. All I would do would be to sit andstare and let you imagine what I'm thinking. And you'd begin to see thatin spite of the way you do your hair you can't spoil its colour nor itstexture."
He raised his other hand and touched it.
"Like silk, Sally."
He studied her closely, noting the flush which began to touch hercheeks.
"Part of the game is for you to keep looking me in the eye."
"Well, I'll be--Go on, I'm game."
"Is it hard to sit like this--silently? Do I do it badly?"
"No, you show lots of practice. How many have you tried this method on,Bard?"
He made a vague gesture and then, smiling: "Millions, Sally, and theyall liked it."
"So do I."
And they laughed together, and grew serious at the same instant.
"All silence--like this?" she queried.
"No; after a while I would say: 'You are beautiful.'"
"You don't get a blue ribbon for that, Bard."
"Not for the words, but the way they're said, which shows I mean them."
She blinked as though to clear her eyes and then met his stare again.
"You know you are beautiful, Sally."
"With a pug nose--freckles--and all that?"
"Just a tip-tilt in the nose, Sally. Why, it's charming. And you haveeverything else--young, strong, graceful, clear."
"What d'you mean by that?"
"Clear? Fresh and colourful like the sunset over the desert. Do youunderstand?"
Her eyes went down to consider.
"I s'pose I do."
"With a touch of awe in it, because the silence and the night arecoming, and the stars walk down, one by one--one by one. And the wind islow, soft, musical, whispering, as you do now--What if this were not agame of suppose, Sally?"
She wrenched herself suddenly away, rising.
"I'm tired of supposing!" she cried.
"Then we'll call it all real. What of that?"
That colour was unmistakably high now; it ran down from her cheeks andeven stained the pure white of the throat where the flap of the shirtwas open. He was excited as a hunter who has tracked some new anddangerous animal and at last driven it to bay, holding his gun poised,and not knowing whether or not it will prove vulnerable.
He stepped close, eager, prepared for any wild burst of temper; but shelet him take her hands, let him draw her close, bend back her head; holdher closer still, till the warmth and softness of her body reached him,but when his lips came close she said quietly: "Are you a rotter,Bard?"
He stiffened and the smile went out on his lips. He stepped back.
She repeated: "Are you a rotter?"
He raised the one hand which he still retained and touched it to hislips.
"I am very sorry," said Anthony, "will you forgive me?"
And with her eyes large and grave upon him she answered: "I wonder if Ican!"
Butch Conklin looked up, raising his bandaged head slowly, like a whiteflag of truce, with a stain of red growing through the cloth. He staredat the two, raised a hand to his head as though to rub away the dream,found a pain too real for a dream, and then, like a crab which has grownalmost too old to walk, waddled on hands and knees, slowly, from theroom and melted silently into the dark beyond.