thumb hooked in his cartridge belt to support the breath from her body.
the wounded arm.
She lifted the gun from its holster and
“Yuh’ve got to get out of here,
tiptoed to the door, pushing it wider. The
pronto!” he declared. “Hurry, Donna! Get
creak of a rusty hinge startled her, and she yore hoss. It’s nearly dark!”
thrust the gun before her.
“I haven’t got a horse. I was driving
“Who’s there?” she demanded, and the buckboard and got caught in the draw in a kicked the door wide.
cloudburst. The horses are gone.”
A tall man lay sprawled on a tarp and
“But yuh can’t stay!” He was at her
blanket, his head on a saddle. The shadows
side, gripping her arm with the same intensity that lay deep along the wall of the rear room that filled his words. “Yuh’re not safe here!”
obscured his face, and he didn’t move until the
“Are you?” Donna retorted, turning
door banged against the wall.
abruptly from him.
She opened the front door and felt the
THEN a muttered oath came out of the coolness of the rain against her fevered face.
shadows, and the tall man jerked into sudden, Her mind was a confused battleground of
startled wakeful-ness. From nowhere, it thoughts. Perhaps Bob even had some of the seemed, a six-gun leaped into his hand as he bank money. If the Law came for him and got sat up and whirled to face the door.
it back, the bank ought to be ready to advance Donna gasped. “Bob Wiley!”
part of the loan to her father. There would be a
“Donna!” he exclaimed with equal reward, too.
surprise, lowering the gun sheepishly. “I shore She throttled the thought and flung it
musta been sleepin’ plenty hard. What yuh
from her mind. Bob Wiley was standing in the doin’ here? Who’s with yuh?”
center of the room, watching her. She saw the A sharpness steeled his soft drawl as
slow hardening of his gray eyes.
he asked the questions. Without waiting for an
“I see,” he said. “I sabe, now. Yuh’ve
answer, he brushed the girl aside and took a been to Maravillas.”
long stride into the main room.
Donna
nodded.
“There’s nobody,” Donna said. “Why,
“Yuh believed ’em when they said I
Bob! You’re wounded!”
helped rob a bank?”
She saw the dark, caked stain on his
“What else could I do?” she snapped at
shirt, high at the left shoulder. Then him. “You were shot, running away. Oh ...
remembrance of how he probably had Why did you do it, Bob? Why? Bad company, received the wound came like a blow. I suppose!”
Robbing a bank! He wasn’t the same
The tall man’s laugh was mirthless,
irresponsible, gay cowboy who had made love bitter. He wasn’t handsome in the usual sense to her in the moonlight that drenched the
of the word. Too rugged, too intensely
porch on summer nights at the Singletree. He masculine, with his wide, firm slash of mouth was a criminal, now, wanted and hunted.
and square jaw. More like Rufe King’s type—
She remembered Dane Benson’s the rangy, longhorn strain.
words—“Trouble with him is bad company.”
But Bob was the outlaw breed, Donna
Bob Wiley had joined the wild bunch, and this told herself.
was how the wild bunch always ended up—
“Yeah. I reckon yuh could call it that,
holed up somewhere, waiting for the Law.
Donna,” he was saying. “Nothin’ but bad
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7
company got me into this mess. But that has a bank robber.
nothin’ to do with you. Mebbe if I’d settled
“Listen, darlin’!” he said seriously,
down, things would be different.”
catching her hand and drawing it across his Donna couldn’t answer, did not dare
lips. “Just trust in me for a little while. Then, meet his eyes again.
if yuh still want me to get across the Border,
“Mebbe,” he ventured softly, “you I’ll go. I’ve done nothin’ but roam around coulda loved me.”
since—since yuh told me yuh wouldn’t marry
“You’d better ride for the Border!” she
me. So it won’t matter. But now—well, I told said. “There’s a posse out. The rain will wash yuh it’s not safe here for yuh. If yuh stay, out your tracks if you go now.”
yuh’ve got to do what I say.”
The mirthless laugh again. “I haven’t
She was staying. A sob caught in her
got a hoss, in the first place. In the second throat as she nodded.
place, I’m not goin’. But you are—even if yuh
“Pour that water in the stove,” he
have to walk home. Get movin’!”
ordered. “And get yore gun-belt off the chair.
Is that thirty-eight in workin’ order?”
HER chin came up. Knowing Rufe King, he
“I guess so. It wasn’t in the water long.
read the danger sign blazing in her storm-blue But—but you’re not going to resist, Bob.
eyes.
You’ll only make it worse. Give up, and if
“I’m not leaving you!” she retorted.
you’ve got any of the money, turn it over to
“You’re wounded. Sit down here and let me
them. I’ll make up the rest of it, somehow!”
dress your shoulder.”
Something of the old recklessness
“Yuh’re as stubborn as ever,” he came back to Bob Wiley’s laugh. There was growled. “All right. But there are some things that in her eyes and voice which made him
I’ve got to do, first. Got to drag this saddle sure of himself. He caught Donna in his good and beddin’ into a dark corner, where it won’t arm, and pulled her close. She tried to
be seen.”
remember Dane Benson, but the tall man’s
Donna busied herself at her own task.
lips were bruising her own with a fierceness She found a kettle on the cob-webbed shelf, that was strangely tender.
caught water in it under the eaves, and placed
“Donna, darlin’!” he whispered,
it on the stove. She tore a clean strip from her breaking away. “I asked yuh to trust in me a shirtwaist, and bathed the bullet wound. The little while, not to pay any debts I might be slug had entered from behind, ploughing owin’. I’ve always loved yuh.”
upward, coming out almost on top of his
“I don’t care what you’ve done, Bob,”
shoulder.
Donna heard herself saying. “It’s hopeless,
“It must hurt terribly,” she murmured,
now, I guess. But I love you, too.”
when he winced.
“Things ain’t ever plump hopeless.
“Not when you’re touchin’ it, honey!”
There’s somethin’ I want to tell yuh, Donna, he said. “Donna—yuh do love me a little bit, before—”
don’t yuh? Won’t yuh say yuh do?”
His lean jaw snapped shut. Donna
“A little!” she said lightly, and smiled.
heard it, too. The staccato rise and fall of That was all, she told herself, and yet
horses’ hoofs somewhere down toward the
his bronzed cheek against her arm was a flooded draw, pounding across the limestone caress. She fought against this wonder that she ledges. The Law, Donna thought. This was
should have
known a year ago. Now she was
how the wild bunch always ended up—holed
engaged to another man; now Bob Wiley was
up and waiting.
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The softness was gone out of Bob nearer, Donna wondered how a bank robber Wiley. She had never seen a man so cool and could settle down. The riders crossed the
tense. He lifted a stove lid, doused the little limestone. Their horses were slogging through fire that was left with the water, and watched the mud, now. They came straight to the cabin the smelly steam pour out. Then he stepped
door, and the girl was sure they would hear back and surveyed the half loft.
the loud hammering of her heart.
“They’re comin’, Donna, just like I
“Here, darlin’!” whispered Bob Wiley.
figgered they would. Lucky it’s gettin’ dark in
“Keep this for me. If anything happens to me, here. They won’t notice the dust is disturbed, turn it over to the bank—and tell ‘em that I or that yore slicker’s dripped on the floor.
didn’t steal it. It’s five thousand dollars!”
Climb up into the loft, and lie down!”
She felt the huge roll of greenbacks
The girl balked. “And what will you be
pressed into her hand, and she recoiled as she doing?”
took the money. But his words were a song to
“I’ll go up with yuh!” he promised.
the lilt of her heart! “Tell ’em I didn’t steal
“Hurry, now.”
it!”
Wet saddle leather creaked outside.
THE ladder was rickety and old, and cobwebs The rusty hinges of the door creaked. Spurs brushed her face in the utter darkness that lay were jingling over the threshold. A man swore close under the dripping clapboards. She loudly. It was a strange manner for the posse crawled into a litter of chips and sticks. A to enter a place where their quarry was hiding.
wood rat darted ahead of her.
“Smells wet even in here,” commented
Lying down with her head toward the
the man who had cursed. “Well, we’re jest on edge of the loft, Donna still didn’t understand.
time. It’s dark now in a few minutes.”
It was odd that the posse should have been
Another man grunted, and Donna
able to trail him here, in all the rain. A sudden heard the rustle of cigarette papers. When a hope flashed into her mind. Perhaps her father match flared, she lifted her head as high as she had ridden to meet her and had found the
dared. But the man’s Stetson brim hid his
buckskins still in their harness!
face, and the wavering, distorted shadow cast Bob
Wiley’s
head and shoulders on the wall told her nothing.
loomed over the loft flooring. He grunted with Bob Wiley’s good arm forced her
the pain the climb cost him, and he might have down. The fragrance of tobacco smoke wafted fallen if the girl hadn’t caught his good arm up to the pair in hiding. Donna’s head was
and pulled with all her strength.
whirling as she tried to straighten out the
“This is crazy!” she flared, as he tangle in her mind. There was a mystery here, stretched beside her, panting. “You ought to somewhere.
be getting out of here! You’ve got a saddle. I
“If Pete’s double-crossed us—”
might find one of those horses that was growled one of the men, and left the threat hitched to the buckboard.”
unfinished.
“Honey,” he answered, and his strong
He strode to the door. The other was
white teeth gleamed in a smile, “I’m settlin’
sitting in the cowhide chair, chuckling.
down for fair. I’m through roamin’. I learned
“Pete’s not loco enough to try that!” he
one lesson yesterday, and today I learned declared. “He’ll be here by the time the boss somethin’ a lot more important. That you love shows up. Both of ’em likely held up by the me. I’m settlin’ down!”
water in the draws. We shore picked a swell Listening to the hoofbeats coming spot!”
Riders of the Rain
9
“Well, nobody knew it was goin’ to
with the roaring of Buckhorn’s west prong,
rain like this,” the other man said.
she heard one of the other men talking.
He emptied water from his boots and
Gradually the blurred words cleared, and she stamped into them again with a jingle of spurs.
heard:
His cigarette, only half-smoked, arced through
“—and it worked out fine. Lucky that
the gloom and lay glowing on the floor while hombre was in the bank. His face was the only he rolled another quirly.
one Doane saw. ‘Course, when Pete let Doane Donna was beginning to understand.
have it, it turned out not to make no
This wasn’t the posse, but the other members difference, one way or the other. Doane won’t of the gang. She knew a glad relief. At least, be testifyin’.”
Bob Wiley wasn’t in imminent danger of
“And that was bad business!” grunted
capture.
Dane Benson. “I’m goin’ to have it out with If they left, he stood a good chance of
Pete on that score. There’s just one more job escape.
I’ve got figgered out, and I won’t have any itchy trigger fingers helpin’ on it, if I know it.
IN CONTRAST to her nervous tension, the
The next hombre might not die.”
tall cowboy was lying quietly beside her,
“How’s the silver assay?” the man in
listening. She was thankful for the patter of the cabin door asked.
the slackening rain on the roof, for it drowned Benson lighted a cigarette, and
the sound of their breathing.
laughed as he exhaled smoke.
Bob’s arm muscles tightened.
“It runs plenty. To look at this shack,
“Here comes one of ’em!” the smoker
yuh’d never think it was practically settin’ on was saying. He ground the second cigarette
a million dollar vein, would yuh? That old
under his boot heel, and jingled his spurs to prospector dug everywhere but right under the the door while the other waited only long
cabin. And we’re a cinch to get it. If I can enough to light the wall lamp, and turn it low.
work things right, I can buy this land outright.
Wiley’s lips were at Donna’s ear.
And if I can’t do that, I’ll get it anyway.” He
“Move over against the wall!” he laughed again. “Because the old man won’t whispered.
live always, and I’m goin’ to marry the girl!”
She took advantage of the noise at the
Donna felt the sweep of anger burning
door and obeyed. Now she could see nothing, into her cheeks. She tugged the pearl-handled but she heard the heavy tread of the new
.38 from its wet holster, and might have
arrival, and unintelligible words from him as brought the gun into play if Bob Wiley hadn’t he halted just outside the cabin.
acted when he did.
“Nope, Pete hasn’t showed,” reported
But the tall cowboy had heard all he
the smoker. “And he’s got the dinero! But I needed to hear. Something fell with a crash in reckon he’ll be here any minute.”
the back room. Donna’s tense nerves nearly
“Yuh shore he got away all right?” the
snapped at the sound, then she realized that new arrival asked. “Last I seen of him, he was Bob Wiley had thrown a stick from the wood
cutting south on the main roa
d.”
rat’s nest through the open door.
Donna King’s golden head whirled “What’s that?” Benson snapped, the lazy well dizzily. For the first time in her healthy young being gone from his voice, leaving it strangely life, she felt as if she might faint.
akin to the metallic click of his thumbed-back That voice belonged to Dane Benson!
hammer.
As if far away, so far that it mingled
The cabin shook under his heavy tread.
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The other two men went with him. They anybody’s liable to sell out when he cuts approached the rear door cautiously, crowded hisself in on another man’s deal. Before yuh against it, and peered into the darkness.
go, yuh might have somethin’ to say. Talk
“Rats, mebbe!” said one.
up—and make it fast.”
“We’ll see!” Benson growled,
“Yeah!” There was supreme contempt
scratching a match on the wall.
in the tall cowboy’s drawl. “I want to tell yuh The brilliance grew in his cupped hand. there’s no use lookin’ for Pete Yeager. He’s Donna could see him plainly as he thrust the dead. I had to run out of that bank, Benson, or light through the doorway. The shadows be mistaken for one of yore gang. And don’t leaped and wavered beyond.
forget it was Pete who cut me in on yore
crooked deal. I was just cashin’ a check when SHE was thinking: “Now they’d see the he stepped up behind me and jammed one gun saddle and the bedding roll! Now it would be in my ribs and threw the other one down on
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