by Len Levinson
“No, ma’am.”
“After you cook his breakfast, I want you to wash his clothes, but don’t hang them outside on the line. Hang them someplace upstairs in the attic, where none of the hired hands can see them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Bernice shoveled the eggs and bacon on plates, while Cynthia cut thick slices of bread and laid them on another plate. Bernice arranged the plates and a pot of coffee on a tray, and prepared to pick it up.
“I’ll take it,” Cynthia said.
Cynthia lifted the tray and headed for the stairs. She passed Craig coming from the other direction.
“I’ve got to go to town,” Craig said. “I should be back later this morning.”
They touched lips lightly. Craig wore a gray New York business suit with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He looked like a dude.
“Will you be back in time for lunch?” she asked.
“I think so.”
Cynthia carried the tray up the stairs and down the hall, kicking the door of the guest room with her foot. She heard the rush of water, and a few moments later the door was opened by John Stone, wrapped in a large towel.
“Oh, you were still taking your bath,” Cynthia said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“That’s all right. I was finished.”
“I brought your breakfast.”
She entered the room and placed the tray on the table. John Stone was nearly naked, a towel wrapped around his waist. He had dark blond hair on his chest, arms, and legs.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Is there anything I can get you?”
“I wish I had some clothes.”
“I could lend you some of my husband’s clothes, but I don’t think they’d fit. I told Bernice to wash your clothes, and she’ll hang them in the attic where no one can see. Sit down—your breakfast is getting cold.”
Stone sat on a chair, placed the tray on his lap, and proceeded to dine. Cynthia looked at his big shoulders, the expanse of his chest, and he had bruises everywhere. He wolfed down the food, and she knew she had no legitimate reason to stay in the room, but somehow couldn’t leave.
“Have a seat,” he said.
She dropped to a chair opposite him and felt ill at ease, because she was attracted to him, and she was a married woman.
He could see her discomfort as he poured a cup of coffee. He was nervous too, and tried not to think about how she’d looked in bed last night.
“Has Craig gone to town yet?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “You and I are alone. Well, not really alone. Bernice will be here, and of course our hands will be in the vicinity.’
He drank a half cup of coffee, then rolled a cigarette and lit it. She looked at his round biceps, his prominent pectoral muscles, the sinews of his forearms.
“I think I’d better be going,” she said, getting to her feet. “If you need anything, just walk down the hall and knock on my door.”
She walked out of the room, and Stone blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth. She was beautiful, and Craig was away from the ranch. All he had to do was ... but she was a married woman, and he was practically a married man.
Marie’s picture was on the dresser, and Stone picked it up. He gazed at it and tried to think about Marie, so he wouldn’t think about Cynthia.
Cynthia sat in the chair beside her window, a frown on her face. I practically threw myself at him.
She thought of John Stone half naked, sitting before her in the chair and casually drinking coffee. He’d looked like a beautiful lion, instead of a man.
She’d never known much about men before marrying Craig, but she was learning. Sometimes she had desires that frightened her. She stood and paced the floor, balling and unballing her fists. He was just down the hall, and all she had to do was go down there, knock on his door, and take off her dress. She knew he wouldn’t resist her. She’d seen the lust in his eyes and knew what men were like. They were animals.
She wished Craig would return soon, and realized she shouldn’t have let him go to town without her. What am I going to do now?
Eugene Tregaskis, president of the Dumont Bank, looked up as Craig Delane entered his establishment. Tregaskis, an overweight man with a bald head, put on his best banker’s smile and stepped around the cage, holding out his hand.
“Good morning, Mr. Delane,” he said. “My wife and I missed you at the funeral this morning.”
“What funeral was that?”
“Wayne Dawson’s funeral.”
“Didn’t know anything about it.”
“It was first thing this morning. Guess Hank Dawson didn’t have time to notify you. A lot of people didn’t get notified. There was a rush to get the funeral over with. The climate, you know. What can we do for you today?”
Craig handed him checks and drafts, and Tregaskis invited him back to his office. Delane sat on a chair while Tregaskis transacted the business, and Delane thought of Cynthia and Stone back at the HC Ranch. He felt uneasy about them being together on the second floor of the house, but knew he was being ridiculous. Cynthia was a responsible person, and he could trust her.
Tregaskis handed Craig the receipts. “By the way, I don’t know if you’ve heard it yet or not, but Dawson is offering five hundred dollars for John Stone, dead or alive.”
“What about the law?”
“You’re not in New York now, Mr. Delane. We don’t have much law here.”
Delane walked out of the bank, dismayed that everybody accepted the domination of Hank Dawson as long as he let them make money.
He crossed the street and entered the general store, where Stephen Connor, proprietor, stood behind the counter, and five men sat around a table playing cards.
“I want to buy a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of stockings,” Delane said.
“For yerself?”
“One of my men.”
Connor led Craig to the section where shirts and pants were folded on shelves. Craig selected a red shirt and tan jeans in large sizes for John Stone. Then he picked a pair of black socks out of a barrel. He paid for the garments and walked out of the store, heading for the buckboard.
He noticed a crowd of armed men spilling out of the saloon and onto the sidewalk. From their midst came two cowboys, one tall and one short, walking into the middle of the street. They didn’t look at each other, and their faces were stem as they paced off, turned around, and faced each other, their hands above their guns and legs spread apart.
“Git out of the street!” somebody shouted at Craig.
Craig stepped toward the sidewalk, his eyes fastened on the two men. He’d heard about duels in the main streets of towns, and thought them more myth than reality, but it looked as if that weren’t so.
They went for their guns at the same moment, raised them up, and fired. The street echoed with gunshots, and smoke filled the air. The tall man staggered from side to side, tried to hold his gun steady for another shot, and was shot again by the short man. The impact of the bullet sent him reeling backward, and the holes in his body let out spirals of blood as he fell to the ground.
The short man pushed his gun back into his holster and walked toward the saloon. The bystanders followed, and some patted him on the back. A dead man lay in the middle of the street, as normal morning business traffic resumed.
Craig couldn’t take his eyes off the body. A hand fell on his shoulder, and it was one of his cowboys.
“You all right, Mr. Delane?”
“What was that all about?”
“Probably a whore. That’s what they usually fight over, or maybe somebody got caught cheatin’ at cards.”
A cowboy rode past the corpse, glanced at it, and kept going. Nobody was disturbed that a dead man was lying in the middle of the street. Craig walked toward his buckboard, trying to understand what he’d just seen. It was unthinkable, but it happened. A human life doesn’t mean anything out here.
>
Craig’s men waited for him beside the buckboard, and he climbed into the seat. They unhitched the horses from the rail and accompanied him out of town, heading back to the HC Ranch. Craig looked back and saw the body lying in the same place as a stagecoach rolled past, and the passengers poked their heads out the window, gawking at it.
In the kitchen of the HC Ranch, Bernice stood at the counter sifting flour for bread that she intended to bake. In front of her was a window, and through it she saw Everett Lorch, ramrod of the HC, advancing toward the main house. Bernice rinsed the flour from her hands and smoothed the front of her uniform. The door to the kitchen opened and Lorch stepped inside.
They looked meaningfully at each other. Bernice motioned with her head to the pantry. She walked into the pantry and Lorch followed her, closing the door behind them.
They were alone with cans of fruit and bags of beans. Lorch leaned her against the wall and wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her toward him, kissing her lips. The old spinster sighed as the weather-beaten cowboy pressed his stubbled cheek against hers.
“Rory told me you wanted to see me,” he whispered into her ear.
“You’ll never guess who’s upstairs,” she replied.
“I imagine Mrs. Rich Bitch is up there.”
“And somebody else too.” She looked about conspiratorially. “John Stone.”
He pulled back from her. “Here? How’d he git in?”
“He climbed through one of the upstairs windows last night.”
“Hank Dawson is offerin’ a big reward for him,” Lorch said.
“That’s why I’m telling you. We can split it, but don’t tell anybody I told you.”
Everett Lorch patted her rear end, then walked out of the pantry. He left the house and made his way to the barn, where he saw Curly, one of his hands, pitching hay.
“Curly,” Lorch said, “put yore shirt on. I want you to take a message to Hank Dawson.”
Curly dropped the pitchfork and reached for his shirt, hanging on a peg nearby. Lorch took out his notepad and wrote on a sheet of paper.
JOHN STONE HIDING AT THE HC.
Lorch folded the paper and handed it to Curly, who unfolded it and read it. His jaw dropped open and he looked up at Lorch.
“Don’t say a word,” Lorch said. “Just do what I told you. Make sure you give it to Hank Dawson himself, understand?”
Curly winked, turned around, and walked out of the barn, heading toward the corral. Lorch rolled a cigarette and raised his eyes to the second floor of the main house. John Stone was up there someplace, thinking he was safe. Boy, is he in for a surprise.
John Stone lay on the bed in the guest room, trying to read a two-week-old issue of an El Paso newspaper, but wasn’t able to concentrate. He kept thinking about the beauteous Cynthia Delane down the hall.
He was tempted to knock on her door but forced himself to read about the election they were holding in El Paso. He’d never be able to live with himself if he made love to Cynthia Delane.
He sat up in bed and wished he had clothes to wear. Walking toward the window, he stood to the side and looked outside. A horse and rider were in the distance, heading toward the open range.
He sat on the chair near the window and tried to think of Marie, but he hadn’t seen Marie for years, whereas Cynthia Delane was a few feet away down the hall. He tried to plan what he’d do when he left the HC Ranch, but his thoughts kept returning to Cynthia Delane. He recalled how she’d looked last night as she’d lain in bed with her nightgown above her knees and her breasts nearly exposed. I’ve got to calm down.
Cynthia Delane chewed her thumbnail and sat on the edge of her bed. She’d changed to jeans, a shirt, and cowboy boots because she thought she ought to get out of the house and take a ride.
She couldn’t stay with him any longer. It was driving her mad, and the worst part was she knew she was capable of being unfaithful to her husband. It would be easy, and no one would know. She knew he desired her as much as she desired him. Things like this happen to other people.
She’d heard gossip about women being unfaithful to their husbands, and had always looked down on them, thinking they were tramps and sluts. Now she realized it had little to do with nobility of character, and everything to do with a wild passion that made no sense but urged you onward into the most exquisite hell.
I’ve got to get out of here. She put on her cowboy hat and left her room, walking down the hallway. She passed John Stone’s door and forced herself to keep walking down the stairs and out the front door.
She saw her husband riding his buckboard toward the ranch house, accompanied by three of his cowboys. He waved, jumped down from the buckboard, and walked toward her, carrying his briefcase and the clothes he’d bought for John Stone.
“How’s our guest?”
“Seems to be all right.”
“Have you looked in on him?”
“Earlier.”
He looked into her eyes for the lie, but they were clear and green as always. “Where were you going?”
“For a ride.”
“Maybe I’ll join you later.”
He kissed her cheek, entered the house, left his briefcase in his office, and climbed the stairs to the second floor, knocking on Stone’s door.
Stone thought it was Cynthia, and was afraid to open the door. The knock came again, and he arose from the bed, expecting Cynthia, but instead saw Craig standing in the corridor and holding the clothes he’d bought.
Craig entered the room and dropped the clothes on the bed. “Hope they fit.”
“Any news in town?”
“Hank Dawson is offering five hundred dollars for you, dead or alive. Wayne was buried this morning. Hank Dawson’s gunmen are everywhere.”
“They’ll probably come out here before long.”
“I don’t think so,” Craig said. “They’ll never suspect me.”
Curly sat on his saddle and crouched low as his horse galloped through a grassy swale. The wind stream pushed back the brim of his hat and made his shirt flutter against his chest as he crossed a coulee and descended into a wide basin.
He couldn’t wait to reach the Circle Bar D, because he thought he was entitled to a piece of the five-hundred-dollar reward for reporting the presence of John Stone at the HC Ranch.
His job at the HC Ranch was the strangest he’d ever had. Whoever heard of a ranch without cows, but that’s what the HC was. Mostly he and the others pretended to work in the absence of much real work to do. They reported Craig Delane’s activities to Hank Dawson, and Lorch even went into the office and read private company papers. It was the easiest job he ever had.
His previous employment had been at the Circle Bar D, and he’d gone hunting and whoring with Wayne, but never had much to do with old Hank Dawson. Curly couldn’t wait to see the expression on Hank Dawson’s face when he told him that John Stone was hiding at the HC Ranch.
Curly wondered what Hank Dawson would do to the Delanes for hiding John Stone. He might even burn down the HC Ranch and shoot Craig Delane.
Ahead was a conglomeration of boulders ten feet high. The trail Curly was on led through the middle of them. He sped toward the boulders, wondering how much of the reward he could get.
He saw something flash above him, looked up, and saw an Indian diving toward him from the top of a boulder, and the Indian had a long knife in his hand. Curly let go of his reins and reached for his six-gun. The Indian landed on top of him, plunging the knife into his chest.
Curly screamed as he fell off his horse, and the Indian fell with him, holding onto his shirt with one hand and stabbing him repeatedly with the other.
Curly lay still on the ground, bleeding from holes in his chest. Other Indians came out from behind the boulders where they’d been lurking in ambush. One was mounted, and he rode after Curly’s horse. The others stripped Curly of his weapons, clothes, and boots. Within a minute, Curly was naked on the ground. The Indian who’d killed him grabbed his hai
r with one hand and scalped him.
The Indians gathered Curly’s belongings. One put on Curly’s plaid shirt, covered with blood, and searched through the pockets. In one pocket was a bag of tobacco and some cigarette papers. The other pocket contained a folded sheet of paper.
The Indian unfolded the sheet of paper and looked at the writing on it, but couldn’t read English. Shrugging, he tossed the piece of paper over his shoulder, and the breeze whisked it away.
The Indians carried their booty to their horses and mounted up. Singing a victory song, they rode off to their encampment in the hills.
It was midafternoon, and Hank Dawson sat in his office, drinking a cup of coffee. He had nearly a hundred men searching for John Stone, plus a dozen Indian trackers, and his spies were everywhere, but no one had been able to find him.
Hank Dawson couldn’t work, because he was obsessed with John Stone. Where was he hiding? How had he managed to get away?
Dawson lit a cigar. His mouth tasted bitter and he had a cramp in his stomach. The house still carried the noxious odor of Wayne’s corpse although the maids had scrubbed Wayne’s room and laundered the bedclothes. Dawson believed he’d lose respect if he didn’t kill John Stone. You don’t let somebody shoot your son.
Dawson drummed his fingers on his desk. He’d like to torture John Stone, kill him slowly, maybe even burn him at the stake. Dawson spat into his cuspidor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Where the hell is the son of a bitch?”
In the office of the HC Ranch, Craig and Cynthia could hear Stone pacing back and forth above them. Stone’s footsteps made the ceiling creak as he went from one side of his room to the other. Craig raised his head and looked at the ceiling, then returned to his accounting.
Cynthia was trying to concentrate on the letter she was writing to her mother, but all she could think about was John Stone. She was telling her mother that everything was all right at the HC Ranch, when in fact everything wasn’t all right. They were hiding a wanted man upstairs, and Cynthia was in love or lust with him, she didn’t know which.
“You look distraught,” Craig said, “if you don’t mind me saying so.”