All the time she screamed at Johnny, Tilda-Mae was backing away and keeping a wary eye on Mark. She saw the anger in his eyes as he started towards her, so spun on her heel and went afork her horse with a lithe bound. Her final threat
to Jaya came as she sent the horse running up the bush-covered slope down which she came on her arrival.
Not until the sound of the horse's hooves had died away did either man make a move. Johnny let out his breath in a long, hissing sigh and turned on his heel towards the house. The only thing he could do was go in, explain things to Jaya and hope she believed him. Before he could take three steps, Johnny felt a hand clamp on his arm and pull him around. He could never remember seeing Mark so angry as the big blond appeared to be at the moment.
"Why didn't you mention the gal?" Mark snapped.
"Why should I?" Johnny replied. "Hell, I didn't but meet her a couple or so times last time I was up here. We had some loving, not much, I like mine washed and not smelling like a Kiowa wickiup. You saw how she looked at you, that gal's plumb man-hungry. Anyways, one day she came over and told me she wouldn't be seeing me again as she was marrying up with a travelling salesman who was working the county. I never even mentioned marrying her, and right after that I came back to the O.D. Connected. But I never said, or even gave Tilda-Mae cause to reckon I'd marry her."
"Didn't, huh?"
"No, I damn well didn't!" Johnny answered, his temper and voice rising. "What the hell is it to you? Reckon it'll give you a better in with Jaya?"
Mark looked at Johnny for a moment. Then he made a reply which he hoped would show his amigo that he (Mark) had no designs on Jaya, and doubted if she would give a damn even if he did have.
"1 don't need a chance with Jaya," was what Mark said.
Then Johnny hit him.
Taken anyway a man looked at it, except on the receiving end, Johnny could throw a good punch. His right arm whipped around, he ducked his shoulder behind the punch and drove his knuckles against the side of Mark's jaw. Mark spun around and only with an effort did he manage to keep his feet.
Coming in, Johnny ripped his left fist into Mark's stomach and smashed up the right at Mark's jaw, for he
packed enough muscle and heft to fold Mark with the first blow.
The blow sent Mark backwards but did not put him down. Only just in time he caught his balance and clenched his fists for Johnny was coming at him again.
"Jaya's a good kid!" Johnny spat, closing with Mark. "I'm going to make sure you stay away from her."
He threw his right at Mark's head, but this time Mark was ready. Up came Mark's left, his wrist deflecting the right past his head. Then Mark drove out his right, smashing it into Johnny's mouth and knocking him backwards. Johnny hit the dining-room table, which fortunately had been stoutly built. Instead of it crumpling under Johnny's weight, the table took it and Johnny went straight over.
"It's time you woke up!" Mark growled, coming forward. "Jaya isn't—"
With a snarl of rage, Johnny came to his feet and threw the table over in his eagerness to get at Mark. There was no avoiding a fight. Mark knew it. He also knew he would not have an easy time fighting Johnny, the cowhand was almost as big and strong as Mark and had learned many of Mark's fighting tricks during their friendship.
Mark snapped Johnny's head back with a right hand, stopping him in his tracks. Instantly Johnny's left flashed out like a diamond-back rattlesnake striking. The knuckles caught Mark in the mouth and Mark felt the salty taste of blood on his soft palate. He saw how Johnny stood, perfectly balanced, his left held out maybe just a little low, but his right cocked in front of his shoulder the way Mark had taught him.
"You're learning, Johnny," Mark said.
Feinting with his right, Johnny threw another left, but Mark moved his head far enough to let the blow slip over his shoulder. Johnny brought the stiff edge of his arm against the side of Mark's neck, knocking him off balance and then slugged his left into Mark's ribs bringing a grunt of pain. Shooting out his right, Mark drove it hard into Johnny's stomach, ripped a left after it and hooked a short left viciously to the side of Johnny's jaw. The force of the blow dropped Johnny to his knees.
Even as Mark moved in, Johnny flung himself forward, tackling the big blond around the knees and ramming him backwards. Mark felt himself going down and as Johnny lunged forward hooked his feet under the other's belly and heaved. Looking as if he had taken wings, Johnny sailed through the air to land on his back. He rolled over and came up fast, reaching his feet as soon as Mark did.
Once more Mark moved into the attack, wanting to keep Johnny away from the furniture. Sure Johnny wanted a fight, but that did not mean they should wreck his home having it.
The two men closed, fists stabbing out, ripping into each other. Mark took a savage hook to the floating ribs and went down to his knees. Up lashed Johnny's knee, driving under Mark's chin and throwing him on to his back. Johnny leapt up into the air, meaning to land on Mark with his knees. Too late he saw Mark roll, he missed but managed to break his fall. Without rising, Mark flung himself on to Johnny and they rolled over and over, fists thudding into flesh. Breaking apart, they rolled away from each other and made their feet once more.
Driving out his fist, Mark crashed it into the side of Johnny's head and Johnny went down. Instead of attacking immediately, Mark stood back and allowed Johnny to make his feet. They were both breathing hard, blood ran from Mark's mouth and Johnny's nose seemed to be twice its normal size. Yet Johnny still was not done. When Mark moved in, Johnny caught him with a left jab which landed under his eyes, then closed with a two-fisted, slugging attack. Mark fought back, for almost five minutes they slugged it out like that. Then Johnny twisted around, getting his arms under Mark's armpits from behind, curling them around to clamp fingers behind Mark's neck.
They were locked in a struggle of strength, Johnny applying pressure with his full nelson and Mark fighting it off. Mark tried to twist free, turn and catch Johnny in the same hold. Both his body and Johnny's arms were soaked with sweat and coated with dust, so he could not escape that way.
The pain of the hold was intense. Drawing forward his
stomach, Mark suddenly jerked it back again. His rump drove into Johnny's body and Johnny lost his hold, shooting back and doubling over. Turning, Mark drove up his left, the knuckles smashing into Johnny's jaw. The force of the blow lifted Johnny to his heels and tilted him over-backwards to land in a cloud of dust on the ground.
Moving forward Mark dropped astride Johnny, kneeling on him. Desperately Johnny arched his back, trying to lift and roll Mark. It appeared that Johnny was not ready to listen to reason yet. Mark cocked his fist, drawing it back, his eyes, or his good eye, for his right eye had started to swell up and close, aiming at the point of Johnny's chin.
Something crashed against Mark's head. He heard a dull clang and he pitched sideways from Johnny to land on his face. Mark lifted his head; through the spinning mists and whirling lights, he saw Jaya, a furious-faced Jaya, standing above them, holding a shovel in her hands.
"Th—thanks—h—honey!" Johnny gasped and sat up.
The shovel came around and down as Johnny reached for Mark. It clanged on Johnny's head and he landed flat on his back again.
"Keep still!" she hissed and the concentrated fury in her voice, as much as the blow, made both men obey. "What were you fighting over, who should have me and who should take the other girl?"
Neither man made any reply. Their fight, and her intervention, had left them in no condition to make flip answers, or any other kind.
"What do you think I am, Johnny Wade?" Jaya went on, her voice throbbing with emotion. "Am I just your property? Do you think I did not know that bill of sale was worthless? I saw you were a good man in the saloon. No other man had ever bothered about me enough to get me a chair. I wanted you to win me and when you did I could have cried. I hoped you would bring me with you, that I could make you care for me, marry me. I was willing to work for you,
to live or die for you. Now I find you have another woman. I hate you! I never want to see you again!"
Throwing down the shovel, Jaya turned and ran blindly towards the house. She disappeared inside, slamming the
door behind her. Gasping for breath, Johnny weakly forced himself to his feet. He opened his mouth to call after Jaya, but left it too late.
"Boy, we sure loused that up."
Mark's words brought Johnny around to face him. The big blond stood rubbing his aching head which had a sizeable bump that had not been present when he rose that morning.
"You've sure put me in wrong now," Johnny growled back.
"MeT'
"Yeah, you. If you hadn't been sweet-talking Jaya all the way up here I'd've told her how I felt about her."
"The hell you would," Mark answered. "You shied away from her like a horse fresh caught on the range every damned time she tried to get close to you. So I figured to show you what you was missing."
"You sure showed me," Johnny groaned. "Of all the lousy luck. I act about as dumb as a man can get—and then that man-hungry she-cat from the hills rides in and busts everything to hell and gone. I'm going to the house. Jaya'll listen to me, let me explain."
"Not the way she feels right now," Mark drawled.
"She'll list—!" Johnny began and turned.
Mark's right fist drove out, smashing into the side of Johnny's jaw with the power of a knobhead's kick. The blow took Johnny completely by surprise, it flung him from his feet and flat on to his back. This time Johnny would not be getting up. At least not for a spell. Mark hoped he would have time to do what needed doing before Johnny did get up.
"Sorry, amigo? he said. "It's the only way."
Walking to the horse-trough, Mark pumped water over his head, clearing the dizziness out of it. He would need a clear head if he hoped to pull Johnny and Jaya out of their tangle. After sluicing his bruised, aching body, Mark walked to the house and entered.
He heard Jaya's sobs from the bedroom and went to its door. Inside the girl stood at the bed, thrusting her clothes into the bag, but leaving the items Johnny bought her, including the hat, on the end of the bed.
"I'll take you into Brownsville if you like," he said.
"I'll walk," she replied without turning around.
"If that's the way you want it," Mark drawled. "1 reckon you're doing the right thing, leaving Johnny. See the way he's been acting over you when you dressed up and danced for him, and other times. Hell, he's been acting like a man in love with a gal, instead of his old self. Just shows how deceitful he is."
No reply. The sobs had ended and Jaya no longer forced her clothes into the bag, but she did not turn.
"He's a worthless cuss at best," Mark went on. "And a hell of a liar. Why he told me that gal used to chase him last time he was up here, but that she took out to marry some other feller, not that Johnny ever wanted to marry up with her any old way. Fact being, old Johnny reckons he never wanted to marry up at all until he met you. But like I say, he's a li—"
Swinging around, Jaya flung herself at Mark, pushing him backwards.
"Where is Johnny?" she asked.
"Knowed you wouldn't want him bothering you," Mark replied. "So I left him lying out there with a busted jaw."
"You brute!" she screamed and dashed from the room.
"Johnny boy," Mark said quietly. "Happen you've come round, just use your fool head for once with that gal and she's yours."
By the time Mark left the house, Jaya had reached Johnny and knelt by him, pillowing his head in her lap.
"Johnny!" she gasped. "Speak to me! I love you! I will not leave you!"
Picking up a bucket, Mark filled it with water from the horse-trough. There was no use Jaya spilling her heart out to Johnny unless he happened to be able to hear and appreciate it.
"You big bullying brute!" Jaya spat as Mark came up.
He barely had time to set down the bucket before she landed on him with little fists swinging. After catching a couple of blows on the chest, Mark managed to grab the girl's arms and hold them. He twisted his body and caught a kick on the hip, then saw Johnny, behind the girl's back, raising his head and grinning.
For once it seemed Johnny had used his head around the girl.
Giving out a heart-rending groan, Johnny let his head flop back again. Jaya tore herself free from Mark's hands, forgot all about him, flung herself back to Johnny. Lifting his head and shoulders, she cradled them in her arms and kissed his battered face.
Johnny slid his arms around the girl and kissed back. For a long moment they stayed locked in each other's arms. At last they separated to catch their breath.
"Johnny," Jaya breathed. "I love you!"
"Jaya gal," he replied, "not as much as I love you."
"Yes I do!"
"We're getting married, even if I have to whup ole Mark to—"
Jaya ended the threat with a kiss, then said, "Mark never meant anything to me. Nor I to him. He acted as he did to make you jealous, so you would notice me as a woman."
For a moment Johnny did not reply. Although every muscle and fibre of his body ached, he could hardly see through his right eye and his nose felt twice its normal size, Johnny had never felt so happy in his life. Nothing else mattered except that Jaya loved him.
"Reckon old Mark did just that," he said.
Then they were locked in each other's arms once more and Johnny could hardly force himself to wait until they could find a preacher and get married. With any other girl he would not even have tried to resist.
"Where's Mark?" he asked, easing himself free from her arms.
"I don't know," Jaya replied in a tone which implied she did not care either. "Oh Johnny, you're hurt!"
"I asked for it," he grinned, getting to his feet and helping her rise, then feeling at the knot she had raised on his head with the shovel. "Don't know as how I'd want to marry a gal that handy with a shovel—unless she knew how to dance in a HI bitty grass skirt."
"You wait until our marriage night," she answered. "Then I will show you how the maidens really do it—where are you going?"
"To find a preacher," he grinned.
"I help you," she said eagerly, taking his hand.
Instead of looking for a preacher, they walked to where
Mark sat on the anvil in the forge. He turned towards them and showed simulated surprise when Johnny told him of the impending marriage.
"I'd have never expected it," he grinned.
"We want you to be best man," Jaya said, squeezing Johnny's hand in a gentle warning that he had best agree.
"Sure we do," Johnny agreed whole-heartedly. "I know that's the only part you ever want to play in a wedding ceremony."
"Do I get to kiss the bride without having a fight on my hands?" Mark asked.
"That depends," Johnny grinned.
"On what?"
"How long after the wedding it is when you kiss her."
Jaya looked from one man to the other. They were the first two men who had treated her decently, cared for her and showed her respect. She almost wished she had not been so free with the shovel head when they were fighting.
A flash of light flickered up on the slope above them. Just a brief flick and then it disappeared. Mark only saw it from the corner of his eye, but his brain sent out a warning.
"Duck it!" he yelled, shoving Jaya into Johnny and staggering them to one side.
His move came only just in time. A bullet hissed down from the slope, but not from where Mark had seen the reflection of the sun on some part of a weapon. Even as the crack of the shot reached their ears, Johnny had Jaya in safety, between him and the wall of the forge.
Two more shots, from different spots, came down. One struck the top of the anvil as Mark dropped behind it, then ripped off in the vicious whine of a ricochet. The other struck the top of the forge throwing brick chips into the air.
"Wade! Johnny Wade!" yelled a voice. "You come on out here and take your needings."
"Who is it?" Mark asked, looking at the wagon in front of the house and wishing either he was there with his guns, or they were here with him.
"Sounds like Big Tup," Johnny replied. "Tilda-Mae's oldest brother."
That figured, happen a man knew hill-folks and Mark
reckoned he did. The girl had returned home with word of the affront to her person, and all her male kin took down their rifles to avenge her. Only it should be the head of the clan who did the talking.
Watching the slope, Mark had three men spotted, the three who had fired at them. One lay up just on the rim, not far from where a dried-out water-course ran up the slope. The second appeared to be denned up between a couple of rocks out on the rim to the first's right. From the flash and smoke, Mark figured the third man further to the right, down behind that big old chestnut tree. The speaker had been still further along.
"How many are there in the family?" Mark asked.
"Four boys and Tilda-Mae," Johnny replied, feeling the girl's warm body writhing at his side. "Their mammy died just after Tilda-Mae was born, pappy got killed hunting a silvertip grizzly a couple of years back."
"What do they want, Johnny?" Jaya asked.
"Nothing much, honey," he lied.
"Wade!" yelled the voice again. "Talk up. Air ye ready to do the right by our lil Tilda-Mae gal?"
"Come on down and talk it out, Tup!" Johnny called back.
"There ain't no talking out to do. You marry our lil sister, or we plant you out back of the house."
"Johnny," Jaya said, looking up at him. "Did you ever tell the girl you would marry her?"
"No, honey. Honest, I never did."
"That is all I wanted to know."
Saying that, Jaya pushed past him, wriggling free and darting across the forge. Johnny sprang forward, three bullets cut the air around him and he flattened down again. The girl ran out towards the slope and from it burst Tilda-Mae on the shaggy mountain scrub horse.
Once more Johnny came to his feet, a fourth shot came down and ripped across his shoulder, tearing through flesh, but luckily not striking bone. The wound, on top of the fight he had fought, proved too much for Johnny and he dropped to the ground.
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