Dugan put the cigarette between his lips and drew on it slowly before he spoke. “Wait till the old man gets back,” he said, “and I’ll ride down with you myself. You shouldn’t be alone up here anyway.”
Rosa Jean started to frown, but realized just as quickly that this was a trap. She was not supposed to know the old man would not be coming back. She lifted her eyes to Dugan’s face, the anxiety in them not unfitting. “But if the wolves are dangerous, and Grandpa’s out there, how do you know they haven’t gotten him?”
Dugan’s white teeth flashed a peculiar smile in his dark face. “I expect they’re so used to him maundering around, they won’t bother.”
He slid around to lean against the table, and pinched ash from his cigarette so it fell on the floor. “You know anything about a fellow called Burnett?” he said casually.
Rosa Jean never knew how she survived the suffocating thud and rush of blood into her ears, but somehow she clutched at composure and held on.
“Bur-nett?” she repeated, tilting her head and trying to sound quizzical. She gave a quick swallow before going on. “I don’t know. Is he a miner? My pa might know him; he knows just about everybody in the Gulch.”
“No,” said Dugan. “Calls himself a mustanger. From what I hear, he’s only been around a few months.” He spoke in a meditative, deliberate way, as if he had carefully gathered and considered his information already. “Youngish… doesn’t come from these parts. Seems to have been up here kind of a lot.”
“Most everybody who comes up in these mountains stops at Grandpa’s,” said Rosa Jean, as if Grandpa’s granddaughter was rather proud of the fact.
“Yeah,” said Dugan, “but usually not so noticeable that Grandpa remembers them.”
He was looking straight at her now, making no attempt to hide his interest in her response. What could he know? She had not trembled when she feared for herself, but she was having a hard time keeping calm now. For she knew where this talk was tending—Quincy Burnett knew too much, as her brother had once known too much—as Dugan had decided Sullivan knew too much.
That was why he was here. He knew Quincy would come back.
Rosa Jean twisted cold fingers in her lap and tried to shake her pigtails unconcernedly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him,” she said.
Ralph Dugan was smiling a little. One side of his mouth twitched back a little more at her answer. “Never?”
All the times she had ever seen him, the way he smiled and the way he walked, the way his curly hair looked in the sunlight when he took his hat off—oh, Quincy, Quincy, it’s too late now—all the times he had ever looked at her and all the times she had been near him, all poured through Rosa Jean’s mind, but she shook her head—it was meant to be careless, but it was a stiff little jerk. “No.”
She made the mistake of lifting her eyes to her tormentor. He was smiling. He was like a wolf—a dark wolf, with gleaming, intelligent eyes and a dangerous smile.
Fear was a hot streak up and down her spine. She had to do something to pull herself back into character, or she was lost. There was only her and Dugan and the basket on the table between them. The basket—her last chance, if she could only pretend long enough to reach it. Rosa Jean got up from her chair, trying to put a younger girl’s bounce in her step, and unfolded the napkin from over the jars and pie. She heard and sensed Dugan slide off the table, and all at once he was there beside her. Rosa Jean’s quick intake of breath almost choked her—her fingers clutched inside the basket and tangled in the checked napkin. She half turned toward him—before she could do anything Dugan put out one hand and hooked the braid on the left side of her face back with his thumb; he reached around and pulled both pigtails behind her, tipping her head back so her face was tilted up toward his. He studied her face, and a slow smile of satisfaction spread over his.
“You’re no kid,” he said. His eyes lingered insolently on hers as if to savor the amusement of his next words. “Burnett hasn’t done bad.”
Rosa Jean tried to widen her eyes in a look of innocence, but the betraying color rushed hot into her face, flooding up to her forehead. Dugan laughed. He pulled her closer to him—Rosa Jean stiffened and struggled, pulling back both with revulsion and an even more horrible sense of how alive and near and darkly handsome he was. She tried to turn her face to one side, but he twisted her braids in his hand and forced her head back, his mouth coming close to hers—
Rosa Jean said, with the little breath that was left her, “You killed my brother.”
Dugan let go of her sharply, startled, and Rosa Jean twisted out of his arms and fell two steps backward. For one moment she stood free; for that moment her anger flared brighter than her fear, and though she knew it was dangerous, she had to speak.
“Bruce Kennedy,” she said. “You cheated him, and then you shot him down in cold blood. I saw you do it. And I’ve been waiting all this time to make you pay for it. I came up here to find you.”
Thunder rattled tensely overhead. Dugan’s face had darkened with anger, but it steadied into an even more menacing satisfaction. “Well, you only did me a favor, then,” he said, and started for her.
It was all wrong. She had spit the words in his face as she had dreamed so long and bitterly of doing—but the advantage was his; treachery was going to win out after all, and swallow her with it.
Rosa Jean spun and ran for the door. She almost reached it, but Dugan’s hand grabbed her shoulder and jerked her around—she screamed, too desperate for anything else, and he clamped his other hand over her mouth, slamming her head back against the wall so hard that she thought the thunder was something in her own head. This was the end—she was all alone here—even the thunder was an enemy to drown her screams. She struggled, but he pressed her against the wall so hard she felt suffocated—and then the wood of door and wall splintered just inches from her head as the latch tore loose and the flimsy door burst inward. Quincy Burnett was in the doorway, panting and wild-eyed, his face wet and rain dripping from the brim of his hat and his gun already in his hand.
Dugan saw it all in a second and took two backwards strides across the room, dragging Rosa Jean in front of him as a shield. Rosa Jean, after one frantic glance over her shoulder at Quincy, tried to pull aside and leave the field of fire open. Quincy yelled, “Don’t be a damn fool, Dugan, put ‘em up!”
Dugan pulled Rosa Jean back in front of him—it was his right hand that gripped her wrist—and in the second she was between them he let go and reached for his gun. Rosa Jean stumbled against the table and then fell as it went over with a crash, scattering the contents of her basket across the floor, and Dugan’s gun came up from the holster and exploded into fire. But Quincy was already firing; he dropped to one knee and fanned the shots one after another. Dugan’s shoulders slammed into the wall in the corner and he slid down, his gun still firing until the barrel tipped downward and the last shot went into the floor. He slumped down in the corner and lay still.
The silence was like an explosion itself in its suddenness. Overhead, the muttering thunder trailed off, sounding tame after the savagery of the gunshots in the narrow cabin.
IX.
Quincy let out a gasp, as if he had been holding his breath for hours. He staggered to his feet and dropped his gun into its holster, and then he bent and lifted Rosa Jean from the floor and wrapped his arms around her, held her close against his chest. “You little—idiot!” he said violently.
He held her tight for a moment; the feeling of her slender form against him was like holding some delicate wild thing in his arms. Rosa Jean lifted her head, dark uncomprehending eyes looking up at him from a white face—and then her head tipped back and she sank down limp in his arms. Quincy gave a dismayed exclamation—he shifted his hold on her, trying to lift her up, and his hand came away from her side wet and streaked red. There was a soaked dark patch on her blouse low on her right side, just above her hip. His heart thudding sickeningly in his throat, Quincy slipped an arm beneath her knees
and gathered her up in his arms like a child, carried her to the bunk and laid her on the ragged quilt. One of those last convulsive shots from Dugan’s gun must have gone wild—she had not been in the way of the first shots they exchanged.
He looked frantically about for something to stem the bleeding. His fingers went to the bandana knotted around his own neck; it was wet and dirty. Rosa Jean’s upturned basket lay in the middle of the floor, the smashed remains of pie and trickles of spilled preserves around it—Quincy’s boots crunched on glass from one of the broken jars as he bent and snatched up the clean white napkin. The faded red kerchief had half slid from Rosa Jean’s head; he freed it and hastily wadded it up to press against the wound. He tore the napkin into strips with his teeth and wound them around her waist to hold the makeshift bandage in place.
Rosa Jean turned her head slightly and made a very faint, soft sound. Quincy looked down at her and saw that her eyes were open—very big and dark as she stared up at him. “What…happened?” she said.
“It’s over,” said Quincy, “it’s all over. Dugan’s dead.”
Rosa Jean formed the words slowly, as if from far away. “Am I hurt bad?”
He was terribly afraid, but somehow controlled himself so it did not show. “I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart. I’m going to take you down to Joyman’s and let Ma look after you. You’ll be fine.”
“He killed… Sullivan, too,” whispered Rosa Jean. “Before I came. He knew.”
“The old man?” Quincy still spoke quietly. “Where is he—do you know?”
“In the—the woodbox.”
Quincy gave her a quick startled look, but saw the words were lucid. He left the bunk and went to investigate for a moment, and came back looking a little grimmer. “All right,” he said, as he knelt down beside the bunk, “I’m going to lift you, sweetheart; I’ll try not to hurt you too much.”
“Pheasant,” said Rosa Jean anxiously, her breathing coming quicker, turning her head to one side, “don’t leave Pheasant here… there’s wolves… don’t let the wolves get him.”
“I won’t. I’ll take him down with us, don’t worry.” Rosa Jean’s horse would be easier to handle now than the winded mustang he had ridden up. Quincy rose to his feet, and touched her shoulder gently. “Lie still just one minute—I’ll be right back.”
He went out into the rain and ran around the pole corral. Rosa Jean’s gray, Sullivan’s mule, and another horse that must be Dugan’s were huddled in the lean-to. Quincy led Pheasant out, and after a second’s thought left the bars down on the corral—if there were wolves about, might as well give the mule and the other horse a chance to run for it. He led the gray around front, stopped to unstrap his rain slicker from his own horse and snubbed the mustang’s reins to Pheasant’s saddle horn, and went back inside.
“All right, honey,” he murmured again as he bent over her, “won’t be long now… easy.”
Rosa Jean gave a little moan and clutched at him as he slipped his arm under her shoulders and lifted her. He wrapped the rain slicker around her and lifted her in his arms as gently as he could. As he turned from the bunk he cast one more glance back at Dugan’s body on the floor in the corner, and the woodbox with its grim secret—and then he carried her out into the night, ducking his head under the low door.
It was not easy to mount with Rosa Jean in his arms, but with Pheasant standing below the sharp slope from the shack, he managed it. He was hardly in the saddle when a wolf’s howl rose loud from somewhere close by and both horses jumped. Quincy steadied Pheasant with the reins and spoke to them in low tones, meaningless words, while his mind was occupied with a pithy and fervent prayer that the wolves would mind their own business tonight. He had two horses to handle and Rosa Jean weak and bleeding in his arms, and that was about all he could manage—Providence would just have to take care of the wolves.
He turned Pheasant down over the brow of the slope. The wind roared uneasily and every once in a while the thunder boomed again; the horses’ feet scrabbled on the wet trail. Quincy had no sense of time or distance; all he could see was the gray’s ears and wet mane in front of him—the only thing that held any meaning to him was Rosa Jean huddled still and soundless against him. In the darkness he could not see her face, could discern no reassuring heartbeat or breathing. But it must be there. She had to be all right.
God, don’t let it be too late. Don’t let me lose her now.
The night was endless. Quincy paced the dirt floor of the Joymans’ cabin, or sat miserably in a corner with his head in his hands. Shut out by the quilt-hung bedroom door, he was helpless and useless now. Pa Joyman and his sons sat and watched him and fished for something to say, and not finding it, gave up the effort.
But morning came at last, brilliant with sunlight streaking the rain-washed canyon walls and lighting the quivering drops of water that strung the pines like crystal. And with it came wispy little Ma Joyman from the bedroom, placidly assuring him that Rosa Jean would “do just fine now.” For Quincy, hearing it through a haze of relief and weariness, the golden blaze of that sunrise and the heavenly figure of the wrinkled little woman in calico dress and apron coming through it to bring him the good tidings were ever afterwards inextricably mixed in his mind.
For the rest of that day and night they would not let him see her. Ma Joyman, in a more earthly form by now, declared that Rosa Jean needed to sleep and that Quincy would be more aggravating than any fever. Quincy stood out until the next morning, and then finally wheedled Ma into letting him into the bedroom for a few moments. He pushed under the hanging quilt cautiously, half afraid of what he would find. But Rosa Jean turned toward him a face that was little changed, though pale with its framing of loose dark braids as she lay back on the pillow. When Quincy knelt down beside the bed she lifted her hand a little, and he took it and held it as tightly as he dared. He could not think of anything to say, and so in the end he fumbled for a repetition of their last meeting.
“You—blame little idiot,” he said, his voice both shaken and tender.
Rosa Jean smiled, a remarkably beautiful smile to be called up by that greeting. Quincy managed a short laugh, relieved and unutterably happy, and simply looked at her for a moment, alive to the feeling of her hand securely and unreservedly in his own for the first time.
“Stubborn,” he said. “Just plain stubborn. That’s why you did it, wasn’t it?”
“Mostly,” said Rosa Jean, with a flicker of mischief flitting through her smile. Then it faded. “But… it wasn’t the only reason, Quincy, if you can believe that.”
“Try me,” he said gently.
Her dark eyes lifted to his face with a kind of appeal. “I had this feeling that—that only my going could set things right. Bruce was all I had, and I was all he had. And he was murdered, and no one else cared enough about it to speak up for him, or try to see his murderer caught. It seemed so unjust. I wanted to do something to set it right. If no one would arrest Dugan for murder, I… I at least wanted it to be something of my doing that brought him down in the end… that if I could bring it about, Bruce wouldn’t have died for nothing.”
“I think I understand,” said Quincy, after a few seconds’ silence. “But you know, Rosa Jean, I could have helped you. If you’d only told me like that before, I’d have understood. I could have given you the chance to feel you’d set someone on the trail to find him, without you having to risk yourself like that.”
“I know that… now,” said Rosa Jean. “But I’d grown so used to people not caring about anything but themselves. I couldn’t help but look at you that way, even though in my heart I wanted to believe you were different.”
She looked down at her hand, which still lay in his. “When I found that poster—and realized you’d been holding out on me—I’d only just begun to trust you a little. That hurt.”
“It was only because I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought you didn’t like to talk about it.”
“I didn’t. But it would have
been better to just tell me the truth.”
Quincy began to laugh. “As I recall, there were times when you didn’t exactly fancy the truth either.”
“There is a difference between being told the truth and being beaten over the head with it,” said Rosa Jean, with a momentary return of her old tartness.
“Fair enough,” said Quincy, grinning. “I know. I didn’t go about it in the best way to win favor, that’s for sure.”
His face clouded for a moment. “What happened to the old man was my fault, too. I didn’t think far enough. I was sure he was too muddle-headed to really understand anything I asked him, but I never thought about what might happen if he repeated any of it, even not understanding it.”
There was a pause. Then Quincy added, “I sent Charlie and Wirt to fetch Dugan’s and the old man’s bodies down to the Gulch, and tell the sheriff what happened. He didn’t believe their story—can’t say I blame him much—and he clapped them both in jail. He sent a deputy up yesterday to find me and get my side of it, and I put him straight. The sheriff’s going to let them go, and I’m going to let them have half of the reward for Dugan—and I hope to goodness they make something worthwhile out of it.”
“They won’t,” said Rosa Jean resignedly. “It’s not in their nature to keep money in their pockets for long, however they get it.”
“That’s what I half figured,” said Quincy. “Oh, well, I tried, anyway. I owe ‘em something over all this. At any rate,” he added more seriously, “I mean to make good use out of my share.”
He added, “You’ll come away with me now, won’t you, Rosa Jean? There’s nothing more to keep you here. Dugan’s gone… your brother’s gone… it’s all finished.” He watched her face, over which a slight shadow had fallen, and gently caressed her fingers with his other hand. “Will you come?”
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