The Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  And we made it, in that walk-canter-gallop system of march that Pappy had developed, traveling only at night and going to elaborate pains to cover our trail. We came to the wild-looking hill country, bristling with pine and spruce and hostile Indians—a place where not even the government agents dared to go without military escort. And not often then.

  We found a natural cave about ten miles from the border, and Pappy said that was good enough. There was plenty of wild game to keep us eating, and water in a small stream for us and the horses.

  I remember the day we rode into the place. Pappy stood in the mouth of the cave, grinning pleasantly, not bothered at all at the possibility of having to stay here for months before we dared venture out into civilization again.

  “Well, son,” he said, “this is going to be our home for a spell. We might as well settle down to getting comfortable.”

  I felt an emptiness inside me. A kind of hopelessness. I felt as if I had cut away the very last remaining tie to the kind of life I had known before. This was living like an animal, killing instinctively like an animal.

  I tried to keep the sickness out of my voice as I said:

  “Sure, Pappy. This is our home.”

  That was spring, in June, and it wasn't so bad at first. We made friends with some of the Osages. They were on our side the minute they learned that we were enemies of the white man's government. Sometimes they would bring us pieces of government issue beef, but not often, because the government didn't give them enough to stay their own hunger. Mostly, Pappy and I lived on rabbits that we trapped, or sometimes shot. Occasionally the Osages would bring us a handful of corn, and we would parch it over a fire and then grind it up and make a kind of coffee. Once in a great while, an Indian would overhear snatches of conversation about the white man's world and would relay the information to us.

  It was in August, I remember, when we first heard that Davis was no longer the governor of Texas. But that didn't solve all my problems as cleanly as I had once thought it would.

  Pappy said, “Now don't try to rush things, son. It's going to take time to get the army out of Texas, even if Davis isn't governor any longer. And don't forget the Texas Rangers; they'll be taking the army's place. And the United States marshals...” Then he looked at me with those sad, sober eyes of his, and I knew the worst was yet to come.

  He said slowly, “It won't ever be the same as it was before, son. They won't be forgetting that bluebelly cavalryman you killed, especially the government marshals.”

  I felt that old familiar sickness in the pit of my stomach.

  Pappy said, “Forget about this John's City place, son. You won't ever be able to go back there again. We'll head for the New Mexico country, or maybe Arizona, where nobody knows us.” He laughed abruptly. “Who knows, maybe we'll turn out to be honest, hard-working citizens.”

  But he knew what I was thinking. And he said, “Forget about the girl, too, son. It will be the best for both of you.”

  I knew Pappy was right. I could look ahead and see how things would be from now on. But I couldn't forget Laurin. She was a part of me that I couldn't put away. Then Pappy's words hit me and I saw a new hope. We'll head for the New Mexico country, Pappy had said. Why couldn't Laurin go with us? If she loved me, if she believed in me, she would do that. I'd change my name and we could homestead a place in New Mexico. We could live like other people there....

  Pappy was looking at me with those eyes that seemed to know everything. “Forget about her, son. Women just don't take men like us.”

  For a moment, I wondered if Pappy was speaking from experience. But that thought soon passed from my mind. The idea of Pappy ever being in love was too ridiculous to consider seriously. Besides, I couldn't forget Laurin any more than I could forget that I had a right arm. She was a part of me. She would always be a part of me.

  And I suppose that Pappy saw how it was, and he didn't try to change my mind again.

  But he insisted that we stay in our cave until the last of the cattle drives were made in the fall. By then, he said, the army should be out of Texas. If I was bound to go back to John's City, he said, winter would be the best time.

  Chapter 11

  SO that was the way it was, because I had learned by this time that it didn't pay to act against Pappy's judgment. We watched August and September crawl by with painful slowness. Then came October with its sudden frosts and red leaves and sharp smells, and I think that was the hardest month of all.

  And at last November came and Pappy went out to scout the country to the west, and when he came back he said we could try it, if I was still bound to go. It was a bitter cold night when at last we rode out of the hills and headed south, and we still had on the same clothes that we had worn for months. We were still without slickers, or coats of any kind. But I didn't mind the cold because I was going back to Texas again, to Laurin.

  We crossed the Red River far west of Red River Station, on my nineteenth birthday, and Pappy said maybe that was a good sign. Maybe we would make it to John's City and everything would work out after all. But he only said it with his voice, and not with his eyes.

  Nineteen years old. I could just as well have been ninety. Or nine hundred. I didn't feel any particular age, in this country where age didn't mean much anyway. Men like Pappy, and Buck Creyton, could have notched their guns long before they were nineteen, if they had been the kind of men to make a show about it.

  I was on familiar ground when we crossed the river and got into Texas again. I half expected Pappy to leave me there and go his own way toward New Mexico,but he only said, “We've been together now for a pretty good spell. I guess I wouldn't rest good without knowing how you made out.”

  It didn't occur to me to wonder what I was going to do or say when the time came to face Laurin. I didn't know how I was going to explain away the reputation I'd got as a gunman, and it didn't worry me until we had come all the way and sighted the Bannerman ranch house in the distance.

  And Pappy said, “Well, son, from here on in, I guess it's up to you.”

  Pappy knew what he was, the things he stood for. And he knew that he wouldn't do my cause any good if Laurin saw us together. And, for the first time, I saw Pappy as Laurin would have seen him—a hard, dirty old man with ratty gray hair hanging almost to his shoulders. A man in pitiful rags and tired to death of running, but not knowing what else to do. A man with no pride and no strength except in his guns.

  Laurin would see only death in those pale gray eyes of Pappy's, missing the shy kindness that I knew was there, too. Laurin would look at Pappy and see me as I would be in a few more years.

  I said, “Is this good-by, Pappy?”

  He smiled faintly. “Maybe, son. Or maybe I'll see you again. You never know.”

  I said reluctantly, and Pappy could see the reluctance in my eyes and it made me ashamed, “You might as well come with me, Pappy. The Bannermans set a good table, and we both could use some grub.”

  But he shook his head. “You go on, son.” We shook hands very briefly. “And good luck with that girl of yours.” He jerked his big black around abruptly, and without a good-by, without a wave of his hand or a backward look, he rode back to the north.

  I watched him until he disappeared behind a rise in the land, and I felt alone, and unsure, and a little afraid. Doubt began to gnaw at my insides.

  Good-by, Pappy.... Good luck.

  I nudged Red gently and began riding over the flatland that I knew so well, toward the ranch house. Toward Laurin. As I got closer the uneasiness inside me got worse. For the first time in months, I was conscious of the way I looked—my own ragged clothes, my own shaggy hair hanging almost to my shoulders. And in contrast, my shining, well-cared-for pistols, tied down at my thighs. No pride and no strength except in his guns. That was the thought I had used in my mind to describe Pappy... and all along I had been describing myself.

  For a moment, I was tempted to turn and ride as hard as I could until I caught Pappy. Pappy was m
y kind. We understood each other.... But the thought went away. Clothes didn't make a gentleman. Long hair didn't make a killer. Laurin would understand that.

  The thought of turning back went away, but not the feeling of uneasiness, as I got closer to the ranch house. I came in the back way, around by the barns and corrals, and a couple of punchers in the shoeing corral looked up and watched for a moment, and then went on about their work. They didn't even recognize me. More than likely they pegged me for a saddle tramp looking for a few days' work, and, knowing that Joe Bannerman never hired saddle tramps, lost interest.

  Then, as I rode on through the ranch back yard, I saw a man come out of a barn with a saddle thrown over his shoulder, heading for a smaller corral near the house where the colts were kept for breaking. He glanced at me once without slowing his walk. Suddenly he stopped, looking at me. He waited until I pulled up alongside him, and then he said:

  “My God, Tall!”

  The man was Laurin's brother, Joe Bannerman. He looked at me as if he wasn't entirely sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. He looked at Red, who had been a glossy, well-cared-for show horse the last time he saw him, but whose coat was now shaggy and scarred in a thousand places where thorns and brush had raked his royal hide.

  I tried to keep my voice light, but I knew that the change in me was even more shocking than the change in Red. I said. “How are you, Joe? I guess you might say the prodigal has returned.”

  But Joe Bannerman had no smile of welcome. He shifted the saddle down to the crook of his arm. “Tall, you're crazy! What do you mean, coming back to John's City like this?”

  But he knew before I had time to answer. Laurin. Something happened to his face. He said, “Look, Tall, if you know what's good for you, you'll get out of here in a hurry. There's nothing in John's City for you any more.” Then he added, “Nothing at all.”

  “Don't you think that's up for somebody else to decide, Joe?”

  “She's already decided,” Joe Bannerman said roughly. “Next week she's getting married.”

  I stiffened. At first the words had no meaning, and then I thought: Joe never liked me. This is just his way of trying to get rid of me. I even managed a smile when I said, “I guess I won't put much stock in that, Joe, until I hear Laurin say it herself.”

  He glanced once at the house and then jerked his head toward the barn that he had come out of. “For God's sake, Tall, be sensible. Get that red horse in the barn before somebody sees you.”

  There was something in his voice that made me rein Red over. I followed him, not quite knowing why, as he walked quickly to the other side of the barn, where the house was blocked from view. I dropped down from the saddle and said, “Now maybe you'll tell me what this is all about.”

  Joe Bannerman dropped his saddle to the ground and seemed to search for the right words. He said, “I don't want you to get the idea that I'm doing this for your benefit, because I don't give a good round damn what happens to you. But I don't want any trouble around here if I can help it.” Then his voice got almost gentle. And I didn't understand that. “You ought to realize better than anybody else,” he went on, “that things have changed since... since you went away from John's City. You're a hunted man, Tall, with a price on your head.”

  I said, “You wouldn't be having any ideas about that reward money, would you, Joe?”

  “Don't be a damned fool!” he said angrily. “I just want to keep you from getting killed on my doorstep. Like I told you, there's nothing here for you. Why don't you just ride off and let us alone?”

  “I'd still like to hear it from Laurin,” I said, “before I do any riding.” I started to turn toward the house again, but an urgency in Joe Bannerman's voice cut off the movement.

  “Goddammit, Tall, listen to me! I'm trying to tell you that it's all over between you and Laurin.” Then he sighed wearily. “I guess you've got a lot of catching up to do. I'll try to give it to you as straight as I know how. Ray Novak's in that house, and he has orders from the federal government to get you. Ray was made a deputy United States marshal after the bluebellies were pulled out of Texas. I told you that things changed....”

  I think I knew what was coming next. I tried to brace myself for it, but it didn't do any good when Joe Bannerman said, “It's Ray Novak that Laurin is in love with, Tall. Not you. She's afraid of you. You've got to be just a name on wanted posters, like this Pappy Garret that you've been riding with. You've got to be a killer, just like him.” He shook his head. “I don't know, maybe you had a right to kill that policeman on account of your father. But all those others... What is it, Tall, a disease of some kind? Can't you ever turn your back on a fight? Don't you know any way to settle an argument except with guns?”

  Then he looked at me for what seemed a long time. “I guess you don't even know what I'm talking about,” he said. “That's the way you always were, never turning your back on a fight. And you never lost one before, did you, Tall? But you're losing one now. It's Ray Novak that Laurin's going to marry. Not you.”

  I stood dumbly for a moment before the anger started to work inside me. I still didn't believe the part about Laurin. A thing like ours couldn't just end like that. But Ray Novak—at the very beginning of the trouble it had been Ray Novak, and now at the end it was the same way. I started for the house again, but Joe Bannerman stepped in my path.

  “Tall, you can't go in there. Ray has been sworn in to get you.”

  I said tightly, “Get out of my way.”

  He didn't move.

  I said, “This is my problem and I'll settle it my own way. If you try to stop me, Joe, I'll kill you.”

  His face paled. Then I thought I saw that look in his eyes that I had seen once before—just before he told me that Pa was dead. For some reason that I didn't understand, he was feeling sorry for me, and I hated him for it.

  Slowly, he stepped back out of my way. He said quietly, “I believe you would. Killing me wouldn't mean any more to you than stepping on an ant. It wouldn't mean a thing to you.”

  “Don't be a damned fool,” I said. But he had already stepped back, watching me with that curious mixture of awe and fear that I had come to expect from men like him. He didn't try to stop me as I went around the side of the barn and headed for the back steps of the house. Maybe he didn't feel it was necessary, because it was too late to stop anything now. Ray Novak was waiting for me at the back door.

  If he had made the slightest move I would have killed him right there. I realized that I had never really hated anybody but him. It would have been a pleasure to kill him, and I knew I could do it, no matter how much training his pa had given him with guns. But he didn't make a move. He didn't give me the excuse, and I'd never killed a man yet who hadn't made the first move.

  He said mildly, “I guess you better come in, Tall.”

  He was just a blurred figure behind the screen door and I couldn't see what his eyes were saying. Then another figure appeared behind him. It was Laurin.

  Woodenly, I went up the steps, opened the screen door, and stepped into the kitchen. Laurin was standing rigidly behind Ray, and I thought: She's grown older, the same as I have. Those large eyes of hers were no longer the eyes of a girl, but of a woman who had known worry and trouble and—at last I placed it—fear. She had changed in her own way almost as much as I had changed. Only Ray Novak seemed the same.

  Ray said, “We don't want any trouble, Tall. Not here. Maybe it's best that you came back this way and we can get things settled once and for all.”

  Laurin said nothing. She didn't move. She looked at me as if she had never seen me before, and in my mind I heard Joe Bannerman saying: There's nothing for you here in John's City. Nothing at all. But I fought back the sickness inside me. Laurin had loved me once, that was all that mattered. She still loved me. Nothing could change that.

  Ray Novak moved his head toward the parlor. “Do you want to come in here, Tall? We've got a lot to say and not much time to say it in. My pa is coming in
from town in a few minutes to pick me up in the buckboard. We'll have to get everything settled before then.”

  I said, “I can settle with you later. This is just between me and Laurin.”

  I looked at her and still she didn't move. I couldn't tell what she was thinking. At last she said, “It's Ray's affair as much as ours, Tall. You see, we're going to be married.”

  I guess a part of me must have died then. Joe Bannerman had said it and I hadn't believed it. Now it was Laurin herself, telling me as soberly as she knew how that it was all over between us, and I knew that this time it was the truth. I wasn't sure what I felt, or what I wanted to do about it. I suppose I wanted to go to her, to take hold of her with my hands and shake some sense into her. Or hold her close and make her see that it wasn't over with us, that it never would be. But her eyes stopped me. Perhaps she had expected something like that, and I saw that look of fear come out and look at me. She started backing away. She was afraid of me.