The Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  Ray Novak said, “I wanted you to know about me and Laurin before I went out looking for you. I didn't want you to think that I was going around behind your back....”

  I shoved him aside with the flat of my hand and took Laurin's arm before she could back away. She tried to twist out of my grasp, but I held on and jerked her toward me. Anger like I've never known before was swelling my throat. I said, “Tell him to get out of here! If he doesn't, so help me God, I'll kill him where he stands!”

  Ray Novak started to step forward. Instinctively, his hand started to move toward his gun, and I was praying that he would follow through with the motion. But Laurin said:

  “Ray!”

  And he stopped. Then something strange happened to Laurin. A moment before her eyes were bright and shiny with fear, but now they showed nothing.

  She said, “Ray, do as he says.”

  Ray Novak's face darkened. “I'm not leaving you alone with him. He's crazy. There's something wrong and mixed up and rotten in that head of his.”

  “Ray, please!”

  He hesitated for another moment. Then he relaxed. “All right, Laurin. Whatever you say. But I'll be outside if...”

  He left the rest unsaid. He turned and went out the back door, taking up a position a few paces away from the back steps.

  I heard myself laugh abruptly. “So that's the man you're going to marry! A man with a yellow streak up his back that shows all the way through his shirt!”

  But I stopped. That wasn't what I wanted to say at all. Anyway, I knew that Ray Novak wasn't yellow. He might be a lot of things, but a coward wasn't one of them.

  Laurin said, “Tall, please. You're hurting me.”

  I turned loose her arm. My thoughts were all mixed up in my mind and I couldn't get the words arranged to tell her what I wanted to say. I found myself standing there dumbly, rubbing my face with my hands and wondering how I was going to explain it to her. If I could only explain it in a way she could understand, then everything would be all right again. But she didn't give me a chance to get my thoughts arranged.

  She said flatly, “Why don't you go away, Tall? Go far away so that we'll never see you or hear from you again. Ray will give you that chance, because he knows what you meant to me once. He has been sworn in as a special deputy to get you. He's working for the government, Tall, a United States marshal—but he'll give you a chance if you'll only take it.”

  I said, “I don't need any favors from Ray Novak!” But that wasn't what I wanted to say, either. “Laurin, Laurin, what's wrong? What have they said... what have they done to turn you against me like this?”

  She shook her head, a bewildered look in her eyes. “You actually believe that your trouble is caused by other people, don't you?”

  Think? Iknew there wouldn't have been any trouble if it hadn't been for the Creytons, and Thorntons, and Hagans, and Novaks. But how could I explain that to her? Women didn't understand things like that. I remembered what my ma had said, long ago, about my fight with Criss Bagley: But, Tall, why didn't you run?

  I said quickly, “Laurin, listen to me. This isn't the end of us. It's only the beginning. It won't be the same as we planned, but we can make it good. We can be together.” I took her arm, gently this time, and she didn't try to pull away. “They'll never catch me,” I said. “The army, Ray Novak, nobody else. We'll go away. Pappy knows a place in New Mexico. We can go there. We'll be together, that's the only thing that counts. You don't mean it about marrying Ray Novak, it's just because you've heard wrong things about me. You love me, not him.”

  The words came rushing out in senseless confusion, and they stopped as abruptly as they had begun. The look of bewilderment went out of Laurin's eyes, and amazement took its place.

  “Love you?” she said strangely. “I don't even know you. I don't suppose I ever knew you. Not really, the way you get to know people and understand them, and be a part of them. You're...” She shook her head helplessly. “You're nobody I ever saw before. You're some wild animal driven crazy—by the smell of blood.”

  Her voice was suddenly and painfully gentle, cutting worse than curses. She dropped her head.

  “I'm sorry I said that, Tall.”

  But she meant it. She didn't try to get out of that. I turned loose of her and walked woodenly to the door. I pushed the door open, went down the steps and into the yard.

  Ray Novak said, “Tall.”

  I went on toward the barn where I had left Red. I don't know where I thought I was going from there. To catch up with Pappy, maybe, and try to make it to New Mexico with him. Maybe I wasn't going anywhere. It didn't make any difference.

  Ray Novak caught up with me as I was about to climb back into the saddle. “I'd better tell you the way things are,” he said. “I'm giving you a day's start to get out of John's City country. Then I'll be coming after you, Tall.”

  I said flatly, “Don't be a goddamned fool all your life. I don't want any favors from you. I'm right here. Take me now if you think you can.”

  He shook his head. “That's the way Laurin wants it.” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “Don't underrate me, Tall. I've learned things about guns and gunmen since you saw me last. I won't be as easy as Hagan, and Paul Creyton, and some of the others. Don't think that I will, Tall.”

  “You and your goddamned two bullets in a tin can,” I said. “You don't even know what shooting is. But I'll teach you. You come after me and I'll teach you good, Ray.”

  I got up to the saddle and rode south, without looking back. Without thinking, or wanting to think. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't care. I just knew that I had to get away and I had to keep from thinking about Laurin. I should have hated her, I suppose. But I couldn't. And I suppose I should have killed Ray Novak while I had the chance, but, somehow, I couldn't do that either. Not with Laurin looking. I felt a hundred years old. As old as Pappy Garret, and as tired. But, like Pappy, I had to keep running.

  I didn't see the buckboard until it was too late. And by that time, I didn't care one way or another. It was old Martin Novak coming up the wagon road from Garner's Store, and I vaguely remembered Ray saying that his pa was coming by the Bannermans' to pick him up. I had forgotten all the rules that Pappy had gone to so much trouble to teach me. I let him get within fifty yards of me before I even noticed him, and by that time things had boiled down to where there was only one way out.

  It's the same thing all over again, I thought dumbly. But they never understand that.

  Nobody could understand it, unless maybe it was Pappy, or others like him. The monotonous regularity with which it happened would almost have been funny, if it hadn't been so deadly serious. It was like dreaming the same bad dream over and over again until it no longer frightened you or surprised you—you merely braced yourself as well as you could, because you knew what was going to happen next.

  Martin Novak had the buckboard pulled across the road. I could just see the top of his head and the rifle he had pointed at me, as he stood on the other side, using the hack for a breastwork.

  “Just keep your hands away from your pistols, Tall,” he called, “and ride this way, slow and easy.”

  I didn't have a chance against the rifle, not at that range. But I felt a strange calm. I never doubted what would happen next. I didn't even wonder how it would end this time, because this time I knew.

  But I played it straight, the way Pappy would have done. I said, “What's this all about? What's that rifle for, anyway?”

  “I think you know, Tall,” he called. “Now just do as I say. Ride in slow and easy, and keep your hands away from your guns.”

  I nudged Red forward, keeping my hands on the saddle horn. If it had been Pappy, he would have been wearing his pistols for a saddle draw, high up on the waist, with the butts forward. I had forgotten to make the switch, but even that didn't bother me now. I looked at Martin Novak and thought: There's only one way, I guess, to teach men like you to leave us alone.

  When I got
within about twenty yards of the buck-board, he motioned me to stop. He was wondering how he was going to disarm me, and probably remembering stories he had heard about what had happened to Bass Hagan.

  He said, “I don't want to have to kill you, Tall, but I will if you don't do exactly as I say. Now just reach with one hand, where I can see, and unbuckle your cartridge belts.”

  I said, “Just a minute, Mr. Novak. Hell, I never did anything to you.”

  He raised up from behind the buckboard and I could see the star pinned to his vest. The Novaks and their god-damned tin stars, I thought.

  “It's more than that, Tall,” he said solemnly. “You're wanted by the law. It's my job to arrest you, and that's what I intend to do.” He studied my hands, which still hadn't moved toward my belt buckles. But he still had that rifle aimed at the center of my chest, and he wasn't too worried.

  He said, “You've... been to the Bannermans', I guess.”

  I said, “Yes. I've been there.”

  He nodded soberly. “Ray shouldn't of done it,” he said thoughtfully, almost to himself. “He should of took you in himself. But,” he added, “I guess Laurin wanted you to have one more chance.”

  I said, “I guess she did.” I didn't particularly want to kill him. I didn't have anything against him except that he insisted on making my business his business. And if I killed him I knew I wouldn't get that day's start that Ray Novak had promised. But that didn't bother me. Ray Novak could come after me any time he felt like it. I was ready for him.

  For a moment, I thought I'd try to talk the old man out of it, but I knew that it wouldn't do any good. Like Pappy, I had grown tired to trying to talk to people in a language that they didn't understand. It was easier to let my guns speak for me.

  “There's no use holding off, Tall,” the old man said soberly. “Just go on and drop your guns.”

  I looked for a brief moment behind my shoulder. I could still see the Bannerman ranch house. A shot would be heard there, if I was forced to shoot. Maybe they were even watching us. It was possible that Ray Novak was already getting a horse saddled to come after us and try to stop it.

  I didn't care one way or another. I had stopped caring about anything when Laurin cut herself away from me. What was there to care about?

  I said, “All right, Mr. Novak. I guess you win.”

  I could see relief in his eyes as I began to unbuckle my left-hand gun. He was slightly surprised and, because of my reputation, maybe a little disappointed because I gave up so easy. But he was relieved. And the relieved are apt to be careless.

  I unslung the cartridge belt, but instead of dropping it, I handed it down to him. Instinctively, he reached for it, pulling his rifle out of line.

  Marshal Martin Novak was a smart man. He caught his mistake almost immediately. But by that time it was already too late. He was off balance, in no good position to use either pistol or rifle. He knew that he was going to die before I ever made a move toward my other .44. I saw death in those dark, solemn little eyes of his. I thought, You've got all the time in the world. Take your time and do a good job of it. And then I shot him.

  The bullet went in just above his shirt pocket on the left side, and he slammed back against the buckboard. The team scampered nervously for a moment, but I pulled Red over in front of them and quieted them down. Martin Novak went to his knees, held himself up for an instant with his hands, then fell with his face in the dust. He didn't move after that.

  I sat there for a moment looking at him. Red was nervous and wanted to pitch, but I reined him down roughly with a heavy hand. I heard myself saying:

  “I didn't want to kill you, Mr. Novak, but, goddamn you, why couldn't you let me alone?”

  Then I realized that he couldn't hear me. And I knew that before long somebody would start wondering about that pistol shot. I pulled Red around and headed toward the hills.

  Chapter 12

  instinct, I suppose, made me head for the place that had given me protection before, Daggert's Road. It was a fool thing to do probably, because that would be the first place Ray Novak would look for me, but I couldn't think of anything else. I raked Red's ribs cruelly with the rowels of my spurs, even though he was already running as fast as he could.

  I looked back once and saw little feathers of dust rising up around the Bannerman ranch yard, and I knew that would be Ray Novak and some ranch hands pulling out to see what the shooting was about. Well, they would find out soon enough, but by that time I would be in the hills....

  Suddenly, all thoughts jarred out of me. The world became a whirling, crazy thing, and I crashed to the ground and the wind went out of me. For a moment I lay stunned, gasping for breath. I shook my head, trying to clear it. After a while I tried moving my arms and legs. They were all right. I just had the breath knocked out of me. Finally, I pulled myself to my knees and looked around. And then I saw Red.

  He lay quietly behind me, looking at me with big liquid eyes, full of hurt. “Red, boy! What's the matter?”

  I dragged myself to my feet and limped over to him. His right foreleg was twisted under him. His blood was staining the ground, and I glimpsed the awful whiteness of bone that had broken through the hide. Then I saw what had happened. Because of that crazy run I had forced him to over this rough ground, he hadn't been able to judge the distance correctly. He had been thrown off balance at a small gully jump that ordinarily he would have taken in stride. His leg had snapped as he went down.

  For that moment I didn't wonder how I was going to get away from the posse that was sure to be coming. I knelt beside Red, taking his head in my arms and rubbing my hands along his satiny neck and shoulders. “It's all right, boy. Everything's going to be all right.” But those hurt eyes knew I was lying. I loved that horse more than I loved most people. Red was all I had left. And now I didn't even have him.

  I think I would have cried—sitting there on the ground, holding Red's head in my lap—like some small child who had broken its best-loved toy in a moment of anger, not realizing what the loss would mean until it was too late. But then I looked down on the flatland and I could see Ray Novak and the others ganged around the buckboard. They were the ones responsible, I thought bitterly.. Not me.

  I stood up slowly, anger making a red haze of everything. I could see them wheeling now, not much more than specks in the distance, and heading in my direction. I thought, Let them come! It all started with Ray Novak— let it end with him. I was ready to meet him where I stood. I waseager.

  Then a voice said: “You'd better come along, son. There's not much time.”

  I wasn't particularly surprised. I had come to expect the impossible of Pappy. I turned and looked up the slope, and there he was, sitting that big black of his, mildly rolling one of those corn-shuck cigarettes. He nudged his horse gently and rode on down to where I was, seeming entirely unconcerned with the posse charging across the flatland toward us. He glanced once at Red, and then looked away.

  “I'm sorry, son,” he said gently. “He was a good horse.”

  “Pappy, for God's sake, what are you doing here?”

  He shrugged slightly. “It's a long trail to travel by yourself.”

  It was the closest thing to sentiment, or regret, or fear, that I had ever heard in Pappy's voice. From the very first, I figured that Pappy had picked me up because he needed a kind of personal bodyguard, but I knew now that it wasn't that. It had never occurred to me before that a man like Pappy could be lonesome. That he needed friends like other people.

  I said, “Pappy, get out of here! Go on to New Mexico, or wherever you were going. You can't help me now.”

  But he only smiled that sad half-smile of his. Then he shook a boot out of a stirrup and held it out. “Just step up here,” he said. “I guess this black horse won't mind riding double for a little piece.”

  “Pappy, you're crazy. You can't expect to outrun a posse by riding double.”

  He shrugged again. “But we can find a better place than this to fight
from. Come on, son. There isn't much time.”

  Pappy's word was law. I knew that he wouldn't budge until I did as he said. Dumbly, I put my foot in the stirrup and swung up behind him.

  I glanced at the posse. They were already in rifle range, but they were holding their fire until they had us cold. Then I looked at Red, knowing what I had to do, but not knowing if I had the guts for it.

  “Just look away, son,” Pappy said softly.

  There was one pistol shot, and Red lay still.

  Good-by, Red. Good-by to the last thing I ever gave a damn about, except Pappy. And I wasn't even sure that I cared a damn about Pappy. Maybe he was just something to hold to, a device that men like us used in order to live a little while longer. I felt empty and angry and there wasn't much sense to anything.