by Alan Lemay
"There's still another reason," Red Kane said, "why it would be a hell of a sight better to hang him now. Suppose that wild bunch of his knows he's here?"
"How the devil would they know that?" Leathers said with disgust.
"Maybe they was scouting us with spy glasses as we come over the trail today."
"If they was, they would have landed on us right then, in place of waiting till we got into camp."
"Maybe the girl run to them-"
"Hell! The girl! You make me sick."
"Have it your own way."
"You're damned right I'll have it my own way. I don't want to hear no more about it. And I'll tell you this: if your trigger finger gets itchy while you're on watch tonight, you better soak it in a pan of water, and leave the gun be. Because if anything comes up while you're on watch such that you got to shoot him, by God, next thing you got to shoot me you understand?"
"I guess it could be done," Red Kane said nastily.
"Hold your horses, will you? You'll see him hung quick enough. Now get out of here and get some sleep. I'm taking the first watch myself"
Red Kane hesitated. With the night already well turned toward morning, he should have been tired, but he was not. He turned a heavy gaze upon Marquita, obviously calculating. It was apparent to Roper that Kane was speculating how best to get Marquita into his own bunk without clashing with Jim Leathers again. Apparently he arrived at a conclusion satisfactory to himself, because after a moment he rose and shouldered out the door. Immediately he stuck his head back in. "You better keep both lamps going. The little varmint is liable to try to kick out the light."
Leathers ignored this, and Red Kane disappeared. This time the door shut after him.
Leathers said, "Get me a drink."
Marquita unhurriedly set out a bottle and a glass on the table beside Jim Leathers' elbow.
"A deck of cards," Leathers said.
Marquita produced this, too. As Leathers began to lay out a game of solitaire, Marquita moved idly toward one of the two kerosene lamps. Roper, watching her passively, saw that it was the lamp farthest from him, probably, if it went out, he could knock over the other by throwing his hat.
"Get away from that lamp," Leathers said.
Mraquita strolled over to Leathers, the high heels of her slippers clicking lazily on the puncheon floor. "Why are you so cross with me?" she asked reproachfully. She moved behind Jim Leathers, and slowly ran her fingers through his hair.
"Ain't going to get you a thing," Jim Leathers said sourly.
"No?" said Marquita. For a moment one hand was lost in the folds of her skirt; then deftly, unhurriedly, she planted the muzzle of a .38 against the back of Jim Leathers' neck.
HERE was a moment of absolute silence, absolute immobility. Jim Leathers' eyes were perfectly still upon Bill Roper's face, as still as his hands, in one of which a playing card hung suspended. But though his face did not notably change, Marquita, with her .38 pressed hard against the back of the gunman's neck, had turned white; her mouth worked as she tried to speak, and her wide eyes were upon Bill Roper in terrified appeal. Perhaps no more than a second could have passed in that way, but to them all it seemed as if time had stopped, so that that little fraction of eternity held them motionless forever.
Bill Roper, moving up and forward, exploded into action smoothly, like a cat. It was the length of the room between them that saved Jim Leathers then.
Leathers twisted, lightning fast. Marquita's gun blazed into the floor as her wrist swept down in the grip of Leathers' left hand; and Bill Roper checked a yard from the table as Leathers' gun flashed into sight, becoming instantly steady. Marquita sagged away from Leathers, and her gun clattered upon the puncheons; but although Leathers' whole attention was concentrated upon Roper, Marquita's wrist remained locked in his grasp.
The gunfighter's voice was more hard and cold than the steel of his gun; it was as hard and cold as his eyes.
"Get back there where you was."
Bill Roper shrugged and moved back.
Leathers flung Marquita away from him and with his left hand picked up her gun as the door of the storeroom was torn open and Red Kane bulged in.
"What the hell-"
"This bitch come behind me and stuck a gun in my neck," Leathers told him.
"The devil! You hurt?"
"Hell, no! I took it away from her."
Gently, tentatively, his long fingers ran over his wounded leg. That bullet wound in his thigh must have tortured him unspeakably through the two days in the saddle; and it must have been jerking at his nerves now with red-hot hooks, roused by the swift action that had preserved his command.
His face had turned grey so that the black circles under his eyes made them seem to burn from death's-head hollows, and his face, which had changed so little in this moment of action was relaxed into an ugly contortion. Slowly the grey color was turning to the purple of a dark and terrible anger.
"By God," said Red Kane, "I told you we should have hung him!"
"You told me right," Jim Leathers said. The burn of his eyes never for a moment left Bill Roper's face. "You was right and I was wrong. I should have hung him at the start."
A pleasurable hope came into Red Kane's face. "Well it ain't too late!"
"No, it ain't too late. Tie his hands."
Joyfully Red Kane caught up a reata. "What you going to do? You going to-"
"I want to know if he whistles when the wind blows through him. I aim to hang him high enough so's I can find out." Then, to Marquita, who had tried to sidle out the dark door: "You get back here! I'd shoot you just as quick as him."
Keeping Roper between himself and Leathers, so that his partner's gun bore steadily upon Roper's belt buckle, Kane lashed Roper's hands behind him. The frost-stiff rope bit deep.
"Tie up this slut, too," Leathers ordered when Kane had finished. "I want her to see this show."
Marquita said, "I'm sorry, Bill." Her voice was broken by hard, jerking sobs, and tears were running down her face; yet somehow her words sounded dull and dead. "I did the best I could."
Roper was curiously moved. Part of his mind was telling him that, however loose might have been the schedule of fidelity in Marquita's life, she would gladly have died for Bill Roper now.
"You did fine," Roper said. "That was a game try.
"Move him out," said Leathers, holstering his gun.
Hobbling on his stiff leg, Leathers moved to the outer door, flung it open; coatless, he stepped out into the bitter sweep of the wind. Then abruptly he stopped and signaled Red Kane back with one hand.
"Red, get back! Get out of line!"
With the quick instinct of a man who has always been in trouble, Red Kane jumped back into the room, carrying Bill Roper with him. They all could hear now the sound of running horses.
Jim Leathers, in spite of his warning to Kane, made no effort to move out of the light. Standing square in the door, he drew his gun. A bullet splintered into the casing beside him as the report of a carbine sounded from somewhere beyond. Jim Leathers fired twice; then stepped inside, closed and barred the heavy door.
For a moment the eyes of Kane and Leathers questioned each other.
"Dry Camp Pierce," Kane said.
"Naturally."
"If it don't beat hell that they should land in at just this minute-"
"That's no accident, you fool. Their Indian fighting way of doing business is they lay out on the hill, and slam down just before daylight. By God, they must have been watching this dump all night!"
Red Kane said stupidly, "This ain't daylight, this ain't-"
"They heard the shot when she tried to gun me, I guess." Leathers was very cool and quiet now. Deliberately he pulled on his sheepskin. "Get out the back, untie the ponies and get your man aboard."
"Jim, seems like we stand a better chance here, way we are, than running in the open, what with-"
"They'll burn us out if we try to hold. Get going, you!"
Dragg
ing Roper after him, Kane plunged into the dark of the back room. He swore as he rummaged for his rifle, his sheepskin.
Leathers neither swore nor hurried. Moving deliberately, he blew out one lamp, hobbled across the room to the other. Then all hell broke loose at once.
The single frosted pane of the ten-inch window at the end of the room smashed out with a brittle ring of falling glass. In the black aperture appeared the face of a boy, pale and wild-eyed, so young-looking that he might almost have been called a child. The heavy .44 with which he had smashed the window thrust through the broken pane; it blazed out heavily, twice.
Jim Leathers, staggering backwards as if he had been hit with a log ram, fired once, from the level of his belt. The face vanished, but for a moment after it was gone the hand that held the gun dangled limp within the room. Then the gun thudded on the floor, and the lifeless hand disappeared.
Jim Leathers reached for the wall, steadied himself for a moment; then abruptly he dropped to his knees, to all fours. He began to cough.
As Leathers went down, a broken roar of guns broke out in the storeroom. Leathers groped for his gun, tried to rise, but could not.
Roper, who had been dragged into the dark storeroom by Red Kane, felt the swift sting of the wind as the back door was smashed open, and was able to tear free as the guns began. He stumbled over piled sacks, and flattened himself against the wall. The blind blasting in the dark of the back room lasted long enough for three guns to empty themselves. Their smashing voices fell silent with an odd suddenness, as suddenly as they had opened. In the dark a voice said, "In God's name let's have a light!"
After what seemed a long time a match flared uncertainly, and Roper's quick glance estimated the changed situation. In the back room now two men were down-Red Kane, and another whom Roper immediately recognized as an old King-Gordon cowboy called Old Joe.
The dim flicker of the match was augmented to a steady glow as a lantern was found and lighted. Roper did not recognize the other man in the room - the cowboy who had lighted the lantern with one hand, his smoking six-gun still ready in the other.
The stranger stooped over Old Joe. "You hurt bad?"
"It's only my laig, my laig."
The other stepped over the inert body of Kane to the door, and surveyed the silent kitchen.
"Jim Leathers, by God! Somebody got Jim Leathers, and got him hard!"
He stepped back into the rear room. "You're Bill Roper, aren't you? Where's the others?"
"There aren't any others. They all went out on Dry Camp's trail, after his raid day before yesterday."
"No others here? You sure?"
"Kane and Leathers are the only ones here."
Old Joe, both hands clasped on his smashed leg, spoke between set teeth. "Where's Jody? For God's sake find Jody!"
The King-Gordon cowboy whom Roper did not know, went out, his spurs ringing with his long strides.
"Jody isn't here," Roper told Old Joe disgustedly. "She got loose two days ago."
"The hell she isn't here! She come here with us!"
"With you? But you're from Gordon's Red Butte camp, aren't you? I thought Jody went to Miles City with Shoshone Wilce."
"She never went to Miles. She knew Leathers was bringing you here, from what she'd heard him say. She come to us, because we was the K-G camp nearest here, and she wouldn't hear of nothing but we come and try to crack you loose. Shoshone Wilce - he's daid."
Bill Roper was dazed. "I thought-I thought-"
The other cowboy now came tramping back into the cabin, an awkward burden in his arms; and this time Jody Gordon herself followed close upon his heels. Her face was set, and the sharp flush across her cheekbones did not conceal her fatigue.
Bill Roper started to say, "Jody, how on earth
Jody did not seem to see him; she appeared to be thinking only of the slim youngster whom the cowboy carried. The cowboy laid the limp figure on the floor of the kitchen, ripped off his own neckerchief and spread it over the youngster's face.
Jody Gordon methodically shut the door. Then she dropped to the floor beside the fallen youngster, lifted his head into her lap, and gave way to a violent sobbing. The high-keyed nervous excitement that had sustained her through the hard necessities of action was unstrung abruptly, now that her work was done; it left nothing behind it but a great weariness, and the bleak consciousness that this boy was dead because of her.
Roper and the King-Gordon cowboy stood uncertainly for a moment. Then the cowboy picked up Leathers where he lay struggling for breath, carried him into the back room and put him down on a bunk. For a moment he hesitated; then closed the door between the two rooms, leaving Jody alone.
"Seems like the kid got Jim Leathers; but Jim Leathers got the kid."
"Daid?" Old Joe asked.
"Deader'n hell! Jody takes it awful hard."
The cowboy cut loose Bill Roper's hands, and together they lifted Old Joe onto the other bunk. Roper cut Marquita free.
"Get me that kettle of water off the stove," Bill Roper ordered Marquita; and when she had brought it he said, "Now you go and keep Miss Gordon company for a little while."
Marquita left them, closing the door behind her.
Old Joe kept talking to them in a gaspy sort of way, as they did what they could for his wound.
"The kid was scared to death to come. Jody seen that, and tried to send him back, with some trumped-up message or something. Naturally he seen through that and wouldn't go. Now most likely she blames herself that he's daid. Lucky for us that Leathers' main outfit wasn't here."
"You mean just you three was going to jump the whole Leathers outfit, and the Walk Lasham cowboys, too?"
"Not three four," Old Joe said. "Don't ever figure that girl don't pull her weight. We been lay ing up here on the hill since before dusk. She aimed we should use the same stunt you used at Fork Crick bust into 'em just before daylight. Then somebody fires off a gun down here, and she loses her haid, and we come on down. It was her smashed her horse against the door, trying to bust it in. She blindfolded him with her coat threw it over his haid- and poured on whip and spur, and she bangs into the planks. Broke his neck, most like; cain't see why she wasn't killed-"
"Just you four," Roper marveled, "were going to tackle the whole works, not even knowing how many were here?"
"We tried to tell her it couldn't be done. But you can't talk any sense into a woman, once she gets a notion in her nut."
ARQUITA, closing the door of the storeroom behind her, for some moments stood looking down at Jody Gordon.
Jody still sat on the floor, upon her lap the head of the boy who had downed Jim Leathers. The sobs that convulsed her were dying off now, leaving her deeply fatigued, and profoundly shaken.
"You might as well get up now," Marquita said. Her soft Mexican slur gave an odd turn to the blunt American words she used. "The fight's over; and that boy you've got there is dead as a herring. What you need is a drink."
Jody lifted her head, rubbing the tears from her eyes so that she could look at the other woman.
"Where's Billy Roper?" Jody demanded. "Is Billy all right?"
"Sure, he's okay. That other old cocklebur of yours got a slug in the leg. But Jim Leathers will most likely pull through, too; so that makes the score a tie."
"But all the Leathers men-all the Lasham cowhands-where are they?"
"They all went out chasing after Dry Camp's raiders. Leathers and Red Kane were the only ones here-and your boys got Red Kane, and wounded Leathers."
With a visible effort Jody Gordon pulled herself together, and gently lowered the head of the dead boy to the floor. She got up shakily, and for a moment looked at Marquita.
"I've seen you somewhere," Jody said. "Yes, I remember now. You worked in a dance hall in Uvalde."
"I don't know how you know that," Marquita said. Her voice was low and soft, without resentment. "You weren't ever in it."
"Everyone knows who everyone else is, in Uvalde."
"That
's true," Marquita said. "And so of course I know you are Jody Gordon, of the great King-Gordon; and you never worked in a dance hall, because you never needed to work."
Jody Gordon walked to the table and sat down. She leaned her elbows upon the plain boards, and buried her face in her hands.
"It's my fault that boy is dead," Jody said brokenly. "He didn't want to come. None of them wanted to come. But this boy was afraid; he was afraid of the very name of Jim Leathers. And when I tried to send him back he wouldn't go! And now he's lying here; he's lying here because of me."
"He died very well," Marquita said. "He got Jim Leathers - a good job of work for any man."
Jody did not answer. Marquita sat down opposite her, and for a little while studied Jody.
"Why did you come here?" Marquita asked at last. Her voice continued gently curious nothing more.
"I knew Billy Roper was alive," Jody told her. "Because I was watching when Leathers left Fork Creek with him. I already knew they meant to take him to Ben Thorpe at Sundance, for the reward. That would be death, to him. And I knew they meant to stop over here on the way. So I got the boys, from our Red Butte camp, and I come on..."
"You are a very foolish little girl," Marquita said. "Luck saved you; but if this camp had been full of men, it would have been suicide."
"Wouldn't you have done the same?"
Marquita shrugged impatiently, as if this was beside the point. "I feel very sorry for you," she said.
Y~
"Because I think you are in love with this Billy Roper."
"Why do you say that?"
"Es claroy," Marquita said. "It is plain. And it's a pity; because this kind of man is not for you."
At first Jody Gordon did not answer. But behind the softness of Marquita's voice was a cogency as strange as her American words-a cogency that would not be ignored. Here Jody found herself facing a woman whom she could not possibly have understood. Marquita's careless, even reckless mode of life, her uncoded relationships with men there was not an aspect of Marquitas' life which did not deny every value of which Jody was aware. Marquita appeared to thrive and flower in a mode of life in which Jody incorrectly believed she herself would have died.