One Man, One Gun

by Matt Chisholm

  He was on his feet, thinking, looking around for an answer to his desperate dilemma.

  The girl saved him the trouble.

  “The window,” she whispered. Even in that moment, she measured his hard slim body with her eyes.

  Jody headed for the window, prayed it would move silently. Some fallen angel must have smiled on him. The sash rose with a sound at least softer than the noise from Mr. Rolf at the door. Revealing a leg that sent his pulse racing even faster, the girl climbed onto the gallery. She leaned back inside, framed, a picture of delight at any other time, all smiles now, for she thought herself next to safe.

  “See you soon,” she said. “I must apologize for father’s lack of taste.”

  “Get-a-goin’,” said Jody.

  “One more kiss.”

  From outside the door —

  “Open up this damned door or by God I’ll shoot off the lock.” The door shook, the whole seemed to shudder under the titanic onslaught.

  Jody was sweating in spite of his nakedness.

  “For crissake,” he howled in a whisper.

  Her mouth was offered. Her eyes beseeched him. Desperately, he rushed upon her, planning a brief kiss and flight. But small hands imprisoned him, hands which a moment before he would have welcomed, but which now he would have given a poke of gold to avoid.

  Rolf was roaring incoherently. It was beyond Jody how so urbane and cool a man could be changed into a raging lion. He tore himself free of the girl, shoved her violently away from the window and shut it. He saw her pale form for a moment beyond the pane and turned away.

  Once more he looked desperately around, searching for an excuse for his lack of response to the pounding on the door.

  He hit on it, bounded across the room, lifted the jug of water on the bureau and splashed water liberally over his body. He dove for the bed, flung himself among the clothes where so short a time before he had met paradise. Twisting and turning, throwing himself about insanely as if the man outside could see him through the door, groaning and moaning so realistically that he almost scared himself, he did what he could to behave like a man far gone in fever.

  When the shot came, it frightened him out of his skin. For one brief moment, he forgot his part and turned scared eyes toward the door. In the nick of time, as they say, just as the door was kicked open, he resumed his histrionic performance.

  Charles Rolf entered, the traditional picture of the outraged father, hair awry, eyes wild, righteousness radiating from him to the four corners of the room. In his right hand was a smoking Colt’s gun of what appeared to be enormous proportions.

  The wild eyes perceived Jody rolling and twisting in seeming agony on the bed. The water from his body had soaked the sheet covering him in a realistic way.

  Rolf charged across the room and stared down at him as if expecting to find his daughter somewhere on the bed. Then, not finding her, he went roaring and bellowing as loudly as any of his prize bulls around the room in search of her, telling the absent Honoria that he knew she was there.

  When at last it came to him that she was not, he stood like one stunned, glaring ferociously around him, bewildered. His attention was drawn once more to the contortions of Jody on the bed. By this time, other members of the household were approaching, timidly, yet unable to resist so dramatic a scene. Anything to bring some color into their dull frontier lives.

  The first to appear in the doorway was Manuela Salazar, looking as unperturbed as she would be presiding over the dining table at a polite function. Rolf charged back to the bed again and gripped the writhing Jody by a damp shoulder and shouted into his contorted face: “What have you done with my daughter?”

  Manuela hurried forward to restrain him.

  Jody rolled his eyes and slobbered, letting out a groan that would have awoken the dead.

  Manuela said: “The poor boy is in fever.”

  “I’ll give the bastard fever,” Papa Rolf yelled, forgetting his new-found gentility and resorting to the language of the Coast. He shook off the beautiful Mexican’s hands and stormed around the room like a caged tiger. “She was here. I know damned well she was here. I heard them whispering together. The door was locked. How the hell did the door get itself locked?”

  “Mr. Storm could have locked it before the fever overcame him,” suggested Manuela mildly. Her coolness enraged him further. He looked at her with naked hatred in his eyes.

  Henry Carrington Wilder appeared in the doorway. Behind him were a few Mexican servants, hovering in delighted fearfulness.

  “I say,” cried the Englishman. “What the deuce?”

  The sight of his daughter’s affianced threw Rolf like a helpless calf. How to admit his daughter’s shame to the man he was determined she would marry? Jody was so entranced by what was taking place that he decided that his fever would subside till he needed it again. He lay still, eyes closed, but allowing a low moan to issue from his lips.

  “It’s nothing,” Rolf said. “Nothing at all. No need for alarm. I thought there was an intruder. A mistake.”

  “I swear I heard a shot, sir,” said Wilder.

  “You did.”

  Wilder looked puzzled.

  A small and well-shaped form thrust its way through the servants and linked arms with Wilder. Honoria looked prettily frightened.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  Her father turned on her.

  “You —” He stopped, looked helplessly at Wilder and said: “Oh, godammit all to hell.”

  Wilder looked mildly shocked and said: “Oh, I say, sir.”

  Rolf said: “Go to your room, Honoria. This is no place for a lady. Mr. Wilder, I’d be grateful if you would retire, sir. Mr. Storm has been taken ill and Miss Salazar and I must attend to him.”

  “Anything I can do, sir?”

  “Nothing at all, thank you. We shall make out.”

  Wilder turned to Honoria with a charming smile and led her from the room. Rolf stamped to the door and shut it in the faces of the curious.

  He turned.

  “Now,” he said, “we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  Manuela was sitting on the side of the bed, one hand on Jody’s forehead and the other feeling for his pulse. In Spanish, she said: “He is in fever, Carlos. He is perspiring alarmingly and his pulse is racing.” The latter information did not surprise Jody one little bit.

  “Woman,” Rolf declared between his teeth, “the boy’s fooling. I know Honoria was here. She went out the window along the gallery and into her own room.”

  Manuela showed extreme surprise.

  “How can you even think such a thing, Carlos,” she cried. “Your own daughter.”

  “She’s her mother over again.”

  “She is a modest, nicely-reared ...”

  “Are you presuming to tell me about my own daughter?”

  “I have known her since she was a little girl.”

  “Then you know goddam well she was here.”

  “I know nothing of the kind. What you say is ridiculous. This boy is very sick.”

  “So now I’m ridiculous!’ he yelled, beside himself. “A little jumped Mexican joy-girl has the effrontery to sit there —”

  Jody had to exert iron control to stop himself from leaping out of bed and cleaning the blade of his knife on this man’s detestable carcass. He decided it was time that he came out of his coma. To this end, he gave a long and final groan, the most realistic of his efforts to date, and fluttered his eyes open uncertainly.

  Manuela’s calm was slightly shaken. Her breathing increased in tempo. She said: “I think it better if you left, Mr. Rolf. I will attend to Mr. Storm.”

  “He was already attended to by my daughter.”

  “What you say is impossible.”

  “Manuela,” he told her, “you just got above yourself. You’re nothing but an uppity —”

  Manuela was on her feet. In her rage, she made a magnificent sight.

  “And you have just got above you
rself, señor,” she cried. “Have no fear. I shall not annoy you anymore. This is the end.”

  Jody could have lain there and enjoyed the melodrama, but he thought it time he ceased to be a spectator and instead joined the company on the stage.

  “What’s a-goin’ on here?” he demanded in a weak voice.

  Rolf swung on him and Jody was unpleasantly aware that the gun was still in his hand. He looked into its black eye.

  Chapter Nine

  The eyes of the two men met. A curious change came over Rolf. Maybe some part of his brain had started to function sanely. He calmed. It cost him, but he assumed his old cool manner. The gun was lowered.

  “You may have fooled this woman, Mr. Storm” he said icily, “but do not think that you have fooled me for one moment. I give you a choice. Leave this house at once and live. Or stay and die.”

  Jody increased his look of bewilderment. His brain was starting to work sanely too. The predicament in which he found himself came right home to him. If he left here, he left behind the girl, his money and his chance of taking home the bull. To leave here was disaster. To stay here he didn’t doubt could mean death. This irate father wasn’t fooling. He knew it and Manuela knew it. Just the same, he couldn’t cut his act. He was committed.

  “I don’t get this,” he stammered. “What did I do?”

  Rolf stared at him for a moment, then said: “Explain to me how the door became locked.”

  Jody returned the stare, giving out a whole heap of bewilderment.

  “Door?” he said. “Why, wait a minute, I don’t seem to remember too well. I got it. It all comes back to me. Like a dream. I wasn’t feelin’ too good. All hot. I crossed the room to get me a drink of water. I didn’t have no clothes on. I thought maybe somebody would come an’ ketch me. I locked the door. Then I don’t remember nothin’ ’cept Miss Manuela was holdin’ my head.”

  “There,” said Manuela, triumphantly.

  “There nothing,” Rolf roared, his calm departing as quickly as it had come. “The boy’s lying. He goes or I won’t answer for the consequences.” He turned to the door, shouting: “I’ll get the truth out of the girl.”

  Jody felt a slight impulse to leap out of bed to protect his beloved, but on second thoughts his beloved was well able to take care of herself. He slumped back on the pillow and the master of the house slammed out of the room.

  Manuela sat on the bed and smiled at him. It was the first time he had seen her really smile and the sight pleased him.

  “I think,” she said, “that you had your five minutes alone with Honoria.”

  He grinned.

  “It was worth it,” he said.

  “You are a foolish boy,” she said. “You have no chance.”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” he told her. “Us Storms sure are peculiar. It’s the times when we don’t have no chance that we really get a-goin’.”

  “Mr. Rolf is a powerful man. You do not seem to understand. He has turned you out. You have no horse, no gun, nothing.”

  “You’re wrong. I have you, Manuela.”

  “Me? I am nothing but a weak woman. You heard him — a Mexican joy-girl.”

  “I reckon you owe him for that.”

  “I owe him for many things, my friend. But I am in no position to pay him.”

  Jody talked. He didn’t talk smoothly and he didn’t always find the right words, but he talked to some effect and Manuela listened. When Jody was through, she said simply: “Very well, I shall help you. I don’t think you have a chance, but I will help. I will do as you say.”

  He patted her arm. She leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss tasted so good that for a moment he forgot Honoria. When she stood up, she said: “I shall not see you again, so I wish you luck.”

  “I’ll take the luck, but you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll be seein’ me again.”

  She turned and left the room.

  Jody rose from the bed, propped a chair under the smashed lock and assessed the situation. Maybe he wasn’t exactly in fever, but he didn’t feel exactly great. He reckoned he didn’t stand much chance on foot, but the facts had to be faced. He was going to find himself out in those hills with nothing more than a knife and his native wits. The prospect didn’t charm him.

  He started rummaging through the drawers. He was after clothes to cover his nakedness, for his own were beyond hope after his disastrous journey through the hills. Now he found that there was a small piece of Storm luck ready to hand. He found a shirt, pants and socks. They belonged to a man much of his size and when he climbed into them, he didn’t have to be too ashamed of himself. He heaved on his worn-down boots and sheathed his knife.

  Next he opened the window and stepped out onto the gallery. Going to the rail, he inspected the ground below. There was a little light from the house and he could see enough for his purposes. He returned to the room, took sheets from the bed and tied them together. Then he climbed through the window once more and tied a corner of a sheet to the gallery rail.

  Now, he thought of two things — the girl and water. He wanted a last look at Honoria and he would want a full belly of water to last him through his night walk. Honoria had given him a rough lay of the land and he knew approximately which way he had to head. He climbed back into the room once more, lifted the jug of water and drank it dry. He then felt so logy that it was uncomfortable to walk. He climbed out onto the gallery again and tiptoed along it. The first window was dark. The second the same, but light streamed from the third.

  And here was his Honoria. With her father. Charles Rolf was laying down the law. His law. And his daughter calmly listened. She sat facing Jody and the boy had a clear view of her. He drank in the sight avidly, hungrily eyeing the mouth he had tasted so sweetly, imagining the firm white flesh and he was driven a little crazy standing there.

  By God, he promised himself, I’ll have her an’ all the daddy’s an’ Wilders in the world ain’t a-goin’ to stop me.

  He tore himself away, went tippy-toe back along the gallery, slung the sheets over the rail and started down. He found during that short journey that his shoulder was a searing agony and that he was only a little stronger than a week-old kitten. The realization wasn’t encouraging. He reached ground, however, without breaking his neck, and went silent as an Indian, or so he hoped, around the house until he found himself at the kitchen door. He knew it was that, for there awaiting him, were the supplies that Manuela had promised him. With a blessing for the Mexican woman on his lips, he hefted the two sacks and slung them from his left shoulder, draped the strap of the canteen around his neck and was about to depart when the glitter of metal caught his eye.

  He stooped awkwardly and saw to his joy and surprise that Manuela had thought to provide him with a rifle. It was nothing more than a single-shot vintage Remington. But it was a weapon and a box of shells lay beside it. He stuffed the box into a pocket, took the rifle in his right hand and slipped away into the darkness.

  The Storm luck saw to it that he didn’t meet any of the hands on his way out. He headed almost directly north along a well-beaten trail until he came to the creek. This was as Manuela had told him. By the time he reached here, he was dead beat under his heavy load, but he knew that he had to keep on. He wanted to be well into the hills by the time dawn opened up the sky.

  He waded into the creek and found that the water did not come higher than his thighs, for which he was duly thankful. The thought entered his head to make his way north-west along the watercourse and lose his tracks, but he reckoned that the trail was well-used and that he would be safe for a few miles yet. He plodded into the night.

  He did not know how long he tramped through the moonlight, but he suddenly became aware that he was starting to sleep on his feet. This alarmed him a little and he fought to shake off sleep. But after a short while, he knew that he would have to stop. He staggered off the trail and dumped the supplies, put his back against a rock and at once fell into a deep sleep.

  D
aylight bewildered him when he woke.

  In a flash, the night’s events came back to him. He knew that he could be no more than a few miles from the house. Any moment one of Rolf’s riders might come on him. Still heavy with sleep, he shouldered his load, picked up the rifle and tramped on.

  Hunger started to gnaw at his guts. He denied its demands and pushed on into country that seemed to grow rougher and more difficult each pace he took. As he walked, black depression descended on him. He was tempted to dismiss all thoughts of revenge, regaining his money, even of the girl and that damned bull. He wanted nothing better than to keep on going, escaping from all responsibility, getting away from the hold his family had over him, evading forever the criticism they leveled at him. He would simply walk off into a new life, start afresh, a new man.

  From a high point, he looked back and checked that he wasn’t being followed. Wearily, his shoulder pain nagging at him like a sore tooth, he tramped on.

  He knew better, he told himself. He had the beginnings of a conscience. What the old man and Ma and the others thought of him mattered. They knew him maybe better than he knew himself. He could escape from the fact that he was a man to whom things happened, a failure. Pa knew he couldn’t carry out a simple assignment like bringing home a bull. They all knew it.

  Yet there was enough of the dogged Storm in him to hate the thought of that.

  Brooding savagely, head down, watching the dust kicked up by his scuffed boots, he wasn’t aware of the horseman until it was almost too late. Suddenly, it seemed, man and beast were on top of him, trotting briskly through the rocks. Only just in time, Jody flung himself into cover and lay there watching the cowhand ride past. Maybe riding in for a good breakfast. Or with his belly full of bacon and beans.

  Jody lay in the dust and cursed him as he receded from view.

  It was a long time before he ventured to his feet again and went on. He walked for around a couple of hours before he stopped. He had reached a pleasant spot. His feet walked on soft grass and the trees shaded him from the pitiless sun. There was water here. He had come far enough, he decided. He drank deep, pulled off his boots and bathed his suffering feet. While he did this, he broke out the supplies and found that Manuela, God bless her, had even thought to give him beef sandwiches for his first meal. The bread was stale, but just the same he reckoned it was the finest meal he had ever made. At last, belly full, he lay back on the bank with his feet in the cool water, blissful. At once the world took on a rosier prospect.