June ignored this. “Did you hear whether Dad’s with him?” she asked.
“No.”
“Where is Jake?”
“He was at Dolan’s drinking when that Dud Hollister seen him.”
“I’ll have him come right away—before he’s had too much. Dad says he used to be mean when he was drinkin’.”
The hotel was in the same block as Dolan’s, a hundred feet beyond it. They were passing the saloon when the door was pushed open and a man came out. At sight of them he gave a triumphant whoop.
“Got ya!” he cried.
The look on his face daunted Bob. The boy felt the courage dry up within him. Mouth and throat parched. He tried to speak and found he could not.
June took up the gage, instantly, defiantly. “You’ve got nothing to do with us, Jake Houck. We’re married.”
The news had reached him. He looked at her blackly. “Married or single, you’re mine, girl, an’ you’re going with me.”
“My husband will have a word to say about that,” June boasted bravely.
Houck looked at his rival, and a sinister, mocking smile creased the hard face. “I’m plumb scared of him,” he jeered.
“We g-got a right to get married, Mr. Houck,” Bob said, teeth chattering. “You hadn’t ought to make us trouble.”
“Speaks up right brave, don’t he?”
“He’s as brave as you are, Jake Houck, even if he ain’t a bully,” the bride flamed.
“So?” Houck moved a step or two toward Dillon.
The hand under the coat shook as though the boy had a chill.
“What you got there—in yore hand?” demanded Houck.
The revolver came to light.
Houck stuck his hands in his trouser pockets, straddled out his feet, and laughed derisively. “Allowin’ for to kill me, eh?”
“No, sir.” The voice was a dry whisper. “I’d like to talk this over reasonable, Mr. Houck, an’ fix it up so’s bygones would be bygones. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.”
“I sure believe that.” Houck turned to June. “It wouldn’t be safe for me to leave you with this desperate character who goes around with a six-shooter not lookin’ for trouble. I’m aimin’ to take you with me, like I said.”
Her eyes clashed with his and gave way at last. “You always act like you’re God Almighty,” she cried passionately. “Are you hard o’ hearing? I’m married to Bob Dillon here.”
“I ain’t heard him raise any objections to yore goin’,” Houck taunted. “Tolliver said for me to bring you, an’ I’ll do it.”
June spoke to Bob, her voice trembling. “Tell him where to get off at,” she begged.
“Mr. Houck, June’s my wife. She’s made her choice. That ends it,” Bob said unsteadily.
The cold, cruel eyes of the ex-rustler gripped those of Dillon and held them. “End it, does it? Listen. If you’re any kind of a man a-tall you’d better shoot me right now. I’m gonna take her from you, an’ you’re goin’ to tell her to go with me. Understand?”
“He’ll not tell me any such a thing,” June protested. But her heart sank. She was not sure whether her husband would grovel. If he did—if he did—
The jeering voice went on taunting its victim. “If I was you I’d use that gun or I’d crawl into a hole. Ain’t you got any spunk a-tall? I’m tellin’ you that June’s goin’ with me instead o’ you, an’ that you’re goin’ to tell her to go. Tha’s the kind of a man she married.”
“No, Mr. Houck, I don’t reckon—”
Houck moved forward, evenly, without haste, eyes cold as chilled steel and as unyielding. “Gimme that gun, if you ain’t goin’ to use it.” He held out a hand.
“Don’t, Bob,” begged June, in a panic of dismay.
While his heart fluttered with apprehension Bob told himself, over and over, that he would not hand the revolver to Houck. He was still saying it when his right arm began to move slowly forward. The weapon passed from one to the other.
June gave a sobbing sound of shame and despair. She felt like a swimmer in a swift current when the deep waters are closing over his head.
“Now tell her you ain’t good enough for her, that you’ve got no sand in yore craw, and she’s to go with me,” ordered Houck.
“No.” Young Dillon’s voice came dry from a throat like cotton.
The big man caught Bob’s wrist and slowly twisted. The boy gave an agonized howl of pain. June was white to the lips, but she made no attempt to interfere. It was too late. Bob must show the stuff that was in him. He must go through to a fighting finish or he must prove himself a weakling.
“If you give her up now, you’re a yellow dog, Dillon,” his tormentor sneered. “Stick it out. Tell me to go to red-hot blazes.”
He took an extra turn on the wrist. Bob writhed and shrieked. Tiny beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. “You’re killin’ me!” he screamed.
“Wish you’d gunned me when you had a chance, don’t you?” Houck spat at him. “Too late now. Well, what’s it to be?” Again he applied the torture.
The boy begged, pleaded, then surrendered. “I can’t stand it! I’ll do anything you say.”
“Well, you know yore li’l’ piece. Speak it right up,” ordered the cattleman.
Bob said it, with his eyes on the ground, feeling and looking like a whipped cur. “You better go with him, June. I—I’m no good.” A sob choked him. He buried his face in his hands.
Houck laughed harshly. “You hear him, June.”
In a small dead voice June asked a question. “Do you mean that, Bob—that I’m to go with him—that you give me up?”
Her husband nodded, without looking up.
No man can sacrifice his mate to save his own hide and still hold her respect. June looked at him in a nausea of sick scorn. She turned from him, wasting no more words.
She and Houck vanished into the gathering darkness.
* * *
CHAPTER X
IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
Houck’s jeering laugh of triumph came back to the humiliated boy. He noticed for the first time that two or three men were watching him from the door of the saloon. Ashamed to the depths of his being, he hung his head dejectedly. All his life he would be a marked figure because Jake had stamped the manhood out of him, had walked off with his bride of an hour.
In the country of the open spaces a man must have sand. Courage is the basis upon which the other virtues are built, the fundamental upon which he is most searchingly judged. Let a man tell the truth, stick to his pal, and fight when trouble is forced on him, and he will do to ride the river with, in the phrase of the plains.
Bob had lost June. She would, of course, never look at him again. To have failed her so miserably cut deep into his pride and self-respect. With her he had lost, too, the esteem of all those who lived within a radius of fifty miles. For the story would go out to every ranch and cow-camp. Worst of all he had blown out the dynamic spark within himself that is the source of life and hope.
He did not deceive himself. Houck had said he was going to take June to her father. But he had said it with a cynical sneer on his lips. For the girl to be Jake’s wife would have been bad enough, but to be his victim without the protection of legality would be infinitely worse. And that was the lot to which June was destined. She had fought, but she could fight no longer.
Fate had played her a scurvy trick in the man she had chosen. Another husband—Dud Hollister, for instance—would have battled it out for her to a finish, till he had been beaten so badly he could no longer crawl to his feet. If Bob had done that, even though he had been hopelessly overmatched, he would have broken Houck’s power over June. All the wild, brave spirit of her would have gone out to her husband in a rush of feeling. The battle would have been won for them both. The thing that had stung her pride and crushed her spirit was that he had not struck a blow for her. His cowardice had driven her to Jake Houck’s arms because there was no other place for her to go.
Their adventure had ended in tragedy both for her and for him. Bob sank down on a dry-goods box and put his twitching face in his hands. He had flung away both his own chance for happiness and hers. So far as he was concerned he was done for. He could never live down the horrible thing he had done.
He had been rather a frail youth, with very little confidence in himself. Above all else he had always admired strength and courage, the qualities in which he was most lacking. He had lived on the defensive, oppressed by a subconscious sense of inferiority. His actions had been conditioned by fear. Life at the charitable institution where he had been sent as a small child fostered this depression of the ego and its subjection to external circumstances. The manager of the home ruled by the rod. Bob had always lived in a sick dread of it. Only within the past few months had he begun to come into his own, a heritage of health and happiness.
Dud Hollister came to him out of Dolan’s saloon. “Say, fellow, where’s my gun?” he asked.
Bob looked up. “He—took it.”
“Do I lose my six-shooter?”
“I’ll fix it with you when I get the money to buy one.”
The boy looked so haggard, his face so filled with despair, that Dud was touched in spite of himself.
“Why in Mexico didn’t you give that bird a pill outa the gun?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m—no good,” Bob wailed.
“You said it right that time. I’ll be doggoned if I ever saw such a thing as a fellow lettin’ another guy walk off with his wife—when he ain’t been married hardly two hours yet. Say, what’s the matter with you anyhow? Why didn’t you take a fall outa him? All he could ’a’ done was beat you to death.”
“He hurt me,” Bob confessed miserably. “I—was afraid.”
“Hurt you? Great jumpin’ Jupiter. Say, fellows, listen to Miss—Miss Roberta here. He hurt him, so he quit on the job—this guy here did. I never heard the beat o’ that.”
“If you’ll borrow one of yore friends’ guns an’ blow my brains out you’ll do me a favor,” the harried youth told Hollister in a low voice.
Hollister looked at him searchingly. “I might, at that,” agreed the puncher. “But I’m not doin’ that kind of favor to-day. I’ll give you a piece of advice. This ain’t no country for you. Hop a train for Boston, Mass., or one o’ them places where you can take yore troubles to a fellow with a blue coat. Tha’s where you belong.”
Up the street rolled Blister Haines, in time to hear the cowpuncher’s suggestion. Already the news had reached the justice of what had taken place. He was one of those amiable busybodies who take care of other people’s troubles for them. Sometimes his efforts came to grief and sometimes they did not.
“Hit the trail, you lads,” he ordered. “I’ll l-look out for this b-business. The exc-c-citement’s all over anyhow. Drift.”
The range-riders disappeared. At best the situation was an embarrassing one. It is not pleasant to be in the company of one who has just shown himself a poltroon and is acutely aware of it.
Blister took Dillon into his office. He lowered himself into the biggest chair carefully, rolled a cigarette, and lit up.
“Tell me about it,” he ordered.
“Nothin’ to tell.” Bob leaned against the table and looked drearily at the floor. The world had come to an end for him. That was all. “He showed up an’ took June from me—made me tell her to go along with him.”
“How did he do that? Did he cover you with a gun?”
“No. I had the gun—till he took it from me.” He gave the explanation he had used twice already within the hour. “I’m no good.”
Blister heaved himself up from the chair and waddled closer to the boy. He shook a fat forefinger in his face. He glared at him fiercely.
“Say, where you from?”
“Austin, Texas, when I was a kid.”
“Well, damn you, Texas man, I w-want to t-tell you right now that you’re talkin’ blasphemy when you say you’re n-no good. The good Lord made you, didn’t He? D-d’ you reckon I’m goin’ to let you stand up there an’ claim He did a pore job? No, sir. Trouble with you is you go an’ bury yore talent instead of w-whalin’ the stuffin’ outa that Jake Houck fellow.”
“I wish I was dead,” Bob groaned, drooping in every line of his figure. “I wish I’d never been born.”
“Blasphemy number two. Didn’t He make you in His image? What right you got wishin’ He hadn’t created you? Why, you pore w-worm, you’re only a mite lower than the angels an’ yore red haid’s covered with glory.” Blister’s whisper of a voice took unexpectedly a sharp edge. “Snap it up! That red haid o’ yours. Hear me?”
Bob’s head came up as though a spring had been released.
“B-better. K-keep it up where it belongs. Now, then, w-what are you aimin’ for to do?”
Bob shook his head. “Get outa this country, like Hollister said. Find a hole somewheres an’ pull it in after me.”
“No, sir. Not none. You’re gonna stay right here—in the country round Bear Cat—where every last man, woman, an’ k-kid will know how you ate d-dirt when Houck told you to.”
“I couldn’t do that,” the boy pleaded. “Why, I wouldn’t have a chance. I’d know what they were sayin’ all the time.”
“Sure you’d know it. Tha’s the price you g-gotta pay for g-grovelin’. Don’t you see yore only chance is to go out an’ make good before the folks who know how you’ve acted? Sneak off an’ keep still about what you did, amongst s-strangers, an’ where do you get off? You know all yore life you’re only a worm. The best you can be is a bluff. You’d be d-duckin’ outa makin’ the fight you’ve gotta make. That don’t get you anywhere a-tall. No, sir. Go out an’ reverse the verdict of the court. Make good, right amongst the people who’re keepin’ tabs on yore record. You can do it, if you c-clamp yore j-jaw an’ remember that yore red haid is c-covered with g-glory an’ you been given dominion.”
“But—”
“S-snap it up!” squeaked Blister.
The red head came up again with a jerk.
“Keep it up.”
“What’ll I do? Where’ll I find work?”
“Out on the range. At the K Bar T, or the Keystone, or the Slash Lazy D. It don’t m-matter where.”
“I can’t ride.”
“Hmp! Learn, can’t you? Dud Hollister an’ Tom Reeves wasn’t neither one of them born on a bronc’s back. They climbed up there. So can you. You’ll take the dust forty times. You’ll get yore bones busted an’ yore red haid cut open. But if you got the guts to stick, you’ll be ridin’ ’em slick one o’ these here days. An’ you’ll come out a m-man.”
A faint glow began to stir in the boy’s heart. Was there really a chance for him to reverse the verdict? Could he still turn over a leaf and make another start?
“You’ll have one heluva time for a while,” Blister prophesied. “Take ’em by an’ large an’ these lads chasin’ cows’ tails are the salt o’ the earth. They’ll go farther with you an’ stick longer than anybody else you ever met up with. Once they know you an’ like you. But they’ll be right offish with you for a while. Kinda polite an’ distant, I expect. S-some overbearin’ g-guy will start runnin’ on you, knowin’ it’ll be safe. It’ll be up to you to m-make it mighty onsafe for him. Go through to a finish that once an’ the boys will begin sizin’ you up an’ wonderin’ about you. Those show-me lads will have to get evidence about ’steen times before they’ll believe.”
“I’ll never be able to stick it. I’m such a—so timid,” Dillon groaned.
The justice bristled. “H-hell’s bells! What’s ailin’ you, Texas man? I tell you that you’re made in His image. Bite on that thought hard whenever you’re up against it an’ want to hide yorese’f in a hole. Every time you get too s-scared to play yore hand out, you’re playin’ it low down on yore C-creator.”
Bob came to another phase of the situation. “What about—June?”
“Well, what about her?”
; “She’s gone with Houck. He’ll not take her home.”
“What d’ you m-mean not take her home? Where’ll he take her?”
“I don’t know. That’s it. I’m responsible for her. I brought her here. He means to—to make her live with him.”
“Keep her by force—that what you’re drivin’ at?”
“No-o. Not exactly. He’s got a hold over her father somehow. She’s worn out fightin’ him. When she ran away with me she played her last card. She’ll have to give up now. He’s so big an’ strong, such a bulldog for gettin’ his way, that she can’t hold him off. June ain’t seventeen yet. She’s gettin’ a mighty rotten deal, looks like. First off, livin’ alone the way she an’ Tolliver do, then Houck, then me, an’ finally Houck again.”
“I’ll notify Tolliver how things are,” Blister said. “Get word to him right away. We’ll have to take a lead from him about June.”
“I was thinkin’—”
“Onload it.”
“Mrs. Gillespie was so kind to her. Maybe she could talk to June an’ take her at the hotel—if June an’ Houck haven’t gone yet.”
“You said something then, boy. I’ll see Mollie right away. She’ll sure fix it.”
They were too late. The wrangler at Kilburn’s corral had already seen Houck hitch up and drive away with June, they presently learned.
* * *
CHAPTER XI
JUNE PRAYS
When June turned away from her husband of an hour she abandoned hope. She had been like a child lost in the forest. A gleam of light from a window had cheered her for a moment, but it had flickered out and left her in the darkness.
In one sense June was innocent as an infant. She knew nothing of feminine blandishments, of the coquetry which has become so effective a weapon in the hands of modern woman when she is not hampered by scruples. But she had lived too close to nature not to be aware of carnal appetite.
It is a characteristic of frontier life that one learns to face facts. June looked at them now, clear-eyed, despair in her heart. As she walked beside Jake to the corral, as she waited for him to hitch up the broncos, as she rode beside him silently through the gathering night, the girl’s mind dwelt on that future which was closing in on her like prison walls.
The Fighting Edge Page 6