And as the outfit faded into the southern distance, Harlan, walking near the larger of the two bunkhouses, came upon Linton.
Harlan grinned when he saw the other.
“You didn’t go with the outfit, Red?” he said. “Seems a foreman ought to be mighty eager to be with his men on their first trip after he’s appointed.”
Linton’s face was pale, his gaze was direct.
“Look here, Harlan,” he said, steadily. “I’ve knowed you a long time, an’ I know that you’re a damn’ sight straighter than a lot of men which has got reputations better than yourn. But there’s some things want explainin’. I’ve sort of took a shine to that little girl in there. There’s things brewin’ which is goin’ to make it mighty bad for her. It wasn’t so bad while old Morgan was here, but now he’s gone, an’ she’s got to play it a lone hand.
“You git riled an’ sling your gun on me if you want to. I know I wouldn’t have a chance. But just the same, I’m tellin’ you. You know that more’n half that outfit you’ve put me at the head of is Deveny’s men—sneakin’, thievin’, murderin’ outlaws?”
“You wantin’ to quit, Red?” said Harlan, smoothly.
“Quit! Hell’s fire! I’m hangin’ on to the finish. But I’m findin’ out where you stand. What you meanin’ to do with Barbara Morgan?”
Harlan grinned. “I answered that question when I appointed you foreman, Red. But I reckon I made a mistake—I ought to have appointed a man who knows what his think-box is for.”
Linton flushed, and peered intently at the other.
“Meanin’ that you’re backin’ Barbara in this here deal?” he demanded.
“A real thoughtful man would have tumbled to it quicker,” was Harlan’s soft, ironical reply.
For an instant Linton’s gaze was intense with searching, probing inquiry. And Harlan’s steady eyes were agleam with a light that was so quietly honest that it made Linton gasp:
“Damn me! You mean it! You’re playin’ ’em straight, face up. That talk of yourn about Lane Morgan makin’ you manager was straight goods. I know Dolver an’ Laskar an’ the guy they call ‘Chief’ plugged Morgan—for I heard Stroud an’ some more of them talkin’ about it. An’ I heard that you got Dolver an’ Laskar, an’ kept Deveny from grabbin’ off Barbara Morgan, over in Lamo. But I thought you was playin’ for Barbara, too—an’ I wasn’t figurin’ on lettin’ you.”
Harlan laughed lowly.
“Things don’t always shape up the way a man thinks they will, Red. I started for Lamo, figurin’ to salivate Dolver an’ the other guy who killed Davey Langan. I got Dolver at Sentinel Rock, an’ I figured I’d be likely to run into the other guy somewheres—mebbe findin’ him in Deveny’s gang. But runnin’ into Lane Morgan sort of changed the deal. An’ now I’m postponin’ a lot of things until Barbara Morgan is runnin’ free, with no coyotes from the Deveny crowd tryin’ to rope her.”
Linton’s eyes were glowing, he crowded close to Harlan, so close that his body touched Harlan’s, and he stood thus for an instant, breathing fast. Then, noting the unwavering, genial gleam in Harlan’s eyes—a visible sign of Harlan’s knowledge of his deep emotion—Linton seized one of the other’s hands and gripped it tightly.
“Damn your hide,” he said, lowly, “you had me goin’. I’m dead set on seein’ that girl git a square deal, an’ when I saw you makin’ a play for them damned outlaws that are in the outfit, I sure figured there’d be hell a-poppin’ around the Rancho Seco. You sure had me flabbergasted when you named me foreman, for I couldn’t anticipate your trail none.
“But I reckon I’m wised up, now. You’re goin’ to run a whizzer in on ’em—playin’ ’em for suckers. An’ I’m your right-hand man—stickin’ with you until hell runs long on icebergs!”
CHAPTER XIV
SHADOWS
A desire to ride once more in the peaceful sunshine of the land she loved was one of the first indications that Barbara was recovering from the shock occasioned by her father’s death. For two or three days she had not stirred from her room, except to go downstairs to cook her meals. She had spent much of her time sitting at a window nursing her sorrow.
But on this morning she got out of bed feeling more composed than usual, with several new emotions struggling for the mastery. One of those emotions was that of intolerance.
Harlan’s assumption of authority enraged her. He had come to the Rancho Seco with no credentials other than his mere word that her father had forced him to promise to “take hold” of “things.” And she intended, this very morning, to send Harlan away, and to assume control of the ranch herself.
This determination held until after she had breakfasted, and then she stood for a long time in the kitchen door, looking out into the brilliant sunshine, afflicted with a strange indecision.
Harlan had helped to fill the void created by her father’s death—that was certain. There had been something satisfying in his presence at the ranch; it had seemed to mean an assurance for her safety; she had felt almost as fully protected as when her father had been with her. It angered her to see him moving about the place as though he had a perfect right to be there, but at the same time she felt comfortably certain that as long as he was around no harm could come to her.
Her emotions were so contradictory that she could not reach a decision regarding the action she should take and she bit her lips with vexation as she stood in the doorway.
Later, her cheeks a little flushed with the realization that she was surrendering to an emotion that she could not understand—but which, she decided guiltily, her face crimson, had its inception in a conviction that she would regret seeing Harlan ride away, to return no more—she went to the corral, roped her pony, threw saddle and bridle on it, mounted the animal, and rode away—westward.
She had not traveled more than half a mile when she heard the rapid beating of hoofs behind her. Glancing swiftly backward, she saw Purgatory coming, Harlan in the saddle, smoking a cigarette.
Her pulses leaped, unaccountably, and the crimson flush again stained her cheeks; but she sat rigid in the saddle, and looked straight ahead, pretending she had not discovered the presence of horse and rider behind her.
She rode another half mile before the flush died out of her cheeks. And then, responding to a swift indignation, she brought Billy to a halt, wheeled him, and sat motionless in the saddle, her face pale, her eyes flashing.
With apparent unconcern Harlan rode toward her. The big black horse did not change his pace, nor did Harlan change expression. It seemed to the girl that in both horse and rider were a steadfastness of purpose that nothing could change. And despite her indignation, she felt a thrill of admiration for both man and horse.
Yet her eyes were still flashing ominously when Harlan rode to within a dozen paces of her and brought the big black to a halt.
There was an expression of grave respect on Harlan’s face; but she saw a lurking devil in his eyes—a gleam of steady, quizzical humor—that made her yearn to use her quirt on him. For by that gleam she knew he had purposely followed her; that he expected her to be angry with him for doing so. And the gleam also told her that he had determined to bear with her anger.
“Well?” she inquired, icily.
“Good mornin’, ma’am.” He bowed to her, sweeping his broad-brimmed hat from his head with, it seemed to her, an ironical flourish.
“Is there something you want to speak to me about?” she asked, her chin elevated, disdain in her eyes. She assured herself that when he glanced at her as he was doing at this instant, she positively hated him. She wondered why she had tolerated his presence.
“I wasn’t havin’ any thoughts about speakin’ to you, ma’am. Kind of a nice mornin’ for a ride, ain’t it?”
“If one rides alone,” she returned, significantly.
“I enjoy ridin’ a whole lot better when I’ve got company,” he stated, gravely, with equal significance.
“Meaning that you have made up your mind to ride w
ith me, I suppose?” she said coldly.
“You’ve hit it, ma’am.”
“Well,” she declared, her voice quivering with passion; “I don’t want you to ride with me. You came here and usurped whatever power and authority there is; and you are running the Rancho Seco as though it belongs to you. But you shan’t ride with me—I don’t want you to!”
Had she been standing she must have stamped one foot on the ground, so vehement was her manner. And the flashing scorn of her eyes should have been enough to discourage most men.
But not Harlan. His eyelids flickered with some emotion; and his eyes—she noted now, even though she could have killed him for his maddening insistence—were blue, and rimmed by heavy lashes that sun and sand had bleached until the natural brown of them threatened to become a light tan.
She studied him, even while hating him for she saw the force of him—felt it. And though she was thinking spiteful things of him, she found that she was forming a new impression of him—of his character, his appearance, and of the motives that controlled him.
And she thought she knew why men avoided having trouble with him. She told herself that if she were a man and she were facing him with violence in her heart, she would consider seriously before she betrayed it to him. For in his eyes, in the lips, in the thrust of his chin—even in the atmosphere that surrounded him at this instant, was a threat, an unspoken promise, lingering and dormant, of complete readiness—almost eagerness, she was convinced—for violence.
She drew a sharp breath as she watched him. And when she saw his lips curving into a slight smile—wholesome, though grave; with a hint of boyish amusement in them—she got another quick impression of his character, new and startling and illuminating.
For behind the hard, unyielding exterior that he presented to men; back of the promise and the threat of violence, was the impulsiveness and the gentleness that would have ruled him had not the stern necessity of self-preservation forced him to conceal them.
The smile disarmed her. It did seem ludicrous—that she should try to force this man to do anything he did not want to do. And she had known that he would not obey her, and ride back to the ranchhouse; she was convinced that she must either go back or suffer him to follow her as he pleased.
And she was determined not to give up her ride. She was determined to be very haughty about it, though; but when she wheeled Billy, to head him again into the western distance, her eyes twinkled her surrender, and her lips trembled on the verge of a defiant smile.
Then Billy felt the quirt on his flank; he snorted with astonishment and disgust, and charged forward, tossing his head intolerantly.
Looking sidelong, after Billy had traveled two or three hundred yards, Barbara observed that the big black horse was not more than half a dozen steps behind. And curiously, Barbara again experienced that comfortable assurance of protection, and of satisfaction over the nearness of Harlan.
Moved by an entirely unaccountable impulse, she drew the reins slightly on Billy, slowing him, almost imperceptibly, so that both horses had traveled more than a quarter of a mile before the distance between them lessened noticeably.
And then, with an impatience that caused her cheeks to glow, Barbara noted that Purgatory had slowed also, Harlan seemingly accommodating the animal’s pace to her own. It was plain to see that Harlan did not intend to assume that she had relented.
For another quarter of a mile the distance remained the same, and the silence was unbroken except by the rhythmical beating of hoofs through the rustling, matted mesquite.
Then Barbara, yielding to an impulse of righteous anger, brought on by Harlan’s obvious intention to remain at a respectful distance, deliberately brought Billy to a walk and waited until Harlan rode beside her.
“You don’t need to be a brute—even if I did tell you to go back to the ranchhouse!”
“Meanin’ what, ma’am? Why, I don’t remember to have done anything. I was doin’ a heap of thinkin’ just now—if that’s what you mean.”
“Thinking mean things of me—I suppose—for what I said to you.”
He had been thinking of her—seriously. And his thoughts were far from fickle as he watched her now, riding within a few feet of him, her profile toward him, her head having a rigid set, her chin held high, her lips tight-pressed, and her hair drooping in graceful coils over her ears, and bulging in alluring disorder at the nape of her neck.
He was thinking that he had braved, to answer a mere whim, greater dangers than he would be likely to meet in defending her from the wolf-pack which circumstances had set upon her. He was thinking that heretofore his life had been lived without regard to order or system—that he had led a will-o’-the-wisp existence, never knowing that such women as she graced the world. He was thinking of what might have happened to her had not Davey Langan been killed, and if he had not started out to avenge him.
Into his thoughts at this minute flashed a mental picture that paled his face and brought his lips into straight, hard lines—a picture of Barbara at the mercy of Deveny.
With a quick turn he brought Purgatory around in front of Billy, blocking the animal’s further progress westward. The girl started at the rapid movement, and watched him fearfully, dreading—she knew not what.
But his smile—grim and mirthless though it was—partially reassured her, and she sat silent, looking at him as he spoke, rapidly, earnestly.
“I was thinkin’ of you; an’ I wasn’t thinkin’ mean things—about you. I was thinkin’ of Deveny—an’ of what your dad told me over there by Sentinel Rock.
“Your dad told me that you was in danger—that Deveny an’ Strom Rogers an’ some more of them had their eyes turned on you. Your dad made me promise that I’d come here an’ look out for you—an’ I mean to do it. That’s why I went to Lamo when I had no call to go there an’ that’s why I brought Deveny to a show-down in front of you.
“There’s somethin’ goin’ on around here that ain’t showin’ on the surface—somethin’ that’s hidden an’ sneakin’. You heard some of them guys in Lamo gassin’ about the ‘Chief’ bein’ one of the three that sent your dad over the Divide.
“Well, your dad told me that, too—that there was three of them pitched onto him. It was the fellow they call Chief that shot your dad while he was sleepin’—when it was too dark for your dad to see his face. Your dad made me promise to hunt that guy up an’ square things for him. That’s what I’m here for. Anyway, it’s one reason I’m here. The other reason is that I’m goin’ to see that you get a square deal from them guys.
“An’ you won’t get a square deal ridin’ out alone, like this—especially when you head toward Sunset Trail, where Deveny an’ his gang hang out. An’ I’m settin’ down hard on you ridin’ that way. I’m keepin’ you from runnin’ any chances.”
Silently Barbara had watched Harlan’s face while he had been talking. There was no doubt that he was in earnest, and there was likewise no doubt that he was concerned for her safety. But why? It seemed absurd that Harlan, an outlaw himself, should protect her from other outlaws. Yet in Lamo he had done just that.
Behind his actions, his expressed concern for her, must be a motive. What was it? Was it possible that he was doing this thing unselfishly; that the promise her father had exacted from him had changed him; that in his heart at this instant dwelt those finer impulses which must be dormant in all men, however bad?
The light of that great inquiry was in her eyes; they searched his face for subtlety and craft and cunning—for something that would give her a clue to his thoughts. And when she could find in his expression only a grave concern she pulled Billy around and started him back toward the ranchhouse.
They had not ridden more than a hundred yards before she stole a glance at Harlan.
He was now riding beside her, looking straight ahead, his face expressionless. Had he betrayed the slightest sign of triumph she would have changed her mind about going back to the ranchhouse with him.
As it wa
s, she felt a pulse of rage over her readiness in yielding to his orders. Yet the rage was softened by a lurking, stealthy joy she got out of his masterfulness.
“I presume I may ride in another direction—east, for instance—or north, or south?”
He apparently took no notice of the mockery in her voice.
“You’ll not be ridin’ alone, anywhere,” he declared.
“Oh!” she returned, raising her chin and looking at him with a cold scorn that, she thought, would embarrass him; “I am to have a guardian.”
He looked straight back to her, steadily, seemingly unaffected by the hostility of her gaze.
“It amounts to that. But mebbe I wouldn’t put it just that way. Somebody’s got to look out for you—to see that you don’t go to rushin’ into trouble. There was trouble over in Lamo—if you’ll remember.”
And now he smiled gravely at her, and her face reddened over the memory of the incident. She had been eager enough, then, to seek his protection; she had trusted him.
“That wasn’t your fault,” he went on gently. “You didn’t know then, mebbe, just what kind of a guy Deveny is. But you know now, an’ it would be your fault if you run into him again.”
He saw how she took it—how her color came and went, and how her eyes drooped from his. He smiled soberly.
“Looks to me that you’ve got to pin your faith to a mighty small chance, ma’am.”
“What chance?” She looked at him in startled wonderment, for it had not occurred to her that she faced any real danger, despite the threatening attitude of Deveny, and her isolation. For the great, peaceful world, and the swimming sunlight were full of the promise of the triumph of right and virtue; and the sturdy self-reliance of youth was in her heart.
“What chance?” she repeated, watching him keenly.
“The chance that me an’ Red Linton will be able to get things into shape to look out for you.” He was gravely serious.
“It must seem a mighty slim chance to you—me comin’ here with a reputation that ain’t any too good, an’ Linton, with his red head an’ his freckles. Seems like a woman would go all wrong, pinnin’ her faith to red hair an’ freckles an’ a hell-raisin’ outlaw. But there’s been worse combinations, ma’am—if I do say it myself. An’ me an’ Red is figurin’ to come through, no matter what you think of us.”
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 123