by Lauran Paine
“I won’t be able to make it until later. About three in the afternoon.”
Elihu’s teeth flashed; he pumped Tom’s hand in a close grip. “At three o’clock.” He smiled. “Good night.”
Tom crossed to the Royal Antler, exchanged glances with Tex, had two quick jolts of Old Hennessy, and departed. At the livery stable he engaged the night hawk in casual conversation, rented a horse, and rode out. It was then slightly after 8:00 p.m. He did not return until after midnight, and again he engaged the hostler in conversation. He finally went to the hotel and retired at 1:45 in the morning.
Saturday the sun rose bitterly yellow and heat poured over the land in dancing waves. Few riders were abroad. Tom did not meet a soul until the afternoon was well along and he was returning to Beatty. Then he crossed trails with Sheriff Pollard and a young deputy named Jack Havestraw. Enormous crescents of sweat darkened the younger man’s shirt but Tim Pollard was only slightly flush-faced and red-necked. He reined in beside Tom with curiosity bright in his eyes.
“Poor time o’ day to be ridin’,” he said probingly. Tom let the words sink into dead silence.
They rode perhaps two miles before Pollard tried again. “Lots of cow country hereabouts. Thinkin’ about going into the cattle business?”
Tom swung his head, fixed Sheriff Pollard with a steady gaze, and said: “I guess you didn’t turn up anything.”
Pollard shifted slightly in the saddle. The amiability left his voice and he sighed. “I haven’t yet but I’m not through, either. Listen, Barker, I usually bend over backward to get along with folks. You’re expectin’ me to break my back.”
“You don’t even have to bend for me, Sheriff. Just keep out of my way.”
Tom booted the livery horse into a slow lope and rode away. Pollard’s deputy looked angry. “Who is he, anyway? Sure disagreeable.”
Tim Pollard watched the diminishing figure swerve toward town. “It isn’t who he is that bothers me. I know all about that. It’s what he’s up to that keeps me awake nights.”
“Say,” young Havestraw said in a rising tone, “isn’t that the feller who shot Charley Ingersoll?”
“It is.”
“Humph! When Clint finds him, your troubles’ll be over.”
Tim shook his head with hard emphasis. “Don’t you go an’ bet any money on that,” he growled. “Them as saw him outdraw Charley told me they’d never seen a man so fast with his gun.” The sheriff spat aside. “Clint Ingersoll’s goin’ to get himself killed and you mark my words on that.”
Far ahead, Tom hauled up finally and twisted to watch the sheriff and his deputy straggling their way slowly across the shimmering distance. He smiled and his face did not entirely lose its expression of satisfaction until he swung down at the livery stable, handed the reins to the day man, and bent forward to beat dust from his clothing. He took out his watch, gazed at its face, and crossed to the hotel. It was then 3:00. Elihu Gorman would be waiting. Let him wait.
Tom called for the water boy, gave him a quarter, and lay back in a cool, refreshing bath. Later, while he was dressing, he gave the same lad another quarter to go to the bank and tell Elihu Gorman that Mr. Barker had been detained and could not see him until after 5:00. When the youth departed, Tom winked at his reflection in the mirror and descended to the lobby. The clerk smiled wide approval; there was no denying it, Tom Barker was a fine figure of a man. Everything he wore was dark. The only contrasting relief about him was the ivory grip of his sidearm.
He was sitting in the dark corner of the Royal Antler where he always sat, legs outthrust, shoulders slumped, gazing at the blunt ends of his fingers feeling clean and loose and satisfied, when the night hawk from the livery stable shuffled up. Without a word passing between them, Tom counted out $20 and handed them over. The hostler faced toward the bar with his thirst showing.
A tousle-headed cowboy facing Barker’s corner from his place at the poker table saw this transaction over the edge of his cards. His eyes followed the hostler to the bar, watched him thump down a coin, and call for a bottle, then swung palely back to the slouched figure in the shadows. His boyish face was wooden but deep in his eyes lay something difficult to define, a guarded expression of strange, cold portent.
VII
Tom saw Elihu Gorman after 6:00 p.m. The banker’s grip was weak, his palm clammy, when they shook. His face, too, seemed paler than it had the night before. Tom took a chair and sank down. He said: “Sorry I had to be late but word gets around in Beatty. I’ve had more cowmen wanting me to buy them out or back them, than you can shake a stick at.” He studied Gorman; the wait had been hard on him, which is the way Tom had wanted it to be. “I’ll tell you,” he continued, cutting across the banker’s opening words, “I’ve just about decided to hang and rattle a day or two over this. There might be other ways to invest that forty thousand.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“You see, I know the cattle business, Gorman, and I don’t know this loaning business.”
“But, Mister Barker, I told you . . . the loan will be guaranteed by the bank.”
“I know,” Tom said, getting to his feet. There was finality in his voice. “Just the same I’m going to hang and rattle until Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for your time and effort, Gorman.”
Elihu did not arise from his desk. Tom let himself out of the bank and stood a moment on the plank walk, tasting the fullness of triumph. Northerly from the bank, in the smoky light of carriage lamps made fast to either side of the livery stable opening, three men were grouped in earnest conversation. He recognized one of them as Judge Montgomery. A second figure was the day hostler. The third man, with his back to Tom, was unrecognizable. He watched them a moment, then crossed to the hotel and went to his room.
Noise rose mutedly up from the roadway—the jingle of spurs, the stamp of boots and the hooting call of happy men. Tom blew down the lamp chimney, plunged his room into darkness, then stood by the window, looking down. Within a week Beatty would know whether he was top lash in the valley or a whipped cur riding out with his tail tucked under him. He smoked a cigarette. If he had to ride out, all right, but at least four men would not forget him as long as they lived: Judge Montgomery, Elihu Gorman, Moses Beach, and that old fogy, Sheriff Tim Pollard. He retired on that thought.
* * * * *
Sunday dawned with a blaze of saffron glory. Sunlight stole down the far hillsides, raced across the range, and burst upon Beatty with a soft brilliance that turned quickly to yellow, breathless heat. Tom awakened to the tolling of a church bell. He stared at the ceiling; he could close his eyes and hear that same bell tolling him out of bed as a boy. He and his mother had often gone to that church; since those days he had not once been inside a church. He swung out of bed, dressed, and went to the Queens & Aces Café for breakfast. There, unexpectedly, he met Tex and a high-breasted, long-legged girl, bold of eye and with a wide, full mouth that promised a generosity of spirit to match its size and heaviness. He nodded; the girl was from the Royal Antler; he’d often seen her there. But this meeting was different. In this setting she didn’t look the same. No, he decided, it wasn’t the setting, it was her attire. She had a subdued, well-cut dress with a primly high neckline; her hair was brushed severely back and in a bun at the nape of her neck. He squinted at Tex, at the buttoned suit coat, the peg-top pants, and yellow shoes—not boots. Tex’s pale eyes avoided him and a slow stain mounted into his boyish face. My God, Tom thought, they’re going to church. Those two are going to church!
“Yes, Mister Barker?”
“Coffee, fried meat, and potatoes.”
He drummed on the counter, keeping cadence with the tolling bell. The girl threw him a wide smile. “I didn’t know you ate, too,” she said, laughing. “All I’ve ever seen you do is drink.”
He continued to drum on the counter, gazing straight ahead at a garish curtain made hideous by enormous cabbage roses. From the corner of his eye he saw Tex nudge her and get uncomfortably to his feet.
When they passed through the door, Tom twisted for another look. Miss Eloise—she had a way of walking . . .
“Your coffee, Mister Barker.”
He faced around and lifted the cup. When the cook returned with his platter of food, Tom said: “Mike, you go to the firemen’s dances at the church house?”
“Yes, every year, Mister Barker. I wouldn’t miss one.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Everybody’s there . . . all the pretty gals, the boys from the ranches, music, food. No, sir, I wouldn’t miss one of them dances for the world.”
Tom finished eating and left the café. He ran head-on into Judge Montgomery’s daughter. If the choice had been his, he would have avoided the meeting; since he could not, he touched his hat and started past.
“Tom?”
It stopped him still. When they had been very young, she had called him that. He turned back, sweeping off his hat. “Yes’m.”
“Are you going to church?”
“No’m.”
Beneath her brows was the inquiring line of frank gray eyes. She had a beautiful, composed mouth; the lips lay together without pressure. He could see in them her flare of temper; she could charm a man or chill him to the marrow. She was slightly taller than the average woman, and maturity had given her a handsome figure, slightly full at breast and hip, and a face with both strong and pleasant contours. Her skin was creamy ordinarily, he could see, but now it was flushed by the steady-rising heat.
“Why not?”
A quick flash showed in his eyes, then died instantly; he forced a smile. “It’s been so long I’ve forgotten how to act in a church, Toni.”
Her smile came, long and soft. “Tom, you’re the only one who ever called me Toni. Even yet . . . I’m Antoinette or Tonette. Except for Tim Pollard, of course.”
He stood silently before her, courteous but impassive and distant. She regarded him levelly through an interval of silence. “Why . . . Tom?”
“Why . . . what?”
“Why did you come back?”
“You’ll be late for prayer meeting, Toni.”
Again the silence settled between them. She started to move, to turn away, then she called his name again, and he waited. “You’ll be at the dance tonight?” she inquired.
“Yes’m. I reckon so.”
“Should I save you a dance?”
Sweat broke out on his face and he could feel the color mounting there in waves. He wanted to hasten away but instead he said gravely: “I’d like that, Toni.”
She smiled then, and left him.
He thought of his room but restlessness drove him to the Royal Antler. Even with a bottle and glass and the morning hush of a saloon on Sunday, the restlessness did not leave. “Roy,” he called to the bartender, who was the only other man in the room, “did you know Charley Ingersoll?”
“I knew him, Mister Barker.”
“Do you know his brother?”
“Yes.”
The barman leaned over the counter, looking round eyed at dark Tom Barker. In all these weeks this was the first time Tom had addressed him other than to call for a bottle. Also, Roy had heard the gossip and had as much curiosity as the next man, even though, in his trade, he had to work harder to conceal it than most men did.
“You’ve heard the talk . . . that he’s going to hunt me up one of these days.”
“I’ve heard it, Mister Barker.”
Tom drained his glass before speaking again. “What’s holding him back, Roy?”
“Nothin’, I expect, Mister Barker. He’ll come.” Roy threw a long glance outward toward the shimmering road. “Clint’s a freighter. He don’t often get home.”
“Well, I don’t particularly want to kill him.”
“I expect you’re goin’ to have to, though.”
The bell ceased its tolling. Deep silence settled over the town. In the far distance a dog’s barking rose keenly in the heat. Tom turned his back on the bar and gazed steadily out the window; beyond Beatty lay the pure flare of open range; beyond the range was a blue blur of rising hills, cowed now by midsummer’s heat. Like all desert lands this was a country that went down deep into a man, remained there, a part of him, so long as he lived and breathed. It was for Tom Barker a solid part of memory, a segment of his life stream. He twisted, refilled his glass, and held it untouched in one fist, caught in the grip of memory.
He remembered her as a sweet child gripping the seat of a wagon watching him with solemn admiration. He recalled her, too, sitting beside him while a black Arizona night closed down around them, thick and mysterious, and only their tiny yellow-pointed campfire burning bravely while they pretended he was an Apache buck and she was his squaw. But his most vivid memory of her was the morning he went to her father full of a great and desperate fear, pleading for help. He could never forget how she had looked at him then, nor could he forget how her father had listened gravely, then had taken him to the sheriff to be rid of the squalor and sordidness he represented.
Four mounted men trotted into sight from the south, their horses pushing up gray gouts of dust as far as the Royal Antler hitch rail. There, the riders swung down, tied up, and started purposefully forward. Tom watched them briefly and put down his glass, arose, flung a coin upon the table, and walked out. He didn’t want to hear laughter right then.
There has never been a man so wholly alone as the one who waits outside a church. Tom smoked a cigarette, leaning upon a store front with soft singing coming to him across the empty roadway. He thought of Moses Beach; how he was lying there, guarding Tom’s secret unwillingly, and there was quite suddenly no flavor to the thought. But a hard man with a lifelong ambition to amount to something in the town that had turned him out could not easily change back to the boy he had once been. Willful energy lived in him; it showed in the uncompromising blackness of his eyes and in the set lines of his jaw and lips, and while, on the one hand he took no satisfaction from Beach’s plight, on the other he could not, and would not, turn back.
The church was emptying. Women in bonnets and men in stiff collars and carefully greased shoes made their uncomfortable way through the heat. Judge Montgomery walked sedately beside Antoinette, and for just a moment black eyes and gray ones met in a distant clash and an electric shock traveled to Tom over the intervening distance. Then she was talking to a young man with glossy blond hair and did not again look in Tom’s direction.
He threw down the cigarette and moved off toward the hotel. Behind him, coming out of the crowd, Tex and Miss Eloise paced evenly forward on the plank walk. They both saw his back moving away from them and each let a long glance linger on him. Miss Eloise said: “He’s a strange person, isn’t he?”
Tex was slow in replying. “He wasn’t always that way, though, ma’am.”
Liquid violet eyes lifted swiftly. “Oh? Do you know him?”
“Yes’m.”
“But you didn’t speak to him at the café.”
“He wants it that way.”
Miss Eloise’s nose wrinkled. “You mean he doesn’t want his friends to recognize him here in Beatty? Why, is he an outlaw?” Her eyes widened noticeably.
“No’m. That’s just the way he wants it.”
“Oh.” Miss Eloise searched the empty plank walk for Tom Barker’s figure but it had disappeared into the hotel. “Tex, will he be at the dance tonight?”
“I reckon he will. Leastwise he said he might show up.”
“Well, would you care if I danced with him?”
Tex lowered his eyes to her face. “No’m, I wouldn’t care. Only I’ll give you odds he won’t ask you to dance.”
Miss Eloise’s round eyes were momentarily lost behind a slow, feline blink. “What kind of odds, honey?” she asked silkily.
Tex looked rueful. He said: “I just remembered something. I ain’t going to bet with you.”
“Aren’t going to bet with me.”
“All right . . . aren’t. It’s the same thing anyway.”
&nb
sp; “Tex . . . ?”
“Yes’m.”
“Why’s everyone scairt of him? Is he truly a gunman?”
“He ain’t no gunman, and if anyone’s scairt of him, I expect they got a reason to be. He was born and partly raised up in this town.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, he was. And he’s got a grudge against it, too.”
“Against the town? You mean against the whole town?”
“Yes’m.”
“I declare, I never heard of such a thing before.”
Tex turned thoughtful. “Listen to me,” he said quickly. “Don’t you breathe a word of what I’ve told you to a living soul. You understand?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. Cross my heart.”
Tex’s boyish face resumed its normal open expression. “Shall I meet you at the dance or fetch you from the Royal Antler?”
“From the Royal Antler, silly. I’m not going to pay my own way into that dance.”
Tex smiled, then he laughed. “That’d be something, wouldn’t it . . . you paying your own way to a dance?”
VIII
When darkness came down, the mystery of the night closed in. Tom was still in his room when he heard the musicians start playing. He examined himself in the mirror as best he could—it was not a very large piece of glass—then crossed to the window and stood a moment, watching couples strolling toward the plank pavilion beside the church. There was an elusive feeling of excitement in him that would not be pinned down, hard as he tried to catch it in words. He saw Tex enter the Royal Antler and reappear shortly with Miss Eloise on his arm. He smiled flintily; if Tex wasn’t careful, he was going to find himself with a ring in his nose. Well, no matter how good a cowboy a man was, he would not be young forever, and in the end perhaps it was better to have a woman and children and a piece of land, a place to rest your head when the storms came. He shrugged and started for the door. It would not be hard to tame Tex Earle; he’d always had the seeds of domesticity in him anyway.
It was a fluid crowd that eddied around him as he approached the pavilion. The music was loud and lively. Laden tables groaned under the weight of food and four huge punch bowls stood brimming. A dozen young men were clustered around one particular bowl and their mischievous grins told the story of a smuggled bottle that had been emptied into the punch there. He caught a glimpse of Antoinette whirling past on her father’s arm, and he thought, in that brief moment, that her searching gaze had come to rest with something like relief when she saw him. Tex and Miss Eloise pranced by and Roy the bartender, hair neatly plastered, face set woodenly to endure discomfort, glided past. Even Elihu Gorman was dancing, a sturdy woman near his own age in his arms.