by Lauran Paine
When a quiet voice drawled at his side, he turned to see Sheriff Pollard slouching there, fierce mustache waxed and set, faded eyes crinkled in a tolerant smile. “You got a gun under that coat, Mister Barker?”
“Yes. Is it against the law to have one here?”
“Nope.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because Clint Ingersoll’s wagons were seen southeast of town this afternoon.” Pollard continued to regard the dancers. “He’ll likely show up here tonight.”
Tom was jostled from behind; he moved closer to the sheriff to permit several laughing couples to squeeze past. “I can’t stop him from coming here,” he said.
“No,” Pollard conceded, “you can’t. Would you . . . if you could?”
“Yes.”
“Why? You worried?”
“No.”
“Mebbe you should be. They say Clint’s fair to middlin’ fast with a handgun.”
“That’s not fast enough,” Tom replied, and edged away through the crowd.
Sheriff Pollard watched the broad retreating back, and, when Jack Havestraw came up, he turned and said: “Y’know, it’s hard to like a man that don’t like you . . . but it isn’t always hard to respect ’em.”
The youthful deputy looked around at the crowd. “Who?” he asked, not seeing Tom.
“Barker. I was just talkin’ to him. I don’t think he wants to use that gun so bad, after all.”
“Oh. Did you get the answers back on him yet?”
“Nope. And likely when I do, I’ll already know all I want to know about him. I got a feelin’ about that.”
The sheriff moved off in the same direction Tom had taken. People called his name, jostled him, and offered him drinks. It made him feel good, as a lawman, to be liked rather than disliked. Once, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Tom Barker talking to a high-breasted girl. It was Miss Eloise and the flashing smile she wore suggested that perhaps it wasn’t altogether a coincidence that, at that precise moment, the dance caller held up his fiddle for the crowd’s attention and bellowed: “Ladies’ choice, gents. Ladies’ choice.”
There was more than challenge in the violet eyes in front of Tom Barker; there was interest and curiosity, and perhaps flirtation as well. He took her arm and went forward; the music commenced, louder and wilder it seemed to him, and they whirled away. He had not danced in years and her closeness troubled him. He felt the rhythm of her body and was conscious of the clean smell of her hair. She held her dazzling smile and gazed directly into his eyes.
“You are a good dancer, Mister Barker,” Eloise said, then, before he spoke, she rushed on: “Can I call you Tom?”
His discomfort increased: “Yes’m, you can.”
“And you call me Eloise.”
He inclined his head slightly. She was dancing very close to him and he could feel the ripple of flesh and muscle. He also knew many eyes watched them and winced from the thought of Antoinette.
The dance finally ended. Tom escorted Miss Eloise to the sidelines and made a quick exit. He did not see Tex push through and claim Eloise for the next dance, and so he missed the pale light in Earle’s eyes that crystallized into hardness as Eloise talked.
Tom was nearing the outer fringe of people when a chirping voice hailed him. “Nice dance, ain’t it, Mister Barker?” He looked around and down. It was Mike from the Queens & Aces. He nodded, and pushed past.
There was a scent of dust in the air and shadows twisted and turned where the lanterns hung. On the side wall of the church gigantic figures jerked and plunged, their shadowy distortions trailing off into deep murk. A restless bubble of talk quivered on the air; people continued to arrive; laughter, flashing eyes, and flushed faces moved forward in a strong blur.
“Tom?”
He was making a cigarette. His hands grew still as he twisted. She was smiling up at him, but there was something in her gray eyes that only partly smiled.
“You dance very well.”
He finished the cigarette, lit it, and blew out a gust of smoke. “So do you,” he said.
She came closer and leaned upon a bone-gray old cottonwood log that had long ago been shored up as a bench. “Do you recognize very many of them?” she asked.
He shook his head, watching people pass. “No, not very many, Toni. Only a very few. I guess twelve years is a long time on the frontier.”
“It is. It’s a long time anywhere.”
“Would you care to dance?”
“If you want to.”
He looked at her. “But you’d rather not.”
“I’d rather walk,” she replied.
They inched their way clear of the throng and she took his arm. He was aware of her nearness, of the swaying of their bodies along the plank walk through the deserted town.
“Do you remember the time you made me climb into the church bell tower with you?”
“Yes, I remember. You were scairt to death.”
She smiled, keeping step with him. “And the night we both got tanned because we were an Apache warrior and his squaw and stayed out after sundown?”
He smiled.
“Why, Tom?”
He made no immediate reply, but he knew what she meant. It took a moment to bring himself back from the past, though, and with the rush through time came also his defenses.
They continued to walk along, neither breaking the silence until finally he said: “For a lot of reasons, Toni.”
“Wise reasons?”
He sought for words and failed to find the right ones, and through his thoughts her words came again.
“Revenge? To show Beatty you are as good as it is?”
He stopped and swung her around. “I wouldn’t have to be very good for that, Toni.” His gaze was brittle. “To show Beatty I’m better than it is.”
“Then,” she said gravely, “you shouldn’t have come back, Tom.”
He dropped his arms. The quarter moon lay its soft silver light across her face. He saw its stillness, its beauty and strength. He also saw the deep and unknown things in her eyes and averted his face. She took his arm and gently propelled him forward again.
“I think there is something in this world that can destroy men more surely than bullets, Tom. Hate. It would break my heart if that happened to you. When we were children, you were my ideal, my hero.” She paused; then: “But there’s not much left in you from those days.”
“How do you know?”
“Do you remember what Abraham Lincoln said about men’s faces?”
“No.”
“He said that every man is responsible for what shows in his face after he is thirty.”
“And what you see in mine you don’t like.”
“I didn’t say that, Tom. It isn’t so easy to destroy your gods. What I said was . . . hate can ruin you.”
“I don’t hate, Toni. I don’t hate Beatty or the men here who . . .”
“Are you sure of that, Tom?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then what is it you feel toward them?”
“Contempt, I guess.”
“But they’re good men, Tom. Listen to me, I’ve known them all much longer than you have.”
“But you were not the son of a drunk freighter or a woman who ran off with another man. You were Judge Montgomery’s kid, Toni.”
“Let me finish,” she said. “I’ve known them longer than you have. They are human, Tom. They make mistakes. Their judgments are not always good. But they are as good and honest as any men are, anywhere, and it’s wrong for you to scorn them for their errors.” Her grip on his arm tightened. “How can you sit in judgment on them, Tom?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
Her step slowed, then halted altogether. She looked up at him, searched his eyes and his features, then she looked away and they continued to walk.
She said, in a thoroughly impersonal manner: “You’ve changed more than I’d guessed, Tom.” She said it as though it were a contingency that no longer matter
ed; there was a dullness in her voice and her hand fell away from his arm.
He walked along with angry, troubled thoughts. They had been very close once, but that was long ago. It was far away; it was in another life; he had long since become hard and dedicated and he could not possibly change after one stroll in the moonlight.
“I should have known, when you killed Charley Ingersoll.” His lips drew out in a flat line. He might have spoken but her words cut across his marshaling thoughts. “I should have seen then that you do sit in judgment over people. Only I didn’t think of that, then. I only thought . . . Tom is back. Life will be like it was.”
“Toni, they sat in judgment on me, or have you forgotten that?”
“And so,” she intoned in the same lifeless voice, “that gives you the right to sit in judgment on them.” She looked at the buildings around them and slowed to a halt. “Let’s go back, Tom.”
The walk back was made mostly in silence and none of the earlier buoyancy remained in their steps. Neither of them was aware of the blond man following them through the soft summer night, his face tense and angry, his light eyes fixed with strong hatred upon Tom’s broad back.
People began to pass them; a few were elderly couples but more were young girls leaning on the arms of happy youths. There was a sprinkling of lean cowboys from the ranches walking proudly beside town girls. Near the stone water trough Tom took Toni’s arm and steered her into the bland darkness of an ancient cottonwood tree. Strains of music carried easily this far and overhead, through a filigree of dusty leaves, the high, brilliant stars and the capsized moon rode serenely in a cobalt heaven.
“You’d ask me to give up all the plans I’ve made for the last twelve years, wouldn’t you, Toni?”
She shook her head slightly, slowly. “No, Tom, I wouldn’t ask you to give up anything. That isn’t something others can ask of you. It’s something you’ve got to ask of yourself.”
He made a cigarette. She heard the full sweep of breath in his chest. He moved a short distance off and sank down on the lip of the old water trough. He sat with cigarette smoke eddying up around his face, with his elbows on his knees, and with his lips set in a hard, tough line.
She turned her head, gazing at him. Each curve of his body registered in her mind. She looked for, but did not find, the boy she had once known. Now, in his place, she saw only the signs of a strong man’s reticence, his certain confidence, his tempered hardness, and the full sweep of his passion, which would be as hot as fire in anger—or in love.
“I think we’d better go back,” she said. “Dad will be wondering about me.”
He got off the stonework but went forward only as far as the tree, where she was leaning. He seemed to want to say something, but the held-back expression in his face told her, whatever it was, he would not say it. The stillness went on like that, full of unexpressed and puzzling emotions. Then he groped for her hand and held it tightly in his grip, too lost within the tiny sphere of his own absorption to notice a vague shadow fade into a doorway, watching them, nor see another shadow stop suddenly over by the Royal Antler, then slide forward, moving in behind the first shadow.
He released her hand and she pushed forward off the tree. Suddenly, looking up, she saw only the moving blur of his face, the full sweep of his shoulders against the night. He looked very sad and very solemn, and his dark eyes were blacker than a well’s depths. Both his hands came up, dropped upon her shoulders, and pulled her in. Her head was tilted; one hand came up to rest against his chest with gentleness, and he kissed her with soft, long pressure, with a painful hunger that seared into her mind. When he released her, she clung to his arm for a moment, then without a word they started forward out of the semidarkness, pacing slowly together back toward the sound of music.
“Toni?”
Yes.”
“Should I apologize?”
“No, Tom.”
They were on the fringe of the crowd now; people nodded and smiled and shouldered them this way and that way. He touched her, stopping, wide-legged, bracing into the stream of humanity, seeing nothing but the directness of her gaze.
“When we were kids . . .” he began.
“That’s gone now,” she said swiftly. “That’s all over, Tom. It might never have been at all.” She freed her arm and cast him a final look. “That’s what the kiss was for. Memories, Tom. It was a salute to something that was very sweet, very innocent, and wonderful. Good night, Tom.”
IX
He walked through the crowd, low in spirit, and did not at once hear the voice at his side.
“Tom . . . you said it would be all right for me to call you that.”
He looked into Eloise’s violet eyes and made a mechanical smile.
“Folks are still dancing, Tom.”
He stopped, looking over her head. “Where’s Tex?”
“He went to the saloon for a minute. He’ll be coming up soon. About that dance . . .”
He didn’t feel like dancing, but he took her arm and pushed forward, and they danced. Once, near the pavilion’s edge, he glimpsed Judge Montgomery in heated conversation with two men, then other dancing couples cut across the line of vision and he lost them. Finally the musicians ended their sweaty labors with a crashing finale and Tom led Miss Eloise to the sidelines and left her.
The crowd was not quite as thick as before. Now, there was standing and sitting room. There was also a noisy drunk being forcibly escorted away from the area by Tim Pollard on one side and young Jack Havestraw on the other side. Men smiled broadly and their girls giggled.
“Enjoying yourself, Mister Barker?”
It was Judge Montgomery, and, although his words had been affable enough, there was a hot, wrathful glitter to his eyes.
Tom nodded, waiting.
“Can I have a few words with you?”
“Certainly.”
They walked beyond the milling crowd and Judge Montgomery turned finally, lamplight showing his face to be pale and agitated.
“I understand you are in the hay and grain business,” he said, faint acid in his tone.
Tom felt for his tobacco sack and began manufacturing a cigarette. “I am.”
“I also understand that you bribed my former night man at the barn to tell you how soon I’d be needing feed.”
Tom kept his eyes on the cigarette. Part of his bribe had been for keeping this information from the judge. He felt both mean and outraged, and he made no reply at all.
“I can guess your purpose, Mister Barker.”
“Can you, Judge?”
“Quite easily, in fact.”
Tom lit the cigarette and looked steadily into the older man’s face over its burning tip. “Did you bring me out here to call me names, Judge?”
Montgomery’s jowls rippled, his eyes burned with a fierce light, but he controlled his voice. “No, Mister Barker. I asked you out here to sell me some hay and grain.”
“How much do you want?”
“Twenty tons of hay and ten tons of grain. What is your price?”
“Eleven dollars for the hay and . . .”
“Eleven dollars! Hell! I’ve never paid more than three dollars a ton in my life!”
“Judge, you asked my price and I told you. You don’t have to buy from me.”
“Barker, this is robbery,” choked Montgomery. “Highway robbery. You’ll not get away with it! I know what you’ve done . . . taking options.”
Tom shrugged. “Ride it out,” he said evenly. “If you know about the options, you also know they’re only for sixty days. Just ride it out for sixty days, Judge, and maybe you’ll get the hay for three dollars again.” Tom exhaled slowly. “And again . . . maybe you won’t, too. I may exercise those options.”
“You won’t and you know it, Barker.”
“I don’t know it,” Tom replied. “I’m arranging right now to haul that hay to San Carlos. If Uncle Sam takes it, Judge, he’ll take every blade of it.”
Judge Montgomery was breat
hing heavily. He plunged fisted hands into his trouser pockets and said: “I could have hay hauled in.”
Tom’s eyes lit up with cold humor. “I looked into that before I took those options, Judge. It’d cost fifteen dollars a ton to load your loft through freighters. My price is only eleven a ton.”
“Barker . . .”
“Listen, Judge, you’re out of hay and grain. You can’t operate a livery barn without them. Your profits are good. You make more money from that barn than you do on the bench. Eleven dollars a ton isn’t going to put you out of business. I think you’d better pay it.”
“I’ll see you in hell first!”
Tom turned on his heel and walked back toward the pavilion.
Judge Montgomery remained stiff and outraged on the far fringe of the crowd. He had never been a profane man or he would have sworn savagely at that precise moment.
Tom came upon the sheriff, mopping his face with a large blue bandanna. He smiled at him. “Hot night for escorting rambunctious drunks,” he allowed. Pollard stuffed the bandanna in a hip pocket and nodded.
“Hot for other things, too,” he said. “I just heard about your hay deals.” He squinted at Tom and wagged his head. “You know, if you was working steady at making enemies in Beatty, you couldn’t do it no better’n you are now. I worry about you, boy.”
“You don’t have to, Sheriff. As for the hay deals . . . isn’t that how businessmen get ahead?”
Pollard’s squint remained. “It’s legal, if that’s what you’re drivin’ at, but it’s sure gettin’ folks down on you.”