The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
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her head so that he could see her eyes. They were like the inspired part of that same symphony, a beauty which could not be remembered and was always new, satisfying. He could make her turn by speaking, and knowing that this was so, he postponed the pleasure like a miser who will only count his gold once a day.
From the side view he dwelt on the short, delicately carved upper lip and the astonishingly pleasant curve of the cheek.
“Look at me,” he said abruptly.
She turned, observed him calmly, and then glanced back to the fire. She asked no question.
Her chin rested on her hands, now, so that when she spoke her head nodded a little and gave a significance to what she said.
“The grey doesn’t belong to you?”
So she was thinking of horses!
“Well,” she repeated.
“No.”
“Hoss-lifting,” she mused.
“Why shouldn’t I take a horse when they had shot down mine?”
She turned to him again, and this time her gaze went over him slowly, curiously, but without speaking she looked back to the fire, as though explanation of what “hoss-lifting” meant were something far beyond the grasp of his mentality. His anger rose again, childishly, sullenly, and he had to arm himself with indifference.
“Who’d you drop, Bard?”
“The one they call Calamity Ben.”
“Is he done for?”
“Yes.”
The turmoil of the scene of his escape came back to him so vividly that he wondered why it had ever been blurred to obscurity.
She said: “In a couple of hours we’d better ride on.”
CHAPTER XXXV
ABANDON
That was all; no comment, no exclamation—she continued to gaze with that faint, retrospective smile toward the fire. He knew now why she angered him; it was because she had held the upper hand from the minute that ride over the short pass began—he had never once been able to assert himself impressively. He decided to try now.
“I don’t intend to ride on.”
“Too tired?”
He felt the clash of her will on his, even like flint against steel, whenever they spoke, and he began to wonder what spark would start a fire. It made him think of a game of poker, in a way, for he never knew what the next instant would place in his hands while the cards of chance were shuffled and dealt. Tired? There was a subtle, scoffing challenge hidden somewhere in that word.
“No, but I don’t intend to go any farther from Drew.”
Her smile grew more pronounced; she even looked to him with a frank amusement, for apparently she would not take him seriously.
“If I were you, he’d be the last man I’d want to be near.”
“I suppose you would.”
As if she picked up the gauntlet, she turned squarely on the bunk and faced him.
“You’re going to hit the trail in an hour, understand?”
It delighted him—set him thrilling with excitement to feel her open anger and the grip of her will against his; he had to force a frown in order to conceal a smile.
“If I do, it will be to ride back toward Drew.”
Her lips parted to make an angry retort, and then he watched her steel herself with patience, like a mother teaching an old lesson to a child.
“D’you know what you’d be like, wanderin’ around these mountains without a guide?”
“Well?”
“Like a kid in a dark, lonesome room. You’d travel in a circle and fall into their hands in a day.”
“Possibly.”
She was still patient.
“Follow me close, Bard. I mean that if you don’t do what I say I’ll cut loose and leave you alone here.”
He was silent, enjoying her sternness, glad to have roused her, no matter what the consequences; knowing that each second heightened the climax.
Apparently she interpreted his speechlessness in a different way. She said after a moment: “That sounds like quittin’ cold on you. I won’t do it unless you try some fool thing like riding back toward Drew.”
He waited again as long as he dared, then: “Don’t you see that the last thing I want is to keep you with me?”
There was no pleasure in that climax. She sat with parted lips, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, staring at him. He became as vividly conscious of her femininity as he had been when she laughed in the dark. There was the same sustained pulsing, vital emotion in this silence.
He explained hastily: “A girl’s reputation is a fragile thing, Sally.”
And she recovered herself with a start, but not before he saw and understood. It was as if, in the midst of an exciting hand, with the wagers running high, he had seen her cards and knew that his own hand was higher. The pleasant sense of mastery made a warmth through him.
“Meaning that they’d talk about me? Bard, they’ve already said enough things about me to fill a book—notes and all, with a bunch of pictures thrown in. What I can’t live down I fight down, and no man never says the same thing twice about me. It ain’t healthy. If that’s all that bothers you, close your eyes and let me lead you out of this mess.”
He hunted about for some other way to draw her out. After all, it was an old, old game. He had played it before many a time; though the setting and the lights had been different the play was always the same—a man, and a woman.
She was explaining: “And it is a mess. Maybe you could get out after droppin’ Calamity, because it was partly self-defence, but there ain’t nothin’ between here and God that can get you off from liftin’ a hoss. No, sir, not even returning the hoss won’t do no good. I know! The only thing is speed—and a thousand miles east of here you can stop ridin’.”
He found the thing to say, and he made his voice earnest and low to give the words wing and sharpness; it was like the hum of the bow string after the arrow is launched, so tense was the tremor of his tone.
“There are two reasons why I can’t leave. The first is Drew. I must get back to him.”
“Why d’you want Drew? Let me tell you, Bard, he’s a bigger job than ten tenderfeet like you could handle. Why, mothers scare their babies asleep by tellin’ of the things that William Drew has done.”
“I can’t tell you why. In fact, I don’t altogether know the complete why and wherefore. It’s enough that I have to meet him and finish him!”
Her fingers interlaced and gripped; he wondered at their slenderness; and leaning back so that his face fell under a slant, black shadow, he enjoyed the flame of the firelight, turning her brown hair to amber and gold. White and round and smooth and perfect was the column of her throat, and it trembled with the stir of her voice.
“The most fool idea I ever heard. Sounds like something in a dream—a nightmare. What d’you want to do, Anthony, make yourself famous? You will be, all right; they’ll put up your tombstone by a public subscription.”
He would not answer, sure of himself; waiting, tingling with enjoyment.
As he expected, she said: “Go on; is the other reason as good as that one?”
Making his expression grim, he leaned suddenly forward, and though the width of the room separated them, she drew back a little, as though the shadow of his coming cast a forewarning shade across her. He heard her breath catch, and as if some impalpable