by Zane Grey
The cowboy pointed toward the ugly welt. Then he asked: “Who did that?”
“Emery. Just a few moments ago. He knocked me down — on your account.” The woman paused to note the effect of this surprising announcement on Bradway.
“Why?”
“I had spoiled — his plans.... He accused me — of falling in love — with you.... I admitted it — laughed in his face.”
“What plans of his?”
“He sent for Gun Haskel — to meet you. But his original plan — was to have you slugged — at the card table — robbed and murdered.”
“Why are you telling me all of this, Miss Bandon?” the Nebraskan demanded.
“Because — because you are a man, Linc Bradway. I’ve met many men in my time, but none who had ever made me forget my own self-interests in favor of yours. Men are cheap out this way — but they’ll have to kill me first before they get at you.”
Lincoln had no doubt of the truth of her statements. She radiated it. There was something damnably false about her, yet he knew that this time she was telling the truth.
“But you can’t stop it for long.”
“I could — if you’ll go out to my ranch with me. The gamblers swear you can’t keep away from cards. They bank on that. But even if they’re wrong, Haskel will force a meeting.”
“Lady, he won’t have to force it.”
“Don’t call me that,” she cried.
“Very well, Miss Bandon,” he replied with a smile.
“That’s better, but I’d prefer Kit.”
“Was your motive in dragging me up here wholly unselfish?”
“I’ll say not. It was one for you and two for me.”
“All right. What are the two?”
“You’re the only — decent man I’ve met out here since I came.... And I — I like you.... The other thing concerns those letters you said you got from Jimmy Weston.”
Lincoln studied her, through eyes that were expressionless. Her eyes, wide and dark, seemed to search his very soul. Whatever the varied emotions were that moved her at this moment, the dominant one was terror. This fear seemed so all-engrossing that this once it prevented her infallible woman’s intuition from reading his mind. He was thinking that once Jimmy Weston had learned her secret and his learning it had cost him his life. He was thinking, too, that some day he, also, would learn her secret and that her life, not his, would be forfeit.
“Yes, I have Jimmy’s letters,” admitted Lincoln, warily, playing for time. He wanted to learn all that he possibly could before this keen woman divined that there was nothing in Jimmy’s letters that might endanger her.
“What did he — he write about me?” she whispered. Her sultry smile could not conceal her intenseness as she leaned close to Linc and caught his sleeves between hands that trembled.
“Not so much — about you,” replied the cowboy slowly. “He admired you, ma’am, but most he seemed to say in his letters was about a girl he liked.”
“Was her name Lucy?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you — I had wronged him?”
“Why, yes, ma’am. He said you had queered him with her — and he was going to get even — said he had to be yellow...”
“Weston told me that, but he didn’t — live — long — enough,” returned Kit, huskily. Suddenly, without warning, Kit Bandon threw her white arms about the cowboy’s neck. It was at once a gesture of abandon and, as Linc felt, of relief. It was as though she had been released from a fearful strain. Was it possible that after all she had read his mind? Did she realize somehow that whatever she had feared now would never come to pass? That Weston had never betrayed her?
“Kit, I don’t savvy.... Still, you can hardly have cause to — to—”
“Haven’t I, though?” she interrupted, with a deep-throated laugh, and she raised a face, while wet with tears, that was almost radiant with relief and sudden freedom from anxiety. But she kept her arms about his neck. “Linc, it’s all right now. I thought Weston had made you hate me.... You don’t, do you?”
“A man would find it mighty difficult — hating you,” he said haltingly. Any man would find it mighty difficult, as Linc, himself, had said, hanging on to his reason while this amazing creature was embracing him with such abandon.
“Then — kiss me,” she whispered.
It was as if fire had taken the place of blood in his veins. His knees seemed to have turned to water. Still he released himself from her arms. Afterward he was never able to recall where he found the strength to resist those enticing lips, those hungry arms. But resist them he did.
“That’ll be about all — Kit,” he said, hoarsely.
“But it was a great deal, wasn’t it?” she replied, softly. “Linc, will you come out to my ranch?”
“What for?” he parried.
“To get away from this deal to put you out of the way.”
“I can’t do that, Kit. I’m not the kind to run from anyone.”
“Then meet this Haskel. Outside in the street.... You don’t have any fear for yourself — do you?”
“Hardly.”
“Haskel is a notoriety-seeking trigger-happy lout,” she went on, with contempt in her tone. “He has been in shooting scrapes. But to meet you in an even break he knows would be suicide.... I dared Emery to meet you like a man.”
“You did?... Kit Bandon, you’re beyond me,” exclaimed Lincoln, half-admiringly.
“I’m what you would call a fickle woman,” she said, with her dazzling smile. “But I tell you I never before met a cowboy like you. Or such a really dangerous man... that I could love!”
“Listen, lady. Before you start winding me around your little finger, as you must have done with many a man, including Jimmy Weston, I can save you some time and trouble. I just don’t rope easy, Kit.”
“I’m not trying to. I’m in earnest. When I fall for a man I have the courage to say so. What’s wrong about that? You don’t believe me? I don’t care. It’s true. It’s in me to move mountains for the man I love. I don’t trust myself any more where you are concerned.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lincoln.
“I’ve saved your life twice already. Oh, yes, I have! Usually I don’t go out of my way to save the lives of strangers.... Bradway, if this thing is honest, if it’s not just infatuation, such as I’ve felt for a hundred cowboys, then I’m a woman come into her own. And I’d destroy these black-hearted men to save you. I’d be like that ancient woman Semiramis, who burned down cities and fought battles for the man she loved.”
“Kit, I’d be glad for you to turn your back on Emery and his kind. But leave out the Semiramis part of it.”
“Cowboy, I’m spoiled. I’ve never had to plead for any man’s favor!”
“Favor? That’s an elastic term. If you mean love, which seems preposterous, then I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck.”
“Linc Bradway!” she cried, with a passion that amazed him. This woman was a tigress. Again she threw herself upon him, but this time Linc coolly took her arms from about his neck, and stepped back.
“Kit, please don’t make a damn fool of yourself nor of me either. You’ve had your little scene, as you must have many a time before. You’ve only seen me twice — only been with me once. I’m one cowboy who don’t tie easy, don’t fool easy and don’t kill easy. Don’t make me think any worse of you, than you are.”
“No man would dare say so if he did think it.” Her voice which a moment ago had been so warm, was now cold with the anger of the woman scorned.
“I’d tell you, if I believed that.”
“Then I’d kill you.”
“You couldn’t.”
She had suffered a repulse, obviously something wholly unprecedented in her experience. Yet she fought down the anger that possessed her, for the sake of her self-respect, perhaps even because she loved this man who had resisted all her blandishments.
“You will make me love you,” she cried, almost desperatel
y.
“Kit, I won’t make you do anything but behave reasonably,” he declared, soberly. “Let’s get this over. Thanks for keeping me from butting into more than I’d figured on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“First look up this man Haskel.”
“That suits me. I want to see you meet him, but not inside here. Let me go down with you. Even these dogs wouldn’t shoot you while you’re with me.” She opened the door and went out on the landing. It struck Linc that Emery’s place was unusually quiet. Kit looked down over the banisters, then she motioned Lincoln to come out.
The Nebraskan followed Kit Bandon as far as the landing. Letting go with a shrill cowboy yell, so harsh and earsplitting that it silenced the hum below, Lincoln vaulted the stair railing, to land on the floor of the flimsily-built house with a jar that shook the glasses off the shelves behind the bar.
As he stalked toward the alcove there was not a movement among the dozen or more men present, except the furtive glances of their eyes. There were five at Emery’s table, including a burly- shouldered, heavy-whiskered individual, who sat across from a vacant chair. Emery’s white hands dropped flat on his cards, no doubt to conceal their shaking. Two miners and a well-dressed man, evidently a traveler, completed the quintet.
Lincoln waved a greeting with a quick left hand. His right appeared tense at his hip. “You fellows are in bad company,” he said curtly. “Don’t you know it?”
Vince suddenly appeared staggering through the alcove, giving a realistic performance as a drunken cowboy.
“Whas goin’ on in here?” he asked, and he lurched to a point behind Emery, where he backed against the wall.
The younger of the two miners, thick-browed and hard-featured, spoke up: “Cowboy, it’s none of yore bizness unless you want to set in with us.”
The traveler, paling, pocketed the little money before him and rose hurriedly. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid this is no place for me.”
He went out amid a tense silence. Linc broke it by pointing to the bewhiskered man and saying, “Emery, is this big clown your man Haskel?”
“Yes, that’s Gun Haskel,” replied Emery, in a low, uncomfortable tone.
“You looking for me, Gun Haskel, by any chance?” demanded Lincoln, looking squarely at the badman from Atlantic.
“Who’re you?” snarled the other.
“I’m Linc Bradway. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Nothin’ at all. Never heard of you till today.”
“Ever been in Dodge or Hays City or Abiline?” queried the cowboy.
“Nope. I hail from Montana.”
“Well, if you ever had seen one of those towns you’d have thought twice before riding over here to scare decent folks with your little peashooter.”
That taunt stiffened Haskel. He fastened his dubious gaze upon Emery, and failing to get whatever assurance he might have expected from that worthy, he slammed down his cards. “Bradway, I was lookin’ for you, but you don’t ‘pear to be the little runt of a hell-bent cowboy Emery here made you out to be.”
“That’s your tough luck! What did you want with me?”
“Wal, in particular I wanted some of yore game.”
“Not with guns!”
“Fact is, I heerd you was a hot gambler who’d won a big stake. An’ I was layin’ to git my share of it.”
“You’re a liar! You bragged in every saloon in town of what you had ridden in here to do. Everybody in South Pass knows it. And now you’re suddenly not so keen for gunplay as you thought you were. Could it be you’re yellow, Gun Haskel?”
“Is thet so?” blustered Haskel. He did not like the situation. Probably the last thing he wanted was to be bearded in this den and taunted by some cowboy who had been misrepresented to him.
“Yes, it’s so. I know your kind,” flashed Bradway. “You’re one of these cheap fourflushers. Gun Haskel? — What a joke! Do you pack a gun? Or do you carry a little toy pistol like your cheating cardsharp Emery here?”
The giant let out a rather hollow laugh and looked around to see how the crowd was taking it. He was caught in a trap. Perhaps it was not so much cowardice as anger that inhibited him.
“No, I ain’t packin’ any toy pistol,” he muttered, and his right hand edged slowly off the table.
“Pull it out if you’re game!” the Nebraskan demanded, suddenly taut as a wire.
Haskel did not react to that demand. His hand came away from his hip. Bradway waited a long moment, then he relaxed.
“Haskel, you might be a cut above the low-down dirty job they imposed upon you,” said Linc. “But if they fooled you, that’s no excuse. I called you and you crawled. You’re smart enough to save your life. But you’re stupid to mix with this rattlesnake outfit here. You’ll be hooted out of every saloon in this town, and given the laugh when you get home. But if that’s the way you want it, why that’s the way you can have it.”
Lincoln backed out through the alcove into the barroom which was now comparatively empty. As he passed through the barroom, Haskel could be heard pounding the table and bellowing at Emery. The Atlantic gunman was being answered by the taunts of the gamblers. Kit Bandon stood at the foot of the stairs. She met Lincoln at the door with a smile and look that almost any man but the Nebraskan would have given all he owned to receive. It was plain to see that she certainly had expected him to return through the alcove alive.
“Linc, it was as good as a show. Only why didn’t you bore him? You’ll have to eventually. They’ll nag and egg him on to a draw or fill him with rum until he goes after you. Come with me.”
“No. I’ve got to walk the street.”
“All right. I’ll walk with you.”
“My God, what manner of woman are you anyway?” cried Bradway in amazement. “Can’t you lock yourself in your room and go to bed?”
“Me go to bed!... Linc Bradway, that’s funny. I wouldn’t miss seeing you shoot that fool’s white liver out for anything. And wild horses couldn’t keep me from being here when you call Emery.”
Lincoln stalked out into the street, in a hurry to escape from the Maverick Queen’s distracting person and speech. This woman was a revelation to him. It began to seem as if she had a man’s nerve and courage in a woman’s form.
The crowd in front of the Leave It opened to let the cowboy through. He felt aware of a multitude of eyes, as he began his stalk up and down the street. This was the custom of the West. And the public always favored the man who waited for his enemy.
In a quarter of an hour practically all of South Pass knew there was a fight imminent. The stream of pedestrians passing Emery’s gaudy door thinned out and finally ceased; watchers lined up on each side of the street at a safe distance.
As soon as Bradway had passed by the Leave It he crossed to the opposite side of the wide street, where fewer lights permitted deeper patches of shadow. His alert eye had caught the opening of a door on the little balcony above the Leave It doorway. It remained open though no one appeared. From that moment Lincoln shortened his promenade so that he could keep his eyes on the second floor of Emery’s saloon.
He was therefore prepared for the muffled bang of a gun and to see a man stagger out on the balcony. His hands were upraised. From one of them dropped a rifle that clanged to the street below, and after it hurtled the body of its late owner, landing like a sack of potatoes on the sidewalk.
Hoarse cries rose from the spectators on the other side of the street. No doubt they believed the motionless body to be that of Gun Haskel, but it was not. It was Bradway’s calculation that one of Emery’s henchmen had stolen aloft to the upper floor, where he had stood back in the dark with a rifle. Vince had accounted for him. The cowboy’s boast had been justified.
Outside the saloon the crowd suddenly became quiet, and no one moved. But inside loud, furious voices and taunting laughs were evidence that they still were goading Haskel. They were driving him to fierce resentment, to rum, and therefore to his death.
/> Suddenly the white form of Kit Bandon emerged from the door. She stood in the bright glare of the light searching for someone in the shadows, presenting a striking picture, wholly out of keeping with the place and the hour. She waved a white handkerchief down the street. She might have seen Linc standing erect against the shadowy building. Could she be warning him?
Suddenly the Nebraskan saw her step aside from the lighted doorway just as the giant Haskel came plunging out across the walk. His coat was missing; his shaggy bearded head was lowered, and he had a gun in each hand.
“Haskel! Better go back! If you’re raring to shoot someone make it that snake Emery!” called out Bradway from the sidewalk. His warning voice was cool but insistent. He had no stomach for shooting down this rum-crazed man who had been goaded to frenzy by Emery and his friends.
Haskel stumbled over the prostrate body on the walk and kicked the rifle into the street.
“Whar are you, cowboy?” roared the giant.
The swift clatter of boots on the wooden walk proved that not all of the watchers had the nerve to see the meeting through.
“Far enough, Haskel!” Lincoln warned. His gun glinted in the light of a store window.
The giant gave no heed to Linc’s shout of warning. He sighted his adversary, and lurched across the dusty street, both guns swinging to cover the motionless Nebraskan.
“Nothin’ agin’ you, cowboy, ‘cept yore sharp tongue. But I’m aimin’ to kill you....”
Two shots going off almost together, halted Haskel’s stumbling advance. He uttered a loud yell of pain and dismay. His guns fell on each side of him, exploding as they struck the ground; clapping his hands to his big paunch he sank to his knees, swayed and slowly collapsed a few yards from the sidewalk.
Bradway ran quickly to where the bearded giant lay and bent over him.
“Come here, somebody,” he shouted to the line of watchers. “Anybody who has the nerve!”
This taunt brought two bystanders running into the street. One was a young rider in boots and spurs, the other the well-dressed traveler who had left the poker game at Lincoln’s suggestion.
“Haskel... Haskel!” cried Linc, bending over the giant. But there was no answer. “You’re bored clean through. No chance!... Did Emery put you up to this?”
