by Lauran Paine
He decided to strike out southward again, right after he’d freshened up on hot coffee. His horse was at the livery barn rested, fed, and rubbed down.
It occurred to him as he stepped into Chalmers’s office that his own weariness and the comparable weariness of Warfield’s leggy bay thoroughbred lessened Trent’s advantage. But he refused to acknowledge that, this close, he should rest.
Chapter Five
Warfield met Mrs. Crockett, a drab, worked-out woman whose eyes mirrored some vague regret, and, between the three of them, they made Will’s pup comfortable in a box in the rickety barn. Will couldn’t find the ointment but his mother knew where it was. She kneeled there beside them, watching Warfield’s practiced hands move with surprising gentleness, and, afterward, it showed plain in her eyes that she wondered about him.
They had supper at the house with Mrs. Crockett worrying a little about Abbie. “She’s had plenty of time to ride out and ride back,” she told Warfield over their coffee. “’Course it’s warm, so maybe she waited out the sun.”
“Probably,” assented Warfield. “If you’d like, Will and I could go look for her.”
“No,” said Mrs. Crockett quickly. “No, Mister Troy, you look weary. She’ll be along. It’s only that a mother worries.”
Warfield stood up. He washed up outside at the well box and it made a difference. He still needed a shave, but in the poor light of one coal-oil lamp in that dingy kitchen he looked more worn-down than soiled or unkempt. “I’m mighty obliged for the supper,” he said, moving gracefully toward the door.
Will jumped up to go out into the night with him.
Mrs. Crockett looked him squarely in the eyes, and smiled. “It wasn’t much, but you were certainly welcome to it, Mister Troy.” She kept gazing straight at him and he saw in her what he’d overlooked before—a strong and fatalistic acceptance of things, of everything she had seen and lived through, an indomitable reliance. Whatever lay locked in her secret heart, whatever wistfulness had put that underlying other faint expression upon her face, she would not complain because she was inherently stronger than anything that had happened to her, or than anything she wistfully dreamed of. She would never abandon her dreams, but neither would they ever derange her.
He inclined his head slightly, coming in that silent moment of exchanged glances to respect Will Crockett’s mother, then he walked on out of the house with Will at his heels, paced along to the barn where his breedy horse was steadily eating, first grain then meadow hay, and kneeled beside the pup’s box. The little battered animal looked up and weakly thumped his tail.
The boy dropped down at once with a murmur of relief and strong affection.
Warfield stood watching briefly, then went over to watch his horse eat. He was bone-tired but the sound of those powerful jaws working, and the look of his horse filling out in that cribbed old stall made the load upon Warfield’s spirit lift a little.
The night was advancing and at long last there was a breath of coolness to it. It worked its lulling effect upon Warfield so well that at first he didn’t hear the steady, unhurrying approach of that ridden horse. But young Will did, and he jumped up to run to the doorway and look out.
“Abbie?”
A girl’s fluting call came back instantly. “It’s all right, Will! I just waited for sundown.”
She rode on up and stepped down. From back in the gloomy barn Warfield stood like stone. He could see her out there, could definitely distinguish by profile that she wasn’t anyone to fear, but all the same it took a moment for the pounding of his heart to cease.
Will was talking to her, his words rushing together with excitement. He explained what had happened to his pup, how he’d found Warfield, and how Warfield had come home with him. He was still talking fast as the long-legged, high-breasted girl packed her saddle inside, saw Warfield standing there, and became perfectly still. She’d obviously only been half listening.
Warfield stepped up, relieved her of the saddle, turned, and hung it from a post peg by one stirrup, turned back with a slow smile meant to be reassuring, took the bridle and blanket, hung them up, also, and faced forward as young Will stammered out a clumsy formal introduction.
Abbie wasn’t at all the little sister Warfield had carelessly imagined. She was at least eighteen, perhaps nineteen years old. Her hair was light, like Will’s, and curly. It clung to her head. Her face was pretty with large, steady gray eyes—like her mother’s eyes—and a heavy, wide mouth that had a slight lilting lift at the outer corners. Something passed out of her over to Warfield making him acutely conscious of her as a woman.
Will was calling now, wanting her to see the miraculous recovery his pup was making. She broke off staring at Warfield, finally, and walked on over. But even as she stood there, lean and long and clean-limbed in the dingy barn gloom, Warfield could tell from her disturbed expression that she was still thinking of him. Slowly he paced his way on out into the bland night, leaned upon the yonder hitch rack, and went to work manufacturing a smoke.
There was a time in every man’s life when the decent good things he’d been taught from the cradle seemed regrettable, seemed pointlessly senseless and trying. Abbie was as lovely a girl as Warfield had seen in a long time. He lit up, exhaled, turned his back upon the barn, and watched the night firm up in its purple glory. She walked past behind him, bound for the house. He didn’t look around, not at first anyway. Not until she was half across the dusty yard, then he did.
But a man with a memory in his heart lived a life that was not his own. Abbie appeared as a breath of hope in an otherwise dreary race for survival, but even that quick, hard shock he’d initially gotten at sight of her didn’t drown that other feeling, so Warfield stood there smoking, watching the night firmly settle, and didn’t move again until Will came over and leaned there beside him.
He looked up at Warfield with soft, admiring eyes. “You sure know what to do,” he said softly.
Warfield looked down and around with smoke trickling past his nostrils. “Your pa would have known, Will. When a man spends his best years in the service of things of the soil … he gets a sort of wisdom.”
“My paw doesn’t like dogs,” said Will. “He didn’t like it when I found this one and fetched him home. He says they bark too much, chase chickens, and eat too much.”
Warfield killed his smoke and kept looking at the boy. Sometimes a man could get a clear picture of another man without ever meeting him. Sometimes just a look or a careless word was enough.
“Well, sometimes dogs do bark too much,” said Warfield, stepping gingerly here. “When I was a kid, you know how folks broke pups of killing chickens?”
“No. How?”
“Well, they’d take the dead chicken and tie it around the pup’s neck and make him wear it until it got pretty ripe. Folks said the smell of that chicken’d make a dog so darned sick of chickens he’d ever afterward leave ’em alone.”
“Does it work, Mister Troy? We don’t have many chickens but maybe someday my dog’ll kill one so I ought to know how to break him.”
Warfield didn’t know whether it worked or not. He couldn’t remember, so he said: “If your pup ever kills a chicken, you try it. I reckon though, that what’d work for one pup might not work for another. The same as with men.” Then Warfield smiled and his strong white teeth shone in the night. “I’ll bet you one thing though, Will … I’ll bet you that pup in there’ll think twice before he ties into another big coyote.”
“Me, too,” said the boy quickly. “I’ll know better, too. How come a coyote is so smart, anyway?”
Someone walking softly over from the direction of the house interrupted this conversation. It was Abbie, freshly scrubbed and freshly dressed, no longer wearing her split, dusty riding skirt, and with her golden hair combed to a pert prettiness.
Warfield looked and admired, and felt an instinctive understanding how it must be for a lovely girl buried out here in this gray-dun emptiness while all her maturing instin
cts yearned for another way of life.
She smiled and held out two freshly baked heels of warm brown bread. Warfield and Will took them and smiled back. For a moment there was an easy comradeship here, a simple, silent acknowledgment of something basic that was good.
She said: “The night’s aren’t so bad, but the days … they’re insufferable.”
It was an easy way to open a conversation, and this was the time of day for trivial things, for a letting down of bars and barriers. Will ate on, saying nothing. Warfield leaned there, thinking.
Finally he said: “It’s a big world and there are many worse places in it, Miss Abbie, even without the heat.”
She gazed at him, faintly reproving. She was a woman with all the attributes of womankind. She didn’t want this handsome, tall, bronzed older man to sound sententious. She wanted him to be light and flirtatious and fascinating. She put Warfield in mind of a thirsty man teasing himself by shaking a half empty canteen.
Will turned suddenly and went back into the barn. He’d saved a small piece of his bread.
Warfield said: “You know what a pup is to a boy, Miss Abbie?”
She came on, leaned near him upon the rack, and shook her head. “No. What?”
“Well, first off he’s a possession. Then he’s a friend. Finally he’s a confidant, a recipient of love a boy in his teens is ashamed to lavish on people.” Warfield turned his head and smiled. “You could explain that to your pa. A boy needs a pup as much as a man needs a …”—Warfield almost said wife, but Abbie’s slate-gray large eyes were boldly waiting, their depths full of warmth, so he shied off and ended up lamely saying—“a good horse.”
She kept watching him, turning him uncomfortable with her half-girl, half-woman desires up and plain to see. “Are you going to stay hereabouts, Mister Troy?” she finally asked, her voice turning very soft.
He shook his head and fished around again for his tobacco sack. He didn’t need that smoke, didn’t want it, but it covered up the uneasiness stirring in him now, not entirely caused by her obvious thoughts, but caused just as much by her healthy closeness. A man much alone had thoughts that invariably turned toward women. Regardless of whatever haunting thing lived in a man’s heart, he never failed to be lifted a little out of himself by the sight, the closeness, of freshness and clean beauty.
“Why not?” she asked, watching his lowered head. “There are outfits around where a man could find work, and you said yourself there are worse places on earth.”
He lit up, snapped the match, and lifted his head to blow off a grayish cloud. Far off along the roof of the world a little star flashed and fell. Closer, a little breeze came downcountry laden with the scent of scorched granite, greasewood sap, and ancient dust as musty as time itself.
How did you tell a beautiful young girl it was late and she ought to go on in to bed? You didn’t—you just played out the little hopeless game with her and mightily tried to avoid hurting.
“I’ve got a long way to go, Miss Abbie, and a strong reason for going. Someday maybe I could come back.” He lowered his head. “Maybe in the spring when the desert’s blooming. Before the heat starts.”
She shook her head at him. “You’ll never come back, Mister Troy. Do you know what kind of men head due south down across the desert from here … down into Mexico?”
He inhaled, closely examined the tip of his cigarette, and scowled. He knew; God also knew. And so did John Trent know.
“My father says that of every hundred who pass by in the night, fifty are outlaws running, and the other fifty are lawmen chasing them.”
He turned and indulgently smiled. “And which am I, Abbie?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to imagine. Which are you?” She rose up a little and leaned closer, her arms forcing a solid roundness up near the neckline of her bodice. “It wouldn’t make any difference which you are,” she said, suddenly fierce. “It wouldn’t make any difference, at all. But if you were the first kind … you’d be safe here.”
He met her intensity head-on, braced into it. He smoked and gazed straight at her. He killed his smoke upon the rack, reached forth, touched her shoulders, brought her still closer, and dropped his face. Her mouth came swiftly up to him. She kissed him with a sudden fire that nearly threw Warfield off balance. And he kissed her. He needed that kiss.
He drew back, dropped his hands, and watched her eyes darken as she waited for him. “Abbie, go on in to bed. It’s late.” He checked himself, then said again: “Late. It’s so much later than you think. Good night, Abbie.” He turned and walked straight on down into the barn.
Will was there. He made a motion for silence and beckoned. Warfield went over. The pup was fitfully sleeping. Will whispered: “He ate the bread. Isn’t that a good sign?”
“The best possible sign,” murmured Warfield, and dropped a bronzed hand to the boy’s shoulder. “You better head on to bed now, son. And, Will …?”
“Yes?”
Warfield shoved out his hand. “Shake, pardner. You’ve got a fine pup, be good to him.”
Will shook and nodded, then he said: “Good night, Mister Troy. See you in the morning.”
“Sure,” lied Warfield, then he turned and watched the boy walk swiftly out into the soft night, his boot steps making quick, light sounds upon the dusty earth.
Warfield went over to saddle up. The bay horse was rested and refreshed and willing. He turned without even a shake of his head as Warfield urged him on out into the empty yard, walked southward past the faintly lighted house, and kept right on walking southward. It was near midnight, which was a good time to begin a desert crossing any time of the year, but particularly in summertime.
An orange-silver moon distantly set off the darkness and for a while Warfield could still see that house back there. Then it, too, vanished.
Chapter Six
Dawn was breaking off in the hazy east when Trent met the stage hustling along through, upcountry toward Daggett. He left the road to avoid all that ensuing dust and he waved indifferently at the whip and the guard, who had waved to him first.
Not often did people envy passengers on those pitching vehicles trying to sleep and avoid being bruised by the everlasting plunging and swaying, but this morning Trent envied them. He was badly in need of sleep. Not rest, he’d gotten that back at Daggett, sitting and waiting, but sleep he hadn’t gotten and now, seven miles southward, Chalmers’s bitter coffee was wearing off.
He got back on the road and went along, his steeldust briskly walking through this good coolness, his thoughts bridging the years back as far as Trent’s first manhunt, then jumping ahead into the elusive but probable future.
It was odd to be riding along with his thoughts drifting beyond control. He had been thinking of that first chase, wondering if that outlaw was still imprisoned or not, and the next moment he was remembering Troy Warfield as he’d been the last time Trent had seen him, remembering Warfield’s crime and all the vivid impressions that killing had made upon him. Then his thoughts jumped far ahead into the predictable future and made bold pictures that could, or could not, be true. Meanwhile, the endless desert firmed up out of its nighttime shroud and turned deceptively mild and benevolent and inviting with its dawn freshness and its soft-lighted delicately molded landscape.
The stage road ran as straight as a mottled old snake. The next town was Fulton, thirty-two miles south of Daggett in the heartland of all this empty waste. Chalmers had said the only thing that kept Fulton alive was the stage line and the freighters. There was a good spring at Fulton. It was the halfway mark. Water sold for 10¢ a gallon but everything else was priced competitively.
Chalmers had had a few dry comments to make concerning Lem Bricker, who ran the town of Fulton, and one of them was that Bricker had a lucrative sideline that the strategic location of his town made possible. Even outlaws had to have water. Bricker never denied them, but there was a special rate for outlaws in Fulton—$2 a gallon.
Chal
mers had said for lawmen the price remained a dime. He’d told Trent that Lem Bricker once said to him that his scheme was foolproof—if he was ever called to account, he could prove that he’d invariably helped the side of law and order by selling his water to lawmen for 10¢, while selling it for $2 to outlaws. What he’d neglected to tell Chalmers—but then he hadn’t had to be this explicit—was that he knew very well lawmen couldn’t afford more than 10¢ but that outlaws, fleeing with their plunder and running for their lives, not only could pay more, but would pay more.
Well, Trent thought as he fought sleep, only a fool crossed bridges before he came to them. The important thing, whether Chalmers had agreed with him or not, was that he had to arrive in Fulton before Warfield pulled out, and Warfield would hit Fulton. He had to. It was as simple as ABC. A man could not cross this desert without water.
But physical exhaustion does things to a man. Trent began to resent the quick, alert gait of his animal. He resented the growing warmth as the sun lifted above its far-away barrier. He resented the grueling ride ahead, but most of all he resented Troy Warfield.
To kill a man is not a difficult thing, providing one does not afterward make the everlasting mistake of going up to look into the face of death. Everlasting, because then a man never forgets, and the face of death is a curse that stays and stays, coming back to him in odd moments. Trent had his share of memories because when you kill a man over the width of a barroom, you can’t avoid seeing his astonishment as life winks out. And Trent was human with all the frailties of humankind.
He hadn’t wanted to kill that yellow-haired cowboy back in Daggett. There had been others like that one he’d avoided killing, also. But now he rode along with all the crushing weight of his own discomfort, his own suffering and deprivation, directly attributable to one man, and now he wished he could kill Warfield and get this over with. He wanted to kill him.
The sun climbed higher, turned a faded color, changed gradually from its earlier benignity to become a leering foe. Its scorch built up steadily making the air smell of brimstone and taste of old iron. It drove lizards and snakes and huge hairy desert spiders—tarantulas—into the panting shadeless shadows at the base of paloverdes, Joshua trees, and baking boulders.
