She pushed herself to her feet and he rose with her, his body hard against hers. But she twisted free of his grasp and walked off, feeling a strange relief lifting inside her.
Ragnall watched her go, his face creased in a grin. Then he shifted his gunbelt a little higher on his trim waist and began to follow her. Angela walked into the blazing sunlight and the terrific heat once again claimed her. She stopped, looked uncomfortably about her, and heard him come up.
“I don’t know, Zeb,” she said without turning. “I need time. You’re much more of a man than I expected. There—there are many things about you that I like and admire.”
Ragnall drew beside her. Then, just as Angela was preparing to ward off his next advance, the warning rattle of a snake froze her. She glanced down and saw a coiled rattler poised to strike.
Ragnall pushed her aside and then his hand flashed for his gun in a blur of speed. The Colt bucked and the bullet separated the rattler’s head from its body. Angela staggered back, her face deathly white.
Ragnall watched her for a moment before he walked across to the snake and kicked it away. Returning, he muttered, “A man can be lucky.”
His voice brought Angela out of her shocked state. She dropped her hands and looked fearfully at him, shaking her head a little. She saw him in a different way now and remembered a lot of confusing things about him—the way he had met her in Glory Creek, the absolute confidence of the man, his habit of looking back across his shoulder whenever they stopped, the blowing up of the bridge ... his smooth skinned hands. And now there was the way he had drawn his gun and so effectively dealt with the snake. That, she knew, had been the action of a man very much used to guns. Could a miner become so proficient with a handgun, she asked herself?
“Horses should be about right, Angela,” he told her and went past her to saddle his horse. Angela returned to the buckboard and climbed up. She sat very still, looking into the blazing glare of the baked country ahead. Tremors of fear still ran through her body and her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow. She opened her canteen, drank, and patted some cool water onto the back of her neck. Then, picking up the reins, she kicked the brake off and let the buckboard horses go from the shade and into the blast of heat and sun-glare. She didn’t even look at the man called Zeb Ragnall.
Six – Isaac’s Load
“We’ll stop here.”
Isaac Madie drew his horse into the shade of the three trees and dropped wearily from the saddle. He took a step away from his horse and his left leg buckled under him. He reached back and grabbed the pommel and stopped himself from falling. Then, his face wet with sweat and raw from the heat and dry wind, he lay against the big stallion’s sweat-foamed side and mopped his brow. It was several moments before he could get sufficient breath into his lungs to stand erect. He looked sullenly at Mark and Luke who had come effortlessly out of their saddles and were already looking for a place to stretch out. John Madie was still coming up the barren bench country, his horse short-stepping, and John looking as tuckered out as the bony horse.
Blake Durant had drawn rein but sat on Sundown, watching the old man carefully. He knew that Isaac was at the end of his tether, that the hard, hot ride had reduced him to an exhausted hulk, and there would be no more travelling that day.
“Horse is spent,” Isaac told Durant. “Push him further and he could break down completely.”
Blake nodded. Isaac limped away from the horse as John came up. Casting a scornful glance at his youngest son, the old man growled:
“See to my horse, boy, then get a fire going. Have them lazy brothers of yours help some instead of wearin’ out the seats of their pants.”
Isaac strode past Durant, trying to walk normally, but his legs were bowed and he couldn’t restrain the grunts that came from him. He rested against a tree, removed his hat, mopped his brow, then dug out his Bible. He stood fanning his face with the Bible, his surly look fixed on Durant again.
Blake looked into the distance for a time before he walked Sundown, leaning to one side of the saddle to inspect the ground. The buckboard tracks were clear in the dust near the trees.
“They’re no more than two, three hours ahead, Madie. I’ll keep going. Might catch up before the light fails.”
Isaac’s mouth twisted and his chest heaved. His brows crowded his eyes. “Ain’t nobody breakin’ outa this camp, Durant. We’re all stayin’ on. We’ll rest up and pull out together in the morning.”
Isaac Madie motioned his boys to come closer. Eyeing Durant warily, Mark and Luke drew alongside him. Isaac suddenly reached across and whipped Mark’s gun from his holster. He then pushed both his sons back, and said savagely:
“Ain’t nobody movin’ out till I’m good and ready to go with ’em, Durant. And don’t figure to best me later and sneak off in the night, because my boys will be set to watch you. John, get that fire goin’ and Mark, you and Luke take the horses up yonder and rope ’em down then sit with ’em. I’ll have John bring some grub to you later.”
Mark and Luke went off and John was already gathering kindling wood when Blake Durant said, “Madie, don’t push me.”
“I’ll push all I like, mister. I been thinkin’ a lot about you on the ride here. What frets me most is why you didn’t head on home back east away instead of driftin’ down this way. Didn’t you tell me you had a place, and a brother workin’ for you?”
“I said that, yeah.”
“And you mentioned a woman, I seem to recall.”
Blake nodded and his face darkened. “There was a woman, once.”
Isaac sniggered and wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve. “Once, eh? Got a place and a brother workin’ it for you, and you’re driftin’. Like I said, I’m still obliged to you for the help you gave when you drifted through my country, Durant. But don’t you buck me, mister. My horse is tuckered out and I’m a man who regards my animal in a better light than I regard most folks. Now come down and sit and be sociable.”
Blake sucked in his breath and worked out of the saddle. Taking Sundown into the shade, he looped the reins over a low branch, then came back to the old man who was watching John still trying to get a fire going. Finally, losing patience, Isaac planted his boot in the seat of his boy’s pants and sent him sprawling. He then knelt down, gathered some dry tinder together and, thumbing a match alight, soon had a fire going. John stayed on the ground looking fearfully at him until Isaac barked:
“Get the pot and the coffee. And don’t forget the water, boy! I got to lead you by the nose all my sufferin’ life?”
John scrabbled to his feet and hurried to where Mark and Luke had halted the horses. Mark threw the black coffee pot at him, and Luke opened a canteen and poured water into it. Then Mark tossed a bag of coffee to his brother and said:
“See if you can get back without spillin’ everything, John.”
John turned and hurried back to his father who had set thick green sticks crisscrossed to hold the pot. He heaped dry wood under the pot and settled down on his haunches, his black coat dragging in the dust, his heavy-lidded stare fixed on Blake.
“Done your share of prayin’, Durant?” he asked.
Blake didn’t reply.
“If you ain’t before, you better learn to if you’re stayin’ with me, mister. Prayer is the gate that opens the way to the Lord’s domain. You’ll walk that path with me, Durant, and I guarantee you’ll come to the end of the journey a better man.”
Blake settled down out of the fire’s smoke and made himself a cigarette. Lighting it from a burning stick, he drew heavily, then returned the stick to the fire and regarded the grizzled face of the old man. Isaac Madie had got the upper hand on him through his own carelessness. Blake had never really taken the old man seriously. Now that he understood him better and saw him as a shrewd old dodger, he decided to give him more respect. As for the talk about goodness and righteousness, Blake wasn’t impressed at all. Underneath he saw all the layers of hypocrisy.
Blake waited
, smoking, watching the fire and thinking of all the trouble that had come his way since he rode into Glory Creek. Then he turned his mind back to his own country, to his brother working the ranch and waiting for him to return. He went just a little further into the past and thought briefly of Louise Yerby, the woman he had hoped to marry, the love death had stolen from him.
He sighed. The hurt was still there, though deep buried. He wondered how long it would go on, this constant remembering, this pain that came with the smell of a deadwood fire or scent of clean pine, the sparkle of the river, the bunching of clouds, the sight of grass flattened by a sudden squall or leaves flying or a bird circling. It didn’t take much to drag him back to the memory of Louise.
“Listen,” Isaac said, breaking into Blake’s thoughts, “when we come up with that Nyall who murdered my boy, I want you to mind your manners. The Lord gave me Matthew and decreed he should grow up in my image. But that murderin’ jasper put an end to that. An eye for an eye ... it’s my right to put an end to him.”
Blake drew deep on his cigarette and looked into the distance. The wind lifted little dust devils from near the base of the trees. There was no sound but the crackling of the fire and the shuffling of John Madie’s boots as he scratched at his leg. Blake lay back, his hat over his eyes. He hadn’t succumbed to Isaac’s tyranny, but until the old dodger dropped off to sleep he decided he might as well humor him. It was that or beat the stuffing out of him.
Zeb Ragnall led the way across the desert stretch, all the time keeping an eye on Angela Grant. The fact that she had evaded his earlier advances didn’t bother him much. There was desert to cross, the gold to dig up and pack into the buckboard, and then there was an easy ride to the border. He would make camp near the little creek where he had stopped on the run down from Cheyenne after killing that damn fool, Matthew Madie. In that camp, with the night about them, he would take Angela, with or without her consent. Then it would be settled and she would be his to do with as he wished.
He rode into the fast-closing twilight and Angela trailed, tired again and eager for a stop at a creek or river where she could wash the dry dust from her skin and perhaps have time to rinse out her clothes. Since seeing Ragnall kill the rattler, her mind had been ticking off the facets of his makeup which didn’t sit right with her. She’d had thoughts of turning back to Glory Creek, but she doubted that Ragnall would let her. Blake Durant had been right when he said this wasn’t the territory for a woman.
She was frightened now. Ragnall was definitely not a miner who had worked hard and put away an honest fortune. He was too sure of himself, too sharp in his gunplay. As for his clothes, they were a little too fancy—the hand-tooled boots, the lace on the front of his shirt.
Ragnall rode back to her as she was thinking of tying the reins to get a few minutes’ sleep. He pointed ahead and called out, “Head for the west side of the rocks. We’re out of it now. You can get some rest while I check out the country ahead.”
Angela was so bone-weary from the jolting of the buckboard that she merely nodded her head. Just to be rid of the desert’s oppressive heat was reward enough at the moment. She turned the buckboard towards the rocks which loomed ahead in the fading light. Ragnall went straight ahead and disappeared into the gloom.
Angela almost fell as she jumped down from the buckboard. She spent some time rubbing the cramp out of her slender thighs before she felt confident enough to go on. She sat on a rock as night closed in. Soon she found herself thinking of Blake Durant, the big, quiet man who had helped her so much and had given her good advice that she had not heeded. She wondered what kind of woman he wanted. There was a deep-seated solemnness about him which must have come from an incident in his past. Had a woman caused it?
Angela suspected it had been a woman. Why was it that all the good men who attracted her were either married or carrying a burn for some other woman? She swept her hair back and sighed wearily. The country about her was flat and dry and the wind was still hot. She felt alone. She had a brother and no other kin. Now she was lost in strange country with a man she had begun to distrust. She sat perfectly still and tears formed in her eyes.
Then Ragnall came back. He was grinning. “Come on, Angela, just a mile or so more and we can dig in for the night, get coffee and beans into us and have a good sleep. It’ll be the last time we’ll be eating beans, I promise you.”
Angela rose stiffly and made her way back to the buckboard. Just one more mile or so. Her body ached for rest.
But she struggled into the seat and took up the reins and with Ragnall leading she let the buckboard swing wide of the clustered rocks. After what seemed ten miles, Ragnall took the reins of one horse and turned the team into a little clearing. He came out of the saddle, hitched the horse and helped Angela down.
“Get comfortable,” he said. “Your troubles are over for today.”
Then he led the horses behind a clump of trees and moments later she heard the heavy thump of something being loaded into the buckboard.
The bullion. She was confused. Why hadn’t he deposited the gold dust in a bank? Other miners used banks. Why turn gold dust into bullion? But once again she was too tired to care. She leaned back and let the night wind, cooler now, sweep across her body.
Ragnall finished loading the bullion into the buckboard in a matter of minutes. Sweating freely, he brought the buckboard back and Angela noticed that the wheels sank deeper into the ground now, leaving tracks that were distinct even in the gloom.
Ragnall unharnessed the horses and turned them out to feed, then made a fire and put coffee and beans on to warm. He kept looking at her all the time, his eyes bright with excitement. While he was busy getting their meal she was safe. Later, if he gave her trouble, perhaps she could distract him somehow and run off and hide. Then, in the morning, she could work out a plan of action. But now she was too weary to even think.
Mark and Luke rode quietly through the night. They had seen the fire’s glow from the edge of the desert, and then, using the boulder-strewn slopes for cover, had got to within a hundred yards of the campsite. They saw the man squatted by the fire. A woman was seated at the base of a tree.
Luke Madie said, “It’s her all right, and that Nyall jasper. You reckon he’s got that bullion yet, Mark?”
“No way of tellin’,” Mark sucked his teeth and looked uneasily behind him.
Luke said, “Pa ain’t comin’. He’ll sleep all damn night.”
“If he catches up with us, by hell, he’ll come on like a thunderstorm in hell.” Mark shuddered at the thought. “Maybe we should go back.”
Luke glared at his brother. “He ain’t catchin’ up with us, so he can go thunderin’ where he damn well likes. We got us a hoard of bullion and I ain’t lettin’ that murderin’ scum, Nyall, and his woman keep it. First time in our damn lives we can cuss, chew, talk or do what we like without somebody swattin’ us. I ain’t goin’ back, never, and I ain’t worryin’ no more about pa. He can go eat his damn good book and I hope he chokes on it.”
Mark licked his lips nervously. Although he was as big as Luke, he had never felt obliged to test his strength against his brother. All his life he’d done what Luke wanted to do, unless it went against his father’s wishes. The only time he’d ever made a decision for himself was when he was alone with John. He could always tell John what to do. Now he said:
“What do we do, Luke?”
“We kill him, what else?”
Mark swallowed hard. He could see Luke’s lean, drawn face clearly despite the night’s gloom. The wild look in Luke’s eyes unsettled him.
“Just walk up and kill him?”
“Just that. We’ll leave the horses here. You go one side of that fire and I’ll go on the other.”
Mark shook his head doubtfully. “I ain’t ... I ain’t ever killed nobody, Luke. I ain’t like you and Matthew.”
“Well, you’d best learn, brother. Just keep thinkin’ of what this scum did to Matthew and about the gold he’s go
t, with maybe the woman thrown in. You was eyein’ them Glory Creek women real hard afore pa happened along, wasn’t you?”
“So were you, Luke.”
Luke grinned, drew his gun and checked it. “Ain’t denyin’ it, Mark. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else. After we get that bullion and we’re clear of pa and this damn country, I’m gonna spend most of every day and night havin’ my fun with womenfolk, all kinds of ’em. You hear me, Mark?
I’m cuttin’ so far away from pa that I ain’t ever gonna do without nothin’ again for as long as I live.”
Mark mopped his brow with a tattered bandanna and drew in a deep breath. “Okay, then, you go first. But by hell, Luke, you best make sure of him. What I heard of Nyall—”
“What folks’ll hear from now on, Mark, is that he’s dead.”
Luke stepped away from his horse and slipped quietly through the slope brush. Getting to within twenty yards of the fire, he saw Ringo Nyall hunched over the flames. The woman stirred and her eyes gleamed as she looked at Nyall. Luke had the impression that she was worried about something. The smell of beans and coffee drifted across to him. He took a firmer grip on his gun and moved left, towards thicker brush.
Zeb Ragnall walked around the fire and stopped short of Angela Grant. He handed her the coffee pot and said:
“Pour some, real natural like, and sit right where you are. Don’t say anything and don’t move.”
Angela took the coffee pot and stared curiously as his right hand slid down and tipped his coat flap back a fraction. She saw his fingers take hold of his gun. Then Ragnall whirled and went into a crouch. The gun bucked in his hand and she saw brush shake to the impact of two bullets. Then he turned again and the gun bucked two more times. Angela heard a man grunt, then a tall, lean man came staggering out of the brush. He went to his knees, fired a shot into the ground, then pitched forward on his face. He did not move.
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