She flushed a little, recovered herself and said coolly: “Whyever should you do that, sir?”
Jack lost his head. He was sweating profusely from excitement and a terrible sense of danger. All the time he looked at her face, her pouting full mouth and the swelling contours of her body, one half of his mind was with the oger in the house. The dual concentration was more than he could bear. He was to be forgiven for losing his head.
“There ain’t no time for fancy words,” he said. “You pa and us’ns is at war. They catch me here they’ll be liable to… well, heck, they ain’t goin’ to be too nice about it.” He dropped to one knee beside her, his face earnest and sweating.
A change came over the girl. She went to touch him and withdrew her hand again.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“I had to,” he told her. “Look, ma’am. I ain’t beatin’ about the bush. I’m crazy about you-all. There ain’t no other woman in the world for me but you.”
“You only saw me once.”
“That was enough.”
“And you risked my father and all the riders just to tell me that.”
“I reckon.”
“You must be a brave man.”
“I ain’t. I’m a double-died two-toned coward, ma’am. Lucy. Can I call you Lucy?”
“And you came here all the way for that? Mr. McShannon came here to see Alvina and Mr. McAllister came to see Carlotta but from all accounts they came for more than that.”
Jack looked at her in astonishment. He didn’t know what to say or where to look.
“Shucks, ma’am,” he said.
Her full mouth was pouting again. He was sweating still, but for a new reason. He didn’t know how he kept his hands off her.
She shifted her seat and the movement brought her very close to him. He wanted to move away and he wanted to move closer, both at the same time. Hell, he thought, this was a sight worse than wrastlin’ a wild one.
He knew that she wanted him to kiss her, but it seemed impossible that a wonderful creature like her would want a wild and woolly horse hunter like him to actually kiss her. Something impelled his head forward and down, his mouth fell on hers and it was like touching rose petals that suddenly burst into flame. Then his arms were around her and when he expected her to pull away from him or slap his face she seemed to hurl herself at him bodily, grasping him to her. Before he knew what had happened, they were both on the ground and their bodies fitting together like component parts. Fiery ecstasy flared through him. He could not clasp her to him close enough, he could never have enough of her mouth and her fury matched his. The girl he had taken to be a lovely and slightly aloof young lady turned miraculously into a delicious and tempting little animal.
Gasping, at last, they took their mouths from each other and took stock of the objects of their passion.
“Aw, honey,” Jack said.
“Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack,” Lucy said.
“Why didn’t I come sooner?” he demanded angrily.
“Next time make it sooner and more often,” she admonished just as angrily.
Fear of her had left him totally; his whole body sang like a song; life was suddenly altogether wonderful. As the girl had been transformed in his eyes, so his picture of himself was transformed. No longer was he a no account horse hunter - he was a man that a girl like this could love.
His hand was at her breast and her hand came up to hold it there. She sighed and looked as though she would weep for sheer physical happiness.
He kissed her again. Her mouth opened and clung to his.
Then she whispered: “Anybody could see us here.”
He looked at her closely, assessing the chances of more than a kiss and a hug and he saw the answer in her eyes. There was complete promise there. His heart leapt and pounded.
He glanced around, spotted the brush through which he had ridden to reach this spot. He started to help her to her feet. She laughed.
“Isn’t this wonderful,” she said.
“Wonderful,” he agreed and held on to her with trembling hands, unwilling to stop touching her in case she were a dream and would disappear.
The stallion whickered.
Jack jumped.
“We been seen,” he said.
Lucy turned a startled face and her eyes came wide. “Pa,” she almost screamed.
Jack looked and saw Markham. The trembling of passion became the trembling of pure fear, one with which he was more familiar.
“Holy mackerel,” he cried in the falsetto of the coward.
“Quick,” she urged, still watching the fearsome figure of her father advancing upon them at a stumbling run, “take me away.”
“Wha’?” said Jack.
“Let’s get on your horse.”
Jack stood rooted to the spot unable to move a limb. Fascinated, he watched the bull-frog bringing certain death with him. No, worse than death. That was a quirt he swung at his side. As he came he bellowed and the more he bellowed the bigger poor Jack’s fear grew.
However, with the fair Lucy passion had not rid her of her self-possession. Picking up her skirts, she fled from danger, running like a boy along the bank of the creek.
“Come back,” Markham roared, breathless.
She ran the faster.
“I’ll beat the hide off you,” howled Markham.
Her feet moved as quick as the wings of a bird.
Jack saw beyond all possible doubt that it would be his hide that would come off. Markham, seeing that his daughter was for the moment beyond his reach, centered the whole of his attention on Jack and roared directly at him. Lucy, seeing that the danger was momentarily past stopped to watch and tidy her dishevelled hair. Jack, seeing the leviathan upon him must have fainted. Certainly no man in his state of petrified fear could have moved with such perfect timing. He collapsed in a heap on the ground. At that precise moment, Markham was in the act of smashing into him with all his considerable weight. When Jack was no longer there to receive all that considerable weight and put paid to some of its momentum, Markham perforce passed through the air at some velocity, lost his footing on the loose stones of the creek side and sailed ungracefully into the water with a splash that must have been heard up at the house.
The tidal wave that was created by so vast a body displacing the water, washed upon Jack and must have revived him, for, with a shudder, the boy sat up and looked around him in a dazed and puzzled manner. When he saw Markham floundering in the water he wondered how the hell he got there. A scream brought Lucy to his attention.
“Run, Jack, run.”
It was all he could do to stand up.
Markham also stood up, dripping and roaring wetly, water spouting from his frog mouth. He looked past Jack and bellowed at Lucy: “Come back here, you little whore.”
Jack gulped.
“What did you call your daughter?”
“A little whore.”
Sanity and fear fled from Jack. The falsetto note of fear gave place to a baritone shout of rage as he launched himself at the man in the water. Lucy screamed again. Jack’s charging body hurtled at Markham and the big man, his footing uncertain on the creek bottom, floundered back into the water again. As he came gasping to the surface, Jack dunked him again. This occurred several times and Jack started to enjoy a crazy sense of power.
Something was plucking at his sleeve and, turning, he saw Lucy. Her face was frantic.
“Get on your horse and ride,” she screamed. “He’ll kill you.”
“He don’t look like he could kill anybody right now,” Jack said.
“For my sake, go,” she pleaded.
Jack dunked Markham in again.
“When do I get to see you again? At the race?”
Her face shone.
“At the race?” she said. “Are you coming?”
“I’m going to win it,” he said, “and we’ll get married on the money.”
“Married?” she cried. “Is this a proposal?”
He dunked Markham again.
“Sure is.”
With a glad cry, she was in his arms. Markham staggered to his feet and made an enraged lunge for them, but they were saved by the providence that watches over all lovers. His foot caught in something beneath the surface of the water and he went in again. The splash brought them to their senses. With love in her eyes, Lucy pushed Jack in the direction of his horse and he, seeing Markham once again on his feet and floundering through the shallows, obeyed his love and his sense of self-preservation and fled to the red stud. He rode away with Markham pounding fruitlessly after him, yelling that he would kill him and Lucy running off in the opposite direction. At the top of the first ridge, he turned to see Markham shaking his fist impotently and Lucy waving. He waved back and got out of there.
He circled far to the west, totally unaware of the world around him and had he come within sight of Markham’s riders he would have ridden unknowing into their waiting arms. But the lover’s luck that had been with him back at the creek still sided him and he rode clear of Markham’s range without sighting a soul. Sagebrush and grass, dust and hills and the rolling valley were unknown to him; he saw nothing but Lucy. The most beautiful woman in the world had shown that she wanted him. So that made him the luckiest man alive.
14
McAllister told Sarie she wasn’t going to ride the stud in the race. McShannon declared that she would ride the stud over his dead body. Jack said she could sure handle the stud, but the race would be dangerous and those rannies did not care too much what they did with their quirts in that kind of a race and it was too dangerous for a kid. She could protest all she liked, but the stud was his horse and he would say who could or could not ride him. Carlotta, looking breath-taking in men’s pants and shirt and looking adoringly at McAllister every once in a while, declared that the stud was too much horse for a little girl to handle and it was ridiculous to even think of it.
Sarie, giving Carlotta one of those lethal looks reserved for the use of one woman on another and plainly declaring that Sarie thought Carlotta a low usurper of womanly power in the partnership, said that Red handled as gentle as a lamb and the other riders in the race couldn’t harm her, because she’d be way out in front from the start. She was going to ride the stud in the race. McAllister, McShannon and Jack Owen knew she would ride the stud in the race. Only Carlotta was green enough to believe that wisdom would prevail.
So they set out for town, three men, a woman and a girl, their camping gear on a pack animal, each riding a pony and leading one of the star horses that Jack swore all had chances of winning the race. McAllister boasted brazenly that even with his great weight up the dun had the stamina to cover five miles and reach the winning post as fresh as when he started. McShannon declared with an air of authority that he knew horses and his sorrel gelding might not be a thoroughbred, but over the rough country that the race covered a horse needed a dash of Spanish and his sorrel had that dash. He would win and, with the money, he would marry Alvina Markham. Jack said he would be on the red stud and there wasn’t a horse in the country that could touch it over rough country or on the flat.
“You ain’t ridin’ the stud,” Sarie declared. “I am. You’ll be on the bay.”
Carlotta said: “With the money we’ll build a new house,”
They all looked at her darkly.
McAllister declared that there wasn’t any sense in spending good cash money on a house when logs could be snaked down from the hills. Carlotta said without heat, but firmly, that any old house wouldn’t do for her. She wanted a proper house built and for that they would need a skilled carpenter. He would have to be paid. They would pay him with the money they won at the race. It was logical that her brother’s money should be used to build their house.
Jack said: “One house ain’t goin’ to be much good for three men with three wives. We need three houses.”
“Hey,” cried Sarie indignantly, “which house do I live in?”
Without a smile, McShannon said: “We’re arranging to have you kidnapped again.”
They moved at a steady pace down out of the hills, not hurrying the horses because they wanted them fresh on the following day for the race. Their timing would have to be good, as McAllister pointed out. They didn’t want to be too long in town before the race, for almost every Markham rider would be in town and the partners would be badly outnumbered. They had long debated the wisdom of taking Carlotta with them, but they had all agreed in the end that, while it might mean real trouble for them with her along, they couldn’t leave her in the hills on her lonesome. McAllister had been for her going all along. And so had Carlotta herself, though she didn’t want to bring trouble on the others. But her pride and McAllister’s pride demanded that she go. McAllister’s attitude was that his woman wasn’t going to be kept out of town by Markham or anybody else. And he wasn’t going to hide her away as if he were ashamed of her. Beside that, he and Carlotta wanted to be married by the preacher or the judge. Sure, it was going to need timing and nerve to get into the race, win it and arrange a wedding, all in the space of a few hours.
Noon found them near their old home and they stopped to water the horses and to eat near the blackened remnants of the house. Nobody referred to it, but they all thought plenty. They moved on through the heat of the day, slowly heading for town. Tension fell on all of them as, with the coming of dusk, they came within sight of the lights of the town.
Carlotta moved her horse alongside McAllister’s and said: “Honey, now we’re almost there, I don’t feel too good about this. I could bring an awful lot of trouble on you all.”
McAllister said: “We had all that out, girl. You’re comin’ in with us. There’ll be no trouble. Well, no trouble we can’t handle.”
They came into town from the west, crossing the bridge over the creek and seeing at once that the settlement was full to bursting point. There seemed to be horse and wheeled traffic everywhere. Din came from the several saloons on either side of Main Street. The led horses started spooking at once. The little cavalcade halted. McAllister looked around worriedly.
“We’re not going to get a room here,” he said.
McShannon said: “There’s good grass east of town.”
“We’ll camp,” Jack Owen said. “You girls mind if we camp?”
“We camped in the hills,” Carlotta said. “Another night out won’t hurt us.”
“I don’t want to sleep in any old hotel,” Sarie offered.
They continued on through town, threading their way with their lively horses through the traffic. McAllister and McShannon rode warily, keeping their eyes open for Markham’s men. They were halfway down Main when McShannon called to McAllister: “Over to your left, Rem.”
McAllister turned his head. A face leapt to his attention from those people on the sidewalk.
Foley.
The man was looking with a fierce intensity at Carlotta. Then he wrenched his gaze from her and fixed it on McAllister. The naked hate in his eyes was like a physical blow. McAllister would not have been surprised if the man had drawn a gun and fired at him then and there. He braced himself and laid his hand near the butt of the Remington. But the moment passed, they wended their way out of the traffic and were soon out of town.
To the east of the settlement, they climbed to slightly higher ground and found that a great many folk were of a like mind. Here were tents of all shapes and sizes, wagons and buckboards, tied horses by the score and rope corrals for loose stock. They rode past the lodges of several families of Cheyenne and Arapahoes. McShannon spotted a familiar Kiowa face. Indian boys guarded bunches of ragged ponies. They rode beyond the huge gathering and out onto the plain beyond until they were held by a curve in the creek. Here, with good grass and water, they halted and camped.
McAllister swung down from the saddle.
“Jack,” he ordered, “you an’ me rig up a rope corral for the horses. One of us stays with them all the time. Kiowa, corn for the stock.
Girls, you rustle up some grub. We’ll have kindlin’ for you in a shake.”
They rigged up a corral, watered the horses and put them into the corral. McShannon saw that they all had their fill of corn. McAllister and Jack gathered wood for the girls and they soon had a fire going. It wasn’t long before the aroma of stewing meat filled the night air. They ate around the fire. When they had done eating, McAllister said: “I’m goin’ into town.”
“Not alone, you’re not,” Carlotta told him.
“I’ll go along,” McShannon offered.
McAllister said: “You stay with the horses.”
In spite of Carlotta’s protests, he saddled the dun and rode back through the great encampment into town. He found the place noisier than ever. The saloons had been busy and there were plenty of drunken men on the streets. He sidestepped a couple of fights and reached the sheriff’s office.
George Gibson didn’t hide the fact that he was astonished to see him. He half-rose from his chair and then sank back with a little sigh.
“You here, Rem,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d have more sense than to come around.”
McAllister grinned.
“I feel safe with you to protect me, George.” The sheriff merely grunted. He looked unhappy. He toyed with a paper or two on his desk and finally said: “I can’t work miracles. The place is full of Markham’s riders and they’re after blood. For old time’s sake get the hell outa here and stay out.”
“You takin’ entries for the race?”
Gibson’s eyebrows went up further.
“For God’s sake, man.”
“You can’t refuse me.”
“Aw, all right. I’ll put your name down.”
“An’, McShannon’s.”
“His too.”
“An’Jack Owen.”
“The whole damn crew of you?”
“An’ young Sarie.”
The sheriff exploded. He stood up and banged his fist on the desk-top.
“You outa your head? A kid like that can’t ride in this race.”
“You got a rule that says that?”
Tough to Kill Page 10
