“Don’t say it!”
“What about you and him in the cottonwoods?”
She swallowed. So they had been seen after all. “I wanted to get him out of here, Joe. That’s the only reason I went out there. I threatened to tear my clothes—because I thought he would ride instead of risking a gunfight with his friend, his partner.”
For a long time Alford stared at the reddish hairs on the backs of his big hands. Then he said, “I guess comin’ home and finding Elkhart here has made me crazy jealous of every man.”
“Jealousy can be a terrible thing, Joe. A man can lose his friends and his wife.”
He sighed heavily. “Why ain’t I good with a gun?” he wondered aloud. “Why can’t I stand up to a man like Lon Perry when he insults my wife, instead of letting Clay—”
Nina’s hand flashed to her mouth. “Clay took my part in town?”
“Yeah.”
She turned quickly so he couldn’t see the rush of color to her cheeks. Why did she feel so flustered? So Clay Janner had stood up for her. What of it?
“I wish to hell Clay could find some gal and settle down here,” Alford said. “I’ll feel lost when he pulls out.”
“A lot of people will feel lost,” she heard herself say.
“I got to make it up to Clay. I said some things I’m sorry for.” He picked his hat off the steer-horn hatrack.
When he went out she stood woodenly, staring at the floor, her heart pounding. What was it about Clay Janner that stirred her? Was it the man himself, or was it only because he offered such a contrast to Joe? A strong, decisive man who’d know how to handle a woman. A man who would give a woman so much rein and no more. A man who would make the decisions, who wouldn’t flounder around and let somebody else stick up for his wife…
She walked to her room and closed the door and leaned against it. “Why did he have to come here?” she whispered. “Why?”
CHAPTER 12
Usually Nina Alford did the cooking for the ranch hands, but with the six additional men Clay and Alford had brought with them the chore proved to be too much. The black-bearded Sam Lennox took over in a lean-to that adjoined the bunkhouse. All afternoon Clay avoided Russ Hagen, but during the evening meal in the bunk-house he found Hagen watching him covertly from under his shaggy brows.
“I had to take care of a friend of yours today,” Clay said abruptly.
Hagen rubbed a hand across his broken nose. “Who?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Lon Perry.”
Russ Hagen’s heavy shoulders stiffened. “Nobody in this country is that big.”
“I slapped the hell out of him,” Clay said, and broke a piece of cornbread into his beans.
The other hands stopped eating. Sam Lennox had come to the door of the cookshack, a dirty towel around his waist.
“You wouldn’t be here talking about it,” Hagen said, “if you’d really slapped Perry.” Hagen gripped the edge of the table in his big hands. “You’d now be dead.”
“Ask Fierro at the cantina. Or any one of twenty men.”
A flicker of doubt showed in Hagen’s close-set eyes.
Clay stirred the cornbread into his beans. The silence stretched thin in the bunkhouse.
Then Hagen asked his question. “How come you tangled with Perry?”
“I made him apologize for the filthy talk you spread about Mrs. Alford and me.”
Hagen tilted his big head to one side. “You can prove I spread that talk?”
“I don’t have to prove it. It’s written on your face!”
Boots clattered as the crew quit the benches and ranged along the wall.
Hagen laughed. In the late afternoon sunlight seeping through the bunkhouse windows he looked formidable. On his thick upper lip, sweat gathered at a small scar, a memento of some forgotten brawl.
“All right,” Hagen said, “I did see you and Nina Alford. You goin’ to deny you and her was out back in the trees the other night?” He jerked a stubby thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the cottonwoods.
Clay’s hand shot across the table. His fingers caught the front of Hagen’s shirt. At the same moment Hagen lurched to his feet, tipping the table over on Clay.
But Clay had been waiting for this move and he leaped from the bench. The overturning table barely missed crushing his feet. As Hagen leaped across the table, aiming a blow for Clay’s face, Clay hit him solidly on the neck. Hagen dropped into the wreckage of the table. But before Clay could get set, he was springing up, moving fast for his tremendous bulk. His large hands caught Clay at the shoulders, tried to drag him to the floor where his extra weight would tell. But Clay’s right fist crashed against Hagen’s eye. His left struck the big man on the point of the jaw. Hagen reeled. The crew yelled encouragement to Clay.
As Clay came in Hagen suddenly picked up a bench and hurled it. Clay tried to duck but the heavy bench caught him on the thigh and knocked him sprawling. Hagen leaped forward, intending to bring his boots crashing down on Clay’s head. Had they landed, the man’s weight might have caved in Clay’s skull, but the awesome possibility gave Clay an added strength. He jerked his head aside. Hagen struck the floor so solidly that it shook the windows. On one knee, Clay caught Hagen by a leg and threw his weight against it.
With a yell of rage and pain Hagen fell. He kicked free of Clay’s grip, got to his feet. He saw a water pitcher and some glasses ranged on a shelf. He tried to grab the pitcher but Clay crashed into him. The shelf came down smashing the pitcher and the glasses on the floor. As the crew shouted and stomped the floor, the two men wrestled back and forth across the room, the cords in their necks standing out, faces bathed in sweat.
Then Clay slipped on a wet spot where coffee had been spilled. He tried to grab the front of Hagen’s torn shirt in order to save himself from a fall. Hagen saw his advantage and with a scream of triumph managed to get both hands around Clay’s neck.
A great roaring swept through Clay as Hagen’s thumbs bore down on his windpipe with crushing force. He felt light in the head and he saw Hagen’s crazy grin through a curtain of misty red. Hagen was shouting, laughing. He could feel the man’s spittle against his cheeks. Desperately he struck with elbow and the heel of his hand. But Hagen covered up, keeping his chin on Clay’s breastbone. Still the murderous pressure increased.
As if from a great distance Clay heard the voice of Sam Lennox: “Get him, Clay. Use your knee!”
This he did, but Hagen pulled back his body and the knee only brushed the big man’s thigh. Just as he thought he might faint from the pressure, Clay gave a mighty wrench of his body. It was enough to break the hold. As he stepped back, trying to clear his vision, Hagen tore after him. Clay felt a shuddering smash at his jaw. For an instant there seemed to be no bone left in his legs. He staggered back. He saw Hagen come in, big arms flailing. In his eagerness Hagen left himself exposed. Clay brought up his right. It missed Hagen’s jaw, but exploded with such force on the man’s ear that he went to his knees.
“Finish him, Clay!” someone yelled.
With the numbing pain still at his throat, Clay lunged forward. One of Hagen’s square, blunt-fingered hands groped for the handle of the shattered water pitcher. Clay saw the jagged edge of glass reaching for his face. As Hagen came off the floor, Clay ducked under the blow. But Hagen got his lifted knee into Clay’s groin. Although it was a glancing blow Clay felt it to the back of his head. He drove a hard fist into the pit of Hagen’s stomach, then hung on. They wrestled across the floor, almost tripping over the wrecked table.
They crashed into a chair and both fell heavily. Although dazed, Clay struck powerful blows at Hagen’s midriff. The big man, lying prone, was trying to pin Clay, but the punishment Hagen took at his belt line drove him away.
When they both staggered to their feet Clay knew he did not have strength enough left to continue the battle
for long. Hagen’s superior weight was a crushing advantage. And Hagen wanted to finish it, desperately wanted to finish it. He came smashing in. His left fist scraped Clay’s cheekbone. Clay regained his balance and got set. Hagen drew back his right fist for the one that would end it, and Clay struck him hard on the jaw. The blow drove Hagen against the wall. A board in the bunkhouse wall splintered as Hagen’s broad back struck it solidly.
The big man seemed to hang there. Clay took a deep breath, feeling pain along his ribs, tasting blood from a cut lip.
Hagen took a lurching step toward him. Clay felt a sharp panic. He thought, I haven’t got strength enough left to fight him off. I can’t… And then Hagen crumpled to the floor.
Clay felt hands that weighed a ton slapping him on the back. He knew they were yelling but he couldn’t hear because of the roaring in his head. Then he saw Joe Alford in the bunkhouse doorway. Alford was staring down at the unconscious Hagen. Nina Alford was clinging to Joe’s arm. She looked at Hagen, then lifted her eyes to Clay’s battered face.
“You’re hurt,” she said, and started forward, but Alford said something to her. She turned and went toward the house. She began to run, and the last Clay saw of her, she was hurrying across the veranda and into the house.
Clay wiped his face on a bandanna. Alford pointed at Hagen.
“Is he the one that talked about you and my wife?”
“Yeah,” Clay said, and smeared a torn shirtsleeve across his cut lip.
Alford drew his gun. He ordered one of the men to throw a bucket of water on Hagen. When Hagen stirred and sat up, Alford said, “Get out, Hagen. If you set foot on Spade again, I’ll kill you.”
Still apparently dazed, Hagen reeled to his bunk, gathered up his things and went outside. Nobody saddled his horse or helped him in any way. When he finally rode out, he shook his fist at the bunkhouse. Then he was gone.
Alford holstered his gun. He and Clay were alone in the yard. Alford said awkwardly, “Looks like you’re always fightin’ my battles for me, Clay.”
“Somebody had to settle with Hagen,” Clay said, and nodded at Alford’s holster. “You pulled a gun on him, Joe. You better watch out or it’ll get to be a habit.”
Then he limped back into the bunkhouse. He ached all over and he wished fervently that he had sense enough to pack up and get out. The way Nina Alford had looked at him after the fight had raised goosepimples along his back.
The next morning Kate French rode over and found him in the yard. She studied his bruises critically but made no reference to them. She seemed cool, and the rush of warmth he’d felt when she rode in left him quickly.
“I hear you’ve accomplished quite a bit this week,” she said thinly.
At first he thought she meant Baldy Renson. It was possible that his body had been found.
“You humiliated Lon Perry in town,” Kate said. “Now he’ll never rest unless he kills you. Or tries to. And then you beat up Russ Hagen—”
“You seem to know all about me,” he cut in.
“One of my men was in town. Hagen was in the cantina vowing what he’ll do the next time he meets up with you.”
“He’ll have his chance—if he wants it.”
“Honestly, Clay!” She sounded exasperated. “Do you go out of your way to make enemies?”
“I’d get pretty thin from running,” he said wearily, “if I worried about every man who threatens me.”
“You sound almost arrogant.”
Clay studied her. With her blue-black hair slicked back she looked young and fresh and pretty. Not the sort of girl who had handled a ranch alone since the death of her brother.
“I guess you don’t think very much of me,” he said with a short laugh.
Her blue eyes seemed puzzled. She said, “I could never like a man who brought nothing but trouble to his friends,” and because he was still regarding her intently she flushed and folded her arms across her breasts. “Maybe it would be better if you took your half of the herd and cleared out.”
“I may have to,” he said, thinking of Nina Alford.
Kate’s lips trembled and it seemed to anger her for some strange reason that he even considered leaving. “I don’t see why you ever had to come here in the first place!” Her voice was louder than necessary.
“Joe Alford’s my friend,” Clay said. “But he exaggerates like we all do sometimes. He said the graze here was good. We’d let our herd fatten up then drive it to the railroad.” He scratched his ear. “And Joe also figured that with me along it would be easier to explain to his wife why he’d been gone so long. But what do I find when I get here? A dry year. And on top of that a wife who can’t make up her mind whether she wants her husband or another man.”
Some of the stiffness seemed to go out of Kate’s shoulders. “I guess things haven’t been very easy for you, at that. But don’t blame Nina. She’d make up her mind in a minute if Joe would behave like a man.”
“Joe’s done his part,” Clay said, sticking up for his friend.
“He’s so busy feeling sorry for Joe he hasn’t time for anything else. I wish—oh, I wish he’d never even come to this country in the first place.”
Same wish for both of us, Clay thought.
“Well, maybe your life will be a little easier if I pull out,” he said.
“I don’t know whether it would or not,” she said, giving him a strange look. Then she stepped around him and hurried toward the house.
Nina Alford came out on the porch to meet her, and at that moment Clay made his decision.
CHAPTER 13
That evening Clay told Alford what he had decided to do. They talked in the yard, well away from the noisy bunkhouse. Lights glowed softly in the main house while Clay recounted their harsh troubles to Alford.
“The drought and the fence are going to outlast the pool easy,” he said. “Bogarth is going to go broke paying Elkhart’s toll. But he’ll please his wife that way and stay out of trouble.”
Alford nodded grimly. “I’m with you, Clay.”
Clay shook his head. “I’m going alone.” He was sick of the whole business. “You drive with the rest of the boys across the Sink. Either that or pay toll to Elkhart. Or get yourself a lawyer and grow gray waiting for the court to rule on the fence.”
Alford looked hurt. “I told you I was sorry, Clay. About saying you and Nina was—”
“It isn’t that. I’m getting tired, Joe. Damned tired of the way things have been going.”
“What you figure to do?”
“I’m going through that fence.”
“Clay, you can’t—”
“We’ll split the herd and I’ll take half the crew.” Alford sighed miserably. The moon was rising over the hills. Horses stomped in the corral. “Maybe the boys won’t want to run that much risk,” Alford said. “Bustin’ through that fence can get a man killed.”
“If they don’t want to risk it,” Clay said, “then I’ll find men who will.”
Although Alford tried to argue against him going it alone, Clay was adamant, and in the morning they started rounding up the cattle they had brought out of Mexico. They intended to make a gather at the Buttes, run through a final tally there, and divide the herd. Working alone, Clay found himself in a ravine some miles west of Spade, prodding a small bunch of the Chihuahuas that didn’t want to be driven back to the holding ground.
The sudden appearance of a rider on a bluff caused him to jerk his rifle from the boot. He swung down, levering in a shell as the rider came toward him. Then he saw that it was a woman. Nina Alford. He lowered the rifle and walked over to his horse and shoved the weapon into the scabbard.
“What’re you doing here?” he demanded angrily. He scanned the ridges, wondering if she had been followed, but he saw no sign of movement.
She dismounted, trailed the reins. As she turned to unbuc
kle the straps of her saddlebags the sun brought out the lights in her blonde hair. From the saddlebags she removed a parcel wrapped in newspaper.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said. “Out here. Alone like this.” She walked, swaying her body, to the shade of a juniper. There she sat down and opened the parcel. It contained two meat sandwiches. He thought of sending her on her way, but then he reconsidered. What the hell. He’d be gone from here in a day or so. He’d never come back. He sat beside her and took one of the sandwiches and began to eat.
“Joe says you’re leaving,” Nina murmured.
He nodded, his chinstrap swinging across the front of his faded shirt. “It’s what you want, isn’t it? Both you and Kate French.”
She stiffened a little at mention of Kate. “I never met a man like you, Clay,” she said, and stared pensively at the ground.
“Men like me come pretty cheap in Texas,” he said.
Abruptly she leaned forward and placed the tips of warm fingers on the back of his hand. Her face glowed as she gazed at him. “I admit I didn’t care for you at first, but—” A faint color spread across her cheeks when he made no move toward her. “Don’t you like me at all?”
He wiped crumbs from his mouth, balled up the newspaper that had held the sandwiches and hurled it far down a gully. “You’re another man’s wife,” he reminded her coldly.
“Where are you going, Clay, when you leave here?”
“After I sell the cattle I may go back to Mexico. Or maybe Montana. I hear there’s good grass there. Without fences.”
“What—” She shut her eyes tightly as if afraid to see his reaction to her words. “What if I wanted to go with you?”
He felt a tautness through his shoulders, and the sharp revival of an old hunger, but he waited it out behind a poker face. He watched a big Chihuahua steer nose out of the brush a hundred yards up the ravine. Overhead, a hawk dipped above the tawny crest of the rim. He got his breathing and his voice under control.
“I’ll forget you said that,” he said.
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