She was now defensive and this surprised him; never before had she seemed to feel a necessity to construct shelters around herself in his presence.
She turned her supple body half-sideways on the love seat arid extended one long, graceful arm along the back of it and sat, drink in hand, regarding him through half-closed lids.
By way of answer to her question, he said, "Talk has been going around, Eleanor. I think you're playing dangerous politics."
"And just what," she rephed with mock sweetness, "is that supposed to mean?"
His drink sat where she had placed it on the table, untouched. His slouched posture was relaxed; long years of bone-pounding movement had trained him to treasure each available moment of inactivity and put it to best use.
He said softly, "I always figured you owned a little more respect for public opinion."
Her eyes flashed; he saw her hand clench white around the glass. Her words, though softly spoken, had bite in them: "You didn't seem to feel the same way a few months ago, Will. I didn't see any concern then on your part for George or for pubhc opinion."
"You and I were careful," Brady said. "We didn't let it get around."
"And that makes everything right," she answered.
He ignored the edge to her words. He said, "You've gotten careless."
She leaned forward, suddenly tense, suddenly dead serious. "Will, you and I were washed up months ago. You were the one who said so. Now what gives you the right to come in here and dictate my life to me?"
"I don't like what you're doing."
"Well," she said in measured syllables, "that is just too bad."
But her eyes behed the hard crust of her words; her eyes were too bright—the beginning glisten of tears. She stood, turned away, and walked across the room to the small window cut into the adobe-plaster wall; she snatched the curtains aside and leaned forward, arais braced against the sill. It was, he knew, another pose; there was nothing she could see through that window except her own reflection, and perhaps his. But her words were no pose. "What do you want from me, Will?"
He answered with disquieting calmness: "I want you to leave Justin Harris alone."
She wheeled. Her fists again were clenched. "You have no right to ask that of me."
"Come on, now," he said soothingly. "I don't think you understand what you're playing with, Eleanor."
"Don't I?" She walked swiftly toward him and glared down at him; he had to fear his head back to look at her. "Then listen to this, Will Brady. I don't know what it was that changed your mind about me a few months ago, but all of a sudden you decided you were too good for me. You dropped me, and that's fine—for you. You don't have to go on living, day in and day out, with George Sutherland. You don't have to sit and go quietly mad while he plays his stiff-backed little military games and preens himself in front of the mirror and complains every hour about the miserable administrative mistake that assigned him to this forsaken outpost. You don't have to live your life with a man who's lost all capacity for loving and feeling—you don't have to hve with a cold, dead machine. Will."
He interrupted her softly: "I didn't choose to marry George Sutherland, either. We make our own beds, Eleanor. You and I have talked this out before—and you know my feelings. It would be a lot more honorable for you to leave him than to keep playing around right under his nose."
Flesh rippled along the line of her jaw. "Let me finish, Will. Don't talk to me about honor. I've heard more tlian I can take about honor. Pride and honor—nothing else matters any more to George. Well, I've had my fill of it-right up to here." She threw her head back and touched her throat.
"All right," he said mildly. "That changes nothing."
"Doesn't it? Will, love is something you have to keep aHve, like a fire. You've got to feed it. George quit all that a long time ago."
"Then leave him."
"Leave him? And go where?"
"You'd make out all right, I reckon," he drawIed.
"I was wUing to go away with you. Will. Remember that little horse ranch up in the mountains? But you didn't want it. You wouldn't have any part of it You had a sudden attack of 'honor.' And I haven't seen you since that day." She dropped abruptly to one knee; her hand moved forward, ahnost reluctantly—as though it were against her will—and her fingers toyed with his sleeve. "I had to do something, Will," she said in a small voice.
"So you took up wdth Tucker," he replied, appearing untouched. "Sergeant Emmett Tucker—quite a comedown, wasn't it?"
"So you knew about that."
"Purely by accident. It didn't last long with Tucker, did it, Eleanor?"
Her head shook back and forth. There was a light deep in her eyes—perhaps it was desperation. "Emmett is a good man," she said tonelessly, 'iDut he's troubled. He's got too much in his past. There are things he's too proud to forget. It was no good between us. We both had to force ourselves."
"So Tucker went back to the bottle," he observed, "and you turned to Justin Harris." "Justin is a man, Will."
"Sure. And he's already got a girl."
Her lips curled wryly. "Do you think I don't know that? Every time I approach him, he makes it all too clear."
Not without gentleness, Brady pushed her hand away from his arm and stood up. He took a restless pacing turn around the room, hands rammed in his pockets, and came back to take a stand looking down at her. She remained crouched before the chair where he had been sitting. Her body shd back slowly until she was sitting crosslegged on the floor, head thrown back, eyes shining up at him defiantly. She lifted the glass to her lips and swallowed and put the empty glass down.
"What do you want from me, Will?"
"I told you. Leave Harris be."
"I can't. I've got to have somebody to turn to."
"Turn to me, then, if you've got to. But leave Harris alone."
She looked up, surprised. Then surprise faded to bitter, jaded disappointment on her face. "You don't want me."
"I want you," he admitted. "I always did. Fut I never figured we had a chance of working out."
"Why not, Will?" Her voice rose. "Why can't we?"
"Tucker and me—I've got my own memories, too. But it's not just that, Eleanor. You're an officer's wife. I can handle that, but Justin Harris can't. That's what you don't see. A thing like this can wreck him —and Justin's too good an officer to have his career smashed by you or me or anybody like us."
Her face moved; thoughtfulness replaced the bitter downturn of lips. "You think a lot of him, don't you?"
"Sure. You said it yourself—he was the only man you could find. The only real man on this post. I respect him for that."
"Enough to sacrifice yourself." "By letting you hang on me when you need somebody to hang on to? No, Eleanor. I'm not that much of a saint."
She shook her head. Sitting on the floor, she looked like nothing so much as a spoiled little girl, just emerging from a tearful tantrum. She said, "I don't understand any of this. Will—I don't understand you."
He picked up his glass from the table and sipped from it, speaking slowly: "I saw your husband ride off the post a little while ago. To clear his head. He'd passed out in the stable while he was hunting for Harris. He was primed to pick a fight, I guess. It will probably wear off by morning. When the two of you first came here, I thought he was too strait-laced, too spit-and-pohsh, but I figured he had the makings of a fair officer and a fair man. I figured wrong. I've watched him too long to give him any more chances." "That's why you've changed your mind?" "Partly."
She shook her head. "I don't want it that way. Will. Either you want me or you don't. Leave George out of that. What's between you and me has nothing to do with him."
He drank the whisky down and stood regarding her a moment longer. "All right," he said. "Do what you want to do—but stay away from Harris. You hear me?"
She came to her feet. All her movements were supple, graceful, attracting all his male instincts. "Wait," she said.
He stood still.
<
br /> "What do you want me to do. Will?"
"I've already told you."
"Is that all?"
He faced her squarely, recognizing her weaknesses for what they were. He said, "I may be leaving the post next week. My contract is up.''
Her expression changed. She looked slowly around the room as though it were unfamiUar to her. Finally she said quietly, "I want to go with you."
"To be with me? Or to get away from George Sutherland?"
Finally she said, "I can't say. Will. I'm not sure."
He turned toward the door. With his hand on the latch, he looked over his shoulder at her. "You'll have to figure that out for yomself, Eleanor. I want you for me, not for the freedom I may seem to oflFer you. The horse ranch in the Santa Catalinas will be a lot tougher than this place."
"I don't know. Will."
He nodded and pulled open the door. The last thing he said before he left was, "While you're making up your mind, stay clear of Justin Harris, hey?"
"All right, Will. I don't need him for anything, now."
He left her that way, standing alone in the center of the dusty parlor. He pulled the door shut behind him and walked into the night, head bowed in thought, troubled by the memories that flitted past his vision, troubled by the uncertainties of the present and the dangers of the future.
When he left the stable, having taken a look at the passed-out Sutherland and having said good night to Brady, Justin Harris crossed the compound to his quarters and sat down on the edge of his cot to tug off his boots. Hard, bright anger continued to course through his veins and he knew better than to try to sleep. He lay back with a week-old Tucson newspaper and tried to read, but after half an hour he gave up and threw the paper aside, getting up and putting on his boots again and tramping around the little room until presently he flung the door open and went out onto the parade ground.
The quarter moon was almost directly overhead. Dimly against the lights of the camp-town beyond the post he could see the figure of the guard slowly moving back and forth across the road. Mrs. Mc-Cracken s tomcat came prowling around the edge of the building, stared at him with yellow-gleaming eyes and vanished on soundless paws. Harris, after a moment's consideration, walked down the row of houses, turning up the walk to Sutherland's house.
Lamplight shone through the window; he was startled to see the silhouette of a woman close against the glass—Eleanor Sutherland. For a moment he thought she was watching him, but then he realized she could see nothing but reflection against the glass from inside the lighted room. He looked past her, seeing for the first time the figure of a man sprawled comfortably in a parlor chair—Will Brady.
It drew him up straighter. After a moment Eleanor turned her back to the window and the curtains fell into place, obscuring whatever was transpiring inside.
It had been in Harris' mind to confront both Sutherland and Eleanor and straighten out the whole tangle of intrigues that seemed to be tightening around them all. But now it was apparent that Sutherland was not yet home, and that Eleanor was, in her expert fashion, entertaining a guest.
Harris shrugged. It meant little to him; he was mildly surprised to see Brady here after Brady's hard words of earher in the evening. But it was not Harris's affair, and he had little interest in Eleanor Sutherland. He turned back and walked toward the gate.
The parade ground was softly still. His boots scuffed up little eddies of dust. At the gate, the sentry came to attention, presenting arms. Harris saluted and was going past when a thought stopped him, turning him around. "Trooper."
"Yes, sir?"
"Have you seen Captain Sutherland tonight?"
"He rode off post about twenty minutes ago, sir?"
Harris said "Thanks, trooper." He peered forward in the dark. "Phillips?"
"Yes, sir, that's me."
"Didn't recognize you," Harris said. "How's your wife coming along?"
"Pretty good, thanks, sir. The baby's due any day, the doc says."
"Good enough," Harris said. "Carry on, PhilHps." He went forward along the road, tramping the worn wagon ruts.
Presently he mounted the four cracked wooden steps to the saloon door and pushed his way inside. Smoke lay low and heavy. The room was filled with its usual crowd, lethargic, gambling, talking and smoking; little conversations rippled around the room. Here and there, a girl with crudely apphed rouge and forced smiles talked with a soldier or a dusty civilian. Two bartenders sweated busily behind the long plank bar.
Restless, uncertain, Harris stood swaying on the balls of his feet, looking the room over-and spotted, alone at a corner table, the gaunt and carrot-topped familiar shape of Emmett Tucker, his company sergeant.
In no mood to drink or think alone, Harris pushed his way through the crowd to that corner and stood near Tucker's shoulder. "Mind if I buy into your bottle. Sergeant?"
Tucker looked up. There was a faraway, dismal quahty in his glance. "Suit yourself. Captain," he drawled, and poured Harris's glass full of whisky. Tucker tilted the bottle to his lips.
Harris sat, coiling his fingers around the glass. When he spoke it was more tolerantly than before: "Going over it all again, Emmett?"
Tucker's bleak eyes slid across Harris's, and dropped once more. "Leave it be, Captain. Leave it be."
"All right." Harris hooked an elbow over the back of his chair and swung half around to regard the goodnatured crowd. But here sat Tucker, back in a comer cooled by his own bitter memories. After a while Harris, turning back and planting his elbows on the table, said to the rawboned sergeant, "You've been fighting this ever since I met you, Emmett. Maybe the odds would even up a little if two of us were doing the fighting together."
Tucker's glance flashed up again. "Why not?" "Spit it out, then."
"A lot of things, Captain. A woman, a brother. A man carries memories around on his back." Tucker frowned into the bottle. "Why all the interest?"
"You're too good a man to get corked up in a bottle."
Tucker laughed shortly. "Yeah. I thought the same thing once, myself.''
"What happened to change it?"
"The War Department Act of 'Sixty-six."
"I don't know that one," Harris said.
"I reckon you're a little young to recollect it, Captain. But it's this: No ex-Confederate officer can hold a commission in the army of these here United States," Tucker said.
"You were an officer, then?"
"Brevet Captain at Chancellorsville. At your service, sir." Tucker looked up a moment, curled his Ups into a wry smile. Then he lifted the bottle.
"A man shouldn't let a thing like that ruin his Hfe," Harris said. "Why dwell on it?"
"I'm as high as I can go, right now," Tucker said. "That's kind of hard on an ambitious man. Captain." His hand was steady on the bottle. "And I'm not handy at anything else. I'm army. Been army all my Hfe. Too old, too stubborn to change. I don't figure to see myself handlin' a pick or a lasso or a plow, or clerking."
"Maybe," Harris suggested softly, "you ought to take pride in a job well done, instead of worrying after a job you can't get. You're a good topkick, Em-mett—the best. Why be ashamed of that?"
"I ain't," Tucker admitted. "Only from here it looks like a blind canyon, you see? Nowhere to go from here, except maybe get my head shot oflF by some howling Coyotero. Or spend the rest of my life drilling troops on the parade ground, and finally get put out to pasture in a supply office somewhere."
Harris shrugged. "We ail get killed or put out to .pasture sooner or later, Emmett. You've got a bad case of feeling sorry for yourself, that's all."
Tucker grunted. "I'll tell you something, Captain. I was a good officer. I don't look like it now, but I came out of West Point. Class of 'Sixty-one."
Harris's eyebrows lifted. He sat a little lower in his chair, sipping his drink, and for a while joined Tucker in Tucker's private dark and silent country. And when he got up to leave, he had nothing to say.
Brady wasn't exactly sure whether he was an imp
ortant part of events or merely a bystander. What he did know was that things were threatening to come to a head pretty quickly. He had seen Sadie Rand this morning and knew of her difficulties with Hai-ris, which had made him curse inwardly. Last night, well past midnight, he had observed the return of Captain George Sutherland on his horse, and had seen the grim set of Sutherland's features when Sutherland went past the lantern on the hospital door.
Not long after that, he had met Emmett Tucker, walking with the precariousness of a very drunk, very sad man. Tucker had merely grunted to him and gone home. And this morning he had seen Justin Harris fall in his company onto the dust-covered compound and berate them for sloppy driUing. Which was something Harris seldom did.
The major had come out on his office porch and spoken a few words of smprise and caution to Brady who had taken all these small things into his head. Brady was now in the barber's chair, trying to sort them out.
After a shave and a haircut, he went across the weed-and greasewood-strewn lot to Chet Rand's store, where he consumed a lunch consisting of canned tomatoes, canned peaches, salt beef and crackers.
The only thing he could see plainly was that everything, all these entanglements and angers, revolved around the central figure of Eleanor Sutherland. Eleanor's dark beauty had drawn them all into a web of hatreds and deceptions. How long that web would last was anybody's guess. It seemed pretty obvious that when the web did collapse, it would dump them into an uncomfortable pit of conflict that might destroy all of them.
"I'll see you later," he said to Chet Rand, and left the sutler's. For the next five days he was bound to the army by contract; after that-he had not decided. A lot of it depended on Eleanor. In some ways she frightened him as much as she attracted him. He knew he wanted her, but he was not at all sure that he was capable of making her happy. Up to now his own life had run through drifting paths. And he was half-afraid that it was his very irresponsibility, in contrast with Sutherland's regimented conduct, that appealed to Eleanor. If that was true, he knew there was no chance of making any kind of a mutually happy future with her. If, on the other hand-
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