Promise of Revenge

by Lauran Paine

  As they neared the Montgomery home, he said: “Toni, if I got a buggy from the livery barn . . . would you go for a drive with me . . . later on?”

  Her eyes held a glowing deepness, a sudden sweetness that made her face even prettier. Her lips, soft and pliable, moved—red and full and kindly. “I’d love to, Tom,” she murmured. He noticed quite suddenly that her hair seemed almost auburn in the night, that her skin was flawlessly smooth. He heard himself speaking and recognized only the voice, not the words. “Eight o’clock?”

  She squeezed his arm and left.

  He thought of the Royal Antler but there was no urge. Instead, he crossed the road, went to the livery barn, and made the arrangements, and for a moment he had trouble remembering the now smiling hulk of a hostler. Then it all came back and he handed the man a coin. “I reckon I’ve been reprieved,” he said.

  The man laughed. “The loft’s full of hay,” he said by way of answer. Then, as Tom was walking away, the night hawk added: “Your horse and that other feller’s horse come back from Red Stone stage station today. I got ’em stalled for you.”

  Tom went back out into the night. He felt good, as though a heavy weight had fallen away from him, as though something had gushed out of a fester deep inside him. He could hear and understand the soft laughter that came along the roadway on the night air, each rising and falling note of it. A lanky silhouette came toward him, angling across the road and scuffing up grouts of dust with each step. “Where you bound?” he asked as Tex stopped and peered through the darkness at him.

  “Oh, it’s you. Well, y’see, Eloise got plumb roiled at me this evening and I figure to take her riding in the moonlight and sort of . . .”

  “What moonlight?”

  Tex cocked his head skyward, then looked down again. “In the cool of the evening then,” he continued. “That way I figure she’ll get over her notion of throwing things at me.” A sudden thought struck Tex. “Y’know, for a female she’s pretty good at aiming where she throws, too.” He passed on into the barn, and Tom’s attention was caught by four stalwart, striding men, moving noiselessly through the night toward the Royal Antler, their flat-heeled boots striking soundlessly against the earth beside the plank walk. Freighters. He searched out the tallest silhouette but could not recognize it in the gloom. It didn’t matter, though; in a little while he would be driving out with Toni. There would be no meeting this night.

  Tex came up beside him and halted, looking across the road at moving shadows. “Night hawk says you already got that top buggy with the yellow running gear.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hmmmmm. Driving out with no moon, Tom?”

  A chuckle passed the big, dark man’s lips as Tex stepped down into the roadway and trudged toward the Royal Antler. It was good when your partner kidded you because it only happened when he had no reservations in his mind about you.

  XVIII

  They drove through a pleasant night, breathing deeply of an atmosphere made fragrant by the scent of a sighing, cooling earth. The mare between her shafts plodded placidly with head hung and the yellow spokes threw back gyrating reflections of the thin moon. Beside him Antoinette murmured: “Tom, did you know it is possible to wait for something indefinitely without being conscious you were waiting at all?”

  He leaned back with the lines slack in his hand. “Yes, I knew, Toni.”

  His jaw, she noticed, balanced his face. He had removed his hat and shafts of murky light touched his hair, making it darker, wavier; where it grew low upon his temples, it was pressed close. She had, in weeks past, made many private excuses for him, and it had been cruel the way things had worked out to rebuff them. It had not been an easy thing to take his part against the judge, nor had she done it openly, which was perhaps why the torment had been so scalding within her. But now, this night, it seemed to her that vindication had come. She had sensed it earlier when they had walked together through the twilight arm in arm, and the knowledge that her faith in him had not, after all, been misplaced was good knowledge. “When are you and Tex leaving, Tom?”

  His head came up slightly as though he had seen something ahead of them. “We talked about pulling out in a week,” he replied detachedly, as though speaking of two other men.

  It was this tone that gave her a quick lift of the heart. She said no more. On both sides of them the land stretched off into a gradual merging lift and rise toward the distant hills. She recognized their direction, and, when the mesmerizing clop-clop-clop of the mare’s hoofs had relaxed them both, she asked: “Where are we going?”

  “Up by the creek,” he answered. “Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”

  “No,” said Toni. “I was hoping you’d drive up there.”

  The mare was breathing deeply by the time Tom drew up and got down to loosen her check rein and tie her to a big willow. Somewhere behind him Toni could hear water tumbling over stones. He helped her down and led her to the base of an ancient cottonwood. She settled upon the ground, pulling him beside her. She laced her fingers together around drawn up knees, gazing at the high sky and its shimmering star fire. Silence settled around them in a soft, full wave.

  Tom plucked a blade of dead grass, peeled it thoughtfully, and chewed it. He lay back loosely, legs thrust out, his body turning softly against the ground. He was, she thought, as thoroughly relaxed as a man could be; it was good to see him that way because she knew he hadn’t often relaxed since returning to Beatty.

  “This is mighty pleasant,” he said around the drooping grass stem. “Damned pleasant.”

  It was her presence, she knew, that did this to him, but she was not a vain woman. Any woman’s presence would have brought out this relaxed mood; he was a man with deep hungers, with strong emotions, a solid man, physically alive and strong. He had his desires, his thoughts, and his memories. Her gaze clouded over. It was the memories she would have to combat. “Don’t go to sleep,” she murmured, and he laughed up at her.

  “I won’t.”

  “Tom what does tomorrow hold?”

  He kept his eyes on her face, her throat where the strong pulse was beating, and said: “Whatever you want it to hold. Tomorrow never comes, Toni, it’s here. It’s really today and it holds what you’ve made it yield.”

  This was a side of him she had not seen before. Their eyes met and held, then she looked skyward. He was also a deep man; one with private thoughts. “Tom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you had come back differently.”

  “You mean changed?”

  “No. I wish you’d come back for a different reason.”

  He looked away from her, let his gaze wander along the base of the rising bald hills, and was silent for a while. Then he murmured: “I’ll go away differently.” And she heard the long sweep of an indrawn breath in his chest. “It’s a strange life, Toni. You’re driven to do things that you don’t really understand until you’re well into them . . . then they don’t look as good as you’d thought they would.”

  “Isn’t it better to see them in the right light, than not to see them that way, ever?”

  “I reckon,” he conceded. “Only it doesn’t take away the shame.”

  “You’ve done nothing here to be really ashamed of.”

  “You don’t know, Toni.”

  “I think I do. I’ve kept my eyes open.”

  He looked again at her, this time with a dry little smile. “And your ears as well?”

  “Yes. Only I’ve never put any faith in gossip, Tom. Especially around Beatty. When there’s not much else for folks to do, they talk about other folks.”

  His smile lingered. For a while neither of them spoke, then she asked about Tex.

  “Tex? Oh, I’ve known him since a year or two after I left Beatty. We pardnered up and traveled from summer range to winter range and back again.”

  “No, I didn’t mean his background. I meant . . . is he going away with you?”

  “Yes.”

 
“What about Eloise?”

  How did you tell a girl like Antoinette that men, especially drifters like Tex Earle, took—they did not give? “I expect she’ll forget him, Toni.” It sounded resolved to him, the way he’d said it, until he caught her staring down at him, then it sounded callous. He threw the grass stem away. “Well, a man doesn’t marry every woman he sparks. It’s a sort of companionship thing, y’see.”

  “With us, too, Tom?”

  “No, because that’s different. We were kids together.” His face softened. “You know, Toni, lots of nights I’ve lain in my soogans, remembering things we did. Climbing into the bell tower that time, and putting that skunk in Miz Grogan’s geranium patch.” His dark gaze brightened with reflection. “You didn’t seem like a girl in those days. I didn’t think of you as one.” He cocked his head at her. “Did you know that?”

  She smiled a trifle ruefully. “Sometimes it was pretty hard being your kind of a tomboy,” she said, remembering, too, how she had mooned around the house when they were not together and recalling each little stab of pain he had brought to her heart when his words grew spiteful or scornful.

  “Naw, you were always a tomboy, Toni.”

  She was silently hugging her knees and looking straight ahead. “That was so long ago, Tom.”

  “Not really.”

  “Could we ever go back?”

  He looked at her profile. “No. I reckon you’re right. It was a long time ago, at that.” He was seeing her differently, the swelling fullness of her blouse, and her thigh where the skirt was drawn tightly around it. No, she wasn’t the same person at all. He stirred and she spoke swiftly, fearful that he was becoming restless.

  “Tim Pollard likes you, Tom.”

  He plucked another blade of grass. His feelings here were mixed. It was impossible not to like the sheriff, and it was impossible not to respect him, which of course meant much more. “He’s a good man, Toni. I have nothing against him.”

  “But when you first came back you did.”

  “Yes. But I told you . . . that’s all past now.”

  “Don’t you want to be top lash anymore?”

  He bit down on the grass stem. “Who told you I wanted to be that?”

  “No one had to tell me, Tom. You’ve changed a lot since we were kids, but basically you haven’t changed. I just thought you had. Well . . . ?”

  “No, I don’t care about that any longer. It’s part of something I’d like to forget.”

  She spoke in the gentlest, softest voice, looking fully down at him. “And the judge?”

  “Him, too. Like I said, I want to forget all that.”

  “But you don’t like the judge, Tom.”

  He had no ready answer because he actually did not like her father, had never liked him in fact, but as a youth the dislike had simply been because he was her father and used to bawl her out when they stayed away from home too long or were caught in some mischievous act. “I can forget that,” he mumbled, and straightened up off the ground. “And he can have the damned hay.”

  “You’ll lose money on those options.”

  “Not much. Anyway, the interest Finnerty paid me will make it up and then some.”

  He sat with his elbows on his knees, his head thrust forward, and his dark profile blending with the shadows. His lip corners had a tough set to them. Toni gazed at him with an interest that came only of deep personal interest. “I wish you weren’t leaving,” she said quietly. “I wish you’d stay, Tom.”

  He made no move but his jaw muscles rippled, his gaze gentled, and after a moment longer of hard concentration he turned to face her. There were no words on his lips. It was a difficult moment; the night around him was full of confused and confusing emotions. He changed expression, was on the verge of smiling at her. She did not smile back. Earnestness held her face dark and still. She put forth her hand; he took it. Her fingers closed around his palm suddenly strong, holding to him, pressing some of her thoughts into him. Abruptly she sought to draw her hand away, but he held her, drew her off balance toward him. But she braced against the pressure and freed her hand, jumping to her feet. “Maybe we’d better go back,” she said in an unsteady, low voice.

  The quick, sad call of a coyote broke upon the stillness. He got up more slowly and turned to swipe at the seat of his trousers. He felt uncomfortable and within him somewhere there stabbed a shaft of pain.

  He went without another word to the buggy mare, untied her, left the check rein loose, and handed Toni up onto the seat, got in beside her, and flipped the lines. The mare turned instinctively and started the long trip back. After a mile of hush and discomfort he said: “Why do things have to happen like they do? It was so damned pleasant up there with you.”

  Her reply was warm and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Tom. I really am. It was my fault.” She took his free hand in both hers and held it with her fingers curled tightly around it. “It was me. It was something I felt back there.”

  “But Toni, if I didn’t go away . . . what then?”

  She looked at him. “What do you mean, what then?”

  “Well, hell, the judge doesn’t like me. Pollard, he’s not so easy to figure out. He’s been kind to me . . .”

  “He likes you. I know he does.”

  “Then he’s the only one around who does.”

  “No, I do, Tom.”

  His hand in her lap twisted, caught at her fingers, and bruised them with unconscious feeling. “Thanks.”

  “Honestly, Tom, I think most people around Beatty like you.” He shook his head at that. She drew up slightly on the seat and bent forward to emphasize her words. “The cowmen do, I know. They won’t ever tell you so, Tom, but what you did for Gerald Finnerty is the kind of thing they judge a man by.”

  He understood this because he was also a man who judged other men by their actions. Still, he could not separate the bitterness that had driven him to return to Beatty with the hatred in his heart, from the things he had done since he had returned, and he was certain others saw in him, and in his actions, only the coldness, the hunger for vengeance that had governed everything he had done.

  Toni’s next words cut across his thoughts, driving them out. “Give Beatty a second chance, Tom. I can’t explain away how you were treated years back. But I can tell you this. Not even the judge wishes you ill now.”

  He thought of his boyhood, of his days with Toni, of the fine days full of promise and golden sunlight, days that no other part of the land had ever successfully duplicated for him. And he thought of the soft, mellowed stone in the cemetery. He longed to belong, to forget what had happened twelve years earlier, and what had happened since he had returned. He longed only to put down roots and . . .

  “Stop the buggy, Tom.”

  He obeyed. She was looking fully at him and her face was white, her eyes enormous, her lips slightly parted as though she had made some desperate decision. When next she spoke, the words were squeezed out, unreal sounding.

  “Kiss me.”

  He drew her to him and found her mouth. A soft, stifled sob came from her throat; her breath beat savagely upon his cheek, and her hands felt for him, drew him even closer.

  It was as though something exploded inside his skull. He bruised her with his strength and let the wild full run of his temper, the force of his will go free. It came out and broke over her, suddenly, this fierce hot longing that he had not known until this moment was within him for her, and it passed over them both. Deep down there in the hollow of the land, Beatty lay, a dark mass of irregularity in the warm blackness, touched less by moonlight than by its own squares of soft orange. All around was a loneliness, while circling the valley, chunked up heavily against the sky, were the bald hills.

  XIX

  He stepped to the bar with a pleasant tiredness in him, had his drink, took glass and bottle to the wall table, and dropped down. Roy the bartender kept looking at him. Tom Barker’s face was a brooding mask, normally, but now Roy saw in it a kind of odd and unnat
ural beauty. This look fascinated Roy; it was not a thing men saw often in the faces of other men.

  “Hey, Roy, you seen that Barker feller in here tonight?”

  Roy looked around. “Right over there,” he said matter-of-factly. “As plain as the nose on your face.”

  The cowboy crossed to Tom’s side and stopped. “Mister,” he said. “You got a pardner called Tex?”

  Tom blinked out of his reverie. “I have. What about him?”

  “’Pears he bit a chunk off he can’t chew.”

  “A fight,” Tom said swiftly, arising. “Where?”

  “Out back o’ the livery barn.”

  He asked no more and the cowboy rushed out of the saloon in his wake. It was beyond midnight now, with very little showing of Beatty in the darkness. There were a number of horses standing idly at the livery barn’s outside rail and near them, blissfully asleep, lay a drunken drifter, head cradled in his arms.

  He rushed the full-lighted distance of the barn’s long main aisle and out into the cooling gloom beyond where motionless shapes of men stood, faces savagely intent upon a sprawled silhouette moving feebly in the dust of the back lot. It was Tex; he was down and he was hurt. Even in that bad light Tom could see the dilation of his pupils, the flung-back smear of blood along his cheek, and the scrabbling, numb gropings of his fingers in the dirt. He would have gone forward but a thick arm stopped him. It was Grogan, the liveryman. He said softly: “Better let ’em finish it, Mister Barker. There’s three more of them freighters out there.”

  Tom raked the shadows with a hard look in his eyes. There were perhaps ten men in the darkness, all motionless. Some were cattlemen; he recognized their faces. Several were townsmen and three of them were freighters, lips skinned back, smiling at the big, taut figure bending above the downed man: Clint Ingersoll, shorn of belt and gun and with cocked fists at the ready.

  “Get up,” Ingersoll was snarling. “Y’dirty mother’s son. Get up!”