Bad Man's Gulch (9 page)

“I got a raise on the first. Suppose we get hooked up, Sue?”

“Single harness is dog-gone' lonesome, Sue. Let's try to make the grade together.”

“You got to marry somebody, Sue. Why not me?”

“Sue, old dear, you're made to order for an engineer's wife.”

Almost always there was a note of banter in these proposals, and their eyes remained humorous, no matter how serious their voices might be. She learned that this was because they expected to be refused, and she found out that they compared notes afterward and told one another how she had
declined them. It came to be a regular thing. Every youngster who came on the division was expected to lose his heart to Sue and ask for her hand. And afterward he had to tell what had happened. It was a sort of initiation ceremony. She took it as much for granted as they did, of course. But she could never keep from blushing and smiling at them and she usually told them that she intended to be an old maid.

They took these rejections easily enough, and went back into the night to their work, or else they sat down around the stove at the end of the room and let their wet clothes steam out, perhaps. Her life consisted of nothing but men. There was not another woman in Derby. There was not even a girl child. On that side of the mountain she and she alone represented femininity.

On this October evening, a southwester that had been blowing strong but warm all day pulled around into the north and instantly there was ice in the air. She had to send old Pete Allison out for more wood and fill the stove and open the draft until great, ominous red places appeared on the top and along the sides of the stove. Even so, prying drafts continually slid into the room and stabbed one with invisible daggers of ice. The lunch counter, of course, was busier than ever. She burned her fingers with the overflow from coffee cups. Her stock of pie—baked in her own oven in dull times of the day or even at night—was nine-tenths consumed.

Then he came into the place.

There was an arresting air about him. He came in entirely surrounded by a group of four brakies, but she found herself craning her neck at him. He was a big young man, dressed in a lumberman's Mackinaw of a brilliant plaid, but all the looseness of that
comfortable garment was plumped out by the swelling muscles of his shoulders.

He took off his hat to her as he went by. The lower part of his face was covered with the stiff, upturned collar of his Mackinaw, but she could see that he was a handsome youngster in his early twenties, with a rather pale face and a pair of bright black eyes. Also, although he greeted her so pleasantly, she knew that she had never seen him before. No matter how thronged the counter might have been, she never could have seen that face before and forgotten it.

He did not pause at the counter, but he went straight back toward the stove and there sat down on an overturned box in a corner so dark that she could not make him out any more, except as a shadow among the shadows.

After a time the others went out. The train was pulling away up the grade. Its stertorous coughing became less thunderous in the distance; the floor ceased to tremble with the vibrations from the ponderous driving wheels. The trucks of the coaches rolled slowly, heavily past the station with a more and more rapid cadence in their rattling.

There was not a soul remaining except Pete Allison and the stranger.

Something like fear came into the girl. She was amazed at herself. Surely there was not a man in all the world she needed to fear. In the pocket of her dress there was a little police whistle that one of the firemen had given her; one blast on that whistle would bring them up to her. Twice she had had to use it; once when a new brakie full of tequila came into the place, and once when a vicious tramp troubled her. And, on each occasion, there had been a rush like a cavalry charge that had ended with her fighting to save the lives of the offenders.

Certainly here was protection enough to have satisfied the most timid of women, but still there was an uneasy feeling in her heart, a sort of tremulous lightness. It bewildered her. As she worked among the dishes, washing them in haste, she found her glances drawn sidelong toward the stranger again and again. He had not moved from his place, except to lean back a little more heavily against the wall. His head had fallen on his breast—perhaps he was sleeping?

She paused with a cup half dried. There had been no rain, and yet she had heard most distinctly the dripping of something on the floor of the room. She listened again, intently. There was no doubt about it—a drop, and then another.

She turned sharply toward the stove, bewildered, in time to see something drop glistening in a dim streak from the hand of the stranger, where it had fallen across his knee.

A little chill of horror crept through the flesh of the girl—and again she could not tell why. She took the lamp from above the counter and carried it to the counter table. The broad, dull circle of its light now covered the lower part of the man's body, his feet and the floor on which they rested, and on the wood there was a little gleaming spot, of a dark color. Of a dark color, but surely not red! Surely not red!

She flashed a glance in terror toward the door. Then she assured herself with a great effort that there was no danger, and she raised the lamp. It showed her the stranger slumped far down on the box, his head deeply inclined, the very picture of a weary man asleep, but at that moment the drop of liquid hung again at the tip of his fingers and dropped once more, a gleaming streak of red, toward the little dark spot beside his foot.

It was blood—was the stranger dead? All the gleaming life in those black eyes—was it gone forever? She put down the lamp and ran hastily toward him. She caught him beneath the chin and rolled back his head. It turned loosely—a horrible looseness. It lay back against the wall, but now the eyes opened and looked stupidly up to her. Surprise showed in them, then alarm. He lurched to his feet and scowled down at her.

“Well,” he asked sharply, “what'll you have?”

“Man, man!” cried Sue Markham. “Where are you hurt? You're bleedin' to death!”

He jerked up his left hand at that and exposed the palm covered with a great black clot, while a tiny rivulet ran down on the inner side of his arm.

“The bandage slipped a little, I guess,” he said. “That's all. I . . .” He attempted to make a step, and stumbled.

“Sit down!” cried Sue.

“I can't stop,” he muttered.

She pointed at him in horror. “Do you see? Do you see? You're all soaked through with blood.”

“Stand away, girl. I got to get on.”

“You'll be a dead man in an hour if I let you go! Sit down here . . . let me look at that arm.”

She caught at him and he strove to push her away. To her astonishment, she found she could master that great hulk of manhood. He was helpless before her, shaking his head, muttering savagely. She thrust him into a chair.

“I'll rest for a little spell longer,” he declared, trying to cover up his weakness by scowling at her.

She waved his words away and quickly drew off his coat. The mischief was plainly in view then. A long gash crossed the inside of his left arm, and from the cut the blood was flowing through a
crudely made bandage that had been twisted from place.

“What under heaven made that cut?” she cried softly to him. “No knife . . .” For it was a broad, rough-edged slash.

“A bullet,” said the big man finally. “Will you let me get on now?”

“A bullet!” cried Sue Markham. “Who?”

The other leaned weakly back in his chair. “The sheriff,” he said. “And there he's comin'!” He jerked his thumb with a feeble gesture over his shoulder, and in fact, through a lull of the wind, she heard the beating of hoofs down the mountainside, sweeping through the little town of Derby.

“Where'll I hide you?”

“Leave me be. This ain't no business for a girl.”

“Here behind the counter . . . they'll never look. . . .”

“I'll see 'em in hell before I sneak behind a girl's petticoats to hide from 'em. You,” he added, with a sudden and hysterical return of strength, “what's your name?”

“Sue Markham.”

“Sue,” he said, “you're as game as there is in the world. But this room ain't gonna be a place where a woman will want to be. Run along outdoors . . . or upstairs. . . .”

“What'll you do?”

“Set here, easy. Now, run along.”

He caught her arm and turned her around. His hand for the moment was iron, irresistible, but in the same instant the strength faded out of it and his arm dropped helplessly to his knees. His whole great body began to sag. But still he tried to keep his head up, and his jaw was set. He apologized, mumbling over the words. “I figgered on goin' straight on. But
I was fagged. I only meant to set here a moment. Didn't think that I'd need to rest more'n a minute. Then . . . I got dizzy. . . .”

“What do they want you for?”

“Something that ain't pretty. Run along, Sue Markham. Leave me be, here.”

“You're going to try to fight them when they come. Why, you aren't strong enough to draw out a gun.”

“I'll manage myself.”

“What do they want you for? Is it serious? Will you tell me? Will you stop staring and tell me?”

His eyes rolled wildly up to her, and something like a hideous smile parted his lips. “Murder,” he said huskily.

She had caught him by the shoulders, feeling him go limp beneath her touch. Now she stared down into his black eyes, deep and deep, trying to read the truth about his soul, but finding herself baffled.

“It was a fair fight,” she insisted, trembling. “You killed someone in a fair fight.”

He shook his head. “Stabbed,” he said. “Behind.”

A wave of actual physical sickness swept over her. “You mean stabbed in the back?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't do it, then.”

“Tell the sheriff that,” he said, and he smiled again up to her. Even as he sat there on the verge of collapse, that smile gave a touch of something ominous, something alert to his presence. There was a sort of self-sufficient mockery of the world in it.

“I must get you out of the room,” she said hurriedly.

He was so near collapse that he talked like a drunkard, with thick, stumbling lips.

“Murder. Y'understand? Murder. Want me for murder. Stand away from me, girl.”

“Get up!” she cried, for she could hear the sound of horses pouring up the street.

“Show me the door,” he said. “If you won't lemme sit here alone to meet 'em . . . I'll go out. It ain't right you should see what's gonna happen . . . show me the door . . . there's a fog rolled into this room, Sue.”

“It will clear up,” she told him. “I'll show you the way to the door. Stand up.”

He made a wavering effort. She hooked his arm over her shoulder and lifted with all her strength. So he was drawn from the chair. He towered above her, immense, flabby, with his head rolling idiotically on his shoulders.

“Soon as I get to the door . . . the fresh air'll fix me up,” he was saying.

“Steady. You'll be there in a minute.”

She heard him whisper: “God gimme strength . . . to face 'em.” He gasped aloud: “The door?”

“Another step!”

His weight slumped suddenly upon her. His head fell upon hers. She saw his great knees bend. He had fainted. And the rush of the horses filled the street just before the old saloon with thundering echoes, empty, thundering echoes.

It was like having a sack of crushing weight, but only half filled, thrown upon her. She could never have lifted this weight. Even now that it was propped against her, she went reeling beneath it, and his legs trailed out, and his feet dragged side-wise behind her.

So she got him to the counter and lowered his length behind it just as the door from the street was cast open. Had they seen her and her burden?

She stood up from lowering the wounded man to that shelter in time to see young Tom Kitchin, the sheriff, stride through the door with half a dozen men shouldering after him. They came stamping their feet for warmth, their heavy coats powdered with snow. But there was an eagerness in their faces that made her heart shrink. Surely they had seen. Their first words reassured her.

“The boys tell me that they seen a chap that answered his description come in here . . . Billy Angel . . . we want him, Sue.”

She leaned on the counter, resting both her elbows on it. She took all her courage in her hands, so to speak, and she made herself smile back at handsome young Tom Kitchin.

“I've never met anyone called Billy Angel. Is this a joke, Tommy?”

He shook his head, too serious for jest. “A great big chap. Looks strong enough for two. Wore a heavy Mackinaw. Got a devil-take-the-next-man look to him. Couldn't mistake him once you set eyes
on him. Old Pete Allison says he was here and that he ain't seen him leave.”

“Did Pete say that?” said the girl, silently registering a grudge against the old man.

“He did.”

“He went out the back door about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Back through here?”

“Yes.”

“We're off, boys!” cried the sheriff. “We'll run the dog down in an hour.”

“Wait a minute, Sheriff,” said Jack Hopper, the engineer, who was the rearmost of the party. “Wait a minute. If he cut back through the back door, he's headed for the hills.”

“Weather like this? You're wild, Jack,” answered the sheriff. “He'll cut for cover!”

“What's weather to him? He's got something inside him that'll make him warm.”

Another broke in: “You'll never get him. It's blowing up a hundred-percent storm. Let him go for a while, Sheriff. After he's run around through the snow all night, tryin' to keep his blood goin' . . . he'll be spent pretty bad. We'll go out and ride him down in the morning.”