The Desperado (21 page)

Ray said, “We don't want any trouble, Tall. Not here. Maybe it's best
that you came back this way and we can get things settled once and for
all.”

Laurin said nothing. She didn't move. She looked at me as if she had
never seen me before, and in my mind I heard Joe Bannerman saying:
There's nothing for you here in John's City. Nothing at all. But I
fought back the sickness inside me. Laurin had loved me once, that was
all that mattered. She still loved me. Nothing could change that.

Ray Novak moved his head toward the parlor. “Do you want to come in
here, Tall? We've got a lot to say and not much time to say it in. My
pa is coming in from town in a few minutes to pick me up in the
buckboard. We'll have to get everything settled before then.”

I said, “I can settle with you later. This is just between me and
Laurin.”

I looked at her and still she didn't move. I couldn't tell what she
was thinking. At last she said, “It's Ray's affair as much as ours,
Tall. You see, we're going to be married.”

I guess a part of me must have died then. Joe Bannerman had said it
and I hadn't believed it. Now it was Laurin herself, telling me as
soberly as she knew how that it was all over between us, and I knew
that this time it was the truth. I wasn't sure what I felt, or what I
wanted to do about it. I suppose I wanted to go to her, to take hold of
her with my hands and shake some sense into her. Or hold her close and
make her see that it wasn't over with us, that it never would be. But
her eyes stopped me. Perhaps she had expected something like that, and
I saw that look of fear come out and look at me. She started backing
away. She was afraid of me.

Ray Novak said, “I wanted you to know about me and Laurin before I
went out looking for you. I didn't want you to think that I was going
around behind your back....”

I shoved him aside with the flat of my hand and took Laurin's arm
before she could back away. She tried to twist out of my grasp, but I
held on and jerked her toward me. Anger like I've never known before
was swelling my throat. I said, “Tell him to get out of here! If he
doesn't, so help me God, I'll kill him where he stands!”

Ray Novak started to step forward. Instinctively, his hand started to
move toward his gun, and I was praying that he would follow through
with the motion. But Laurin said:

“Ray!”

And he stopped. Then something strange happened to Laurin. A moment
before her eyes were bright and shiny with fear, but now they showed
nothing.

She said, “Ray, do as he says.”

Ray Novak's face darkened. “I'm not leaving you alone with him. He's
crazy. There's something wrong and mixed up and rotten in that head of
his.”

“Ray, please!”

He hesitated for another moment. Then he relaxed. “All right, Laurin.
Whatever you say. But I'll be outside if...”

He left the rest unsaid. He turned and went out the back door, taking
up a position a few paces away from the back steps.

I heard myself laugh abruptly. “So that's the man you're going to
marry! A man with a yellow streak up his back that shows all the way
through his shirt!”

But I stopped. That wasn't what I wanted to say at all. Anyway, I
knew that Ray Novak wasn't yellow. He might be a lot of things, but a
coward wasn't one of them.

Laurin said, “Tall, please. You're hurting me.”

I turned loose her arm. My thoughts were all mixed up in my mind and
I couldn't get the words arranged to tell her what I wanted to say. I
found myself standing there dumbly, rubbing my face with my hands and
wondering how I was going to explain it to her. If I could only explain
it in a way she could understand, then everything would be all right
again. But she didn't give me a chance to get my thoughts arranged.

She said flatly, “Why don't you go away, Tall? Go far away so that
we'll never see you or hear from you again. Ray will give you that
chance, because he knows what you meant to me once. He has been sworn
in as a special deputy to get you. He's working for the government,
Tall, a United States marshal—but he'll give you a chance if you'll
only take it.”

I said, “I don't need any favors from Ray Novak!” But that wasn't
what I wanted to say, either. “Laurin, Laurin, what's wrong? What have
they said... what have they done to turn you against me like this?”

She shook her head, a bewildered look in her eyes. “You actually
believe that your trouble is caused by other people, don't you?”

Think? I
knew
there wouldn't have been any trouble if it
hadn't been for the Creytons, and Thorntons, and Hagans, and Novaks.
But how could I explain that to her? Women didn't understand things
like that. I remembered what my ma had said, long ago, about my fight
with Criss Bagley: But, Tall, why didn't you run?

I said quickly, “Laurin, listen to me. This isn't the end of us. It's
only the beginning. It won't be the same as we planned, but we can make
it good. We can be together.” I took her arm, gently this time, and she
didn't try to pull away. “They'll never catch me,” I said. “The army,
Ray Novak, nobody else. We'll go away. Pappy knows a place in New
Mexico. We can go there. We'll be together, that's the only thing that
counts. You don't mean it about marrying Ray Novak, it's just because
you've heard wrong things about me. You love me, not him.”

The words came rushing out in senseless confusion, and they stopped
as abruptly as they had begun. The look of bewilderment went out of
Laurin's eyes, and amazement took its place.

“Love you?” she said strangely. “I don't even know you. I don't
suppose I ever knew you. Not really, the way you get to know people and
understand them, and be a part of them. You're...” She shook her head
helplessly. “You're nobody I ever saw before. You're some wild animal
driven crazy—by the smell of blood.”

Her voice was suddenly and painfully gentle, cutting worse than
curses. She dropped her head.

“I'm sorry I said that, Tall.”

But she meant it. She didn't try to get out of that. I turned loose
of her and walked woodenly to the door. I pushed the door open, went
down the steps and into the yard.

Ray Novak said, “Tall.”

I went on toward the barn where I had left Red. I don't know where I
thought I was going from there. To catch up with Pappy, maybe, and try
to make it to New Mexico with him. Maybe I wasn't going anywhere. It
didn't make any difference.

Ray Novak caught up with me as I was about to climb back into the
saddle. “I'd better tell you the way things are,” he said. “I'm giving
you a day's start to get out of John's City country. Then I'll be
coming after you, Tall.”

I said flatly, “Don't be a goddamned fool all your life. I don't want
any favors from you. I'm right here. Take me now if you think you can.”

He shook his head. “That's the way Laurin wants it.” He hesitated for
a moment, then added, “Don't underrate me, Tall. I've learned things
about guns and gunmen since you saw me last. I won't be as easy as
Hagan, and Paul Creyton, and some of the others. Don't think that I
will, Tall.”

“You and your goddamned two bullets in a tin can,” I said. “You don't
even know what shooting is. But I'll teach you. You come after me and
I'll teach you good, Ray.”

I got up to the saddle and rode south, without looking back. Without
thinking, or wanting to think. I didn't know where I was going and I
didn't care. I just knew that I had to get away and I had to keep from
thinking about Laurin. I should have hated her, I suppose. But I
couldn't. And I suppose I should have killed Ray Novak while I had the
chance, but, somehow, I couldn't do that either. Not with Laurin
looking. I felt a hundred years old. As old as Pappy Garret, and as
tired. But, like Pappy, I had to keep running.

I didn't see the buckboard until it was too late. And by that time, I
didn't care one way or another. It was old Martin Novak coming up the
wagon road from Garner's Store, and I vaguely remembered Ray saying
that his pa was coming by the Bannermans' to pick him up. I had
forgotten all the rules that Pappy had gone to so much trouble to teach
me. I let him get within fifty yards of me before I even noticed him,
and by that time things had boiled down to where there was only one way
out.

It's the same thing all over again, I thought dumbly. But they never
understand that.

Nobody could understand it, unless maybe it was Pappy, or others like
him. The monotonous regularity with which it happened would almost have
been funny, if it hadn't been so deadly serious. It was like dreaming
the same bad dream over and over again until it no longer frightened
you or surprised you—you merely braced yourself as well as you could,
because you knew what was going to happen next.

Martin Novak had the buckboard pulled across the road. I could just
see the top of his head and the rifle he had pointed at me, as he stood
on the other side, using the hack for a breastwork.

“Just keep your hands away from your pistols, Tall,” he called, “and
ride this way, slow and easy.”

I didn't have a chance against the rifle, not at that range. But I
felt a strange calm. I never doubted what would happen next. I didn't
even wonder how it would end this time, because this time I knew.

But I played it straight, the way Pappy would have done. I said,
“What's this all about? What's that rifle for, anyway?”

“I think you know, Tall,” he called. “Now just do as I say. Ride in
slow and easy, and keep your hands away from your guns.”

I nudged Red forward, keeping my hands on the saddle horn. If it had
been Pappy, he would have been wearing his pistols for a saddle draw,
high up on the waist, with the butts forward. I had forgotten to make
the switch, but even that didn't bother me now. I looked at Martin
Novak and thought: There's only one way, I guess, to teach men like you
to leave us alone.

When I got within about twenty yards of the buck-board, he motioned
me to stop. He was wondering how he was going to disarm me, and
probably remembering stories he had heard about what had happened to
Bass Hagan.

He said, “I don't want to have to kill you, Tall, but I will if you
don't do exactly as I say. Now just reach with one hand, where I can
see, and unbuckle your cartridge belts.”

I said, “Just a minute, Mr. Novak. Hell, I never did anything to
you.”

He raised up from behind the buckboard and I could see the star
pinned to his vest. The Novaks and their god-damned tin stars, I
thought.

“It's more than that, Tall,” he said solemnly. “You're wanted by the
law. It's my job to arrest you, and that's what I intend to do.” He
studied my hands, which still hadn't moved toward my belt buckles. But
he still had that rifle aimed at the center of my chest, and he wasn't
too worried.

He said, “You've... been to the Bannermans', I guess.”

I said, “Yes. I've been there.”

He nodded soberly. “Ray shouldn't of done it,” he said thoughtfully,
almost to himself. “He should of took you in himself. But,” he added,
“I guess Laurin wanted you to have one more chance.”

I said, “I guess she did.” I didn't particularly want to kill him. I
didn't have anything against him except that he insisted on making my
business his business. And if I killed him I knew I wouldn't get that
day's start that Ray Novak had promised. But that didn't bother me. Ray
Novak could come after me any time he felt like it. I was ready for
him.

For a moment, I thought I'd try to talk the old man out of it, but I
knew that it wouldn't do any good. Like Pappy, I had grown tired to
trying to talk to people in a language that they didn't understand. It
was easier to let my guns speak for me.

“There's no use holding off, Tall,” the old man said soberly. “Just
go on and drop your guns.”

I looked for a brief moment behind my shoulder. I could still see the
Bannerman ranch house. A shot would be heard there, if I was forced to
shoot. Maybe they were even watching us. It was possible that Ray Novak
was already getting a horse saddled to come after us and try to stop
it.

I didn't care one way or another. I had stopped caring about anything
when Laurin cut herself away from me. What was there to care about?

I said, “All right, Mr. Novak. I guess you win.”

I could see relief in his eyes as I began to unbuckle my left-hand
gun. He was slightly surprised and, because of my reputation, maybe a
little disappointed because I gave up so easy. But he was relieved. And
the relieved are apt to be careless.

I unslung the cartridge belt, but instead of dropping it, I handed it
down to him. Instinctively, he reached for it, pulling his rifle out of
line.

Marshal Martin Novak was a smart man. He caught his mistake almost
immediately. But by that time it was already too late. He was off
balance, in no good position to use either pistol or rifle. He knew
that he was going to die before I ever made a move toward my other .44.
I saw death in those dark, solemn little eyes of his. I thought, You've
got all the time in the world. Take your time and do a good job of it.
And then I shot him.

The bullet went in just above his shirt pocket on the left side, and
he slammed back against the buckboard. The team scampered nervously for
a moment, but I pulled Red over in front of them and quieted them down.
Martin Novak went to his knees, held himself up for an instant with his
hands, then fell with his face in the dust. He didn't move after that.

I sat there for a moment looking at him. Red was nervous and wanted
to pitch, but I reined him down roughly with a heavy hand. I heard
myself saying:

“I didn't want to kill you, Mr. Novak, but, goddamn you, why couldn't
you let me alone?”

Then I realized that he couldn't hear me. And I knew that before long
somebody would start wondering about that pistol shot. I pulled Red
around and headed toward the hills.