Bad Man's Gulch (6 page)

“It sounds powerful funny, I reckon.” She smiled under the shelter of her hand.

“You see, Marion Conover,” he went on, “I never seen any girl just like you. Would you believe that?” He turned again with frank inquisition in his eyes.

She strove to meet his glance for a moment, but a choking in her throat forced her to turn her eyes away again.

“Down in the parts I come from,” went on his soft drawl, “they simply ain't no girls that ain't all sort of browned up like the desert on a winter's day. You know that funny tan color? No, I reckon you don't.”

The petal of an apple blossom from the tree above them came in a fluttering pause upon the back of his hand. He examined it with strange interest, and then captured it with his other hand. Then he caught her arm and drew her gently closer.

“You see this here petal?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and prayed that he would not be able to tell the beating of her heart.

“I stood there an' looked up to you, an' I kept a-thinkin' of all the tan and dim-lookin' people down there where I came from, an' every one lookin' tired most of the time . . . and there was
you!” He paused with a smile of breathless reminiscence. “You was like this petal,” he said. “Yep, I reckon you're a lot like this petal now.”

Here he leaned to peer inquisitively up into her hidden face. “All your forehead,” he murmured, half musing, “is like the tip of the petal, and your cheeks . . . well, they're like the pink of the heart of the petal. Can you see what that meant to me?”

There was no answer, and, as the silence grew, he could feel a slight tremor through her body as if she were chill in the night. He raised her face boldly, the strong tips of his fingers under her chin.

“And your hair in the light,” he went on, “was like another sun, like the sun that gives the color to the heart of the petal, and the blue of your eyes . . .” He caught his breath and tilted her face farther back. “My God,” he whispered, “the blue of your eyes was like another heaven for me to look into and forget myself! Honest, I never seen anything so deep.”

She caught his hand away from her face, but the fingers that held it were weak and tremulous, and the lips with which she spoke then were quivering, and her voice was uncertain. “Don't talk like this,” she said. “It makes all my blood weak like water, an' . . . an' strange like the wind o' this night with the scent of the apple blossoms on it . . . an' . . . an' . . .” Her eyes wavered away from his until they became a shadow, and the quivering lips parted to a half sob. “What does it mean?” she cried desperately. “Oh, go away! I . . . I
hate
you! An' . . . an' I feel as helpless as a child with you so near!”

He caught her into his arms with an instinct stronger than any reason, and truer, and he bent back the curve of her soft body as he drew her to her feet, rising himself.

“I reckon I know,” he said at last, and his lips
crushed down on the warm curve of her mouth. “Oh, I reckon I know at last. It's love! Marion sweetheart, this is love. It started when I first looked up to you standin' on the curve of the stairway, with your hand holdin' your dressin' gown together at your breast. An' it has grown like a seed, but faster'n a hundred springs could make seeds grow. An' today the seed grew in an instant into a tall flower and busted wide open from a bud, all in an instant. Why, the whole world would go wild if they could see that flower, an' the whole world would go drunk with the dizzy sweet of the smell of it, for the flower's love, sweetheart. Listen . . . I c'n hear your heart a-beatin' here, right under mine, an' your eyes don't dare look into mine for fear they'd be a-sayin' too much, or let me look deep, too deep, an' right on down into your heart, Marion!”

He felt her whole body give to him, felt the tremor of her breath against his cheek.

The stream ran shining and whispering in the moonlight; the wind hushed through the fragrant boughs of the orchard; the moments passed like the fluttering fall of the apple blossoms, one and one.

She drew away to arm's length, her hands still resting on his arms, her eyes meeting his in flashes and falling away as quickly in confusion, and the smile playing furtively about her lips: “There was something else you was about to tell me a little while ago, before . . . before . . . can you tell me now, dear? You was talkin' so funny and sort of broken about the McLanes and the Conovers, and having something to say which you wanted to say and yet was afraid to. Can you say it now?”

His face altered swiftly, and his lips moved as if to speak. Then he shook his head. “I can't say it yet, honey,” he answered, “an' I won't say it till the
preacher has done all that anyone c'n do to make you mine forever. An' then I'll tell you, an', when I say it, I reckon this ol' feud'll go off an' hide its head an' laugh itself to death.”

The dull, slow
clanging
of a bell broke in upon them, and at the sound she grew pale and still.

“Listen,” she said. “It's midnight. An' the truce for the feud has ended now, an' we are not home. An' Pa'll think that you have taken me home, and he'll go home an' find we're not there, an' go mad for thinkin' things. Oh, honey, how'll we get back? The McLanes'll be waitin' for us sure along the road, an' . . . an' . . .”

He laughed softly. “If they's any McLanes waitin' in the road for me,” he said at last, “I reckon it'll be about the last waitin' they'll do for anyone. Why, honey, these McLanes an' the rest of these people around here don't know no more about gun play than women! They ain't never been up against the real thing, an' they're sure goin' to have some fun if they tackle me in the night. An' with a clear moon like this!”

He loosened a pistol in his hip pocket as he spoke, and she, remembering the shooting at the fair that day, was silent, half in dread and half in content.

They found their horses in the long line hitched in front of the dance hall, and started home at a sharp gallop. It was a typical backwoods road, winding helter-skelter up- and downhill and around many a sharp curve. If there were any lying in wait, they would have found a dozen places to secrete them in every half mile.

But they had come within two miles of the Conover house before it happened. The spirit of the backwoods is one spirit, and she had guessed their plans accurately.

As they swung around a sharp bend, two shots rang out in close succession. The first clipped past the hair at Lazy Purdue's forehead. The second knocked off his hat.

His return fire came like a flash on the heels of the second report. Firing a revolver from the saddle does not lead to accuracy or results, but Lazy Purdue had lived all his life on a horse, and, while he checked hard on the bridle, he whirled in his saddle, saw a shadowy horseman in the shade of a tree, and fired at the flash of steel in the horseman's hand.

The answering
clang
of metal told that he had shot the pistol out of the waylayer's hand, and the next moment the other was spurring hard down the road, bent far over the pommel of his saddle.

“Shoot!” screamed Marion Conover. “Shoot! Shoot! Oh, the coward, the yellow-hearted cur! Oh, you've lost him! Why didn't you shoot?”

For Lazy Purdue sat his saddle with his horse half turned on the road and the pistol poised in his hand. But his face was drawn and bitter.

“An' that is what the McLanes have sunk to,” said Lazy Purdue. “My God, they ain't men . . . they're varmints!”

“Why didn't you shoot?” she pleaded, shaking his arm in her excitement as she rode up to him. “You could have killed him six times while he was riding the first twenty yards.”

He slipped the pistol back into his pocket and looked at her for a long moment before he replied. “My pistol jammed, I reckon,” he said. “I simply couldn't pull the trigger.”

“Did you see his face?” she continued.

“No,” he answered, “I didn't see his face very clear. I reckon he must have been a McLane.”

“You
reckon
?” She laughed bitterly. “I tell you, I seen him as clear as day, an' I'd swear it before God. That was Luke McLane, an' he was tryin' to get even with you for beatin' his brother at the shootin'!”

Lazy Purdue dismounted and picked up the revolver that he had shot from McLane's hand.

“At least,” he said, smiling slowly as he examined the battered weapon, “Luke McLane won't be pulling the trigger with his right hand for quite some time.”

He refused to speak of the affair again on the way
home, and, when he kissed her good night, he seemed to have forgotten the incident. But the next morning he ordered his horse saddled, and rode out without giving a destination. He rode north from the house, so that anyone watching him might not suspect his destination, but, as soon as he was out of sight, he took the first crossroad and cut straight south. He had never ridden that way before, but he seemed to know the roads by instinct, and took every turn certainly.

His mind was busy as he rode, and it was busy with the feud. There was some way out. He felt for the six-shooter in his pocket and smiled. He thought of another thing and frowned. Then an inspiration came to him. It was a desperate thing to attempt, and a dangerous one, but he had seen it work once in a barroom in southwestern Texas, and he was confident that, if it worked there, it would work here. He checked his horse for a moment, and emptied his gun's chambers at the side of the road.

In ten minutes more he was before the McLane verandah, his horse tethered to the hitching post, and was knocking at the door of the house. A Negro opened it, and then half closed it when he saw the visitor.

“I wish to see Tom McLane,” said Lazy Purdue.

The Negro bobbed his head hastily and disappeared down the hall. A moment later Tom McLane appeared, followed by the hulking figure of his son Henry.

“Suh,” said Tom McLane gravely, “will you do me the honor of entering my house?” He bowed the way in with clumsy but careful courtesy.

In a moment more the three men were alone in a room. It was plain that Henry McLane carried his
suspicions of this visit, for he lurked at a distance with his hand ever near to his hip pocket. But his father was a different type, or a better judge of men.

“I don't want to be irritatin',” began Lazy Purdue in his usual drawl, “but I'm powerful curious to know how Luke's trigger hand is this mornin'.”

Henry McLane cursed softly, and his father stiffened and turned somewhat pale, but his eyes held steadily to Purdue's face.

“That was a dog's trick my boy tried to play on ye,” he stated. “An' I'm glad out o' my heart that ye shot the gun out o' his hand. He won't use a gun for many a day, suh . . . an', when he does, he'll know enough to use it in a man's way.”

Lazy Purdue smiled gently upon him. “Down my way,” he murmured, “if a man tried a thing like that an' didn't pull the trick, the boys would be laughing yet. They'd be laughin' so hard, suh, that they wouldn't hardly have the strength to string him up to the nearest tree and shoot him full of holes. I'm askin' you to look at the funny side of it, suh. Heah's a man an' a harmless girl a-ridin' down a road, an' heah's another man waitin' under a tree, with his gun ready an' everything, set to shoot this first man full o' holes. An' then the first man comes 'round the bend, an' the second man shoots twice . . . an' misses . . . an' then gets his gun shot out o' his hand. Yes, suh, it was very funny!”

“Suh,” said old McLane earnestly, “I dunno jus' how I can tell you how ashamed I am o' that boy, but I'm not ashamed o' the way he missed you. I'm only powerful glad he didn't have black murder on him after that night. An' one thing more, suh. When that boy had his gun shot out of his hand and rode on down the road like hell was behind him, why didn't you shoot ag'in, suh? He was your meat then, an' no
one could've blamed you for drilling him through the back.”

The caressing chuckle was still in Lazy Purdue's laugh as he answered. “That's where you show you ain't highly developed on your humorous side, Mister McLane,” he asserted. “Why, suh, I was so busy laughin', an' my arm was shakin' so with that laughter, that I simply didn't dare fire at him, suh. I might've hit the girl what was ridin' with me, suh.”

For a moment McLane frowned, and then his face cleared suddenly. “Conover,” he said, “for I reckon you've got a right to that name now, there's somethin' about you that strikes me mighty familiar. I dunno what it is. Seems as if I seen you somewhere a long time ago.”

A faint flush appeared on the face of Lazy Purdue. “I got somethin' to say about that,” he answered, “but it's somethin' I can't say now . . . an', when I do say it, I reckon it's goin' to have a powerful lot to do with this here feud. But what I've got to say now is that they's a powerful lot to settle between the Conovers an' the McLanes jus' now, an' I come here to suggest a way o' doin' it.

“Now, down my way o' the country, when a man is a bit angry with another man, he don't lay for him behin' trees an' shoot at him like he was a yowlin' cat in an alley. He jus' sends him a word that he's goin' to get him the next time they meet face to face, an', when they do meet, they pulls an' shoots, an' they's an end o' the thing without endangerin' any girls that can't use guns.”

He drew his revolver from his hip pocket and at the movement the two men started, but he stepped to one end of the room with the revolver hanging quietly by his side.

“Now,” he went on, “I'm talkin' to you as man
talks to man in my part of the country. I reckon you're pretty much of a man's man, Tom McLane. I know what people say about you in this here part of the country, and I reckon you'd feel pretty much at home in my part. This here is my proposition.” He was speaking slowly and carefully as if he had to feel for his words. “Sir,” he said, “what you call a feud here is what they gen'rally call murder where I come from. Down there, they shoot at a man while he's a-lookin' at the man that shoots, an' they don't wait for him behind a tree.