Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories (18 page)

“Sure it’s a fair deal,” said Ray a trifle
sharply.

“Then what are you so touchy about? Do you
want
to take it?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I want to or
not,” said Ray, sliding around to face Chris with his arm on the
fence rail. “You’re not the one to be telling me what I should do.
You never look more than ten feet ahead of you and you’re happy
that way. I put in six years punching cows, Chris—for what? D’you
think I filed that claim as a gamble, till somebody came along and
raised me one better? I wanted something solid. I wanted a place
where I could raise a family, and have it to pass along to them. I
can’t think in dollars and cents the way McDonough wants me to. I’m
thinking about Gloria, and about those kids that aren’t born yet,
and what’s best for them. Maybe that stuff doesn’t mean anything to
you, but it does to me.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Chris, a little
nettled, “but that’s not here nor there. All I know is you look
like you haven’t slept in weeks, your cattle are racks of bones—I
saw some of ‘em over the fence the other day—and if you’re holding
out on McDonough out of plain stubbornness you ought to think
again.”

“So that’s what you think, is it?” said Ray,
looking at his own hands as he gripped the rail.

Chris managed a half-smile. “I know you
pretty well, old-timer.”

“Yes, I guess you do,” said Ray. He added,
deliberately, “But you never were very good at making me change my
mind.”

Chris’s smile faded. When he spoke his voice
was a little harder. “No,” he said, “I guess I never was.”

He waited, to see if Ray would say anything
else. But Ray did not speak, nor look at him. After a moment Chris
turned around and walked away to his horse. They both knew when an
argument could be carried no further. Chris mounted, cast one look
back toward his friend, and then guided his horse out of the
blacksmith’s corral and out onto the track across the prairie.

Meanwhile, Gloria crossed the flat ground
toward the old trading-post with the letter to her mother in her
hand. The long, low building lay in front of her, a tin stovepipe
projecting from the sod roof at each end and a hand-painted sign
declaring “U.S. MAIL” over the door. It had recently acquired the
dignity of glass in the windows, and Gloria caught a glimpse of her
reflection in the unaccustomed surface of one as she approached the
door. Thin and suntanned, in her old brown calico blouse and
corduroy riding-skirt, with her dark hair blown into disorder by
the ride—more like a schoolgirl run wild than a rancher’s wife. The
thought made her smile, and she skipped lightly up over the single
stone step and in through the open door.

She halted abruptly inside it. Two men
leaning on the counter at the other end of the long room turned to
look at her, and as Gloria’s eyes adjusted to the dimness she saw
there was no one else in the trading-post. The men were leaning
there as if waiting for Mrs. Prine’s return. Gloria saw that the
taller one was the McDonough hand called Jones, and his attention
had already fastened on her; she had already come in too far to
back out and pretend she had only glanced in at the door.

Gloria bit her lip and stood hesitating for
a second. She looked at the other man: he was a stranger, probably
another McDonough hand, a shorter man with sloping shoulders and a
long slack-jawed face that had a way of looking perpetually amused
at something. She would have to pass between them to leave her
letter at the counter. The idea was not a pleasant one, and yet
neither did she want to turn and leave now, and openly acknowledge
that she was afraid of them. She took a step forward, and walked
across the room toward them.

Jones’ eyes followed her all the way; she
had a feeling he was doing it deliberately to unsettle her. “Well,”
he said when she was almost in front of him, “so it’s little Miz
Collins, is it?”

Gloria glanced briefly in his direction
without coming anywhere near meeting his eyes. She was almost at
the counter, but the other man, Cooley, was leaning with his elbow
on it directly in her way. She looked straight at him; he was not
so hard to face. “Excuse me,” she said. Her voice was clear and
level, but it sounded small to her in the hollowness of the
trading-post.

Cooley moved his arm, with provoking
deliberation, and grinned at her. Gloria reached over and laid her
letter near the inside of the counter where Mrs. Prine would find
it and put it in the mailbag. Scarcely had her fingers left it than
Jones’ big hand came in from her right and picked it up, his longer
arm carrying it up out of her reach. “Now who would you be writin’
to?” he said. He turned it toward him to look at the address.
“Miles City, huh? Let’s see…”

Had it been anyone else Gloria would have
snatched the letter from their hand without preliminary. But with
this man’s close proximity, a crushing weight on her chest seemed
to keep her hands at her sides. Perhaps Jones read the futile anger
in her eyes; he smiled. “Wonder if your husband knows about
it—huh?”

Gloria swallowed; her fingers clenched
against her skirt. All she could think of to say was to repeat what
she had heard Mrs. Prine the postmistress say in scolding jest more
than once before. “I should remind you that it’s a crime to tamper
with the United States Mail.”

“A crime, huh?” said Jones. He dropped the
letter on the counter, his attention transferred fully to her.
“Last time it was trespassing—another crime. You’d make me out to
be a regular outlaw, wouldn’t you? I wonder where you come by the
idea.”

He moved toward her. Gloria tried to back a
step and almost bumped into Cooley. Once again it was too late to
move. Jones reached out and his hand closed on her right arm above
the elbow. Gloria pulled back, trying to fight rising panic. She
suspected he was enjoying teasing her, and would probably never
dare to hurt her—at least not in a place like this, where there
were other people within hearing if she screamed—but he was big and
uncouth and she had seen he had a temper that could be roused, and
she could not help fearing him. He was a bully, a bully who did not
like being blocked or thwarted in his meanness—

The words struggled through her teeth. “Let
me go—if you don’t let me go you’ll be sorry for it—”

Jones gave her arm a sharp jerk, pulling a
startled yelp from her, and she knew that for a second real fear
must have flashed into her eyes. Cooley snickered in the
background, unhelpful. “Scared, huh? You weren’t so scared before.
Only order folks around like a little queen when you’re on your own
ground. Or when you’ve got a husband with a gun to back you
up—”

Gloria’s voice rose desperately.
“
Please
—”

She struggled to pull free, past caring who
knew she was afraid. Jones laughed out, and the beginning of a
frightened cry snagged in her throat as he pulled her toward him.
And then—a sharp step came on the plank floor and all three of them
turned. Ray Collins was standing in the doorway, and the look in
his eyes was deadly.

Perhaps it was the instinct of
self-preservation that made Jones release Gloria’s arm. She pulled
away and rushed toward her husband. Ray did not look at her, though
his hand closed briefly on hers when she clutched at his arm; and
then he put her back a few steps out of the way with the same hand.
“Get out of here, Gloria,” he said, without taking his eyes from
Jones.

Gloria could not entirely obey—she backed up
against the wall by the door, her fingernails digging into the
hardened sod. Ray advanced to within a few feet of Jones, who
watched him come with mingled hate and relish of the expected
conflict showing in his close-set eyes. “I warned you once,” said
Ray, and then he struck him a swift right-handed blow to the jaw.
Jones dodged it but did not fully succeed, and the blow glanced off
him. He fell one step backward, and then came back swinging.

They were nearly equal in height, though
Jones was far heavier, and for a minute or two neither had the
advantage. The savage sound of the blows shook Gloria like cannon
fire; her fingers dug convulsively at the wall behind her. She
could not drag her eyes away. Cooley was watching them too,
breathing hard in his intentness.

Again Ray took one blow, blocked another,
and struck back at Jones. This time it landed squarely and Jones
stumbled back, his feet tangling in some coils of rope and harness
on the floor by the wall. What made Cooley intervene could not be
said, but he stepped forward from the counter and put a hand on
Ray’s arm. Ray jerked round and shook it off, but Cooley,
irritated, grappled with him and got hold of his shirt. Jones,
recovering his balance, came up with a rush and smashed an
unguarded blow to the side of Ray’s head. Ray staggered, but still
managed to sling an elbow into Cooley’s face and pull away from
him. But Jones grasped him by the collar and twisted him around,
and Cooley, evidently now considering himself a part of the fight,
drove his fist into Ray’s ribs. Gloria heard Ray give a strangled,
sobbing gasp of pain, saw him slacken in their grip. She wanted to
cry out, but horror had taken her voice. She clenched her fist
against her stomach, her fingernails pressing into her sweaty palm.
Jones’ cracking, short-of-breath voice said “Hold him!” and his
fist slammed home again. Ray’s knees buckled, blood spattering from
his lips.

Frantic, Gloria tore herself away from the
wall and stumbled out through the doorway, running blindly, running
toward the other buildings of Baxter looking for someone, anyone
who could stop it. She raced round the corner of the feed-and-grain
soddy and cannoned into a man who said “Easy, there!” in an annoyed
voice and held her arms to steady her.

Gloria gasped, trying to get her breath. It
was Silas Kinney, a rawboned, white-haired cattleman who for
reasons unknown had been elected sheriff of the county three years
running. She clutched at his sleeve and gasped out, “Stop
them—Ray—he’s fighting them—there’s two of them—they’ll kill
him!”

“What’s the matter? A fight?” Kinney frowned
and glanced back in the direction from which she had come.

“Yes—oh,
please
, hurry!”

Silas Kinney put her out of his way and
moved toward the trading-post, stalking in strides that were slow
but so long that Gloria nearly had to run to keep up with him. He
arrived at the door of the trading-post and took the single step up
into it, ducking his head so his high-crowned hat just brushed the
top of the doorway, his tall frame nearly blocking out the light
through it. “What’s going on here?”

The two men at the other side of the room
turned at his voice. Ray Collins was slumped against the wall at
their feet, bleeding, breathing painfully. Gloria flew across the
room, brushing past Jones and Cooley without a thought for her
previous fear of them, and fell on her knees beside him.

Silas Kinney squinted at the faces of the
three men as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. The two in the
foreground were strangers to him, so he looked past them and spoke
irritably to the one he did know. “What’s this all about,
Collins?”

Ray leaned his head back against the wall,
shutting his eyes for a minute. “Just a difference”—he coughed—”of
opinion.”

Jones uttered a short contemptuous laugh, in
between his own hard breathing. Silas Kinney glared at him for a
second, but directed his accusing voice at Ray again. “I don’t like
this kind o’ thing around here, see? You boys go raisin’ Cain again
and you’re liable to find yourselves in trouble—hear?”

“Is it a crime to protect your wife,
Kinney?” said Ray in a ragged-edged voice. He was sitting up, and
wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Kinney’s white eyebrows lowered in a
disgruntled frown, and he glanced around at Gloria and the other
men—he did not like having his ideas rearranged once launched on a
lecture. He looked at Gloria. “That true?” he said. “Were these
fellas bothering you, Miz Collins?”

Gloria nodded, looking at him without
speaking. She felt secure there at Ray’s side, sitting close
against the wall, though it was she whose hand lay protectively on
his shoulder.

“Some folks don’t know how to take a little
funnin’,” said Jones, but the hardness in his voice told a
different story.

Silas Kinney still only sounded annoyed that
it was his task to reprove. “Well, you got no business funnin’ with
a lady if she don’t like it,” he said. “You boys better clear out
of here. I ain’t gonna do nothing this time, but I better not see
you gettin’ in trouble round here again.”

Jones and Cooley looked at one another, and
then moved slowly for the door. Gloria kept her eyes on the plank
floor—she did not want to see the glances they cast; the resentment
in their heavy footfalls as they went out was plain enough.

When they had gone Ray started to get up
slowly, and Gloria helped him; first to his knees, and then a
little unsteadily onto his feet. Kinney turned from looking out the
door to face them. “That goes for you, too,” he said to Ray. “Don’t
let me see you starting trouble neither. I know you’re as liable to
it as anybody, maybe more.”

“I don’t start trouble, but it’s my business
whether I hit back,” said Ray. He brushed past Kinney with apparent
abruptness, but Gloria could tell from the clamped-down note in his
voice and the uneven way he walked how much he was hurting from the
beating he had received. She followed him outside, sliding between
the sheriff and the doorframe as Kinney made for the door too.

“Maybe it ain’t,” said Kinney. “You better
watch yourself, Collins. I already had a complaint from McDonough
about you shootin’ at some of his boys. Got anything to say about
that?”

“They were on my land and bothering my wife,
and I’ve got every right to shoot at them.”