the pound of racing hoofs. They kept pounding until their racing seemed to be
inside his skull.
And then he was dead … or he felt like it. Never having been dead, he might
have been mistaken. Evidently he was mistaken, for the sunshine across his bed
was pleasant, and his eyes were open, looking at it. A curtain was blowing
slightly with a faint breeze—but he had never had a curtain at his window.
He lay very still, afraid the curtain would go away, because he liked it and
liked the feeling of lying here with nothing to worry about…
No, he had plenty to worry about He had to get out of here. He had sold a claim
to Pollock and the man would soon know there was no gold there, and never had
been.
He turned his head slowly and saw that the room was empty. It was his room, all
right, but it did not look the same. Somebody had put a rag rug on the floor,
and there were curtains at all the windows, and another chair—a rocker—had been
moved into the room.
He put his fingers up to feel of his eye, and then he was really worried. The
swelling was gone. If the swelling was gone he must have been lying here for
days. He tried to move, but his body felt stiff. He felt of his midsection and
found it was wrapped tightly in bandages. His leg, too, was bandaged.
How badly hurt was he? Could he stand the ride it would take to get out of here?
He moved himself tentatively. He was stiff, all right, but he could move. He
glanced toward the door where he had left his travel gear. It was gone … and
then he saw it, all there, even his rifle, standing just inside the closet door.
He heard a wagon in the street, the heavy rocking, rolling sound of a loaded
wagon, and he listened. He heard voices … and down below in the saloon,
somebody laughed. He had not considered the saloon. There was a way out the
back, however, and he could use that.
The question was: how much time did he have?
He heard footsteps, the quick rap of light, hard heels … a woman walking.
Quickly, he closed his eyes, allowing one hand to lie helplessly on the blanket
that covered him.
She came quickly into the room and looked down at him, then placed a hand upon
his brow. It was a cool, pleasant hand. It rested for a few minutes upon his
forehead, then whoever it was went to straightening the bed, which had never
needed it less.
And then she seated herself in the rocker and he heard the creak of a basket,
the faint click of knitting needles. After a moment, she began to sing very
softly, and not at all badly. Somewhere along there, he fell asleep.
When he awakened, it was dark within the room. No … not quite. There was a
light across the room, shielded from his eyes.
Someone spoke … Brennan. “How is he?”
“He’s alive.” That was Ginia. Of course it would be Ginia. She was not the kind
to let well enough alone. “How much alive it’s hard to say.” Now, that had a
sarcastic tinge that his ear was delicate enough to catch.
“Pollock was asking about him. He wants to talk to him as soon as he’s
conscious.”
Well, that was no surprise. He had ten thousand dollars of Pollock’s money.
“Do you think he really intended to leave us?” Brennan asked.
“Of course. That is exactly what he would do. You saw his things … he was all
packed to go.”
“Well, he won’t get away now, I’ll lay a bet on that There are some things a man
never escapes. This is one of them.”
“He’s perfectly free.”
“For how long? I tell you, he hasn’t a chance, and you know it. In fact, nobody
knows it better than you.”
“I’m afraid you are mistaken.” Her voice was stiff. “I don’t know what you mean,
Mr. Brennan.”
“He’s trapped … trapped, I say.” Brennan did not sound too upset about it,
however—and it was Brennan he had counted as a friend.
After Brennan was gone he lay perfectly still, waiting for her to go. And when
she went, he would get out of here. With luck, he could be twenty miles away
before daybreak … perhaps thirty.
Suddenly Ginia got to her feet. She put her things in the basket and closed it,
then she opened a cabinet and took out a bottle. He knew the sound, all right,
but it startled him and he opened his eyes.
Her back was half toward him. She had a brandy glass, and she was pouring a
little from the bottle. He closed his eyes quickly as she turned around and came
toward him. “You’d better drink this,” she said coolly. “You’re going to need
it.”
He opened his eyes. “I never saw the time when I needed a drink,” he said, “but
I’ll take it.”
“You’d better,” Ginia said grimly. “They’ll be coming any minute now.”
” ‘They’?”
Her face was expressionless. “Mr. Pollock, Mr. Brennan, Joshua—all of them.”
“Coming here? What for?”
“They had to make it official,” she replied. And then she added, “Reverend
Tattersall is coming, too.”
“Reverend? In this town?”
“He’s the pastor of our church. We have a church now.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “How long have I been here?”
“About eight days … almost nine. You’d be surprised how much has happened.”
He was afraid to ask what had happened. Instead he said, “How’d we come out in
the fight?”
“We lost two men, and three wounded, besides you. Mr. Hamilton was killed, and
Jim Karns—he was one of the new ones.
“The Bellows gang … they were hit pretty hard, everybody seems to think. You
killed Lute Semple, Tandy Herren, and another man—we found him on the
balcony—and six others were killed, most of them when you emptied the saloon.”
“You mean when they busted out of the door?”
“When you started shooting and drove them out.” She smiled suddenly. “They’re
all talking about how perfectly you had planned for them. There were four men at
the mine aside from Mr. Pollock, and when those men burst out of the door they
ran right into the open in front of their guns. Until then, it looked as if we’d
lost the fight.”
“I didn’t get Bellows?”
“You wounded him. They had the trial the next day, and they tried him and
another man who would never tell us his name.”
“What happened?”
“They were guilty, and they were hanged. Justice is very prompt here, Mr.
Fallon.” And then she added slyly, “Wiley Pollock was the prosecuting attorney.”
They had acted promptly then. He lay quietly thinking about it, and then he
heard the boots on the steps. “Look”—he sat up quickly, so quickly he felt a
dart of pain in his side—”my horse is right down in the stable. Stall them …
say anything … let me get out of here. After all,” he pleaded, “I never did
you any harm.”
“I never let you,” she said, “or you might have. After all, you did try to
seduce me.”
“I what?”
“Didn’t you try to win me over with flattering words? Didn’t you tell me I was
too lovely for this sort of life?”
“Well, look … I didn’t mean to …”
“And weren’t we in a dark cellar under the hotel? How does that sound?”
Suddenly he was angry. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but—”
“Oh, shut up!” she said primly. “Here they are.” John Brennan was in the lead,
and behind him were Blane, Teel, Budge, Devol, Pollock, and a dozen others, some
of whom he did not know.
“That claim you sold me,” Pollock said, grinning, “was no damned good.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Fallon said. “I can return the money.”
“You don’t have any money,” Ginia interrupted. “I used it.”
“You what?”
“She gave it to me,” Pollock said, “to develop the claim up on the mountain …
the claim you found when you had that brush with the Utes.”
“You talked when you were delirious,” Ginia said maliciously, “but the claim
sounded good. So I went to Mr. Pollock and suggested he go with Mr. Teel …
he’s a very good tracker, you know … and backtrack you to where you found the
gold. It took them five days to find it, but they did.” He lay perfectly still,
his eyes staring out of the window. It was night out there now, and if he’d been
left to himself he would be out there … running.
So they had located the claim he’d found, and she had returned his money to
Pollock to develop the claim.
“You took the money out of my pockets? That’s stealing!”