Someone would come along and his gun would misfire, or some Sioux would get a shot at him and not miss.
His life was action, he was of the frontier and for the frontier, he was a man born for a time, and when that time had gone, he would go as the buffalo had gone, and as the Indians were going.
He knew this now as he had always known it, deep in his subconscious he knew it, and now in his delirium it came back to him with new force.
Before the quiet beauty and the ladylike qualities of Janice Ryan he seemed brutal and uncouth. She was something from the life he had known as a boy, a life long gone now, the life of Virginia before the War between the States.
She was hoop skirts and crinoline, she was soft music and a cadence of soft voices. She was a lady. She was something left behind. Back there along the line of his being there had been a war and he had gone into it from one world and come out of it into another. To him there had not even been ashes, not even memory. The others had tried to cling to the memory, to recall the past.
They clung to it with desperate fingers, but he had never been able to see it as anything real. And he had gone West. He had been only a boy, but a man by virtue of the work he did and the weapon he carried.
It had not been fair from those days to the XIT and that still, hot morning when he first killed a man without the excuse of war. He tried to explain this to the shadow figure of Janice, but she kept leaving and Dodie would appear in her place, and somehow there was no explaining to do.
Out in the snow Healy had been doing his own thinking.
What did Mabry have in mind? The man was a fighter. He would have known just what to do. But could he, Healy, do it?
He tried to think it out, to plan his moves.
Mabry might have gone in to face them down. This Healy knew he could not do. And above all, he must not be killed. He remembered something he had read or heard about military tactics. “The first object of the commander is to keep his striking force intact.” And he himself was the striking force. Tomorrow he might kill a man, or might himself be killed.
What would Janice think of him then? It was all very. well to talk of not killing, easy backslash to be horrified by it when living in a safe and secure world, but out here it was different. Nor was there any possibility of aid. There was no law.
Nobody knew where they were or had reason to worry about them. They were isolated by distance and the cold, and it was kill or be killed.
Tom Healy was realistic enough to understand that whatever else was done with Janice and Dodie, they would never be allowed to leave the country alive. Their stories, whereever told, would bring sure retribution. Returning to the house, he put wood on the fire and crawled into his bunk. At daylight he could see that Mabry was a very sick man. There was little firewood left in the pile behind the house, and the last of Mabry’s beef would be comused that day. There were a few items of food in the house, but Healy was no cook. Whatever was done he must do.
Thrusting Mabry’s extra pistol into his belt, he took up the ax and went out. The snow was knee-deep on the level and he waded through it to the trees in back of the stable. Remembering how far the sound of an ax carried, he hesitated to use it, but there was no alternative. For an hour he worked steadily. He found the wood brittle in the sharp cold, and he cut up a couple of deadfalls and carried the wood into the house. If Mabry returned to consciousness he would be able to feed the fire. He tried to put himself in Mabry’s place and do what the gun fighter would have done.
Taking the rifle, he went up the ridge east of the house. The wind had an edge like a knife and the hills up there were bare and exposed, without timber and largely swept clean of snow.
Far away to the east he could see the long line of the Wall, which seemed to be no more than seven or eight miles off, yet he was aware of the amazing clarity of the West’s air, and that distance could be deceptive.
Well away to the south he could see a notch in the Wall that might be the Hole.
If the wagons started to move, this might well be the route they would take, yet nothing moved anywhere that he could see. For more than an hour he scouted the country, moving carefully, trying to use the shelter of ridges and tree lines, drawing on his imagination and remembering what he had seen others do, and the casual things Mabry had said, or others. Had he been well, Mabry would have known what to do; as he was not, it was Healy’s problem.
Coming from a ravine, he saw a faint trail of smoke in the sky ahead of him. Crouching near a rock, he studied the place of its origin. It was far west of-the Hole, almost due south of him, and apparently not over a mile away.
The ravine across the narrow valley was choked with brush but there was a vague game trail along one side, hugging the brush and trees. Along this he made his way. He felt jumpy inside, and knew that where there was smoke there would be men, and at this time those men could scarcely be friends. If it wasn’t Barker or his men, it could well be Indians. Healy was no fool. He had the beginning of wisdom, which was awareness of what he did not know.
Yet he must go ahead and trust to luck and what his imagination would provide.
The brush was heavily weighted with snow. Once a rabbit jumped up almost under his feet. He hated the crunch of snow under his boots, fearing it ,might be heard.
He shifted the rifle to his other hand and worked up the ravine to the top, climbed out and went up the short slope to the crest. He was just about to peer over the ridge when he heard a shout. Instantly he flattened out on the snow and lay still, listening. “Can you see it?” The voice was Boyle’and “Swing left!” That was Barker. “Big rock here!” He heard the jangle of harness and knew the vans were moving. They had come out of the Hole at last.
Lying near the upthrust of a cluster of boulders, he watched them coming. They were still some distance away, but he could hear every sound in the sharp, clear air.
It was almost noon.
Art Boyle had never liked camping in the Hole. It was the logical route for any traveler going east or west, and evidently he had persuaded Barker to move back into the hills and out of sight.
Within a few days, perhaps within hours, all evidence of their presence at the Hole-in-theWall would be gone.
Unlikely as it was that any traveler might pass, they were now safe from the risk.
Yet Healy instantly realized there was one thing he must do and could do. He must destroy their confidence.
He must let them know they were not secure from discovery.
That he, or someone, was still around. As long as they were watched, or any witnesses remained, they were not safe. Without doubt they were moving back to the hills to accomplish their ambitions once and for all. And once they were back in the ravines and woods and free from discovery, there was only the matter of breaking into the wagons or starving the girls into submission. They might even, and the very thought frightened Healy, set fire to the wagons. Yet they would hesitate to do that without looting them first.
He lifted the rifle. He fired into the snow just ahead of Barker’s horse. The rifle leaped in his hands, snow spurted under the horse’s hoofs, and the sounfi went racketing off across the snow-clad hills. Frightened, the horse leaped forward, then broke into a wild bucking that Barker controlled only after a bard fight. Then he swung the horse over the bill and out of sight. The teams, just now in sight, swung hard around, almost upsetting the vans, and then they lunged into the hollow behind the hill and out of sight. For luck, Healy fired again.
He knew they might very well attempt to locate and kill him, so instantly he slid back down the hill, then moved swiftly into the thick brush. Twisting and winding through it, he made a quarter of a mile before he paused to glance back.