“If a woman really wanted a man she would go to any country with him.” Mabry looked at her and smiled a little. “What do you know about wanting a man?” “Enough. How much does a girl have to know?” She looked up at him, eyes teasing and impudent. Deliberately she reached up to brush snow from his shoulder, and then she was in his arms. Afterward he never knew whether he had done it or if she had. She came against him quickly, taking his coat lapels in her comhands, her face lifted to his.
With a sudden gust of passion he caught her to him, his lips crushing the softness of hers, her body molding itself against his, even through the thickness of their clothing.
One hand slipped around his neck and caught fiercely at the hair on the back of his head.
Breathlessly they clung to each other; then Mabry broke loose. He drew back, staring at her and brushing his lips with the back of his hand.
“That’s no good,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Coolly she lifted a hand and brushed her hair back in place. Her breasts lifted with her breathing. “Sorry? Why?” “You’re just a kid.” She laughed at him. “Did I feel like a kid? All right, I’m young. But how old does a girl have to be? How old was your mother when you were born?” “Sixteen. Seventeen, maybe.” “I’ll be eighteen in August.” She turned away from him. “All right, go to Janice, then.
She’s older than I am. But she’s not for you.” “She’s a fine girl.” “Sure she is. One of the best. She’ll make a good wife, but not for you.” Abruptly he turned away. He was a fool to start anything with this kid.
Yet the feel of her in his arms was a disturbing memory. “We’d better get back.” “All right… sure.” There was no more talking. Dodie Saxon strolled along through the snow, completely unconcerned. Yet Mabry was worried. She should be careful. No telling what could happen to a kid like that. There was fire in her. Plenty of it.
Outside the shelter she reached up to take the venison down, and as she turned away, carrying one haunch of it, she reached up with her bent forefinger and pushed it under his chin. “You big stiff,” she said, and laughed at him.
He stared after her, half angry, half amused.
Tom Healy came out of the shelter. He whistled softly at the sight of the fresh meat.
“See any Sioux?” “No. They’re smarter than a white man. In bad weather they stay under cover.” “Don’t blame “em.” “Got a glimpse of the vans.” He was tying the venison and rabbits to one end of a rope. “Burned down to the wheels.” He tossed the rope over a high branch and hauled the meat up into the tree, but well out from the trunk.
“How’s Maggie?” he asked.
“Better,” Healy said. “Ate a little solid food today, and she’s breathing easier. Maybe it’s the fresher air. Maybe it’s the food. Anyway, she’s better.” “Knew a trapper once, took sick ‘way out in the brush all by himself. He just drank water and laid around eating berries and roots. Got well, too.” “She’s a long way from well.” “We’ll sit tight a couple of days, anyway.” Dodie looked out. “There’s coffee on. I thought you’d want some.” He crawled into the shelter and accepted the cup Dodie handed him. Healy said something to Janice and she laughed. Healy’s hand was on her arm. King Mabry looked at them over his cup, his face unreadable. Dodie glanced at him, then said, low-voiced, “Don’t let it bother you. They’ve worked together a long time.” Mabry was startled. “Is it that plain?” “Yes… and she feels the same way.” “You’re wrong.” “No. I can see it. Only she won’t admit it, even to herself. She won’t admit she could be in love with a gun fighter.” “Don’t blame her. It would be a. dog’s life, for a woman.” Dodie made no reply to that, only adding, “She’s Eastern. She doesn’t understand. Not even after what happened.” “What about you? You seem to.” “I do.” It made sense, of course. And he was a fool even to give it a thought. Yet he was human. He wanted a home. He wanted to be loved and to love. Only there was no place for it in his life, not unless he could let it all be forgotten with the passing years. A few would try, and fewer would succeed.
Yet it did happen.
What could he offer? He was a saddle bum, and every job offered would have to be examined like this last one, where what they were hiring was the gun, not the man.
He would always have to guard against that.
Dodie sat across the fire from him, doubling her long legs under her. Looking at him brought a quiver of excitement to her. He was strong… very strong. Not alone with the muscular strength that came from hard work and harder living on the edge of the wilderness, but with a toughness of fiber that was like finely tempered steel and could give, but never break. Janice was a fool. Tom Healy was all right. He was an easy-smiling Irishman, lovable and tough in his own way, in his own world. He was a man who could make any woman content… unless there was something that leaned to that hard strength and inner toughness, that needed it in a man. Tom Healy was wonderful, but he was a tamed man. King Mabry was broncho stuff. He would never be tamed. Quiet, yes. Easygoing in his way, yes. But inwardly there was always that toughness of purpose, that leashed fury that could break loose as it had in the fight with Griffin at Hat Creek, and with the Indian. He had that indomitable something more important than mere prettiness or niceness.
Dodie picked up the gun that lay on the blanket beside her and handed it to Mabry. It was her father’s gun.
The one he had carried through all his Western years. “Where’d you get a gun like this?” “It was my father’s.” “Dead?” “In Colorado. A fight over water rights.” “Was that your home?” “Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado.” Thoughtfully he returned the Colt. She could see that he knew it was a good gun. The kind he himself might have carried.
FOUR DAYS passed slowly, and there were no further signs of Indians. Mabry killed another sage hen, and through a hole in the ice he caught several fish.
Healy tried rigging his first snares, and on the third day he caught his first rabbit. He killed another one with a thrown stick while it struggled in the deep snow.
Once, scouting near the Hole-in-the-Wall, Mabry found the tracks of two shod horses coming northwest out of the Hole. They were riding into the rough country east of Red Fork, but what drew his greatest interest was the fact that, backtrailing them, he found they had scouted the opening of the Hole with great care.
Evidently they had expected to find something or somebody there.
The tracks of one horse were familiar, but it was late that night before a reshuffling of the cards of memori returned it to consciousness. He had seen that same track at Hat Creek Station.
It had belonged to the horse ridden by Joe Noss…. They had, he knew, stayed too long in one place. Yet it had been necessary to give Maggie a chance to recuperate. Another long ride without rest could be the end of her.
Returning on the fourth day, he found that a rider had followed his previous day’s trail to a ridge overlooking the shelter. By now there were so many tracks that the shelter could easily be located. There had been no sign of Barker and Boyle since they had left the wagons to find Healy and kill him. So far as appearances went, they had vanished into nothingness. The Indian attack had come, killing Wycoff and Griffin, but by this time Barker undoubtedly knew the girls were still alive, and that they, with the money, must now be with Mabry.
It was possible that they had now been joined by Joe Noss and his companion, who undoubtedly knew of some hideout in the Red Greek Canyon country, for, not finding anybody at the Hole, the two riders had headed northwest without any hesitation, obviously toward a known destination. It was probably at this destination that Barker and Boyle hid out following the destruction of the wagons.
The tracks that came to the top of the ridge had undoubtedly been left by one of this group. Hence it could be taken for granted that Barker now knew their exact location.
King Mabry thought this out as he rode down from the ridge after finding the tracks. It was time to clove.