With watchful eyes he rode into the street; unconsciously he tipped his hat forward again. A few loafers sat on the gallery in front of the Emporium, which was two blocks down the street. Mrs. O’Beirne was sweeping off her steps. A hen pecked at something in the street, a dog rolled in the warm dust. Several horses were hitched to the rail. One by one he checked off the things he saw, glancing once, sharply, at the bank from under his hat brim, then he tilted it back on his head once more so they could see his face. He wanted to be recognized … they must all know he was in town. As he drew abreast of the harness shop he saw a man who was standing inside come suddenly to the door and stare at him. He heard the startled exclamation: “Doc! Did you see what I saw?”
Somewhere a door slammed … Considine was back in town. Around the corner just ahead of him was Pete Runyon’s house—the house where he lived with Mary. The picket fence had been painted a fresh white, and the small lawn was green and smooth. Climbing roses grew over the porch. Now people were coming to the doors to look at him, and the loafers in front of the Emporium were all on their feet.
A big man with a blond walrus mustache yelled at him: “Hey, Considine! You back to stay?”
Considine drew rein. “Hiya, Matt! See you’re fat as ever.”
“We never figured to see you around here.”
Considine dropped his cigarette into the street. Had he seen a curtain move in the Runyon window? He grinned easily. “Why, I’ve got friends in town, Matt. I came back to see Pete Runyon. I hear he’s been keeping in shape.” He glanced at the sun. Not much time, and he could not cut it too fine. He turned the corner and dismounted in front of the white gate. Taking off his hat, he knocked the dust from his jeans. He was jumpy inside … nerves. But some of the old deviltry was rising within him, and for the first time in days he felt genuine anticipation for what lay before him. Mary had always been too serious, and she would be too serious now. He looked at the house as he opened the gate. Well, she had what she wanted, and it looked like Mary, too, all neat and precise and pretty. Mary knew all the little tricks of binding a man tight; she knew exactly what she wanted in her neat, definite little life … well, maybe that was all right for Pete. Suddenly, and for the first time since she had thrown him over for Pete Runyon, Considine felt a vast relief.
He went up on the porch, his spurs jangling. There was a screen door, and the inner door was open. He stepped inside. It was a stuffy little parlor with a Brussels carpet and stiff chairs covered with dark red plush. Each of the chairs had a neat white antimacassar on the back. It was a proud, pretentious little room, stiffly, primly respectable.
The room was Mary, so completely that Considine felt suddenly sorry for Runyon.
How much had she changed him?
“Anybody home?”
His voice boomed into the stillness within the house, somehow faintly indecent in that strict, upright silence. Mary Runyon came suddenly into the room, and stopped abruptly. She was shapely in her neat house dress, her hair drawn smoothly back.
She had a certain assurance and poise that he did not remember, probably something that comes to a woman who is loved—or to one who has caught her man and hog-tied him.
“Hello, Mary.”
Her face turned white to the lips, and she smoothed her dress with both hands, running them down over her waist, carefully, slowly. It was a gesture she had when she was upset … he remembered it well.
Mary had always been prim and respectable, and it had always angered her that he had the ability to excite her physically. Considine grinned at the memory of it. She had hated the idea of it, for it offended her sense of the proprieties.
“What do you want?”
Her voice was sharp, without gladness or welcome. Yes, he thought, this is Mary.
She had her man and her home, and his return was a threat, a danger.
“Where’s Pete?”
“He’s not here.” She gathered her apron in her fingers and seemed to dry her already dry hands. “What are you doing here? Why couldn’t you stay away?” “Figured we might talk over old times, Mary.” He grinned at her, a taunting grin. She flushed and grew angry.
“Go away! Leave us alone!”
Considine did not move. This was the worst part. His eyes went to the clock on the mantel. “I won’t be staying,” he said. “I just came back to see Pete.” “You will see him if you stay. He isn’t afraid of you.” “Pete? Pete Runyon was never afraid of anybody or anything … even when he knew I could beat him with a gun, he wasn’t afraid.” He glanced around the room. “Well, you must really have him hog-tied or he’d never sit still for a room like this, Mary.” He looked into her eyes. “Better give him some rope, Mary. You tie a man too tight and he strangles. You let a man have a little leeway, and if he loves you he will tie himself, and like it.” “Pete isn’t tied down,” she protested. “He’s a responsible man. He means something in this town.”
She lifted her eyes to his again. “What do you mean to anybody? Anywhere?” He felt the stab of truth, but brushed it away. Yet it was true, for he meant nothing, anywhere, to anybody. And then suddenly he thought of Lennie. Maybe he did mean something—if only a little—to somebody. “You’re wrong, Mary. I’ve got a girl of my own.” Her eyes sharpened, and he remembered something else about Mary. She had never liked to lose anything, even when she didn’t want it Yet, taking her all around, he supposed she was a good woman. She kept a good house, she was attractive-looking, and probably Pete would wind up as mayor, or something. “She would have to take the guns away from you and turn you into a responsible citizen or you’d be worth nothing to her!”
“Like Pete? You’d probably want her to pin on a star and run my best friend out of town.”
“You know Pete didn’t want to do that! He had to … after all that happened.”
“And to keep you!”
Mary Runyon was furious now. “Get out! Get out of my house! I hope I never see you again!”
He turned on his heel and walked out, and stood there for a moment in the bright sunshine. Well, what had that accomplished? But all he wanted it to accomplish was to make Pete mad enough to fight … and maybe it would. Yet he felt tight and strange inside, and suddenly he knew the last thing he wanted to do was fight Pete Runyon. In fact, it would be good to see him again … like old times.
How many head of cattle had they branded together? How many times when working for the same cow outfit had they fought off Indians or rustlers? How many head of cattle had they snaked out of bogs? How many saloon brawls had they fought side by side?
He gathered his reins and stepped into the saddle, and suddenly Mary was beside him, grasping at his sleeve. “Considine … I don’t care what you think of me, but don’t hurt Pete!” She clung to his hand. “Please, leave him alone!” Astonished, he looked down at her twisted, anguished face. “Why, Mary! You really love him, don’t you?”
Suddenly her face was still. “Yes … yes, Considine, I do love him. He’s my man.”
Well, I’m forever damned, he thought. This is Mary. Mary, who struggled against every emotion, and whom he used to delight to take into his arms because he knew she responded to something in him, though she fought against it, hating herself for showing it. Even for feeling it.
“Mary,” he said gently, “Pete and I have a little matter to settle, but Pete and I have fought before, and that’s all it will be. Maybe he’ll whip me again, maybe I’ll whip him, but I’ll make you one promise, Mary, and it is the only one I can make. I won’t draw a gun on him.”
He rode off, and she stared after him for an instant, then gathering her skirt, she started to run.
There were several buckboards on the street now, and thirty or forty horses were tied along the hitching rails. More people were on the street than was usual at this hour of the morning, so he knew the word had spread. Under other circumstances, with a fight like this about to come off, he would have been out there himself to watch.