“Why?” Tom spoke for the first time, keeping his voice low. “Why should I stay south of the street, Mr. Blake? Am I some sort of a savage? Am I an outlaw? By what right do you discriminate against me?”
Tom Lundy had been well taught, and he had read in his books, and when he wished he could talk like it. There was a time when I had spent an hour or two a day with him myself, and in some ways I had a better education than the average man of my time, although my schooling had been short Kate had spent a lot of time with Tom, more time than I had, teaching him to act the gentleman. She knew how it should be, but those months in England and on the Continent that I’d put behind me, they helped. No man had had a stranger life than mine, although the West was filled with men from everywhere, from all countries and all walks of life, and often the walks have been very varied, owing to the kind of men we were.
John Blake was baffled and worried. He looked at Tom Lundy, and I could see the doubt in his face. John Blake understood tough cowhands, tracklayers and gamblers, and he knew how to handle them, but Tom Lundy was a nice boy, and Blake recognized him as one. “I did not make the law,” Blake said.
“Is it law?”
“It’s a local ordinance,” Blake insisted, “and I enforce it. No Texas men north of the street.”
Tom Lundy stood with his feet close together. He stood very straight and he said politely, “Mr. Blake, Conn Dury has spoken of you, and I have nothing but respect for you and for your rules. Nevertheless, I shall be north of the street tonight. You may expect me.”
Well, sir, mad as I was at the boy, I couldn’t but admire him; and catching a glimpse of John Blake’s startled eyes as we turned away, I knew that John did, too.
At the bank door, Tom turned back. “Mr. Blake, what I shall do tonight, I shall do alone, and when I come across the street, I shall come alone. I shall come without Conn, without the Tumbling B.”
We went inside and walked up to the railing where Dick Hardeman waited for us. His face was pale, and I thought he looked angry. And then I looked beyond him at the man behind the rolltop desk, and I understood why.
Aaron McDonald was a narrow-built man, high-shouldered and thin, a dry-as-dust man, and he seemed fleshless. His eyes were deep-set under bushy brows, his cheeks were hollow. He glanced from me to Kate, nodded briefly, then opened a drawer and took out a sack of gold and began counting out the money. Kate had settled at twenty-three dollars per head; it was a nice lot of gold money, and Aaron McDonald was a man who respected money.
He watched me put the gold and greenbacks into a sack for Kate, and then he said, “Your business here is finished?”
“I’ve some calls to make,” Tom said quietly.
“You are welcome,” McDonald said, “south of the street.”
“Tonight I shall be coming north of the street to call upon your daughter.”
Aaron McDonald lifted his eyes from his ledgers. They were like ice. “My daughter will not be receiving this evening. You are free to do what business you have, beyond that you are not welcome.”
“I shall be calling,” Tom replied quietly.
“Mr. McDonald,” Hardeman interrupted, “this is a good lad. I have known Kate Lundy and this boy for years, and -”
“I am not interested in your opinions, Mr. Hardeman. I trust you are not planning to order the affairs of my household?” He stood up. “This is a place of business, and it seems our business has been completed.”
Kate’s back was stiff. For the first time in years Kate Lundy was angry. “Tom, let’s go. This is no place for us.”
Aaron McDonald was a mean man, and a cruel one, and he could not forego the final word. “That’s right,” he said. “We put up with your kind south of the street. I hope you will permit us to choose whom we entertain north of it.”
I slapped him.
Reaching across the rail, I took him by the scruff of his neck and jerked him bodily toward me, and then I slapped him. My hand is big, it is work-hardened and rough, and I slapped him once, then back-handed him across the mouth.
“When you speak to a lady,” I said, “be careful of your language.”
Behind me I heard John Blake’s voice. “Conn … let him go.”
I did not turn my head. “Are you holding a gun on me?”
“No … I am asking you.”
Without a word, I dropped McDonald back into his chair. Turning, I said, “You had better teach him some manners.”
McDonald was livid. He leaped from his chair. “You god-damned trash! We should have wiped you all out! We should have gone through the South with fire and burned every house to the ground! By-!”
Suddenly, I was smiling. I rested my two hands on the railing and looked at him, and my smile seemed only to increase his fury. “Mr. McDonald,” I said quietly, “it might interest you to know that I was an officer under General Sheridan.”
Kate spoke from behind me. “Conn … come. Quickly!”
Turning sharply, I reached her side in two quick strides. Lounging before the bank were Delgado, Red Mike, and Rule Carson. Tom Lundy had stepped out to join them.
In a rough half-circle, facing them, holding shotguns and rifles, were nine men of the town.
“Kate,” I said, “you stay here, I’ll -”
“No,” John Blake interrupted, “there’ll be no shooting.” He stepped past me and went through the door, walking to the curb, where he stood facing the men of the town.
“There will be no shooting here,” he said. “Put up your guns.”
I took Kate Lundy’s arm and we went through the door. Our men around us, I escorted her to her rig, and helped her in. Delgado went to the hitching rail and got our horses, and one by one, facing them across our saddles, we mounted up.
Suddenly I was conscious of Tallcott’s eyes, and glanced down. In my left hand I was holding Kate’s sack of gold, and it was heavy. The expression in Tallcott’s eyes was one that did not appeal to me.
Placing the sack beside Kate in the ambulance, I said, “All right – let’s go.”
In a tight bunch, we started out of town.
The men still stood in the street, but as we neared the end of the street a man dropped from a roof in plain sight, and then another man led two horses from between the buildings.
Tod Mulloy and Van Kimberly both carried rifles, and from where they had been situated could have covered the street at a range of no more than sixty yards.
Both of them sat their horses, one on either side of the street, rifles in their hands, watching the men around Tallcott. And not a man in that group but now knew they had been sitting ducks for the last ten minutes. It was a feeling no man could relish, and never again would any of them feel quite sure that there was not a hidden rifleman some place close by.
We were almost to the end of the street when I heard Kate’s exclamation, and saw Linda McDonald standing alone on the boardwalk. She stood before the hardware store, the last building but one in the town, and she carried a neat little parasol in her hands. She looked up as Tom Lundy drew rein before her.
She was beautiful. Of that there could be no question, and I could not find it in my heart to blame Tom. Surely he had seen no such girl on the lonely ranches where most of our time was spent.
Yet … Was I seeing her now through the eyes of John Blake and of Moira? There was something there, a certain coldness, a tightness of feature, something I did not trust.
“Your father told me you were not receiving guests tonight,” Tom said quietly.
She looked up at him, a small smile about her lips. “Did I say that?”
“No, but -”
“My father is a very hard man,” she said, closing her parasol with a sudden, very feminine gesture. “I am not surprised that you are afraid of him.”
“I am not afraid of him!” Tom replied shortly. “I just do not want to be where I am not wanted.”
“Our house,” she said, “still stands among the cotton-woods at the end of the street.”
Deliberately, she turned and walked away from him, her shoulders very prim, her hips less so.