Such a warning as I had given was apt to thin their ranks somewhat. A few of the camp-followers would shy from trouble, and some of the talkers would make an excuse and ride out.
Cap was in bad shape. He had lost a lot of blood, like Rugger said, and he was a thin, tough old man without too much blood in him. He ran mostly to bone and sinew.
It scared me when I looked at him. His cheeks were sunken in and his eyes were hollow. He looked a sight
“Ange,” I said, “will you see what you can do for him?”
“Yes.”
“Ange, I’m sorry about last night.”
“You didn’t have to shoot those men. That was wicked! It was an awful thing!”
“They were mighty bad men. They came out there to kill me, Ange.”
“I don’t believe it. They were just talking.”
“Ange, when men carry guns they don’t just talk about killing. When a man mentions killing, and has in his hands or on his person the means to kill, then you have a right to believe he means to do what he says. I’ve helped bury a few men who tried to argue at times like that.”
Ange wasn’t doing any trading on that land of talk. She walked away from me and left me standing, and all that sort of nice feeling between us was gone.
Only girl I ever felt likely to care for, and she would have none of me.
And after I did what I would have to do, she was going to like me even less. But the fact of the matter is, no man can shape his life according to woman’s thinking. Nor should any woman try to influence a man toward her way. There must be give and take between them, but when a man faces a man’s problems he has to face them a man’s way.
We had come up here asking trouble of no one. We had staked a claim, measured out a town site, and staked out building sites. We had cut timber and prepared to build; and then strangers came in, jumped our town site, and tried to jump our claim. They had shot Cap, and they had tried to kill me.
Nobody talked much over breakfast. After breakfast I taken Blackstone and sat down under a tree where I could watch that town site, and I read. Reading was not easy for me, but I hooked both spurs in the girth and settled down for a long ride, determined not to let it throw me. When words showed up that wore an unfamiliar brand, I passed them by and went on, but usually they made sense to me after some study.
After an hour I toted my book back to camp and, rounding up a pick and shovel, headed for the creek.
Cap had sunk a shaft to bedrock and started a cleanup. Going down into the shaft I widened it out a mite and got out some gravel. At the edge of the stream I went to work with the pan, filling it with gravel, dipping it into the water, and starting the water swirling to wash the sand over the edge. I found color, but not much.
Several times I walked to the edge of the woods. Noon came and I could see no sign of work around the town, so evidently they were drinking and talking. Cap was breathing easier, and Ange was feeding him when I came into camp, but she paid me no mind and I sat down to eat what there was.
If they made an all-out attack on us, we might be able to hold them off, but if we had to get out of there our only chance was up the mountain, and with a sick man on our hands we weren’t likely to get far.
Taking an axe, I went out to check our defenses. I added a few logs, and rooted out some brush here and there to give us a better field of fire.
Joe Rugger was worried, I could see that, but there was no rabbit in him. He had come in with us and he planned to stick.
“What led you to throw in with us, Joe?” I asked him.
“Drifted in here with the wrong crowd before I measured them for calibre. Seemed to me you and Rountree were more my type. Fact was, I figured to try leasing that store from you. Back in Ohio I operated a small store for another man, but it seemed to me I’d get nowhere working for the other fellow, so I quit. I’ve done some mining, but a store is what I always wanted.”
“Joe, you’ve just bought yourself a lease. Cap and me, we want to build a town that shapes up to something, and we would be proud to lease that store to you.”
Thanks, Tell.”
It made a body restless, wondering what they were cooking up down there in town. Same time, I never was one to keep a serious view of things. Time to time folks get the idea I’m slighting my problems because ofttimes they strike me as funny. Now I kept thinking of all those men down there, arguing and drinking and drinking and arguing, and working up a nerve to come after us. It struck me, a man might sort of wander down there of a nighttime and have himself some fun.
Rousting around in our gear I found about a hundred feet of rope Cap had packed along, on account of rope is always handy. Joe had some more, and I knotted the two together and went inside and got my field glasses and studied that town.
There were four tents—one large, like the saloon
tents at the end of the tracks in railroad towns, and the others small. A couple of horses were saddled, with packs behind the saddles . . . some men were in the street.
Something about it bothered me. If there actually were forty men around the town, where were they?
I took my Winchester and scouted around the edge of the trees, studying the bench, searching every possible approach. It scarcely seemed likely that they would try another attack with me here, when Cap and Joe had driven them off alone. But they might
Thinking of it worried me, with Ange Kerry at the camp, and Cap Rountree a sick man. Looked to me like I was going to have to go after them, after all.
Come evening time, Joe Rugger came out to Stand watch, and I went into camp for grub. Cap was conscious and he looked up at me. “You’ve got it all on your hands, Tell. I’ll be no help to you.”
“You’ve been a help.” I squatted on my heels beside his pallet, nursing a cup of coffee in my hands. “Cap, I’m going to take it to them tonight.” “You be careful.”
“Else they’ll come a-hunting. We can’t have them shooting around with Ange here, and you laid up.” “That’s a fine girl.”
“You should see that country up yonder. Blessed if I can see how she made it … months up there, all alone.”
I could see Cap was done up. He would need time and plenty of good food to get his strength back… it was lucky Ange was there.
She came in, bringing a cup of soup for Cap, but she kept her eyes away from me. What did she expect me to do? Stand still and get shot? Sure, I got the jump, but Kitch had warning. And when he came out of the trees like that he wasn’t looking to play patty-cake.
She was mighty pretty. A little thing, slim and lovely. Though the only clothes she had were wore-out things, and she was not likely to have better until one of us could cut loose for Silverton or Del Norte.
Her face had taken on some color, and she had combed out that hair of hers and done it up like some of those fancy pictures I’d seen in Godey’s Lady’s Book. I declare, she was pretty!
“See you,” I said, and stood up. “You take care.”
There was a moment there I thought of talking with her, but what could I say? Seemed to me she didn’t want any words from me, and I went away feeling mighty miserable inside. Walking out to the edge of the trees, I stood looking toward the two or three lights and thinking what a fool a man could be.
What was she, after all? Just a slim girl with a lot of red-gold hair… nothing to get upset about.
The humor of what I’d been thinking of doing there in town went out of me. I looked at that town and felt like walking over there and shooting it out.
Only there was no sure way I could win if I did that, and I had to win. Joe was a solid man, but he was no gunfighter. First time in my life I wished I could look up and see Tyrel coming down the pike.