The rider came on … studying the ground, searching for tracks. I waited, slipping the rawhide throng from my gun and loosening it in the holster.
The day was warm and the sky clear. The rider was closer now and I could make out the colors in the clothing, the color of the horse, the—It was Moira Maclaren!
Riding out from the shadows I waited for her to see me, and she did, almost at once.
My shirt had been torn by a bullet and by my own hands, my face was covered with a two weeks’ beard and my cheeks were drawn and hollow, yet the look of surprised relief on her face was good to see.
“Matt?” She was incredulous. “You’re alive?”
My buckskin walked close to her horse. “Did you think I would die before you had those sons I promised?”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
Her eyes searched mine and she flushed a little, then quickly changed the subject.
“You must go away. If you come back now they’ll kill you.”
“I’ll not run. I’m going back.”
“But you mustn’t! They believe you’re dead. Let them think so. Go away now, go while you can. They’ve looked and looked, but they couldn’t find you. Jim Finder has sworn that if you’re alive he’ll kill you on sight, and Bodie Miller hates you.”
“I’ll be riding back.”
She seemed to give up then, and I don’t believe she really had thought I would run. And I was glad she knew me so well.
“Jim Finder has the Two-Bar.”
“Then he can move.”
She noticed my full canteen, then waved her hand at the valley where we sat our horses.
“Father will be amazed when he learns there is water back here, and grass. Nobody believed anyone could live in this wilderness. I think you found the only place where there was either water or grass.”
“Don’t give me the credit. My horse found it.”
“You’ve had a bad time?”
“It wasn’t good.” I glanced back the way she came. “You weren’t trailed?”
“No … I made sure.”
“You’ve looked for me before this?”
She nodded. “Yes, Matt. I was afraid you’d be dying out here alone. I couldn’t stand that.”
“Rollie was good. He was very good.”
“Then it was you who killed him?”
“Who else?”
“Canaval and Bodie found him. Canaval was sure it was you, but some of the others thought it was the Benaras boys.”
“They’ve done no fighting for me.”
We sat there silent for a while, doing our thinking. What it was she thought I’d no idea, but I was thinking of her and what a woman she was. Now that I looked at her well, I could see she was thinner, and her cheeks looked drawn. It seemed strange to think that a woman could worry about me. It had been a long time since anyone had.
“Seems miles from anywhere, doesn’t it?”
She looked around, her eyes searching mine. “I wish we didn’t have to go back.”
“But we do.”
She hesitated a little and then said, “Matt, you’ve said you wanted me. I believe you do. If you don’t go back, Matt, I’ll go away with you. Now … anywhere you want to go.”
So there it was … all any man could want. A girl so lovely that I never looked at her without surprise, and never without a quick feeling of wanting to take her in my arms. I loved her, this daughter of Maclaren.
“No,” I said, “you know I must go back. Ball told me I was never to give it up, and I will not.”
“But you can’t! You’re ill—and you’ve been hurt!”
“So … I have been hurt. But that’s over and I’m mending fast. Sixteen days now I’ve rested, and it’s more than time enough.”
She turned her horse to ride back with me, and we walked a little in silence. “Tell your father to pull his cattle back,” I said. “I want no trouble with him.”
“He won’t do it.”
“He must.”
“You forget, I’m my father’s daughter.”
“And my wife … soon to be.”
This time she did not deny it. But she did not accept it either.
At the edge of the badlands, after miles of argument and talk, I turned in my saddle. “From here, I ride alone. It’s too dangerous for you. But you can tell Morgan Park …”
So I sat and watched her ride away toward the Boxed trail, thinking what a lucky man I’d be to have her.
She sat her saddle like a young queen, her back straight and her shoulders trim and lovely. She turned as if aware of my eyes, and she looked back, but she did not wave, nor did I.
Then I reined my horse around and started for town.
Often I shall live over that parting and that long ride down from the mountains. Often I will think of her and how she looked that day, for rarely do such days come to the life of any man. We had argued, yes, but it was a good argument and without harsh words.
And now before me lay my hours of trouble. There was only one way to do it. For another there might have been other ways, but not for me. My way was to ride in and take the bull by the horns, and that was what I meant to do. Not to the Two-Bar yet, but to town.
They must know that I was alive. They must know the facts of my fight and my survival.
I was no man to run, and it was here I had staked my claim and my future, and among these people I was to live. It was important that they understand.
So I would ride into town. If Jim Finder was there, one or both of us would die. If Bodie Miller was there, I would have to kill him or be killed myself. Any of the riders of the Boxed M or CP might try to kill me. I was fair game for them now.
Yet my destiny lay before me and I was not a man to hesitate. Turning the buckskin into the trail, I rode on at an easy gait. There was plenty of time … I was in no hurry to kill or to be killed.
Rud Maclaren was not a bad man, of this I was convinced. Like many another, he thought first of his ranch, and he wanted it to be the best ranch possible. It was easy to see why he wanted the water of the Two-Bar—in his position I would have wanted it too.
But Maclaren had come to think that anything that made his ranch better also made everything better. He was, as are many self-made men, curiously self-centered. He stood at the corners of the world, and all that happened in it must be important to him.
He was a good man, but a man with power, and somewhere, back in those days when I had read many books, I’d read that power corrupts.
It was that power of his that I must face.
The trail was empty, the afternoon late. The buckskin was a fast walker and we covered ground. Smoke trailed into the sky from several chimneys. I heard an axe striking, a door slam.
Leaving the trail, I cut across the desert toward the outskirts of town, a scattering of shacks and adobes tha offered some concealment until I’d be quite close, close.
Behind an abandoned adobe I drew rein. Rolling a cigarette, I lit up and began to smoke.
I wanted a shave … sitting my saddle, I located the barber shop in my mind, and its relationship to other buildings. There was a chance I could get to it and into a chair without being seen.
Once I had my hair cut and had been shaved, I’d go to Mother O’Hara’s. I’d avoid the saloons where any Finder or Maclaren riders might be, get a meal, and try to find a chance to talk to Key Chapin. I would also talk to Mrs. O’Hara.
Both were people of influence and would be valuable allies. I did not want their help, only their understanding.
Wiping my guns free of dust, I checked the loads. I was carrying six shells to each gun. I knocked the dust from my hat, brushed my chaps, and tried to rearrange my shirt to present a somewhat better appearance.
“All right, Buck,” I said softly, “here we go!”
We walked around the corner and past a yard where a young girl was feeding chickens, past a couple of tied horses, and then to the back of the barber shop. There was an abandoned stable there, and swinging down, I led the buckskin inside and tied him.
It was a long, low-roofed building, covered with ancient thatch. There was a little hay there, and I forked some into the manger, then stood the fork against the wall and settled my hat lower on my head.