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Show wmlM By Ernest Haycox s -Vrn CHAPTER XIX Clay had nothing to say. Reaching for his hat he left the room, crossing cross-ing the darkened store and letting himself out to the porch. Habit made him reach into his pockets for his cigarette paper; he rolled up a smoke without giving it any thought. He was like this, sorry and confused con-fused and still stirred by Ann's kiss when he heard Jesse Rusey call out sharply: "Heads up heads up!" That tone, from the silent Rusey, was a warning that made him drop his smoke and jerk around. He saw, first, the two Ryder brothers backed against the saloon wall, as though pushed against it; and then, his glance racing on, he found Rusey in the thick shadows by the hotel. Rusey Ru-sey had drawn his gun on the Ry-ders; Ry-ders; he was holding them there. Morgan knew at once how it was, and backed against the store wall, sharply scanning all the roundabout shadows, his nerves quickening and his pulse striking hard in his neck. Swinging his head through a full half-circle he looked into the gray deserted shadows of Old Town and saw Herendeen slowly drop back around the corner of the blacksmith shop into darkness. He remained in his tracks, knowing know-ing what lay before him yet puzzled puz-zled that Herendeen should slide away as though avoiding him. He knew Herendeen thoroughly the raw physical courage, the sullen will that drove him forward, the contempt con-tempt he had for weakness, the hatred which for these ten years had governed his life and his actions. Thus this backward step into darkness dark-ness seemed out of character. Thinking Think-ing about it, Morgan looked along the street again and now noticed the shape of somebody outlined in a dark second-story window of the hotel. ho-tel. He didn't know who it was but he realized Herendeen had noticed the man and was protecting himself in the fight to come. Morgan, hanging to his tracks, drew and fired. He saw Herendeen's gun kick up from its first shot; he saw the barrel steady again. The roar of the shots cracked along the street and somewhere men ran the walks recklessly. These were sensations sen-sations that reached him all at once, these and the crash of a bullet into the wall behind him and the smell of powder. He had fired twice, still watching Herendeen's gun settle to a level pointing. But he fired no more, for he heard his shot strike home, releasing a quick small cough from Herendeen. The big man's gun dropped; he fired as it went down, the slug breaking up dust from the street. His shoulders fell back against the wall of the blacksmith black-smith shop and scrubbed along the boards. Morgan's bullet had knocked him back, and when he fell it was this way, slowly to a sitting position and then sidewise, as though wearily going to sleep. The shadows at the base of the building smothered him; all Morgan saw was the vague stain of his face. The echoes of the firing had not yet died when men ran into the street, toward Morgan. Someone called: "Clay that you?" He didn't answer, for he was paying his respects re-spects to Ben Herendeen a man who had never known what fear was, a man who had waited for him, without trickery, to come up and end this quarrel. That, Morgan believed, be-lieved, had been the single great force in Ben Herendeen's life his will to push aside, to destroy the one person who had ever taken from him anything he had wanted. He turned from the gathering crowd, walking back to the main street, fatigue beginning to spread through him. It was deep in his bones, it ran shallowly beneath his skin. Parr Gentry walked from the shadows of the hotel and confronted him. Parr' said, in a smooth fatherly voice: "Well, Clay, I'm sure glad it wasn't you." rarr, saia morgan, Vance Ketchell watched you go into the Potholes yesterday and he watched you come out. You met Hillhouse and spoke to him. After that Hill-house Hill-house went into the Potholes, and found Hack." He had no feeling in his voice. The words were slow and flat. "Tf you are still in this country coun-try tomorrow night you'll be dead." Ann McGarrah was at the doorway door-way of her store, watching Morgan. He paused in the dust, most of the energy and purpose out of him; it was the faint push of an old habit which swung him around, carried him through the Old Town to the cemetery, and took him to the foot of Lila's grave. In this dark silence she was close to him, she was very real. Some tilings faded and some did not; her image was quite clear that dark, dramatic face with the light of laughter veering so swiftly to the heavy shadows of despair and anger an-ger and tears. Childlike and womanlike wom-anlike by turns; hating herself and hating him for the mistake of a runaway run-away marriage, and bearing it tragically trag-ically while the short year went on, and dying with no love for him, no soft word. But he remembered now a thought which had occurred to him earlier in the night. A man could not live forever in the past. One by one the links connecting him to it gave way. Hillhouse and Breathitt, who had ridden beside him through these earlier years, were dead. The j tound of their voices was gone, their j common memories were broken. Now Ben Herendeen was dead in the dust and at last, as he paused here in the wholly silver-shot fog, he felt adrift and free. There was nothing noth-ing left of the old quarrel, the old fine times, the old adventures, the old songs. The last link of the past had broken and he realized that he was, at twenty-nine, a man looking ahead because there was no other way to look. It affected him powerfully; it spilled something into his blood, like a chemical absorbing the virus of an old fever. Looking down at Lila's headboard he said, to her and to himself in a gentle voice: "I guess that's all. What's gone is gone." He had been gone from the ranch nearly two hours. When he came into the living room he found Pad-den Pad-den ready to leave. Padden said: "That wasn't as bad as it looked. Lige is all right. Mrs. Lige just came." "Where's Catherine?" "Started home about fifteen minutes min-utes ago." Jump came in. "I got the boys riding circle on the place. Fox Will-ing's Will-ing's out on the flats, behind the rocks." "You can pull them in. It's all over." "What?" "I met Ben in town," said Morgan, Mor-gan, and left the room at once. Jump followed him to the porch, calling: "For God's sake, Morgan, tell a man ..." Morgan curved around the yard and was lost in the fog. Lige White's wife stood beside the bed, looking down at her husband. Padden closed the door definitely behind be-hind him as he left the room. Now she- said: "You were on the way to town, weren't you, Lige? And then you changed your mind and started into a fight." "Well," he said, "it was a way of passing the time." "I know. Time's been heavy on your hands these last years. And your house has been empty, hasn't it?" He could smile, weak as he was. He still had his old flash of gallantry. gal-lantry. "No house is empty with UU HI lb, UidtC. "You're lying, Lige. I know why you were going to War Pass. I've known for a long time." He, laid a hand over his eyes. "I am not proud of that, Grace. God knows I hate dirt. But there are things . . ." He didn't go on with it; he had no way of explaining and so lay still. She said: "This is the first time I ever saw you weak, the first time you have been helpless. Most always al-ways you have been so well, so full and I've kept away from you. Sometimes you have frightened me, Lige. Sometimes you have made me feel ashamed. I have been a strange wife." He said: "I saw a vase one time in a museum. It was a beautiful thing. The sort of a thing that gives a man a wallop to look at to make him feel maybe there's a side of life he can't reach. I didn't touch it. Was afraid I'd break it if I did. That's you, Grace. I'm not complaining. I'm glad I've got as much of you as I do have." Then he said, slowly: "If I stray off the path, it is because a man like me belongs on the street, not in a museum. Looking at beautiful things ain't enough. I've got to have something to touch and use." She showed the effect of his talk. It colored her cheeks; it put some thing close to tears in her eyes. She was a graceful, firm-bodied woman and even as he looked at her Lige White was stirred. She saw it. She saw the things it put in his face, and suddenly looked away. But a moment later she looked back, smiling. smil-ing. She pulled her shoulders expressively ex-pressively up, the color deepening on her face. "Always, Lige, you have come to me and always I've drawn back. That's our trouble, isn't it? Well Lige . . ." She made a gesture with her arms, as though pushing something away from her. She turned, dropping drop-ping to the bed beside him. She lifted his head and slid her arm around his shoulders and, this close to him, showed him the long, straight glance of a wife who was desired, and desiring. "I've been afraid of too many things, I guess. Here I am, Lige, if it isn't too late." Traveling westward on the trail to Dell Lake, which was also the trail to Crowfoot, Morgan Mor-gan came suddenly upon Catherine's Cath-erine's horse standing riderless in the heavy-shining fog. This was at the edge of the Mogul plateau, with the line of timber directly di-rectly beyond. For a moment he had his deep fear of accident; then, coming up to the horse, he saw Catherine's shape against the trees. She had dismounted and sat now on the yellow-dry grass, looking toward him. He came before her, watching her face swing up. A moment later she rose, walking to him. She said -nothing at the moment but her hand touched his arm and her face, pale and round in this light, showed its intent, drawn interest. He said: "Why didn't you wait?" "I thought that perhaps something held you in town." "Yes," he said, "something did. I met Ben." She came nearer, watching the familiar fa-miliar marks on his face, studying all the little signs she knew so well. So she knew what he had done, and said: "It's over then. That has been my prayer for so long that it would be soon over. Go on back. There's nothing on this trail I'm afraid of." He said: "Why do you suppose 1 came?" She seemed to hold her breath. He saw her long lips tremble. Her shoulders straightened away ' from him. "Clay," she murmured, "say nothing you don't mean. I can't go through that again. To be as close as we were, with all that it meant to us then, and to lose it I can't go through that again." He said: "There is nothing between be-tween us now. Nothing except the things you remember against me, Catherine." A long breathing sigh came from her. She was smiling, this tall and robust and gay girl; she was near him, her body still. She said: "Old times new times. You have been a faithful man, Clay. I have never ceased to love you for it even when there seemed nothing for me. Well, haven't I been faithful, too?" She was there for him, she was waiting for him. When he put his arms around her and saw her head lift to him, swift and expectant, he felt the long rush of his youth again. When he kissed her it was as she had said: Something old, something new. Nothing had changed. The old wild sweetness was here, the same immense shock, the same feeling of a deep need satisfied. It passed between be-tween them and took the last loneliness, lone-liness, the incompleteness, the emptiness emp-tiness out of him. The ten years of waiting were finished; they were together, to-gether, i : THE END |