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Show s73l IB I L " 2 He was listening to the thinned report of a man's loud voice. HIE STORY SO FAR: There's golns M ,ar in the cattle country, war be- bis ranchers like Ben Hercn-j Hercn-j and the little Icllons. Clay Mor-. Mor-. is an Important rancher, but he !3 n't uke Herendeen's methods and doesn't hesitate to say so. A solitary ,,ure who cannot forcct the wife who lti hatinf him, Morgan is devoted to lis nine-year-old daughter, Janet. He ,is brought her Into town with him, wt ollie Jacks, a rustler. Is on trial (or stealing Herendeen's catUe. Jacks Is freed by the Jury, but as he steps out , the courthouse steps everyone Mows be Is a dead man. Now continue with the story. 1 CHAPTER II The long silence held on, as though everybody waited for something some-thing to come. Ollie Jacks reached at his shirt pocket and produced his tobacco. "Clay," he said, "I never did you no wrong, did I?" "Not that I know of." Sweat ran its oil-shine across Ollie Ol-lie Jacks' face; his lips were small and sharp and his eyes not eyes that any man could trust clung to Morgan. "All I want is a chance to ride out of this town," he said. Herendeen said in his bluntly unanswerable un-answerable manner: "Everybody's been talking about things being legal. le-gal. So we made this legal and see what happened. We won't make that mistake again. You're on the wrong foot, Clay. Better get right." "Never mind," said Morgan. They saw him now as he seldom was, the quick angles of his face showing up. The change was instant; he had no smoothness, no reasonableness. What he said was a challenge he meant it that way and wanted them to know it. He swung around, speak- in to Ollie Jacks. "You're all right i in town, Ollie. But when you leave, I that's your grief." "Whoa!" said Herendeen. "I'll : make what damned trouble I please." ' Morgan came about fast enough to make Lige White jerk his head aside. Morgan said: "All right, Ben. If you want it, you can have it now." i It shocked everybody still, this - i challenge so unexpected and so e deadly in a quick-tempered country. It caught Herendeen with his guard - down. Herendeen stepped away Irom the locust tree, the bright g Bame of anger in his eyes. "I've got some business to finish during the week,. Morgan. When that's done I'll see you. That is all I care to say." i"Fine," answered Morgan, and walked away. Behind him, the astonished as-tonished silence still held. He passed the courthouse and went Into the post office, rapping at the , wicket until Fred Rich came out of ' the back room. "No notice yet on Government Valley?" "No," said the postmaster. "I want to know when it comes." 3 "I'll post it on one of the buildings " in the valley. That's regulation." " The sun was gone from desert and jr sky, leaving a soft blue-running , light behind. The supper triangle began to beat up its iron clanging es from the porch of the Mountain j, House hotel. The Red Canyon stage , rolled out of the hills, made a howl-V howl-V big swing into Main Street and 1 stopped before the hotel in smoky eddies of dust. Morgan left the post J office doorway, still interested in the j way the Three Pines riders Herendeen's Heren-deen's outfit scattered themselves along the street. Janet had appeared at McGarrah's doorway and was J tailing his name. She took his hand. They went on I through the store, into the back i quarters. Yellow lamplight poured on the red-checkered tablecloth, e, splintering brilliantly against the , Eiass cruets. Ann McGarrah was in the kitchen, dishing the meal; he passed on to the rear porch, took oS his coat and scrubbed away the lj riding dust. When he returned to i the dining room they were waiting Z 'or him Janet and Ann. They ate, idly talking, idly argu-m argu-m lug. The druggist's boy, Fred Tan-1 Tan-1 , came to the back yard and 1 called Janet's name. Janet moved J restlessly in her seat until Morgan nodded. As soon as she had gone, Ann McGarrah said: "You'll be riding a lot this week. Let Janet stay here." Morgan smiled. "What is it this ' time, Ann? There's always something." some-thing." She said candidly: "A new dress, I Qay.' And her hair." He said: "I guess there are some ftgs I can't do for her." "I can do those things for her. I hke to. I want ta gut when she "id this her manner changed and her eyes were cool and her voice Pushed him away. "I don't mean that the way it sounds. For her, ; c'ay. Not for you." I: ) His head was lifted and he was , listening to the thinned report of man's loud voice on the street. s He was straight in his chair, his pud and temper changing back to World out there. She knew what "e was thinking, for she had been on the porcn when he ha(J chal.. 0 ' 'enged Herendeen. She said in a uodued. voice: 1 m not surprised you were will- b J0 quarrel witn him. It goes 1 a lonE way. You never forget I nything." He said, "Thanks for the supper. J "o- ' and walked on through the fgi to the front porch. S.ie u. lowed him; she was beside him when he paused on the street. Janet ran forward from the store's back alley, al-ley, out of breath and laughing. At this moment Morgan's interest was wholly on the street. Ann McGarrah McGar-rah saw how closely he studied the roundabout shadows. It was a carefulness care-fulness that he had always had, as though the need of it had been burned in him since the beginning. Darkness rolled tidally down the hills, filling War Pass. Lights glinted glint-ed through window and doorway and made yellow lanwise pools on the walks and the night breeze bore in sage scent and pine scent from the upper country. The Burnt Ranch stage stood before the hotel, ready to go. Morgan's attention clung to the dark area around Gentry's corral cor-ral a long while. Afterwards he said, to Janet: "You're staying here for a few days. Let's take a little walk before I start home." Ann McGarrah knew where they were going. Paused by the store's doorway, she watched these two, the tall shape of the man and the slender figure of the girl side by side, go down into Old Town, Janet's Jan-et's small hand gripping her father's, fa-ther's, One light illumined them a moment, then they were lost beyond be-yond Old Town as they walked toward to-ward the cemetery. Beyond Old Town a creek came out of the hills and crossed under the road with a liquid lapping. Past the creek the round-topped wooden headboards of the cemetery glowed vaguely white under the moonlight. Following the irregular row, Morgan Mor-gan stopped before his wife's grave. Janet's hand gripped his fingers more tightly and she stood quite close to him. He heard her soft, long sigh. "It would be so nice to have a mother." This was the thing that hit him so hard, his daughter's loneliness for a mother. He stood at the foot of the grave, with his hat removed, thinking back to that long-gone night when Lila Durrie, so full of life and laughter and recklessness, had smiled to him across the dance hall's width, putting everything into her round black eyes. At eighteen a man was like the blowing wind; he had gone over, knowing there would be a fight. Ben Herendeen had brought her to the dance and Ben Herendeen stood by, quietly raging. When the music started Lila Durrie looked up at the sullen Herendeen, laughed at him and took Clay Morgan's arm, dancing away. At the doorway they had stepped out; down by the row of buggies, in the bland black night, they had stood a moment, no longer cool and no longer laughing. Even now Morgan Mor-gan remembered the sharpness, the wild intensity of his feelings as he kissed her and heard her whisper in his ears. "Clay Clay, do you love me?" They had gone immediately immedi-ately to his rig. At daylight they were married. There hadn't been time for a picture pic-ture or for much of anything else. At that time he owned a small ranch in the Lost Hills and ran a few cows on it. This was where they set up housekeeping, a long way from town, a long way from dances or from her friends. She had been used to better things and couldn't help remembering it. She was a stormy girl, so rash in anger, so quick to seek laughter, by turns so terribly forlorn and so tempestuously tempestuous-ly happy. Four months after their marriage Herendeen rode up to the place and stepped from the saddle. From the far corner of the meadow mead-ow Clay had seen this. When he reached the house Herendeen was laughing and she was laughing but that laughter stopped soon enough, lor Herendeen said: "Why stick so dose to the house, Clay? Don't you trust your wife?" Morgan drew the cigar from his mouth, feeling some of the fury of Sat fight. He had rushed against Herendeen, hearing his wife s scream of protest. Herendeen . art-ed art-ed laughing again, but when they ere finished, both exhausted and drained dry and badly beaten, there was no amusement in Herendeen. That hurt still came back to phigue Morgan, even now; he remembered how he walked to the corral and hune his elbows against it to keep "om falling, and how blindly Her- X staggered toward his horse He had wh.ppcd Herendeen in that fight and yet he had lost; for, five months later, shortly after Janet's birth, Lila had looked up from her bed, white and strengthless, all her love gone, and whispered: "I should tell you something, Clay. I made a mistake. It was Ben I wanted to marry. You and I are not at all alike." And so she had died. He had turned away. But he turned back, holding the warm small hand of his daughter within his own big fingers, knowing that in his daughter's head was a wistful and wonderful image of her mother an image made out of a child's longing. Like a fairy tale, he thought, that had to be bright and always fair. He was thinking of this, pleased by her pleasure, when he saw a low-bent and shadowy shape run from the alley adjoining the Mountain Moun-tain House hotel and whip across the street toward Mike Boylan's blacksmith shop. This was in the corner building of Old Town, and Mike Boylan, late-working, had hung a lantern above the shop's wide double-door. A saddle horse stood loose before Boylan's rack, toward which the running man aimed. Farther Far-ther up the street somebody shouted a warning and a Three Pines rider rushed forward from McGarrah's store. Slowly pacing forward toward to-ward Mike Boylan's shop, Morgan identified the runner as soon as the latter entered the yellow arc of the lantern's light. It was Ollie Jacks. Ollie Jacks' breath was a lunging, lung-ing, painful sound in the night as he rushed against the horse, threw himself into the saddle and clawed at the reins. For a brief moment his face came around and Morgan saw the constricted desperation on it; then Ollie Jacks slashed the horse away from the blacksmith shop, turned into the gap between Old Town and McGarrah's store, and raced down-slope into the desert. des-ert. Janet's hand gripped Clay Morgan's Mor-gan's fingers. "What's the matter, Daddy?" "Nothing," he said, "nothing but Ollie Jacks having some fun." He quickened his step, coming into the gap and halting there as a pair of Three Pines men reached it. Herendeen Heren-deen arrived, saying: "Get your horses," and then these men were facing Clay Morgan. One of them had drawn his gun to take a shot at the retreating Ollie Jacks. He held the gun half out of the holster, staring star-ing at Morgan, but Ollie Jacks was gone and it was too late and he let the gun drop back, shrugging his shoulders. Three Pines men were riding up behind Herendeen and Herendeen's face was red and round. The echo of Ollie Jacks' horse made a dying tattoo in the blackness, black-ness, out in the desert. Other Three Pines riders were rushing from town by the stage road. Morgan said, courteous and quiet: "Maybe Janet Jan-et and I are in your way. We'll step aside." "No," said Herendeen, rage running run-ning behind his false-cool tone. "There is nothing to hurry about. There's a time for everything, Clay. Good evening, Janet." Janet said in her precise, little-woman's little-woman's voice: "Good evening." Morgan pulled her gently on to McGarrah's Mc-Garrah's porch. Ann McGarrah waited there. Part of the Three Pines crew galloped toward the desert, des-ert, after Ollie Jacks. Herendeen walked up the street, his boots lifting lift-ing dust. Morgan said, "I'll ride along, honey. hon-ey. Be back in a few days. You have a good time." He reached down and kissed her. feeling the warmth of her hands as she held them at the back of his neck. He was smiling as he straightened, smiling at Janet, and then at Ann McGarrah's attentive eyes. Out on the desert far out a gunshot sounded, quick and faint, and was echoed by two other shots. That was all. Ann McGarrah saw the smile die and saw the flame of temper tem-per in his eyes. They both knew Ollie Jacks was dead. Herendeen had respected Morgan's challenge; that and nothing more. Morgan lifted lift-ed his hat, noting how Ann McGarrah's Mc-Garrah's arm rested on Janet's shoulder. He said, "Good night," and turned into the street. (TO BE CONTINUED) |