I went out into the kitchen then. It was empty. I sat down in the chair by the stove and went to sleep. It was Pauline who woke me. She had made me some coffee and there was a plate full of bacon and eggs waiting for me. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ I murmured sleepily.
‘It’s no trouble.’
‘Where’s Jean?’
The corners of her mouth turned down and she gave a slight shrug — a very Latin gesture. ‘She is with Miss Garret, I think.’ She came and sat near me as I ate, watching me with her big, dark eyes. ‘You look tired.’
‘I am tired,’ I said. ‘I was up all night.’
She nodded slowly, understandingly.
‘Jean told you what happened?’
‘Oui. I am very sorry.’ She smiled, a flash of white teeth. ‘I am sorry also that you do not stay. But it is dangerous for you.’
‘I’ll have to stay till this evening. I’m waiting for a call.’
‘No, no. It is dangerous, I tell you.’
I looked at her, a mood of frustration and annoyance taking hold of me. ‘Another nursemaid, eh?’
‘Please?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Jean came in then. ‘We must go now, Bruce. There are some men coming up from the bunkhouse. I think Trevedian sent them up.’
I explained about the phone call. But all she said was, ‘Do you want to get beaten up?’
‘You think I’m no good in a scrap?’
She hesitated fractionally. ‘You’ve been ill,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re very strong.’ She must have guessed what I was thinking for she added, ‘The way you handled Jimmy won’t work with them.’
She was right, of course, but it went against the grain to appear a coward. And yet it wouldn’t do any good. Reluctantly I got to my feet. Pauline suddenly touched my arm. ‘I will take your call for you, if you wish.’
‘That’s kind of you, Pauline,’ Jean said.
I hesitated, feeling caught in the web of a woman’s world, feeling like a skunk. ‘All right,’ I said and told her what I wanted to say. ‘If he can come, arrange where I can meet him. Okay?’
She nodded, smiling. ‘Okay. I will leave a message for you with Miss Garret.’
I thanked her and we went out the back way and round to the front to get our horses. There were about a dozen men coming up the street, a rough-looking bunch headed by a man I recognised, the man who had been on guard at the hoist the night we ran the rig up to the Kingdom. He was a little fellow with bandy legs and a mean face. He had been cowed when I had seen him before, but now, backed up by the men behind him, he had a cocky air. ‘That’s him,’ he shouted. ‘That’s the bastard.’ And he began to run towards us. The others followed at his heels and they were almost on us as we unhitched our ponies and swung into.the saddle. I heeled my animal into a canter and side by side we drove through them. But as I passed, the fellow shouted a remark. It wasn’t aimed at me. It was aimed at Jean. It was just one word and without thinking I reined up and swung round. I caught a glimpse of the colour flaring in Jean’s face as she called to me to ride on.
The whole bunch of them were laughing now and thus emboldened the little bow-legged swine called out. ‘Why d’yer keep her all to yerselves? Why don’t yer let her visit us — alternate nights, say?’ He leered at Jean and then let his filthy tongue run riot with further and more detailed abuse.
I don’t know what got into me. I hadn’t felt this way in years — that sense of being swept up in a red blur of rage. I pushed my horse towards him. ‘Say that again,’ I said. All that had happened in the last twelve hours seemed condensed into that one sordid little figure. I saw the trucks blossom into flame, the spurt of the gun as it was emptied at the dog, the look of tired resignation on Garry Keogh’s face. The man hesitated, glancing round at his companions and then, with sudden truculence born of the herd, he moutried that one word again.
I dug my heels into my horse’s ribs and drove straight at him. I saw him fall back, momentarily knocked off balance and as the horse reared I flung myself from the saddle, grappling for his throat as my arms closed around him. We hit the dirt of the street and I felt his breath hot on my face as it was forced out of his lungs with a grunt. Then hands reached for me, clutching at my arms, twisting me back and pinning me down against the gravel. Fingers gripped my hair and as my skull was pounded against the hard earth I saw half a dozen faces, panting and sweaty, bending over me.
And then there was the sharp crack of an explosion and something whined out of the dust. The faces fell back and as I sat up I saw Jean sitting close alongside my horse, the Luger that had been in my saddle-bag smoking in her hand. And her face was calm and set. She held the ugly weapon as though it were a part of her, as though shooting were as natural as walking or riding. The men saw it, too, and they huddled together uncertainly, their faces unnaturally pale, their eyes looking all ways for a place to run. ‘Are you all right, Bruce?’
‘Yes,’ I said, struggling to my feet.
‘Then get on your horse.’
She levelled her gun at the bunch standing there in the street. ‘Now get back to Trevedian. And tell him next time he tries to shoot my dog I’ll kill him.’
She slipped the automatic back into my saddlebag and in silence we turned and rode down the street out of Come Lucky. For a long time I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Only when we had reached a clearing above the ford and had dismounted did I manage to thank her. It wasn’t pride or anything like that. It was just that I’d caught a glimpse of the other side of Jean, the side she had tried to forget.
She looked at me and then said with a wry smile, ‘Maybe I should thank you — for rushing in like a school kid just because of a word.’ The way she put it hurt, particularly as I was confused as to my motives, but there was a softness in her eyes and I let it go. ‘How did you know the gun was in my saddle-bag?’
‘I felt it there when we stopped on the way down. It was partly why I came. I was scared you might-’ She hesitated and then turned away. ‘I don’t quite understand you, Bruce. You’re not predictable like most people.’ She swung round and faced me. ‘Why didn’t you give up when you found you were faced with a big company?’ And when I didn’t answer, she said, ‘It wasn’t ignorance, was it? You knew what you were up against?’
‘Yes, I knew,’ I said, sinking down into the warmth of the grass.
‘Then why did you go on?’
‘Why did you come back to Come Lucky — to the Kingdom?’
She came and sat beside me, chewing on a blade of grass. There was a long silence and then she said, ‘Isn’t it about time we had things out together?’
‘Why were you running away and then suddenly turned and faced life — why I refused to give up a hopeless project? Maybe.’ But I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth. I knew I had to quench this growing intimacy. And yet I said, almost involuntarily, ‘Why did you leave me that gun?’
‘I thought you might need it.’
I looked at her, knowing it wasn’t the real reason. She knew it, too, for she put out her hand. ‘Just leave it at that, Bruce. The message is there, in the weapon itself. You know what that message is as well as I do. You know the truth about my father, why I had to come back and see Stuart. You know that, don’t you?’ I nodded. ‘Then leave it at that please. Don’t let’s talk about it, ever again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘No, there’s nothing to be sorry about.’ Her voice was very quiet, but quite firm — no tremor in it at all, no regrets. ‘He died as a man should die — fighting for something he believed in. He was half French, you know — and when it came to the pinch he found he loved France more than money, more than life itself.’
She got up and walked away then. And I lay back in the grass, closed my eyes and was instantly asleep. It was cold when she woke me and the valley was deep in shadow. We ate the few remaining biscuits and then, as night closed in, we hobbled the horses and cut across the road and along the slope of the hillside. We made a detour and entered Come Lucky from above. The two Miss Garrets welcomed us with a sort of breathless excitement. They had heard what had happened that morning and to them our nocturnal arrival, the sense that they were hiding us from a gang of wicked men was pure Victorian melodrama. Sarah Garret was particularly affected, talking in whispers, a high colour in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. Miss Ruth Garret was more practical, several times looking to the bolting of the door, getting us food and coffee and trying desperately to maintain an aloof, matter-of-fact air. I found it all a little ridiculous, rather like a game — and yet the reality of it was there, in our need of a place to stay the night, in the two burnt-out trucks up in the Kingdom.