“I was lucky.”
“And quick with your brains, hands, and feet,” Yadkin guessed. “That’s what I always liked about you, Frank. How’s for some grub?”
“We can use it. Karl, my wife Glory. Glory, Karl Yadkin.”
“Wife?” Yadkin said. And then he recovered his sleepy smile quickly. “Of course. How are you, Mrs. Donovan?”
Yadkin showed her to the back porch where a wooden table held a wash basin, pail of water, and dipper. While she was getting some of the trail dust from her face, Yadkin came back into the House.
His eyes hooded at the look on Frank’s face.
“Get one thing straight, Yadkin. She is my wife. We were married this morning.”
“That’s fine, Frank.”
Frank said, “I’m glad you believe me.”
Yadkin laughed. “Well, I’ll admit for a minute I thought it a cock-and-bull story. Most outlaws on the run ain’t so lucky. They have to pick up the kind of skirts that’ll trail along with them. She didn’t look like the type.”
Radek came in, picked up a bottle from the table, and made it gurgle in a long drink. Fire splashed his insides; leaped into his eyes. “You must be quite a boy, Donovan. A looker like that won’t usually pick up with our kind unless his jeans are heavy with dinero from a bank or rustling job.”
“Easy, Radek,” Yadkin said. “She’s—”
“A purty bundle,” Radek finished.
Frank stood up, walked over to him. Radek was nerveless — or brave from drink— as he watched Frank. Radek laughed. “Don’t put on a tough act, Donovan. We’ve seen plenty of tough ones come and go, Yadkin and me. You’re young. With care, you might live another ten, twelve years before some sheriff catches up with you.”
“I’m not trying to act tough,” Frank said. He could feel a cold trembling flowing down into his hands. “I just wanted to ask you — what kind is our kind?”
“You’ve got the stink of outlaw, escaped con on you. What in hell—”
“The girl is my wife,” Donovan said.
Radek pursed his lips. “I see.”
Frank felt a hand on his arm. Yadkin turned him. “Sit down, Frank. And you, Radek, watch your tongue.”
“He’s on the run himself,” Yadkin said, “Radek is. Been holed in here without the sight of a woman until he’s talking about them in his sleep. Apologize, Radek.”
“Sure,” Radek said in a flat voice.
“We can’t afford conflict,” Yadkin cautioned. “Radek, you won’t live long. You still haven’t learned that men on the owl-hoot stick together or hang separately. Learn it quick, Frank. Learn it well. And never side a man who won’t stick.”
Yadkin rubbed his hands together. “Now, I can tell you something to brighten your spirits, Frank. We’ve got the damnedest Mexican deal set up you’ve ever seen.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Wet cattle,” Radek said.
Frank looked at Yadkin. “I thought you were going straight when you got out.”
“Prison talk,” Yadkin laughed. “Every little thing counts toward parole.”
“I hadn’t figured on this kind of thing,” Frank said.
“I know,” Yadkin said calmly. “Fancy pictures you’ve painted. A job. A home. A normal life. Why don’t you just ask for the moon? You’ve got a long arm stretching after you. It’ll never relax, never let go. Be sensible and take this chance.”
“I think I’d rather try it my way, Yadkin.”
“It won’t do you any good,” Yadkin shrugged. “So you get a job. The guy learns sometime you’re a wanted man. You’ll be lucky to get off his place with a whole skin. Then another job, with something going sour inside you. The same thing happening over and over again. Then penny ante stuff, because you’ve thrown away the chance of teaming with a man like me.”
Frank turned. Glory was standing in the doorway, trail dust still smudged on her cheeks. “I didn’t find a towel on the back porch,” she said. “I came to ask—”
Looking at her, Frank knew she had heard everything. Radek’s remarks had put a crawling shame in her eyes which even love for her husband could not curtain.
“Thanks, Yadkin,” Frank said, “but I think we’ll be riding. We can at least try it our way.”
He moved over to Glory’s side, took her small, cold hand.
Radek stood up, bottle in hand. Yadkin’s face was suddenly sleepy no longer, but the hanging, deadly face of a mad bulldog.
“I’ve confided in you,” Yadkin said, “believing you were here to stick.”
Frank read stark messages in their eyes. Yadkin was thinking of how much Frank knew. Yadkin was dangerous. But Radek was more than dangerous. Radek’s eyes made ice of Frank’s marrow as he saw the way Radek was looking at Glory.
His hand moved like a spring uncoiling, slapping his gun free of leather.
Yadkin and Radek recognized death when it showed its features plainly. They stood unmoving, and Frank and Glory mounted, spurring a final effort from their mounts...
In predawn silence the woman, rolled in her blanket, cried softly in her sleep. The sound ‘woke the man beside her, and he lay with cold shadows over his face, listening and thinking. As the first streaks of dawn showed in the east, Donovan crawled from his blanket, built a fire, and started coffee.
There was a constriction in his throat as they ate, because they were strangers. Man and wife; yet an indefinable something had slipped away, like a tongue of flame leaving a piece of wood an old, dead ember.
Donovan saddled the horses while she cleaned up the camp site. He spanned her slim waist with his hands as he helped her into the saddle, and she gave him a wan, forced smile.
Sitting his saddle, he glanced at her. “Yadkin was right about one thing. Mexico isn’t the safe answer. I think I know the way out.”
Without question she followed him. He rode hard and fast, and he rode in a straight line, and when the sun was sinking in the afternoon, he had ridden in one day the distance it had taken two days and better to traverse afoot.
He stopped his mount atop a knoll.
“That’s the prison farm down there,” he said.
“I know, Frank.”
He studied her. He saw tears like jewels on her lids. And he saw the light coming back into her sweet, dusty face and he felt the old bond stirring to life between them.
As if obeying an unseen voice, they both dismounted, met between the horses, and their bodies came together in a hungry embrace.
He kissed her, knowing the memory of it would have to last him for two long years.
“Frank... I’ll be at the house. Our house. What do you want for supper the night you get home?”
“The night I get home,” he said. “I think I’d like some fried chicken that night.”
Then he turned and walked toward the prison farm. He heard a man shout as he was seen. Two guards came funning toward him, guns in their hands. Shoulders square, he met them. One guard said with a glower, “Brother, we’re going to cool you off with a week in solitary — bread and water!”
Donovan threw back his head and laughed. He had a much more important meal to look forward to.
