He straightened his legs and his shoulders slid up the store wall. He flattened his hands against the wall and shoved himself toward the window as hard as he could, ducking his head below the upper sill, hitting the center bar of the sash, carrying screen, sash, glass and all forward with him into the room, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, pawing at the Ranger with what looked like a foolishly light blow. Yet it dropped the man over into the corner beside the desk.
As Diana jumped up, he grabbed her with one big arm. With his raised foot he shoved hard against the front of the desk. The desk slammed Tomkinton brutally against the wall.
Grinning and laughing aloud, Christy held the kicking, struggling girl in one arm. His left hand caught Sanson by the throat as Sanson tried to come up out of the chair where he had been frozen with shock.
Then, as he laughed and yelled for George to come and look to see what he was doing, there was a pain like flame that seared across the backs of his legs just above the knees. The strength went out of his legs and he fell heavily. He saw Diana roll free and scramble over to where Sanson stood, turning in his arms to look back at Christy on the floor.
Christy leaned his head back and looked up into the broad-boned smiling face of the Mexican girl. Her dark eyes glittered like the onyx that had once been carved into knives for the use of the priests of the sun god. She showed her even white teeth as she smiled down at him, the red-bladed knife gleamed in her hand.
From an enormous distance he heard the Ranger saying in a dazed voice, “By Jupiter, she hamstrung him! She came up behind him crouched as though she were going to cut the grass, and she hamstrung him!”
The wave of darkness hung above him, a silent dark crest, and then it fell forward onto him, spinning him down into darkness.
The letters had come to Lane’s desk in the newsroom in Houston. The first two weeks had been difficult, but now he knew that he’d be able to hold his own. The first big story he had brought them, the eye-witness account on all that trouble down at Baker had helped. They’d slapped a byline on it, too.
The first one was from his agent.
Dear Lane,
It is nice to have you rise from the dead and have you say in your letter that you’re going to keep on working. From this last mss, I’d say you need a lot of work. A DAUGHTER OF MANY KINGS has its moments, but it suffers from a lack of discipline and plan. Work from your carbon and see if you can send me a tighter version. And shorter. This novella form is an awkward length for that sort of thing.
He grinned and put the letter in his desk drawer. He had saved the second letter until last.
Lane, dear,
I suppose you follow the news and I suppose it is no news to you that I’m going to be a sort of house guest for a year and a day. My lawyer says I’m very lucky, and I guess I can live through it. I am writing this while waiting for the transportation to my new address. George drew twenty and it doesn’t seem half long enough, somehow. Vindictive sort, aren’t I?
Anyway, Lane, I wanted you to know that you straightened me out when I needed it and I’m grateful. A year and a day from now I will have decided what sort of new life I want. It will be a law-abiding and uneventful one, believe me. I hope some day to do you a favor in return — if I haven’t already done it.
Always,
He shrugged. The past part of the letter seemed incoherent. Not hard to understand how a girl in her spot might be a little incoherent.
He put her letter in the drawer too, stood up and clapped his hat on the back of his head. The managing editor came across the news room toward him.
“How’s it going, Lane?”
“Good, thanks.”
“Say, you’ll have no trial to cover down the line. The infection finally killed that Christy citizen. They didn’t get the arm off soon enough, I guess.”
Lane sighed. “That suits me.”
“By the way, that was a nice job you did on the transit squabble.”
“Thanks again.” He left, whistling. He went down the stairs, grinned in at the girls behind the classified ad counter.
As he reached the outside door he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a girl coming quickly toward him. He turned and gasped. “Sandy! Sandy, what...”
Her eyes were shining. “Don’t talk, darling. Just walk with me.”
Her hand was through his arm as they walked down the sidewalk. He smiled down into her face and she squeezed his arm lightly.
“I had to shut you up, you oaf,” she said. “I was about to cry.”
“I remember that you cry nicely. Sandy, why did you come here?”
“To see my ex,” she said smugly.
He stopped and faced her. “I’m no good for you. Didn’t we find that out?”
“Hush! I might give you a second chance. If you want it.”
“If I want it!”
“I’ll think it over, oaf.”
“After what I did to you, Sandy?”
“Or what I did to you? Damn a wife who runs out when she’s worst needed.”
“I chased you out.”
“You did not! I left!”
“By special request. Who cares? You’re back. But how come? How did it happen? I’m confused.”
She took his arm again. “Come on, keep walking. You see, I got a letter. From a girl. Quite a nice girl, I think. She mentioned that she ran into you and you seemed to be carrying a torch for one gal named Sandy, so she wormed the address out of you. It was signed Diana Saybree.”
“So that’s what she meant!” he said.
“What, darling?”
“Never mind. Look, I’ve got a small apartment just three blocks from here. There’s ice, gin and vermouth. They need a woman’s touch.”
He quickened his pace, but she stopped and made her eyes wide. “But I can’t! I just remembered.”
“What? A date?”
“No, I just remembered that I’m a single woman. Heavens! I’d be compromised.”
“Huh!” he said.
She laughed in the old well-remembered way. Again she took his arm. “Come on, you big mental hazard. What’s your address?”