Finnegan stared at him. The rage of murder in his eyes slowly cooled.
The frigid air sawed in and out of the ranchman’s lungs. He coughed hard.
Finnegan held—silent and still.
The wind seemed to have dropped; everything had gone quiet; and the ranchman said resolutely, “Very well then. You’ve had your chance. It didn’t work. Now get back!”
When Finnegan began to crawl back under the wagon the ranchman let the hammer down slowly but he kept the rifle trained on his adversaries.
He moved forward, shooing Finnegan back, until he had all four men huddled tight against the singletree. He crouched under the tailboard and sat crosslegged, aiming the rifle at them, and sat without a word to await the end of the storm.
Soon enough it passed by—as quickly and as mysteriously as it had begun. By early afternoon it was possible to see miles across the high plain. The sky was lead-grey. A warm soft rush of south wind brought such an emphatic thaw that even the larger hailstones underfoot were transformed to slush within less than an hour after they had fallen; the temperature climbed so rapidly that the ranchman, heated from the exertion of walking behind the wagon, removed his coat and tossed it in the flatbed and made do comfortably in buckskin shirt and fringed waistcoat.
Dutch Reuter, after half an hour’s battering in the lurching wagon bed, asked permission to get out and walk.
“I have your word you won’t jump me?”
“Yah. My word you got. No trouble—my word on that.”
“Then get down and walk. Beside the wagon, where I can see you.”
The two Irishmen shot malign glares at Dutch.
The muzzle of the ranchman’s rifle stirred. “Turn your faces forward, please.”
They glanced at each other, grinned unpleasantly and presented their backs to him.
Dutch said plaintively, “You me can trust.”
“I’m sorry, Dutch, but I’m not sure I can. I don’t think you know yourself whose side you’re on.”
Dutch went alongside the wagon without further complaint.
Walking along behind the procession, the ranchman opened his copy of Anna Karenina and resumed reading where he had left off last night.
He sat with his back braced against the wagon wheel, notebook on his upraised knees, rifle across his lap; at intervals he looked up at the four men beyond the fire. The two Irishmen and the old frontiersman lay close together; Finnegan and O’Donnell were talking in low tones. Dutch Reuter slept off to one side, by himself, thoroughly shamed.
At a guess there were another thirty miles or so left to travel. Barring another storm they could make it that far by tomorrow evening.
The four pairs of boots were piled beside the ranchman. He adjusted the blanket around his shoulders and continued to write in his notebook. After a while the mutter of the two Irishmen’s voices began to annoy him. He said, “Please be quiet now. You may as well get your sleep. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”
“What about you, dude? Need your sleep too, I expect.” Finnegan heaved his head up and leered. “Sleep tight—if you can.”
“Go to sleep,” O’Donnell said, “and maybe you won’t ever wake up.” But there wasn’t any conviction in it. They’d been licked and, he thought, they knew it. The rest was no more than hollow boasting.
“No more talk now,” said the ranchman. He dipped his pen in the inkwell.
The fire dwindled. He fed it and poked it up. A fitful racket of snoring rumbled beyond the fire. It was around three o’clock. Abruptly Finnegan sat bolt upright and glared at him.
The ranchman laid his hand on the grip of the rifle.
Finnegan smiled slowly.
The ranchman said, “Test me again and I may have to tie your hands, Red.”
Without argument the rogue lay back.
Well it will be a long night and a longer day. But it will come to an end.
Dutch moved closer to the fire, held his palms out to warm them and said, “Without help maybe all this you cannot do.”
“I think I can.”
“Man got to sleep.”
“Plenty of time for that after we get to Medora.”
“Something you try prove?”
“What?
“You trying prove? Something?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything, Dutch. I’m demonstrating that it’s against the law to steal a man’s boat, and if you break that law, you will be held accountable. That’s what the rules of civilization mean.”
“Maybe the Markee and the Stranglers a different rules of civilzation they got.”
“The rules apply to them too—whether they know it or not.”
“I to the Markee that will say. ‘Markee,’ I will say, ‘the rules of civilzation you got to obey.’ This I will say right after you he shoot dead.”
“He hasn’t shot me dead yet, Dutch.”
“And when he does?”
The ranchman said, “Everyone has to die, sooner or later. But no one has to run away.”
“Ever you scared get?”
“Certainly I get scared.”
“Right now?”
“I don’t know about right now. I don’t think your friends are going to make any further trouble.”
“How about the Markee you duel fight?”
“We’ll see—we’ll see.”
After that the silence stretched a long time until Dutch Reuter said softly, “I you like. But you one crazy dude.”
“Good night, then, Dutch.”
In the morning he watched the old frontiersman settle his team into the traces and he held the rifle across the crook of his elbow while the four men climbed onto the wagon. Finnegan looked down at him. “Dutch is right, you know. You’re one crazy bastard.”
“Got cojones to spare,” O’Donnell agreed. “You going to walk us all the way to the railroad? Can’t be much less than thirty miles—and plenty of swollen streams between.”
“We’ll get there.”
“Know something?” said O’Donnell. “I think you will, too.”
Finnegan growled, “Let’s go if we’re going. Jail’s got to be warmer than this.”
Dutch Reuter looked at his two Irish companions in obvious surprise. Then he turned a growing smile toward the ranchman and drew himself up like a pigeon.
The ranchman knew he might have their respect at last but it didn’t count for much. There was a long gloomy walk ahead.
The ranchman wiggled his toes in his boots. He felt the swollen blisters and said, “Let’s go.”
Twenty-three
Pushing his wheelbarrow with its teetering tower of newspapers Pack trudged over the snow past Joe Ferris’s store, boots crunching loudly. Joe was inside at the window looking out. Pack saw him look away—make a point of looking away. Pack continued on his errand.
It was truly a season of damnation. Only three weeks ago a train had been snowbound in the station for days. Starving cattle had drifted into Medora, smashed their heads in through windows and eaten the tarpaper off several lean-tos and shacks. A sodbuster couple had gone out to try and feed the cattle in their barn, and had frozen to death within fifty feet of the house. And a horse rancher had shot himself to death, or so it was claimed; there were suspicions it might have been the Stranglers, although Pack was fairly certain they’d disbanded and dispersed. He had put the question to the Marquis and the Marquis had not denied it.
As he reached the depot platform he encountered an astounding sight. It was something out of a fevered dream. There came lurching a battered wagon with four men on it and, walking behind the tailboard, bedraggled, mudcaked, scratched, black-and-blue, a skeletal apparition that was identifiable only by its teeth and eyeglasses.
“Just the man I want to see,” Roosevelt croaked. “We need the key to the jail.”
The wheelbarrow nearly capitulated when Pack set it down.