"What've you decided, Will?"
"I've got my kids to think about."
"It's your problem." Hillpiper said this in a kindly way, stating a fact. "If you've decided not to go through with it, that's your business."
Will Calender nodded. "I suppose I should pay her stage fare back to Tascosa."
"That would be nice, Will," Hillpiper said mildly. Calender thanked him and went out, down the stairs and into the street. Crossing to the other side, he felt awkward and self-conscious. The suit coat held tight across the shoulders and he could feel his big hands hanging too far out of the sleeves, and with nothing to hold on to.
It's gotten hot, he thought, pulling his hat lower. Maybe the dryness makes it easier on some people, but it's still hot. And then he thought: I'd better tell her before I buy the stage ticket.
Dick Maddox was still in front of the hotel, but now more men were there. It had gotten around that Maddox was having some fun with Will Calender, so they drifted over casually from here and there, the ones who knew Maddox standing closest to him, laughing at what he said. The rest were all along the hotel's shady ramada. One of the men saw Calender coming and he nudged Maddox, who looked up, then pretended he wasn't concerned, until Calender was close to the hotel entrance. "You change your mind, Will?"
Calender stopped and breathed out wearily, "If you showed as much concern for your own business, you'd be a well-to-do man."
"You can't take kiddin', can you?"
"Why should I have to?"
"You got a lot to learn, Will."
Calender shrugged, because he was tired of this, and went inside.
The boy was sitting alone, with his heels hooked in the wooden rungs of the chair. When he saw his father he jumped up quickly.
Calender looked about to be certain the woman was not in the lobby.
"Where is she?" he asked the boy.
"She went upstairs. All of a sudden she just started crying and went upstairs."
"What?"
"It was when they started talking. We were sitting here, and then her chin started to shake--you know--and then she run upstairs."
"Who was talking? The men outside?" The boy nodded hurriedly, and Calender could see that he was frightened and trying to hide it and at the same time was not sure what it was all about.
"What did they say?"
"Just one of them, the rest were laughing most of the time. He was telling them"--the boy said it slowly as if he'd memorized it--"he said some women didn't know their place. They think they can live in the gutter then go out when they want and brush against people like nothing's coming off. He was talking loud so we could hear every word and he said a man would be a fool to marry a woman like that and have her brushing against his kids with her gutter ways. It was like that, what he said. Then he spoke your name and he said he'd bet anybody five dollars American you'd changed your mind now about getting married. That's when she run upstairs."
The boy frowned, looking at his father, watching his eyes go up to the room. "Why'd he have to say things like that? We were sitting here talking- getting acquainted."
Calender looked at the boy and saw that he was grinning.
"You know she never once asked me how old I was or if I knew my reader or things like that. She talked to me about affairs and interesting things like I was grown up, like Ma used to do. And, Pa, she called me Jim! Can you imagine that? She called me Jim! If her hair was darker and her nose a little different, I'd swear she was Ma!" "Don't say things like that!" Calender was conscious of his voice, and he said quietly, "There's the difference of night and day."
"Well, her voice is different too, and maybe she's a speck taller, though that could be the hat. I never seen Ma in a regular hat. But outside of that, they sure are alike."
"You know what you're saying, comparing this woman with your mother?"
The boy looked at him questioningly, but the trace of a smile was still on his face. "I'm just saying they're alike, that's all. Maybe they don't look so much alike, but they sure are alike." The boy smiled; he was sure his explanation was clear because he understood it so well himself. Calender was looking at the boy closely now.
"What if she's done something bad?"
"Pa, little Molly's doing bad things all the time. That's just the way girls are. Most times they're not doing serious things, so they have more time to get theirselves into trouble."
Calender's eyes remained on the boy. Calender asked: "You think Molly will like her?"
"Couple of bad women like them will get along just fine." The boy grinned.
Calender left him abruptly, going up the stairs. In a few minutes he came back down, and in front of him was Clare Conway.
They walked across the lobby. Nearing the door, the woman hesitated and looked up at Will Calender. She was unsure and afraid. It was in her wideopen eyes, in the way her fingers held the ends of the crocheted shawl. Then she moved on again as if not under her own power--when Will touched her elbow and said to the boy, "Come on, Jim."
And when they were out on the ramada the woman's eyes were looking down at her hands; she could feel Will Calender holding her elbow, she could feel the guiding pressure of his hand, and moved to the right along the ramada, along the line of silent men, hearing only her footsteps and the footsteps of the man at her side. The hand on her elbow tightened. She was being turned gently, and there was no longer the sound of footsteps and when she looked up a man was close in front of her, a man with heavy beard bristles.
"Miss Conway," Calender said. "This is Mr.
Maddox. He's had such a keen interest in our business, I thought you might like to meet him." "Now, Will--" Maddox said, looking at Calender strangely.
"And, Dick," Calender went on, "this is Miss Conway. Isn't there something you wanted to say to her?"
"Will--"
"Maybe you'd just like to tip your hat like a gentleman."
Maddox was staring at Calender almost dumbfounded, but slowly his face relaxed as he realized what Calender was doing in front of all these men and he said mildly, grinning, "Now, Will, I don't know if I want to do that or not."
Calender's fist came around suddenly, unexpectedly, driving against Maddox's jaw, changing the smile to lopsided surprise and sending him back off the ramada into the street. Calender followed, and hit him again and this time Maddox went down, his hat falling off in front of him. Maddox started to rise, but Calender came for him again. Maddox hesitated, then eased down and sat in the street, looking up at Calender.
"One other thing, Dick," Will said. "I hear you're taking bets there isn't going to be a wedding today." He glanced back at the crowd of men in the shade. "Who's holding the stakes?"
There was a silence, then someone called, "Nobody'd bet him."
Calender beckoned to the man. "Come here."
He brought a five-dollar gold piece out of his pants pocket and gave it to the man. "Dick Maddox'll give you one just like this. Now you add the two up and have that much ready for me when I get back."
He walked to the ramada. The tension was gone. Some of the men were whispering and talking, some just looking out at Maddox still sitting in the street.
The boy's face was beaming as he watched his father. Clare came toward him.
"You ripped the seam of your coat up the back," she said.
He felt her hand on his back pulling the cloth together. "Gives me a little more room," he said, conscious of the men watching him.
"It's your good coat, though," the woman said.
"I'll mend it soon as we get home."
Moment of Vengeance
At midmorning six riders came down out of the cavernous pine shadows, down the slope swept yellow with arrowroot blossoms, down through the scattered aspen at the north end of the meadow, then across the meadow and into the yard of the one-story adobe house.