She smiled, but not with humor or with relief. “I want you to think there is nothing in the world as important as your wife, and the children, and the farm. I wouldn't be a woman if I didn't want that. And I want you to understand, the way I do, that the Brunner gang is none of your affair. They're a long way from here and they're no concern of ours. And besides, there are men like Will Cushman who are paid to take care of such trouble.
“Those are the things I want,” she continued. “But I married you because you had a mind and ideals of your own. You were a law-enforcement officer, but I brought you to a farm, and I want to hold you here because I love you and I'm afraid.” She shook her head and smiled again, and this time the smile was real. “You don't understand women very well, do you, Owen?”
“I guess not, if I can't understand my own wife.”
“I just want you the way you are, with all your ideals and your strength. And at the same time I want you safe beside me. I'm beginning to understand that I can't have both.”
She hadn't expected him to understand immediately what she was trying to tell him. But he did. For one moment he held her hard against him and said, “Thank you, Elizabeth. I never doubted for a minute that I was free to do whatever I might have to do, but thanks anyway for telling me.”
That was the last they spoke of it that night. The next day Owen was out before sunup to do the morning milking, and when he came back to the kitchen with the heavy foaming buckets, he said, “Do you think you've got enough supplies to last out the week?”
And Elizabeth knew that he had made his decision. She looked at him but her voice had deserted her and she could only nod.
Later, when she went into the parlor, she saw that Owen had changed into the blue serge vest and trousers of his Sunday suit. He had brought in a straw suitcase and was now taking out a cartridge belt and holster. He buckled the belt around his waist and then began unwrapping several oily rags from around a beautifully blued, walnut-gripped Colt's single-action revolver.
He seemed uneasy when he looked up and saw his wife standing in the doorway. He said, “If you try, it won't take much to talk me out of this.”
“I won't try, Owen.”
“Then I guess I'll get started for Reunion pretty soon. I want to talk to Judge Lochland.” With sudden impatience he tightened and refastened the buckle of the cartridge belt. “I wish I could explain why I'm doing this,” he said, “but I don't think I can.”
“There's no need to explain, Owen.”.
“I don't know....” He shook his head. “Yesterday I caught myself hating people for the first time in my life; hating them just because they were people, with the normal fears and prejudices that you find in everybody. It was the first time that ever happened to me. Then I began to wonder if it was myself that I really hated, and if I was taking it out on others. Do you understand that, Elizabeth?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Here I am fitted for just one job in all the world; I trained for it from the time I was big enough to hold a rifle. In all this county I'm the only man who might have a chance of going into those hills and breaking up the Brunner gang before other Frank and Edith Ransoms get killed.”
“There's no need to explain,” Elizabeth said again!
But Owen went on, as though he hadn't heard her. “I got to thinking about it last night. I've tried making excuses to myself because I was afraid. The person who painted that word on the wagon was not entirely wrong, because when I look up at those hills, they scare me. I think of you and Lonnie and the baby and tell myself I've got no right to take this chance.”
He paused, then added: “Elizabeth, have I got that right?”
There was no answer to that. There was no rule book that said how much a man owed to himself and how much he owed to others. She put her arms around him and held him hard for one brief moment. “If I stopped you now,” she said, “you would no longer be the same man I married and I think that frightens me more than anything.”
Chapter Nine
It was Sunday and close to noon when Owen drove the team through Reunion's deserted Main Street and tied up in front of the courthouse. Judge Lochland would probably be in church, but someone ought to be in the sheriff's office.
Arch Deland was napping at the sheriff's desk when Owen came in. The old deputy opened his eyes and started to grin, but the expression faded when he saw the revolver at Owen's hip.
“Hello, Owen. What's the hardware for?”
“Is the sheriff around?”
“Will? He ought to be comin' out of church any minute now.”
“Would you mind catching him? I'm ready to be sworn in, if he still wants me for a deputy.”
Arch Deland dropped his boots from the desk in surprise. “Owen, that's a mighty poor joke!”
“It's no joke at all. If they still want me to go after the Brunners, I'm ready to give it a try.” He saw what Arch's next question was going to be. “Elizabeth and I have talked it out.”
The deputy said nothing for one long moment. At last he shrugged. “I don't know what's got into you, but there's somebody you better see before you light out for the hills.” He took down a ring of keys from the wall and stood up. “Owen, I want you to have a talk with one of our prize boarders.”
Puzzled, Owen frowned as he followed Deland out of the office and down the ringing basement corridor toward the cells of the county jail. “There he is,” the deputy said, pointing at one of the barred cages, and Owen made a small sound of surprise when he saw the bushy, uncombed hair, the hard young face and angry eyes.
“You recognize him?” Deland asked.
“Yes. His name is Dunc Lester.”
“Is he the one that came to your place with the hurt girl?”
Owen nodded.
“That's what I thought,” Arch said. “We've got the both of them. The girl's locked in the jury room upstairs.”
This was a turn that Owen hadn't expected. He walked forward to the cell door and the boy sat up on his plank bunk, glaring. “Hello, son,” Owen said quietly. “What have they got you in for?”
The boy made no sound, but Deland said, “Will's holdin' him on suspicion of bein' a member of the Brunner gang. On top of that, he tried to fob a crossroads store up by Willow Creek this mornin', but we caught him. Him and the girl was tryin' to get away on one scrawny brush pony.”
Owen gazed steadily at the tough, dirty, ragged young man, who looked as if he hated all the world. “Let me talk to him, Arch. Alone.”
“You're welcome to try. We haven't been able to get a word out of him since they brought him in.” The deputy unlocked the cell door, then locked it again when Owen was in. “You sure you don't want me to stick around?”
“I'm sure.” Owen stood in the center of the tiny cell, his gaze still fixed on Dunc Lester's face. “That was a fool thing for you and Leah to do,” he said mildly.
The boy rose slowly from the bunk, took hold of the iron bars, and gripped them as though he meant to tear them out with his bare hands. “I reckon it ain't the first fool thing I ever did!”