Dunc scowled, neither knowing nor caring what Owen was talking about. “What if they come back?” he asked. “We're not in much condition to fight them off again.”
“They won't come back.” He glanced at the sprawled body before him. “I believe that the days of brazen lawlessness are through. I believe these hills will see no more of gangs like Ike Brunner's.” He did not know how he knew this, but he knew. Perhaps it had been something he had seen in Gabe Tanis' eyes. There had been a great weariness there, and some of the bitterness had burned itself out.
Uneasy and restless, Dunc had walked to the far side of the stone cap and stood staring down at the gathering darkness.
“Marshal, come here!”
Owen turned suddenly and almost fell. He braced himself against the boulder for a moment, giving his head time to clear. “What is it, Dunc?”
“Horses, Marshal! Two of them!”
Owen walked with elaborate steadiness to where Dunc was standing, and near the base of the hill he saw the two horses. They were hobbled and grazing quietly in a sparse stand of blackjack.
Dunc could not believe the obvious. “It's a trick, Marshal!”
Owen took a long time answering, but at last he shook his head and said, “No, I don't think so.”
“You don't know this gang like I do!” Dunc insisted. “This is just the kind of thing they would try, leavin' those two horses down there to draw us off the hill. They're down there in some gully right now, I'll bet, waitin' for us!”
This was a possibility that Owen was forced to consider but he could not believe it. He walked heavily to the boulder and picked up Arch Deland's carbine. I won't believe it! he thought. I prefer to believe that Gabe Tanis left those horses for us, and that's what I'll believe.
“Where're you headed, Marshal?” Dunc called out in alarm.
“Down to see about those horses.”
“But I tell you it's a trick!”
Owen smiled. “We'll soon know.” He eased himself over the ledge, carefully favoring his wounded side. Dunc called out again, then cursed savagely and started down the hill beside him.
“Marshal, this is the craziest thing I ever heard of!”
And perhaps it is, Owen thought. But a time comes when a man must trust the instincts of others or the world becomes unbearable. He could not explain this to Dunc. If he had been asked to put his thoughts into words, he could not have done it. He only knew that he had done the job he had come to do, the job for which he had trained all his adult life; and he knew that now was the time to learn whether all his efforts and ideals had taught him anything about the millions of humans like himself who populated the earth. He had to know if Arch Deland had died for nothing.
When at last they reached the bottom of the hill, Owen walked directly to the horses, and no sound at all was made in the surrounding woods. No rifle fire, no voices raised in hate or anger. All was quiet.
Dunc Lester said, “Well, I'll be damned!”
Chapter Fifteen
The long ride back to Reunion was made almost in complete silence, for each man was deep in his own thoughts and plans for the future. Owen, despite his weakness and the nagging throb in his side, rode erect and felt almost young again. He was going home, this time to stay. His mind was filled with his wife and the boys, of the crops that had to be worked, of the shed that needed roofing and the fence that needed repairing. As in a world of sleep, the miles that fell behind were forgotten.
Dunc Lester's thoughts were more complex. He still found it difficult to believe that Gabe Tanis had not set a trap. This affected his thinking not only about Tanis, but about all the other people that he had known. Now that Ike was dead, perhaps the hills would be a different place; perhaps his folks would come back and begin again. But he did not try to convince himself that old times would return and things would be again as they had been before.
Time did not reverse itself any more than water ran upstream. Times would change. Maybe the railroad would be brought in and some of the timber cut, and maybe the gap between the hills and lowlands would not be as great as it had been before—but maybe a change would be to the good.
Maybe, he pondered, the Lesters and the Tanises and all the others had lived too long by themselves. And maybe, he thought, it wouldn't do us no harm to mix with people like the marshal once in a while.
It was curious how his brief association with the marshal had changed his mind about a lot of things. He felt that he had grown simply by being with arid watching Owen Toller. He could not explain this, even to himself, but he knew it to be true.
He thought about all these things, and more, as they rode the long grade back to Reunion, but most of the time his thoughts were filled with Leah Stringer. He had it all planned in his mind what he was going to say when he saw her. He would tell her about the cabin he meant to build on the home place, and then he would ask her to be his wife and live with him. And on a Saturday, or once a month at least, they would hitch up and go down to a settlement, like the foothill farmers did. She would have people to talk to and would not be lonesome, for his folks would be moving back, now that the Brunners were no more.
He liked to think about this, but sometimes he would get to worrying, thinking that maybe Leah wouldn't want him, or that she would want more than just a log-and-mud cabin in the woods. Once he had been pondering that problem and the marshal had looked at him steadily.
“Don't worry, son,” he said. “I figure she'll still be waitin' for you.”
Somehow that made him feel better, and he didn't worry about it much after that.
It was near noon of the second day when they sighted Reunion. Owen's impulse was to ride straight through and head for the farm and Elizabeth, but he knew that it could not be quite as simple as that.
They tied up in front of the courthouse. “I'll have to report to the sheriff,” Owen said. “You can ride on to the farm, if you want to, son.”
“I'll wait,” Dunc said.
Owen had forgotten how much hunting and being hunted could change a man. Will Cushman didn't recognize them at first. Owen smiled and rubbed his hand over his gaunt and bearded face. “We're back, Will.”
“My God! Owen!”
Will came out of his chair and around the desk, and took Owen's hand. “I was afraid you weren't coming back at all!”
“All of us didn't,” Owen said gently, and the sheriff blinked.
“Arch Deland?” he asked.
Owen nodded.
Cushman frowned, then dismissed Deland from his mind completely. “You don't know how glad I am to see you, Owen. It's been pure hell around here.” He glanced blankly at Dunc, then fixed his gaze on Owen. “Well, tell me what happened, man! What about the Brunners?”
“Dead,” Owen said quietly.
“Both of them?”
Owen nodded.
Cushman's bland face broke into a wide smile. “By God!” he said happily. “That'll fix these wolves that've been nipping at my heels!” Suddenly he laughed and slapped his deputy's back, not noticing the blood-stiffened shirt or the pain that appeared in Owen's eyes. “This will show them! Do you know there's been talk around town of removing me from the sheriff's office? Well, they won't try it now!” He laughed again. “Now tell me all about it, man! What about the rest of the gang?”