days
ought to do it. I'll check again tomorrow."
He walked to the door, straight-backed, his feelings hurt. "People can still talk to me when it's sensible talk. If it'll make you any happier I'll tell you this Sam: Liz Porter died as she lived, a good girl as the people hereabouts use the term." With that he gave his hat a vicious tug, opened the door and walked out. He was a man who seldom lied; it gave him an uncomfortable feeling to do so now.
Molly McGee stepped in and closed the door, her eyes round with curiosity. But she asked no questions as she sat on the edge of the bed, regarding him.
"Who shot me?" he asked her.
"The sheriff would like to know the answer to that," Molly said. "Fill brought you in, in his buggy. Found you beside the trail just a short distance from the camp."
He forced himself up on one elbow. "The wind sounds like it might bring rain. Why is the light so dim?"
"No rain. It's blowing dust, Sam. If it did rain there'd be mud in the air."
"I'd settle for it. Ah, God, of all the times to get laid low . . ." He lay back on the pillow, sick at his stomach. Her hand was cool on his forehead. "Don't fret, Sam,"she said in a soft, comforting voice. "Just rest. Don't even think about your worries for a bit."
"That's like telling me not to breathe," he said.
"I know, I know. But worry never got people anything but gray hair and stomach trouble. Let it go, Sam. Just relax and make your mind a perfect blank."
He grinned, a stretching of the lips, and gave her a dark glance. "That's the way it usually is."
"No, Sam. There's big trouble boiling here and you're about the only one with gumption enough to head it off."
"God help us all, then," Sam said tiredly. "Where's Dick?" "Out looking for tracks," she said. "After the bushwhacker.
Clay tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen." "Not to anyone," Sam said. "Clay least of all, next to me." She smiled and patted his cheek. "Clay's waiting down-
stairs. Wants to see you."
"And I want to
see
him," Sam said grimly and added, "Ouch!" as he unthinkingly moved.
"He can't stay long," Molly warned as she moved away. "Doctor Sawyer told me to keep you quiet and that's exactly what I'm going to do."
She left him; a short time later Clay tiptoed into the room, his hat in his hand, his lean face grave. He stood beside the bed looking lugubriously at Sam, unspeaking.
"Don't act like you're visiting a corpse," Sam said, trying to keep from growling. He felt sick and only wanted Clay to go away and let him rest but he had to get this over with. "I don't feel like forking a green bronc but that'll pass. I was out to Fill's barn last night, Clay." He stared hard at his foreman, a little sick at remembering what he'd heard.
"Aw, hell," Clay muttered, twisting his hat in his hands. He'd worked for Flag since he was sixteen and had practically grown up with the Harden boys. He felt more like a member of the family than an employee and it troubled him that his action had put him in a bad light. "I reckon you heard me and Hannah?"
Sam nodded, wincing at the pain it brought. "I heard."
Clay knew he ought to be angry at Sam for eavesdropping but he couldn't dredge it up. "Don't put much stock in what you find out by sneakin' around, Sam."
Nettled, Sam answered, "What'm I supposed to believe?"
Clay shook his head. "You got the same kind of hungers in you I have. You yearn for a woman, you eat when you're hungry and drink when you're dry.. You want things that come from hard work. So just think a little bit about me in that light if you think about me at all."
"Getting a little windy in your old age, Clay?"
Clay flushed and said nothing, twisting his hat. This angered Sam and he growled, "Well, damn it, say something."
Clay shrugged. "When a man's burnin' he'll say most anything that comes to mind."
"You telling me that I can forget what I heard out there?" Clay shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I hate to sound like a dog, but that's about it, Sam."
Sam knew he should feel reassured but he didn't. In all the years he'd known Clay Bassett, he couldn't remember any action that would indicate culpability. He merely said, "Those farmers have been cutting hay up in the higher meadows. Move all the cattle that're able to make the trip just as quick as you can."
"Comes a sudden snow and they'll die" Clay warned.
"I know. They'll die where they are now. We got to risk it." The choices a man had to make were always between two evils, Sam thought. There never seemed to be a third and good road to take out of trouble.
"You're the boss," Clay said.
There was a sound beyond the door and a light tap on it. Molly stood framed in the doorway. "All right Clay,time's up," she said briskly. "There's nothing so important it can't wait."
Relief washed over Clay's face. He clapped his hat on his head and mumbled, "S' long, Sam, Molly." He hurried out, glad to be gone. He found he was sweating. But as he headed for his horse he wondered if he'd
see
Hannah Evans if he swung by the old barn. She did keep an eye on the road and if she saw him coming . . .
V
AFTER THE
interrupted meeting in the back room of The Mint, Reno Milser made a sudden decision about the farm family that had been living at the Circle M. He untied his horse, mounted, and rode out of town in a hurry after all that hard thinking. The sorrel snorted indignantly at the spur and went ahead through the dust-silvered night.
Nearly two hours later a splinter of yellow light threw out a welcome to him. He left his horse standing in front of the foreman's cabin which he'd turned over to Hobart Hurt and stamped across the porch. He knocked on the door, then lifted the latch and walked in.
A fireplace blaze lightened a circle around the hearth; the rest of the room was in dancing shadows. Hobart Hurt slouched in a rawhide bottom chair on one side of the fireplace and his fat wife sat on the other side. Judith sat on the floor between them, her legs drawn up under her chin and her thin arms clasped around her legs. She turned her head as he came into the room.
"Draw up a cheer, Mr. Milser," Hurt said in a voice that seemed to apologize for his being alive.
"Do, do," seconded Mrs. Hurt.
Neither of them made a move as Milser went past the thin girl and thrust his hands out to the blaze. He spoke to the fire. "I reckon you know why I'm here." He looked at Judith over his shoulder. She had a plain, pinched face, touched with freckles and a fiat, immature body. She raised her head, suddenly listening.
"We been wonderin' when you'd make up your mind," Hurt said.
"You and the missus—you understand? A rancher's wife doesn't have such easy work. It's hard—"
"She's fourteen—"
"Nearer fifteen," Hurt interrupted his wife.
Judith was still, intent, watching Milser closely.
Milser looked at her straightening and turning. "You want to do it, Judith?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir."
Milser backed away from the fire. "All right then, it's settled. We'll fix it for a week from Sunday." He looked at each of them, watching their agreeable nods and then he turned out of the room, relieved.
Hurt sucked his dead pipe; it made a wet, gargling sound. He took the pipe from his mouth and knocked out the dottle on the hearthstone. "That's settled," he said triumphantly. "Glad we got outta that grove. Gonna be trouble there, see if it don't."
Mrs. Hurt looked at Judith. "You're gettin' a good man, Judy. You'll be better off than me or your paw ever was. Mr. Milser's stingy but he's good."
Judith said musingly "Just think—I'll be married and have a house—and babies—an' I won't be an old maid, not ever!"