THE DISCOVERY
Racey Dawson did not remain long idle after Marie's departure. The
girl had barely entered the narrow passage between the warehouse and
the dance hall before he was crossing the street at a point beyond
the jail, where there were no shafts of light from open windows and
doorways to betray him.
Racey Dawson circled the sheriff's house and tippytoed past the
outermost of the six two-room shacks at the rear of the dance hall.
His objective was the Starlight Saloon, his purpose to discover the
bushwhacker who had tried to shoot him.
As he passed the outermost shack a light flashed up within it. He
saw Marie's head and shoulder silhouetted against the curtain. He
recognized her immediately by the heavy mass of her hair. No other
woman in Farewell possessed such a mop.
Racey resolved to speak with Marie again. His hand was lifted in
readiness to knock when Marie's visitor spoke. Racey's hand promptly
dropped at his side. He had recognized the voice. It was that of Bull,
the Starlight bartender.
The shack door was fairly well constructed. At least there were no
cracks in it. But a log wall has oftentimes an open chink. This wall
had one between the third and fourth tiers of logs not more than a
yard from the door. Racey crouched till his eyes were on a level with
the narrow crack.
He could not see Bull. But he could see Marie. Apparently she was
not according her visitor the slightest attention. She daintily and
unhurriedly hung her waist over the back of a chair. Then she turned
up the lamp, removed the pins from her abundant hair, shook it down,
and began to brush it calmly and carefully.
"---- you!" snarled Bull, advancing to the table where he was within
range of Racey's eyesight. "I spoke to you! What didja do it for?"
She raised her head and looked at him, the brush poised in one hand.
"---- you, Bull," she drawled at him. "I'm tellin' you, because I felt
like it."
Bull shot forth a hand and grabbed her right wrist. Marie, as a whole,
did not move. But her left hand dropped languidly and nestled in the
overhang of her bodice.
"Bull," she said, softly, staring straight into the evil eyes
glowering upon her. "Bull, bad as you are, you ain't never laid a hand
on me yet. You ain't gonna begin now, are you?"
Bull's great fingers began to tighten on her wrist, slowly,
inexorably.
"I'm sorry, Bull," she resumed, when he made no reply, "but I got a
derringer pointin' straight at yore stomach. Now you ain't gonna lemme
make a mess on my clean carpet, are you?"
Bull released her wrist as though it burnt him.
"You devil!" he exclaimed. "I believe you'd do it."
"Shore I would," she affirmed, serenely, dragging a small and ugly
derringer from its place of concealment and balancing it on a pink
palm. "I'll drill you in one blessed minute if you don't keep yore
paws to home. They's some things, Bull, you can't do to me. An' one
of them things is hurting me. I don't believe in corporal punishment,
Bull."
"I wanna know what you horned in for," he demanded, pounding the table
till the lamp danced again.
"If you only knowed what a silly fool you looked," she commented,
"you'd sit down and take it easy.... That's right, tell the
neighbours, do! Squawk out good and loud how yore bushwhackin' li'l
killing turned out a misdeal. Shore, I'd do that, if I was you. Whadda
you guess they pay Jake Rule an' Kansas Casey for, huh?"
"What did you get in front of him for?" Bull persisted in a lower
tone. "I pretty near had him, but you--Gawd, I could wring yore neck!"
"But you won't," she reminded him, sweetly. "Lookit here, Bull, if you
hadn't locked the door leading up the stairs to the Starlight's loft,
I'd 'a' come after you there and done my persuadin' of you right in
the loft. As it was when I heard what you were up to--nemmine how I
heard. I heard, that's enough--I had to go out in the street and
do what I could there. I don't believe the feller liked it much,
neither."
"But what's he to you? You ain't soft on him, are you, account of what
he done for that yellow mutt of yores?"
"I owe him something," she evaded. "That dog--I like that dog. And
then that man treats me like a lady. It ain't every man treats me like
a lady."
"I should hope not," guffawed the amiable Bull.
"Now that's a right funny joke," she assured him. "It almost makes me
laugh. Still, alla same, I got feelin's. I'm a human being. And you'll
notice molasses catches a heap more flies than vinegar does. I like
that Dawson man, and I ain't gonna see him hurt."
"Did you tell him it was me up there with a rifle?" There was a hint
of unease in the blustery tone.
"I didn't tell him nothin'," said Marie. "I ain't no snitch."
"Ah-h, you _are_ soft on him," Bull sneered in disgust.
"What if I am?" she flared. "What business is it of yores?"
"What'll Nebraska say?" he proffered.
"Nebraska hell!" she sneered. "Nebraska and me are through!"
"I know you've split, but that ain't saying Nebraska will let you go
with another gent."
"I'll go with anybody I please, and neither Nebraska nor you nore any
other damn man is gonna stop me. If you think different, _try_ it,
just _try_ it! Thassall I ask. _This_ for you and Nebraska!" With
which she snapped her fingers under his nose once, twice, and again.
"I wish Pap was still alive. He could always handle you. Remember the
time you sassed him there in ..." Here Marie accidentally dropped her
brush into an empty pail, and the clatter drowned out the name of the
town so far as Racey was concerned. But Marie caught the name, for she
straightened with a start and stared at Bull. "Yeah," continued Bull,
"you remember it, huh? I guess you do. That was where Pap slapped yore
chops and throwed you down the stairs. Like to broke yore neck that
time. I wish you had."
"'Pap,'" she repeated. "'Pap,' and that town. What made you think of
them two names together?"
"Because that was the town where he throwed you down the stairs," Bull
told her matter-of-factly.
"It was the town where we met up with Bill Smith."
"What about it?"
"Nothing--only Bill Smith is here in town."
"In Farewell?"
"In Farewell."
"Why ain't I seen him if he's in Farewell?"
"Because he's shaved off all of that beard and part of his
eyebrows--they used to meet plumb in the middle, remember--till a body
would hardly know him. I didn't. I knowed they was somethin' familiar
about him, but I couldn't tell what till you mentioned Pap and the
town together. Then I knowed. Yeah, Bull, this gent's the same Bill
Smith Pap picked up on the trail. He's a respectable member of society
now, I guess. Calls himself Jack Harpe and spends most of his time
runnin' round Lanpher."
"Then he ain't too respectable, the lousy pup. Calls himself Jack
Harpe, huh? Shore, he come in the Starlight with Lanpher and gimme
the eye without a quiver. Didn't know me, he didn't! And I ain't done
nothin' to _my_ looks to change 'em."
"Huh, y' oughta seen the way he looked me up and down when he passed
us on the Marysville trail. You'd 'a' thought he just seen me. Oh,
he's got his nerve."
"Who is _us_?" Suspiciously.
"What it won't do you no good to know. I guess I can go riding with a
friend if I like. You seem to keep forgettin' you ain't got any ropes
on me--nary a rope. Stop botherin' yore fool head about me and my
doings, and think of something worth while--for instance, Jack Harpe."
"Then what?"
"No wonder they call you Bull. That's all you are, beef to the heels
and no more sense than a calf. Listen, Jack Harpe's respectable, ain't
he? Or he aims to be, which is the same thing. Anyway, he's swelling
round here like a poisoned pup and don't know us a-tall. Takin' him
down a couple o' pegs wouldn't hurt him. He always was too tall. I'll
bet if he was come at right he'd pay cash down on the hoof for us, me
and you both, to keep our heads shut about what we know."
"But we was in that, too."
"But we didn't do what he done," pointed out Marie. "And you know
yoreself the company don't drop the case like a ordinary sheriff
does. No, I expect Jack Harpe would be worried some if he knowed we'd
recognized him.... Aw, what are you scared of? Pap's dead, ain't he?
How can Harpe hurt us? He never knowed how intimate we knowed Pap
while he was stayin' at our house. He just thought Pap was a friend.
He never knowed we got our share of the money. Nawsir, he can't hook
us up with that killin' nohow, but we can hook him. Brace up to him,
Bull. Maybe you can work him for a stake. They ain't no danger, I tell
you."
"By Gawd, I'd like to!" declared Bull and swore a string of oaths.
"Then go ahead," urged Marie. "And don't forget I want in on the
stake."
"Ah-h, I do all the work and then have to whack up with you, huh? I
will not. What I get I keep."
"I remember Jack Harpe used to say that. He shore hated himself, the
poor feller. Alla same, I guess maybe you'll go even Steven with me,
Bull. Who is it recognized him first? Who give you the idea? Who did,
huh? Who did? Whatever you get you'll divide with me or I'll know the
reason why. And if you don't think I'm a wildcat get me roused, man,
get me roused."
Bull stood back and scratched a tousled head. "I--well--" he began and
paused. Obviously the prospect did not wholly please him.
"Go to Jack Harpe easy like," suggested the girl. "Don't tell him too
much, just enough to show yo're meanin' what you say. I'd do it myself
only he'd laugh at me. He's one of those gents a woman has to shoot
before they'll believe she's in earnest. He ain't the only one, they's
another just like him in town.... Nemmine who. You go to Jack Harpe.
He'll listen to a man. G'on! They's money in it, if you work it right.
You want money, don't you? You need three hundred to pay what you owe
Piggy Wadsworth, don't you? Yah, you big hunk, you been runnin' to me
for money long enough! Here's a chance to make some of yore own. Fly
at it."
When Bull had picked up a rifle standing in a corner and departed,
slamming the door behind him, Marie sat down on the lid of a mottled
zinc trunk and wiped her hot face on a petticoat that hung on the wall
conveniently to hand. "Warm work, warm work!" she muttered, wearily.
"I dunno when I seen Bull so mad. I shore thought one time there
I wasn't gonna get rid of him without a fight." She rolled her
well-shaped ankles and flipped the gilt tassels on her shoe tops to
and fro (yes, indeed, some women wore tasseled footgear in those
days). "Men," she went on, staring down at the shiny tassels, "men are
shore hell."