A SECRET OF TWO
Catching the intention of the maddened man, now bent only on swift
revenge, Banion sprang to the head of his horse, flinging out an arm to
keep Jackson out of the saddle. The horse, frightened at the stubborn
struggle between the two, sprang away. Woodhull was pulled flat by the
rope about his neck, nor could he loosen it now with his hands, for the
horse kept steadily away. Any instant and he might be off in a mad
flight, dragging the man to his death.
"Ho! Pronto--_Vien aqui_!"
Banion's command again quieted the animal. His ears forward, he came up,
whickering his own query as to what really was asked of him.
Banion caught the bridle rein once more and eased the rope. Jackson by
now had his shotgun and was shouting, crazed with anger. Woodhull's life
chance was not worth a bawbee.
It was his enemy who saved it once again, for inscrutable but unaltered
reasons of his own.
"Drop that, Jackson!" called Banion. "Do as I tell you! This man's
mine!"
Cursing himself, his friend, their captive, the horse, his gun and all
animate and inanimate Nature in his blood rage, the old man, livid in
wrath, stalked away at length. "I'll kill him sometime, ef ye don't
yerself!" he screamed, his beard trembling. "Ye damned fool!"
"Get up, Woodhull!" commanded Banion. "You've tried once more to kill
me. Of course, I'll not take any oath or promise from you now. You don't
understand such things. The blood of a gentleman isn't anywhere in your
strain. But I'll give you one more chance--give myself that chance too.
There's only one thing you understand. That's fear. Yet I've seen you on
a firing line, and you started with Doniphan's men. We didn't know we
had a coward with us. But you are a coward.
"Now I leave you to your fear! You know what I want--more than life it
is to me; but your life is all I have to offer for it. I'm going to wait
till then.
"Come on, now! You'll have to walk. Jackson won't let you have his
horse. My own never carried a woman but once, and he's never carried a
coward at all. Jackson shall not have the rope. I'll not let him kill
you."
"What do you mean?" demanded the prisoner, not without his effrontery.
The blood came back to Banion's face, his control breaking.
"I mean for you to walk, trot, gallop, damn you! If you don't you'll
strangle here instead of somewhere else in time."
He swung up, and Jackson sullenly followed.
"Give me that gun," ordered Banion, and took the shotgun and slung it
in the pommel loop of his own saddle.
The gentle amble of the black stallion kept the prisoner at a trot. At
times Banion checked, never looking at the man following, his hands at
the rope, panting.
"Ye'll try him in the camp council, Will?" began Jackson once more.
"Anyways that? He's a murderer. He tried to kill us both, an' he will
yit. Boy, ye rid with Doniphan, an' don't know the _ley refugio_. Hasn't
the prisoner tried to escape? Ain't that old as Mayheeco Veeayho? Take
this skunk in on a good rope like that? Boy, ye're crazy!"
"Almost," nodded Banion. "Almost. Come on. It's late."
It was late when they rode down into the valley of the Platte. Below
them twinkled hundreds of little fires of the white nation, feasting.
Above, myriad stars shone in a sky unbelievably clear. On every hand
rose the roaring howls of the great gray wolves, also feasting now; the
lesser chorus of yapping coyotes. The savage night of the Plains was on.
Through it passed three savage figures, one a staggering, stumbling man
with a rope around his neck.
They came into the guard circle, into the dog circle of the encampment;
but when challenged answered, and were not stopped.
"Here, Jackson," said Banion at length, "take the rope. I'm going to our
camp. I'll not go into this train. Take this pistol--it's loaded now.
Let off the _reata_, walk close to this man. If he runs, kill him. Find
Molly Wingate. Tell her Will Banion has sent her husband to her--once
more. It's the last time."
He was gone in the dark. Bill Jackson, having first meticulously
exhausted the entire vituperative resources of the English, the Spanish
and all the Indian languages he knew, finally poked the muzzle of the
pistol into Woodhull's back.
"Git, damn ye!" he commanded. "Center, guide! Forrerd, march! Ye--"
He improvised now, all known terms of contempt having been heretofore
employed.
Threading the way past many feast fires, he did find the Wingate wagons
at length, did find Molly Wingate. But there his memory failed him. With
a skinny hand at Sam Woodhull's collar, he flung him forward.
"Here, Miss Molly," said he, "this thing is somethin' Major Banion sont
in ter ye by me. We find hit stuck in the mud. He said ye're welcome."
But neither he nor Molly really knew why that other man had spared Sam
Woodhull's life, or what it was he awaited in return for Sam Woodhull's
life.
All that Jackson could do he did. As he turned in the dark he implanted
a heartfelt kick which sent Sam Woodhull on his knees before Molly
Wingate as she stood in wondering silence.
Then arose sudden clamorings of those who had seen part of this--seen an
armed man assault another, unarmed and defenseless, at their very
firesides. Men came running up. Jesse Wingate came out from the side of
his wagon.
"What's all this?" he demanded. "Woodhull, what's up? What's wrong
here?"