The yell with which Andrew Lanning had shot out of Martindale, and which
only Jasper Lanning had recognized, was no more startling to the men of
the village than it was to Andrew himself. Mingled in an ecstasy of
emotion, there was fear, hate, anger, grief, and the joy of freedom in
that cry; but it froze the marrow of Andy's bones to hear it.
Fear, most of all, was driving him out of the village. Just as he rushed
around the bend of the street he looked back to the crowd of men
tumbling upon their horses; every hand there would be against him. He
knew them. He ran over their names and faces. Thirty seconds before he
would rather have walked on the edge of a cliff than rouse the anger of
a single one among these men, and now, by one blow, he had started them
all after him.
Once, as he topped the rise, the folly of attempting to escape from
their long-proved cunning made him draw in on the rein a little; but the
horse only snorted and shook his head and burst into a greater effort of
speed. After all, the horse was right, Andy decided. For the moment he
thought of turning and facing that crowd, but he remembered stories
about men who had killed the enemy in fair fight, but who had been tried
by a mob jury and strung to the nearest tree.
Any sane man might have told Andrew that those days were some distance
in the past, but Andy made no distinction between periods. He knew the
most exciting events which had happened around Martindale in the past
fifty years, and he saw no difference between one generation and the
next. Was not Uncle Jasper himself continually dinning into his ears
the terrible possibilities of trouble? Was not Uncle Jasper, even in his
old age, religiously exacting in his hour or more of gun exercise each
day? Did not Uncle Jasper force Andy to go through the same maneuvers
for twice as long between sunset and sunrise? And why all these endless
preparations if these men of Martindale were not killers?
It might seem strange that Andy could have lived so long among these
people without knowing them better, but he had taken from his mother a
little strain of shyness. He never opened his mind to other people, and
they really never opened themselves to Andy Lanning. The men of
Martindale wore guns, and the conclusion had always been apparent to
Andy that they wore guns because, in a pinch, they were ready to
kill men.
To Andy Lanning, as fear whipped him north out of Martindale, there
seemed no pleasure or safety in the world except in the speed of his
horse and the whir of the air against his face. When that speed faltered
he went to the quirt. He spurred mercilessly. Yet he had ridden his
horse out to a stagger before he reached old Sullivan's place. Only when
the forefeet of the mustang began to pound did he realize his folly in
exhausting his horse when the race was hardly begun. He went into the
ranch house to get a new mount.
When he was calmer, he realized that he had played his part
well--astonishingly well. His voice had not quivered. His eye had met
that of the old rancher every moment. His hand had been as steady
as iron.
Something that Uncle Jasper had said recurred to him, something about
iron dust. He felt now that there was indeed a strong, hard metal in
him; fear had put it there--or was it fear itself? Was it not fear that
had brought the gun into his hand so easily when the crowd rushed him
from the door of the saloon? Was it not fear that had made his nerves
so rocklike as he faced that crowd and made his get-away?
He was on one side now, and the world was on the other. He turned in the
saddle and probed the thick blackness with his eyes; then he sent the
pinto on at an easy, ground-devouring lope. Sometimes, as the ravine
narrowed, the close walls made the creaking of the saddle leather loud
in his ears, and the puffing of the pinto, who hated work; sometimes the
hoofs scuffed noisily through gravel; but usually the soft sand muffled
the noise of hoofs, and there was a silence as dense as the night around
Andy Lanning.
Thinking back, he felt that it was all absurd and dreamlike. He had
never hurt a man before in his life. Martindale knew it. Why could he
not go back, face them, give up his gun, wait for the law to speak?
But when he thought of this he thought a moment later of a crowd rushing
their horses through the night, leaning over their saddles to break the
wind more easily, and all ready to kill on this man trail.
All at once a great hate welled up in him, and he went on with gritting
teeth.
It was out of this anger, oddly enough, that the memory of the girl came
to him. She was like the falling of this starlight, pure, aloof, and
strange and gentle. It seemed to Andrew Lanning that the instant of
seeing her outweighed the rest of his life, but he would never see her
again. How could he see her, and if he saw her, what would he say to
her? It would not be necessary to speak. One glance would be enough.
But, sooner or later, Bill Dozier would reach him. Why not sooner? Why
not take the chance, ride to John Merchant's ranch, break a way to the
room where the girl slept this night, smash open the door, look at her
once, and then fight his way out?
He swung out of the ravine and headed across the hills. From the crest
the valley was broad and dark below him, and on the opposite side the
hills were blacker still. He let the pinto go down the steep slope at a
walk, for there is nothing like a fast pace downhill to tear the heart
out of a horse. Besides, it came to him after he started, were not the
men of Bill Dozier apt to miss this sudden swinging of the trail?
In the floor of the valley he sent the pinto again into the stretching
canter, found the road, and went on with a thin cloud of the alkali dust
about him until the house rose suddenly out of the ground, a black mass
whose gables seemed to look at him like so many heads above the
tree-tops.