THE FIGHT
Bayard had guessed rightly. After miles of silent riding Lytton had
pulled his horse up with a jerk, had laid a hand on Ann's bridle and
checked her pony with another wrench.
"Who's that?" he growled, staring at Bayard.
She had looked at the distant horse, floundering up the slope beyond
them, recognized both Abe and his rider and had turned to stare at her
husband with fear in her eyes.
"Who is it?" he demanded again, and she dropped her gaze.
"So that's it!" he jeered. "Your lover is trying to play two games. He's
come to beat us to it, has he?"--he licked his lips nervously. "Well,
we'll see!"
He hung his spurs in and fanned her horse with his quirt and, still
clinging to her bridle, led his wife at a high lope off to the right,
swinging behind a shoulder of the hill and climbing up a sharp, wooded
draw.
"I'll fool your friend!" he laughed, twenty minutes later when they had
climbed a steep ridge and the winded horses had dropped into a walk.
"I'll fool him!"
He drew Bayard's automatic, which he had taken from Ann, and looked it
over in crafty anticipation.
Ann, after her night and her day of hardship, of ceaseless anxiety,
could not cry out. A sound started but went dry and dead in her throat.
She sat lax in her saddle, worn and confused and suddenly indifferent.
She had been defiant yesterday afternoon for a time; she had been
frightened later; with cunning she had scratched her warning on Abe's
saddle and with like strategy she had managed to set the great horse
free when they were preparing for their early morning start from the
Boyd ranch. She had withstood her husband's taunts flung at her through
their sleepless night, she had taken in silence his abuse when it became
necessary to secure another horse; beside him she had ridden in silence
down the valley, knowing him for a crazed man. And now sight of Bayard,
the sense of relief that his nearness brought, the sudden fear for his
safety at seeing the pistol, reduced her to helplessness.
"You wait here," she heard her husband say.
He followed the order with a threat of some sort, a threat against her
life she afterward remembered, dismounted and walked away. At the time
his departure left no impression on her. She sat limp in her saddle a
long interval, then leaned forward and, face in her horse's mane, gave
way to sobbing. The vent for that emotion was relief; how long she cried
she did not know, but suddenly she found herself on the ground, looking
about, alive to the fact that the silence seemed like that of death.
* * * * *
Cautiously, Lytton crept up over the rocks after he left Ann. His
movements gave no hint of his recent weakness; they were quick and
jerky, but certain. His lids were narrowed and between them his eyes
showed balefully. He held his weapon in his right hand, slightly
elevated, ready to shoot. Moisture formed on his forehead and ran down
over his cheeks. Now and then his gun hand trembled spasmodically and
then he halted until it was firm again.
He knew these rocks well and took no chances of exposing himself. He
slunk from tree to boulder and from boulder to brush, always making
nearer camp, always ready for an emergency. He attained a point where he
could look down on the cabin below him and stood there a long time, half
crouched, poised, scanning every corner, every shadow. The corral was
hidden from him and Abe, lying under a spreading juniper tree, was out
of his range of vision. He listened as he watched but no sound came to
him. Then he went on, down the ragged way.
At intervals of every few feet he halted and listened, repressing even
his own breath that he might hear the slightest sound. But no movement,
no vibration disturbed that crystal noontime until he had gone halfway
to the red-roofed house below the dump. Then a bird fluttered from close
beside him: a soft, abrupt, diminishing whirr of wings and the man
shrank back against the rock, lifting his gun hand high, breath hissing
as it slipped out between his teeth, the craven in him shaking his
limbs, gripping his throat. Discovery of what had startled him brought
only slow relief, and minutes elapsed before he straightened and laughed
silently to shame his nerves to steadiness.
A stone, loosened by his foot, rolled down before him to the next ledge,
rattling as it went, and he squatted quickly, again afraid, yet alert.
For he felt that noise emanating from his movements would precipitate
developments. But nothing moved, no new sounds came to him.
He was not certain that Bayard had seen them out on the valley. He did
not know of his wife's message for help; in his confused consciousness
he had supposed that the cowman had ridden to the mine on some covetous
errand and that Bruce was ignorant of the fact that he and Ann had left
the Circle A. He did not even stop to remember that Bayard had come into
sight and disappeared through the timber on Abe, and that the stallion
had slipped away from them before dawn. He had leaped to the conclusion
that Bruce would be in the log house down yonder or somewhere about the
property. So he stalked on, lips dry and hot with the desire to kill....
Lytton approached to within ten yards of the cabin without hearing more
sounds. There he straightened to his toes and stretched his neck to look
about, peering over the tops of oak brush that flourished in the scant
soil, and, as he reached his full height, the sharp sound of a chair
scraping on the floor sent him to a wilting, quivering squat, caused his
breath to come in gasps, made his hands sweat until the pistol he held
was slippery with their moisture. His head roared with excitement, but
through it he thought he heard the sound of a man's voice lifted in
speech.
No window was visible to him from his position. The back door of the
kitchen stood open, he could see, but his view of the room through it
was negligible. At the other end of the room was a door and a window,
but he dared not risk advance from that direction. He crouched there,
panting, fearing, yet planning quickly, driven to desperation by the
urge of the hate which rankled in him. Bruce Bayard had attempted to
steal his wife, he repeated to himself, he had attempted to frighten him
away from his other property, his mine, and he was roused to a pitch of
nervous excitement that carried him beyond the caution of mental balance
and yet did not stimulate him to the abandon of actual madness. He
wanted Bayard's life with all the lust that can be stirred in men by an
outraging of the sense of possession and the passion of jealousy ...
beyond which there can be no destroying desire.
No other sounds came from the house, but he was satisfied that the man
waiting within was his man and he skulked from the brush, choosing his
footing with care, treading on the balls of his feet, preventing the
stiff branches from slapping noisily together by his cautious left hand.
Slow, cat-like in his movements, he covered the distance to the cabin,
flinging out an arm on the last step as though he were falling and with
it steadying himself against the log wall of the building, where he
balanced a moment, becoming steady.
He strained to listen and caught sounds of a man's breath expelled in
grunts. The doorway was not six feet from the place where he had halted
and he eyed it calculatingly, noting the footing he must cross, licking
his lips, eyes strained wide open. He took the first step forward and
halted, hand against the wall still to maintain his balance; then on
again, lifting the foot slowly, setting it down with great pains,
putting his weight on it carefully....
And then nervous tension snapped. He could no longer hold himself back
and with a lunge he reached the door, gripped the casing with his left
hand and, crouching, swung himself into the doorway, pistol extended
before him, coming to a halt with an inarticulate, sobbing cry that
might have been hate or chagrin or only fright.... For the man he
covered with that weapon was a stranger, an individual he had never seen
before, sitting in a chair, back to him, his pale, startled face turned
over the near shoulder, giving the intruder frightened gaze for
frightened gaze.
For a moment Lytton remained swaying in the doorway, bewildered, unable
to think. Then, he saw that the other man was bound to his chair, his
hands behind him, and he let go his hold on the casing, straightened
and put one foot over the threshold. He spoke the first words,
"Who are you?"--in a tone just above a whisper, leaning forward, sensing
in a measure an explanation of this situation. And because of this
intuitive flash of comprehension, he did not give the other opportunity
to answer his first question, but said quickly, lowly, "What are you
doing here?"
Benny looked at him, studying, a covered craftiness coming into his face
to obliterate the anxiety, the rebelliousness that had been there. His
semi-hysteria was gone, his cold, hard determination to carry his
mission to its conclusion had reasserted itself but covered, this time,
by cunning. He realized what had happened, knew that Lytton had expected
to find another there, he saw that he was ready to kill on sight, and in
the situation the miner read a way out for himself, a method of
attaining his own ends. So he said,
"I'm takin' a little rest; can't you see?"--ironical in his answer to
Lytton's question, impatient when he put his own counter query.
He wrenched at the bonds angrily and, partly from the exertion, partly
from the rage that rose within him, his face colored darkly.
Lytton stepped further into the room, approaching Lynch's chair, looking
closely into his face, gun hand half lowered.
"Who tied you up?" he asked in a whisper, for his mind was centered
about a single idea; the probable presence of Bayard and his relation to
this man who was some one's prisoner.
Benny looked down at the floor and leaned over and again tugged at the
knots for he dared not reveal his face as he growled,
"A damn dirty cowpunch!"
The other man said nothing; waited, obviously for more information.
"His name's Bayard," Benny muttered.
He rendered the impression that he regarded that specific information as
of no consequence, but he heard the catch of a sound in Lytton's throat
and saw him shift his footing nervously.
"How long ago?" he asked.
"Too damn long to sit here like this!"--in anger that was not simulated,
for with every word that passed between them, Benny felt his reason
slipping, felt that if this situation continued long enough he must rise
with the chair bound fast to him and try to do harm to this other man.
"Where'd he go?"
Lytton bent low as he whispered excitedly and his gun hand hung loosely
at his side.
Benny shook his head.
"I dunno," he said. "He went off some'res, but he won't be gone long,
that's a good bet! He was up to somethin'--God knows what. Guess he
thought I'd spoil it."
He looked up and saw the glitter of Lytton's eyes.
"Up to something is he?" Lytton laughed, dryly, repeating Lynch's words.
"Up to something! He's always up to something. He's been up to something
for weeks, the wife stealing whelp ... and now if I know what I'm
talking about, he's up _against_ something!"
"Wife stealer, is he?" Benny laughed as he put that question and was
satisfied when he saw Ned's jaw muscles bulge. "That's his latest, is
it?"
Lytton looked at him pointedly.
"You know him pretty well, too?" he asked.
"Know him! Do I know him? Look at this!"--with a slight lift of his
bound hands. "That's how much I know him.... I seem to have a fair
enough acquaintance, don't I?
"Say, _hombre_, you turn me loose an' set here an' I'll pack him in to
you ... on my back ... if you're lookin' for him that way!"
Lytton looked quickly about; then stood still to listen; the silence was
not broken and he stared back at the bound man, a new interest in his
face, as he framed his hasty diplomacy.
"Do you mean you've ... got a fight with this man? With Bayard?"
Benny moved from side to side in his chair and forced a laugh.
"Have I?" he scoffed. "Have I? You just wait until I get loose an' get
my fingers on _him_. You'll think it's a fight, party.... But I'm in a
fine way to do anythin' now!"
He looked through the front doorway, out down the sharp draw that the
trail to the valley followed. Lytton stepped nearer to him and as he
spoke his voice became eager and rapid,
"I've a quarrel with him, too!" The craven in him drove him forward to
this newly offered hope, the hope of finding an ally, some one to share
his burden of responsibility, some one he could hide behind, some one,
perhaps, who might be inveigled into doing his fighting for him. "I came
here to hunt him down. When I came down that hill there,"--gesturing--"I
thought he was in here because I heard your chair move on the floor.
When I jumped through that door and covered you, I expected he'd be here
and that I'd ... Well, that I'd square accounts with him for good....
"I don't know what your fight with him is, but he's abused you; he's got
you hogtied now. That you've a fight of some sort with him is enough for
me.... Aren't two heads better than one?"--insinuatingly.
The miner forced himself to meet that inquiring gaze steadily, but his
expression of delight, of triumph, which came into his face was not
forced, was not counterfeit, and he growled quickly:
"I don't need any man's help in my fight ... when I got an even chance.
My troubles are my own an' I'll tend to 'em, but, if you want to do me a
favor, you'll cut these damn straps ... you'll give me a chance to
fight, man to man!"
He did not lie with those words; his inference might have been deception
but that chance to fight man to man was the dearest privilege he could
have been offered.
No primitive urge to punish with his own hands a man who had crossed him
made itself paramount with Lytton; he wanted Bayard to suffer, but the
means did not matter. If he could cause him injury and avoid the
consequence of personal accountability, so much the better, and it was
with a grunt of relief and triumph that he shoved the automatic into the
waist band of his pants, drew a knife from his pocket and grasped the
tightly knotted straps.
"You bet, I'll help anybody against that dirty--
"Sit still!" he broke off, as Benny, quivering with excitement, strained
forward. "I'm likely to cut you if--"
The blade slashed through the leather. Lynch floundered to his feet,
free, alone in the room with the man he had deliberately planned to
kill, and the overwhelming sense of impending achievement swept all
caution from him.
He stumbled a step or two forward after the suddenly parting of the
straps set him free and then turned about to face Lytton, who stood
beside the chair closing his knife. Behind the Easterner was the
cupboard on which Bayard had placed Benny's gun, and the miner's first
idea should have been to restrain himself, to keep on playing a
strategic game, to move carefully, deliberately until he was armed and
could safely show his hand.
But such control was an impossibility. He faced Ned Lytton who stood
there with an evil smile on his lips, and all the love for his dead
father, all the outraged sense of property rights, all the brooding, the
waiting, the accumulated tension caused something in him to swell until
he felt a choking sensation, until the hate came into his face, until he
drew his clenched fists upward and shook his head and bellowed and
charged, madly, blindly, wanting only to have his hands on his enemy, to
take his life as the first men took the lives of those who had done them
wrong! The feel of perishing flesh in his palms ... that was what he
wanted!
With a shrill cry of fright, Lytton saw what happened. He saw the change
come over the face, the body, the manner of this man before him, saw
Lynch gather himself for the rush and, whipping his hand down to his
stomach as he backed and tried to run, he clutched for the weapon that
would defend him from this new foe.
But the hand did not close on the pistol butt then. His wrist was caught
in the clamp of incredibly powerful fingers that bound about it and
wrenched it backward; the other hand was pinned to his side by an
encircling arm and the breath was beaten from him as Lynch's impact
sent them crashing into the wall.
"You will, will you?" Benny snarled thickly. "Cheat an' steal an' ...
lie."
They strained so for a moment, faces close together, the eyes of the
miner glittering hate, those of Lytton reflecting the mounting fear,
that possessed him.
"Who are you?" he screamed. "You ... you snake!"
"I'm Lynch ... Lynch! Son of an old man you cheated an' killed!" Benny
shouted. "I've waited for years for this.... 'T was Bayard, th' man you
hunted, tied me up so I couldn't ... kill you. But you ... walked into
your own trap...."
"You sna--"
Lytton's word was cut off by the jerk the miner gave him, dragging him
to the center of the floor, bending him backward, struggling to hold him
with one hand and secure the pistol with the other. Ned screamed again
and drew his knee up with a vigorous snap, jamming it into Benny's
stomach, sending the breath moaning from him. For the following moment
Lytton held the upper hand but Lynch clung to him instinctively,
unthinkingly, wrapping his arms and legs about Ned's body with a
determination to save himself until he could beat down the sickness that
threatened to overwhelm him. He did hold on, but his grip had lost some
of its strength and, when his vision cleared and his mind became agile
again, he felt Lytton's hand between their bodies, knew that it had
fastened on the weapon it had been seeking. He rallied his every force
to overcome that handicap.
Ned's gun hand came free and he flung himself sideways in an effort to
turn and yank himself from Lynch, but the miner closed on him, caught
the forearm again in a mighty clamp of fingers and swept him smashing
against the one window of the room. The glass went out with a crash and
a jingle and the tough, dry wood of the frame snapped with a succession
of sharp reports. Blood gushed down Lytton's cheek where a jagged pane
had scratched the flesh as it fell and Lynch was conscious that warm
moisture spread over his own upper left arm.
The Easterner braced against the window sill and grunted and squirmed
until he forced his adversary back a body's breadth.... Then he kicked
sharply, viciously and his boot toe crunched on Lynch's shin, sending a
paralyzing pain through the limb. They swirled and staggered to the far
end of the room in their struggles, the one bent on holding the other's
body close to his to controvert its ceaseless efforts to worm away; and
above their heads was the gun, gripped by fingers that were in turn
clinched in a huge, calloused palm and rendered helpless.
"You snake!" Lytton cried again, and flung his head up sharply, catching
Lynch under the chin with a sharp click of bone on bone.
They poised an instant at that, lurched clumsily against the stove and
sent it toppling from its legs while the pipe sections rattled hollowly
down about them, and a cloud of soot rose to fill their eyes. They
lunged into the wall again and hung against it a long, straining moment,
breathless in their efforts; then, grunting as Lytton wriggled violently
to escape, Benny steadily tightened his hold on him.
Intervals of dogged waiting followed, after which came frantic
contortions as they lost and gathered strength again. Lytton's face was
covered with blood and some of it smeared on Lynch's cheek. Sweat made
their flesh glisten and then became mud as the soot mantled them.
Occasionally one called out in a curse, or in an exclamation of pain,
but much of the time their jaws were set, their lips tight, for both
knew that this fight was to the end; that their battle could finish in
but one of two ways.
Each time they faced the cupboard Benny shot a glance at its top. His
gun was there; to reach it was his first hope, but he dared not
relinquish for a fractional second his dogged grip on the other man's
hand.
Lytton renewed his efforts, kicking and bunting. They waltzed awkwardly
across the floor on a diagonal and Benny, backing swiftly on to the
overturned chair to which he had been bound, tripped and lost his
balance again. They went down with mingled cries, Lytton on top. For an
instant he retained the position and threatened to break away, but Benny
rolled over, hooking the other's limbs to helplessness with his own. He
withdrew his right arm from about Lytton's waist and grappled for the
man's throat while Ned writhed and kicked, flung his head from side to
side and struck desperately with his own free fist against the
throttling fingers. He loosed one leg and threshed it frantically, found
a bearing point against the wrecked stove, bowed his body with a
wracking effort and for an instant was out from under, restrained only
by the hot, hard fingers about his gun hand. He strove to reach up and
transfer the pistol to his left, but Benny was the quicker and they rose
to their feet, scrambling and snarling as they sought fresh holds.
Lynch had the advantage of weight but Lytton's agility offset the
handicap. His muscles might not be able to endure so long a strain, but
they responded more quickly to his thoughts, took lightninglike
advantage of any opportunity offered. The fact enraged Benny and, giving
way to it, he called on his precious reserve of energy for a super
effort, lifted Ned from his feet and spun about as though he would dash
his body against the wall. But Ned met this new move with the strength
of the frenzied, and, when they had made three-quarters of the turn,
Lynch was overbalanced; he stumbled, lurched and with a crash and a rip
they went against the battered old cupboard.
The jolt steadied the men, but the big fixture, rocking slowly, went
over sideways with a smash of breaking dishes and a rattling, banging of
pans. And from its top, spinning and sliding across the cluttered floor,
went Benny's big blue Colt gun.
Both men saw at once and on sight of that other weapon their battle
became reversed. Lynch, glassy eyed, struggled to extricate himself now,
to retain his hold on Lytton's hand that held the automatic, but to free
his other, to stoop and recover his own revolver. Ned understood fully
on the first move. He wrenched repeatedly to gain use of the automatic,
but he clung with arms and legs and teeth to Lynch ... wherever he could
find purchase. He succeeded at first in working the fight back into a
corner away from the revolver, but his strength was not lasting.
Benny redoubled his efforts and slowly they shifted again toward the
center of the room where the reflected sunlight made the blue metal of
the Colt glisten as it lay in the wreckage. They both breathed aloud now
and Lytton moaned at each acute effort he made to meet and check his
enemy's moves. With painful slowness, with ominous steadiness, they made
back toward Lynch's objective, inch by inch, zigzagging across the
floor, hesitating, swaying backward, but always keeping on. The violence
of their earlier struggle had departed; they were more deliberate, more
cautious, but the equality of their ability had gone. Lytton was
yielding.
Benny got to within four feet of the revolver, gained another hand's
breadth by a strain that set the veins of his forehead into purple
welts. He bent sideways, forcing Ned's right hand with its pistol slowly
down toward the floor. Then, with a slip and a scramble, Lytton left
off his restraining hold, flung himself backward, spun his body about
and with a cry of desperation put every iota of energy into an attempt
to wrest his right hand from Benny's clutch.
Lynch let him go, but with a motive; for as he released his grip, he
swung his right fist mightily, following it with the whole weight of his
falling body. The blow caught Lytton on the back of the neck, staggered
him, sent him pitching sideways toward the doorway and as Lynch,
pouncing to the floor on hands and knees, fastened his fingers on his
gun, Ned flashed a look over his shoulder, saw, knew that he could never
turn and fire in time, and plunged on through the doorway, falling face
downward into the dust, rolling over and fronting about ... out of the
miner's sight ... pistol covering the door and broken window where Benny
must appear ... if he were to appear.
And the miner, within the ruined room, knees bent, torso doubled
forward, gun in his hand, cocked, uplifted, waited for some sound, some
indication from out there. None came and he straightened slowly, backing
against the wall, wiping the sweat from his eyes one at a time that his
vigilance might not be relaxed, gun ready to belch the instant Lytton
should show himself ... if he were to show himself.
So they watched, hidden from one another, each knowing that his enemy
waited only for him to make a move, each aware that he could not bring
the other into range without exposing himself. After the bang and
clatter of their hand to hand struggle, the silence was oppressive, and
Benny, head turned to catch the slightest sound, thought that he could
hear the quick come and go of Lytton's breath.
The man inside quivered with impatience; the one who waited in that
white sunlight cowered and paled as the flush of exertion ebbed from his
daubed face. Benny, whose whole purpose in life centered about squaring
his account, as he saw it, with the man outside yearned to show himself,
but held back, not through fear of harm, but because he knew that the
fulfillment of his mission depended wholly upon his own bodily welfare.
Lytton, quailing before the actual presence of great danger, of meeting
a foe on equal footing, of fighting without resort to surprise or
fouling, wanted to be away, to be quit of the place at any cost. He
would have run for it, but he knew that the sounds of his movements
would bring Lynch on his heels. He would have attempted to get away by
stealth but he feared that he might encounter Bayard in any direction.
He did not stop to think that he had no reason for fearing the cowman;
his very guilt, his subconscious disrespect of self, made him regard an
open meeting with Bruce as one of danger.
So for many minutes, the tension of the situation becoming greater, more
unbearable with each pulse beat.
Then sounds--faint at first. The rattle of a stone rolling over rock,
the distant swish of brush. A silent interval, followed by the sound of
a gasping cough; then, the faint, clear ring of a spur as the boot to
which it was strapped set itself firmly on solid footing.
Within the house Lynch could not hear, but Lytton, alert to every
possibility, dreading even the sound of his own breathing, turned his
head sharply....
There, below, making up the trail as fast as his exhausted limbs could
carry him, came Bruce Bayard, hat in one hand, arms swinging widely as
he strained to climb faster. He turned an angle of the trail and for the
space of thirty yards the way led across a ledge of smooth, flat rock,
screened by no trees and bearing no vegetation whatever.
Fear again retreated from Lytton's heart before a fresh rush of wrath
that blinded him and made him heedless. He whirled, leaving off his
watching of the cabin door and window. His gun hand came up, slowly,
carefully, while he gritted his teeth to steady his muscles. He sighted
with care, bringing all his knowledge of marksmanship to bear that there
should be no error, that no possible luck of Bayard's should avail him
anything....
And from above and behind the cabin rose a woman's voice:
"Look out, Bruce!"
Just those words, but the bell-like quality of the voice itself, the
horror in its shrill tone carrying sharply to them, echoing and
re-echoing down the gulch, struck a chill to the hearts of three men.
The words had not left Ann's lips before the automatic in Ned's hand
leaped and flashed and the echo of the woman's warning cry was followed
by the smashing reverberations of the shot. But her scream had availed;
it had sent a tremor through Lytton's body even as he fired, and, as
Bayard halted abruptly in the center of the open space without barrier
before him or weapon with which to answer, absolutely at Lytton's mercy,
his hat was torn from his left hand.
"You whelp!" Ned cried, and on the word took one more step forward,
halted, dropped the weapon on its mark again and paused for the merest
fraction of time. His muscles became plastic, as steady as stone under
the strain of this crisis. He did not hear the quick step on the kitchen
floor, he could not see Benny Lynch half fall through the doorway, but
when the miner's gun, held stiffly out from his hip, roared and belched
and remained steady, ready to shoot again, Ned lowered the weapon just a
trifle.
A queer, strained grin came over his face and, standing erect, he turned
his head stiffly, jerkily toward Benny who stood crouched and waiting.
Then, very slowly, almost languidly, his gun hand lowered itself. When
it was almost beside his thigh, the fingers opened and the pistol
dropped with a light thud to the earth. Ned lifted the other hand to his
chest and still grinning, as if a joke had been made at his expense
which quite embarrassed him, he let his knees bend as though he would
kneel. He did not follow out the movement. He wilted and fell. He tried
to sit up, feebly, impotently. Then, he lay back with a quick sigh.
The other two men stood fixed for a moment. Then, with a cry, Bayard
started up the slope at a run. He did not look again at Benny, did not
know that the miner walked slowly forward to where Lytton had fallen.
All he saw was the figure of a hatless woman, face covered with her
hands, leaning against a great boulder twenty yards above the cabin, and
he did not take his eyes from her during one step of the floundering
run.
"Ann!" he called, as he drew near. "Ann!"
She turned with a quick, terrified movement and looked at him. He saw
that her face was a mask, her eyes feverishly dry.
"He didn't--"
"No, Ann, he didn't," he answered, taking her hands in his, his voice
unsteady. "Benny ... he fired last ... an' there'll be no more
shootin'...."
She swayed toward him.
"I sent for you," she began, brushing the hair out of her eyes with the
back of one hand.
"An' I came, Ann."
"I ... It was only chance ... that I saw him and ... screamed...."
"But you did; an' it saved me."
"I sent for you, Bruce.... To take me away ... from Ned.... To take me
away from him ... with you...."
She stepped closer and with a quivering sigh lifted her arms wearily and
clasped them about his neck, while Bayard, heart pounding, gathered her
body close against his as the tears came and great convulsions of grief
shook her.
He leaned back against the rock, holding her entire weight in his arms,
and they were there for minutes, his lips caressing her hair, her
temples, her cheeks. Her crying quieted, and, when she no longer sobbed
aloud, he turned his head to look downward.
Benny Lynch was just then straightening from a stooping posture beside
Lytton. He turned away, took a cartridge from his belt, slipped it into
the chamber from which the empty piece of smoky brass had been removed
and shoved the gun back into his holster. As it went home, he looked
down at it curiously, stared a moment, drew it out again and examined it
slowly, first one side, then the other. He shook his head and threw the
weapon down the gulch, where it clattered on the rocks. After that, he
walked toward the house, and about his movements was an indication of
the sense of finality, of accomplishment, that filled him.
"I'll take you away, Sweetheart," Bayard whispered, gently. "But it
won't be necessary to take you ... away from Ned...."
She shrank closer against him.