NEAL TAGGART VISITS
When a little later Betty heard hoof-beats in the ranchhouse yard--the
sounds of a horseman making a leisurely approach--she left the door and
went out upon the porch.
She knew who the horseman was; she had seen him from the window of her
room when she had gone upstairs to get the money for Calumet. More
than once she had seen the sheriff coming over the hill--the same hill
upon which Calumet and Neal Taggart had fought their duel--and she
recognized the familiar figure. On his previous visits to the
ranchhouse, however, Toban had left his horse in the timber clump near
the house. She was not surprised, though, to hear him coming into the
ranchhouse yard tonight, for his errand now was different.
Toban had evidently intended to hitch his pony to the corral fence, for
it was toward it that he was directing the animal, when he caught sight
of Betty on the porch and rode up beside her.
"What's up?" he inquired, leaning over in the saddle and peering
closely at her; "you look flustered. Where's Marston?"
"Gone," she told him.
He straightened. "Gone where?" he demanded.
"Away--forever," she said weakly. "He heard you were after him
for--for killing that man Sharp--and he left."
Toban cursed. "So he got wind of it, did he? The Taggarts must have
gassed about it. Marston told you, did he? Why didn't you keep him
here? He didn't kill Sharp!"
"I know it," she said; "he told me he didn't, and I believed him. He
said you had a warrant for his arrest; that you were coming for him,
and I was afraid that if you met him out on the range somewhere there
would be shooting. I knew if I could keep him here until you came you
would be able to fix it up some way--to prove his innocence. I was so
glad, when I ran upstairs to get some money for him and looked out of
the window. For you were coming. But he wouldn't stay."
Toban dismounted and stood in front of her, his eyes probing into hers.
"I've got evidence that he didn't kill Sharp," he said; "I saw the
whole deal. But I reckon," he added, a subtle gleam in his eyes, "that
it's just as well that he's gone--he was a heap of trouble while he was
here, anyway, wasn't he?"
"No," she said quickly, defiantly; "he--" She broke off and looked at
him with wide eyes. "Oh," she said with a quavering laugh; "you are
poking fun at me. You liked him, too; you told me you did!"
"I reckon I like him," said Toban, his lips grimming; "I like him well
enough not to let him pull his freight on account of the Taggarts.
Why, damn it!" he added explosively; "I was his father's friend, an' I
ain't seein' him lose everything he's got here when he's innocent.
Which way did he go?"
There was a wild hope in her eyes; she was breathing fast. "Oh," she
said; "are you going after him? He went to the Arrow--first. He told
me he was going to kill the Taggarts. Then he is going to get out of
the Territory. Oh, Toban, catch him--please! I--"
Toban laughed. "I ain't been blind, girl," he said; "the talks I've
had with you in old Marston's office have wised me up to how things
stand between you an' him. I'll ketch him, don't worry about that.
That black horse of his is some horse, but he ain't got nothin' on my
old dust-thrower, an' I reckon that in fifteen miles--"
He was climbing into the saddle while talking, and at his last word he
gave the spurs to his horse, a strong, clean-limbed bay, and was away
in a cloud of dust.
Betty watched him, her hands clasped over her breast, her body rigid
and tense, her eyes straining, until she saw him vanish around the bend
in the trail; and then for a long time she stood on the porch, scanning
the distant horizon, in the hope that she might again see Toban and be
assured that nothing had happened to him. And when at last she saw a
speck moving swiftly along a distant rise, she murmured a prayer and
went into the house.
When she closed the kitchen door and stood against it, looking around
the room, she was afflicted with a depressing sense of loss, and she
realized fully how Calumet had grown into her life, and what it would
mean to her if she lost him. He had been mean, cruel, and vicious, but
he had awakened at last to a sense of his shortcomings; he was like a
boy who had had no training, who had grown wild and ungovernable, but
who, before it had become too late, had awakened to the futility, the
absurdity, the falseness of it all, and was determined to begin anew.
And she felt--as she had felt all along--even when she had seen him at
his worst--that she must mother him, must help him to build up a new
structure of self, must lift him, must give him what the world had so
far denied him--his chance. And she sat at the table and leaned her
head in her arms and prayed that Toban might overtake him before he
reached the Arrow. For she did not want him to come back to her with
the stain of their blood on his hands.
She was startled while sitting at the table, for she heard a sound from
the sitting-room, and she got up to investigate. But it was only Bob,
who, hearing the sounds made by Toban and herself, had come to
investigate. She urged him to return to his room and to bed, and
kissed him when he started up the stairs, so warmly that he looked at
her in surprise.
She returned to the kitchen, sitting at the table and watching the
clock. A half hour had elapsed since Toban's departure when she heard
the faint beat of hoofs in the distance, and with wildly beating heart
got up and went out on the porch.
For a moment she could not determine the direction from which the
sounds came, but presently she saw a rider approaching from the
direction of the river, and she stepped down from the porch and
advanced to meet him. She feared at first that it was Toban returning
alone, and she halted and stood with clenched hands, but as the rider
came closer she saw it was not Toban but an entire stranger. She
retreated to the porch and watched his approach.
He was a cowboy and he rode up to the edge of the porch confidently,
calling to her when he came close enough to make himself heard.
"My name's Miller," he said, taking his hat off and showing her the
face of a man of thirty--"Harvey Miller. Me an' my side-kicker was
drivin' a bunch of Three Bar beeves to Lazette an' we was fools enough
to run afoul of that quicksand at Double Fork, about five miles down
the crick. We've bogged down about forty head an' I've come for help.
You got any men around here?"
"Oh," she said; "how careless you were! Didn't you know the quicksand
was there?"
"I ain't been runnin' this range a whole lot," said the puncher
uneasily; "but I reckon even then I ought to be able to nose out a
quicksand. But I didn't, an' there's forty beeves that's goin' to
cow-heaven pretty soon if somethin' ain't done. If you've got any men
around here which could give us a lift, we'd be pleased to thank you."
"Of course," she said. "Wait!"
She went into the house and to the stairs where she called to Dade and
Malcolm, and presently, rubbing their eyes, the two came down. They
were eager to assist the puncher in his trouble and without delay they
caught up the two horses that Calumet had bought soon after his coming
to the ranch, saddled and bridled them and rode out of the yard.
The unfortunate puncher did not wait for them. When they had announced
their intention of helping him, he had told them that he would ride on
ahead to help his partner, leaving them to follow as soon as they could.
"I reckon you know where it is," was his parting word to them. "Double
Fork. I reckon I'll know it again when I see it," he added, grimly
joking.
Betty watched Dade and Malcolm as they rode away. From the porch she
could follow their movements until they traveled about a mile of the
distance toward Double Fork. She saw them vanish into the wood, and
when she could see them no longer she turned and went into the house.
She went to the chair in which she had previously been sitting, resting
her arms on the table, but she was too nervous, too excited, to sit and
she presently got up and stood, looking anxiously at the face of the
clock on a shelf in a corner.
Toban had been gone a full hour, and she wondered if by this time he
had overtaken Calumet, or whether Calumet was racing ahead of him on
his way to execute vengeance upon the Taggarts. She was praying mutely
that Toban might overtake him before this could happen when she heard a
slight sound behind her and turned swiftly to see Neal Taggart standing
in the doorway, grinning at her.
The room darkened before her eyes as she swayed weakly and caught at
the table to support herself, and when she finally regained control of
herself she forced herself to stand erect. There was a great fear in
her heart, but she fought it down and faced Taggart with some semblance
of dignity and composure.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded; "what do you want?"
Taggart's face wore an evil smile. Before answering her he fastened
the door behind him, left it and went to the sitting-room door, peered
quickly into the room and swung the door shut, barring it. Betty stood
beside the table, watching him with a sort of fascination, a little
color now in her face, though she lacked the power to speak or to
interfere with Taggart's movements.
When he had barred the sitting-room door he came and stood beside the
table, and there was a repulsive, insulting leer on his face as he
looked down at her.
"Do you know what I came here for?" he said.
"No," she answered.
He reached out suddenly and grasped her hands, pulling her roughly over
to him. She gave a startled cry and then stood silent before him,
slender and white, a subdued little figure dwarfed by his huge bulk,
seemingly helpless.
"I'll tell you," he said, the strange hoarseness of deep passion in his
voice. "Me an' my dad are leavin' the country tonight. We sold the
Arrow today, an' by this time tomorrow we'll be among the missin' in
this section of the country. But there's some things to be done before
we pull our freight. You think you've been damned slick about the
idol--you an' that mule-kickin' shorthorn, Calumet Marston! But we've
fooled you," he continued with a short, ugly laugh; "fooled you clean!
Mebbe you know this, an' mebbe you don't. But I'm tellin' you. We set
Telza, the Toltec, an' Sharp to get the diagram of the place where the
idol is. They didn't get it because the clearin' ain't dug up any.
Telza knifed Sharp an' he's sloped, likely figgerin' that this country
ain't healthy for him any more. You've got the diagram an' I want it.
I'm goin' to get it if I have to kill you to get it! Understand!
"You've got no chance," he sneered, as she looked around the room
furtively, hopelessly. "We framed up a murder charge on Calumet and
we've been in the timber since dark waitin' for the sheriff to come an'
get him. We saw him hit the breeze toward the Arrow, an' we saw the
sheriff go after him. Neither of them can be back here for hours yet,
an' when they do get back I'll have done what I've set out to do."
He laughed again, harshly, triumphantly. "Dade an' Malcolm bothered
me a bit until I thought of sendin' Harvey Miller here with that fairy
tale about the forty beeves bogged down in Double Fork, but I reckon
now--"
She gasped, comprehending the trap he had set for her, and his grip on
her hands tightened.
"Dade an' Malcolm can't get back for an hour yet," he gloated, "an' by
that time we'll be miles away." His voice changed from mockery to
savage determination. "I want that diagram, an' I want it right now,
or I'll tear you to pieces. Do you understand? I'll beat you up so's
your own mother wouldn't know you." His grip tightened on her arms,
they were twisted until she screamed with agony.
In this extremity her thoughts went to Calumet; she remembered vividly
what he had said about the idol when she had asked him why he did not
get it and convert it into cash. "I ain't so much stuck on monkeyin'
with them religious things," he had said. And she was certain that if
Calumet knew of her danger he would not have had her hesitate an
instant in relinquishing the diagram to Taggart.
The idol had brought him nothing but evil, anyway, and she was certain
that Calumet would not mourn its loss, even if Taggart were to be the
gainer by it, if its possession were to entail punishment, death,
perhaps, to her.
"Wait!" she cried as Taggart gave her arms an extra vicious twitch;
"you may have it!"
He released her with a greedy, satisfied grin and stood crouching and
alert while she turned her back to him and fumbled in her bodice, where
she had kept the diagram since the discovery of its former hiding place
by Telza.
She turned presently and gave him the paper, and he seized it eagerly
and examined it, gloating over it.
"That's it," he said; "that's the clearing!"
She was holding her arms, where he had squeezed them, her face flushed
with rage at the indignity he had offered her. She stood rigid,
defiant.
"If that is all you came for, you may go," she said; "go instantly!"
He jammed the paper into his pocket and grinned at her.
"It ain't all," he said. "I owe you somethin' for the way you've
treated me. I'm goin' to pay it. You've been too much of a lady to
talk to me, but you'll live here with that--"
He reached suddenly out and seized her hands again, attempting to throw
an arm around her. She evaded the arm and wrenched herself free,
slipping past him and darting to the other side of the table. He stood
opposite her, his hands on the table as he leaned toward her, grinning
at her, brutally and bestially, and pausing so as to prolong his
enjoyment of her predicament.
"I'll get you, damn you!" he said; "I've got the time and you can't get
out." He seized the kerosene lamp on the table and walking backward,
placed it on a shelf at the side of the wall near the stove. Then with
a chuckle of satisfaction and mockery he again went to the table
seizing its edge in his hands and shoving it against her so that she
was forced to retreat from its advance.
She divined instantly that he intended to force her against one of the
walls and thus corner her, and she opposed her strength to his, pushing
with all her power against the table in an effort to retard its advance.
It was to no purpose, for he was a strong man and his passions were
aroused, and in spite of her brave struggle the table continued to move
and she to retreat before it.
"Oh!" she said, in a panic of fear and dread, her face flushed, her
eyes wide and bright, her breath coming in great panting sobs; "Oh! you
beast! You beast!"
He did not answer. His eyes were burning with a wanton fire, they
glowed with the fierce, fell purpose of animal desire; he breathed
shrilly, rapidly, gaspingly, though the strength that he had been
compelled to use to overmatch hers had not been great.
She did not succeed in retarding the advance of the table, but she did
succeed in directing its course a little, so that instead of backing
her against the wall, as he no doubt intended to do, she brought up
finally against the stove in the corner.
There was a fire in the stove--she had kept it going to keep Calumet's
supper warm--and when she felt her body against it she reached around
and secured a flat iron. The handle burned her hand, but she lifted it
and hurled it with all her force at his head. He dodged, laughing
derisively. She seized another and threw it, and this he dodged also.
She was reaching for the teakettle when he shoved the table aside and
lunged at her, and she dropped the kettle with a scream of horror and
slipped around the stove to the wall near the sitting-room door,
reaching the latter and trying frantically to unbar it.
She heard Bob's voice on the other side of the door; he was calling,
"Betty! Betty!" in shrill, scared accents, and when Taggart leaped at
her, seizing her by the shoulders as she worked with the fastenings of
the door, she screamed to Bob to get the rifle from Malcolm's room,
directing him to go out the front way, go around to the kitchen and
shoot Taggart through one of the windows.
How long she struggled with Taggart there by the door she did not know.
It might have been an hour or merely a minute. But she fought him,
clawing at his face with her hands, biting him, kicking him. And she
remembered that he was getting the better of her, that his breath was
in her face and that he was dragging her toward the lamp on the shelf,
evidently intending to extinguish it--that he had almost reached it,
was, indeed, reaching a hand out to grasp it, when there came a flash
from the window, the crash of breaking glass, and the roar of an
exploding firearm.
She also remembered thinking that Bob had taken a desperate chance in
shooting at Taggart when she was so close to him, and she had a vivid
recollection of Taggart releasing her and staggering back without
uttering a sound. She caught a glimpse of his face as he sank to the
floor; there was a gaping hole in his forehead and his eyes were set
and staring with an expression of awful horror and astonishment. Then
the kitchen darkened, she felt the floor rising to meet her, and she
knew no more.