"But I rode over here especially to bring you back with me to stay a
while, a long while, as long as you like and longer." Thus Sally Jane,
looking injured.
Hazel shook her head. "Can't, dear. Honestly, I'd like nothing better
than to go a-visiting, but I've just got to look after the ranch."
Sally Jane gazed at her friend a moment in silence, then: "You don't
really have to stay here, Hazel. You only think you do. You'd much
better come over and stay with us. You know I'd love to have you, and
this is no place for you all alone by yourself this way. Suppose----"
"Who'd hurt me?" interrupted Hazel. "Anyway, I'm not going to be
driven off my own ranch by anybody. I'm going to stay here until I
find a buyer for the place."
"But that may be a year," objected Sally Jane.
"It may be several years. Money's awfully tight just now, the
Hillsville cashier said, the last time I was over."
"I don't care, somebody--some man ought to be here. Can't you get Ray
back earlier than usual?"
Hazel shook her head. "I don't want to, Sally Jane. He went east to
Missouri to visit his folks, and I'm not going to spoil his good time.
He'll be back in time for the spring round-up, though."
"That won't be till next month," objected Sally Jane. "Anything might
happen in the meantime. Land alive, just look at this afternoon!"
"Well, look at it. Not a thing happened to hurt, did it? Lord, Sally
Jane, men are the easiest things in the world to handle when you know
how."
"You don't give them half enough credit," said Sally Jane dryly.
"Scratch a man and you'll catch a savage every time. Beasts!"
"Rats!" remarked Hazel, and gave her head a toss and turned her
attention to practical things. "_Look_ at this clean floor! _Look_ at
the dirt they tracked in! Oh, the devil! I could swear!"
She fetched a fresh bucket of water and began to scrub the floor anew.
"I'm going," announced Sally Jane. "Once more, Hazel, won't you change
your mind and visit with us for a while?"
Hazel shook her head. "I only wish I felt able to. But you don't have
to go yet. Stay to supper, do. Let the male parent get his own supper
for a change. It won't hurt him. And there'll be a fine old moon
to-night about eight."
"I promised Dad French bread for to-night, or I would. I can't
disappoint him. So long. Ride over first chance you get."
When Sally Jane was gone, Hazel hurried to finish the scrubbing of the
floor. When she had wrung out the last mop rag and hung it to dry
behind the stove, she fed the chickens and horses, took the ax and
bucksaw, went out to the woodpile and sawed and split a man's size jag
of stove wood and kindling.
In the red glory of the sunset she returned to the house with her arms
piled high with wood. She made sufficient trips to fill the woodbox,
then started a fire in the stove, put on the coffeepot and ground up
enough coffee for four cupfuls. She liked coffee, did Hazel Walton.
Bacon and potatoes were sputtering in their respective pans on the
stove before it was so dark that she was forced to light the lamp.
She had slipped back the chimney into the clamps and was waiting for it
to heat so that she could turn up the wick when the faintest of creaks
at the door made her look up.
She did not move, just stood there staring stupidly at the bareheaded
man that blocked the open doorway. For the bareheaded man was Dan
Slike, his harsh face rendered even less prepossessing than usual by a
week's stubble of beard. A six-shooter was in Dan Slike's hand, and
the barrel was pointing at her breast.
"Don't go makin' any move toward that rifle on the hooks back of you,"
said Dan Slike, slipping into the room and closing the door behind him.
"If you do, I'll have to beef you. I don't wanna hurt you--I ain't in
the habit of hurting women, but by Gawd, if it comes to me or you, why
it'll just naturally have to be you. Dish up that grub a-frying there
on the stove. I'm hungry. Get a move on."
At that she turned in a flash and reached for the Winchester. She had
it barely off the hooks when Dan Slike was beside her. With his left
hand he seized the gun barrel and shoved it upward. And as he did so,
he smote her across the top of the head with his pistol barrel.
A rocketing sheaf of sparks danced before her eyes and her knees gave
way. She sank to the floor in a dazed heap. He dragged the Winchester
from her failing grasp as she fell.
He began to work the lever of the rifle with expert rapidity. A
twinkling stream of cartridges twirled against his chest and fell to
the floor. Carefully he gathered all the cartridges and dropped them
into the side pocket of his coat. The unloaded rifle he leaned against
the door jamb.
Hazel slowly raised her body to a sitting position. She clung to a leg
of the table for support. She passed a hand very tenderly across the
top of her head. She felt a little nauseated.
Dan Slike, watching her with hard, bright eyes, strode to the stove and
poured himself out a cup of coffee. He spaded in a spoonful of sugar
and stirred the mixture meditatively. But he did not cease to watch
her.
"You'll be all right in about ten minutes," he said calmly. "I didn't
hit you so awful hard. I didn't go to. Gawd, no! I figure always to
be as gentle with a woman as I can. No sense in bein' rougher than you
got to be, I say."
He drank the coffee slowly, with evident enjoyment.
"Nothing like coffee when your cork's pulled," he rambled on, sloshing
round the last of the coffee in the bottom of the cup. "It beats
whisky, but now that I've had the coffee I don't care if I do. Got a
bottle tucked away somewhere, li'l girl?"
She was still unable to speak. Her mouth had an odd, cottony feeling.
She shook her head in reply to his question.
"Is that so?" he said in the chatty tone he had been using. "I guess
maybe you're mistaken."
He set the cup down on the table, reached down and twisted his fingers
into her hair. With a yank that brought the tears springing to her
eyes, he said:
"About that bottle now--ain't you a mite mistaken? What's the matter?
Cat got your tongue?"
Again he pulled her hair, pulled it till the tears ran down her cheeks,
and she moaned and cried in purest agony.
"C'mon!" directed Dan Slike. "Quit your bluffin', you triflin' hussy!
You ain't hurt a-tall. And I can't stay here all night while you sit
on the floor and beller. Stand up on your two legs and bring me that
bottle. And no monkey business either. Say, have you got a
six-shooter? Answer me, have you?"
"No! No! I haven't! I haven't another gun." She told him this lie
in such a heart-breaking tone that he was constrained to believe her.
"I'll have to take your word for it," he grumbled. "But you remember,
girl, the first false move you make with a knife or anything else, I'll
blow you apart. Damn you, get up!"
With which he gave her hair such a terrific twist that the exquisite
pain expelled all her initial fear of him, and she leaped at him like a
wildcat, her nails curving at his eyes.
Dan Slike dodged backward, set himself and swung his right fist without
mercy. He was no boxer. The accurate placing of blows was beyond him.
So it was that the swing intended for her jaw landed on her cheekbone,
a much less vulnerable spot. Nevertheless the smash was enough to send
her spinning sidewise over a chair and piled her sicker and dizzier
than before in a corner of the room.
She lay still and panted.
"You see how it is," he pointed out. "You ain't gainin' a thing by
fighting me. Might as well be sensible first as last. But lemme tell
you if you keep on a-fussin' at me thisaway, I'll sure have to be rough
with you."
He sat down on the edge of the table and rolled a cigarette. Lighting
it he drew in a slow luxurious lungful.
"One thing I gotta say for your sheriff," he observed behind a barrier
of smoke, "he gimme plenty of tobacco while I was his guest. I can't
say but he took right good care of me--for a sheriff."
His incarceration having deprived Dan Slike of conversational
opportunities, he was now experiencing the natural reaction. He was
talking too much.
"Fed me well too," he resumed. "Oh, I ain't complainin'. I--Hell,
your grub's beginnin' to burn. I'll just move those frypans back.
Feelin' any better, girl?"
He came and stood over her, hands on hips, and looked down at her
grimly. She shrank away, her wide eyes fixed upon him in fright and
loathing.
It was evident that he found his survey of her satisfactory, for he
kicked her in the side. Not hard. Simply as an earnest of what lay in
store for her in case she chose to continue contumacious. "Get up," he
commanded.
The nausea and most of the dizzy feeling had evaporated. She was
perfectly able to get up, but it was intolerable that she should do the
bidding of her uncle's murderer. She continued to lie still.
"Get up!" he repeated, and kicked her again--harder.
She got up, gasping, a hand at her side. She felt as though one of her
ribs was broken. His long fingers fastened on the tender flesh of her
shoulder. He shoved her across the room. She brought up against the
stove. Instinctively she thrust out a hand to save herself. Her bare
palm smacked down upon the hottest stove lid.
She sprang back with a choked cry and clapped the burned hand to her
mouth.
Dan Slike laughed merrily--for him. "Serve you right. You're too damn
pernickety, anyway. Aw, whatcha blubberin' about, cry-baby? Dontcha
know enough to put some bakin' soda on the burn and tie a rag round it?
Ain't you got any brains a-tall? Pick up that kettle! Just pick it
up!"
Her unburned hand fell away from the kettle. She had seen the
six-shooter flash out at his last words. She knew now that this man
meant what he said. He would kill her, even as he had killed her uncle.
With a shudder that began at her knees and ended at the nape of her
neck she went to the cupboard and took out a carton of baking soda.
"Here," he said roughly, when he saw that she was making a poor job at
bandaging, "here, you can't tie that one-handed. Lemme."
He bandaged the hand, made fast the bandage with a too-tight knot. He
obviously lingered over the business, deriving pleasure from her state
of terror.
It has been shown that Hazel was not lacking in courage. Indeed, she
had more than the average woman's share of it. But this man staggered
her mentally. She did not know what he would do next and was in a
panic accordingly.
"Scared stiff," he remarked, as he twirled her about and headed her
toward the stove. "You don't like me a-tall, do you? Nemmine. Lessee
how your grub tastes."
She had set the table for herself before he came in. He sat down at
her place, his eyes bright upon her. Fumblingly she filled a plate
with bacon and fried potatoes. She brought him another cup of coffee
and placed the condensed milk and the sugar within his reach.
"Spoon," he said shortly.
She took the one from the cup he had just drunk from and handed it to
him. He caught her wrist. The spoon fell with a clatter.
"You're so scared of me, you can't hardly breathe," he said calmly. "I
don't like li'l girls to be scared of me, so you can just get you
another plate and cup and saucer and sit down there on the other side
of the table and eat your supper with me."
To eat supper with her uncle's murderer! Here was a grotesque jape of
fate. It was unthinkable. Absolutely. The man divined something of
what was passing in her mind.
"All in the line of business, li'l girl," he said, with a backward jerk
of his head toward the front room where he had killed her uncle. "I
didn't have a thing against him--personally."
"There were dishes here on the table," she babbled hysterically. "They
found them here after--after--showing how he'd fed you first, and----"
"Sure he fed me," he interrupted. "I was hungry, hungrier than I am
now. Alla same, you gotta eat supper with me. I want you to, and I
always get what I want."
He twisted her wrist to emphasize his wish. She uttered a little moan.
"Don't! Oh, don't hurt me any more! I'll do what you want."
Beaten, body and soul, she went to the cupboard and got herself plate
and cup and saucer, knife and fork and spoon. Her six-shooter was in
the next room, hanging in a holster on the wall. A loaded shotgun
stood at the head of her bed. But it is doubtful that even if the
weapon had been within short reach, she would have dared attempt to use
either. Dan Slike had scared her too much.
She sat down opposite the man and tried to eat. It required every atom
of will power to induce her throat muscles to permit her to swallow.
Dan Slike watched her with savage satisfaction. He found the situation
intensely amusing. To murder her uncle and later eat a meal with the
niece. What a joke!
"I haven't forgotten about that bottle," he remarked suddenly, pushing
back his chair. "You thought it had slipped my mind, I guess, didn't
you? I always have a drink after meals, or my victuals don't set good."
Without a word she went to the cupboard and brought back a bottle of
whisky. He took it from her and held it up against the lamplight.
"This is only half full," he said severely. "You got another round
somewhere?"