Bad Man's Gulch (16 page)

She pondered it at the end of the dreary day's work, when she sat in her room with her chin in her hand and her eyes sightless with thought. Not that she loved Billy Angel, instead. Indeed, what she felt for him was the strangest mixture of loathing, dread, horror, awe, scorn, and actual sharp-edged hatred. But the very strength of the emotion that stirred her when she thought of Billy Angel made her understand that the thrill that Steve Carney brought into her life was not real love. It was a pleasant feeling. It was compounded of various elements, not the least of which was pride that Steve, after all of his travels and his voyaging around the world, should have come back to her and offered her his heart.

But there was something else, something stronger, she told herself. If she could be so moved with hatred and all the rest toward Billy Angel, there must be the converse of those feelings tied together in one soul-stirring harmony—and that thing could be called love. If there were a man as pleasantly conversational as Billy Angel was blunt and terse, if there were a man as open-hearted as Billy Angel was secretive, if there were a man as genial and kind and generous as Billy Angel was cold and self-centered, then, added to these things, if there were a man as truly lion-hearted and indomitable as Billy
was, she knew that she would feel for him a true love that would sweep her off her feet.

There, after all, she had been able to put her finger upon the one attractive feature in the character of Angel—and that was his giant will, his giant courage that enabled him to go out, sick as he was, and strike down such a practiced fighter as Steve Carney. This was all.

But the moment she had come to this decision, she shook her head. There was something else in him—but what it was she could not tell.

Steve Carney did not wait for his fortune to be recovered from the hands of the mysterious Billy Angel. Instead, he disappeared from the town of Derby for thirty-six hours and came back again, affluent. Sue Markham blushed with shame when she heard of his success. Only the cards could explain it. No doubt, the cards had also explained the money that he brought back from overseas, for no matter in what land he worked, his tools were sure to be the same, always. The gold that he dug was brought to the surface in the same manner, at some silent table circled by grim-faced men watching the fall of the cards. But it seemed more honorable to have brought back his money from strange lands that were filled, perhaps, with strange crimes.

Only the sheriff still retained a hope that Billy Angel would be caught. He had worked himself to exhaustion and become a thin-faced, tight-lipped man. If he met Billy Angel, there would be no attempt to arrest a live man; it would be a swift and bitter battle to the death, and everyone knew it.

In the meantime, the girl watched a constant and
very rapid change in Billy Angel. She had not spoken of the time of departure. Neither had he ever referred to it. But each of them knew that the mind of the other was full of it. It seemed as though, by putting forth an extra effort of the mind, he was able to control the healing of his body, which went on apace. His color changed. His face filled a little. The strain was going from his expression. The wound on his arm had closed and was healing with amazing rapidity. A little longer and he would be himself.

The weather had changed again, for the tenth time in as many weeks. South winds prevailed. It seemed that the last wild rainstorm had drained every bit of moisture from the air. Every morning dawned crystal clear with the pale, blue mountain sky arched impalpably above the head of Derby. The wind was warm and dry, the surface of the ground drained. The riders down the street of Derby raised a little cloud of dust behind the heels of their horses.

It was on account of this still weather that she knew of the next move of Billy Angel. For, in the middle of the night, wakening suddenly, she was aware that someone was stirring in the house. Some noise had sounded. Some noise was sounding now, something felt rather than actually heard. But the faintest of tremors shook this upper floor of the house, as the effect of a soft but weighty footfall.

She waited only an instant. Instinct was working fast in her, not reason. She slipped from bed and dressed like lightning—dressed in time to hear the same sound go steadily down the stairs. Then a
creak
announced the footfall passing down the kitchen steps to the outdoors. She went to the window and craned her neck out to look down. There, below her, clearly in the starlight, she could see the broad back and the lofty form of Billy Angel. He
went straight back to the barn. Then she saw him go into the corral.

There were two horses there, the one that had belonged to her father and the dainty little mare that Tom Kitchin had given her from his uncle's ranch the year before, a thing all spirit and speed and no strength. If the criminal wanted a horse, there was no choice left to him. The mare would not sustain his bulk. He had to take the big, strong, slow gelding.

She went down the stairs in haste, and yet softly. From the back door she spied on him and saw him catch and saddle the gelding. No doubt he was merely stealing the horse as a sort of grace note after the selfishness and thanklessness of his treatment of her.

Anger burned with a quiet, deep warmth in her heart. There was no time to call for help. Presently the great bulk of horse and man swept out past the barn and went up the northern trail out of Derby.

She did not pause to consider. She ran out blindly, tossed a saddle onto the back of the mare, and instantly pursued him. If he clung to the northern trail, she would catch him, to be sure. For the mare could run all day at the rate of two to one, compared with the gelding. But she had no hope that he would remain on that trail. He was far too clever for that. Deep in her heart, there was planted a conviction that, no matter how she tried, she could never succeed in overreaching him in anything on which his heart was set.

Yet, a scant mile out of the town, with the wind blowing hard into her face with the speed of the mare's galloping, she saw on the rise just before her the great form of Billy Angel on the tall brown gelding. She drew rein with a gasp of astonishment. Now that she had caught up with him, what would
she do about it? What could she accomplish by accosting him? He would simply fail to answer, and, if she chose to rail at him, his calm silence would turn her biting words like the merest water from a stone.

However, she could at least see in what direction he traveled. It would be into the higher mountains, of course, there to seek for a secure cover until the hunt for him should have grown less intense, and she vowed to herself that, if she could follow him far enough and securely enough to make sure he intended to hide, she would ride straight back to Derby and send the sheriff on his trail.

He did not hold on for the upper mountains, however, but turned presently down out of the hills toward the flat of the valley, and there he directed his course straight toward the far-off lights of Three Rivers.

It was wonderful to her; unless, indeed, he possessed in Three Rivers some friend who would give him shelter, just as she had done before. It was not hard to keep behind him with little likelihood of being discovered. The wind blew constantly and briskly from him to her, and, while it would strongly stifle the sound of the hoofs of her horse, it carried the sound of the gelding's hoofs clearly back to her.

He did not go straight on to Three Rivers, but turned off toward a farmhouse on the right of the road. That byroad twisted through a grove of young poplars, all trembling and sparkling faintly in the starlight, and brought the fugitive under the side of a broad, low-built house.

From the edge of the copse, the girl saw him dismount, pick up something, and make a gesture to throw toward one of the windows that gaped open above him. There was a moment of pause. She had
been chilled by the ride through the sharp wind, and now, in this sheltered place, her blood began to stir with a grateful activity again. She felt herself growing more and more curious.

Presently a light glimmered through a window above Billy Angel. A head showed for a moment with the light dimly behind it, so dimly that she could not make out the outline. There was a soft-spoken interchange of words, a gasp from above, and the head was withdrawn.

But that gasp had been in the voice of a woman, and the blood of the girl ran cold with disgust and with anger. It was from women then that this great, hulking, handsome brute found shelter wherever he went.

Billy Angel now tied his horse to a young sapling and went around to the back of the house. At the same time another light showed in a lower window. It was enough to tell the girl that the woman in the house and the man outside of it expected to meet one another where that light was shining. She dismounted in turn and went close to the window, ashamed of the impulse that drove her, but overcome with an intense curiosity to see the face of the girl to whom Billy Angel had entrusted his safety.

The shade was not drawn. She could look plainly through the glass and see everything in the room—a big living room, roughly but comfortably furnished, the sort of a room where men would be a good deal more at ease than would women. There were elk and deer horns mounted along the walls. There were big, deep-seated chairs. There was a yawning fireplace in which a few embers of the evening's logs were still smoldering. The man who owned that house and furnished that room was
prosperous, uncultured; so much she could read with her active eye.

And the girl? She came back into the room at that moment, and behind her was the towering bulk of big Billy Angel. She looked a mere child, at first, with low-heeled slippers on her feet, and a rose-colored kimono with long, flowered sleeves, swaying about her as she retreated backward before Angel, inviting him in. She closed the door behind him. She turned—and Sue Markham sighed. No, this was not a girl. She was among women what Billy Angel was among men. As he was handsome in a glorious way that raised him above his fellows, so she was wonderfully lovely. And, like Billy, she had black hair, black eyes beneath level, beautifully penciled brows. She was small, but she was full of dignity as she was full of grace. To be sure, she was young, but at nineteen or twenty she had an air of maturity—she was old enough to have turned the head of any king in the world.

The girl, who stood beside the window, made a swift comparison between herself and the other woman. She could not stand for an instant contrasted with the beauty of the girl. She had not the grace, she had not the regal, confident manner, she had not that commanding air that goes with a perfect loveliness. At least, if Billy Angel had been indifferent to Sue and had treated her as he might have treated any man, here was a good reason for it. She did not need an introduction. That delicately lovely face had been photographed a thousand times. Her picture was everywhere in the towns through the valley and through the mountains. It was the daughter of the rich rancher; it was Elizabeth Wainwright herself!

If one is despised, it is a little soothing to have
been despised for the sake of a queen, and a queen was Elizabeth Wainwright!

But what did the queen do now? She flung her arms about his neck; she drew down his head and kissed him! If Sue Markham, red with shame and with scorn of herself for having remained to be spy-witness of such a scene, turned away in haste, she as hastily turned back again.

It's my right! It's my right!
she thought savagely to herself. Why it was her right, she could not for the life of her have said. But, in turning back to the window once more and pressing closer to it, she felt that she would have given ten of the richest years of her life to have heard the words that passed between these two. But she could not. The window was closed, and the wind kept up a constant sighing through the trees. Only occasionally she heard a hint of the high, sweet voice of Elizabeth Wainwright, and now and then she felt a tremor of the deep, strong bass of Billy Angel.

Tears clouded her eyes, although why they should be there she could not know. Burning tears, that blinded her, and, when she had wiped them hastily away and looked again, she saw a thing that stopped her heart with shame and with rage. For big Billy Angel had drawn out a wallet, took from it a whole handful of money, and offered it to Elizabeth Wainwright.

She who stood in the night, watching and wondering, could not believe the thing, but there it was before her eyes, most palpably. She saw Elizabeth push back the money and shake her head—saw Billy Angel persist, speaking gravely, almost with a frown—and at last the girl took the greenbacks in her hand.

Sue Markham could wait to see no more. She hurried back to her mare and swung into the saddle. She reined back among the poplars, wondering what she should do now. There was no question about it in her mind. Billy Angel was a villain and must be destroyed. He had won the heart of this
lovely girl by his good looks, and he was bribing her further with money. Oh, incredible thing, that the daughter of the rich rancher, Wainwright, famous for his prodigality, should have fallen so low that she accepted money at the hand of a shameless fellow.

She had no chance to carry on the burden of her thoughts. There was a guarded sound of a door closing; then Billy Angel came back, striding swiftly, mounted the gelding, and rode quickly away. He took the road by which he had come, and the girl only waited to make sure that he was fairly committed to it. Then she herself went back by a different route.

He was taking the upland course. She herself followed the longer road over the easier country, knowing that the mare would take three swift strides at full gallop to every labored stride of the gelding over the rough country. Through the night she flew on the back of the willing horse, and with every stride of the mare she told herself that she would not weaken in her determination. She would press straight on, until she had seen, as a result of her work, Billy Angel locked in strong fetters and in the hands of the law.