Westward the Tide (1950) (20 page)

"Jacquine!" he said. He started toward her.

"No, please!" She tried to hold herself straighter, and his hand caught her elbow.

Holding herself tightly, her breath coming in gasps, she tried to straighten her hat and her bonnet. She looked up at him swiftly. "We'd better get back," she said, "they are still dancing!"

All the next day the stock rested. Bardoul lay on his blanket under the aspens and chewed on a leaf of grass, trying to think his way out of the situation. He had no idea what Jacquine felt about him. That there was a strong physical attraction, he knew, but he was also aware that it wasn't enough, and that it could exist without anything else.

Yet he knew he was in love. There was no doubting that. He sat up abruptly. It was not a new thing, for actually he had known it all along. He had known it since that day at Pole Creek Station, and all he had seen and felt or learned since had merely confirmed him in his belief.

How did she feel toward Clive Massey? And how was she going to feel when matters finally came to a head? Was Brian Coyle in the clear, or was he a party to Massey's schemes? One thing was sure, his actions now would have official sanction. Now it would not be merely a matter of self defense, for the law lay in his hands.

The law was something he understood and respected. It was a trust, a sacred trust. He knew that not many frontier marshals considered it so, but it was his belief, and had always been. In what was to come he must act without malice and only upon evidence, yet he knew well enough that in this case there would be no need for evidence to present before a court. In this situation he would have to be judge and jury, and perhaps executioner.

Coyle's reaction in the case of Hammer and Sperry might have been the legitimate action of a just and angry man. It might also have been the anger of a man who saw a well planned scheme endangered by a clumsy action.

When they moved out tomorrow, events would move more swiftly. Knowing that, he got up quickly. He must see Jacquine. He must see her and settle this thing that was between them. Then he stopped. For the time at least, he had better wait. For if he spoke his mind, and by some chance she loved him, it would be that much harder when he was faced with his duty and shouldered with the protection of these people of the wagon train.

Swearing softly, he started toward the encampment.

Several soldiers were loafing about, and he saw Herman Reutz talking with Lute Harless. He started toward him, but when they looked up and saw him both men turned swiftly away and walked in the other direction.

Matt stopped so suddenly he almost fell. There could be no mistaking their action. These two ... two of his best friends on the wagon tram ... had deliberately turned and walked away from him!

Puzzled, he turned and walked on in the direction of the fort. Then he shrugged. Probably they had been discussing some business deal, some little plan of their own that was confidential. There was a wagon drawn up near the crude palade and several soldiers gathered around. Bat Hammer was there, and Logan Deane. So were Johnson, Sperry, two of the Stark boys and Bill Shedd. As he walked up Clive Massey came through the gate beside the wagon and their eyes met.

He was shocked at the sudden blaze of passion in Massey's eyes, but the man avoided him, and began talking to the soldier who was standing beside the wagon. Soon a civilian approached, apparently the sutler, and there began some low animated talk.

Shedd walked up to him, and he noticed how the eyes of the others followed him. "Howdy, Matt!" Bill said. Then low voiced, he added, "You sure are gettin' unpopular all of a sudden! Me, too, for that matter. What's happened? We got the plague, or something?"

"I'm damned if I know. What's the talk around?"

"I don't know. When I come around, they just naturally shut up an' don't say no more. It must be about you or me, or maybe both of us."

Matt glanced around swiftly, impatiently. Since the night before he had been seething inside. He knew what had happened. It was easy enough to bottle up a feeling like that, but once it had been given rein, it was no longer enough. He wanted Jacquine Coyle, and he wanted her now, and the wanting was a fierce urgency that put a drive in every movement and a demanding fire in his eyes and hands.

"To hell with them!" he said impatiently. "I don't know what's got into them and I don't care! Has Pearson given orders for moving out?"

"In the morning, at four o'clock."

"Good! I want to get on with this." Matt turned abruptly. "Shedd, you implied some time back that you were looking for a man who might be with us. Who is he? Why do you want him?"

Shedd's eyes turned away. The big man's face lost its heaviness and suddenly he seemed to harden. "I ain't tellin', Matt. Only I got an idea."

"Shedd," Matt spoke sharply, "if you've anything on your mind, you'd better say it. I want to know just what the score is, all the time."

"I ain't sure." The big man stared toward the sutler's wagon. "I just ain't sure." He stared at his huge, knotted fist. "Matt, I'm a huntin' a man what killed my brother. He wasn't much, that brother of mine. If he'd been killed a few times, by a few men, I'd have shrugged it off an' done no thin'. But he was killed by a skunk, an' I'm skunk huntin' now. On'y, that skunk's got teeth."

"Who?"

Shedd looked up, his eyes bleak and hard. "Sun Boyne."

"Boyne?" Matt stared at Shedd. Everywhere he went he heard that name. A few months ago it was merely a tag to a legend, and now it was running through his life like a red thread.

"You think he's here? With us?"

"I do."

Matt shrugged. "Hell, you can be wrong. There's folks here even say I'm him."

"You ain't. I know that. When I find him, I've got a way of knowin'. But I know you ain't him."

Clive Massey turned away from his conference with the sutler and his eyes crossed Matt's. Suddenly, quick fury flamed in his dark face and he wheeled abruptly and started toward Matt, walking on the balls of his feet. He strode up to him and stopped.

Massey's eyes were hot with rage, a sullen burning rage that seemed to have been smouldering and now had come swiftly to the blazing point.

"Bardoul, I've had about enough of you! You're leaving this wagon tram, and leaving it here!"

Matt's eyes widened, and a slow humour grew within him. It was always so, perhaps, he reflected at times, a nervous reaction. Whenever he was faced with such a situation he seemed to grow very quiet and still inside, and words came easily, his mind always found something faintly amusing and preposterous about it all.

"Why, what's on your mind, Clive? Something in particular, or things in general?" Casually, he lifted his hands, rubbing the left palm with his right thumb, chest high. It would make all the difference sometimes, that matter of having your hands in hitting position. "Or is it that you just can't stand me?"

"It's just that I saw what happened last night, and I don't want Jacquine subjected to such indignities." His voice was level and cold.

Something burst suddenly within Matt, but he throttled it back. "We won't mention any names here, Massey!" His voice shook. "And I think the lady has her own ways of handling situations she doesn't like!"

"No doubt." Clive's quick smile flickered suddenly on his lips. "And I have mine!"

Matt saw the movement, and jabbed with his left, but Clive Massey's head shifted and the punch missed, and then Massey hit him with a crossed right.

Matt never saw the punch coming, nor the left hook that followed it. Something slugged him on the jaw like a mule's kick and he hit the ground hard and rolled over, lights and thunder bursting in his brain.

Fighting for consciousness, through the smoky roaring in his skull, he knew he had been hit. He had been hit harder than he had ever been before. He started to push himself up, and a boot crashed into his ribs. He heard shouts and yells, and then another boot, and yet another and another.

Pain stabbed his side, and his head reeled. Through some blank, strange darkness he kept fighting the pain, and pushing against the grass, and then somehow he was on his feet, and he saw the dark viciousness of Clive Massey's face looming toward him, saw those lips curl, and then the stabbing of a punch into his belly and a crashing blow on the jaw. He swung half way around and hit the ground and felt the cool grass against his face, and the dust in his nostrils.

Chapter
IX

Then he had his hands under him again and he was pushing himself up. How he got to his feet he never knew. Through the roaring in his skull and the taste of blood in his mouth, he knew he had to get up. He seemed to hear Coyle's voice and Buffalo Murphy's, and then a sneering laugh and a blow that jarred him to his heels. Vaguely, he saw Clive Massey set himself, he saw the punch start, but although the will was there, he lacked the strength to pull his head away, and the fist struck his jaw and then the ground hit him hard between the shoulders. He rolled over and something crashed against his skull and a rocket seemed to burst in his brain, but he pushed his hands against the grass and fought his way up.

Massey, his eyes bitter with fury, moved in on him, and Matt shook his head. His face felt stiff and queer, but he was on his feet and he knew he had to fight. He had to fight as he had never fought before. The punch came this time, but he fell inside of it, grabbed Massey with both arms, and tripped him with a backheel. They hit the ground, and he slugged Massey once, then they rolled over.

He was slow getting up, and Massey hit him twice before he could get his hands up. Blood was running into one of his eyes, and his breath was hoarse, but he was on his feet, and moving in. This was an old story to Matt. He had been knocked down before, and he had gotten up. He would keep getting up.

Massey rushed, throwing punches that rocked and smashed, but Matt was no longer worried. He had been hit and hit hard, he had been kicked at least a dozen times, and he was on his feet again. He was no longer punch shy as a man often is before he has been hurt. He moved in, his skill reasserting itself, his strength coming back. The vitality built through many years of hard living on the plains and in the mountains was with him now. He bowed his head and walked in, and suddenly, he began to rip short, wicked punches to Clive Massey's stomach.

Massey was the bigger man, and he was a strong man, and smart in the ways of fighting, but Matt Bardoul kept weaving and smashing and he kept moving in. His face a smear of blood from a cut eye and a smashed lip, battered and swollen, he moved in. He was making a few of them miss now, and through the bloody haze of his sight he could see the moving body of Massey ahead of him.

He feinted suddenly, and lashed out with a right. Massey caught it coming in, and it shook him to his boots. Watching his face, Matt knew the punch hurt, and moreover he knew that it did something to Clive Massey. This man had been down, and down again, he had been punched and booted, but he could still throw a punch like that.

Clive's left lashed out, but Matt's head moved. He uppercut to the chin, slammed both hands in short wicked hooks to the jaw, and then cut Massey's cheek to the bone with an overhand right.

Blood streaming down his handsome face, Clive Massey began to fight like a man in a panic, but he was gone now. Actually, he had lost the fight with that first hard punch Matt had thrown, but he only knew this man must go down and stay down, but he would not. Matt bulled his way in close, hooking those short, wicked punches to the bigger man's stomach, then raking his face with streaking jabs and wicked right crosses. The things Jem Mace had taught him were his now, they were coming back, and they showed in the straight, hard punches, and the blocking.

There was no mercy in Matt. He saw Clive weakening. Coolly, coldly, he set himself and slammed a right to the body. Massey backed up, and Bardoul walked in, deliberately, he slapped Massey open handed across the mouth, and when Clive lunged in a blaze of rage, Matt spread his legs and threw both hands to the body. Clive grunted, and his mouth dropped open, and Matt broke his nose with a short right hook, and then split his other cheek with a left.

Massey went down. Matt stood over him, bloody and maddened with fighting lust. He tried to speak but his swollen lips only muffled the words. He grabbed Clive by the collar and jerked him to his feet. Shoving him back against the wagon he hit him again, twice to the body and again to the face.

Clive Massey's knees sagged, and he crumpled, limp as a rag into the dust.

Turning, his hair hanging over his face, bloody and punch drunk, Matt Bardoul saw through a haze of blood and the fog in his brain, the horror stricken face of Jacquine Coyle.

He tried to straighten up, but there was a stabbing pain in his side, and when he put his hand there, he found his shirt was gone, hanging from his shoulders in a few straggling ribbons.

Somebody put an arm around his shoulders and he walked back to his wagon. He was helped up, and he sprawled in a heap across the piled up goods and his own blankets.

When he opened his eyes again, the wagon was moving. It was hot inside the canvas covered wagon, and he struggled to a sitting position, his head feeling like it weighed a ton. When he moved, a sharp pain stabbed him, and he sat there, staring in blurred half consciousness at the tailboard of the wagon.