"Merritt!" And before he could stop he was in the center of a suddenly renewed firing. Gun reports flattened into the enormous dark. Exploded powder pushed little fingers, of sulky light through the shadows. His horse bunched up and came off its front feet and those riders were beating toward him as he laid his own answering shots at them.
Nan Melotte's lamplight died. There was a voice calling insistently to him as he pulled his pony aside from this converging lead. "Merritt—Merritt!" Lying low in the saddle he tried another shot, ran on, and halted to listen.
They had likewise stopped, but he heard the heaving of their horses not far away, to his left; and afterward they seemed to grow uneasy and to drift along the desert, the rustle of that travel softly coming to him. He lifted his gun, aiming it at the general sound, and gathered the pony beneath him. When he opened fire he let the pony go, driving it straight for them. Muzzle light bloomed before him. He heard a man yell, long and broken- winded. Wind breathed on his face and the smell of his own shots was in his nostrils. His horse shied from something on the ground, the farther firing quit, and he pulled in once more and heard them racing toward the Broken Buttes.
He said to himself, That was Clagg. Not in anger, for he was past anger or any kind of emotion. Dismounted, he waited for the sound of their retreat to sink away, at once knowing that this affair was a consequence and a continuation of the wedding. He reached for a match, walking back a few yards and squatting near a loose shadow on the ground. He scratched the light on his boot, held it cupped a brief moment over the face of Lee Repp dead on the ground, and whipped it out. There was no more echo from Broken Buttes.
Nan Melotte's lamplight reappeared in her window. He returned to his horse, thinking. They thought I was riding ahead of Repp. They thought it was me. Nan Melotte's door came open, releasing a square-shaped glow. She was silhouetted in the doorway, one hand thrown out to touch the door's frame. He rode that way.
"Owen?"
"Yeah," he said, and got down. He saw the whiteness of her cheeks in the light; he saw the black shine of her hair. It was the strong, slow, and concerned tone of her voice that dragged him out of his own tangled thoughts. "Yeah," he said.
She said, "Come in. Come out of the light."
When he passed through the door she closed it quickly.
He turned to find her resting against it, her small, square shoulders dropped at the corners. He had the feeling that her glance ran over him, top to bottom, with a strange anxiety. Her lips softened and she murmured, "I'm glad." But her eyes were very dark and they watched him with a continuing interest. He had known her three or four years, he had occasionally ridden the desert with her, he had now and then danced with her. But there was a difference here at this moment. He felt it and could not reach it with a definition. His legs were heavy, and all the whisky he had taken in during the evening began to have its way, grabbing at his stomach and threading his nerves. He removed his hat.
She said, "Do you need a drink?"
"No," he said.
She started to speak again and didn't, her expressive shoulders shrugging away the impulse, At the moment she saw him pretty clearly for what he was—a long, loose man with a yellow, head of hair above smooth and angular features. He was, in a way, a good-looking rider who had a ready smile and seemed to take the course of his life with a complete indifference. Lazy until roused, with deep, darkly blue eyes wise in the reading of the desert's face or the shadows under the far pines. Laconic and hard to fathom. But she saw him now off guard, at a moment when he showed what he had been through, and she thought to herself, I have been mistaken. A sun-darkened skin lay tightly across his cheekbones; his flat muscles stirred beneath the cotton shirt when he turned his shoulders.
He said, "How'd you get home so soon?"
"I left town right after you did—and rode the short trail."
"Pass anybody?"
"No. But I heard those riders come around the house and stop out there."
"Repp's still there," he said. "Dead."
He was mildly interested in knowing how she would take the news, and saw no change. There was a resoluteness in the lines of this girl, a self-reliance. And still her lips were soft, and a quality in her stirred his attention.
She said, "I guess they made a mistake."
He asked, "Now how would you know that?"
"I know. Do you want me to make you some coffee?"
"No, I'll ride along."
She moved away from the door and watched him put on his hat. He opened the door and his expression changed while he listened to the yonder night; it was keener and more alert, as though this were a game he knew very well. He looked back and gave her a faint smile. "Thanks."
"Better watch the road."
"Sure," he said. They stood this way a little while, considering each other, at once strongly aware of each other. Color showed on her cheeks. She held herself still and steady, as if waiting for him to have his look, as if willing he should consider her and draw his own conclusions. He said, "Good night," and watched her lips form the words "Good night," quite conscious of the little rhythm in her voice, somehow affected by its rise and fall. Afterward he went to the horse and swung away, bound for his ranch on Christmas Creek, four miles east.
Nan Melotte moved over to close the door, and stood against it, listening to his horse strike the hard footslope of the Buttes. Her expression relaxed. It was pleasant and warm, touched with the heat of an inner dreaming. She said, so softly, I have been mistaken. Afterward that warmth and softness faded, to leave her still-checked. For she was thinking then of Sally Isham who had once owned this man. And still does, she thought. I wonder if he realizes that?
IV. "I'LL KEEP MY BARGAIN"
Fifteen miles east of The Wells the flat desert gave way before a hundred-foot rim which boxed in Skull River and its valley. A road cut down this rocky face, crossed a wooden bridge, and went along a double row of young poplars as far as a long, deep-porched house. All in the surrounding darkness lay the out-quarters, the barns and corrals and sheds of a really great ranch. Water in the near-by diversion ditches made a liquid rustle. Haystacks showed their square patterns along the adjacent meadows. Above the ranch, rising steadily away from the Skull's other border, lay the darkling peaks of the Bunchgrass Hills.
It was midnight when Sally Isham stepped inside her new home. The lamps were bright In the place and through the open door of the mess hall she saw the long tables set for the wedding supper. Isham carried her luggage up the stairs, following her into the bedroom. They could hear Skull's crew and all the following crowd coming cheerfully across the bridge; but they had a moment alone, and it was Isham who used it.
He looked at her steadily, not quite smiling. "No doubt it's been a long day for you and I think you're tired. But it is a little difficult not to take care of these folks. I hope you can manage to be cheerful."
"Will," she said immediately, "we're starting off wrong, if that's the way you feel."
He showed surprise. "I did not wish—"
"No, wait." She was cool and calm, she was almost blunt. "You don't need to treat me carefully. You want me to entertain them. Certainly I will. I'll make them feel pleased to be here. Or anyone else you bring to Skull. That's one of the reasons you married me, isn't it?"
He said quietly, "Yes. Did we speak of that?"
"No, but I knew it at any rate."
He said, "You know, Sally, you're a smart woman."
"I want to do the right thing. I don't want to cheat you."
He shook his head. He was puzzled and he was alert. "Is it altogether a bargain, Sally?"
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