Paradise halted his horse and looked down into the little valley. Enclosed by timbered hills, the meadow ran down across a four-mile stretch as far as the high cliff of the Mogul and the peaks of the Yellows beyond. It was a pretty little place, the valley; there was no way to tell how much of the adjoining land also belonged to the ranch. A few spots on the flanks of the hills were grazing cattle, but there didn’t seem to be many of them. Roughly in the center of the meadow, shaded by planted cottonwoods and sycamores, sat the headquarters: two long single-story adobe buildings and a number of smaller outbuildings and corrals. All of them were sun-bleached, but the place seemed in excellent repair. It showed the touch of a loving hand. Everything was trim, neat, freshly painted.
But, along with that, everything was strangely quiet, as if the place had just been deserted within the past day or two. No smoke lifted from any chimney. No cattle grazed the valley floor; he could count the grazing cattle on the hills with the fingers of his two hands. No riders appeared anywhere in sight. No horses stirred in the corrals. It was like a ghost ranch.
Paradise’s horse was a small pinto, spry and limber. Unlike most horsemen, Paradise rode with his reins knotted together. The purpose was practical: having only one hand, he had to be able to drop the reins on occasion (to light a cigarette, lift a canteen, open a gate, tug his hat down, or draw his gun) and if the reins had not been tied together, they would have fallen to the ground. This way, they simply fell loose across the horse’s withers, there to be picked up again whenever the master was ready.
The pinto was trained to keep moving by knee-guidance, with or without the use of reins. It had taken a little while to teach the horse what it had to know, but for John Paradise the weeks of horse-training had been worthwhile. The horse’s intelligence and sound training served in part to make up for the rider’s lack of an arm.
Building a cigarette one-handed, Paradise now rode down into the valley, reins loose across the horn. He passed the ranch gate with the Chainlink brand burned dark into the wood; he turned the pinto up the trail with a nudge of the knee and rode into the yard.
The atmosphere of abandonment puzzled him. He tipped his black hat back on his head. Facing the house, he let his halloo sing out.
For a while he thought nobody was going to answer. He backed the pinto toward the barn and peered into the place. It was with a measure of relief that he saw three or four horses penned in stalls. At least, then, the place couldn’t have been entirely deserted.
A woman’s slim figure appeared on the porch of the adobe ranch house. One arm lifted to shade her eyes, she came forward to the edge of the porch, peering out at Paradise.
“Yes?”
He gigged the pinto over toward her, reining in at the porch. He kept his expression assiduously guarded: he gave away nothing of his feelings, while he watched recognition change her face.
She was as dark-haired as he was. Her lips came open: wide lips, sensual and pretty; her eyes were gray and large. The black hair tumbled heavily below her shoulders.
The tight-belted Levi’s she wore revealed that the years had not added any thickness to her small waist. Paradise lifted his eyes to her face and said, “You haven’t changed at all.”
She was looking at his empty right sleeve as if she couldn’t take her eyes off it. All she seemed able to say was, “I didn’t know, John.”
“Don’t fret about that, he said. “I’m used to it by now. It’s not as much of a handicap as you might think.”
She seemed to shake herself invisibly. She said, “One of the ranchers told me you were in town. I’ve been expecting you.”
“And Tracy?”
“Tracy doesn’t know anything about it. He’s up in the mountains hunting a wild horse.”
His expression changed and became speculative. After a moment he said, “Do you mind if I get off my horse, Connie?”
Her fists were closed. “It might be better if you didn’t. If you went back to town.” Her voice was small; she wasn’t meeting his glance.
His eyes were sad. “Is that all we’ve got to say to each other, after all these years?”
It made her lower her face in surrender. “All right. Come in, then.” She turned and went into the house.
Paradise stepped down and wrapped the reins around the hitching post; climbed up on the porch and followed her inside, taking off his hat.
The parlor seemed severely simple. There wasn’t too much furniture. Connie didn’t sit down; she stood by the window, arms folded under her breasts, and spoke bluntly. “It’s a bad time for you to come, John.”
“Why?”
“We’ve got our hands full of trouble,” she said; she went on more softly, “—without adding you to it.”
He said, “I didn’t come to make trouble for either one of you.”
“Then why did you come?”
It made him shrug and turn his one hand palm-up. “Who knows? When you get like I am, you get so you can’t stand to stay in one place very long. I keep moving along, and my trail takes me to places I didn’t exactly plan to visit. But once I’m there, I don’t turn around and run away.” He took a pace closer to her; he studied her face and said in an earnest low voice, “I was hoping you might be a little happier to see me than you seem to be.”
She said, “I’m sorry if I seem curt, John. But what you and I had between us was a long time ago. Bringing it all back now can only complicate things—and my life doesn’t need any complicating just now, God knows.”
“What’s the trouble, Connie? Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes. But not to you.”
“I didn’t come here to make triangles,” he told her. “Look at me. Do I look like a man who could possibly take himself seriously as the ‘other man’ in Tracy Chavis’ marriage?”
She looked hurt. “Don’t, John.”
“I’m only facing the truth, Connie. I’m a dried up little prune of a man with half the proper number of arms. I wish you’d believe I didn’t come riding in here planning to carry you off with me. Maybe you ought to remember that I knew your husband long before you and I ever met each other. He’s a friend of mine too, you know.” His voice dropped. “I only came to pay my respects, Connie. If you want me to leave, I’ll be on my way.”
He reached for his hat and turned toward the door. His shoulders were bent like an old man’s.
“No. Wait, John.” She made an apologetic gesture with her hand. “We’re all on edge, I guess.”
“Do you want to tell me about it, then?”
She said, “There’s not that much to tell. It’s a familiar story, I imagine. We’re broke—that’s all. Between three years of drought and a blizzard last winter, we’ve had our savings wiped out. And on top of that, a vicious family of rustlers has robbed us blind. We’re about to lose the ranch to the San Francisco bank.”
Paradise covered his thoughts by using his teeth, tongue, and hand to roll a cigarette. He lighted it with a sulfur match and said, “I don’t think I get this. You’re in a tight place for money—and Tracy’s up in the hills somewhere chasing wild horses. What sense does that make?”
“Nothing makes much sense anymore,” Connie said. “It’s a crazy gamble, that’s all. You know Tracy, John. He decided that there’s a wild stallion in the Sangres that’s faster on its legs than any horse this side of St. Louis. He’s determined to catch the stallion and break it, and ride it in the Fourth of July race. He thinks we can win enough money to pay off the mortgage and save the ranch.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said incredulously.
“Maybe I’m not, at that. Who knows.” She seemed wistful and vague.
He said, “Connie, it’s less than a month till the Fourth of July. And he hasn’t even caught that bronc? How does he expect to train it in time to run in that race, much less win it?”
She gave a helpless gesture. “Those are all the same arguments I used. There was no talking him out of it. He’s made up his mind that it may be a terribly long chance, but it’s the only chance we’ve got. I don’t know, John, maybe he’s right.”
He was about to answer when a corner of his vision picked up a small motion. He moved swiftly, like a coiled mechanism: the sheath-knife slipped into his hand in quick synchronization with his drop to a crouch behind the leather-upholstered divan. He was like that, knife poised, by the time the kitchen door came fully open.
Connie uttered a small cry and dashed in front of him. A tiny figure appeared in the door—a girl not more than seven or eight years old, in a yellow cotton dress with a big cloth bow at the back of the waist.
Paradise stood up, let out his breath, put away his knife and grimaced. The little girl cocked her head curiously to one side and stared at him, puzzled, not at all afraid of him. Finally Paradise grinned at her. “Hello there.”
“I don’t know that game,” the little girl said.
It made him laugh, low in his throat. Connie walked quickly to the little girl and gathered her up in her arms. Connie’s eyes were moist. “It’s a boys’ game, dear,” she said.
“I thought it might make you laugh,” Paradise said gravely.
Connie gave him a grateful look. She put the little girl down. “This is Mr. Paradise, Peggy.”
The little girl curtsied politely. Paradise dipped his head in exact courtesy. He murmured, “She looks like you, Connie.”
The little girl said abruptly, “That’s a funny name.”
“I suppose it is,” Paradise agreed. “But there’s not too much I can do about it, is there?”
But by then her interest had shifted. She said in a piping voice, “What happened to your arm, Mr. Paradise?”
He heard the quick intake of Connie’s breath; he said gently, “It was an accident.”
Connie reached down to take her daughter’s hand and led the little girl toward the kitchen, talking quickly: “That’s enough, now, Peggy. Mr. Paradise is busy and has to leave soon.”
“Can I play in the tree house that Daddy built?”
“May I.”
“May I, then?”
“Yes, if you’re careful,” Connie said, and watched the little girl hurry outside.
Paradise said, “She’s pretty. Like her mother.”
It made Connie smile. “You always knew what to say to a woman, didn’t you?” She made a brusque gesture. “Peggy asked what I didn’t have the courage to ask.”
“About my arm? It was an ambush. Nothing I could do about it. Bushwhacked from the brush. I crawled two miles into the nearest town, but it took me twenty-four hours. I was passed out a good deal of the time. By the time I got to town the wound was infected and the doctor had to saw the arm off.” He made a face. “I’m sorry. It’s an ugly story.”
“I asked,” she replied. “Did you catch the man who did it?”
“No. I never got close enough to see his face. He had red hair, though, and I’d remember his voice if I saw him again. He yelled a few things I’d rather not repeat.” He shook his head; he added, “But I decided not to waste the rest of my life on a search for vengeance. It just isn’t worth it.”
“You have changed,” she observed. “Is that why you’re not carrying a gun?”
He looked down at his waist. He couldn’t help the crooked smile that crossed his face briefly. “No. That’s your town marshal’s doing. He’s got my gun locked up in his desk.”
“And you let him take it?’
He answered, “I didn’t want to kill him for the sake of a twelve-dollar piece of steel. It was the only choice he’d have given me if I’d refused to hand over my gun.”
“Why did he take it from you?”
“I killed a man in Spanish Flat,” he told her, watching her eyes. “I’m out on bail.”
Her face fell, as he knew it would. She said, “Then you haven’t changed as much as I thought.”
“He was an idiotic kid who—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “What’s the good of it? I won’t make excuses.” He lifted his hat again and went across the room to the front door. He opened it and stood in the doorway, holding his hat. “No excuses,” he said again. “I don’t know what I expected to find here. Maybe I was hoping to win your forgiveness. But I guess it’s pretty late for that.”
“I’ve got nothing to forgive you for,” she said. “We owe each other nothing, John. We’re two people who met one night and knew each other for a little while. That’s all.”
“I guess it is,” he said. He put his hat on and turned away. Her voice stopped him:
“John?”
“Yes?”
“Do I have the right to ask you for help?” Her voice, and her eyes, were level and even.
He said, “You’ve always had that right, Connie.”
“Help us, then. Help Tracy.”
He tugged his hat down firmly. “Where will I find him?” was all he asked.