AGAIN IT WAS clear that the liquor was speaking, and Abbott allowed for that, though he had never met a man he liked less. He had never been much concerned with politics, and a party label was as likely to be a misnomer as the brand on a patent medicine. Because a product was labeled a cure-all did not make it so.
“A man’s politics are hardly a reason for murder. And you’d be in bad trouble, if I hadn’t stopped you.” His tone sharpened. “Hand over your gun.”
Dismay, a momentary sobering, widened the gunman’s eyes.
“You ain’t got no call to take my rifle. You ain’t the law—not even Republican-type Yankee law! Nor you ain’t got no right to stick your nose into my business, or rob me—”
He was feisty as a weasel, equally bad-tempered and dangerous, but too drunk for caution. His eyes betrayed his intention to jerk the long-gun up and fire. Montana forestalled him.
“I’m not robbing you,” he returned, and with a sudden grab, twisted the rifle away. “You can keep it, but I’ll remove the temptation for you to shoot at the wrong targets by taking your cartridges. And shut up! I might change my mind.”
He resented that sort of compromise, however necessary, allowing a potential killer to go free. But there was little enough choice. He was not the law, nor could he take it upon himself to punish every law-breaker he encountered. Since there was no law handy to turn the fellow over to, freeing him was the only solution. That in doing so he would add another enemy to the list of those who disliked him, for specific reasons or merely on general principles, he shrugged aside. It couldn’t be helped.
He made sure of every cartridge, in pockets or the saddle of the horse which grazed out of sight but not far off. Then he returned the rifle.
“You wouldn’t really have shot an unsuspecting man in the back, would you? Even a Republican?”
“You’re damn right I’d have shot, just as sure as my name’s—as my name’s Lefty Hoag. And one of these days, mebby I’ll shoot you. When it comes to stompin’ rattlesnakes, I don’t make no distinctions. Only trouble is, the tail don’t die till sunset.”
He was not as drunk as he pretended, and it might be better to stomp a snake when the opportunity offered. Montana watched him ride out of sight, not liking the analogy. The superstition was that a rattlesnake, whatever the hour of the day at which it was killed, never fully expired until the going down of the sun. That was an apt description of evil, and Lefty Hoag, or whatever his name might be, was uncomfortably akin to such killers.
The rattler had one redeeming feature. It warned before striking.
Sharply rising ledges of rock slanted up from the valley floor, hindering any easy means of ascent or descent. It required some searching to find a passable trail for his horse, and by the time Montana reached the road, the carriage with its outriders was long out of sight and sound.
He pondered, his thoughts half-whimsical, partly regretful. As usual, he’d stuck his neck out, interfering in what had been none of his business—
Yet without that interference the newly appointed governor would be dead, victim of a cowardly shot from ambush. Those who accompanied Ashley might have been slain as well, including the lady who rode beside him, perhaps his wife. Though none of the party had cause to suspect it, he had probably saved their lives and influenced history.
“Though whether I really did him a favor, or not—now there’s the rub.” Abbott shook his head again, the smile which barely touched the edges of his mouth still whimsical. “Likely he knows what he’s up against, sent out here to try to govern a Territory that’s overflowing with Democrats, who hate him just because he’s a Republican. He has to try to work with the territorial legislature, and he’ll receive about the same degree of cooperation from them that Lee gave Grant. Even if they like what he wants to do, they’ll vote the other way, just because he advocates a course.”
Experience had taught him that most people meant well. As individuals they could be warm and friendly, ready to give the shirt off their back to help, even to risk their lives. But that was as individuals.
In the mass, people became like a herd, easy to stampede, blindly following a leader, often in a headlong rush toward destruction. In the two particular fields where fellowship and cooperation appeared most logical, religion and politics, they became hide-bound and intractable. Pin a label on a man, and it blinded him to reason or fairness. That his neighbor might be seeking just as earnestly for the common good and working toward the same objectives was not to be admitted.
Someone was coming. The hush which marked this day still held, allowing hoof-strokes to run ahead, the horse not yet in sight. Montana catalogued the sound automatically: a quick, uncertain trotting, slowing almost at once to a plodding, followed again by a short rush.
“Tenderfoot—or trouble,” he decided, and knew that it might be both. Then the horse and rider came in sight, following the road, and for the second time that day he was both startled and surprised, even as his guess seemed to be confirmed.
The horse was a typical cayuse, brownish-gray in color, with a look of stamina and speed. Its rider was a woman, a fact sufficiently unusual with the sun fast dipping into the west, and in country so remote. Like the other woman who had passed less than an hour before, she was certainly a lady, and out of place. Her jet-black hair had a tumbled, disordered look, from which Montana deduced that her hat or bonnet had been lost. The soiled appearance of a white blouse under a trim riding coat confirmed that she had run into trouble along the way, very possibly having being thrown from her horse.
A strained look that verged on desperation on her face, her eyes eagerly searched the road ahead, and finding it empty, she urged her horse to a faster pace. Again its response was brief, almost at once dropping back to a walk. Either it, too, had suffered in a fall, or it was close to exhaustion. As was its rider.
She sat erect, naturally graceful, but swaying a little. It was apparent that will-power and desperation were all that kept her from collapse.
Her frantically questing gaze fixed on Montana, half-hidden in a deep patch of shade at the edge of the road, and mixed emotions raced across her face, a gamut from hope to fear. But she came on with a resolution which, however desperate, he admired.
As she neared, he doffed his hat, bowing. Clearly she was in need of reassurance.
“Please don’t be alarmed, Ma’am,” he said. “Apparently we both journey in the same direction. Am I right in supposing that you have met with a mishap?”
Her horse stopped of its own accord, anxious to make use of a chance to rest. The girl studied Montana, her gaze frankly appraising, and he saw that her eyes were so deeply brown as to verge on black, and he was reminded of small forest pools. She was older than he had first estimated, perhaps twenty-five, but the years had been kind. The wild bloom of youth was still evident in momentarily pale cheeks, verging to the beauty of mature womanhood.
Abruptly, as though satisfied with what she saw, and with her own judgment, her lips curved to a smile.
“You are observant, sir,” she conceded. “Some miles back, something frightened my horse. It tried to turn too fast, but slipped and fell. We both took rather a nasty spill. I think it suffered most.”
Montana drew a bow, not entirely at a venture.
“Could it be that you are trying to overtake Governor Ashley’s party?”
The sudden widening of her eyes confirmed his accuracy. Then, as he had counted on, that knowledge on his part added to her sense of reassurance.
“Yes. I—I had expected to join them at a little town, quite a distance back, but missed them. I had intended to surprise them. I see now that that was foolish on my part, hoping to surprise them, I mean. I should have let them know in advance. As it was, they had gone on before my arrival, so I kept on. And with the spill and all—tell me, are they far ahead?”
“Perhaps an hour.” The Governor’s destination, he judged, would probably be Helena, the booming gold camp at Last Chance Gulch. The assumption seemed logical, not alone from the direction, but from the mounting rivalry between Helena and Virginia City, each anxious to become the permanent capital of the Territory and ultimately of the State of Montana. At the moment the honor belonged to Virginia City, but Helena, booming as it was while the older camp fell into gradual decline, gave every indication of outdistancing her.
Helena, however, would be another day’s journey. They could not reach it tonight.
“Then—” the girl cast a quick, apprehensive glance toward the top of the canyon; the lengthening shadows had shut away the sun even as they talked. These wooded hills, the little creek twisting down the valley, before it opened to wider vistas, were wildly beautiful, but with a loneliness increasingly apparent at the approach of night. “I must overtake them,” she said breathlessly. “They will have to stop soon, for the night.”
“There’s a little town on ahead, not far short of the Missouri,” Montana said. “I would guess that they’d plan to spend the night there.”
“Then—if we keep going—about how far?”
“A dozen miles or so.” He saw disappointment shadow her face at so much distance remaining, then her shoulders straightened determinedly. His admiration increased. Such a ride as she had set out on verged on the reckless, if not foolhardiness, but while she was undoubtedly new to the country, she had a spirit to match what might come. In other words, as the old-timers put it, she would do to ride the river with.
“Your horse is about spent,” he added. “He can probably keep going if not burdened. You ride my horse. I’ll walk, and that way, we’ll make it—maybe a bit tardily, but in this case, better late than never, eh?”
“But I can’t take your horse. That would be an imposition—”
“Nothing of the kind. Merely good sense to insure that we make it at all. And I’m a good walker.”
As he had sensed, she possessed a spirit of flint against steel.
“I thought that cowboys were almost helpless, out of the saddle?”
“I was a soldier before I became a cowboy. In the army a man, even with the cavalry, finds occasion for using his legs.”
He had already dismounted, and at his half-challenging glance she came down from the saddle, staggering as she reached the ground, but mounting again before he could aid her.
“This is very kind of you—and I don’t even know your name. I’m Mrs. Edwards—Melissa Edwards.”
“Not kind at all, Mrs. Edwards, but a pleasure. It’s not often that I am privileged to enjoy the company of so charming a companion.”
A dimple peeped at him from her cheek as she glanced down with half-serious, half-laughing eyes. “I take it that you were an officer in the cavalry,” she said. “That you are a gentleman is apparent.”
“Montana Abbott, at your service—formerly Captain William Abbott, C.S.A.”
Her quick glance returned to his face, showing surprise. “A Confederate? You!”
“And why not, Ma’am? The territory abounds with former rebels—as your friend the Governor will be finding, to his political dismay.”
“But you—I thought that you knew him—”
“I saw him pass. That is the closest I have come to an acquaintance.”
“Montana Abbott,” she repeated, as though just realizing its significance. “Why, you’re a famous man, Mr. Abbott. I had heard of you—favorably, of course—before ever I reached the Territory.”
“I can’t say as much in regard to you, Mrs. Edwards, but that was my loss.”
He was striding beside her, leading her horse, moving with an easy grace. She was pleased at what she saw. She had ridden bravely, but with increasing apprehension, fighting against panic. That she had done a foolish thing in setting off by herself that morning had become increasingly apparent. To meet such a man, in her moment of stress, was better fortune than she had dared hope for.
“Would you be an Irishman now, Mr. Abbott? For you’ve certainly kissed the blarney-stone.”
Montana laughed, a sound so surprising from him that she would have been struck by it if she had known him better. Not for a long while had he felt such pleasure and surging excitement. “Not Irish. And my friends call me Montana.”
“Why then, I’ll do the same—if you’ll leave off the Ma’am and all. My friends call me Melissa.”
“A fitting name for a beautiful but, alas, married lady. Yet I suppose it’s not surprising that a woman with equal parts of charm and beauty should be wedded.”
“Wedded—and widowed, these many years.” Despite the lightness of her tone, he detected a touch of wistfulness. His eyes met hers.
“You are kind.”
“Kind? I? In what way?” But she was coloring.
“You free me of unendurable suspense. And now you’ll be supposing me presumptuous and over-forward.”
She did not pretend to misunderstand. Frankness was a trait all too rare, especially in flirtatious women. And he had a notion that she could hold her own with any of her sex in that department, should she choose to do so.
“You have the art of making miles grow shorter, Montana. Oh—”
They had reached one of the turnings of the creek, where the road crossed and recrossed it. To her surprise he strode through the water as unconcernedly as the horses. “I didn’t mean to subject you to that.”
“I’ve had wet feet too many times for it to bother me. In fact—”
His voice was drowned by the booming crash of a rifle, and Melissa Edwards gave a small scream. The hat was knocked from his head, to tumble to the water below and be swept out of sight around a bend by the swift current. The sun had set, the day was fast darkening, but there had been sufficient light reflected from the water for an assassin’s bullet to be dangerously well aimed.