CALHOUN STOOD ON the veranda smoking; the girl stood back under the roof-slope, out of the sun. The street was full of wagons and cavalrymen and pedestrians—gold seekers, storekeepers, immigrants, gamblers, old men in fringed buffalo-hide breeches, and a few who still had the plow walk and hadn’t shaken the look of the farm. The town had few women. He looked at Catherine Goodfellow and moved back beside her and rocked on his heels. She said, “You don’t like waiting, do you?”
“Why,” he said, “I thought I was a pretty patient fellow.”
“You don’t like inactivity. Why don’t you sit in on a poker game?”
His smile changed his craggy features. “The next time I hold a hand of cards,” he said, “it will be at my own table in my own card room.”
“So that’s what you have in mind,” she said. Her lips were pursed musingly; she was studying him with unconcealed interest. “You’re on the prowl, Calhoun. You’re looking for something. What would interest you enough to bring you out into this wild country?”
He made no immediate answer. They heard a staccato burst of gunfire from somewhere back in town, followed by a chorus of loud laughter. Calhoun said, “The frontier shows on this town.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Maybe I do. But it doesn’t pay to let yourself get nostalgic. All this is dropping behind, now. It won’t be long before it’s all swept under the rug.”
“And so you want to cash in while you can,” she said.
“I guess that’s right.” He regarded her with a slantwise look. “You like me less, for that.”
“Not at all.” She was smiling gently. “I like a man who seizes opportunities.” She made a gesture with her arm that included the street, the milling roughhouse of traffic, the pall of thick risen dust. “It’s tough and crude, but that’s what makes it real.”
“You’re a romantic,” he said, with quiet humor.
“No—at least I don’t think so. But I was raised out here, I know this country. I hate to see it change.”
“Afraid you can’t stop it,” Calhoun said, bracing one foot against the sun-dried wooden rail.
“Perhaps,” she murmured, and showed him her faintly quizzical smile. “You’re running away from a woman somewhere, aren’t you?”
He picked tobacco from his tongue, and let his wrist hang over his upraised knee; without looking at her, he said, “That’s a far-fetched guess if I ever heard one.”
“No. It has to be a woman—someone who’s still got a grip on you. Otherwise you wouldn’t treat me so distantly.”
“Can’t a man be polite?”
She laughed low in her throat: “Oh, come now, Calhoun.” When he looked, her eyes were daring him. She said, “I was raised in Levi’s, remember? I’m not a prissy dude.”
“Maybe it’s your finishing-school accent.”
“That’s a Rochester drawl,” she said. “I get it from my father. Don’t put me up on a pedestal, Calhoun. I’m just ordinary clay like the rest.”
“You’re pretty brash for a lump of clay.”
She laughed. “I never believed in beating around the bush. That’s one thing this country does for you—it strips away the unessentials.” Abruptly she grew more serious: “You’re planning to stage into Mule Canyon and set up a saloon, aren’t you? I hope you know what you’ll be in for. You’ll be competing with people the cut of Matt Ruarke and Stacy Donovan. They’re all a bunch of crooks and they won’t like honest competition.”
He smiled easily: “Thanks for assuming I’m honest.”
“That’s one of the toughest camps ever born,” she said, watching him intently. “It’s a magnet for every hardcase this side of the Black Hills. You’ll have to watch your back.”
He nodded. “More important,” he said, “you’re the one who’ll have to be careful. If it’s as tough as you say, you’ve got no business going there.”
“Oh, they all know who I am. No one’s going to put a finger on Price Goodfellow’s daughter.”
“Are you sure?”
“There you go protecting me again,” she said. “I’ll be disappointed if you keep up that attitude, Calhoun.”
He looked at her: she was laughing at him silently. He grinned. Two men came out onto the porch—square, doglike Leroy Hamlin, and the thin New Englander Matthew Ruarke. Leroy noticed Calhoun, and at once Leroy’s eyelids dropped, covering his thoughts; he stood wholly still for a moment. Matthew Ruarke nodded to them with frosty politeness and strolled forward; when he reached the end of the veranda he turned and said testily, “Come on—come on,” and Leroy went padding after him. But a block away Leroy halted to glance back; Calhoun saw his eyes narrow again and become dark; Leroy looked at him with malice, curling his lip and showing his teeth. Leroy was a burly man with the smell of violence about him, stinking like the musty odor of an animal’s carcass. His face showed a savage brutality. Then he swung and disappeared around a corner, following Matthew Ruarke.
Catherine Goodfellow said, “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you’ve made a bad enemy. Leroy could tear you apart with one hand.”
“No,” Calhoun said. “He only thinks he could.”
Her troubled look became a smile; she said, “I like a man who’s sure of himself.”
Calhoun spoke slowly, revealing the care with which he chose his words: “It may be a mistake for you to be so open with me.”
“Why? I see no harm in it. Women chase men, Calhoun—it’s the tradition. Most of them just pretend it’s the other way around.”
“There’s a reason for that, too,” he said. “A man has pride.”
“Doesn’t my attention flatter you?”
“You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,” he told her.
“Don’t you think I warrant it?” Her smile took the edge off it.
He raked his thumb across the edge of his jaw. “What do you know about me?”
“Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. You’re the kind of man they tell stories about. An unhappy affair with a married woman, they say, and a duel—in New Orleans or Baton Rouge or somewhere like that. You were a town marshal a few times, weren’t you? Some of them say you used your badge as an excuse to kill. Did you?”
“What do you believe?”
She shook her head; she was still smiling. “There are legends about you, Calhoun, in case you didn’t know it.”
“That’s what I thought. You’ve built up an image of me that’s based on a few tall stories you’ve heard. That’s what attracts you—the spice of danger. Do you want me to beat you up?” He dropped his boot from the porch rail and turned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not a myth, I’m the same clay as you, and a man resents it when a woman forces herself on him for the kind of reasons that make you want to play your little game with me.” He touched his hat brim with a forefinger and went down the steps loose-jointedly.
Calhoun swung his war-bag atop the Abbott & Downing stage and stepped back to watch the passengers arrive. Catherine Goodfellow came down the walk with her father. Calhoun took her elbow, meeting her curious glance with an enigmatic one of his own; he helped her into the stage and heard her cool, “Thank you.” Price Goodfellow climbed in after her. Leroy Hamlin came out of the depot with Matthew Ruarke; these two got into the stage, and finally Phil Mercy arrived, presented his ticket and squeezed inside, quick to take the seat beside Catherine. Looking out the window, Mercy gave Calhoun a glance of sardonic humor, somewhat wry.
Calhoun gave a questioning glance to the driver, who nodded in answer, whereupon Calhoun swung up top beside him. He settled into the seat and braced himself as the driver whooped and cracked his whip expertly over the heads of the lead-team. The stage lurched forward; the mules picked up a steady canter and hauled the stage, swaying on its leather springs, out of Yuma and down the northeasterly road along the Gila banks. Dust raveled high in their wake.
It soon turned hot in the jolting coach. Phil Mercy displayed sweating discomfort in a very short time. He kept looking uneasily at Leroy Hamlin, sitting directly across from him. Matthew Ruarke beside Leroy had fallen asleep the minute of the stage’s departure, and rolled loosely in his seat; when he bumped against Leroy, the giant pushed him away roughly, with a dog-like frown. The northeasterner came awake, grunting, and mechanically reached into his pocket for a black cigar. He lighted this and let clouds of foul smoke into the already close compartment.
Catherine coughed pointedly. Ruarke ignored her and kept on puffing furiously, presenting her with a cool bland smile. Presently Price Goodfellow reached across Leroy’s barrel chest to take the cigar from the saloonkeeper and fling it into the road. Ruarke’s eyes flashed hotly and he said, “You might have asked.”
“I might have,” Goodfellow said evenly, giving way not at all; from his tone it was evident he preferred not to talk to men of Ruarke’s stripe. Ruarke’s eyes narrowed down dangerously.
Catherine said, “Thank you, Father,” and turned her head to see the wild country buck past. Matthew Ruarke kept his glance on Goodfellow, and after a while it changed from anger to a secret smile.
Atop the coach Calhoun braced while the driver swore and lashed his whip loudly near the lead mules’ ears. The driver said, “Can’t cuss my best with a lady aboard—mules git lazy.”
Calhoun smiled and shifted his foot from the metal box to the rim of the dash. The driver pulled a flat flask from his hip pocket, took a long pull from it and offered it to Calhoun, who had a drink and passed it back. The driver grinned and howled at his teams and whipped them up into a run. Calhoun kicked the metal strongbox beneath his seat and asked, “What’s in the box?”
“Acropolis mine payroll. Goodfellow’s.”
“No shotgun guard?”
“Figure nobody’ll suspect we’re carrying coin if they’s no guard.”
“Risky figuring,” Calhoun said.
The driver looked at him quickly. “Say, you wouldn’t be thinking of highgrading that box, mister?”
“That’s an idea,” Calhoun said with a slight smile.
The road narrowed down to a thin ribbon running between thick stands of cottonwood along the riverbank. In the lattice shadows of that passage, a man stood spraddle-legged in the middle of the road, hat low across his eyes, holding both palms out toward the stage.
The driver frowned. “What’s that—what’s that?”
Calhoun’s alert glance swept the timber flanking the road. Something glinted in the trees. It could have been sunlight on the river surface, but Calhoun frowned and touched his gun butt. The driver was lifting his reins to slow down.
“No,” Calhoun said suddenly. “Run him down.”
The driver, gave him a questioning look. “You figure—?”
“Run him down,” Calhoun said again, drawing his revolver with practiced smoothness.
The driver cracked a broad grin. “I’m your man,” he said, and snapped his whip viciously over the team. “Hee-yah!”
The mules plunged against harness; the stage lurched into higher speed. Ahead in the road, the stranger’s head rocked back; his body stiffened and then he swung, hurling himself out of the path of the rushing mules. Dirt-clots flew up from drumming hoofs; dust climbed high and thick. The juggernaut of the stage rammed past the diving stranger with inches to spare, and then rifles opened up on either side of the road.
“Haul it down, Charlie!” someone shouted from the trees; the driver whooped at his mules and lashed them on. A bullet screamed off the top rail, taking a sliver of brass. Calhoun was searching for targets but it was hopeless trying to shoot from the back of a hurtling coach.
The stage gave a strange sidewise lurch; the driver said, “Oh-oh,” and shouted down toward the passengers: “Hang on in there—we’re going over!”
A bullet had cut the harness at the near side of the doubletree; pulled from one side only, the stage began to tip. “Better jump for it,” Calhoun said in a matter-of-fact tone, and gathered his legs.
“God damn!” the driver shouted, letting go the reins and grabbing the lurching seat with both hands; his eyes had gone wide.
“Jump!” Calhoun said, and gave him a shove.
The driver kicked away from the tumbling coach; Calhoun lost sight of his figure in midair. Rifles were talking with harsh impatience. The coach was tilted half-over, about to capsize, when Calhoun leaped away on the down-side. He hit the ground on both feet, pitched flat, and rolled deliberately into the trees.
The stage fell on its side with a great racket, raising a volume of dust. There was a splintering of spokes and a loud ripping sound as it tore along the ground on its doors and hubs. The remaining harness broke away; freed, the mules ran away down the road in panic. The stage settled to a stop with rifle bullets chunking into its boot. Concealed in the trees, Calhoun gripped his revolver and drew the hammer to full cock. His pulse pounded and his shoulder ached from a hard bruise. Out in the road, the driver was struggling to his feet. Someone shouted at him from the farther trees:
“Hold still, Charlie.”
The driver shouted a livid oath and wheeled toward the cottonwoods. A rifle fired once; the driver jerked back like a decapitated chicken, flapped his arms and fell. The rifles quit and suddenly all Calhoun could hear was the scratching and anxious talking of the passengers inside the coach. Leroy Hamlin’s voice was lifted to a high pitch of complaint. An arm came up, opening the door on top. One of the rifles in the trees fired, drilling a hole in the door; there was a shout: “Stay put in there.”
After a moment a figure walked out of the timber onto the road, twenty yards behind the coach, and strode forward with a rifle held ready. Calhoun sighted coolly and fired with a deliberate squeeze of the trigger.
His bullet shattered the man’s kneecap, spilling him down. All at once there was a concentration of voices, a bedlam of shouts among the bandits. Calhoun made out three separate voices. He rolled back deeper into the cottonwoods and flattened himself behind a thick tree. Three rifles started to pepper the spot from which he had just fired. A taut humorless grin of strain stretched Calhoun’s lips. He took the time to fill the revolver’s empty chambers and then began a stalk through the timber. Stillness settled down, broken only by the tiny gurgle of the river. The crippled bandit in the road was crawling back into the woods, dragging his leg. Calhoun went back through the trees, walking stealthily; he moved parallel to the road until he judged himself about opposite the point where the highwaymen were posted.
Someone perhaps fifty yards away cursed softly, and then there was a sudden flurry of hoofbeats that rose and thundered and fell away, absorbed by distance. Three or four horses, it sounded like.
Calhoun stepped nearer the road and came out into the open, gun up. When he drew no fire he sprinted across the road. There was no sign of anyone. The afternoon sun beat down through the treetops, making patterns of shadow. He found a place where several horses had stood tethered: the leaves were cropped, the earth was churned up by milling hoofs.
He sheathed his revolver and walked back to the overturned stagecoach. When he came up he said, “All clear. Anybody hurt?”
A head appeared in the window top: Price Goodfellow. “Just shaken up, I think, maybe a few bruises. All gone?”
“All gone,” Calhoun said. “I guess they didn’t stomach a fight.”
“Not many things important enough to risk your neck for,” Goodfellow said, and climbed out of the stage. Crouching on top, he reached down to help Catherine up.
Calhoun stood bracing it steady until all of them had come out. Matthew Ruarke dusted off his clothes and said testily, “Why in hell didn’t Charlie pull up for them?”
“I told him to go on,” Calhoun said.
Ruarke glared at him brightly. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“They were after Goodfellow’s payroll,” Calhoun said. “They didn’t get it, did they?”
“They got Charlie,” Ruarke said. “Which is more important?”
Calhoun said softly, “Are you blaming that on me?”
“Stop it, both of you,” Catherine said. She was disheveled but composed. “We’ve got other things to think about.”
Goodfellow said, “We ought to bury Charlie. We can’t pack him. The mules are gone.”
“Nothing to dig with,” said Phil Mercy, straightening out the creases in his hat.
“Well, then,” Calhoun said with deliberate malice, “I guess Leroy’s pretty well equipped to dig with his hands like a dog.”
Leroy squinted at him and then did a strange thing: he grinned.
Matthew Ruarke said smoothly, “I don’t think that was called for, Calhoun.”
“You’re disgusting,” Catherine said. “All of you.”
Calhoun challenged Leroy with his grin. “I’ll break off a couple of branches. We can scratch a grave for Charlie. Come on, Leroy.”
They trudged into the dusk on exhausted legs and sank to the earth after drinking out of the river. “Thank God there’s water, at least,” Catherine said.
It drew Phil Mercy’s lopsided smile. “I’m glad you’re in a mood to be thankful for something.”
“Feeling sorry for yourself won’t do much good,” Catherine said. Mercy only shrugged in reply.
Calhoun said, “Those mules may run on to the next stage-stop. How far is that?”
“Twenty miles, roughly,” said Goodfellow.
“Maybe someone will come looking for us,” Mercy said.
“Maybe,” Calhoun said. “Then again, maybe not. The mules may get sidetracked. Indians may pick them up. We’ll have to try for it in the morning.”
“That’ll be a hot walk,” Matthew Ruarke said. He had his arms wrapped around his knees. “Better hope nobody comes across that payroll strongbox of yours, Goodfellow.”
Goodfellow looked at him. Calhoun said quietly, “Only the seven of us know where we hid it, Ruarke.”
“That’s so, isn’t it?” Ruarke met his even glance.
Leroy was sitting off by himself, glaring balefully at Calhoun. “I’m hungry,” he said.
The last gray of dusk faded, but the moon was up, three-quarters round; it glinted along the river surface in racing ripples. Catherine stood up and said, “I’m going to sleep,” and walked off into the trees.
A grove of cottonwoods lay back some yards from the bank. A tree had fallen across an opening here and afforded some shelter. Calhoun walked up and stood looking down at the girl, standing with his feet well apart, dragging wind into his chest. The water-laden night breeze bit coldly through his flesh. Catherine opened her eyes and laid her glance on him. Her hair was spread on the ground like a halo. Calhoun took off his coat and bent to spread it over her, whereupon she reached up and touched his shoulders, and pulled him toward her. She did not speak; she rolled her head back and forth once and sought his lips with hers.
Calhoun was quiet for a moment; he felt her arms tight around him and knew that she was shaken and in need of the strength he could give her; she was cold and frightened a little, and dejected. But after a moment of this he drew back and said softly, “Get some sleep,” and went away from her.