Wanderlust Creek

 

Gloria Collins reined up her horse sharply, looking across to where two men on horseback had just emerged from the brush on the other side of the meadow, where two men on horseback had no right to be. She looked for just an instant, and then folded her lips together sharply and spurred her tall bay gelding forward, heading straight for them. The riders, seeing her coming, slackened their pace when she was about halfway across the meadow so they came to a standstill as she drew rein opposite them.

“What are you doing here?” she asked abruptly.

The older and heavier-built of the two men grinned, his close-set eyes flicking over her in a way that made her dislike him at once. “Why, miss, we’re ridin’. I guess you can see that.”

“I meant what are you doing here on my land, and I think you knew that.”

“Your land!” he repeated, sounding surprised, too surprised to be natural.

Gloria fought a quick unreasoning urge to lose her temper at once. “Yes, my land and my husband’s.”

The man grinned again. “Missy, you don’t look old enough to have a husband, let alone a nice piece of grazing land like this.”

“Well, I can assure you, I’ve got both.” The color had come up a little in Gloria’s face at this personal turn to the conversation, but her voice remained uncompromising. “But never mind that; what I want to know is why and how you came through here when there was a fence to stop you.”

“What fence?”

Gloria’s mouth fell open a little. She put her clenched hand on her hip with as much dignity as if she had been on the ground (it happened to be the hand that held her quirt). “Don’t talk rubbish, please! You know very well there’s a fence down there, or at least there was.”

“Well, it didn’t stop us, so I don’t see how there could’ve been one.”

The younger of the two laughed suddenly as if he couldn’t help it, then looked slightly ashamed of himself. Gloria barely favored him with a glance. “Well, whatever the case, you’re trespassing, and I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“You people are awfully touchy about ‘trespassers’ round here,” said the bigger man. He swung down off his horse, lazily; too lazily. “Didn’t used to be that way years back. You oughtn’t to be so rude to strangers, missy.”

He took a step toward her; Gloria tightened the reins an inch and the bay swung round so its head was between them. “I told you to go.”

The man reached out and grasped the bay’s bridle close to the bit before she had a chance to back her horse, and pushed around close to the horse’s shoulder. There was still an unpleasant smile lingering round his mouth. “You talk a lot too sharp for a little thing. Don’t you think you could be a little friendlier?”

He reached up toward the reins with his other hand and his hard fingers closed round her wrist. Gloria had not expected it and could not use her quirt, which had slipped down and tangled around her other wrist. The bay horse slewed around sideways in displeasure at the pull on its mouth, but she could not twist her hand free. “Don’t touch me!” she said, a little breathless, hoping her anger concealed a sudden touch of panic.

The younger man put in, though doubtfully, “Hey, do you think—”

A rifle shot cracked and a bullet kicked up the sod a foot behind the other man’s riderless horse. All three horses shied violently; the man on the ground lost his hold on Gloria’s wrist and stumbled as the bay pulled away, and swore as he turned round angrily to look for the source of the shot. Relief leaped through Gloria as she steadied her spooked horse. Ray!

Ray Collins emerged on foot from the brush bordering the meadow, a little to the rear of the scene and closer than any of them had realized, a Winchester in the crook of his arm. In a few purposeful strides he crossed the intervening space and joined them, coming up alongside Gloria’s horse. He looked up at her, catching her eye for a second to see if she was all right, and then he spoke sharply to the men. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I been getting that question a lot lately,” said the man on foot, his face still dark with anger. “You crazy, shooting at us like that? What business you got doing it?”

“You’ve got no business at all trespassing on my land, or laying your hands on my wife,” said Ray. “Get out of here before I put another shot a lot closer to you.”

Here the younger rider, whose face at sight of Ray had registered first surprised recognition and then slight guilt, cut in. “Hey—Ray—”

Ray glanced at him, his own recognition failing to make any impression on his restrained anger. Chris Borden tried to smile uncomfortably. “Gosh, Ray, I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. “I’m sorry about all this. I—I didn’t know she was your wife—”

“And if she’d been somebody else’s wife, it wouldn’t have mattered?” said Ray cuttingly. “Thanks a lot.”

His glance took in both of them. “You’d better ride out—now.”

With little else they could do, the two men complied. The one on foot gave Ray an ugly look, and glanced once more at Gloria before turning to his horse. “You’ll be sorry if you ever try something like that on me again,” he said to Ray, and then turned away.

As the men rode away across the meadow, Gloria turned her horse back in the direction from which she had come, towards home, and Ray fell in to walk beside her. His own horse waited in the brush from which he had fired. Gloria looked down sideways at him. She had learned to know his moods well enough in a year of marriage to tell that he was still simmering with anger, though outwardly contained. He ejected the spent shell from the Winchester and slung the gun under his other arm. The rifle shot had shaken Gloria a little, though she could not say it was a surprise. Ray’s patience had been short lately, for a number of good reasons.

He looked up at her again after a few minutes, and the expression in his eyes had nearly returned to normal. “Are you all right?” he said.

Gloria nodded. “I—I think they may have cut our fence.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Ray rather bitterly. “McDonough men—they’ve all got a spite at fences still.”

Gloria gave a half-hearted smile. “Do you suppose you would, if you’d stayed on working for an outfit like that?”

Ray was looking down, but she heard his short rueful laugh. “Maybe,” he said. “But the shoe’s on the other foot now.”

 

* * *

 

The red sunset lit up the flat ground by the side of the house with an odd, unearthly cathedral-window glow, and struck gold sparks from the nearest bend of Wanderlust Creek visible to the west. Ray Collins, with the sun behind him, stared into the little shaving-mirror hung on the rough plank side of the house, as he wiped his hands dry on a towel after washing in the tin basin on the shelf below. He looked at his own face without really seeing it, his mind turning on other things—a face still young, but serious, with lines of work and worry round the eyes. The sunset glow touched the reddish glint in his brown hair that only showed in certain lights. He stood for a moment rubbing the damp towel absently in his hands, and thinking. Then he put it down on the shelf. He ran his fingers through his hair to comb it, the few droplets of water that had caught there when he washed leaving streaks of dampness through it, and then he turned and went round the corner of the house toward the door.

Inside, Gloria was putting supper on the table. She had not bothered to change out of her dusty riding-skirt and blouse; it did not seem worth the effort. Most of her working hours had been spent outdoors this summer. She had nursed her limp vegetable garden through the hot, dry weeks, irrigating it by hand with buckets of water from the well, and in the same manner tried to keep alive the still-spindly saplings Ray had planted in front of the house last spring. She also spent time in the saddle helping Ray haze their small herd of cattle from place to place in search of the least-parched grass. Sometimes her wide-brimmed straw hat hung down her back; sometimes she remembered to wear it; other times, like today, she forgot to bring it out at all, and had a burned face and freckles to show for it.

Gloria set the biscuits on the table and turned down the damper on the stove. The house had started as a slant-roofed claim shanty; Ray had built the other half onto it shortly before they were married. The front room was furnished with a cookstove, table and two chairs, and the rocking-chair that had been a wedding-gift from Gloria’s parents and was one of their proudest possessions; there were two cabinets made of packing-cases, the shelves trimmed with brown-paper scallops she had cut to fit, and brightly colored calico curtains hung at the windows screened with mosquito netting—they had not yet been able to afford glass for them. The earth floor was neatly swept—how well she remembered writing gleefully to her mother and sister about sweeping a dirt floor, a wonderfully humorous thing to a town-bred girl. The other room was the bedroom, containing a bed, Gloria’s trunk that had brought her possessions out with her, and a row of nails on the wall for hanging clothes.

Supper was simple enough—leftover stew, made mostly of canned goods; sourdough biscuits and vegetables from the garden—but the table was covered with a checked tablecloth and neatly set. Gloria’s mother had trained her well. Though she had been married just over a year, Gloria still felt sometimes like a little girl playing at housekeeping; the fact that it all belonged to her was hard to realize. The practice of setting a table for two, of cooking meals, washing clothes and making a bed for two still had a sharply sweet significance.

Ray came in as she finished putting the food on the table. Gloria, turning from her work, met him in the narrow space between the corner of the table and the door, and he put his arm around her, his hand behind her head, and tipped her face gently up toward him. His hand felt soft and cool against the sunburned back of her neck. Ray had kept up the cowpuncher’s habit of wearing gloves for most work, and his hands were smooth still. Gloria closed her eyes as he kissed her, leaning into him contentedly.

They sat down to supper—a quiet meal lately; at the end of these long hot days both were often too tired to talk or eat very much. Gloria noticed that Ray seemed to have little appetite for anything tonight, but that was not terribly unusual either, of late.

It was when she was just getting up to clear away that Ray put both elbows on the table and said a little abruptly, as though he had been planning the words for some time, “Gloria, we need to talk.”

Gloria slid back into her chair and looked at him questioningly, a little concern touching her face. Ray said, without lifting his eyes from the tablecloth, “You know there weren’t half as many calves this year as I figured on. And with this dry weather the cattle are all so poor they won’t bring nearly enough at market come fall unless we sell practically all of them—maybe the whole herd.”

“Oh, Ray, no,” said Gloria, leaning forward earnestly. “Not after you’ve worked so hard building the herd up this much. You wouldn’t sell them all.”

“I’ve been working it all out, the past few days, and I don’t see any other way,” said Ray, shaking his bowed head. “I had it figured that the increase in the herd would pay the interest on the note and a little on the principal every year, and then in a few years when the interest got smaller we could start keeping some of the calves. But if they only bring half the price I counted on, it’ll take more than half the herd to pay the interest, and I’ve got to put something on the principal too. If we don’t do that we’ll be stuck paying the same interest year after year and we’ll never get out from under.”

“And what’ll we do—after that?” said Gloria in a lower voice, after a short silence.

“We’ll scrape through the winter somehow,” said Ray; “next year we’ll have to live off what we can raise here. If I can save a little of the money from the cattle I’ll try a cash crop—if that comes through we can pay the interest again—maybe put by a little toward rebuilding the herd.”

“We’d break even,” said Gloria slowly, “but we’d be back where we started.”

“Worse places to be,” said Ray. He looked at her and tried to smile. “It’s not all that bad, Glorie. We’ve got another month of summer left, anyway, before I’ll start looking for a buyer.”

She nodded, quietly. And after another minute she got up and began clearing away the dishes, without speaking again. She knew all that Ray had not said. With the mortgage hanging over them it would be years before they could save any money to buy cattle again. She knew, better than anyone, Ray’s dreams of building his own herd, and how close he had been to the reality before the hot weather had come, and the cattle began to droop and grow thinner. She had known this was coming. Most nights she could not help but sleep soundly, exhausted from the day’s work, but there were other nights when she lay awake, staring at the pattern of moonlight that filtered through the calico curtains onto the wall, listening to Ray’s slow breathing beside her and thinking about what they were going to do and what would happen with them. She wondered sometimes if on the nights she went to sleep, Ray lay awake, staring at the same pattern of moonlight and thinking the same thoughts.

Gloria stole a look over her shoulder from the stove. Ray was still sitting with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped, staring in front of him. The long way around to the dream, if it ever came, would be harder and more wearisome. Ray was a cattleman to the bone; he would hate the idea of walking behind a plow. Gloria had a sudden impulse to go to him, to put her arms around him or run her fingers through his hair or make some other gesture of comfort. But something held her back. She felt that at this moment it would only emphasize her helplessness to do anything about what was troubling him, the fact that she had nothing to offer but a caress. It was a feeling foreign to her, and it made her more uneasy than their tangible troubles.

Ray got up while she was washing the dishes, and went over and sat down in the rocking-chair by the stove, with one foot stretched out in front of him, looking into the dim grate full of coals. Gloria finished drying the dishes and putting them away on the packing-case shelves, and went into the bedroom to hang her apron on its nail. When she came out, she stood a moment and looked at her husband. Then she went over to him and sat down on his knee, and curled up in his lap with her head against his shoulder. She was just small and slight enough to do this without endangering the health of the rocking-chair. Ray shifted slightly to make her more comfortable, and put his arm around her.

“Tired?” he said.

“No,” said Gloria with a soft little sigh, watching the dying coals in the stove, “not very much.”

Ray moved his arm a little, a gesture that seemed to draw her closer. And Gloria knew that she had been wrong. From here nothing looked so bad as it had done before. She knew by the way Ray held her that he felt the same way. Their closeness was the most precious thing they had, and it was that—if anything could—that would help them weather the storm.

 

* * *

 

The town of Baxter, so called of courtesy on the map, had begun life as an isolated trading-post. With the influx of people brought by the opening of nearby public land to homesteading, other buildings had sprung up around it like low-roofed mushrooms: a blacksmith shop, land office, feed and grain store; and eventually an assortment of larger stores and saloons. The original cluster of buildings were of sod; the newer ones, built of lumber hauled for the purpose, had gradually formed into a single straggling street of beaten dust.

Ray Collins reined in his team in front of a store at the newest end of the street, and gave Gloria his hand to help her down from the wagon seat. “I won’t be ten minutes,” she said.

Ray set the brake on the wagon and climbed down on the other side. “No hurry. I’ve got to talk to a couple of people, and then I’ll meet you back here.”

“All right.”

Ray had walked about half the length of the street when a voice he knew hailed him from the boardwalk in front of one of the buildings, and he turned to see the rancher McDonough coming down the steps toward him. He stood and waited, rather unwillingly.

McDonough must have seen the extra layer of reserve that shut down over the younger man’s face at his approach, but he did not let it affect his own manner. “Morning, Collins,” he said. “Good thing running into you like this; I’ve been wanting to see you again. Can I buy you a drink?”

“It’s a little early,” said Ray.

“Never mind that, then. But why don’t we go inside and sit down. I want to have a talk with you.”

Ray knew there was no point in refusing; McDonough would merely make a chance to talk to him on some other occasion if he did. So he agreed, and they went into a nearly-empty saloon and sat down facing each other at a table by the wall.

McDonough owned one of the only large cattle ranches still operating in the vicinity. He had shrewdly kept afloat during the homesteading boom by paying his cowboys to file claims and buying the land from them when they proved up, and by buying out adjoining homesteaders who changed their minds and gave up the effort—thus keeping control of a fair amount of what had once been open McDonough range. Ray Collins had also been shrewd in his own way. He had used savings from six years’ worth of cowhand’s wages to prove up on a quarter-section of land with the six-month residency, and had added to it by purchasing the relinquishment on another claim beside his. His thoughts tended not towards empire, but a small, solid ranching operation, a home and a future.

McDonough opened the conversation without delay. “You know what I want to talk about,” he said. “I’ve said it before, but I want you to give it another thought, a serious one. This dry summer has been hard on everybody’s herds. I’ve been making out all right—but I’d feel a lot better if I had those four miles of Wanderlust Creek you’ve got under fence to fall back on for water.”

Ray half laughed. “I don’t know why you’d think I’d be willing to give up having that water for my herd.”

“You’ve got a note on that place, haven’t you?” said McDonough. “It’s no use trying to pretend, because I know what you’re up against. You’ll have a hard time getting out from under it with a herd that size, after being hit with weather like this. I want to give you a fair deal.”

“It’s not the deal I want. If I sell out, where does that leave me? I’ll have the note paid off and nowhere to graze my cattle.”

“You’ll have some cash in hand, too, to start over somewhere else.”

Ray shook his head. “I chose that spot for a reason. I’ve put almost three years of work into it. I don’t want to start over somewhere else. If I have to sell off my herd at least I’ve still got the land. That’s the surest bet, to my way of thinking.”

“I know what you mean,” said McDonough, “about putting the work in. You would be starting over, I admit. That’s why I’m willing to go one better over my last offer, to make it easier for you. I’ll give you a job.”

“A job?”

McDonough nodded, moving forward in his chair as he warmed to his explanation. “You can run your cattle in with mine, and I’ll pay you top cowhand wages. I know you’ve got the experience to be worth it. With no mortgage to worry about you can save out of that, and in a year or so have saved enough to put you back in business on a spread of your own somewhere else.”

Ray stared at him for a minute, and then he shook his head abruptly. “I can’t do that, McDonough, even if I wanted to. I’ve got a wife. I can’t bring her out there. You know you haven’t got any fit place for a woman to live, especially if she’s got to be alone most of the time with only a lot of cowpunchers around.”

McDonough was a bachelor. “It wouldn’t be for keeps, you know. You could set your wife up in town for the winter; see her as often as the work lets you. Six months would give you more than two hundred dollars, and you’d have your cattle—and that’s something to think about. Look at it against where you are right now.”

Ray sat still, thinking. Then he shook his head again, more slowly, but with increasing surety. “Sorry, McDonough. I don’t want to sell. I’ve made up my mind.”

McDonough’s shrewd light eyes held his for a second, and then the older man gave a slight shrug and shake of the head. “Well, I hope you don’t regret it.”

“So do I,” said Ray briefly, getting up. He wanted to get away from this conversation as soon as possible.

McDonough sat still, but his eyes followed him. “If you change your mind—”

“I know. But don’t count on it.”

“I’ll be seeing you, then.”

Ray went out and walked back up the street, his hands in his pockets. His original errands were no longer important. He walked fast with his head bent a little, and so when he rounded the bend where an awkwardly-placed store jutted a corner into the street he bumped into a man coming the other way. The man started to apologize and then broke off: “Sorry—Ray!”

The conversation with McDonough had blotted memories of other things for the moment, and Ray’s spirits lifted at sight of a well-known face. “Chris! Well, I’ll—you’re the last person I expected to see. How are you?”

They shook hands heartily. Chris Borden was a year or two younger, with dark hair and a good-natured, ingenuous face. “Never was better. How about you?”

“Just fine.”

Chris paused a second, pushed his hat back and spoke awkwardly. “Listen, Ray—I’m awful sorry about what happened the other day. I’m new there, and I didn’t know what a low coyote that Jones can make of himself when he wants to. If I’d known that was your fence we cut I wouldn’t even have gone with him—”

“I’ll bet,” said Ray, with only a small glint of irony in his voice. He knew his friend’s sincerity, but he wanted to forget the incident for his own peace of mind. “Forget it, Chris. What’re you doing here, anyway? I take it you’re working for McDonough.” He motioned Chris to join him and they went on up the street together.

“Yeah. Just drifted this way looking for a job, and he was hiring. I guess you know him? How long you been here?”

“Almost three years now. I came in and filed when they opened up this land for settlement, and I own a half section clear now—or almost.” He thought of the note. “Had to break some ground the first year, but I’ve been running a small bunch of cattle. I got married last year too.”

“I guess you did,” said Chris, grinning. “Got a mind of her own, hasn’t she—from what I saw. Bet she keeps you on your toes.”

“Shows how much you know,” said Ray, trying not to show just how proud and fond he was of his wife, an effort that only served to make him look slightly ridiculous.

They were approaching the wagon and team in front of the store, and as Ray moved toward it Chris put a hand on his arm and held him back. “Say, you’re not leaving? Haven’t seen you in years, and we’ve barely had a chance to say hello. Come on over and let me buy you a drink and talk a while.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to be getting home—”

“You old married men. You can be late for once.”

Ray was smiling a little, but he said, with an eye on the wagon behind Chris, “It’s not exactly that, it’s—”

“I suppose your wife doesn’t let you in the saloon,” said Chris with a mock air of friendly pity. “Come on, you can get away with it this once. She’ll never have to know anything about it.”

Ray, trying hard not to laugh, looked up at the wagon seat where Gloria, who had climbed up there in time to hear most of this conversation, had seated herself with a very demure smile during the last speech. “It’d be kind of hard to come up with an excuse now, wouldn’t it?”

Chris, following the direction of the look, realized at once what was behind him, and turned around to look up at Gloria with a sheepish expression but no abatement of good nature. He took off his hat. “I’ve got a knack for putting my foot in it, haven’t I,” he said.

Ray laughed aloud. “Glorie, this is Chris Borden. You’ve heard me talk about him before. We punched cows together on the Rosebud for two years. He used to be the best friend I’d got.”

Chris ejaculated, “Used to be! Who’s gone me one better?”

“You’re looking at her,” said Ray, grinning.

“I can’t argue and I won’t,” said Chris, replacing his hat. Gloria laughed too. She had not seen Ray smile like that in a long time—at this moment there was no shadow of trouble in his eyes; he looked almost as confident and carefree as he had been a year ago. She was glad of the friend whose reappearance could do this; she liked him even better for that.

“I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Collins,” said Chris, “though I’m afraid I haven’t—given a very good account of myself anytime we’ve met.”

“That’s all right,” said Gloria, knowing to what he was referring. “I hope you’ll come and see us sometime, if you’re going to be around here. We’d be happy to have you.”

“Now that’s real generosity,” said Chris, thanking her with a glance. “I’ll be glad to. And I’ll tell you some stories I’ll bet you’ve never heard about Ray, too. There was this horse once, that put him—But right now I’d better be going before he gives me a kick to help me along. He’s got that look in his eye that always comes before a kick.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Gloria.

“A kick now and then is good for his health,” said Ray. “So long, Chris; and listen, don’t forget about that. Come out and see us whenever you get a chance.”

“I will. So long.”

Ray climbed to the wagon seat beside Gloria, gathered up the reins and turned the team out in a half-circle to go back down the street. A little ways on they passed Chris Borden walking in the same direction, and he waved a hand to them.

“I like him,” said Gloria.

“He’s all right,” said Ray with simplicity. “Butts into things headfirst sometimes, but he’ll stick by you to the death. Not that I ever had to try him that far,” added Ray, and Gloria found a laugh irresistible—it was so unlike the Ray of these late hard times to make a joke like that. “But he’s a good friend to have. I remember once on a roundup he stood by me when a rep from another wagon said I’d shot one of their steers…” Ray’s voice trailed off as he lost himself in remembrance.

“And I suppose he will tell me a lot of terribly embarrassing stories about you?” said Gloria. She rearranged the parcels in her lap, and let her hand drop to rest lightly on his knee.

“He’ll tell you about a jug-headed horse that made a fool out of me once—but he won’t tell you it did the same thing to him the week before, and he didn’t tell me,” said Ray. “Nothing more scandalous than that.”

They were out of Baxter by this time, and a warm dry wind blew across them. Ahead, a grayish smudge of brush along the horizon marked the course of Wanderlust Creek across the prairie.

“We had some good times together,” said Ray reflectively. “Winters were always rough, of course. But that spring…we had a good boss and a good cook, and the finest weather I can remember, that second year. Camping within sound of the river at night, with about a million stars overhead—nights so warm you didn’t need a blanket. I remember saying to Chris, when we collected our pay that—May, was it?—or June—that it felt more like a gift from a rich old uncle than wages for the kind of living we’d been having.”

He was silent for a little while after that. Gloria, who had been listening with a slightly sober face, stole a sideways look at him. An idea that had never occurred to her before had crept into her heart. Did Ray ever regret, she wondered, that he had left that life and settled down? A cowboy’s life was hard enough, but the only responsibility you carried was to do the job you were given and collect your pay at the end of the month. And a man could quit a job he didn’t like at any time, pack up his life in a war sack and move on to find a better country.

She wondered if Ray was thinking this—if seeing Chris again had made him remember those days, and wish that he had not left them behind.

“Did—you see who you wanted to in town?” she said, feeling a sudden need for conversation.

“I didn’t see anybody but McDonough,” said Ray. “He’s still after me to sell out. I told him it was no good.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at the faintly-trodden wagon trail rolling ahead in the dry grass. Then he added, unexpectedly, “He offered me a job.”

Gloria looked at him, not knowing quite what to say. “What kind of a job? At his ranch?”

“Cowpuncher’s job. He told me I could run my cattle in with his, and work for him till I’d saved enough to start over somewhere else.” Ray said, slowly, “It would mean we could keep the cattle…but it wouldn’t work for us. I told him that. I couldn’t bring you out there; it’s rougher than what we’ve got now. And I’m not going to leave you alone in town for the winter for a cowpunching job. That was McDonough’s idea. I wouldn’t do that, even though I want…I wanted…to keep the herd.”

Gloria looked quickly at him again. Ray’s face had taken on the same set, resigned expression it had worn all those weeks of drought and worry. McDonough’s offer—a cowboy’s job again, the chance to keep the herd he had built…

She said, hesitantly, “Ray, if you thought it was a better chance—”

Ray turned his head toward her abruptly and she shifted her eyes to the parcels in her lap, without knowing why she did it. “I told you, Gloria, it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes. It was, after all, what she would always have expected him to say. She should have had her mind put at ease. But when Gloria lifted her head to look once more at her husband’s face, she saw that Ray was looking away across the prairie, his eyes following the line of Wanderlust Creek; and the far-away look in them sent a strange chill to her heart.

 

* * *

 

Near midday, one still, hot day, Gloria dismounted from her horse by a shallow elbow of the creek, and dropped the reins to let him drink. She sat down on the creek bank, the stalks of dry, exhausted grass crackling under her and poking at her corduroy skirt, and looked at the slow-moving brownish water. The level of the creek was down, half what it should be.

The weather had continued hot and dry. The bawling of the cattle as they searched for grass became pitiful, and more than once Gloria feared the wilted garden was beyond recovery. The garden was more important now that they depended on every bit she could preserve to get them through the coming winter.

The distress of the cattle was wearing on Ray; she read it in his eyes and in his disinclination to talk about it. At least that was what she told herself was the reason. Ever since the day they had gone to Baxter there had been that secret fear lurking in the back of her mind—the fear that Ray was restless, that he was growing tired of being tied down—that he wished he had been able to accept McDonough’s offer. It was only because of her that he had refused, wasn’t it? If only he had not had a wife to provide for, what a relief it would be to cut the whole miserable drought-parched mess, pay off his debts and turn over responsibility to a wagon boss again.

Gloria felt this with increasing conviction with each passing day, and she herself was more often silent, avoiding speaking to Ray on any subject of importance, because she was afraid of seeing the proof of it in his every look and word. Aside from the silences, which were easily attributed to their weariness, nothing else had changed. They worked side by side, trying to salvage the garden and alleviate the suffering of the stock; they sat down together to the meals she prepared; and Gloria still felt that sense of comfort when Ray took her in his arms, in spite of the little ache in her heart.

Gloria rolled a bit of dry grass between her fingers, and stretched out her hand to drop it on the surface of the creek. She watched it carried slowly away, swinging from side to side in the sluggish current. For the first few months after she and Ray were married, before the well was dug, Wanderlust Creek had been part of their housekeeping. They had hauled water from the creek, led the stock to drink there; they had bathed in it and Gloria had done their laundry in it. Now, in her memory, those seemed like the happiest days—days that were as far off now as the distant glimpse of the creek from the house.

When she first came there as a bride, the prairie and the brush country had seemed a little bleak, slightly alarming companions to have for a day and a life long. But she had grown to love their wild sort of beauty: the wide-openness, the winds, the vivid sunsets that turned Wanderlust Creek into a twisting thread of filigreed rose and gold. She had loved the task of making the shanty into a home, of planting that garden; she realized now that she had come to fiercely love every element of the life they had built together. So that what she dreaded was the chance of finding that this life, which had become her whole world, did not mean as much to Ray as it did to her.

Gloria got up, and gathered the bay horse’s reins, and mounted and rode up toward the house.

A quarter of an hour later, after pulling the saddle off the bay and turning him into the barn, she stepped through the doorway of the shanty. She stood and looked around. The checked cloth on the table was wrinkled; the dishes and cans stood at untidy angles on the shelves; there was soot mingled with the dirt floor in front of the stove. Through the doorway of the bedroom she could see the quilt on the bed was crooked and one of Ray’s shirts lay on the floor. Gloria looked at the stove, and thought of the work ahead of her in preparing even the barest kind of a dinner—and for one miserable second she felt—what was the use?

Her own thought frightened her. What was happening to her? Only a little while ago she had been thinking with love and protectiveness of this life, and now she wanted to run from it. That only happened if you stopped caring. Gloria drew a sharp breath and the words came from her lips in an involuntary whisper: “God, please don’t ever let me not care.”

Then suddenly everything was normal again, and she knew that she did care. She put her quirt and gloves on the table, straightened the checked cloth, and went to the bedroom for her apron. She fell to work with almost rebellious energy, tidying the bedroom, straightening the shelves and sweeping the floor, opened cans of beans and salt pork and kneaded flour into the sourdough starter to make the biscuits for dinner.

When they were in the oven, Gloria went into the bedroom and opened her trunk, brought pen and notepaper to the table and sat down to write a letter to her mother. It was not a long letter, and it was rather a colorless one, for her, because there were more things left out than not. She did not write about any of her worries and heartaches, nor about how the cattle and the garden were flagging; she put in bits and pieces of less important things and alluded only gently to the hard work busying them. Her mother would understand—and she did not feel like talking about her troubles. While tidying the house she had come to a sort of resolution with herself: resolution if not peace. Ray might regret that he had traded his freedom for hard responsibility, but he should never have cause to regret he had chosen her for his wife. He did love her; he would not still be here if he did not; and no sacrifice that he made for her sake should ever go for nothing.

 

* * *

 

The sky was gray, but as yet refused to release any rain. Ray leaned down from his saddle to gather the bay gelding’s reins as Gloria dismounted, in the corner rutted by wagons turning beside the blacksmith’s pole corral and shed. Ray’s horse needed a new shoe, and Gloria had her letter to post, so they had ridden into Baxter together as was often their custom. Gloria much preferred the ride with Ray and a few minutes’ chat with the postmistress to an afternoon alone in the shanty.

She went off across the way toward the old trading-post, which housed the post-office, and Ray dismounted and led the horses around into the blacksmith’s yard. Smoke drifted from under the open shed, where the clang of metal upon metal resounded. A handful of men lounged in the yard, smoking and talking while they waited for repairs on a wagon wheel or horseshoe or simply idling along with the others, and one of these was Chris Borden. He was sitting on the top rail of the corral, and after watching Ray from this vantage for a minute, he slid down and followed him over into the corner where Ray was looping the reins of Gloria’s horse over the fence.

Chris leaned his back against the fence. “How’s things?” he said.

“Not so good,” said Ray. He looked at Chris and added, “Well—you know. Same as everybody else, on a smaller scale. At least I’ve still got enough water.”

“I’ve been hearing some talk that McDonough wanted to buy you out,” said Chris. “Is that true?”

“It’s true,” said Ray shortly. “I’ve turned him down more than once.”

“I heard that, too,” said Chris. “You always were a pretty set fellow once you got an idea in your head.”

“I’m not talking about ideas, I’m talking about land. Three hundred and twenty acres of land.”

“He’s offering you a fair deal.”

“Sure it’s a fair deal,” said Ray a trifle sharply.

“Then what are you so touchy about? Do you want to take it?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I want to or not,” said Ray, sliding around to face Chris with his arm on the fence rail. “You’re not the one to be telling me what I should do. You never look more than ten feet ahead of you and you’re happy that way. I put in six years punching cows, Chris—for what? D’you think I filed that claim as a gamble, till somebody came along and raised me one better? I wanted something solid. I wanted a place where I could raise a family, and have it to pass along to them. I can’t think in dollars and cents the way McDonough wants me to. I’m thinking about Gloria, and about those kids that aren’t born yet, and what’s best for them. Maybe that stuff doesn’t mean anything to you, but it does to me.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Chris, a little nettled, “but that’s not here nor there. All I know is you look like you haven’t slept in weeks, your cattle are racks of bones—I saw some of ‘em over the fence the other day—and if you’re holding out on McDonough out of plain stubbornness you ought to think again.”

“So that’s what you think, is it?” said Ray, looking at his own hands as he gripped the rail.

Chris managed a half-smile. “I know you pretty well, old-timer.”

“Yes, I guess you do,” said Ray. He added, deliberately, “But you never were very good at making me change my mind.”

Chris’s smile faded. When he spoke his voice was a little harder. “No,” he said, “I guess I never was.”

He waited, to see if Ray would say anything else. But Ray did not speak, nor look at him. After a moment Chris turned around and walked away to his horse. They both knew when an argument could be carried no further. Chris mounted, cast one look back toward his friend, and then guided his horse out of the blacksmith’s corral and out onto the track across the prairie.

Meanwhile, Gloria crossed the flat ground toward the old trading-post with the letter to her mother in her hand. The long, low building lay in front of her, a tin stovepipe projecting from the sod roof at each end and a hand-painted sign declaring “U.S. MAIL” over the door. It had recently acquired the dignity of glass in the windows, and Gloria caught a glimpse of her reflection in the unaccustomed surface of one as she approached the door. Thin and suntanned, in her old brown calico blouse and corduroy riding-skirt, with her dark hair blown into disorder by the ride—more like a schoolgirl run wild than a rancher’s wife. The thought made her smile, and she skipped lightly up over the single stone step and in through the open door.

She halted abruptly inside it. Two men leaning on the counter at the other end of the long room turned to look at her, and as Gloria’s eyes adjusted to the dimness she saw there was no one else in the trading-post. The men were leaning there as if waiting for Mrs. Prine’s return. Gloria saw that the taller one was the McDonough hand called Jones, and his attention had already fastened on her; she had already come in too far to back out and pretend she had only glanced in at the door.

Gloria bit her lip and stood hesitating for a second. She looked at the other man: he was a stranger, probably another McDonough hand, a shorter man with sloping shoulders and a long slack-jawed face that had a way of looking perpetually amused at something. She would have to pass between them to leave her letter at the counter. The idea was not a pleasant one, and yet neither did she want to turn and leave now, and openly acknowledge that she was afraid of them. She took a step forward, and walked across the room toward them.

Jones’ eyes followed her all the way; she had a feeling he was doing it deliberately to unsettle her. “Well,” he said when she was almost in front of him, “so it’s little Miz Collins, is it?”

Gloria glanced briefly in his direction without coming anywhere near meeting his eyes. She was almost at the counter, but the other man, Cooley, was leaning with his elbow on it directly in her way. She looked straight at him; he was not so hard to face. “Excuse me,” she said. Her voice was clear and level, but it sounded small to her in the hollowness of the trading-post.

Cooley moved his arm, with provoking deliberation, and grinned at her. Gloria reached over and laid her letter near the inside of the counter where Mrs. Prine would find it and put it in the mailbag. Scarcely had her fingers left it than Jones’ big hand came in from her right and picked it up, his longer arm carrying it up out of her reach. “Now who would you be writin’ to?” he said. He turned it toward him to look at the address. “Miles City, huh? Let’s see…”

Had it been anyone else Gloria would have snatched the letter from their hand without preliminary. But with this man’s close proximity, a crushing weight on her chest seemed to keep her hands at her sides. Perhaps Jones read the futile anger in her eyes; he smiled. “Wonder if your husband knows about it—huh?”

Gloria swallowed; her fingers clenched against her skirt. All she could think of to say was to repeat what she had heard Mrs. Prine the postmistress say in scolding jest more than once before. “I should remind you that it’s a crime to tamper with the United States Mail.”

“A crime, huh?” said Jones. He dropped the letter on the counter, his attention transferred fully to her. “Last time it was trespassing—another crime. You’d make me out to be a regular outlaw, wouldn’t you? I wonder where you come by the idea.”

He moved toward her. Gloria tried to back a step and almost bumped into Cooley. Once again it was too late to move. Jones reached out and his hand closed on her right arm above the elbow. Gloria pulled back, trying to fight rising panic. She suspected he was enjoying teasing her, and would probably never dare to hurt her—at least not in a place like this, where there were other people within hearing if she screamed—but he was big and uncouth and she had seen he had a temper that could be roused, and she could not help fearing him. He was a bully, a bully who did not like being blocked or thwarted in his meanness—

The words struggled through her teeth. “Let me go—if you don’t let me go you’ll be sorry for it—”

Jones gave her arm a sharp jerk, pulling a startled yelp from her, and she knew that for a second real fear must have flashed into her eyes. Cooley snickered in the background, unhelpful. “Scared, huh? You weren’t so scared before. Only order folks around like a little queen when you’re on your own ground. Or when you’ve got a husband with a gun to back you up—”

Gloria’s voice rose desperately. “Please—”

She struggled to pull free, past caring who knew she was afraid. Jones laughed out, and the beginning of a frightened cry snagged in her throat as he pulled her toward him. And then—a sharp step came on the plank floor and all three of them turned. Ray Collins was standing in the doorway, and the look in his eyes was deadly.

Perhaps it was the instinct of self-preservation that made Jones release Gloria’s arm. She pulled away and rushed toward her husband. Ray did not look at her, though his hand closed briefly on hers when she clutched at his arm; and then he put her back a few steps out of the way with the same hand. “Get out of here, Gloria,” he said, without taking his eyes from Jones.

Gloria could not entirely obey—she backed up against the wall by the door, her fingernails digging into the hardened sod. Ray advanced to within a few feet of Jones, who watched him come with mingled hate and relish of the expected conflict showing in his close-set eyes. “I warned you once,” said Ray, and then he struck him a swift right-handed blow to the jaw. Jones dodged it but did not fully succeed, and the blow glanced off him. He fell one step backward, and then came back swinging.

They were nearly equal in height, though Jones was far heavier, and for a minute or two neither had the advantage. The savage sound of the blows shook Gloria like cannon fire; her fingers dug convulsively at the wall behind her. She could not drag her eyes away. Cooley was watching them too, breathing hard in his intentness.

Again Ray took one blow, blocked another, and struck back at Jones. This time it landed squarely and Jones stumbled back, his feet tangling in some coils of rope and harness on the floor by the wall. What made Cooley intervene could not be said, but he stepped forward from the counter and put a hand on Ray’s arm. Ray jerked round and shook it off, but Cooley, irritated, grappled with him and got hold of his shirt. Jones, recovering his balance, came up with a rush and smashed an unguarded blow to the side of Ray’s head. Ray staggered, but still managed to sling an elbow into Cooley’s face and pull away from him. But Jones grasped him by the collar and twisted him around, and Cooley, evidently now considering himself a part of the fight, drove his fist into Ray’s ribs. Gloria heard Ray give a strangled, sobbing gasp of pain, saw him slacken in their grip. She wanted to cry out, but horror had taken her voice. She clenched her fist against her stomach, her fingernails pressing into her sweaty palm. Jones’ cracking, short-of-breath voice said “Hold him!” and his fist slammed home again. Ray’s knees buckled, blood spattering from his lips.

Frantic, Gloria tore herself away from the wall and stumbled out through the doorway, running blindly, running toward the other buildings of Baxter looking for someone, anyone who could stop it. She raced round the corner of the feed-and-grain soddy and cannoned into a man who said “Easy, there!” in an annoyed voice and held her arms to steady her.

Gloria gasped, trying to get her breath. It was Silas Kinney, a rawboned, white-haired cattleman who for reasons unknown had been elected sheriff of the county three years running. She clutched at his sleeve and gasped out, “Stop them—Ray—he’s fighting them—there’s two of them—they’ll kill him!”

“What’s the matter? A fight?” Kinney frowned and glanced back in the direction from which she had come.

“Yes—oh, please, hurry!”

Silas Kinney put her out of his way and moved toward the trading-post, stalking in strides that were slow but so long that Gloria nearly had to run to keep up with him. He arrived at the door of the trading-post and took the single step up into it, ducking his head so his high-crowned hat just brushed the top of the doorway, his tall frame nearly blocking out the light through it. “What’s going on here?”

The two men at the other side of the room turned at his voice. Ray Collins was slumped against the wall at their feet, bleeding, breathing painfully. Gloria flew across the room, brushing past Jones and Cooley without a thought for her previous fear of them, and fell on her knees beside him.

Silas Kinney squinted at the faces of the three men as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. The two in the foreground were strangers to him, so he looked past them and spoke irritably to the one he did know. “What’s this all about, Collins?”

Ray leaned his head back against the wall, shutting his eyes for a minute. “Just a difference”—he coughed—”of opinion.”

Jones uttered a short contemptuous laugh, in between his own hard breathing. Silas Kinney glared at him for a second, but directed his accusing voice at Ray again. “I don’t like this kind o’ thing around here, see? You boys go raisin’ Cain again and you’re liable to find yourselves in trouble—hear?”

“Is it a crime to protect your wife, Kinney?” said Ray in a ragged-edged voice. He was sitting up, and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Kinney’s white eyebrows lowered in a disgruntled frown, and he glanced around at Gloria and the other men—he did not like having his ideas rearranged once launched on a lecture. He looked at Gloria. “That true?” he said. “Were these fellas bothering you, Miz Collins?”

Gloria nodded, looking at him without speaking. She felt secure there at Ray’s side, sitting close against the wall, though it was she whose hand lay protectively on his shoulder.

“Some folks don’t know how to take a little funnin’,” said Jones, but the hardness in his voice told a different story.

Silas Kinney still only sounded annoyed that it was his task to reprove. “Well, you got no business funnin’ with a lady if she don’t like it,” he said. “You boys better clear out of here. I ain’t gonna do nothing this time, but I better not see you gettin’ in trouble round here again.”

Jones and Cooley looked at one another, and then moved slowly for the door. Gloria kept her eyes on the plank floor—she did not want to see the glances they cast; the resentment in their heavy footfalls as they went out was plain enough.

When they had gone Ray started to get up slowly, and Gloria helped him; first to his knees, and then a little unsteadily onto his feet. Kinney turned from looking out the door to face them. “That goes for you, too,” he said to Ray. “Don’t let me see you starting trouble neither. I know you’re as liable to it as anybody, maybe more.”

“I don’t start trouble, but it’s my business whether I hit back,” said Ray. He brushed past Kinney with apparent abruptness, but Gloria could tell from the clamped-down note in his voice and the uneven way he walked how much he was hurting from the beating he had received. She followed him outside, sliding between the sheriff and the doorframe as Kinney made for the door too.

“Maybe it ain’t,” said Kinney. “You better watch yourself, Collins. I already had a complaint from McDonough about you shootin’ at some of his boys. Got anything to say about that?”

“They were on my land and bothering my wife, and I’ve got every right to shoot at them.”

Kinney turned sarcastic. “Oh, your wife again? Seems to me you’re awful anxious to drag her into it.” Gloria sensed Ray stiffen as if to respond, and she laid her fingers cautioningly on his arm. “Even so you’d have some answering to do if you hit one of ‘em.”

“I’m a little better shot than that,” said Ray, sarcastic in his turn.

Gloria pulled gently at his arm. “Ray, let’s go home,” she murmured.

Ray looked down at her, and Silas Kinney took the opportunity to make his exit. “You’ve had my warnin’,” he said shortly. “Miz Collins.” He gave his hat a compulsory shove of courtesy and walked off.

That left them standing alone. Gloria looked up into Ray’s face—his mouth was still bleeding a little, and there was a darkened patch along his cheekbone, bruising already. She looked down and pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket, fumbling over it a little—she had not realized till now that her hands were unsteady—and made as if to wipe the blood from his face, but Ray took it from her and crushed it against the corner of his mouth. “I’m all right,” he mumbled through it.

His eyes met hers. “I don’t want you to get near any of that bunch from now on if you can help it,” he said.

“I don’t particularly want to—get near any of them,” said Gloria, with a rather false little laugh.

Ray glanced at the spots of blood on the handkerchief in his hand, and then he put his other arm around her and turned toward the blacksmith’s. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Thunder muttered somewhere to the northwest, and a chill drift of air met Gloria’s face as she looked that way. The sky was dark gray, the brown fields beneath looked uncannily light by contrast. It looked like a storm was coming at last. A few stray blowing drops of rain struck around her as Gloria walked toward the barn.

It was dark in there, with only the odd before-the-storm light coming in at the windows, lighting awkward angles on the thin flanks of the two milk cows and a strange sheen on the necks of the horses. Ray had just come in; he was unsaddling his horse. Gloria moved round to the outer corner of the stall and watched him for a moment; hesitant, somehow, to speak.

She had thought him troubled and silent before. But in the few days since the fight at the trading-post something had been wrong—very wrong. Ray had hardly spoken a word—had hardly seemed to hear anything she said to him; had hardly seemed to see her even when he gave her a brief absent good-night kiss. There was a restless, hunted look in his face when she did manage to get a look at him. Gloria did not know what had happened to him that day, whether it was the fight or something else, but something had pushed him close to what she sensed was a breaking point.

A hollow spatter of raindrops tapped on the barn wall. They both looked toward the window. Gloria said, after a moment, “Will it make any difference now?”

Ray doubled the saddle-girth up across the saddle on the stall bars. “Not enough to matter much,” he said. “It’ll save what we have left.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Gloria turned to move away from the stall. Ray turned his head a little and said, “Gloria.”

She came back and stood looking at him, waiting. She stared at his face, her eyes drawn back again and again unreasoningly to the dark bruised patch along his cheekbone. Ray was not looking at her; he was staring ahead into his horse’s stall and he was having a hard time putting together what he wanted to say. That was not like him. Ray had never been an overly talkative person, but words always came crisp and sure when he wanted them.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Thinking a lot—the last couple days. About—McDonough’s offer.”

He shifted his hands on the top bar of the stall. “Maybe it is the best thing for us to do right now. Like he said, we’d have the cattle, a chance to start over somewhere…” A pause, and Ray took a short breath that tried to be a laugh and failed. “I guess I made a mistake. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for managing in the first place…I got in over my head.”

Gloria did not speak, for the only thing going through her head was the thought that she had been right. Ray wanted his freedom back—he had only been able to stand so much. Well, she was not going to say anything now; she was not going to beg—she could not keep him tied to her apron-strings if he didn’t want to be there. Having him there and knowing that would hurt worse than being apart—wouldn’t it?

“I was thinking,” said Ray again, slowly, “you could go back and stay with your folks in Miles City for a while—for the winter anyway. I could come and stay for a few weeks at Christmas.”

Gloria’s lips moved at last. “If you think—it’s the best thing,” she said.

She did not know her own voice. It was quiet, reasoned, womanly. The schoolgirl had grown up—her summer in the wild was over.

Ray looked at her, unsure. “You don’t mind?”

“It would only be for a few months,” said Gloria; “we’d be saving—and then maybe someday…”

The sentence fell unfinished between them, and Gloria felt a sickening chill in the pit of her stomach. Sentences that trailed off with “someday” always remained unfinished.

Ray said, “We’ll have to talk about it some more—decide a few things—”

“Yes,” said Gloria.

She was staring down at the stalks of hay scattered on the dirt floor. She looked sideways at Ray. He was looking away again into the back of the horse’s stall—Gloria felt that he did not want to look at her just then, and she thought she understood why. She turned away again to leave the barn. She thought she heard or felt herself say almost inaudibly, “I’ll be…in the house…” in that voice that was not really her own.

She had said what she thought was the right thing, but there was a claw of pain around her heart at the knowledge of what she was doing. Leaving what was as good as a lie between them. She had not been honest; she had not told Ray all that was in her heart. That had never been her way—it was not their way.

The rain was falling in small steady drops now. Gloria twisted her shawl closer around her shoulders as she picked her way across the dampening ground toward the house. She walked faster. Her breath caught painfully; she did not know whether it was rain or tears that struck her in the face and blinded her.

She made it halfway to the house before she could bear the pain no longer. She spun around and ran back toward the barn—she had to run. She was almost there when Ray emerged from the doorway, with a long stride and a look on his face that must have matched her own. Gloria gave him no chance to speak; she ran straight against him and he caught her and held her so tightly that for a moment it hurt to breathe.

He said, “Don’t go…Glorie, don’t leave me…”

“No, no…I don’t want to…”

He kissed her, hard, and she clung to him, her head tipped back so the rain struck in her face, blurring her eyes till she could not see. They would have stayed there, outside the doorway, but the rain was falling harder now, soaking into the shawl on her shoulders and spitting off the brim of his hat. Ray drew her inside, into the quiet, safe dimness of the barn, and drew her to him. They stood together in the gray light from the barn window, with the rain pattering on the roof, and kissed hungrily, intensely, as if driven by some great need. Gloria’s arms found their way around him and held tightly.

After a minute, Ray put his head down on her shoulder, burying his face against her neck. “Don’t ever leave me, Glorie,” he whispered again. “Please don’t leave me. I need you.”

“I never wanted to,” said Gloria, her voice choked. “I didn’t want to say it. I just thought—it would be the best thing, if you wanted it—”

Ray lifted his head and stared at her in the half-light. “What?”

Gloria’s face was wet, rain and tears mingled. She freed a hand and wiped it shakily. “I’ve been thinking about how…how you must have been regretting…that you ever let yourself get tied down to a place like this. I thought you wanted to be free again…that that was why you changed your mind.”

“No, no, no…” He cradled her face between his hands, kissed her forehead, her cheek. “Why would you think that? Did I ever—”

“I thought—that day we met Chris—the way you talked about how you used to live, you sounded—like you wished you’d never given that up. I thought—”

“Oh, Glorie. Gloria, listen to me.” He held her face steady, looking straight into her eyes. “You know how hard it’s been. This year…I don’t have to tell you. Sure I’ve had moments where I wished I could drop everything, let it all go and get away—but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to take you with me.”

He rested his forehead against hers and drew a deep breath. “I just feel I’ve failed you—failed at everything—”

“Ray, no—”

“It’s true, Glorie. I should have known better. I made a muck out of the cattle business, and I brought you out here to take the fall with me. The way you’ve had to work and slave and go without—it’s no kind of a life for you. I figured I had no right to be stubborn about what I thought was best, when you had to suffer for it. That’s why I changed my mind.”

Gloria pressed close to him, her head tucked under his chin, staring up at the underside of the sod roof overhead as his words soaked into her mind. Ray added in a slightly lower voice, “But when you agreed like that, so easy, without even arguing…I didn’t know…I wondered if it didn’t matter to you after all…”

Gloria twisted to look up at him, her voice warming with a surge of renewed feeling. “Oh, but it did! It did! I only agreed because I thought that’s what you wanted. I know I should have told you the truth.”

“You understand now, don’t you?”

“Yes—but Ray, I don’t care about any of that. I thought you were right about staying here all along. And you haven’t failed—if you made one mistake about the note, that’s not the end of everything. It doesn’t matter what we have to sell or how hard we have to work, just so long as we don’t have to do it apart from each other.”

“Never—”

His arms went around her again, and Gloria pillowed her head on his chest, relaxed into the assurance of his embrace.

“Maybe McDonough’s offer did make the most sense,” said Ray after a minute, “maybe we’re fools for turning it down, but I don’t want to live that way. It might be harder going our own way, but—Glorie, I love you—”

Their lips met again, and they stood locked close together for a long time. The quiet, filled only by the light swish of the rain, was broken at last, who knew how many moments later, by a horse’s trot gradually approaching outside. It came up close to the barn and stopped, and then came a voice calling Ray’s name.

They pulled slowly apart and stared at each other for a moment, unwilling to acknowledge the interruption. Then Ray left her there and went to the door. Gloria stayed back in the shadow, and wiped damp strands of hair back from her face, drawing a slow breath, still trying to regain her composure.

The rain had slackened to a drizzle when Ray stepped outside; small puddles vibrated by the windblown drops lay on the hard surface of the yard. Chris Borden was sitting on his horse a few yards away, water dripping from his hat brim and sending little rivers down his slicker. He looked a little pale, as if ill at ease but determined to do something.

“I’ve quit McDonough,” he said. “I’m going, but there’s something I had to come and tell you about first.” He paused and then added forcefully, as though irritated with himself and ashamed of it at the same time, “If it was anybody else I don’t know if I’d care, but seeing it’s you I’ve got to say something.”

Ray was looking up at him with a slight frown, but said nothing. Chris drew a breath through his teeth. “McDonough’s been cutting your fences.”

“It’s happened before.”

“I know. Not like this. His boys are pushing cattle onto your land, watering them in Wanderlust Creek.”

Ray lifted his head a little; there was a subtle change in his face. “You sure about this?”

“I was there when they moved one bunch. It was yesterday afternoon. I didn’t like it, but Cooley told me it was orders from the top. I helped ‘em move that bunch and then I went back to the home ranch and quit.” There was silence for a few seconds, the last statement being one that Chris did not seem to want to further enlarge upon. “I just figured you should know.”

A short silence again, while the wind scattered the drops of rain around the yard. Chris’s attitude was still defensive, as though he wanted no one to know the depth of loyalty that had prompted his action. He had always been like that, and Ray knew it. “Thanks, Chris,” he said. He looked up into his friend’s face for a moment. “Good luck.”

“Same to you,” said Chris.

He wheeled his horse, headed out past the barn and away across the sodden prairie, the horse’s gait lifting to a steady mud-slinging lope as they receded from view.

Ray went back into the barn. Gloria, who had heard it all from inside the door, followed him with a questioning, faintly troubled gaze as he went across to his horse’s stall and pulled his saddle off the bars. He flipped the saddle blanket over the brown horse’s back with one hand, then grasped the saddle and heaved it up into place.

Gloria came up to the bars of the stall, letting the shawl drop back from her shoulders, her cold fingers feeling the rough bark of the top rail. “What are you going to do?” she said.

“I’m going over to McDonough’s,” said Ray. “I’ll give him a chance to back off. If he’s already made up his mind he doesn’t care about being in the wrong, that’ll be another thing. But I’m going to have it out with him first.”

Gloria was silent; she watched him cinch the saddle girths up tight and buckle them and slip the bridle over the horse’s head. A little unreasoning worry flickered inside her—she wanted to say something to him, but without sounding too wretchedly timid or doubting.

As he led the horse from the stall, she said, “Ray, don’t do anything that—well—be careful.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Ray, turning to look down on her. He laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed her, and brushed her chin gently with his thumb. “We’ll talk more when I get back…all right?”

Gloria nodded, smiling faintly. She followed him out as he led the horse from the barn and stood in the doorway to watch him swing up in the saddle: a swift, assured motion, his face set and expressionless in a way that she knew masked anything but a lack of purpose. He swung the brown horse’s head around and headed off, angling west across the prairie toward the juncture of fence and creek.

 

* * *

 

It was just as Chris had said. A dozen yards from where Collins’ fence crossed the creek to run along the far side and divide it from McDonough’s range, a section of fence was down between two posts, and scattered through the brush on the near side were some twenty head of cattle wearing the McDonough brand. There were no cowboys in sight. Overhead an uneasy shifting wind whistled through the tips of the tree branches, and the surface of the shallow creek shuddered as if in fear at the wind’s touch. Ray sat on his horse for a moment and looked at the scene, and then touched his heel to the brown’s side and the horse splashed through the creek, up through the gap in the fence and on toward McDonough’s ranch.

Color broke out across the prairie again as Ray rode west, the creek twisting across McDonough’s land on his right. The rain had cleared off by now, pushed by the swirling wind, and the late-afternoon sun spilled through the cracks in the dark-gray clouds, turning Wanderlust Creek into a rainbow silk ribbon ruffled by the gusts. The mouse-colored grass lay heavy, too damp to blow, but a gust of deceptive strength jumped suddenly forward, snapped and blew at Ray’s coat and tugged on the brim of his hat. He looked at the glowing creek and the gold-streaming sky, but he could not think about the wet nor the color nor the wind, with the pattern of anger repeating itself steadily in his mind. So McDonough had decided to take what he wanted. If that was the way he meant to play, Ray was not going to back off from the challenge. He’d let him know that. He was the equal of any man in the work and brains and expense he had put into ownership of that three hundred and twenty acres, and was not about to be pushed from it by the weight of another man’s owning more.

In a little while he came across open prairie to the McDonough home ranch. A group of sod buildings against a web of gray-sided livestock sheds and pole corrals—bunkhouse, cook shack and a small plank-sided frame house that seemed to lean with the wind, gray as the sheds, that was the rancher’s living quarters. Ray turned off here, dismounted and went up two creaking steps to a door that stood open. He rapped sharply on it, back-handed, and stepped in.

McDonough was sitting at a table by the left-hand wall in the sparsely-furnished room; the light from the west fell over his broad shoulders from the window behind him as he looked up at Ray’s entrance. A look of inquiry crossed his face, but he did not speak. Ray gave him no chance.

He crossed to the table in a few sharp, measured steps and stopped. “I didn’t think you’d take this way,” he said. “I guess I rated you too high. But it’s not going to do you any good.”

“What are you talking about?” said McDonough, putting himself back a little from the table with one hand.

“You know what I’m talking about,” said Ray, anger flaring into his voice, though he raised it no louder. “Don’t waste my time with that. I came to tell you I’m wise to it and you’d better quit right now. Pull those cattle out of there and don’t try it again.”

“You hold it for one bleeding second, Collins,” said McDonough, rising out of his chair, “and talk plain English. What’s all this about?”

This time Ray’s voice cracked sharp and loud in the room. “The cattle you’re watering on the wrong side of my fence. I didn’t think you’d sink that low just because I wouldn’t sell out. I had you wrong.”

“You’re accusing me of cutting your fences to water at your end of the creek?”

“You’re denying it?”

“You’re dad-blamed right I’m denying it!” said McDonough, almost as incensed. “I don’t know where you get the nerve to come blazing in here and throw an accusation like that in my face, but if you make a habit out of acting this way you’re going to land yourself in trouble.”

Ray fell back a step and stared at him, eyes smoldering. “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it—But I’m not going to take it lying down. All I’ve got to say to you is, you’d better keep your boys out of rifle-shot of my fences if they want to stay healthy.”

He turned on his heel and stalked out. McDonough took an angry step around the table and started to say something, but Ray was already gone. He flung out of the house, banging the open door back against the wall so it rebounded vibrating on its hinges, and was in the saddle and away before McDonough got anywhere near the doorway.

 

* * *

 

Gloria met him outside when he pulled up in front of the shanty—she had been listening for him and was through the door in a second at sound of his horse’s hooves. “Well?” she said.

“They’re there all right,” said Ray. “I went through that way first to see. Fence is cut just south of where it crosses the creek, and there’s twenty or so head of McDonough cattle in the brush on our side.”

“And what did he say? McDonough, I mean. Did you see him?”

“Saw him at his place,” said Ray. He brushed past her into the house, and Gloria followed him; an odd unease at his manner and what he was doing clung round her so she could not shake it off. “He denied it flat; wouldn’t let on he knew anything about it.”

“Couldn’t he have been right? I mean, if he—”

Ray had the Winchester in his hands; he slid it partway out of the scabbard to check the cartridge chamber. “Chris said he gave the order. I’ve got no reason to doubt Chris’s word and I’ve got no reason to trust McDonough.”

He slammed the rifle home in the leather scabbard and turned toward the door. Gloria’s eyes flicked from the gun in his hands back to his face. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to drive those cattle out, and fix the fence,” he said, “and stay up there and guard it. After that—well, I’ll take it as it comes.”

Gloria took a little running step to keep up with him as he strode back to his waiting horse. “Ray, why not wait till morning. Maybe you could get Sheriff Kinney out here, and see if he could do something.”

“Kinney’s no help. He’s already sour against me; the only one he really listens to is McDonough.”

Gloria was silent a minute. “Ray, let me go with you.”

Ray was fastening the scabbard on his saddle. He shook his head, and looked at her. “Not this time. I’m going to be up there all night. You stay here and get some sleep.”

“But you’ll need help with the fence. I’d rather come, Ray—”

“Glorie.” Behind the soothing in his tone was a firmness she knew. “Stay here tonight, and then in the morning you can bring me out something to eat, and we’ll talk about what to do next. I’ll be somewhere near where our fence crosses the creek.”

“All right,” said Gloria, a small reluctance still pulling at her words. She watched him gather up the reins and turn toward the horse to mount. “What about supper? Don’t you want any?”

“I’m not hungry now,” said Ray. He glanced at her, and paused, and then he turned from the horse and put his hand behind her head and pulled it to his shoulder for a second. “Quit worrying,” he said softly in her ear.

He released her, and once more Gloria stood back and watched him put his foot in the stirrup and mount, and wheel his horse out around the shanty and the garden patch toward the northwest and the creek.

 

* * *

 

The sun’s fading rays were slanting shallower, deeper gold; the wind had died down to a mere muted stirring in the brush when Ray reached the creek. The water glimmered in broken sparks through the branches, but indistinct shadows, forerunners of dusk, were beginning to gather in the deeper recesses of the bushes. Ray’s horse waded ankle-deep through the water and hitched himself up the shallow bank on the other side.

Ray felt calmer and more resolved now; for a few steps ahead of him at least he knew exactly what he was going to do and knew that he could do it. He would drive the cattle back through the gap, splice and secure the cut wire—

Ray stopped his horse, staring down with a bewildered frown. The scene was different from when he had last seen it. Along the line of trampled wet grass the fence stood straight and tight; the wires had been stapled to the posts. There was no break. But still browsing in the screen of brush on the near side of the fence were cattle wearing the McDonough brand.

Ray swung down and approached the fence, looking it over in half-suspicious puzzlement. He noticed for the first time that the wires had not been cut in the middle, but pulled loose from their posts, and now had been repaired at the same juncture. It made no sense to him. What McDonough expected to gain from it Ray had no idea, but he was not about to let it stand in his way.

He took from his saddlebag the hammer he had stopped at the barn to pick up, grasped the top wire and worked the claw-end of the hammer under the first staple. He yanked the staple loose, and the wire went curling back. Ray tossed the loose end out of his way, and bent to reach the next staple. And at that moment something struck him a heavy stunning blow on the back of the head, and he fell forward into the wire fence.

 

* * *

 

As Gloria was slowly putting away the few dishes from her solitary supper, she heard the horses. She glanced over her shoulder from the cabinet and glimpsed the two riders through the window. One of them was McDonough and the other was Silas Kinney.

Gloria left the cabinet quickly and went to the door. She pulled it open and stepped out, and stood on the threshold waiting as they drew up, her eyes going uncompromisingly from one to the other. She did not know what they wanted, but she did not intend to give them an inch of ground until she did.

The muddy ground sucked at the horses’ hooves; they blew and snorted and Gloria could feel the after-storm damp in the air that drifted her way. McDonough leaned from the saddle a little. “Mrs. Collins, is your husband home? We want to talk to him.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Gloria. “What is it about? Perhaps I can help you.”

“No, I don’t know,” said McDonough, shaking his head. He jerked a hand toward his companion. “Sheriff Kinney here stopped by my place just after your husband left, and I brought him over here to see if we couldn’t straighten out this story about my crew supposedly cutting your fences. We want to talk to your husband and get his side of it straight, and see if we can’t put it to rest. Can you tell us where he is?”

Gloria thought for a moment, her eyes on McDonough’s heavy-featured face. It was odd that she could be so calm and considering in the face of the man Ray believed was taking such advantage of them and had the assurance to baldly lie about it. Perhaps he was telling the truth about this visit, or perhaps he was just trying to get Kinney over onto his side. Either way, confronting them both with the evidence as Ray had described it to her would be the thing to do.

Kinney shifted restively and his saddle creaked under him. Gloria made up her mind quickly—she was going to be there to see it and to back Ray up if he needed her.

“I can take you to him,” she said. “If you’ll give me a minute to change, I’ll be right with you.” She turned back into the house without giving either of them a chance to object, but paused in the doorway to add, with a glance from one to the other, “If one of you could saddle my horse while you wait it would save a good deal of time. The saddle is in the barn.”

She closed the door behind her, again without waiting for a reply, but before she went through to the bedroom she glanced out the window and saw McDonough beginning to dismount. Kinney was still sitting in the saddle looking like a white-haired molting crow, evidently annoyed at having to be here at all. McDonough said something to him and went toward the barn.

It gave Gloria an odd satisfaction, as she flicked her riding-skirt down from its nail in the bedroom and fumbled at the fastenings of her dress, to think of McDonough saddling her horse and bringing it around for her. In matters of courtesy at least she had the advantage of him, and that was one small thing to grasp when everything else looked so uncertain.

 

* * *

 

A slow, dull ache in the back of his neck was the first thing Ray became aware of. There were sounds of movement somewhere near him, but even recognition of them was an effort, as if he had to drag the thoughts from some far-distant part of his brain.

A voice spoke, floating somewhere overhead. “All right, give it to me…Over here.”

Another voice said something further off, and there was a vague sound of trampling in the grass. “No, his horse.”

Ray was trying to remember what was happening to him. Wanderlust Creek rippling quietly in the background; the dark shapes of cattle under the trees. Then it all came back in a fragmented rush: McDonough, the cut fence, the repaired fence—someone had struck him down from behind. He realized gradually that his hands were tied behind his back. His mind still seemed too far away from his body for him to try to move.

A heavy step on the ground close by him, the snick of a roweled spur, and then someone grasped him and dragged him up to his feet. The blood rushed stingingly back to Ray’s head, bringing him more alive; the fog melted away from before his eyes, leaving only the reality of the dusk. Jones held him upright, grim satisfaction in his light eyes glinting from the hard creases of a face that seemed one with the darkest shadows. Cooley was nearby doing something with a coil of rope—he tilted his head up. “This one strong enough?”

“It’ll do.”

Cooley slung the rope over a branch overhead, pulled the end down, and came over. Jones had the other end in his hand, and while Cooley gripped Ray’s arms from behind Jones forced the noose roughly over his head.

Somewhere a bit of the wire fence flashed in Ray’s vision, and then as his head turned back, that cold little smile on Jones’ face. Ray knew what was happening now. The cattle, the fence, the rope; it fell together like pieces in a puzzle. It was a frame-up—they would claim they had caught him stealing McDonough’s cattle and had taken it upon themselves to serve justice on the spot.

He said, the words still thick in his mouth from the blow on the head, “You won’t get away with it.”

Jones gave a short laugh, so insignificant as to be ridicule. “There’s nobody to say we’re lying,” he said. “That old fool Kinney would’ve done the same thing if he caught somebody rustling his stock—before he was sheriff. And he knows McDonough and you ain’t been too friendly.”

There was an evil relish in his voice, the same as had showed on his face in the trading-post. “You’ve crossed me twice too often, Collins.”

Cooley brought up Ray’s horse, and between them they shoved him up across the saddle. Jones grabbed him by the coat and jerked him upright, and the rope rasped and burned against his neck. Ray still felt strangely unmoved, distant, even at the rough handling, as if he could not yet believe that what was going to happen to him could possibly happen. But it was. Nothing was stopping them. They would likely get away with it, too—the only person who could have spoken for his innocence was Chris Borden, who was miles away by now…and Gloria…

A wave of sickness nearly made him reel in the saddle. The thought of Gloria flayed through the numbness with sharp agony. He was seeing her dark eyes, feeling her lips, hearing the soft worry in her voice when she had bid him goodbye. He’d told her to come out and meet him in the morning…she would come out here alone, and she would find…Oh, God, no…

He looked down at Jones, a sick sweat standing out on his face. If only the amusement he read in Jones’ face was satisfaction at seeing him weaken, if only he would not guess the thoughts going through Ray’s mind. She would be alone now—there would be no one to protect her—

Cooley finished lashing the other end of the rope to a tree, and both of them mounted their own horses. Jones made the brown back up until he was directly under the branch—the horse tossed its head and shifted its feet unwillingly. Ray stared straight ahead, to where a heifer with a McDonough brand was tearing placidly at a bush. He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do to stop it…

Jones dropped the brown horse’s reins and pulled his own horse back. Then from away in the brush came a faint shout—near enough that Jones and Cooley both jerked sharply around toward the sound. Three riders were bearing down on them at a trot, one a little in advance of the other two, already close enough to have a good view of what was happening. Cooley swore breathlessly and yanked his horse around as if to strike hastily at the flank of Ray’s horse, but Jones grabbed the brown’s bridle and stopped him with a hissed, “Hold it, you fool!”

The straggling cattle lumbered aside out of the way as McDonough drew near, bits of mud flying up from his horse’s hooves. The newcomers pushed up into the little clearing, the other two drawing up alongside the rancher. Ray did not look at McDonough or Kinney; his eyes were fixed on Gloria’s pale, wide-eyed face, clinging to it like a lifeline.

“What’s going on here?” demanded McDonough even before he reined up.

“Just dealing with a cattle thief,” said Jones, his voice bold and harsh. “Caught him red-handed with a bunch of your yearlings, boss. Look at ‘em. He was fixin’ the fence back up when we caught him after he’d run ‘em through.” McDonough glanced around at the cattle that surrounded them, but his frown was indecisive. Jones, watching him, added loudly to sway the balance, “Only one way to deal with a thief.”

“That’s a lie,” said Ray through his teeth. The words came out louder and hoarser than he had intended. “When I got here those cattle were right where they are now and the fence had already been fixed. I’d just started tearing off the wires so I could drive them out when these two jumped me from behind—on this side of the fence.”

“Aw, that’s a likely story,” sneered Cooley. “If we’d cut the fence to water the boss’s cattle what’d we want to close it up again for? It’ll take a better’n’ than that to save your neck now.”

“It’s true!” cried Gloria. She had slipped down from her horse while they were talking, and now pushed her way forward. She turned toward McDonough, who had also dismounted. “Ray found the cattle in here earlier before he went to see you. He told me about it, and he told me he was going to drive them out and fix the fence.”

“So he says,” put in Silas Kinney, a little sourly, from horseback, “but Miz Collins, did you see them cattle here with your own eyes?”

“How—dare you!” sputtered Gloria, turning on him in sudden crimson-cheeked fury. “What are you here to be, a sheriff or an echo? Are you that determined to see him in trouble that you’d accuse my husband of lying to me? Why don’t you accuse us both of stealing your cattle; you’d be just as close to the truth!” She flung the last at McDonough with quivering vehemence.

“I’m not accusing anybody of anything!” said McDonough loudly. He seemed to hear himself and lowered his voice. He said more calmly, “All I want to know is how the cattle got here.”

“Well, so do I,” said Silas Kinney disagreeably, cutting off Jones and Cooley as both started to speak up at once. He glared at them, and they had little choice but to fall silent, with lowering looks.

“Get that rope off his neck,” said McDonough to Jones.

Jones did as he was told, though not with a very good grace. He pulled the noose slack with deliberate roughness, and his hand clipped Ray’s jaw in getting the loop over his head. Something tight and tense seemed to loosen in Ray’s chest with the strangling pressure of the rope off his throat, and he realized for the first time how much he had been afraid. He twisted his head a little as if to assure himself of his freedom, and tried to keep his voice level and hard.

“I’m not making it all up out of my head,” he said. “Chris Borden told me that you were having your boys cut my fence and water stock here at the creek. He’d helped move some of the cattle himself.”

“He said that?” said McDonough. He gave a dismissive shake of the head. “I never told them to do anything of the sort. Where’d he get the idea? Did he actually say I gave him the order?”

Gloria’s eyes happened to be on Cooley as McDonough spoke, and she noticed a sudden flash of uneasiness on his slack face. Both he and Jones had seemed suddenly attentive at the mention of Chris Borden. Gloria looked at McDonough—his attention was also directed toward the two cowboys, and she thought he had seen it too.

Ray was beginning to catch on. “No,” he said, with dawning comprehension, “he didn’t actually say that you told them—he just said he was told. Somebody told him it was orders from the top.”

“It was—” Gloria’s voice seemed startlingly clear in the thick silence and she checked herself with a short indrawn breath as all the men looked at her; and then the words came out calmly. “I heard him say it. He said Cooley told him it was orders from the top.”

McDonough pivoted slowly to face his men. His hands were on his hips and his heavy brows lowered in an expression that boded no good. “So that was it,” he said. “You moved these cattle in here hoping to start trouble, so you’d have an excuse to do this”—he jerked a hand at the noose dangling over their heads—”and get away with it.”

“They’ve tangled twice afore,” said Silas Kinney, in the background.

“You’re all out of your minds,” said Jones.

“Chris can tell you about that too. You can probably still catch up to him if you want his word on it,” said Ray, still speaking to McDonough, and without turning his head toward Jones.

Cooley started to sputter in a voice pitched high with tension, but Jones cut him off again with a hard curse low in his throat that made Gloria flinch.

McDonough switched his gaze to Ray. “Why in the name of sense didn’t you tell me all of this earlier? If I’d known what Borden said I could have told you then and there it was nonsense.”

“I was too mad to think of it. Chris thought it was true and I believed him.” Ray spoke in short, clipped sentences in the effort to control his voice.

McDonough looked at the two cowboys again, and then spoke over his shoulder to Kinney. “You’d better take these two into town. I’ll come along with you if you need me.”

Silas Kinney gave a peremptory jerk of the head to the two men. Their expressions were ugly, but futile—McDonough was watching them too, with his hands on his hips again, and they evidently knew their employer well enough to know that objection would not serve them well. They steered their horses slowly out in single file in the direction the sheriff pointed, and Kinney fell in behind them, guiding them away through the brush with his bony hand resting conspicuously near his holstered Colt.

As they left the clearing, McDonough moved over beside Ray’s horse, and reached up behind him to untie his hands. McDonough loosened the rope and Ray slowly moved his hands in front of him, letting his stiffened shoulders relax. Gloria had come up beside them, and she waited, her eyes never leaving her husband, until Ray slid down from the horse to stand beside her.

“I’m sorry about all this,” said McDonough.

“No,” said Ray. “I’m the one who owes you an apology, for what I said earlier. I didn’t have any right.”

“I think we can forget about that,” said McDonough.

“I can’t,” said Ray, lifting his head a little. “I owe you more than an apology. If you weren’t honest, I’d be hanging from that tree right now.” He jerked his head toward the branch, a little unsteadiness in the motion.

McDonough smiled, slowly. “All right,” he said, “have it your way.”

They shook hands. Gloria, standing quietly at Ray’s elbow, saw the look of mutual respect that passed between them. McDonough said, “Don’t bother about the cattle; I’ll send some of my boys to get them out tomorrow.” He added, “It won’t happen again.”

He looked at Gloria, and touched his hat—again there was a silent acknowledgement in his brief smile. Then he turned and walked away to his horse.

They stood in silence, watching until he had mounted and ridden off after the others. Then Gloria turned to look at Ray, lifting her head to look into his eyes for the first time since that moment of arrival. She said, with a shaken attempt at a laugh, “I don’t think I’m ever going to let you out of my sight again!”

“Well, that’s all right with me,” said Ray, trying to smile in much the same way.

Gloria moved close to him and put her arms around him, and Ray put his arm around her shoulders. She could feel that he was still shaking a little.

“All I kept thinking about was you,” he said after a minute. “If they’d done it—and you had come out here—”

“Don’t,” murmured Gloria with a shudder, her arms tightening around him.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Gloria looked up at him again. Ray drew a deep breath. He looked around at the fence, and at the last of the dying sun reflected on the creek. Gloria felt that somehow, between the beginning of that long afternoon and its sunset, they had gone on a long, hostile journey, and only now had finally come back.

“Come on,” said Ray, sounding tired, but for the first time in a while sounding like he didn’t mind being tired, “let’s go home.”