The eyes of the two men met. A curious change came over Rolf. Maybe some part of his brain had started to function sanely. He calmed. It cost him, but he assumed his old cool manner. The gun was lowered.
“You may have fooled this woman, Mr. Storm” he said icily, “but do not think that you have fooled me for one moment. I give you a choice. Leave this house at once and live. Or stay and die.”
Jody increased his look of bewilderment. His brain was starting to work sanely too. The predicament in which he found himself came right home to him. If he left here, he left behind the girl, his money and his chance of taking home the bull. To leave here was disaster. To stay here he didn’t doubt could mean death. This irate father wasn’t fooling. He knew it and Manuela knew it. Just the same, he couldn’t cut his act. He was committed.
“I don’t get this,” he stammered. “What did I do?”
Rolf stared at him for a moment, then said: “Explain to me how the door became locked.”
Jody returned the stare, giving out a whole heap of bewilderment.
“Door?” he said. “Why, wait a minute, I don’t seem to remember too well. I got it. It all comes back to me. Like a dream. I wasn’t feelin’ too good. All hot. I crossed the room to get me a drink of water. I didn’t have no clothes on. I thought maybe somebody would come an’ ketch me. I locked the door. Then I don’t remember nothin’ ’cept Miss Manuela was holdin’ my head.”
“There,” said Manuela, triumphantly.
“There nothing,” Rolf roared, his calm departing as quickly as it had come. “The boy’s lying. He goes or I won’t answer for the consequences.” He turned to the door, shouting: “I’ll get the truth out of the girl.”
Jody felt a slight impulse to leap out of bed to protect his beloved, but on second thoughts his beloved was well able to take care of herself. He slumped back on the pillow and the master of the house slammed out of the room.
Manuela sat on the bed and smiled at him. It was the first time he had seen her really smile and the sight pleased him.
“I think,” she said, “that you had your five minutes alone with Honoria.”
He grinned.
“It was worth it,” he said.
“You are a foolish boy,” she said. “You have no chance.”
“It’s funny you should say that,” he told her. “Us Storms sure are peculiar. It’s the times when we don’t have no chance that we really get a-goin’.”
“Mr. Rolf is a powerful man. You do not seem to understand. He has turned you out. You have no horse, no gun, nothing.”
“You’re wrong. I have you, Manuela.”
“Me? I am nothing but a weak woman. You heard him — a Mexican joy-girl.”
“I reckon you owe him for that.”
“I owe him for many things, my friend. But I am in no position to pay him.”
Jody talked. He didn’t talk smoothly and he didn’t always find the right words, but he talked to some effect and Manuela listened. When Jody was through, she said simply: “Very well, I shall help you. I don’t think you have a chance, but I will help. I will do as you say.”
He patted her arm. She leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss tasted so good that for a moment he forgot Honoria. When she stood up, she said: “I shall not see you again, so I wish you luck.”
“I’ll take the luck, but you can bet your bottom dollar you’ll be seein’ me again.”
She turned and left the room.
Jody rose from the bed, propped a chair under the smashed lock and assessed the situation. Maybe he wasn’t exactly in fever, but he didn’t feel exactly great. He reckoned he didn’t stand much chance on foot, but the facts had to be faced. He was going to find himself out in those hills with nothing more than a knife and his native wits. The prospect didn’t charm him.
He started rummaging through the drawers. He was after clothes to cover his nakedness, for his own were beyond hope after his disastrous journey through the hills. Now he found that there was a small piece of Storm luck ready to hand. He found a shirt, pants and socks. They belonged to a man much of his size and when he climbed into them, he didn’t have to be too ashamed of himself. He heaved on his worn-down boots and sheathed his knife.
Next he opened the window and stepped out onto the gallery. Going to the rail, he inspected the ground below. There was a little light from the house and he could see enough for his purposes. He returned to the room, took sheets from the bed and tied them together. Then he climbed through the window once more and tied a corner of a sheet to the gallery rail.
Now, he thought of two things — the girl and water. He wanted a last look at Honoria and he would want a full belly of water to last him through his night walk. Honoria had given him a rough lay of the land and he knew approximately which way he had to head. He climbed back into the room once more, lifted the jug of water and drank it dry. He then felt so logy that it was uncomfortable to walk. He climbed out onto the gallery again and tiptoed along it. The first window was dark. The second the same, but light streamed from the third.
And here was his Honoria. With her father. Charles Rolf was laying down the law. His law. And his daughter calmly listened. She sat facing Jody and the boy had a clear view of her. He drank in the sight avidly, hungrily eyeing the mouth he had tasted so sweetly, imagining the firm white flesh and he was driven a little crazy standing there.
By God, he promised himself, I’ll have her an’ all the daddy’s an’ Wilders in the world ain’t a-goin’ to stop me.
He tore himself away, went tippy-toe back along the gallery, slung the sheets over the rail and started down. He found during that short journey that his shoulder was a searing agony and that he was only a little stronger than a week-old kitten. The realization wasn’t encouraging. He reached ground, however, without breaking his neck, and went silent as an Indian, or so he hoped, around the house until he found himself at the kitchen door. He knew it was that, for there awaiting him, were the supplies that Manuela had promised him. With a blessing for the Mexican woman on his lips, he hefted the two sacks and slung them from his left shoulder, draped the strap of the canteen around his neck and was about to depart when the glitter of metal caught his eye.
He stooped awkwardly and saw to his joy and surprise that Manuela had thought to provide him with a rifle. It was nothing more than a single-shot vintage Remington. But it was a weapon and a box of shells lay beside it. He stuffed the box into a pocket, took the rifle in his right hand and slipped away into the darkness.
The Storm luck saw to it that he didn’t meet any of the hands on his way out. He headed almost directly north along a well-beaten trail until he came to the creek. This was as Manuela had told him. By the time he reached here, he was dead beat under his heavy load, but he knew that he had to keep on. He wanted to be well into the hills by the time dawn opened up the sky.
He waded into the creek and found that the water did not come higher than his thighs, for which he was duly thankful. The thought entered his head to make his way north-west along the watercourse and lose his tracks, but he reckoned that the trail was well-used and that he would be safe for a few miles yet. He plodded into the night.
He did not know how long he tramped through the moonlight, but he suddenly became aware that he was starting to sleep on his feet. This alarmed him a little and he fought to shake off sleep. But after a short while, he knew that he would have to stop. He staggered off the trail and dumped the supplies, put his back against a rock and at once fell into a deep sleep.
Daylight bewildered him when he woke.
In a flash, the night’s events came back to him. He knew that he could be no more than a few miles from the house. Any moment one of Rolf’s riders might come on him. Still heavy with sleep, he shouldered his load, picked up the rifle and tramped on.
Hunger started to gnaw at his guts. He denied its demands and pushed on into country that seemed to grow rougher and more difficult each pace he took. As he walked, black depression descended on him. He was tempted to dismiss all thoughts of revenge, regaining his money, even of the girl and that damned bull. He wanted nothing better than to keep on going, escaping from all responsibility, getting away from the hold his family had over him, evading forever the criticism they leveled at him. He would simply walk off into a new life, start afresh, a new man.
From a high point, he looked back and checked that he wasn’t being followed. Wearily, his shoulder pain nagging at him like a sore tooth, he tramped on.
He knew better, he told himself. He had the beginnings of a conscience. What the old man and Ma and the others thought of him mattered. They knew him maybe better than he knew himself. He could escape from the fact that he was a man to whom things happened, a failure. Pa knew he couldn’t carry out a simple assignment like bringing home a bull. They all knew it.
Yet there was enough of the dogged Storm in him to hate the thought of that.
Brooding savagely, head down, watching the dust kicked up by his scuffed boots, he wasn’t aware of the horseman until it was almost too late. Suddenly, it seemed, man and beast were on top of him, trotting briskly through the rocks. Only just in time, Jody flung himself into cover and lay there watching the cowhand ride past. Maybe riding in for a good breakfast. Or with his belly full of bacon and beans.
Jody lay in the dust and cursed him as he receded from view.
It was a long time before he ventured to his feet again and went on. He walked for around a couple of hours before he stopped. He had reached a pleasant spot. His feet walked on soft grass and the trees shaded him from the pitiless sun. There was water here. He had come far enough, he decided. He drank deep, pulled off his boots and bathed his suffering feet. While he did this, he broke out the supplies and found that Manuela, God bless her, had even thought to give him beef sandwiches for his first meal. The bread was stale, but just the same he reckoned it was the finest meal he had ever made. At last, belly full, he lay back on the bank with his feet in the cool water, blissful. At once the world took on a rosier prospect.
He was brought back to reality by the soft whinny of a horse.
In one movement, he took his feet from the water, scooped up the rifle ad got into cover.
A voice came —
“Fast, sonny, but not fast enough.”
Shaken, he came out of cover and said: “Mr. Harrison!”
Prescott Harrison stepped from cover, just the same as when Jody had last seen him. Then why should he not? Though it seemed to be a century so much had happened, in fact it was no more than a few days. The broad shoulders still strained the faded blue hickory shirt and the greasy hunting The shirt red-gold beard still swept to his waist, the eyes watched Jody with skeptical amusement.
“How be you, boy?” he demanded, holding out his hand.
For a moment, Jody regarded him with no little suspicion, the attack by the Utes fresh in his mind. But he took the hand in his and felt the bear grip.
Harrison eyed him and said: “Boy, you look like you been in the wars. An’ then some.”
Jody said: “Your friends jumped me.”
“Thought as much. There was a kinda embarrassment back in camps when they rid in bringin’ a few dead ’uns with ’em. Me bein’ white like. There was some considerable talk again me. Could even of gotten to shootin’ trouble. Wa-al, that ain’t my notion of the way to proceed. No, sir. I ain’t in thisyer vale o’ tears to git shot at nor to git to shootin’ nobody. Comes of bein’ of a religious frama mind, I reckon.”
That was the first Jody had ever heard of him being of a religious frame of mind, but he let it ride.
“So you lit out?” he said.
“Reckon. Kinda leave ’em cool off a mite.” His eyes touched Jody’s supplies and lit up. “Food, by God. Boy, I’m purely famished. Feed a poor ole man before he jest passes out on you.”
Jody fed him and they talked. When he was through eating, Harrison loaded and fired his pipe and puffed with some contentment. Jody told him all that had happened to him.
When he finished, Harrison chuckled with delight.
“Wa-al,” he declared, “this Englishman sure do sound somethin’ special. Now, I purely do have to meet up with sech an ornery sonovabitch. He sure do take the biscuit an’ no mistake. Youn’me best do some thinkin’, son.”
“Now, look, Mr. Prescott,” said Jody, “you ain’t in this a-tall.”
The bearded man looked at him in astonishment.
“Ain’t we kin?” he said.
“You know we ain’t kin,” Jody protested.
“I don’t know no sech thing,” said Harrison. “I’ll have you know a Storm from Texas was my cousin in a manner of speakin’ through my aunty marryin’ one. Wa-al, maybe they didn’t ezackly git around to takin’ the oath in front of a preacher man, but the hell, they lived together for a hell of a long time.”
Jody thought he was lying, but he had too much respect for the man’s prowess in battle to say so out loud. Beside that, he had need of every ally he could lay his hands on. Maybe Harrison had his reasons and maybe he didn’t, but here he was and Jody was going to make use of him.
Harrison picked his nose thoughtfully and said: “We have to look at this thing and see what we have, son. There’s this hyer Wilder. He has your money an’ your girl an’ we have to part him from both. There’s friend Rolf an’ it sure do sound like he’s aimin’ to shoot you on sight. Then there’s your hosses. My, you’re purely in a fix, boy.” He chuckled with delight at the fix he perceived his young friend was in. “I ain’t had so much fun in years. No, sir.” He ruminated, hawking and spitting with great vigor as he thought, picking his nose and surveying the result with fascination. Finally, he said: “Minds me of the time I raided the Crows with the Blackfoot. My, that was some performance. All right, I’ll make my boast. Ten days, give or take a day either way, you’ll have your hosses, your money, your girl an’ your bull. All dishonest.”
Jody was hot.
“I ain’t a-goin’ thievin’,” he said.
Harrison looked at him in astonishment.
“Thievin’,” he said. “Now, that’s a right ugly word. I call it initiative, the redistribution of wealth. How do you think Rolf made his pile. Relieving other men of their possessions. It’s all comparative, my young friend. Now, you’re lookin’ at me like I was the most evil man on earth. I ain’t so. I’m a man of conscience. My word’s good, I never betrayed a friend and I never welched. That’ll be enough to git along with. Hell, what more can you ask of a man. You’n’me’s raidin’ this hyer Rolf like he ain’t never been raided before. I’ll wager my bottom dollar if we don’t find somebody inside his camp to give us assistance and succor. Howsomever, first things first. You git some sleep an’ I’ll go tend to my hoss. You look plumb tuckered out.”
Troubled, but at the same time considerably comforted, Jody took the blankets that Harrison brought him and curled up in a sheltered spot and fell into a deep sleep.