Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox
but wait—nothing but sit by while he slipped away from her; and through her mind marched the thousand things she wanted to tell him, wanted him to know about herself. After that first cry she set her lips together and never uttered another sound; when she sat her hands locked tightly together; when she rose to replenish the fire her eyes kept straying back to where he lay. Thus the hours dragged interminably. Daylight wasn't so bad, for she could throw open the door and see the sun and let the wind strike her body. There was the sight and the sound of life by day, and it seemed to her Tom held his own during those hours. But at night there were only the blackness and the silence surrounding her little cell, only herself sitting beside him and praying passionately to herself and thinking queer unrelated thoughts...how the shadows fell across the strong bridge of his nose...how much of a man he looked...Christine Ballard sitting on her horse while Tom and the Blond Giant slashed and punished each other. That day Lorena saw the tiger in Tom Gillette and all his quiet reserve and all his humour had been laid aside to reveal the primitive depths. He was a man!
The first night was the longest, for at every stray gust of breeze and every sound she thought Hazel and Saba were returning to thresh the woods again; if they did so they would surely come across her cabin and break in. She put the table against the door and turned down the lamp until the room was dim and shadowy. But they didn't come that night, and at early dawn she left the cabin long enough to run along the trail and retrieve both her basket and the gun Tom had dropped. She wanted to go on to Deadwood, yet didn't dare. Anything might happen during the interval. So the day dragged and the night came once more with her perched on the box and her fists locking each other. And over and over again she tried to throw her will and her desire across the infinite chasm separating them, repeating to herself a thousand times, "You must get well—Tom! You must not die! Here I am, right beside you—waiting for you! You must not die!"
Sleep was the drug she feared, and she sat in the most cramped positions to keep herself awake. Even so the time came when she started out of what had been a sound sleep, to find herself lying on the hard floor. After that she walked the floor in a kind of shame. "I don't deserve to have him. What am I? What can I do for my part in his life? what do I know? Oh, why didn't my mother live to make me a real woman!" And then she bent over Gillette for the hundredth time, to pull the quilt higher up, to let her hands stray across the jet hair; once she kissed him and drew back startled.
That night the woods seemed full of prowling creatures. She heard something rustling the underbrush, she heard the scuff of boots at her very door. And she was swept by all the mixed fear and despair and cold anger of a trapped animal when she saw the latch slowly rise and the door give imperceptibly against the barrier. Then the latch fell back, the brush marked a retreating body, and she relaxed. The man, whoever it was, was lucky; she would have shot him before he made his entrance, for there was something of the wild in Lorena Wyatt these dreary hours. Another time that same night, well along toward morning, she heard a cavalcade gallop down the trail, stop, and go on again. Then it was day—a long-drawn day that marched into the third night. And without warning Tom Gillette turned his head toward her, his eyes clear, and a trace of colour staining the gray of his features. He spoke.
"I'm all right, Lorena girl. Get some sleep. Roll me over and turn in." That was all, he fell into a sound slumber. It was rest this time, not an unconsciousness. The crisis seemed to have come and gone. He would get well.
"Thank God!" she murmured. She dropped to the floor and was lost to the world.
She was roused by Tom's voice. "Girl—get up from the floor!"
The sun streamed in between the cracks of the cabin; she had slept the night through, Gillette moved his head slowly. "Lord, how long has this been goin' on? What day is it, Lorena?"
She rose quickly. "Thursday, Tom. You have been here three nights and two days."
"An' you watched all the time," he murmured, not quite in command of his tongue. But he saw the nod of her head, and it made him fretful. "First sleep you've had, I guess. It won't do."
"I'm all right. Haven't I said nothing could hurt me? But you don't know—you never will know how I felt last night when you turned the corner."
"Me," he murmured, "I don't seem to be carin'. Feel like a wrung dish rag. Ain't dead, but I don't feel much alive. What's the extent of the damages?"
She told him, the meanwhile ripping the blanket from the window and opening the door. She told him, too, of what happened after he fell. Gillette moved one arm gingerly and started to speak, Lorena checked him. "Not now. You've said too much."
"I think I could walk," he muttered.
"No, of course you couldn't. You'll be flat on your back for a week, perhaps two or three weeks. My dear man, don't you understand what happened? They left you for dead—you almost were dead. Now sleep again."
He fell silent, eyes half closed. Something worried him, she saw. And she knew what it was before he broached the subject. "Lorena, I've got to get out of here. I can't be havin' folks—. Well, put me in that shed outside."
She stopped by the bunk, her shoulders squaring. "What difference does it make, Tom?"
"Get somebody to pack me into town."
"And let San Saba know where you are? My dear, I'm going to take care of you. I don't care what happens or who may ever discover it later. Now rest."
"Thoroughbred," whispered Tom, and closed his eyes. She put the room in order, stirred the fire, and poked about the cupboard; she packed water from the spring and presently something simmered on the stove. The man moved restlessly in bed, testing himself joint by joint.
"Legs sound," he murmured. "Right hand and right side in second-hand workin' order. Shucks, it won't be any three weeks."
In a little while she had a bowl of soup for him. He ate it slowly; afterwards he seemed to expand with fresh energy. "It won't even be a week."
But she saw the danger signals on his cheeks already. "Every word you say only adds another day to the time you stay in bed. Sleep now."
He sighed a little and shut his eyes again, instantly he was asleep. The girl watched him for a while, or until a restlessness took possession of her and she began tip-toeing about the place looking for things to do. She wanted to sing, yet dared not, she wanted to work, she wanted to do anything that would release the surcharge of emotion within her. Going outside she took up the ax and chopped boughs for fuel; then she rummaged around the shed for straw and packed enough of it inside to make her a mattress on the floor. Tom would not like it when he saw her making her bed on it, but there was no other way. Strange how simple were a man's points of honour and yet how complicated. As for herself, she looked at it with that ruthlessness and that impersonality most women possess at moments of emergency. Nothing could hurt her—and the creed protected her like a mantle. Had she been a sophisticated girl her thoughts might have travelled a different line, but all her life she had been bred to look squarely at the primary facts of existence.
It was late afternoon before he woke again. She was waiting for him with news.
"I've got to go in to Deadwood, Tom. We've nothing to eat in the place. And I wanted to see if the doctor was back from the hills. Do you think it would be all right?"
"What's the danger?"
"San Saba will be scouting around here, won't he? Supposing he should come to the cabin?"
He studied the ceiling for quite an interval. "Put my gun beside me."
She brought his revolver and laid it in his hand; his fingers closed around the butt slowly. She thought she had never seen so quick and startled a glance in any man as she marked on his face when he tried the trigger. "Judas, I can't be that weak! Trigger must've got jammed in the scrap."
She smiled at the unconscious pride he had in his strength. Even now he couldn't believe himself physically unable to walk. So she took the gun and cocked it and laid it back beside him. His eyes narrowed a little when he saw her do it, and a sigh escaped him. "I guess I'm licked. But there ain't any danger to me. You go ahead."
"I hate to, Tom. Only, we've got