How quietly he had faced her father, neither asking for nor refusing trouble! Nor had he made any excuses. The only words had been to clear her, the simplest words he could have spoken, and without apology.

"Pa ... "

He looked over at his daughter, aware of the change in her, for she was no longer angry with him.

"Do you think they'll make it?"

He considered that in the slow way he had; considered the town of Obaro, and then he thought about Considine. After a while he commented, "He'll do it if anybody can." He paused briefly "The trouble is, Kitten, that's only the beginning. After that they chase you, and you run, if you're smart. Maybe you get away that time, but you can't always get away. When a man lifts his hand outside the law, he sets every man's hand against him.

"And you don't make anything. Leaving honesty out of it, you just can't make it that way. Mighty few outlaws ever sit down to figure out how little they make over the years.

"Knew a big-time outlaw once ... a man everybody talked about as being smart. Why, that man had spent a third of his grown-up life in prison, had two death sentences hanging over him, and he was living on handouts from other outlaws and folks."

Spanyer narrowed his eyes at the horizon where the heat waves shimmered above the desert. In the southwest, a smoke was rising...

Chapter VI.

Considine looked at his big silver watch. "You boys come into town at twenty minutes to one. I can promise you ten minutes ... fifteen maybe."

Hardy shot him a quick glance. "That's a long fightuHe's a tough man." He grinned at them, a reckless grin they all knew. "And I'd better be."

He eased himself in the saddle. "And no shooting. Only if it is absolutely necessary. Once the shooting starts, you boys will be bucking some of the best shots in the West. I knowuI've shot against them in target matches."

He started off, looked back once and saw them wave, and it gave him a turn to realize what he was leading them into ... and they were good men. Good men, and tough.

His thoughts turned to Lennie. It was strange, how right something like that could seem when he had only met the girl. It came to him suddenly that he could not remember ever feeling that way about Mary ... Had it simply been that he was young and Mary was the prettiest girl around?

Or was it that he had finally grown up? His father had said something to him once that he had never forgotten. "Folks talk a lot about the maternal feeling in women, but they say nothing about man's need to protect and care for someone; yet the one feeling is as basic as the other."

There could be something to that. When he was a youngster he had believed his father was out of date and didn't know what was going on, but as he grew older he realized it had been he himself who didn't know what it was all about. And now he had n.o.body to care for, and n.o.body who cared a thing about him.

He had drifted into crime when it seemed like a prank. The trouble was, it wasn't any prank. When you threaten men or steal their property it no longer is a prank. It's man stuff, and not very good man stuff, either...

Maybe that was why Lennie appealed to him, because she needed somebody. She needed a man and she needed a home. Maybe it was because he wanted to give her the things a woman needs ... and no woman was much account without a home or a man, or both. Anything else was unimportant. All the rest was play-acting.

He drew rein when he came near enough to see the town, and there was little enough of it to see. There were three long streets and a few cross streets, and the bank was there on the main street, right in plain sight. The corral at the livery stable was at the other end of town.

If people knew he was in town they would be expecting a fight, and everybody would be excited and ready for it. The first thing was to let them know he was in town, and the second was to make Pete Runyon good and mad. That would not be easy, for Pete was a cool-headed man who thought things out carefully.

Mary, though ... he must see Mary. That would make Pete mad if anything would.

The crowd would gather fast, once word of the fight got around. The fight would draw everybody down near the corrals, and probably only one man would be left in the bank. The holdup should take no more than five minutes. It could be a smooth, fast job, and with luck they would be off and away before the fight was over.

If something happened so that guns were fired, then he would lose his crowd fast, and he would have to get out of town the best way he knew how. But what if Pete grew suspicious and started putting two and two together? Then his tail would really be in the crack.

Considine started his horse again. He drew his gun and spun the cylinder, then checked the spare gun he always carried in his saddlebag.

The horse he was riding was strange to him, but Honey Chavez said it was the fastest he had. Their own horses would be waiting for them at the box canyon hideout, so they could run these hard getting away, make a quick switch, and head south on their fresh horses.

The great difficulty, of course, was in these things for which one could not plan successfullyuthe unexpected, the mistakes made by others which could not be foreseen. A man packing a gun might walk into the bank at the wrong time; somebody might leave the bank and then return; or somebody with a rifle handy might be in one of the second-floor windows.

Runyon might score a lucky punch and knock him cold ... or, just as bad, he might knock Runyon out. The fight must last ten minutes at the very least.

He looked off to the west, and saw smoke rising. He swore bitterly, remembering that Spanyer and Lennie were traveling that way.

His thoughts reverted to the problem before him, and he ticked off one by one some of the things he must consider and for which they had tried to plan.

Mrs. O'Beirne, for instance. That woman never missed a thing, and she kept a shotgun handy. She had used it on a bunch of Indians once with terrible effect. She was n.o.body to take lightly; after the death of her husband she had put on pants and roped and branded her own stock.

Tilting his hat back so his face could be plainly seen, he drew up on the edge of town and rolled a cigarette. His mouth felt dry, and there was a tightness in his stomach. Straightening himself in the saddle, he rode around the end of the corral and into the street.

In his mind he saw the whole vast area around the town as though he soared above it. Here lay the town; to the west rode Spanyer and his daughter. Behind him, soon to turn off in this direction, rode Hardy, Dutch, and the Kiowa. These were the small parts of a machine that had already started to move inexorably toward a given point in time.

He was not on the wanted list in Obaro. It was known that he had robbed those trains long ago, but there had been no evidence. He could ride freely into the town.

Here he had lived. These people he knew. He also knew that if he successfully robbed their bank they would pursue him as far as they could, they would capture or kill him if possible; but secretly they would be pleased that, since it had been done, one of their own boys had done it.

He knew the peculiar philosophy of these people, knew the part that daring and excitement played in their lives. And he knew with a pang that all that was changing.

With watchful eyes he rode into the street; unconsciously he tipped his hat forward again. A few loafers sat on the gallery in front of the Emporium, which was two blocks down the street. Mrs. O'Beirne was sweeping off her steps.

A hen pecked at something in the street, a dog rolled in the warm dust. Several horses were hitched to the rail. One by one he checked off the things he saw, glancing once, sharply, at the bank from under his hat brim, then he tilted it back on his head once more so they could see his face. He wanted to be recognized ... they must all know he was in town.

As he drew abreast of the harness shop he saw a man who was standing inside come suddenly to the door and stare at him. He heard the startled exclamation: "Doc! Did you see what I saw?"

Somewhere a door slammed ... Considine was back in town.

Around the corner just ahead of him was Pete Runyon's houseuthe house where he lived with Mary. The picket fence had been painted a fresh white, and the small lawn was green and smooth. Climbing roses grew over the porch.

Now people were coming to the doors to look at him, and the loafers in front of the Emporium were all on their feet.

A big man with a blond walrus mustache yelled at him: "Hey, Considine! You back to stay?"

Considine drew rein. "Hiya, Matt! See you're fat as ever."

"We never figured to see you around here."

Considine dropped his cigarette into the street. Had he seen a curtain move in the Runyon window? He grinned easily. "Why, I've got friends in town, Matt. I came back to see Pete Runyon. I hear he's been keeping in shape."

He glanced at the sun. Not much time, and he could not cut it too fine. He turned the corner and dismounted in front of the white gate.

Taking off his hat, he knocked the dust from his jeans. He was jumpy inside ... nerves. But some of the old deviltry was rising within him, and for the first time in days he felt genuine antic.i.p.ation for what lay before him.

Mary had always been too serious, and she would be too serious now. He looked at the house as he opened the gate. Well, she had what she wanted, and it looked like Mary, too, all neat and precise and pretty.

Mary knew all the little tricks of binding a man tight; she knew exactly what she wanted in her neat, definite little life ... well, maybe that was all right for Pete. Suddenly, and for the first time since she had thrown him over for Pete Runyon, Considine felt a vast relief.

He went up on the porch, his spurs jangling. There was a screen door, and the inner door was open. He stepped inside. It was a stuffy little parlor with a Brussels carpet and stiff chairs covered with dark red plush. Each of the chairs had a neat white antimaca.s.sar on the back. It was a proud, pretentious little room, stiffly, primly respectable.

The room was Mary, so completely that Considine felt suddenly sorry for Runyon. How much had she changed him?

"Anybody home?"

His voice boomed into the stillness within the house, somehow faintly indecent in that strict, upright silence. Mary Runyon came suddenly into the room, and stopped abruptly. She was shapely in her neat house dress, her hair drawn smoothly back.

She had a certain a.s.surance and poise that he did not remember, probably something that comes to a woman who is loveduor to one who has caught her man and hog-tied him.

"h.e.l.lo, Mary."

Her face turned white to the lips, and she smoothed her dress with both hands, running them down over her waist, carefully, slowly. It was a gesture she had when she was upset ... he remembered it well.

Mary had always been prim and respectable, and it had always angered her that he had the ability to excite her physically. Considine grinned at the memory of it. She had hated the idea of it, for it offended her sense of the proprieties.

"What do you want?"

Her voice was sharp, without gladness or welcome. Yes, he thought, this is Mary. She had her man and her home, and his return was a threat, a danger.

"Where's Pete?"

"He's not here." She gathered her ap.r.o.n in her fingers and seemed to dry her already dry hands. "What are you doing here? Why couldn't you stay away?"

"Figured we might talk over old times, Mary." He grinned at her, a taunting grin. She flushed and grew angry.

"Go away! Leave us alone!"

Considine did not move. This was the worst part. His eyes went to the clock on the mantel. "I won't be staying," he said. "I just came back to see Pete."

"You will see him if you stay. He isn't afraid of you."

"Pete? Pete Runyon was never afraid of anybody or anything ... even when he knew I could beat him with a gun, he wasn't afraid."

He glanced around the room. "Well, you must really have him hog-tied or he'd never sit still for a room like this, Mary." He looked into her eyes. "Better give him some rope, Mary. You tie a man too tight and he strangles. You let a man have a little leeway, and if he loves you he will tie himself, and like it."

"Pete isn't tied down," she protested. "He's a responsible man. He means something in this town."

She lifted her eyes to his again. "What do you mean to anybody? Anywhere?"

He felt the stab of truth, but brushed it away. Yet it was true, for he meant nothing, anywhere, to anybody. And then suddenly he thought of Lennie. Maybe he did mean somethinguif only a littleuto somebody.

"You're wrong, Mary. I've got a girl of my own."

Her eyes sharpened, and he remembered something else about Mary. She had never liked to lose anything, even when she didn't want it Yet, taking her all around, he supposed she was a good woman. She kept a good house, she was attractive-looking, and probably Pete would wind up as mayor, or something.

"She would have to take the guns away from you and turn you into a responsible citizen or you'd be worth nothing to her!"

"Like Pete? You'd probably want her to pin on a star and run my best friend out of town."

"You know Pete didn't want to do that! He had to ... after all that happened."

"And to keep you!"

Mary Runyon was furious now. "Get out! Get out of my house! I hope I never see you again!"

He turned on his heel and walked out, and stood there for a moment in the bright sunshine. Well, what had that accomplished? But all he wanted it to accomplish was to make Pete mad enough to fight ... and maybe it would.

Yet he felt tight and strange inside, and suddenly he knew the last thing he wanted to do was fight Pete Runyon. In fact, it would be good to see him again ... like old times.

How many head of cattle had they branded together? How many times when working for the same cow outfit had they fought off Indians or rustlers? How many head of cattle had they snaked out of bogs? How many saloon brawls had they fought side by side?

He gathered his reins and stepped into the saddle, and suddenly Mary was beside him, grasping at his sleeve. "Considine ... I don't care what you think of me, but don't hurt Pete!" She clung to his hand. "Please, leave him alone!"

Astonished, he looked down at her twisted, anguished face. "Why, Mary! You really love him, don't you?"

Suddenly her face was still. "Yes ... yes, Considine, I do love him. He's my man."

Well, I'm forever d.a.m.ned, he thought. This is Mary. Mary, who struggled against every emotion, and whom he used to delight to take into his arms because he knew she responded to something in him, though she fought against it, hating herself for showing it. Even for feeling it.

"Mary," he said gently, "Pete and I have a little matter to settle, but Pete and I have fought before, and that's all it will be. Maybe he'll whip me again, maybe I'll whip him, but I'll make you one promise, Mary, and it is the only one I can make. I won't draw a gun on him."

He rode off, and she stared after him for an instant, then gathering her skirt, she started to run.

There were several buckboards on the street now, and thirty or forty horses were tied along the hitching rails. More people were on the street than was usual at this hour of the morning, so he knew the word had spread. Under other circ.u.mstances, with a fight like this about to come off, he would have been out there himself to watch.

He swung down and tied his horse with a slip knot. He removed his hat and then put it back on, and in the moment of settling it on his head his eyes went toward the bank. n.o.body stood in front of it ... n.o.body seemed to be coming or going.

He did not see Mary Runyon run to Mrs. O'Beirne's, where the words rushed from her. "Have you seen Pete? Considine is looking for him!"

Mrs. O'Beirne merely glanced at her. "Now don't worry your head about Pete! He'll know what to do ... he'll do what he did before!"

Considine had stopped next door to the office of the sheriff. The clock in the bank window said it was eleven-thirty. He was really sweating it out now. Things had to happen fast ... the worst of it was, Pete was a slow man to anger.

Somewhere a horseshoe rang against an iron peg. That might be Pete ... he was a man who liked to pitch horseshoes, and was good at it.

Suddenly, from the area back of the sheriff's office, he heard Mary's voice. "Pete! Pete, Considine's in town!"

"Is he now?"

"Pete, he wants trouble ... I just know he does!" Her voice grew strident. "Pete, don't fight with him! Just put him in jail!"

Pete's laugh was deep, rich, amused. "Now, Mary, you know n.o.body could put Considine in jail without a fight. What do you expect of me?"

Then Pete Runyon came around the corner of the building and their eyes met. Considine had to fight back an impulse to step up and thrust out his hand. He liked this man. He had always liked him ... but he needed that stake, he needed that money in the bankuor did he?