The Coming of Cassidy, Clarence E. Mulford [best free novels .txt] 📗

“Something turrble, mebby. I don’t know; an’ I don’t care. It’s true so there you are. Norah, can’t you see I do?” he pleaded, holding out his hands. “Won’t you marry me?”

She looked down, her cheeks the color of fire, and Johnny continued hurriedly: “I’ve loved you a whole month! When I’m ridin’ around I sorta’ see you, an’ hear you. Why, I talk to you lots when I’m alone. I’ve saved up some money, an’ I had to work hard to save it, too. I’ve got some cows runnin’ with our’n in a little while I’ll have a ranch of my own. Buck’ll let me use th’ east part of th’ ranch, an’ there’s a hill over there that’d look fine with a house on it. I can’t wait no longer, Norah, I’ve got to know. Will you let me put this on yore finger?” He swiftly bent the pin into a ring and held it out eagerly: “Can I?”

She pushed him away and yielded to a sudden pricking of her conscience, speaking swiftly, as if forcing herself to do a disagreeable duty, and hating herself at the moment. “Johnny, I’ve been a a flirt! When I saw you were beginning to care too much for me I should have stopped it; but I did n’t. I amused myself but I want you to believe one thing, to give me a little credit for just one thing; I never thought what it might mean to you. It was carelessness with me. But I was flirting, just the same and it hurts to admit it. I’m not good enough for you, Johnny Nelson; it’s hard to say, but it’s true. Can you, will you forgive me?”

He choked and stepped forward holding out his hands imploringly, but she eluded him. When he saw the shame in her face, the tears in her eyes, he stopped and laughed gently: “But we can begin right, now, can’t we? I don’t care, not if you’ll let me see you same as ever. You might get to care for me. And, anyhow, it ain’t yore fault. I reckon it’s me that’s to blame.”

At that moment he was nearer to victory than he had ever been; but he did not realize it and opportunity died when he failed to press his advantage.

“I am to blame,” she said, so low he could hardly catch the words. When she continued it was with a rush: “I am not free I haven’t been for a week. I’m not free any more and I’ve been leading you on!”

His face hardened, for now the meaning of Greener’s sneering laugh came to him, and a seething rage swept over him against the man who had won. He knew Greener, knew him well the meanness of the man’s nature, his cold cruelty; the many things to the man’s discredit loomed up large against the frailty of the woman before him.

Norah stepped forward and laid a pleading hand on his arm, for she knew the mettle of the men who worked under Buck Peters: “What are you thinking? Tell me!”

“Why, I’m thinking what Nolan said. An’, Norah, listen. You say you want me to forgive you? Well, I do, if there’s anything to forgive. But I want you to primise me that if Greener don’t treat you right you’ll tell me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only what I said. Do you promise?”

“Perhaps you would better speak to him about it!” she retorted.

“I will an’plain. But don’t worry ‘bout me. It was my fault for bein’ a tenderfoot. I never played this game before, an’ don’t know th’ cards. Good-by.”

He rode away slowly, and made the rounds, and by the time he reached Lacey’s he was so unsteady that he was refused a drink and told to go home. But he headed for the Palace instead, and when he stepped high over the doorsill Nolan was seated in a chair tipped back against one of the side walls, and behind the bar on the other side of the room Jed Terry drummed on the counter and expressed his views on local matters. The sheriff was listening in a bored way until he saw Johnny enter and head his way, feet high and chest out; and at that moment Nolan’s interest in local affairs flashed up brightly.

Johnny lost no time: “Nolan,” he said, rocking on his heels, “tell Greener I’ll kill him if he marries that girl. He killed his first wife by; abuse an’ he don’t kill no more. Savvy?”

The sheriff warily arose, for here was the opportunity he had sought. The threat to kill had a witness.

“An’ if you opens yore toad’s mouth about her like you did tonight, I’ll kill you, too.” The tones were dispassionate, the words deliberate.

“Hear that, Jed?” cried the sheriff, excitedly. “Nelson, yo’re under ar—”

“Shut up!” snapped Johnny loudly, this time with feeling. “When yo’re betters are talkin’ you keep yore face closed. Now, it ain’t hardly healthy to slander wimmin in this country, ‘specially good wimmin. You lied like a dog to me tonight, an’ I let you off; don’t try it again.”

“I told th’ truth!” snapped Nolan, heatedly. “I said she was a flirt, an’ by th’ great horned spoon she is a flirt, an’ you—”

The sheriff prided himself upon his quickness, but the leaping gun was kicked out of his hand before he knew what was coming; a chair glanced off Jed’s face and wrapped the front window about itself in its passing, leaving the bartender in the throbbing darkness of inter-planetary space; and as the sheriff opened his eyes and recovered from the hard swings his face had stopped, a galloping horse drummed southward toward the Bar-20; and the silence of the night was shattered by lusty war-whoops and a spurting .45.

When the sheriff and his posse called at the Bar-20 before breakfast the following morning they found a grouchy outfit and learned some facts.

“Where’s Johnny?” repeated Hopalong, with a rising inflection. “Only wish I knowed!”

A murmur of wistful desire arose and Lanky Smith restlessly explained it: “He rampages in ‘bout midnight an’ wakes us up with his racket. When we asks what he’s doin’ with our possessions he suggests we go to h—l. He takes his rifle, Pete’s rifle, Buck’s brand new canteen,

‘bout eighty pounds of catridges an’ other useful duffle, all th’ tobacco, an’ blows away quick.”

“On my cayuse,” murmured Red.

“Wearin’ my good clothes,” added Billy, sorrowfully.

“An’ my boots,” sighed Hopalong.

“I ain’t got no field glasses no more,” grumbled Lanky.

“But he only got one laig of my new pants,” chuckled Skinny. “I was too strong for him.”

“He yanked my blanket off ‘n me, which makes me steal Red’s,” grinned Pete.

“Which you didn’t keep very long!” retorted Red, with derision.

“Which makes us all peevish,” plaintively muttered Buck.

“Now ain’t it a h—l of a note?” laughed Cookie, loudly, forthwith getting scarce. He had nothing good enough to be taken.

“An’ whichever was it run ag’in’ yore face, Sheriff?” sympathetically inquired Hopalong. “Mighty good thing it stopped,” he added thoughtfully.

“Never mind my face!” snorted the peace officer hotly as his deputies smoothed out their grins. “I want to know where Nelson is, an’ d d quick! We’ll search the house first.”

“Hold on,” responded Buck. “North of Salt Spring Creek yo’re a sheriff; down here yo’re nothin’. Don’t search no house. He ain’t here.”

“How do I know he ain’t?” snapped Nolan.

“My word’s good; or there’ll be another election stolen up in yore county,” rejoined Buck ominously. “An’ I wouldn’t hunt him too hard, neither. We’ll punish him.”

Nolan wheeled and rode toward the hills without another word, his posse pressing close behind. When they entered Apache Pass one of them accidentally exploded his rifle, calling forth an angry tirade from the sheriff. Johnny heard it, and cared little for the warning from his friend Lucas; he waited and then rode down the rocky slope of the pass on the trail of the posse, squinting wickedly at the distant group as he caught glimpses of them now and again, and with no anxiety regarding backward glances. “Lot’s wife’ll have nothing on them if they look back,” he muttered, fingering his rifle lovingly. At nightfall he watched them depart and grinned at the chase he would lead them when they returned. But he did not see them again, although his friends reported that they were turning the range upside down to find him. One of his outfit rode out to him with supplies and information every few days and it was Pete who told him that six posses were in the hills. “An’ you can’t leave, ‘cause one of th’ cordon would get you shore. I had a h—l of a time getting in today.” Red reported that the sheriff had sworn to take him dead or alive. Then came the blow. The sheriff was at the point of death from lockjaw caused by complete paralysis of the curea-frend nerve just above the phlagmatic diaphragm, which Johnny had fractured. It was Hopalong who imparted this sad news, and withered Johnny’s hope of returning to a comfortable bunkhouse and square meals. So the fugitive clung to the hills, shunned skylines and wondered if the sheriff would recover before snow flew. He was hungry most of the time now because the outfit was getting stingy with the food supplies and he dared not shoot any game.

Four weeks passed, weeks of hunger and nervous strain, and he was getting desperate. He had learned that Greener and his fiancee were going down to Linnville soon, since Perry’s Bend had no parson; and his cup of bitterness, overflowing, drove him to risk an attempt to leave that part of the country. He had seen none of Pete’s “cordon” although he had looked for them, and he believed he could get away. So he rode cautiously down Apache Pass one noon, thoughtfully planning his flight. The sand, washed down the rock walls by the last rain, deadened all sounds of his progress, and as he turned a sharp bend in the cut he almost bumped into Greener and Norah Joyce. They were laughing at how they had eluded the crowd of friends who were eager to accompany them but the laughter froze when Johnny’s gun swung up.

“‘Nds up, Greener!” he snapped, viciously, remembering his promise to Sheriff Nolan.

“Miss Joyce, if you make any trouble it’ll cost him his life.”

“Turned highwayman, eh?” sneered Greener, keenly alert for the necessary fraction of a second’s carelessness on the part of the other. He was gunman enough to need no more.

“Miss Joyce, will you please ride along? I want to talk to him alone,” said Johnny, his eyes fastened intently on those of his enemy.

“Yes, Norah; that’s best. I’ll join you in a few minutes,” urged Greener, smiling at her.

Johnny had a sudden thought and his warning was grave and cold. “Don’t get very far away an’ don’t make no sounds, or signals; if you do it’ll be th’ quickest way to need ‘em. He’ll pay for any mistakes like that.”

“You coward!” she cried, angrily, and then delivered an impromptu lecture that sent the blood surging into the fugitive’s wan cheeks. But she obeyed, slowly, at Greener’s signal, and when she was out of sight Johnny spoke.

“Greener, yo’re not going to marry her. You know what you are, you know how yore first wife

‘died an’ I don’t intend that Norah shall be abused as the other was. I’m a fugitive, hard pressed; I’m weak from want of food, and from hardships; all I have left is a slim chance of gettin’ away. I’ve reached the point where I can’t harm myself by shooting you, an’ I’m goin’ to do it