“All right. Chuck her in the harness room,” the man said. “Gee whiz, I’m sleepy! I’m goin’ to pound my ear again.”
Robin gained the railroad station without meeting a soul. The saddle would be safe for a month, six months, a year. He was going where he would not need a saddle. If he didn’t come back to claim it, no matter.
In a dim corner of the empty waiting-room he changed to his good suit and plain shoes. Then he sat down to await the west-bound passenger.
This train would go through Big Sandy at six o’clock. There was little likelihood of any one there knowing that Mark Steele had passed out of the picture. No one would dream of Robin Tyler riding boldly west on the Montana Central through Sutherland’s home town. If he could get past Fort Benton and Helena without being recognized he was safe. Detective bureaus did not flourish in the cow country. Sheriffs had duties enough at home without going far afield for trouble. The survivor of a private war who quietly left for parts unknown was seldom troubled by the authorities in a distant state.
Robin banked on that. He would go far and he would never come back. It would be a closed chapter. Sitting in that dimly lit room he felt no fear of consequences, no pang of remorse, only a strange touch of sadness. He hadn’t wanted it to be that way. Six months earlier he had looked forward confidently, joyously indeed, to a future in the shadow of the Bear Paws, a future that comprised round-up and wild riding, a bunch of cattle of his own, a home on Little Birch—and Ivy to make that home bright. He had loved the sight of the hills in summer, the pressure of the wind on his face as he rode. Life had been pleasantly compounded of hope and ambition and love, the regard of his fellows and a singular sense of oneness with his environment.
He shook himself out of this brooding. It made him ache. It was done, finished. He might drift eventually to other cattle ranges but he would never ride the Bear Paws again, he would never sit on Chase Hill at sundown and watch the afterglow rose-pink on Old Centennial.
And he would not listen again to May Sutherland’s throaty voice. Robin was conscious enough of his mental processes to wonder why he thought of May Sutherland now instead of Ivy, why the image of the one who had wept bitter tears on his shoulder six hours ago grew obscured by a sharp-cut vision of the other sitting on a sorrel horse looking wide-eyed into the west where the plains rolled like the sea.
May would have understood how a man might be caught in a vicious circle and forced to play the only card he held. He doubted if Ivy did.
Anyway, it didn’t matter, Robin assured himself morosely. Neither woman could count for much now. He was to all intents an outlaw. Before long there might literally be a price on his head.
He kept his face to the window on the opposite side of the car when the train hauled up at Big Sandy station. Dawn was breaking when the Fort Benton stop came. Beyond Fort Benton Robin breathed easier. Once the train passed Great Falls and bore up into the foothills of the Rockies he shook off his wariness and began to view the country with interest. He was in a new country already and the lure of the unknown began to exert its spell.