Presently Ruth saw Pickett get up, still menaced by Randerson’s gun. Cursing, crouching, evidently still awaiting an opportunity to draw his gun, Pickett began to walk toward the ranchhouse, Randerson close behind him. At a safe distance, the other men followed—Ruth saw Masten and Chavis come out of the bunkhouse door and follow also. The thought struck her that they must have witnessed the incident from a window. She saw them all, the cowboys at a respectable distance, Pickett and Randerson in front, with Masten and Chavis far behind, come to a halt. She divined—she believed she had suspected all along—what the march to the ranchhouse meant, but still she did not move, for she feared she could not stand.
Ruth was roused, however, by Randerson’s voice. It reached her, sharp, cold, commanding. Evidently he was speaking to Aunt Martha, or to Uncle Jepson, who had gone into the house:
“Tell Miss Ruth to come here!”
Ruth obeyed. A moment later she stood on the front porch, looking at them all. This scene seemed unreal to her—the cowboys at a distance, Masten and Chavis in the rear, looking on, Pickett near the edge of the porch, his face bloated with impotent rage, his eyes glaring; the grim figure that Randerson made as he stood near Pickett, gun in hand, his eyes narrowed, alert. It seemed to her to be a dream from which she would presently awaken, trembling from the horror of it.
And then again she heard Randerson’s voice. It was low, but so burdened with passion that it seemed to vibrate in the perfect silence. There was a threat of death in it:
“You can tell Miss Ruth that you’re never goin’ to play the skunk with a woman ag’in!”
Pickett writhed. But it seemed to Ruth, as her gaze shifted from Randerson to him, that Pickett’s manner was not what it should be. He was not embarrassed enough, did not seem to feel his disgrace keenly enough. For though he twisted and squirmed under the threat in Randerson’s voice, there was an odd smirk on his face that impressed her as nearly concealing a malignant cunning. And his voice sounded insincere to her—there was even no flavor of shame in them:
“I’m sorry I done what I did, ma’am.”
“I reckon that’s all, Pickett. You draw your time right now.”
Randerson sheathed his pistol and turned slightly sidewise to Pickett, evidently intending to come up on the porch.