“Drinking whisky beside the wagon with Hector Hall. They will not fight. No.”
“No,” he echoed, abstractedly, making a mental picture of Carlson and Hall beside the sheep-wagon, the 187 light of a lantern on their faces, cards in their fists, a jug of whisky in the middle ground within reach from either hand. It was such diversion as Swan Carlson would enjoy, the night around him as black as the shadows of his own dead soul.
“Earl did not come to me this night,” she said, complaining in sad note. “He promised he would come.”
“Has he been going over there to see you?” Mackenzie asked, resentful of any advantage Reid might be seeking over this half-mad creature.
“He makes love to me when Swan is away,” she said, nodding slowly, looking up with serious eyes. “But it is only false love; there is a lie in his eyes.”
“You’re right about that,” Mackenzie said, letting go a sigh of relief.
“He tries to flatter me to tell him where Swan hides the money he brought from the bank,” she said, slowly, wearily, “but him I do not trust. When I ask him to do what must first be done to make me free, he will not speak, but goes away, pale, pale, like a frightened girl.”
“You’d better tell him to stay away,” Mackenzie counseled, his voice stern and hard.
“But you would not do that,” she continued, heedless of his admonition. She leaned toward him, her great eyes shining in the light, her face eager in its sorrowful comeliness; she put out her hand and touched his arm.
“You are a brave man, you would not turn white and go away into the night like a wolf to hear me speak of that. Hush! hush! No, no––there is no one to hear.”