“I don’t think he’s dead, but I’d like to know for 43 sure,” Mackenzie returned, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground.
“Nobody will ever say a word to you if you did kill him,” Joan assured. “They’d all know he started it––he fusses with everybody.”
She sat on the ground near him, Charley posting himself a little in front, where he could admire and wonder over the might of a man who could break Swan Carlson’s hold upon his throat and leave his house alive. Before them the long valley widened as it reached away, the sheep a dusty brown splotch in it, spread at their grazing, the sound of the lambs’ wailing rising clear in the pastoral silence.
“I stopped at Carlson’s house after dark last night,” Mackenzie explained, seeing that such explanation must be made, “and turned his wife loose. Carlson resented it when he came home. He said I’d have to fight him. But you’re wrong when you believe what Carlson says about that woman; she isn’t crazy, and never was.”
That seemed to be all the story, from the way he hastened it, and turned away from the vital point of interest. Joan touched his arm as he sat smoking, his speculative gaze on the sheep, his brows drawn as if in troubled thought.
“What did you do when he said you had to fight him?” she inquired, her breath coming fast, her cheeks glowing.
Mackenzie laughed shortly. “Why, I tried to get away,” he said.
“Why didn’t you, before he got his hands on you?” Charley wanted to know.
“Charley!” said Joan.