CHAPTER XXVII
SOME SHOOTING
When the Texan left Cass Grimshaw he headed due north. He rode leisurely—light-heartedly. The knowledge that Alice was safe at Cinnabar Joe's left his mind free to follow its own bent, and its bent carried it back to the little cabin on Red Sand, and the girl with the blue-black eyes. Most men would have concentrated upon the grim work in hand—but not so the Texan. He was going to kill Purdy because Purdy needed killing. By his repeated acts Purdy had forfeited his right to live among men. He was a menace—a power for harm whose liberty endangered the lives and happiness of others. His course in hunting down and killing this enemy of society needed no elaboration nor justification. It was a thing to be done in the course of the day's work. The fact that Purdy knew the ground, and he did not, and that the numerical odds were four to one against him, bothered him not at all. If others of the same ilk had seen fit to throw in with Purdy they must abide the consequences.
So his thoughts were of the girl, and his lips broke into a smile—not the twisted smile that had become almost habitual with him, but a boyish smile that caused a fanlike arrangement of little wrinkles to radiate from the corners of his eyes, and the eyes themselves to twinkle with mirth. As men of the open are prone to do, he voiced his thoughts as they came: "She sure give me to onderstand last night that runnin' off with other men's wives is an amusement that wouldn't never meet her popular approval. It's, what do the French call it—a faux pas that's not only frowned on, but actually scowled at, an' made the excuse for numerous an' sundry barbed shafts of sarcasm an' caustic observations of a more or less personal application, all of which is supposed to make a man feel like he'd not only et the canary, but a whole damn buzzard—an' wish he hadn't lived to survive doin' it." The man glanced up at the sun. "Time I was gettin' outside of this lunch she packed up for me—chances are I won't want to stop an' eat it after awhile." Dismounting, he seated himself with his back against a rock and unrolled the sandwiches. "She made 'em," he observed to Blue, "regular light bread, an' good thick ham between." He devoured the sandwich slowly, and reached for another. "Cass said to make her have me," he smiled; "hell of a lot he knows about women, but—the dope's right, at that. Boy, those eyes! An' that hair, an'—an', oh, the whole woman of her! If a man had a girl like that to go home to—an' she loved him—an' he knew she was thinkin' about him—an' pullin' for him to—to make good! There wouldn't be nothin' to it—he'd just naturally have to make good. Janet McWhorter—Janet Benton—Mrs. Tex Benton—Mrs. Horatio Benton—hell! I hope she don't go in for the Horatio part. It's almost as bad as Winthrop Adams Endicott! Tex is better—if she ever thinks to inquire about my other name I'll tell her it's Mike, or else I'll go plumb to the other extreme an' call it Percy or Reginald. I ain't got her yet—but believe me! She's goin' to have a war on her hands till I do get her!
"I'll just admit that she'll marry me—what then? It's time I was kind of takin' inventory. Here's what she gets: One cow-hand an' outfit—includin' one extra saddle horse, a bed-roll, an' a war-bag full of odds an' ends of raiment; some dirty, an' some clean; some tore, an' some in a fair state of preservation. Eight hundred an' forty dollars in cash—minus what it'll take to square me in Timber City. An'—an'—that's all! She ain't goin' to derive no hell of a material advantage from the union, that's sure. But, if I've still got my job it ain't so bad to start off with. Other assets, what we used to call incorporeal hereditaments back in law school—fair workin' knowledge of the cattle an' horse business. Health—good. Disposition—um-m-m, kind, to murderous. Habits—bad, to worse. Let's see: smokin'—that's all right: chewin'—prob'ly be allowable if indulged in out doors only. Swearin'—prob'ly won't be an issue till the kids get old enough to listen. Gamblin'—prob'ly be limited to poker—friendly games an' pifflin' limit. Drinkin'—let's see, the only year since I can remember I don't drink nothin' I quit better than eight hundred dollars to the good—first time I ever had eight hundred dollars all at once in my life. What happens? Get to drinkin' for a half a day, an' Bing! Off comes a hundred, maybe two hundred to pay up for the hell I raised! Does it pay? Not for a married man! Not for me! An' besides, what was it she said when I turned down the drink she offered me? She said, 'I'm glad—I hate the stuff.'" He paused, smiling reminiscently, "drinkin's lots of fun—but, a man's got to pay for his fun—more ways than one, he's got to pay. If it'll make her happy to not drink, an' onhappy to drink—the way I look at it, it's a damned mean man that would pay for his own belly-wash with his wife's happiness! That about concludes the takin' stock, then: Drinkin'—once! Drinkin'—twice! Drinkin'—three times—an' out! I'm a non-drinker, a teetotaller, a pop-lapper, an' a grape-juice swizzler! At that, if I'd known that last drink I had back there in Timber City was goin' to be the very last doggone drink I was ever goin' to get, I'd kind of strung it along a little—sort of sipped it slow an' solemn as become an obsequy. Instead of which, I tossed it off light-hearted, casual, even what you might call flippant—an' it's the last drink I was ever goin' to have!"
He rose, brushed a stray crumb or two from his shirt, and mounted: "Come on, Blue, let's get this stuff over with, an' wash our hands, an' hit for Red Sand. Cass says Cinnabar Joe's place ain't only about four miles above McWhorter's."
Thirty minutes later the Texan slowed his horse to a walk. Rock-fragments appeared, dotting the surface of ridges and coulees. Small at first, these fragments increased in size and number as the man pushed northward. He knew from Cass Grimshaw's description that he was approaching the rendezvous of Purdy and his gang. Far ahead he could see the upstanding walls of rock that marked the entrance to the gorge or crater which marked the spot where some titanic explosion of nature had shattered a mountain—shattered it, and scattered its fragments over the surrounding plain. But the Texan was not thinking of the shattered mountain, nor of the girl on Red Sand. He hitched his belt, glanced at the revolver in its holster, and slipping his hand beneath his shirt, made sure that Long Bill's six-gun lay ready to his hand. He proceeded slowly, pausing at frequent intervals to scan the rock-dotted plain. The mouth of the gorge showed distinctly, now. He pulled up his horse and studied the ground. He decided to dismount and proceed on foot—to work his way from rock-fragment to rock-fragment. A slight sound caused him to glance swiftly to the left. Not fifty feet away the malevolent face of Purdy stared at him above the barrels of two six-guns. Directly before him he saw another man, and to the right two more. And every man had him covered. His eyes returned to Purdy, and his lips twisted into their cynical grin. "Well—why in hell don't you shoot?"
"Want to git it over with in a hurry, do you?" sneered the outlaw. "Well I don't! I'm goin' to git you all right, but I'm goin' to take my time to it. When you skipped out a year back fer fear of what I'd do to you, you'd ought to stayed away."