She met him at the door and invited him in, timidly and shyly, but he stood on the stone and made known his business. 219
At first she did not understand, was like a child told something too deep for its intellect to grasp, bewildered.
Then, when Service made it brutally plain, she slipped down along the doorpost like a wilted lily and lay long and white on the sand-scrubbed floor. Her women, loving her desperately, gathered her up and shut the door in the sheriff’s face.
They sent for Cleve, and not even the presence of Black Bart in the near corral could keep the brother from running into the darkened room where Ellen lay, too stunned to rally.
“Damn him!” he gritted, falling on his knees beside her, “this’s what’s come of it! I ben lookin’ for something of its like. Let him go. We’ll leave Lost Valley, Ellen. We’ll go out an’ start another life, begin all over again. We’re both too young to be floored by a man like Courtrey. Let him go.”
But the woman turned her waxen face to the wall and shook her head.
“There ain’t no life in this world for me without Buck,” she whispered. “If he don’t want me, I don’t want myself.”
“You dont’ want to hang to him, do you, Sis?” begged the man, “don’t want to stay at th’ Stronghold after this?” 220
“Rather stay here under Buck’s feet like th’ poorest of his dogs than be well-off somewheres where I couldn’t never see him again, never look in his face.”
“God!” groaned Cleve, “you love him like that!”