Ruth was annoyed, even though she recognized that her vexation at Rowan was not quite fair. It was true that he had lately fallen into a habit of disappearing for a day at a time without explanation of his absence. He was worried about something, and he had not made a confidante of her. This was bad enough, but what she resented most was the fact that he was on the best of terms with the handsome young scamp who had kissed her so blithely in the orchard. Of course she had no right to blame her husband for this, since she had never told him of the episode. Yet she did. For her mind moved by impulse and not by logic.
She wandered into the kitchen and whipped together a salad for luncheon. She knitted two rows on a sweater at which she was working, and flung it aside to plunge into one of Chopin’s waltzes at the piano. But Ruth was not in the mood for music. Restlessly she turned to a magazine, fingered the pages aimlessly, read at a story for a paragraph or two, then with a sudden decision tossed the periodical on the table and walked out of the house to the garage. Yet a minute, and she was spinning down the road toward Bovier’s Camp.
It was such a day in late summer as comes only to the Rockies. From a blue sky, flecked with a few mackerel clouds, poured a bath of sunshine. Her lungs drank in an air like wine, pure and strong. The sunny slopes of the high peaks pushed up into the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. The scent of the pines was in her nostrils. Once, when she stopped to look at a doubtful tire, the murmurous voices of the desert whispered in her ears. In spite of herself Ruth’s heart answered the call of the distant, shining mountain to rejoice and be glad.
The car topped the rim of the saucer-shaped valley and swept down toward the little village. What Ruth saw quickened her blood. Beyond the post office a great huddle of sheep was being driven forward. At the head of them rode a man with a rifle in one hand lying across the horn of the saddle. On the porch of the store sat Larry Silcott and her husband watching the man steadily. Neither of them carried any arms exposed to view.
The young wife drove the car down the basin and stopped near the store, leaving the engine still running. None of the men even glanced her way. Their eyes were focused on each other with a tenseness that made her want to scream. She waited, breathless, uncertain what to expect. The pulse in her throat beat fast with excitement. That a collision of some sort impended she did not need to be told.
The man with the rifle spoke thickly in a heavy, raucous voice: “I’ve been looking for you, Rowan McCoy. First off, I’ll tell you something. I’m here with my sheep like I promised, on the way to Circle Diamond. I’m going right past the door of the ranch to Thunder Mountain. If any man tries to stop me, I’ll fix his clock. Get that?”
Rowan’s eyes were like chilled steel, his body absolutely motionless. “Better turn back while you can, Tait,” he advised quietly.
“I’ll see you in hell first. I’m going through. But there’s another thing I’ve got to settle with you, Rowan McCoy. That’s about my wife. Stand up and fight, you white-livered coyote!” A sudden passionate venom leaped into the voice of the sheepman. He cursed his enemy savagely and flung at him a string of vile names.
Ruth, terror-stricken, believed the man was working himself up to do murder. She wanted to cry out, to rush forward and beg him to stop. But her throat was parched and her limbs weighted with heavy chains.
“Your wife left you because you are a bully and a drunkard. I had nothing to do with her going,” retorted McCoy.