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The Fighting Edge, a novel by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 42. A Walk In The Park |
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_ CHAPTER XLII. A WALK IN THE PARK June was the first to speak. "So you're here. You didn't get away." "I'm here," Houck growled. "No chance for a getaway. I ran out the back door of the bank an' ducked into the hotel. This was the first door I come to, an' I headed in." She was not afraid of him. The power he had once held over her was gone forever. The girl had found resources within herself that refused him dominance. He was what he always had been, but she had changed. Her vision was clearer. A game and resourceful bully he might be, but she knew one quiet youth of a far finer courage. "They're lookin' for you along the river," she said. The muscles of his jaw hardened. "They'd better hope they don't find me, some of 'em," he bragged. "So had you," she said significantly. He took her meaning instantly. The temper of Bear Cat was on edge for a lynching. "Did they die, either o' those fellows I shot?" the bandit demanded. "Not yet." "Fools, the pair of 'em. If that bank teller hadn't grabbed for his gun we'd 'a' got away with it fine." She looked at him with disgust, not untouched with self-scorn because she had ever let him become an overpowering influence in her life. He could no more help boasting than he could breathing. "As it is, you've reached the end of your rope," the girl said steadily. "Don't you think I'm at the end of a rope. I'm a long ways from there." "And the men with you are gone." "How gone? Did they get 'em?" "Neither of them ever moved out of his tracks." "When I heard the shootin' I figured it would be thataway," Houck said callously. She could see in him no evidence whatever of regret or remorse for what he had done. This raid, she guessed, was of his planning. He had brought the others into it, and they had paid the penalty of their folly. The responsibility for their deaths lay at his door. He was not apparently giving a thought to that. "You can't stay here," she told him coldly. "You'll have to go." "Go where? Can you get me a horse?" "I won't," June answered. "I got to have a horse, girl," he wheedled. "Can't travel without one." "I don't care how far you travel or what becomes of you. I want you out of here. That's all." "You wouldn't want me shootin' up some o' yore friends, would you? Well, then. If they find me here there'll be some funerals in Bear Cat. You can bet heavy on that." She spoke more confidently than she felt. "They can take care of themselves. I won't have you here. I'll not protect you." The outlaw's eyes narrowed to slits. "Throw me down, would you? Tell 'em I'm here, mebbe?" His face was a menace, his voice a snarl. June looked at him steadily, unafraid. "You needn't try to bully me. It's not worth wasting your time." To look at her was to know the truth of what she said, but he could not help trying to dominate the girl, both because it was his nature and because he needed so badly her help. "Sho! You're not so goshalmighty. You're jes' June Tolliver. I'm the same Jake Houck you once promised to marry. Don't forget that, girl. I took you from that white-livered fellow you married--" "Who saved you from the Utes when nobody else would lift a finger for you. That comes well from you of all men," she flung out. "That ain't the point. What I'm sayin' is that I'll not stand for you throwin' me down." "What can you do?" She stood before him in her stockings, the heavy black hair waving down to her hips, a slim girl whose wiry strength he could crush with one hand. Her question stopped him. What could he do if she wanted to give him up? If he made a move toward her she would scream, and that would bring his enemies upon him. He could shoot her afterward, but that would do no good. His account was heavy enough as it stood without piling up surplusage. "You aimin' for to sell me out?" he asked hoarsely. "No. I won't be responsible for your death." June might have added another reason, a more potent one. She knew Jake Houck, what a game and desperate villain he was. They could not capture him alive. It was not likely he could be killed without one or two men at least being shot by him. Driven into a corner, he would fight like a wild wolf. "Tha's the way to talk, June. Help me outa this hole. You can if you're a mind to. Have they got patrols out everywhere?" "Only on the river side of the town. They think you escaped that way." "Well, if you'll get me a horse--" "I'll not do it." She reflected a moment, thinking out the situation. "If you can reach the foothills you'll have a chance." He grinned, wolfishly. "I'll reach 'em. You can gamble on that, if I have to drop a coupla guys like I did this mornin'." That was just the trouble. If any one interfered with him, or even recognized him, he would shoot instantly. He would be a deadly menace until he was out of Bear Cat. "I'll go with you," June said impulsively. "Go with me?" he repeated. "Across the park. If they see me with you, nobody'll pay any attention to you. Pull your hat down over your eyes." He did as she told him. "Better leave your guns here. If anyone sees them--" "Nothin' doing. My guns go right with me. What are you trying to pull off?" He shot a lowering, suspicious look at her. "Keep them under your coat, then. We don't want folks looking at us too curiously. We'll stroll along as if we were interested in our talk. When we meet any one, if we do, you can look down at me. That'll hide your face." "You going with me clear to the edge of town?" "No. Just across the square, where it's light an' there are liable to be people. You'll have to look out for yourself after that. It's not more than two hundred yards to the sagebrush." "I'm ready whenever you are," he said. June put on her shoes and did up her hair. She made him wait there while she scouted to make sure nobody was in the corridor outside the room. They passed out of the back door of the hotel. Chung met them. He grunted "Glood-eveling" with a grin at June, but he did not glance twice at her companion. The two passed across a vacant lot and into the park. They saw one or two people--a woman with a basket of eggs, a barefoot boy returning home from after-supper play. June carried the burden of the talk because she was quicker-witted than Houck. Its purpose was to deceive anybody who might happen to be looking at them. It chanced that some one _was_ looking at them. He was a young man who had been lying on the grass stargazing. They passed close to him and he recognized June by her walk. That was not what brought him to his feet a moment later with a gasp of amazement. He had recognized her companion, too, or he thought he had. It was not credible, of course. He must be mistaken. And yet--if that was not Jake Houck's straddling slouch his eyes were playing tricks. The fellow limped, too, just a trifle, as he had heard the Brown's Park man did from the effects of his wounds in the Ute campaign. But how could Houck be with June, strolling across the park in intimate talk with her, leaning toward her in that confidential, lover-like attitude--Jake Houck, who had robbed the bank a few hours earlier and was being hunted up and down the river by armed posses ready to shoot him like a wolf? June was a good hater. She had no use whatever for this fellow. Why, then, would she be with him, laughing lightly and talking with animation? Bob followed them, as noiselessly as possible. And momentarily the conviction grew in him that this was Houck. It was puzzling, but he could not escape the conclusion. There was a trick in the fellow's stride, a peculiarity of the swinging shoulders that made for identification of the man. If he could have heard the talk between them, Bob would have better understood the situation. Ever since that memorable evening when Bear Cat had driven him away in disgrace, Houck had let loose the worse impulses of his nature. He had gone bad, to use the phrase of the West. Something in him had snapped that hitherto had made him value the opinions of men. In the old days he had been a rustler and worse, but no crime had ever been proved against him. He could hold his head up, and he did. But the shock to his pride and self-esteem that night had produced in him a species of disintegration. He had drunk heavily and almost constantly. It had been during the sour temper following such a bout that he had quarreled with and shot the Ute. From that hour his declension had been swift. How far he had gone was shown by the way he had taken Dillon's great service to him. The thing rankled in his mind, filled him with surging rage whenever he thought of it. He hated the young fellow more than ever. But as he walked with June, slender, light-swinging, warm with young, sensuous life, the sultry passion of the man mounted to his brain and overpowered caution. His vanity whispered to him. No woman saved a man from death unless she loved him. She might give other reasons, but that one only counted. It was easy for him to persuade himself that she always had been fond of him at heart. There had been moments when the quality of her opposition to him had taken on the color of adventure. "I'll leave you at the corner," she said. "Go back of that house and through the barbed-wire fence. You'll be in the sage then." "Come with me to the fence," he whispered. "I got something to tell you." She looked at him, sharply, coldly. "You've got nothing to tell me that I want to hear. I'm not doing this for you, but to save the lives of my friends. Understand that." They were for the moment in the shadow of a great cottonwood. Houck stopped, devouring her with his hungry eyes. Bad as the man was, he had the human craving of his sex. The slim grace of her, the fundamental courage, the lift of the oval chin, touched a chord that went vibrating through him. He snatched her to him, crushing his kisses upon the disturbing mouth, upon the color spots that warmed her cheeks. She was too smothered to cry out at first. Later, she repressed the impulse. With all her strength she fought to push him from her. A step sounded, a cry, the sound of a smashing blow going home. Houck staggered back. He reached for a revolver. June heard herself scream. A shot rang out. The man who had rescued her crumpled up and went down. In that horrified moment she knew he was Bob Dillon. _ |
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