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The Fighting Edge, a novel by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 44. Bob Holds His Red Haid High |
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_ CHAPTER XLIV. BOB HOLDS HIS RED HAID HIGH At the corner of the street Bob came upon Tom Reeves and an old Leadville miner in argument. Tom made the high sign to Dillon. "What's all the rumpus about?" he wanted to know. "Jake Houck was seen crossin' the park. He got into the sage." "Sho! I'll bet the hole of a doughnut he ain't been seen. If you was to ask me I'd say he was twenty-five miles from here right now, an' not lettin' no grass grow under his feet neither. I been talkin' to old wooden head here about the railroad comin' in." Tom's eyes twinkled. His friend guessed that he was trying to get a rise out of the old-timer. "He's sure some mossback. I been tellin' him the railroad's comin' through here an' Meeker right soon, but he can't see it. I reckon the toot of an engine would scare him 'most to death." "Don't get excited about that railroad, son," drawled the former hard-rock driller, chewing his cud equably. "I rode a horse to death fifteen years ago to beat the choo-choo train in here, an' I notice it ain't arriv yet." Bob left them to their argument. He was not just now in a mood for badinage. He moved up the street past the scattered suburbs of the little frontier town. Under the cool stars he wanted to think out what had just taken place. Had he fainted from sheer fright when the gun blazed at him? Or was Blister's explanation a genuine one? He had read of men being thrown down and knocked senseless by the atmospheric shock of shells exploding near them in battle. But this would not come in that class. He had been actually struck. The belt buckle had been driven against his flesh. Had this hit him with force enough actually to drive the breath out of him? Or had he thought himself wounded and collapsed because of the thought? It made a great deal of difference to him which of these was true, more than it did to the little world in which he moved. Some of the boys might guy him good-naturedly, but nobody was likely to take the matter seriously except himself. Bob had begun to learn that a man ought to be his own most severe critic. He had set out to cure himself of cowardice. He would not be easy in mind so long as he still suspected himself of showing the white feather. He leaned on a fence and looked across the silvery sage to a grove of quaking asp beyond. How long he stood there, letting thoughts drift through his mind, he did not know. A sound startled him, the faint swish of something stirring. He turned. Out of the night shadows a nymph seemed to be floating toward him. For a moment he had a sense of unreality, that the flow and rhythm of her movement were born of the imagination. But almost at once he knew that this was June in the flesh. The moonlight haloed the girl, lent her the touch of magic that transformed her from a creature not too good for human nature's daily food into an ethereal daughter of romance. Her eyes were dark pools of loveliness in a white face. "June!" he cried, excitement drumming in his blood. Why had she come to find him? What impulse or purpose had brought her out into the night in his wake? Desire of her, tender, poignant, absorbing, pricked through him like an ache. He wanted her. Soul and body reached out to her, though both found expression only in that first cry. Her mouth quivered. "Oh, Bob, you silly boy! As if--as if it matters why you were stunned. You were. That's enough. I'm so glad--so glad you're not hurt. It's 'most a miracle. He might have killed you." She did not tell him that he would have done it if she had not flung her weight on his arm and dragged the weapon down, nor how in that dreadful moment her wits had worked to save him from the homicidal mania of the killer. Bob's heart thumped against his ribs like a caged bird. Her dear concern was for him. It was so she construed friendship--to give herself generously without any mock modesty or prudery. She had come without thought of herself because her heart had sent her. "What matters is that when I called you came," she went on. "You weren't afraid then, were you?" "Hadn't time. That's why. I just jumped." "Yes." The expression in her soft eyes was veiled, like autumn fires in the hills blazing through mists. "You just jumped to help me. You forgot he carried two forty-fives and would use them, didn't you?" "Yes," he admitted. "I reckon if I'd thought of that--" Even as the laughter rippled from her throat she gave a gesture of impatience. There were times when self-depreciation ceased to be a virtue. She remembered a confidence Blister had once made to her. "T-Texas man," she squeaked, stuttering a little in mimicry, "throw up that red haid an' stick out yore chin." Up jerked the head. Bob began to grin in spite of himself. "Whose image are you m-made in?" she demanded. "You know," he answered. "What have you got over all the world?" "Dominion, ma'am, but not over all of it, I reckon." "All of it," she insisted, standing clean of line and straight as a boy soldier. "Right smart of it," he compromised. "Every teeny bit of it," she flung back. "Have yore own way. I know you will anyhow," he conceded. "An' what are you a little lower than?" "I'm a heap lower than one angel I know." She stamped her foot. "You're no such thing. You're as good as any one--and better." "I wouldn't say better," he murmured ironically. None the less he was feeling quite cheerful again. He enjoyed being put through his catechism by her. "Trouble with you is you're so meek," she stormed. "You let anybody run it over you till they go too far. What's the use of crying your own goods down? Tell the world you're Bob Dillon and for it to watch your dust." "You want me to brag an' strut like Jake Houck?" "No-o, not like that. But Blister's right. You've got to know your worth. When you're sure of it you don't have to tell other people about it. They know." He considered this. "Tha's correct," he said. "Well, then." Bob had an inspiration. It was born out of moonshine, her urging, and the hunger of his heart. His spurs trailed across the grass. "Is my red haid high enough now?" he asked, smiling. Panic touched her pulse. "Yes, Bob." "What have I got over all the world?" he quizzed. "Dominion," she said obediently in a small voice. "Over all of it?" "I--don't--know." His brown hands fastened on her shoulders. He waited till at last her eyes came up to meet his. "Every teeny bit of it." "Have your own way," she replied, trying feebly to escape an emotional climax by repeating the words he had used. "I know you will anyhow." He felt himself floating on a wave of audacious self-confidence. "Say it, then. Every teeny bit of it." "Every teeny bit of it," she whispered. "That means June Tolliver too." The look in his eyes flooded her with love. "June Dillon," the girl corrected in a voice so soft and low he scarcely made out the words. He caught her in his arms. "You precious lamb!" They forgot the rest of the catechism. She nestled against his shoulder while they told each other in voiceless ways what has been in the hearts of lovers ever since the first ones walked in Eden. _ |
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