Gunman's Reckoning Part 29

"I'll bring him to you," said Donnegan desperately. "I'll bring him here so that you can take care of him."

"You'll take him away from Lord Nick--and Lebrun--and the rest?" And it was the cold smile of her father with which she mocked him.

"I'll do it."

"You play a deep game," said the girl bitterly. "Why would you do it?"

"Because," said Donnegan faintly. "I love you."

Her hand had been on the k.n.o.b of the door; now she twitched it open and was gone; and the last that Donnegan saw was the width of the startled eyes.

"As if I were a leper," muttered Donnegan. "By heaven, she looked at me as if I were unclean!"

But once outside the door, the girl stood with both hands pressed to her face, stunned. When she dropped them, they folded against her breast, and her face tipped up.

Even by starlight, had Donnegan been there to look, he would have seen the divinity which comes in the face of a woman when she loves.

26

Had he been there to see, even in the darkness he would have known, and he could have crossed the distance between their lives with a single step, and taken her into his heart. But he did not see. He had thrown himself upon his bunk and lay face down, his arms stretched rigidly out before him, his teeth set, his eyes closed.

For what Donnegan had wanted in the world, he had taken; by force when he could, by subtlety when he must. And now, what he wanted most of all was gone from him, he felt, forever. There was no power in his arms to take that part of her which he wanted; he had no craft which could encompa.s.s her.

Big George, stealing into the room, wondered at the lithe, slender form of the man in the bed. Seeing him thus, it seemed that with the power of one hand, George could crush him. But George would as soon have closed his fingers over a rattler. He slipped away into the kitchen and sat with his arms wrapped around his body, as frightened as though he had seen a ghost.

But Donnegan lay on the bed without moving for hours and hours, until big George, who sat wakeful and terrified all that time, was sure that he slept. Then he stole in and covered Donnegan with a blanket, for it was the chill, gray time of the night.

But Donnegan was not asleep, and when George rose in the morning, he found the master sitting at the table with his arms folded tightly across his breast and his eyes burning into vacancy.

He spent the day in that chair.

It was the middle of the afternoon when George came with a scared face and a message that a "gen'leman who looks riled, sir," wanted to see him. There was no answer, and George perforce took the silence as acquiescence. So he opened the door and announced: "Mr. Lester to see you, sir."

Into the fiery haze of Donnegan's vision stepped a raw-boned fellow with sandy hair and a disagreeably strong jaw.

"You're the gent that's here with the colonel, ain't you?" said Lester.

Donnegan did not reply.

"You're the gent that cleaned up on Landis, ain't you?" continued the sandy-haired man.

There was still the same silence, and Lester burst out: "It don't work, Donnegan. You've showed you're man-sized several ways since you been in The Corner. Now I come to tell you to get out from under Colonel Macon.

Why? Because he's crooked, because we know he's crooked; because he played crooked with me. You hear me talk?"

Still Donnegan considered him without a word.

"We're goin' to run him out, Donnegan. We want you on our side if we can get you; if we can't get you, then we'll run you out along with the colonel."

He began to talk with difficulty, as though Donnegan's stare unnerved him. He even took a step back toward the door.

"You can't bluff me out, Donnegan. I ain't alone. They's others behind me. I don't need to name no names. Here's another thing: you ain't alone yourself. You got a woman and a cripple on your hands. Now, Donnegan, you're a fast man with a gun and you're a fast man at thinkin', but I ask you personal: have you got a chance runnin' under that weight?"

He added fiercely: "I'm through. Now, talk turkey, Donnegan, or you're done!"

For the first time Donnegan moved. It was to make to big George a significant signal with his thumb, indicating the visitor. However, Lester did not wait to be thrown bodily from the cabin. One enormous oath exploded from his lips, and he backed sullenly through the door and slammed it after him.

"It kind of looks," said big George, "like a war, sir."

And still Donnegan did not speak, until the afternoon was gone, and the evening, and the full black of the night had swallowed up the hills around The Corner.

Then he left the chair, shaved, and dressed carefully, looked to his revolver, stowed it carefully and invisibly away among his clothes, and walked leisurely down the hill. An outbreak of cursing, stamping, hair-tearing, shooting could not have affected big George as this quiet departure did. He followed, unordered, but as he stepped across the threshold of the hut he rolled up his eyes to the stars.

"Oh, heavens above," muttered George, "have mercy on Mr. Donnegan. He ain't happy."

And he went down the hill, making sure that he was fit for battle with knife and gun.

He had sensed Donnegan's mental condition accurately enough. The heart of the little man was swelled to the point of breaking. A twenty-hour vigil had whitened his face, drawn in his cheeks, and painted his eyes with shadow; and now he wanted action. He wanted excitement, strife, compet.i.tion; something to fill his mind. And naturally enough he had two places in mind--Lebrun's and Milligan's.

It is hard to relate the state of Donnegan's mind at this time. Chiefly, he was conscious of a peculiar and cruel pain that made him hollow; it was like homesickness raised to the nth degree. Vaguely he realized that in some way, somehow, he must fulfill his promise to the girl and bring Jack Landis home. The colonel dared not harm the boy for fear of Donnegan; and the girl would be happy. For that very reason Donnegan wanted to tear Landis to shreds.

It is not extremely heroic for a man tormented with sorrow to go to a gambling hall and then to a dance hall to seek relief. But Donnegan was not a hero. He was only a man, and, since his heart was empty, he wanted something that might fill it. Indeed, like most men, suffering made him a good deal of a boy.

So the high heels of Donnegan tapped across the floor of Lebrun's. A murmur went before him whenever he appeared now, and a way opened for him. At the roulette wheel he stopped, placed fifty on red, and watched it double three times. George, at a signal from the master, raked in the winnings. And Donnegan sat at a faro table and won again, and again rose disconsolately and went on. For when men do not care how luck runs it never fails to favor them. The devotees of fortune are the ones she punishes.

In the meantime the whisper ran swiftly through The Corner.

"Donnegan is out hunting trouble."

About the good that is in men rumor often makes mistakes, but for evil she has an infallible eye and at once sets all of her thousand tongues wagging. Indeed, any man with half an eye could not fail to get the meaning of his fixed glance, his hard set jaw, and the straightness of his mouth. If he had been a ghost, men could not have avoided him more sedulously, and the giant servant who stalked at his back. Not that The Corner was peopled with cowards. The true Westerner avoids trouble, but cornered, he will fight like a wildcat.

So people watched from the corner of their eyes as Donnegan pa.s.sed.

He left Lebrun's. There was no compet.i.tion. Luck blindly favored him, and Donnegan wanted contest, excitement. He crossed to Milligan's. Rumor was there before him. A whisper conveyed to a pair of mighty-limbed cow-punchers that they were sitting at the table which Donnegan had occupied the night before, and they wisely rose without further hint and sought other chairs. Milligan, anxious-eyed, hurried to the orchestra, and with a blast of sound they sought to cover up the entry of the gunman.

As a matter of fact that blare of horns only served to announce him.

Something was about to happen; the eyes of men grew shadowy; the eyes of women brightened. And then Donnegan appeared, with George behind him, and crossed the floor straight to his table of the night before. Not that he had forethought in going toward it, but he was moving absent-mindedly.

Indeed, he had half forgotten that he was a public figure in The Corner, and sitting sipping the cordial which big George brought him at once, he let his glance rove swiftly around the room. The eye of more than one brave man sank under that glance; the eye of more than one woman smiled back at him; but where the survey of Donnegan halted was on the face of Nelly Lebrun.

She was crossing the farther side of the floor alone, unescorted except for the whisper about her, but seeing Donnegan she stopped abruptly.

Donnegan instantly rose. She would have gone on again in a flurry; but that would have been too pointed.

A moment later Donnegan was threading his way across the dance floor to Nelly Lebrun, with all eyes turned in his direction. He had his hat under his arm; and in his black clothes, with his white stock, he made an old-fas.h.i.+oned figure as he bowed before the girl and straightened again.

"Did you send for me?" Donnegan inquired.