Hondo. Part 2

When he had finished shoeing his own horse, he turned it back into the corral and led out the plow horses. It was growing late but he trimmed down their hoofs and went to work with the shoeing.

He stopped when he had finished with the first of the big horses and rolled a smoke. He stepped away from the stable and inspected the rim of the valley again.

This was a nice little place. The right man could do a lot with it Of course, it was no place for a woman to be alone, and no right kind of man would ever leave such a woman alone in this country ... unless he was dead.

He read more into the place than she would have believed. There had been a lot of work done here, good solid work that a man could be proud of, and it had been done by a man with pride in the work. But that had been a long time ago.

Since then the place had been slowly running into the ground, and here and there were the fixings of a man who was s.h.i.+ftless, a rawhider if he ever saw one.

Her father must have built the cabin. It was carefully done by a man who knew his business. It was built of stone, and the stones were fitted carefully. It was logically located both for use and for defense and for shelter from northers. A good man with a rifle could stand off almost any attack from this place, situated as it was.

And the corrals had been well built. They needed work now. The whole place needed work. The roof of the shed needed thatching. The water hole should be cleaned out, too. And once there had been a small dam to catch water in a pool to irrigate a small kitchen garden. The dam had been washed out by some cloudburst and never repaired.

A man could look around and draw his own conclusions. Her father had died, and her husband, whoever he was, had let the place run down. She had been trying to keep it up, but it was a man's job, and she had her woman's work and that child. He was a well-behaved child, and you could always tell what the parents were by the child.

She was a woman, all right. Scarcely more than a girl in years, but all woman. And mighty pretty. He took the cigarette from his lips and looked at it, took one more drag, and dropped it to the earth, where he automatically rubbed it out with his toe. He'd best get on with his shoeing. It was growing late. It was sundown, and in this cup it would grow dark sooner than it would up there on the level country. If you could call it level.

He heard the door close and saw her coming, carrying a water pail. He did not turn or speak as she walked by behind him, but heard her footsteps hesitate a little as if she had thought to speak, then went on. Returning, she stopped and s.h.i.+fted her pail to the other hand.

"Mr. Lane?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You're right. I was lying. My husband is overdue. In fact, he should have been home long ago."

Hondo nodded. "Figure Apaches killed him?"

She stiffened, shocked at his acceptance of the idea that had occurred to her many times. "Of course not. There are a hundred possible explanations."

She knew of several that she never allowed herself to consider. She had known Ed Lowe enough to understand him.

"Indians are one of them."

"But we're at peace with the Apaches, except for a few renegades who--"

"Mrs. Lowe." Hondo straightened from his job. "If you've got good sense you'll pack up you and that child and come out with me. There's a lot of trouble cookin' in the Apache lodges. The main chief, Vittoro, has called a council. A full report of it is in the dispatches I'm carryin'."

"Oh, no." She shook her head with decision. "We've always got along splendidly with the Apaches. They drink and water their horses at our spring. I haven't seen the great Vittoro, but there've been plenty of Apaches here."

"I've seen Vittoro." Hondo's tone was grim. "Before the treaty. He had forty scalps hung in his horse's mane."

"But that was before the treaty."

"We broke that treaty," Hondo persisted patiently. "There's no word in the Apache language for lie, and they've been lied to. If they rise there won't be a live white in the territory."

Angie was not convinced. "They wouldn't bother me. Us, I mean. We've always got along well."

Hondo returned to his work. There was little to do now, and he was tired. The hammer drove home the nails, straight and sure. She watched him, noting the way the horses trusted him. Even that wild mustang he had broken had seemed to trust him. And there was Sam, that curious dog. She looked at Hondo's face, wondering what was behind it.

What was he thinking? What, above all, did he think of her? Woman-like, she wanted to know. What kind of man was he? What had his home been like? What sort of woman would he want? A queer little shock of something almost like fear went through her. Suppose he was married?

Well, then. Suppose he was? It was no business of hers. What could it possibly matter? Nevertheless, the thought disturbed her, and she looked at him keenly, trying to find the marks of a woman on him, but she could find none. But you could not tell with his sort. A woman made her impression, but it was inside of the man. A woman could change a weak man, but not such a man as this. Yet to be loved by him would be ... would be ...

"People I know," Hondo commented on her last remark, "man and wife, got along real well for twenty years. Then she blew a hole in him a stagecoach could drive through. She got mad. The Apaches are mad."

"I have nothing to worry about, I'm sure."

"Nice to be sure."

Sam trotted up as they were talking. The big dog had been away on some business of his own. From the tuft of fur at the corner of his jaw, the business had concerned rabbits. He seated himself several yards away and watched Hondo. Both were somehow remote, untouchable, unreachable. She studied the dog as if hoping to learn more of the man.

"That's a strange dog you have."

"I don't have him."

She was puzzled. "But the two of you are together."

"He stays with me. He can smell an Indian at half a mile."

He returned the last of the horses to the corral and racked up the old shoes on the corral fence. He looked at Angie as he spoke, and, fighting the desire to look away, she met his eyes.

"He smells Indians? I don't believe it."

"Lots of dogs smell Indians. You can teach them."

"Teach them? How?"

He leaned on the rail, shoving his hat back from his brow. The hair curled damply against his forehead. She repressed an urge to reach up and push it back.

The sun was down but it was still light, and the air was turning cool with the desert night. Long streaks of red remained in the sky, and on the western edge of a cloud there was a blush of old rose. Pale yellow light lingered on the topmost leaves of the cottonwoods, and their leaves whispered in the dry way they have.

Shadows gathered beneath the trees and beneath the western shoulder of the mountain, reaching out in long fingers toward the cabin and toward the man and woman who stood by the corral, talking.

"You get a puppy and hire a tame Indian. Then cut a willow switch and four or five times a day you have the Indian beat the puppy with the switch, and all the rest of his life he'll signal when he smells an Indian."

"Beat a puppy?" She was shocked. "How cruel!"

He shrugged. "That's the way you do it."

"And anyway," she scoffed, "I don't believe a dog can smell Indians. I mean as different from anyone else. You or me, for instance."

He gathered the tools and returned them to the bench beneath the lean-to. "They can, Mrs. Lowe. Matter of fact, Indians can smell white people."

"I don't believe that."

He smiled, and the smile lightened his features with a whimsical, almost boyish expression. "It's true, ma'am. I'm part Indian, and I can smell you if I'm downwind of you."

She was uneasy, but to cover it, she laughed, then shook her head, "Why, that's impossible!"

"No, Mrs. Lowe. It's not impossible."

He stepped around so that he was facing her and downwind of her. She felt a strange tenseness come over her, and fought it, with sudden desperation. He stood close, his nostrils widening, narrowing. For a moment she thought he was going to ...

"You baked this morning." His voice was matter of fact. "I can smell fresh bread on you. Sometime today you cooked salt pork. I can smell that on you. And I can smell soap all over you. You took a bath. On top of that, you smell all over like a woman. A woman's got a different smell from a man. Not salty and sharp, but kinda soft and rich and warm. I could find you in the dark, Mrs. Lowe, and I'm only part Indian."

He was standing close to ner and they were both aware of a sudden tension. She started to speak but would not trust her voice. There was something about him ... It was impossible. It was ridiculous, but there it was.

She drew back a little. She smoothed her ap.r.o.n. "I think I'll go back to the cabin," she said hastily.

She turned swiftly, fighting down an overwhelming urge to run, to escape to the familiar surroundings of her own house. To get away somewhere, anywhere, away from him, away from this feeling.

It was wrong. It was all wrong. She should not feel like this about any man.

She told herself it was wicked, but deep within her she did not believe it.

And what sort of man was he? What did she know about him? What could she know? He had said nothing of himself, just nothing at all.

There was something big and hard and sure about him, something in the way he moved, or something from inside of him.

She had the feeling that there was nothing anywhere that could frighten or disturb him. That he was a man who knew himself, knew his strength and his weakness, who had measured himself against the hard land of his living, against the men of that land, and against its wilderness. Whatever he had discovered, he was no longer afraid.

It was dark now, and the wind stirred among the leaves and moaned softly around the roof. She knew that sound. It was a lonely sound, a sound that always frightened her, because it made her know her aloneness. But not tonight. Tonight even the wind had a comforting sound. And why was that?

She avoided the thought, turning swiftly to work, busying herself with preparations for supper, trying not to think of that big, easy-moving man out there in the gathering dusk.

She had known other men. There had been many visitors to the ranch while her father was alive, and some of them had courted her, yet none of them had ever disturbed her as she was now disturbed.

He was moving around out there. She could hear the murmur of his voice, talking to the horses. She heard the tw.a.n.g of a pitchfork p.r.o.ng striking some object. He was feeding the horses. Soon he would be through. Her throat felt tight. Soon he would be coming to the house.

She heard his footsteps on the hard-baked earth. He was coming now. He was coming to the house. She looked blankly around, biting her lower lip as if she had forgotten something. He was coming to the house, and it was night, it was dark.

Chapter Three.

She put her hand to her hair, looked around, and went to the door as she heard him stop. There was a moment of silence, then a knock.

Angie put out her hand to the door, then took it quickly away. "What do you want?"

"I've fed and grained your horses."

"Thank you."

"I'll bed somewhere near till morning."

She heard him turn away. She hesitated, then she opened the door. He stopped and turned, clearly revealed in the light from the doorway.

"You can't sleep outside. There's a wind rising. I'll fix a pallet for you in the corner."

Hondo hitched his saddle higher on his hip and followed her into the house. Behind him Sam slipped through the door and sat down near it, looking at the room with bright, interested eyes.

Angie turned up the kerosene lamp and Hondo took in the room with a glance. Her bed and Johnny's were in a small alcove, curtained by an Indian blanket. He removed his hat and hung it on a peg, then dropped his saddle in a corner out of the way.

She took blankets from an old trunk and carried them to a corner. She indicated a buffalo robe to him and he spread it on the floor, then covered it with the blankets. She started to bring a pillow, but he shook his head.

"Never use a pillow. Only sometimes my saddle. Too soft. A man can't hear good with a pillow around his ears."

"But you'll be asleep."

"Yes, ma'am, but I wake up easy. This country a man had better."

She straightened the blankets with a few quick, feminine, and totally unnecessary movements, then straightened. Without looking at him, she explained, "It would be uncivilized to let anyone sleep outside. And after all, we are civilized, aren't we?"

"Speaking for you, of course. Speaking for me?" He considered it for a minute, then agreed. "I guess you could call me that."

"I have to set some batter for morning. I hope the noise won't bother you."

"It won't." He sat down on his pallet and pulled off his boots. "Good night, Mrs. Lowe."

He drew his pistol from its holster and with the sun in his hand he rolled over on the pallet and pulled a blanket around him. Almost at once his breathing was even and regular. Glancing at him, Angie saw that he was actually asleep.

He must be very tired. How far had he walked that morning? It had been just past daylight when he lost his horse, and it had been a long, very hot day. Yet he moved little in his sleep, and she worked, only dimly conscious of his presence. It had been a long time since there had been a man in the house, and it was a comforting thing.

As she mixed the batter her thoughts returned to Ed. Where was he? Had he been killed by the Apaches? No, he was simnly gone, and he might not come back at all. Nor could she wish for him to come back, for these past few months they had grown further and further apart, and he had worked less and less. Most of the time he was gone, finding some excuse to be away in town.

He gambled, she knew that, and returned home only when he was broke. What had seemed to be love she realized now had been merely the natural result of proximity. It was not so amazing a coincidence as Lane had made it seem, for there were no other girls around, and few men. They had been togther, and it had been a natural thing for them to talk of marriage. And Ed Lowe had got along well with her father.

In fact, he usually got along well with people when it was to his advantage. He had deliberately set himself to cultivate her father, for in those days the ranch looked good, and it was growing. After her father died, Ed came to realize that a ranch grows only by the work that is put into it, and he gradually let it go, selling a few cattle, breaking wild horses for the Army, and sometimes, she suspected, stealing them from the Indians whenever he could.

She had tried. Not even Ed Lowe could deny that. She had tried hard, because she was his wife and because he was Johnny's father. But it had not worked, and now he had gone off and it had been a long time since she had seen him. Now, considering the matter, she knew she hoped he would not come back.

He wanted no responsibility. The ch.o.r.es of the ranch nagged at him and irritated him, and the problem of buying cattle and tending them on the range was not for him. Her father had got along well with the Indians. Even old Vittoro knew him, and they had done business together. Several times he had given the Apaches sugar and tobacco, always sure they understood that it was as a gift to friends and not tribute.

There was none of this feeling in Ed Lowe. He despised the Apaches, and feared them.

She put the pan aside and went to the lamp to turn it down. As she did so her eyes fell upon a bra.s.s plate set in the cantle of his saddle. She bent closer, suddenly curious.

FIRST PRIZE.

Bronc Riding Hondo Lane She drew back quickly, startled by the name. Her sudden movement caused a stirrup to fall to the floor, and Hondo Lane was on his feet in one swift movement, gun in hand.

With almost the same movement, she had dropped back to where she had put the Walker Colt earlier. Instantly she lifted it. "You're Hondo Lane! The gunman!"

"I carry a gun."