CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE PERSISTENT SUITOR
"You see," said Dan Slike, as he topped his mount, "I ain't really beenhard on you. I didn't ask you for a nickel. I only took what Ineeded. And if you hadn't fought me like you did, I wouldn't have laida finger on you. Think of that and be happy."
He whirled the horse and rode away toward the lower ground behind thehouse, the coffeepot clacking rhythmically against the barrel of theWinchester Hazel had vainly hoped he would forget to take with him.
Hazel remained standing beside the corral gate. Suddenly she wasconscious of a great weariness. She was as one who has traveled aday's journey without food. Her arms and legs were leaden. Her headached, her body ached, her spirit ached.
With dragging steps she returned to the house. From the cupboard shebrought forth the bottle of whisky she had lied to save and poured astiff four fingers into a teacup. She drank off the liquor in threegulps. But she was so spent that, other than a fit of coughing, therewas no effect.
The lamp was burning low and fitfully, filling the kitchen with a smellof burning wicking. She had forgotten to refill it that morning. Sheput away the whisky bottle, turned out the lamp and filled it by thefaint light from an opened draft-chink. But in reaching for thechimney, she knocked it to the floor and broke it.
Apathetically, every movement mechanical, she found another chimney andadjusted it in the clamps. A smell of burned hair suddenly filled hernostrils. A lock of hair had fallen against the lamp chimney. She puther hand to her head. Her hair was in a slovenly tangle over one ear.She did it up any way and skewered it fast with a few pins.
Crunch! The remains of the lamp chimney crackled under foot. Shebrought out the dustpan and brushed and swept up the pieces. Shecarried the broken glass out to the trash pile. When she returned tothe kitchen, there was a man standing in the middle of the room.
Nothing had the power to surprise her now. She would not have beenamazed had the devil himself popped into the room. The man turned ather entry. He was Rafe Tuckleton. He glowered down at her. She shutthe door and put away the dustpan and brush behind the wood-box.
"What do you want?" she asked lifelessly.
"Who's been here?" he demanded, pointing an accusing finger at thetable. "Two plates, two cups, two saucers--who you been entertaining?"
Entertaining! Good Lord! Hazel sat down on the wood-box and laughedhysterically.
He was around the table and confronting her in three strides. "Who'sbeen here?" he kept at her.
"Dan Slike," she said with a spasmodic giggle.
"You're a liar," he told her promptly. "Dan Slike didn't come thisway. He--he went another way. There's a posse on his trail now.You've had Bill Wingo here, that's whatsamatter."
"I haven't," she denied, wagging her head at him. "Dan Slike was here,I tell you."
"The hell he was. You must think I'm a fool. Bill Wingo's been here,I tell you. Think I don't know, huh, you deceivin' hussy! Trying tomake small of me, carryin' on with other men, huh?"
She said nothing. It is doubtful if she heard him, for all his roaringvoice and gesturing fists. Billy Wingo! _Her_ Billy--once. He hadloved her too--once. What a queer, queer world it was. Everybody andeverything at cross-purposes. Yet there was a reason for it all. Mustbe. Even a reason for Rafe. She looked up at Rafe. He was glaringdown at her with a most villainous expression on his lean features.
"How long has Bill Wingo been gone?" he demanded.
"It wasn't Bill," she insisted doggedly. "It was Dan Slike, and he'sbeen gone maybe half an hour."
"Say, whatsa use of lyin' to me? You're an odd number, by allaccounts, but you ain't so odd you could sit here and eat and drink andcarry on with your uncle's murderer. You can't tell me _that_."
She was regarding him with curious eyes. "I thought you always saidDan Slike didn't kill my uncle?"
"Well--uh--you see, everybody else seems to think he did.And--ah--maybe I was wrong. Anyway, say I was. For all I know to thecontrary, he did kill your uncle. What's fairer than that, I'd like toknow? You think he killed Tom Walton, don't you?"
She continued to stare at Rafe. "I know he did."
"Then how do you expect me to believe you ate supper with him? You'refoolish. You had Bill Wingo here, and we'll settle this Wingo businessright now. You see, don't you, how you can never marry the feller?This Tip O'Gorman murder has queered him round here for keeps. Sooneror later he'll hang for it. You'd look fine wouldn't you, the widow ofa----"
"Don't say it," she cut him short. "Billy Wingo is no murderer. Hefights fair, which is more than I can say for you. However, you canset your mind at rest. I'm not likely to marry Billy Wingo, or anybodyelse."
"Then what do you care whether I call him a murderer or not, if youdon't love him?" he probed. "I thought a while back you had taken myadvice and busted it off with Bill, but now after hearin' what youtried to do to Nate Samson, and all that ammunition and grub you boughtto-day, the day after Tip was killed, why I began to think maybe youwas startin' in to play the Jack again. I told you last fall I wasgonna have you myself. You ain't forgot it, have you?"
His eyes, savage and mean, held hers steadily. "I come over here,to-night to get you. I'm taking you back with me to-night to my ranch.To-morrow you can marry me or not. It'll be just as you say."
"You're taking me to your ranch!" she gasped. "_Me?_"
He nodded. "You, nobody else."
She laughed harshly without a note of hysteria. "You're two hundredyears behind the times. Men don't carry off their women any more."
"Here's one that will," he told her. "You're going with me,y'understand. And you needn't stop to wash your face or change intopetticoats either. I'm not letting you out of my sight. If you wannatake any extra duds along, you can wrap 'em up. What's the answer--yougoing willing or will I have to tie you up in a bundle?"
"You idiot, even your friends wouldn't stand you turning such a trickas this! I'll bet you couldn't get your own men to help you. That'swhy you had to come alone."
His suddenly bloating features gave evidence that her shot had told.Bending down, he shook her shoulder roughly. And now for the firsttime she smelt his breath. It was rank with the raw odor of whisky.So that was what had given him the wild idea of carrying her off byforce. The man was drunk. Sober, he was bad enough. Drunk, he wascapable of anything.
She reached stoveward for the lid lifter. Rafe seized her wrist andjerked her sidewise.
"None of that!" he snarled. "Gonna get your clothes or not?"
"I'll get them," she said calmly. "Let go of my wrist."
If she could win into the next room where the six-shooter was hangingon the wall, it might be possible to--but he did not release her wrist.
"I'll go with you," he told her with a leer. "You're too slippery acustomer to trust alone."
As he turned with her, the lamplight fell full on his face, and she sawthat his eyes were bloodshot! He also saw something that had hithertoescaped his notice. He saw the whisky bottle on the shelf in thecupboard. She had neglected to close the cupboard door.
"I'll have a short drink first," he said, and dragged her to thecupboard.
He was holding her left-handed. She was on the wrong side to reach hisgun. Nevertheless she swung her body in front of him and snatchedwildly at the pistol butt.
He did not divine her intention but thought she was trying to keep himaway from the whisky. The result was the same, for he wrenched herback with a twist that started the tears in her eyes.
Holding the bottle in one hand, he drew the cork with his teeth, spatit out and applied his lips to the bottle neck. He swallowed long andgenerously. Hazel saw his Adam's apple slide up and down a dozentimes. At such a rate the man would be a fiend in no time.
"Let me get my clothes," she begged.
Anything to get him away from the liquor. But Rafe was not so easilyseparated from his old friend.
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"Wait a minute," he said peevishly, lowering the bottle and fixing herwith his bloodshot gaze. "Don't be in such a hurry. Here, have oneyourself."
He thrust the bottle toward her. She took it from him, held it to hermouth and then the bottle seemed to slip from her fingers. Shesnatched at it, juggled it a split second and--the bottle smashed inbits on a corner of the stove.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried, quite as if she had not contrived thecatastrophe on purpose.
"I'll make you sorrier!" Rafe exclaimed and without more ado cast botharms around her.
He was striving to kiss her and she, face crushed against his roughshirt, fought him like the primeval female every woman becomes in likecircumstances. Her right hand clawed upward at his face. Her leftarm, doubled between their two bodies, she strove to work free so thatshe could grab his gun.
Rafe received three distinct clawings that considerably altered theappearance of one side of his face, before he was able to confine thoseactive fingers.
"Here!" he bawled in a fury. "I'll fix you!"
He tried to seize her by the throat and his thumb slipped by mistakeinto her mouth. She promptly clamped down hard on the thumb. With ayell, Rafe released his grip on her body and worked a thumb and ringfinger into her cheeks in a frantic effort to force open her lockedjaws.
Suddenly she opened her mouth. Rafe sprang back a yard, shaking ableeding thumb and swearing, and as he sprang she dragged thesix-shooter from his holster.
Her palm swept down to cock the gun. But Rafe was as quick to see hisdanger as Dan Slike had been. He made a long arm as he hurled himselfat her and knocked the barrel to one side at the moment of the shot.Before she could fire again, he had torn the weapon from her grasp andflung it across the room.
"You tried to murder me!" he panted. "You tried to murder me!"
She dived headlong beneath his arm, but he caught the slack of heroveralls as she went by and dragged her to a standstill. Sheimmediately butted him in the stomach with her head. He stumbled backbut caught her arm. Her head flashed down and her teeth fastened onhis wrist. Again he broke the grip of her teeth by the application ofring finger and thumb to her cheeks, and then he reached purposefullyfor her throat and began to strangle her in dead earnest.
She kicked and thrashed about like a wild thing in a trap,--as indeedshe was. Her nails scratched desperately at his arms. She might aswell have been petting him. Tighter and tighter became the chokinggrasp of those long fingers. She could not breathe. Her temples werebursting. Her head felt like a balloon. With her last flare-up offailing strength, she kicked him on the knee-cap.
He jumped back against the wall, dragging her with him, and began toshake her as a dog does a rat. And then the old Terry clock did thatfor which it surely must have been originally made. For, as hisshoulders struck the wall, his head knocked away the support of thebracket that held the clock. Involuntarily he ducked his head. It wasthe worst thing he could have done, giving, as it did, the clock anextra foot to fall. It fell. One corner struck him fairly on thetemple and knocked him cold as a wedge.
When Hazel's reeling senses had reestablished their equilibrium, shefound herself on the floor, lying across the inert legs of RafeTuckleton. She raised herself on her two arms and looked at him. Hewas breathing very lightly. It occurred to her that it would not worryher overmuch if he breathed not at all.
She dragged herself on hands and knees to where he had thrown hissix-shooter. She picked it up and threw out the cylinder. EvidentlyRafe was accustomed to carry his hammer on an empty chamber, for therewere four cartridges and a spent shell in the cylinder. She ejectedthe spent shell, crawled back to the senseless Rafe and plucked twocartridges from his belt.
She loaded those two empty chambers and cocked the gun. Then shepulled herself up into a chair at the table, and leaning across thecloth, trained the six-shooter on Rafe's stomach.
And as she sat there watching a senseless man through the gunsights, itsuddenly seemed to her that she was not one person, but two,--herselfand a stranger. And the Hazel Walton that had gone through theevening's adventures was the stranger. She herself apparently stood atone side observing. But she saw the room and its contents with neweyes, the eyes of the stranger. It was a most amazing feeling, and shewas oddly frightened while it lasted.
Slowly the feeling passed as her muscles renewed their strength, andher jangled nerves steadied and quieted. She came back to herself witha jerk as Rafe Tuckleton stirred and put his hand to his head. She sawthe hand come away covered with blood. That side of Rafe's head beingin the shadow she had not previously noted that it had sustained ashrewd cut.
Rafe groaned a little. He rolled over and sat up, his chin saggingforward on his chest. He moved his head and looked at her vacantly.The blood ran down his cheek and dripped slowly off his chin.
The light of reason glared of a sudden in Rafe's eyes. She could seethat he was absorbing the situation from every angle.
"I'll give you five minutes to pull yourself together and get out," sheannounced clearly. "If you're still here by the time I've countedthree hundred I'll begin to shoot."
Rafe started to go by the time she reached sixty. With the six-shooterpointing at the small of his back, her finger on the trigger, step bystep she drove him out of the house to where he had left his horse.
Hazel watched him ride away and after a little become at one with themoonlit landscape. She walked back to the house. She felt that shewas taking enormous strides. In reality she was stepping short andstaggering badly. She went into the kitchen. She closed the door,dropped the bar into place and fell into the nearest chair.
"My God!" she said aloud, "I wonder what will happen next?"