She knew the story, she knew the purpose of that journey. Her face went dead white, and when she raised her head the higher yellow light pooled in the triangle of her throat. As he looked at her all the loneliness and hunger of his solitary nature rose to torment him. No man living could miss the beauty or the allure of Christine Ballard. What was lacking in her for such a man as he was? What more could he want? The sacrifice was all hers, the surrender all hers. So he thought while the hunger grew to an obsession. A man was only flesh and blood. He pivoted on his heels and started for the door. She was in front of him instantly, throwing herself against him. He had never known what strength lay in a woman's arms once they were around a man's neck; he had never heard a woman cry in this suppressed manner. It seemed to put her on the torture rack. And all the while the incense of her hair and the warmth of her body assailed his senses.
"Kit—why couldn't this have happened a long time ago?"
The crying stopped. She stepped aside, and her echo of his question rang passionately through the room. "Why couldn't it have happened, Tom? People have to live to learn, don't they? Where else will you find another woman any better?"
He stood divided. And it took a full mustering of his strength to walk to the door and let himself out.
"Quagmire—where are you?"
"Here—right in front o' yo', Tom."
"Get me the buckskin. Get it in a hurry. You're boss here. San Saba's in Deadwood."
Twenty minutes later he rode from the ranch on into the darkness lying southwest. He was running away as much as anything else, and he knew it. There would come a time when he must return and face it. But not now. He needed to break the chains Christine was forging around him. He tipped his head to the remote stars and seemed to see there the clear, grave face of Lorena Wyatt looking down at him. He felt the pressure of her hands wiping the blood from his mouth. Where was she?
XII. DEADWOOD
Beyond dusk five days later Tom Gillette stopped on a ridge and studied a camp fire glimmering beside a creek below. He had ridden hard, and his own buckskin was in a strange corral away behind; the pony carrying him now was the second traded horse. Deadwood, according to his estimate, could be no more than ten miles distant, and it drew him like a magnet. Yet he was weary and hungry, for which reasons the light of the fire had pulled him off the main trail—a tortuous, rutted artery along which the freighters carried supplies into the mushrooming mining camps of the hills.
A pair of men sat beside the blaze. Others moved away the moment he topped the ridge, retreating beyond the rim of light. From this distance he saw nothing of the two in view but a blur of bearded faces beneath drooping plainsmen's hats, and for a time he debated about riding down. Out on the prairie every stranger was welcome to the chuck wagon, and hospitality was the unwritten law. A mining camp was something different; another breed of men, a hundred breeds for that matter, inhabited it, all bent on riches and all suspicious.
In the end hunger got the best of him. He quartered down the slope within hailing distance and stopped again.
"Hello, the camp."
One of the figures by the fire spoke over a shoulder. "Come on down, then."
He advanced, swung his horse so that it put him directly toward the fire, and dismounted. He was instantly aware of a hard and prolonged scrutiny, and further aware of the others out in the shadows. It was a quick camp; horses stood a few yards off. A shotgun rested within arm's reach of the nearest man, and Gillette's questing eyes noted that each of the two wore a Colt on each hip. The ivory tip of a knife stuck from one fellow's boot. Heavy armament, even for prospectors.
"Saw your fire," explained Gillette. "I'm bound for Deadwood, from Nelson, and it's strange country to me. How much farther to town?"
"Fifteen miles."
"Straight along that road?"
"Yeah."
He squatted at the fire, warming his hands. A frying pan filled with bacon lay against a rock and a coffee pot sat beside it. Casually he turned his attention from one man to the other and out of the brief survey he received a warning. He knew his own kind, and he also knew the stamp of the border renegade, for he had been raised in a country where outlaw factions flourished their brief day and died suddenly. These men were of that type. Plainly so. The spokesman's face was heavily pitted above the line of the beard, one ear was without a lobe. The man met Gillette's inspection with a sullen, half-lidded counter glance. Of a sudden he shot a question belligerently across the small interval.
"From Nelson, huh? Travellin' almighty light, ain't yuh?"
"In a hurry," agreed Gillette. "Travelling light."
The spokesman's hand rose to signal to someone out of sight "Look at his pony, Kid."
Spurs jingled. Faces came into the fire's glow, ill-stamped faces, the sweepings and trash of the desert. Without turning he felt himself to be covered from behind. His muscles bunched as he recognized the trap he had let himself into. A sallow youth ambled up, briefly murmuring:
"He's travelled all right. Hoss dusty." And the youth crouched in the circle, staring at Gillette with open antagonism. Gillette turned about; a giant of a man stood a pace to his rear, arms akimbo.
"In my country," said Gillette evenly, "it isn't polite to cover a man's back."
The giant shifted, but the spokesman flared. "Nobody invited you here, fella. How do we know who yuh are or where yuh come from?"
"When a man announces himself that's usually ample. As to the invitation, I'll relieve you of my presence in a hurry."
"Don't be in no rush," growled the spokesman. "Yuh came and yuh stay till we see what's inside yore coco. Sounds like another damned fishin' party to me."
Gillette held his peace. The giant barred his retreat. He understood, however, that the sooner he made his exit the better and the easier it would be. He had fallen in with an errant band of cutthroats and they were weighing him for what he was worth. Six of them, all before him, save for the giant. He heard the Kid mutter a short phrase about the time, and the spokesman, looking sidewise at Gillette, pulled a watch from his pocket and tilted it against the light. At that point the giant moved around until he stood behind this apparent leader of the crowd. "Better do somethin', Hazel."
"Do what?" snapped the leader.
"Don't bite my nose off, old-timer," rumbled the giant, "or I'll pull yuh apart."
Hazel turned to Gillette. "Lemme see yore guns."
"Not my guns," drawled Gillette. "Do I look that green?"
Hazel threw up his head, and a swift anger pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Yuh tryin' to ace me, fella? Do I see 'em or do I take 'em?"
"No powder-burning' around here and now," warned the giant, both to Gillette and to his chief. "It ain't the time."
Gillette was cross-legged; he had done this trick before, he could do it again. He swayed his torso a little forward, seeing in a glance the loose posture of each; they were confident enough of themselves. The Kid spat into the fire. "Oh, hell, let's see what he totes in his pockets an' throw him in the creek. Who's gettin' religious around here now?"
"You'll have to take 'em," snapped Gillette. His legs carried him up in one swift surge and the firelight ran along the blued barrel of his piece. All this in a single sweep of his muscles. "You damned rascals, does a traveller have to show a passport to get into Deadwood? There's where I'm goin', and all you're going to see of my gun is the front end. I'm no deputy and I'm not chasing him, understand? Now swallow it. If you want to make an argument, go ahead."
"You're a dead man," cried Hazel, swaying on his haunches.
"So are you, then," drawled Gillette.