"Country's full of young men."
"Full of gophers and rabbits, too. I'm choosy."
"Any preferences?"
"Sure," she said and looked at him soberly, sweetly. "What am I offered?" Then she said, lowering her voice, "Don't make a fool out of yourself, Owen."
He laid out a cigarette between his fingers and quickly rolled it. When his glance lifted again she saw something that made her say swiftly, "Oh, Owen! Don't. It's over. I like you both, but there isn't any woman in the world worth your tearing yourself apart. I know you, you big bruiser, And you did a dangerous thing tonight. You and Sally. I don't think it was quite square."
"What's square, Helen?"
"Yes," she said, "I know. I guess I can understand."
Wagons were moving out of town, and horsemen cantered into the farther darkness, bound across the long darkness of the Piute. A small, slow wind turned the night cold. Alice Langdell stopped by and said, on the verge of resentment, "I wish you'd ask Juke to come out of the saloon for a minute. He was supposed to meet me here. Seems to be one of those bottle babies that never got weaned."
"Sure," said Merritt and went on down the street. He met Slover and Bourke by the side of the Palace. "Juke," he said, "you got a call up the street."
"Yeah—well."
Fay Dutcher strolled from the hotel to join the remnant of Skull in front of the saloon. Love Bidwell came across the street, meeting him. Love was drunk enough to walk with a precise straightness, and the glow of his cigar showed the red, thin tip of his nose. His flat and annoying voice bore against Skull's foreman.
"Dutcher," he said, "I'll be over to see my daughter in a few days. Ain't got a very good saddle horse any more and the travelin' will take it down. I want you should pick me a good one from Skull's remuda."
Fay Dutcher answered in a cool, colorless way, "Mr. Isham say anything about that?".
"The man's my son-in-law," retorted Love Bidwell, taking quick offense. "Of co'se it'll be all right. Dammit, Dutcher, I'm tellin' you what to do."
"I hear," drawled Dutcher.
"Well, then," growled Bidwell, and marched into the saloon. When he spoke to the saloonman his voice carried back to the street. "Tom, there was a time when you called my credit into question. I reckon it ought to be all right now, ain't it?"
Tom Croker's answer was civil, nothing more. "Sure, it's all right."
"Damn right," replied Love Bidwell. "You know who's back of me now. I'll take rye. The same kind of rye you drink, Croker. The bottle below the bar."
Merritt remained on the edge of the shadows and watched Skull's foreman with a considering interest. There was a time when Fay Dutcher would have answered Love Bidwell with a harsh brevity; but now he had to mind his manners toward Skull's new father-in-law. His black head dropped a little; his lips rolled together, displaying surliness. But this lasted for only a moment. He whipped up his chin and caught Owen Merritt's stare, and at once pulled all expression off his cheeks. He turned back toward the hotel.
"Juke," murmured Bourke, "I see Alice up there—"
"Yeah," said Juke Slover. "Yeah, well, so-long," and went away slowly.
Bourke and Owen Merritt turned on to the face of the stable without additional talk, stepped into the leather, and wheeled out of town at a pitching canter. Wagons, bound homeward toward the Kitchen Meadows, raised a high dust on the street, and lighted lanterns jiggled fitfully at reach-ends, and here and there along the land's farther flatness ran the drowsy "Good night" of neighbors and the diminishing run of horsemen and the faint, irritable wail of some child kept too long awake. Gradually these lights and this sound faded away into the vastness of the desert, sinking into it without trace, until nothing was left but the everlasting shine of the remote stars and the cold, slow wind roiling up the smell of sage and summer- cured grasses. It was as though all these people, saying a last farewell, had ridden at once into oblivion. The darkness was that solid, the illusion of a huge and empty world was that strong.
So Owen Merritt left The Wells behind him, too deeply engaged in his own thoughts to look back. Therefore he did not notice the particular attention of two people. The first of these, Nan Melotte, stood near Nankervell's, about to step up to the saddle of her own pony. She stood still, one hand holding to a stirrup, and followed Merritt with her glance until his shape sank into the Piute's darkness; breathing stirred and reformed the round swell of her breasts and her eyes were dark and controlled by a dreaming, distant speculation.
Meanwhile, Fay Dutcher paused in the black mouth of the alley near Shannon's store, watching Merritt and Bourke Prine with a strict attention. As soon as the partners left town he returned to the saloon, halting in the doorway and calling out to the rest of Skull's crew, "All right—all right. Time to ride." Hugh Clagg stood idle in a corner. Clagg looked over the room at Skull's foreman, and looked away. Dutcher backed into the street, waiting for his men. When they came out, turned surly and unwilling by their drinking, he watched them go on their waiting ponies, his mere presence subduing their grumbling protest. The last settlers from Kitchen Meadows were leaving The Wells. The hotel lights winked out one by one, and some of the stores were closing up. Hugh Clagg strolled from the saloon and stood on the walk to try a fresh match to his cigarette. He was within arm's reach of Fay Dutcher and for this minute nobody else was near. Fay Dutcher said in a low, dissatisfied rumble, "What's the matter, Hugh? What's the matter?" Then he wheeled to his own horse, calling up the stragglers in the crew. "Come on—come on!" In a moment he led Skull out of The Wells at a ripping gallop, throwing the dust high behind.
Ray Neale and Mariels came from the Palace, joining Clagg. Afterward Tempe Killeen came out. These four stood together, not speaking until Clagg broke the silence. "What was wrong with you, Ray?"
Ray Neale was waiting for it, and his answer, irritably pitched, jumped back at Clagg. "Slover was watchin' me. And Prine stood there, cocked like a gun. They smelled somethin', What'd you want me to do? No—not then. Where's Merritt now?"
"Started across the Piute."
They stood still. Mark Medary came from Shannon's and advanced on the saloon. He threw them a quick glance and passed into the saloon without speaking. A few of the town's citizens straggled over the street for a ceremonial nightcap. Afterward Clagg said, "All right." He threw away his cigarette. His words had a sudden lift, as though he had made up his mind. The four of them went to their horses down by the stable, and left town, following Merritt and Prine.
Quiet came to The Wells. The four cavalrymen departed for McDermitt, sixty miles away. The lights continued to die and presently there was nothing left but a lone glow from the saloon where Medary and Croker and a few others kept up a last watch at one of the poker tables. The street showed no life, and in the overwhelming darkness of the desert the square fronts of the buildings made a ragged outline. The street's dust cast a faded, phosphorescent glow against the dark.
III. A MAN IS SOON DEAD
After that first quick run out of The Wells, Merritt and Prine settled into the customary mode of travel across the Piute—walk awhile, gallop awhile, and walk again. They aimed into the black, not speaking at all during the first few minutes. Above them lay the glittering wash of stars; on the left, which was east, the low summits of the Bunchgrass Hills made a perceptible outline. There was no sound except the hoof scuffs of their ponies and saddle leather's soft squealing, and the occasional jingling of bridle chains. Wind traveled steadily in from the west, with a sharper edge to it; for though it was Indian summer and cloudless by day, the Piute lay around five thousand feet elevation and at sundown warmth soon left the earth. In this wind, too, was the aromatic blend of sage and bunchgrass cured on the stem, and the impalpable smell of water from little marsh lakes scattered here and there along the desert;