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was cold to all offers from John Daniel, and merely attended to business.
Efforts to approach him were equally unsuccessful, and riders always found
themselves warned away by an unseen voice and a rifle that offered no
alternative.
At the beginning of the third month, John Daniel called Cherry
Creslin to his office. She came at once, slim, beautifully curved and
seductive in her strictly professional way.
"You like to ride," Daniel said, "so put on that gray habit and
ride my black. How you do it is your own affair, but get acquainted with Bon
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Caddo. Make him like you."
She protested. "Sorry, John. Get one of the other girls. I want no
part of these drunken, dirty miners."
"You'll do as I tell you, Cherry, and you'll do it now. This man
is neither drunken nor dirty. He is big, and tough, and, I think, dangerous.
Also, he cares nothing for gambling or whiskey."
She got up. "All right, I'll go. But you'll wish you'd never sent
me. I'm sick of these jobs, John! Why don't we cash in our chips and pull out?
Let's go to New York, or San Francisco."
"Get started. I'll tell you when to go, and where."
The canyon of the Lonetree was warm in the spring sunshine. The
cottonwoods whispered secrets to each other above the stream that chuckled
humorously to the stones. There was no other sound but the trilling of birds,
and on the bank above the stream the sound of Caddo working.
He wore a six-shooter, and a rifle stood nearby, and just out of
sight in the tunnel mouth was a shotgun, a revolving weapon made by Colt.
Standing with his feet wide apart in their heavy miner's boots, he
made a colossal figure. He was freshly shaved, and his shock of rusty hair was
combed. His red flannel shirt was open at the neck, and his huge forearms,
bulging with raw power, showed below his rolled-up sleeves. Cherry Creslin,
impressed by few things, was awed.
At the sound of hooves splashing in the water, he looked around.
Then he saw the rider was a woman, and a beautiful woman, at that. He smiled.
Long before he had come to Hattan's Castle he had heard of John
Daniel, and knew his every trick. Moreover, he knew this woman by name and
knew she was reputed to be John Daniel's own woman. He could see, as she drew
nearer, that she was genuinely beautiful and despite the hard lines that
showed through her lovely skin, there was warmth there, but a restrained,
carefully controlled warmth.
"Good morning, Bon Caddo." Her voice was low and lovely, and deep
within him something stirred, and he tried to bring up defenses against it.
She was all woman, this one, no matter what else she might be.
"Hello, Cherry."
"You know me? I don't remember you." She looked at him again. "I
don't think I could forget"
"You've never seen me, Cherry, and I've never seen you, but I've
been expecting you."
He gestured to a seat under a tree. "Won't you get down and stay
for a while? It's quite pleasant here."
"You  you've been expecting me?" She was irritated. She was
accustomed to handling men, to controlling situations. This man, she realized,
was different. Not only was he a physical giant but he was intelligent, and
... she admitted it reluctantly ... he was exciting.
"Of course." He smiled pleasantly. He had, she thought, a truly
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beautiful smile. "John Daniel has tried everything else, hasn't he? Everything
but you ... and murder."
Her features stiffened and her eyes went hard, but she did not
pretend to misunderstand. "So you think he sent me? You think I am the kind of
woman a man can send on some dirty business?"
He leaned on his shovel. "Yes," he said, and she struck him across
the face with her quirt.
He did not move nor change expression although the red line of the blow lay
vividly across his cheek and lips. "Yes," he repeated, "but you shouldn't be.
You've got heart and you have courage. You've just been riding with the tide."
"You're very clever, aren't you?"
"No. But this situation isn't very hard to understand. Nor are
you, Cherry Creslin. It's a pity," he continued, "that you're tied up with
such a murdering lot. There's a lot of woman in you, and you'd make some man a
woman worth keeping."
She stared at him. The situation was out of hand. It would be
difficult now to get him back in the right vein. Or was this the right one?
"You may be right," she said, "maybe I've been waiting for you."
He laughed and stuck his shovel down hard into the pile of muck.
Then he walked over to her, and the black horse nuzzled his arm. "Not that
way, Cherry. Be honest. I'm not so easy, you know. Actually the only way is to
be honest."
She measured him, searching herself. "Honest? I don't know whether
I could be. It's been so long."
"Ah, now you are being honest! I like that, Cherry." He leaned his
big shoulder against the horse's shoulder. "In fact, Cherry, I like you."
"Like me?" A strange emotion was rising within her, and she tried
to fight it down. "And you know what I am?"
"What are you? A woman. Perhaps no worse and no better than any
other. One cannot always measure by what a person seems to be or even has
been. Anyway, it is always the future that counts."
"You believe that? But what of a woman's past?"
Bon Caddo shrugged. "If a woman loved me I'd start counting the
days of her life from the time she told me she loved me. I would judge by what
happened after that, although I'd be a hard judge for the after years."
She was irritated with herself. This was not what she had come
for. "How did we start talking like this? I did not intend to get into
anything like this."
"Of course. You came to get me to fall in love with you or at
least to lure me down to that sinkhole at Hattan's Castle. You might manage
the first, but not the last."
"If you were in love with me and I asked you to come, would you?"
"Certainly not. Doing what a woman asks is not proof of love. If a
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man isn't his own man he isn't worthy of love. No, I'd use my own judgment,
and my judgment tells me to stay away from Hattan's Castle and the Palace."
His eyes seemed to darken with seriousness. "We of Welsh or Irish
blood, Cherry, sometimes have a power of prophecy or intuition, call it what
you will, and mine tells me that when I come to Hattan's Castle it will mean
blazing hell and death. For me, the town, or both of us."
Something cold and frightening touched her and suddenly she put
her hand on his. "Then, then don't come, Bon Caddo. Don't come at all. Stay
here, or better still, take your gold and go."
"You advise me that way? What would John Daniel say?"
"He wouldn't like it," she replied simply. "He would not like it
at all. But it is my best advice to you."
"I shall stay until my claim is worked out. I'll not be driven
off."
"May I come back again?"
"Come soon. Come often."
Caddo watched her go and then returned to his work. There would be
trouble, of course. He doubted that Cherry would tell John Daniel of her
failure. Not yet, at least. She would come back, and perhaps again. If she
continued to fail, John Daniel would try something else.
Three times she came in the days that followed and each time they
talked longer. Inevitably the day came when she returned to Hattan's Castle to
find John Daniel awaiting her. When their eyes met she knew she was in
trouble.
"Well?" His question was a challenge. "When is he coming in?"
"He is not coming at all." There was no use evading the issue. She
had probably been spied upon. "He is not coming, but I am leaving. We're to be
married."
"What!" Of all things, this was the least expected. "Do you think
you can trick me that way? Marry him and get it all for yourself?"
"You'd not understand, John, but I love him. He's a real man and a
fine man, so don't try to stop me."
"Try? I'll not just try, I'll do it I" His eyes were ugly. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]