Gunman's Reckoning Page 5

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  But Donnegan had leaped clear of the roadbed, and he struck almost tothe knees in a drift of sand. Otherwise, he might well have broken hislegs with that foolhardy chance. As it was, the fall whirled him overand over, and by the time he had picked himself up the lighted cabooseof the train was rocking past him. Donnegan watched it grow small in thedistance, and then, when it was only a red, uncertain star far down thetrack, he turned to the vast country around him.

  The mountains were to his right, not far away, but caught up behind theshadows so that it seemed a great distance. Like all huge, half-seenthings they seemed in motion toward him. For the rest, he was in bare,rolling country. The sky line everywhere was clean; there was hardly asign of a tree. He knew, by a little reflection, that this must becattle country, for the brakie had intimated as much in their talk justbefore dusk. Now it was early night, and a wind began to rise, blowingdown the valley with a keen motion and a rapidly lessening temperature,so that Donnegan saw he must get to a shelter. He could, if necessary,endure any privation, but his tastes were for luxurious comfort.Accordingly he considered the landscape with gloomy disapproval. He wasalmost inclined to regret his plunge from the lumbering freight train.Two things had governed him in making that move. First, when hediscovered that the long trail he followed was definitely fruitless, hewas filled with a great desire to cut himself away from his past andmake a new start. Secondly, when he learned that Rusty Dick had beenkilled by Joe, he wanted desperately to get the throttle of the latterunder his thumb. If ever a man risked his life to avoid a sin, it wasDonnegan jumping from the train to keep from murder.

  He stooped to sight along the ground, for this is the best way at nightand often horizon lights are revealed in this manner. But now Donnegansaw nothing to serve as a guide. He therefore drew in his belt until itfitted snug about his gaunt waist, settled his cap firmly, and headedstraight into the wind.

  Nothing could have shown his character more distinctly.

  When in doubt, head into the wind.

  With a jaunty, swinging step he sauntered along, and this time, atleast, his tactics found an early reward. Topping the first large riseof ground, he saw in the hollow beneath him the outline of a largebuilding. And as he approached it, the wind clearing a high blowing mistfrom the stars, he saw a jumble of outlying houses. Sheds, barns,corrals--it was the nucleus of a big ranch. It is a maxim that, if youwish to know a man look at his library and if you wish to know arancher, look at his barn. Donnegan made a small detour to the left andheaded for the largest of the barns.

  He entered it by the big, sliding door, which stood open; he looked up,and saw the stars shining through a gap in the roof. And then he stoodquietly for a time, listening to the voices of the wind in the ruin.Oddly enough, it was pleasant to Donnegan. His own troubles and sorrowhad poured upon him so thickly in the past hour or so that it wassoothing to find evidence of the distress of others. But perhaps thismeant that the entire establishment was deserted.

  He left the barn and went toward the house. Not until he was close underits wall did he come to appreciate its size. It was one of those great,rambling, two-storied structures which the cattle kings of the pastgeneration were fond of building. Standing close to it, he heard none ofthe intimate sounds of the storm blowing through cracks and brokenwalls; no matter into what disrepair the barns had fallen, the house wasstill solid; only about the edges of the building the storm keptmurmuring.

  Yet there was not a light, neither above nor below. He came to the frontof the house. Still no sign of life. He stood at the door and knockedloudly upon it, and though, when he tried the knob, he found that thedoor was latched, yet no one came in response. He knocked again, andputting his ear close he heard the echoes walk through the interior ofthe building.

  After this, the wind rose in sudden strength and deafened him withrattlings; above him, a shutter was swung open and then crashed to, sothat the opening of the door was a shock of surprise to Donnegan. A dimlight from a source which he could not direct suffused the interior ofthe hall; the door itself was worked open a matter of inches andDonnegan was aware of two keen old eyes glittering out at him. Beyondthis he could distinguish nothing.

  "Who are you?" asked a woman's voice. "And what do you want?"

  "I'm a stranger, and I want something to eat and a place to sleep. Thishouse looks as if it might have spare rooms."

  "Where d'you come from?"

  "Yonder," said Donnegan, with a sufficiently noncommittal gesture.

  "What's your name?"

  "Donnegan."

  "I don't know you. Be off with you, Mr. Donnegan!"

  He inserted his foot in the closing crack of the door.

  "Tell me where I'm to go?" he persisted.

  At this her voice rose in pitch, with squeaky rage.

  "I'll raise the house on you!"

  "Raise 'em. Call down the man of the house. I can talk to him betterthan I can to you; but I won't walk off like this. If you can feed me,I'll pay you for what I eat."

  A shrill cackling--he could not make out the words. And since patiencewas not the first of Donnegan's virtues, he seized on the knob of thedoor and deliberately pressed it wide. Standing in the hall, now, andclosing the door slowly behind him, he saw a woman with old, keen eyesshrinking away toward the staircase. She was evidently in great fear,but there was something infinitely malicious in the manner in which shekept working her lips soundlessly. She was shrinking, and half turnedaway, yet there was a suggestion that in an instant she might whirl andfly at his face. The door now clicked, and with the windstorm shut awayDonnegan had a queer feeling of being trapped.

  "Now call the man of the house," he repeated. "See if I can't come toterms with him."

  "He'd make short work of you if he came," she replied. She broke into ashrill laughter, and Donnegan thought he had never seen a face so ugly."If he came," she said, "you'd rue the day."

  "Well, I'll talk to you, then. I'm not asking charity. I want to pay forwhat I get."

  "This ain't a hotel. You go on down the road. Inside eight miles you'llcome to the town."

  "Eight miles!"

  "That's nothing for a man to ride."

  "Not at all, if I had something to ride."

  "You ain't got a horse?"

  "No."

  "Then how do you come here?"

  "I walked."

  If this sharpened her suspicions, it sharpened her fear also. She putone foot on the lowest step of the stairs.

  "Be off with you, Mr. Donnegally, or whatever your outlandish name is.You'll get nothing here. What brings you--"

  A door closed and a footstep sounded lightly on the floor above. AndDonnegan, already alert in the strange atmosphere of this house, gaveback a pace so as to get an honest wall behind him. He noted that thestep was quick and small, and preparing himself to meet a wisp ofmanhood--which, for that matter, was the type he was most inclined tofear--Donnegan kept a corner glance upon the old woman at the foot ofthe stairs and steadily surveyed the shadows at the head of the rise.

  Out of that darkness a foot slipped; not even a boy's foot--a verychild's. The shock of it made Donnegan relax his caution for an instant,and in that instant she came into the reach of the light. It was awretched light at best, for it came from a lamp with smoky chimneywhich the old hag carried, and at the raising and lowering of her handthe flame jumped and died in the throat of the chimney and set the hallawash with shadows. Falling away to a point of yellow, the lamp allowedthe hall to assume a certain indefinite dignity of height and breadthand calm proportions; but when the flame rose Donnegan could see thebroken balusters of the balustrade, the carpet, faded past any designand worn to rattiness, wall paper which had rotted or dried away andhung in crisp tatters here and there, and on the ceiling an irregularpatch from which the plaster had fallen and exposed the lathwork. But atthe coming of the girl the old woman had turned, and as she did theflame tossed up in the lamp and Donnegan could see the newcomerdistinctly.

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p; Once before his heart had risen as it rose now. It had been the fag endof a long party, and Donnegan, rousing from a drunken sleep, staggeredto the window. Leaning there to get the freshness of the night airagainst his hot face, he had looked up, and saw the white face of themoon going up the sky; and a sudden sense of the blackness and loathingagainst the city had come upon Donnegan, and the murky color of his ownlife; and when he turned away from the window he was sober. And so itwas that he now stared up at the girl. At her breast she held a cloaktogether with one hand and the other hand touched the railing of thestairs. He saw one foot suspended for the next step, as though the sightof him kept her back in fear. To the miserable soul of Donnegan sheseemed all that was lovely, young, and pure; and her hair, old gold inthe shadow and pale gold where the lamp struck it, was to Donnegan likea miraculous light about her face.

  Indeed, that little pause was a great and awful moment. For consideringthat Donnegan, who had gone through his whole life with his eyes readyeither to mock or hate, and who had rarely used his hand except to makea fist of it; Donnegan who had never, so far as is known, had acompanion; who had asked the world for action, not kindness; thisDonnegan now stood straight with his back against the wall, and pouredout the story of his wayward life to a mere slip of a girl.