Gunman's Reckoning Read online

  6

  Even the old woman, whose eyes were sharpened by her habit of lookingconstantly for the weaknesses and vices of men, could not guess what wasgoing on behind the thin, rather ugly face of Donnegan; the girl,perhaps, may have seen more. For she caught the glitter of his activeeyes even at that distance. The hag began to explain with viciousgestures that set the light flaring up and down.

  "He ain't come from nowhere, Lou," she said. "He ain't going nowhere; hewants to stay here for the night."

  The foot which had been suspended to take the next step was nowwithdrawn. Donnegan, remembered at last, whipped off his cap, and atonce the light flared and burned upon his hair. It was a wonderful red;it shone, and it had a terrible blood tinge so that his face seemed palebeneath it. There were three things that made up the peculiar dominanceof Donnegan's countenance. The three things were the hair, the uneasy,bright eyes, and the rather thin, compressed lips. When Donnegan slepthe seemed about to waken from a vigorous dream; when he sat down heseemed about to leap to his feet; and when he was standing he gave thatimpression of a poise which is ready for anything. It was no wonder thatthe girl, seeing that face and that alert, aggressive body, shrank alittle on the stairs. Donnegan, that instant, knew that these two womenwere really alone in the house as far as fighting men were concerned.

  And the fact disturbed him more than a leveled gun would have done. Hewent to the foot of the stairs, even past the old woman, and, raisinghis head, he spoke to the girl.

  "My name's Donnegan. I came over from the railroad--walked. I don't wantto walk that other eight miles unless there's a real need for it. I--"Why did he pause? "I'll pay for anything I get here."

  His voice was not too certain; behind his teeth there was knocking adesire to cry out to her the truth. "I am Donnegan. Donnegan the tramp.Donnegan the shiftless. Donnegan the fighter. Donnegan the killer.Donnegan the penniless, worthless. But for heaven's sake let me stayuntil morning and let me look at you--from a distance!"

  But, after all, perhaps he did not need to say all these things. Hisclothes were rags, upon his face there was a stubble of unshaven red,which made the pallor about his eyes more pronounced. If the girl hadbeen half blind she must have felt that here was a man of fire. He sawher gather the wrap a little closer about her shoulders, and that signof fear made him sick at heart.

  "Mr. Donnegan," said the girl. "I am sorry. We cannot take you into thehouse. Eight miles--"

  Did she expect to turn a sinner from the gates of heaven with a merephrase? He cast out his hand, and she winced as though he had shaken hisfist at her.

  "Are you afraid?" cried Donnegan.

  "I don't control the house."

  He paused, not that her reply had baffled him, but the mere pleasure ofhearing her speak accounted for it. It was one of those low, lightvoices which are apt to have very little range or volume, and whichbreak and tremble absurdly under any stress of emotion; and often theybecome shrill in a higher register; but inside conversational limits, ifsuch a term may be used, there is no fiber so delightful, so purelymusical. Suppose the word "velvet" applied to a sound. That voice camesoothingly and delightfully upon the ear of Donnegan, from which theroar and rattle of the empty freight train had not quite departed. Hesmiled at her.

  "But," he protested, "this is west of the Rockies--and I don't see anyother way out."

  The girl, all this time, was studying him intently, a little sadly, hethought. Now she shook her head, but there was more warmth in her voice.

  "I'm sorry. I can't ask you to stay without first consulting my father."

  "Go ahead. Ask him."

  She raised her hand a little; the thought seemed to bring her to theverge of trembling, as though he were asking a sacrilege.

  "Why not?" he urged.

  She did not answer, but, instead, her eyes sought the old, woman, as ifto gain her interposition; she burst instantly into speech.

  "Which there's no good talking any more," declared the ancient vixen."Are you wanting to make trouble for her with the colonel? Be off, youngman. It ain't the first time I've told you you'd get nowhere in thishouse!"

  There was no possible answer left to Donnegan, and he did as usual thesurprising thing. He broke into laughter of such clear and ringingtone--such infectious laughter--that the old woman blinked in the midstof her wrath as though she were seeing a new man, and he saw the lips ofthe girl parted in wonder.

  "My father is an invalid," said the girl. "And he lives by strict rules.I could not break in on him at this time of the evening."

  "If that's all"--Donnegan actually began to mount the steps--"I'll go inand talk to your father myself."

  She had retired one pace as he began advancing, but as the import ofwhat he said became clear to her she was rooted to one position byastonishment.

  "Colonel Macon--my father--" she began. Then: "Do you really wish to seehim?"

  The hushed voice made Donnegan smile--it was such a voice as one boyuses when he asks the other if he really dares enter the pasture of thered bull. He chuckled again, and this time she smiled, and her eyes werewidened, partly by fear of his purpose and partly from his nearness.They seemed to be suddenly closer together. As though they were on oneside against a common enemy, and that enemy was her father. The oldwoman was cackling sharply from the bottom of the stairs, and thenbobbing in pursuit and calling on Donnegan to come back. At length thegirl raised her hand and silenced her with a gesture.

  Donnegan was now hardly a pace away; and he saw that she lived up to allthe promise of that first glance. Yet still she seemed unreal. There isa quality of the unearthly about a girl's beauty; it is, after all, onlya gay moment between the formlessness of childhood and the hardness ofmiddle age. This girl was pale, Donnegan saw, and yet she had color. Shehad the luster, say, of a white rose, and the same bloom. Lou, the oldwoman had called her, and Macon was her father's name. Lou Macon--thename fitted her, Donnegan thought. For that matter, if her name had beenSally Smith, Donnegan would probably have thought it beautiful. Thekeener a man's mind is and the more he knows about men and women and theways of the world, the more apt he is to be intoxicated by a touch ofgrace and thoughtfulness; and all these age-long seconds the perfume ofgirlhood had been striking up to Donnegan's brain.

  She brushed her timidity away and with the same gesture acceptedDonnegan as something more than a dangerous vagrant. She took the lampfrom the hands of the crone and sent her about her business,disregarding the mutterings and the warnings which trailed behind thedeparting form. Now she faced Donnegan, screening the light from hereyes with a cupped hand and by the same device focusing it upon the faceof Donnegan. He mutely noted the small maneuver and gave her credit; butfor the pleasure of seeing the white of her fingers and the way theytapered to a pink transparency at the tips, he forgot the poor figure hemust make with his soiled, ragged shirt, his unshaven face, his gauntcheeks.

  Indeed, he looked so straight at her that in spite of her advantage withthe light she had to avoid his glance.

  "I am sorry," said Lou Macon, "and ashamed because we can't take you in.The only house on the range where you wouldn't be welcome, I know. Butmy father leads a very close life; he has set ways. The ways of aninvalid, Mr. Donnegan."

  "And you're bothered about speaking to him of me?"

  "I'm almost afraid of letting you go in yourself."

  "Let me take the risk."

  She considered him again for a moment, and then turned with a nod and hefollowed her up the stairs into the upper hall. The moment they steppedinto it he heard her clothes flutter and a small gale poured on them. Itwas criminal to allow such a building to fall into this ruinouscondition. And a gloomy picture rose in Donnegan's mind of the invalid,thin-faced, sallow-eyed, white-haired, lying in his bed listening to thestorm and silently gathering bitterness out of the pain of living. LouMacon paused again in the hall, close to a door on the right.

  "I'm going to send you in to speak to my father," she said gravely."First I have to tell you
that he's different."

  Donnegan replied by looking straight at her, and this time she did notwince from the glance. Indeed, she seemed to be probing him, searchingwith a peculiar hope. What could she expect to find in him? What thatwas useful to her? Not once in all his life had such a sense ofimpotence descended upon Donnegan. Her father? Bah! Invalid or noinvalid he would handle that fellow, and if the old man had an acridtemper, Donnegan at will could file his own speech to a point. But thegirl! In the meager hand which held the lamp there was a power which allthe muscles of Donnegan could not compass; and in his weakness he lookedwistfully at her.

  "I hope your talk will be pleasant. I hope so." She laid her hand on theknob of the door and withdrew it hastily; then, summoning greatresolution, she opened the door and showed Donnegan in.

  "Father," she said, "this is Mr. Donnegan. He wishes to speak to you."

  The door closed behind Donnegan, and hearing that whishing sound whichthe door of a heavy safe will make, he looked down at this, and saw thatit was actually inches thick! Once more the sense of being in a trapdescended upon him.