• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Where is he?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Brennan paused. “One of them took him to Bisbee to see your father.”

“My father?”

“To ask him to pay to get you back.”

“Then my husband’s all right.” She was relieved, and it was in the sound of her voice.

Brennan said, after a moment, “Why don’t you go to sleep now? You can rest back on one of these saddles.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Well, you will be if you don’t get some sleep.”

She said then, “They must have known all the time that we were coming.”

Brennan said nothing.

“Didn’t they?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“How else would they know about… who my father is?”

“Maybe so.”

“One of them must have been in Contention and heard my husband charter the coach. Perhaps he had visited Bisbee and knew that my father…” Her voice trailed off because she was speaking more to herself than to Brennan.

After a pause Brennan said, “You sound like you feel a little better.”

He heard her exhale slowly and he could imagine she was trying to smile.

“Yes, I believe I do now,” she replied.

“Your husband will be back sometime tomorrow morning,” Brennan said to her.

She touched his arm lightly. “I do feel better, Mr. Brennan.”

He was surprised that she remembered his name. Rintoon had mentioned it only once, hours before. “I’m glad you do. Now, why don’t you try to sleep?”

She eased back gently until she was lying down and for a few minutes there was silence.

“Mr. Brennan?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m terribly sorry about your friend.”

“Who?”

“The driver.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“I’ll remember him in my prayers,” she said, and after this she did not speak again.

Brennan smoked another cigarette, then sat unmoving for what he judged to be at least a half hour, until he was sure Doretta Mims was asleep.

Now he crawled across the dirt floor to the opposite wall. He went down on his stomach and edged toward the door, keeping close to the wall. Pressing his face close to the opening, he could see, off to the right side, the fire, dying down now. The shape of a man wrapped in a blanket was lying full length on the other side of it.

Brennan rose slowly, hugging the wall. He inched his head out to see the side of the fire closest to the lean-to, and as he did he heard the unmistakable click of a revolver being cocked. Abruptly he brought his head in and went back to the saddle next to Doretta Mims.

Chapter Four

IN THE MORNING they brought Doretta Mims out to cook; then sent her back to the hut while they ate. When they had finished they let Brennan and Doretta come out to the lean-to.

Frank Usher said, “That wasn’t a head I seen pokin’ out the door last night, was it?”

“If it was,” Brennan answered, “why didn’t you shoot at it?”

“I about did. Lucky thing it disappeared,” Usher said. “Whatever it was.” And he walked away, through the trees to where the horses were picketed.

Chink sat down on a stump and began making a cigarette.

A few steps from Doretta Mims, Brennan leaned against the hut and began eating. He could see her profile as she turned her head to look out through the trees and across the open slope.

Maybe she is a little plain, he thought. Her nose doesn’t have the kind of a clean-cut shape that stays in your mind. And her hair—if she didn’t have it pulled back so tight she’d look a little younger, and happier. She could do something with her hair. She could do something with her clothes, too, to let you know she’s a woman.

He felt sorry for her, seeing her biting her lower lip, still staring off through the trees. And for a reason he did not understand, though he knew it had nothing to do with sympathy, he felt very close to her, as if he had known her for a long time, as if he could look into her eyes—not just now, but anytime—and know what she was thinking. He realized that it was sympathy, in a sense, but not the feeling-sorry kind. He could picture her as a little girl, and self-consciously growing up, and he could imagine vaguely what her father was like. And now—a sensitive girl, afraid of saying the wrong thing; afraid of speaking out of turn even if it meant