This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [111]
“I sure do hate to do this, Bill, but it don’t ’pear to be no other way. There’s a man a comin’ a few miles back. He’s been ridin’ in a wagon, a joltin’ over ruts and prairie-dog holes since two hours afore daylight. He got two bad holes in him and some broken ribs and hands what ain’t let him feed hisself in a week. He’s comin’ to see that gal and yore not movin’ till he gets here.”
“You know yore settin’ yourself up for trouble a pulling a gun on me, Jack. My job’s to take this stage to Austin. If that little gal and her man had an out, it’s betwixt them. The law could come down real hard on you, Jack, for holding up the stage.”
“Then it’s goin’ to have to do it, ’cause I’m holding you all here till Slater gets here. Won’t be long. I can see their dust.”
“What did you do? Come cross-country? That’s a hell of a ride.”
Jack grinned. “Tell yore helper to pull the coach over to the shade while we wait.” With his gun, he motioned toward a spreading pecan tree that was one of several along the stretch of shadeless trail.
“Pull over under the shade tree, Gus. We’ll be waitin’ a spell, that is, if’n the lady ain’t changed her mind. The folk can step out and stretch a spell.”
The helper leaned over and called to Summer, then yelled out to Bill. “The woman says no, Bill.” The coach moved to the shade.
“Goddam women! Glad I ain’t married up with one.” Bill cursed and took off his dusty hat and beat it against his thigh.
“It won’t be long, Bill. You and Slater will have to settle it. Ain’t nothing wrong with his mouth. Ain’t never heard so many curses come out of it afore. He’s fit to be tied since he heard it was Jesse that put her on the stage. That joltin’ ride ain’t done his temper no good, even if’n we did fix up a sling in the wagon and put a feather bed on it.”
The three men and the woman got out of the coach, leaving Summer alone with the woman with the baby. The doors were left open and a breeze of sorts cooled them a little. Summer wiped her face on her sopped handkerchief. The woman held out a timid hand and touched her knee. The action of sympathy caused her to lift her head. Jack had no right to make them wait like this, thinking she would change her mind. She’d tell him so. She turned around so she could see him and thought she must be losing her mind. Did Jack have a gun pointed at the driver? Dear God, he did! What was happening? Had the world gone crazy?
“Jack! Jack, what are you doing?” She scrambled out of the coach, almost falling in her haste. “Let him go. It isn’t right for you to hold him! Let me tell. . . .”
“Ain’t no need for you to be a tellin’ me nothin’. The wagon’s comin’. You can tell Slater yoreself why you run off and left him and him all stoved up.” Jack’s voice was cold, hard, as if he were speaking to an enemy. “He’s goin’ to have his say . . . if’n one of them jolts ain’t drove a broke rib through his lungs.”
A wagon was approaching at a fast clip. Dust surrounded it briefly before drifting away to be replaced by more dust. Summer stood in numbed silence. Slater was in the wagon! She wanted to run, but even her numbed mind knew it was futile.
Bulldog pulled up hard on the team, slowing them to a walk and then brought the wagon to a halt a few feet from where she stood. Slater lay in a canvas sling in the back of the wagon. His face was streaked with dirt and sweat and his eyes blazed with anger. He raised himself up painfully and leaned on one elbow. His eyes raked her, narrowed, and his nostrils flared.
“Get in the wagon!” He spat the words. “Get her trunk, Jack.”
“No!” Summer started toward the wagon. “You don’t understand.”
“I sure as hell don’t understand! Didn’t you have the guts to tell me to my face you’d changed your mind? Tell me to my ugly, scarred face?” He was shouting. “Couldn’t you tell me instead of slinking off with a bastard like Jesse Thurston? Some would say I’m lucky to be shed of you, but you’re going to tell me why, and you’re going to tell that boy back at the Keep that’s worrying and crying over your leaving him.”
Summer couldn’t reconcile this Slater with