Part 34 (1/2)
”I know, ma'am; you did it because you need me here, on the ranch.”
His chest swelled with a great breath and he released her hands, stepping back and putting a hand slowly to his head.
For an instant she made no sound. Then she laughed strangely.
”Because I need you here.... Yes, that was it. That was why I lied for you.” She spoke with nervous rapidity, rather breathlessly, and one hand went again to that locket, clutching it in a cold clasp. ”I knew it was not like you to try to shoot a man unfairly. I didn't think there was much chance in lying. All I saw was them taking you away and leaving me here alone to face all this, without anyone I can trust, without anyone to help me. That was why I lied to them.
”You promised me once that you would stay. I knew then that I needed you; every hour since that promise was made I've had a greater realization of my need for you until it ... it ...” Her breath caught in a sob and she pressed knuckles to her lips.
Beck stood silently watching her, a cold moisture forming on his brow, hands clenched as if he were holding himself against the urge of some great impulse.
”I felt when I stepped in there and learned what it all was, that the last thing I have to depend on was slipping away ... and I reached out and grasped you like I'd grasp a straw in a sea. It ... I can't tell you,”--her voice trembled, ”what it meant, what it means to me....”
Words, words! They spilled from her lips with a rapidity that approached hysteria. She was talking without thought, without reason, letting her voice run on while her consciousness, divorced entirely from it, fell into chaos.
”Everything seems to be working against me and now, because you have been my help, my strength, they are trying to take you away. Oh, I need all the help there is, and that is you!”--with a stamp of the foot as she drove tears back.
”There are influences which I can't see, which I can only feel, all about me, within me,”--beating her breast--”and outside.”
”It may be interestin' to you to know that I didn't shoot at any coyote.”
She gasped lightly and for a moment did not speak.
”Then you did shoot at Hepburn?”--in a whisper.
”No, I didn't. I'd never shoot from cover.”
”I knew that,” she said quickly, knowing that by her question she had hurt him.
”It appears that I ain't very welcome with your foreman. It was a frame-up, a good way to get rid of me. They planted that evidence in my gun while I was eating. It was one of those influences at work, the kind you've only felt. You can see some of 'em now, ma'am....
”It's lucky you thought to lie,” he said, with a weak laugh that was unlike him. ”I guess you're going to need all your luck....
”But you better go in now. It's late and cold.”
He wanted her to be away from him, to be rid of her presence, for it pulled him, drew him, and he fought against it, fought against the strongest impulse that has been born to man, fought blindly, his old, deeply rooted caution, dragging him back ... dragging him....
”I don't want to go in; I don't want to leave you,” she said. ”I want--”
”But you must go. Have I got to pick you up an' carry you into your house, ma'am?”
”I want you to take this,” she went on where he had interrupted, fumbling at the catch of the chain which held the locket against her throat. ”Take it,” she said, holding it swinging toward him, spattered with moonlight. ”It's brought me all the luck I've ever had; it will help you, it will protect you. You need luck as much as I do ... and you need it for me. Wear it, a foolish little trinket but it means ...
oh, more than you can know! I'd like to think of you as wearing it....”
”I don't think I need that, ma'am. What's in it?”
”Don't ask that! Don't even open it, please. Just take it and wear it, for me.”