Part 41 (1/2)
”I've been talking with his daughter.”
”I judged as much. Miss Spitfire well?”
”Miss Cullison didn't mention her health. We were concerned about yours.”
”Yes?”
”Cullison is headed for town and his daughter is afraid he is on the warpath against you.”
”You don't say.”
”She wanted me to get you out of her father's way until he has cooled down.”
”Very kind of her.”
”She's right, too. You and Luck mustn't meet yet. Get out of here and hunt cover in the hills for a few days. You know why better than I do.”
”How can I when I'm under arrest?” Fendrick mocked.
”You're not under arrest. Miss Cullison says her father has no charge to bring against you.”
”Good of him.”
”So you can light a shuck soon as you want to.”
”Which won't be in any hurry.”
”Don't make any mistake. Luck Cullison is a dangerous man when he is roused.”
The sheepman looked at the ranger with opaque stony eyes. ”If Luck Cullison is looking for me he is liable to find me, and he won't have to go into the hills to hunt me either.”
Bucky understood perfectly. According to the code of the frontier no man could let himself be driven from town by the knowledge that another man was looking for him with a gun. There are in the Southwest now many thousands who do not live by the old standard, who are anch.o.r.ed to law and civilization as a protection against primitive pa.s.sions. But Fendrick was not one of these. He had deliberately gone outside of the law in his feud with the cattleman. Now he would not repudiate the course he had chosen and hedge because of the danger it involved. He was an aspirant to leaders.h.i.+p among the tough hard-bitted denizens of the sunbaked desert.
That being so, he had to see his feud out to a fighting finish if need be.
”There are points about this case you have overlooked,” Bucky told him.
”Maybe so. But the important one that sticks out like a sore thumb is that no man living can serve notice on me to get out of town because he is coming on the shoot.”
”Luck didn't serve any such notice. All his daughter knows is that he is hot under the collar. Look at things reasonably, Ca.s.s. You've caused that young lady a heap of trouble already. Are you going to unload a lot more on her just because you want to be pigheaded. Only a kid struts around and hollers 'Who's afraid?' No, it's up to you to pull out, not because of Luck Cullison but on account of his daughter.”
”Who is such a thorough friend of mine,” the sheepman added with his sardonic grin.
”What do you care about that? She's a girl. I don't know the facts, but I can guess them. She and Luck will stand pat on what they promised you.
Don't you owe her something for that? Seems to me a white man wouldn't make her any more worry.”
”It's because I am a white man that I can't dodge a fight when it's stacked up for me, Bucky.”
He said it with a dogged finality that was unshaken, but O'Connor made one more effort.