half expected him to-go on without me. At least, I expected an argument of some kind, but strangely enough he didn't offer any. He reined the black over and fell in beside me.
The Bannerman ranch house was dark when we got there, but it wasn't long before we saw somebody light a lamp and come out on the front porch. It was Joe Bannerman, Laurin's brother, holding a big hog-leg six-shooter in one hand and the lamp in the other.
Before he decided to shoot first and ask questions later, I called, “It's me, Joe—Tall Cameron. Ray Novak's here with me.”
I heard him grunt in surprise as Ray and I swung around the hitching rack in the front yard, making for the back of the house.
I said, “Blow the lamp out, Joe. The cavalry's after us. I don't think they're anywhere close, but there's no use taking chances.”
“What the hell have you got yourself into now?” he said. He sounded half mad at being jarred out of bed at that time of night. But the lamp went out and he padded barefoot to the end of the porch, peering at us through the darkness. “Ray Novak, is that you?” Then we heard him spit in the darkness. “Has this young heller got you mixed up in some of his shenanigans?”
Joe never liked me much. He was a lot older than Laurin, and I knew he never liked it much when I came calling. But to hell with Joe Bannerman. Laurin was the one I'd come to say good-by to.
“It's me, all right, Joe,” Ray Novak said, “but the trouble we're in is my fault. Tall didn't have anything to do with it.”
For a moment, Joe didn't say anything. Then, “Well, I'll be damned....”
Ray started explaining about his fight with the blue-belly back in John's City, but I didn't stay to hear about it. Just then I saw her standing there at the back door. I dropped down from the saddle and gave Red a slap on the rump, sending him on around to the back of the house.
“Tall?”
She looked like a pale ghost, or an angel, standing there in the darkness. Her voice was anxious, touched with fear. Then she pushed the screen door open and came outside. She stood there on the top step, covered in one of those pale, shapeless wrap-arounds that all women seem to reach for when they get out of bed. I had never seen her like that before. In the pale moonlight, her face seemed even more beautiful than I had remembered it, and her dark hair was unbraided, falling around her shoulders as soft as a dark mist. I stood there at the bottom of the steps, looking up at her.
“Tall,” she said urgently, “something's wrong. You wouldn't be here at this time of night unless...”
“It's nothing,” I said. “We're going down on the Brazos for a spell. I wanted to say good-by, that's all.”
“We?” I don't think she had known there were two of us until then.
“Me and Ray Novak,” I said. “He took a swing at a bluebelly and got the cavalry on him. Now they're after both of us.”
She made a startled little sound, and I wanted to reach up and put my arms around her and tell her not to worry. I'd be back. All the bluebellys north of the Rio Grande couldn't keep me away from her.
But I didn't move. Joe Bannerman would have shot me in a minute if he had caught me laying a hand on his sister while she was still in her nightclothes. And probably that was just what Joe was expecting. He moved around to the corner of the house, still talking to Ray Novak, but careful not to let me out of his sight.
She lowered her voice, but the worry and urgency were still there. “Tall, are you sure... are you sure that you haven't... done anything?”
That would have made me mad if it had been anybody else. Nobody seemed to believe me when I told them that Ray Novak was the one that started all the trouble. They seemed to think that Ray Novak was incapable of getting into any trouble, especially on the wrong side of the law. With Tall Cameron, that was the thing they expected.
But I couldn't get mad at Laurin. I said, “Don't worry about me. We'll put in a spell on the Brazos, until things settle down, and then I'll be coming back. Don't forget that. I'll be back.”
At last she seemed to believe me. She smiled faintly and started to come down the steps, but a sullen grunt from her brother stopped her.
Damn Joe Bannerman, anyway. And Ray Novak. This was a hell of a way for a man to say good-by to his best girl. His only girl. I heard a rustling around inside the house, and then a match flared and lighted a lampwick. That would be Old Man Bannerman coming out to see what the fuss was about, and I didn't feel like I wanted to go through the whole rigmarole again, explaining that we were in trouble and it was Ray who started it and not me.
Ray Novak called, “We'd better be riding, Tall.”
I knew he was right. There was no sense in staying here and letting the bluebellies finally stumble on us.
I was standing there, feeling helpless. One moment Laurin's face was quiet and composed, and the next moment it began to break up around her eyes. Then, somehow, she was in my arms.
“Laurin!” Joe Bannerman roared. “For God's sake, haven't you got any decency?”
The moment was over almost before I knew she was there. But I felt better. I had held her in my arms for that short moment, and that was something they couldn't take away from me. It was something I could remember for the month, or six months, or whatever length of time we had to be apart.
She had jumped back, startled at her brother's bellowing. Then the back door opened again and the old man came out, and the lamplight splashed around until it seemed to me that the cavalry couldn't miss seeing it, no matter where they were. I knew it was time to start riding.
I got Red and led him around to the corner of the house. Ray Novak was already in the saddle, waiting for me. So I swung up, too.
