and timidity, because it has always found a man of strength to fill the breach in times of crisis. Do you believe that?” Elizabeth Toller, who had majored in history at a famous seminary in Missouri, answered, “I don't know, Owen.”
“Maybe he was right,” Owen said quietly, “although I can't imagine why he came to me with the story.”
Elizabeth Toller looked at her husband then and tried to see him through the wise eyes of Judge Lochland. She realized that Judge Lochland had penetrated the exterior of the man and had discovered a quality that she had not recognized before. Perhaps it was not heroic in the classical sense; and yet there was strength here that she had not suspected, and moral power that she had never seen unleashed. Here was a man, but one who walked taller than other men she had known; that was why she loved him, and why she feared for him.
It was strange, but this brief insight into the bigness of the man whom she had married five years ago did not make her feel smaller by comparison; she grew a bit within her own mind to meet him.
Now, as Owen looked at her, worried by his own thoughts, Elizabeth came very erect in her chair and worked busily at her sewing. For a moment she had opened the gate of reality. She had seen her husband as others, with clearer eyes, had seen him. And she knew that a five-year dream was nearly over.
She sat quietly for a moment and discovered that her fear was not quite so formidable, now that she had faced it squarely. At last she put her sewing aside.
“Owen,” she said firmly, “what do you think you should do?”
He looked puzzled, coming slowly from the depths of his own thoughts. “What should I do?”
“Do you think it's your duty to go after the Brunners?”
He blinked. “What kind of question is that? Being a husband and a father are my duties.”
She stood up then and came to him. “Owen, I'm not thinking of the word that was painted on the wagon bed today, or what others might think of us. I'm not thinking of Ben McKeever and his threats, or of Judge Lochland and his appeals out of history; what they think isn't important. But what you think of yourself is. What do you think, Owen?”
He seemed almost angered at the question, but she was looking squarely into his face and he could not escape it. “I told you what I think,” he said shortly. “My duty is here with my family. What do you want me to think?”
She smiled, but not with humor or with relief. “I want you to think there is nothing in the world as important as your wife, and the children, and the farm. I wouldn't be a woman if I didn't want that. And I want you to understand, the way I do, that the Brunner gang is none of your affair. They're a long way from here and they're no concern of ours. And besides, there are men like Will Cushman who are paid to take care of such trouble.
“Those are the things I want,” she continued. “But I married you because you had a mind and ideals of your own. You were a law-enforcement officer, but I brought you to a farm, and I want to hold you here because I love you and I'm afraid.” She shook her head and smiled again, and this time the smile was real. “You don't understand women very well, do you, Owen?”
“I guess not, if I can't understand my own wife.”
“I just want you the way you are, with all your ideals and your strength. And at the same time I want you safe beside me. I'm beginning to understand that I can't have both.”
She hadn't expected him to understand immediately what she was trying to tell him. But he did. For one moment he held her hard against him and said, “Thank you, Elizabeth. I never doubted for a minute that I was free to do whatever I might have to do, but thanks anyway for telling me.”
That was the last they spoke of it that night. The next day Owen was out before sunup to do the morning milking, and when he came back to the kitchen with the heavy foaming buckets, he said, “Do you think you've got enough supplies to last out the week?”
And Elizabeth knew that he had made his decision. She looked at him but her voice had deserted her and she could only nod.
Later, when she went into the parlor, she saw that Owen had changed into the blue serge vest and trousers of his Sunday suit. He had brought in a straw suitcase and was now taking out a cartridge belt and holster. He buckled the belt around his waist and then began unwrapping several oily rags from around a beautifully blued, walnut-gripped Colt's single-action revolver.
He seemed uneasy when he looked up and saw his wife standing in the doorway. He said, “If you try, it won't take much to talk me out of this.”
“I won't try, Owen.”
“Then I guess I'll get started for Reunion pretty soon. I want to talk to Judge Lochland.” With sudden impatience he tightened and refastened the buckle of the cartridge belt. “I wish I could explain why I'm doing this,” he said, “but I don't think I can.”
“There's no need to explain, Owen.”.
“I don't know....” He shook his head. “Yesterday I caught myself hating people for the first time in my life; hating them just because they were people, with the normal fears and prejudices that you find in everybody. It was the first time that ever happened to me. Then I began to wonder if it was myself that I really hated, and if I was taking it out on others. Do you understand that, Elizabeth?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Here I am fitted for just one job in all the world; I trained for it from the time I was big enough to hold a rifle. In all this county I'm the only man who might have a chance of going into those hills and breaking up the Brunner gang before other Frank and Edith Ransoms get killed.”
“There's no need to explain,” Elizabeth said again!
But Owen went on, as though he hadn't heard her. “I got to thinking about it last night. I've tried making excuses to myself because I was afraid. The person who painted that word on the wagon was not entirely wrong, because when I look up at those hills, they scare me. I think of you and Lonnie and the baby and tell myself I've got no right to take this chance.”
