One time Ange almost dropped, and my own knees were buckling most of the way.
By the time we reached the path I'd cut to build a little fort above the camp, I had fallen down a couple of times, and I was so numb with cold and so exhausted I could scarce think. The draw rope over my shoulder, and one arm around Ange, I started through the tall pines toward the house.
The snow was deep under the trees, but there was a slow lift of smoke from the chimney, and a light in the window. Seemed like only a short time ago it was coming daylight, and now it was night-time again.
Then I fell, face down in the snow. Seemed to me I tried to get up ... seemed to get my hands under me and push. I could see that light in the window and I could hear myself talking. I hauled away and got to the door, where I couldn't make my fingers work the latch.
The door opened of a sudden and Cap was standing there with a six-gun in his hand, looking like he was the old Cap and ready to start shooting.
'It ain't worth the trouble, Cap. I think I'm dead already.'
Joe Rugger was there, and between them they got Kid Newton off the sled and into the house. Ange, she just sat down and started to cry, and I knelt on the floor and put my arm around her and kept telling her everything was all right.
Kid Newton caught my sleeve. 'By God,' he said, 'today I seen a man! I thought--'
'Get some sleep,' I said. 'Joe's going for the doctor.'
'I seen a man,' the Kid repeated. 'Why, when I hung those guns on me I thought I was something, I thought--'
'Shut up,' I said. And I reached my hands toward the fire a distance off. I could feel the million tiny needles starting to dance in my fingers as the cold began to leave them.
'Speaking of men'--I looked over at Newton-- 'if you ever get down to Mora, I've got two brothers down there, Tyrel and Orrin. Now there's a couple of men!
'Always figured to make something of myself,' I said, 'but I guess I just ain't got in me.'
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I just let the heat soak into me, every muscle feeling stretched out and useless. Ange had quit her crying and dropped off to sleep there beside me, her face drawn, dark hollows under her eyes.
'You been through it,' Cap said. He looked at Newton. 'What did you bring him back for?'
'I got no better sense, Cap. I brought him down off that mountain because there was nobody else to do it.'
'But he wanted to kill you!'
'Sure ... he had him a notion, that was all. I reckon since then he's had time to contemplate.' Cap Rountree took his pipe out of his teeth and dumped coffee in the pot. 'Then you take time to contemplate about this,'
he said, 'There's another Bigelow down in town.
He's asking for you.'
Chapter XV
It wasn't in me to lie abed. Come daylight, I was on my feet, but I wasn't up to much. What I really got up for was vittles. Seemed like I hadn't been so hungry in years.
Ange was still sleeping in the other room, and Joe Rugger and his wife, just out from Ohio, had come out to the place.
That Bigelow worries me,' Rugger said. 'He's a man hunting trouble like you never saw.'
Those Bigelows,' I said, 'they remind me of those little animals a Swede told me about one time. Called them lemmings or something like that. Seems as if all of a sudden they take out for the ocean . . . millions of them, and they run right into the ocean and drown. Those Bigelows seem bound and determined to get themselves killed just as fast as they can manage.'
'Don't take him lightly, Tell,' Rugger warned me. 'He killed a man in Denver City, and another in Tascosa. Benson Bigelow, he's the oldest, biggest, and toughest of all of them.'
'Heard of him,' Cap said. 'I didn't know he was kin.'
'He's been asking questions about his brothers. They haven't come back out of the mountains, and he says you murdered them.'
'Them and three more? That's quite a lot to take on. Believe me, they haven't come out of the mountains, and it will surprise me if they ever do.'
The warmth of the room felt good and after a while I stretched out and slept some more.
When I opened my eyes Ange was fixing something at the stove. I got up and pulled on my boots. I spilled some water in the basin and washed my face and hands. The water felt good on my face, and I decided I needed a shave.
Cap was off somewhere, and just the two of us were there. The doctor had taken the Kid away. It was nice, shaving, with Ange fussing over something at the fire. Finally she called me to dinner and I was ready. Cap came in, stomping the snow from his boots on the stoop.
'Snowing,' he said. 'You were lucky. A few hours more, and you might never have made it.'
Ange brought me a cup of coffee and I held it in my hands, thinking about those men up there. They brought it on themselves, and despite their ill feeling for me, I was wishing they would make it.
They never did.
Cap accepted coffee too, and he looked over at me. 'That Benson Bigelow is telling it around that you're yellow, afraid to meet him.'
