And likely this woman, with her witch-black eyes, could see right through the leather of my saddlebags.
Only I'd been storing up pleasure for myself in thinking of a time when I could set up to table and eat a hot meal I hadn't fixed for myself, and sleep in a bed, if only for the strangeness of it.
And if I high-tailed it out of here now I'd miss both.
For the life of me I couldn't imagine what a woman like this was doing in Hardyville.
By the looks of her, she had come upriver on a steamboat, for her clothes showed no dust, as they would had she come by stage or wagon.
When the waitress brought my food the black-eyed woman stopped her, and asked, 'Isn't it time for the stage for Los Angeles?'
'Have to get them a new stage,' I said.
'What do you mean?'
'It ain't a-comin' in.'
All of them were looking at me now, so I said, 'Seen it back yonder.' I was buttering a thick slab of bread. 'He who was driving is dead ... two holes alongside his spine. The stage is laying over in the canyon and the horses gone. Two other dead men ... passengers.'
'Are you sure?' This was Hardy asking.
'The buzzards were.'
'You didn't go down to them?'
'Not for more'n a minute or two. No tellin' who was laying up in the rocks with a Winchester.'
'Mojaves,' somebody said, 'or Hualapais.'
'They wore moccasins, all right, but they weren't Indians. They were Comanche moccasins, and there's no Comanches out here.'
Everybody started talking all to once and I set to eating, glad to be let alone. Anyway, it was likely I'd already talked too much. One of those men who'd done the shooting might be right here in this room, although I'd cast eyes about for moccasins when I first came in, habit-like.
Seems to me a man has trouble enough in this world without borrowing more with careless words.
That black-eyed woman was talking to the waitress. 'But if that stage has been wrecked, how long will it be before there's another?'
'Ma'am, you'll just have to abide. The next regular stage is Thursday.'
This here was Monday, and I could see from that woman's face that she had to be shut of Hardyville long before that. And it wasn't just that this was a jumping-off place--she was scared.
That witch woman's lips turned pale and her black eyes grew large, like she'd seen a ghost. Maybe her own.
She turned sharp around to me and said, 'Will you take me to Los Angeles with you?'
And me, like a damned fool, and without thinking, I said, 'Yes.'
It never does any good for a man to cuss himself, unless maybe it helps to impress on his mind what a fool he's been, but right then and there I did a fair to middling job of cussing myself out for seven kinds of a fool. Here I was, in a running hurry to get to California--to Los Angeles, that is--and I'd burdened myself with a woman. And by the look of her she'd need coddling.
Well, I'd been fool enough for one day, and maybe I could get out of this yet. 'You'll need horses,' I said. 'Are you packing much gear?'
'My trunk can come by stage. All I'll need will be the two carpetbags.'
'My pack horse can handle them if they aren't heavy,' I said, 'but you'll need two ridin' horses. This here's a fast trip I'm makin'.'
'Thank you,' she said. 'If you will get them for me, I'll pay you in Los Angeles. All I have'--she smiled beautifully--'is my stage ticket and a bank draft too large to cash here.'
'I--was I started to object that I didn't have the money, but those saddlebags were pushing at my toe and I'd a sneaking feeling--with no reason for it that I could make sense out of--that she knew what was in those bags.
'All right,' I said, and lost my last chance to back out of it.
No getting around it, I was upset. It was my notion to make a fast trip to Los Angeles, which was my reason for two horses, switching from one to the other. Now I had that woman to care for, and no telling what she was like on a horse.
Taking another fill of coffee from the pot on the table, I happened to look across at the bar. A man standing there was looking my way and listening to two others. There seemed to be something familiar about the biggest of them. He was a man as tall as I was, and some heavier. He was a dark, strong-looking man who wore a gun like a man who could use it. His back was to me, and he had a fine set of shoulders on him ... he was built like a man who could punch.
That woman hadn't moved, and our tables were only two feet apart. Best thing was to get it settled right off.
'If you ride with me,' I said, and I'm afraid my tone was kind of rough, 'you will be ready to go, come daybreak ... and that doesn't mean sun-up. It means the first gray in the sky.'
Shoving back my chair, I got up. 'Can you use a gun?'
Well, sir, she surprised me. 'Yes,' she said, 'I can handle a rifle.' And then she smiled at me, and you've never seen such a smile. 'And please do not disturb yourself. I shall be no trouble to you.'
Fishing those saddlebags off the floor with my left hand, I stood up, dropping a quarter on the table for my meal. Then I taken up my Winchester with my right hand and walked to the door.
A voice spoke behind me, and I had a feeling the big man had turned to look, and I knew that voice was an invitation to turn around, an invitation to trouble. Stepping outside, I closed the door behind me and stood alone in the soft desert night.
It was very still. The Colorado River rustled by out there in the darkness, and beyond the river loomed the Dead Mountains. Over there a narrow point of Nevada came down to join borders with California.
Uneasily, I looked westward into ^th miles of desert, and the hunch rode my shoulders that I'd see blood and grief before those miles were behind me. A fool I was to entangle myself with that black-eyed woman.
Of a sudden I realized the thing I'd ought to do was to leave now. True, the ferry was not operating, but swimming the river at this point was no new thing.
Beale had done it with his camels, and fine swimmers they proved to be.
There was a light in the window of Hardy's cabin. Crossing to it, I tapped on the door, not too loud.
Being a wise man, he spoke before opening the door, but when I told I wanted to make a dicker on some horses, he opened up, but he held a pistol in his hand, which surprised me none at all.
'Yes,' he replied, when I had explained myself. 'I've two good horses, but they'll cost you.'
He slid his gun into xs holster and picked up his coat. He started to put it on, then stopped and looked over at me. 'Are you taking that Robiseau woman out of here?'
'I never asked her name, nor she mine. She wishes to go to Los Angeles, and I'm riding that way.'
He shrugged into his coat. 'You're borrowing trouble. Look, I don't know you. You just drifted in here out of nowhere, but that woman is running from something, and whatever it is or whoever it is will bundle you into her package. I mean, they'll resent interference.'
'Whatever it is,' I said, 'she's a woman alone, and needs help.'
He didn't say any more, but led the way to the stable and lighted a lantern. The horses in their stalls rolled their eyes at me. There were only a few stalls, for his own good stock. The mustang stuff was in the corrals out back.
One of the two horses he showed me was a liver-colored stallion with a white nose and three white stockings; a long-barreled animal built for speed and staying power, and one of the finest-looking horses I'd seen, and big for this country. It would weigh a good thousand pounds and maybe a mite over. The other horse was a short-coupled gelding, mouse-colored, with a fine head and powerful hindquarters. It was somewhat smaller than the other, but all horse.
We dickered there by lantern light, but he knew I had to have those horses, and he got his price. Yet high as they came, they were worth every penny of it. He had bought them from an Army officer who was changing station. The horses had been the officer's private mounts, and the smaller one had been broken for a woman to ride.
