'You can see she doesn't leave here broke.
Hell of a thing, for a woman to be broke.'
He swung around in his chair. 'You're too damned sentimental, Sackett. It'll get you nowhere. Still, if you're hunting a job you can have one here. I'll give you a working share.'
'No.'
'You turn down a million dollars awful easy, boy. This ranch will be worth it. You'll live to see it. Is it so easy to turn down a lot of money?'
I just looked at him, and buttoned up that pocket that held twenty mules. 'Mister,' I said roughly, 'I could have had it last night, up there on the mountain. I could have rolled you off that cliff and come back and turned in ... nobody would have known the difference.'
'Thought of it, did you?'
'No ... but look at it yourself.'
'But you brought me back.' He looked up at me, those hard old eyes appraising me. 'That's why I need you here. I need an honest man.'
'What about Roderigo?'
He snorted. 'He's honest enough, I think, and he'd try. But he's weak ... he's a gentleman. He would try to fight clean, and he'd lose. You'd fight them the way they'd fight you, and you'd win.'
'Good-bye, Ben Mandrin,' I answered him.
I walked to the door and stood there a moment, looking back at him. He had that blanket over his knees and he kept one hand under the blanket, and I wasn't going to turn my back on a man like that.
'I hope you got all you wanted last night,' I said. 'Nolan Sackett or somebody in that crowd could track a squirrel across a flat rock.'
'So can you,' he said. 'So can you.'
I stepped out of that door backwards ... after one quick look to be sure the yard was empty.
Chapter Eight.
She was standing near the corral when I walked out there, a rarely beautiful woman, with her black eyes and red lips, and that way she had of moving and looking at a man.
She was wearing a dark red dress that really stood out against that old pole corral, and it looked to me like she had fixed herself up kind of special. So right away I began to wonder what it was she was after.
'No one else could have done it,' she said. 'It had to be you.' She put her hand on my sleeve.
'Thank you for helping him.'
That was sort of a leading statement, so I just said, 'Ma'am, I've got to saddle my horse.
They're rounding up some mules for me.'
'You're a rare man, Tell Sackett. I wish I had known you long ago.'
'You think it would have made a difference? We'd have both gone the same ways we have gone.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Arizona ... I'm headed back for the mines.'
'Across that awful desert?' She shuddered. 'I hope I shall never see another desert.'
'It's the way I've got to go. If there's anything I want, it's back there.'
'Is there a girl?'
Well, now, how could I answer that when I didn't know myself? There had been a girl. And then she had gone back east to visit some folks of hers, and when she was due to come back she just didn't come. Nor was there any letter that I ever got. ...
Ange ... Ange Kerry.
'No, ma'am,' I said, 'I don't think there's a girl. Looks to me like I'm a lonesome man riding a lonesome country, and I don't see no end to it.'
'There could be, Tell.'
Well, sir, I looked down into ^th big black eyes and saw those moist lips, and thinks I, if this here's a trap, they surely picked the right kind of bait.
'Ma'am,' I said, 'you're a lot of woman on the outside.'
She stiffened up like I'd slapped her. 'What do you mean by that?'
'Well, I sure don't cut no figure as a man knowing women, but it seems to me what you wear is a lot of feeling where it shows.
I don't think there's very much down inside. I'd be like that old man in there ... I'd as soon make love to you, ma'am, but I'd want to keep both your hands in sight. I'd never know which one held the knife.'
Oh, she was mad! She started as if to slap me, her lips tightening up and her face kind of flattening out with anger. But she held herself in.
She was keeping a tight rein on her feelings, and she waited for a moment or two before she replied.
'You're wrong, you know. It's just that I've not found the right man ... I've had to hold myself in, I've had to be careful. For you I could change. I could be different.'
'All right,' I said suddenly, 'suppose we give it a try. I'll saddle a horse for you, and you can ride back to Arizona with me. If you still feel the same way by the time we get to Prescott--was She caught my arm again, stepping up so close I could really fill my nostrils with that sweet-smelling stuff she wore. 'Oh, Tell, just take me with you! I mean it! I'll do anything! I'll love you like you've never been loved! I'll even go into the desert with you. I'll ride all the way to Dallas if you suggest it.'
Then Roderigo rode back in with two vaqueros and they had my mules. I'll give him this--he had gone along to be sure they were the best, and they were. Every mule of them was good ...
I'd go a long way to find their equal. These were not the little Spanish mules, but big ones from Missouri, valuable animals on the frontier.
'If you like, we will hold them, se@nor, then they will be no expense until you are prepared to load them and go.'
'I'd be obliged.'
He stood there, fidgeting around while I saddled up the stallion and made ready to start for town.
'Be careful,' he said, 'in riding across La Nopalera. Men have been killed from ambush there.'
'Gracias.' One last thing he had to tell me before I rode out. He came up to me as I gathered the reins and reached for the saddle horn.
'The man who was here--the slight one with the black eyes?'
'Yes.'
'He was a partner ... a friend. That one was on the desert also, and he is the one who knows of your gold, amigo. I have it from them.' He jerked his head to indicate the vaqueros. 'There are few secrets, se@nor, if one listens well.'
'Do you know his name?'
'Dyer ... Sandeman Dyer.'
I knew that name ... from long ago. It stirred memories that brought with them a smell of gunsmoke and wet leather. ...
Why is it that smells are so strongly associated with memories? But it is usually the smell that inspires the recall of the memory, and not the other way, as happened to me now.
'Do you know him?' Roderigo asked.
'Maybe ... I'm not sure.'
'Be careful, se@nor. It is said that he is a very dangerous man ... and he has many friends.
He rode in from the north some weeks ago, and twenty men rode with him. There have been raids and robberies since--notobody knows for sure, but it is believed that he is the one who leads them.
'He is a gunman, se@nor, very dangerous.
He has killed a man in Virginia City, and another in Pioche of whom we know.'
So I swung into the saddle and looked down at my big hands resting on the pommel, work-hardened hands, used to pick handle, shovel, axe, and rope. And to guns also.
'It does not matter, amigo. If he has the gold that is mine, and that also which belongs to my friends, I shall ask him for it.'
