Those who fight hard enough get what they want. The others don't. I come out on top. What I want I mean to take.'
'Whether it is right or not.'
'You're foolin' with words again, girl. It's right for me if I want it.'
'That makes no sense,' she retorted impatiently. 'There are other people living in the world besides you. What makes you think you can override their wishes? You wanted to kill Hal Stevens the other day, but you couldn't do it.'
She had broken through his brutal arrogance to the hot temper underneath. 'He is a dead man already, though he doesn't know it yet,' he told her harshly.
Fear came into her eyes. 'Have you killed him?' she cried.
'Give me time. If you are thinking of that man, get him out of yore head. There's no use thinking about dead men.'
'Maybe he'll kill you, as he did your friend Hanford.'
'No. He has been measured for his coffin.'
His bleak malignity appalled her. 'Do you think you are God, with the power and right to decide when a man shall die?' she flung out. 'Go away from me. Leave me alone. I don't want to have anything to do with you.'
'But you are going to.'
A faint rippling of the muscles stirred in him. He stepped on the stand and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. The fingers bit into her flesh, firmly, but not deep enough to give intolerable pain.
'You are hurting me,' the girl said evenly, not wincing. 'But if you want to, of course, that's all right. You are Brick Fenwick.'
His fingers dug in deeper. She wanted to scream, but clamped her teeth. There was a sadistic desire in him, she guessed, to break her spirit. The pressure relaxed.
'Little kittens must learn not to show their claws,' he drawled, almost in a murmur. 'They must do what they are told and play pretty.'
'I'm not a kitten,' Helen said. 'I'm a woman — in a free land. You can hurt me till I can't stand it any longer. It will only make me hate you.'
He snatched her out of the chair and swung her round. He held her there motionless, the red-hot devil of desire blazing into her eyes. She did not try to struggle uselessly. Her strong young body went rigid, as if she had been in a trance. When he kissed her lips and eyes and throat, she neither resisted nor yielded, but was no more responsive than a dress model in a store window. Presently he flung her savagely against the desk.
'By God, I'll get the ice out of yore blood before I'm through!' he cried. 'I'll teach you who is yore master.'
The look in her eyes made him furious. No words he could use, no force, could quell that measured scorn with which she faced him. He might whip her as he did a fractious horse. It would still be there.
The door opened and Tom Wall walked into the restaurant. His first quick glance told him that he had interrupted a scene between them. Brick's face mirrored anger and frustration. There was disdain in her eyes, but there was fear too.
A gun seemed to jump to the fingers of the desperado. His body crouched. His mouth had become a tight, thin, cruel line. When he spoke his lips scarcely moved.
'So this is the guy, not Stevens,' he said.
'No,' Helen cried. 'Don't be a fool.' Her heart beat like a bird against a cage. A weakness ran through her.
Brick sidestepped, to be out of Helen's reach and to have her within the orbit of his vision. You never knew what fool thing a woman would do. Yet his eyes never left the man at the door.
Tom Wall thought fast. He felt it had to be fast to save his life. His voice sounded cool and indifferent. 'We've got you, Brick,' he said. 'I'm with Elbert's posse. They are outside in the street. Better drop that gun and give up.'
He knew Fenwick would not surrender. That was not what he hoped for from his bluff, but to make the killer think it was too dangerous to fire now.
'So it's that way, is it?' Brick answered, his words almost a snarl.
'It's that way,' Wall replied easily. 'When I call for him, he'll come busting in.'
'And before he gets here, you'll be dead.'
Helen felt a faint lift of hope. If Fenwick believed that the sheriff was outside in the street — and he did not seem to doubt it — both of these men were handcuffed. Wall could not raise a shout and the hunted man could not shoot. She was still frightened for Tom, but the despair of that first moment had gone. The situation might work itself out without tragedy.
'Let's not have trouble, please,' she said anxiously.
Tom Wall's hands were hanging at his sides. 'Looks like I can't start it,' he said, grinning. 'Not with Brick's gun on me.'
'We're going out the back door, you an' me,' Fenwick said.
Wall shook his head. He had no intention of walking out to be shot in the alley.
'We'll finish this here,' he said.
Brick moved forward slowly, his shallow, intent eyes fixed on the other man. 'Damn you, do as I say,' he ordered. 'Get yore hands up.'
The face of Wall set mulishly. His arms still hung down. 'If I go West you'll be right on my heels,' he said.
Helen ran between the men. She faced Fenwick. Except for the scarlet streak of lipstick, her face was colorless.
'Get outa the way,' Brick snapped.
'No. You can't do it. I won't have you both killed here.'
From the street outside a voice called. 'Where are you, Tom?'
The steel-trap mouth of Fenwick loosened. His eyes slid to the door and returned to Wall. Slowly he began to back away.
'Don't move,' he said in a low voice. 'Don't answer, or I'll blast you.'
He went back, step by step, as far as the screen door, then wheeled and dashed through it on a run. They heard him tear open the back door and the slap of his running feet.
Helen saw a tipsy world going up and down. Her body pushed back against that of the man. She thought she was going to faint.
His arm went around her waist. 'Head up, girl,' he said. 'It's all over now.'
'Yes,' she said unsteadily. 'Call in the sheriff quick.'
'The sheriff isn't here. I threw a bluff.'
'But — someone called you.'
'And was I glad to hear him? He was a fellow I was ducking who wanted me to take a drink with him.'
She fought down the dreadful fear as she stared at him. 'He meant to kill you,' she murmured.
'He would have done it if you hadn't been here.' His voice jumped to a higher note. 'Don't you know better than to get in front of a crazy man with a gun?'
She shuddered. 'I thought…' Her voice died away.
'I know what you thought.' Tilting her chin, he looked into her eyes. He had never held her in his arms before. He did not kiss her now. That Fenwick had been making violent and unwelcome love to her, he did not doubt. The certainty of this restrained him now. In her mind there must be just now a resentment against the possessive instincts of man. When his lips met hers for the first time, he did not want the memory of Brick Fenwick's outrage to mar the moment.
Helen released herself and drew back. The color was beating back into her face. 'I must have been awf'ly frightened to pull a baby act like that.'
'My knees were wobbly,' he admitted. 'He's one bad
'Yes. Maybe he is still hanging around, to shoot you when you come out.'
He shook his head. 'Don't think so. He's likely hitting the high spots on the road to the hills.'
'You'd better get out of town — as soon as you are sure he has gone. But we want to make sure. He might
