cool and beautiful, with the gusty wind whipping the tiered organdy about her ankles. And at that moment Grant knew that Lloyd had told the truth. She had sent for him. She had expected him and had worn that new white dress especially for his coming.
Whether the sudden glimpse of beauty—in this land where women were rare and beautiful women almost nonexistent-had its calculated effect on Lloyd, Grant could not tell. He merely stared for a moment in a kind of blank surprise.
“Your man, Valois, said you wanted to see me,” he said at last.
She almost blinded him with a smile, but Grant noticed that the slaty flatness of her eyes did not change, and Lloyd noticed it, too, for he bowed stiffly, the corners of his mouth twitching, and limped down the sod steps ahead of Grant.
And now Grant knew what was coming next and waited for Rhea to work her magic. He felt wooden and awkward and was angered when she glanced at him, quickly, as if in some manner to say this was their secret, between just the two of them. And then he heard her saying, “How much did Valois tell you, Mr. Lloyd?” And made it sound as though she were asking important company if they would have another cup of tea.
The gunman sank slowly to the edge of a cane-bottomed chair and sat erect, his elbow against his side. And for one long moment he studied Rhea Muller's face, and then, with supreme arrogance, he let his gaze move up and down the length of her slender figure until slow, hot color began to show above the high neck of her organdy dress.
“Valois said you had a job for me,” he said, but did not change his expression of blunt appraisal.
If it had not been so deadly serious it might have been amusing to see a girl like Rhea choking on her pride. Lloyd voiced no off-color word or suggestion; only his eyes spoke his thoughts. And Rhea, her body growing more rigid, the color of anger climbing steadily in her face, fought to control her instincts.
In the end, of course, she succeeded. Grant, watching silently from the far side of the room, held the brief hope that she would break and react like a real woman. But she held her ground, bit back her anger—and perhaps she even convinced herself that she had misread the things she saw in Kirk Lloyd's eyes—and when she spoke her voice was steady.
“Yes,” she said, “I have a job for you. My brother is... indisposed,” and Lloyd made no sign that he knew what she was talking about. “We must have a man to take my brother's place, to help protect the lease against Farley's attacks.”
“I see,” he said. But the tone of his voice said that his mind was on other things. “My services come high.”
“We're willing to pay anything within reason,” Rhea said quickly, emphasizing the word
The gunman never took his eyes away from her face. “I usually get paid in advance.”
“As soon as we're spudded in we'll pay you.”
“That's a gamble,” Lloyd said flatly, “and men in my position can't afford to gamble.”
Rhea went on as though she hadn't heard him. “You have reason to hate Ben Farley, don't you, Mr. Lloyd?”
Something happened behind the gunman's eyes, and it was not pleasant to watch. “Enough to kill him,” he said quietly.
Rhea glanced quickly at Grant and almost smiled. “That's up to you,” she said to Lloyd. “But murder is no small thing, even here in the Nations. There's a deputy marshal in Kiefer, and he'll see you hang if you go gunning for Farley.”
Even a man like Lloyd respected Jim Dagget's ability as a lawman, and it was clear that Rhea's thought was not new to him. “What do you suggest?” he asked.
And now Rhea would not look at Grant. She did not like the way Lloyd looked at her, and she did not like putting her thoughts into words. But the gunman would not accept implication; he would meet her only on his own level of cold violence. To accomplish this, all he had to do was remain silent.
The color mounted to Rhea's face, and it was not so much from anger now, but shame. In a desperate attempt to skirt her own conscience, she said, “Don't you see! If you worked for us, the Muller lease would protect you against Dagget!”
He understood perfectly well, and said, “Tell me how you could protect me against Dagget?”
And Rhea knew that he would have it no other way. He was determined to make her say it, thereby declaring him her moral equal.
There was nothing Grant could do to help her. This was her decision and she would have to make it her own way and for her own reasons. And he could see her pride deserting her, and her haughtiness, but not her determination. She wheeled suddenly, the full white dress swirling like foam around her ankles, and she paced nervously to the dugout's single small window and stood for one long moment staring out at the blustery sky.
“All right,” she said at last. “Farley killed my father, he's responsible for my brother being wounded. But he's still alive and free, and the marshal does nothing about it!” For the first time she was exposing all her hate in these few words. “I want Farley killed, do you understand! I want to see him dead, the way I saw my father, and I don't care how it happens!”
Now she wheeled away from the window and her face was a fine, delicate mask of hate. “You'll have your chance to kill Farley, if you work for us. Sooner or later he'll make his play to wipe us out. Then, if you kill him, there's nothing Dagget can do about it, because you'll be on our pay roll, protecting our property. They don't call it murder, Mr. Lloyd, when a person fights back to protect his property.”
A kind of grim admiration showed in Lloyd's eyes; it was not every day that a gunman found a woman like Rhea Muller to meet him on his own level, talk to him in his own language. He got to his feet, his gaze fixed hungrily on Rhea's face. “Tell your man to hand back my pistol. I think we can do business together, Miss Muller.”
And by “business” he didn't mean murder alone, but Rhea chose not to understand the full meaning. She nodded to Grant, without actually looking at him.
Bleakly Grant handed over the revolver. He wanted to be angry, but strangely he found that he had lost most of his capacity for anger. From start to finish it had been a mistake, and he tried to tell himself that he was lucky to have it ended. But he didn't feel lucky now.
The gunman said, his voice full of meaning, “I'll be seeing you, Miss Muller,” and started toward the door.
Grant turned toward the dugout steps when Rhea said, “Joe, I want to talk to you.”
So it's
“Joe, we needed him! You understand, don't you?”
“Sure,” he said wearily.
She came toward him, pausing directly in front of him, but her eyes never quite met his. “Joe, I'm fighting for my life! For everything I ever wanted! And I'm not going to let Farley take it away from me!”
“I gathered that much. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe Farley deserves to be gunned down by a man like Lloyd, but I'm through with it, Rhea.”
Her eyes widened as they flitted about his face. “What do you mean?”
“I'm not working for you any more. I quit the minute you hired a killer on your crew. I don't know, maybe I'd do the same thing in your place, if it had been my father who was killed. I guess I can't be sure just what I would do if things were turned around. But they're not turned around, so I'm quitting.”
Her lips came together tightly, and her eyes narrowed, as though she were trying to see inside his brain. “Joe, you can't mean it. You can't run out on us when we need you!”
Grant shook his head. “You don't need me, Rhea. Once I felt sorry for you, one lone girl going up against a man like Farley. I guess I should have felt sorry for Farley.” He pulled his hat down on his forehead. “You'll find another man to take my place, another Joe Grant, or Turk Valois. One man more or less needn't bother you, Rhea.”
Abruptly, she laughed. The sound was edged with a wild-ness that chilled him. “You wouldn't dare walk out on me! I know all about you—that bank robbery in Joplin—I'll call Jim Dagget the minute I see you getting your roll together!”
