Every move he made was painful, but less so as the afternoon dragged by. When the most important thing to do became to keep moving, so that he did not seize up.

  He did not feel fit enough to absorb the recoil of the rifle, though. So he braced the stockplate against the ground to the side, and held the Colt Hartford in one hand to test fire it three times: the bullets exploded high into the air directly above him.

  He extracted the spent shell cases and reloaded the smoke smelling chambers.

  Heard hoofbeats and took a moment to get a bearing on them. The horse being galloped toward the basin from the north west—the way he and Billy Dayton had reached Little Lake.

  Impassively expectant, he waited with the fully loaded Colt Hartford hidden by the blankets which masked his nakedness. His head turned to the side so that he could watch the point on the rim of the basin where the rider would first appear.

  The horse slowed to a canter, then a trot and finally a walk.

  Jennie Colman called nervously: ‘Is there anybody here?’

  ‘Just the two of us, ma’am!’ Steele replied. The first time he had spoken in the three hours or so since Billy Dayton left. And his voice sounded almost back to normal again.

  The woman gasped and urged her mount to the top of the slope. ‘What on earth has happened?’

  ‘Don’t get excited, ma’am,’ Steele told her as he watched her take in the scene of himself draped with blankets, the horse standing beside the lake and his clothing laid out to dry in the chill and fading sunlight. ‘I’m naked under here. But single bed sleeping for a long time is something that’s needed to cure what ails me.’

  She slid from her saddle and led her piebald gelding down the slope by the reins: the generous curves of her body swaying and bobbing rhythmically within the restraints of a man’s grey work shirt and blue denim pants.

  There was scorn in her eyes and her tone when she answered him: ‘One day I’ll maybe meet a man who doesn’t immediately think I’m pantin’ to be taken by him, Mr. Adam Steele.’ She halted immediately beside him and reminded: ‘You didn’t answer my question?’

  ‘Daytons took me for a gunfighter, Mrs. Colman. Billy’s poisoning story was a blind to get me out here so they could beat up on me. Which was supposed to scare me off.’

  ‘Then they threw you in the lake?’

  ‘No. Joe Dayton threw my rifle in the lake. I went in to get it. Would have drowned for sure if Billy didn’t come in after me.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m confused.’

  ‘Does that matter, ma’am? It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Like hell!’ she snapped. ‘The Daytons break open our gate to trespass on the Winged Angel! And knock about a guest of the Colmans! That’s Colman business, mister! And I’m a Colman because Denys married me.’

  The Virginian nodded. ‘You feel that bad about it, ma’am, you Colmans take it up with the Daytons. Me, I’ll be riding on just as soon as my clothes are dry enough and I can stay in the saddle.’

  ‘Scared you real bad, didn’t they?’ she sneered. ‘Sure did, Mrs. Colman,’ he answered absently as he gazed out over the small lake. ‘Never have been closer to death, I reckon.’

  She made a sound of disgust. ‘Hell, Steele, them Daytons wasn’t fixin’ to kill you. And I never heard of anybody snuffin’ it on account of being knocked around.’

  ‘Me, Mrs. Colman.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me getting that mad is what scared me. Mad enough to go into the lake without a hope of getting out again unless I had help. Thought I’d got over being that way a long time ago. It would have been a stupid way for me to die.’

  She listened to him impatiently, then shook her head vigorously. ‘So all right. Have it your way. But seems to me that’s all the more reason you should stick around and make them Daytons pay for what they made you do.’

  The Virginian shook his head. But slowly and not for long, because the movement sharpened the pain under his skull and caused his eyes to go out of focus.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ she demanded angrily.

  ‘Made a deal with Billy Dayton, ma’am. Because he hauled me and my rifle out of the water, I gave him my word I wouldn’t kill him and his brothers.’

  ‘Damnit, man! There doesn’t have to be any killin’. There’s just old Frank and us three women runnin’ the Winged Angel now Gil’s gone. We just want protection from that bastard George Dayton and his three boys. Stop them from bustin’ open the gate like up there.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘And killin’ our cattle. Insultin’ our name around Accord. Stuff like that.

  ‘And the Daytons don’t want no killin’, either. Just like us Colmans.’

  ‘Seem to recall you had a different opinion a while ago just after Billy showed up at the—’

  ‘Sure I told you to kill him!’ she cut in irritably, then shrugged her shoulders and tossed her head. ‘I was mad. At him and at my daughter for encouragin’ him. But I didn’t mean it.’ She gazed hard at Steele. ‘Like you didn’t mean to drown yourself when you went in Little Lake, Steele.’

  The Virginian sighed and nodded. ‘See your point and prepared to accept what you say, Mrs. Colman. You want to turn your back to me now? Or maybe mount up and ride on back to the house?’

  ‘I been a widow for five years, Steele. Was married to Denys Colman for fourteen years. Had Abbigail by him. Know what a naked man looks like.’

  Steele nodded again and shrugged the blankets off his shoulders. Needed to use the rifle as a prop to help him to his feet. The woman was standing to the side and slightly behind him. Watched him with keen interest that had more than a hint of the sexual in it. Until he half turned toward her to move to where his clothing was set out on the grass. When the attention she was about to concentrate on his genitals was captured by his injuries—the areas of swollen and dull colored skin just above his hirsute lower belly and on his chest, left of center. Showing that Joe Dayton had punished his body far more severely than his face.

  ‘My God, they certainly went to work on you, Steele,’ the woman growled with an expression of revulsion.

  The Virginian halted and looked hard at Jennie Colman, blinking a great deal. Hating her for being there. Because it meant he felt unable to give voice to the agony that attacked every nerve ending of his body. An agony which had started as soon as he began to rise after sitting down for so long. And which expanded in intensity with every part of a second that elapsed as he struggled to remain determined to get his clothes and dress himself.

  The sun was shading from yellow to red now as it dipped toward setting. And the evening air should be very chill. But Adam Steele felt like he was on the floor of a desert at midday. Burning up.

  The woman was close by. He could see her in stark clarity. But her voice sounded like it came from a long way off. Funneled by the walls of a canyon which gave her words the quality of an echo.

  How could he have hated a woman who was so beautiful? Who was now gazing at him with such compassion for his suffering. Stepping toward him with her arms outstretched to clasp him to her. So that soon he would be wrapped in those arms. His body pressed close to her with its promise of soft firmness …

  But suddenly it was not to be. Steele’s bruised lips drew wide in an anguished groan, and he fell to the grass, unconscious once more.

  Having failed to reach him in time to help Steele break his fall, Jennie Colman came to an abrupt halt. Her hands on her broad hips and her ample breasts rising and falling as she took long breaths—waiting for her confused emotions to subside. She shook her head slowly, as sorry for herself as for the badly beaten man at her feet. And muttered, as she stooped to gather up his clothes:

  ‘You could get me a good reputation, Adam Steele. Most folks around here figure I’m only interested in getting a man out of his clothes.’

  Chapter Eight

  A VOICE STEELE did not recognize slowly filtered through the lifting veil of unconsciousness.

  ‘When I heard the shootin’ I figured the worst had happened. Real crazy of me to come runnin’ the way I did, I guess. Could’ve got myself shot if you and the Daytons was throwin’ lead. But it was the first thought I had. And I followed it.’

  Now he remembered - it was Jennie Colman. Slowly, but disjointedly, the day’s events began to assemble in Steele’s mind.

  ‘Can’t pretend there’s anythin’ very special about you, Adam Steele. If any halfways decent lookin’ man had eyed me the way you done yesterday mornin’, I’d have worried about him the way I fretted over you.’

  She made a gulping sound. And the Virginian thought momentarily that she was on the verge of weeping. But then glass chinked on glass and liquid was poured. He smelled rye whiskey.

  ‘But you was just lookin’, weren’t you?’ she went on rhetorically. ‘Like you’d look at any halfways decent lookin’ woman if you passed her on the street. I ain’t no different from most of them. I ain’t a slut wants to go with everythin’ in pants. Just a normal woman once had a man to go with her regular. And hankers for a taste of what used to be from time to time. Show it more than most women, I guess. But what the hell? A person’s got just the one life. And it ain’t so long. Must be real lousy to be old and look back on what you done with your life. When all you done is missed out on everythin’ good.’

  She took a long swallow of the freshly poured drink. And Steele uttered a low groan. She gasped. He groaned again and moved his head from one side to the other. Opened and closed his eyes several times before he left them open.

  This entire charade was designed to save the woman from embarrassment. He owed her this much at least, for bringing him in from Little Lake and seeing to it that he had a comfortable place in which to recover. He had played possum only to get recent events straight in his own mind before he admitted to being conscious and was forced to face the future.

  The woman was to his left. Seated by the bed on a chair that creaked just a little whenever she moved. The sounds she made were the only ones to compete with his own breathing.

  He hurt all over, but not so much as he had hurt before what had obviously been a long period of rest.

  Jennie Colman set down her glass and spread a bright smile across her green eyed, full lipped face as she said: ‘Mornin’ to you, Adam Steele. You’re gonna have some pain for awhile and be a little stiff. But Doc Stanton said no permanent damage was done.’

  She was still dressed in the man’s shirt and pants. The paint and powder on her face was smeared and her red hair was in disarray. There were dark patches under her red-rimmed eyes, and her flesh tones were colored by liquor in her bloodstream.

  So he guessed she had been up all night and drinking through some of it.

  Her neglected appearance was emphasized by the sunny brightness of the room, the two windows of which faced east. A woman’s bedroom, with white painted walls hung with floral prints, lace curtains at the windows and pastel colored rugs on the floor. Against one wall stood a bureau with three angled mirrors, the top laden with bottles and jars, the contents of which perfumed the morning air and almost masked the more pungent odor of whiskey.

  The near empty bottle and almost full glass stood on a small table beside the bed in front of the chair on which Jennie Colman sat.

  ‘I’m grateful to you, ma’am,’ Steele said, his voice a little croaky.

  ‘You remember it all?’

  ‘Right up until I keeled over in front of you, Mrs. Colman. You went to a lot of trouble for me.’

  She shook her head and brushed a stray hank of hair from her eyes. ‘Got enough clothes on you to make you decent, loaded you on your horse and brought you back home. That wasn’t so hard. I do my share of the heavy chores around the Winged Angel. After that, wasn’t no trouble at all. Me and Milly and Frank put you to bed here in my room while Abbigail was sent to Accord to bring the doc. He said weren’t nothin’ wrong with you time and rest wouldn’t put right. About all there is to tell, I guess.’

  Steele was flat on his back, his head elevated a little by pillows. So far he had moved only his head to look around him. Now he tentatively eased up in the bed, to achieve a sitting posture. It aroused pain, but it was not unbearable.

  The woman watched him wincing but made no move to help him. Nor spoke until he was where he intended to be.

  ‘Ain’t nothin’ like liquor to kill pain,’ she said, picking up the glass and offering it to him.

  ‘There’s a village in Mexico called Nuevo Rio, Mrs. Colman,’ he said tensely as he waited for the pains in his chest and belly to subside. ‘I was drunk there for best part of a month once. Way back. What ailed me then was in the mind rather than the body. The liquor didn’t help except while I was drinking it. As I recall, I’ve had just the one shot since that time.’

  In a gesture of angry defiance the woman raised the glass to her lips and tossed its contents against the back of her throat. Then bad to work at not submitting to the need to shudder as the whiskey seared its way down.

  ‘I just told you why I don’t drink any more, Mrs. Colman. I’ve got no quarrel with those who do.’

  She gripped the empty glass in both hands so tightly that it was in danger of breaking. Gradually she came down from her high plane of emotional turmoil and her face and voice were calm as she explained:

  ‘Abbigail’s gone. Run off with that Dayton boy, I guess.’

  ‘You’re prejudiced and my opinion doesn’t mean a thing to you, Mrs. Colman,’ the Virginian said. ‘But your daughter could do a whole lot worse than Billy.’

  She nodded, grim faced. ‘You’re right, Adam Steele.’ She rose to her feet. ‘I’m prejudiced and I don’t give a shit for your opinion. Rest up some more and I’ll look in on you at eatin’ time. Could be a little late today.

  Dependin’ on when Milly gets back from Accord.’

  She upended the empty glass over the top of the uncorked whiskey bottle and carried them to the door. ‘Where’s …’ Steele began.

  ‘Frank’s out fixin’ the gate lock them Daytons shot up. Should be back before noon. Unless he does some line ridin’ to make sure there ain’t no more damage been done.’

  ‘Was going to ask where my rifle is, ma’am?’

  ‘In the kitchen with your clothes which oughta be dry by now. But you won’t be needin’—’

  ‘Be grateful to have my clothes and my rifle by me, Mrs. Colman.’

  She shrugged. ‘Okay. There’s coffee on the range. And I can cook you up some breakfast if you’re hungry?’

  ‘Reckon the coffee will taste as good as it sounds. Not sure I could keep food down right now.’

  She nodded and left the room, letting the door stay open behind her.

  Steele could smell the coffee aroma and hear the sounds of her movements in the otherwise silent house.

  When she returned she had an armful of his clothes with the Colt Hartford protruding from it, and a mug of steaming coffee. She dumped the gear in the chair she had used and set the coffee down on the table beside the head of the bed. Her wearied face wore an anxious frown.

  ‘Something bothering you, Mrs. Colman?’

  She avoided meeting his open gaze as she answered: ‘Somethin’ I guess you oughta know, Steele.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘The first of the hired men are scheduled to reach Accord today. Milly went to town this mornin’ to give them some cash money in advance and bring them out to the Winged Angel.’

  ‘Reckon you’re not talking about ranch hands, Mrs. Colman?’

  ‘No, I ain’t. Gunslingers is what we sent to Denver for. After we knew Gil was gonna be hung.’ She abruptly changed her tone, as she had when earlier she thought Steele was criticizing her for drinking liquor. ‘And ain’t nobody on the Winged Angel but Abbigail thinks we done the wrong thing. Just tellin’ you about them comin’ so you won’t figure I kept it like some sort of secret I didn’t want you to know about.’

  ‘No other reason?’

  ‘No.’ Her pointed refusal to look Steele in the eye stressed that it was a lie.

  ‘The hired guns the reason Abbigail left, Mrs. Colman?’

  ‘She didn’t say so, but I reckon that’s right.’

  ‘Grateful to you for telling me.’

  She went to the door, obviously with something else on her mind.

  Steele said: ‘Words are easy to say and cost nothing, Mrs. Colman. I owe you more than that.’

  She turned on the threshold and there was a look of intense pleading in her green eyes as she gazed across the brightly sunlit room at him.

  ‘Abbigail, Mr. Steele. They killed Gil and now Abbigail is all I have left. If she’s where I think she is, she might die soon.’

  ‘The Lucky Day spread?’

  ‘Where else? She’s infatuated with that no account Billy Dayton. And I’ll bet any money you like she went to tell Billy about the Denver guns comin’ in today.’

  ‘What should I do about that, Mrs. Colman?’

  ‘Go and get her away from there. You shouldn’t have no trouble with the Daytons. Not after you made that pact with Billy for pullin’ you out of the lake. Probably Abbigail won’t listen to reason, so you’ll have to take her away by force. Long as you don’t hurt her, it’ll be all right. And you can bring her here to the Winged Angel or take her to Accord. Until the Denver guns have done what they have to.’

  ‘Fine, Mrs. Colman. I’ll see what I can do. Grateful to you if you’ll leave the room and close the door behind you now.’

  ‘You got nothin’ I didn’t see yesterday,’ she reminded.

  ‘Something I don’t have is time to waste, Mrs. Colman,’ he said dully.

  She nodded and swung through the doorway, closing the door behind her.

  Steele cautiously eased back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. A full minute passed before he could risk standing. Sweat oozed from every pore of his body as he stared at his unshaven face in the mirrors on the bureau. A face that was set in a grimace of silent reaction to the agony that gripped every part of him.

 

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