She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke
down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf
of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature
could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to
the girl and touched her on the shoulder.
"Come."
She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?"
"With me."
"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!"
"Never mind that now. Come."
"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with
you?" she asked evenly.
He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his
old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night
like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever
free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the
cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not.
The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He
had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers
so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the
hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new
earth.
He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him
in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.
"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth.
"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're
a murderer!"
He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the
dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.
"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with
that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of
him.
He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him,
but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he
would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be
married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her
love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events,
he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He
stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted.
A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its
own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man
stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a
rifle ready for instant action.
"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath.
"Have you killed him?"
The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and
tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!"
"Then who is that with you there?"
"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me,"
taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be
married."
"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill
you there, and you know it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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