Adam Steele 35, page 10
The horse and rider were on the stretch of straight and level trail just the other side of the outcrop, he judged. And he straightened up from where he was leaning, withdrew his gloved hand from stroking the nose of his mount and took a two-handed grip on the Colt Hartford that he leveled from the hip. His thumb was hooked over the top of the hammer, but he did not cock the action. recognized the gray gelding before the rider; as the horse that the Judge had panicked into a bolt from under the condemned Cooper. Only when the threat of danger had diminished, and horse and rider were heading on without pause along the trail beyond the point where Steele’s sign ended, did he puff out his cheeks, let the air rasp free in a sigh, raise the rifle to the vertical, thumb back the hammer and squeeze the trigger.
From this side of the outcrop, it was possible to see the trail for some two hundred yards before it both dipped and curved to go down and around a formation that resembled a miniature mesa. The shot exploded the bullet into the air when the galloping gelding was a long way short of the top of the curving slope and the skinny kid in what looked to be reach-me-down clothing had ample time to bring the horse to a gradual stop – if he first took the time to think about what he was going to do.
But, as Steele had guessed would most likely happen, the kid was thrown into a scare by the sharp intrusion of the cracking rifle-shot through a world of sound that a moment before had been filled solely with the thunder of pumping hooves and the rasping breathing of horse and rider. He wrenched around in the saddle then, to stare at the shooter. recognized who it was and jerked viciously on the reins as he came rigidly erect in the stirrups. The horse skidded, reared and even started to wheel since the half-turned attitude of the rider acted to apply through the reins a command to go to the right. But then the too-abrupt loss of forward momentum sprang the rider’s feet free of the stirrups – and he thudded face down over the saddle before he slid off it. A scream that started out to sound of fear now altered key to express pain; but the youngster remained clear-headed enough to know that he had to release his grasp on the reins or face being dragged over the dirt trail packed down hard as rock. And so he let go, just as his knees slammed against the ground, and gave vent to a more sharp pain as he pitched out face down and full length. But had the presence of mind, or acted instinctively, to fold both forearms over his head as the forehooves of the rearing gelding crashed down amid exploding dust and spraying clods of dirt only inches from his skull. Then the horse was going forward again. Bolting in a panic for the second time today – around the curving grade and out of sight.
By which time the Virginian had re-booted the rifle, swung astride the black stallion and leaned forward to unhitch the reins from the brush. The thud of the gelding’s hooves receded into the distance as the less frantic clop of those of Steele’s horses sounded to compete with the sobs, groans and cursing of the slightly-built kid who lay as he had fallen: head still protected by arms like he expected hooves or something equally as dangerous to crash down on to him. He did not move as if he was in any great agony and the words that rasped with a vindictive tone from his lips were far short of obscene.
‘Damn you, you crazy idiot! You could’ve damn well killed me! Broken a rotten leg at best! Gosh-darn, to think I rode like the stinking wind to—’
Both his choice of mild expletives and the pitch of his voice in speaking them made him sound extremely youthful, but Steele paid no particular attention to this as he reined in his mount some ten feet short of where the kid lay and broke in on the shrill tirade to counter:
‘Not for the first time, I’ve decided I like horses better than people.’
The groans and the sobs had become more numerously interspersed with the genteel curses when the unseated rider realized the man responsible was close enough to be sure to hear him. And he tried to drown out the even-tenored comment with a hissing whimper of pain. Which Steele ignored to continue:
‘Much longer at the speed you were riding, and the horse would be run into the ground. For now or maybe forever. Still a chance of it, I reckon. Or that with a sweat like you worked up on him in this weather without a warm place to—’
‘All right, all right, mister!’ the kid snapped. ‘You’ve made your lousy point! But I figure you’ll change your tune when I tell you I was coming like a bat out of hell to warn you!’
He gingerly unfolded his arms from off his head and then just as tentatively turned his head, one freckled cheek against the ground so he could look challengingly up at the impassive-faced Virginian who still sat easily astride the black stallion.
‘All right,’ Steele allowed. ‘If I struck a wrong note, feller, I’ll—’
‘Damn you!’ The youngster’s look of defiance was replaced by a grimace of rage. And then this was fleetingly displaced from time to time as he made some more careful moves – testing for likely agonizing pains before he fully extended each tendon and muscle to raise himself up on to all fours. ‘My name is Jo – ouch, that damn well hurt!’
The kid toppled fast down onto his right thigh to relieve the pressure on his left knee, which he began to massage with one hand while he supported himself in the half sitting attitude with the other splayed on the ground. And in such a posture accompanied by this movement, it was easy for Steele to confirm with several double-takes what he thought he had seen when the youngster twisted down off all fours.
‘Not Jo as in Joseph, uh?’
‘You’re not the first stranger to Braddock who thought I was a Joseph instead of a Josephine, mister,’ she said, and now was able to show a small, tight smile of satisfaction at disconcerting another man.
‘Proves something we strangers to town should do, I reckon.’
‘What’s that?’ she asked and seemed to regret that he had recovered from the surprise of his error so quickly. Then followed the direction of his gaze with her own. And the paleness of her complexion beneath the freckles was abruptly gone under the assault of a blush when she saw the way that the rubbing action of her hand on her knee caused the loose-fitting shirt to by turns contour tautly and shroud the not-ungenerous curves of her torso.
‘Keep abreast of all developments,’ Steele answered evenly.
Chapter Ten
AS THE VIRGINIAN was swinging out of his saddle and the girl struggled awkwardly to rise to her feet, he was chided:
‘Now that you know my gender, mister, I think you should now be more careful what you say and do in my presence?’
‘Sorry, kid, but I reckon it’ll take me a little time to adjust to—’
‘Kid is almost as bad as what you were calling me before!’ she broke in, and held up her hands in a gesture that showed she required no help in remaining on her feet. ‘Since I am not yet of an age when a lady is required to be coy about just how old she is, I don’t mind you knowing I am eighteen. Too old to be referred to as a child in any way, shape or form, I hope you will agree?’ She abruptly realized that she had unwittingly if obliquely referred to her figure and the fading blush was at once bright again. Then she hurried on, pretending it was only chagrin that she felt. ‘My name is Josephine Remmick. And I was interrupted a few moments ago – I dislike very much to be called Jo. Josephine or Miss Remmick will be fine.’
Steele acknowledged this with a touch of his gloved hand to the brim of his hat and became impassive-eyed as he tried not to stare at the ill-clad form and short cropped hair with the freckle-featured countenance between – that, as she stood and gazed levelly back at him once more, created a strong impression, despite him knowing the truth, that Miss Josephine Remmick was an adolescent boy not yet of an age to shave or have his voice broken.
The hair was auburn, dusted now by gray motes from the fall, and was cut so short with no allowances made for the natural direction of growth that it was seemingly intended to be unflatteringly ragged. The face, with its pale complexion and plentiful scattering of freckles, was oval in shape and had regular features that combined to give it a strangely sexless handsomeness. The large, gray-flecked-with-black eyes were inclined toward femininity, but this hint of the truth was counter-balanced by a certain sparse shapelessness about her mouth that needed paint on the lips to give an illusion of female fullness. Her torso looked full enough, from the glimpses he had caught when the shirt was pulled tight against it. Which, allied with her slenderness of waist and her proportionate height – he no longer thought of her as simply skinny and long legged – meant that, when she was dressed to emphasize the fact, she undoubtedly could display a fine figure.
But now he rid his mind of such conjecture about the shape and texture of the body and limbs so effectively disguised by the well-worn and ill-fitting clothes. Asked:
‘Warn me about what, Miss Remmick?’
She had started to walk back and forth along a short line, testing for degrees of pain again. And, despite the fact that her left knee continued to trouble her most and caused her gait to be jerky and awkward, it was impossible not to be aware of the womanly manner in which she moved.
‘They are going to come after you, Mr. Steele. A bunch of Braddock men.’ She had paused in her pacing to turn and look at him with grim intensity. Which made her look faintly ridiculous as she raised her left leg off the ground and began to swing it freely from the knee.
‘And I thought the judge was trying to tell me I wasn’t wanted in town,’ the Virginian answered, then swung up into his saddle – kept his right foot out of the stirrup and extended his right hand to invite the girl astride the stallion.
‘It won’t strike you as funny when they take the horses off you, Mr. Steele,’ she warned with an expression and tone of censure as she hobbled to the side of the horse. ‘I saw Uncle Harry and you talking beside Ralph Peabody’s livery.’ She gripped his gloved hand with her own that he saw through the trail dust adhered to the skin by old sweat was unquestionably that of a female in its shape and the length of the nails. Then she was astride the saddle cantle behind him and he told himself it was only in his imagination that he was conscious of the twin pressures of her breasts against his back. The sheepskin coat was too thick for the sensation to be ... ‘I saw you were all set to leave town, but I didn’t know he was telling you it was the best thing.’
Instead of encircling his waist with her arms, she hooked her hands over his shoulders as he set the three stallions moving. Heading toward the downward curve of trail around the mesa-like rock formation beyond which her runaway gelding had gone from sight.
‘The judge is your uncle?’ Steele asked her.
‘Yes,’ she answered and even in the single syllable was able to convey her dissatisfaction with the situation. ‘My mother and he were brother and sister. She was many years younger than he. When mother and father were drowned in a boat that sank off Cape Cod, it turned out Harrison Coles was the only relative I had left in the world. He isn’t really a judge, you know. He was just an ordinary old attorney in Boston years ago. Long before he came out west and got to be the local know-it-all of that hick town.’
‘Byron Nolan said something like that, Miss Remmick,’ Steele told her as they started down the gentle grade from the outcrop. With his back to his passenger, he found it no effort to think of her as a girl; for in his mind’s eye, he visualized only the obviously feminine aspects of her. But when she talked naturally – making no attempt to choose her words and speak them with care – it was difficult to see her as an eighteen-year-old. ‘About your uncle being a lawyer in New England.’
‘Mr. Nolan and Uncle Harry are two of an interfering kind!’ she countered quickly, and it sounded like she said it through a pronounced pout of vexation. Then she remembered to assume a more mature tone of voice when she urged: ‘Don’t you think we should ride a little faster, Mr. Steele? I’m sure they will come after you.’
Beyond the miniature mesa the trail made a sharper curve up a steeper grade and as the black stallion with the pair of white ones behind crested this rise, Steele saw the girl’s gray gelding on a low ridge about a mile away. Over this distance, the horse looked in reasonable shape after his second bolt of the day.
He felt that Josephine Remmick had turned to look back from this new high ground and now he heard her sharp intake of breath as her head came around again and she spotted the gray.
‘Don’t want to race up to him and give him another reason to take off,’ the Virginian told her. ‘Soon as we get to him, you can ride on back toward town. Tell the people, if they’re out on the trail, to head on back to Braddock.’
‘You really think they’ll take any notice of what I say?’ she asked scornfully. ‘I’m just a …’
She allowed the protest to hang unfinished in the chill air of early afternoon. And looked back across the desolate country behind them again.
‘What you are doesn’t matter,’ Steele told her evenly. ‘Me, I’m kind of in between at the moment. Plan on being a horse rancher just as soon as I find the right patch of territory and a bunch of mares with the same bloodline as the stallions and—’
‘They won’t let you—’
‘Listen to the message I want you to give them, Miss Remmick,’ he cut in evenly on her anxious interruption. ‘So you’ll be sure to get it right. Before I made the decision to put my mind to this, I used to kill people.’
‘Good grief!’ she rasped, and snatched her hands off his shoulders.
‘I wasn’t an out-and-out killer of people, you can tell them,’ he went on. ‘I did all kinds of work for all kinds of people, and it just so happened that nine times out of ten, other people wound up getting killed. I never enjoyed it, as I recall. But neither did it bother me. And that was when I worked for other people. Just think, you tell them, how much it will bother me to kill anybody who tries to stop me doing what I want to do for myself. You can cite Luke Wellman as a case in point, but it may not serve much purpose. So many people live their lives thinking the worst things only ever happen to others.’
There was a pause of several tense seconds in the wake of what Steele had said. While Josephine Remmick experienced the awe of knowing this man had spoken the absolute truth about himself. And at the same time the Virginian felt a total emptiness in whatever part of his spiritual being emotions were generated. And so was not even able to feel self-disgust at the way he had virtually bared his soul to this girl who was nothing to him. Then he reined in the stallions some thirty feet from where the gelding was contentedly cropping on a patch of brown and dusty grass and instructed Josephine Remmick:
‘Get off. Slow and easy.’
He sensed she wanted badly to say something to him, but then she merely sighed and did as he instructed; needed to cling to him to prevent herself falling the final couple of feet. It nonetheless pained her injured leg when she put her weight on it and her muted squeal caused the gelding with the dried foam of old sweat on his coat to bring up his head sharply and snort.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered as Steele came gingerly out of the saddle and the disturbed gelding eyed both of them with a baleful look from under rigidly raised ears.
‘He’s your horse? Not just for today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you go get him, Miss Remmick. Don’t rush it, and it could help to keep him calm if you talk to him. Soft and gentle, like he was your best beau and you were trying to get something out of him he—’
‘I don’t have one beau, let alone a best one,’ she cut in, her face expressing malcontent but her voice low and neutral in tone.
Steele raised just one shoulder and nodded for her to go toward the gelding which continued to look at the intruders with ill-will. And again the girl, who looked very much like a boy from the back until she moved, paused only briefly before she did as she was told – except that while she approached and looked toward the horse, her soft-spoken words were addressed to the Virginian.
‘See, Uncle Harry would have been different to me if I was a boy. When I first was sent to him I was a lot younger and it didn’t matter so much. Was a natural-born tomboy anyway and I didn’t need much persuading to be what he wanted of me. But when I started to grow out of those ways, well, he just wouldn’t let up. And he had lots of people on his side.’
The gelding scraped at the ground with a forehoof and backed off a few feet. The girl looked over her shoulder, frowning anxiously like she expected Steele to blame her for the retreat. He just nodded and gestured with a hand that she was doing fine and should continue.
‘They’re a real straitlaced bunch of people at Braddock. Seem to think it’s sinful for a person just to be young. Not little-young, I don’t mean. Young like me. Anyway, I guess it wasn’t too hard for me to give up wanting to show I was a young woman when that was what I was. Because there are no men around Braddock to make it worthwhile.’
The gelding backed off some more and this time the girl halted but did not turn around. Remained where she was, though, some ten feet from her horse. And genuine resignation replaced false and a little strained gentleness in her voice as she went on:
