'Drag' Harlan by Charles Alden Seltzer (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

It was only when she found herself, later, trying to catch his glance again that she realized they were magnetic eyes, and that the glow in them was of a subtle quality that could not be analyzed at a glance.

The girl was alert to detect a certain expression in his eyes—a gleam that would tell her what she half feared—that the motive that had brought him with her was like that which had caused Deveny to hold her captive. But she could detect no such expression in Harlan’s eyes, she could see a quizzical humor in his glances at times, or frank interest, and there were times when she saw a grim pity.

And the pity affected her strangely. It brought him close to her—figuratively; it convinced her that he was a man of warm sympathies in spite of the reputation he held in the Territory.

She had heard her father speak of him—always with a sort of awe in his voice; and tales of his reckless daring, his Satanic cleverness with a six-shooter, of his ruthlessness, had reached her ears from other sources. He had seemed, then, like some evil character of mythology, remote and far, and not likely to appear in the flesh in her section of the country.

It seemed impossible that she had fled to such a man for protection—and that he had protected her; and that she was now riding beside him—or slightly behind him—and that, to all appearances, he was quite as respectful toward her as other men. That, she surmised, was what made it all seem so strange.

Harlan did not seem disposed to talk; and he kept Purgatory slightly in the lead—except when the trail grew dim or disappeared altogether. Then he would pull the black horse up, look inquiringly at Barbara, and urge Purgatory after her when she took the lead.

But there were many things that Barbara wanted to inquire about; and it was when they were crossing a big level between some rimming hills, where the trail was broad, that she urged her pony beside the black.

“Won’t you tell me about father—how he died?” she asked.

He looked sharply at her, saw that she was now quite composed, and drawing Purgatory to a walk, began to relate to her the incident of the fight at Sentinel Rock. His story was brief—brutally brief, she might have thought, had she not been watching his face during the telling, noting the rage that flamed in his eyes when he spoke of Dolver and Laskar and the mysterious “Chief.”

It was plain to the girl that he had sympathized with her father; and it was quite as plain that he now sympathized with her. And thus she mentally recorded another point in his favor:

He might be a gunman, a ruthless killer, an outlaw of such evil reputation that men mentioned his name with awe in their voices—but she knew, now, that he had a keen sense of justice, and that the murder of her father had aroused the retributive instinct in him.

Also, she was convinced that compared to Deveny, Rogers, and Lawson, he was a gentleman. At least, so far he had not looked at her as those men had looked at her. He had been with her now for several hours, in a lonely country where there was no law except his own desires, and he had been as gravely courteous and considerate as it was possible for any man to be.

When he finished his story, having neglected to mention the paper he had removed from one of the cylinders of Morgan’s pistol—upon which was written instructions regarding the location of the gold Morgan had secreted—Barbara rode for a long time in silence, her head bowed, her eyes moist.

At last she looked up. Harlan’s gaze was straight ahead; he was watching the trail, where it vanished over the crest of a high ridge, and he did not seem to be aware of Barbara’s presence.

“And father told you to tell me—wanted you to bring the news to me?”

Harlan nodded.

“Then,” she went on “your obligation—if you were under any—seems to have been completed. You need not have come out of your way.”

“I was headed this way.”

“To the Rancho Seco?” she questioned, astonished.

Again he nodded. But this time there was a slight smile on his lips.

Her own straightened, and her eyes glowed with a sudden suspicion.

“That’s odd,” she said; “very odd.”

“What is?”

“That you should be on your way to the Rancho Seco—and that you should encounter father—that you should happen to reach Sentinel Rock about the time he was murdered.”

He looked straight at her, noting the suspicion in her eyes. His low laugh had a hint of irony in it.

“I’ve heard of such things,” he said.

“What?”

“About guys happenin’ to run plumb into a murder when they was innocent of it—an’ of them bein’ accused of the murder.”

It was the mocking light in his eyes that angered her, she believed—and the knowledge that he had been aware of her suspicion before it had become half formed in her mind.

“I’m not accusing you!” she declared.

“You said it was odd that I’d be headed this way—after I’d told you all there was to tell.”

“It is!” she maintained.

“Well,” he conceded; “mebbe it’s odd. But I’m still headin’ for the Rancho Seco. Mebbe I forgot to tell you that your father said I was to go—that he made me promise to go.”

He had not mentioned that before; and the girl glanced sharply at him. He met the glance with a slow grin which had in it a quality of that subtleness she had noticed in him before. A shiver of trepidation ran over her. But she sat rigid in the saddle, determined she would not be afraid of him. For the exchange of talk between them, and his considerate manner—everything about him—had convinced her that he was much like other men—men who respect women.

“There is no evidence that father made you promise to go to the Rancho Seco.”

“There wasn’t no evidence that I made any promise to keep that man Deveny from herd-ridin’ you,” he said shortly, with a grin. “I’m sure goin’ to the Rancho Seco.”

“Suppose I should not wish it—what then?”

“I’d keep right on headin’ for there—keepin’ my promise.”

“Do you always keep your promises?” she asked, mockery in her voice.

“When I make ’em. Usually, I don’t do any promisin’. But when I do—that promise is goin’ to be kept. If you ain’t likin’ my company, ma’am, why, I reckon there’s a heap of trail ahead. An’ I ain’t afraid of gettin’ lost.”

“Isn’t that remarkable!” she jeered.

He looked at her with sober eyes. “If we’re figurin’ on hittin’ the Rancho Seco before night we’ll have to quit our gassin’ an’ do some travelin’,” he advised. “Accordin’ to the figures we’ve got about forty miles to ride, altogether. We’ve come about fifteen—an’,” he looked at a silver watch which he drew from a pocket, “it’s pretty near two now.”

Without further words—for it seemed useless to argue the point upon which he was so obviously determined—Barbara urged Billy on, taking the lead.

For more than an hour she maintained the lead, riding a short distance in advance, and seemingly paying no attention to Harlan. Yet she noted that he kept about the same distance from her always—though she never permitted him to observe that she watched him, for her backward glances were taken out of the corners of her eyes, when she pretended to be looking at the country on one side or the other.

Harlan, however, noted the glances. And his lips curved into a faint grin as he rode. Once when he had dropped behind a little farther than usual, he leaned over and whispered into Purgatory’s ear:

“She’s sure ignorin’ us, ain’t she, you black son-of-a-gun! She ain’t looked back here more’n three times in the last five minutes!”

And yet Harlan’s jocular mood did not endure long. During those intervals in which Barbara kept her gaze straight ahead on the trail, Harlan regarded her with a grave intentness that betrayed the soberness of his thoughts.

In all his days he had seen no woman like her; and when she had come toward him in Lamo, with Higgins close behind her, he had been so astonished that he had momentarily forgotten Deveny and all the rest of them.

Women of the kind he had met had never affected him as Barbara had affected him. He had still a mental picture of her as she had come toward him, with her hair flying in a golden-brown mass over her shoulders; her wide, fear-lighted eyes seeking his with an expression of appeal so eloquent that it had sent a queer, thrilling, protective sensation over him.

And as she rode ahead of him it was the picture she had made then that he saw; and the emotions that assailed him were the identical emotions that had beset him when for a brief instant, in Lamo, he had held her in his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder.

That, he felt, had been the real Barbara Morgan. Her manner now—the constrained and distant pose she had adopted, her suspicions, her indignation—all those were outward manifestations of the reaction that had seized her. The real Barbara Morgan was she who had run to him for protection and she would always be to him as she had appeared then—a soft, yielding, trembling girl who, at a glance had trusted him enough to run straight into his arms.