CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  His head swathed in bandages, Denbow lay on a cot inside the hospital tent that had been pitched on Springwood's town square. It was night now; he had been awake for about thirty minutes. A lantern burned dimly, so that he could see the half dozen other cots occupied by Big Tree survivors.

  One of the volunteer nurses had told him what had happened after the side rod on the Baldwin let go; she'd heard it from some of the others on the train. Miraculously they had all made it to safety, carrying him and Sam Honeycutt for more than a mile, with no fatalities. Even Honeycutt had survived. He was at the local doctor's house, where he could be better cared for, and was given an even chance to live.

  The lean stranger had made it here, too. Had been captured by fire fighters when he tried to ride through their lines on a stolen horse, and was now in a cell in the Spring-wood jail. He hadn't said much, wouldn't even give his name, so nobody knew yet the story behind the boxcars full of weapons and explosives and the blast at the mill.

  Firebreaks dug all around Springwood's exposed flanks had kept the blaze from endangering the town. But it was still running wild over east. It would race along for days until it burned itself out, or until the drought broke and rains came. But at least no other community was threatened.

  Denbow was thinking about all these things - but mostly he was thinking about his own actions in the locomotive before the crash. His memory of those hours on the train was vague, dreamlike, as if he had watched it all happen instead of living it. Part of the reason, likely, was the head blow he'd taken, the concussion the nurse had told him he had. But part of it, too, was his mind shying away from what he understood now had been a time of crazy recklessness.

  He'd been wrong in nearly everything he had felt and done during that time. Wrong about the Baldwin's capacity to withstand the constant strain of a wide-open throttle. Wrong to have tried once, let alone twice, to disarm the gun-hawk. Wrong about himself. It was funny how you could be so sure of what was right, and then realize later on what a damn fool you really been.

  What he felt most of all now, lying here, was shame.

  It was hot inside the tent, and the flap had been tied back to let in a thin night wind. Through the opening he could see the sky. Clouds, dark and restless, were massing to the west and scudding eastward. Rain clouds - it was going to rain tonight for the first time in over three months.

  One day too late, he thought. For him, for everybody from Big Tree - one day too late.

  He was still watching the movement of the clouds when a shape appeared in the tent opening, blotting out his view. It was Rose. Dry-mouthed, he watched her enter and glance around, then walk to his cot. She wore a faded calico dress someone must have given her, and her hair was washed clean and brushed and tied back with a blue ribbon. There was a small, grave smile on her mouth as she knelt beside him.

  "How do you feel, Will?"

  "Poorly. I've a concussion."

  "Yes, but it isn't serious. You'll be well again soon."

  Denbow cleared his throat. "I know most of what happened, from one of the nurses. We're all lucky to be alive."

  "Yes."

  "The train wreck was my fault," he said.

  "Did Kincaid tell you that?"

  "No. He didn't say anything about it."

  "He was one of those who helped carry me, wasn't he?"

  "He was."

  Wrong about Kincaid, too.

  "It doesn't matter about the wreck," Rose said. "Not now. Everyone is safe - that is what matters."

  "I could have killed us all," he said.

  "Will…"

  "I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm just stating a fact." He ran his tongue over cracked lips. "I'm not the same man I was, Rose. I reckon none of us are the same. I learned some things last night, but I'm not sure yet what any of them mean."

  "Your leg… are you still so bitter?"

  "Yes," he said, "I'm still bitter. But maybe I can learn to live with it."

  "You could still take a job in the Oakland yards…"

  "I might. I don't know yet." He looked past her for a time, out again at the scudding black clouds. Then he said, "About us, Rose - we have to talk about us."

  "I know. But we don't have to do it now."

  "We do," he said. "Right now. It's something we should've done long since. For both our sakes."

  ***

  Kincaid sat alone on the bank of a crooked little stream, listening to the night sounds. Behind him, a few hundred yards away, he could hear voices in the encampment that had been hastily set up for the refugees of Big Tree. Once, a while ago, he had even heard someone laugh again.

  But there was no laughter in him. Even though he had slept for ten hours, he was still exhausted; there was still a tautness in him, too. And an emptiness. For he had already reconciled himself to the painful truth that Rose intended to stay with her husband.

  Would she be happy with Denbow? Well, she'd been happy with him once - must have been. Denbow was a decent man underneath his bitterness and foolish pride; Kincaid wondered, now, how he could have hated him so much, even for a little while. If Denbow learned to live with his handicap, he'd be a proper husband again. Time was all he needed. Time, and a woman like Rose.

  Time would dull his own ache for her, he thought. And when enough of it had passed, he wouldn't even think about her much anymore. Until then he'd find a new place to live and rebuild his life. Start another ranch, maybe, in another small valley. Or, hell, maybe not. Might be best for a man like him just to take a job working for somebody else. If you didn't own much, you couldn't lose much.

  The night was sticky-hot; the raw, burned skin under the bandages on his shoulder and chest itched from his sweat. He felt the need of a smoke, but he had no pipe or tobacco. He shifted position on the grassy bank, saw the fire glow staining the whole of the eastern sky a smoky orange, and transferred his gaze to the clouds that had massed to the west.

  "Matt?"

  He turned so sharply that the bandages pulled and the pain made him wince. She was standing a few feet away. She walked softly; he hadn't even heard her approach.

  "What is it, Rose?"

  "May I sit down?"

  "Might be best if you didn't," he said. "I know why you're here."

  "I don't think you do."

  "To tell me your decision. But you didn't have to come. I already know what it is."

  "I don't think you do," she said again. She came ahead and sat down next to him on the grass. "Will and I have agreed to dissolve our marriage."

  He had trouble believing it for a second. He wanted it so much, he was afraid it couldn't be true.

  "We had a long talk just now," Rose said. "We decided it was the right thing for both of us. My sister's husband is a lawyer in San Francisco; I'll see him as soon as I can and ask him to begin the proceedings."

  "But I thought-" Kincaid broke off, started over. "You went with Will this morning, stayed with him all day-"

  "He is still my husband. I had to stay with him. And I had to talk to him before I came to you."

  "You're sure this is what you want? It won't be easy being a divorced woman…"

  "I have no children. Wherever I live until the final decree, no one has to know. Nor afterward, either. Are you trying to discourage me, Matt?"

  "No. God, no. It's just that I'm afraid you'll change your mind."

  She smiled gently. "I won't change my mind. It has been over between Will and me for a long time. We both knew that and tonight we finally admitted it to each other. He simply doesn't need me anymore."

  The ache in Kincaid was different now, warm and sweet. "I need you," he said.

  A little while later, the breeze blowing from the west sharpened and cooled and brought with it the smell of ozone.

  And a little while after that, it began to rain.

 

 

  Bill Pronzini, Firewind

 

 

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