She heard Henry Pelham groan and mutter a low word that was probably a curse, but a great gladness filled her heart at sight of Charlie’s familiar stocky figure slumped in the saddle as he neared the corrals.

  She wondered how much he had seen as he approached, but she steeled herself against embarrassment and went forward to greet him.

  3

  Riding the long dusty road from Chapparell to the Triangle A, Charlie Barnes gave himself over to the soporific effect of hot sunshine and solitude combined with the lulling, rocking-chair motion of his slow-footed roan. He tried not to think about Peggy Aiken, Henry Pelham, and the impending return of the Rio Kid.

  For months, Charlie had been refusing to let himself think about Peggy Aiken and Henry Pelham. He had been seeing Peggy less frequently during those months because he felt sure she didn’t want to see him. He knew all about the gallant though losing fight Peggy was making to keep the Triangle A going, and in his own stolid, unimaginative way he realized that it had to be a lone fight to the finish.

  Peggy was like that. She and Hugh were both like that. They had inherited a tough fiber of stubborn determination from Jonas Aiken; and from the pampered daughter of a Louisiana plantation who had made flowers bloom in the Arizona desert had come a quiet, self-effacing quality of spirit that would not be crushed by adversity, an inner pride that met misfortune with dignity and high-headed courage.

  Charlie didn’t phrase it in just those words in his mind. He simply knew, intuitively, that Peggy didn’t want any pity nor offer of help from him or anyone else. And he knew it was best for her to go on that way as long as she could manage at all. He knew something would happen to Peggy’s soul if the time ever came when she was forced to admit defeat.

  He suspected that the same thing had happened to Hugh’s soul that night when he fled across the Border to escape a lynch rope. That had been Hugh’s first admission of defeat; the first time he had faced a situation stronger than his own strength.

  In Hugh Aiken’s transformation into the renegade Rio Kid, ruthless killer and Border desperado, Charlie had recognized the effects of that one night upon Hugh.

  Peggy’s present situation was no less serious. If circumstances beyond her control forced her to admit her defeat, Charlie foresaw the same reaction that had overtaken Hugh. Cornered and desperate, the high spirit of conquest would turn into a snarling corrosive bitterness that would inevitably seek to strike back at the forces that had destroyed that spirit.

  For months Charlie Barnes had brooded over the possible effect of defeat upon Peggy without seeing any way out. He was in love with her; had loved her with single-minded perseverance for fifteen years. Though he had never put his feeling into words he knew that Peggy did not doubt his love. She knew she had only to turn to him, and that he would always be waiting.

  Until today, Charlie had been content to wait because he thought that was the best course. He knew all about her neighbor on the south. He knew Henry Pelham was a frequent visitor at the Triangle A, and he stolidly accepted the rumored reason for Pelham’s visits.

  Without egotism, he had little doubt that Peggy would turn to him when she was ready for marriage. Henry Pelham was an outsider, a man almost twice her age. He was despised and feared by the other ranchers who saw in him a threat to their settled way of life. It was inconceivable to Charlie that Peggy would take his courtship seriously.

  This letter from Hugh Aiken in his shirt pocket changed everything. The Rio Kid was coming home to fight the murder charge that lay against his name, and Charlie knew that return would bring heartbreak to Peggy if it turned out badly. For three years she had steeled herself to accept the fact of her brother’s outlawry, and she never spoke his name. But if he were arrested and made to stand public trial, were convicted and made to pay the penalty for murder at the end of a rope, Charlie knew it would be like imposing the death sentence upon Peggy herself.

  He shook his head with dismal foreboding as he rode through the Triangle A range toward the ranch house in the shelter of the cottonwoods. The ground was powdery dry and the fresh grass was a pale, unhealthy yellow instead of showing bright green. The few head of cows he could see listlessly cropping the dying grass showed ribs through their hides, and sharp hipbones above sunken flanks. Only about half of them were with calves and those were listless, knobby-kneed little creatures who bawled mournfully as they followed their emaciated mothers about.

  Charlie didn’t know what he was going to say to Peggy, hadn’t decided whether he should tell her about Hugh’s letter or not. He had a vague idea of trying to sound her out, to see whether she would welcome her brother’s return or be hurt by it before he ventured to tell her. From the Triangle A he planned to ride on to the Bar L and try to make some excuse for staying around in the vicinity for a few days in the hope of intercepting the Rio Kid before he showed himself to anyone else.

  As he neared the sheltered ranch house he recognized Pelham’s paint saddle horse standing at the corral fence. This wasn’t any surprise, for Les Edwards had said Pelham was riding to see Peggy this afternoon.

  Then he saw the two figures sitting together on the front porch. Very close together. It was apparent that they had not seen him, were unaware of his approach. It looked to him as though they were holding hands, as though Peggy was intentionally leaning closer to Pelham.

  When Henry bent his head to kiss the girl Charlie loved, Charlie’s first emotion was one of stunned disbelief. When Peggy did not immediately jerk away, Charlie felt a hot rush of shame that he should have witnessed the act. Without conscious thought he lifted his voice in a ringing shout to let the couple know they were no longer alone. Peggy’s instant response, her confused withdrawal from Pelham, the set look of gladness on her thin face as she came down the path to greet him told Charlie that the scene he had witnessed was not an optical illusion.

  He lifted his hat awkwardly and his red hair flamed in the late afternoon sunlight as he reined his roan up beside Pelham’s paint. Peggy’s “Howdy, Charlie. You’re a stranger in these parts,” sounded effusive and strained to him. He nodded with constraint and didn’t meet her eyes.

  Peggy knew, then, that Charlie had seen her let Henry Pelham kiss her lips. She stepped close to him impulsively as he dismounted and said in a quick low voice:

  “Oh, Charlie. I was never so glad to see anyone.”

  Grim-lipped, he said, “That so?” without looking at her. He made quite a job of sliding his knotted reins over his mount’s head and dropping them to the ground while Peggy waited tensely for him to look at her, to give her a chance to say more.

  Then Pelham was sauntering toward them and the moment was lost. Perhaps forever lost, Peggy thought. For when Charlie nodded curtly to Pelham the look of easy-going youth was erased from his smooth face. His features had matured and hardened, and Peggy knew that something was irretrievably lost between them.

  Henry Pelham was the only one of the trio wholly at ease. He sauntered forward with a satisfied smile lurking on his full lips. He drawled, “Good evening, Barnes,” and linked his arm into Peggy’s with a distinct air of proprietorship.

  Peggy disengaged her arm from his with a light laugh that rang false in Charlie’s ears. “It’s hot out here in the sun. Let’s all sit on the porch.”

  Charlie nodded and strode ahead of them toward the porch. He sat down on the end of the boards and tipped his hat forward over his eyes, drew the makings from his pocket and fashioned a cigarette with his stubby fingers.

  Peggy sat between the two men and was silent. Her chin was lifted and a pulse throbbed beneath the sunburned flesh of her throat.

  “Peggy’s having more bad luck,” Pelham told Charlie cheerfully. “Her calves are dying by the dozens for no apparent reason at all.”

  Charlie said, “That so?” He licked his cigarette and felt in his pocket for a match.

  “When I rode over this afternoon she was just putting one out of its misery there in the pen. Worst part of it is she can’t even beef them when they’re sick that way, eh, Peggy?”

  “What?” She turned her head toward him with a startled jerk.

  He smiled, showing strong white teeth, but she detected a jeering note in his voice. “I said it wouldn’t be so bad if you could just butcher the critters when they get down. That way, you could get a supply of fresh meat anyway.”

  Peggy looked away from him and didn’t reply. He was taunting her, here in front of Charlie. She hated him. What crazy weakness had made her forget her hatred a few moments ago? She set her lips in a straight tight line and stared out over the corrals.

  “How are things going with you?” Pelham spoke past her pleasantly to Charlie. “About ready to ship to market?”

  Charlie shook his head. Beneath the low-pulled brim of his hat his eyes were fixed on the ground. “Not near ready,” he admitted. “Another month yet before they’ll have any weight on them. It was a tough winter.”

  “That so?” Pelham sounded genuinely surprised and regretful. “I shipped a bunch last week. Prime, fat stuff. Gathering another trainload now.”

  Neither Charlie nor Peggy said anything. A rider was coming in from a mountain trail on the north. It was lanky old Hank Greenow. He had been Jonas Aiken’s foreman and was now the only rider left on the Triangle A.

  “Trouble with all you ranchers hereabouts,” said Pelham expansively, “is that you don’t keep up with the times. You sit back and hope for the best. If you have a hard winter you curse the luck and let it go at that.”

  “Yeh,” Charlie muttered, “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right. I’ve proved it on the Bar L. Nobody could make a go of that ranch until I bought it. Now look at it.”

  Charlie took a deep drag on his cigarette. He was astonished to see that his fingers were trembling. His voice sounded strange and cold in his own ears:

  “Jim Thompson did awright on the Bar L till the rustlers from acrost the Border got to stealin’ his stock faster’n he could raise it.”

  “Sure. That’s what I’m saying. So he quits. Gave up. Didn’t have gumption enough to protect his own interests.”

  “Twenty miles of Bar L range lie against the Border.” Charlie’s voice was harder now. A stubborn anger was driving him on. “It’d take a army to patrol twenty miles of Border against Mex rustlers.”

  “I’m doing it with half a dozen hands,” Pelham scoffed.

  Charlie dropped his cigarette and scuffed dirt on it with his boot toe. His hands weren’t shaking any more. He pushed his hat back on his forehead and turned to look at Pelham past Peggy. In a remote, quiet tone, he suggested, “I reckon you don’t have to patrol that Border no more, Pelham.”

  Charlie Barnes was unarmed. The man in whose face he flung that challenge wore a .45 on each hip. For a moment the black shadow of impending tragedy hovered over the shaded porch. There seemed to be a slow deadly pulsation in the late afternoon air, as though unseen wings quivered gently above the spreading cottonwoods.

  The girl sitting between the two men came erect and tense. She turned and saw something in Henry Pelham’s face she had never witnessed before. It was not an outward transformation. His lips still smiled. It was an emanation of evil from within the man. It spread over his features like a dark shadow, terrifying and obscure. His breath came and went harshly between lips that had not ceased smiling. She saw the essence of a secret lust that was stronger and more evil than anything she had ever imagined. The lust to kill. The driving, insensate urge to bring death to another human being. It blackened Henry Pelham’s soul as the virus crept through his veins, put a stamp of bestiality upon the handsome features that still smiled.

  A sharp pleading cry welled up out of Peggy’s throat. She leaned close to Pelham and gripped both his forearms with her hard-muscled fingers. “No,” she cried softly. “No, Henry.”

  The moment passed as suddenly as it had come. Henry Pelham threw back his head and laughed mockingly. “You’re right, Barnes. I don’t have to patrol the Border any more. They’d be fools to rustle from me.”

  “You admit it then?” Charlie’s voice was uneven, rasping.

  “I admit nothing,” said Pelham easily. “But in private, just among us … why should I deny it? It’s smart business. That’s all.”

  “Crooked business,” said Charlie savagely between set teeth.

  Pelham chuckled again. “I’m making money on the Bar L while all the rest of you are going deeper in debt with every bad season. Wouldn’t hurt you other fellows to learn some tricks from me.”

  Charlie slouched back with his elbows resting on his knees. He had been a damned fool to push Henry Pelham that way. Getting himself killed wasn’t going to help anything—least of all Hugh Aiken, who was depending on him—and Peggy.

  He rolled another cigarette, and his fingers shook so badly with spent anger that he tore two papers before he got a bulky cylinder fashioned.

  Hank Greenow had ridden up to the corral and was unsaddling. He was a thin, wire-muscled man, with his left arm cut off above the elbow, result of a tangle with a long-horned steer in his youth. From the porch, Charlie could see a black scowl on the old man’s features as he looked at Pelham’s saddled horse. Hank was tough and ill-tempered, as ornery as a two-year-old bull in rutting time, but he loved Peggy Aiken and the Triangle A with the passion that only a lonely and embittered old man is capable of, and Charlie shrewdly suspected that Hank refused to leave his job, though many months’ back-pay were due him.

  Slowly, while he stared at Hank, Charlie said, “I reckon maybe you’re right at that, Pelham. I could use some money-makin’ tricks on my place awright.”

  “Sure you could. You’ve got a nice little spread out there, Barnes.” Pelham spoke in an obvious effort to placate the young man whom he had been about to kill five minutes before. “You’ve got a wide valley there that’d cut hay as good as anything I stack at the Bar L. You could feed through the winter and have your stuff fat for shipping early while the price is up.”

  “Yep. I sure could, I guess. If I knew anythin’ about cuttin’ hay an’ such.”

  “Dad always said that’d be the ruination of the range,” Peggy blazed out suddenly. “It’s against nature. Nesters will come in as soon as you show them the range is good for raising crops. They’ll fence off little pieces and cut the range up into bits. Pretty soon they’ll crowd the cattle ranchers out.”

  Henry Pelham laughed indulgently. “Your father was old-fashioned. In his day cattle prices were high and there was no such thing as drought. But we have to keep up with the times.”

  “By … throwing in with rustlers from across the Border?” Peggy asked with sudden viciousness.

  Pelham’s answering chuckle was still indulgent. “You don’t understand such things, Peggy. Leave them to the men. You shouldn’t have to worry your pretty head about ranching. Eh, Barnes?”

  “Tha’s right,” Charlie muttered in a tone of constraint.

  Peggy threw him an appealing glance. “Are you siding with Henry now?”

  “I guess maybe I am.” Charlie hesitated. “How do you go about cuttin’ your hay, Henry?”

  “I’ve been doing it with a scythe, but I’ve just gotten in one of those newfangled cutting machines. Tell you what, Barnes. I need a man over at my place to run that machine right now. How’d you like the job? I’ll pay you enough so you can well afford to hire an extra hand on your own spread … if there’s anything to do over there.”

  “Why,” said Charlie humbly, “that’d be great. But I thought you hired Mexicans for the haying.”

  He heard Peggy gasp when he accepted Pelham’s offer of a job. He was conscious of her reproachful eyes on him, but he doggedly refused to look at her.

  “So I do,” Pelham agreed readily. “They do all the hand work. Gathering and stacking. But they’re no good with any kind of machinery … and my riders are insulted if I order one of them to drive a team. Just got a new bunch of Mexes in,” he went on with a malicious undertone of enjoyment. “There’s some good-looking girls with them. No need for you to be lonely while you’re working for me. But you’ll have to beat Les Edwards’ time. He’s already been snooping around.”

  Peggy laid a trembling hand on Charlie’s arm. “Don’t jump into anything,” she pleaded in a hushed voice. “Stay and eat supper.…”

  Pretending he hadn’t heard Peggy, Henry Pelham interrupted curtly, “If you’re taking that job you’d better start riding, Barnes. You can just about make the Bar L in time for chuck. Tell the foreman I said to fix you up … and I won’t be home till later … if Miss Peggy will invite me to stay to supper with her.”

  Peggy waited breathlessly for Charlie to throw Pelham’s smug assurance back in his face and tell him to go to the devil. But Charlie only nodded and arose. He said, “You’re the boss,” and strode off toward his horse.

  Peggy watched him go with a queer feeling of unreality fighting against her bitter disappointment in Charlie. The shadows of evening were lengthening, and her gaze followed the stocky figure of Charlie on his shaggy roan until it merged with and disappeared into the late afternoon heat haze. The wistful, questing expression on her thin proud young face went away and was replaced by a hard look of new maturity.

  She turned to Henry Pelham and drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry … that Charlie came along and interrupted. I was just going to tell you … that I’ll marry you as soon as you want me to.”

  4

  It was late at night of the sixth day following the Rio Kid’s departure from El Paso. He had covered two hundred and forty miles on his black stallion in those six days. A lot of distance in six days, but Thunderbolt appeared as fresh now as he had been at the beginning of the journey. There was a close communion of spirit between man and rider which communicated the Kid’s feeling of urgency to his sleek black mount. It was as though Thunderbolt understood that the Rio Kid was coming home at last, as though the black stallion gave his tacit approval to the venture by the eager untiring pace that had completed the trip in six days instead of seven.