Free The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout Page B

quickly, rifle up.
    â€œTake off the noose,” she said.
    He raised one arm, and the other, awkwardly, as though it pained his joints, and fumbled at the noose until he could lift it over his head and let it slide. His horse had not moved. Next he tried to dismount, but raising his right leg unbalanced him and he toppled off the horse and crashed into the snow and lay as though unconscious. She waited. After a bit, still on his back, he moved arms and legs up, down, and sideways to restore circulation, and when he had, dragged himself onto his knees and with a hand on the horse’s flank helped himself to his feet and stood turning his head to get the kinks out of his neck.
    Mary Bee watched him like a hawk.
    He did a strange thing. He coiled the rope. Either he was not a man to waste good rope or he wanted this as a memento.
    â€œNeed to go house,” he said hoarsely, hanging the coil over a forearm. “Find some things.”
    â€œGo,” she said.
    â€œGet your wagon,” he said.
    She frowned but started out and around the tree and after only a few steps heard him. He was passing water on the sycamore trunk. Either he had to or he wanted to show contempt.
    By the time she got up on the wagon, rifle on the seat beside her, and had the mules moving again, he was leading his horse by the halter up the narrowing ravine, plodding barefoot through the snow. Twice he stopped to have a coughing fit and blow his nose with his fingers, a man’s habit she hated, that and spitting. When they reached Andy’s place he led his horse on into the stable, presumably to give it a feed, then returned to the ruined dugout. She sat on the wagon waiting, rifle across her lap, and watched him hunt around beyond the half-wall of sod for whatever useful he could find. She couldn’t believe herself. What in sin and salvation had Mary Bee Cuddy gone and done? What did an oath sworn on a stack of Bibles mean to a claim-jumper? Only the Lord knew how many other kinds of criminal he was. Would he rape her or kill her or both? Or simply leave her with a laugh? What might he do when she had to tell him, eventually, where they were going and why? Should she whip the mules away, now, and pay alone, on the trail, the price of her idiocy? The sun passed beyond the western rim of the ravine and she sat in shadow, shivering.
    He came out of the dugout dressed, his face as smudged as ever. He had found a slouch hat, boots, a ragged red scarf to sling around his neck, a coat of cowhide worn in places down to the leather, and something in each hand. He came toward the wagon, dropping what appeared to be a tin of sardines into a pocket, and then, opening his coat, shoved under his belt a big repeating pistol with a blackened wooden grip.
    â€œYou can put away the rifle,” he said. “I can blow you off that seat anytime I’m a mind to. What kind of rig is this?”
    â€œA frame wagon. For passengers.”
    He turned and walked away to the stable and returned leading his horse, saddled, and slung the coil of rope on top of the wagon, then mounted up and looked straight at Mary Bee. He had eyes as brown and bottomless as ponds in a marsh.
    â€œWell?” he said.
    â€œWe’ll go to my place. Is your name Briggs?”
    â€œMight be.”
    â€œWe’ll stay the night there and set out first thing in the morning.”
    â€œYou said a job of work.”
    â€œI’ll tell you when I’m a mind to.”
    â€¢   •   •
    If she did once, she looked back over her shoulder twenty times to see if he was still there, following, riding that rat-tailed roan, and every time, he was.
    When they topped the rise to her place she told Briggs to unhitch the mules and stable and feed them, and also her mare and his horse, and also see to her other stock.
    He sat his horse and stared at her. She might as well have been talking Hottentot. She knew a loner when she met one. Of course a loner