Chapter 15

She was puzzled by the manner in which he heard her to the end. She expected an outburst; and she found only that after one moment, during which his body became rigid and a look of incredulous horror settled in his eyes, a deadly quiet enveloped him. He did not try to comfort her--and certainly there was no evidence that he blamed her. He asked her a few questions when she had finished. He was not seeking to implicate her--she felt certain of that. He merely wanted to be quite sure of his ground.

Then he got up and began dressing, deliberately and quietly. It did not occur to her that he was not putting on the clothes he usually wore on Sunday, but this deviation from a rule would not have seemed significant to her even if she had noticed it. She closed her eyes and pondered. In Sylvia's world men did not calmly ignore injury. They became violent, even when violence could not possibly mend matters. Had Harboro decided to accept the inevitable, the irremediable, without a word? Her first thought, last night, had been that she would probably lose Harboro, too, together with her peace of mind. He would rush madly at Fectnor, and he would be killed. Was he the sort of man who would place discretion first and pocket an insult?

Oddly, the fear that he would attack Fectnor changed to a fear that he did not intend to do so. She could not bear to think of the man she loved as the sort of man who will not fight, given such provocation as Harboro had.

She opened her eyes to look at him, to measure him anew. But he was no longer in the room.

Then her fear for him returned with redoubled force. Quiet men were sometimes the most desperate, the most unswerving, she realized. Perhaps he had gone even now to find Fectnor.

The thought terrified her. She sprang from the bed and began dressing with feverish haste. She would overtake him and plead with him not to go. If necessary, she would tell him other things about herself--about the reasons she had given Fectnor, long ago, to believe that she was not a woman to be respected. Harboro would not forgive her, in that event. He would leave her. But he would not go to his death. It seemed to her quite clear that the only unforgivable sin she could commit would be to permit Harboro to die for her sake.

She hurried down into the dining-room. Ah, Harboro was there! And again she was puzzled by his placidity. He was standing at a window, with his back to her, his hands clasped behind him. He turned when he heard her. "It promises to be another warm day," he said pleasantly. Then he turned and looked out through the kitchen door as if hinting to Antonia that breakfast might now be served.

He ate his grapes and poached eggs and drank his coffee in silence. He seemed unaware that Sylvia was regarding him with troubled eyes.

When he arose from the table he turned toward the hall. As if by an afterthought, he called back, "I'm going to be busy for a little while, Sylvia," and she heard him going up the stairs.

His tone had conveyed a hint that he did not wish to be disturbed, she thought, but she could not help being uncomfortably curious. What was there to be done on a Sunday morning that could compare in importance with the obviously necessary task of helping her to forget the injuries she had suffered? It was not his way to turn away from her when she needed him.

She could not understand his conduct at all. She was wounded; and then she began to think more directly, more clearly. Harboro was not putting this thing away from him. In his way he was facing it. But how?

She noiselessly climbed the stairs and opened the door of their bedroom.

With great exactitude of movement he was cleaning a pistol. He had taken it apart and just now a cylinder of burnished steel was in his hand.

He frowned when he heard her. "I am sorry you came up, Sylvia," he said. "I had an idea I'd given you to understand...."

She hurriedly withdrew, closing the door behind her. She felt an inexplicable elation as she went down the stairs; yet she felt that she stood face to face with calamity, too. Her man was a fighting man, then--only he was not a madman. He was the sort of fighter who did not lose his head. But she could not picture him as a man skilled in the brutal work of killing. He was too deliberate, too scrupulous, for that sort of work. And Fectnor was neither deliberate nor scrupulous. He was the kind of man who would be intently watchful for an advantage, and who would be elated as he seized that advantage.

... She would persuade Harboro not to go, after all. The thing was not known. It would never be known. Her searching woman's logic brought to her the realization that the only way to publish the facts broadcast was for Harboro to seek a quarrel with Fectnor. He would have to give his reasons.

But when Harboro came down the stairs she knew instantly that she could not stop him from going. That quiet look was not unreadable now. It meant unswerving determination.

He called to her, his hand outstretched; and when she went to him he kissed her. His voice was gentle and unshaken, in quite the habitual way, when he said: "_I shall be back in a little while_."

She clasped her hands and looked at him imploringly. "Don't go," she pleaded.

"Ah, but I must go."

She touched his cheeks with her hands. "Don't go!" she repeated. "Nothing can be undone."

"But a man's job isn't to undo things--it's to do them."

She held her face high as if the waters were engulfing her. "Don't go!" she said again; and her eyes were swimming, so that at the last she did not see him go, and did not know that he had kept that look of placid courage to the end.

It was a little early for the usual Sunday morning loiterers to be about as Harboro entered the town. For a moment he believed there was no one about at all. The little town, with its main street and its secondary thoroughfares bordered by low structures, might have been regarded as the habitation of lesser creatures than human beings, as it stood there musing after the departed night, in the midst of limitless wastes of sand. That group of houses might have been likened to some kind of larger birds, hugging the earth in trepidation, ready to take flight at any moment.

Yet Harboro had been mistaken in supposing that no one was as yet astir. Two men stood out in the street, at the entrance to the Maverick bar, near a hitching-post to which a small horse carrying a big saddle was tethered. One of the men was about to mount. As Harboro approached he untied his horse and lifted one foot to its stirrup, and stood an instant longer to finish what he was saying, or perhaps to hear the other out.

The other man was in his shirt-sleeves. He carried a blue-serge sack-coat over his arm. He stood facing Harboro as the latter approached; and the expression in his eyes seemed to change in a peculiar way at sight of the big, swarthy man who stepped off the sidewalk, down into the street, and seemed to be headed directly toward him.

The two men had never met before; but Harboro, taking in that compact, muscular figure, found himself musing with assurance: "That is Fectnor."

Nothing in his face or carriage betrayed his purpose, and the man with the blue-serge garment on his arm kept his ground complacently. The man with the horse mounted and rode away.

Harboro advanced easily until he was within arm's length of the other man in the street. "You're Fectnor, aren't you?" he asked.

"I am," replied the other crisply.

Harboro regarded him searchingly. At length he remarked: "Fectnor, I see you've got a gun on you."

"I have," was the steely response. Fectnor's narrow blue eyes became, suddenly, the most alert thing about a body which was all alertness.

"So have I," said Harboro.

The other's narrow eyes seemed to twinkle. His response sounded like: "The L you say!"

"Yes," said Harboro. He added: "My wife was the woman you trapped in Little's house last night."

Fectnor's mind went swiftly to the weapon in his holster; and something more than his mind, surely, since Harboro knew. Yet the man's hand had barely moved. However, he casually threw the coat he carried over his left arm, leaving his right hand free. If he had thought of reaching for his weapon he had probably realized that he must first get out of reach of Harboro's arm. "You might put that a little different," he said lightly. "You might say--the woman I met in Little's house."

Harboro took in the insinuated insult. He remained unmoved. He could see that Fectnor was not a coward, no matter what else he was; and he realized that this man would seek to enrage him further, so that his eyes would be blinded, so that his hands would tremble.

"I'm going to kill you, Fectnor," Harboro continued. "But I'm going to give you a chance for your life. I want you to turn and walk down the street twelve paces. Then turn and draw. I'll not draw until you turn unless you try to play a trick on me. Your best chance lies in your doing just as I tell you to."

Fectnor regarded him shrewdly with his peering, merry eyes. He rather liked Harboro, so far as first impressions went. Yet his lips were set in a straight line. "All right," he drawled amiably. His voice was pitched high--almost to a falsetto.

"Remember, you'd better not draw until you've turned around," advised Harboro. "You'll be more likely to get your bearings right that way. You see, I want to give you an even break. If I'd wanted to murder you I could have slipped up from behind. You see that, of course."

"Clear as a whistle," said Fectnor. He gave Harboro a final searching look and then turned about unflinchingly. He proceeded a few steps, his hands held before him as if he were practising a crude cake-walk. The serge garment depended from one arm. He was thinking with lightning-like rapidity. Harboro had courage enough--that he could tell--but he didn't behave like a man who knew very many tricks with a gun. Nevertheless he, Fectnor, would be under a disadvantage in this test of skill which was being forced upon him. When he turned he would need just a second to get a perfect balance, to be quite sure of his footing, to get his bearings. And that one second might make all the difference in the outcome of the affair. Moreover, there was one other point in Harboro's favor, Fectnor realized. His was the stronger determination of the two. Fectnor had not flinched, but he knew that his heart was not in this fight. He could see that Harboro was a good deal of a man. A fool, perhaps, but still a decent fellow.

These were conclusions which had come in flashes, while Fectnor took less than half a dozen steps. Then he turned his head partly, and flung back almost amiably: "Wait until I get rid of my coat!"

"Drop it!" cried Harboro sharply.

But Fectnor plainly had another idea. He turned a little out of his course, still with his hands well in front of him. It was evident, then, that he meant to fling his coat on the sidewalk.

Harboro held him with eyes which were keen as knives, yet still a little dubious. He was puzzled by the man's good humor; he was watchful for sudden stratagems. His own hands were at his sides, the right within a few inches of his hip.

Yet, after all, he was unprepared for what happened. Fectnor leaned forward as if to deposit his coat on the sidewalk. Then he seemed to stumble, and in two swift leaps he had gained the inner side of the walk and had darted into the inset of the saloon. He was out of sight in a flash.

As if by some feat in legerdemain Harboro's weapon was in his hand; but it was a hand that trembled slightly. He had allowed Fectnor to gain an advantage.

He stared fixedly at that place where Fectnor had disappeared. His right hand was held in the position of a runner's, and the burnished steel of the weapon in it caught the light of the sun. He had acquired the trick of firing while his weapon was being elevated--not as he lowered it; with a movement like the pointing of a finger. He was ready for Fectnor, who would doubtless try to take him by surprise.

Then he realized that the level rays of the sun made the whole entrance to the saloon, with its several facets of glass, a thing of dazzling opaqueness. He could not see Fectnor until the latter stepped forth from his ambush; yet it seemed probable that Fectnor might be able to see him easily enough through the glass barricade behind which he had taken refuge. He might expect to hear the report of a weapon and the crash of glass at any instant.

At this realization he had an ugly sensation at the roots of his hair--as if his scalp had gone to sleep. Yet he could only stand and wait. It would be madness to advance.

So he stood, almost single-mindedly. He had a disagreeable duty to perform, and he must perform it. Yet the lesser cells of his brain spoke to him, too, and he realized that he must present a shocking sight to law-abiding, happy people, if any should appear. He was glad that the street was still deserted, and that he might reasonably hope to be unseen.

Then his hand shot forward with the fierceness of a tiger's claw: there had been a movement in the saloon entrance. Only by the fraction of a second was the finger on the trigger stayed.

It was not Fectnor who appeared. Dunwoodie stepped into sight casually and looked in Harboro's direction. The expression of amused curiosity in his eyes swiftly gave place to almost comical amazement when he took in that spasmodic movement of Harboro's.

"What's up?" he inquired. He approached Harboro leisurely.

"Stand aside, Dunwoodie," commanded Harboro harshly.

"Well, wait a minute," insisted Dunwoodie. "Calm yourself, man. I want to talk to you. Fectnor's not in the saloon. He went on through and out the back way."

Harboro wheeled with an almost despairing expression in his eyes. He seemed to look at nothing, now--like a bird-dog that senses the nearness of the invisible quarry. The thought came to him: "Fectnor may appear at any point, behind me!" The man might have run back along the line of buildings, seeking his own place to emerge again.

But Dunwoodie went on reassuringly. He had guessed the thought in Harboro's mind. "No, he's quite gone. I watched him go. He's probably in Mexico by this time--or well on his way, at least."

Harboro drew a deep breath. "You watched him go?"

"When he came into the saloon, like a rock out of a sling, he stopped just long enough to grin, and fling out this--to me--'If you want to see a funny sight, go out front.' Fectnor never did like me, anyway. Then he scuttled back and out. I followed to see what was the matter. He made straight for the bridge road. He was sprinting. He's gone."

Harboro's gun had disappeared. He was frowning; and then he realized that Dunwoodie was looking at him with a quizzical expression.

He made no explanation, however.

"I must be getting along home," he said shortly. He was thinking of Sylvia.