Flaming Fortune by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428502390
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

IX

Mighty Fair and Square

In such a great event all the small details are remembered eagerly afterward, although they are hardly noticed at the time. What Lefty Richards saw at the moment was only the girl, but afterward he remembered all the picture and never tired of putting it together bit by bit. It was just after the red time of the dusk. There was still a flushed streak in the west, and all around the horizon a pale strip divided the night sky from the earth, and the tallest mountains lifted above that strip and joined their heads to the large, deep sea of the central sky. There was just enough light to show the coming of the dark. It was the pause between life and sleep when the day has passed into its old age. The business of that day had ended; the children had come out to play in the street; from far-off kitchens could be heard the clatter of pans that were being washed; back doors slammed as the scraps were carried out to the chicken yards; a coyote yelled in the distance, and the dogs raised a sullen chorus in response. All of these noises came, but they were lost and muffled in the overhanging thickness of the night. Even the wind was tired and walked like a ghost from tree to tree, whispering to each as it passed.

In such a moment he stood before Jo Morrison and felt his body tremble with the vigor of his heartbeat. She was wearing that same white dress. It shimmered like a sheaf of moonbeams in the shadow of the trees.

“Lefty . . . Mister Richards?” she asked timidly as he came nearer.

He tugged the hat from his head. The pulse in his temples stopped thudding so steadily. “I’m Lefty,” he admitted.

“I’m Jo Morrison,” she said.

When she did not speak, he began to grope wildly for something to say, and he found nothing. He began to stammer something. Was it about the coolness of the evening? His own confusion reassured her. She cut quietly into the muttering of his talk. “When I saw you today, Lefty, I didn’t know. I guess you thought. . . .” She paused, and then stamped as though angered by her own lack of coherence. “I didn’t know!” she breathed suddenly.

“About what?” he asked.

“Gus Harley told me.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“He told you I was a crook . . . a gent just out of the penitentiary?” he asked her.

Perhaps the sheriff had told her, likewise, that it was the sight of her that had persuaded him to stay in the town. If Gus Harley had given her that news which brought her now to scoff and mock at him, he would have the life of the sheriff even if it took his own to buy it. He set his teeth and looked sternly at the girl.

“If I’d known about you,” she said, “I’d never have talked to you like that. I didn’t know, Lefty. I wouldn’t’ve treated a dog like that.

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