Last Stand at Saber River (1959) by Leonard Elmore

Author:Leonard, Elmore [Elmore, Leonard,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-01-21T02:29:02.234000+00:00

And even if I said no

They have a time for themselves, Janroe went on. They carry on like young bucks with the first smell of spring. Though they expect their wives to sit home and be as good as gold.

You know this from experience?

I've seen them. His voice was low and confiding. Some of them come home with the habit of their wild ways still inside them, and they go wandering off again.

He watched her closely, his head lowered and within inches of hers. Then there's some women who aren't fooled by it and they say, 'yIf he can fool around and have a time, then so can I.' Those women do it, too. They start having a time for themselves and it serves their husbands right.

Martha did not move. She was looking at him, at his heavy mustache and the hard, bony angles of his face, feeling the almost oppressive nearness of him. She said nothing.

Janroe asked, almost a whisper, You know what I mean?

If I were to tell my husband what you just said, Martha answered quietly, I honestly believe he would kill you.

Janroe's expression did not change. I don't think so. Your husband needs me. He needs a place for you and the kids to stay.

Are you telling me that I'm part of the agreement between you and my husband?

Well now, nothing so blunt as all that. Janroe smiled. We're white men.

We'll be out of here within an hour, Martha said coldly.

Now wait a minute. You don't kid very well, do you?

Not about that.

He backed away from her, reaching for his hat. I don't even think you know what I was talking about.

Let's say that I didn't, Martha said. For your sake.

Janroe shrugged. You think whatever you want. He put his hat on and walked out. In front of the store, he mounted a saddled buckskin and rode off.

He could still see the calm expression of Martha Cable's face as he forded the shallow river, as he kicked the buckskin up the bank and started across the meadow that rolled gradually up into the pines that covered the crest of the slope. Then he was spurring, running the buckskin, crossing the sweep of meadow, in the open sunlight now with the hot breeze hissing past his face. But even then Martha was before him.

She stared at him coldly. And the harder he ran holding the reins short to keep the buckskin climbing, feeling the brute strength of the horse's response, hearing the hoofs and the wind and trying to be aware of nothing else the more he was aware of Martha's contempt for him.

Some time later, following the trail that ribboned through the pines, the irritating feeling that he had made a fool of himself began to subside. It was as if here in the silence, in the soft shadows of the pines, he was hidden from her eyes.

He told himself to forget about her. The incident in the kitchen had been a mistake. He had seen

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