Trail Smoke by Ernest Haycox

Author:Ernest Haycox [Haycox, Ernest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Westerns
ISBN: 9781558171619
Google: vmWpa1EMu-oC
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Published: 1993-12-15T03:17:03+00:00

Chapter Eleven—ACTION

Showing an open relief, the rider pulled his horse about and went away from the place rapidly. Surratt was frowning at that disappearing shape, but he could see the sudden red and violent flush creep across Torveen’s roan cheeks. He said to Torveen: “Who’s that rider?”

“A Cameron hand.” Torveen wheeled definitely toward Surratt “Didn’t you know it?” he said, challenge riding his tone.

“I wanted to make sure,” answered Surratt. He folded the note along its original creases, and refolded it, his eyes half shut. Torveen’s silence grew enormous, with an unspoken demand for an explanation in it. The late, low sun threw its bombing brilliance higher against the trees and shadows were beginning to spread in blue, irregular pools at the lower edge of the meadow. Surratt put the note in his pocket. “I’m going on a little ride, Sam.”

“Be back soon?” The indifference of Torveen’s question was strained and false; he stared down at the ground, his mouth pressed together.

“I’ll be late,” Surratt said and went to his horse. He rode away to the north, without looking back.

Torveen didn’t immediately stir from his position in the yard. He rolled himself a smoke and as long as Surratt remained in sight his glance covertly followed. He dragged heavy gusts of smoke into his lungs and expelled them vehemently. The flushed anger remained on his face; he was like a boy then, sulky and hurt and suspicious.

“So I guess,” he grumbled, “I’m supposed to hang around till somebody gives me different orders.”

He dropped the cigarette and stamped it with his boot. He wheeled over to his horse. In the saddle, he remained quiet a moment and seemed to argue with his own impulses. But there was a rankling emotion in him he could not help and could not kill. For a little while he debated following Surratt’s exact trail. Then he rejected the idea, galloped over the meadow to the northern ridge and entered the trees. There was a good spot on top of this ridge, he knew, where he might stand and watch the Cameron Valley. If Surratt was traveling that way he’d sooner or later know about it.

He was a little ashamed of himself. Yet Sam Torveen, so rash and ready with his impulses, was possessed by a jealousy stronger than his shame. There had been in him since boyhood a single-minded devotion to Judith Cameron; and there was in him as well these last few days a devout admiration for Buck Surratt. He owned a loyalty to both these people that had mixed in it a possessiveness and a queer feeling of inferiority. He could not explain these things to himself, yet it was true enough that in Buck Surratt’s slow talk and rare smile was a quality that made him feel humble and somehow inexperienced; and always he had seen in Judith a womanliness that everlastingly made him doubt his ability to win her.

He was a very human man. And when he had seen Surratt and

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