The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1937-11-11

he did so he found that her eyes
were on his face. They looked at
each other steadily, while the mo-
ments passed.
If he had held her eyes so long
two years ago she would have flush
ed and looked away, but she did
not look away now. Her eyes look
ed lazy, but not sleepy; they were
as darkly blue as night sky, but
he found them unreadable at first.
Then after a moment or two he
recognized that she was not think
| ing about murder clues.
All at once he knew that there
was no barrier between them any
more at all, and had not been any
for a long time, except the barrier
put there by his old defeat. And
he knew now that he had never
failed at all, but that the years had
worked for him in ways he would
not have guessed.
He said slowly, Il was the one
who was a fool
He never knew what move he
| made that brought her into his
arms. With the barrier gone from
between them at last they found
| themselves in each others arms "a
naturally, as unhurricd ly as inevi-
tally as the dry land takes up the
rare rains; and his heart lifted up
like the April grass of the dry
ranges, when the snow-lock meltS
| off and is forgotten as if it had new
er been His hungry mouth found
an answering culver in her lips:
and for a while, under the spell of
the gentle warmth that he had
thought would never be his, he no
longer worried about what might
happen to the cow kingdom of
Horse Dunn.
Presently she said, 1.-TWO years
ago it was rny fault. But last night
in the hills it was yours. If you
had only put your hands on me
then-but you had to stand with &
face like granite, and eyes like death
in the foothin:-''
Il know that-now-"
II don't know how I'm going to
ilet you 60. So many things-any-
thing-can happen before we're to-
gether again"
"But we have this hour, now"
Nothing can ever rob us of that!"
Each was seeing a person he had
never seen before. He was still
whipcord and braided leather, the
saddle man who could hold his own
in the upheaval of markets and the
shifting games of the fnanciers; but
all the barbed and dour hardnes"
of him was gone, so that in the
arms of this girl it was as if he
we're reborn. And in the girl the
hidden steel of the will he had not
been able to bend seemed melted.
and the curve of her body within his
arm was a surrender without re-
serve. .: a.. .-4 .,...,.
They did not know how long they
lay together on the bunk that for
the time was not his, but theirs, in
that lonely and deserted house; and
he learned here that she was Meth
er east nor west, but all woman.
"A harsh, taut strain that had held
them for days seemed to slacken
and 60 out of the night, as if guns
and cattle were unimportant things;
and in that hour that was their"
alone, one bitterness went out of
the world forever. It was not
surprise, but consummation, when
presently he found that she was
asleep.
TIE picked her up and carried her
to her own room, and put her in her
own bed; and she smiled family in
her sleep as he kissed her eyes.
Then he walked out of the house, by
/, different door than the one where
Coffee sat, and stood listening to the
still night.
Then, while his mind was entire
lily away from hate and violence
for the first time in week, some
thing in the back of his mind found
the answer, and all in a moment
he saw through the tangle that had
roped the 81. He knew suddenly
not only who had killed Flagg at
Short Creek, but why Flagg had
had more than a bunch that he
was riding into death; he knew why
Marian had been fired on; and he
knew how he could prove, inevita-
bly, and inescapably, who had killed
Bob Flagg- and the taut strain
of range war came back into the
night, turning him cold.
Wheeler walked around the house
Ito where Old Man Coffee still sat.
AS far as the naked eye could OBJ
serve Old Man Coffee still sat. AS
far as the naked eye could observe
I0ld Man Coffee had not chonond