The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

Dorn lunged upon him. Then followed a hard grappling sound and a hoarse yell. Something bright glinted in the sun. It made a sweeping circle, belched fire and smoke. The report stunned Lenore. She shut her eyes and clung to her father. She heard cries, a scuffling, sodden blows.

"Jake! Bill!" called Anderson. "Hold on! No gun-play yet! Dorn's makin' hash out of that fellow.… But watch the others sharp!"

Then Lenore looked again. Dorn had twisted the man around and was in the act of stripping off the further disguise of beard, disclosing the pale and convulsed face of a comparatively young man.

"Glidden!" burst out Dorn. His voice had a terrible ring of furious amaze. His whole body seemed to gather as in a knot and then to spring. The man called Glidden went down before that onslaught, and his gun went flying aside.

Three of Glidden's group started for it. The cowboy Bill leaped forward, a gun in each hand. "Hyar!… Back!" he yelled. And then all except the two struggling principals grew rigid.

Lenore's heart was burning in her throat. The movements of Dorn were too swift for her sight. But Glidden she saw handled as if by a giant. Up and down he seemed thrown, with bloody face, flinging arms, while he uttered hoarse bawls. Dorn's form grew more distinct. It plunged and swung in frenzied energy. Lenore heard men running and yells from all around. Her father spread wide his arm before her, so that she had to bend low to see. He shouted a warning. Jake was holding a gun thrust forward.

"Boss, he's goin' to kill Glidden!" said the cowboy, in a low tone.

Anderson's reply was incoherent, but its meaning was plain.

Lenore's lips and tongue almost denied her utterance. "Oh!… Don't let him!"

The crowd behind the wrestling couple swayed back and forth, and men changed places here and there. Bill strode across the space, guns leveled. Evidently this action was due to the threatening movements of several workmen who crouched as if to leap on Dorn as he whirled in his fight with Glidden.

"Wal, it's about time!" yelled Anderson, as a number of lean, rangy men, rushing from behind, reached Bill's side, there to present an armed and threatening front.

All eyes now centered on Dorn and Glidden. Lenore, seeing clearly for the first time, suffered a strange, hot paroxysm of emotion never before experienced by her. It left her weak. It seemed to stultify the cry that had been trying to escape her. She wanted to scream that Dorn must not kill the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry. Glidden's coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries. A ghastly face, appalling in its fear of death!

Lenore broke her mute spell of mingled horror and passion.

"For God's sake, don't let Dorn kill him!" she implored.

"Why not?" muttered Anderson. "That's Glidden. He killed Dorn's father—burned his wheat—ruined him!"

"Dad—for my—sake!" she cried brokenly.

"Jake, stop him!" yelled Anderson. "Pull him off!"

As Lenore saw it, with eyes again half failing her, Jake could not separate Dorn from his victim.

"Leggo, Dorn!" he yelled. "You're cheatin' the gallows!…Hey, Bill, he's a bull!… Help, hyar—quick!"

Lenore did not see the resulting conflict, but she could tell by something that swayed the crowd when Glidden had been freed.

"Hold up this outfit!" yelled Anderson to his men. "Come on, Jake, drag him along." Jake appeared, leading the disheveled and wild-eyed Dorn. "Son, you did my heart good, but there was some around here who didn't want you to spill blood. An' that's well. For I am seein' red.…Jake, you take Dorn an' Lenore a piece toward the house, then hurry back."

Then Lenore felt that she had hold of Dorn's arm and she was listening to Jake without understanding a word he said, while she did hear her father's yell of command, "Line up there, you I.W.W.'s!"

Jake walked so swiftly that Lenore had to run to keep up. Dorn stumbled. He spoke incoherently. He tried to stop. At this Lenore clasped his arm and cried, "Oh, Kurt, come home with me!"

They hurried down the slope. Lenore kept looking back. The crowd appeared bunched now, with little motion. That relieved her. There was no more fighting.

Presently Dorn appeared to go more willingly. He had relaxed. "Let go, Jake," he said. "I'm—all right—now. That arm hurts."

"Wal, you'll excuse me, Dorn, for handlin' you rough.… Mebbe you don't remember punchin' me one when I got between you an' Glidden?"

"Did I?… I couldn't see, Jake," said Dorn. His voice was weak and had a spent ring of passion in it. He did not look at Lenore, but kept his face turned toward the cowboy.

"I reckon this 's fur enough," rejoined Jake, halting and looking back. "No one comin'. An' there'll be hell to pay out there. You go on to the house with Miss Lenore.… Will you?"

"Yes," replied Dorn.

"Rustle along, then.… An' you, Miss Lenore, don't you worry none about us."

Lenore nodded and, holding Dorn's arm closely, she walked as fast as she could down the lane.

"I—I kept your coat," she said, "though I never thought of it—till just now."

She was trembling all over, hot and cold by turns, afraid to look up at him, yet immensely proud of him, with a strange, sickening dread. He walked rather dejectedly now, or else bent somewhat from weakness. She stole a quick glance at his face. It was white as a sheet. Suddenly she felt something wet and warm trickle from his arm down into her hand. Blood! She shuddered, but did not lose her hold. After a faintish instant there came a change in her.

"Are you—hurt?" she asked.

"I guess—not. I don't know," he said.

"But the—the blood," she faltered.

He held up his hands. His knuckles