Bad Man's Gulch by Max Brand

finding her, no doubt, wanting.
    Still, she could not unbend at once, and she was full of the revolt that had recently swept over her. There was iron in her voice when she said: “Can you walk?”
    â€œI figger that I can,” he said. “Anyway, I aim to try.” He laid hold upon the supporting post that held up the counter, and, pulling with the one hand and thrusting himself up with the other, he managed to sway to his knees. There he paused. She could hear his panting, and his breast worked withthe cost of the labor. There came to her a disgusting suspicion that he was overdoing the fatigue and acting a part for the sake of imposing upon her. She did not stir to help him. Now he strove again, and came to his feet by degrees, and stood with his big hand spread on the counter, leaning over it, breathing hard.
    There was no sham here. She could see a tremor in those large hands, and that was proof enough. No acting could counterfeit the reality so perfectly. Once again there was a sudden and hot melting of the girl’s heart.
    â€œBilly Angel,” she said fiercely, “did you do it? Did you really do it?”
    Even in that moment of near collapse, his caustic humor did not desert him. “Are you aimin’ to believe what I say?” he asked her.
    â€œI
shall
believe it.”
    â€œWhy, then, sure I didn’t.” He grinned at her again, as though part in mockery and part asking her to step inside a more intimate understanding of this affair. There was no way in which she could come close to him. Still he thrust her away to arm’s length and seemed to laugh at her attempts to know him and the truth about him. Something about that grim independence made her admire him; something about it made her fear him. He seemed capable of anything, of facing one hundred men with guns in their hands—or, indeed, of stabbing one helpless man in the back by stealth. She would have paid down without an afterthought the treasures of a Crœsus to have known the truth. She would have paid down that much to win from him one serious, open, frank-hearted answer.
    â€œYou didn’t do it,” she said. “Well, God knows, Ihope you didn’t. Now I got to get you upstairs where I can have a look at that wound.”
    He pointed up and over his shoulder. “Up to your room?”
    â€œYes.”
    He shook his head with a half-scornful, half-mirthful smile. “I’ll be off.”
    â€œYou’ll freeze to death in an hour. Look at the windows.”
    They were clouded with thick white, quite opaque.
    â€œSue,” he said, “I dunno but what you’re an ace-high trump, but when it comes to hidin’ in your room . . .” His smile disappeared; a wild and vacant look crossed his face, and he reeled, holding tight to the edge of the counter while his knees sagged. Only a giant effort of the will had kept him erect, she could see. She caught at him as she had done before, passing his unwounded arm over her shoulder, taking him around the triple-corded muscles of the waist with her free arm.
    â€œCome along,” she commanded, and dragged him toward the door that led to the upstairs room.
    Then his bravado deserted him. “Sue,” he said, “for heaven’s sake, lemme go. I don’t deserve the good treatment a dog . . .”
    â€œI’m doin’ no more for you than I would for a hurt dog.”
    â€œLemme rest one minute more,” he gasped out, “and then I can get outside. . . .”
    â€œTo die?”
    â€œI’ll find a . . . a way. . . .” He reeled, and the weight of his body sent them both staggering.
    In that moment she brought him through the door. “Now up the stairs. You’ve got to work for me, and with me, Billy Angel!”
    â€œLemme rest . . . one minute. . . .”
    She let him lean against the wall, his head fallen back, his wounded arm hanging limply, the other loosely over her, pressing