“Valois said you had a job for me,” he said, but did not change his expression of blunt appraisal.
If it had not been so deadly serious it might have been amusing to see a girl like Rhea choking on her pride. Lloyd voiced no off-color word or suggestion; only his eyes spoke his thoughts. And Rhea, her body growing more rigid, the color of anger climbing steadily in her face, fought to control her instincts.
In the end, of course, she succeeded. Grant, watching silently from the far side of the room, held the brief hope that she would break and react like a real woman. But she held her ground, bit back her anger—and perhaps she even convinced herself that she had misread the things she saw in Kirk Lloyd's eyes—and when she spoke her voice was steady.
“Yes,” she said, “I have a job for you. My brother is... indisposed,” and Lloyd made no sign that he knew what she was talking about. “We must have a man to take my brother's place, to help protect the lease against Farley's attacks.”
“I see,” he said. But the tone of his voice said that his mind was on other things. “My services come high.”
“We're willing to pay anything within reason,” Rhea said quickly, emphasizing the word reason.
The gunman never took his eyes away from her face. “I usually get paid in advance.”
“As soon as we're spudded in we'll pay you.”
“That's a gamble,” Lloyd said flatly, “and men in my position can't afford to gamble.”
Rhea went on as though she hadn't heard him. “You have reason to hate Ben Farley, don't you, Mr. Lloyd?”
Something happened behind the gunman's eyes, and it was not pleasant to watch. “Enough to kill him,” he said quietly.
Rhea glanced quickly at Grant and almost smiled. “That's up to you,” she said to Lloyd. “But murder is no small thing, even here in the Nations. There's a deputy marshal in Kiefer, and he'll see you hang if you go gunning for Farley.”
Even a man like Lloyd respected Jim Dagget's ability as a lawman, and it was clear that Rhea's thought was not new to him. “What do you suggest?” he asked.
And now Rhea would not look at Grant. She did not like the way Lloyd looked at her, and she did not like putting her thoughts into words. But the gunman would not accept implication; he would meet her only on his own level of cold violence. To accomplish this, all he had to do was remain silent.
The color mounted to Rhea's face, and it was not so much from anger now, but shame. In a desperate attempt to skirt her own conscience, she said, “Don't you see! If you worked for us, the Muller lease would protect you against Dagget!”
He understood perfectly well, and said, “Tell me how you could protect me against Dagget?”
And Rhea knew that he would have it no other way. He was determined to make her say it, thereby declaring him her moral equal.
There was nothing Grant could do to help her. This was her decision and she would have to make it her own way and for her own reasons. And he could see her pride deserting her, and her haughtiness, but not her determination. She wheeled suddenly, the full white dress swirling like foam around her ankles, and she paced nervously to the dugout's single small window and stood for one long moment staring out at the blustery sky.
“All right,” she said at last. “Farley killed my father, he's responsible for my brother being wounded. But he's still alive and free, and the marshal does nothing about it!” For the first time she was exposing all her hate in these few words. “I want Farley killed, do you understand! I want to see him dead, the way I saw my father, and I don't care how it happens!”
Now she wheeled away from the window and her face was a fine, delicate mask of hate. “You'll have your chance to kill Farley, if you work for us. Sooner or later he'll make his play to wipe us out. Then, if you kill him, there's nothing Dagget can do about it, because you'll be on our pay roll, protecting our property. They don't call it murder, Mr. Lloyd, when a person fights back to protect his property.”
A kind of grim admiration showed in Lloyd's eyes; it was not every day that a gunman found a woman like Rhea Muller to meet him on his own level, talk to him in his own language. He got to his feet, his gaze fixed hungrily on Rhea's face. “Tell your man to hand back my pistol. I think we can do business together, Miss Muller.”
And by “business” he didn't mean murder alone, but Rhea chose not to understand the full meaning. She nodded to Grant, without actually looking at him.
Bleakly Grant handed over the revolver. He wanted to be angry, but strangely he found that he had lost most of his capacity for anger. From start to finish it had been a mistake, and he tried to tell himself that he was lucky to have it ended. But he didn't feel lucky now.
The gunman said, his voice full of meaning, “I'll be seeing you, Miss Muller,” and started toward the door.
Grant turned toward the dugout steps when Rhea said, “Joe, I want to talk to you.”
So it's Joe again, he thought, with a kind of grim humor, but he paused for a moment in the doorway, looking back at her, and finally, when Lloyd had reached the top of the outside steps, he closed the door again.
“Joe, we needed him! You understand, don't you?”
“Sure,” he said wearily.
She came toward him, pausing directly in front of him, but her eyes never quite met his. “Joe, I'm fighting for my life! For everything I ever wanted! And I'm not going to let Farley take it away from me!”
“I gathered that much. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe Farley deserves to be gunned down by a man like Lloyd, but I'm through with it, Rhea.”
Her eyes widened as they flitted about his face. “What do you mean?”
“I'm not working for you any more. I quit the minute you hired a killer on your crew. I don't know, maybe I'd do the same thing in your place, if it had been my father who was killed. I guess I can't be sure just what I would do if things were turned around. But they're not turned around, so I'm quitting.”
Her lips came together tightly, and her eyes narrowed, as though she were trying to see inside his brain. “Joe, you can't mean it. You can't run out on us when we need you!”
Grant shook his head. “You don't need me, Rhea. Once I felt sorry for you, one lone girl going up against a man like Farley. I guess I should have felt sorry for Farley.” He pulled his hat down on his forehead. “You'll find another man to take my place, another Joe Grant, or Turk Valois. One man more or less needn't bother you, Rhea.”
Abruptly, she laughed. The sound was edged with a wild-ness that chilled him. “You wouldn't dare walk out on me! I know all about you—that bank robbery in Joplin—I'll call Jim Dagget the minute I see you getting your roll together!”
Grant stood motionless, looking at her. Here was a Rhea that he had never seen before; here was feminine uncertainty and fear skirting the thin edge of hysteria. “Nobody's ever been able to stop you from doing as you please,” he said stiffly. “I guess there's no use of my trying it now.”
He put one hand on the door latch and suddenly she was on him, her arms about his neck. “Joe, I didn't mean that! I wouldn't call Dagget!”
He had almost forgotten what it was like having a woman, like Rhea, in his arms again, having a woman clinging to him, depending on him. “Joe, you've got to listen to me! I'm afraid of Lloyd—the way he looks at me! You can't leave me here alone with him!”
“You'll have Turk Valois to look after you.”
“Valois!” She spat the word. “He thought he could buy me! I loved him once—or thought I did—but he thought he owned me with his money! And when he had no money...”