Crossroads Read Online Free Page B

was with Dix Van Dyck and Jacqueline. She danced rather clumsily at first, as though she had almost forgotten the steps, but, before he became conscious of disappointment, she changed and grew more warmly alive in his arms. There was a cat-like lightness in her step so that the sway of her body followed him almost as if she were poised in air and drawn hither and thither mysteriously—at his will.
    As for Jack, she glimpsed the glances of envy and admiration that followed her and knew that she was dancing divinely—knew it and was grateful to the man who held her. The incense of flattery had long been absent, and now it swept up gloriously until her nostrils trembled to inhale it deeply. She had been a creature of action, of masculine and terrible action, and, as such, accepted bythe men and the women among whom she moved. Now she became, in an instant, femininely appealing, beautiful. A new and mighty strength filled her.
    With all her heart she hated the bearded man who tapped Dix Van Dyck on his shoulder in the middle of the dance. They had paused at the edge of the dance floor and the man said: “Stranger, be on your way. You’ve started your own little hell by dancing with Jack, but someone else is liable to put on the finishing touch. There was a Mexican in here a minute ago…a bad one by the look…asking after a man like you. The deputy marshal…Glasgow…was with him. I sent ’em down the street, but they’ll be back. Take my advice, and don’t wait.”
    With that, he turned on his heel, and Dix Van Dyck, a towering figure in the crowd, stiffened and stared after him. Truly the arm of Sheriff Oñate was long.
    “The bad luck,” he nodded and stared down at the face of the girl.
    “The bad luck,” she agreed. “It didn’t wait.” She said it half ruefully, half carelessly, like one familiar with danger. “Take the back door,” she advised. “It’s the easiest way out.”
    “The easiest way,” said the big man calmly, “is to get back to our table and wait for what comes. This ain’t the finish. It’s only the beginning of a long trail.”
    She followed him back to the table. It was only because she wanted a chance to argue the point.
    “But you see,” she explained, as they slipped again into their chairs, Van Dyck facing the door, “that everything is against you. The deputy marshal can call on everyone in the house, if he wants ’em. Besides, do you know the country in case you make a getaway?”
    “Not a mile of it. I come from the south.”
    “What’ve you done that started the law after you?”
    “Nothing. We’ve got a badman for sheriff down in Chaparna County. He’s after my scalp.”
    “And you’re going to sit here and see this through?”
    “Sure. What would you do?”
    She avoided the question. “It’s a crazy idea. Take my word, the best thing is to cut and run. It’s bad to have a sheriff after you. It’s a lot worse to have a marshal, and Glasgow sticks to a trail like glue to a dog’s tail.”
    Apparently he barely heard her words but sat stiff and straight in his chair, his keen eyes plunging into the future. By deep and sympathetic intuition she knew all that was passing in his mind.
    His reason told him in no uncertain terms to take the advice of the girl and leave the saloon. But the same perverse instinct that had first made the man hunt her out, now held him in his chair, waiting for the surely approaching danger.
    She knew at once that it was useless to argue longer with him. But the suspense began to make her uncomfortable and sick inside—the qualm that comes to the soldier before the battle. What made it doubly deadly was the noise that continued unabated throughout the rest of the great room. From the gaming tables, from the bar, from the orchestra, from the dance floor and the tables around it, the same unbroken stream of chatter, cries, curses, laughter poured out at them. It was like a grim parody of the whole of life. Into this gay throng death