The Rider of Golden Bar Part 56

He drank the coffee slowly, with evident enjoyment.

"Nothing like coffee when your cork's pulled," he rambled on, slos.h.i.+ng round the last of the coffee in the bottom of the cup. "It beats whisky, but now that I've had the coffee I don't care if I do. Got a bottle tucked away somewhere, li'l girl?"

She was still unable to speak. Her mouth had an odd, cottony feeling.

She shook her head in reply to his question.

"Is that so?" he said in the chatty tone he had been using. "I guess maybe you're mistaken."

He set the cup down on the table, reached down and twisted his fingers into her hair. With a yank that brought the tears springing to her eyes, he said:

"About that bottle now--ain't you a mite mistaken? What's the matter?

Cat got your tongue?"

Again he pulled her hair, pulled it till the tears ran down her cheeks, and she moaned and cried in purest agony.

"C'mon!" directed Dan Slike. "Quit your bluffin', you triflin' hussy!

You ain't hurt a-tall. And I can't stay here all night while you sit on the floor and beller. Stand up on your two legs and bring me that bottle. And no monkey business either. Say, have you got a six-shooter? Answer me, have you?"

"No! No! I haven't! I haven't another gun." She told him this lie in such a heart-breaking tone that he was constrained to believe her.

"I'll have to take your word for it," he grumbled. "But you remember, girl, the first false move you make with a knife or anything else, I'll blow you apart. d.a.m.n you, get up!"

With which he gave her hair such a terrific twist that the exquisite pain expelled all her initial fear of him, and she leaped at him like a wildcat, her nails curving at his eyes.

Dan Slike dodged backward, set himself and swung his right fist without mercy. He was no boxer. The accurate placing of blows was beyond him.

So it was that the swing intended for her jaw landed on her cheekbone, a much less vulnerable spot. Nevertheless the smash was enough to send her spinning sidewise over a chair and piled her sicker and dizzier than before in a corner of the room.

She lay still and panted.

"You see how it is," he pointed out. "You ain't gainin' a thing by fighting me. Might as well be sensible first as last. But lemme tell you if you keep on a-fussin' at me thisaway, I'll sure have to be rough with you."

He sat down on the edge of the table and rolled a cigarette. Lighting it he drew in a slow luxurious lungful.

"One thing I gotta say for your sheriff," he observed behind a barrier of smoke, "he gimme plenty of tobacco while I was his guest. I can't say but he took right good care of me--for a sheriff."

His incarceration having deprived Dan Slike of conversational opportunities, he was now experiencing the natural reaction. He was talking too much.

"Fed me well too," he resumed. "Oh, I ain't complainin'. I--h.e.l.l, your grub's beginnin' to burn. I'll just move those frypans back.

Feelin' any better, girl?"

He came and stood over her, hands on hips, and looked down at her grimly. She shrank away, her wide eyes fixed upon him in fright and loathing.

It was evident that he found his survey of her satisfactory, for he kicked her in the side. Not hard. Simply as an earnest of what lay in store for her in case she chose to continue contumacious. "Get up," he commanded.

The nausea and most of the dizzy feeling had evaporated. She was perfectly able to get up, but it was intolerable that she should do the bidding of her uncle's murderer. She continued to lie still.

"Get up!" he repeated, and kicked her again--harder.

She got up, gasping, a hand at her side. She felt as though one of her ribs was broken. His long fingers fastened on the tender flesh of her shoulder. He shoved her across the room. She brought up against the stove. Instinctively she thrust out a hand to save herself. Her bare palm smacked down upon the hottest stove lid.

She sprang back with a choked cry and clapped the burned hand to her mouth.

Dan Slike laughed merrily--for him. "Serve you right. You're too d.a.m.n pernickety, anyway. Aw, whatcha blubberin' about, cry-baby? Dontcha know enough to put some bakin' soda on the burn and tie a rag round it?

Ain't you got any brains a-tall? Pick up that kettle! Just pick it up!"

Her unburned hand fell away from the kettle. She had seen the six-shooter flash out at his last words. She knew now that this man meant what he said. He would kill her, even as he had killed her uncle.

With a shudder that began at her knees and ended at the nape of her neck she went to the cupboard and took out a carton of baking soda.

"Here," he said roughly, when he saw that she was making a poor job at bandaging, "here, you can't tie that one-handed. Lemme."

He bandaged the hand, made fast the bandage with a too-tight knot. He obviously lingered over the business, deriving pleasure from her state of terror.

It has been shown that Hazel was not lacking in courage. Indeed, she had more than the average woman's share of it. But this man staggered her mentally. She did not know what he would do next and was in a panic accordingly.

"Scared stiff," he remarked, as he twirled her about and headed her toward the stove. "You don't like me a-tall, do you? Nemmine. Lessee how your grub tastes."

She had set the table for herself before he came in. He sat down at her place, his eyes bright upon her. Fumblingly she filled a plate with bacon and fried potatoes. She brought him another cup of coffee and placed the condensed milk and the sugar within his reach.

"Spoon," he said shortly.

She took the one from the cup he had just drunk from and handed it to him. He caught her wrist. The spoon fell with a clatter.

"You're so scared of me, you can't hardly breathe," he said calmly. "I don't like li'l girls to be scared of me, so you can just get you another plate and cup and saucer and sit down there on the other side of the table and eat your supper with me."

To eat supper with her uncle's murderer! Here was a grotesque j.a.pe of fate. It was unthinkable. Absolutely. The man divined something of what was pa.s.sing in her mind.

"All in the line of business, li'l girl," he said, with a backward jerk of his head toward the front room where he had killed her uncle. "I didn't have a thing against him--personally."

"There were dishes here on the table," she babbled hysterically. "They found them here after--after--showing how he'd fed you first, and----"

"Sure he fed me," he interrupted. "I was hungry, hungrier than I am now. Alla same, you gotta eat supper with me. I want you to, and I always get what I want."

He twisted her wrist to emphasize his wish. She uttered a little moan.

"Don't! Oh, don't hurt me any more! I'll do what you want."

Beaten, body and soul, she went to the cupboard and got herself plate and cup and saucer, knife and fork and spoon. Her six-shooter was in the next room, hanging in a holster on the wall. A loaded shotgun stood at the head of her bed. But it is doubtful that even if the weapon had been within short reach, she would have dared attempt to use either. Dan Slike had scared her too much.

She sat down opposite the man and tried to eat. It required every atom of will power to induce her throat muscles to permit her to swallow.

Dan Slike watched her with savage satisfaction. He found the situation intensely amusing. To murder her uncle and later eat a meal with the niece. What a joke!

"I haven't forgotten about that bottle," he remarked suddenly, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair. "You thought it had slipped my mind, I guess, didn't you? I always have a drink after meals, or my victuals don't set good."

Without a word she went to the cupboard and brought back a bottle of whisky. He took it from her and held it up against the lamplight.

"This is only half full," he said severely. "You got another round somewhere?"

It was fright and not the lie that made her stammer. "Nun-no."