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His right hand was held in the position of a runner's, and the burnished steel of the weapon in it caught the light of the sun. He had acquired the trick of firing while his weapon was being elevated not as he lowered it; with a movement like the pointing of a finger. He was ready for Fectnor, who would doubtless try to take him by surprise.
He turned toward her in the dusk and replied with indifference in his tone now "Fectnor." She shrank back so that her face would be out of his line of vision. "Fectnor!" she echoed. "A fellow they've brought up from the interior to help with the election. A famous bad man, I believe." There was silence for a long interval.
He was a man who was lavish with money but he expected you to pick it up out of the dust. He was of violent moods; and he had that audacity that taint of insanity, perhaps which enables some men to maintain the reputation of bad men, of "killers," in every frontier. When Fectnor had come he had seemed to assume the right of prior possession, and others had yielded to him without question.
At the worst she might save Harboro, and there was even a chance that she could make Fectnor see her position as she saw it that she could persuade him to be merciful to her. Surely for the sake of security and peace in all the years that lay before her.... A definite purpose dawned in her eyes. She went to her room and began deliberately to choose her most becoming street costume.
This was not the time of ashes. It was the time of flame. And then Fectnor came. The date of the election was drawing near, and a new sheriff was to be jockeyed into office by the traditional practice of corralling all the male adult Mexicans who could be reached, and making them vote just so. The voice of the people was about to be heard in the land.
That had happened a good many months ago; and Sylvia remembered now, with a feeling as of an icy hand on her heart, that if her relationships with many of the others in those old days were innocent enough or at best marred only by a kindly folly there had been that in her encounters with Fectnor which would forever damn her in Harboro's eyes, if the truth ever reached him.
I had begun to have a little pride, and to have foolish dreams. And then I went back to my father's house. It wasn't my father; it wasn't even Fectnor. It was Life itself whipping me back into my place again. "... And then Runyon came. He meant pleasure to me nothing more. He seemed such a gay, shining creature!" She looked at him in the agony of utter despair.
Alas, the evil she had done in those other days loomed before her now in its true light: not merely as evil deeds, definitely ended with their commission, but as fearful forces that went on existing, to visit her again and destroy her. She began to hope that Fectnor would actually come to her now, before Harboro came home.
She had been afraid of him from the first; and it had seemed to her that her only cross was removed when she heard that Fectnor had got a contract down in the interior and had gone away.
She rocked to and fro, and after a long interval, "Fectnor!" she repeated. He hitched his chair so that he could look at her. Her prolonged silence was unusual. "Are you getting chilly?" he asked solicitously. "It does seem chilly, doesn't it?" she responded. They arose and went into the house.
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