Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

94 FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES “Two years is either a short time or a long time,” Lou said. “Depends on wheth- er you're courting a pretty girl like Iris— or rotting in the pen and thinking about somebody else courting her. But don’t get me wrong, Marshal. J think you done right, no matter what everybody else thinks!’ He tittered, confident in his immunity. Steve put his drink down slowly, feeling the angry knotting of the hard muscles -across his shoulders. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, staring hard at the death- flushed cheeks of the lunger-—-and then he turned and strode out of the Paradise. No laughter followed him, but he knew it would come as soon as they were sure he was out of earshot. HE PUSHED through the Saturday night crowds that surged in both di- rections along the flare-lit boardwalk, walk- ing as rapidly as he could, past the Keeno Bar, the bank, Laird’s feed store, thesHi- Lo-Jack, the Nugget, the Granada, the Den, the Unique Cafe, the Blue Chip—and then he crossed the dust-filled ruts of Main Street and paused a moment before the screen door of Iris Manning’s millinery shop. | | _ She was alone in her shop, balanced pre- cariously on a chair while she reached high above her head to put a box on the top shelf. Her soft blonde hair was caught at -the nape of her neck with a wisp of yellow ribbon ; the tip of a tiny pink tongue came out to touch her upper lp as she struggled to push the box back. farther on the shelf. Nothing Iris could do, Steve reflected, could ever disguise the lush beauty of her young body. Just now, standing on tip-toe, sideways to him, she presented a picture that helped to wash the turmoil and anger from his mind. She wasn’t even trying to conceal her curves tonight, and the bright dress she wore hugged her narrow waist and swelling hips so snugly that Steve won- dered it didn’t burst. | _ He opened the screen and closed it quiet- | frightened me ly behind him and took a step toward her. “Hello, Iris,” he said. | His voice startled her. She gasped and grabbed futilely at the shelf as the chair wobbled beneath her. He sprang forward, catching her just as the chair skidded away. For an instant she was a soft, warm whirl of flaring skirts and slim silken legs in his arms—and then she wriggled loose and slid to her feet. — “Close,” Steve said. . She smiled up at him. “Steve! You ! But the smile was short- lived, and suddenly the green eyes were cloudy. He knew she was thinking about it too, about the gun fight—about Con. Par- dee. He reached out and caught her in the loose circle of his arms, and she stood there, looking up at him, trying to smile again. Somehow, holding her for what might be the last time was like holding her for the first time. Everything seemed clearer, more intense, than it had in two years. And she was even more beautiful now than she had been then. Honey blonde hair and warm green eyes and a body that made a man hurt just to look at it. He wished he could prolong this moment, stretch it out through eternity: He breathed in the delicate scent of her, and suddenly he wanted to take her and ride a thousand miles away from Fever Wells and Con Pardee’. . . ride away and never even look back over his shoulder. He said, “I reckon you’ve seen Con.” She nodded, not meeting his eyes now. They came out then, the words he had ‘determined not to utter. “You never got over him, did you, Iris?” Her wide-set eyes came up, slowly, and they held an expression he had never seen there before. “Steve, I... I just don’t know.” “It’s been two years, Iris.” She* moistened her full lips. “Yes.” “That’s a long time.” “Ves.” a “Time enough for a woman to decide.” She came close to him and her hands CoMniicboooks.c© inn