Episode Four: A Private War Chapter 1

"Why the hell didn't you give Quintana the packet?" he demanded. "What does that count for -- what does any damn thing count for against you, girlie?"

She looked up at him out of heavy-lidded eyes: "You told me to take good care of it."

"It's only a little truck I'd laid by for you," he retorted unsteadily, "-- a few trifles for to make a grand lady of you when the time's ripe. 'Tain't worth a thorn in your little foot to me. ... The hull gol-dinged world full o' money ain't worth that there stone-bruise onto them little white feet o' yourn, Eve.

"Look at you now -- my God, look at you there, all peaked an' scairt an' bleedin' -- plum tuckered out, 'n' all ragged 'n' dirty----"

A blaze of fury flared in his small pale eyes: "-- And he hit you, too, did he? -- that skunk! Quintana done that to my little girlie, did he?"

"I don't know if it was Quintana. I don't know who he was, dad," she murmured drowsily.

"Masked, wa'n't he?"

"Yes."

Clinch's iron visage twitched and quivered. He gnawed his thin lips into control.

"Girlie, I gotta go out a spell. But I ain't a-leavin' you alone here. I'll git somebody to set up with you. You jest lie snug and don't think about nothin' till I come back."