Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams

finally had to meet it. Then Charlie said it had to be in cash, and he had to have it within an hour so he could get started back to the well. Goodwin agreed, but said it would take two hours. The bank wouldn’t be open until ten.
    Charlie nodded. “All right,” he said wearily. Then he went on, with great bitterness. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing to me. Some big oil company wants to put down a well out there, don’t they? Well, brother, you couldn’t have beat me if we hadn’t lost a bit in that hole last week.”
    To calm him, Mrs. Goodwin asked him to come out in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. I sneaked down the stairs and left as soon as they were out of the room. When I was out in the street I let out a big sigh. I was weak myself.
    Back at the motel I started throwing things in the two bags. She’d be here at twelve. I stopped, thinking how it would be now, with nothing to keep us apart. On our way to San Francisco, to hunt down Lachlan, we’d stop off in Reno as we’d planned. We would be married. I looked at my watch. It was only nine-fifteen. Keep your shirt on, I thought; Charlie hasn’t even got the money yet.
    At a quarter to eleven Goodwin called. He was almost hysterical with joy. “I’d ask you to come over, if it weren’t that you’re probably worn out too. I’d like for you to see this lease burning up in the fireplace.”
    “So it’s all set?” I asked.
    “He just left, five minutes ago. Boy, talk about your photo finishes! And, say, Reichert, don’t think I’m going to forget you for all you’ve done.”
    No, you probably won’t, pal, I thought, as I hung up—any more than I’ve forgotten you. It’s going to be a little rugged around nine-thirty tonight when nobody gets off that train.
    I was all packed. By eleven-thirty I was straining my ears for the sound of tires on the gravel outside. About ten minutes to twelve I heard a car come swinging in. I jumped up and threw the door open. It was somebody else. I sat down again, feeling the impatience mount.
    By twelve-thirty I was chain-smoking cigarettes and wearing a path in the shabby rug. God knows she’d never been anywhere on time in her life, but she couldn’t be late today. This was the day we’d been looking forward to for nearly a month. We had to get going.
    She didn’t come. It was two o’clock. It was three. I’d long since passed the stage where I could sit still at all. I felt as if all the nerves in my body had worked through and were on the outside of my skin. She was dead. She’d been killed in a wreck. I couldn’t keep Donnelly out of my mind. She wouldn’t listen to me, so he had gone back and found her. He’d killed her. I thought of that ten-gauge shotgun, and shuddered. He was capable of anything. Why hadn’t I made her listen?
    No, how did I know where she’d been? She’d said she was going to be in San Antonio, and still that was her voice over the phone from Houston.
    How could I even find out what had happened? I had to get back there some way. It wasn’t until then that the whole thing balled up and hit me. I sat down on the bed, feeling the weakness and the sick feeling come up through me. I’d been worried only about her, but what about myself, too? I couldn’t go anywhere. I was trapped. She might be all right, but I was a sitting duck.
    The bus had gone through twenty minutes ago, and there wouldn’t be another one in either direction until eleven o’clock tonight. And by nine-thirty Goodwin would know he had been taken.
    It was about as near to complete panic as I’d ever been. For a few minutes I couldn’t think at all. The only thing my mind could get hold of was that I was the sucker, the fall guy, the one they’d thrown to the wolves. They’d gone off and left me. No, I tried to tell myself, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have left me stranded like this. But that meant, then, that something had happened to her.
    I tried to calm down. I was in danger