Ruby Prentiss

Ruby Prentiss is the magnetic figure at the center of Del Delaney’s turn from cowhand to fugitive. At a monthly dance in Prairie City, she singles him out from the men around her; after he leaves her home rather than risk a future he fears, she accuses him of rape, and Sid Blackwell arrives to arrest him. Ruby’s beauty and power over men are vividly described, but her motives remain uncertain: the narrative gives Del’s changing interpretation, not her account.

Identity and Reputation

Ruby is a young woman who has been married twice and is the subject of persistent town gossip. Del reports rumors that she had been with many local men, but explicitly distinguishes the talk from what he himself believes. His comparison of her to a bright flower among pale ones captures the unequal attention she attracts; it does not establish the rumors as fact. The distinction matters because Ruby enters the story already surrounded by other people’s judgments, while the reader has little access to her life beyond Del’s encounter with her.

Del describes her as an accomplished flirt, saying she had mastered the art by about ten. At the dance she is surrounded by roughly ten men, yet she excuses herself and heads directly to him. His account makes her practiced ease in attracting attention part of her public identity. It also reveals how much his own view is shaped by attraction: he calls her a magnet and acknowledges that he, like the other men, is drawn to her.

The Dance and Del’s Attention

The dance takes place on the first Saturday of the month, a major occasion in the isolated community near the Canadian line. Del, who has worked at Wineglass for ten years, rides into town alone. When Ruby approaches him just as the orchestra begins to play, he asks her to dance. By the end of the evening, he has danced with her about half the time, while the other men’s glares have grown more pointed.

One of those men is Sid Blackwell, a deputy sheriff who, Del says, had been going with Ruby. Ruby tells Del that she has just broken up with Blackwell. The disclosure gives their dancing an immediate edge: Del takes pleasure in Blackwell’s jealousy, even though he expects Blackwell might attack him. Their history stretches back to school, where they were the same age and had fought repeatedly. Del says Blackwell could never beat him, and that the rivalry continued into adulthood. Ruby’s choice of Del therefore draws her into an existing conflict between the two men, though the story does not show whether she intended that effect.

After the dance, Del takes Ruby home because she makes clear that she expects him to. He recognizes her as dangerous to his peace of mind but admits that this recognition does not keep him away. He is exhilarated by her attention and by Blackwell’s visible resentment. His account presents the evening as both courtship and competition: Ruby is the person he wants to be near, while Blackwell’s reaction adds a rivalrous satisfaction that Del does not conceal.

The Encounter at Her Home

At Ruby’s house, she invites Del inside, closes the blinds, locks the front door, and kisses him. Del describes the kiss as an experience unlike his previous ones and says it helps him understand why Prairie City’s single men make fools of themselves over her. His response underscores the intensity of his attraction, but the decisive change comes when Ruby leads him toward her bedroom and begins to undress.

Del says he had not thought through what the evening might lead to. He becomes afraid—not, as he explains, because he objects to intimacy, but because he imagines that Ruby might become pregnant and name him as the father, leaving him obliged to marry her. He says that, despite his desire for her, she is the last woman he wants to marry. That feared outcome is his supposition, not something Ruby tells him she plans. He leaves, and spends the night alternating between regret at refusing an exciting possibility and relief that he has escaped what he imagines as a trap.

This moment establishes a sharp gap between attraction and commitment. Del is captivated by Ruby yet unwilling to accept the consequences he associates with being with her. His account makes the decision to leave a source of immediate self-doubt, while also turning it, in retrospect, into the circumstance that precedes his arrest.

Accusation and Unresolved Motives

The next morning, Sid arrives at Del’s home with a cocked gun and tells him he is under arrest for rape. Del’s narrative treats Ruby as the person who made the accusation, but does not supply her words or a direct explanation from her. The evidence establishes the charge and its consequence for Del; it does not establish why Ruby brought it.

As he flees, Del considers several possible explanations. He thinks Ruby may have been hurt or angered when he left, and wonders whether Blackwell’s longstanding hatred of him could have played a part. He also imagines that Ruby and Blackwell might have arranged a trap, with Blackwell waiting for a pretext to arrest him. Del presents this as speculation, not knowledge. The possibility that the apparent breakup was false is part of his suspicion, not a confirmed fact about Ruby or her relationship with Blackwell.

The charge transforms Del’s immediate future. He escapes town, crosses from Montana into Wyoming, and avoids larger towns and county seats because he believes he may be safer from Montana law there. Later, already a wanted man and drifting until he runs out of money, he joins other outlaws in Colorado. Ruby is not shown again in the supplied account, and the accusation’s full circumstances are not resolved here.

Narrative Role and Limits

Ruby’s importance lies in the chain of events set in motion by her encounter with Del: the dance brings them together, his withdrawal precedes the rape charge, and the charge propels his flight. Yet the story’s access to her remains limited. Her beauty, flirting, marriages, and reputation are relayed through Del’s viewpoint, and even his explanations for the accusation remain guesses. The distinction between what he witnesses and what he suspects is central to reading her fairly: Ruby is a decisive presence in his story, but the account does not settle her motives or confirm the plot he fears.