Kitabı oku: «Lightnin'», sayfa 6

Thomas shrugged his shoulders and smiled indulgently. He had made up his mind to leave matters entirely in Hammond's hands now; so he went up the California stairs, calling out to Bill, "You'll get yourself disliked around here, if you don't look out."

"So'll you," Bill called back as he shambled to the same stairway.

But he got no farther than the first step. Hammond laid a detaining hand on his arm, pulling him around in front of him. "See here, Jones," he said, harshly, "I've taken over the management of this place and I don't propose to stand any more nonsense from you, and unless you do as your wife tells you to, sign this deed, I'll kick you out."

Bill pulled himself loose from Hammond and stood facing him, a defiant grin antagonizing Hammond to greater fury. "No, you won't!" Bill laughed, never flinching in the half-open eyes with which he held Hammond's eyes.

"What's the reason I won't?" Hammond asked, making a threatening move.

Still Bill remained unmoved. "'Cause you talk too much about it."

Hammond stood and looked in fury at Bill. But he knew that any harsh treatment on his part might spoil the whole game, which he now felt to be near an end, which meant victory for his plans, so he smothered his desire to lay hands on the old man, and with sudden impulse, born of a desire to end the discussion, he hurried up-stairs to his room, calling back, "You'll see whether I will or not."

CHAPTER XI

When Bill was once more alone he meandered slowly to the Nevada desk and leaned against it, looking abstractedly toward the veranda. Outside, the moon was shining in long shafts of silver light through the branches of the tall cedars. Beyond the lake lay, itself a moon of silver on the floor of the valley. He could hear the hoot of a hundred billy owls. Unthinkingly he went to the door and stood there, sniffing at the fragrance of the pines. Then he went back to the desk again.

As Mrs. Jones had closed the dining-room door behind her, he had seen that she was crying. Her tears had acted like a knife on his obstinacy. If there was one method of bringing Bill to a realization of his shortcomings, it was the knowledge that he had brought his wife to tears. No matter what the occasion, through the years of his many omissions, he had never failed to awaken to a sense of duty at the slightest hint of a sob on her part. And now remorse was gnawing heavily at his heart. He knew that she was sorely tried by his laziness. He knew that ever since she had come from the city she had longed for some of the luxuries which she had tasted for the first and only time in those few brief days when Thomas had given her a bit of every woman's paradise. And as he looked out he wondered in his slow, but none the less logical, way what it mattered, after all, if the place did go, just so long as mother was happy. To be sure, the place was worth much more than Hammond was willing to pay them. But it was enough for their humble needs. From the door beyond he could hear the sound of her sobs. He went half-way across the room. "Yes," he reasoned with himself, "after all, the property is hers. I gave her my part of it to do as she pleased with." And a sudden resolve to do her will possessed him.

But as he reached the middle of the lobby he heard some one on tiptoe behind him. He turned to see Marvin, crouched down by the desk, so that any one coming from up-stairs could not see him.

"'Sh!" Bill put up a warning hand. "Blodgett's outside there some place."

"He's snoring in his buggy," Marvin whispered back, with a half-smile. "Bill," he added, quickly, "I've been outside and I've heard every word they've been saying to you. I haven't time to tell you all I want to just now. Promise me again that you won't sign that deed until you've talked further with me about it."

Bill hesitated. "Well, mother wants to awful bad," he answered, slowly.

From the dining-room voices could be heard. "Ye'd better get out," said Bill.

"Not until you promise," persisted Marvin.

Bill wavered an instant. He wanted mother to be happy, and yet, another day did not make so much difference – especially when Marvin was in danger. The door in back of him swung open. Leaning quickly down to Marvin, as the latter crept toward the outer door, he whispered: "All right. I promise."

Mrs. Jones walked into the room with a swagger, half of indignation, half of sorrow. She was still wiping the tears from her eyes. The deed and the pen were in her hand.

Bill went to her, placing an affectionate hand on her bare arm. "Mother, ain't you cold?" He could not resist another tilt at her unusual costume.

"No." She stamped her foot at him, withdrawing her arm from his hand. "I'm hot all over at you, insulting me before those gentlemen." Hurrying to the California desk, she buried her head on her crossed arms and began to cry. "Makin' fun of me," she sobbed, "because I try to look presentable for once in my life."

Following her to the desk, Bill patted her gently on the back. "It's gettin' late, mother," he coaxed. "You're tired and you've been working hard. You're all tuckered out. Now you go up-stairs and put on some clothes and go to bed."

Mrs. Jones shook him from her and went to the other desk, where she stood facing him, her face red and swollen from her tears. "Oh!" she wrung her hands as she looked at him with blazing eyes. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself with the gentlemen here to buy the place and you around the office drinking liquor."

"No, I ain't." Bill answered her outburst mildly, backing away from her lest she should discover the flask in his back pocket.

He was too late. Her eye, accustomed to just such investigations, had detected the lines of the flask as it protruded from his back pocket. Taking hold of him, she put her hand in his pocket and produced the flask, holding it, half empty, to the light.

"That belongs to Mr. Harper," was Bill's ready excuse, given in the monotone which invariably masked a world of guilt. Seeing the doubt in his wife's eye, he added, "You can go up-stairs and ask him, if you don't believe it."

Mrs. Jones did not reply to his last remark. Instead of which she went back to the California desk, where she set down the flask, taking up the deed and holding it out to him. "Now, Bill," she said, in a coaxing voice, "I want you to put your name to this paper." She smiled kindly upon him for the first time in many hours.

Bill wavered before her smile. It was difficult for him to withstand it, especially as he knew how sorely he had tried her. But a promise was a promise with Bill, and his one pride was that he had kept intact through all the years of his digressions this one principle – he never broke his word. He had told Marvin he would not sign the deed without consulting him further, so he turned his eyes from his wife's face and answered, in a low voice, "I can't, mother."

"What's the reason you can't?" Mrs. Jones planted herself in front of him, determined that he should not evade her this time.

"Because I promised my lawyer I wouldn't," he answered, his head turned away from her.

Mrs. Jones took him by the arm and swung him into line with her gaze. "Now see here, Bill," she snapped, "I've been working my fingers to the bone and I'm entitled to a rest and you sha'n't stop my having it. Mr. Thomas is going to take Millie and me to the city to live. If you sign that you can come with us. If you don't you've got to look out for yourself for a while."

Bill had not paid much heed to Hammond's threat delivered a few minutes back. But now something in his wife's tone brought it, recurrent, to his mind. He wondered if, after all, there was some truth behind it.

Pausing to gather his points together, Bill nodded toward the stairs. "Mother, that fellow, Hammond, said he'd throw me out. Do you want me to get out? Is that what you mean?"

It was not what Mrs. Jones had meant at all. But the events of the day had strained her nerves to breaking-point. Since daylight Thomas and Hammond had been after her to force Bill to do as she wished him to. To their suggestions that she teach him a lesson by leaving him for a while she had turned a deaf ear. But now they came surging back and, in answer to her call for a method of persuasion, clamored for recognition. Before she had time to stifle them they had their way. "I mean just that, Bill." There was silence as she thrust the words from her mouth. Bill stood still, gazing steadily at her.

She lowered her lids.

Then he came closer and looked up under her eyes, in the hope that he would find a relenting gleam there. But she turned away from him.

"All right, mother – I'll go."

Without another word he turned and walked toward the door. Mrs. Jones took a quick step forward, then paused. "Where'll you go?" she asked, half in surprise, half in defiance, for she had not believed that he would accept her challenge.

"Oh, 'most anywhere," he said, gaily, forcing a whistle, though his lips quivered. "I'll be all right, mother."

His wife stepped forward again, extending a staying hand, but her resentment had her in its grip. Her hand fell back to her side.

"Well," she called out to him as suddenly she turned from him and hurried up the stairs, "I mean every word I've said! It's one thing or the other! Either you make up your mind to sign this," and she tapped the paper in her hand, "or I'm through with you!" Without a backward glance – fearing, perhaps, that she might weaken – she disappeared along the upper hallway.

Bill took his hand from the door and came slowly back into the room. He strolled to the California desk, pushed back his old hat, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully. Of a sudden his absent eyes lighted on the flask resting on the desk, where Mrs. Jones had put it down. Bill stroked his stubbled chin and gazed at the flask. It seemed to suggest an idea to him. Satisfying himself that there was no one around at the moment, he strolled to the door, poked his head out, and gave a peculiar whistle; then he walked back to the desk and leaned against it, waiting.

In a few minutes Zeb's unkempt visage silently framed itself in the softly opened door. Lightnin' jerked his head as a sign to enter. Stealthily, with many a wary glance to right and left, his disreputable partner of the past eased himself across the lobby and stood before Bill, childlike, trustful inquiry in his eyes.

"What's the idee, Lightnin'?" he rumbled, puffing at the frayed remains of a cigar.

With a gesture of calm triumph Bill pointed to the flask on the desk.

"I said I had it, Zeb," he remarked, in the tone one uses when confronting and confounding a skeptic with ocular proof, "an' there it is!"

"Why, so it be!" said Zeb, reaching out for the prize.

But Lightnin' stopped him. "Hold on a minute, partner. The evidence ain't to be absorbed just yet. In fact, brother, we better keep it intact for future use, 'cause you're goin' on a long journey, Zeb. You an' me is goin' to hit the trail again, old-timer!"

"Gosh! You mean it, Lightnin'?" Zeb showed almost human delight and anticipation. "But for why? You had a row with your old woman?"

"Nope," Bill replied. "Can't call it that, exactly. You needn't worry them brains o' yours about why we're goin', Zeb. It's just that I got a notion to teach some people 'round here a lesson, an' – an' maybe I can bring poor mother to her senses," he added, gently.

"When we goin'?" Zeb questioned, his eyes on the flask.

"Right away – this here minute, in fact," said Bill.

Zeb looked at him dazedly. "Just as we is? Where 're we hittin' fer?"

"I ain't telling that just yet," said Bill, slowly. "Where we are goin' is a secret."

"Oh," Zeb answered, with a nod of wisdom. "I – see. You ain't tellin' 'em you be goin' – not even your old woman, eh?"

"Them brains o' yours is pickin' up a bit, ain't they, Zeb?" Bill commented, with encouraging approval. "Well, you hit it, all right! Nope, we ain't tellin' nobody. We're goin' to kinder disappear completely for a pretty good space. Mother ain't to be able to locate me a-tall. There's some others as 'll likely find out, but I ain't worryin' about them – they want to get rid o' me, an' they ain't likely to exhaust themselves any tryin' to find me. I got a object, Zeb. It ain't none o' your business what that object is – by which I merely mean to say, old-timer, that you wouldn't have no particular interest in it. Come on – let's get out now, afore they begins to gather 'round me again!"

Picking up the flask and sliding it into his coat pocket, Lightnin' walked away toward the door. Nodding wisely, Zeb followed, eyes hopefully on the pleasant bulge in his old partner's coat.

CHAPTER XII

"Well!" Millie, appearing with a tray of late supper to take up-stairs to one of the guests' rooms along about ten o'clock that evening, almost ran into Marvin, who had returned to the hotel in the hope of seeing Bill and giving him the full reason for his not being a party to the sale of the place. The lights in the lobby were turned low and he had managed to evade the sheriff, who was sitting in his buck-board outside, waiting for Lemuel Townsend, who was to return to Reno with him.

Millie's exclamation, because of her surprise in seeing Marvin again, escaped her in pleasant tones, but her memory asserted itself and the smile rapidly faded from her face and she gave a haughty toss of her head, saying, as he stepped in front of her when she started for the stairs, "Will you please let me pass?"

But Marvin had wanted to see her quite as much as he did Bill, the impression she had given him of her liking for Thomas having cut deeper than the events of the earlier part of the day had given him time to realize. Ignoring her request, he removed his hat and said, as he searched her eyes for some play of the old light that had often gladdened his heart in the days when they were together in Thomas's office in San Francisco, "I suppose you are surprised to find me here still?"

Millie swayed toward the Nevada desk, depositing her tray upon it. She faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was not to answer him. She could not understand his interference in the matter of the deed. Neither did she believe one word he had uttered against Hammond and Thomas. On the contrary, Thomas's apparent interest in her and her mother and his constant flattery and attentions had attained their end. She believed in him implicitly and therefore had given credence to every word he had said against Marvin. Nevertheless, the charge that he was not honest could not quite overcome the quickening of her interest which had manifested itself lately in a heart that ran far ahead of itself at his approach.

After a silence in which she stared at him steadily, his eyes answering hers with an unflinching candor mixed with a vague wistfulness, she answered him. "I don't think anything you could do would surprise me, after all that has happened to-day and all that I've been told about you."

"Millie!" Marvin awkwardly rolled his hat in his hands, while his speech faltered. "I've been waiting around here now for two hours in the hope that I could explain to you why I wanted to stop that sale. And I cannot bear to have you believe that I am a thief and – "

Millie was touched by his attitude. Her hand left her hip and started toward his arm in friendly contact. But again returned the whole picture of the afternoon's events and she coolly turned from him and went to take up her tray again.

"Will you please let me pass?" she asked a second time, as he tried to prevail upon her by taking the tray from her and setting it down again. "I wish to have nothing to say to you. I do not believe your excuses. Mr. Thomas is the best friend I have in the world. I won't listen to a word against him, and I am sure he is too fine a gentleman to say anything about any one unless he were sure that it was true." As she came to the last words she swallowed to keep back the tears, for although they were uttered in perfect faith, her words burned into her own heart with as much bitterness as they were directed toward Marvin.

He was too filled with his mission and too sure that Millie's interest in him was gone to notice the catch in her voice or to attribute it to any sense of affection for him, had he noticed it. He took her hands in his and shook them gently in an endeavor to get her to look into his eyes again. "Millie, please listen to me! I know what I'm talking about when I say that Mrs. Jones is being cheated and robbed – "

She broke away from him, and stood glaring at him, as she stamped her foot. "Don't you dare to say another word about Raymond Thomas to me! Anyway, it is none of your business if he is cheating us!"

"Millie, Millie." Marvin's voice was full of pleading as he persisted, going close to her again and shaking his head sadly. "Why do you allow yourself to be taken in this way? Don't you know that the only reason I am concerned is because I care – Oh, well." He turned away with a sigh and went over to the Nevada desk and took up the tray. "I won't say any more. Will you let me carry the tray up-stairs for you? I'll go then, and you won't be bothered with me any more."

The glare in her eyes melted and she made a gesture as if she would call him to her side again. But she could not forget so easily, and she said, without turning to look at him, in tones less sharp, "Why didn't you tell me before that you suspected him?"

"How could I? You told me how much you thought of Raymond Thomas. I hadn't realized that before – " He put the tray down and came to her side once more.

"Do you mean to say," Millie was again angered, "that I told you I loved Mr. Thomas?"

"That's what I understood," Marvin replied.

The two stood there, Millie glancing at him in contempt, while his whole heart went out to her from his eyes.

He was the first to break the silence. Almost touching her hand with his, he said, softly, "You mean you don't love him?"

Millie snatched her hand away and went back to the desk. "You're always wrong! I told you he was my best friend and he is. I never said I loved him."

If Marvin had not been attracted by the arabesque of the faded rose-garlanded rug at that moment, he would have found some solace in the lowered lids and half-smile which Millie vouchsafed him. But he did not see it. Slowly he followed her back to the desk, this time standing aside as she made her way toward the stairs. "Well, say it now – I mean" – he hesitated, embarrassed, then went on – "I mean – say you don't care for him. And then if you'll only give me time I'll find out what their game is."

Millie stood at the newel-post, steadying the tray against it. Looking down at him, the hard gleam returned to her eyes as she replied, emphatically: "Oh, I don't want you to find out anything about it! I know you're mistaken and you're not going to prevent mother's selling the place, because it's already sold. As soon as daddy's name is signed to it we get the money."

"Well, you sha'n't have that, Millie." Marvin swung his hat against the post without looking up at her. Through the window he traced the moonbeams as they filtered through the pines outside. Above the hoot of an owl the swish of the lake came in to them. They both stood there, gazing out to where so few weeks ago they had walked in the happiness of an unconscious awakening.

It was within Millie's heart to relax as she saw him sigh. From above just then came the sound of Mrs. Jones's voice. It brought back her concern for the tired woman above-stairs. With it returned her anger at Marvin. "You're trying to prevent this sale just to hurt Mr. Thomas in my eyes!" she snapped.

He turned and met her with the question, "Thomas told you that, didn't he?"

She nodded.

"Just the same, Millie," and here Marvin mounted the step and stood close to her as he looked squarely in her eyes, "I'll never let Bill sign that deed. Some day you'll thank me for it."

This was more than her patience could stand. In her anger she almost dropped the tray, but she managed to hold it taut against the balustrade as she frowned at him and stamped her foot.

"Thank you?" she asked, in no gentle voice. "I shall always hate and despise you for it. Always! I hope I shall never see you again, and if I do I shall never notice you – nor speak to you the longest day I live!" Exhausted with her temper, she turned to mount the stairs, when she looked out toward the veranda and saw a figure slowly and stealthily coming up the steps. She recognized it at once and shrieked out, just as the sheriff entered the door, "John, look out!"

But Marvin had been watching her, and the fear in her eyes as she saw Blodgett had been warning enough for him. He gave three quick skips to the other side of the lobby, making mock obeisance toward her, laughter in his voice because of her betrayal of her solicitude in spite of all that she had said.

"Thank you, Miss Buckley," he called as he went up the California stairs to the hall above, just as the sheriff had reached out for him, "thank you, Miss Buckley! I shall be grateful to you – always!"