Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  VII. THE WRATH OF A PROUD FATHER

  ALTHOUGH JEFF PURCHASS was proverbially tactless, on this night he excelled himself. The current of exclamations from the other girls had hardly ended with the disappearance of Delapin, when the rancher stalked over to his daughter and exclaimed in a voice which reduced the rest to tense attention: “How long have you known this — Delapin?”

  The little interval before the name could have meant anything and everything that was degrading and condemnatory. It could have ranged from mere anger to shame and disgust that his daughter should have such an acquaintance. And Rose, being challenged before so many, naturally rose to the occasion with an equal spirit. For her part, she was tingling with embarrassment on a double count — first, because her father and the other men in the party seemed so shocked and angered by the appearance of Delapin, and, second, because she had forced Delapin to endure an insult against his will.

  “I met him tonight for the first time,” she said carelessly.

  Her father had risen from the soil. The stamp of success upon his efforts was this daughter, in whom all his pride — and his fortune — centered.

  “Look here, Rose,” he growled, “is this what your schoolin’ has come to — to teach you to pick up with any stray gent that comes along?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. The others turned discreetly away and pretended to busy themselves with other things, but in spite of themselves they kept their voices so low that they might overhear what took place between the irate father and his daughter.

  “With no introduction — ?” began the rancher again.

  “But there was an introduction,” said Rose.

  “The devil there was! Who gave it?”

  “A horse.”

  “Are you trying to make a fool out of me, Rose?”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Rose—”

  She explained rather hastily as she saw that his anger had reached the boiling point: “He rode down that slope—”

  “Rode down it!” thundered Purchass. “You mean to say he rode down that cliff?”

  The position of the moon had changed, and the black face of the slope looked more precipitous than ever. The others glanced up of one accord and then, with wonder, back to Rose.

  “If you take a lantern and search the ground,” said Rose, “you’ll find the marks where his horse slid.”

  This challenge was so direct and simple that her father was taken aback. “No matter whether he rode down that place or not,” he said, striving to get back to the main point of the dispute, “what d’you mean by picking up with such trash?”

  “Trash?”

  “Trash!”

  “I wondered if he had killed himself and his horse, when they crashed into the shrubbery at the foot of the slope. He came to show me that they were both quite unhurt. And Patricia is really a dear.”

  Her father ground his teeth. Sometimes he wished that he had never sent his daughter to an Eastern school, for, although her accomplishments were his greatest pride at times, at other times they were a heavy cross for him to bear. Her very diction, on occasion, seemed to open a gap between them and push him away to a hopeless distance. It was like a disclaimer of any relationship between them, and he seemed to lose the very right to criticize or control her actions.

  “Who’s Patricia?” he inquired.

  “His mare.”

  “The devil take Patricia, and Delapin, too! Do you know who he is?”

  “A gentleman who rides very well, and who talks well, too, I thought.”

  “Sam!” cried Purchass.

  Sam Stevens stepped from the group of the others, looking extremely uneasy. It is not a pleasant thing to be forced to condemn another man in the presence of a girl, and he guessed quickly enough that this was to be his ordeal. It was all the harder for Sam because he was the destined husband of Rose Purchass by family agreement and an understanding of old. As a matter of fact he had seen very little of her. She had been East or in Europe since her early childhood.

  “Well, Mister Purchass?” he asked.

  “I want to ask you a question, Sam.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you,” said Purchass, assuming a magisterial tone that was like a very echo of a courtroom, “do you, Sam, know a man named Delapin?”

  “I do,” said Sam, very like a witness, and a nervous one at that.

  “Tell Rose what you know about him?”

  “I think you know him better than I do.”

  “Will you do what I ask?” insisted the tyrant.

  “I’ve no wish to blacken the standing of any friend of Rose—”

  The old cowman roared: “I ask you a plain, simple, damn direct question. Are you going to answer it, or ain’t you?”

  “Delapin, I believe,” said Sam, “is a gambler.”

  “You believe it?” thundered Purchass. “The whole damn world pretty near knows! A gambler — a professional gambler — a gunfighter — a lying, sneaking thief of a—” He stopped because utter passion had constricted his throat.

  “Mister Delapin is being tried in his absence, I see,” said Rose.

  It was most inopportune. If anything were lacking to make the rancher pour forth his full fury, this was it.

  “Tried? He don’t merit no trial! Does a skunk get a trial? Not in this here man’s country! No, sir! Lemme tell you a few downright true things about this here Delapin. His father was a bohunk miner. His mother wasn’t nothing. He was left an orphan early. He made a living sneaking around the country, thieving and lying, so that—”

  “Do you blame a fatherless boy for doing things which he doesn’t know are right or wrong?”

  “Fatherless! Fiddlesticks! Everybody knows the difference between right and wrong, except some that have all the plain common sense educated out of their fool heads!”

  Jeff Purchass, in his fury, sank his teeth into a comer of a plug of tobacco. It was something that he had made a point of avoiding in the presence of his daughter for years. Moreover, the lump in his cheek impeded his utterance. “I’m going to tell you the facts about him!”

  “The poor child,” said Rose with needless warmth. Her father was thrown into a greater ecstasy of rage.

  “I’ll tell you how much pity he deserved. The Widow Winton come acrost him. He’d shot a gent—”

  “How old was he, Father?”

  “Fourteen. Fourteen years old, fuller of lies than a cactus is of thorns, ready with a gun or a knife to do a murder at the winking of an eye — but she seen his name in the paper, and about how he was arrested for doing a shooting. She got her sympathies all worked up—”

  “Of course,” said Rose.

  “Lemme finish what I got to say. She goes down to the sheriff. The sheriff pretends that it is a shame that a youngster his age had to be locked up. He goes over and tells the kid that Missus Winton is coming to visit him with her eyes so full of tears that she won’t be able to see nothing straight.”

  “Along she comes, and what does she see?”

  “She sees this young hound sitting in a corner, shivering like he was scared to death, and looking pretty near ready to cry. He sat there playing baby and worked on her feelings. She got the sheriff to let her go bail for him. She takes him home. He keeps on playing baby. She sends him away to school. And he threatens to go gunning for anybody that goes and tells her the truth about what he really is.”

  “And all the big, brave men in the county were afraid of the boy, I suppose?” Rose asked.

  “They tried to tell Missus Winton. She wouldn’t listen to nothing. He’d filled her full of lies. She wouldn’t hear the truth. She didn’t have no room for it. Well, she keeps him in school for four years. Then she dies. Think he does anything with his high-priced education? Not by a jugful. Tries to be a cowpuncher — too lazy to work — crooked old Von Ehrn gives him a job gambling, and there’s he’s been for five years, squeezing the life out of honest men! That’s the gentleman that
you was introduced to tonight — by a hoss!”

  “Do you know,” said Rose Purchass, “that I’ve heard some gamblers are honest?”

  “You’ve heard the gag about him running an honest game, have you? But lemme tell you, there ain’t such a thing as an honest gambler no more’n there is a snake that stands up and walks. They’re all crooked. Ain’t he made Von Ehrn rich? Rose, there ain’t a gift in the county that speaks to him.”

  “Does he give them a chance?”

  “You mean he keeps by himself and rides around by night? All that proves is that he’s kind of crazy. Am I right, boys?”

  They murmured an assent.

  “And,” concluded Purchass, “don’t lemme hear of you ever so much as looking at this man Pierre Delapin again.”

  She did not respond.

  “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” said Rose.

  VIII. A TURN IN THE ROAD

  THAT BRIEF EXCURSION cost Von Ehrn ten thousand dollars, for, when Delapin returned, he found a group awaiting him, and he played with only half of his mind on the game. Luckily the winners decided to retire and rest on their laurels. When they had gone, Von Ehrn, who had seemed to be soundly asleep in his nearby chair throughout the game, wakened and looked out at Delapin with his dull old eyes.

  “I see,” he said, “that you are near the end of your rope.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Pierre.

  “You have ceased to play the game well.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve simply had an off night.”

  But Von Ehrn shook his head. “Something has come between you and the cards,” he insisted.

  It was so true that Delapin looked sharply at his host. The old man had a way of flashing out like that, now and again, and striking to the very heart of a matter.

  “However,” said Von Ehrn, “we are both rich enough — I to retire, and you to make a good marriage — a wealthy one, I mean.”

  “Do you think,” answered Delapin, “that a respectable girl will marry a man who is known as a gambler?”

  “Girl?” said the old villain. “Who spoke of a girl?”

  “Did I misunderstand you? You were speaking of a marriage?”

  “But not with a girl. No, I say nothing of a girl, but I say you have now enough money to marry a rich woman — some well-matured widow, some rose fullblown and beginning to wither a trifle. You understand? It is at that very period that they are most likely to fall into the arms of a second or a third husband. They have often contracted the habit of marrying, one might say. And it is toward such a prize that I point the way. She will love you in the first place because you are young, the second place because you are notorious, and in the third place because your manners and your clothes are good and just a little eccentric. You have the perfect equipment. If you marry under five millions, I shall be disappointed. When I lose my fortune, I’ll come to be your dependent!”

  “When you lose your fortune?” said Pierre, his curiosity conquering his disgust. “But do you actually expect to lose it? Do you think that there is a possibility that such bonds as you have invested in can fail?”

  “If I left the money where it is, well and good, but I know myself. Sooner or later the gambling spirit that has brought thousands to become my victims will flame up in me again. It may come to me on my very deathbed, but, when it comes, I shall rise up, risk everything in one stupendous and ridiculous throw, and lose it all. I shall certainly not have enough left to bury me decently.”

  Delapin gazed upon him with horror. Perhaps a little pity stirred in his heart. Certainly a dread of this man entered him for the first time. He had seen him a thousand times implacable with others; he had never before seen the old scoundrel implacable with himself.

  “I suppose,” said Pierre, “that it is the common end of all gamblers — at least, that they carry the dread of it about with them. They cannot be safe. They feel that sooner or later the gambling that has made them rich will overwhelm them with ruin. Is that not true?”

  “Very true.”

  “Have you ever known of such cases?”

  “I am tired of talking,” said Von Ehrn. “You are like all young men. You are about to bring the conversation back to yourself — you are about to ask me, if I think that the same gambling fire will consume you, also. Certainly it must consume you. You cannot escape. The day must come when you will sacrifice home, wife, happiness, wealth, position, honor, and all for the sake of taking a chance.”

  With this he hobbled out of the room and left Delapin staring sadly down at the rug on which he was standing. All that the old gambler had told him was so true that it rang and echoed again through his mind. Some old woman whose sensibilities were so dulled that she would not care about the whispers of the gossips — this was the only sort of wife he could expect to win. But as for some charming and gracious girl — as for some such girl as had that night walked into his life — that was, of course, impossible. A respectable woman had rather be burned than married to such a person as he.

  He made these observations to himself with considerable rapidity. But he did not lie awake that night to brood over his decisions. He had learned how to take losses. And even though this were worse than the greatest financial ruin, he went deliberately to bed, propped himself among his pillows, forced himself to forget all his troubles, and with a calm mind read for an hour, turned out the light, and fell asleep.

  When he wakened in the morning, he found that the burden was still heavy on his mind. He set his teeth, raised his head, and whistled as breakfast was brought into his room, but, nevertheless, he knew that this constant effort of the will would wear him out. That morning he told Von Ehrn that he must find another dealer to sit behind the single table in the great room. Von Ehrn took the matter philosophically.

  “I saw this coming last night. The serpent had come into the garden. I’m only glad that you are leaving before you lose everything you have won for me.”

  “I wish you luck with my successor,” said Pierre.

  He was astonished to hear Von Ehrn swear that there should be no successor.

  “There was only one man in the world,” said Von Ehrn, “capable of doing what I wanted and doing it honestly and well. You have been thinking that you have been a mere tool. Not at all! You have been the whole machine. You have gambled with a heart of steel and a brain of lightning. You have been magnificent, Delapin. There have been times when I could hardly withstand the temptation. I wanted to rush to you and declare how great you were, but I always realized that I must never let you know yourself. No, Delapin, I now close the house. The furniture will be useful in my New York home.”

  So saying, they parted. And Delapin went out for a ride, not by the dark of the night, but in the fresh brightness of the morning. He wanted that last ride to convince himself that it was actually necessary for him to leave that part of the country. He wanted that swinging gallop to keep his brain clear, while he worked out his problem. And he rode, without knowing it, straight toward the old ravine where he had seen the girl the night before.

  He remembered only when his horse, a strong-going, gray gelding, reached the very edge of the steep downpitch. Then he checked his mount and sat back in the saddle with the sweat standing out on his face, for he knew now how strongly Rose Purchass had won him, if his unconscious mind had brought him back to her. He was a captive, indeed, and, if he wished to escape before he were irremediably held, he must go at once.

  He swung the gray about, and with a stern face he was spurring back up the brow of the slope, when he caught sight of someone scurrying away among the trees. He stopped the horse again, his heart thundering. It had been a woman, he knew. And perhaps —

  He called, then waited a minute, for two minutes. Either it was not she, or, if it were she, Rose Purchass did not care to meet him again. Then a faint rustling sounded at his side, and he found himself looking down at her. How had she managed to steal upon him so deftly?

  “I se
e that you are an expert in woodcraft,” he said, as he swung down from the saddle and took off his hat.

  “I see,” said Rose Purchass, “that your thoughts are exceedingly profound if they cover up the noise I made. I hoped at first you were coming to call on our fishing party in the cañon.”

  “Did you really think that?”

  “But then I saw you turn away to go back.”

  “And luckily I saw you at the same instant.”

  “Luckily I moved to a place where you would be sure to see me.”

  He laughed at that, and she laughed with him, which made the best sort of chorus imaginable.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I have come out here, hoping against hope that I might see you without seeing the dragon.”

  She appreciated that reference to her father with a faint smile.

  “It isn’t entirely luck, then,” she said. “I confess that I climbed up simply to see the slope down which you had ridden from the top. What a wild rider you must be to do such things!”

  “It was more accident than intent.” He paused. And suddenly the silence became a heavy weight. The noises from the forest stirred about them in the wind. There were a thousand small distractions, and he felt as though his eyes were being pulled away from her, yet he dared not glance in another direction for the fear of losing her. Moreover, he was seeing in her face a thousand worthwhile things that he had not noticed the night before. It needed no sun to show the pure transparency of her skin and to light up the colors and to show the clearness of her eyes. She looked, by day, some vital two or three years younger than she had seemed the night before, just as a stone statue is sure to seem older than the living, pulsing original.

  “I wanted to tell you,” began the girl, “if I ever saw you again, how sorry I am that what happened last night—”

  “Hush,” he said. “Of course, it couldn’t be helped. Besides, a man who follows a profession like mine has to expect to be talked of.”