Small though the distant figure was, and visible but for a moment, the boy recognized the military carriage of the rider. He glanced quickly at the girl to note if she had seen, but it was evident that she had not.
“Well, Ev,” he said, “l guess I’ll be toddling.”
“So early?” she demanded.
“You see I’ve got to get busy, if I’m going to get the price of that teeny, weeny bungalow,” he explained.
A moment later he swung into the saddle, and with a wave of his hand cantered off up the canyon.
“Now what,” said the girl to herself, “is he going up there for? He can’t make any money back there in the hills. He ought to be headed straight for home and his typewriter!”
CHAPTER 7
Across the rustic bridge, and once behind the sycamores at the lower end of the cow pasture, Guy Evans let his horse out into a rapid gallop. A few minutes later he overtook a horseman who was moving at a slow walk farther up the canyon. At the sound of the pounding hoof-beats behind him, the latter turned in his saddle, reined about and stopped. The boy rode up and drew in his blowing mount beside the other.
“Hello, Allen!” he said.
The man nodded.
“What’s eatin’ you?” he inquired.
“I’ve been thinking over that proposition of yours,” explained Evans.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking maybe I might swing it; but are you sure it’s safe. How do I know you won’t double-cross me?”
“You don’t know,” replied the other. “All you know is that I got enough on you to send you to San Quentin. You wouldn’t get nothin’ worse if you handled the rest of it, an’ you stand to clean up between twelve and fifteen thousand bucks on the deal. You needn’t worry about me double-crossin’ you. What good would it do me? I ain’t got nothin’ against you, kid. If you don’t double-cross me I won’t double-cross you; but look out for that cracker-fed dude your sister’s goin’ to hitch to. If he ever butts in on this I’ll croak him an’ send you to San Quentin, if I swing for it. Do you get me?”
Evans nodded.
“I’ll go in on it,” he said, “because I need the money; but don’t you bother Custer Pennington — get that straight. I’d go to San Quentin and I’d swing myself before I’d stand for that. Another thing, and then we’ll drop that line of chatter — you couldn’t send me to San Quentin or anywhere else. I bought a few bottles of hooch from you, and there isn’t any judge or jury going to send me to San Quentin for that.”
“You don’t know what you done,” said Allen, with a grin. “There’s a thousand cases of bonded whiskey hid back there in the hills, an’ you engineered the whole deal at this end. Maybe you didn’t have nothin’ to do with stealin’ it from a government bonded warehouse in New York; but you must a’ knowed all about it, an’ it was you that hired me and the other three to smuggle it off the ship and into the hills.”
Evans was staring at the man in wide-eyed incredulity.
“How do you get that way?” he asked derisively.
“They’s four of us to swear to it,” said Allen; “an’ how many you got to swear you didn’t do it?”
“Why, it’s a rotten frame-up!” exclaimed Evans.
“Sure it’s a frame-up,” agreed Allen; “but we won’t use it if you behave yourself properly.”
Evans looked at the man for a long minute — dislike and contempt unconcealed upon his face.
“I guess,” he said presently, “that I don’t need any twelve thousand dollars that bad, Allen. We’ll call this thing off, as far as I am concerned. I’m through, right now. Goodbye!”
He wheeled his horse to ride away.
“Hold on there, young feller!” said Allen. “Not so quick! You may think you’re through, but you’re not. We need you, and, anyway, you know too damned much for your health. You’re goin’ through with this. We got some other junk up there that there’s more profit in than what there is in booze, and it’s easier to handle. We know where to get rid of it; but the booze we can’t handle as easy as you can, and so you’re goin’ to handle it.”
“Who says I am?”
“I do,” returned Allen, with an ugly snarl. “You’ll handle it, or I’ll do just what I said I’d do, and I’ll do it pronto. How’d you like your mother and that Pennington girl to hear all I’d have to say?”
The boy sat with scowling, thoughtful brows for a long minute. From beneath a live oak, on the summit of a low bluff, a man discovered them. He had been sitting there talking with a girl. Suddenly he looked up.
“Why, there’s Guy,” he said. “Who’s that with — why, it’s that fellow Allen! What’s he doing up here?” He rose to his feet. “You stay here a minute, Grace, I’m going down to see what that fellow wants. I can’t understand Guy.”
He untied the Apache and mounted, while below, just beyond the pasture fence, the boy turned sullenly toward Allen.
“I’ll go through with it this once,” he said. “You’ll bring it down on burros at night?”
The other nodded affirmatively.
“Where do you want it?” he asked.
“Bring it to the west side of the old hay barn — the one that stands on our west line. When will you come?”
“Today’s Tuesday. We’ll bring the first lot Friday night, about twelve o’clock; and after that every Friday the same time. You be ready to settle every Friday for what you’ve sold during the week — sabe?”
“Yes,” replied Evans. “That’s all, then”; and he turned and rode back toward the rancho.
Allen was continuing on his way toward the hills when his attention was again attracted by the sound of hoofbeats. Looking to his left, he saw a horseman approaching from inside the pasture. He recognized both horse and rider at once, but kept sullenly on his way.
Pennington rode up to the opposite side of the fence along which ran the trail that Allen followed.
“What are you doing here, Allen?” he asked in a not unkindly tone.
“Mindin’ my own business, like you better,” retorted the ex-stableman.
“You have no business back here on Ganado,” said Pennington. “You’ll have to get off the property.”
“The hell I will!” exclaimed Allen.
At the same time he made a quick movement with his right hand but Pennington made a quicker.
“That kind of stuff don’t go here, Allen,” said the younger man, covering the other with a forty-five. “Now turn around and get off the place, and don’t come on it again. I don’t want any trouble with you.”
Without a word, Allen reined his horse about and rode down the canyon; but there was murder in his heart. Pennington watched him until he was out of revolver range, and then turned and rode back to Grace Evans.
CHAPTER 8
Beneath the cool shadows of the north porch the master of Ganado, booted and spurred, rested after a long ride in the hot sun, sipping a long, cool glass of peach brandy and orange juice, and talking to his wife.
She knew the dream that her husband had built, and that with it he had purposely blinded his eyes and dulled his ears to the truth which the mother heart would have been glad to deny, but could not. Some day one of the children would go away, and then the other. It was only right and just that it should be so, for as they two had built their own home and their own lives and their little family circle, so their children must do even as they.
It was going to be hard on them both, much harder on the father, because of that dream that had become an obsession. Mrs. Pennington feared that it might break his spirit, for it would leave him nothing to plan for and hope for as he had planned and hoped for during the twenty-two years that they had spent upon Ganado.
Now that Grace was going to the city, how could they hope to keep their boy content upon the ranch? She knew he loved the old place, but he was entitled to see the world and to make his own place in it — not merely to slide spinelessly into the niche that another had prepared for him.
“I am worried about the boy,” she said presently.
“How? In what way?” he asked.
“He will be very blue and lonely after Grace goes,” she said.
“Damned foolishness, that’s what it is!” he blustered. “An actress! What does she know about acting?”
“Have you ever thought that some day our own children may want to go?” she asked.
“I won’t think about it!” he exploded.
“I hope you won’t have to,” she said; “but it’s going to be pretty hard on the boy after Grace goes.”
“Do you think he’ll want to go?” the colonel asked. His voice sounded suddenly strange and pleading, and there was a suggestion of pain and fear in his eyes that she had never seen there before in all the years that she had known him. “Do you think he’ll want to go?” he repeated in a voice that no longer sounded like his own.
“Stranger things have happened,” she replied, forcing a smile, “than a young man wanting to go out into the world and win his spurs!”
“Let’s not talk about it, Julia,” the colonel said presently. “You are right, but I don’t want to think about it. When it comes will be time enough to meet it. If my boy wants to go, he shall go — and he shall never know how deeply his father is hurt!”
“There they are now,” said Mrs. Pennington. “I hear them in the patio. Children!” she called. “Here we are on the north porch!”
They came through the house together, brother and sister, their arms about each other.
“Cus says I am too young to get married,” exclaimed the girl.
“Married!” ejaculated the colonel. “You and Guy talking of getting married? What are you going to live on, child?”
“On the hill back there.”
She jerked her thumb in a direction that was broadly south by west.
“That will give them two things to live on,” suggested the boy, grinning.
“What do you mean — two things?” demanded the girl.
“The hill and father,” her brother replied, dodging.
She pursued him, and he ran behind his mother’s chair; but at last she caught him, and, seizing his collar, pretended to chastise him, until he picked her up bodily from the floor and kissed her.
“Pity the poor goof she ensnares!” pleaded Custer, addressing his parents. “He will have three avenues of escape — being beaten to death, starved to death, or talked to death.”
Eva clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Now listen to me,” she cried. “Guy and I are going to build a teeny, weeny bungalow on that hill, all by ourselves, with a white tile splash board in the kitchen, and one of those broom closets that turn into an ironing board, and a very low, overhanging roof, almost flat, and a shower, and a great big living room where we can take up the rugs and dance, and a spiffy little garden in the back yard, and chickens, and Chinese rugs, and he is going to have a study all to himself where he writes his stories, an—”
At last she had to stop and join in the laughter.
“I think you are all mean,” she added. “You always laugh at me!”
“With you, little jabberer,” corrected the colonel; “for you were made to be laughed with and kissed.”
“Then kiss me,” she exclaimed, and sprang into his lap, at the imminent risk of deluging them both with “elixir” — a risk which the colonel, through long experience of this little daughter of his, was able to minimize by holding the glass at arm’s length as she dived for him.
“And when are you going to be married?” he asked.
“Oh, not for ages and ages!” she cried.
“But are you and Guy engaged?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why in the world all this talk about getting married?” he inquired, his eyes twinkling.
“Well, can’t I talk?” she demanded.
“Talk? I’ll say she can!” exclaimed her brother.
CHAPTER 9
Two weeks later Grace Evans left for Hollywood and fame. She would permit no one to accompany her, saying that she wanted to feel that the moment she left home she had made her own way, unassisted, toward her goal.
Hers was the selfish egotism that is often to be found in otherwise generous natures. She had never learned the sweetness and beauty of sharing - of sharing her ambitions, her successes, and her failures, too, with those who loved her. If she won to fame, the glory would be hers; nor did it once occur to her that she might have shared that pride and pleasure with others by accepting their help and advice. If she failed, they would not have even the sad sweetness of sharing her disappointment.
Over two homes there hovered that evening a pall of gloom that no effort seemed able to dispel. In the ranch house on Ganado they made a brave effort at cheerfulness on Custer Pennington’s account. They did not dance that evening, as was their custom, nor could they find pleasure in the printed page which they tried to read. Bridge proved equally impossible.
Finally Custer rose, announcing that he was going to bed. Kissing them all good night, as had been the custom since childhood, he went to his room, and tears came to the mother’s eyes as she noted the droop in the broad shoulders as he walked from the room.
The girl came then and knelt beside her, taking the older woman’s hand in hers and caressing it.
“I feel so sorry for Cus,” she said. “I believe that none of us realize how hard he is taking this. He told me yesterday that it was going to be just the same as if Grace was dead, for he knew she would never be satisfied here again, whether she succeeded or failed. I think he has definitely given up all hope of their being married.”
“Oh, no, dear, I am sure he is wrong,” said her mother. “The engagement has not been broken. In fact Grace told me only a few days ago that she hoped her success would come quickly, so that she and Custer might be married the sooner. The dear girl wants us to be proud of our new daughter.”
“My God!” ejaculated the colonel, throwing his book down and rising to pace the floor. “Proud of her! Weren’t we already proud of her? Will being an actress make her any dearer to us? Of all the damn fool ideas!”
“Custer! Custer! You mustn’t swear so before Eva,” reproved Mrs. Pennington.
“Swear?” he demanded. “Who in the hell is swearing?”
A merry peal of laughter broke from the girl, nor could her mother refrain from smiling.
“It isn’t swearing when popsy says it,” cried the girl. “My gracious, I’ve heard it all my life, and you always say the same thing to him, as if I’d never heard a single little cuss word. Anyway, I’m going to bed now, popsy, so that you won’t contaminate me. According to momsy’s theory she should curse like a pirate by this time, after twenty-five years of it!”
She kissed them, leaving them alone in the little family sitting room.
“I hope the boy won’t take it too hard,” said the colonel after a silence.
“I am afraid he has been drinking a little too much lately,” said the mother. “I only hope his loneliness for Grace won’t encourage it.”
“I hadn’t noticed it,” said the colonel.
“He never shows it much,” she replied. “An outsider would not know that he had been drinking at all when I can see that he has had more than he should.”
“Don’t worry about that, dear,” said the colonel. “A Pennington never drinks more than a gentleman should. His father and his grandsires, on both sides, always drank, but there has never been a drunkard in either family. I wouldn’t give two cents for him if he couldn’t take a man’s drink like a man; but he’ll never go too far. My boy couldn’t.”
The pride and affection in the words brought the tears to the mother’s eyes. She wondered if there had ever been father and son like these before - each with such implicit confidence in the honor, the integrity, and the manly strength of the other. His boy couldn’t go wrong!
Custer Pennington entered his room, lighted a reading lamp beside a deep, wide-armed ch
air, selected a book from a rack, and settled himself comfortably for an hour of pleasure and inspiration. But he did not open the book. Instead, he sat staring blindly at the opposite wall.
She would never come back and why should she? In the city, in that new life, she would meet men of the world — men of broader culture than his, men of wealth — and she would be sought after. They would have more to offer her than he, and sooner or later she would realize it. He could not expect to hold her.
Custer laid aside his book.
“What’s the use?” he asked himself.
Rising, he went to the closet and brought out a bottle. He had not intended drinking. On the contrary, he had determined very definitely not to drink that night; but again he asked himself the old question which, under certain circumstances of life and certain conditions of seeming hopelessness, appears unanswerable:
“What is the use?”
It is a foolish question, a meaningless question, a dangerous question. What is the use of what? Of combating fate — of declining to do the thing we ought not to do — of doing the thing we should do? It is not even a satisfactory means of self-justification; but amid the ruins of his dreams it was sufficient excuse for Custer Pennington’s surrender to the craving of an appetite which was daily becoming stronger.
The next morning he did not ride before breakfast with the other members of the family nor in fact, did he breakfast until long after they.
On the evening of the day of Grace’s departure Mrs. Evans retired early, complaining of a headache. Guy Evans sought to interest himself in various magazines, but he was restless and too ill at ease to remain long absorbed. At frequent intervals he consulted his watch, and as the evening wore on he made numerous trips to his room, where he had recourse to a bottle like the one with which Custer Pennington was similarly engaged.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 750