PROGRESS
Calumet had some thoughts on the subject but they were all inchoate and unsatisfying. He got only one conclusion out of them—that for some mysterious reason he had surrendered to Betty and was going to work to repair the ranchhouse.
On the morning following his visit to Lazette he sat on a piece of heavy timber which he and Dade had lifted a few minutes before to some saw-horses preparatory to framing. Armed with a scratch awl and a square Dade was at the other end of the timber, his hat shoved back from his forehead while he ran his fingers through his hair as though pondering some weighty problem. Watching him, Calumet suffered a recurrence of that vague disquiet which had moved him the night before when he had listened to the cordial greeting which Betty had given the young man. Old friendship had been between the two and somehow it had disturbed Calumet. He did not know why. He didn’t like Betty, but at the same time every smile that she had given Dade the night before had caused some strange emotion to grip him. And he liked Dade, too. He couldn’t understand that, either.
He had never been friendly with any man. But something about Dade appealed to him; he felt tolerant toward him, was mildly interested in him. He thought it was because Dade was boyish and impulsive. Whatever it was, he knew of its existence. It was not a deep feeling; it was like the emotion that moves a large animal to permit a smaller one to remain near it—a grudging tolerance which may develop into sincere friendship or at a flash turn into a furious hatred. And so Dade’s security depended entirely upon how he conducted himself. If he kept out of Calumet’s way, all well and good. But if he interfered with him, if, for instance, he became too friendly with Betty, there would come an end to Calumet’s tolerance.
And so there was a glint of speculative distrust in Calumet’s eyes as he sat and watched Dade ponder. Calumet was in no good humor. He felt like baiting Dade.
“What you clawin’ your head that way for?” he suddenly demanded as Dade continued to puzzle over his problem.
Dade grinned. “I’m goin’ to halve these sills together. But I’m wantin’ to make sure that the halves will be made reverse, so’s they’ll fit. An’ I don’t seem to be able to fix it clear in my mind.”
“You was braggin’ some on bein’ a carpenter.”
“I reckon I wasn’t doin’ no braggin’,” denied Dade, reddening a little.
Calumet fixed a hostile eye on him. “Braggin’ goes,” he said shortly. “If you’d said you was a barber, now, no one would expect you to fit any sills together. But when you say you’ve done carpenter work that makes it different. You ought to sabe sills.”
Dade laid his square and scratch awl down on the piece of timber and deliberately seated himself on the saw-horse beside it. He looked defiantly at Calumet. A change had come over him from the day before—the slight deference in his manner had become succeeded by something unyielding and hard.
“Let’s get on an understandin’,” he said. “You can’t go to pickin’ on me.” And he looked fairly into Calumet’s eyes over the length of the timber.
“I’m gassin’ to suit myself,” said Calumet; “if that don’t size up right to you you can pull your freight.”
“You’re a false alarm,” said Dade bluntly; “you drive me plumb weary.”
Before his voice had died away Calumet’s hand had flashed to his pistol butt. Why he did not draw the weapon was a mystery known only to himself. It might have been because Dade had not moved. Calumet’s lips had tensed over his teeth in a savage snarl; they still held the snarl when he spoke.
“You’ll swallow that,” he said. “Do you sabe my idea?”
“Nary swallow,” declared Dade. “False alarm goes. I’ve got you sized up right.”
Calumet’s six-shooter came out. His eyes, blazing with a wanton fire, met Dade’s and held them. The youngster’s lips whitened, but his eyes did not waver. Death twitched at Calumet’s finger. There was a long silence. And then Dade spoke.
“Usin’ it?” he said.
Into Calumet’s blazing eyes came a slow glint of doubt, of reluctant admiration. His lashes flickered, the blaze died down, he squinted, a cold, amused smile succeeded the snarl. He laughed shortly, looked at the pistol, and then slowly jammed it back into the holster.
“You’re too good to lose,” he said. “I’m savin’ you for another time.”
“Thanks,” said Dade dryly, though the ashen face of him showed how well he realized his narrow escape. “I reckon we understand each other now. I can see by the way you yanked out your gun just now and by the way you got the drop on Taggart yesterday, that you’re some on the shoot. But I ain’t none scared of you. An’ now I’m tellin’ you why I said you’re a false alarm. I was talkin’ to Betty last night. She’s read up a bit, an’ I’m parrotin’ what she said about you because it’s what I think, too. Your cosmos is all ego. That’s what Betty said. Brought down to cases, what that means is that you’ve got a bad case of swelled head. So far as you’re concerned there’s only one person in the world. That’s you. Nobody else counts. You’ve been thinkin’ about yourself so much that you can’t find time to think about anybody else. There’s other people in the world as good as you—better. Betty’s one of them. She’s a good girl an’ you an’ me’ll hitch all right as long as you don’t go to bullyin’ her. I reckon that’s all.”
“Meanin’ that you’ll let me hang around as long as I’m good,” sneered Calumet in a dangerously soft voice. He was trying to work himself into a rage, but the effort was futile. Something in Dade’s quiet, matter-of-fact voice had a dulling, cooling effect on him. Besides, he knew that an attack on Dade would be resented by Betty, and he felt a strange reluctance toward further antagonizing her. “You Texas folks are sure clever at workin’ your jaws,” he sneered, when Dade did not answer. “But I reckon that lets you out. When I’m lookin’ for advice from women an’ kids mebbe I’ll call on you an’ Betty, but if I don’t you’ll understand that I’m followin’ my own trail. You’ve got away with one call because—well, because I was fool enough to let you. Mebbe another time I won’t feel so foolish.”
There were few words spoken between them during the following hours of the morning, though several times Dade caught Calumet watching him with a puzzled, amused smile in which there was a sort of slumbering ferocity. By the middle of the morning the front of the ranchhouse had been raised with the assistance of jacks, the old rotted sills taken out and new ones substituted. About an hour before noon, while Calumet, in woolen shirt and overalls, his face dirty, his hair tousled, and his temper none too good, was wedging the sill tight against the studding above it, he became aware of Betty standing near him. She nodded toward the sill.
“That makes an improvement already,” she said.
“Ye-es?” he said, with an irritating drawl.
There was a silence; she stood, regarding his back, a faint smile on her face.
“I want to compliment you on your judgment of horses,” she persisted, in an attempt to make him talk; “the ones you bought are fine.”
Calumet drove a wedge home viciously. But he did not answer.
“I’ve been checking up your other purchases,” she went on; “and I find that you followed the list I gave you faithfully.”
He turned and looked up. “Look here,” he said; “I got what you wanted, didn’t I? There’s no use of gettin’ mush headed about it. I’d have blowed the money just as quick, if I’d wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you didn’t want me to, I reckon?” he sneered.
“No. Because you wanted to be fair.”
He had not known what sort of an answer he had expected from her, but the one he got embarrassed him. He felt a reluctant pleasure over the knowledge that she had faith in him, but mingling with this was a rage against himself over his surrender. When she turned from him and walked over to Dade, speaking to him in a low voice, he could not have told which affected him most, his rage against himself or his disappointment
over her abrupt leave-taking. She irritated him, but somehow he got a certain pleasure out of that irritation—which was a wholly unsatisfying and mystifying paradox. He covertly watched Dade during her talk with him and discovered that he did not like the way the young man looked at her; he was entirely too familiar even if he was a friend of the family. He saw, too, that Betty seemed to be an entirely different person when talking to Dade. For one thing she seemed natural, which she didn’t seem when talking to him. Until he saw her talking with Dade he had been able to see nothing in her manner but restraint and stiff formality, but figuratively, when in Dade’s presence she seemed to melt—she was gracious, smiling, cordial.
Betty’s attitude toward him during the noon meal puzzled him much. Some subtle change had come over her. Several times he surprised her looking at him, and at these times he was certain there was approval in her glances, though perhaps the approval was mingled with something else—speculation, he thought.
But whatever it was, he had not seen it before. Had he known that Dade had told her about the incident of the Red Dog Saloon he would have understood, for she was wondering—as Dade had wondered—why he had pretended to make friends with Taggart, why he had asked the Arrow man to visit the Lazy Y that afternoon.
After dinner Calumet went out again to his work, apparently carefree and unconcerned, if we are to omit those thoughts in which Dade and Betty figured, Dade watched him with much curiosity, for the incident of the day before was still vivid in his mind, and if there had been mystery in Calumet’s action in inviting Taggart to the Lazy Y, there had been no mystery in the words he had spoken outside the Red Dog Saloon immediately afterward: “It’s my game, do you hear?”
But along toward the middle of the afternoon Dade became so interested that he forgot all about Taggart, and was only reminded of him when looking up momentarily he saw Calumet sitting on a pile of timber near the ranchhouse, leaning lazily forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin on his hands, gazing speculatively into the afternoon haze. Dade noted that he was looking southward, and he turned and followed his gaze to see, far out in the valley, a horseman approaching.
Dade had turned stealthily and thought his movement had been unobserved by Calumet, and he started when the latter slowly remarked:
“Well, he’s comin’, after all. I was thinkin’ he wouldn’t.”
“That’s him, all right, I reckon,” returned Dade. He shot a glance at Calumet’s face—it was expressionless.
There was a silence until Taggart reached the low hill in the valley where on the day following his coming to the Lazy Y Calumet had seen Lonesome, before the dog had begun the stalk that had ended in its death. Then Calumet turned to Dade, a derisive light in his eyes.
“Do you reckon Betty will be glad to see him?”
“I don’t reckon you done just right in askin’ him here after what he said in the Red Dog,” returned Dade.
Calumet seemed amused. “Shucks, you’re a kid yet,” he said. He ignored Dade, giving his attention to Taggart, who was now near the bunkhouse.
Taggart’s coming was attended with interest by Malcolm, who, hearing hoofbeats in the ranchhouse yard came to the door of the bunkhouse where he had been doing some small task; by Bob, who hobbled out of the stable door, his eyes wide; and by Betty, who, forewarned of the visit by Dade, had come out upon the porch and had been watching his approach.
Dade was interested also, betraying his interest by covertly eyeing Taggart as he drew his pony to a halt. But apparently Calumet’s interest was largely negative, for he did not move from his position, merely glancing at Taggart as the latter halted his pony, grinning mildly at him and speaking to him in a slow drawl.
“Get off your cayuse an’ visit,” he invited.
Taggart’s smile was wide as he dismounted. He did not seem to look at the others particularly, not even deigning a glance at Dade, but his gaze fell on Betty with an insolent boldness that brought a flush to that young lady’s face. There was a challenge in the look he gave her. He dismounted and bowed mockingly to her, sweeping his hat from his head with a movement so derisive that it made Dade longingly finger his pistol butt.
Calumet still sat on the pile of lumber. His smile was engaging even if, as it seemed to Dade, it was a trifle shallow. But now Calumet slowly got to his feet. He stood erect, yawned, and stretched himself. Then turning, his back to Taggart, who had come close to him, he looked at Betty, steadily, intently, with a command showing so plainly in his eyes that the girl involuntarily started.
“Betty,” he said slowly; “come here.”
She went toward him, scarcely knowing why, yet remotely conscious of something in his eyes that warned her that she must not refuse—a cold, sinister gleam that hinted of approaching trouble. She walked to a point near him and stood looking at him wonderingly. And now for the first time since the beginning of their acquaintance she became aware of a quiet indomitability in his character, the existence of which she had suspected all along without having actually sensed it. She saw now why men feared him. In his attitude, outwardly calm, but suggesting in some subtle way the imminence of deadly violence; in his eyes, steady and cold, but with something cruel and bitter and passionate slumbering deep in them; in the set of his head and the thrust of his chin, there was a threat—nay, more—a promise of volcanic action; of ruthless, destroying anger.
Taggart, apparently, saw nothing of these things. He looked again at Betty, his heavy face wreathed in an insolent half-smile. She saw the look and instantly flushed and stiffened. But it appeared that Calumet noticed nothing of her agitation or of Taggart’s insulting glance. He stood a little to one side of Taggart, and he spoke slowly and distinctly:
“Taggart,” he said; “meet my boss, Betty Clayton.” He smiled grimly at the consternation in Betty’s face, at the black rage in Dade’s.
“I have already had the honor of meeting Mr. Taggart,” said Betty coldly. “If that is what you—” She caught a glance from Calumet and subsided.
Taggart was deeply amused; he guffawed loudly.
“That’s rich,” he said. “Why, man, I’ve knowed her ever since she’s been here. Me an’ her’s pretty well acquainted. In fact—”
“Well, now; that’s odd,” cut in Calumet dryly.
“What is?” questioned Taggart quickly, noting his tone.
“That I didn’t remember,” said Calumet.
“Remember what?” inquired Taggart.
“That I heard you gassin’ about Betty to your Red Dog friends. You rattled it off pretty glibly. You ought to remember what you said. I’m wantin’ you to repeat it while she’s watchin’ you. That’s why I wanted you to come over here.”
“Why—” began Taggart. Then he hesitated, an embarrassed, incredulous light in his shifting eyes. He looked from one to the other, not seeming to entirely comprehend the significance of the command, and then he saw the gleam in Betty’s eyes, the derisive enjoyment in Dade’s, the implacable glint in Calumet’s, knowledge burst upon him in a sudden, sickening flood and his face paled. He looked at Calumet, the look of a trapped animal.
“Get goin’!” said the latter; “we’re all waitin’.”
Taggart cursed profanely, stepping back a pace and reaching for his pistol. But as in the Red Dog, Calumet was before him. Again his right hand moved with the barely perceptible motion, and his six-shooter was covering Taggart. The latter quickly withdrew his own hand, it was empty. And in response to an abrupt movement of Calumet’s hand it went upward, the other following it instantly. Watchful, alert, Calumet stepped forward, plucked Taggart’s pistol from its holster, threw it a dozen feet from him, swiftly passed a hand over Taggart’s shirt and waistband and then stepped back.
“You’ve got a minute,” he said. “Sixty seconds to decide whether you’d rather die with your boots on or get to talkin’. Take your time, for there won’t be any arguin’ afterward.”
Taggart looked into Calumet’s eyes. What he saw there seemed to deci
de him. “I reckon it’s your trick,” he said; “I’ll talk.”
“Get goin’.”
“I said I’d made love to her.”
A half-sneer wreathed Calumet’s face. “I reckon that covers the ground pretty well. You didn’t say it that way, but we won’t have you repeat the exact words; they ain’t fit to hear. The point is, did you tell the truth?”
“No,” said Taggart. He did not look at Betty and his face was scarlet.
“So you lied, eh? Lied about a woman! There’s only one place for that kind of a man. Crawl an’ tell her you’re a snake!”
Taggart had partly recovered his composure.
“Guess again,” he sneered. “You’re buttin’ in where—”
Calumet dropped his pistol and took a quick step. With a swish his right hand went forward to Taggart’s face, one hundred and eighty pounds of vengeful, malignant muscle behind it. There was the dull, strange sound of impacting bone and flesh. Taggart’s head shot backward, he crumpled oddly, his legs wabbled and doubled under him and he sank in his tracks, sprawling on his hands and knees in the sand.
For an instant he remained in this position, then he threw himself forward, groping for the pistol Calumet had dropped. Calumet’s booted foot struck his wrist, and with a bellow of rage and pain he got to his feet and rushed headlong at his assailant. Calumet advanced a step to meet him. His right fist shot out again; it caught Taggart fairly in the mouth and he sank down once more. He landed as before, on his hands and knees, and for an instant he stayed in that position, his head hanging between his arms and swaying limply from side to side. Then with an inarticulate grunt he plunged forward and lay face downward in the sand.
Calumet stood watching him. He felt Betty’s hand on his arm, laid there restrainingly, but he shook her viciously off, telling her to “mind her own business.” Malcolm had come forward; he stood behind Betty. Dade had not moved, though a savage satisfaction had come into his eyes. Bob stood in front of the stable door, trembling from excitement. But besides Betty, none of them attempted to interfere, and there was a queer silence when Taggart finally got to his feet.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 201