Читать книгу Red Devil of the Range - Max Brand - Страница 11

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IT was his father's bedtime, but he was lighting up a fresh pipe, and a shower of sparks blew down the lazy wind.

Everard waited until the preliminary puffing had ended and the red glow had died from his father's face. Then he said:

"Uncle Clay has gone?"

"Yeah," muttered Ned Winton. "Clay's gone."

"He couldn't stand it," insisted the boy. "That's why he's gone."

There was no answer.

"I'm going, too," said the boy.

He waited.

"Are you?" asked his father.

"Yes, I'm going," he said.

He waited again.

"All right," said Ned Winton.

"About mother" began the boy.

"It's Clay that's making you go," said the father.

"No, that isn't so," insisted the boy. "Uncle Clay said that you were right; and he said that mother was right. He doesn't even know that I'm going."

"Well, it's all right," remarked Ned Winton. "You're going because I wouldn't give you the two thousand dollars."

"Because you wouldn't trust me for the two thousand dollars," Everard corrected him.

The boy smiled to himself.

"Your mother, she says it's the craziest idea that she ever heard of—two thousand bucks for a twenty-year-old kid."

"Perhaps it is a crazy idea. I don't know. But I've got to have that horse."

"How you gonna get it? Steal it?"

"Maybe," said the boy.

"My God!" muttered Ned Winton.

He turned in his chair, suddenly, and started to speak. Then he checked himself.

"My mother," said Everard, "is behind all this. But she's not as swift and bitter as you think. She loves me, and I love her. If I went to say good-bye to her now, she'd raise the roof. I couldn't stand it, and she couldn't stand it. We understand each other. That's why she's always been afraid that I'd go wrong.I'm not going near her, but I want you to say two things to her, for me."

"I'll say them," said the father.

His voice was a whisper. There was nothing in his heart; it was an empty space. Pain would come later.

"Tell her that I love her, and tell her good-bye for me," said the boy. "She'll raise the roof, mind you, but you can stand it. For you could stand calling your own brother a thief."

His father puffed at his pipe, leisurely. He could not answer for a minute, so terrible was the pain that was beginning to creep inside his breast.

"Yeah," he said, "I called Clay a thief. He is. Clay's a thief."

"Yes," said the boy. "Uncle Clay's a thief. But do you know something?"

"Well?"

"He's the finest man I know," said the boy, pointedly.

The father continued to smoke, and made no comment.

"I'll be going along now," said Everard. "Are we shaking hands, Father?"

He held out his hand.

"Why, sure," said Ned Winton. I guess we're shaking hands."

He stood up and held out his hand. He said:

"Speaking of the six years work, that would be all right. The six years contract and the two thousand dollars."

But his son answered, "If I were in hell and one penny would get me out, I wouldn't take that penny from you now."

"That's pretty clear," said Ned Winton.

"I hope it is clear," said Everard. "Good-bye."

He went down the steps. His footfall crunched on the long, straight, graveled path, and he passed out of the obscure shadows of the trees and into the pale starlight beyond; he opened the gate, closed it with his customary softness, and went up the road toward the corral gate.

His father smoked out his pipe and then went into the house.

At the door of the bedroom he waited for a moment, with his hand upon the knob, but finally he went inside. All the Wintons moved softly; so did Ned. Through the darkness he said:

"Martha!"

He had to repeat the call.

"Well?" she said, awakening.

"Clay's gone," he said.

"You needn't to wake me for that," she answered. I know he's gone—and a good riddance."

He lighted the lamp and remained with his back turned toward her, his hands resting on the edge of the dresser, with the lamp before him, so that his shadow swallowed the white walls of the room.

Suddenly she sat bolt upright.

"Ned, what's the matter?" she asked.

"Aw, nothing much," said he.

She was awed by his very silence.

"It ain't that I didn't know you love Clay," she said.

"Did you know that?" he asked, skeptically.

"Will you turn around and look at me?" she pleaded.

"Yeah. Pretty soon I will," said he.

A dreadful fear got hold of her; she could hear the thumping of her heart, and in the silence it seemed to her that strange little noises stole down the hall and paused at the door of the room.

"Clay said he was a thief," said the father. "He said it before Ever."

Still his wife made no answer, and a dim wonder stole over him. He had never known her to lack words before.

After a time, while he still considered the lifting of the yellow flame in the hot chimney of the lamp, he said:

"Ever's gone."

"Gone?" she asked, unable to comprehend.

Her voice had grown so thin and small that he stood up straight, with a start; but he could not bring himself to face her.

"You drove out Clay," he said.

"I drove out Clay," she answered. "God forgive me if I was wrong about it. I was only thinkin' of poor Ever. He's only twenty."

"But you went and drove out Ever, too," said he.

He heard a rustle of the bed clothes, and the fall of a bare foot on the floor. He said, hastily:

"Don't come near me, Martha. Don't touch me!"

He shrank, at the thought of her.

"I wouldn't bother you none, Ned," she said, brokenly. "I'm only standin' here and askin' you something."

"All right," he answered. "That's all right. Whatcha wanta know?"

"Everard" she began. "What about Everard?What about my boy?"

"You wanta know something?" he said.

"I wanta know anything you'll tell me, Ned." said she.

He wondered at her small and childlike voice now.

"Well," he said, "I was talkin' over about the two thousand dollars and the six years' contract. You said that was the craziest idea you ever heard of."

"Yes," said that new, small voice. "Maybe I said that." And, in a whisper she added, "Oh, God!Oh, God!What's happened?"

"Well," said he, "Ever said that if he was in hell and only wanted a penny to get out, he'd stay right there in hell rather than take the penny from me now."

He felt her come nearer.

"Maybe you mean that Everard has left us for good?" she asked.

"He didn't take nothin' with him," said the father. "He didn't make up no pack; he didn't even take his new rifle. He just walked down off the front path, and he opened the gate and turned up the road. He wanted me to say two things to you—that he loved you, and good-bye."

He added, hastily: "Don't touch me, Martha! I'm gonna go out and have another pipe. I was just telling you. He didn't take nothing. If he was in hell and a penny would buy him out, a penny from us wouldn't do him no good now."