Читать книгу Red Devil of the Range - Max Brand - Страница 6

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WORDS broke out from the father in a rush. "Everard, if you won't obey me, then I'm through with you! You can go your own way, is what I mean. Either you're my boy or you ain't my boy. You been four years followin' Clay like a dog at the heel. You been his shadow. He's been more than teacher, father, mother and friends to you. I don't like it, and I ain't gonna have it. You hear me talk?"

"I hear you," said the boy, coldly.

He waited for more words, but his father had run out of them. Those the older man had spoken echoed in his ears, and he could hardly believe that the stern utterances had been his own.

"You go on to bed," he muttered in conclusion, and heard the voice of his son coldly bid him good night. Everard passed from view around the corner of the house.

With a sore heart, Ned Winton said to his brother, "This is some of your doings, Clay."

"Why?" asked the other. "What have I had to do with it, Ned?"

"You know what you've had to do with it," insisted Ned. "He's been around with you all the time. He's got your wild ideas."

"You figure," said Clay, "that the only way to live is to work till your bones ache. You get the ache in the bones, all right, but you don't get much life."

"I've got a farm and cows on it and plenty of saddle-stock. Everything's fenced up and fixed right, and I started with nothing," boasted Ned.

"You work like a dog every day of your life," said Clay. "But what's the good of owning a thing that makes a slave of you? You don't own the place; the place owns you! I have enough to live on, as far as that goes."

"How'd you get it?" snapped Ned.

"Why, out of the mines."

"You never was a miner!" declared Ned.

"Hello!" murmured Clay Winton.

"You never had hands that were that hard."

"Martha's been talking to you, Ned," said Clay.

True accusations annoy us, always, far more than idle ones. Ned Winton grew hot at the mention of his wife.

"Leave Martha out of it!" he exclaimed.

"I'm glad to leave her out," answered Clay.

"She ain't good enough to please you, maybe?" demanded Ned.

"She's all right," said Clay. "I'm going on to bed."

"All right, go to bed," said Ned Winton. "Only—leave your hands off of Ever, will you?"

"No," said Clay Winton, suddenly.

He turned and came quickly back to his brother, climbing the steps of the veranda. They stood face to face, each watching the glimmering eyes of the other.

"You won't, eh?" said Ned.

"As long as I stay here," said Clay, "I'm gonna keep on doin' what I can for him."

"Teach him to make a fortune the way you did? You dug it out of wallets. A six-shooter was the tool you used for breaking your ground."

Clay paid no attention to the accusation. He said:

"What a fellow does with his money is just as important as how he gets it. You've worked like a dog; you'll have to keep on working. You'll go into the grave like a tired old hoss that ain't ever known a thing but harness and blinders and the furrows ahead of it. God, what a life for a human being! Wintons are meant for better things than that. They're meant to fly higher and freer. In the old days the Wintons were gentlemen."

"You think a man with callouses on his hands can't be a gentleman, eh?" declared Ned Winton. "Because your own damn lazy hands are soft, maybe you're a gentleman, are you?"

"I'm lazy and worthless," said Clay, with surprising frankness. I never done anything worth while, and I know it. I had a bit of fun, but I never knew enough to enjoy life the way it oughta be enjoyed. I never studied or read enough; I never worked hard enough with my brain. There's only one good thing that I've started; but I'm gonna finish it—in spite of you!"

"What have you started?" asked the other.

"I've started Ever. And I've worked on him for four years."

"And what good have you done him, I'd like to know?"

"I came back and looked at him," said Clay, It and I seen that he was a thoroughbred hitched to a plough. I walked him right out of the ploughing field; I put him into training. I've got him almost ready for the race track and the big stakes!"

"You want to make him like yourself!" said the father, savagely. "A hell of a thoroughbred you ever were!"

"You're only calling me names," said Clay Winton, "and the names you throw won't break my skin. I say that when I came back here I found Ever a poor lump of a kid, a little bit dull and sad, and not knowing what was the matter with him. I tell you what I've done for him; I've started him working at books—every evening he's been workin' in 'em. I couldn't tell him where to start, but he went out and got the right advice. I started him to watchin' his language, till now he speaks a good clean English. I've made him watch out for his clothes, too, and now he looks like something. I've taught him that whisky is poison, but that it can be handled. I've taught him not to boast or talk big or loud or to swear or to use slang.

"I've used myself as a model of what not to be. I've worked on his training, too. He can jump higher, run faster, box better, ride cleaner, shoot quicker and straighter than anybody around here. A man that he can't throw he can knock down. He's fit to stand anywhere in the world and to be taken for a gentleman, which is what his blood calls for him to be. For three generations the Wintons have been rooting in the ground like pigs. I've fitted Everard for something better."

It was a very considerable speech, and Ned Winton grew more and more angry as he felt the justice and truth of some of Clay's remarks. At last Ned said:

"I'll tell you how it is. You're satisfied with your own ideas, you think they're fine.Well, I don't. I tell you just this—keep your hands off of Ever from this minute on."

"I won't," said Clay.

"Then get out of my house and get out of my life," said Ned Winton.

"You mean that?" said Clay.

"I ain't gonna have Ever dragged down and thrown away by following your example," said Ned Winton. "Besides, you're upsetting the whole family," he muttered.

"All right," said Clay. "I'll leave in the morning. And if Ever leaves with me I'll be sorry for you."

He walked straight through the front door and disappeared in the house, leaving the father frozen in his place in the darkness of the outer night. Ned's hand was raised in expostulation. The next word was still hanging on his lips as he was about to reply, but it seemed that that final speech of his brother had robbed him of all utterance.

For a moment he remained like this, staring blankly before him until the distant stars seemed to dance together. Then he turned and went into the house.

He opened the screen door with care and carefully shut it behind him, like a guilty husband returning too late at night. The warm, close air of the house closed about him and made the perspiration start on his face. There was a smell of stale cookery in the hall; it was always there.

He went to the bedroom and was about to light the lamp when he remembered his wife's weary face as he had last seen her. He wanted her advice now, but he decided it would be better to wait until the morning. To rouse her now and tell her the recent threat of Clay would be to send her into a fury, and he dreaded those paroxysms of anger more than anything else in the world.

He himself sat down by the window, knitting his fingers together. It seemed to him that the world was a flat and savorless plain, a limitless waste of labor and joyless death.

A mosquito sang suddenly at his ear; another droned not far away. A shudder ran through Ned Winton's body, but he remained motionless in his chair, staring at the obscure night outside.