Читать книгу The Mountain Fugitive - Max Brand - Страница 8

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We went up to the front door, with Father McGuire walking briskly in the lead; I lagged to the rear, more unwilling with every step that we took. In answer to the bell, a servant opened the door.

"Father McGuire wishes to see Mr. Chase on an important matter," said the little priest.

We were ushered into a lofty hall. It ran to the uppermost roof of the house, and I lifted my eyes with awe up the shadowy walls of that spacious chamber. Then we were led into a little room at the side. I remained standing, and so did Father McGuire, with his eyes bent upon the floor.

Then a brisk, heavy step sounded through the hall, and I saw a florid man with a vivacious eye and a well-trimmed, blond mustache standing before us. He went up to the priest and offered his hand.

"You are Father McGuire?" said he.

"I am," said my friend. "I have come to introduce you to young Leon Porfilo."

He nodded to me.

"This is Mr. Chase, Leon."

"Ah?" said the rancher, and he looked at me with a sudden stiffening of his upper lip, which reminded me of his son's expression as he rushed into battle. "How do you do, Leon Porfilo," said he, without shaking hands.

"What I have to say," said Father McGuire, "I wish to say before all your family, Mr. Chase. I want Mrs. Chase to hear it. I wish to have your elder son present. I particularly wish to have Harry Chase in the room."

The rancher flushed a little and looked not at the priest but straight at me, until I wished myself a thousand miles from that spot. I idled restlessly from foot to foot on the thick rug.

"Harry," said Mr. Chase, "as you probably know, is not presentable this evening."

"Nevertheless," said Father McGuire, "it is very important that he should be one of those to hear what we have to say!"

I was disturbed by the plural. What did I have to say? I had not the slightest idea!

"Do you consider it important?" said Mr. Chase, with a cold little sneering smile, which again was familiar to me from my meeting with his son.

"I consider it important—very," said Father McGuire, and his intent eyes drew back the glance of Mr. Chase until the sneer disappeared from his face.

"This is very odd," said the rich man.

"It is very necessary," corrected Father McGuire.

Mr. Chase suddenly snapped his fingers. "You interest me," said he. "You shall have it your own way."

He took us down the hall and into a big living room where a little lady was tinkling the keys of a big piano.

She was Mrs. Chase, very slender, with a girlish figure and a face still beautiful—as dark in complexion and eyes and hair, as her husband was fair. She shook hands most cordially with Father McGuire, but when she heard my name, she started and gave me a look of horror as though a snake had crawled across her path. Poor lady, if she could have looked a little more deeply into the future, she would have loathed me in very fact!

Then I was presented, with the priest, to the elder son, Andrew. He was like his father in bulk. He was like his mother in the graceful finish of his face and his body, and in his black hair and his dark, bright eyes.

He had a cool, calm way with him that sent a shiver through me.

He said to Father McGuire: "I don't understand why your young friend should be here tonight."

I suppose no one could have thought of a more insulting speech; I wanted to kill him—or to flee from the house! Then I heard Mr. Chase exclaiming: "Andrew! No more of that! We are to have Harry with us, also."

"Harry?" said Andrew, giving me a flashing glance that went through me like a sword blade. "An infernal outrage! Do you want to humiliate the poor boy again?"

However, Mr. Chase sent for Harry; and he talked easily enough through the following heavy pause until Harry appeared with his face criss-crossed with bandages. Only one eye was exposed, and that looked forth through a discolored slit. When he saw me, he stopped short, and then he whirled on his father in a rage.

"Why do you want me here, sir?" said he.

Mr. Chase waved to Father McGuire. "You see," said he, "that this makes quite a commotion in my house. I suppose that you have something to say to us, father?"

"I have come," said Father McGuire, "in the first place to apologize for the outrageous thing which my young protigi has done to-day!"

"Come, come," broke in Andrew Chase. "There's no need of apologies! Apologies don't make the thing any better. Harry has simply been thrashed. Words don't help matters!"

"Young man," said the fiery priest, "you speak too quickly about important matters. You lack a quarter of a century of life; when you reach that age you will know better than to speak without forethought. I have come to tell you that there is no cause for Harry Chase to feel any shame."

"That's a rare one," said Andrew.

"If you please, Andrew!" said his father with much dignity.

Father McGuire wheeled on Andrew, saying: "Would you be ashamed of your brother if he had been beaten by a professional pugilist?"

"Of course not."

"What I wish to tell you in the first place is that Leon Porfilo has been practicing boxing under my instruction for the greater part of a year. A match between him and an untrained boy is as bad as a match between a man armed with a rapier and another armed with a paper knife.

"The thing which he has done today, in taking advantage of his skill and his training to batter a boy who probably has never had a moment of scientific training—is simply a frightful outrage. I have come to tell you that I feel this thing. I am covered with shame because of it. I believe that Leon himself realizes that he has done a shameful thing!"

It was quite a staggering position for me, as you may imagine. I felt the very floor shaking beneath my feet, but I felt, also, the burning eyes of Father McGuire upon me. What he had said was a revelation to me. The sudden frankness and the bitter truth of his words rushed in on me. I saw that the thing of which I had been so proud was, in reality, worthy of nothing but a great, black shame.

I managed to make myself take a step or two out in front of Father McGuire. I was trembling and about as sick as any boy has ever been in this world, because a boy's pride is almost his whole soul, his whole existence!

I said in a gasping voice: "I didn't see it that way when we were fighting, Harry. But I see it now. II acted like a dog, because I knew more than you did. I want to—beg your pardon."

I wonder if I have felt such a consummate agony as I did at that moment, dragging that apology up from the most exquisitely sensitive roots of my soul.

I think every one was a little astonished and shocked; there was too much shame and pride and suffering in my voice and my face to go as a light thing; and there was a bit of a hush until Andrew Chase said carelessly:

"Well, Harry, there you are. I suppose that makes up for the good beating you got."

"No!" cried Harry. "I'll never stop until I've beaten him worse than he beat me! I'll never stop until he's"

"Harry!" cried his mother. "What are you saying?"

"I'll never stop," cried Harry, "until I've had him on his knees, begging for mercy—with other people to hear him beg!"

There were exclamations from his father and his mother that half covered these words. But when he was ended, I heard Andrew Chase say with a contented smile:

"That's a very good way to put it, Harry. I love you for that!"

It is one thing to humiliate oneself in order to make an apology. It is another thing to tender the apology and have it refused. I felt a hot burst of emotion against Father McGuire for having brought me into this predicament; what the others had to say I hardly marked, but I heard Father McGuire saying:

"This is an extremely unreasonable attitude, Mr. Chase. I trust that you realize it!"

"In matters of common sense," the proud man answered, "I interfere with the affairs of my sons. In matters of honor, I trust them to find the right way. After all, your young friend admits that he has brought this trouble upon his own head!"

Father McGuire was angered, and he showed it. He said: "My hope now is that no harm will come out of this matter. My meaning by that is: No greater harm than has been done already."

"What may you mean by that?" asked Mr. Chase, frowning.

"If you do not understand now," said Father McGuire, "I trust that the meaning of what I say will never be made clear to you later on."

He bade them good night and took me with him from the house. I was never so glad to leave any place.

On the way home, he gave me the reins.

"She steps out for you better," he explained. "Besides, I'm too angry to trust myself to the handling of a horse."

We had flown down the road at a fast clip for a mile or more and turned onto the main highway before he touched my arm.

"I am proud of you, Leon," said he. "I could not tell you beforehand how you should act at the house of Mr. Chase. I wanted to see if you had enough pride and sense to see what was the right way. I think that you have done enough! More than any other young man of this community would have done. It was a handsome apology, all things considered. It was a handsome apology, after I put you so brutally in the wrong. I think you have done quite enough!"

He repeated these things in this manner for several moments, and I could see that he was highly excited. During the rest of the ride, he broke out from time to time in the same fashion. He would ask me questions which were already answered in his own mind and which therefore required no comment from me.

"If there is evil, now, let it be upon their own heads! We have done enough. We have gone more than halfway!"

Or again he cried suddenly: "Did you notice that handsome rascal, Andrew Chase? Do you understand now why it is that a man does not have to do great things before he is considered a great man?"

I could understand very readily. Little as Andrew had said, I knew him. I felt his steady nerve, his cruel pride, his dauntless courage. When one sees a great locomotive panting and trembling on the rails, one's sense of power is almost as great as though it is seen dragging a great train up a sharp grade.

We reached home, and Father McGuire said no more to me on the subject for a full three weeks. Then he came home one night with a darkened forehead and said:

"Young Harry Chase is taking boxing lessons. Have you heard of that?"

I admitted that I had not.

He went on to tell me that Andrew had cast about for some time looking for a proper instructor. He himself was a fine boxer, as he did all things well. But he wanted a still more expert man to give Harry his tuition. Finally one had been found. He was an ex-pugilist who had made something of a stir in the middleweight ranks until a broken jaw, which refused to knit properly, had made him retire from the ranks of the professional pugilists.

"You understand, Leon, what this means," said Father McGuire, and there he dropped the subject.

But I understood very well, of course. I had a too vivid picture of those two big men struggling together, while the pugilist stood by and corrected their errors—or, rather, the errors of Harry, for it was hard to imagine Andrew Chase doing anything wrong. If he hit, he would by nature strike, and strike hard. If he blocked, he could not fail to pick off the flying hand that shot toward him. How vastly Harry would stride forward in this manner, with a marvelous sparring partner and an excellent teacher every day!

Moreover, the entire district heard of what was happening, and the entire district waited in suspense.

It was considered the height of sporting correctness, among those Westerners. Since I had learned to box, it was thought very fit and proper that Harry Chase should perfect himself as much as possible and then challenge me to a fight fairly and in the open. Had the Chase family been other than upright and fair, it was pointed out that they could have used their enormous influence in many ways to make my life miserable.

I suppose, for my part, that Mr. Chase looked upon this proceeding on the part of his son with as much approval as any one else. He could not see, any more than the others could see, the dreadful results which would eventually roll out of this small beginning. It seemed no more than play, boyish rivalry! But I, in fact, understood vaguely what was coming. Not fully or directly, or I should have fled from the country and taken a new name and gone to hide myself from the tragedy which was coming. But it was only a dim premonition.

Father McGuire had brought home that thought to me by the dark suggestions which were in the speech he had made to the Chase family on the unforgettable night. He called the same forebodings into my mind one day when he said to me:

"Are you still working in the gymnasium, Leon?"

I told him that I was going through my paces every day for a full two hours. He looked at my drawn face and pink cheeks and nodded.

"Yet, Leon," said he, "I think that the wisest thing would be for you to leave this district and go some place else!"

"Run away from Harry Chase!" cried I.

"Not from Harry Chase—but from his brother and from yourself!" said Father McGuire.

I could only gape at him. I could understand that Andrew, in time, might become a menace to me. But what danger lay in my own nature, I could not for the moment see. I was to learn in good time.

But Father McGuire did not stop at good advice. When he saw that my pride was sure to keep me at my task and sure to keep me ready for Harry Chase whenever that strong young man was prepared to tackle me, the priest gave over all talk. He simply made it a point to go out to our little gymnasium with me every day and spar.

Marksmanship in boxing becomes of vital importance, and Father McGuire encouraged my practice by devising a novel idea which, I think, was unique with him. He plastered a bit of tape just in front of the second big knuckle on either hand. Then he marked four targets on the big sand bag, one to correspond with either side of a man's chin, one for the pit of the stomach, one for the spot beneath the heart.

None of those targets—which were merely bits of white tape—were larger than half an inch in diameter. Then the tapes on my hands were blackened and the sand bag was started swinging back and forth rapidly. When I attacked that shifting bag, I was supposed to strike at those targets and land on them and on no other spots.

It would astonish you to hear how often I missed and how seldom I landed accurately. There is a temptation, as every boxer knows, to squint the eyes under the physical strain of striking a blow. I learned to keep my eyes open all the time and watch the work of my hands to the instant they landed. I had to learn, not only to hit to the vital target, but also to hit with all my force. For accuracy is useless without the full punching power behind it.

In the meantime, the weeks turned into months, and still there was no appearance of young Harry Chase in the streets of the little town of Mendez. I understood this, also. He was a headlong fellow, but his brother, Andrew, the controlling genius of the family, had seen the effects of my work upon Harry, and knew that there would have to be great work before Harry was able to face me upon even terms.

The winter passed. The spring came. I was seventeen, and I had filled out to something of my full stature. I weighed, at that time, a little more than a hundred and seventy-five pounds; and though it was all hard, effective weight, my efforts to follow the gyrations of Father McGuire when he boxed with me had kept my footwork light and easy, and my boxing fast and sure.

In the meantime, there was a good deal of talk in Mendez, and most of it was not complimentary to the courage of Harry Chase. He would never be ready for the fight, they said. But I had no doubts on that score. I had seen Andrew Chase, and I knew his power of will. So, on a fine, clear day in the first week of May, I was not surprised when young Sam Harrison came running to Father McGuire's house to tell me that Harry Chase was in the town and asking for me.