Man to Man Page 19

  CHAPTER XIX

  TERRY CONFRONTS HELL-FIRE PACKARD

  "Father's got it in his head he is going to die!" cried Terry. "Hesha'n't. I won't let him!"

  Steve Packard, riding into Red Creek, met Terry coming out. She wasjust starting, her car gathering speed; seeing him she drew downabruptly.

  "I left him at the store," she added breathlessly. "He is sick. Theyare friends there; they'll take care of him. He knows you are coming;he has promised to do business with you and shut Blenham out of therunning. You are to hurry before Blenham gets there--he's across thestreet at the saloon already. After his money, I guess; next thing,unless you block his play, he'll be standing over poor old dad's bed,bullyragging him. Come alive, Steve Packard, and beat him to it."

  And with the last words she had started her car, after Terry's way ofstarting anything, with a leap. Steve reined in after her, urging hishorse to a gallop for the first time, calling out sharply:

  "But you--where are you going? Why----"

  "After Doctor Bridges," Terry called back. "The fool is over at yourold thief of a grandfather's, playing chess! The telephone won't----"

  He could merely speculate as to just what the telephone would not do.Terry was gone, was already at the fork of the roads, turningnorthward, hasting alone on a forty-mile drive over lonely roads andinto the very lair of the old mountain-lion himself. Steve whistledsoftly.

  "I wish she had invited me to go along," he grunted.

  But, instead she had commissioned him otherwise. So, though his eyeswere regretful he rode on to the store. A backward glance showed him adiminishing red tail-light disporting itself like some new species offirefly gone quite mad; it was twisting this way and that as the roadinvited; it fairly emulated the gyrations of a corkscrew what with theadded motion necessitated by the deep ruts and chuck-holes over andinto which the spinning tires were thudding.

  Then the shoulder of a hill, a clump of brush, and Terry and her carwere gone from him, swallowed up in the night and silence. He lookedat his watch. It was twenty minutes after eight. She had forty milesahead of her, a return of forty miles.

  "It will take her two hours each way," he muttered, "unless she meansto pile her car up in a ditch somewhere. Four hours for the trip.That means I won't see her until well after midnight."

  And then he grinned a shade sheepishly; Blenham was right. He hadthought of those four hours as though they had been four years.

  But for her part Terry had no intention of being four hours driving around trip of any eighty miles that she knew of; she had never donesuch a thing before and could see no cause for beginning to-night.True, the roads were none too good at best, downright bad often enough.

  Well, that was just the sort of thing she was used to. And to-nightthere was need for haste. Great haste, thought the girl anxiously, asshe remembered the look on her father's face when she and thestorekeeper's wife had gotten him into bed.

  "I'll have the roads all to myself; that's one good thing."

  She settled herself in her seat, preparing for a tense hour. She, too,had marked the time; it had been on the verge of twenty minutes aftereight as she left the store. "What right has the only doctor in thecountry to play chess, anyway? And with old Hell-Fire Packard at that?Two precious old rascals they are, I'll be bound. But a rascal of adoctor is better than no doctor at all, and-- Ah, a good, open bit ofroad!"

  The car leaped to fresh speed under her. She glanced at herspeedometer; the needle was wavering between twenty-seven and thirtymiles. She narrowed her eyes upon the road; it invited; she shoved thethrottle on her wheel a little further open; thirty miles,thirty-three, thirty-five--forty, forty-five--there she kept it for amoment--only a moment it seemed to her breathless impatience. For nextcame a series of curves where her road, rising, went over the firstridge of hills and where on either hand danger lurked.

  Beyond the ridge the road straightened out suddenly. Better time now:twenty-five miles, thirty, thirty-five--and then, down in the valley,forty-five miles, fifty, fifty-five--her horn blaring, sending far andwide its defiant, warning echoes, her headlights flashing across trees,fences, patches of brush, and rolling hills--sixty miles.

  "If my tires only stick it out--they ought to--this road hasn't a sharprock on it."

  But from sixty miles she must pull down sharply. Far ahead somethingwas across the road; perhaps only a shadow, perhaps a tangible barrier;she didn't know these roads any too well.

  She cut off her power, jammed on foot and emergency brakes, and so cameto a stop just in time. Here a fence stretched across the road; thetall gate throwing its black shadows on the white moonlit soil was notfive feet from her hood when she stopped.

  She jumped down, threw the gate wide open, propped it back with a stoneknowing full well how the farmers and cattlemen hereabouts buildedtheir gates to shut automatically, drove through in such haste that shegrazed the gate itself and so jarred it into closing behind her, andwas again glancing from road to speedometer--twenty-five, thirty-five,a turn to negotiate, seen far ahead, dropping back to twenty-five, totwenty. A straight, alluring stretch--twenty-five, thirty-five,forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, sixty-two, sixty-three--the farrim of the valley, another line of hills black under the stars--fiftyagain and down to twenty-five, to twenty and horn blowing as she spedinto the mouth of the first canon.

  And again, when at last she was down in Old Man Packard's valley andwithin hailing distance of his misshapen monster of a house, she sether horn to blaring like the martial trumpet of an invading army.Cattle and horses along her road awoke from their dozing in themoonlight, perhaps leaped to the conclusion that it was old Hell-Firehimself in their midst, flung their tails aloft and scampered to rightand left, and Terry's car stood in front of Packard's door.

  Right square in front of the door so that Terry herself could jump fromher running-board and so that her front wheels were planted firmly inthe old man's choice bed of roses. There were two flat tires,punctured on the way; two ruined, battered rims; her tank still heldperhaps a gallon of gasoline. But she had arrived.

  Before she leaped out Terry had glanced at her clock; she had made thetrip of forty miles in exactly fifty-three minutes. Considering thestate of the roads----

  "Not bad," admitted Terry.

  Then with a final clarion call of her horn she had presented herself atPackard's door. She had got a few of the wildest blown wisps of brownhair back where they belonged before the door opened. She heardhurrying feet and prepared herself by a visible stiffening for thecoming of the arch villain himself. There was a sense ofdisappointment when she saw that it was only the dwarfed henchman comein the master's stead. Guy Little stared at her in pure surprise.

  "Terry Temple, ain't it?" gasped the mechanician. "For the love ofPete!"

  "I want Doctor Bridges," said Terry quickly. "He's here, isn't he?"

  Guy Little instead of making a prompt and direct answer presented aspuzzled a countenance as the girl ever saw. He was in slippers andshirtsleeves; he had a large volume which in his hands appeared littleless than huge; his hair was as badly tousled as Terry's own; his eyeswere frankly bewildered. Terry spoke again impatiently:

  "Answer me and don't gawk at me! Is the doctor here?"

  "For the love of Pete!" was quite all that Guy Little offered inresponse.

  She sniffed and pushed by him, standing in the hallway and for thefirst time in her life fairly in the lion's den. She looked about herwith lively interest.

  "Say," said Little then. "Hold on a minute."

  He came quietly close to her, his slipper-feet falling soundlessly.

  "Doc Bridges is in there with the ol' man." He jerked his head towardthe big library and living-room whose door stood closed in their faces."They're playin' chess. Unless your sick man's dyin' I guess youbetter wait until they get through. Even if he is dyin'----"

  "I'll do nothing of the kind!" retorted Terry emphatically. "When I'veraced all the
way from Red Creek, banging my car all up, risking myprecious life every jump of the way, doing the trip in fifty-threeminutes do you think that------"

  "Hey?" cried Guy Little. "How's that? How many minutes?Fifty-three, you said, didn't you? Fifty-three minutes from Red Crickto here? Hey?"

  "Is the man crazy?" demanded Terry. "Didn't I say I did? I could havedone it in less, too, only with a flat tire and----"

  "Hey?" repeated Guy Little, over and over. "You done that? Hey? Yousay----"

  "I say," cut in Terry starting toward the closed door, "that there is aman sick and a doctor wanted."

  "Oh, can that part of it!" cried Little, coming after her again in hisexcitement. "Chuck it! Forget it! The thing is that you made the runfrom there to here--an' in the night time--an' with tire troublean'----"

  "Doctor Bridges----"

  "Is in there. Like I said. Playin' chess with the ol' man. You don'tknow what that means. I do. Mos' usually, askin' a lady's pardon forthe way of sayin' it, it means Hell. Capital H. An' to-night the ol'man has got the door locked an' he's two games behind an' he's sore asa hoot-owl an' he says that anybody as breaks in on his play is-- No,I can't say it; not in the presence of a lady. There's times when theol' man is so awful vi'lent he's purty near vile about it. Get me?"

  "Guy Little, you just stand aside!" Terry's eyes blazed into his asshe threw out a hand to thrust his back. "I came for the doctor andI'm going to get him."

  Guy Little merely shook his head.

  "You don't know the ol' man," he said quietly. "An' I do. I'm theonly man, woman or child livin' as does know him. You stan' aside."

  He stepped quickly by her and rapped at the door. When only silencegreeted him he rapped again. Now suddenly, explosively, came Old ManPackard's voice, fairly quivering with rage as the old man shouted:

  "If that's you, Guy Little, I'll beat your head off'n your fool body!Get out an' go away an' go fast!"

  "It's important, your majesty," returned Guy Little's voiceimperturbably.

  He rubbed one slippered toe against his calf and winked at Terry,looking vastly innocent and boyish.

  "I'm pullin' for you," he whispered. "There's jus' one way to do it."Aloud he repeated. "It's important, your majesty. An' there's a ladyhere."

  "Lady?" shouted the old man, his voice fairly breaking with the emotionthat went into it. "Lady? In my house? What do you mean?" Then,without waiting for an answer, "I don't care who she is or what she isor what the two of you want. Get out! This fool pill-roller in herethinks he can beat me playin' chess; you're in league with him todistract me, you traitor!"

  Guy Little smiled broadly and winked again.

  "Ain't he got the manner of a dook?" he whispered admiringly. And tohis employer, "Say, Packard, it's the little Temple girl. TerryTemple, you know. An'----"

  Even Terry started and drew back a quick step from the closed door.She did not know that a man's voice could pierce to one's soul likethat.

  "An'," went on Guy Little hurriedly, knowing that he must rush hiswords now if he got them out at all, "she's jus' drove all the way fromRed Crick--in a Boyd-Merrill, Twin Eight car--had tire trouble on theroad--an' done the trip in fifty-three minutes!"

  He got it all out. A deep silence shut down after his words. Asilence during which a man's eyes might have opened and stared, duringwhich a man's mouth too might have opened and closed wordlessly, duringwhich a man's brain might estimate what this meant, to drive fortymiles in fifty-three minutes over such roads as lay between the Packardranch and Red Creek.

  "It's a lie!" shouted Packard. "She couldn't do it."

  "I want Doctor Bridges----"

  "Sh!" Guy Little cut her short. "I got the ol' boy on the run. Leaveit to me." And aloud once more: "She done it. She can prove it.An'----"

  There came a snort of fury from the locked room followed by the noiseof a chess-board and set of men hurled across the room and by an oldman's voice shouting fiercely:

  "It's a cursed frame-up. Bridges, you're a scoundrel and I can beatyou any three games out of five and I'll bet you ten thousan' dollarson it, any time! An' as for that thief of a Temple's squidge-facedgirl-- Come in. Damn it all, come in and be done with it!"

  And as he unlocked the door with a hand that shook and flung it wideopen he and Terry Temple confronted each other for the first time.