Man to Man Page 22

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE HAND OF BLENHAM

  "Each man's life is what he shapes it for himself."

  "A stupid, bare-faced, platitudinous lie!"

  Steve Packard, grown irritable here of late, flung the offending bookthrough an open window and got to his feet.

  "A man's life is what the evil little gods of chance make it, cursethem. Or what a fool of a girl tangles and twists it into."

  He shook himself viciously and went to his door, staring out across thehills vaguely moulded under the stars.

  Life was just a very unsatisfactory sort of a proposition. It was agame that wasn't worth the players' serious attention, a game all ofchance and not in the least of skill, and not even interesting! So, inthe sombre depths of his soul Steve Packard admitted freely. And,until a certain night only some six months ago, he had never divinedthis great truth.

  That night Blenham had sneered, "Stuck on her yourself, are you?" andSteve had recognized a vital fact inelegantly expressed; that nightTerry Temple had appeared to him more than just a "good little sport";that night he had somewhat brusquely considered the sweet femininity ofher under her assumed surface of _diablerie_ and had found herinfinitely desirable; that same night Terry, for no reason in the worldthat Steve Packard could discover, had suddenly congealed into a thingof ice that had never since thawed save only briefly before burningfits of wrath.

  Two hours after he had admitted to himself that he loved her sheinformed him with all of the emphasis she could summon for the occasionthat she hated him. And life hadn't been what he had made it at all.

  The papers which Temple had signed were still in existence, safelydeposited in a bank in San Juan. Steve had paid off the Templemortgage to his grandfather; he had paid Temple a thousand dollars incash; thereby he had acquired a half interest in the Temple ranch.That had all been quite in accordance with Terry's suggestions andentirely satisfactory.

  Not being a thief, Steve counted upon relinquishing his right to hishalf at any time that Temple paid back just what had been advanced.But it became evident very soon that Temple would never pay backanything. Though Doctor Bridges found nothing very much the matterwith him, nevertheless Temple died less than two weeks later.

  During those two weeks Steve had not seen Terry. With word of thegirl's bereavement, however, he had gone immediately to her. Shelooked at him curiously, saying quietly that the boys were doing allthat was necessary and had asked him to go.

  Then, after another two weeks, he had ridden again to the Temple ranch.He found it deserted, doors and windows shut, dead leaves thick in thepath. His heart sank and thereafter knocked hard at his ribs; Terrywas gone and had said nothing to him. He turned and went home, bitterand angry and hurt.

  Where had she gone? He didn't know; he told himself he didn't care;certainly he would bite his tongue out before he would ask any of herfriends. But he knew within himself that he did care as he had caredabout nothing else in the world; and he asked himself a thousand times:

  "Where has Terry gone?"

  For the world was not right without her; the sunlight was thin; theseason of bursting buds was but a pale, lack-lustre imitation ofspring. And as the long, hot days dragged by and the verdure died onhill and plain and dusty mountainside, he asked himself "When will shecome back to us?"

  Long after every one else had heard and forgotten the story, or atleast had given over all thinking upon it, Steve heard how Terry haddrawn against the last of the inconsiderable legacy left her long agoby her Spanish mother, and had gone to San Juan.

  She had friends there; the banker's wife, Mrs. Engle and herfluffy-haired daughter, Florrie, had opened their arms to her and madeher tarry with them until the family made their annual trip East. ThenTerry had gone with them.

  And never a word to Steve Packard. He cursed himself, tried to curseher, and found that he couldn't quite make a go of it, and settled downto good, hard work and the job of forgetting what a pair of gray eyeslooked like and how two certain red lips smiled and the tinkly notes ofa laughing voice.

  In the good, hard work of stock ranching he succeeded more than well;in the other task he set himself he failed utterly. Never, when aloneout on the range a shadow fell across, did he fail to look up quicklywith his lips half forming to the word, "Terry!" And, after all thistime, still no word from her, no word of her.

  Eight thousand dollars he had paid to Temple. The remaining twothousand of his father's heritage he had turned over promptly to hisgrandfather to apply on his own indebtedness. He had consulted withBill Royce and Barbee and had cut down his crew of men, therebycurtailing expenses.

  He had sold a few head of beef cattle and banked the money for themen's wages and current expenses. By the same means he had managed tokeep abreast of his interest payments to old man Packard and had evenpaid off a little more of the principal. Then, catching the marketright "going and coming," he had bought a lot of young cattle from anoverstocked ranch adjoining, and had made a second profitable sale amonth later.

  Finally, to indicate that he was still in the game and playing it towin, consequently overlooking never a bet, he had cashed in prettyfortunately on a section of his timber-land.

  The Rollston mills were just opening upon the other side of themountains; he showed the firm's buyer a stretch of his big timber andclosed the deal to their common satisfaction. And with every deal ofthis sort old man Packard felt his grip being pried loose from RanchNumber Ten.

  From the beginning Steve had been puzzled to know what to do with theTemple outfit. Terry had paid off the men and had let them go; thestock on the place she had left, and without a word, to Steve's care.Since the place was well stocked, chiefly with young cattle, there wasenough here to demand the attention which so busy a man as StevePackard could not give.

  He talked matters over with Bill Royce and in the end sent both Billand Barbee to the Temple place, riding over once or twice a weekhimself to see how matters went.

  And so the months dragged by. Twice, swearing to himself that he wasdoing so only because the management of the business made it absolutelynecessary, Steve wrote to Terry. He got no answer. He did not evenknow if she had received his notes. The first he had signed, by theway, "Yours very truly, Steve." The second ended "Respectfully, S.Packard."

  "Terry's havin' the time of her life," Bill Royce startled him byannouncing one day out of a clear sky.

  "How do you know?" asked Steve sharply.

  "Oh, she writes letters to her frien's," said Royce. "One of the boysbrought word from the Norton place. Terry wrote her an' wrote somefolks in Red Creek an' wrote the Lanes an'----"

  "Appears to be quite a letter-writer," remarked Steve stiffly. "Andshe's having the time of her life, is she?"

  "Sure," said Royce innocently. "Why not? The boys are bettin' she'sdead gone on some young down-East jasper an' that maybe she'll bemarried in no time. What do you think, huh, Steve?"

  "Where is she?" demanded Steve, very brusque about it.

  "Blessed if I know," admitted Royce. "Chicago, I think. Or New York.Or Pennsylvany. One of them towns. Shucks. She'd ought to come onhome where she belongs."

  "Oh, I don't know," said Steve.

  But in Royce's ears the voice didn't ring quite true. It was meant tobe careless in the extreme and--no, it didn't ring quite true.

  Hot, cloudless skies as the season dragged on, dry, burning fieldsunder a blazing sun, the cattle seeking shade wherever it was to behad, crowding at the water-holes, browsing early and late andfrequenting the cooler canons during the heat of the days. And nightsof stars and a vast silence and emptiness.

  A girl had come, had for a little posed laughing outlined against thewindow of a man's soul, had flashed her unforgettable gray eyes at himand had gone. And so, and just because of her, the blistering hillsseemed but ugly, lonely miles, the nights under a full moon were justthe more silent and empty.

  But Steve Packard held on, grown grim and determined.
He had enteredthe game, lightly enough he had demanded his stack of chips, now hewould stay for the show-down. Either he would clear his ranch of itsmortgage and thus make clear to his meddlesome old grandparent that hewas a man grown and no mere boy to be disciplined and badgeredwilly-nilly, or else his meddlesome old grandparent would in truth"smash" him.

  In either case there would be the end soon. For, win or lose, Steve,tired of the game, would draw out and set his back to Ranch Number Tenand the country about it and go back to the old rudderless life ofvagabondage. Just because a girl had come, had tarried, and then hadgone.

  So, though the game had long ago lost its zest, Steve Packard like anyother thoroughbred played on for a finish. Now and then, but seldom,he saw Blenham. Often, in little, annoying, mean ways Blenham madehimself felt. Early in the season Steve's riders had found three ofhis steers dead on the outskirts of the range; a rifle bullet had donefor each one of them.

  Since old man Packard had promised to stop at nothing, since Blenhamwas full of venom, Steve never for a moment doubted whose hand hadfired the three shots. But he merely called his cowboys together, toldthem what had happened, ordered them to keep their eyes open and theirguns oiled, and hoped and longed for the time when he himself couldcome upon Blenham busied with some act like this.

  There were other episodes which he attributed to Blenham though he mustadmit in each case that anything in the vaguest way approaching a proofwas lacking. Just before he closed the deal with the lumber companythat had taken over his timber tract a forest fire had broken out.Luck and a fortuitous shifting of the wind had saved him from a heavyloss.

  Incidents, these and others of their kind, to fill Steve Packard withrage; but Blenham's supreme blows--Blenham's and old manPackard's--were reserved for late in the dry season when they fellhardest.

  A growing shortage of feed and the necessity for cash for theforthcoming substantial sum to be paid on the mortgage held by hisgrandfather, combined with the fact that his lean acres wereoverstocked, drove Steve in search of a market late in the summer.Bill Royce shook his head and raised his objections.

  "Everybody else is doin' the same thing an' at the same time," he saidlugubriously. "Which'll mean the market all glutted up so's you won'tget no kind of figger. If you could only hold on till next spring."

  But Steve merely said--

  "Oh, well, Bill, it's all in a lifetime," and shaped his plans for asale.

  And within ten days there came an offer which startled him. It wasfrom the big buyers, Doan, Rockwell, and Haight, who, theircommunication said, knew his line of stock thoroughly and were preparedto pay the top prices for all he had. He estimated swiftly and sent aman hurrying into town with a message to go by wire; he would round upbetween a hundred and fifty and two hundred head and would have them inSan Juan when desired.

  "Old Doan's a sport and a wise boy, both," announced Steve triumphantlywhen he made the news known to Bill Royce. "He knows high-grade stuffand he's willing to pay the price." He narrowed his eyesspeculatively. "We'll scare up close to two hundred head, William.And they'll bring us just about twenty thousand. Maybe a thousand orso above that. And, Bill, did you ever know the time when twentythousand dollars would look more like twenty thousand full moons justshowing up over the skyline?"

  Bill's grin reflected Steve's lively satisfaction. Now there would bethe money for old Hell-Fire Packard's next payment, there would be along respite from him, there would be ample feed for the rest of thecattle. Steve might even spend a part of the money for a herd ofcalves to be had dirt-cheap just now from the Biddle Morris dairyoutfit, down near San Juan.

  The prospect was exceedingly bright; just as though in truth a stringof full moons were shining down upon them. And still there was theshadow, even at this time, the shadow cast by Terry's absence andsilence. If she were only here to rejoice with them.

  Steve snorted his disgust with himself, got on a horse and wentstreaking across the fields, riding hard as was a habit here of late,yelling an order to Barbee as he went. Barbee's innocent blue eyesfollowed him thoughtfully: then Barbee shrugged and spat and thereaftercalled to his men to "get busy." The round-up began immediately.

  Then came a handful of long, hot, feverishly busy days. Strayed steerscarrying the Number Ten brand were hazed back to the big fenced-inmeadows from the mountain slopes, were counted and held, in anever-swelling herd. There was little rest for the men, who, shiftedfrom one sweating horse to another, rode late and early.

  Word came from Doan setting the date for the delivery in San Juan.Steve wired his satisfaction with the arrangement, undertaking to havethe cattle in the stock pens just out of the town two or three daysbefore Doan's coming. And no one knew better than did Steve Packardthe true size of the job he had on his hands at this time of year andwith a herd of close to two hundred wild steers.

  The drive began one morning in the dark long before the dawn. Steveestimated that he could make the Rio Frio the first night and hadarranged beforehand with the Talbot boys for the night's pasturage.The second day would find them on the edge of the bad lands; his wagonshauling baled hay were to push on ahead and be waiting at the onlysufficient water-holes to be found within a number of miles. San Juanin four days was the schedule.

  "We'll lose weight all along the road," he conceded. "But it can't behelped. And a couple of day's rest and lots of feed and water in SanJuan before Doan shows up will put back a part of the lost weight."

  He had made allowances for a hard drive. Nevertheless the actualitywas a sterner matter than he had foreseen. All along the way the feedwas scant. Water was low in the holes, Rio Frio for the first time inyears was a mere series of shallow pools. The blazing heat was suchthat men and horses and steers all suffered terribly.

  At the end of the second day he ordered a full dozen of the less hardyof his beasts cut out from the herd and turned into a neighboringrange; it was questionable if they would have been able to drag on thetwo remaining days and even had they done so they would have brought notop price from the buyer.

  The drive was made on schedule time. Circumstances not only permittedbut insisted. There were no places for loitering, there were only themajor water-holes upon which Steve had counted, the distances betweenthem regulating each day's progress. And so the stock was in San Juana full two days before the time for Doan's coming.

  For Steve the two days dragged heavily. He camped with his herd on theedge of the settlement, allowing the boys to disport themselves as theysaw fit a large part of the time, himself having little desire for thebad whiskey and crooked gaming of La Casa Blanca.

  Tuesday morning Doan was to arrive. Steve met the stage and one glanceshowed him that Doan was not on it. He asked the driver if he knewanything of Doan and the man shook his head. Steve supposed that hewas coming up from the railroad by auto and so idled about the town allforenoon, waiting.

  By midday, when Doan still failed to put in an appearance, Steve hadgrown impatient. By the middle of the afternoon his impatience gaveplace to anger. He had kept his appointment bringing his herds over ahard trail, and Doan with nothing to do but travel luxuriously, hadfailed him.

  But it was not until the stage came in Wednesday morning and againbrought no Doan and no word of Doan that Steve telephoned a message tothe nearest Western Union office at Bidwell demanding to know what thetrouble was. Not only was he on heavy expenses; his mood never hadbeen one to take kindly to the long waiting game. And yet he wasforced to wait all that day and all the next day with no word from Doan.

  He telegraphed again Wednesday night, a third time Thursday morning.No answers came. But a little before noon, Thursday, Doan came. Cameby automobile from the railroad, a man with him. Steve saw them asthey drove into town; he noted Doan's thin face and his tall form inthe gray linen duster; then he marked the man with him. The man wasBlenham.

  Steve, raw-nerved through these long hours of inaction and uncertainty,pushed straightway to Doan bent upon demand
ing an explanation. He gotan inkling of one from an unexpected quarter, Blenham's lips.

  "We sure appreciate this, Mr. Doan," Blenham said, getting down andoffering his hand to the cattle-buyer. "Count on me an' ol' manPackard doin' you a favor any time. So long."

  And casting to Steve a look of blended triumph and venom he hurrieddown to the stable and his horse.

  "Mr. Doan," said Steve bluntly, "what in hell's name do you mean bytreating me this way?"

  Doan turned his thin impassive face with the hawk-eyes toward youngPackard.

  "Who do you happen to be?" he asked coolly.

  "I'm Steve Packard from Ranch Number Ten. And I've got a herd ofsteers out here that's been waiting for you some time now."

  "Oh, yes," said Doan, still very cool. "Got my wire, didn't you,saying that I was unavoidably detained?"

  "I did not!" snapped Steve. "Detained by what? Blenham?"

  "Strange," murmured Doan.

  He got down from his car and stretched his long legs.

  "I've had a new secretary, Mr. Packard. I found out that he drank. Hehas been discharged. Hem. Let me see: you've got about fifty steers,haven't you?"

  "I've got a hundred and eighty-six," Steve said sharply, staring atDoan's inscrutable face and wondering just what was up.

  "A hundred and eighty-six!" Doan shook his head. "I couldn't take thatmany on just now; I've made other plans. Unless, of course, you are ina position to tempt me to buy by making me a very attractive figure!"

  Steve came a sudden step nearer, his eyes blazing, his two fistsclenched.

  "What's this game of yours?" he demanded. "Out with it. What are youup to? You wired me an offer of ten to twelve cents, twelve and a halffor the fancy."

  "What!" cried Doan. "Why, my dear fellow, you must have lost yoursenses! With the market the way it is now I don't have to pay morethan seven and eight cents."

  Steve waited for no more. His days of waiting were past. He drewback, swung from the shoulder and struck with all of his might. Hisfist against Doan's chin hurled the lean body of the cattle-buyer halfacross the street.

  "Barbee," said Steve quietly, "round up the boys. We start our herdback in ten minutes."

  And Barbee, taking stock of Steve's white face, went hastily on hiserrand.