Man to Man Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  TERRY BEFORE BREAKFAST

  A gay young voice singing somewhere through the dawn awoke StevePackard and informed him that Terry was up and about. He lay still amoment, listening. He remembered the song, which, by the way, he hadnot heard for a good many years, the ballad of a cowboy sick and lonelyin a big city, yearning for the open country. At times when Terry'shumming was smothered by the walls of the house, Packard's memorystrove for the words which his ears failed to catch. And more oftenthan not the words, retrieved from oblivion, were less than worth theeffort; no poet had builded the chant, which, rather, grown to goodlyproportions of perhaps a hundred verses, had resulted from a naturalevolution like a modern Odyssey, or some sprawling vine which was whatit was because of its environment. But while lines were faulty andrhymes were bad, and the composition never rose above the commonplace,and often enough sank below it, the ballad was sincere and meant muchto those who sang it. Its pictures were homely. Steve, catchingcertain fragments and seeking others, got such phrases as:

  "My bed on dry pine-needles, my camp-fire blazin' bright, The smell of dead leaves burnin' through the big wide-open night,"

  and with moving but silent lips joined Terry in the triumphant refrain:

  "I'm lonesome-sick for the stars through the pines An' the bawlin' of herds . . . an' the noise Of rocks rattlin' down from a mountain trail . . . An' the hills . . . an' my horse . . . an' the boys. An' I'd rather hear a kiote howl Than be the King of Rome! An' when day comes--if day does come-- By cripes, I'm goin' home! . . . Back home! Hear me comin', boys? _Yeee_! I said it: 'Comin' home!'"

  He sat up in bed. The fragrance of boiling coffee and frying baconassailed his nostrils pleasurably. Terry's voice had grown silent.Perhaps she was having her breakfast by now? With rather greater hastethan the mere call of his morning meal would seem to warrant, hedressed, ran his fingers through his hair by way of completing histoilet, and, going down a hallway, thrust his head in through thekitchen doorway.

  "Good morning," he called pleasantly.

  Terry was not yet breakfasting. Down on one knee, poking viciouslyinto the fire-box of an extremely old and dilapidated stove, she wasseeking, after the time-honored way of her sex, to make the fire burnbetter. Her face was rosy, flushed prettily with the glow from theblazing oak wood. Packard's eyes brightened as he looked at her,making a comprehensive survey of the trim little form from the top ofher bronze hair to the heels of her spick-and-span boots. About herthroat, knotted loosely, was a flaming-red silken scarf. The thoughtstruck him that the Temple fortunes, the Temple ranch, the Templemaster, all were falling or had already fallen into varying states ofdecay, and that alone in the wreckage Terry Temple made a gay spot ofcolor, that alone Terry Temple was determined to keep her place in thesun.

  Terry, having poked a goodly part of the fire out, made a face at whatremained and got to her feet.

  "I've been thinking about you," she said.

  "Fine!" said Packard. "You can tell me while we have our coffee."

  But he did not fail to mark that she had given him no ready smile byway of welcome, that now she regarded him coolly and critically. Inher morning attitude there was little to lead him to hope for afree-and-easy chat across a breakfast-table.

  "You strike me," said Terry abruptly and emphatically, "as a prettyslick proposition."

  "Why so?" asked Packard interestedly.

  "Because," said Terry. For a moment he thought that she was going tostop there. But after a thoughtful pause, during which she lookedstraight at him with eyes which were meant to be merely clear andjudicial but which were just faintly troubled, she went on: "Becauseyou're a Packard, to begin with."

  "Look here," protested young Packard equably, "I didn't think that ofyou; honestly, I didn't. How are you and I ever going to getanywhere . . . in the way of being friends, I mean . . . if you startout by blaming me for what my disreputable old scamp of a grandfatherdoes?"

  Terry sniffed openly.

  "Forget that friendship gag before you think of it, will you?" she saidquickly. "Talking nice isn't going to get you anywhere with me and youmight as well remember that. It won't buy you anything to start intelling me that I've got pretty eyes or a dimple, and I won't stand onelittle minute for your pulling any of that girlie-stuff on me. . . . Isaid, to begin with, you're a Packard. That ought to be enough, theLord knows! But it's not all."

  "First thing," he suggested cheerfully, "are you going to ask me tohave breakfast with you?"

  "Yes," she answered briefly. "Since you are here and since dad had youstay all night. If you were the devil himself, I'd give you somethingto eat."

  "Being merely the devil's grandson," grinned Packard, "suppose I tuckin and help? I'll set the table while you do the cooking."

  "I don't bother setting any table," said Terry as tartly as she knewhow. "Besides, the coffee and bacon are both done and that's all thecooking there is. You know where the bread and butter and sugar are.Help yourself. There isn't any milk."

  She poured her own coffee, made a sandwich of bacon and bread, and wentto sit as he had found her last night, on the table, her feet swinging.

  Steve Packard had gone to sleep filled with high hopes last night, andhad awakened with a fresh, new zest in life this morning. Like thecowboy in the ballad, he had wanted nothing in the world save to beback on the range, and he had his wish, or would have it fully in a fewhours, when he had ridden to Ranch Number Ten. Fully appreciatingTerry's prejudices, he had meant to remember that she was "just a kidof a girl, you know," and to banter her out of them. Now he was readyto acknowledge that he had failed to give Terry her due; with a suddenaccess of irritation it was borne in upon him that if she was fullyminded to be stand-offish and unpleasant, he had something more thanjust a kid of a girl to deal with. Frowning, he sought his tobacco andpapers.

  "Going to eat?" asked Terry carelessly. "Or not?"

  "I don't know . . . yet," he returned, lifting his eyes from hiscigarette. "Most certainly not if you don't want me to."

  "Ho!" taunted Terry, the bright light of battle in her eyes. "Climbingon your high horse, are you? Well, then, stay there."

  Packard lighted his cigarette and returned her look steadily.

  "Kid of a girl, nothing!" he told himself. And going back to hisepithet of yesterday, "Little wildcat."

  "Then," continued the girl evenly, taking up the conversation where ithad broken down some time ago, "I'll say what I've got to say. First,because you're a Packard. Next, because it was pretty slick work, thatstunt of yours, diving into the lake for me, pretending you didn't knowwho I was, and grabbing the first chance to get acquainted. Much goodit'll do you! Maybe I haven't been through high school and you havefussed around at college; just the same, Mr. Steve Packard, TerryTemple's not your fool or any other man's! And, on top of all of yourother nerve, to try and make me think you didn't know you owned yourown ranch! And trying to pump me and corkscrewing away at dad when hewas full of whiskey. . . . Pah! Your kind of he-animal makes me sick."

  "You think," he offered stiffly, "that I'm hand and glove with Blenham?And, perhaps, that I'm taking orders from my grandfather, trying to putone over on you?"

  "Thinking's not the right word," she corrected sharply. "I know."

  He shrugged. As he did so it struck him that there was nothing elsefor him to do. She had the trick of utter finality.

  "And," she called after him as he turned abruptly to leave the room,"you can tell old Hell Fire for me that maybe he's got the big bulge onthe situation right now but that it's bad luck to count your chipsuntil the game is over. There's a come-back left in dad yet, and . . .and if you or your hell-roaring old granddad think you can swallow theTemple outfit whole, like you've done a lot of other outfits . . ."

  Packard went out and slammed the door after him.

  "Damn the girl!" he muttered angrily.

  Terry, sitting on the tabl
e, grew very still, ceased the swinging ofher feet, and turned to peek cautiously out at him from the kitchenwindow. Her look was utterly joyous.

  "Men are always horrid creatures before they've had their breakfasts,"she informed the stillness about her complacently.