CHAPTER XXV
LITE COMES OUT OF THE BACKGROUND
For hours Jean had sat staring out at the drear stretches of desertdripping under the dismal rain that streaked the car windows. Theclouds hung leaden and gray close over the earth; the smoke from theengine trailed a funereal plume across the grease-wood covered plain.Away in the distance a low line of hills stretched vaguely, as thoughthey were placed there to hold up the sky that was so heavy and dank.Alongside the track every ditch ran full of clay-colored water thatwrapped little, ragged wreaths of dirty foam around every obstruction,like the tawdry finery of the slums.
From the smoking-room where he had been for the past two hours with ArtOsgood, Lite came unsteadily down the aisle, heralded as it were by themuffled scream of the whistle at a country crossing. Jean turnedtoward him a face as depressed as the desert out there under the rain.Lite, looking at her keenly, saw on her cheeks the traces of tears. Helet himself down wearily into the seat beside her, reached over calmly,and took her hand from off her lap and held it snugly in his own.
"This is likely a snowstorm, up home," he said in his quiet,matter-of-fact way. "I guess we'll have to make our headquarters intown till I get things hauled out to the ranch. That's it, when youcan't look ahead and see what's coming. I could have had everythingready to go right on out, only I thought there wouldn't be any use,before spring, anyway. But if this storm ain't a blizzard up there, acouple of days will straighten things out."
Jean turned her head and regarded him attentively. "Out where?" sheasked him bluntly. "What are you talking about? Have you and Art beencelebrating?" She knew better than that. Lite never indulged in liquidcelebrations, and Jean knew it.
Lite reached into his pocket with the hand that was free, and drewforth a telegram envelope. He released her hand while he drew out themessage, but he did not hand it to her immediately. "I wired Rossmanfrom Los Angeles," he informed her, "and told him what was up, andasked him to put me up to date on that end of the line. So he did. Igot this back there at that last town." He laid his hand over hersagain, and looked down at her sidelong.
"Ever since the trouble," he began abruptly, but still in that quiet,matter-of-fact way, "I've been playing a lone hand and kinda holdingback and waiting for something to drop. I had that idea all along thatyou've had this summer: getting hold of the Lazy A and fixing it up soyour dad would have a place to come back to. I never said anything,because talking don't come natural to me like it does to some, and I'drather do a thing first and then talk about it afterwards if I have to.
"So I hung on to what money I had saved up along; I was going to get mea bunch of cattle and fix up that homestead of mine some day, and maybehave a little home." His eyes went surreptitiously to her face, andlingered there wistfully. "So after the trouble I buckled down to workand saved a little faster, if anything. It looked to me like therewasn't much hope of doing anything for your dad till his sentence ranout, so I never said anything about it. Long as Carl didn't try tosell it to anybody else, I just waited and got together all the money Icould. I didn't see as there was anything else to do."
Jean was chewing a corner of her lip, and was staring out of thewindow. "I didn't know I was stealing your thunder, Lite," she saiddispiritedly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
'Wasn't anything to tell--till there was something to tell. Now, thistelegram here,--this is what I started out to talk about. It'll bejust as well if you know it before we get to Helena. I showed it toArt, and he thought the same as I did. You know,--or I reckon youdon't, because I never said anything,--away last summer, along aboutthe time you went to work for Burns, I got to thinking things over, andI wondered if Carl didn't have something on his mind about thatkilling. So I wrote to Rossman. I didn't much like the way he handledyour dad's case, but he knew all the ins and outs, so I could talk tohim without going away back at the beginning. He knew Carl, too, sothat made it easier.
"I wrote and told him how Carl was prowling around through the housenights, and the like of that, and to look up the title to the Lazy A--"
"Why wouldn't you wait and let me buy it myself?" Jean asked him withjust a shade of sharpness in her voice. "You knew I wanted to."
"So I got Rossman started, quite a while back. He thought as I did,that Carl was acting mighty funny. I was with Carl more than you was,and I could tell he had something laying heavy on his mind. But then,the rest of us had things laying pretty heavy on our minds, too, thatwasn't guilt; so there wasn't any way to tell what was bothering Carl."Lite made no attempt to answer the question she had asked.
"Now, here's this wire Rossman sent me. You don't want to get thewrong idea, Jean, and feel too bad about this. You don't want to thinkyou had anything to do with it. Carl was gradually building up tosomething of this kind,--has been for a long time. His coming over tothe ranch nights, looking for that letter that he had hunted all overfor at first, shows he wasn't right in his mind on the subject. But--"
"Well, heavens and earth, Lite!" Jean's tone was exasperated more thanit was worried. "Why don't you say what you want to say? What's itall about? Let me read that telegram and be done with it. I--I shouldthink you'd know I can stand things, by this time. I haven't shown anyweak knees, have I?"
"Well, I hate to pile on any more," Lite muttered defensively. "Butyou've got to know this. I wish you didn't, but--"
Jean did not say any more. She reached over and with her free handtook the telegram from him. She did not pull away the hand Lite washolding, however, and the heart of him gave an exultant bound becauseshe let it lie there quiet under his own. She pinched her browstogether over the message, and let it drop into her lap. Her head wentback against the towel covered head-rest, and for a minute her eyesclosed as if she could not look any longer upon trouble.
Lite waited a second, pulled her head over against his shoulder, andpicked up the telegram and read it through slowly, though he could haverepeated it word for word with his eyes shut.
L Avery,
En Route Train 23, S. L. & D. R. R.
Carl Douglas suicided yesterday, leaving letter confessing murder ofCroft. Had just completed transfer of land and cattle to your name.Am taking steps placing matter before governor immediately expect himto act at once upon pardon. Bring your man my office at oncedeposition may be required.
J. W. ROSSMAN.
"Now, I told you not to worry about this," Lite reminded the girlfirmly. "Looks to me like it takes a load off our hands,--Carl's doingwhat he done. Saves us dragging it all through court again; and, Jean,it'll let your dad out a whole lot quicker. Sounds kinda cold-blooded,maybe, but if you could look at it as good news,--that's the way itstrikes me."
Jean did not say a word, just then. She did what you might not expectJean to do, after all her strong-mindedness and her independence: Shemade an uncertain movement toward sitting up and facing things calmly,man-fashion; then she leaned and dropped her very independent brownhead back upon Lite's shoulder, and behind her handkerchief she criedquietly while Lite held her close.
"Now, that's long enough to cry," he whispered to her, after a seasonof mental intoxication such as he had never before experienced. "Istarted out three years ago to be the boss. I ain't been working at itregular, as you might say, all the time. But I'm going to wind up thatway. I hate to turn you over to your dad without some little show ofmaking good at the job."
Jean gave a little gurgle that may have been related to laughter, andLite's lips quirked with humorous embarrassment as he went on.
"I don't guess," he said slowly, "that I'm going to turn you over atall, Jean. Not altogether. I guess I've just about got to keep you.It--takes two to make a home, and--I've got my heart set on us making ahome outa the Lazy A again; you and me, making a home for us and yourdad. How--how does that sound to you, Jean?"
Jean was wiping her eyes as unobtrusively as she might. She did notanswer.
"How
does it sound, you and me making a home together?" Lite wasgrowing pale, and his hands trembled. "Tell me."
"It sounds--good," said Jean unsteadily.
For several minutes Lite did not say a word. They sat there holdinghands quite foolishly, and stared out at the drenched desert.
"Soon as your dad comes," he said at last, very simply, "we'll bemarried." He was silent another minute, and added under his breathlike a prayer, "And we'll all go--home."
CHAPTER XXVI
HOW HAPPINESS RETURNED TO THE LAZY A
When Lite rapped with his knuckles on the door of the room where shewas waiting, Jean stood with her hands pressed tightly over her face,every muscle rigid with the restraint she was putting upon herself.For Lite this three-day interval had been too full of going here andthere, attending to the manifold details of untangling the variousthreads of their broken life-pattern, for him to feel the suspensewhich Jean had suffered. She had not done much. She had waited. Andnow, with Lite and her dad standing outside the door, she almostdreaded the meeting. But she took a deep breath and walked to the doorand opened it.
"Hello, dad," she cried with a nervous gaiety. "Give your dear daughtera kiss!" She had not meant to say that at all.
Tall and gaunt and gray and old; lines etched deep ground his bittermouth; pale with the tragic prison pallor; looking out at the worldwith the somber eyes of one who has suffered most cruelly,--AleckDouglas put out his thin, shaking arms and held her close. He did notsay anything at all; and the kiss she asked for he laid softly upon herhair.
Lite stood in the doorway and looked at the two of them for a moment."I'm going down to see about--things. I'll be back in a little while.And, Jean, will you be ready?"
Jean looked up at him understandingly, and with a certain shyness inher eyes. "If it's all right with dad," she told him, "I'll be ready."
"Lite's a man!" Aleck stated unsmilingly, with a trace of that apathywhich had hurt Jean so in the warden's office. "I'm glad you'll havehim to take care of you, Jean."
So Lite closed the door softly and went away and left those two alone.
In a very few words I can tell you the rest. There were a few thingsto adjust, and a few arrangements to make. The greatest adjustment,perhaps, was when Jean begged off from that contract with the GreatWestern Company. Dewitt did not want to let her go, but he had read amarked article in a Montana paper that Lite mailed to him in advance oftheir return, and he realized that some things are greater even thanthe needs of a motion-picture company. He was very nice, therefore, toJean. He told her by all means to consider herself free to give hertime wholly to her father--and her husband. He also congratulated Litein terms that made Jean blush and beat a hurried retreat from hisoffice, and that made Lite grin all the way to the hotel. So thepublic lost Jean of the Lazy A almost as soon as it had learned towelcome her.
Then there was Pard, that had to leave the little buckskin and takethat nerve-racking trip back to the Lazy A. Lite attended to that withperfect calm and a good deal of inner elation. So that detail was soonadjusted.
At the Lazy A there was a great deal to do before the traces of itstragedy were wiped out. We'll have to leave them doing that work,which was only a matter of time, after all, and not nearly so hard toaccomplish as their attempts to wipe out from Aleck's soul the blackscar of those three years. I think, on the whole, we shall leave themdoing that work, too. As much as human love and happiness could dotoward wiping out the bitterness they would accomplish, you may besure,--give them time enough.
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