CHAPTER XIII
SUSPICION
"If the repairs on the ranchhouse were not finished by this time youwould not be reading this," began a letter drawn from a tightly sealedenvelope Betty had given Calumet after he and Dade had completed thepainting. Supper had been over for some time, but the dishes had notyet been cleared away, and when Betty had handed Calumet the letter hehad shoved the tablecloth back to make room for his elbows while heread. Bob had gone to bed; Malcolm and Dade were somewhere outside.Calumet had started to go with them, but had remained when Betty hadtold him quietly that she wanted to talk to him on a matter ofimportance. She sat opposite him now, unconcernedly balancing a knifeon the edge of a coffee cup, while she waited for him to finish readingthe letter.
"Therefore," continued the letter, "by this time your heart must havesoftened a little toward me. I am certain of this, for I know that, inspite of your other weaknesses, that cupidity and greed have no placein your mental make-up. I know, too, that you are no fool, and by thistime you must have digested my first letter, and if you have you arenot blaming me as much as you did in the beginning.
"I have talked this over with Betty, and she is of the opinion that asyou have thus far obeyed my wishes you should be permitted to have afree hand henceforth, for she insists that perhaps by this time therestraint she has put on you will have resulted in you hating her, andin that case she says she will not care to remain here any longer. Butas I have said, I do not think you are a fool, and nobody but a foolcould hate Betty. So I have persuaded her that even if you should cometo look upon her in that light she owes it to me to stay until theconditions are fulfilled.
"It is my own hope that by this time you have made friends with her.Perhaps--I am not going to offer you any advice, but Betty is a jewel,and you might do worse. You probably will if you haven't sense enoughto take her--if you can get her. I have given her your picture, andshe likes you in spite of the reputation I have given you. She saysyou have good eyes. Now, if a girl once gets in that mood there's noend of the things she won't do for a man. And the man would be aningrate if he didn't try to live up to her specifications after hefound that out. That's why I am telling you. Faith made a certaindisciple walk on the water, and lack of it caused the same one to sink.Do a little thinking just here. If you do you are safe, and if youdon't you are not worth saving.
"This is all about Betty. Whatever happens, I think she will be amatch for you.
"Betty will give you another thousand dollars. With it you will fix upthe corrals, the bunkhouse, and the stable.
"Perhaps you will want to know why I have not so much faith in you asBetty has. It is because one day a man from the Durango countrystopped here for a day. He told me he knew you--that you werecold-blooded and a hard case. Then I knew you hadn't improved afterleaving home. And so you must continue to do Betty's will, and mine.Do you doubt this is for your own good?
"YOUR FATHER."
When Calumet folded the letter and placed it in a pocket, he leaned hisarms on the table again and regarded Betty intently.
"Do you know what is in this letter?" he said, tapping the pocket intowhich he had placed it.
"No."
"There is something missing from the letter, ain't there?"
"Yes," she returned; "a thousand dollars." She passed it over to him.As before, there were ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
His eyes flashed with mocking triumph. "If you don't know what is inthis letter--if you didn't read it--how do you know that I am to havethis money?" he said.
She silently passed over another envelope and watched him with a smileof quiet contempt as he removed the contents and read:
"BETTY:--Give Calumet a thousand dollars when you turn over letternumber three to him.
"JAMES MARSTON."
Calumet looked at the envelope; Betty's name was on the face of it.The triumph in his eyes was succeeded by embarrassment. He looked upto see Betty's amused gaze on him.
"Well?" she questioned.
"Most women would have read it," he said. He got up and went outside,leaving her to look after him, not knowing whether he had meant tocompliment her or not.
He found Dade and Malcolm standing near the stable. There was abrilliant moon. At Dade's invitation they all went down to thebunkhouse. In spite of the dilapidated appearance of its exterior, theinterior of the building was in comparatively good condition--due tothe continual tinkering of Malcolm, who liked to spend his idle hoursthere--and Malcolm lighted a candle, placed it on the rough table, tooka deck of cards from the shelf, and the three played "pitch" for twohours. At the end of that time Malcolm said he was going to bed. Dadesignified that he intended doing likewise. He occupied half ofCalumet's bed. Since the day following the clash with Dade, Calumethad insisted on this.
"Just to show you that what you said ain't botherin' me a heap," he hadtold Dade. "You're still yearlin' and need some one to keep an eye onyou, so's some careless son of a gun won't herd-ride you."
That Dade accepted this in the spirit in which it was spoken made itpossible for them to bunk together in amity. If Dade had "sized up"Calumet, the latter had made no mistake in Dade.
Dade snuffed out the candle and followed Malcolm out. The latter wentimmediately to the ranchhouse, but Dade lingered until Calumet steppeddown from the door of the bunkhouse.
"Bed suits me," suggested Dade. "Comin'?"
"I'm smokin' a cigarette first," said Calumet. "Mebbe two," he addedas an afterthought.
He watched Malcolm go in; saw the light from the lamp on the table inthe kitchen flare its light out through the kitchen door as Dadeentered; heard the door close. The lamp still burned after he had seenDade's shadow vanish, and he knew that Dade had gone upstairs. Dadehad left the light burning for him.
Alone, Calumet rolled the cigarette he had promised himself, lit it,and then, in the flood of moonlight, walked slowly around thebunkhouse, estimating the material and work that would be necessary torepair it. Then, puffing at his cigarette, he made a round of thecorral fence. It was a long trip, and he stopped twice to roll newcigarettes before he circled it. Then he examined the stable. Thisfinished, he stepped over to the corral fence, leaned his arms on thetop rail, and, in the moonlight that came over his shoulder, reread hisfather's letter, making out the picturesque chirography with difficulty.
As during the first days of his return, when he had watched the army ofmemories pass in review, he lingered over them now, and, to hissurprise, discovered that he felt some little regret over his ownconduct in those days preceding his leave-taking. To be sure, he hadbeen only a boy at that time, but he had been a man since, and the coldlight of reason should have shown him that there must have been causefor his father's brutal treatment of him--if indeed it had been brutal.In fact, if he had acted in his youth as he had acted since reachingmaturity, there was small reason to wonder that he had received blows.Boys needed to be reprimanded, punished, and perhaps he had deservedall he had received.
The tone of his father's letters was distinctly sorrowful. Remorse,sincere remorse, had afflicted him. His father had been wronged,misled, betrayed, and humiliated by the Taggarts, and as Calumet stoodbeside the corral fence he found that all his rage--the bitter,malignant hatred which had once been in his heart against hisfather--had vanished, that it had been succeeded by an emotion that wasnew to him--pity. An hour, two hours, passed before he turned andwalked toward the ranchhouse. His lips were grim and white, tell-talesigns of a new resolve, as he stepped softly upon the rear porch,stealthily opened the kitchen door, and let himself in. He halted atthe table on which stood the kerosene lamp, looking at the chair inwhich he had been sitting some hours before talking to Betty, blinkingat the chair in which she had sat, summoning into his mind the pictureshe had made when he had voiced his suspicions about her knowledge ofthe contents of the letter she had given him. "Nobody but a fool couldhate Betty," the letter had read. And at the instant he had read thewords he had
known that he didn't hate her. But he was a fool, justthe same; he was a fool for treating her as he did--as Dade had said.He had known that all along; he knew that was the reason why he hadcurbed his rage when it would have driven him to commit some rashaction. He had been a fool, but had he let himself go he would havebeen a bigger one.
Betty had appraised him correctly--"sized him up," in Dade's idiomaticphraseology--and knew that his vicious impulses were surface ones thathad been acquired and not inherited, as he had thought. And he wasstrangely pleased.
He looked once around the room, noting the spotless cleanliness of itbefore he blew out the light. And then he stepped across the floor andinto the dining-room, tip-toeing toward the stairs, that he mightawaken no one. But he halted in amazement when he reached a point nearthe center of the room, for he saw, under the threshold of the doorthat led from the dining-room to his father's office, a weak,flickering beam of light.
The door was tightly closed. He knew from the fact that no light shonethrough it except from the space between the bottom of it and thethreshold that it was barred, for he had locked the door during thetime he was repairing the house, and had satisfied himself that itcould not be tightly closed unless barred. Someone was in the room,too. He heard the scuffle of a foot, the sound of a chair scraping onthe floor. He stood rigid in the darkness of the dining-room,straining his ears to catch another sound.
For a long time he could hear only muffled undertones which, while theytold him that there were two or more persons in the room, gave him noclue to their identity. And then, as he moved closer to the door, hecaught a laugh, low, but clear and musical.
It was Betty's! He had heard it often when she had been talking toDade; she had never laughed in that voice when talking to him!
He halted in his approach toward the door, watching the light under it,listening intently, afflicted with indecision. At first he felt only anatural curiosity over the situation, but as he continued to standthere he began to feel a growing desire to know who Betty was talkingto. To be sure, Betty had a right to talk to whom she pleased, butthis talk behind a barred door had an appearance of secrecy. And sincehe knew of no occasion for secrecy, the thing took on an element ofmystery which irritated him. He smiled grimly in the darkness, andwith infinite care sat down on the floor and removed his boots. Thenhe stole noiselessly over to the door and placed an ear against it.
Almost instantly he heard a man's voice. He did not recognize it, butthe words were sufficiently clear and distinct. There was amusement inthem.
"So you're stringin' him along all right, then?" said the voice. "I'vegot to hand it to you--you're some clever."
"I am merely following instructions." This in Betty's voice.
The man chuckled. "He's a hard case. I expected he'd have you allfired out by this time."
Betty laughed. "He is improving right along," she said. "He broughtBob another dog to replace Lonesome. I felt sorry for him that night."
"Well," said the man, "I'm glad he's learnin'. I reckon he's someimpatient to find out where the idol is?"
"Rather," said Betty. "And he wanted the money right away."
The man laughed. "Well," he said, "keep stringin' him along until weget ready to lift the idol from its hidin' place. I've been thinkin'that it'd be a good idea to take the durn thing over to Las Vegas an'sell it. The money we'd get for it would be safer in the bank than theidol where it is. An' we could take it out when we get ready."
"No," said Betty firmly; "we will leave the idol where it is. No onebut me knows, and I certainly will not tell."
"You're the boss," said the man. He laughed again, and then bothvoices became inaudible to Calumet.
A cold, deadly rage seized Calumet. Betty was deceiving him, triflingwith him. Some plan that she had in mind with reference to him wasworking smoothly and well, so successfully that her confederate--forcertainly the man in the room with her must be that--was distinctlypleased. Betty, to use the man's words, was "stringing" him. In otherwords, she was making a fool of him!
Those half-formed good resolutions which Calumet had made a few minutesbefore entering the house had fled long ago; he snarled now as herealized what a fool he had been for making them. Betty had beenleading him on. He had been under the spell of her influence; he hadbeen allowing her to shape his character to her will; he was, or hadbeen, in danger of becoming a puppet which she could control by merelypulling some strings. She had been working on his better nature withselfish aims.
Who was the man? Malcolm? Dade? He thought not; the voice soundedstrangely like Neal Taggart's. This suspicion enraged him, and hestepped back, intending to hurl himself against the door in an effortto smash it in. But he hesitated, leered cunningly at the door, andthen softly and swiftly made his way upstairs.
He went first to his own room, for he half suspected that it might beDade who was downstairs with Betty, and if it was-- Well, just now heremembered vividly how Dade had defied him, and he made a mental vowthat if it were Dade who was with Betty the young man would leave theLazy Y before dawn quite suddenly. But it was not Dade. Dade was inbed, snoring, stretched out comfortably.
Calumet slipped out of the room and went to Malcolm's. Both Bob andMalcolm were sound asleep. He hesitated for an instant, and then madehis way slowly downstairs. Again he listened at the door. Betty andthe man were still talking.
Calumet found his boots. He decided not to put them on until he got tothe kitchen door, for he was determined to go around the outside of thehouse and lay in wait for Betty's confederate, and he did not want tomake any sound that would scare him off. He was proceeding stealthily,directing his course through the darkness by a stream of moonlight thatcame in through one of the kitchen windows, and had almost reached thekitchen door when his feet struck an obstruction--something soft andyielding.
There was a sudden scurrying, a sharp, terrified yelp.
Calumet cursed. It was Bob's pup. The animal planted himself in thestream of moonlight that came in through the window, facing Calumet andemitting a series of short, high-pitched, resentful barks.
There was humor in this situation, but Calumet did not see it. Heheard a cry of surprise from the direction of the dining-room, and heturned just in time to see the office door closing on a flood of light.
With savage energy and haste, he pulled on his boots, darted out of thehouse, ran across the rear porch, leaped down, and ran around thenearest corner of the house. As he ran he jerked his pistol from itsholster.
When he got to the front of the house he bounded to the door of theoffice and threw it violently open, expecting to surprise Betty and herconfederate. He was confronted by a dense blackness. He dodged back,fearing a trap, and then lighted a match and held it around the cornerof one of the door jambs. After the match was burning well he threw itinto the room and then peered after it. There came no reply to thischallenge, and so he strode in boldly, lighting another match.
The room was empty.
He saw how it was. Betty and the man had heard the barking of the dogand had suspected the presence of an eavesdropper. The man had fled.Probably by this time Betty was in her room. Calumet went out upon theporch, leaped off, and ran around the house in a direction oppositethat which had marked his course when coming toward the front, coveringthe ground with long, swift strides. He reasoned that as he had seenno one leave the house from the other side or the front, whoever hadbeen with Betty had made his escape in this direction, and he drew abreath of satisfaction when, approaching some underbrush near thekitchen, he saw outlined in the moonlight the figure of a man on ahorse.
The latter had evidently just mounted, for at the instant Calumet sawhim he had just settled into the saddle, one foot searching for astirrup. He was about seventy-five feet distant, and he turned atabout the instant that Calumet saw him. That instant was enough forCalumet, for as the man turned his face was bathed for a fraction of asecond in the moonlight, and Calumet recognized hi
m. It was NealTaggart.
Calumet halted. His six-shooter roared at the exact second that theman buried his spurs in the flanks of his horse and threw himselfforward upon its neck.
The bullet must have missed him only by a narrow margin, but it didmiss, for he made no sign of injury. His instant action in throwinghimself forward had undoubtedly saved his life. Calumet swung thepistol over his head and brought it down to a quick level, whippinganother shot after the fleeing rider. But evidently the latter hadanticipated the action, for as he rode he jumped his horse from oneside to another, and as the distance was already great, and growinggreater, he made an elusive target.
Calumet saw his failure and stood silent, watching until Taggart waswell out into the valley, riding hard, a cloud of dust enveloping him.A yell reached Calumet from the distance--derisive, defiant, mocking.Calumet cursed then, giving voice to his rage and disappointment.
He went glumly around to the front of the house and closed the door tothe office. When he stepped off the porch, afterward, intending to goaround the way he had come in order to enter the house, he heard avoice above him, and turned to see Dade, his head sticking out of anupstairs window, his hair in disorder, his eyes bulging, a forty-fivegleaming in his hand. Back of him, his head over Dade's shoulder,stood Malcolm, and Bob's thin face showed between the two.
At another window, one of the front ones, was Betty. Of the four whowere watching him, Betty seemed the least excited; it seemed to Calumetas he looked at her that there was some amusement in her eyes.
"Lordy!" said Dade as Calumet looked up at him, "how you scairt me!Was it you shootin'? An' what in thunder was you shootin' _at_?"
"A snake," said Calumet in a voice loud enough for Betty to hear.
"A snake! Holy smoke!" growled Dade in disgust. "Wakin' people up atthis time of the night because you wanted to shoot at a measly snake.Tomorrow we'll lay off for an hour or so an' I'll take you where youcan shoot 'em to your heart's content. But, for the love of Pete, quitshootin' at 'em when a guy's asleep."
Calumet looked up sardonically, not at Dade, but at Betty. "Was youall asleep?" he inquired in a voice of cold mockery. Even at thatdistance he saw Betty redden, and he laughed shortly.
"A foxy snake," he said; "one of them kind which goes roamin' around atnight. Lookin' for a mate, mebbe." He turned abruptly, with a lastsneering look at Betty, and made his way around the house.