Black Jack, Max Brand [snow like ashes .txt] 📗
- Author: Max Brand
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whispering slippers. The sheriff did not open his eyes when Elizabeth
tried his pulse. It was faint, but steady.
He had been shot through the body and the lungs grazed, for as he
breathed there was a faint bubble of blood that grew and swelled and
burst on his lips at every breath. But he lived, and he would live unless
there were an unnecessary change for the worse. They went softly out of
the room again. Elizabeth was grave. Mr. Gainor took her hand.
“I think I know what people are saying now, and what they will say
hereafter. If Terry’s father were any other than Hollis, this affair
would soon he forgotten, except as a credit to him. But even as it is, he
will live this matter down. I want to tell you again, Miss Cornish, that
you have reason to be proud of him. He is the sort of man I should be
proud to have in my own family. Madam, good-by. And if there is anything
in which I can be of service to you or to Terence, call on me at any time
and to any extent.”
And he went down the hall with a little swagger. Mr. Gainor felt that he
had risen admirably to a great situation. As a matter of fact, he had.
Elizabeth turned to Vance.
“I wish you’d find Terence,” she said, “and tell him that I’m waiting for
him in the library.”
Vance went gloomily to the room of Terry and called him out. The boy was
pale, but perfectly calm, and he looked older, much older.
“There was a great deal of talk,” said Vance—he must make doubly sure of
Terence now. “And they even started a little lynching party. But we
stopped all that. Gainor made a very nice little speech about you. And
now Elizabeth is waiting for you in the library.”
Terry bit his lip.
“And she?” he asked anxiously.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Vance assured him.
“She’ll probably read you a curtain lecture. But at heart she’s proud of
you because of the way Gainor talked. You can’t do anything wrong in my
sister’s eyes.”
Terry breathed a great sigh of relief.
“But I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done. I’m really not, Uncle Vance. I’m
afraid that I’d do it over again, under the same circumstances.”
“Of course you would. Of course you would, my boy. But you don’t have to
blurt that out to Elizabeth, do you? Let her think it was the
overwhelming passion of the moment; something like that. A woman likes to
be appealed to, not defied. Particularly Elizabeth. Take my advice.
She’ll open her arms to you after she’s been stern as the devil for a
moment.”
The boy caught his hand and wrung it.
“By the Lord, Uncle Vance,” he said, “I certainly appreciate this!”
“Tush, Terry, tush!” said Vance. “You’ll find that I’m with you and
behind you in more ways than you’d ever guess.”
He received a grateful glance as they went down the broad stairs
together. At the door to the library Vance turned away, but Elizabeth
called to him and asked him in. He entered behind Terence Hollis, and
found Elizabeth sitting in her father’s big chair under the window,
looking extremely fragile and very erect and proud. Across her lap was a
legal-looking document.
Vance knew instantly that it was the will she had made up in favor of
Terence. He had been preparing himself for the worst, but at this his
heart sank. He lowered himself into a chair. Terence had gone straight to
Elizabeth.
“I know I’ve done a thing that will cut you deeply, Aunt Elizabeth,” he
said. “I’m not going to ask you to see any justice on my side. I only
want to ask you to forgive me, because—”
Elizabeth was staring straight at and through her protege.
“Are you done, Terence?”
This time Vance was shocked into wide-eyed attention. The voice of
Elizabeth was hard as iron. It brought a corresponding stiffening of
Terence.
“I’m done,” he said, with a certain ring to his voice that Vance was glad
to hear.
It brought a flush into the pale cheeks of Elizabeth.
“It is easy to see that you’re proud of what you have done, Terence.”
“Yes,” he answered with sudden defiance, “I am proud. It’s the best thing
I’ve ever done. I regret only one part of it.”
“And that?”
“That my bullet didn’t kill him!”
Elizabeth looked down and tapped the folded paper against her fingertips.
Whether it was mere thoughtfulness or a desire to veil a profound emotion
from Terence, her brother could not tell. But he knew that something of
importance was in the air. He scented it as clearly as the smoke of a
forest fire.
“I thought,” she said in her new and icy manner, “that that would be your
one regret.”
She looked suddenly up at Terence.
“Twenty-four years,” she said, “have passed since I took you into my
life. At that time I was told that I was doing a rash thing, a dangerous
thing—that before your twenty-fifth birthday the bad blood would out;
that you would, in short, have shot a man. And the prophecy has come
true. By an irony of chance it has happened on the very last day. And by
another irony you picked your victim from among the guests under my
roof!”
“Victim?” cried Terry hoarsely. “Victim, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“If you please,” she said quietly, “not that name again, Terence. I wish
you to know exactly what I have done. Up to this time I have given you a
place in my affections. I have tried to the best of my skill to bring you
up with a fitting education. I have given you what little wisdom and
advice I have to give. Today I had determined to do much more. I had a
will made out—this is it in my hands—and by the terms of this will I
made you my heir—the heir to the complete Cornish estate aside from a
comfortable annuity to Vance.”
She looked him in the eye, ripped the will from end to end, and tossed
the fragments into the fire. There was a sharp cry from Vance, who sprang
to his feet. It was the thrill of an unexpected triumph, but his sister
took it for protest.
“Vance, I haven’t used you well, but from now on I’m going to change. As
for you, Terence, I don’t want you near me any longer than may be
necessary. Understand that I expect to provide for you. I haven’t raised
you merely to cast you down suddenly. I’m going to establish you in
business, see that you are comfortable, supply you with an income that’s
respectable, and then let you drift where you will.
“My own mind is made up about your end before you take a step across the
threshold of my house. But I’m still going to give you every chance. I
don’t want to throw you out suddenly, however. Take your time. Make up
your mind what you want to do and where you are going. Take all the time
you wish for such a conclusion. It’s important, and it needs time for
such a decision. When that decision is made, go your way. I never wish to
hear from you again. I want no letters, and I shall certainly refuse to
see you.”
Every word she spoke seemed to be a heavier blow than the last, and
Terence bowed under the accumulated weight. Vance could see the boy
struggle, waver between fierce pride and desperate humiliation and
sorrow. To Vance it was clear that the stiff pride of Elizabeth as she
sat in the chair was a brittle strength, and one vital appeal would break
her to tears. But the boy did not see. Presently he straightened, bowed
to her in the best Colby fashion, and turned on his heel. He went out of
the room and left Vance and his sister facing one another, but not
meeting each other’s glances.
“Elizabeth,” he said at last, faintly—he dared not persuade too much
lest she take him at his word. “Elizabeth, you don’t mean it. It was
twenty-four years ago that you passed your word to do this if things
turned out as they have. Forget your promise. My dear, you’re still
wrapped up in Terry, no matter what you have said. Let me go and call him
back. Why should you torture yourself for the sake of your pride?”
He even rose, not too swiftly, and still with his eyes upon her. When she
lifted her hand, he willingly sank back into his chair.
“You’re a very kind soul, Vance. I never knew it before. I’m appreciating
it now almost too late. But what I have done shall stand!”
“But, my dear, the pain—is it worth—”
“It means that my life is a wreck and a ruin, Vance. But I’ll stand by
what I’ve done. I won’t give way to the extent of a single scruple.”
And the long, bitter silence which was to last so many days at the
Cornish ranch began. And still they did not look into one another’s eyes.
As for Vance, he did not wish to. He was seeing a bright future. Not long
to wait; after this blow she would go swiftly to her grave.
He had barely reached that conclusion when the door opened again. Terry
stood before them in the old, loose, disreputable clothes of a cow-puncher. The big sombrero swung in his hand. The heavy Colt dragged down
in its holster over his right hip. His tanned face was drawn and stern.
“I won’t keep you more than a moment,” he said. “I’m leaving. And I’m
leaving with nothing of yours. I’ve already taken too much. If I live to
be a hundred, I’ll never forgive myself for taking your charity these
twenty-four years. For what you’ve spent maybe I can pay you back one of
these days, in money. But for all the time and—patience—you’ve spent on
me I can never repay you. I know that. At least, here’s where I stop
piling up a debt. These clothes and this gun come out of the money I made
punching cows last year. Outside I’ve got El Sangre saddled with a saddle
I bought out of the same money. They’re my start in life, the clothes
I’ve got on and the gun and the horse and the saddle. So I’m starting
clean—Miss Cornish!”
Vance saw his sister wince under that name from the lips of Terry. But
she did not speak.
“There’ll be no return,” said Terence sadly. “My trail is an out trail.
Good-by again.” And so he was gone.
Down the Bear Creek road Terence Hollis rode as he had never ridden
before. To be sure, it was not the first time that El Sangre had
stretched to the full his mighty strength, but on those other occasions
he had fought the burst of speed, straining back in groaning stirrup
leathers, with his full weight wresting at the bit. Now he let the rein
play to such a point that he was barely keeping the power of the stallion
in touch. He lightened his weight as only a fine horseman can do,
shifting a few vital inches forward, and with the burden falling more
over his withers, El Sangre fled like a racer down the valley. Not that
he was fully extended. His head was not stretched out
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