Black Jack, Max Brand [snow like ashes .txt] 📗

CHAPTER 27

It was some time before Terry could sleep, though it was now very late.

When he put out the light and slipped into the bed, the darkness brought

a bright flood of memories of the day before him. It seemed to him that

half a lifetime had been crowded into the brief hours since he was fired

on the ranch that morning. Behind everything stirred the ugly face of

Denver as a sort of controlling nemesis. It seemed to him that the chunky

little man had been pulling the wires all the time while he, Terry

Hollis, danced in response. Not a flattering thought.

 

Nervously, Terry got out of bed and went to the window. The night was

cool, cut crisp rather than chilling. His eye went over the velvet

blackness of the mountain slope above him to the ragged line of the

crest—then a dizzy plunge to the brightness of the stars beyond. The

very sense of distance was soothing; it washed the gloom and the troubles

away from him. He breathed deep of the fragrance of the pines and then

went back to his bed.

 

He had hardly taken his place in it when the sleep began to well up over

his brain—waves of shadows running out of corners of his mind. And then

suddenly he was wide awake, alert.

 

Someone had opened the door. There had been no sound; merely a change in

the air currents of the room, but there was also the sense of another

presence so clearly that Terry almost imagined he could hear the

breathing.

 

He was beginning to shrug the thought away and smile at his own

nervousness, when he heard that unmistakable sound of a foot pressing the

floor. And then he remembered that he had left his gun belt far from the

bed. In a burning moment that lesson was printed in his mind, and would

never be forgotten. Slowly as possible and without sound, he drew up his

feet little by little, spread his arms gently on either side of him, and

made himself tense for the effort. Whoever it was that entered, they

might be taken by surprise. He dared not lift his head to look; and he

was on the verge of leaping up and at the approaching noise, when a

whisper came to him softly: “Black Jack!”

 

The soft voice, the name itself, thrilled him. He sat erect in the bed

and made out, dimly, the form of Kate Pollard in the blackness. She would

have been quite invisible, save that the square of the window was almost

exactly behind her. He made out the faint whiteness of the hand which

held her dressing robe at the breast.

 

She did not start back, though she showed that she was startled by the

suddenness of his movement by growing the faintest shade taller and

lifting her head a little. Terry watched her, bewildered.

 

“I been waiting to see you,” said Kate. “I want to—I mean—to—talk to

you.”

 

He could think of nothing except to blurt with sublime stupidity: “It’s

good of you. Won’t you sit down?”

 

The girl brought him to his senses with a sharp “Easy! Don’t talk out. Do

you know what’d happen if Dad found me here?”

 

“I—” began Terry.

 

But she helped him smoothly to the logical conclusion. “He’d blow your

head off, Black Jack; and he’d do it—pronto. If you are going to talk,

talk soft—like me.”

 

She sat down on the side of the bed so gently that there was no creaking.

They peered at each other through the darkness for a time.

 

She was not whispering, but her voice was pitched almost as low, and he

wondered at the variety of expression she was able to pack in the small

range of that murmur. “I suppose I’m a fool for coming. But I was born to

love chances. Born for it!” She lifted her head and laughed.

 

It amazed Terry to hear the shaken flow of her breath and catch the

glinting outline of her face. He found himself leaning forward a little;

and he began to wish for a light, though perhaps it was an unconscious

wish.

 

“First,” she said, “what d’you know about Dad—and Denver Pete?”

 

“Practically nothing.”

 

She was silent for a moment, and he saw her hand go up and prop her chin

while she considered what she could say next.

 

“They’s so much to tell,” she confessed, “that I can’t put it short. I’ll

tell you this much, Black Jack—”

 

“That isn’t my name, if you please.”

 

“It’ll be your name if you stay around these parts with Dad very long,”

she replied, with an odd emphasis. “But where you been raised, Terry? And

what you been doing with yourself?”

 

He felt that this giving of the first name was a tribute, in some subtle

manner. It enabled him, for instance, to call her Kate, and he decided

with a thrill that he would do so at the first opportunity. He reverted

to her question.

 

“I suppose,” he admitted gloomily, “that I’ve been raised to do pretty

much as I please—and the money I’ve spent has been given to me.”

 

The girl shook her head with conviction.

 

“It ain’t possible,” she declared.

 

“Why not?”

 

“No son of Black Jack would live off somebody’s charity.”

 

He felt the blood tingle in his cheeks, and a real anger against her

rose. Yet he found himself explaining humbly.

 

“You see, I was taken when I wasn’t old enough to decide for myself. I

was only a baby. And I was raised to depend upon Elizabeth Cornish. I—I

didn’t even know the name of my father until a few days ago.”

 

The girl gasped. “You didn’t know your father—not your own father?” She

laughed again scornfully. “Terry, I ain’t green enough to believe that!”

 

He fell into a dignified silence, and presently the girl leaned closer,

as though she were peering to make out his face. Indeed, it was now

possible to dimly make out objects in the room. The window was filled

with an increasing brightness, and presently a shaft of pale light began

to slide across the floor, little by little. The moon had pushed up above

the crest of the mountain.

 

“Did that make you mad?” queried the girl. “Why?”

 

“You seemed to doubt what I said,” he remarked stiffly.

 

“Why not? You ain’t under oath, or anything, are you?”

 

Then she laughed again. “You’re a queer one all the way through. This

Elizabeth Cornish—got anything to do with the Cornish ranch?”

 

“I presume she owns it, very largely.”

 

The girl nodded. “You talk like a book. You must of studied a terrible

pile.”

 

“Not so much, really.”

 

“H’m,” said the girl, and seemed to reserve judgment.

 

Then she asked with a return of her former sharpness: “How come you

gambled today at Pedro’s?”

 

“I don’t know. It seemed the thing to do—to kill time, you know.”

 

“Kill time! At Pedro’s? Well—you are green, Terry!”

 

“I suppose I am, Kate.”

 

He made a little pause before her name, and when he spoke it, in spite of

himself, his voice changed, became softer. The girl straightened

somewhat, and the light was now increased to such a point that he could

make out that she was frowning at him through the dimness.

 

“First, you been adopted, then you been raised on a great big place with

everything you want, mostly, and now you’re out—playing at Pedro’s. How

come, Terry?”

 

“I was sent away,” said Terry faintly, as all the pain of that farewell

came flooding back over him.

 

“Why?”

 

“I shot a man.”

 

“Ah!” said Kate. “You shot a man?” It seemed to silence her. “Why,

Terry?”

 

“He had killed my father,” he