Acres of Unrest (7 page)

Both Ross and Andy Hale advanced a great deal more slowly than they might have done had they wished to avoid overhearing that conversation that was in progress in the shed. But as it was they went on almost on tiptoe. Certainly they heard, for a reward, the most harmless chatter.

The girl did most of the talking. Peter put in only a word now and then. He seemed to be asking her advice. It appeared to be a matter of the greatest moment to Peter to learn what she might be able to advise concerning the manner in which a table, which he was sandpapering, might be repainted. He wanted to know, also, what suggestions she could give him concerning color schemes.

The result was that Ruth McNair drew closer and closer until, in the end, the rasping of the sandpaper ceased, and Peter sat on his crippled legs, with Ruth McNair sitting before him, her knees clasped in her hands and her head thrown back with enthusiasm while she uttered her ideas. It was all extremely innocent, but it made Andy Hale grow black of face. He took his brother by the arm and led him hastily away.

“What’s wrong?” Ross Hale asked blandly.

“You know well enough what’s wrong,” snapped his brother. “You know well enough, Ross. It’s the thing that’s making you grin so broadly just now.”

“Got no idea in the world what you mean,” said Ross.

“Ross,” said Andy, “lemme tell you that you and me have had times when we ain’t been particularly friendly. But that ain’t been because of what I wished. Never wanted anything except to have you for a brother and a friend, Ross. But I’ll tell you this…folks that interfere with my best plans is my enemies, no matter whether they wear the names of brothers…and nephews…or not.”

He said this with such a solemn air of significance that Ross Hale looked sharply askance at him. “That’s free talk and out-and-out talk,” said Ross Hale. “But still I’m cursed if I know just what you mean.”

Andy shook his head. “You know as well as I know. Your boy is making a dead set at the girl that’s engaged to marry my boy Charlie!”

Ross Hale started violently. “It ain’t true, Andy!” he cried.

“It is true. And you jumped when I said it.”

“What in the world could put such an idea into your head, Andy? Peter ain’t ever seen her before today.”

“How many times does a man have to see Ruth McNair before he would want her?” snapped Andy. “Ain’t she got looks enough? Ain’t her father got land and cows and cash enough? Answer me that!”

“Peter ain’t a fool,” his father said rather weakly.

“He ain’t a fool,” answered Andy, “and that’s the main reason why I should like to ask you if he ain’t able to see that Ruth McNair would make a likely wife for any man?”

“He knows,” Ross Hale answered, growing a little husky with excitement, “that she’s engaged to his
cousin. Besides, what chance would a cripple like my Peter have against a fine, upstanding boy like your Charlie?”

Andy Hale snarled with anger. “You may talk your boy down, but all the time you’re thinking him up. Now, Ross, I’m the last man in the world to run down your boy. He’s got brains and nerve and plain grit and a head that’s working all of the time. He don’t miss any chances. He’s showed that already by the way that he’s running this ranch for you. But he’s showing another thing, too, that he’ll throw no tricks away. And one of the strongest tricks that he has to play with a girl like that is the fact that he’s a cripple, Ross. You know that. You take a girl like that, and when she thinks what a grand athlete Peter used to be, and when she sees him so broken down now…but so hard-working and so clever and so cheerful…how could she hardly help from wanting to mother him?”

“Andy, you talk through your hat! You listened to one minute’s talk between them, and you come to a lot of fool conclusions that ain’t got nothing to do with the truth at all. I heard nothing out of the way, and I heard everything that you heard.”

“You heard him asking her advice, didn’t you?”

“What of that? About the colors to use on furniture. A woman knows more than a man does about things like that.”

“Does she? I tell you, Ross, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. There ain’t a thing in the world, including color schemes, that Peter Hale needs to learn from a snip of a girl like Ruth McNair. She’s got a pretty face and she’s got money. But you know, and I know, that girls don’t carry around so much brains with them that they can scatter knowledge
around them like seed behind a plow. No, Ross, I tell you that Peter is making a dead set at Ruth McNair, and I don’t take it kind of him. You understand me? I don’t take it kind of him. That girl belongs to his cousin!”

What Andy said was true enough, it seemed to Ross Hale. The very truth of it made him swell suddenly with anger, so that he snapped out: “When I was down and miserable and done for, Andy, I never got no help from you!”

“What has that got to do with it?” Andy cried. “What has that got to do with this? And, besides, was there ever a time that you asked for help?”

“Is it for a brother to ask a brother for help?” Ross Hale responded, fairly quivering with a bitter emotion. “You knew that I was down and out. I didn’t have a coat to my back, hardly. I was out of elbow with every shirt that I had. There was many and many a time when I come back from my day’s work and sat down in that kitchen, yonder, and chewed at a stale crust of bread. I tell you, I’ve gone down to the bottom of the bread box and took out an old heel and cut away the moldy part of it and chewed up the rest. I’ve done that. And you knew it. Tell me, didn’t you know it?”

“How was I to guess what you was doing, Ross?” asked Andy Hale. “I knew that you had enough money to keep your boy back East in an expensive way and pay for his fine clothes and his tuition and all the rest that he was spending like water. Should I guess that any man would spend everything on a…?”

“You seen me cut down my trees and sell them. You seen me cart my furniture away and sell it. You know that I whittled my land up and sold away
more than half of it. You knew that I was covered up with mortgages. And you never offered me nothing.”

“I give you the best advice in the world.”

“Hell is paved with good advice. You would’ve seen me go down the whole way before you so much as offered me a penny.”

“I had my own business. How was I to stay awake at night wondering how you might be getting on?”

“Well, you didn’t do it. And now, Andy, you come here whining to me, and you ask me to call off Peter and talk to him rough because he sees fit to talk sweet to Ruth McNair.”

“She’s engaged to his cousin. It’s criminal for him to start flirting with a girl like that, him with his fine education and his soft way of yarning about things.”

“Curse it!” shouted Ross Hale. “You had your choice. You raised your son among the cattle, and I raised mine among the men. Now let your bull of a son try his own way with Ruth McNair. I tell you that I think you’re right. I think that Peter is going to go after Ruth. I think that he’s going to get her, too. I hope he does. And when he has the McNair millions, I’m gonna ride up to your house, Andy, and laugh at you. I’m gonna laugh so loud that it will start the dogs barking.”

Ross Hale was a reasonably hot-tempered man, but he was much more gentle than Andy. Yet there was this difference between them—while Ross had to break out with every thought that entered his mind, Andy ruled himself with a hand of iron and kept his tongue strictly in order.

He ruled himself now, but his face turned white with passion as he listened to the outburst of his
brother. “Very well,” Andy said. “I’ve heard what you’ve got to say today. I’m going away and wait for what you may have to say tomorrow.” And he was as good as his word.

He got his horse. Ruth McNair was brought from the shed and Charlie called in from the pasture. The party went away, leaving Ross Hale wildly excited, filled with vague regrets that he had talked so freely. But he said not a word to Peter. He felt, somehow, that the less he talked with Peter on this point, the better it would be for both of them.

Here was a point on which Andy Hale was hardly so discreet, for he felt that the very ground had been shaken beneath his feet. To be sure, he had accomplished some good things and some big things in his life. No one could say that his ranch was not a triumph. At the same time, all that he had ever done in the past was as nothing compared with this grand opportunity to strike gold by marrying his son to Ruth McNair. And if that chance were lost—it would be like death itself to Andy Hale.

As the girl, handsome, smiling Charlie, and he rode over the hills toward the McNair house, and saw the rolling acres of the rich rancher, all dotted over with little colored spots where the cattle were feeding, it seemed to him that this was a veritable kingdom. Surely there was no youth in the range more worthy of this inheritance.

Who should dare to take the kingdom away from him? Peter, the cripple? Let Peter guard his head well before he contemplated such an attempt.

He determined that he would try one expedient before anything else—to speak to old McNair himself. He left Charlie and Ruth on the back verandah and went out to find McNair sitting on the top rail of the corral, chewing tobacco and squinting at a group of newly purchased two-year-olds.

“I want to talk to you, Mac.”

“Talk about cows then. Look at the backs on them heifers, Andy. Sweet, eh?”

“I got a word to say about Ruth.”

“What about Ruth? Them cows’ll have calves that’ll weigh a ton. What about Ruth?”

“Mac, I think that Peter is laying his eye on her.”

“He’s a sensible boy, then. She’s worth looking at, ain’t she?”

“Mac, she’s engaged to my son.”

“Why do you bother me about it? Let her marry who she wants to. I’ll never bother my head. My old man tried to bother his head about me and my affairs. But heck, Andy, what did I do? Run off with Ruth’s ma, not because I wasn’t able to live without her, but just to show my old man that I had a mind of my own.” He chuckled. “My gal has got a mind of her own, too. I’m not going to get her into a foolish way of thinking. I don’t want her to marry above herself. That’s all. Lot rather have her marry beneath. Don’t want some dude to marry
her for her money and her pretty face and treat her like a dog so soon as she hadn’t nothing left but wrinkles and foolishness the way that most women get after a time. No, sir. I like your boy Charlie as a husband for her. He’d do very fine. Not too smart…got enough head on his shoulders, though. He can take care of cows, and he could take care of a wife, too. Good cowman ought to make a good husband. Well, I’d like Peter as a husband for her, too.”

“Mac, a cripple like that?”

“I say that I’d like Peter for a husband for her, too. He had too much education and he was a lot too smart for her. But when he lost the use of his legs…that made him about even with her. Now it would be safe enough for him to marry her. She ain’t bright, but she’s brave. She ain’t quick, but she’s faithful. Like her ma before her. A sweet face and an empty head. Well, that’s the kind of a woman that makes the best sort of a wife, and the best sort of a ma, too. I don’t like ’em when they start in thinking too much.”

Andy Hale had heard enough. There was nothing to be gained in this direction. Therefore he started talking about the heifers, and, in truth, they were a likely lot.

Presently a heavy step came down the path, and the voice of a stranger said: “Hello, Dad. It’s about time that we slid out for home, ain’t it?”

He turned sharply about. This deep, stern, crisp voice came from his own boy, Charlie, but, nevertheless, it came from a stranger. The voice was altered, and the face of Charlie had turned grave and sober, and the eye of Charlie was filled with alternate fire and shadow.

McNair said: “What’s wrong, Charlie? You had a fight with my girl?”

“Not exactly a fight,” said Charlie. “We just had a…”

“Shut up, Charlie,” broke in his father. “You let this rest till tomorrow and…”

“I only want to say…”

“You leave it unsaid,” commanded Andy Hale. “So long, Mac. I’ll see you soon.” And he quickly hurried away with Charlie.

“You should’ve let me tell McNair,” said Charlie. “It was something that he had ought to know.”

“About what?”

“About Ruth.”

Andy Hale turned very pale. “Ah, son,” he said, “don’t you tell me that you’ve been doing anything rash.”

“I didn’t do a thing. It was her. And she’s through with me, Dad. Would you guess what done it?”

“It was Peter,” Mr. Hale declared.

“You guessed that, eh?” said his son with a sharp glance at him. “You guessed that, Father? Well, it was Peter, right enough. She didn’t waste no words. I asked her how could she make up her mind about a thing like this so sudden. She said that one minute with Peter had been about all that she had needed to tell her where she stood. She didn’t need nothing more. She knew that she loved him, and wouldn’t never love anybody else.”

“The impudent young…”

“Don’t blame her,” Charlie Hale warned. “Don’t you blame her. It was Peter. Look at what he knows. Look at the way that he can talk. Make himself as simple as a baby, one minute…and the next minute he can talk like a regular governor of a state. It’s him
that’s done the trick to me. He’s turned me around his finger. And I’m going to…”

“What?” his father asked hastily. “You’re going to do what, Charlie?”

“Get out on the range and ride herd…and…read sign…because that’s about the only thing that you ever educated me to do…and…”

He broke off with something that was close to a groan and close to a sob, also. For, after all, Charlie was very young. Then he spurred his horse into a racing gallop and fled away down the road.

His father watched the dust cloud lift and roll away across the willows that followed the creek and the road that wound beside it. Then he shook his head and sighed deeply. It had never seemed to him, in the past, that his son would ever be able to reproach him for the thing that he had received in the place of a college education. Yet he knew that there was nothing but rage and shame and grief in the heart of Charlie. What would Charlie do now—content himself, indeed, by riding out onto the range to forget his troubles? Andy Hale doubted that.

Peter was in the blacksmith shop. Indeed, he spent more time there than in any other portion of the ranch that he was revamping so swiftly and so successfully. He had always had a love for tools. On the ranch, in the early days, he had spent much time in rough carpentering and in watching at the blacksmith shops of Sumnertown. There was always something by way of information to be picked up by a hungry eye. There was always something to be learned by a few adroit questions, here and there. Above all, there was the love of experimentation that never left him.

Then, when he went away to beautiful Huntley School, he had found there a well-developed manual-training department, for the headmaster believed in such things as handicraft for boys. In that department of the school Peter had chiefly reveled. If he won happy moments on the athletic fields of the school, he won glorious hours of contentment at the turning lathe and, above all, at the forge.

Now everything was equipped on the ranch to suit his crippled condition. In the smithy he could lift himself easily to the swinging seat that stood high up and between the forge and the fire, with the handle of the bellows wheel near and all the clustering tools in reaching distance, while the tempering tub was where he could dip the blackening iron and pluck it out again with a long-handled pincers. He already had made himself more at home in the blacksmith shop, therefore, than in the rest of the ranch.

On the day following the historic visit of Charlie and Ruth McNair, Peter was propped up, swinging his own peculiar sledge. Although he used only one hand for its management, he had the hammer made with a full twelve-pound weight in its head, and with a shortened handle, thick enough to fill his ample grasp. Hammer strokes are not delivered by brute force alone, and those who looked in to see Peter at his work were always amazed by the ease with which he wielded this ponderous tool. The vast shoulders and the long, powerful arms were not a sufficient explanation. Something more was needed, and that was the rhythmic grace with which the work was done.

He was molding a great bar of iron, as thick as his wrist. His face was blackened with soot and reddened with the heat of the fire. The ringing
hammer strokes echoed out of the little shop, passing in clangorous waves far over the corral and across the road, where people checked their horses as they rode or drove past, and they said to one another:

“There’s Peter Hale in his blacksmith shop. There’s nobody like him in these parts. And look what he’s done to the ranch, already.”

You may be sure that Peter guessed at some of these hearty compliments. How could he help but do so? There was an atmosphere of pity and of respect and of admiration which surrounded him here on the ranch even more strongly than it had surrounded him in his university, where he had been a known man. Peter, for all the hardness that was in him, was tender enough to recognize and rejoice in these things.

In the midst of the shower of hammer blows, there was a faint alteration in the light to his left. He dropped the hammer and, jerking out a Colt, whirled around in the spinning seat in time to cover with his gun the portly form of Mr. Mike Jarvin, as that gentleman pushed open the little side door of the shop.