Part 30 (1/2)
Glendon's eyes glinted angrily at Jack's open praise of Powell. ”He certainly made a laughing-stock of you,” snarled Glendon. ”Threw you down, trussed you up like a Christmas turkey, loaded you in the town truck, and now you are ready to lick his boots in grat.i.tude after he puts the last insult on you by paying your fine. Pah! You make me sick!”
Jack gripped the other man's arm angrily. ”See, here, Glen! I'm not such a mollycoddle that I won't fight you or any other man that talks that way to me.” Jack stood glaring down at Glendon, who returned the angry stare. Then a grin started on Jack's face, and he drawled slowly, ”Don't see that you've got any call over me, Glen. There was two Christmas turkeys, but you did the loudest gobbling. Don't you ever forget that!”
”I'm not apt to,” retorted the other. ”I never would have been mixed up in it if I hadn't been trying to help you out.”
”And I wouldn't have started anything if it hadn't been for you egging me on. You said he was a tenderfoot. Tenderfoot! Wow! I'd like to know what kind of bad men they have where he came from, if he's a tenderfoot!” He paused to ponder over the possibilities of such an individual. ”See, here, Glen, so long as Powell minds his business, I'll mind mine; and if you've got a grudge against him on account of his getting the Springs, you needn't try to get me to take it out on him for you.”
Glendon's face was white with rage. ”I suppose that means you are going to take backwater on everything and join some Church and shout 'Hallelujah! I'm saved!' Eh?”
”It means just what I said. If you've got any pick on Powell that is your own business. As far as the other plans go, the cards are dealt already, and I'll stand pat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Three months after Glendon and Jack had encountered Doctor Powell in Willc.o.x, Katherine was sitting on the porch of her home reading to Donnie. The noise of crunching wheels sounded far down the canon long before a vehicle came into sight between the dense mesquite brush.
It was Doctor Powell who had returned from a trip to Willc.o.x. Katherine watched her husband receive his mail, but she was not aware that the eyes of the two men met with unconcealed antagonism, and the conversation was as curt as possible.
No whisper of the affair in Willc.o.x had reached the ears of Glendon's wife. She had no knowledge that her husband had borrowed money to send to the Judge without a word of thanks to his unknown benefactor. The money had been forwarded to Powell by the Judge. The other fine was sent the Judge by Three-fingered Jack, accompanied by a badly scrawled note of thanks addressed to the Justice of Peace and asking that the man who had paid the fine be told that it was appreciated, and that if he ever needed any help to call on Three-fingered Jack.
Aware of Glendon's dislike, Powell's visits to the Circle Cross had ceased some time previous to the Willc.o.x trouble, but Katherine ascribed the doctor's aloofness to his knowledge of her husband's habits. Though she missed the infrequent visits, she did not resent it. She knew that the two men had nothing in common to make them congenial.
The doctor, seeing Katherine and Donnie on the porch, hesitated as he was about to drive away. He glanced at them, and with a touch of his hat in greeting, stepped into the buggy and went on his way. The happy light faded from Donnie's eyes, but without a word he slipped down again beside his mother, his arm about Tatters' neck.
Glendon came slowly to the porch with the canvas mail-pouch on his arm.
He threw off his broad-brimmed Stetson, unbuckled his spurs and sat down to read his letters without vouchsafing a word to his wife.
”Is there nothing for me?” she asked finally, hesitating to take the sack from his lap and sort its contents.
”Only papers and some of your fool magazines,” he snapped. ”Seems to me you are old enough to get over reading sentimental trash.”
Unmindful of his words she reached for the books he tossed angrily toward her. Books were the only antidote for the mental atrophy she dreaded. Rising, she picked them up, but paused as Glendon glanced impatiently from a letter in his hands.
”Wait, can't you? Or is the 'continued in our next' too important?” he demanded.
She did not reply, but seated herself quietly. Her eyes were unusually bright, for on a page of the magazine she held, she had seen a t.i.tle. A thrill akin to that when she had first held Donnie in her arms, made her heart throb quickly.
Donnie had been flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone; but this, the first-born of her brain, had come through travail of her very soul. It was not necessary for her to read the eight lines of the poem; they were indelibly imprinted on her memory. A mother cannot forget the face of her child, and though it be commonplace and unattractive to all the world, in her eyes it is beautiful.
Glendon's voice brought her back from her world of dreams.
”I wish you'd stop sitting there staring like a locoed calf, and pay attention to what I have to say.”
She turned her eyes on him. ”I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't hear you speak.”
”I didn't,” he snapped. ”No use talking when you have a mooning fit on.”
”I am listening, dear. What is it?”
”Here's a letter from the old man. He wants Donald. You can see for yourself what he says.”