Part 33 (1/2)
”He is, is he?” replied Jack, and to his voice and face came sudden change. ”How bad?”
”I reckon he'll be a cripple for life,” answered Wade, seriously, and now he stopped in his work to peer at Belllounds. The next moment might be critical for that young man.
”Club-footed!... He won't lord it over the cowboys any more--or ride that white mustang!” The softer, weaker expression of his face, that which gave him some t.i.tle to good looks, changed to an ugliness hard for Wade to define, since it was neither glee, nor joy, nor gratification over his rival's misfortune. It was rush of blood to eyes and skin, a heated change that somehow to Wade suggested an anxious, selfish hunger.
Belllounds lacked something, that seemed certain. But it remained to be proved how deserving he was of Wade's pity.
”Belllounds, it was a dirty trick--your jumpin' Moore,” declared Wade, with deliberation.
”The h.e.l.l you say!” Belllounds flared up, with scarlet in his face, with sneer of amaze, with promise of bursting rage. He slammed down the gun.
”Yes, the h.e.l.l I say,” returned the hunter. ”They call me h.e.l.l-Bent Wade!”
”Are you friends with Moore?” asked Belllounds, beginning to shake.
”Yes, I'm that with every one. I'd like to be friends with you.”
”I don't want you. And I'm giving you notice--you won't last long at White Slides.”
”Neither will you!”
Belllounds turned dead white, not apparently from fury or fear, but from a shock that had its birth within the deep, mysterious, emotional reachings of his mind. He was utterly astounded, as if confronting a vague, terrible premonition of the future. Wade's swift words, like the ring of bells, had not been menacing, but prophetic.
”Young fellar, you need to be talked to, so if you've got any sense at all it'll get a wedge in your brain,” went on Wade. ”I'm a stranger here. But I happen to be a man who sees through things, an' I see how your dad handles you wrong. You don't know who I am an' you don't care.
But if you'll listen you'll learn what might help you.... No boy can answer to all his wild impulses without ruinin' himself. It's not natural. There are other people--people who have wills an' desires, same as you have. You've got to live with people. Here's your dad an' Miss Columbine, an' the cowboys, an' me, an' all the ranchers, so down to Kremmlin' an' other places. These are the people you've got to live with. You can't go on as you've begun, without ruinin' yourself an' your dad an' the--the girl.... It's never too late to begin to be better. I know that. But it gets too late, sometimes, to save the happiness of others. Now I see where you're headin' as clear as if I had pictures of the future. I've got a gift that way.... An', Belllounds, you'll not last. Unless you begin to control your temper, to forget yourself, to kill your wild impulses, to be kind, to learn what love is--you'll never last!... In the very nature of things, one comin' after another like your fights with Moore, an' your scarin' of p.r.o.nto, an' your drinkin'
at Kremmlin', an' just now your r'arin' at me--it's in the very nature of life that goin' on so you'll sooner or later meet with h.e.l.l! You've got to change, Belllounds. No half-way, spoiled-boy changin', but the straight right-about-face of a man!... It means you must see you're no good an' have a change of heart. Men have revolutions like that. I was no good. I did worse than you'll ever do, because you're not big enough to be really bad, an' yet I've turned out worth livin'.... There, I'm through, an' I'm offerin' to be your friend an' to help you.”
Belllounds stood with arms spread outside the door, still astounded, still pale; but as the long admonition and appeal ended he exploded stridently. ”Who the h.e.l.l are _you?_... If I hadn't been so surprised--if I'd had a chance to get a word in--I'd shut your trap! Are you a preacher masquerading here as hunter? Let me tell you, I won't be talked to like that--not by any man. Keep your advice an' friends.h.i.+p to yourself.”
”You don't want me, then?”
”No,” Belllounds snapped.
”Reckon you don't need either advice or friend, hey?”
”No, you owl-eyed, soft-voiced fool!” yelled Belllounds.
It was then Wade felt a singular and familiar sensation, a cold, creeping thing, physical and elemental, that had not visited him since he had been at White Slides.
”I reckoned so,” he said, with low and gloomy voice, and he knew, if Belllounds did not know, that he was not acquiescing with the other's harsh epithet, but only greeting the advent of something in himself.
Belllounds shrugged his burly shoulders and slouched away.
Wade finished his dressing of the meat. Then he rode up to spend an hour with Moore. When he returned to his cabin he proceeded to change his hunter garb for the best he owned. It was a proof of his unusual preoccupation that he did this before he fed the hounds. It was sunset when he left his cabin. Montana Jim and Lem hailed as he went by. Wade paused to listen to their good-natured raillery.
”See hyar, Bent, this ain't Sunday,” said Lem.
”You're spruced up powerful fine. What's it fer?” added Montana.
”Boss asked me down to supper.'