The Bells of San Juan - Jackson Gregory (most read books TXT) 📗

you are already broke and can't even pay for your room and board . . ."

"Who told you that?" she asked quickly.

"I can hear, can't I?" he demanded coarsely. "Didn't you go just now to beg Struve to hold you over? And . . ."

She slipped out of her chair and stood a moment staring coldly and contemptuously at him. Then she was gone, leaving Patten watching her departure incredulously.

"A man who hasn't any more sense than Caleb Patten," she cried within herself, "has no business with a physician's license. It's a sheer wonder he didn't kill Roderick Norton!"

Already she had forgotten her words with Struve, or rather the matter for the present was shoved aside in her mind by another. She had come here to make good, she had her fight before her, and she was going to make good. She had to . . . for herself, for her own pride, for Elmer's sake. She went straight to Elmer and made him sit down and listen while she sketched actual conditions briefly and emphatically.

He was old enough to do something for himself in the world, continued idleness did him no earthly good and might do him no end of harm morally, mentally, and physically. He had been her baby brother long enough; it was time that he became a man. She had supported him until now, asking nothing of him in return save that he kept out of mischief a certain percentage of the time. Now he was going to work and help out. He could go to John Engle and get something to do upon one of Engle's ranches.

Somewhat to her surprise Elmer responded eagerly. He had been thinking the matter over and it appealed to him. What he did not tell her was that he had seen some of the vaqueros riding in from one of the outlying ranges, lean, brown, quick-eyed men who bestrode high-headed mounts and who wore spurs, wide hats, shaggy chaps, and who, perhaps, carried revolvers hidden away in their hip pockets, men who drank freely, spent their money as freely at dice and cards, and who, all in all, were a picturesque crowd. Elmer took up his hat and went down to the bank and had a talk with John Engle. Virginia's eyes followed him hopefully.

That day Norton was allowed for the first time to receive callers. He had his talk with Engle, limited to five minutes by Patten who hung about curiously until Norton said pointedly that he wanted to speak privately with the banker. Later Florrie came with her mother, bringing an immense armful of roses culled by her own hands, excited, earnest, entering the shaded room like a frightened child, speaking only in hushed whispers.

"Won't you come in too for a moment, Virginia?" asked Mrs. Engle. "Roddy will be glad to see you; he has asked about you."

But Virginia made an excuse; it was Patten's case and after what had occurred between herself and Patten she had no intention of so much as seeming to overstep the professional lines. The following day, however, she did go to see him. Patten himself, stiff and boorish, asked her to. His patient had asked for her several times, knowing that she was in the building and marking how she made an exception and refused to look in on him while all of his other friends were doing so, some of them coming many miles. Patten told her that Norton was not well by any means yet and that he did not intend to have him worried up over an imagined slight. So Virginia did as she was bid.

Mrs. Engle was in the room, bending over the bed with a dampened towel to lay upon Norton's forehead; he showed a sign of fever and his head ached constantly. He looked about quickly as the girl came in, his hand stirring a little, offering itself. She took it by way of greeting and sat down in the chair drawn up at his side.

"It's good of you to come!" he said quickly, his eyes brightening. "I was beginning to wonder if I had offended you in some way? You see, everybody has run in but you. A man gets spoiled when he's laid up like this, doesn't he? Especially when it's the first time he can remember when he has stuck in bed for upward of twenty-four hours running."

Despite her familiarity with the swift ravages of illness she received a positive shock as she looked at him; she had visualized him during these latter days as she had last seen him, brown, vitally robust, the embodiment of lean, clean strength. Now sunless inaction had set its mark in his skin which had already grown sallow; his eyes burned into her own, his hand fell weakly to the coverlet as she removed her own, his fingers plucking nervously. And yet she summoned a cheerful smile to answer his.

"I was satisfied just in hearing that you were doing well," she said. "And I know that the fewer people a sick man sees the better for him."

He moved his head restlessly back and forth on his pillow.

"Not for a man like me," he told her. "I'm not used to this sort of business. Just lying here with my eyes shut or staring at the ceiling, which is worse, drives a man mad. I told Patten to-day that if he didn't let me see folks I'd get up and go out if I had to crawl."

Virginia laughed, determined to be cheerful.

"I am afraid that you make a rather troublesome patient, don't you?" she asked lightly.

Norton made no answer but lay motionless save for the constant plucking at his coverlet, his eyes moodily fixed upon the wall. Mrs. Engle, finding the water-pitcher empty and saying that she would be back in two seconds, went out to fill it. Promptly Norton's eyes returned to Virginia's face, resting there steadily.

"I've been dizzy and sick and half out of my head a whole lot," he said abruptly. "I've been thinking of you most of the time, dreaming about you, climbing cliffs with you. . . ."

He broke off suddenly, but did not remove his eyes from hers. It was she who turned away, pretending to find it necessary to adjust the window-curtain. It was impossible to sit quietly while he looked at her that way, his eyes all without warning filling with a look for any girl to read a look of glowing admiration, almost a look of pure love-making. Norton sighed and again his head moved restlessly on his pillow.

"I've had time to think here of late," he said after a little. "More time to think than I've ever had before in my life. About everything; myself and Jim Galloway and you. . . . I have decided to send word to the district attorney to let Galloway go," he added, again watching her. "I am not going to appear against him and there's no case if I don't."

"But . . ." she began, wondering.

"There are no buts about it. Suppose I can get him convicted, which I doubt; he'd get a light sentence, would appeal, at most would be out of the way a couple of years or so. And then it would all be to do over again. No; I want him out in the open, where he can go as far as he wants to go. And then . . ."

She saw how his body stiffened as he braced himself with his feet against the foot-board.

"We won't talk shop," she said gently. "It isn't good for you. Don't think about such things any more than you have to."

"I've got to think about something," he said impatiently. "Can I think about you?"

"Why not?" she answered as lightly as she had spoken before.

"Maybe that isn't good for me either," he answered.

"Nonsense. It's always good for us to think about our friends."

His eyes wandered from hers, rested a moment upon the little table near his bedhead and came back to her, narrowing a little.

"Will you set a chair against that window-shade?" he asked. "The light at the side hurts my eyes."

It was a natural request and she turned naturally to do what he asked. But, even with her back turned, she knew that he had reached out swiftly for something that lay on the table, that he had thrust it out of sight under his pillow.

Mrs. Engle returned and Virginia, staying another minute, said good-by. As she went out she glanced down at the table. In her room she asked herself what it was that he had snatched and hidden. It seemed a strange thing to do and the question perplexed her; while she attached no importance to it, it was there like a pebble in one's shoe, refusing to be ignored.

That night, just as she was going to sleep, she knew. Out of a half doze she had visualized the table with its couple of bottles, a withering rose, a scrap of note-paper, a fountain pen. The pen . . . it was Patten's . . . had evidently leaked and had been wiped carelessly upon the sheet of paper, left lying with the paper half wrapped around it. She had noted carelessly a few scrawled words in Patten's slovenly hand. And she knew that it had been removed while she turned her back, removed by a hand which, in its haste, had slipped the pen with it under the pillow.

She went to sleep incensed with herself that she gave the matter another thought. But she kept asking herself what it was that Patten had written that Roderick Norton did not want her to read.

CHAPTER XIV (A FREE MAN)

 

"I am a free man, if you please." The sheriff stood in the hotel doorway, looking down upon her as she sat in her favorite veranda chair. "I have given my keeper his fee and sent him away. May I watch you while you read?"

Virginia closed her book upon her knee and gave him a smile by way of welcome. He looked unusually tall as he stood in the broad, low entrance; his ten days of sickness and inactivity had made him gaunt and haggard.

"I shouldn't be reading in this light, anyway," she said. "I hadn't noticed that the sun was down. It is good to be what you call free again, isn't it?"

He laughed softly, put back his head, filled his lungs. Then he came on to her and stood leaning against the wall, his hat cocked to one side to hide the bandage.

"The world is good," he announced with gay positiveness. "Especially when you've been away from it for a spell and weren't quite sure what was next. And especially, too, when you've had time to think. Did you ever take off a week and just do nothing but think?"

"One doesn't have time for that sort of thing as a rule," she admitted. "There's a chair standing empty if you care to let me in on your deductions."

"I don't want to sit down or lie down until I'm ready to drop," he grinned down at her. "A bed makes me sick at my stomach and a chair is pretty nearly as bad. I'd like almighty