'Firebrand' Trevison - Charles Alden Seltzer (top 10 books of all time .txt) 📗

Corrigan. He was just under sixty-five years, and their weight seemed to rest heavily upon him. His eyes were slightly bleary, and had a look of weariness, as though he had endured much and was utterly tired. His mouth was flaccid, the lips pouting when he compressed his jaws, giving his face the sullen, indecisive look of the brooder lacking the mental and physical courage of independent action and initiative. The Judge could be led; Corrigan was leading him now, and the Judge was reluctant, but his courage had oozed, back in Dry Bottom, when Corrigan had mentioned a culpable action which the Judge had regretted many times.

Some legal records of the county were on the table between the two men. The Judge had objected when Corrigan had secured them from the compartment where the others were piled.

“It isn’t regular, Mr. Corrigan,” he had said; “no one except a legally authorized person has the right to look over those books.”

“We’ll say that I am legally authorized, then,” grinned Corrigan. The look in his eyes was one of amused contempt. “It isn’t the only irregular thing you have done, Lindman.”

The Judge subsided, but back in his eyes was a slumbering hatred for this man, who was forcing him to complicity in another crime. He regretted that other crime; why should this man deliberately remind him of it?

After looking over the records, Corrigan outlined a scheme of action that made the Judge’s face blanch.

“I won’t be a party to any such scurrilous undertaking!” he declared when, he could trust his voice; “I—I won’t permit it!”

Corrigan stretched his legs out under the table, shoved his hands into his trousers’ pockets and laughed.

“Why the high moral attitude, Judge? It doesn’t become you. Refuse if you like. When we get to Manti I shall wire Benham. It’s likely he’ll feel pretty sore. He’s got his heart set on this. And I have no doubt that after he gets my wire he’ll jump the next train for Washington, and—”

The Judge exclaimed with weak incoherence, and a few minutes later he was bending over the records with Corrigan—the latter making sundry copies on a pad of paper, which he placed in a pocket when the work was completed.

At noon the special car was in Manti. Corrigan, the Judge, and Braman, carried the Judge’s effects and stored them in the rear room of the bank building. “I’ll build you a courthouse, tomorrow,” he promised the Judge; “big enough for you and a number of deputies. You’ll need deputies, you know.” He grinned as the Judge shrank. Then, leaving the Judge in the room with his books and papers, Corrigan drew Braman outside.

“I got hell from Benham for destroying Trevison’s check—he wired me to attend to my other deals and let him run the railroad—the damned old fool! You must have taken the cash to Trevison—I see the gang’s working again.”

“The cash went,” said the banker, watching Corrigan covertly, “but I didn’t take it. J. C. wired explicit orders for his daughter to act.”

Corrigan cursed viciously, his face dark with wrath as he turned to look at the private car, on the switch. The banker watched him with secret, vindictive enjoyment. Miss Benham had judged Braman correctly—he was cold, crafty, selfish, and wholly devoid of sympathy. He was for Braman, first and last—and in the interim.

“Miss Benham went to the cut—so I hear,” he went on, smoothly. “Trevison wasn’t there. Miss Benham went to the Diamond K.” His eyes gleamed as Corrigan’s hands clenched. “Trevison rode back to the car with her—which she had ordered taken to the cut,” went on the banker. “And this morning about ten o’clock Trevison came here with a led horse. He and Miss Benham rode away together. I heard her tell her aunt they were going to Blakeley’s ranch—it’s about eight miles from here.”

Corrigan’s face went white. “I’ll kill him for that!” he said.

“Jealous, eh?” laughed the banker. “So, that’s the reason—”

Corrigan turned and struck bitterly. The banker’s jaws clacked sharply—otherwise he fell silently, striking his head against the edge of the step and rolling, face down, into the dust.

When he recovered and sat up, Corrigan had gone. The banker gazed foolishly around at a world that was still reeling—felt his jaw carefully, wonder and astonishment in his eyes.

“What do you know about that?” he asked of the surrounding silence. “I’ve kidded him about women before, and he never got sore. He must be in love!”

Riding through a saccaton basin, the green-brown tips so high that they caught at their stirrups as they rode slowly along; a white, smiling sky above them and Blakeley’s still three miles away, Miss Benham and Trevison were chatting gayly at the instant the banker had received Corrigan’s blow.

Miss Benham had spent the night thinking of Trevison, and she had spent much of her time during the present ride stealing glances at him. She had discovered something about him that had eluded her the day before—an impulsive boyishness. It was hidden behind the manhood of him, so that the casual observer would not be likely to see it; men would have failed to see it, because she was certain that with men he would not let it be seen. But she knew the recklessness that shone in his eyes, the energy that slumbered in them ready to be applied any moment in response to any whim that might seize him, were traits that had not yet yielded to the stern governors of manhood—nor would they yield in many years to come—they were the fountains of virility that would keep him young. She felt the irresistible appeal of him, responsive to the youth that flourished in her own heart—and Corrigan, older, more ponderous, less addicted to impulse, grew distant in her thoughts and vision. The day before yesterday her sympathies had been with Corrigan—she had thought. But as she rode she knew that they were threatening to desert him. For this man of heroic mold who rode beside her was disquietingly captivating in the bold recklessness of his youth.

They climbed the far slope of the basin and halted their horses on the crest. Before them stretched a plain so big and vast and inviting that it made the girl gasp with delight.

“Oh,” she said, awed; “isn’t it wonderful?”

“I knew you’d like it.”

“The East has nothing like this,” she said, with a broad sweep of the hand.

“No,” he said.

She turned on him triumphantly. “There!” she declared; “you have committed yourself. You are from the East!”

“Well,” he said; “I’ve never denied it.”

Something vague and subtle had drawn them together during the ride, bridging the hiatus of strangeness, making them feel that they had been acquainted long. It did not seem impertinent to her that she should ask the question that she now put to him—she felt that her interest in him permitted it:

“You are an easterner, and yet you have been out here for about ten years. Your house is big and substantial, but I should judge that it has no comforts, no conveniences. You live there alone, except for some men, and you have male servants—if you have any. Why should you bury yourself here? You are educated, you are young. There are great opportunities for you in the East!”

She paused, for she saw a cynical expression in his eyes.

“Well?” she said, impatiently, for she had been very much in earnest.

“I suppose I’ve got to tell you,” he said, soberly. “I don’t know what has come over me—you seem to have me under a spell. I’ve never spoken about it before. I don’t know why I should now. But you’ve got to know, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“On your head rest the blame,” he said, his grin still cynical; “and upon mine the consequences. It isn’t a pretty story to tell; it’s only virtue is its brevity. I was fired out of college for fighting. The fellows I licked deserved what they got—and I deserved what I got for breaking rules. I’ve always broken rules. I may have broken laws—most of us have. My father is wealthy. The last time I saw him he said I was incorrigible and a dunce. I admit the former, but I’m going to make him take the other back. I told him so. He replied that he was from Missouri. He gave me an opportunity to make good by cutting off my allowance. There was a girl. When my allowance was cut off she made me feel cold as an Eskimo. Told me straight that she had never liked me in the way she’d led me to believe she did, and that she was engaged to a real man. She made the mistake of telling me his name, and it happened to be one of the fellows I’d had trouble with at college. The girl lost her temper and told me things he’d said about me. I left New York that night, but before I hopped on the train I stopped in to see my rival and gave him the bulliest trimming that I had ever given anybody. I came out here and took up a quarter-section of land. I bought more—after a while. I own five thousand acres, and about a thousand acres of it is the best coal land in the United States. I wouldn’t sell it for love or money, for when your father gets his railroad running, I’m going to cash in on ten of the leanest and hardest and lonesomest years that any man ever put in. I’m going back some day. But I won’t stay. I’ve lived in this country so long that it’s got into my heart and soul. It’s a golden paradise.”

She did not share his enthusiasm—her thoughts were selfishly personal, though they included him.

“And the girl!” she said. “When you go back, would you—”

“Never!” he scoffed, vehemently. “That would convince me that I am the dunce my father said I was!”

The girl turned her head and smiled. And a little later, when they were riding on again, she murmured softly:

“Ten years of lonesomeness and bitterness to save his pride! I wonder if Hester Keyes knows what she has missed?”