RED HEADED AGAIN
Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant
parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his
car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck
awaited him. For the first few miles out of the city he continued to
drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced
surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at
the wheel. It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far
out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from
its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the
old wild speed.
Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to
his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns. He could not have explained
why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his
friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his
affairs now stood. But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of hunger
which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening
when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete
dam.
He found Burns just setting forth on a drive to see a patient in the
country, and King invited himself to go with him, running his own car
off at one side of the driveway and leaping into Burns's machine with
only a gay by-your-leave apology. But he had not more than slid into his
seat before he found that he was beside a man whom he did not know.
King had long understood that Red Pepper's significant cognomen stood
for the hasty temper which accompanied the coppery hair and hazel eyes
of the man with the big heart. But such exhibitions of that temper as
King had witnessed had been limited to quick explosions from which the
smoke had cleared away almost as soon as the sound of warfare had died
upon the air. He was in no way prepared, therefore, to find himself in
the company of a man who was so angry that he could not--or would
not--speak to one of his best friends.
"Fine night," began the young man lightly, trying again, after two
silent miles, to make way against the frost in the air. "I don't know
when we've had such magnificent September weather."
No answer.
"I hope you don't mind my going along. You needn't talk at all, you
know--and I'll be quiet, too, if you prefer."
No answer. King was not at all sure that Burns heard him. The car was
running at a terrific pace, and the profile of the man at the wheel
against the dusky landscape looked as if it were carved out of stone.
The young man fell silent, wondering. Almost, he wished he had not been
so sure of his welcome, but there was no retreating now.
Five miles into the country they ran, and King soon guessed that their
destination might be Sunny Farm, a home for crippled children which was
Ellen Burns's special charity, established by herself on a small scale a
few years before and greatly grown since in its size and usefulness.
Burns was its head surgeon and its devoted patron, and he was accustomed
to do much operative work in its well-equipped surgery, bringing out
cases which he found in the city slums or among the country poor, with
total disregard for any considerations except those of need and
suffering. King knew that the place and the work were dearer to the
hearts of both Doctor and Mrs. Burns than all else outside their own
home, and he began to understand that if anything had gone wrong with
affairs there Red Pepper would be sure to take it seriously.
Quite as he had foreseen--since there were few homes on this road,
which ran mostly through thickly wooded country--the car rushed on to
the big farmhouse, lying low and long in the night, with pleasant lights
twinkling from end to end. Burns brought up with a jerk beside the
central porch, leaped out, and disappeared inside without a word of
explanation to his companion, who sat wondering and looking in through
the open door to the wide hall which ran straight through the house to
more big porches on the farther side.
Everything was very quiet at this hour, according to the rules of the
place, all but the oldest patients being in bed and asleep by eight
o'clock. Therefore when, after an interval, voices became faintly
audible, there was nothing to prevent their reaching the occupant of the
car.
In a front room upstairs at one side of the hall two people were
speaking, and presently through the open window Burns was heard to say
with incisive sternness: "I'll give you exactly ten minutes to pack your
bag and go--and I'll take you--to make sure you do go."
A woman's voice, in a sort of deep-toned wail, answered: "You aren't
fair to me, Doctor Burns; you aren't fair! You--"
"Fair!" The word was a growl of suppressed thunder. "Don't talk of
fairness--you! You don't know the meaning of the word. You haven't been
fair to a single kid under this roof, or to a nurse--or to any one of
us--you with your smiles--and your hypocrisy--you who can't be trusted.
That's the name for you--She-Who-Can't-Be-Trusted. Go pack that bag,
Mrs. Soule; I won't hear another word!"
"Oh, Doctor--"
"Go, I said!"
Outside, in the car, Jordan King understood that if the person to whom
Burns was speaking had not been a woman that command of his might have
been accompanied by physical violence, and the offending one more than
likely have been ejected from the door by the thrust of two vigorous
hands on his shoulders. There was that in Burns's tone--all that and
more. His wrath was quite evidently no explosion of the moment, but the
culmination of long irritation and distrust, brought to a head by some
overt act which had settled the offender's case in the twinkling of an
eye.
Burns came out soon after, followed by a woman well shrouded in a heavy
veil.
King jumped out of the car. "I'm awfully sorry," he tried to say in
Burns's ear. "Just leave me and I'll walk back."
"Ride on the running board," was the answer, in a tone which King knew
meant that he was requested not to argue about it.
Therefore when the woman--to whom he was not introduced--was seated, he
took his place at her feet. To his surprise they did not move off in the
direction from which they had come, but went on over the hills for five
miles farther, driving in absolute silence, at high speed, and arriving
at a small station as a train was heard to whistle far off somewhere in
the darkness.
Burns dashed into the station, bought a ticket, and had his passenger
aboard the train before it had fairly come to a standstill at the
platform. King heard him say no word of farewell beyond the statement
that a trunk would be forwarded in the morning. Then the whole strange
event was over; the train was only a rumble in the distance, and King
was in his place again beside the man he did not know.
* * * * *
Silence again, and darkness, with only the stars for light, and the
roadside rushing past as the car flew. Then suddenly, beside the deep
woods, a stop, and Burns getting out of the car, with the first
voluntary words he had spoken to King that night.
"Sit here, will you? I'll be back--sometime."
"Of course. Don't hurry."
It was an hour that King sat alone, wondering. Where Burns had gone, he
had no notion, and no sound came back to give him hint. As far as King
knew there was no habitation back there in the depths into which his
companion had plunged; he could not guess what errand took him there.
At last came a distant crashing as of one making his way through heavy
undergrowth, and the noise drew nearer until at length Burns burst
through into the road, wide of the place where he had gone in. Then he
was at the car and speaking to King, and his voice was very nearly his
own again.
"Missed my trail coming back," he said. "I've kept you a blamed long
time, haven't I?"
"Not a bit. Glad to wait."
"Of course that's a nice, kind lie at this time of night, and when
you've no idea what you've been waiting for. Well, I'll tell you, and
then maybe you'll be glad you assisted at the job."
He got in and drove off, not now at a furious pace, but at an ordinary
rate of speed which made speech possible. And after a little he spoke
again. "Jord," he said, "you don't know it, but I can be a fiend
incarnate."
"I don't believe it," refused King stoutly.
"It's absolutely true. When I get into a red rage I could twist a neck
more easily than I can get a grip on myself. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll
do it. Years back when I had a rush of blood to the head of that sort I
used to take it out in swearing till the atmosphere was blue; but I
can't do that any more."
"Why not?" King asked, with a good deal of curiosity.
"I did it once too often--and the last time I sent a dying soul to the
other world with my curses in its ears--the soul of a child, Jord. I
lost my head because his mother had disobeyed my orders, and the little
life was going out when it might have stayed. When I came to myself I
realized what I'd done--and I made my vow. Never again, no matter what
happened! And I've kept it. But sometimes, as to-night--Well, there's
only one thing I can do: keep my tongue between my teeth as long as I
can, and then--get away somewhere and smash things till I'm black and
blue."
"That's what you've been doing back in the woods?" King ventured to ask.
"Rather. Anyhow, it's evened up my circulation and I can be decent
again. I'm not going to tell you what made me rage like the bull of
Bashan, for it wouldn't be safe yet to let loose on that. It's enough
that I can treat a good comrade like you as I did and still have him
stand by."
"I felt a good deal in the way, but I'm glad now I was with you."
"I'm glad, too, if it's only that you've discovered at last what manner
of man I am when the evil one gets hold of me. None of us likes to be
persistently overrated, you know."
"I don't think the less of you for being angry when you had a just
cause, as I know you must have had."
"It's not the being angry; it's the losing control."
"But you didn't."
"Didn't I?" A short, grim laugh testified to Burns's opinion on this
point. "Ask that woman I put on the train to-night. Jord, on her arm is
a black bruise where I gripped her when she lied to me; I gripped her--a
woman. You might as well know. Now--keep on respecting me if you can."
"But I do," said Jordan King.