REVELATION
While Lorry was still queening it in the front of Mrs. Kirkham's box,
while Chrystie was tossing in her strange bed, while Boye Mayer was
packing his trunk, while Mark was thinking of Lorry in his room under the
eaves, Garland, one of the actors in this drama now drawing to its
climax, stood against the chain of a ferry boat bumping its way into the
Market Street slip.
He was over it first, racing up the gangway and along the echoing passage
to the street. People growled as he elbowed them, plowed a passage
through their slow-moving ranks, and ran for the wheeling lights of the
trolleys. He made a dash for one, leaped on its step, and holding to an
upright, stood, breathing quickly, as the car clanged its way up the
great thoroughfare. He had to change by the Call Building, and his heart
was hammering on his ribs as he dropped off the second car at the corner
of Pancha's street.
Up its dim perspective he could see the two ground glass globes at the
Vallejo's steps. He wanted to run but did not dare--the habits of the
hunted still held--and he walked as fast as he could, sending his glance
ahead for her windows. When he saw light gleaming from them his head
drooped in a spasm of relief. All the way down the fear that she might
be in a hospital--a public place dangerous for him to visit--had
tortured him.
Cushing, behind the desk, yawning over the evening paper, roused at the
sight of him and showed a desire to talk. At the sentence that "Miss
Lopez was gettin' along all right," the visitor moved off to the stairs.
He again wanted to run but he felt Cushing's eyes on his back and made a
sober ascent till the turn of the landing hid him; then he rushed. At her
door he knocked and heard her voice, low and querulous:
"Who is it now?"
"The old man," he whispered, his mouth to the crack. It was opened by her
and he had her in his arms.
Joy at the sight and feel of her, the knowledge that she was not as he
had pictured in desperate case, made him speechless. He could only press
her against him, hold her off and look into her face, his own working,
broken words of love and pity coming from him. His unusual display of
emotion affected her, deeply stirred on her own account, and she clung to
him, weak tears running down her cheeks, caressing him with hands that
said what her shaking lips could not utter.
He supported her to the sofa and laid her there, covering her, soothing
her, his concern finding expression in low, crooning sounds such as women
make over their sick babies. When she was quieted he drew the armchair up
beside her, and, his hand stroking hers, asked about her illness. He had
read in the paper that it was a nervous collapse caused by overwork, and
he chided her gently.
"What did you keep on for when you were so tuckered out? Why didn't you
let up on it sooner? You could 'a stood the expense, and if you didn't
want to use your own money what's the matter with mine?"
"I didn't want to stop," she murmured. "Every day I kept thinking I'd be
all right."
"Oh, hon, that don't show good sense. How can I keep up my lick if I
can't trust you better? You've pretty near finished me. I come on it in a
paper up there in the hills-God, I didn't know what struck me. It's
tore me to pieces."
His look bore testimony to his words. He was old, seamed with lines,
fallen away from his robust sturdiness. She suddenly seemed unable to
bear all this weight of pitifulness--his, hers, the world's outside
them. At first she had resolved to keep the real cause of her illness
secret. But now his devastated look, his pathetic tenderness, shattered
her. She was a child again, longing to creep into the arms that would
have held her against all harm, droop on the rough breast where she had
always found sympathy. As the truth had come out under Growder's
kindness, the truth came again. But this time there were no
reservations; the rich girl took her place in the story. Others might
see in that a mitigating circumstance but not the man who valued her
above all girls, rich or poor.
Garland listened closely, hardly once interrupting her. When she finished
his rage broke and she was frightened. Years had passed since she had
seen him aroused and now his lowering face, darkened with passion, his
choked words, brought back memories of him raging tremendously in old
dead battles with miner and cattleman.
"Pa, Pa," she cried, stretching her hands toward him, "what's the
use--what can you do? It's finished and over; getting mad and cursing
won't make it any better."
But he cursed, flinging the chair from him, rumbling out his wrath,
beyond the bounds of reason.
"Don't talk so," she implored and slid off the sofa to her feet. "They'll
hear you in the next room. I can't afford to let this get around."
For the first time in her knowledge of him he was deaf to the claims of
her welfare.
"Who is this fancy gentleman?" he cried. "Where is he?"
"Oh, why did I tell you?" she wailed. "What got into me to tell you! I
can't fight with you--I won't let you go to him. There's no use--it's all
over, it's done, it's ended. _Can't_ you see?"
He made no answer and she went to him, catching at his arm and shoulder,
staring, desperately pleading, into his face.
"You talk like a fool," he said, pushing her away. "This is my job.
Where is he?"
As she had said, she was unable to fight with him. Her enfeebled body was
empty of all resistant force. Now, as she clung to him, she felt its
sickly weakness, its drained energies. She wanted peace, the sofa again,
the swaying walls to steady, the angry man to be her father, quiet in the
armchair. She forgot her promise to Crowder, her pledged word,
everything, but that there was a way to end the racking scene. Holding to
the hand that thrust her aside she said softly:
"There's a punishment coming to him that's better than anything _you_
can give."
His glance shifted to hers, arrested.
"What you mean?"
"He's done something worse than the way he's treated me--something the
law can get him for."
"What?"
"Sit down quiet here and I'll tell you."
She pointed to the overturned chair and made a step toward the sofa. He
remained motionless, watching her with somberly doubting eyes.
"It's true," she said; "every word. It comes from Charlie Crowder. When
you hear it you'll see, and you'll see too that you'll only mix things up
by butting in. They're getting their net ready for him, and they'll have
him in it before the week's out."
This time the words had their effect. He picked up the chair and brought
it to the sofa. She sat there erect, her legs curled up beside her, and
told him the story of Boye Mayer and the stolen money.
The light was behind him and against it she saw him as a formless shape,
the high, rounded back of the chair projecting above his head. The
silence with which he listened she set down to interest, and feeling that
she had gained his attention, that his wrath was appeased by this
unexpected retribution, her own interest grew and the narrative flowed
from her lips, fluent, complete, full of enlightening detail.
Once or twice at the start he had stirred, the rickety chair creaking
under his weight. Then, slouched against its back, he had settled into
absolute stillness. To anyone not seeing him, it might have seemed that
the girl was talking to herself, pauses that she made for comment passed
in silence, questions she now and then put remained unanswered. Peering
at him she made him out, a brooding mass, his chin sunk into his collar,
his hands clasped over his waist, his eyes fixed on the floor.
When she was done he stayed thus for a moment apparently so buried in
thought that he could not rouse himself.
"Well," she said, surprised at his silence, "isn't it true what I said?
Hasn't fate rounded things up for him?"
The chair creaked as he moved, heavily as if with an effort. He laid his
hands on the arms and drew himself forward.
"Yes," he muttered, "it sounds pretty straight."
"Would anything you could do beat that?"
He sat humped together looking at the floor, his powerful, gnarled hands
gripping at the chair arms. She could see the top of his head with a bald
place showing through the thick, low-lying grizzle of hair.
"Nup," he said, "I guess not."
He heaved himself up and walked across the room to the window.
"It's as hot as hell in here," he growled as he fumbled at the sash.
"Hot!" she exclaimed. "Why, it's cold. What's the matter with you?"
"It's these barred-up city places; they knock me out. I smother in
'em." He threw back the window and stood in the opening. "I'll shut it
in a minute."
She pulled up the Navajo blanket and cowering under it said with
vengeful zest:
"I guess there won't be a more surprised person in this burg than Mr.
Boye Mayer when they come after him."
"Do you know when they're calculatin' to do it?"
"Thursday or Friday. Charlie said he was going to give the Express people
his information some time tomorrow and after they'd fixed things he'd
spring the story in the _Despatch_."
"If he gives it in tomorrow they'll have him by evening."
"I don't think they'll be in any rush. Mr. Mayer's not going to skip;
he's too busy with his courting."
There was no reply, and pulling the blanket higher, for the night air
struck cold, she went on in her embittered self-torment:
"I wanted to give him a jolt myself and I tried, but I might as well have
stayed out. You and me show up pretty small when the law gets busy.
That's the time for us to lie low and watch. And he thinking himself so
safe, drawing out all the money. Maybe it was to buy her presents or get
his wedding clothes. I'd like--"
The voice from the window interrupted her.
"That paper--the one he had under the floor--Crowder said a piece was
tore out?"
"Yes, part of his correspondence letter--the last paragraph about me.
Don't you remember it? It was that one after 'The Zingara' started, way
back in August. I showed it to you here one evening. I thought maybe
Mayer had read it and that was what brought him to see me--got him sort
of curious. But Charlie thinks he wasn't bothering about papers just
then. He had it on him and used it to wrap up the money and that piece
got torn out someway by accident."
"Um--looks that way."
The current of air was chilling the room, and Pancha, shivering under the
blanket, protested.
"Say, Pa, aren't you going to shut that window? It's letting in an awful
draught." He made no movement to do so, and, surprised at his
indifference to her comfort, she said uneasily, "You ain't got a fever,
have you?"
"Let me alone," he muttered. "Didn't I tell you these het-up rooms
knock me out."
She was silent--a quality in his voice, a husky thinness as if its
vigor was pinching out, made her anxious. He was worn to the bone, the
shade of himself. She slid her feet to the floor, and throwing off the
blanket said:
"Looks like to me something is the matter with you. The room ain't hot."
"Oh, forget it. For God's sake, quit this talk about me."
He closed the window and turned to her. As he advanced the lamp's glare
fell full on him and she saw his face glistening with perspiration and
darkened with unnatural hollows. In that one moment, played upon by the
revealing side light, it was like the face of a skeleton and she rose
with a frightened cry.
"Pop! You _are_ sick. You look like you were dead."
She made a step toward him and before her advance he stopped, bristling,
fierce, like a bear confronted by a hunter.
"You let me alone. You're crazy--sit down. Ain't I gone through enough
without you pickin' on me about how I _look_?"
She shrank back, scared by his violence.
"But I can't help it. The room's like ice and you're sweating. I saw it
on your forehead."
He almost roared.
"And supposin' I am? Ain't I given you a reason? Sweating? A Chihuahua
dog 'ud sweat in this d----d place. It's like a smelting furnace." With a
stiff, uncertain hand he felt in his pocket, drew out a bandanna and ran
it over his face. "God, you'd think there was nothin' in the world but
the way I _look_! I hiked down from the hills on the run to see you and
you nag at me till I'm almost sorry I come."
That was too much for her. The tears, ready to flow at a word, poured out
of her eyes, and she held out her arms to him, piteously crying:
"Oh, don't say that. Don't scold at me. I wouldn't say it if I didn't
care. What would I do if you got sick--what would I do if I lost you?
You're all I have and I'm so lonesome."
He ran to her, clasped her close, laid his cheek on her head as she
leaned against him feebly weeping. And what he said made it all right--it
was his fault, he was ugly, but it was because of what she'd told him.
That had riled him all up. Didn't she know every hurt that came to her
made him mad as a she-bear when they're after its cub?
"Will you be back tomorrow?" she said when he started to go.
"Yes, in the morning. Eight be too early?"
"No--but--" her eyes were wistful, her hands reluctant to loose his.
"Will you have to leave the city soon?"
"I guess so, honey."
"Tomorrow?"
"Maybe--but we'll get a line on that in the morning."
"I wish you could stay, just for one day," she pleaded.
"I'll tell you then. What you want to do now is rest. Sleep tight and
don't worry no more. It's going to be all right."
He gave her a kiss and from the doorway a farewell nod and smile.