HOW STEVE PACKARD CAME HOME
Had Steve Packard ridden straightway back to Ranch Number Ten he would
have arrived at the ranch headquarters long before noon. But, once out
in the still dawn, he rode slowly. His mind, when he could detach it
from that irritating Terry Pert, was given over to a searching
consideration of those conditions which were beginning to dawn on him.
It was clear that his destiny was offering him a new trail to blaze,
one which drew him on with its lure, tempting him with its vague
promises. There was nothing to cause surprise in the fact that the
ranch was his to have and to hold if he had the skill and the will for
the job; nor yet in the other fact that the outfit was mortgaged to his
grandfather; nor, again, was it to be wondered at that the old man was
already acting as actual owner. For never had the oldest Packard had
any use for the subtleties and niceties and confusing technicalities of
the law. It was his way to see clearly what he wanted, to make up his
mind definitely as to a desired result, and then to go after it the
shortest way. And that way had never led yet through the law-courts.
These matters were clear. But as he dwelt upon them they were made
complex by other considerations hingeing upon him. Most of all he had
to take stock of what lay in his own mind and soul, of all that dwelt
behind his present purpose.
Riding back to Ranch Number Ten, saying, "It is mine and I mean to have
it," was simple enough. But for him actually to commit himself to the
line of action which this step would entail would very obviously
connote a distinct departure from the familiar, aimless,
responsibility-free career of Steve Packard.
If he once sat into the game he'd want to stick for a showdown; if he
started out now bucking old man Packard, he would perhaps wind up in
the scrap-heap. It was just as well to think things over before he
plunged in--which set him musing upon Terry again.
Swerving from yesterday's path, he followed a new trail leading about
the edge of the Temple ranch and into the southeastern borders of Ranch
Number Ten. At a logging-camp well up on the slope of the mountains
just after he had forded the upper waters of Packard's Creek, he
breakfasted on warmed-over coffee and greasy hot cakes.
He opened his eyes interestedly as he watched a gang of timberjacks
cutting into a forest of his pines.
"Old man Packard's crowd?" he asked the camp cook.
"Sure thing," was the cook's careless answer. Steve Packard rode on,
grown more thoughtful than before. But he directed his course this way
and that on a speculative tour of investigation, seeking to see the
greater part of the big, sprawling ranch, to note just what had been
done, just what was being done, before having his talk with Blenham.
And so the first stars were out before he came once more to the home
corrals.
While Steve was turning down into Packard's Grab from the foot-hills
the men working for Ranch Number Ten, having eaten their supper, were
celebrating the end of a hard day's work with tobacco smoke and
desultory talk.
There were a dozen of them, clear-eyed, iron-muscled, quick-footed to
the last man of them. For wherever Packard pay was taken it went into
the pockets of just such as these, purposeful, self-reliant, men's men
who could be counted on in a pinch and who, that they might be held in
the service which required such as they, were paid a better wage than
other ranches offered.
Young, most of them, too, boisterous when upon occasion their hands
were idle, devil-may-care scalawags who had earned in many a little
cattle town up and down the country their title as "that wild gang of
Packard's," prone to headlong ways and yet dependable.
There are such men; Packard knew it and sought them out and held them
to him. The oldest man there, saving Bill Royce only, was Blenham the
foreman, and Blenham had yet to see his thirty-fifth birthday.
Ten years ago, that is to say before he came into the cattle country
and found work for Packard, Blenham had been a sergeant in the regular
army, had seen something of service on the border. Now, in his
dealings with the men under him, he brought here all that he had
learned from a military life.
He held himself aloof, was seldom to be found in the bunk-house, making
his quarters in the old ranch-house. He was crisp and final in his
orders and successful in exacting swift attention when he spoke and
immediate obedience when he ordered.
Few of his men liked him; he knew this as well as another and cared not
the snap of his big, blunt fingers. There was remarkably little of the
sentimental about Blenham. He was a capable lieutenant for such as the
master of the Packard millions, he earned and received his increase in
wages every year, he got results.
This evening, however, the man's heavy, studied indifference to all
about him was ruffled. During the afternoon something had gone wrong
and no one yet, save "Cookie" Wilson, had an inkling of what had
plunged the foreman into one of his ill-tempered fits.
To-morrow it would be a ranch topic when Cookie could have had ample
time to embroider the thin fabric of his surmise; for it had fallen to
the cook's lot to answer the bunk-house telephone when there had been a
long-distance message for Blenham--and Wilson recognized old man
Packard's voice in a fit of rage.
No doubt the foreman of Ranch Number Ten had "slipped up" somewhere,
and his chief, in a very few words and those of a brand not to be
misunderstood, had taken him to task. At any rate Cookie was swelling
with eager conjecture and Blenham was in an evil mood. All evening his
spleen had been rising in his throat, near choking him; now suddenly he
spewed it upon Bill Royce.
"Royce!" he burst out abruptly.
The blind man was lying upon the edge of his bunk at the far end of the
room, smoking his pipe. He stirred uneasily.
"Well?" he asked. "What is it?"
"Cool old cucumber, ain't you?" jeered Blenham. "Layin' there like a
bag of mush while you listen to me. Damn you, when I talk to you,
stand up!"
Royce's form stiffened perceptibly and his lips tightened about the
stem of his pipe. But before he could shape his rejoinder there came
an unexpected voice from one of the four men just beginning a game of
pedro under the swinging lamp, a young voice, impudent, clear-toned,
almost musical.
"Tell him to go to hell, Bill," was the freely proffered counsel.
Blenham swung about on his heel, his eyes narrowing.
"That you, Barbee?" he demanded sharply.
"Sure it's me," rejoined Barbee with the same cool impudence. And to
the man across the table from him, "Deal 'em up, Spots; you an' me is
goin' to pry these two bum gamblers loose from their four-bit pieces
real _pronto_ by the good ol' road of high, low, jack, an' the game.
Come ahead, Spots-ol'-Spotty."
Blenham stared a moment, obviously surprised by this attitude taken by
young Barbee.
"I'll attend to you when I got nothin' else to do, Barbee," he said
shortly. And, giving the whole of his attention again to the man on
the bunk, "Royce, I said when I talk to you to stand up!"
To the last man of them, even to young Barbee, who had made his
youthful pretense at an all-embracing interest in the cards, they
turned to watch Bill Royce and see what he would do.
They saw that Royce lay a moment as he was, stiff and rigid to his
hands and feet, that his face had gone a fiery red which threw the
white of the long scar across his nose into bloodless contrast, that
the most obvious thing in the world was that for the moment his mind
was torn two ways, dual-purposed, perfectly balanced, so that in the
grip of his contending passions he was powerless to stir, a picture of
impotence, like a man paralyzed.
"Blenham," he said presently without moving, his voice uncertain and
thick and ugly, "Blenham----"
"I said it once," cried Blenham sharply, "an' I said it twice. Which
ought to be enough, Bill Royce! Hear me?"
They all watched interestedly. Bill Royce moistened his lips and
presented his pitiful spectacle of a once-strong man on the verge of
yielding to his master, to the man he hated most on earth. A smile
came into Blenham's expectant eyes.
The brief silence was perfect until the youthful Barbee broke it, not
by speech but by whistling softly, musically, impudently. And the air
which Barbee selected at this juncture, though not drawn from the
classics, served its purpose adequately; the song was a favorite in the
range-lands, the refrain simple, profane, and sincere. Translated into
words Barbee's merry notes were:
"Oh, I don't give a damn for no damn man that don't give a damn for me!"
Blenham understood and scowled at him; Bill Royce's hesitant soul may
have drawn comfort and strength from a sympathy wordlessly expressed.
At any rate his reply came suddenly now:
"I've took a good deal off'n you, Blenham," he said quietly. "I'd be
glad to take all I could. But a man can't stand everything, no, not
even for a absent pal. Like Barbee said, you know where you can go."
Cookie Wilson gasped, his the sole audible comment upon an entirely
novel situation. Barbee smiled delightedly. Blenham continued to
frown, his scowl subtly altered from fierceness to wonder.
"You'll obey orders," he snapped shortly, "or----"
"I know," replied Royce heavily. "Go to it. All you got to do is fire
me."
And now the pure wonder of the moment was that Blenham did not
discharge Royce in three words. It was his turn for hesitation, for
which there was no explanation forthcoming. Then, gripped by a rage
which made him inarticulate,--he whirled upon Barbee.
Yellow-haired Barbee at the table promptly stood up, awaiting no second
invitation to that look of Blenham's. Were one staging a morality play
and in search of the personification of impertinence, he need look no
farther than this cocksure youth. He was just at that age when one is
determined that there shall be no mistake about his status in the
matters of age and worldly experience; in short, something over
twenty-one, when the male of the species takes it as the insult of
insults to be misjudged a boy. His hair was short--Barbee always kept
it close cropped--but for all that it persisted in curling, seeking to
express itself in tight little rings everywhere; his eyes were very
blue and very innocent, like a young girl's--and he was, all in all,
just about as good-for-nothing a young rogue as you could find in a ten
days' ride. Which is saying rather a good deal when it be understood
that that ten days' ride may be through the cattle country back of San
Juan.
"Goin' to eat me alive?" demanded Barbee lightly, "Or roast me first?"
"For two cents," said Blenham slowly, "I'd forget you're just a kid an'
slap your face!"
Barbee swept one of the fifty-cent pieces from the table and tossed it
to the foreman.
"You can keep the change out'n that," he said contemptuously.
It was nothing new in the experience of Blenham, could be nothing
unforeseen for any ranch foreman, to have his authority called into
question, to have a rebellious spirit defy him. If he sought to remain
master, the foreman's answer must be always the same. And promptly
given.
"Royce," said Blenham, his hesitation passed, "you're fired. Barbee,
I'll take you on right now."
Few-worded was Blenham, a trick learned from his master. Across the
room Bill Royce had floundered at last to his feet, crying out mightily:
"Hi! None o' that, Blenham. It's my fight, yours an' mine, with
Barbee jus' buttin' in where he ain't asked. If you want trouble, take
a man your size, full-grown. Blind as I am--and you know the how an'
the why of it--I'm ready for you. Yes, ready an' anxious."
Here was diversion and the men in the bunkhouse, drawing back against
the walls, taking their chairs with them that there might be room for
whatever went forward, gave their interest unstintedly. So completely
that they did not hear Steve Packard singing far out in the night as he
rode slowly toward the ranch-house:
"An' I'd rather hear a kiote howl
Than be the King of Rome!
An' when day comes--if day does come--
By cripes, I'm goin' home!
Back home! Hear me comin', boys?
Yeee! I said it. Comin' home!"
But in very brief time Steve Packard's loitering pace was exchanged for
red-hot haste as the sounds winging outward from the bunk-house met
him, stilled his singing, and informed him that men were battling in a
fury which must have something of sheer blood-thirst in it. He raced
to the closed door, swung down from the saddle, and threw the door open.
He saw Bill Royce being held by two men, fighting at them while he
reviled a man whom Steve guessed to be Blenham; he saw Blenham and a
curly-haired, blue-eyed boy struggling up and down, striking the savage
blows of rage. He came just in time to see Blenham drive a big, brutal
fist into the boy's face and to mark how Barbee fell heavily and for a
little lay still.
The moment was charged with various emotions, as though with contending
electrical currents. Bill Royce, championed by a man he had never so
much as seen, had given fully of his gratitude and--they meant the same
thing to Bill Royce--of his love; after to-night he'd go to hell for
"yellow" Barbee.
Barbee, previsioning defeat at Blenham's hard hand, suffering in his
youthful pride, had given birth, deep within him, to an undying hatred.
And Blenham, for his own reasons and after his own fashion, was
bursting with rage.
"Get up, Barbee," he yelled. "Get up an', so help me----"
"I'm goin' to kill you, Blenham," said Barbee faintly, lifting himself
a little, his blue eyes swimming. "With my hands or with a knife or
with a gun or anyway; now or to-morrow or some time I'm goin' to kill
you."
"They all heard you," Blenham spat out furiously. "You're a fool,
Barbee. Goin' to get up? Ever goin' to get up?"
"Turn me loose, boys," muttered Bill Royce. "I've waited long enough;
I've stood enough. I been like an ol' woman. Jus' let me an' Blenham
finish this."
They had, none of them, so much as noted Steve Packard's entrance.
Now, however, he forced them to take stock of him.
"Bill Royce," he said sharply, "keep your shirt on. Barbee, you do the
same. Blenham, you talk with me."
"You?" jeered Blenham. "You? Who are you?"
"I'm the man on the job right now," answered Packard crisply. "And
from now on, I'm running the Ranch Number Ten, if you want to know. If
you want to know anything else, why then you don't happen to be foreman
any longer. You're fired! As for foreman under me--my old pardner,
Bill Royce, blind or not blind, has his old job back."
Bill Royce grew rigid.
"You ain't--you ain't Stevie come back?" he whispered. "You ain't
Stevie!"
With three strides Packard reached him, finding Bill Royce's hand with
his.
"Right you are, Bill Royce," he cried warmly as at last his and Royce's
hands locked hard.
"I'm fired, you say!" Blenham was storming, his eyes wide. "Fired?
Who says so, I want to know?"
"I say so," returned Packard shortly.
"You?" shouted Blenham. "If you mean ol' man Packard has sent you to
take my place just because-- It's a lie; I don't believe it."
"This outfit doesn't happen to belong to old man Packard--yet," said
Steve coolly. "Does it, Royce?"
"Not by a jugful!" answered the blind man joyously. "An' it never will
now, Steve! Not now."
Blenham looked mystified. Rubbing his skinned knuckles he glared from
Steve to Royce, then to the other faces, no less puzzled than his own.
"Nobody can fire me but ol' man Packard," he muttered heavily, though
his tone was troubled. "Without you got an order from him, all signed
an' ready for me to read----"
"What I have," cut in Steve crisply, "is the bulge on the situation,
Blenham. Ranch Number Ten doesn't belong to the old man; it is the
property of his grandson, whose name is Steve Packard. Which also
happens to be my name."
Blenham sneered.
"I don't believe it," he snapped. "Expect me to pull my freight at the
say-so of the first stranger that blows in an' invites me to hand him
my job?" He laughed into the newcomer's face.
Packard studied him a moment curiously, instinctively aware that the
time might come when it would be well to have taken stock correctly of
his grandfather's lieutenant. Then, before replying, he looked at the
faces of the other men. When he spoke it was to them.
"Boys," he said quietly, "this outfit belongs to me. I am Steve
Packard, the son of Philip Packard, who owned Number Ten Ranch and who
mortgaged it but did not sell it to his father--my grandfather. I've
just got back home; I mean to have what is mine; I am going to pay the
mortgage somehow. I haven't jumped in with my sleeves rolled up for
trouble either; had Blenham been a white man instead of a brute and a
bully he might have kept his job under me. But I guess you all know
the sort of life he has been handing Royce here. Bill taught me how to
ride and shoot and fight and swim; pretty well everything I know that's
worth knowing. Since I was a kid he's been the best friend I ever had.
Anything else you boys would like to know?"
Barbee had risen slowly from the floor.
"Packard's son or the devil's," he said quickly, his eyes never leaving
Blenham, "I'm with you."
The man whom, over the card-table, Barbee had addressed as Spotty and
whose nickname had obviously been gained for him by the peculiar tufts
of white hair in a young, tousled head of very dark brown, cleared his
throat and so drew all eyes to himself at his side of the room.
"Bill Royce bein' blind, if you could only prove somehow who you are--"
he suggested, tone and expression plainly indicating his willingness,
even eagerness, to be convinced.
"Even if I can't see him," said Royce, his own voice eager, "I know!
An' I can prove it for my part by a couple of little questions--if you
boys will take my word for it?"
"Shoot," said Spotty. "No man's called you liar yet, Bill."
"Then, Stevie," said Royce, just a shade of anxiety in his look as his
sightless eyes roved here and there, "answer me this: What was the
first horse you ever rode?"
"A mare," said Steve. "Black Molly."
"Right!" and Royce's voice rang triumphantly. "Next: Who nailed the
board over the door? The ol' cedar board?"
"I did. Just before I went away."
"An'," continued Royce, his voice lowered a trifle, "an' what did you
say about it, Stevie? I was to know----"
"Coach him up! Tell him what to say, why don't you?" jeered Blenham.
"I don't think I need to," replied Royce quietly. "Do I, Steve?"
"I was pretty much of a kid then, Bill," said Packard, a half-smile
coming into his eyes for the first time, a smile oddly gentle. "I had
been reading one of the Arabian Nights tales; that's what put it into
my head."
"Go ahead, Steve; go ahead!"
"I said that I was going to seek my fortune up and down the world; that
the board above the door would be a sign if all went well with me.
That as long as I lived it would be there; if I died it would fall."
There was a little, breathless silence. It was broken by Bill Royce's
joyous laughter as Bill Royce's big hand smote his thigh.
"Right again, Steve! An' the ol' board's still there. Go look at it;
it's still there."
Again all eyes sought Blenham. For a moment he stood uncertain,
looking about him. Then abruptly he swept up his hat and went out.
And Barbee's laughter, like an evil echo of Royce's, followed him.