PACKARD WRATH AND TEMPLE RAGE
No far-sighted, inspired prophet's services were needed to predict a
rather stormy scene upon the arrival of old Hell-Fire Packard and Miss
Terry Temple at the place of the storekeeper of Red Creek. It was to
be expected that Steve Packard would be on hand; that he would be
impatiently awaiting the drum of a racing motor; that he would be on
the sidewalk to greet Temple's daughter.
"Terry!" he called. "So soon?"
He couldn't have made a worse beginning had he pondered the matter long
and diabolically. Blenham had been right and Steve had had ample time
to admit the fact utterly and completely; now there was a ringing note
in his voice, the effect of which, falling upon his grandfather's ears,
might be likened with no great stretch of imagination to that of a
spark in a keg of gunpowder.
The old man's brakes, applied emphatically, brought his car to a
standstill.
"Look at that clock!" was his first remark, at once apprising Steve of
his relative's presence and hinting, by means of its no uncertain tone,
at an unpleasant situation on hand or about to burst upon them. "Made
it in fifty-three minutes, did you? Well, I done it in less'n
forty-nine! What have you got to say about that?"
But Terry ignored him and jumped down, her hand impulsively laid on
Steve's arm. Thus she, in her turn, may be said to have added another
spark to young Packard's in the powder keg.
"How's dad?" she asked quickly.
Steve patted the hand on his arm and either Terry did not notice the
act or did not mind. Old man Packard both noted and minded. His grunt
was to be heard above Doctor Bridges's devout "Thank God, we're here!"
as the physician stepped stiffly to the sidewalk.
"Better," said Steve. "I think he's going to be all right after all.
I hope so. He----"
"Blenham?" she asked insistently. "He didn't put one over on you? The
mortgage----"
Steve tapped his breast pocket.
"The papers have been signed; we got a notary; everything is shipshape.
Go in; I'll tell you all about it later."
He turned toward the car and the stiffened figure of the man gripping
the wheel with tense, hard hands.
"Grandy----"
"Grandy, your foot!" boomed old Packard suddenly, one hand jerked away
to be clenched into a lifted fist. "An' _Terry_! My God!"
"What do you mean?" asked Steve. "I don't understand."
"I mean," shouted Packard senior, his voice shaking with emotion, "that
no mouth in the world is big enough to hold them two words the same
night! If you want to chum with any Temple livin', he-Temple or
she-Temple, if, sir, you intend to go 'round slobberin' over the
low-down enemies of your own father an' father's father, why, sir, then
I'm Mr. Packard to you and the likes of you!"
Still was Steve mystified.
"I thought," he muttered, "that since you two came together, since you
yourself have driven her in----"
"If I, sir," thundered his grandfather, "have chosen to bring that
petticoated wildcat there an' that ol' pill-slinger from my place to
Red Creek in a shake less'n forty-nine minutes--jus' to show her that
anything on God's earth done by a Temple can be better done by a
Packard--you got to go to thinkin' things, have you? Why, sir, so help
me, sir, I've a notion to jump down right now an' give you the
horsewhippin' of your life!"
Steve, in spite of himself, chuckled. Terry, reassured about her
father, giggled. Both sounds were audible; the two, mingled, were
entirely too much to be borne.
"You--you disgrace to an honorable name," the old man called bitterly
and wrathfully. "You----"
He broke off, hesitated, glared from Steve at the car's side to Terry
already on the steps of the store, and concluded something more quietly
though not a whit less furiously for all that: "You speak of papers
signed. You don't mean you're actually havin' any kind of business
dealin's, frien'ly dealin's, with the Temples?"
"Blenham brought word you were foreclosing on Temple; he had some sort
of a crooked scheme to cheat Temple out of his land. I have just
framed a deal whereby I put up the money to pay you your mortgage
and----"
"You? _You_, Stephen Packard?"
"Yes," said Steve, wondering whether the old man were the more moved
because of the shock of finding his nephew able to pay off so large a
sum or because of the "frien'ly dealin's with the Temples."
There was a brief silence. Doctor Bridges mounted the steps; he and
Terry were going in. Then again Hell-Fire Packard's voice burst out
violently and Terry stopped short, her hands going suddenly to her
breast. Her face, could they have noted in the pale light, was flaming
scarlet.
"That hussy, that jade, that Jezebel!" came the ringing denunciation.
"The tricky, shameless, penurious, graspin' unprincipled little
she-devil! She's after you, my boy, after you hard. An', you poor
miserable blind worm of a fool, you ain't got the sense to see it!
Everybody knows it; the whole country's talkin' about it; how Temple's
baitin' his trap with her an' she's baitin' her trap with herself
an'----"
"Grandfather!" cried Steve, his own face flushing under the scathing
torrent. "You don't know what you are saying!"
"I know what he's saying."
Terry, her hands still tight pressed to her breast, came slowly down
the steps. Though but a moment had passed her face was now dead white
in the moonlight.
"You are saying," and her eyes shone straight up into the old man's,
"that I am setting a trap for your grandson? That I, Teresa Arriega
Temple, would for an instant consider a Packard, the son and the
grandson of a Packard, as worthy of shining my boots for me? Why, I
spit upon the two of you!"
She whirled and was gone into the house. Steve instead of watching her
going kept his eyes hard upon his grandfather's face. Now that the
door closed he said quietly:
"Grandfather, we have seen rather little, of each other. I think we
had better see even less from now on. You have insulted that girl in a
way that makes me want to climb into your car and drag you down--and
beat you half to death!"
His restraint was melting under the fire of his passion; his voice grew
less quiet and began to tremble.
"I am going to make that girl the next Mrs. Packard or know the reason
why!"
"Defy me, do you? Defy me an' go an' run with a pack of thieves
an'----"
"That's enough!" shouted Steve. "I am going right straight and ask
her----"
"Ask her an' hell swallow you!" came the vociferous permission from the
infuriated old man. "But remember one thing: Blenham has slipped up
to-night, maybe, an' let you an' her an' her lyin', thievin',
scoundrelly father steal a march on me. But it's the last one; mark
that! Blenham gets his orders straight from me to-night; he goes after
you to break you, smash you, literally pull you to pieces root an'
branch--an' with me an' Blenham workin' on the job night an' day,
stoppin' at nothin'. Hear me? I mean it!" His two fists were now
lifted high above his head. "Stoppin' at nothin' I'll step on you an'
your Temple frien's like you was a nest of caterpillars. You hear me,
Stephen!"
But Stephen, his lips tight pressed as he fought with himself to keep
his hands off his own father's father, turned and went the way Terry
had gone.
"You hear me, Stephen. There's nothin' I'll stop at to smash you!"
So his grandfather's voice followed him mightily. But young Packard
had already set his thought upon another matter. Before him in the
tiny living-room of the ramshackle store building a kerosene lamp was
burning palely and lying upon an old sofa, face down, shaken with sobs
was Terry.
"Terry!" he called softly. "Your father isn't----"
He thought that she had not heard. He came closer and laid his hand
gently--there was a deep tenderness even in the action--upon her
shoulder. But Terry had heard and now flung his hand violently aside
and sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing angrily into his.
"My father is asleep. Doctor Bridges rather thinks there is nothing
very much the matter with him," she remarked crisply. "I am sorry I
troubled you in any way, Mr. Packard. You say you arranged matters
with dad? Well, I want you to tear up the papers; I'll see that your
money is returned to you."
"Terry!" he muttered.
Then she flared out hotly, her two small hands clenched at her sides,
her chin lifted, her voice a new voice in his ears, bitter and hostile.
"Don't you Terry me, Steve Packard! Now or ever again. I am sorry
that I ever saw you; I am ashamed that I ever spoke to you. I had
rather be dead or--yes, I'd rather be in Blenham's arms than have you
look at me!"
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Steve, utterly at sea. "I don't understand."
"You don't have to," snapped Terry. "All you've got to know is that I
won't have anything further in any way whatever to do with you. I
won't have you helping us with our mortgage; I won't have you advancing
money to us; I won't stand one little minute for any of your--your
wretched interference with our affairs! If you think you can--can butt
in on our side of any fight in the world----"
She ended abruptly, beginning to flounder, panting so that the swift
rise and fall of her breast was an outward token of inward emotion.
Steve Packard stared and flushed hotly and began to feel his own anger
mount quickly.
"Butt in on your affairs!" he snorted after a fashion more than vaguely
reminiscent of his grandfather. "I like that! As if I'd have come a
step without your invitation."
And so he blurted out the one thing he should have left unsaid, the
thing which already rankled in Terry's proud heart. She had asked him
to come; she had in a way suggested a--a sort of partnership.
"Oh! how I hate you!" cried Terry. "You--you Packard!"
"If there's some crime, some string of crimes that I have committed----"
"Will you tear up those papers? I'll get you back your money. Will
you tear up those papers?"
"Will you explain what's gone wrong?"
"I will not."
He shrugged exasperatingly.
"I'll keep the papers," he returned stonily. "I put over rather a good
deal to-night, come to think of it."
He put on his hat, jamming it down tight, and half turned to go.
"When you want to talk ranch matters over with me--come to my
ranch-house, little pardner!"
"Oh!" cried Terry. "Oh!"