FATHER AND SON
Philip Davison saw Lucy before she returned to Paradise Valley and
learned from her the strange story which had been told by William
Sanders. From Fogg and others he had already heard how Justin had
voted. And the discovery that even after Justin had been informed of
this relationship he had voted against the cattlemen hardened his
heart. He refused to see Justin now, and went back to Paradise Valley
angry and uncomfortable. There he sought out Sanders and obtained the
story direct from him.
After his talk with Sanders, a talk in which Sanders revealed to the
full the bitterness and vindictiveness of his narrow mind, Philip
Davison shut himself up in his room at the ranch house, where he would
not see any one, and through the greater part of the night sat
reviewing the past, while he smoked many cigars. The drinking habit
which had been the curse of his earlier years he had conquered. Since
the night in which his wife had fled never to return, he had not set
liquor to his lips; and Ben’s growing habits of intoxication threw him
continually into a rage. Only that morning, encountering Clem
Arkwright and Ben together in the town and seeing that both had been
drinking, he had cursed Arkwright to his face, and with threats and
warnings had ordered Ben home. That Ben had not obeyed did not make
Philip Davison’s cup the sweeter that night.
The prosaic accuracy of the details of the story told by Sanders, with
what he knew himself, convinced Davison of its truth, in spite of his
previous belief that the cloud-burst which came shortly after his wife
had fled from home had engulfed and slain both her and her child. His
belief of her death had been based on the fact that nearly a year
after her disappearance the unidentified bodies of a woman and child
had been found in the foothills; and in a little, remote cemetery,
where these bodies rested, a simple slab held the names of Esther and
Justin Davison.
Davison recalled now that it was the name, more than anything else,
that had induced him to give Justin employment on the ranch. The name
of Justin and the memories it evoked had touched some hidden tendril
of his heart, and had made him kind to Justin at times when but for
that he might have been otherwise. As often as he had felt inclined to
turn upon Justin in hot anger that name had softened his wrath. He had
never a thought that Justin was his son; yet the name had won for
Justin a warmer place in his regard than Justin could have won by his
own merits.
As Davison sat thus in the shadowed memories of the past, there came
to him a stirring of natural affection. But, whenever he turned to
what he considered Justin’s dastardly betrayal of the ranch interests,
this vanished. To combat it there was, too, a long-smoldering feeling
against the woman who had deserted him, and who by so doing had
revealed to the world his drunken rage and cruelty. That desertion he
had never been quite able to forgive. For years he had tried not to
think of her; but that night her memory rose strong and buoyant. He
knew he had wronged her deeply, and had outraged her feelings cruelly.
Perhaps that was at bottom why this long-smoldering recollection of
her aroused his smothered anger.
By degrees, as he thought over the past, Davison began to resent what
seemed an injury done him. It was as if fate had preserved this boy
through all the years to avenge the wrongs of the mother. His own son
had risen to oppose him, to thwart his desires, to smite him with
mailed fist. And he had helped unwittingly to fit fighting armor to
the stalwart shoulders of this son; for it was through his position on
the ranch, as the companion and friend of the cowboys, that Justin had
arrived at that condition of comradeship with them which had really
given him his present place. Davison felt that Ben should have held
that position—Ben, who had the ranch interests at heart, and would
have voted right. Ben was disobedient, wild, intractable, but Ben
would have voted right! Davison loved Ben. Justin seemed still an
outsider, an intruder. And the feeble stir of natural affection passed
away.
Justin remained in Denver through the remainder of the legislative
session and cast his vote with the agriculturists on a number of
questions. He wrote to Lucy frequently, but she did not re-visit
Denver, so he did not see her again until his return to Paradise
Valley. In her letters she acquainted him fully with the fact that
Philip Davison did not feel kindly toward him. Justin wrote a letter
also to Davison, but it was not answered. He did not again see Sibyl
Dudley, nor Mary Jasper. And Fogg apparently had been permanently
alienated.
When Justin came home, and it was known at the ranch that he was at
Clayton’s, Philip Davison sent for him. Justin obeyed the summons with
anxious hesitation, and took the little memorandum book with him, and
also his mother’s Bible. He had not sent the diary to Davison with the
letter as proof of their relationship, and he was resolved not to part
with it now. Davison might examine it as much as he liked, but he
should not keep it, nor should he destroy it.
Davison received Justin in the upper room where he had sat that night
thinking of the past. His bearded face was flushed and his manner was
constrained. Justin had a sense of confusion, as he stood face to face
with this man whom he now knew to be his father. It seemed an
unnatural situation. Yet in his heart was still that longing for a
father’s recognition and love. He had not put off the clothing he had
worn while in the city; he might not do so at all, as he did not
intend to become again a cowboy or work on a ranch. That phase of his
life was past. Philip Davison never wore cowboy clothing, except when
engaged in actual work on the range or at the branding pens. Yet he
was not dressed at his best, as he now received his son; and having
come in from a long ride, his black coat was still covered with dust.
The blue eyes of the father and of the son met. Justin was as tall,
and his features much resembled those of his father. But while one
face was beardless, and young and strong, the other was bearded and
prematurely aged. In Davison’s reddish beard, which was worn full and
long, were many strands of white, and whitening locks showed in his
thick dark hair. The blue eyes were heavy, and the fleshy pads beneath
them seemed to have increased in fullness and size. Justin even
fancied there were new lines in the seamed and florid face. Justin’s
face was flushed and his swelling heart ached, as he stood before his
father.
Davison waved him to a chair without extending his hand in greeting,
and Justin sat down. Then Davison took a seat and looked at him across
the intervening distance as if he would read there the truth or
falsity of Sanders’ story. Apparently he was satisfied.
“I have had a talk with Sanders,” he began, speaking slowly and with
an effort. “You have a memorandum book which I should like to see.”
Justin produced it with fumbling fingers. Philip Davison took it
without apparent emotion, and opening it looked it through. Having
done so he closed it and passed it back. In the same way he examined
the Bible which Justin gave him.
“You are my son; I haven’t seen any of your mother’s handwriting for a
long time, but I recognize it readily. The story told in that diary
has been naturally colored by her feelings. I hope I am not quite as
black as she has painted me. But all that is past, and it is not my
intention to talk about it now. The point is, that you are my son.
Since hearing about this matter I have been thinking over our
relationship and asking myself what I ought to do. As my son, when I
die I shall see that you are not unprovided for; but the bulk of my
property will go to Ben, with something for Lucy. I wasn’t always as
prosperous as I am now; I’ve had to fight for what I’ve got, and I
still have to fight to keep it. I have done and am doing this for Ben.
Your sympathies have been from the first with those who are my
enemies, and in the legislature you voted with them from beginning to
end. You were elected chiefly by ranch votes, and you betrayed all of
the ranch interests. The thing is done now, and can’t be undone; yet,
after all my struggles, it is not pleasant to know that the hand of my
own son did this thing.”
He settled heavily back in his chair.
“So the most of what I have will go to Ben. He is wild, but he will
settle down; I was wild in my youth. You are like your mother. She was
an obstinate angel with an uncomfortable conscience, and for some men
such a woman is an unpleasant thing to live with.”
Justin felt a swelling of indignation at this mention of his mother.
“You have all of her obstinacy and general wrong-headedness on matters
which don’t concern you. I am willing to say to you frankly, that
after a brief experience with her I ceased to desire to live with her;
but even yet I do not think she had any good reason to leave me as she
did. It took her to her death, and in the long run has made you pretty
much what you are. So I do not see that I can blame you in all things,
but I do blame you for the pig-headed obstinacy and foolishness you
showed in Denver. You had a great opportunity to befriend those who
had befriended you and would have helped you, and you wilfully, even
maliciously, threw it away.”
In spite of his feelings Justin maintained a discreet silence. His
longing for something more than a bare recognition of his relationship
he saw was not to be gratified. He had returned the diary and the
Bible to his pocket, where he felt them close against his heart. They
seemed akin to an actual memory of his mother, and could not be taken
from him, whatever happened. Their pressure was almost as the touch of
his mother’s warm hand on his bosom.
“If you like,” Davison went on, “you may transfer yourself to this
house and remain here, doing what work on the ranch you please. Some
of the cowboys have been dismissed, and others will be soon. But for
this fact that you are my son I should forbid you to come upon the
place. There is going to be a change in the business, too; your votes
at Denver helped to make that necessary, and perhaps in that change
you may find work more congenial to you than ranch work. Think it
over. I want to do what is right by you. I will see that you have
employment if you want it, and in my will I shall see that you are not
wholly unprovided for. That is all.”
He arose, and Justin stood up in flushed confusion, having said not a
word either in justification of himself or his mother. He had no words
now, as he passed from the room and from the house, though if he could
have voiced anything it would have been the disappointment that
murmured in his heart.
With the memory of that interview oppressing him, Justin questioned
whether he had not after all been stubborn, pig-headed, and cruel. He
reflected that perhaps he had been, even though he had sought to do
only that which was right. His mother, he had been told, possessed an
“uncomfortable conscience,” and he did not doubt he had one himself.
It could not be wrong to do right, of course, but at times it seemed
very inexpedient. Should a man bend himself to expediency? If he had
done so, his father would have received him doubtless with warm words,
instead of that biting chill which frosted the very glance of the
sunshine.
Standing in the yard oppressed and tortured by doubt, Justin saw Lucy
Davison coming toward him from the direction of the little grove. The
cottonwoods were still bare, but that she had visited them seemed a
good omen, and he moved toward her.
Her brown eyes smiled as they met his. She was temptingly beautiful; a
mature woman now, with the beauty of a fragrant flower. Her clear
complexion had not changed since her girlhood, and the tint which
emotion gave to her cheeks was as the soft blush of the ripening
peach. She was more beautiful than when a girl; all the angularities
of girlhood were gone; and when from his greater height Justin looked
down on her rounded throat and swelling bosom, and caught that kindly
light in her eyes, he forgot the chill of the room from which he had
come and the cold calm of his father’s speech.
“I am afraid you are a bad, bad boy,” she said, with a touch of
sympathy, as she put her hand on his arm, “but I hope Uncle Philip
hasn’t been saying terrible things to you. You have been to see him, I
know?”
“Yes, I have been to see him, and the interview wasn’t wholly
pleasant. Perhaps I have been the bad boy you suggest, and he may be
justified; I’m sure I don’t know. All I know is I tried to do what was
right, and appear to have made a mix of it.”
“Come in and we will talk it over. Uncle Philip told me this morning
that you may come and go all you want to, or even make your home here
now. That is pleasant news, anyway, isn’t it?”
Her pleasant manner softened the recollection of that painful
interview with Philip Davison. So Justin passed from an unpleasant
interview to one so pleasant that it almost took the bitterness and
the sting out of the first.