The girl’s soft voice irritated Parsons.
“Go away!” he ordered crossly; “I want to think!”
It was not the first time the girl had endured his moods. She smiled tolerantly, and softly withdrew, busying herself inside the house.
Parsons did not eat supper; he slunk off to bed and lay for hours in his room brooding over the thing that had happened to him.
He got up early the next morning, mounted his horse and left the house before Marion could get a glimpse of him. It was still rather early when he reached Dawes. There, in a saloon, he overheard the story of the fight in the street in front of the courthouse, and with tingling eagerness and venomous satisfaction he listened to a man telling another of the terrible punishment inflicted upon Carrington by Quinton Taylor.
Parsons did not go to see Carrington, for he feared a repetition of Carrington’s savage rage, should he permit the latter to observe his satisfaction over the incident of yesterday. He knew he could not face Carrington and conceal the gloating triumph that gripped him.
So he returned to the big house. And for the greater part of the day he sat in the rocker on the porch, his soul filled with a vindictive joy.
He ate heartily, too; and his manner indicated that he had quite recovered from the indisposition that had affected him the previous day. He even smiled at Marion when she told him he was “looking better.”
But his bitter yearning for vengeance had not been satisfied by the knowledge that Taylor had thrashed Carrington. He knew, now that Carrington had ruthlessly cast him aside, that he was no longer to figure importantly in the scheme to loot the town; he knew that it was Carrington’s intention to rob him of every dollar he had entrusted to the man. He knew, too, that Carrington would not hesitate to murder him should he offer the slightest objection, or should he make any visible resistance to Carrington’s plans.
But Parsons was determined to be revenged upon Carrington, and he was convinced that he could secure his revenge without boldly announcing his plans.
As for that, he had no plans. But while sitting in the rocker on the porch during the long afternoon, the vindictive light in his eyes suddenly deepened, and he grinned evilly.
That night after supper he exerted himself to be agreeable to Marion. During the interval between sunset and darkness he walked with the girl along the edge of the butte above the big valley which held the irrigation dam. And while standing in a timber grove at the edge of the butte, he questioned her deftly about the news she had received of her father, and she told him of her visits to the Arrow.
He had watched her narrowly, and he saw the flush that came into her cheeks each time Taylor was mentioned.
“He is a remarkably forceful man,” he observed once, when he mentioned Taylor. “And if I am not mistaken, Carrington is going to have his hands full with him.”
“What do you mean? Do you mean that Mr. Taylor is not in sympathy with Carrington’s plans concerning Dawes?”
“I mean just that. And if you had happened to be in Dawes yesterday you might have witnessed a demonstration of Taylor’s lack of sympathy with Carrington’s plans. For”—and now Parsons’ eyes gleamed maliciously—“after Judge Littlefield, acting under instructions from the governor, had refused to administer the oath of office to Taylor—inducting his rival, Danforth, into the position instead—”
Here the girl interrupted, and Parsons was forced to relate the tale in its entirety.
“Uncle Elam,” she said when Parsons paused, “are you certain that Carrington’s intentions toward Dawes are honorable?”
Parsons smiled crookedly behind a palm, and then uncertainly at the girl.
“I don’t know, Marion. Carrington is a rather hard man to gauge. He has always been mighty uncommunicative and headstrong. He is getting ruthless and domineering, too. I am rather afraid—that is, my dear, I am beginning to believe we made a mistake in Carrington. He doesn’t seem to be the sort of man we thought him to be. If he were like that man Taylor, now—” He paused and glanced covertly at the girl, noting the glow in her eyes.
“Yes,” he resumed, “Taylor is a man. My dear,” he added confidentially, “there is going to be trouble in Dawes—I am convinced of that; trouble between Carrington and Taylor. Taylor thrashed Carrington yesterday, but Carrington isn’t the kind to give up. I have withdrawn from active participation in the affairs that brought me here. I am not going to take sides. I don’t care who wins. That may sound disloyal to you—but look here!” He showed her several black and blue marks on his throat. “Carrington did that—the day before yesterday. Choked me.” His voice quavered with self-pity, whereat the girl caught her breath in quick sympathy and bent to examine the marks. When she stood erect again Parsons saw her eyes flashing with indignation, and he knew that whatever respect the girl had had for Carrington had been forever destroyed.
“Oh!” she said, “why did he choke you?”
“Because I frankly told him I did not approve of his methods,” lied Parsons, smirking virtuously. “He showed his hand, unmistakably, and his methods mean evil to Dawes.”
The girl stiffened. “I shall go directly to Dawes and tell Carrington what I think of him!” she declared.
“No—for God’s sake!” protested Parsons. “He would kill me! He would know, instantly, that I had been talking. My life would not be worth a snap of your fingers! Don’t let on that I have said anything to you! Let him come here, and treat him as you have always treated him. But warn Taylor. Taylor may know something—it is certain he suspects something—but Taylor will not know everything. Make a friend of Taylor, my dear. Go to him—visit his ranch—as much as you like. But if Carrington says anything to you about going there, tell him I opposed it. That will mislead him.”
When Parsons and the girl reached the house, Parsons stood near the kitchen door and watched her enter. He did not go in, himself; he walked around to the front and sat on the edge of the porch, grinning maliciously. For he knew something of the tortures of jealousy, and he was convinced that he had added something to the antagonism that already had been the cause of one clash between Carrington and Taylor. And Parsons was convinced that both he and Carrington had made a mistake in planning to loot Dawes; that despite the connivance of the governor and Judge Littlefield, Quinton Taylor would defeat them.
Parsons might lose his money; but the point was that Carrington would also lose. And if Parsons was wise and cautious—and did not antagonize Taylor—there was a chance that he might gain more through his friendship—a professed friendship—for Taylor, than he would have won had he been loyal to Carrington. At the least, he would have the satisfaction of working against Carrington in the dark. And to a man of Parsons’ character that was a satisfaction not to be lightly considered.
CHAPTER XVI
A MAN BECOMES A BRUTE
During the days that Parsons had passed nursing his resentment, Carrington had been busy. Despite the bruises that marked his face (which, by the way, a clever barber had disguised until they were hardly visible) Carrington appeared in public as though nothing had happened.
The fight at the courthouse had aroused the big man to the point of volcanic action. The lust for power that had seized him; the implacable resolution to rule, to win, to have his own way in all things; his passionate hatred of Taylor; his determination to destroy anyone who got in his path—these were the forces that drove him.
Taylor had brought matters to a sudden and unexpected crisis. Carrington had planned to begin his campaign differently, to insinuate himself into the political life of Dawes; and he had gone to the courthouse intending to keep in the background, but Taylor had forced him into the open.
Therefore, Carrington had no choice, and he instantly accepted Taylor’s challenge. After reentering the courthouse, following the departure of Taylor, Carrington had insisted that Judge Littlefield have Taylor taken into custody on a contempt of court charge. Littlefield had flatly refused, and the resulting argument had been wha
t Neil Norton had overheard. But Littlefield had not yielded to Carrington’s insistence.
“That would be ridiculous, after what has happened,” the judge declared. “The whole country would be laughing at us. More, you can see that public sentiment is with Taylor. And he forced me to publicly admit that you were to blame. I simply won’t do it!”
“All right,” grinned Carrington, darkly; “I’ll find another way to get him!”
And so for the instant Carrington dismissed Taylor from his thoughts, devoting his attention to the task of organizing his forces for the campaign he was to make against the town.
He held many conferences with Danforth and with three of five men who had been elected to the new city council—that political body having also been provided under the new charter. Three of the members—Cartwright, Ellis, and Warden—were Danforth men, cogs of that secret machine which for more than a year Danforth had been perfecting at Carrington’s orders.
Some officials were appointed by Mayor Danforth—at Carrington’s direction; a chief of police, a municipal judge, a town clerk, a treasurer—and a host of other office-holders inevitable to a system of government which permits the practice.
Carrington dominated every conference; he made it plain that he was to rule Dawes—that Danforth and all the others were subject to his orders.
Only one day was required to perfect Carrington’s organization, and on Thursday evening, with everything running smoothly, Carrington appeared in the palm-decorated foyer of the Castle, a smugly complacent smile on his face. For he had won the first battle in the war he was to wage. To be sure, he had been worsted in a physical encounter with Taylor, as the bruises still on his face indicated, but he intended to repay Taylor for that thrashing—and his lips went into an ugly pout when his thoughts dwelt upon the man.
He had almost forgotten Parsons; he did not think of the other until about eight o’clock in the evening, when, with Danforth in the barroom of the Castle, Danforth mentioned his name. Then Carrington remembered that he had not seen Parsons since he had throttled the man. He ordered another drink, not permitting Danforth to see his eyes, which were glowing with a flame that would have betrayed him.
“This is good-night,” he said to Danforth as he raised his glass. “I’ve got to see Parsons tonight.”
Yet it was not Parsons who was uppermost in his mind when he left the Castle, mounted on his horse; the face of Marion Harlan was in the mental picture he drew as he rode toward the Huggins house, and there ran in his brain a reckless thought—which had been uttered to Parsons at the instant before his fingers had closed around the latter’s throat a few days before:
“I was born a thousand years too late, Parsons! I am a robber baron brought down to date—modernized. I believe that in me flows the blood of a pirate, a savage, or an ancient king. I have all the instincts of a tribal chief whose principles are to rule or ruin! I’ll have no law out here but my own desires!”
And tonight Carrington’s desires were for the girl who had accompanied him to Dawes; the girl who had stirred his passions as no woman had ever stirred them, and who—now that he had seized the town’s government—was to be as much his vassal as Parsons, Danforth—or any of them. He grinned as he rode toward the Huggins house—a grin that grew to a laugh as he rode up the drive toward the house; low, vibrant, hideous with its threat of unrestrained passion.
The night had been too beautiful for Marion Harlan to remain indoors, and so, after darkness had swathed the big valley back of the house, she had slipped out, noting that her uncle had gone again to the chair on the front porch. She had walked with Parsons along the butte above the valley, but she wanted to be alone now, to view the beauties without danger of interruption. Above all, she wanted to think.
For the news that Parsons had communicated to her had affected her strangely; she felt that her uncle’s revelations of Carrington’s character amounted to a vindication of her own secret opinion of the man.
He had been a volcanic wooer, and she had distrusted him all along. She had never permitted that distrust to appear on the surface, however, out of respect for her uncle—for she had always thought he and Carrington were firm friends. She saw now, though, that she had always suspected Carrington of being just what her uncle’s revelation had proved him to be—a ruthless, selfish, domineering brute of a man, who would have no mercy upon any person who got in his way.
Reflecting upon his actions during the days she had known him in Westwood—and upon his glances when sometimes she had caught him looking at her, and at other times when his gaze—bold, and flaming with naked passion—had been fixed upon her, she shuddered, comparing him with Quinton Taylor, quiet, polite, and considerate.
Loyally, she hated Carrington now for the things he had done to Parsons. She mentally vowed that the next time she saw Carrington she would tell him exactly what she thought of him, regardless of the effect her frank opinion might have on her uncle’s fortunes.
But still she had not come to the edge of the butte for the purpose of devoting her entire thoughts to Carrington; there was another face that obtruded insistently in the mental pictures she drew—Quinton Taylor’s. And she found a grass knoll at the edge of the butte, twisted around so that she could look over the edge of the butte and into the big basin that slumbered somberly in the mysterious darkness, staring intently until she discovered a pin-point of light gleaming out of it. That light, she knew, came from one of the windows of the Arrow ranchhouse, and she watched it long, wondering what Taylor would be doing about now.
For she was keeping no secrets from herself tonight. She knew that she liked Taylor better than she had ever liked any man of her acquaintance.
At first she had told herself that her liking for the man had been aroused merely because he had been good to her father. But she knew now that she liked Taylor for himself. There was no mistaking the nameless longing that had taken possession of her; the insistent and yearning desire to be near him; the regret that had affected her when she had left the Arrow at the end of her last visit. Taylor would never know how near she had come to accepting his invitation to share the Arrow with him. Had it not been for propriety—the same propriety which had inseparably linked itself with all her actions—which she must observe punctiliously despite the fact that girls of her acquaintance had violated it openly without hurt or damage to their reputations; had it not been that she must bend to its mandates, because of the shadow that had always lurked near her, she would have gone to live at the Arrow.
For she knew that she could have stayed at the Arrow without danger. Taylor was a gentleman—she knew—and Taylor would never offend her in the manner the world affected to dread—and suspect. But she could not do the things other girls could do—that was why she had refused Taylor’s invitation.
She had thought she had conquered her aversion for the big house—the aversion that had been aroused because of the story Martha had told her regarding its former inhabitants, but that aversion recurred to her with disquieting insistence as she sat there on the edge of the butte.
It seemed to her that the serpent of immorality which had dragged its trail across hers so many times was never to leave her, and she found herself wondering about the house and about Carrington and her uncle.
Carrington had bought the horse for her—Billy; and she had accepted it after some consideration. But what if Carrington had bought the house? That would mean—why, the people of Dawes, if they discovered it—if Carrington had bought it—might place their own interpretation upon the fact that she was living in it. And the interpretation of the people of Dawes would be no more charitable than that of the people of Westwood! They would think—
She got up quickly, her face pale, and started toward the house, determined to ask her uncle.
Walking swiftly toward the front porch, where she had seen Parsons go, she remembered that Parsons had told her he had arranged for the house, but that might not mean that he had personally bought it.
She meant to find out, and if Carrington owned the house, she would not stay in it another night—not even tonight.
She was walking fast when she reached the edge of the porch—almost running; and when she got to the nearest corner, she saw that the porch was quite vacant; Parsons must have gone in.
She stood for an instant at the porch-edge, a beam of silvery moonlight streaming upon her through a break in the trees overhead, convinced that Parsons had gone to bed; and convinced, likewise, that, were she to disturb him now to ask the question that was in her mind, he would laugh at her.
She decided she would wait until the morning, and she was about to return to the edge of the butte, when she realized that it had grown rather late. She had not noticed how quickly the time had fled.
She turned, intending to enter the house from one of the rear doors through which she had emerged, when a sound reached her ears—the rapid drumming of a horse’s hoofs. She wheeled, facing the direction from which the sound came—and saw Carrington riding toward her, not more than fifty feet distant.
He saw her at the instant her gaze rested on him—an instant before, she surmised, for there was a huge grin on his face as she turned to him.
He was at her side before she could obey a sudden impulse to run—for she did not wish to talk to him tonight—and in another instant he had dismounted and was standing close to her.
“All alone, eh?” he laughed. “And enjoying the moon? Do you know that you made a ravishing picture, standing there with the light shining on you? I saw you as you started to turn, and I shall remember the picture all my life! You are more beautiful than ever, girl!”
Carrington was breathing fast. The girl thought he had been riding hard. But, despite that explanation for the repressed excitement under which he seemed to be laboring, the girl thought she detected the presence of restrained passion in his eyes, and she shrank back a little.
She had often seen passion in his eyes, identical with what glowed in them now, but she had always felt a certain immunity, a masterfulness over him that had permitted her to feel that she could repulse him at will. Now, however, she felt a sudden, cringing dread of him. The dread, no doubt, was provoked by her uncle’s revelation of the man’s character; and, for the first time during her acquaintance with Carrington, she felt a fear of him, and became aware of the overpowering force and virility of the man.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 32
