Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection: Western Classics & Historical Novels. Ernest Haycox

travel slow," replied Major Bob. "Don't wish to run off any more tallow than I can help."

      Tom stood up, and the Major inspected him top and bottom as he would have inspected a horse. Good heavy muscles, fine shoulders, and a neck that coupled short. The boy had a broad barrel on him too, and he planted his feet on the floor as if he meant to take root. All these points showed through the ridiculous worsted suit that passed as fashion in the East: that suit with its short lapels, its white collar, and four-in-hand tie. Nor did the Major's eyes miss the low, flat-heeled shoes. Impractical dam' things.

      There was a trace of humour in Tom Gillette's eyes as he stood there. "Pass muster?"

      "How do I know?" answered Major Bob. "Turn to the light. You've lost your accent."

      "It will come back. A month with the boys and I'll have it again."

      "Glad to hear it," grunted Major Bob, studying Tom's face by the lamplight. The boy had left him immature, unformed. Well, he was a man now. He had been shaken down, he had filled out. He had a bearing, an element men would recognize and obey. That was his birthright. But what was in his head? How sound was his wind, how clear his eye? What did he think? The Major was almost afraid to ask, and he felt relieved when Tom, seeming to catch these unspoken queries, broke the pause.

      "What's up?"

      "Moving north," replied Major Bob. "Dakota Territory's been opened farther west. Free grass. Indians put on the reservation. We can't flesh up a cow in Texas, and the fever's been bothering us. Better grazing north and a better access to the market. So we are going, the Circle G, lock, stock, and barrel."

      "The old home no more, eh? Kind of hate to think what's being left behind."

      Major Bob heard the slight accent of wistfulness, and his fears rose afresh. There was no place for softness in a Gillette. He said so, abruptly.

      "Dam' sentiment. You will get no place with that in this land, my boy. I was afraid the East would soften you. I told your mother as much. But she would have you go. Might as well be honest with you—I'd have yanked you back as quick as a flash when she died, but she took my promise to let you finish. Understand it—you have nothing to thank me for. Your freedom was her doing."

      Tom sombrely studied the floor. "That I know. I'll give her credit for whatever I have learned."

      "And what have you learned?" challenged the elder Gillette.

      Again a flicker of humour. "Among other things that the West will do for me as long as I live."

      Major Bob was too old a poker player to reveal the pleasure that remark gave him. He only nodded, and pressed his questioning. "What else?"

      "Well, sir, I think I can say Eastern whisky is better than Western, and that the no-horn saddle makes a poor rocking- chair."

      Trivialities. There was more than this, but the boy had not developed into a loose-jointed talker. He buried his thoughts, for which the Major was exceedingly thankful. Then and there a part of his doubt vanished. And yet, being a shrewd judge, he also understood the younger man had something on his mind. Something lay cloudy behind the eyes. And thereupon he came directly to the issue.

      "You've had your woman affairs? Got your fingers burnt? Made the usual fool of yourself—like all men must?"

      Tom squared his shoulders at this and spoke with laconic definiteness. "Reckon that's gospel."

      "Over with now?"

      "As much as anything on earth can be over with."

      Still vague. Major Bob bristled. "You have left no broken promises behind you, my boy?"

      Silence. Silence in which Major Bob's breathing could be heard plainly. Tom swung, one hand lying open. "I think not."

      Major Bob came forward. "My son," said he, very solemn, "if I thought you had dishonoured any pledge of yours I would break you into bits and send you back."

      "I made a promise," explained Tom, a kind of sudden fire in his eyes. "It was accepted. Later it was rejected. I'll say no more. Wouldn't have said this much except to satisfy you. Judge for yourself."

      "Then your obligation is cancelled," decided the Major with something like eagerness. He turned half away, sighing like one whose breath had been held over-long. And to cover what was perilously close to sentiment he relapsed into casualness. "Expected I might have had to hunt through town for you."

      "Thought maybe I'd be down with my paint bucket?"

      The Major raised and lowered his broad shoulders. Unconsciously he exposed the main beam of his career—a career marked by turbulence. "You will never find life up in a hotel room, my boy. It's out there," and he pointed his fist toward the street.

      "Shoulder to shoulder, fist to fist," mused Tom. "Play your own hand, ask no favours, ride straight, shoot fast. Keep all obligations."

      The Major nodded; a stray beam of light caught his eyes and kindled. "You have learned to express yourself well. Glad to know that. What you have said is all I ever tried to teach you. That you still abide by the code is my greatest pleasure. I had feared you would forget—that you would absorb ideas less worthy of a Southern gentleman. I will not preach—God hates a smooth tongue—but you must see the distinction between sections. The East is settled, it is orderly, it is governed by women's ideas. This is still a man's country. Make no mistake about that."

      Tom bent his head. His father had struck to the core of the whole matter; had touched, unwittingly, the fear and the uncertainty within him. For he had departed from Texas with one set of ideas; in a quieter and more staid Eastern land he had discovered another. They set a value on human life there, they guarded it with jealous laws. Softness, his father called it—and softness it might be. This country to which he returned was a prodigal land, and five years had almost made an alien of him. What would he do when the time came for him to choose between codes?

      His father's summary phrases recalled him. "We roll out in the morning. This will be your last night on a bed."

      He shook his head. "Might as well sleep on the ground tonight." He moved to his Gladstone and took out a roll of clothes. Stripping off his suit he got into an ancient wool shirt, faded trousers, boots, vest, and a battered felt hat. It was the apparel he had worn out of Texas five years before. The Major, recognizing this, blew a great blast of air from his nose.

      "Saved 'em, I see. Small for you now." Then he moved forward and unbuckled his revolver belt, holding it out to his son with an ill-concealed pride. "You'll be needing this again. It is your old gun. Brought it up for you."

      Tom strapped the harness around him; his fingers touched the cold butt, and again he had the fleeting and unpleasant sensation of being alien. It seemed impossible he once had cherished the weapon with a fiery affection and shot pecan nuts off the trees in practice. He wondered suddenly whether he had lost the trick of swinging low and making a moving shield of his pony while firing under the animal's neck. Once he had been like an Indian.

      He laid his new suit on the bed, smiling a little. "The next man may need it. I never will. Now, when I round up a maverick we'll be ready to travel."

      The hallway resounded with some kind of a cry, the door flew open, and a burly young giant, larger than either of the Gillettes, rolled into the room shaking a shining yellow head. He was a pink and roly-poly Hercules, irrepressible and drunk. The love of life shone on his round, bold face, and exuberance babbled off his tongue. "Ha—wassis, Deerslayer? Dam' awful liquor ever I drank! What a night! Tom, my rebel, now I know what made you such a screamin' savage. Whooey! Drop that gun, Jack Cade, or I'll pierce you with a needle! What was that song you taught me?

      "But the dirty little coward that shot Mister Howard

       Laid poor Jesse in his grave."

      "Sad—awful sad." Then, seeing Major Bob standing immovable in his path he drew up and regained a measure of gravity. "Let's see. I haven't got to the double-sight stage yet, so you must be the old man. Pater, in other words. Well, you certainly sired a tough piece of beefsteak for a son. I'm delighted.