Larramee's Ranch

1 ◈Tom Holden lay where he had fallen, with his head against the wall and his body sprawled across the floor. A nail had clipped the skin from his forehead, and for the time, with the trickle of crimson, and the deathly pallor which the shock of the blow had given to him, he looked awful enough. So that his mother, though she dared not come to him, cowered and clasped her hands before her face and moaned: “Oh, God, have mercy! Cousin Joe Curtis, you’ve killed him!” Cousin Joe took one long stride forward to make sure that the dullness of the open eyes was simply that of a stunned brain and not the vacancy of death. When he was satisfied upon this point he boomed at once: “A darned good thing if I had finished him up. But I ain’t had no such luck. I didn’t hit quite hard enough. Get up, you young good for nothin’!” He seized Tom Holden by the nape of the neck and wrenched him to a sitting position. Then he heaved the youth still higher, and dropped him into a chair. Tom, having recovered his wits to a certain extent, began to wipe the moisture from his temple and to compose himself. He was about twenty-two years old. At first glance he looked much younger, his skin was so smooth, and there was such a bloom on his cheek; at second glance he looked much older, because there was a long age of wisdom in that eye. “Now,” thundered Cousin Joe Curtis, “maybe that’ll help you to open your ears a mite?” At this, Tom looked up at the big fellow and surveyed him quietly, thoughtfully. He had taken the glasses from his nose and was polishing them with much care. When he spoke, he was speaking to the woman who still cowered in the corner with a blank, white face. “Mother,” said he, “are you badly frightened?” “Hush, Tom!” she gasped out. “Your cousin, he’s talkin’ to you, boy!” “I’ll wring his impertinent young neck!” thundered Cousin Joe Curtis. And he banged his fist heavily upon the table. There followed upon this a little silence, during which the wind blew down to the shack the foolish sound of sheep bells, far off, and thin. And three or four cows lowed in unison, but so far and small were they that all of those sounds droned through the room no more loudly than the humming of a bee. However, such silences have a weight, and they bore down now upon Cousin Joe Curtis. He sucked in his sandy mustache and he blew it out again. “Did you hear me speakin’?” he yelled, a more raving madness coming in his eyes. “I hear you speaking,” said Tom. “Are you gunna get up and go help your ma wash the dishes? Are you?” “I think not,” said Tom. Cousin Joe Curtis turned to the mother, who gasped with an agony of apprehension and shrank with both of her hands raised to ward away the blow which was to fall upon the head of her son. “What am I gunna do to him!” breathed Cousin Joe Curtis, smiling out of the sheer ecstasy of rage. “Oh, what am I gunna do to this here fool?” “If you’re wise,” said Tom, “you’ll finish me now, because if you don’t, I’m rather sure that I’ll come back, some day, and finish you!” The blow which had towered above his head did not fall. After all, when Lilliput insults Hercules, Hercules must needs deal gently. Besides, Cousin Joe was too astonished to have governance over his hands. They fell helplessly at his side. “These are his books,” said Cousin Joe at last. “This here comes out of the books that he reads. I ask you, Judith, is they any good in books? Is they any good in this here brat that you brung into the world? Just tell me that.” “Tommy, Tommy!” stammered his mother. “Come in here with me! Quick! You didn’t mean what you said, sure!” And hastening to the door of the kitchen, with her hands clasped at her breast, she turned her frightened eyes upon the boy again. At this, Tom rose to his feet and shrugged back his shoulders so that he could stand the full of his five feet and seven inches. Even so, he had to c**k back his head a little to confront the big fellow who towered above him. One could tell, even without seeing the legs of Tom, which the table covered, that he was lame. Something about his posture, and the way he steadied himself by touching the table with his slim hands, and something in the long-endured pain in his eyes told of that crippled body. “I’m not going to the kitchen,” he said. “Oh,” said Cousin Joe with immense irony. “You ain’t goin’ there?” “I’m not.” “Maybe you’re too proud? Maybe you’re too good, you and your books, to wash the dishes after me and my boys that does the work of honest men and keeps you and your ma from starvin’? Maybe you’re too good?” “I am,” said Tom instantly. “I’m too good, Cousin Joe!” It was another staggerer for Cousin Joe. But while he considered it, he wrapped his hand around the top of a heavy chair and raised it till it quivered in his grasp. “If I was to dress you down with this—” he muttered. “You won’t,” answered Tom. “Because you know that it would break me in two. And if I were in bed the rest of my life, there would be an added expense to you. Also,” he added slowly, “I think you’d be lynched. Some of the people have their eyes on you. They’re watching you very closely.” “Here’s gratitude, I say,” thundered Cousin Joe, tossing up his great hands until they almost swept the ceiling. “This is what I get for keepin’ a useless cripple. Why, I got a mind to grab you by the neck and throw you out!” “You don’t need to. I’m going.” “Where?” sneeringly asked the other. “Where will you go, maybe? How’ll you keep yourself?” “Somewhere where brains count. Which isn’t in this house.” “Tom!” cried the mother in new terror. “Let him talk,” snarled out Cousin Joe. “I’m learnin’ things about him—and about us. What’ll be your line of work, young feller?” “I have my ideas,” answered Tom. “But I’m afraid that you wouldn’t understand them.” He turned his back on Cousin Joe and went to the woman at the kitchen door. And when he walked, his left leg trailed weakly behind him. He adjusted his glasses. Then he took her face between his pale hands and kissed her. “I’ll be coming back for you, dear,” said he, “as soon as I have a place. I’ll be coming back for you. Will you try to bear this house until I come back? You don’t need to fear that they’ll throw you out. They’d have to hire a cook, if they did. And they hate to spend money for that. They’ll keep you as a slave. They’ll even treat you better after I’m gone. And if they don’t—” He turned back to Cousin Joe, who made a rush at him with a roar, and then paused, because seeing the size of his own hand and the fragility of that body, it occurred to him that the blow might be the last that meager frame would endure. And after all, murder is murder, even in the cattle country. And after all, lynching is lynching in any land! “And if they don’t,” said Tom slowly, “they’ll regret it with all their heart when I come back for you.” He went to the door, took down his cap which hung on a peg beside it, and stepped out into the sunshine. Beside the door leaned a long, slender staff. This he took up, and with it steadied his weak leg as he walked. When he reached the road he whistled, and at once a brindled pup rushed out and began to leap joyously about him. He pointed down the road with his staff, and the dog plunged away into the distance. Tom hobbled after him. “Oh,” moaned Mrs. Holden, “he’s gunna leave us—forever, Cousin Joe!” She ran to the door and cried out. At this, Tom turned, resting on the staff and on his one strong leg. He waved his cap to her and blew her a kiss. Then he went on. “Call him—oh, let me go bring him back!” sobbed she. She would have started out through the doorway, but the large hand of Cousin Joe caught her and held her back. “Stay where you be,” he cautioned her. “Because he ain’t gunna go far. By the time he’s missed a couple of meals, he’ll come back. This is from his readin’ of the books. But he’ll find that days out in the world ain’t turned like the pages of a book. Not by a darned sight.” He began to laugh, until his glance caught on the hobbling form far down the road. Already the boy was at the little bridge which crossed the creek, and now he was beside the copse of scrub cedars. “It’s a fool thing for a lame boy to do,” muttered the big man. “I—I dunno that I should ha’ hit him like that. I didn’t mean to hit that hard. But my foot slipped just as my hand was in the air. You know that, Judith. You don’t think the kid is gunna go makin’ complaints about me to the neighbors? You don’t think that, Judith?” His voice dropped until it was almost lost in the deep hollow of his throat. “He’ll never whine,” said the mother sadly. “That ain’t his way. He’ll never whine. He’ll be—” “He’ll be a hero, maybe?” said Cousin Joe sneeringly, looking down at her. She did not answer, but folded her work-reddened hands in her apron. Tom was already by the scrub cedar thicket, and now he was half lost beyond it, and now he was gone indeed. “He’s just gone down to the village,” said the rancher. But the mother knew much better.