Black Jack Part 31

"She did only what she thought was right. She's a little hard, but very just, Kate."

She was shaking her head; the hair had become a dull and wonderful gold in the faint moonshine.

"I dunno what kind of a man you are, Terry. I didn't ever know a man could stick by--folks--after they'd been hurt by 'em. I couldn't do it. I ain't got much Bible stuff in me, Terry. Why, when somebody does me a wrong, I hate 'em--I hate 'em! And I never forgive 'em till I get back at 'em." She sighed. "But you're different, I guess. I begin to figure that you're pretty white, Terry Hollis."

There was something so direct about her talk that he could not answer. It seemed to him that there was in her a cross between a boy and a man--the simplicity of a child and the straightforward strength of a grown man, and all this tempered and made strangely delightful by her own unique personality.

"But I guessed it the first time I looked at you," she was murmuring. "I guessed that you was different from the rest."

She had her elbow on her knee now, and, with her chin cupped in the graceful hand, she leaned toward him and studied him.

"When they're clean-cut on the outside, they're spoiled on the inside.

They're crooks, hard ones, out for themselves, never giving a rap about the next gent in line. But mostly they ain't even clean on the outside, and you can see what they are the first time you look at 'em.

"Oh, I've liked some of the boys now and then; but I had to make myself like 'em. But you're different. I seen that when you started talking. You didn't sulk; and you didn't look proud like you wanted to show us what you could do; and you didn't boast none. I kept wondering at you while I was at the piano. And--you made an awful hit with me, Terry."

Again he was too staggered to reply. And before he could gather his wits, the girl went on:

"Now, is they any real reason why you shouldn't get out of here tomorrow morning?"

It was a blow of quite another sort.

"But why should I go?"

She grew very solemn, with a trace of sadness in her voice.

"I'll tell you why, Terry. Because if you stay around here too long, they'll make you what you don't want to be--another Black Jack. Don't you see that that's why they like you? Because you're his son, and because they want you to be another like him. Not that I have anything against him. I guess he was a fine fellow in his way." She paused and stared directly at him in a way he found hard to bear. "He must of been! But that isn't the sort of a man you want to make out of yourself. I know.

You're trying to go straight. Well, Terry, n.o.body that ever stepped could stay straight long when they had around 'em Denver Pete and--my father."

She said the last with a sob of grief. He tried to protest, but she waved him away.

"I know. And it's true. He'd do anything for me, except change himself.

Believe me, Terry, you got to get out of here--p.r.o.nto. Is they anything to hold you here?"

"A great deal. Three hundred dollars I owe your father."

She considered him again with that mute shake of the head. Then: "Do you mean it? I see you do. I don't suppose it does any good for me to tell you that he cheated you out of that money?"

"If I was fool enough to lose it that way, I won't take it back."

"I knew that, too--I guessed it. Oh, Terry, I know a pile more about the inside of your head than you'd ever guess! Well, I knew that--and I come with the money so's you can pay back Dad in the morning. Here it is--and they's just a mite more to help you on your way."

She laid the little handful of gold on the table beside the bed and rose.

"Don't go," said Terry, when he could speak. "Don't go, Kate! I'm not that low. I can't take your money!"

She stood by the bed and stamped lightly. "Are you going to be a fool about this, too?"

"Your father offered to give me back all the money I'd won. I can't do it, Kate."

He could see her grow angry, beautifully angry.

"Is they no difference between Kate Pollard and Joe Pollard?"

Something leaped into his throat. He wanted to tell her in a thousand ways just how vast that difference was.

"Man, you'd make a saint swear, and I ain't a saint by some miles. You take that money and pay Dad, and get on your way. This ain't no place for you, Terry Hollis."

"I--" he began.

She broke in: "Don't say it. You'll have me mad in a minute. Don't say it."

"I have to. I can't take money from you."

"Then take a loan."

He shook his head.

"Ain't I good enough to even loan you money?" she cried fiercely.

The shaft of moonlight had poured past her feet; she stood in a pool of it.

"Good enough?" said Terry. "Good enough?" Something that had been acc.u.mulating in him now swelled to bursting, flooded from his heart to his throat. He hardly knew his own voice, it was so transformed with sudden emotion.

"There's more good in you than in any man or woman I've ever known."

"Terry, are you trying to make me feel foolish?"

"I mean it--and it's true. You're kinder, more gentle--"

"Gentle? Me? Oh, Terry!"

But she sat down on the bed, and she listened to him with her face raised, as though music were falling on her, a thing barely heard at a perilous distance.

"They've told you other things, but they don't know. I know, Kate. The moment I saw you I knew, and it stopped my heart for a beat--the knowing of it. That you're beautiful--and true as steel; that you're worthy of honor--and that I honor you with all my heart. That I love your kindness, your frankness, your beautiful willingness to help people, Kate. I've lived with a woman who taught me what was true. You've taught me what's glorious and worth living for. Do you understand, Kate?"

And no answer; but a change in her face that stopped him.

"I shouldn't of come," she whispered at length, "and I--I shouldn't have let you--talk the way you've done. But, oh, Terry--when you come to forget what you've said--don't forget it all the way--keep some of the things--tucked away in you--somewhere--"

She rose from the bed and slipped across the white brilliance of the shaft of moonlight. It made a red-gold fire of her hair. Then she flickered into the shadow. Then she was swallowed by the darkness.

CHAPTER 28

There was no Kate at breakfast the next morning. She had left the house at dawn with her horse.