Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“Why, there won’t be any better stock in the valley than we’ll have!” exclaimed the old man.
“Not we,” corrected Harris. “This is your ranch. The deed’s in your name. If it should leak out I’d gone to rabbit farmin’ I’d never hear the last of it.”
“That’s what you always say,” protested his father, “but it’s your money, Tom. You’ve spent so much. I’m afraid you couldn’t afford that prize stock just now.”
“I forgot to mention it, but that’s what we come to town for to-day: to get the money. Them rabbits are goin’ to cost more than I figured,” added the gunman.
“Then why not wait until we can afford it, son?”
“I already made the deal, pop,” admitted Harris. “It’s too late now.”
III
The “ranch” was a modest two-acre tract of land in a secluded little valley between two folds of sunny California hills.
One morning, several days after their trip into Los Angeles, Wolf Harris returned from a consultation with their next door neighbors, the Svensens.
His father was, as usual pottering among the rabbit hutches.
“I just made a deal, pop,” he called as he approached. “In case I pull outa here sudden, somebody’s gotta look after you. Mrs. Svensen says she’ll do your cookin’ an’ her old man’ll give you a lift around the place. All you do is sign an agreement an’ it’s fixed.”
“Then you’re going after all?” The old man dropped the feed pan he was holding and stood an abject figure of entreaty.
“What’s eatin’ you,” demanded Harris. “Ain’t I doin’ everything I can to take care of you right? Ain’t I left my business now until Gawd knows what shape it’s in? Is that the thanks I get?”
“I was only hoping you wouldn’t go until after the prize rabbits came,” said his father humbly.
The gunman hesitated. Every hour now’ his “hunch” to depart grew stronger; the oppressing sense of impending disaster mounted. He grinned with sneering defiance.
“I was just goin’t’ tell you I was goin’ after them rabbits when they get to the express office Sunday,” he said. “Now we got that off your mind, we’ll go next door and sign the agreement.”
It was a strange document that Wolf Harris had drawn up, after much explaining. More binding than many a cleverly executed transaction, because of the sincerity of the parties concerned, it stated briefly that for three hundred dollars cash and the further consideration that they would inherit his property, Lars Svensen and wife would care for the needs and bodily comfort of their neighbor, John Harden, until his death.
Characteristically Wolf Harris had inserted the clause: “In case of ill treatment, this agreement is all off.”
He had affixed his legal name: Thomas Harden, the signatures of the two Swedes had already been added. It remained only for the old man to sign.
“We talked this all over, pop,” Harris explained. “There’s nothin’ fer you to do but put your John Hancock on the dotted line. You’re signin’ up for three square meals a day.”
“But suppose you don’t have to go, after all, Tom?”
“This here document only goes into effect after I’ve left,” said Wolf in his best court room manner.
His father nodded, satisfied, and accepted the pen that was held out to him.
He added his name to the others and looked up at the Svensens with misty eyes.
“My boy, Tom, is very kind to me,” he told them, smiling. “He thinks of everything for me.”
The Swedes agreed.
“Yas, dot’s right. Tom bane goot square feller,” said Svensen.
“My oldt fadder die two years back,” added his wife, wiping her eyes with her apron. “I look after you, Mr. Harten, chust like I did him.”
Harris glanced at her suspiciously.
“I had two — other boys,” continued the old man, “but when I needed help, they put me in a home for the aged.”
The Wolf glared at him ferociously.
“Come on, pop. Snap out of it. You can save the story of your life to tell ’em on the long winter evenings,” he said sarcastically.
They made their way back across the new alfalfa field that was just beginning to come up. Harris poked among the tender cloverlike plants with curiosity.
“I’d like to be back here when you start cuttin’,” he said reflectively.
A distant train whistle sounded in the still air.
With lifted head he glanced across the oak dotted hills in the direction from which the sound had come.
“Guy,” he muttered to himself, “you better be liftin’ your feet, pronto.”
The remaining two days before Sunday, he put in building the hutches for the new rabbits and putting the place in order against his departure.
There were hours when both father and son worked side by side in the sunshine, the one feebly, the other in the clumsy deliberate fashion of unskilled labor.
In the evening they sat and smoked in silence for the most part, the old man breaking into occasional rambling reminiscences.
After one such outburst, to which the Wolf had listened with stolid indifference, he asked suddenly:
“Tom, what made you come back and hunt up your old pop? Before you went away I hardly ever saw you. You were the harum-scarum of the family; you was out most every night an’ more worry to your maw an’ I than both your brothers.” Caught off his guard, Harris shifted uneasily. It had been a diabolical turn of fate that had sent him home, a freshly released convict, in the hope of borrowing money.
“Oh, I just turned up, I guess,” he answered noncommittally.
He smoked on, watching his father through lifeless eyes, his still face like a stone slab beneath which all emotion was buried.
“I was gone quite a long time,” he said at last. “Got to be quite well-known in some places; funny you never heard of me.”
“Not a word,” replied the old man. He appeared to hesitate. “There was a rumor once — your brother Bill heard it, that you had gone wrong. But, of course, I didn’t believe it,” he added indignantly.
“Jealousy,” nodded Harris. “When I come back here, though, I expected to find you well looked after by the boys. I didn’t have a notion how things stood.” He relapsed into silence and after a time continued:
“You see, where I was I had it pretty tough for awhile. There was some guys tried to break me, an’ I was alone a good deal. That was the worst thing, ‘solitary’; I mean bein’ alone so much,” he explained hastily.
“When I come back and found you was sort of up against the same kind of deal I figured it was up to me to get you out of it. I was all you had left, and probably outside of you I ain’t got a friend in the world. It was up to us to stick together.”
“What about that pardner of yours you been tellin’ me about?” asked his father suspiciously.
“There you go again, trying to make me out a liar,” roared Harris. “What I meant was, I ain’t got a friend here in California — outside of social friends like the Svensens. There ain’t another guy anywhere, like my pardner in Mexico, an’ when I tell him somethin’ he gets what I’m driving at without tryin’ to trip me up,” he concluded sarcastically.
IV
Harris lit a cigarette and stamped out the door of their two room shanty.
The night was warm and fragrant with the smell of green fields. He glanced up at the starlit sky. It was calm and restful here, yet every fiber of his being urged him to go: to strike out before it was too late.