Chapter 21

PACKARD WRATH AND TEMPLE RAGE

No far-sighted, inspired prophet's services were needed to predict a rather stormy scene upon the arrival of old Hell-Fire Packard and Miss Terry Temple at the place of the storekeeper of Red Creek. It was to be expected that Steve Packard would be on hand; that he would be impatiently awaiting the drum of a racing motor; that he would be on the sidewalk to greet Temple's daughter.

"Terry!" he called. "So soon?"

He couldn't have made a worse beginning had he pondered the matter long and diabolically. Blenham had been right and Steve had had ample time to admit the fact utterly and completely; now there was a ringing note in his voice, the effect of which, falling upon his grandfather's ears, might be likened with no great stretch of imagination to that of a spark in a keg of gunpowder.

The old man's brakes, applied emphatically, brought his car to a standstill.

"Look at that clock!" was his first remark, at once apprising Steve of his relative's presence and hinting, by means of its no uncertain tone, at an unpleasant situation on hand or about to burst upon them. "Made it in fifty-three minutes, did you? Well, I done it in less'n forty-nine! What have you got to say about that?"

But Terry ignored him and jumped down, her hand impulsively laid on Steve's arm. Thus she, in her turn, may be said to have added another spark to young Packard's in the powder keg.

"How's dad?" she asked quickly.

Steve patted the hand on his arm and either Terry did not notice the act or did not mind. Old man Packard both noted and minded. His grunt was to be heard above Doctor Bridges's devout "Thank God, we're here!" as the physician stepped stiffly to the sidewalk.

"Better," said Steve. "I think he's going to be all right after all. I hope so. He----"

"Blenham?" she asked insistently. "He didn't put one over on you? The mortgage----"

Steve tapped his breast pocket.

"The papers have been signed; we got a notary; everything is shipshape. Go in; I'll tell you all about it later."

He turned toward the car and the stiffened figure of the man gripping the wheel with tense, hard hands.

"Grandy----"

"Grandy, your foot!" boomed old Packard suddenly, one hand jerked away to be clenched into a lifted fist. "An' _Terry_! My God!"

"What do you mean?" asked Steve. "I don't understand."

"I mean," shouted Packard senior, his voice shaking with emotion, "that no mouth in the world is big enough to hold them two words the same night! If you want to chum with any Temple livin', he-Temple or she-Temple, if, sir, you intend to go 'round slobberin' over the low-down enemies of your own father an' father's father, why, sir, then I'm Mr. Packard to you and the likes of you!"

Still was Steve mystified.

"I thought," he muttered, "that since you two came together, since you yourself have driven her in----"

"If I, sir," thundered his grandfather, "have chosen to bring that petticoated wildcat there an' that ol' pill-slinger from my place to Red Creek in a shake less'n forty-nine minutes--jus' to show her that anything on God's earth done by a Temple can be better done by a Packard--you got to go to thinkin' things, have you? Why, sir, so help me, sir, I've a notion to jump down right now an' give you the horsewhippin' of your life!"

Steve, in spite of himself, chuckled. Terry, reassured about her father, giggled. Both sounds were audible; the two, mingled, were entirely too much to be borne.

"You--you disgrace to an honorable name," the old man called bitterly and wrathfully. "You----"

He broke off, hesitated, glared from Steve at the car's side to Terry already on the steps of the store, and concluded something more quietly though not a whit less furiously for all that: "You speak of papers signed. You don't mean you're actually havin' any kind of business dealin's, frien'ly dealin's, with the Temples?"

"Blenham brought word you were foreclosing on Temple; he had some sort of a crooked scheme to cheat Temple out of his land. I have just framed a deal whereby I put up the money to pay you your mortgage and----"

"You? _You_, Stephen Packard?"

"Yes," said Steve, wondering whether the old man were the more moved because of the shock of finding his nephew able to pay off so large a sum or because of the "frien'ly dealin's with the Temples."

There was a brief silence. Doctor Bridges mounted the steps; he and Terry were going in. Then again Hell-Fire Packard's voice burst out violently and Terry stopped short, her hands going suddenly to her breast. Her face, could they have noted in the pale light, was flaming scarlet.

"That hussy, that jade, that Jezebel!" came the ringing denunciation. "The tricky, shameless, penurious, graspin' unprincipled little she-devil! She's after you, my boy, after you hard. An', you poor miserable blind worm of a fool, you ain't got the sense to see it! Everybody knows it; the whole country's talkin' about it; how Temple's baitin' his trap with her an' she's baitin' her trap with herself an'----"

"Grandfather!" cried Steve, his own face flushing under the scathing torrent. "You don't know what you are saying!"

"I know what he's saying."

Terry, her hands still tight pressed to her breast, came slowly down the steps. Though but a moment had passed her face was now dead white in the moonlight.

"You are saying," and her eyes shone straight up into the old man's, "that I am setting a trap for your grandson? That I, Teresa Arriega Temple, would for an instant consider a Packard, the son and the grandson of a Packard, as worthy of shining my boots for me? Why, I spit upon the two of you!"

She whirled and was gone into the house. Steve instead of watching her going kept his eyes hard upon his grandfather's face. Now that the door closed he said quietly:

"Grandfather, we have seen rather little, of each other. I think we had better see even less from now on. You have insulted that girl in a way that makes me want to climb into your car and drag you down--and beat you half to death!"

His restraint was melting under the fire of his passion; his voice grew less quiet and began to tremble.

"I am going to make that girl the next Mrs. Packard or know the reason why!"

"Defy me, do you? Defy me an' go an' run with a pack of thieves an'----"

"That's enough!" shouted Steve. "I am going right straight and ask her----"

"Ask her an' hell swallow you!" came the vociferous permission from the infuriated old man. "But remember one thing: Blenham has slipped up to-night, maybe, an' let you an' her an' her lyin', thievin', scoundrelly father steal a march on me. But it's the last one; mark that! Blenham gets his orders straight from me to-night; he goes after you to break you, smash you, literally pull you to pieces root an' branch--an' with me an' Blenham workin' on the job night an' day, stoppin' at nothin'. Hear me? I mean it!" His two fists were now lifted high above his head. "Stoppin' at nothin' I'll step on you an' your Temple frien's like you was a nest of caterpillars. You hear me, Stephen!"

But Stephen, his lips tight pressed as he fought with himself to keep his hands off his own father's father, turned and went the way Terry had gone.

"You hear me, Stephen. There's nothin' I'll stop at to smash you!"

So his grandfather's voice followed him mightily. But young Packard had already set his thought upon another matter. Before him in the tiny living-room of the ramshackle store building a kerosene lamp was burning palely and lying upon an old sofa, face down, shaken with sobs was Terry.

"Terry!" he called softly. "Your father isn't----"

He thought that she had not heard. He came closer and laid his hand gently--there was a deep tenderness even in the action--upon her shoulder. But Terry had heard and now flung his hand violently aside and sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing angrily into his.

"My father is asleep. Doctor Bridges rather thinks there is nothing very much the matter with him," she remarked crisply. "I am sorry I troubled you in any way, Mr. Packard. You say you arranged matters with dad? Well, I want you to tear up the papers; I'll see that your money is returned to you."

"Terry!" he muttered.

Then she flared out hotly, her two small hands clenched at her sides, her chin lifted, her voice a new voice in his ears, bitter and hostile.

"Don't you Terry me, Steve Packard! Now or ever again. I am sorry that I ever saw you; I am ashamed that I ever spoke to you. I had rather be dead or--yes, I'd rather be in Blenham's arms than have you look at me!"

"Good Lord!" ejaculated Steve, utterly at sea. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to," snapped Terry. "All you've got to know is that I won't have anything further in any way whatever to do with you. I won't have you helping us with our mortgage; I won't have you advancing money to us; I won't stand one little minute for any of your--your wretched interference with our affairs! If you think you can--can butt in on our side of any fight in the world----"

She ended abruptly, beginning to flounder, panting so that the swift rise and fall of her breast was an outward token of inward emotion. Steve Packard stared and flushed hotly and began to feel his own anger mount quickly.

"Butt in on your affairs!" he snorted after a fashion more than vaguely reminiscent of his grandfather. "I like that! As if I'd have come a step without your invitation."

And so he blurted out the one thing he should have left unsaid, the thing which already rankled in Terry's proud heart. She had asked him to come; she had in a way suggested a--a sort of partnership.

"Oh! how I hate you!" cried Terry. "You--you Packard!"

"If there's some crime, some string of crimes that I have committed----"

"Will you tear up those papers? I'll get you back your money. Will you tear up those papers?"

"Will you explain what's gone wrong?"

"I will not."

He shrugged exasperatingly.

"I'll keep the papers," he returned stonily. "I put over rather a good deal to-night, come to think of it."

He put on his hat, jamming it down tight, and half turned to go.

"When you want to talk ranch matters over with me--come to my ranch-house, little pardner!"

"Oh!" cried Terry. "Oh!"