Chapter VII
The Return of Waring
The interior of the little desert hotel at Stacey, Arizona, atoned for its bleached and weather-worn exterior by a refreshing neatness that was almost startling in contrast to the warped board front with its painted sign scaled by the sun.
The proprietress, Mrs. Adams, a rosy, dark-haired woman, had heard the Overland arrive and depart. Through habit she listened until the distant rumble of the train diminished to a faint purr. No guests had arrived on the Overland. Stacey was not much of a town, and tourists seldom stopped there. Mrs. Adams stepped from the small office to the dining-room and arranged some flowers in the center of the long table. She happened to be the only woman in the desert town who grew flowers.
The Overland had come and gone. Another day! Mrs. Adams sighed, patted her smooth black hair, and glanced down at her simple and neat attire.
She rearranged the flowers, and was stepping back to view the effect when something caused her to turn and glance toward the office. There had been no sound, yet in the doorway stood a man—evidently a rider. He was looking at the calendar on the office wall. Mrs. Adams stepped toward him. The man turned and smiled. She gazed with awakening astonishment at the dusty, khaki-clad figure, the cool gray eyes beneath the high-crowned sombrero, and last at the extended hand. Without meeting the man's eyes, she shook hands.
"Jim! How did you know?" she queried, her voice trembling.
"I heard of you at Nogales. I wasn't looking for you—then. You have a right pleasant place here. Yours?"
She nodded.
"I came to see the boy," he said. "I'm not here for long."
"Oh, Jim! Lorry is so big and strong—and—and he's working for the
Starr outfit over west of here."
"Cattle, eh? Is he a good boy?"
"A nice question for you to ask! Lorry rides a straighter trail than his father did."
The man laughed and patted her shoulder affectionately. "You needn't have said that, Annie. You knew what I was when I married you. And no man ever said I wasn't straight. Just what made you leave Sonora without saying a word? Didn't I always treat you well?"
"I must say that you did, Jim. You never spoke a rough word to me in your life. I wish you had. You'd be away for weeks, and then come back and tell me it was all right, which meant that you'd 'got your man,' as they say down there. At first I was too happy to care. And when the baby came and I tried to get you to give up hiring out to men who wanted killing done,—for that's what it was,—you kept telling me that some day you would quit. Maybe they did pay big, but you could have been anything else you wanted to. You came of good folks and had education. But you couldn't live happy without that excitement. And you thought I was happy because you were. Why, even up here in Arizona they sing 'Waring of Sonora-Town.' Our boy sings it, and I have to listen, knowing that it is you he sings about. I was afraid of you, Jim, and afraid our boy would grow up to be like you."
Waring nodded. "I'm not blaming you, Annie. I asked why you left me—without a word or an address. Do you think that was square?"
Mrs. Adams, flushed, and the tears came to her eyes. "I didn't dare think about that part of it. I was afraid of you. I got so I couldn't sleep, worrying about what might happen to you when you were away. And you always came back, but you never said where you'd been or what you'd done. I couldn't stand it. If you had only told me—even about the men—that you were paid to kill, I might have stood it. But you never said a word. The wives of the American folks down there wouldn't speak to me. And the Mexican women hated me. I was the wife of Jim Waring, 'the killer.' I think I went crazy."
"Well, I never did believe in talking shop, Annie."
"That's just it. You were always polite—and calling what you did, 'shop'! I don't believe you ever cared for a single person on this earth!"
"You ought to know, Annie. But we won't argue that. Don't act as though you had to defend yourself. I am not blaming you—now. You have explained. I did miss the boy, though. Are you doing well here?"
"It was hard work at first. But I never did write to father to help me."
"You might have written to me. When did the boy go to work? He's eighteen, isn't he?"
Mrs. Adams smiled despite herself. "Yes, this fall. He started in with the Starr people at the spring round-up."
"Couldn't he help you here?"
"He did. But he's not the kind to hang round a hotel. He's all man—if I do say it." And Mrs. Adams glanced at her husband. In his lithe, well-set-up figure she saw what her son would be at forty. "Yes, Jim, he's man size—and I've raised him to go straight."
Waring laughed. "Of course you have! What name will I sign, Annie?"
"Folks here call me Mrs. Adams."
"So you're Annie Adams again! Well, here's your husband's name, if you don't mind." And he signed the register, "James Waring, Sonora, Mexico."
"Isn't that risky?" she queried.
"No one knows me up here. And I don't intend to stay long. I'd like to see the boy."
"Jim, you won't take him away!"
"You know me better than that. You quit me down there, and I won't say that I liked it. I wondered how you'd get along. You left no word. When I realized that you must have wanted to leave me, that settled it. Following you would have done no good, even if I had known where you had gone. I was free. And a gunman has no business with a family."
"You might have thought about that before you came courting me."
"I did. Didn't you?"
"You're hard, Jim. I was just a girl. Any woman would have been glad to marry you then. But when I got sense enough to see how you earned your money—I just had to leave. I was afraid to tell you—"
"There, now, Annie; we'll let that go. I won't say that I don't care, but I've been mighty busy since you left. I didn't know where you were until I hit Nogales. I wanted to see you and the boy. And I'm as hungry as a grizzly."
"Anita is getting supper. Some of the folks in town board here. They'll be coming in soon."
"All right. I'm a stranger. I rode over. I'd like to wash up."
"You rode over?"
"Yes. Why not? I know the country."
Mrs. Adams turned and gestured toward the stairway. She followed him and showed him to a room. So he hadn't come in on the Overland, but had ridden up from Sonora. Why had he undertaken such a long, weary ride? Surely he could have taken the train! She had never known him to be without money. But he had always been unaccountable, coming and going when he pleased, saying little, always serene. And now he had not said why he had ridden up from Sonora. "Why not?" was all that he had said in explanation.
He swung out of his coat and washed vigorously, thrusting his fingers through his short, curly hair and shaking his head in boyish enjoyment that was refreshing to watch. She noticed that he had not aged much. He seemed too cool, too self-possessed always, to show even the ordinary trace of years. She could not understand him; yet she was surprised by a glow of affection for him now that he had returned. As he dried his head she saw that his hair was tinged with gray, although his face was lined but little and his gray eyes were as keen and quick as ever. If he had only shared even that part of his life with her—down there!
"Jim!" she whispered.
He turned as he took up his coat. "Yes, Annie?"
"If you would only promise—"
He shook his head. "I won't do that. I didn't come to ask anything of you except to see the boy But if you need money—"
"No. Not that kind of money."
"All right, girl." And his voice was cheery. "I didn't come here to make you feel bad. And I won't be here long. Can't we be friends while I'm here? Of course the boy will know. But no one else need know. And—you better see to the folks downstairs. Some one just came in."
She turned and walked down the hall, wondering if he had ever cared for her, and wondering if her boy, Lorry, would ever come to possess that almost unhuman quality of intense alertness, that incomprehensible coolness that never allowed him to forget what he was for an instant.
When Waring came down she did not introduce him to the boarders, a fact that sheriff Buck Hardy, who dined at the hotel, noted with some interest. The men ate hastily, rose, and departed, leaving Hardy and Waring, who called for a second cup of coffee and rolled a cigarette while waiting.
Hardy had seen the stranger ride into town on the big buckskin. The horse bore a Mexican brand. The hotel register told Hardy who the stranger was. And the sheriff of Stacey County was curious to know just what the Sonora gunman was doing in town.
Waring sat with his unlighted cigarette between his fingers. The sheriff proffered a match. Their eyes met. Waring nodded his thanks and blew a smoke-ring.
"How are things down in Sonora?" queried Hardy.
"Quiet."
Mrs. Adams questioned Waring with her eyes. He nodded. "This is Mr.
Waring," she said, rising. "This is Mr. Hardy, our sheriff."
The men shook hands. "Mrs. Adams is a good cook," said Waring.
A clatter of hoofs and the sound of a cheery voice broke the silence.
A young cowboy jingled into the room. "Hello, Buck! Hello, mother!" And Lorry Adams strode up and kissed his mother heartily. "Got a runnin' chance to come to town and I came—runnin'. How's everything?"
Mrs. Adams murmured a reply. Buck Hardy was watching Waring as he glanced up at the boy. The sheriff pulled a cigar from his vest and lighted it. In the street he paused in his stride, gazing at the end of his cigar. Lorry Adams looked mighty like Jim Waring, of Sonora. Hardy had heard that Waring had been killed down in the southern country. Some one had made a mistake.
Waring had risen. He stood with one hand touching the table, the tips of his fingers drumming the rhythm of a song he hummed to himself. The boy's back was toward him. Waring's gaze traveled from his son's head to his boot-heel.
Lorry noticed that his mother seemed perturbed. He turned to Waring with a questioning challenge in his gray eyes.
Mrs. Adams touched the boy's arm. "This is your father, Lorry."
Lorry glanced from one to the other.
Waring made no movement, offered no greeting, but stood politely impassive.
Mrs. Adams spoke gently: "Lorry!"
"Why, hello, dad!" And the boy shook hands with his father.
Waring gestured toward a chair. Lorry sat down. His eyes were warm with mild astonishment.
"Smoke?" said Waring, proffering tobacco and papers.
Lorry's gaze never left his father's face as he rolled a cigarette and lighted it. Mrs. Adams realized that Waring's attitude of cool indifference appealed to the boy.
Lorry remembered his father dimly. He was curious to know just what kind of man he was. He didn't talk much; that was certain. The boy remembered that his mother had not said much about her husband, answering Lorry's childish questionings with a promise to tell him some day. He recalled a long journey on the train, their arrival at Stacey, and the taking over of the run-down hotel that his mother had refurnished and made a place of neatness and comfort. And his mother had told him that she would be known "Mrs. Adams." Lorry had been so filled with the newness of things that the changing of their name was accepted without question. Slowly his recollection of Sonora and the details of their life there came back to him. These things he had all but forgotten, as he had grown to love Arizona, its men, its horses, its wide ranges and magic hills.
Mrs. Adams remembered that her husband had once told her he could find out more about a man by watching his hands than by asking questions. She noticed that Waring was watching his son's hands with that old, deliberate coldness of attitude. He was trying to find out just what sort of a man his boy had grown to be.
Lorry suddenly straightened in his chair. Mrs. Adams, anticipating his question, nodded to Waring.
"Yes," said Waring; "I am the Waring of Sonora that you are thinking about."
Lorry flushed. "I—I guess you are," he stammered. "Mother, you never told me that."
"You were too young to understand, Lorry."
"And is that why you left him?"
"Yes."
"Well, maybe you were right. But dad sure looks like a pretty decent hombre to me."
They laughed in a kind of relief. The occasion had seemed rather strained.
"Ask your mother, Lorry. I am out of it." And, rising Waring strode to the doorway.
Lorry rose.
"I'll see you again," said Waring. And he stepped to the street, humming his song of "Sonora and the Silver Strings."
Mrs. Adams put her arm about her son's shoulders. "Your father is a hard man," she told him.
"Was he mean to you, mother?"
"No—never that."
"Well, I don't understand it. He looks like a real man to me. Why did he come back?"
"He said he came back to see you."
"Well, he's my father, anyway," said Lorry.