“They hauled the piano home!” He scowled out at the reeling line of telegraph posts. “They––hauled––that piano––home!”
He lighted a cigar, took two puffs and threw the thing out over the rail. “She didn’t ask the Lorrigans––to her party. And dad––”
He whirled and went back into the smoking compartment. 226 He wanted to hear more. The seat he had occupied was still empty and he settled into it, his cap pulled over his eyes, a magazine before his face. The others paid no attention. The harsh-voiced man was still talking.
“Well, they can’t go on forever. They’re bound to slip up, soon or late. And now, of course, there’s a line-up against them. It’s in the blood and I don’t reckon they can change––but the country’s changing. I know of one man that’s in there now, working in the dark, trying to get the goods––but of course, it’s not my business to peddle that kind of stuff. I was tickled about the piano, though. The schoolma’am was game. She offered to give us back our two dollars per, but of course nobody was piker enough to take her up on it. We went ahead and had the dance with harmonicas and a fiddle, and made out all right. Looks to me like the schoolma’am’s all to the good. She’s got the dance money––”
It was of no use. Lance found he could not listen to that man talking about Mary Hope. To strike the man on his fish-like, hard-lipped mouth would only make matters worse, so he once more left the compartment and stood in the open doorway of the vestibule just beyond. The train, slowing to a stop at a tank station, jarred to a standstill. In the compartment behind him the man’s voice sounded loud and raucous now that the mechanical noises had ceased.
“Well, I never knew it to fail––what’s in the blood will come out. They’ve lived there for three generations now. They’re killers, thieves at heart––human birds of prey, and it don’t matter if it is all under the surface. I say it’s there.”
At that moment, Lance had the hunger to kill, to stop forever the harsh voice that talked on and on of the Lorrigans and their ingrained badness. He stepped outside, slamming the door shut behind him. The voice, fainter now, could still be heard. He swung down to the cinders, stood there staring ahead at the long train, counting the cars, watching the fireman run with his oil can and climb into the engine cab. He could no longer hear the voice, but he felt that he must forget it or go back and kill the man who owned it.
In the car ahead a little girl leaned out of the window, her curls whipping across her face. Jubilantly she waved her hand at him, shrilled a sweet, “Hello-oh. Where you goin’? I’m goin’ to my grandma’s house!”
The rigor left Lance’s jaw. He smiled, showing his teeth, saw that a brakeman was down inspecting a hot box on the forward truck of that car, and walked along to the window where the little girl leaned and waited, waving two sticky hands at him to hurry.