“Who cares? Nobody can prove I cheated him.”
“You can, Angel; and you must have a conscience.”
“Not a damned bit! That’s somethin’ that wasn’t in the McCoy family; so where could I inherit it? I don’t mind tellin’ you that if I had played a square game, I’d be broke now. That ain’t admittin’ anythin’, is it? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, you think it over, Lila. It’s the difference between wearin’ diamonds and—and what you’re goin’ to do.”
Angel walked away from her, and she heard the rusty hinges of the old gate creak behind him. She shivered slightly and drew the pale blue shawl closer around her shoulders. She had not seen Rance McCoy since she had left the ranch, and in spite of her prejudice there was an ache in her heart for the old man who had raised her. He had been so glad to see her when she came back from the East, after five years of school. He had not said much, but she could see the pleasure and happiness in his eyes as he held her off at arm’s length and looked her over.
And she had been glad to see Angel. Somehow she had forgotten that Angel had been nicknamed for the same reason that a fat cowboy was usually known as “Slim.” He was a handsome man now, the handsomest man she had ever met; and he had told her that he loved her, almost in the same breath that he had told her she was not his sister. His whirlwind method had left her breathless, and she could not remember now just what she had told him.
But he was still the same Angel McCoy, cold-blooded, headstrong, sarcastic. She remembered one Sunday when Rance had taken them to Sunday School at Red Arrow. Angel was about ten years old. The lesson had made a strong impression on him, and late that afternoon one of the cowboys had found him out behind the stable, crucifying a cat against the corner of the corral fence.
Old Rance did not whip him. Lila could not remember that Rance had ever whipped Angel. He had whipped her. Somehow, she held that against him now. He would not whip his own child. He had never whipped her very hard, but it was the humiliation more than the actual pain.
She remembered that old Rance had whipped a cowboy who had slapped Angel. It was nearly a gun-fight. Angel had cut the strings all off the cowboy’s saddle and was using them to braid into a quirt for himself. Old Rance whipped the cowboy, and then paid a saddle-maker to put the strings back on the saddle again.
He had always protected Angel. She had heard Angel talking back to him one day, and old Rance had said:
“All right, son. Some day you’ll be twenty-one. Until that time, you’re a kid. When you’re twenty-one, you’ll be a man—and I’d shoot a man for sayin’ what you’ve just said to me. I don’t quarrel with kids, but just remember what I said.”