CHAPTER X
IN THE CRUCIBLE
In his room at the hotel, Justin re-read that little memorandum book many times that night, and tried to accommodate his mind to its new environment. It was a difficult task. But at last the harshness he had felt toward Philip Davison went out of his soul. By degrees the submerged longing for a father’s love began to make itself felt. Philip Davison was his father; he did not doubt it now, though it seemed so strange. He had known from Ben and Lucy that Philip Davison had married twice. Ben was the child of the first marriage, and he the child of the second; and Ben was his half brother!
He saw resemblances now that he had never thought of. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he beheld blue eyes like those of Philip Davison. The forehead, the nose, the length of body and limb, were all, when thus studied, reminders of Philip Davison. Davison was florid of face, and Justin would probably be florid of face when he grew older, for his complexion was now of that type. Davison’s face was seamed with the marks of petulance and many outbursts of bad temper. Justin did not see any of those marks in his own smooth youthful countenance, but he knew that if he gave way to the fits of rage that swept over him at times with almost uncontrollable force, similar marks might set there the seal of their disapproval.
He was sure, however, that in many ways he was not like Philip Davison, even though he had as a boy so admired Davison; and he was glad to believe that these better traits he inherited from his mother. Though he did not know it, from his mother he had inherited the iron will which was manifesting itself. It had manifested itself in her when she refused to turn back to the home from which she had fled, but traveled on, weak and faint, until death claimed her. Her body had broken, but her will had stood firm to the last; and it had shown itself up to the end in her resolute manner of putting down in that little book her story for the benefit of the child she hoped would live after she had failed and passed on. To Ben, the child of the first marriage, had descended Philip Davison’s weaknesses and from his mother had come the slight stature and the pale face. Except in his mental characteristics Ben resembled his father less than Justin did.
Justin did not sleep that night. He knew that Philip Davison was in town, and he began to long to see him. This desire rose by and by as a swelling tide, bearing with it the years’ suppressed longing for a father’s love. As a child Justin had felt that inexpressible longing. It had moved within him when Clayton came first to the preacher’s house and he had pressed closely against Clayton’s unresponsive knees while exhibiting the little Bible in which his mother had written. Clayton had afterward satisfied that longing in a measure; but only the knowledge that the touch of the hand laid on him was really the touch of the hand of his own father could ever satisfy it fully.
So, through the years, that desire had yearned. Justin felt it again now, deeper than hunger, more anguishing than thirst. And it was not lessened by the feeling that Philip Davison might not wish to satisfy it, and perhaps could not. For circumstances stood now like a wall between this father and son; circumstances which were not the choice of either, any more than were the intuitions and the motives, selfish or otherwise, which led them. They had traveled by different paths, and they stood apart. Nevertheless, the yearning was there, deep, pathetic, and it seemed that it would never be appeased. Justin forgot that white indignation that at first had burned with furnace heat against Philip Davison. Love took its place. Philip Davison was his father!
As this desire gained in strength Justin made an effort to see his father. He decided that he would put that little diary into his father’s hands and be guided by the result. He surely could trust the better impulses of his own father! But he failed to find Davison. Fogg was absent, probably in attendance upon some all-night caucus, and Fogg was the only man likely to know where Davison could be found.
In the morning Justin discovered that Davison was temporarily absent, possibly out of town, but was expected at any moment. Fogg told him this, and observed that Justin showed a flushed, anxious face and had passed a sleepless night. Thereupon, remembering the promise of Sibyl Dudley, Fogg’s courage rose. He dared not question Justin, and Justin was non-committal. This new knowledge Justin wished to share first of all with his father.
In his room a brief note was brought to him. Lucy Davison was in the ladies’ parlor, and he went down to see her. She was seated by one of the windows that overlooked the noisy street. When she arose to meet him he saw that Sibyl had told her everything. There was sympathy and glad happiness, mingled with anxiety, in her manner. Her emotions tinted her cheeks and shadowed her brown eyes. Being a man, Justin did not note how she was dressed, except that it was very becomingly. Being a woman, she not only knew that she was entirely presentable herself, but saw every detail of his garb, from his well-polished shoes to the set of his collar. And she knew that he was clean and handsome. He had never questioned that she was the most beautiful woman, as to him she had been the most beautiful girl, in the world. Mary Jasper’s rose-leaf complexion and midnight hair were juvenile and inane beside the glory of Lucy Davison’s maturing womanhood.
“I am so glad, Justin, for you!” she said, and gave him her hands without reserve.
“And I am glad!” His voice choked, as he led her back to the window, where the rumble of the street noises stilled other sounds. “I am glad; though at first I couldn’t believe it, for it seemed so improbable. But I’m sure now it is true.”
She looked at him with fond admiration; at the straight firm features, at the handsome head with its crown of dark hair, at the tall muscular form, and into the clear blue eyes. And the blue eyes looked into the brown with love in their glance.
“And you’re almost related to me,” she said, sympathetically, “for you’re Ben’s half-brother!”
He smiled at her, and tried to assume a cheerful, even a jovial tone.
“I had thought of that, and of what a good thing it is that we’re not wholly related!”
“Let me see! What is our relationship now?”
“You are my sweetheart now, and will be my wife some day!”
She flushed attractively.
“I didn’t mean that. Let me see—Ben’s mother and my mother were sisters. So Ben and I are cousins.”
“And I am Ben’s half-brother, so you and I are half-cousins.”
He tried to speak in playful jest.
“No, we’re not related at all!”
“Then we shall have to become related, at an early day.”
“Uncle Philip is my uncle by marriage, but not my blood uncle. I am a cousin to Ben through my mother and his mother, who were sisters. So if I have no blood relationship with Uncle Philip, your father, I have none with you, for your mother was not related to me in any way.”
“And I say again I am glad of it.” He retained his jesting tone, though his mood was serious. “But if you marry me you are going to marry bad luck, for it seems that my name is Davison. You know the rhyme:
“‘To change the name and not the letter,
Is to change for worse and not for better.’”
“You insist on joking about it. You know that Davison was not my father’s name, but only the name I took when Uncle Philip adopted me.”
“And that will break the bad luck spell!”
“Don’t you think it will?”
“I think it will; I know it will!” he declared.
“I came to see you about something, as well as to congratulate you and sympathize with you.”
“I tried to see you last night and failed.”
“Yes, I know. I heard about it this morning. I wish I could have seen you last night, but it is as well this morning. What I want to ask you is if you intend to vote against the cattlemen to-day?”
The cheery light died out of his eyes.
“I have thought it over, and have talked with Mrs. Dudley, and it seems to me it is your duty to consider the matter very carefully now that you know your relationship to Uncle Philip.”
A conservative by nature, and unconsciously influenced by the atmosphere of the Davison home, Lucy Davison had begun to fear that Justin was in the wrong. From that there was but a step to the conclusion that it was her duty to tell him so. She did not dream that she was but a pawn in the game which was being played by Sibyl Dudley.
Justin looked into the earnest brown eyes, and his voice was grave.
“If any one in the world could make me vote against my opinion it would be you. I’m not going to argue with you, but let me say just this. If I vote with the cattlemen, or refuse to vote at all, it will place me in the position of sustaining them in a rebellious defiance of the national government, in addition to upholding the unsheltered range, a question on which perhaps we could not agree. But the fences which they maintain on government lands are so clearly illegal that the government has in some instances ordered them down. The cattlemen hope by sending a senator to Washington to have that order rescinded and the entire matter dropped. They have fenced untaken public lands, and lands which settlers occupy, or wish to occupy, and they want to continue this without interruption from Washington.”
“You said you didn’t intend to argue!”
“I do not intend to argue. I’m simply going to ask if you think I would be justified in using my vote, or withholding it, to continue a practice that is in defiance of the orders of the land department, even to please my own father?”
“That order is not, as I understand, a legal enactment, and it might be changed,” she urged.
“It will be changed, no doubt, if the cattlemen win; but should it be changed, or withdrawn?”
“It seems to me that the settlers are doing well enough, and those fences aren’t injuring anybody.”
He was silent a moment, thinking.
“I want to please your Uncle Philip—my father—and I want to please you. I’ll admit that I have myself had some doubts on this question lately, serious doubts. Yet I cannot make myself think that I have not been in the right from the first. If I thought I was wrong I would change in a minute without regard to the consequences.”
“It wouldn’t be right for me to urge you to vote against your conscience,” she admitted, touched by his fine sense of honor. “Only, as I’ve tried to think it over and get at the right of it, it has seemed to me that there are, must be, two sides to the question. Every question has two sides, you know.”
“Yes; that is so.”
She went on, not sure of her ground, nor altogether certain of herself; yet feeling that this was a crucial moment and that every argument ought to be duly weighed and considered.
“You won’t feel hurt if I remind you that you are inexperienced? New light may come to you, so that the opinions you now hold you may not hold a year from now.”
“That is true; but so long as I do hold them I must be honest about it.”
“It is the opinion of Uncle Philip that this annoyance of the settlers cannot last. He says there are only a few places where they can farm successfully. But in the meantime, while they are trying every place, they are making a vast amount of trouble, by thus spreading all over the country. You know, yourself, that some of them are taking land where water can never be got to it. The immediate result will be, Uncle Philip says, that the ranchmen will be almost ruined, by being forced to surrender land to them that can never be fit for anything but a cattle range. The settlers will find out by and by that the land cannot be farmed; but while they are finding it out, and bringing loss to themselves, they will bring the downfall of the cattlemen.”
“I have thought of all these things,” he said.
He looked at her earnestly. He was troubled.
“Lucy, I wish I only knew what I ought to do in this crisis! I must face it and do something. I have looked for your Uncle Philip, and intend to look for him again, and shall try to have a talk with him. He is my father, and when he knows that he is, and I ask him to advise me as a father would advise a son–.” He stopped, in hesitation. “Anyway, whatever I do—whatever I do—remember that I love you!”
As soon as she was gone, he began another search for his father, driven by the feeling that he must explain fully to Davison his views and motives, as well as hear Davison’s arguments and opinions, and so perhaps be able to stand erect in Philip Davison’s estimation, as well as in his own. This was an anxious, even a wild desire, and it pressed him hard.
Fogg, scenting a reconciliation, sent a messenger in hurried search of Davison. At the hotel, and at the state house, the lobbies were overflowing. Men began to come to. Justin not singly but in platoons. Somehow the word had gone round that he was weakening. But he was not ready to talk. To friends and enemies alike he was non-committal. He wanted to see his father; he wanted to place in his hands that memorandum book, and get an acknowledgment of their relationship. The interminable buzz of the anxious and excited politicians struck against deaf ears.
Philip Davison was out of town.
Fogg, with telegraph and telephone, was wildly trying to reach him. Sibyl Dudley had come to the state house in shivering expectancy. The jarring hum of the political machine rose ever higher and higher, yet Justin gave no indication of a changed or changing purpose.
The ordeal through which he had passed since coming to Denver had taught him how to keep silent amid the maddest tumult. At first he had sought to justify whatever course he intended to pursue, only to find his statements snapped up, distorted, spread abroad with amendments he had never thought of, and so mutilated that often even he could not recognize the mangled fragments. So, having learned his lesson well, he kept still. Other men could do the talking. To the men who besieged him he had “nothing to say.” Until he saw Philip Davison and placed that diary in his hands he felt that he could have nothing to say. Even then he might act without saying anything. From time to time he observed Fogg watching him covertly.
While he waited, senate and house convened and began to vote for the senatorial candidates. Fogg went into the senate chamber, after speaking to a member of the lower house. Justin, whose name was far down on the rolls, remained in the lobby until a sergeant-at-arms came summoning members of the house to vote. Then he entered. When he dropped heavily into his seat he was greeted by suppressed cheering and a buzz of anxious and excited comment. These things did not move him; what moved him was a mental view of his father’s face, and that inner tide of feeling demanding the satisfaction of a father’s love.
Suddenly he recalled Fogg’s covert and anxious looks, and like a flash came the question: Could this whole thing be but a plot to bewilder him and cause him to vote with the ranchmen, or not at all? He knew that Lucy would not deceive him, but she might herself be deceived. He could not doubt that record in the handwriting of his mother, but after all the reference might be to another Philip Davison. His nerves tingled and his brain reeled under the influence of this startling suggestion.
While thus bewildered, his name was called. He half rose, staggering to his feet, hardly knowing what his physical actions were. But his mind began to clear. Clayton’s face, the dream of Peter Wingate, and that picture of the unsheltered range, rose before him; again he saw the illegal fences; again starving cattle looked at him with hungry eyes, and their piteous moans were borne to him on the breath of the freezing wind. Once more he was the thrall of the past. His courage stiffened, the firm will was firm again. He felt that there was but one rock on which he could set his trembling feet, and that was the rock of righteousness. If in this crucial moment he failed to stand for that which in his innermost soul he knew to be right, the self-respect which had nurtured his sturdy young manhood would be gone. His face whitened and his hand shook; but his voice was firm, when he announced his vote. It rang with clear decision through the silence that had fallen on the house.
Sibyl Dudley had lost.
CHAPTER XI
FATHER AND SON
Philip Davison saw Lucy before she returned to Paradise Valley and learned from her the strange story which had been told by William Sanders. From Fogg and others he had already heard how Justin had voted. And the discovery that even after Justin had been informed of this relationship he had voted against the cattlemen hardened his heart. He refused to see Justin now, and went back to Paradise Valley angry and uncomfortable. There he sought out Sanders and obtained the story direct from him.
After his talk with Sanders, a talk in which Sanders revealed to the full the bitterness and vindictiveness of his narrow mind, Philip Davison shut himself up in his room at the ranch house, where he would not see any one, and through the greater part of the night sat reviewing the past, while he smoked many cigars. The drinking habit which had been the curse of his earlier years he had conquered. Since the night in which his wife had fled never to return, he had not set liquor to his lips; and Ben’s growing habits of intoxication threw him continually into a rage. Only that morning, encountering Clem Arkwright and Ben together in the town and seeing that both had been drinking, he had cursed Arkwright to his face, and with threats and warnings had ordered Ben home. That Ben had not obeyed did not make Philip Davison’s cup the sweeter that night.
The prosaic accuracy of the details of the story told by Sanders, with what he knew himself, convinced Davison of its truth, in spite of his previous belief that the cloud-burst which came shortly after his wife had fled from home had engulfed and slain both her and her child. His belief of her death had been based on the fact that nearly a year after her disappearance the unidentified bodies of a woman and child had been found in the foothills; and in a little, remote cemetery, where these bodies rested, a simple slab held the names of Esther and Justin Davison.
Davison recalled now that it was the name, more than anything else, that had induced him to give Justin employment on the ranch. The name of Justin and the memories it evoked had touched some hidden tendril of his heart, and had made him kind to Justin at times when but for that he might have been otherwise. As often as he had felt inclined to turn upon Justin in hot anger that name had softened his wrath. He had never a thought that Justin was his son; yet the name had won for Justin a warmer place in his regard than Justin could have won by his own merits.
As Davison sat thus in the shadowed memories of the past, there came to him a stirring of natural affection. But, whenever he turned to what he considered Justin’s dastardly betrayal of the ranch interests, this vanished. To combat it there was, too, a long-smoldering feeling against the woman who had deserted him, and who by so doing had revealed to the world his drunken rage and cruelty. That desertion he had never been quite able to forgive. For years he had tried not to think of her; but that night her memory rose strong and buoyant. He knew he had wronged her deeply, and had outraged her feelings cruelly. Perhaps that was at bottom why this long-smoldering recollection of her aroused his smothered anger.
By degrees, as he thought over the past, Davison began to resent what seemed an injury done him. It was as if fate had preserved this boy through all the years to avenge the wrongs of the mother. His own son had risen to oppose him, to thwart his desires, to smite him with mailed fist. And he had helped unwittingly to fit fighting armor to the stalwart shoulders of this son; for it was through his position on the ranch, as the companion and friend of the cowboys, that Justin had arrived at that condition of comradeship with them which had really given him his present place. Davison felt that Ben should have held that position—Ben, who had the ranch interests at heart, and would have voted right. Ben was disobedient, wild, intractable, but Ben would have voted right! Davison loved Ben. Justin seemed still an outsider, an intruder. And the feeble stir of natural affection passed away.
Justin remained in Denver through the remainder of the legislative session and cast his vote with the agriculturists on a number of questions. He wrote to Lucy frequently, but she did not re-visit Denver, so he did not see her again until his return to Paradise Valley. In her letters she acquainted him fully with the fact that Philip Davison did not feel kindly toward him. Justin wrote a letter also to Davison, but it was not answered. He did not again see Sibyl Dudley, nor Mary Jasper. And Fogg apparently had been permanently alienated.
When Justin came home, and it was known at the ranch that he was at Clayton’s, Philip Davison sent for him. Justin obeyed the summons with anxious hesitation, and took the little memorandum book with him, and also his mother’s Bible. He had not sent the diary to Davison with the letter as proof of their relationship, and he was resolved not to part with it now. Davison might examine it as much as he liked, but he should not keep it, nor should he destroy it.
Davison received Justin in the upper room where he had sat that night thinking of the past. His bearded face was flushed and his manner was constrained. Justin had a sense of confusion, as he stood face to face with this man whom he now knew to be his father. It seemed an unnatural situation. Yet in his heart was still that longing for a father’s recognition and love. He had not put off the clothing he had worn while in the city; he might not do so at all, as he did not intend to become again a cowboy or work on a ranch. That phase of his life was past. Philip Davison never wore cowboy clothing, except when engaged in actual work on the range or at the branding pens. Yet he was not dressed at his best, as he now received his son; and having come in from a long ride, his black coat was still covered with dust.
The blue eyes of the father and of the son met. Justin was as tall, and his features much resembled those of his father. But while one face was beardless, and young and strong, the other was bearded and prematurely aged. In Davison’s reddish beard, which was worn full and long, were many strands of white, and whitening locks showed in his thick dark hair. The blue eyes were heavy, and the fleshy pads beneath them seemed to have increased in fullness and size. Justin even fancied there were new lines in the seamed and florid face. Justin’s face was flushed and his swelling heart ached, as he stood before his father.
Davison waved him to a chair without extending his hand in greeting, and Justin sat down. Then Davison took a seat and looked at him across the intervening distance as if he would read there the truth or falsity of Sanders’ story. Apparently he was satisfied.
“I have had a talk with Sanders,” he began, speaking slowly and with an effort. “You have a memorandum book which I should like to see.”
Justin produced it with fumbling fingers. Philip Davison took it without apparent emotion, and opening it looked it through. Having done so he closed it and passed it back. In the same way he examined the Bible which Justin gave him.
“You are my son; I haven’t seen any of your mother’s handwriting for a long time, but I recognize it readily. The story told in that diary has been naturally colored by her feelings. I hope I am not quite as black as she has painted me. But all that is past, and it is not my intention to talk about it now. The point is, that you are my son. Since hearing about this matter I have been thinking over our relationship and asking myself what I ought to do. As my son, when I die I shall see that you are not unprovided for; but the bulk of my property will go to Ben, with something for Lucy. I wasn’t always as prosperous as I am now; I’ve had to fight for what I’ve got, and I still have to fight to keep it. I have done and am doing this for Ben. Your sympathies have been from the first with those who are my enemies, and in the legislature you voted with them from beginning to end. You were elected chiefly by ranch votes, and you betrayed all of the ranch interests. The thing is done now, and can’t be undone; yet, after all my struggles, it is not pleasant to know that the hand of my own son did this thing.”
He settled heavily back in his chair.
“So the most of what I have will go to Ben. He is wild, but he will settle down; I was wild in my youth. You are like your mother. She was an obstinate angel with an uncomfortable conscience, and for some men such a woman is an unpleasant thing to live with.”
Justin felt a swelling of indignation at this mention of his mother.
“You have all of her obstinacy and general wrong-headedness on matters which don’t concern you. I am willing to say to you frankly, that after a brief experience with her I ceased to desire to live with her; but even yet I do not think she had any good reason to leave me as she did. It took her to her death, and in the long run has made you pretty much what you are. So I do not see that I can blame you in all things, but I do blame you for the pig-headed obstinacy and foolishness you showed in Denver. You had a great opportunity to befriend those who had befriended you and would have helped you, and you wilfully, even maliciously, threw it away.”
In spite of his feelings Justin maintained a discreet silence. His longing for something more than a bare recognition of his relationship he saw was not to be gratified. He had returned the diary and the Bible to his pocket, where he felt them close against his heart. They seemed akin to an actual memory of his mother, and could not be taken from him, whatever happened. Their pressure was almost as the touch of his mother’s warm hand on his bosom.
“If you like,” Davison went on, “you may transfer yourself to this house and remain here, doing what work on the ranch you please. Some of the cowboys have been dismissed, and others will be soon. But for this fact that you are my son I should forbid you to come upon the place. There is going to be a change in the business, too; your votes at Denver helped to make that necessary, and perhaps in that change you may find work more congenial to you than ranch work. Think it over. I want to do what is right by you. I will see that you have employment if you want it, and in my will I shall see that you are not wholly unprovided for. That is all.”
He arose, and Justin stood up in flushed confusion, having said not a word either in justification of himself or his mother. He had no words now, as he passed from the room and from the house, though if he could have voiced anything it would have been the disappointment that murmured in his heart.
With the memory of that interview oppressing him, Justin questioned whether he had not after all been stubborn, pig-headed, and cruel. He reflected that perhaps he had been, even though he had sought to do only that which was right. His mother, he had been told, possessed an “uncomfortable conscience,” and he did not doubt he had one himself. It could not be wrong to do right, of course, but at times it seemed very inexpedient. Should a man bend himself to expediency? If he had done so, his father would have received him doubtless with warm words, instead of that biting chill which frosted the very glance of the sunshine.
Standing in the yard oppressed and tortured by doubt, Justin saw Lucy Davison coming toward him from the direction of the little grove. The cottonwoods were still bare, but that she had visited them seemed a good omen, and he moved toward her.
Her brown eyes smiled as they met his. She was temptingly beautiful; a mature woman now, with the beauty of a fragrant flower. Her clear complexion had not changed since her girlhood, and the tint which emotion gave to her cheeks was as the soft blush of the ripening peach. She was more beautiful than when a girl; all the angularities of girlhood were gone; and when from his greater height Justin looked down on her rounded throat and swelling bosom, and caught that kindly light in her eyes, he forgot the chill of the room from which he had come and the cold calm of his father’s speech.
“I am afraid you are a bad, bad boy,” she said, with a touch of sympathy, as she put her hand on his arm, “but I hope Uncle Philip hasn’t been saying terrible things to you. You have been to see him, I know?”
“Yes, I have been to see him, and the interview wasn’t wholly pleasant. Perhaps I have been the bad boy you suggest, and he may be justified; I’m sure I don’t know. All I know is I tried to do what was right, and appear to have made a mix of it.”
“Come in and we will talk it over. Uncle Philip told me this morning that you may come and go all you want to, or even make your home here now. That is pleasant news, anyway, isn’t it?”
Her pleasant manner softened the recollection of that painful interview with Philip Davison. So Justin passed from an unpleasant interview to one so pleasant that it almost took the bitterness and the sting out of the first.