“Why?”
“So when he puts the screws on you, I can put the screws on him.”
“Think you can do it?”
“I don’t know. He’s pretty sharp.”
“This is where Bob’s company had its land, isn’t it?”
“Do you know anything about that?”
“Only a little that Bob’s told me.”
I looked at her. “I’m going to ask you a question and you may not want to answer.”
“Don’t do it, Donald. We’re getting along nicely. I hate to be questioned.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I like to be independent and live my own life. When people start asking me too many questions and make me answer, it makes me feel I have no privacy. I’ll answer them if I like the person who asks them, but I resent it afterwards. I’ve always been that way.”
“I’m going to ask it just the same.”
“What is it?”
“Have you given your stepbrother any money?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I suppose Dad wants to know.”
“I want to know.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Much?”
“No.”
“Money to put in his company?”
“No, not a cent. Just to keep him going and give him a chance to get started when Dad shut down on him.”
“How much?”
“Have I got to answer that?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I want you to.”
“I will if you make me, but I won’t like it afterwards.”
“How much?”
“About fifteen hundred dollars.”
“Over how long a time?”
“About two months.”
“When did you quit?”
“When he started working.”
“You haven’t given him any since?”
“No.”
“He wanted more after you shut down on him, didn’t he?”
“Yes. That made me mad. Understand, Donald, I don’t care too much for him. I think he’s an awful pill, but, after all, he’s been dragged into the family, and I have to make the most of him or else go out and live by myself.”
“Why don’t you do that?”
“Because of the awful mess of things Dad made.”
“You mean his second marriage?”
“Yes.”
“How did he get roped into that?”
“I’m darned if I know, Donald— Oh, it’s a hell of a thing to talk about.”
“Go ahead. You’ve started now.”
“Well, it was my fault.”
“How?”
“I went to the South Seas, and then down into Mexico, and then on a yachting trip.”
“Well?”
“Dad was alone. He’s a peculiar combination. He’s crusty and hard-boiled, and down underneath he’s a rank sentimentalist.
“He’d been very happy with Mother, and Dad and I always got along like nobody’s business. His home life had been very happy, and it meant a lot to him. After Mother’s death — she had an independent fortune you know — her will left it divided between Dad and me. I was — oh, I suppose I’ve got to tell you. I was mixed up in a love affair that had given me a lot of heartbreak. I’m over it now, but for a while I didn’t think I’d ever get over it, and Dad told me to go ahead. I packed up and skipped out. When I came back, he was married.”
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“How do those things always happen?” she said bitterly. “Look at her! I don’t want to talk about her, but I don’t have to. You’ve seen her. How could a ball and chain like that get anyone to fasten herself onto? There’s only one way.”
I stared at her. “You mean a sort of blackmail. Do you mean—”
“Of course not,” she said. “Figure it out for yourself. The woman is a consummate actress. Didn’t you ever wonder, Donald, why it is that so many women who have strong individual characters and are just dandy good fellows never get married, while some nagging, whining piece of feminine humanity usually gets a pretty good husband?”
“Are you going to let your back hair down and tell me secrets of sex?” I asked.
“Yes, if you have to be told,” she said with a half smile. “You’re old enough now to know the facts of life, Donald.”
“All right, tell me.”
“The people with individualities,” she said, “are just the same all the time. They won’t resort to all the little sneaky tricks of character-changing that the hypocrites will. Women of that type simply show themselves. They show themselves as they are. A man can either like them well enough to marry them or not.
“Then there’s the other type. They don’t have any personalities of their own except disagreeable personalities, and they know enough to keep those defects of character covered up. Well, Dad’s present wife found out that he was lonely, that he wanted a home, that his daughter was out traveling around the world and would probably get married. She invited him out to her home for dinners.
“Bob was swell, gave the picture of man-to-man good-fellowship, and she was nothing like the way you see her now. Dad never heard about her blood pressure until after he married her. She was just a sweet, home-loving thing who didn’t care about going out, who wanted to make a home for someone, who would stroke Dad’s forehead when he was tired and play chess with him — oh, she just adored chess—” Alta’s eyes glittered. “She hasn’t played a single game of chess with him since they were married.” She raised her voice so that it mimicked her stepmother. “ ‘Oh, I’d lo-o-ove to, Henry. I miss those games so-o-o-o much, but my poor head! It’s my blood pressure, you know. The doctor says I must have things very quiet and easy.’ ”
Suddenly she stopped and said, “There you go. You got me started. I suppose you’ve been waiting for this opportunity, figuring that some time you’d get me when I was mad enough to tell you the whole damn thing.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “I don’t care a great deal about it. I wanted to know about what financial arrangements you’d had with your brother.”
“That’s gratitude for you,” she said with a little laugh. “I bare my soul, and you say you didn’t want to hear it.”
I grinned at her. “Had anything to eat?”
“No, and I’m ravenous. I kept waiting around, thinking perhaps you’d come in.”
“I think they roll the sidewalks up in this town about eight-thirty, but we might find an all-night place on the highway somewhere.”
“Know something, Donald?”
“What?”
“That garlic breath of yours—”
“Offensive?” I asked.
She laughed and said, “You’re a nice boy, Donald, but you do drive the damnedest cars. Here, take the keys to my car and let’s go out in search of adventure.”
“When’ll your dad be here?”
“Not until midnight. You certainly have made a hit with him.”
She opened the car door and jumped inside.
I fitted the ignition key to the lock and switched on the motor. There was a smooth rush of purring power that ran as silently as a sewing machine and had as much power as a skyrocket. I put it in low and stepped on the throttle and nearly jerked our heads off. Alta laughed, and said, “This isn’t that old heap of yours, is it, Donald? You start this thing in second gear — unless you’re on a steep grade or stuck in the mud or something.”
“So I’ve found out,” I said.
We found a little Spanish place, and she ate her way down the menu. “Let’s drive around for a while in the moonlight,” she suggested when we got out.
I figured there’d be a road that would come out on the flat lands above the river. I finally found it, and we left the pavement when we were about a thousand feet above the valley, to drive out on the dirt road that led to a spur where we could look down over the country below. From that height, the tailing piles didn’t seem hard and glittering. The moonlight was soft, and the whole panorama of the valley was a part of the night, of the stars, and of those mysterious rustling noises that emanated from wild life.