A man was in the chair behind the desk, but not in any of the approved, or even disapproved, positions. It was as if he had bent far over to reach something on the floor, got hung on the arm, and whimsically stayed there.
Delia’s nerves were already quivering, had been for some time, and her impulse, after the first shock into rigidity, was to turn and flee screaming down the stairs. Doubtless she would have done that had not the familiarity of an object on the desk demanded, and got, her attention as her eyes began their movement away from the man in the chair. It lay near the edge of the desk closest to her, and she stared at it in amazement.
It was her handbag.
She continued to stare, still rigid; then instinctively, without thinking, stepped forward to get it. She took it in her hand, saw that it was indeed and unbelievably hers, started to tuck it under her arm, and then rested it on the desk again and with fingers that trembled not at all opened it.
There was no gun in it.
She looked around, not at the man in the chair, but searching; and almost at once she saw it. It lay on the seat of a chair near the door. Three quick steps took her there, and she grabbed it up. Yes, it was the gun, her father’s gun; there was the notch which she herself had playfully scratched in it one day with her father’s knife when he had spattered a gopher. In the first instant when she had turned on the light and seen the man in the chair the blood had left her head, blanching her; but now it was rushing back as she began to realize, vaguely but overwhelmingly, the significance of the properties she was collecting on this sinister stage. With her teeth clenched and the gun in her hand, she started around the desk toward the chair on the other side, but halfway there was stopped in her tracks by a voice behind her.
“Better lay it down, ma’am.”
She had heard no steps; apparently her ears hadn’t been working. She wheeled. A man with a weathered face and nearly white hair stood towering a pace from the doorway, with his eyes no more than slits. Delia stared at him without moving or speaking. She knew him; it was Squint Hurley, the prospector who had been put on trial for murdering her father and had been acquitted. She stood and stared.
He came forward with a hand outstretched. “Give it to me. The gun.”
She said idiotically, “It’s my father’s gun.”
“Give it to me anyway. I’ll keep it for him. Who’s your father?” He peered down at her. “By all hell! It’s Charlie Brand’s girl. I don’t want to twist that thing away from you, ma’am. Just hand it over.”
She shook her head. His extended hand shot downward and he had her wrist. She made no struggle or protest as, with his other hand, he eased the gun from her fingers and rammed it into his pocket without looking at it. Then he strode to the chair on the other side of the desk and stooped to get a look at the face of the man who was still whimsically hanging there.
In a moment he straightened up, observing, “It appears that Dan Jackson won’t do any more grubstaking.” He faced Delia and demanded in a grieved tone, “What’s the idea, anyway?”
Chapter 5
So the Brand family troubles made the front page again, in spite of Quinby Pellett’s assertion that they had been there enough. This time the prominence and space given it, not only in Cody, but in distant cities, was considerably greater than on the two previous occasions, for the dish was a more highly seasoned one than a killing in a remote prospector’s cabin or the suicide of a desolated wife. A girl had been found with a gun in her hand, in an office at night, approaching the body of a man with a bullet through his heart who had liked the ladies; and the girl was variously described as strikingly beautiful, glamorous, seductive, enigmatic, captivating, and on up and down.
Of all the people involved and active in the affair one way or another — relatives, friends, associates, officials, photographers, politicians, reporters — the only one who was in a state of indifference at ten o’clock Wednesday morning was the girl herself. She was sound asleep on a cot in a cell of the county jail, lying on a clean white sheet, with no cover, clad in soft, clean, yellow pajamas which her sister Clara had brought to the jail, along with other accessories, shortly after dawn. Seated on a chair in the corridor outside the cell door was Daisy Welch, wife of the deputy warden, slowly fanning herself with a palm leaf and from time to time sighing heavily. It was a self-imposed vigil. One day a few months ago, when little Annie Welch had tumbled downstairs at school and had bitten a hole in her tongue, Delia had driven her home in her car.
At that moment, in the principal’s office of the Pendleton School, the large woman with sweat on her brow who had glanced in at the door during the assembly for Rhythmic Movement the preceding day, was seated at her desk regarding with grim disapproval a young man who stood before her with a notebook and pencil in his hand. She was saying:
“... and you might as well get out of the building and stay out. It won’t do you any good to snoop around anyhow, because I’m sending a memo around to the teachers that they are not to speak with you. I’ve told you that Delia Brand’s work and character and personality have been completely satisfactory and that’s all I have to say.”
“But Miss Henckel, I tell you we want to give her a break! Comments by you and all the teachers, quoting them by name, would help to sway public opinion—”
“Of course you do,” said the principal sarcastically. “You mean you want to break her. I read the Times-Star this morning, didn’t I? I ask you once more to leave this building.”
He soon accepted defeat and departed, hoping for better luck at one of the six other schools, since Delia had had a class in each of them. It was his own idea.
At the Brand home on Vulcan Street, Clara sat on the bench in the breakfast nook in the kitchen, her elbows on the table and her forehead resting on her palms with a plate of three greasy-looking fried eggs, untouched, in front of her. The floor began to shake from a ponderous tread and the form of Mrs. Lemuel Sammis came through the swinging door.
“That was someone like Vatter or Vitter on the phone,” Evelina Sammis announced.
Clara said without looking up, “Mag Vawter.”
“Mebbe. I told her I was here and you don’t want any company. Also I called the ranch and told Pete to drive in and bring a turkey. We’ve always got a roast turkey or two. There’s no use cooking anything because you won’t eat it while it’s hot, like those eggs, and with a turkey around, any time you’re ready to swallow there it is. Pete can stay here today at least and answer the door and the phone. I’m not built for a canter any more.”
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Sammis, but I’m perfectly able—”
“Forget it, girlie.” She sat down. “I’m taking my shoes off.” She did so and wiggled her toes. “On the ranch I can keep my shoes on all day, but these town shoes start turning on me. Now listen. Lem’ll have her out of there before night, don’t you worry. What’s the use of his owning the state nearly, if he can’t get a girl out of jail? As for her shooting Dan Jackson, that was only a question—”
“I tell you she didn’t do it!”