It was not a very skillful diversion, but Elizabeth
had reached the point of utter desperation. And
on the way into the living room unquestionably she
would be able to divert Terry to something else.
Vance held his breath.
And it was Terry who signed his own doom.
“We’re very comfortable here, Aunt Elizabeth.
Let’s not go in till the sheriff has finished
his story.”
The sheriff rewarded him with a flash of gratitude,
and Vance settled back in his chair. The end
could not, now, be far away.
“I was saying,” proceeded the sheriff,
“that they scared their babies in these here
parts with the name of Jack Hollis. Which they
sure done. Well, sir, he was bad.”
“Not all bad, surely,” put in Vance.
“I’ve heard a good many stories about
the generosity of—”
He was anxious to put in the name of Black Jack, since
the sheriff was sticking so close to “Jack Hollis,”
which was a name that Terry had not yet heard for
his dead father. But before he could get out the
name, the sheriff, angry at the interruption, resumed
the smooth current of his tale with a side flash at
Vance.
“Not all bad, you say? Generous? Sure
he was generous. Them that live outside the law
has got to be generous to keep a gang around ’em.
Not that Hollis ever played with a gang much, but
he had hangers-on all over the mountains and gents
that he had done good turns for and hadn’t gone
off and talked about it. But that was just common
sense. He knew he’d need friends that he
could trust if he ever got in trouble. If he was
wounded, they had to be someplace where he could rest
up. Ain’t that so? Well, sir, that’s
what the goodness of Jack Hollis amounted to.
No, sir, he was bad. Plumb bad and all bad!
“But he had them qualities that a young gent
with an imagination is apt to cotton to. He was
free with his money. He dressed like a dandy.
He’d gamble with hundreds, and then give back
half of his winnings if he’d broke the gent
that run the bank. Them was the sort of things
that Jack Hollis would do. And I had my head
full of him. Well, about the time that he come
to the neighborhood, I sneaked out of the house one
night and went off to a dance with a girl that I was
sweet on. And when I come back, I found Dad waiting
up for me ready to skin me alive. He tried to
give me a clubbing. I kicked the stick out of
his hands and swore that I’d leave and never
come back. Which I never done, living up to my
word proper.
“But when I found myself outside in the night,
I says to myself: ’Where shall I go now?’
“And then, being sort of sick at the world,
and hating Dad particular, I decided to go out and
join Jack Hollis. I was going to go bad.
Mostly to cut up Dad, I reckon, and not because I
wanted to particular.
“It wasn’t hard to find Jack Hollis.
Not for a kid my age that was sure not to be no officer
of the law. Besides, they didn’t go out
single and hunt for Hollis. They went in gangs
of a half a dozen at a time, or more if they could
get ’em. And even then they mostly got cleaned
up when they cornered Hollis. Yes, sir, he made
life sad for the sheriffs in them parts that he favored
most.
