The Ypsilanti Daily Press

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IT WAS not so much Susy Adams' remark to her little girl that was insulting. In fact, her question held a teasing friendly quality. What made Belinda flinch and change color was her mother's laugh.

In it was more scorn than a grown person could endure without feeling wretched. For a young girl to have to bear the brunt of such sarcasm was too much. Sandra started to speak a word of protection for the child. But before she could, Belinda's slight shoulders, beneath the birthday dress that she was wearing, snapped backward.

Coolly she asked her mother:

"What's the matter? Don't you like this dress? It's a Sandra selection."

That defense made Susy Adams pause for an instant. She said lightly: "My, my! How Sandra has entered our lives.

"I'm pretty fond of Red, mother."

"Intimacy to the point of nicknames," mocked the blond girl.

"It's amazing what all goes on when I'm not at the Mesquite."

"You've never cared anything about the Mesquite, except to drop in for a few days. You've never cared anything about me—"

"Except," interposed Susy, "to send you more money than you know what to do with. And stop talking like your father." She got up from the sofa and walked over to her child. "We'll talk my way for a while. You asked if I liked this dress. Frankly, Belinda, I do not. It is much too old for you."

"I'm 12 years old, Mother."

"Don't you think I'm well aware of your age? Don't I show that with each birthday check? Oh, don't turn up your nose! You think money doesn't amount to anything now. But you'll find out you can do just about anything if you have it."

She stole a swift look at Sandra, standing beside the magazine table.

"I'm sure Miss Edwards meant well, selecting this frock for you, but please don't wear it while I'm here."

"And how long are you going to be here, Mother?"

Beneath Belinda's steady gaze, Susy's face grew sad. She shook her head sadly. "Such a reception. That is exactly what your father asked. And when I said I intended to stay a long time—" She stopped to chuckle with soft merriment.

Sandra wondered how she could, when visibly she wanted to screech.

"Do you know what he did, Belinda?" She chuckled again. "He left. He ran away."

Sandra saw further evidence of Belinda Adams' astounding self-control. Her hands, hanging at her sides in a forlorn weariness, clenched once, then were limp again.

Susy's voice was not sad and listless now. It held a hint of waspish rage. "In other words, he ran out on us.

"And I don't blame him," snapped back Belinda.

"That's enough of that sort of talk," her mother replied in sharp exasperation. "You think everything your father does is right. I can't understand why, when actually you know he isn't any good."

"Stop talking about Dad that way!" Hot bright tears were in the child's brown eyes.

"I've had enough from you, Belinda. It is time you learned some respect for your mother."

"You expect too much!"

For an uncomfortable moment Sandra thought the blond girl was going to strike her daughter. If she does, Sandra assured herself, I'll do a football tackle. I'll positively flatten her.

But Susy Adams conquered any yearning toward physical violence, to say quietly: "Shall we just say you must learn manners?"

Belinda fought on. "Dad says your manners are to cover up your meanness, so I think you can teach me. I feel mean underneath."

For some inexplicable and astonishing reason, Susy Adams let that remark go without a scathing answer. She shifted to her first criticism. Perhaps she knew it hurt even more.

"First get out of that dress and into something sweet and young. And do something about this."

Susy's soft hand flicked through the little girl's long wavy hair, as if it were almost untouchable. "This is so messy. You're so neat with the pigtails you used to wear. You're a nice plain little girl, Belinda. Be your type. Don't try to be something else. You can't do it."

There were pale gray lines about Belinda's mouth. "Red said I could," she persisted.

Her none too steady bravado deserted her, beneath the long silent gaze of her mother. Susy Adams then stared at Sandra. She did not speak to either of them. She simply laughed, just as she had when she first saw her little girl. That taunting, horrid laugh that branded both Belinda and Sandra, also their ideas, as utterly fatuous.

Belinda turned and fled. Sandra said: "There should be a law against that, just as there is against physical cruelty."

"Listen, Red, all you have to do is stop sticking your nose in my business."

Her use of Belinda's nickname for Sandra held none of the camaraderie that was there when the little girl used it. Susy made the appropriate term sound decidedly cheap.

"Why, Susy," chastened Sandra coolly. "Mind what you call your manners."

Sandra was not surprised when the unhappy Belinda came to her rooms that evening. It was almost time for dinner, but she wore the same type costume she had worn the morning she met Spenser and his guardian at the station. Dirty Levis, a checked cowboy shirt and her boots.

"I'm a sissy," she told Sandra. "I'm not going to stick around and take so much punishment. I'm going up to Dad's little city house. Brody will look out for me. I'm taking Tex with me for company."

A terrible rage toward Gordon Adams filled Sandra's heart. He had no business being so selfish, so thoughtless as to leave a little girl to be mistreated by his wife.

Belinda seemed to read those thoughts. "Dad believed he was doing right, Red. And so do I. You mustn't worry. You know," she confessed, "when you first came I hated you because you were so pretty. I hate all pretty ladies and you should know why. Then I was afraid Dad liked you—" Her words now began piling one on top of the other. "That made me hate you worse, and then I began to like you—when you tried to help me look better. After that I liked you fine. I didn't even mind if Dad did like you. You mustn't worry," she said again. Her manner was now adult, as if she were older than Sandra, so nearly like Spenser's that Sandra felt a moment of terrible loneliness for her little charge. "She can't stay forever, Red."

But at Christmas time Susy was encroaching still deeper into the life at the Mesquite Ranch. She was unpacking trunks, for which she had sent, and taking charge of the holiday decorations. To the guests, everything was right, exciting and yet serene. To the other ranch group—Brody, Estela, the cowboys, even the stoical Indian boys—nothing was right. Estela wept as she made the Christmas cookies. The cowpunchers ignored Susy Adams to the point of rudeness. The Indians hid behind their natural emotionless masks. And Brody wouldn't even climb for the mistletoe, down in the dry riverbed of Copper Creek.

Belinda had been in evidence only once, riding across the north hilltop on her favorite pony. Oddly, Susy Adams did not seem to mind the absence of her daughter. Perhaps the shock of finding her long-legged and shoulder high, in comparison to her own height, was repugnant to Susy. Evident in her attire was her desire to appear childish. And, childless.

Spenser came up on the train from La Madera, the same tiny train on which he and Sandra had first arrived in Copper Creek, from the opposite direction. She watched him stand on the platform, deliberately holding up his fellow travelers, as he glanced haughtily about the station pavement.

"Oh, stop doing your traveling act all over the place," shrieked Belinda.

"Oh, hullo there, Belinda," he observed, still nonchalant, "You must have on new Levis. I see there are no holes in the knees."

By then she was directly beneath him, but her eyes were over his head. Without really looking at Spenser, she managed to yank him down the steps.

"Get out of the way," she ordered. "You're holding up Bernie."

(To Be Continued)