CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH THIS PLACE?”
With his beautifully typed AGREEMENT OF CONTRACT in his inner coat pocket, and two hundred dollars of Patricia’s money in his purse, James Blaine Hawkins set out from Los Angeles to drive overland to Johnnywater, Nevada. He knew no more of Johnnywater than Patricia had told him, but he had worked through three haying seasons on a big cattle ranch in King County, California, and he felt qualified to fulfill his share of the agreement, especially that clause concerning two thirds of the increase of the stock and other profits from the ranch.
James Blaine Hawkins belonged to that class of men which is tired of working for wages. A certain percentage of that class is apparently tired of working for anything; James Blaine Hawkins formed a part of that percentage. His idea of raising range cattle was the popular one of sitting in the shade and watching the cattle grow. In all sincerity he agreed with Patricia that one simply cannot lose money in cattle.
I am going to say right here that James Blaine Hawkins owned many of the instincts for villainy. He actually sat in Patricia’s trustful presence and wondered just how far the law protected an absent owner of squatter’s rights on a piece of unsurveyed land. He thought he would look it up. He believed that the man who lives on the place is the real squatter, and that Waddell, in leaving Johnnywater, had legally abandoned the place and had no right to sell his claim on it to Patricia or any one else.
James Blaine Hawkins did not look Patricia in the eyes and actually plan to rob her of Johnnywater, but he did sit there and wonder who would have the best title to the place, if he went and lived there for a year or two, and Patricia failed to live there at all. To James Blaine Hawkins it seemed but common justice that the man who lived on a ranch so isolated, and braved the hardships of the wilderness, should acquire unqualified title to the land. He did not discuss this point, however, with Patricia.
Patricia’s two hundred dollars had been easily obtained as an advance for supplies, which, under the terms of the contract, Patricia was to furnish. So James Blaine Hawkins was almost enthusiastic over the proposition and couldn’t see why three or four years at the most shouldn’t put him on Easy Street, which is rainbow’s end for all men of his type.
He made the trip without mishap to Las Vegas, and was fortunate enough to find there a man who could—and did—give him explicit directions for reaching Johnnywater. And along about four o’clock on the afternoon of the fourth day, Patricia’s new partner let down a new wire gate in the mended fence across the cañon just above the water hole, and gazed about him with an air of possession before he got into the car and drove on to the cabin. He did not know, of course, that the gate was very new indeed, or that the fence had been mended less than a week before. He was therefore considerably astonished when a young man with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and the wind blowing through his hair came walking out of the grove to meet him.
James Blaine Hawkins frowned. He felt so much the master of Johnnywater that he resented the sight of a trespasser who looked so much at home as did Gary Marshall. He grunted a gruff hello in response to Gary’s greeting, drove on into the dooryard and killed his engine.
Gary turned back and came close to the car. He was rather quick at reading a man’s mood from little, indefinable signs which would have been overlooked by another man. Something in the general attitude of James Blaine Hawkins spelled insolence which Gary instinctively challenged.
“Are you lost?” Gary asked rather noncommittally. “You’re pretty well off the beaten track, you know. This trail ends right here.”
“Well, that suits me. Right here is where I headed for. Might I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Why, I suppose you might.” Now that Gary had taken a good look at James Blaine Hawkins, he did not like him at all.
James Blaine Hawkins waited a reasonable time for Gary to say what he was doing in Johnnywater Cañon. But Gary did not say. He was rolling a cigarette with maddening precision and a nonchalant manner that was in itself an affront; or so James Blaine Hawkins chose to consider it.
“Well, damn it, what are you doing here?” he blurted arrogantly. James Blaine Hawkins was of the physical type which is frequently called beefy. His red face darkened and seemed to swell.
“I? Why, I’m stopping here,” drawled Gary. “What are you doing here?”
James Blaine Hawkins leaned against the side of the car, folded his arms and spat into the dust. Then he laughed.
“I’m here to stay!” he announced somewhat pompously. “I don’t reckon it’s any of your business, but I’ve got a half interest in this place—better ’n a half interest. I got what you might call a straight two thirds interest in everything. Two thirds and found.” He laughed again. “So, I guess mebby I got a right to know why you’re stopping here.”
Not for nothing was Gary Marshall an actor. When he learned to portray emotion before the camera, he also learned to conceal emotion. Not even Patricia in her most suspicious mood could have discovered how astonished, how utterly taken aback Gary was at that moment.
He lighted his cigarette, blew out the match and flipped it from him. He took three long, luxurious inhalations and studied James Blaine Hawkins more carefully from under the deep-fringed eyelashes that had helped to earn him a living. Patricia, he perceived, had been attacked by another “wonderful” idea. Though it seemed rather incredible that even the impulsive Patricia should have failed to read aright a man so true to type as was James Blaine Hawkins.
“Well, I’ve saved you a few tons of alfalfa hay,” Gary observed carelessly. “Fellow I was with left me here while he went on to another camp. I found Waddell gone, and my friend hasn’t come after me yet. So I’m stuck here for the present, you see. And Waddy’s hay needed cutting, so I cut it for him. Had to kill time somehow till he gets back.” Gary blew a leisurely mouthful of smoke. “Isn’t Waddell coming back?” he asked with exactly the right degree of concern in voice and manner.
James Blaine Hawkins studied that question for a minute. But he could see nothing to doubt or criticize in the elucidation, so he decided to accept it at face value. He failed to see that Gary’s explanation had been merely suggested.
“Waddell, as you call him, has sold out to a girl in Los Angeles,” James Blaine Hawkins explained in a more friendly tone. “I got an agreement here to run the place on shares. I don’t know nothing about Waddell. He’s out of it.”
Gary’s eyebrows lifted slightly in what the camera would record as his terribly worried expression.
“He isn’t—in the—er—asylum, is he? Was I too late to save poor Waddy?”
James Blaine Hawkins looked blank.
“Save him from what? What yuh talkin’ about, anyway?”
Gary opened his lips to answer, then closed them and shook his head. When he really did speak it was quite plain to James Blaine Hawkins that he had reconsidered, and was not saying as much as he had at first intended to say.
“If you’re here to stay, I hope you’ll be all right and don’t have the same thing happen to you that happened to Waddy,” he said cautiously. “I think, myself, that Waddell had too keen an imagination. He was a nervous cuss, anyway; I really don’t think you’ll be bothered.”
“Bothered with what?” James Blaine Hawkins demanded impatiently. “I can’t see what you’re driving at.”
Gary gave him a little, secretive smile and the slight head-shake that always went with it on the screen.
“Well, I sure hope you never do—see.” And with that he deliberately changed the subject and refused artfully to be led back toward it.
He went in and started the fire going, saying that he knew a man couldn’t drive out from Las Vegas without being mighty hungry when he arrived. He made fresh coffee, warmed over his pot of Mexican beans cooked with chili peppers, and opened a can of blackberry jam for the occasion. He apologized for his biscuits, which needed no apology whatever. He went down to the creek and brought up the butter, bewailing the fact that there was so little of it. But then, as he took pains to explain again, he had not expected to stay so long when he arrived.
James Blaine Hawkins warmed perceptibly under the good-natured service he was getting. It was pleasant to have some one cook his supper for him after that long drive across the desert and it was satisfying to his vanity to be able to talk largely of his plans for running Johnnywater ranch at a profit. By the time he had mopped up his third helping of jam with his fourth hot biscuit, James Blaine Hawkins felt at peace with the world and with Gary Marshall, who was a fine young man and a good cook.
“Didn’t make such a bad deal with that girl,” he boasted, leaning back against the dish cupboard and heaving a sigh of repletion. “Kinda had a white elephant on her hands, I guess. Had this place here and nobody to look after it. Yes, sir, time I’d talked with her awhile, she was ready to agree to every damned thing I said. Got my own terms, ab-so-lute-ly. Five years’ contract, and two thirds the increase of stock—cattle and horses—two thirds of all the crops—and found!”
“Get out!” exclaimed Gary, and grinned when he said it. “I suppose there are such snaps in the world, but I never saw one. She agreed to that? On paper?”
“On paper!” James Blaine Hawkins affirmed solemnly. He reached into his coat pocket (exactly as Gary had meant that he should). “Read it yourself,” he invited triumphantly. “Guess that spells Easy Street in less than five years. Don’t it?”
“It’s a bird,” Gary assured him heartily. Then his face clouded. He sat with his head slightly bowed, drumming with his fingers on the table, in frowning meditation.
“What’s wrong?” James Blaine Hawkins looked at him anxiously. “Anything wrong with that contract?”
Gary started and with a noticeable effort pulled himself out of his mood. He laughed constrainedly.
“The contract? Why, the contract’s all right—fine. I was just wondering——” He shook his shoulders impatiently. “But you’ll be all right, I guess. A man of your type——” He forced another laugh. “Of course it’s all right!”
“You got something on your mind,” James Blaine Hawkins challenged uneasily. “What is it? You needn’t be afraid to tell me.”
But Gary forced a laugh and declared that he had nothing at all on his mind. And by his very manner and tone James Blaine Hawkins knew that he was lying.
The mottled cat hopped upon the doorstep, hesitated when she saw James Blaine Hawkins sitting there, then walked in demurely.
“Funny-looking cat,” James Blaine Hawkins commented carelessly.
Gary looked up at him surprisedly; saw the direction of his glance, and turned and looked that way with a blank expression of astonishment.
“Cat? What cat?”
“That cat! Hell, can’t you see that cat?” James Blaine Hawkins leaned forward excitedly.
Gary’s glance wandered over the cabin floor. Toward Faith, over Faith and beyond Faith. He might have been a blind man for all the expression there was in his eyes. He turned and eyed James Blaine Hawkins curiously.
“You mean to say you—you see a cat?” he asked solicitously.
“Ain’t there a cat?” James Blaine Hawkins half rose from his seat and pointed a shaking finger. “Mean to tell me that ain’t a cat walkin’ over there to the bunk?”
Gary looked toward the bunk, but it was perfectly apparent that he saw nothing.
“Waddell used to see—a cat,” he murmured regretfully. “There used to be a cat that belonged to a man named Steve Carson, that built this cabin and used to live here. Steve disappeared very mysteriously awhile back. Five years or so ago. Ever since then——” He broke off suddenly. “Really, Mr. Hawkins, maybe I hadn’t better be telling you this. I didn’t think a man of your type would be bothered——”
“What about it?” A sallow streak had appeared around the mouth and nostrils of James Blaine Hawkins. “Yuh needn’t be afraid to go on and tell me. If that ain’t a cat——”
“There was a cat, a few years back,” Gary corrected himself gently. “There was the cat’s master, too. Now—they say there’s a Voice—away up on the bluff, that calls and calls. Waddell—poor old duffer! He used to see Steve Carson—and the cat. It was, as you say, a funny-looking cat. White, I believe, with black spots and yellowish-brown spots. And half of its face was said to be white, with a blue eye in that side.”
Gary leaned forward, his arms folded on the table. His voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“Is that the kind of a cat you see?” he asked.
James Blaine Hawkins got up from the bench as if some extraneous force were pulling him up. His jaw sagged. His eyes had in them a glassy look which Gary recognized at once as stark terror. A cold feeling went crimpling up Gary’s spine to his scalp.
James Blaine Hawkins was staring, not at the cat lying curled up on the bunk, but at something midway between the bunk and the door.
Gary could see nothing. But he had a queer feeling that he knew what it was that James Blaine Hawkins saw. The eyes of the man followed something to the bunk. Gary saw the cat lift its head and look, heard it mew lazily, saw it rise, stretch itself and hop lightly down. He saw that terrified stare of James Blaine Hawkins follow something to the open doorway. The cat trotted out into the dusky warmth of the starlit night. It looked to Gary as if the cat were following some one—or some thing.
James Blaine Hawkins relaxed, drew a deep breath and looked at Gary.
“Did you see it?” he whispered, and licked his lips.
Gary shivered a little and shook his head. The three deep creases stood between his eyebrows, and his lips were pressed together so that the deep lines showed more distinctly beside his mouth.
“Didn’t yuh—honest?” James Blaine Hawkins whispered again.
Again Gary shook his head. He got up and began clearing the table, his hands not quite steady. He lifted the dented teakettle, saw that it needed water and picked up the bucket. He hesitated for an instant on the doorstep before he started to the creek. He heard a scrape of feet behind him on the rough floor and looked back. James Blaine Hawkins was following him like a frightened child.
They returned to the cabin, and Gary washed the dishes and swept the floor. James Blaine Hawkins sat with his back against the wall and smoked one cigarette after another, his eyes roving here and there. They did not talk at all until Gary had finished his work and seated himself on the bunk to roll a cigarette.
“What’s the matter with this damn place, anyway?” James Blaine Hawkins demanded abruptly in that tone of resentment with which a man tacitly acknowledges himself completely baffled.
Gary shrugged his shoulders expressively and lifted his eyebrows.
“What would you say was the matter with it?” he countered. “I know that one man disappeared here very mysteriously. An Indian, so they tell me, heard a Voice calling, up on the bluff. He died soon afterwards. And I know Waddell was in a fair way to go crazy from staying here alone. But as to what ails the place—one man’s guess is as good as another man’s.” He lighted his cigarette. “I’ve quit guessing,” he added grimly.
“You think the cabin’s haunted?” James Blaine Hawkins asked him reluctantly.
Again Gary shrugged. “If the cabin’s haunted, the whole darn cañon is in the same fix,” he stated evenly. “You can’t drag an Indian in here with a rope.”
“It’s all damn nonsense!” James Blaine Hawkins asserted blusteringly.
Gary made no reply, but smoked imperturbably, staring abstractedly at the floor.
“Wherever there’s a spook there’s a man at the back of it,” declared James Blaine Hawkins, gathering courage from the continued calm. “That was a man I seen standin’ by the bunk. Felt slippers, likely as not—so he wouldn’t make no noise walkin’. He likely come in when I wasn’t looking. And yuh needn’t try to tell me,” he added defiantly, “that wasn’t no cat!”
Gary turned his head slowly and looked at James Blaine Hawkins.
“If there was a cat,” he argued, “why the heck didn’t I see it? There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”
“I dunno why you never seen it,” James Blaine Hawkins retorted pettishly. “I seen it, plain as I see you this minute. Funny you never seen it. I s’pose you’ll say next yuh never seen that man standin’ there by the bunk! He went outside, and the cat follered him.”
Gary looked up quickly. “I didn’t see any man,” he said gravely. “There wasn’t any man. I think you just imagined it. Waddell used to imagine the same thing. And he used to see a cat. He particularly hated the cat.” James Blaine Hawkins gave a gasp. Gary looked at him sharply and saw that he was once more staring at the empty air near the door. The cat had come in again and was gazing questioningly about her as if trying to decide where she would curl herself down for a nap. The eyes of James Blaine Hawkins pulled themselves away from the terrifying vision near the door, and turned toward Faith. He gave a sudden yell and rushed out of the cabin.
Faith ran and jumped upon the bunk, her tail the size of a bologna sausage. Gary got up and followed James Blaine Hawkins as far as the door.
“Look out you don’t hear the Voice, Mr. Hawkins,” he said commiseratingly. “If I let my imagination get a fair running start, I couldn’t stay in this cañon over night. I’d be a plain nut inside twenty-four hours.”
James Blaine Hawkins was busy cranking his car. If he heard Gary speak he paid no attention. He got a sputter from the engine, rushed to the wheel and coaxed it with spark and gas-lever, straddled in over the side and went careening away down the trail to the open desert beyond.
Faith came inquisitively to the door, and Gary picked her up in his hands and held her, purring, against his face while he stroked her mottled back.
“I think you’ve saved little Pat Connolly a darned lot of trouble,” he murmured into the cat’s ear. “Thrashing that bird wouldn’t have had half the effect.”