The Cabin
For three days, beginning with the fourth of July, there was to be a
big celebration and rodeo at Telko. Trying to keep cowpunchers on the
ranch, when there was a celebration of any sort going on within a
distance of a couple of hundred miles, would be about as sensible as
trying to keep gunpowder in a hot oven. So all the outfit that was on
the ranch—never very many in July—were tinkering with their flivvers,
and currying their mounts, and building up their boot-heels, and
washing and ironing, and making elaborate preparations to attend.
Sam suggested at noon on the second of July, while we were at dinner,
that maybe all of us would like to go; all, that is, except Martha and
himself. Celebrations were never good for Martha.
I spoke right up and said to count me out. I know the deserts in July.
But the boys were enthusiastic about it, and Danny was interested.
Gaby, coming in late, greeted the idea with the same enthusiasm with
which a woman greets moths in the clothes closet.
“Whence the crave for a fourth of July celebration?” she asked.
“We have never seen a rodeo,” Danny answered.
“Go, by all means,” Gaby said. “Buy pink lemonade. March in the
parade. Ride in the Liberty car. Mrs. Magin would be stunning as the
goddess of Liberty, with——”
“Don’t let my stunningness stop anything,” I said. “I am not going.”
“We’ll think it over,” Danny said. “It would be a long, hot ride.
Probably we should all have a pleasanter time, right here at home.”
But there was something in the way she had said it, too quickly in
answer to a look from Gaby, that made me think there was more to her
backing out of the plan than had appeared on the surface.
Gaby had just begun her dinner. The rest of us had finished; so,
according to our custom, we excused ourselves and went our ways. Chad
tried to stay with Gaby, but Martha fussed and insisted that he come
with her.
I had a sure feeling that Danny would return, and that she and Gaby
would have something to say to each other. I went into the kitchen and
told Belle to clean the stove. Nothing made Belle so angry as to have
to clean the stove. The angrier she got, the more she clattered. When
I stepped back into the pass-pantry, and opened the pass-window a
crack, the kitchen sounded as if half a dozen women were busy in it.
Just as I opened the window I heard John say, “I thought Danny was in
here.”
“No,” Gaby said. “But won’t you come in and talk to me?”
“What about?”
“About—this.”
I dared not peek, so I did not know what she meant until she said,
“Why won’t you kiss me?”
“Shall I say, I don’t want to pick flowers in Hubert Hand’s yard?”
“I hate you!”
“Don’t be sore at me, Gaby,” John said. “But I’m telling you, that’s a
lot nearer the truth than—than what you usually say.”
John was one of the poorest talkers ever heard. One of those strong,
silent men supposed to abound in the west, and who are likewise
supposed to make every word that they say count. If John’s did, they
counted backwards.
“My dear, haven’t I proven over and over again that I love you?”
“I don’t know how.”
“In every way. I have made myself ridiculous, here, because I haven’t
been able to conceal my feelings for you.”
“I think,” John said, “that most of that stuff you pull is just to
spite Danny. It doesn’t spite her, though. She knows she’s the only
girl in the world for me. I wish you’d cut it out—all of that, Gaby.
Won’t you, and just be good friends?”
“You’d not want me for an enemy, would you?”
“Getting at anything, going any place, Gaby?”
“Perhaps. If Danny should hear that you have made love to me——”
“I have never made love to you. It would be your word against mine. I
think Danny would take mine, if it came to a show-down.”
“You’d lie about it?”
“Gosh, no, Gaby. A lot worse than that. I’d tell the truth about it.
Listen here, child; don’t you try to make trouble between Danny and
me.”
“Meaning?”
“Nothing. Except that it wouldn’t be healthy for anyone who tried it.”
“Boo-oo! Dangerous Dan McGrew stuff? Out where men are men? Killer
loose to-night—all that, eh, Johnnie?”
“Nothing like that,” he said, and his voice was so gentle that if Gaby
had been a puncher she would have reached for her six-gun. “But
killing would be too good for the imaginary person we are talking
about.”
A door opened. “John,” came in Danny’s voice, “uncle is looking
everywhere for you.”
“What,” Danny questioned, when the door had closed behind John, “made
you both look so angry, just now?”
“Nothing important. John had just threatened to kill me, but——”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Never mind. Are you going to that fools’ celebration, with only a day
or two left, now?”
“I suppose not, if you don’t want me to. I’d love going. I know there
is no use in staying here.”
“In other words, you would sacrifice my future for a rodeo?”
“That is silly.”
“Everything is always silly, with you. I more than half believe that
you know——”
“That’s sil—— I mean, what possible object could I have?”
“Many, my dear. Very many. Though I think that getting rid of me would
outweigh the others.”
“Gaby, I don’t want to get rid of you. I wish you would not be so
silly, with John. But you know how eager I was to get you away from
the continent. I wish I knew that you were going to stay right here
for always.”
“Is that your game? Listen to me, Danielle Canneziano, if I thought
that you were keeping this from me, in order to bury me alive in this
God-forsaken hole, and force me to watch you and John——”
“Gaby!”
“I’ve been a fool! Why can’t I learn to take into consideration your
damn moralities? Understand this, Dan. Don’t fancy for one instant
that failure is going to keep me here. Did you think, with a weapon
like that in my hands, that I’d stand for anything less than a
fifty-fifty proposition? Our original plan would have been
better—easier, simpler. But I’ll have my share out of this, anyway.
So, if you do know——”
“Gaby, I don’t know. I’ll swear that I don’t. How could I? But surely
you wouldn’t—wouldn’t attempt——”
“That is for you to say, darling.”
Darling, as she said it then, was as wicked a word as I had ever
listened to.
“For me to say?”
“Give John to me. I’ve changed my mind. If you’ll do that, I’ll stay
right here, and settle down, and do an imitation of a moral, model
wife that would satisfy even you.”
“Gaby, you speak as if John were a child’s toy, to be passed about. I
couldn’t give him to you, if I were willing to.”
“You could, and you know it. You won’t. So, that’s that. But keep your
righteous fingers out of my life; stop your damn preaching, and
meddling. I am going to the cabin now. You would better come with me.”
“We’ve searched that cabin a thousand times.”
“All the same, it is the one logical place; far removed, and under
cover. Too, I must see whether that Indian nailed those floor boards
down again, before I pay him.”
The cabin is the one Sam built to live in when he first came to the
valley. It is up Boulder Creek, about half a mile from the
ranch-house, and, built in a big grove of aspen trees, it is one of
the prettiest spots on the place. Sam has kept it in repair, inside
and out; owing, I think, to sentimental memories, though he declares
it is because he dislikes wreckage on the place. The best fishing on
the creek begins just above there; so the men, as a rule, leave their
fishing paraphernalia in the cabin’s kitchen. That is the only use the
place has been put to, since John and Martha were little things, and
Sam used to hide their Christmas presents up there, under the shelf in
the kitchen.
The shelf, about three feet wide, is built across one end of the
kitchen. It served Sam for a table, pantry, and sink. Being a man, he
built it right handily, like a chest, so that the entire top of it had
to be raised to get to the storage place underneath. There was no
secret about it. All anyone had to do, was to move everything off the
top of it, and lift the lid. But I had read how the hardest problems
for detectives always turned out to be something that had been too
simple to notice; so my plan was to go up there and raise the lid.
On my way, I met the girls coming home. I imagined that they looked at
me with suspicion. I passed a remark about the sweet-smelling clover
hay, and hurried right along.
Half an hour later, when I was expecting instant death at any minute,
I thought about that sweet clover smell, and how unappreciative I have
been of it, and of the blue sky and fresh air, and of the green
things, lighted yellow with sunshine, and I took a vow that, if I ever
did get a chance to enjoy them again, I would spend the remainder of
my life in so doing, and in being grateful to the Creator of them. The
same as the last time I had a jumping toothache, I thought that, if
that tooth ever did stop aching, nothing could ever make me unhappy
again; I was going to be peacefully happy, always, for the reason that
I did not have a toothache. Human nature, I have since decided, is
never happy because of negatives. At least, I have never known anyone
who was happy, for long, because he did not have a toothache, or was
not in a hospital, or not hungry, or not—which brings me back to my
story—shut up in a chest with packages of explosives.
In the cabin, I went at once to the kitchen; and, removing
fish-baskets, fly-books, and reels from the shelf, lifted it back.
I am sure that I had expected to find it empty. Perhaps I had hoped to
find a small iron box containing a treasure, or a jewel-casket, or
maybe an aged leather case, containing the missing will, or the plans
of some secret fortification—any of the simple, ordinary things
generally hunted for and discovered. What I had not expected to find,
and what I certainly had never hoped to find, was what was there: any
number of neatly wrapped packages, addressed to Mr. Sam Stanley, sent
by express, and labeled, variously, “Danger.” “Explosives.” “Handle
with Care.”