“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.”