The Lookout Man

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TROUBLE ROCKS THE PAN, LOOKING FOR GRAINS OF GOLD

  Up on the peaks Jack was touching the heights and the depths of hisown nature, while the mountains stood back and waited, it seemed tohim, for the final answer. He had lived with them too long and toointimately to disregard them now, uninfluenced by their varying moods.He watched them in sunlight when they were all shining white andviolet and soft purple, with great shadows spread over their slopeswhere the forests stood deepest; and they heartened him, gave him awordless promise that better times were to come. He saw them swathedwith clouds, and felt the chill of their cold aloofness; the world wasa gloomy place then, and friendship was all false and love a mockery.He saw them at night--then was he an outcast from everything that madelife worth while; then was he almost ready to give up.

  When he had waited until the sun was low, and Marion did not come orsend him a signal from the little knoll behind the cabin, he toldhimself that he was just a whim of hers; that he merely furnished herwith a little amusement, gave her a pleasant imitation of adventure;that if something more exciting came into her dull life there in theBasin, she would never bother with him again. He told himselfcynically that she would merely be proving her good sense if shestopped meeting him or sending those brief little messages; but Lord,how they did put heart into a fellow!--those little dots ofbrightness, with now and then a wider, longer splash of radiance,which she told him meant "forevermore"; or, if it were very long andcurved, as when she waved the glass over her head, it meant a laugh,and "here's hoping."

  But when she did not come, or even run up the hill and send him theone-two-three signal which meant she could not meet him that day, hefaced the long night feeling that the world held not one friend uponwhom he could depend. The next day he went out, but he was soabsolutely hopeless that he persuaded himself she would not come andthat he did not want her to come. He did not want to meet any humanbeing that he could think of--except his mother, and his punishmentwas that he should never see her again. He had to walk for exercise,and he might get a shot at a grouse. He was not going to meet Marionat all. Let her stay at home, if she wanted to--he could stand it ifshe could.

  He tramped down the mountain toward the Basin. It was a dreary journeyat best, and today his perverse mood would not let him brighten itwith the hope of seeing Marion. She had fooled him the day before,after she had promised to come, and he had carried that chunk of bearmeat all the way down from the cave, so now he was going to fool her.If she came he would just let her stand around in the cold, and seehow funny it was to wait for some one who did not show up.

  Near their last meeting place, on the brink of the deep gulley thatdivided the Crystal Lake road from the first slope of Grizzly Peak, hestopped, half tempted to turn back. She was keen-eyed, and he did notwant her to see him first. She should not have the chance, hereflected, to think he was crazy about meeting her every day. If shewanted to make it once a week, she wouldn't find him whining about it.He moved warily on down to the place, his eyes searching every openspot for a glimpse of her.

  He got his glimpse just as she and Hank were climbing the side of thegulley to the road. It was a glimpse that shocked him out of hisyouthful self-pity and stood him face to face with a very real hurt.They were climbing in plain sight, and so close to him that he couldhear Hank's drawling voice telling Marion that she was a cute one, allright; he'd have to hand it to her for being a whole lot cuter thanhe had sized her up to be. Uncouth praise it was, bald, insincere,boorish. Jack heard Marion laugh, just as though she enjoyed Hank'sconversation and company--and all his anger at yesterday's apparentslight seemed childish beside this hot, man's rage that filled him.

  Any man walking beside Marion would have made him wild with jealousy;but Hank Brown! Hank Brown, holding her by the arm, walking with hermore familiarly than Jack had ever ventured to do, for all their closefriendship! Calling her cute--why cute, in particular? Did Hank, byany chance, refer to Marion's little strategies in getting things forJack? The bare possibility sickened him.

  He stood and watched until they reached the trail and passed out ofsight among the trees, their voices growing fainter as the distanceand the wind blurred the sounds. Had they looked back while they wereclimbing out of the gulley, they must have seen him, for he stood outin the open, making no attempt at concealment, not even thinking ofthe risk. When they had gone, he stood staring at the place and thenturned and tramped apathetically back to his cave.

  What was Marion doing with Hank Brown, the one man in all this countrywho held a definite grudge against Jack? What had she done, that Hankshould consider her so cute? Was the girl playing double? Loyalty wasa part of Jack's nature--a fault, he had come to call it nowadays,since he firmly believed it was loyalty toward his father that hadcost him his mother's love; since it was loyalty to his friends, too,that had sent him out of Los Angeles in the gray of the morning; sinceit was loyalty to Marion that had held him here hiding miserably likean animal. Loyalty to Marion made it hard now to believe his own eyeswhen they testified against her.

  There must be some way of explaining it, he kept telling himselfhopelessly. Marion--why, the girl simply couldn't pretend all thetime. She would forget herself some time, no matter how clever she wasat deception. She couldn't keep up a make-believe interest in hiswelfare, the way she had done; if she could do that--well, like HankBrown, he would have to hand it to her for being a lot cleverer thanhe had given her credit for being. "If she's been faking the wholething, she ought to go on the stage," he muttered tritely. "She'd makeSarah Bernhardt look like a small-time extra. Yes, sir, all of that.And I don't quite get it that way." Then he swore. "Hank Brown! Thathick--after having her choice of town boys, her taking up with thatKeystone yap! No, sir, that don't get by with me." But when he hadgone a little farther he stopped and looked blackly down toward theBasin. A swift, hateful vision of the two figures walking closetogether up that slope struck him like a slap in the face.

  "All but had his arm around her," he growled. "And she let him get bywith it! And laughed at his hick talk. Huh! Hank Brown! I admire hertaste, I must say!"

  Up near the peak the wind howled through the pines, bringing with itthe bite of cold. His shoulders drawn together with the chill thatstruck through even his heavy sweater and coat, he went on, followingthe tracks he had made coming down. They were almost obliterated withthe snow, that went slithering over the drifts like a creeping cloud,except when a heavier gust lifted it high in air and flung it out in ablinding swirl. Battling with that wind sent the warmth through hisbody again, but his hands and feet were numb when he skirted thehighest, deepest, solidest drift of them all and crept into thedesolate fissure that was the opening to his lair.

  Inside it was more dismal than out on the peak, if that could be. Thewind whistled through the openings in the roof, the snow swirled downand lay uneasily where it fell. His camp-fire was cheerless, siftedover with white. His bed under the ledge looked cold and comfortless,with the raw, frozen hide of the bear on top, a dingy blank fringe offur showing at the edges.

  Jack stood just inside, his shoulders again hunched forward, hischilled fingers doubled together in his pockets, and looked aroundhim. He always did that when he came back, and he always felt nearlythe same heartsick shrinking away from its cold dreariness. The sunnever shone in there, for one thing. The nearest it ever came was togild the north rim of the opening during the middle of the day.

  Today its chill desolation struck deeper than ever, but he wentstolidly forward and started a little fire with a splinter or two ofpitch that he had carried up from a log down below. Hank had taughthim the value of pitch pine, and Jack remembered it now with a wrytwist of the lips. He supposed he ought to be grateful to Hank forthat much, but he was not.

  He melted snow in a smoky tin bucket and made a little coffee inanother bucket quite as black. All his food was frozen, of course, buthe stirred up a little batter with self-rising buckwheat flour andwhat was left of the snow water, wh
ittled off a few slices of bacon,fried that and afterwards cooked the batter in the grease, watchinglest the thick cake burn before it had cooked in the center. He laidthe slices of bacon upon half of the cake, folded the other half overupon them, squatted on his heels beside the fire and ate the ungainlysandwich and drank the hot black coffee sweetened and with a few ofthe coarser grains floating on top. While he ate he stared unseeinglyinto the fire, that sputtered and hissed when an extra sifting of snowcame down upon it. The cave was dusky by now, so that the leapingflames made strange shadows on the uneven rock walls. The whistle ofthe wind had risen to a shriek.

  Jack roused himself when the fire began to die; he stood up and lookedaround him, and down at his ungainly clothes and heavy, high-cut shoeslaced over thick gray socks whose tops were turned down in a roll overhis baggy, dirt-stained trousers. He laughed without any sound ofmirth, thinking that this was the Jack Corey who had quarreled overthe exact shade of tie that properly belonged to a certain shade ofshirt; whose personal taste in sport clothes had been aped andimitated by half the fellows he knew. What would they think if theycould look upon him now? He wondered if Stit Duffy would wag his headand say "So-me cave, bo, so-me cave!"

  Then his mind snapped back to Hank Brown with his hand claspingMarion's arm in that leisurely climb to the trail. His black moodreturned, pressing the dead weight of hopelessness upon him. He mightas well settle the whole thing with a bullet, he told himself again.After all, what would it matter? Who would care? Last night he hadthought instantly of Marion and his mother, and he had felt that twowomen would grieve for him. Tonight he thought of Marion and cast thethought away with a curse and a sneer. As for his mother--would hismother care so very much? Had he given her any reason for caring,beyond the natural maternal instinct which is in all motherhood? Hedid not know. If he could be sure that his mother would grieve forhim--but he did not know. Perhaps she had grieved over him in the pastuntil she had worn out all emotions where he was concerned. Hewondered, and he wished that he knew.