Rainbow Cottage (10 page)

“Heaven!” said the man with an oath. “A lot you’ll see of heaven! Now, you tell me where that girl went or I’ll lame you!”

Ma Higgins looked up with her tired eyes into the bright, cold eye of a little revolver, but she didn’t waver a hair.

“Lame ahead!” she said drearily. “I couldn’t be no worse off ’n I am. Ef I’m lame I couldn’t do yer cookin’ fer yea, could I? Well, shoot ahead. There’s no loss ’thout some gain. I’d about as soon die one way as another!”

The man lowered his gun and swore at her, went to the shelf over the sink and gathered up two candle ends, then turned and slammed out the kitchen door, walking away into the darkness of the night. He was on his way to the little shanty, a couple of miles through the woods, where Moira and her daughter, Sheila, had eked out a scant existence for the past three years alone.

And out over the dark prairie, a long train wound like a bright-scaled snake along through the night, carrying a tired frightened girl who was afraid to show her face lest he should appear to menace her.

Buck was never one to regard other people’s property. When he reached the shanty and found it all dark, he listened a minute, gave a thunderous knock, and then when no one responded, took hold of the doorknob with a mighty wrench, kicked the heavy door, and the latch gave way.

He stumbled into the dark room, his hand on his gun, ready for any possibility, listened an instant, then struck a light and looked around. He lit a candle from his pocket and looked around more carefully. There were only three rooms to the shanty, and it did not take long to go through them all. They were bare and clean. A bedroom, a kitchen, and a little living room.

The shelves in the kitchen were bare and clean as a whistle. Not even a broken saucer to tell of the former inhabitants. Sheila had cleaned the whole house before leaving it.

He poked around in the corners of the shelves, ran his hand back into any cracks, even the ledges over the rough doors; he felt in every one.

The bedroom had sheets of wrapping paper neatly tacked over the rough uprights, sealing it clean and tight. He poked his finger through a place and tore off the paper in great jagged pieces, peering behind each piece. He did his work thoroughly.

But it was in the living room that he did his best searching. On one wall there were shelves across the whole end from floor to ceiling, and by the marks on the old boards, he could see there had been rows of books there. Books! Where did they get all those books and what did they want of them? Books! Where were they? The paper might be in any one of them.

Carefully Buck climbed up and searched the top shelves. It was possible the woman and the girl did not know the value of that paper. Perhaps they did not even know of its existence. Andrew Ainslee would be out in a few months. If he could only find that paper beforehand, he would have Andrew right where he wanted him. He could put him back again to stay, where no word from him could ever reach the outer world to upset the lowest schemes he might devise—if he only had that paper.

So Buck searched every cranny, far back. But nothing came to light. Then he turned his attention to the rough ledges over the windows and doors.

Once when Andy was first put in, when he was tossing in fever and Buck had gone to see him, he had cried out in his delirium to some imaginary presence, perhaps his wife or daughter. “It’s in that old pencil, over the door! Don’t let him get it!” Buck’s eyes had narrowed, and he had remembered.

Now he drew himself up by his hands, chinning himself in the doorway, feeling along the ledge above the door. A great spider crawled out of its creepy nest and grimaced at him, its eyes like black, wicked stars in the candle flame, and the man yelled nervously and dropped back to the floor. There were creepy strands around his fingers that made him shudder, and he could see the spider’s eyes shine even when he shut his own.

He stood a moment in the flickering light of the empty room and shuddered. Then he strode outside and brought in a box he had seen standing by the door. Mounting it with the candle in his hand, he glared at the ledge above the door. The spider hastened away to some far inner recess in the wood, leaving its mysterious shuddery house behind it, but close by the thick gray web there lay an old tin pencil holder such as a child carried to school.

With a gleam of triumph in his eyes, Buck seized upon it and jumped down. The pencil case after all. Why had he not thought to search for that before?

He set the candle on one of the shelves and tried to open the case, but it seemed to be rusted shut. The cap would not turn.

Impatiently, Buck twisted it and broke it in two. It was not hard to do. Yes, there was a paper inside. A bit of yellowed paper, and there were tracings on it—figures and lines and a scribbled name signed. Buck studied it for a long time. A date—there was a date—and at the top, just the lower half of printed letters. He could not make them out. But it was not the paper he had come to find.

At last impatiently, he stuffed the old tin tube with its crumpled paper back in his pocket again. It might be of some value sometime, though he could not see how. But put up this way it must have some significance. Perhaps there was another tube.

He mounted the box again and held the candle high, but there was no other. He took a long, sharp, cruel-looking knife from his pocket and unfolded it, poking back behind the wood to see if anything had fallen down between the timbers. The spider hurried out of his hiding place and darted away into the shadows, spinning a line swinging to the floor and disappearing into the dimness, but nothing else was revealed behind the old door frame.

Suddenly there came a sound outside the door, and Buck sprang down from his box, his candle in one hand, the other going to his pocket.

“Who’s there?” he called and flung the door back to face a gun aimed straight at him. The gun wavered, however, as the candlelight was flung between the men.

“Oh, it’s you!” said the intruder. “I seen a light over here, and as I knowed the place was locked, I thought I better investigate.”

Before the speech was finished the man was facing Buck’s gun.

“Put down that gun, Spud; I got a better one than yours, an’ I can shoot quicker—you know that.”

“Oh sure,” said the mild defender, “but being as I seen a light, you know. What you doin’ here? Lookin’ fer gold?” And he gave an uneasy cackle of a laugh.

“Always lookin’ for gold,” said Buck with a hard grin. “I come over tonight to get a paper fer the little girl that lived here. Somepin’ she forgot when she moved. Who cleaned up here, Spud? You?”

“No. I never. I reckon she must have did it herself.”

“What’s come of all her books?” Buck waved toward the bookcase. “Those shelves useta be full.”

“Yes, they did, in her ma’s time. The school ma’am over ta Coburn left ’em to her when she died. Leastways, she left ’em to the gal.”

“Well, where are they?” asked Buck, menace in his voice.

“Why, she sold ’em. A few here, an’ a few there. My wife bought some. We got ’em on a shelf in our shack.”

“Well, I wanta look in ’em,” said Buck with determination. “There’s a paper lost that might mean a lot ta the girl, and I promised her I’d find it for her. She thinks mebbe it got left in some book. Come on, let’s go to your house and look ’em over.”

“I don’t think there’s no papers in the books we bought,” protested the man with fright in his eyes. “My wife looked ’em over careful fer that very thing. She thought there might be a letter ur sumpin’. But there wasn’t a blame thing.”

“Come on, let’s go!” commanded Buck, and leaving the candle wavering where it was, he went out with the little man.

For three more hours, Buck tramped on from house to house, searching out every place where Sheila had sold her precious books and bits of furniture to gather together money enough to get away somewhere. And he went through every book he found in the same thorough and disastrous manner—disastrous to the books and disturbing to their new owners.

Always everywhere he asked if they had seen Sheila that evening and was told by each that they had not seen her since they bought the books.

Late in the evening he stormed back to the Junction House.

Ma Higgins had washed her mountain of dishes alone, had shaken down her fire for the night, had combed out her straggling gold-gray locks, and betaken herself to her lumpy bed. Pa Higgins was over at the cabaret playing dominoes and drinking poor whiskey.

“That girl come in yet?” demanded Buck.

“I ain’t seen her,” said Ma. “I was too tired ta climb up those stairs. I s’pect it’s your fault. You ben up ta some deviltry and druv her away.”

“Where would she go? I gotta see her. It’s important.”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s important I gotta get some sleep ef I’ve gotta git breakfast fer the early passenger train. You go on up ta the cabaret an’ fergit the gal. Mebbe’s she took ta her ma’s job, an’ is singin’ up there. Anyhow, git out. I’m sleepin’.”

Ma Higgins shut her door with a slam and locked it, and Buck shouting uproariously, “Well, I’ll find her, if I have ta go ta hell ta do it,” whirled on his heel, and went up to the cabaret.

Slouched in a corner under the gallery, far back from the platform where Moira’s successor would be singing the latest croon, he sat before a pint of the best they served there and glowered, trying to figure out what had become of Sheila.

“Yes, I’ll find her ef I havta go clear back ta the hometown ta do it,” he murmured under his breath.

Presently he got up and walked stealthily out of the place, a wicked look in his small black eyes, a look of determination on his hard, cruel mouth.

A
t first when Sheila awoke that Sabbath morning she heard the rhythmic beating of the waves along the shore, and she could not tell where she was. It seemed to her the sound of the train was dimly in her ears.

Yet the sweet air that came in at her window, the soft twitter of some little birds in the eaves, were not reminders of her long train trip; and with a growing sense of peace and rest, it presently dawned on her consciousness where she had found haven.

When she at last opened her eyes, the world seemed made anew, and she lay there looking around on the quiet of the lovely, simple room, the blowing muslin curtain showing glimpses of that wonderful blue sea clothed in its morning mystery. A shimmer of light as if joy were dancing afar on the waves, a mist of sun and sparkle mixed at the horizon! A curtseying sail appearing and then dipping out of sight! It seemed to her like waking up in a kind of heaven.

Then her mind went back to the evening before and the stranger who had come to the door, grown so friendly, and sailed away in the sky. How wonderful it all was. Just like a dream.

It was all so quiet there by the sea, and all so quiet in the house, she hadn’t an idea what time it was. Perhaps they were keeping still to let her sleep. Or perhaps it was early and they were still asleep.

But she felt as if she had slept long enough—felt more rested than she had for years—and stealing from her bed, she slipped to the window and looked out far to the glorious blue sea, letting the breeze blow full in her face, drawing in deep, life-giving breaths of salt air, then catching a view downward of the garden in its morning dewy freshness, its maze of newly opened flowers.

Presently she tore herself away from the window and went about her dressing, tried the lovely new bathroom again, exulted in the refreshment of the shower.

She hesitated about the new garments, wondering whether to wear them again early in the day. But when she surveyed her old ones—even the clean things she had brought with her for changing—they were so very few and shabby, and her standards even in these few short hours had changed so radically, that she felt she could not put them on. They might make her grandmother ashamed. So, doubtfully, she arrayed herself in the butterfly dress again. It was Sunday, anyway, and people always dressed up on Sunday if they could, especially if they did not have any strenuous work to do like waiting on tables.

When she finally ventured downstairs, there was little Janet in a new pink gingham with a lace collar around her neck. Of course. It was right. She had been expected to dress up on Sunday.

Grandmother had not yet come down. Janet explained that she always slept late on mornings when she came down here. She thought it helped keep her young.

Sheila offered to help Janet get breakfast, but Janet only laughed at the idea and beamed on the young guest. This lovely girl in the blue butterfly dress was an entirely different proposition from the draggled little tramp-girl in the hot, rusty blue serge of yesterday. This was Grandmother’s own flesh and blood, and Janet was ready almost to bow down and worship.

“You run out and walk in the garden, or down on the beach and watch the little sandpipers catching crabs. It’s a real pretty sight if you ain’t seen it,” suggested Janet. “It’ll be a good half hour yet before M’s Ainslee’s down, and you might’s well enjoy it before the sun gets hot. I’ll ring the bell out the window for you when it’s time for breakfast. Run along and get an appetite. I’m having blueberry muffins for breakfast.”

So Sheila, clothed and rested, stepped through that rose-wreathed wicket gate into which she had first entered so weary and discouraged, out onto the broad expanse of white sand, and down toward the sea. The little white sandpipers were strutting in the edge of the waves, stopping now and then to yank up a sand crab from the water. Sheila followed along the edge of the water, watching them and crying out a little trill of laughter now and then at their funny antics.

She had walked some distance down the beach and was on her way back again when she heard a pleasant voice behind her speaking.

“They are strange little creatures, aren’t they?”

She turned and saw a young man standing just behind her, watching the small birds amusedly. He wore white flannels and looked so very like the young man who had called last evening and then sailed away through the sky that she thought at first it was he. Their voices were alike also, yet there was something lighter in his manner, a little look about his eyes that checked the smile with which she was about to greet him and gave her manner more constraint.