The Lookout Man

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN WHICH A GIRL PLAYS BILLIARDS ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP

  Jack heard some one coming, snatched up a magazine and his pipe andpromptly retired to his pet crevice in the rocks. Usually he lockedthe door before he went, but the climber sounded close--just over thepeak of the last little knob, in fact. He pulled the door shut andran, muttering something about darned tourists. Drive a man crazy,they would, if he were fool enough to stay and listen to their fooltalk.

  He crawled well back into the niche, settled himself comfortably andlighted his pipe. They never came over his way--and the wind blew fromthe station. He did not believe they would smell the smoke.

  Darn it all, he had the wrong magazine! He half rose, meaning toscurry back and get the one he wanted; but it was too late now. Heheard the pebbles knocked loose where the faint trail dipped down overthe knob directly behind the station. So he settled back with his pipefor solace, and scowled down at the world, and waited for the darntourists to go.

  But this particular darn tourist had two reasons for lingering upthere. Her first and greatest reason was a sheer delight in thepanorama spread below and all around her, and the desire to saturateher soul with the beauty of it, her lungs with the keen elixir of thewind, heady with the eight thousand feet of altitude. Her secondreason was a perverse desire to show Kate that she was not to bebossed around like a kid, and dictated to and advised and lecturedwhenever she wanted to do something which Kate did not want to do.Why, for instance, should she miss the pleasure of climbing to thevery top of the peak just because Kate began to puff before they werehalf way up, and wanted to turn back?

  Of course, she would do anything in the world for Kate; but that wasno reason why Kate should be selfish about little things. If shedidn't want to wait until Marion came down, she could walk home alone.There was a good road, and Marion certainly would never think ofobjecting. She believed in absolute personal liberty in little things.Therefore she meant to stay up on the peak just exactly as long as shewanted to stay, regardless of what Kate wanted to do. She had nottried to force Kate to come up with her--if Kate would just stop tothink a minute. When Kate sat down on that rock and said she wouldn'tclimb another step, Marion had not urged her at all. She had waiteduntil she was sure that Kate would not change her mind, and then shehad come on up without any fuss or argument. And she would stay untilshe was ready to go down. It would be silly to spoil her pleasure nowby worrying. She would like to see a sunset from up here. She had hergun with her, and anyway, she could get home easily before dark. Shebelieved she would stay, just this once. Really, it would do Kate goodto discover that Marion liked to please herself once in a while.

  Which was all very well for Marion Rose, but rather hard on Jack, whowas not in a mood for company. He smoked hopefully for a half hour orso. Most tourists got enough of it in a half hour. They began to feelthe altitude then, or found the wind disagreeable, or they were in ahurry to climb down to the lake and fish, or they had to think aboutthe trip home. Besides, their vocabularies were generally exhausted inhalf an hour, and without superlatives they could not gaze upon the"view"; not with any satisfaction, that is. But this tourist could beheard moving here and there among the rocks, with long lapses ofsilence when she just stood and gazed. Jack listened and waited, andgrew more peevish as the lagging minutes passed. If he went out now,he would have to go through the whole performance.

  The telephone rang. And while Jack was sulkily getting to his feet, heheard a girl's voice answering the phone. The nerve of her! Whatbusiness had she inside, anyway? Must a fellow padlock that door everytime he went out, to keep folks from going where they had no businessto be? He went angrily to the station; much more angrily than wasreasonable, considering the offense committed against him.

  He saw a girl in a short khaki skirt and high laced boots and a pongeeblouse belted trimly with leather, bending her head over themouthpiece of the telephone. She had on a beach hat that carried thefull flavor of Venice in texture and tilt, and her hair was a ripecorn color, slicked back from her temples in the fashion of the month.Graceful and young she was, groomed as though thousands were to lookupon her. Normally Jack's eyes would have brightened at this sight,his lips would have curved enticingly, his voice would have taken thetone of incipient philandering. But in his present mood he snapped ather.

  "I beg your pardon. This is not a public telephone booth. It's aprivate office."

  She glanced inattentively his way, her smile directed mentally towardthe person on the other end of the wire. With her free hand she wavedhim to silence and spoke, still smiling, into the mouthpiece.

  "You're sure I won't do? I believe I could qualify, and I want--"

  "If you please, this is not a public--"

  But she waved her hand again impatiently and listened, engrossed andsmiling. "Oh, just because I wanted to hear a human voice, I guess.I'd forgotten what a phone looks like, and so when I heard ... No, Iam not a tourist. I'm a neighbor, and I'm the lonesomest neighbor inthese mountains.... What?... Oh, down the road in a spooky littlevalley where there's a log cabin and a trout stream--only I haven'tcaught any yet. They bite, but they simply _won't_ stay hooked.What?... Oh, just worms, and those fuzzy flies made with a hook onthem--_you_ know.... Oh, thanks! I surely do wish you could.... Thewhat?... Oh! well, I don't know, I'm sure. There's an excited youngman here who keeps telling me this is _not_ a public telephonebooth--do you mean him, I wonder?... He does look something like afireman, now you mention it. What do you use him for? a signal fire,or something?... Oh! You _do_? Why, forevermore! Is he nice to talkto?... No, I haven't. He just keeps telling me this is _not_ apublic ... Oh, I don't! I don't see how anybody could mind him--doyou?... Well, of course, a person doesn't look for politeness awayup ... Ha-ha--why, does the altitude make a difference? Maybe that's whatails me, then-- That's awfully nice of you, man ... No, never mindwhat my name is. Don't let's be ordinary. I'm just a voice from themountain top, and you're just a voice from the valley. So be it.... Withoutan invitation? I only thanked you ..."

  "Keep on," interjected Jack savagely, "and you'll have his wifetrailing you up with a gun!"

  "Well--we'll see.... But do come sometime when you can--and bring yourwife! I'd love to meet some woman.... Oh, all right. Good-by."

  With a gloved palm pressed hard over the mouthpiece she turnedreproachfully upon Jack. "Now you _did_ fix things, didn't you? Ofcourse, you knew I couldn't be nice to a man with a wife, so you hadto go and spoil everything. And I was just beginning to have a lovelytime!"

  "Help yourself," Jack offered with heavy sarcasm. "Don't mind me atall."

  "Well, he wants to talk to you," she said. She put her lips again tothe mouthpiece and added a postscript. "Pardon me, but I held the linea minute while I quarreled with your fireman. You're wrong--I don'tfind him so nice to talk to. You may talk to him if you want to--I'msure you're welcome!" Whereupon she surrendered the receiver andwalked around the high, map-covered table, and amused herself byplaying an imaginary game of billiards with the pointer for a cue andtwo little spruce cones which she took from her pocket for balls.

  When Jack had finished talking and had hung up the receiver, he leanedback against the shelf and watched her, his hands thrust deep into histrousers pockets. He still scowled--but one got the impression that hewas holding that frown consciously and stubbornly and not because hismood matched it.

  Marion placed a cone at a point on the chart which was markedGreenville, aimed for Spring Garden and landed the cone neatly in themiddle of Jack's belt.

  "Missed the pocket a mile," he taunted grudgingly, hating to bepleasant and yet helpless against the girl's perfect composure andgood humor.

  "Give it back, and I'll try it again. There's a place called thePocket. I'll try that, for luck." Then she added carelessly--"Whatwould have happened, if you hadn't answered that man at all?"

  "I'd have been canned, maybe."

  "Forevermore." She pretended to chalk her cue with a tiny powder puffwhic
h she took from a ridiculous vanity bag that swung from her belt."Wouldn't you kind of like to be canned--under the circumstances?"

  "No, I wouldn't. I need the money." Jack bit his lips to keep fromgrinning at the powder-puff play.

  "Oh, I see." She tried another shot. "Why don't you cut the legs offthis table? I would. It's miles too high."

  "I don't monkey with government property, myself." He placed apeculiar accent on the last word, thus pointing his meaning veryclearly.

  "Now, _what_ do you know about _that_? Missed it--with a governmentcone, shot by a government stick on a government table, while agovernment scowl fairly shrieks: 'Cut out this desecration!'" Shechalked her cue gravely, powdered her nose afterward, using a roundscrap of a mirror not much bigger than a silver dollar. "Do you stayup here all the time and scowl, all by yourself?"

  "All the time and scowl, all by myself." Jack took his hands from hispockets that he might light his pipe; which was a sign that he wasnearly ready to treat the girl kindly. "If you object to smoke--" andhe waved one hand significantly toward the open door.

  "All the time--all by yourself. And you don't want to be canned,either." With the pointer Marion drew aimless little invisible volutesupon the map, connecting the two spruce cones with an imaginary scrolldesign. "How touching!" she said enigmatically.

  "Sure, you're heart-broken over the pathos of it. I can see that. Youought to put in about a week here--that's all I've got to say."

  "Think I couldn't?" She looked across at him queerly.

  "You wouldn't dare go any farther away than the spring. You'd have tostay right here on this peak every minute of the twenty-four hours.They call up at all kinds of ungodly times, just to see if you're onthe job, if they think you're snitching. They'd catch you gonesometime--you couldn't get by with it--and then--"

  "The can," finished Miss Marion gravely. "But what I want to know is,what have you done?"

  "Done?" Jack's jaw dropped slack away from the pipestem. "What yuhmean, done?"

  "Yes. What have you done that they should put you up here and make youstay up here? It sounds--"

  "Now, even a tourist knows that this is a Forest Service lookoutstation, and that I'm here to watch out for fires down below! I'm yourguardian angel, young lady. Treat me with respect, if not withkindness."

  "I'm a member of the no-treat reform club. Honestly, don't they letyou leave here at all?"

  "Four days a month." He heaved a heavy sigh and waved his pipe towardthe great outdoors. "'S big world, when it's all spread out in sight,"he volunteered.

  "Can't you--can't you even go down to the lake and fish, when you wantto?"

  "Nope. Four days a month--and if they didn't happen to have a spareman lying round handy, to send up here to take my place, I couldn't gothen even."

  Marion regarded him meditatively. "You can have an hour's recess now,if you like," she offered generously after a minute. "I'll stay andanswer the phone, and stand them off if they want to talk to you. I'mgood at that. You can go and climb down to the lake and fish, and havefun."

  "Tell me to go and jump in the lake and I might do it," Jack returnedgloomily. He found it rather pleasant to be sympathized with andpitied. "What if a fire broke out while I was gone?"

  "Well, what if? I could do what you would do, couldn't I? What do youdo when a fire breaks out?"

  That gave Jack a fair excuse for leaving his place by the shelf, andcoming around to her side of the table, and for taking the pointerfrom her and standing close beside her while he explained the chart.Needless to say, he made use of the excuse immediately.

  "First off," he instructed, "you don't want to be a boob and goreporting train smoke, like I did the first day I was here. Picked upa black smoke down below, here--right down there! I got the number onthe chart and phoned it in, and the lookout on Claremont didn't yeepabout it. So they called up and asked him to come alive and report. Bythat time the smoke had moved from where I saw it, and the whole trainwas in sight from his station, coming round the hill into Marston. Henever thought of that being it, he said afterward. They got busy inthe office and called me up again, and I located her again--only in adifferent place. Fellow on Claremont--that's it away over there; seethat white speck? That's the station, just like this one. He's an oldcrab, Hank tells me. He said I must be bugs. Had him squinting aroundsome, I bet! Then they got wise that I was reporting a throughfreight, and they kid me about it yet. But they fell for it at firstall right!"

  "What do you know about that!" Marion melodiously exclaimed, andlaughed companionably.

  She wanted to know all the things that real tourists want to know, andJack forgot that he hated to answer foolish questions. The piles ofempty coal-oil cans, for instance--she should have known that they hadbeen packed up there full, to run the oil stove in the corner. Thespring--he had to take his bucket and go down with her and show herwhere the spring was, but he did not seem to mind that, either. Theflag, whipping over the station on its short staff, interested hertoo, and he helped her guess how long it would be before the stars andstripes snapped themselves to ribbons. The book on astronomy shedipped into, turning it to look at the full-page illustrations ofcertain constellations that were to Jack like old friends. The bookson forestry she glanced at, and the magazines she inspected with lessinterest.

  "Oh, I've got the latest movie magazines. I could bring them upsometime if you like--or send them by the man who brings your stuffup, if you'll tell him to stop at the cabin."

  "You bring them yourself," Jack urged, his eagerness so open andunashamed that Marion blushed, and suddenly remembered Kate down theslope there waiting for her. She must go, she said; and she went,almost as suddenly as she came, and never mentioned her half-formeddetermination to wait up there for the sunset.

  Jack went with her as far as he dared, and stood under a wind-torturedbalsam fir and watched her out of sight. On the last ledge before thetrail dipped down over the hump that would hide her for good, sheturned and looked up at him. She stood there poised--so itseemed--between mountain-crest and the sky. The lake lay quiet andshadowed, deep below her, as though God had dropped a tear and themountain was holding it reverently cupped, sheltering it from the keenwinds of the heights. Beyond, painted with the delicate shadings ofdistance and yellow sunlight, Indian Valley lay quietly across the lapof the world, its farms and roads and fences sketched in lightly, aswith the swift pencil strokes of an artist; its meandering,willowfringed streams making contrast with the yellowed fields ofearly harvest time.

  She stood there poised like a bird on the rim of the world. Herslimness, her sure grace, her yellow hair shining under the beach hatshe wore tilted back from her face, struck him like a blow in the facefrom that pleasurable past wherein woman beauty had been so abundant.She was of the town; moreover, he felt that she was of the town fromwhich he had fled in guilt and terror. She stood for a long minute,taking in the full sweep of the rugged peak. She was not looking athim especially, until she turned to go on. Then she waved her handcarelessly--slightingly, he felt in his misery--and went down thesteep slope.

  Until he could no longer see the crown of her hat he looked after her.Then, the sickness of his terrible loneliness upon him again, heturned and slowly climbed back to his glass-walled prison.