by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. LOVIN CHILD WRIGGLES IN
On the fourth day Bud's conscience pricked him into making a sort ofapology to Cash, under the guise of speaking to Lovin Child, for stillkeeping the baby in camp.
"I've got a blame good notion to pack you to town to-day, Boy, andtry and find out where you belong," he said, while he was feeding himoatmeal mush with sugar and canned milk. "It's pretty cold, though..."He cast a slant-eyed glance at Cash, dourly frying his own hotcakes."We'll see what it looks like after a while. I sure have got to hunt upyour folks soon as I can. Ain't I, old-timer?"
That salved his conscience a little, and freed him of the uneasyconviction that Cash believed him a kidnapper. The weather did the rest.An hour after breakfast, just when Bud was downheartedly thinking hecould not much longer put off starting without betraying how hard it wasgoing to be for him to give up the baby, the wind shifted the cloudsand herded them down to the Big Mountain and held them there until theybegan to sift snow down upon the burdened pines.
"Gee, it's going to storm again!" Bud blustered in. "It'll be snowinglike all git-out in another hour. I'll tell a cruel world I wouldn'ttake a dog out such weather as this. Your folks may be worrying aboutyuh, Boy, but they ain't going to climb my carcass for packing yuhfifteen miles in a snow-storm and letting yuh freeze, maybe. I guess thecabin's big enough to hold yuh another day--what?"
Cash lifted his eyebrows and pinched in his lips under his beard. It didnot seem to occur to Bud that one of them could stay in the cabinwith the baby while the other carried to Alpine the news of the baby'swhereabouts and its safety. Or if it did occur to Bud, he was carefulnot to consider it a feasible plan. Cash wondered if Bud thought he waspulling the wool over anybody's eyes. Bud did not want to give up thatkid, and he was tickled to death because the storm gave him an excusefor keeping it. Cash was cynically amused at Bud's transparency. Butthe kid was none of his business, and he did not intend to make anysuggestions that probably would not be taken anyway. Let Bud pretend hewas anxious to give up the baby, if that made him feel any better aboutit.
That day went merrily to the music of Lovin Child's chuckling laugh andhis unintelligible chatter. Bud made the discovery that "Boy" was tryingto say Lovin Child when he wanted to be taken and rocked, and declaredthat he would tell the world the name fit, like a saddle on a duck'sback. Lovin Child discovered Cash's pipe, and was caught sucking itbefore the fireplace and mimicking Cash's meditative pose with a comicalexactness that made Bud roar. Even Cash was betrayed into speaking awhole sentence to Bud before he remembered his grudge. Taken altogether,it was a day of fruitful pleasure in spite of the storm outside.
That night the two men sat before the fire and watched the flames andlistened to the wind roaring in the pines. On his side of the dead lineBud rocked his hard-muscled, big body back and forth, cradling LovinChild asleep in his arms. In one tender palm he nested Lovin Child'slittle bare feet, like two fat, white mice that slept together after aday's scampering.
Bud was thinking, as he always thought nowadays, of Marie and his ownboy; yearning, tender thoughts which his clumsy man's tongue would neverattempt to speak. Before, he had thought of Marie alone, without thebaby; but he had learned much, these last four days. He knew now howclosely a baby can creep in and cling, how they can fill the days withjoy. He knew how he would miss Lovin Child when the storm cleared andhe must take him away. It did not seem right or just that he should givehim into the keeping of strangers--and yet he must until the parentscould have him back. The black depths of their grief to-night Budcould not bring himself to contemplate. Bad enough to forecast his owndesolateness when Lovin Child was no longer romping up and down the deadline, looking where he might find some mischief to get into. Bad enoughto know that the cabin would again be a place of silence and gloom andfutile resentments over little things, with no happy little man-child tobrighten it. He crept into his bunk that night and snuggled the baby upin his arms, a miserable man with no courage left in him for the future.
But the next day it was still storming, and colder than ever. No onewould expect him to take a baby out in such weather. So Bud whistled andromped with Lovin Child, and would not worry about what must happen whenthe storm was past.
All day Cash brooded before the fire, bundled in his mackinaw andsweater. He did not even smoke, and though he seemed to feel the coldabnormally, he did not bring in any wood except in the morning, but letBud keep the fireplace going with his own generous supply. He did noteat any dinner, and at supper time he went to bed with all the clotheshe possessed piled on top of him. By all these signs, Bud knew that Cashhad a bad cold.
Bud did not think much about it at first--being of the sturdy type thatmakes light of a cold. But when Cash began to cough with that hoarse,racking sound that tells the tale of laboring lungs, Bud began to feelguiltily that he ought to do something about it.
He hushed Lovin Child's romping, that night, and would not let him ridea bronk at bedtime. When he was asleep, Bud laid him down and went overto the supply cupboard, which he had been obliged to rearrange witheverything except tin cans placed on shelves too high for a two-year-oldto reach even when he stood on his tiptoes and grunted. He hunted forthe small bottle of turpentine, found it and mixed some with meltedbacon grease, and went over to Cash's bunk, hesitating before he crossedthe dead line, but crossing nevertheless.
Cash seemed to be asleep, but his breathing sounded harsh and unnatural,and his hand, lying uncovered on the blanket, clenched and unclenchedspasmodically. Bud watched him for a minute, holding the cup of greaseand turpentine in his hand.
"Say," he began constrainedly, and waited. Cash muttered something andmoved his hand irritatedly, without opening his eyes. Bud tried again.
"Say, you better swab your chest with this dope. Can't monkey with acold, such weather as this."
Cash opened his eyes, gave the log wall a startled look, and swunghis glance to Bud. "Yeah--I'm all right," he croaked, and proved hisstatement wrong by coughing violently.
Bud set down the cup on a box, laid hold of Cash by the shoulders andforced him on his back. With movements roughly gentle he opened Cash'sclothing at the throat, exposed his hairy chest, and poured on greaseuntil it ran in a tiny rivulets. He reached in and rubbed the greasevigorously with the palm of his hand, giving particular attention to thesurface over the bronchial tubes. When he was satisfied that Cash'sskin could absorb no more, he turned him unceremoniously on his faceand repeated his ministrations upon Cash's shoulders. Then he rolledhim back, buttoned his shirts for him, and tramped heavily back to thetable.
"I don't mind seeing a man play the mule when he's well," he grumbled,"but he's got a right to call it a day when he gits down sick. I ain'tgoing to be bothered burying no corpses, in weather like this. I'll tellthe world I ain't!"
He went searching on all the shelves for something more that he couldgive Cash. He found a box of liver pills, a bottle of Jamaica ginger,and some iodine--not an encouraging array for a man fifteen miles ofuntrodden snow from the nearest human habitation. He took three ofthe liver pills--judging them by size rather than what might be theircomposition--and a cup of water to Cash and commanded him to sit upand swallow them. When this was accomplished, Bud felt easier as to hisconscience, though he was still anxious over the possibilities in thatcough.
Twice in the night he got up to put more wood on the fire and to standbeside Cash's bed and listen to his breathing. Pneumonia, the strongman's deadly foe, was what he feared. In his cow-punching days he hadseen men die of it before a doctor could be brought from the far-awaytown. Had he been alone with Cash, he would have fought his way to townand brought help, but with Lovin Child to care for he could not take thetrail.
At daylight Cash woke him by stumbling across the floor to the waterbucket. Bud arose then and swore at him for a fool and sent him backto bed, and savagely greased him again with the bacon grease andturpentine. He was cheered a little when Cash cussed back, but he didnot like the sound of his voice,
for all that, and so threatened mildlyto brain him if he got out of bed again without wrapping a blanket orsomething around him.
Thoroughly awakened by this little exchange of civilities, Bud starteda fire in the stove and made coffee for Cash, who drank half a cup quitemeekly. He still had that tearing cough, and his voice was no more thana croak; but he seemed no worse than he had been the night before. So onthe whole Bud considered the case encouraging, and ate his breakfast anhour or so earlier than usual. Then he went out and chopped wood untilhe heard Lovin Child chirping inside the cabin like a bug-hunting meadowlark, when he had to hurry in before Lovin Child crawled off the bunkand got into some mischief.
For a man who was wintering in what is called enforced idleness in asnow-bound cabin in the mountains, Bud Moore did not find the next fewdays hanging heavily on his hands. Far from it.