CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I DON’T BELIEVE IN SPOOKS”
A silence significant, almost sinister, fell. Gary rose from the doorsill, took a restless step or two and turned, so that he faced Monty, and the open doorway. He looked past Monty, into the cabin. A quick glance, almost a furtive one. Then he laughed, meeting Monty’s inquiring eyes mockingly.
“Seen anything? No. Nothing I shouldn’t see, at least. Why?” He laughed again, a mirthless kind of laugh. “Did Waddell throw in a spook along with the Voice?”
“Waddy got powerful oneasy,” Monty observed, choosing his words with some care. “Waddy claimed he seen Steve Carson frequent. I didn’t know——Say! Did the Piutes tell yuh-all how Steve Carson looked?”
Gary’s eyes slid away from Monty’s searching look.
“No. I didn’t ask. I just got a notion that Waddell maybe looked like that.” He lifted his chin, his glance once more passing Monty by to go questing within the cabin.
“I don’t believe in spooks,” he stated clearly, a defiant note creeping into his voice in spite of him. “That’s the bunk. When people start seeing spooks, it’s time they saw a doctor and had their heads X-rayed. I’ll tell you what I think, Monty. I think that when we check out, we stay out. Get me? I can’t feature giving death all these encores—when, damn it, the audience is sitting hunched down into its chairs with its hands over its faces, afraid to look. If we clapped and stamped and whistled to get ’em out before the curtain, then I’d say they had some excuse.
“I tell you, Monty, I’ve got a lot of respect for the way this Life picture is being directed. And it don’t stand to reason that a director who’s on to his job is going to let a character that was killed off in the first reel come slipping back into the film in the fourth reel. I know what that would mean at Cohen’s. It would mean that some one in the cutting room would get the gate. No, sir, that’s bad technique—and the Big Director up there won’t stand for any cut-backs that don’t help the story along.” His eyes left Monty’s face to send another involuntary glance through the open door. “So all this hokum about ghosts is pure rot to me.”
“Well, I ain’t superstitious none myself,” Monty repeated somewhat defensively. “I never seen anything—but one time I was here when Waddy thought he seen something. He tried to point it out to me. But I couldn’t see nothin’. I reckon you’re right. And I’m shore glad yuh-all feel that way.”
The spotted cat, having dined well upon a kangaroo rat caught down by the creek, was sitting near them calmly washing her face. She got up, looked up into the open doorway, and mewed a greeting. Then she trotted to meet—a memory, perhaps. She stopped three feet from the doorstep and stood there purring, her body arched with a rubbing movement.