Cabin Fever (Wild West Adventure) - B. M. Bower

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pay; more, in fact, than all his domestic expense had amounted to in the fourteen months that he had been married. Also Marie was awarded the custody of the child and, because Marie’s mother had represented Bud to be a violent man who was a menace to her daughter’s safety—and proved it by the neighbors who had seen and heard so much—Bud was served with a legal paper that wordily enjoined him from annoying Marie with his presence.

      That unnecessary insult snapped the last thread of Bud’s regret for what had happened. He sold the furniture and the automobile, took the money to the judge that had tried the case, told the judge a few wholesome truths, and laid the pile of money on the desk.

      “That cleans me out, Judge,” he said stolidly. “I wasn’t such a bad husband, at that. I got sore—but I’ll bet you get sore yourself and tell your wife what-for, now and then. I didn’t get a square deal, but that’s all right. I’m giving a better deal than I got. Now you can keep that money and pay it out to Marie as she needs it, for herself and the kid. But for the Lord’s sake, Judge, don’t let that wildcat of a mother of hers get her fingers into the pile! She framed this deal, thinking she’d get a haul outa me this way. I’m asking you to block that little game. I’ve held out ten dollars, to eat on till I strike something. I’m clean; they’ve licked the platter and broke the dish. So don’t never ask me to dig up any more, because I won’t—not for you nor no other darn man. Get that.”

      This, you must know, was not in the courtroom, so Bud was not fined for contempt. The judge was a married man himself, and he may have had a sympathetic understanding of Bud’s position. At any rate he listened unofficially, and helped Bud out with the legal part of it, so that Bud walked out of the judge’s office financially free, even though he had a suspicion that his freedom would not bear the test of prosperity, and that Marie’s mother would let him alone only so long as he and prosperity were strangers.

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      To withhold for his own start in life only one ten-dollar bill from fifteen hundred dollars was spectacular enough to soothe even so bruised an ego as Bud Moore carried into the judge’s office. There is an anger which carries a person to the extreme of self-sacrifice, in the subconscious hope of exciting pity for one so hardly used. Bud was boiling with such an anger, and it demanded that he should all but give Marie the shirt off his back, since she had demanded so much—and for so slight a cause.

      Bud could not see for the life of him why Marie should have quit for that little ruction. It was not their first quarrel, nor their worst; certainly he had not expected it to be their last. Why, he asked the high heavens, had she told him to bring home a roll of cotton, if she was going to leave him? Why had she turned her back on that little home, that had seemed to mean as much to her as it had to him?

      Being kin to primitive man, Bud could only bellow rage when he should have analyzed calmly the situation. He should have seen that Marie too had cabin fever, induced by changing too suddenly from carefree girlhood to the ills and irks of wifehood and motherhood. He should have known that she had been for two months wholly dedicated to the small physical wants of their baby, and that if his nerves were fraying with watching that incessant servitude, her own must be close to the snapping point; had snapped, when dusk did not bring him home repentant.

      But he did not know, and so he blamed Marie bitterly for the wreck of their home, and he flung down all his worldly goods before her, and marched off feeling self-consciously proud of his martyrdom. It soothed him paradoxically to tell himself that he was “cleaned”; that Marie had ruined him absolutely, and that he was just ten dollars and a decent suit or two of clothes better off than a tramp. He was tempted to go back and send the ten dollars after the rest of the fifteen hundred, but good sense prevailed. He would have to borrow money for his next meal, if he did that, and Bud was touchy about such things.

      He kept the ten dollars therefore, and went down to the garage where he felt most at home, and stood there with his hands in his pockets and the corners of his mouth tipped downward—normally they had a way of tipping upward, as though he was secretly amused at something—and his eyes sullen, though they carried tiny lines at the corners to show how they used to twinkle. He took the ten-dollar bank note from his pocket, straightened out the wrinkles and looked at it disdainfully. As plainly as though he spoke, his face told what he was thinking about it: that this was what a woman had brought him to! He crumpled it up and made a gesture as though he would throw it into the street, and a man behind him laughed abruptly. Bud scowled and turned toward him a belligerent glance, and the man stopped laughing as suddenly as he had begun.

      “If you’ve got money to throw to the birds, brother, I guess I won’t make the proposition I was going to make. Thought I could talk business to you, maybe—but I guess I better tie a can to that idea.”

      Bud grunted and put the ten dollars in his pocket.

      “What idea’s that?”

      “Oh, driving a car I’m taking south. Sprained my shoulder, and don’t feel like tackling it myself. They tell me in here that you aren’t doing anything now—” He made the pause that asks for an answer.

      “They told you right. I’ve done it.”

      The man’s eyebrows lifted, but since Bud did not explain, he went on with his own explanation.

      “You don’t remember me, but I rode into Big Basin with you last summer. I know you can drive, and it doesn’t matter a lot whether it’s asphalt or cow trail you drive over.”

      Bud was in too sour a mood to respond to the flattery. He did not even grunt.

      “Could you take a car south for me? There’ll be night driving, and bad roads, maybe—”

      “If you know what you say you know about my driving, what’s the idea—asking me if I can?”

      “Well, put it another way. Will you?”

      “You’re on. Where’s the car? Here?” Bud sent a seeking look into the depths of the garage. He knew every car in there. “What is there in it for me?” he added perfunctorily, because he would have gone just for sake of getting a free ride rather than stay in San Jose over night.

      “There’s good money in it, if you can drive with your mouth shut. This isn’t any booster parade. Fact is—let’s walk to the depot, while I tell you.” He stepped out of the doorway, and Bud gloomily followed him. “Little trouble with my wife,” the man explained apologetically. “Having me shadowed, and all that sort of thing. And I’ve got business south and want to be left alone to do it. Darn these women!” he exploded suddenly.

      Bud mentally said amen, but kept his mouth shut upon his sympathy with the sentiment.

      “Foster’s my name. Now here’s a key to the garage at this address.” He handed Bud a padlock key and an address scribbled on a card. “That’s my place in Oakland, out by Lake Merritt. You go there to-night, get the car, and have it down at the Broadway Wharf to meet the 11:30 boat—the one the theater crowd uses. Have plenty of gas and oil; there won’t be any stops after we start. Park out pretty well near the shore end as close as you can get to that ten-foot gum sign, and be ready to go when I climb in. I may have a friend with me. You know Oakland?”

      “Fair to middling. I can get around by myself.”

      “Well, that’s all right. I’ve got to go back to the city—catching the next train. You better take the two-fifty to Oakland. Here’s money for whatever expense there is. And say! put these number plates in your pocket, and take off the ones on the car. I bought these of a fellow that had a smash—they’ll do for the trip. Put them on, will you? She’s wise to the car number, of course. Put the plates you take off under the seat cushion; don’t leave ‘em. Be just as careful as if it was a life-and-death matter, will you? I’ve got a big deal on, down there, and I don’t want her spilling the beans just to satisfy a grudge—which she would do in a minute. So don’t fail to be at the ferry, parked

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