Читать книгу The Powder Dock Mystery - Reed Fulton - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Clementine Fargar, seated on the timber that edged the small dock, watched her nineteen-year-old brother lift the box marked BLACK POWDER from the floor of the dock and slip it gently onto the miniature railroad car. For some minutes she had observed the care with which Dave handled each box. The most delicate china could not have asked for more gentleness.

The crew on the red-flagged boat that had left the boxes had not been so respectful in working with the powder. Several times Clem had gasped and hurriedly started away from the dock, but the laughter of the men had made her stand her ground. Still, she had heaved a sigh of relief when the powder tug steamed away. Her imagination insisted on picturing what might follow the dropping of a box although Dave had more than once assured her that there was no danger.

“What would happen, Dave, if the powder house were to explode?” As she questioned, her shaded eyes were turned to view the length of dock reaching, first to the beach, and then at right angles toward the squat log building lying in the shadow of the tree-covered cliffs.

The powder warehouse was a fascinating place perhaps because it reminded the girl of pioneer forts built to repel the savage attack of painted Indians, perhaps because of the terrible power resting within its rough-hewn walls. Years before, Indian workers had dovetailed the ends of the heavy logs so cleverly that very little mortar had been necessary to close the space between the logs. The rafter poles were crossed with cedar boards and covered completely with “shakes” or long shingles cut by hand from cedar blocks. Such a building would withstand the elements for an indefinite period, but, in case of fire, would burn like a resin torch. To reduce the fire hazard as much as possible, five barrels filled with water were kept standing on small platforms built on top of the warehouse. A ladder at each end made rapid ascent to the barrels possible.

Clem found herself wondering if she would dare climb to the water barrels if flames were licking any portion of the powder-filled building.

Dave, brown and stalwart, surveyed Clementine with a broad grin. Although only two years her senior, the early loss of both father and mother had developed in Dave a somewhat superior attitude toward his sister. He felt his position as head of the family of two.

Pausing in his labor, Dave wiped away the perspiration from his forehead, and chuckled. He was apt to chuckle unless the joke was pointed too directly at himself. His general good humor had helped him hold his position of responsibility despite his youth.

“Clem, the teachers must be glad you’re out of high school; you ask questions faster than old Bunte can pull in dogfish, and he’s the champion for this part of the Sound. A teacher with you in his class would have as much chance as a cross-eyed Igorot in a beauty contest. It’s a good thing your eyes went back on you, else your skull would have started to bulge or you’d have come down with ‘questionitis.’”

Dave laughed loudly at this possibility as he bent for another box. The seventeen-year-old girl clasped her hands over her khaki-covered knees and waited solemnly for Dave to have his laugh out. When the chuckles had died away to an occasional snort and head-shaking, she spoke again, with a note of perseverance in her voice.

“But, Davie dear, what would happen? You mustn’t get so stuck on your humor that you forget to answer a lady’s question.”

Her brother’s smile vanished abruptly. The young man ran his fingers through his dark matted locks and frowned severely.

“Look here, Sis,” he cautioned in an undertone, “I’ve asked you time and again in the past two days to cut out that ‘Davie dear’ stuff. If those fellows on the powder boat, or even those fishermen going by, ever got wind of that, they’d plague the life out of me.”

Clem glanced first at the neat powder boat that had lately slipped mooring from the dock, then at the half-dozen fishing launches that were getting under way for the morning run to the salmon banks, and finally at the comfortable looking yacht anchored some distance out.

“Shucks!” smiled Clem. “The powder boat is out of hearing and I doubt whether those white duckers on that yacht care one tiny bit whether I call you ‘Dave dearie’ or ‘Cut-Throat Hank,’ so there! You are too particular, brother dear. Much too particular. Now tell me what would happen—if you can without choking.”

The genial grin crept once more toward the lad’s generous ears. It had been so long since he had had Clem with him, it was rather pleasant now to have her boss him.

“Clem, if the powder in that warehouse went off, the whole end of Whidby Island would be pulverized and you and I would be selecting our harps before the first echo got back.”

The girl pulled the cap from her short-cut hair and jumped to her feet with an answering laugh. Slender and pale she was, and yet there was something about her pose that suggested unbounded energy. Tortoise-shell glasses rode defiantly on a pert nose that counter-balanced the serious lines of the mouth and chin. White middy, red tie, khaki knee trousers, cotton stockings, and tennis shoes—the costume gave her a look of alert readiness.

“I don’t fancy your job, Dave. Sounds too much like fireworks and a ticket to another world but I appreciate the chance it has given me toward a schooling, and if these traitor eyes of mine——”

“Forget it!” ejaculated Dave. “You’ll build up fast—swimming, hiking, and cooking. I’m mighty glad you’re here, Sis; won’t be so lonesome this summer.”

“Lonesome! With the Sound and the boats and the mountains?”

Her brother’s glance swept the blue waters of Puget Sound, dotted with a score or more of fishing boats; the distant mainland; the jagged outlines of White Horse, Pilchuck, and Index against the eastern sky.

“Fine to look at, Clem, but hard to talk to.”

“At least, the mountains don’t ask questions, Dave. Now tell me, aren’t the fishermen and the summer campers afraid of the powder?”

“Bunte is the only fisherman I have heard say anything about it in the eleven months I have been here.”

“Is Bunte that leather-faced old fellow you pointed out yesterday—the one who earns a living catching dogfish for the fertilizer plant?”

“Yes,” Dave answered, beginning once more his task of loading the tram; “I think Bunte is responsible for the crazy idea that, if we ever get just the right weather conditions, the whole shooting match will go up of its own accord. Last summer the story got going down there at the colony of city folks and they have been stewing about it ever since. Sent the postmaster to look the place over and report. Mr. Fowler, the postmaster, is a square shooter. He went over the place carefully, saw all the care I take of the warehouse, and reported back that there is mighty little danger. Still, he said, he thought the log warehouse ought to be replaced with a sheet-iron structure. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company does make that change although some people are against sheet iron because they say it will attract lightning. What they really want is to get rid of the place altogether and that means my job would evaporate.

“Well, Mr. Fowler kind of quieted them down, but they figger on taking it up at the legislature to see if they can get the place abandoned. I can’t say that I blame them. I can see the way they look at it, but there’s got to be some place to store powder. In this new country, where there are so many stumps to blow out and so many roads to make, people just have to have powder.”

“Dave, what did Bunte say to the report the postmaster made?”

“Huh!” grinned Dave, “he just shoved his wad of tobacco into his cheek, cocked his head up at the sky, and said—I can’t give you his funny talk but he says: ‘Some day, everything will be just right, then—whoof! Maybe tomorrow—maybe five years.’

“Why, Clem, it’s plain ridiculous. The way I keep this place slicked up it’ll never explode unless somebody sets fire to it.”

“Dave, have you ever been afraid of that? No one has ever attempted——?” Clem watched her brother’s face as she trailed her last words.

“Oh, no,” he replied quickly, too quickly, Clem thought. “Of course sometimes people get careless. A fellow has to keep an eye on the summer crowd down the bay, and on the fishermen, too, for that matter.”

“What would you do if it did catch fire?”

Dave shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as he thought of the responsibility that was his. “Of course I’d do my best to put it out.”

“Even when you knew you might be blown sky high?”

“I wouldn’t be able to get far enough away to keep from going up so I might as well do my best to put the fire out. That’s a case where you can’t keep from being brave. But the fact that the person who sets the place on fire will hardly escape himself is the very thing that makes the warehouse as safe as it is. I’ll confess that the job has its drawbacks, and that there have been one or two odd things happened since I came, but you’ll find out about those things soon enough.”

“Well, I can help keep the dock slicker than ever. I’ll share your responsibility taking care of the warehouse.”

“Stick to the cookin’, Sis; stick to the cookin’.”

“But, Dave, I want something else to do: I wish there was some way for me to earn money. If my eyes let me, I’m going back to high school next fall; I’ve got only a half year’s work left. I’ve been thinking I might get a job earning some money down at the summer colony.”

Clem turned toward the half mile of summer cottages that lay a mile farther up the beach away from the head of the island. She could see the dock, the warehouse, and the general store, where Dave purchased his daily supplies.

Dave looked at her in amazement.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” he thundered. “There’s enough around the house to keep you busy, and you can take care of the chickens until I get time to ship them to Seattle, and——”

“There, there, dear, don’t get so excited; I’m not sure I could hold a place as a maid, and to tell the truth I’m not eager; I’d rather be my own boss. Don’t worry about my not helping with the house and the chickens, but that’s work that Twasla has always taken care of. I want to do something new, something that will be a real contribution of my own.”

“If we manage, Clem, you’re going to finish high school and go on to the university when you’re ready for it, but you’re goin’ to loaf this summer—swim and row and fish.”

“Well, I’ve thought about the fishing, but I don’t suppose I’d catch enough with just a rowboat.” Clem’s foot was busy pushing bits of gravel to fall down through the crack between the heavy boards of the dock. She could see the pieces strike the cool green water to send widening ripples outward. Occasionally a lazy fat perch would rise to investigate the disturbances.

“Enough?” exclaimed Dave. “We want something to eat besides fish.”

“Oh, I mean enough to sell,” replied Clem gently.

“You catching fish to sell! That’s good! Say, I never supposed the sun was hot enough to addle your thinker this morning. I’ll have to toss you in the bay to cool you off.”

“Won’t matter, brother, I’m going to jump in as soon as the tide gets up a little higher, so there.”

The young man put his shoulder against the loaded tram and started it along the iron rails toward the log warehouse. Clementine walked alongside, helping push. For a dozen paces she whistled a popular tune, then came another question.

“How much do fishermen make, Dave?”

“Maybe ten to fifteen dollars a day—maybe fifteen cents.”

“Why the difference?”

“Some people can catch fish, I guess, and some can’t.”

“But, brother, can’t anybody put a hook and line over the end of a boat?”

“Sure, and you ought to know by this time that you can row until your back cracks and not even get a strike. We’ve tried it often enough.”

“You think it’s luck, then?”

The tram had come to a halt in front of the open warehouse. Dave turned to his sister with mock desperation.

“Turn off the faucet, throw off the switch! Back up a minute while I get even with you.” He advanced toward her with threatening finger, talking rapidly.

“Tell me, young lady, how many teeth has a hen? How long is a piece of string? How far is it to the moon and halfway back? How—how—— My, you’re dumb! And my sister, too; I can’t account for it!”

Clem made a move as though to bite the extended finger, laughed, and turned away. “Just for that I’m going to tell Twasla to give you nothing but onions and fried jellyfish for dinner; and I’m going to leave you to unload your boxes without my help. I’ll be back to the dock, though, as soon as I get my bathing suit on. I’m going to beat your diving record to-day.”

“Yes, you will—not!” jeered Dave. Yet he looked with pride after the departing figure, for under his brotherly roughness lay a real love for Clementine.

As Clem walked along the path that led to the five-room bungalow provided by the powder company for the dock tender, she thought back upon the three happy years she had spent at West High. She had worked for her board and room, but she had managed to get good grades and some experience in the school activities. Everything had gone splendidly until late hours over her studies had brought on trouble with her eyes. The doctor’s orders had been imperative: she must leave books for a year at least; she must keep herself active out of doors.

The last command had made it impossible for her to go on with a position offered her in a department store. So she had said good-bye with tears close beneath the laughter, and, after a four-hour voyage up the Sound, had scrambled down the gangplank at the powder dock into the hands of her one close relative, Dave. A few minutes later, Twasla, the old Siwash woman, housekeeper at the powder dock since its erection, had given her a cautious welcome.

It was nice to see Dave, but it had been hard to keep up her cheerfulness these first two days. She could not rid herself of a feeling of uselessness. Up to this time she had led an active, independent life, but now, apparently, she was doomed to months of virtual idleness.

With a little gripping of the heart, Clem sighed and wished once more that her sunny-faced mother and her gallant father had been spared from the wreck so many years ago. How different her life would have been! But such thoughts were seldom with Clementine; she realized how fruitless are regrets for the past. Her mind leaped promptly to the present as she climbed the steps to the broad porch. She hesitated a moment at the doorway, viewing in silent contemplation the interior. The arrangement of the rooms was not bad but there were matters of curtains and wall paper that worried her artistic soul. If she only had the money—there was the rub! Of course something could be done—some of the things that one couldn’t expect an old Indian woman to think of. Certainly Clem could make the rooms more homelike, and the task would help her overcome the pessimism that threatened her.

“I can’t lie around,” she said to herself, as she slipped into her bathing suit; “I’ve got to do something that will keep me out of doors and bring in some money. Oh, boy! I know what I’d like to try. It would be exciting, but I—haven’t—even—a starter. My, if I could make a go of it, by the time I’m ready to go back to school I’d be able to get some real clothes to wear.”

Pulling on a light coat over her bathing suit, Clem ran down the steps toward the inviting blue water of the Sound.

“Well, it’s wonderful to be here with Dave,” she murmured. “I’m going to love it, even though I feel like an exile, and even though that old powder house does sit over there like an evil spirit brooding, waiting for the proper hour. I’m not going to pay any attention to that crazy idea; there’s lots of beauty to be seen—all the funny sea things along the beach, those marvelous saw-edged mountains stuck up in the sky, and that shiny yacht lording it over those dingy little fishing boats. It’s all beautiful!

“Now I wonder why that launch is coming in from the yacht?”

The launch in question was larger than the ordinary yacht tender. So large, in fact, that it must follow the yacht from place to place on independent power. Clem had noticed the trim boat before, lying alongside the yacht. On the afternoon previous the launch had made a trip down to the base of the cliffs that marked the head of Whidby Island, a mile away. Toward evening Clem had seen the launch return and drop anchor close to the yacht.

Clem adjusted her sun glasses and pulled the green shade still lower. As she passed by the warehouse, she called in to Dave: “Somebody from the yacht is coming to see you; don’t let them keep you from your swim. I’ll wait on the dock.”

While she sauntered farther out, the launch dodged its way between the fish boats and headed as though to beach some hundred feet below the dock.

“Funny,” thought Clem, “that they don’t come alongside the dock. It wouldn’t be as hard to land here as it will be on the beach.”

In the craft, a white-haired man and a young girl were visible; the latter could be seen at the wheel through the plate-glass window that formed one side of the graceful cabin.

Admiration was in Clem’s face as she stood on the edge of the dock and watched the launch cut through the clear water. So well proportioned were the lines of the Gypsy, it appeared more a native of the water than something made by man. Suddenly Clem’s expression faded to one of alarm.

“Look out! Look out!” she screamed, waving her arms. The boat was headed straight for a barnacle-covered snag now just below the surface of the rising tide. From her elevated position, Clem could see the dark outline beneath the water, but the little girl at the wheel of the launch saw nothing save the slightly rippling surface.

“Turn out! You’ll strike!” With clenched hands Clem strained for an answering movement that would swing the boat from its present path.