“We’ll make it, baby,” he said. “Johnny could drive through a swamp at midnight easier than most guys can drive on a flat road at noon. Hey, Johnny?”
“We’ll make it, Mrs. Ross,” the driver said in a relaxed voice. “It’s only about another mile.”
Ashamed of her whimper, Cynthia sank back against her husband’s shoulder. But when she spoke, her voice was fretful. “Even if we do, we’ll be trapped for the winter. We’ll never get out of these mountains until it thaws.”
“Thawing will start within six weeks,” Harry Ross said in the same reassuring voice. “And we don’t want to get out before then. There’s enough wood and food in the cabin to last twice that long. And remember, if we can’t get out, nobody can get in to us either.”
“We should have headed for Canada,” Cynthia said. “We should have taken a chance.”
“I know what I’m doing, baby. It wouldn’t have been a chance. When Masters points his finger, your only chance is to disappear. Completely. Nobody but me and Johnny knows I got this hunting cabin, but syndicate guns will be checking every other spot in the country I ever been to. In six weeks they’ll be tired of looking and we’ll have a chance to sneak out of the country.”
Sneak, she thought. Run like a frightened rabbit. The mighty Harry Ross turned coward.
No, she corrected herself instantly, it was not cowardice. Even when the guns sounded he had not exhibited fear. Retreat in the face of invincible odds was merely good sense. But the catastrophic sense of loss remained with her. Where was the glamorous life she had visualized as a top racketeer’s wife? What good were diamonds and a mink coat in an isolated mountain cabin? Would the showers of expensive gifts, the gay times she had enjoyed for only three short months ever return?
I wish I were back at the hospital passing bedpans, she said to herself, and then the thought of her past nursing career reminded her of her current nursing problem.
“Your leg,” she said to Harry. “Suppose it gets infected?”
Harry emitted an indulgent laugh. “That's why I married a nurse, baby. There's a first aid kit in the cabin, and it’s up to you to see it don’t get infected.”
“I’m not a doctor,” she said dubiously.
The car made a slow right turn, crept on a few yards and stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Cynthia inquired anxiously.
In a matter-of-fact voice Johnny Venuti said, “We’re there.”
He pointed left, and when Cynthia rubbed a clear place in the fogged-over window with her glove, she could dimly make out the silhouette of a small cabin not more than a dozen feet away.
“I’ll leave the motor running and you people sit here where it’s warm until I get a fire going,” Johnny said. “It must be around zero out, and it’s probably just as cold in the cabin.”
He slipped from the car quickly, but the momentary opening of the door allowed in a cold blast which caused the couple in the rear seat to shiver. For a few minutes neither the man nor woman spoke.
Cynthia, depressedly musing on the bleak prospect of their self-imposed imprisonment, found the stealthy thought creeping into her mind that it would be even bleaker if Johnny Venuti were not along. Instantly she combatted the thought by inducing in her mind synthetic dislike of the lean bodyguard. He looked at her, she told herself righteously. His face always respectful, of course, but unable to hide completely the suppressed hunger deep in his eyes.
Then, in an unexpected flash of honesty, she admitted to herself she had caught the same look, not even suppressed, in the eyes of many other men without getting upset. What disturbed her about Johnny was her irrational response. For every time she sensed his hidden hunger, she was forced to strangle an equivalent sense of hunger in herself.
Perversely, in an attempt to convince herself she disliked Johnny, she said, “Why did we have to bring him, Harry?”
Her husband glanced at her in surprise. “Who would have driven otherwise, Cyn? You, who can’t park without denting a fender? Or me, with a bullet hole in my leg?” When she made no reply, he asked, “Don’t you like Johnny?”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “I just thought... won’t it be kind of crowded? The cabin doesn’t seem very big.”
“It isn’t. But we’ll manage. Take it easy on Johnny, Cyn.”
“What do you mean?” she asked with a touch of panic, fearing he had detected her unconscious reaction to Johnny’s glances.
To her relief he said, “I mean don’t act like you resent his presence. Johnny means a lot more to me than just a bodyguard, and I mean a lot more to Johnny than just his boss. He’d risk his life for me, baby. In fact he has more than once. He did again yesterday when Master’s hood put that bullet through my leg. It’s bad enough for him to be stuck up here all winter. Don’t make it worse by making him feel uncomfortable.”
She said in a low voice, “I like him all right, Harry.”
At the sound of the trunk lid being raised, both turned to peer through the rear window. Johnny was dragging out suitcases and staggering toward the cabin with them.
A few minutes later the bodyguard slid into the front seat, his clothing covered with snow. “Everything set,” he said, and switched off the ignition.
There was something final in the sound of the motor dying. Up to that instant there had been a slim hope in Cynthia’s mind that Harry would abandon the idea of using the mountain hideout and they would start back to civilization. The hope died with the motor.
With Cynthia supporting his weight on one side and Johnny supporting him on the other, they managed to get the wounded man into the cabin. When they had eased him onto one of the two built-in double-decked bunks, Johnny rushed back to the door, slammed it against the encroaching cold and bolted it. Cynthia shook the snow from her mink coat and then stared around her in astonishment.
The cabin consisted of only one room of about nine by twelve feet. One wall was entirely taken up by the two double-decked bunks. The opposite wall was piled from floor to ceiling with cut firewood. A single narrow window next to the door by which they had entered looked out from the front wall, and the rear wall contained another door in its center.
To one side of the rear door was an old-fashioned cookstove, at the moment emitting a satisfying glow of heat. To its other side was a small metal sink without taps, and whose drain spout led to a bucket beneath it. Over the sink was an open tier of shelves containing dishes, pots and pans, and an enormous supply of tinned foods.
The only other furnishings were a wooden table, four wooden chairs, a galvanized washtub and an old-fashioned bedroom commode. Light was furnished by a gasoline-mantle lamp hung from the ceiling, and in lieu of closet space a few bent coat hangers dangled from nails in the walls.
Watching his wife’s expression with wry amusement, Harry said, “Not exactly the Waldorf, is it?”
She turned to look down at him. “I didn’t expect running water and electricity, Harry. But good God! You expect us to live six weeks in this small space?”
When he merely continued to regard her with amusement, she pointed at the rear door. “Where does that go?”
“Outside, baby. Fifty feet away you’ll find the outhouse. It’s small, only a one-holer, but it’s built snug and it’s got a little kerosene stove in it.”
“Good God! There’s not even a curtain to draw. How am I supposed to take a bath?”