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It's become a friendly object of conjecture and speculation. No one
living has seen it, as far as we know. Jenkins himself died quietly
when he was on one of his infrequent trips to town for supplies.
Funny guy, that Jenkins.
He worked in the city for years, mostly as a night watchman in a
factory that made diapers. Didn't really enjoy people much and told
us many times how nice it was to just be in the huge factory when it
was quiet. Then one day he decided to move to the mountains and make
pretty things out of leather.
Once in a while he'd have his coffee at the counter at the Mule
Barn, but often as not, he'd camp out on the edge of town for the
two or three days it took him to sell his crafts and buy supplies.
He'd smile and wave from his campsite, then he'd be gone one
morning. We wouldn't see him again for months.
Now and then someone would ask him where his cabin was, and he'd
just point toward the mountains and say, "Up there." How far up
there? "A ways." What was his cabin like? "Not too big."
And so we came to regard the little cabin as an intriguing
mystery, an object of local legend.
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After he died, several of the fellows tried to backtrack him to
find the place, but Jenkins evidently didn't take the same trail
each time, as though he wanted his quiet times protected from even a
friendly visit from one of us.
During his lifetime, we respected his wishes. In this country, a
man has a perfect right to be a little strange, and, truth be known,
we hold a certain pride inside for those of us who seem to hear
different instructions.
But there is something in the human spirit that begs to have its
mysteries solved, so now, several times each year, one or two of us
will use the mystery of the lost cabin as an excuse to poke our
noses into the nuances and seclusions of these hills. We play off
our curiosity against our wishes to respect a man's privacy, even
when he's gone.
We have yet to discover Jenkins' lost cabin. Maybe we never will.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing either.
[Slim Randles]
For more of Slim's writing, visit
www.slimrandles.com.
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