There was something in what he said, and I understood the matter better. He was undoubtedly trying to duplicate David Mitchell’s experience on the day he was killed. I remembered that Pete had mentioned to me that there was a fair chance that Mitchell cocked his gun because his dog was nosing around. I stifled whatever slight irritation I may have felt at playing second fiddle in the hunt. “What about the boat with your tools in it?”
“We’ll have to leave it there today. If we have any luck, and have time, we can row down in your boat this afternoon and tow it back up.”
“But your tools?”
“If we find anything and need them, we can get them. The main thing now is the dog.”
We met Buddy a quarter of a mile down the road from his house. I gave him a cock-and-bull story about Mr. Lee wanting to see how a bird dog worked, and he received it with the characteristic imperturbability of his race. The boy was still so dejected over the loss of his father that I doubt if he comprehended what I was talking about. At any rate he agreed, without argument, to allow me to take Kate, his pointer bitch, for the day. He jumped on the running-board of the car, and we drove up to the house to get the dog.
“If she gets to runnin’ rabbits, Doctah, just switch her a bit and she’ll quit it.”
I was afraid we might have trouble with her. On the contrary, she wriggled and squirmed gleefully at the sight of the car. When I held the back door open for her, she jumped in eagerly, and proceeded to make herself comfortable by putting her hind legs on the back seat, and her two front ones on the back of my seat, where she could breathe on my neck and look out of the window. Buddy had said she was a pointer. I did not inquire further into the matter. All dogs belonging to negroes in the South are pointers if they hunt birds, regardless of what strange breed may crop up in their ancestry now and again. Some of them are better than thoroughbreds, some of them indifferent, and some of them perfectly terrible. Luckily, Kate belonged in the first classification. She was black and white, long and rangy, with big strong legs. Her head was broad, and her friendly eyes were limpid and intelligent. She snuffled eagerly down the neck of my hunting coat as the old bird smell assailed her sensitive nostrils. In the rear view mirror I could see her flopped ears perked up with excitement.
“Do you think she’s any good?” Marvin asked.
“Yes. I think we’re pretty lucky. She looks intelligent, and I bet she covers the ground like a streak. I don’t think she’d win any medals in a show, but she’s a Florida bird dog. She’s A-l. I hope we don’t run into any game wardens,” I added as an afterthought.
“I’ll pay the fines, if we do.”
He did not drive down to the boat landing, but took an old hunting road to the right, which if followed to its end, would have led us to the north end of the east fork of the lake. He stopped the car in a clearing in the flat-woods. We got out, followed by our new addition to the party, who did not wait for the back door to be opened, but scrambled over the front seat.
Marvin looked around him. “We’re about midway between the two ends of the lake here. This is where my car was when Salmon got the newspaper out of it, if it was Salmon. I talked to Mitchell about a quarter of a mile from here, near the edge of the lake. I’ll show you the place when we pass it.”
Kate took a rim around the car, and barked at me impatiently to know why I did not get my gun and quit wasting time. When I took it out of the car, she was off like a streak through the woods. Marvin had not brought a shotgun, but I saw the pocket of his hunting coat bulging with the .38 he had given me the day before.
“How far are we from the Simmons house?” I asked.
“About two miles. I hate to waste the time hunting this ground between here and the grove, but you can’t get the car down any farther, and I don’t want to overlook a bet.”
I slipped a couple of shells into the gun, for I did not want to flush a covey and then not shoot. I knew Kate would not be able to understand it, and would most likely quit hunting and take to chasing rabbits for amusement. If she got on any birds, I intended to fire into the air, and then send her out after singles when the covey scattered.
I doubt if ever a stranger hunt was staged in the State. The morning was ideal. There had been a slight dew the night before. The ground was still damp, and the scent high. Kate was fast and rangy—a far-out hunter. Too far-out to suit me. Several times she disappeared entirely, and I had to whistle her in.
We had been going an hour, walking very slowly, and she had never slacked for an instant. I think she must have raked every inch of the territory between the forks of the lake, with her streaking back and forth, back and forth, through trees, bushes, and palmettos. She came racing back into my sight from a particularly long run. I saw her stop, so suddenly that she nearly turned a somersault. Her belly went flat to the ground, and I knew the bird scent was hot in her face.
Nose straight ahead, she started creeping along so slowly it was hard to see whether she was moving or not. We quickened our step and came up behind her. I threw the safety off of my gun. She stopped dead, one front foot in the air, tail straight out behind her, and her nose dead on an old log ten feet ahead. “Stay in back of me,” I told Marvin.
I walked up ahead of her slowly, and as soon as I was beyond her nose she was in with a rush. There was a terrific drumming of wings, and the air around us was black with birds. I say, in all honesty, that I had intended shooting up in the air, but when the covey flushed, I dropped two of the birds as automatically as a piece of machinery. I think it is harder for a hunter to shoot without aiming than it is to hit the most difficult flying target. Marvin laughed. “If you don’t get two of those singles so we can have birds for supper tonight, I’m going to turn you in to the Sheriff’s office.”
“It was an accident,” I explained. “I didn’t intend to hit them or I would have missed them sure as fate.” Kate found the two birds and brought them in as nicely as could be. I gave her a pat on the head for thanks, and she started out after the singles. I figured I might as well do a good day’s lawbreaking while I was at it, so I killed two more to the accompaniment of Marvin’s sarcastic remarks.
By noon we had covered just over half the distance to the Simmons house, and we sat down in the shade of a big tree on the bank of the lake to eat some sandwiches I had, and to have a smoke. Kate immediately sloshed into the water and stood there laughing at us with only her head showing.
I was happier than I had been in a long time. The day was beautiful, and in spite of the peculiar circumstances, I had enjoyed the morning’s hunt. I expounded my ideas about Bartlett and Reig to Marvin. He listened without comment. When I had finished, he tossed his cigarette into the edge of the lake where it expired with a hiss.
“Maybe you’re right, but we better go on and see what we can find.”
Kate, refreshed after her rest in the water, started off with renewed vigor. The birds were taking their noonday rest, and were hard to find. It must have been after three o’clock when we reached the first trees in the old grove back of the Simmons house. Kate was tired. She came up to me and lay down, panting heavily, with a lolling tongue. While she was resting, we walked down to the corner of the grove, and Marvin poked desultorily around in the brushpile which had covered the buried gun.
“If we knew who buried that,” he kicked the pile viciously, “we’d know a lot of things.”
We made our way slowly through the grove under the hot sun. The ground was only sparsely covered between the trees. It did not look like quail country to Kate, and she trotted around smelling in a lackadaisical manner. We came out of the trees suddenly. The Simmons house was just ahead. The palmetto bushes and the foliage were much thicker there. Life took on a renewed interest to Kate. Quail like an old deserted house. A covey must have been ranging close around.
She began to circle back and forth, disappearing under the thick palmettos, and making her way cautiously through briar bushes which would have torn a human to bits. She was about twen
ty-five yards in back of the house when I noticed a break in her rhythmical searching. I am still at a loss to ascertain what attracted my attention. Where she had been running eagerly before, she suddenly started to circle in a small space. She was concealed by a thick clump of heavy bushes when, of a sudden, she stopped. I waited, expecting a rabbit to run out any second, but there was no sign of one.
“What’s she on?” Marvin asked, his voice tense.
“I don’t know. We’d better look.”
Automatically, I threw the safety off my gun. Then I happened to glance to the left, and there, not ten feet away, was the big tree against which David Mitchell had rested his gun the day he was killed. I took hold of Marvin’s arm and pointed.
“I know,” he said quietly, “But hang on to yourself.”
Kate had started to move again. We forced our way through the bushes, regardless of thorns or scratches. In the small cleared space in the center she was busily scratching at something. Marvin moved ahead instantly, knelt down, and pushed her to one side. I followed just as quickly.
On the ground before us, revealed by a piece of bark, which Kate had scratched to one side, was a large hasp fastened with an iron nail. Marvin pulled out the nail, lifted the hasp, and tried to pull it up. It would not move. Kate stood to one side, watching us, her head at an inquisitive angle.
“Give me a hand, Doc,” he said. I saw that he was pushing the hasp away from him as if trying to open a sliding trap door in the ground. I leaned over, and together we shoved. Something gave without warning, and I lost my balance completely. I felt myself falling into space. Then I brought up with a terrific jolt on my hands and knees on a concrete ledge about four feet below the surface of the ground. For a minute I was stunned and could hardly move. Marvin was down beside me in an instant, and then I noticed that the ledge on which I was kneeling was not over four feet wide. Beyond the edge it dropped down into darkness and an unknown distance below.
“Are you hurt, Doc?” Marvin asked solicitously.
“No, thank the Lord!” I raised myself and sat down on the ledge with my feet hanging over. Something must have warned me. That sixth sense which I have spoken of before. Frantically I pulled my legs back up on the ledge with me, and at the same moment the air was filled with the most terrifying of all sounds—the dry whirr of a giant rattler.
“Good God, Marvin,” I said, “Let’s get out of here quick! “
Then the trap door slid slowly closed over our heads, and everything was dark. I felt Marvin’s hand grip my wrist.
“We weren’t careful that time, Doc. We’re trapped in the snake’s cistern!”
27
I had wondered many times during my life just what I would do face to face with great personal danger. Would my actions be those of a strong man or a weakling? Would I act with calm deliberation, or disastrous recklessness? Did I have the same stuff in me as the debonair gentlemen in the cigarette ads, who remained nonchalant with the world crashing about their ears? Futile wonderings from the safety of my own armchair! In the throes of the wildest nightmare, I could never have pictured myself crouched in utter darkness on a four foot ledge, the death rattle of the tropics whirring in my ears!
I laughed! Nerves will stand just so much. Mine had had more than enough. As the rectangle of sunlight was blotted out, I heard the click of the fastened staple over our heads. It finished me. I burst into crazy, hysterical laughter. Marvin let go of my wrist. A match flared. Vigorously, and with great deliberation, he began to slap my face. It brought me to my senses like a plunge in the lake. I did not get mad. I was not even surprised. It seemed a perfectly natural thing for him to do. Neither of us has mentioned the incident since.
“How many matches have you?” The voice in the blackness was as casual as if he had bid three no trump.
I felt in the pocket of my hunting coat. “A tobacco tin full.”
“Be careful of them. Take them out one at a time so you won’t drop them. Are they big ones?”
“Yes.”
“We’re lucky. Light one, if you will. I want to have a look for our noisy playmate. Maybe I can pot him and shut him up.”
I struck the match on the sole of my boot. We looked over the edge of the ledge on which we were seated. The bottom of the cistern was about five feet below us. It was perfectly dry, and gray with age. The short life of the match showed as all we needed to know. Directly underneath us an ugly arrow-shaped head protruded from the center of a gleaming coil. A forked black tongue whisked in and out with lightning rapidity. Two eyes, oval beads of flat wickedness, unblinkingly regarded the light. Unhating, and implacable as death, they stared. To look in them long meant madness. The air was hideous with noise. I held the match higher. As the circle of light widened I saw there were three more. The match burned out.
“Can they—? Do you think—?” My mouth was dust dry.
“I doubt it, Doc. They’re quite a ways below us. But we can’t just sit here and chance it. There may be others.”
“They got Abe—”
“He must have pitched over off the ledge—or jumped down without knowing. Poor old Yankee followed him. into a place he knew was certain destruction. That’s the lowly hound for you, Doc. Let’s have some more light.”
“Do you think Kate—”
“I hope she’s all right. We didn’t hear any shots. If she does get back home it won’t do us much good. They’ll just think she wouldn’t hunt with strangers.”
It is with a sense of utter futility that I attempt to express my admiration for Marvin Lee. Imprisoned in that place, as black as the bottom of a full tar barrel; on a narrow ledge with no room to stand erect; with a horrible death awaiting him at the slightest slip; he calmly started squirming around to explore our dungeon while I struck matches.
The sliding door by which we had entered was hopeless. It covered an opening in one corner of the vault. The rest of the arched top was of mortar and stone. The wood of the underside of the door was as slippery as mica, and offered no handhold whatever. The cistern was large. We measured it afterward and found it was ten feet deep, twenty-four feet long, and eighteen feet across. Trapped in it, it was as boundless as the endless caverns.
I had burned ten of our matches when Marvin found that the ledge we were on extended around the wall on one side. It was narrower along the side, just two feet wide, to be exact. We sat in the dark and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of trying to negotiate it on our hands and knees. The risk of slipping was great. We had tried lighting three matches at once, but we could not be sure that there was a ledge at the other end similar to the one we were on. If we met a blank wall at the other end and had to turn around—I broke out in a cold sweat at the thought.
“I think it’s foolish to try it, Marvin. If we gained anything—”
“What will we gain sitting here? This ledge was built for something. I think I know now why they never found the Simmons still.”
“How could he use this?”
“We’re only in the entrance. It takes water to run a still. Look at the size of this place. If it had enough water in it to just cover these ledges a man who knew its construction— By gosh! Light another match, Doc.”
By its light he examined the end wall in back of us. He uttered an exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to a hole about two feet above the ledge. It was big enough to put a finger in.
“There used to be a guide rail running the length of the cistern. A man could stand on that side ledge, and by leaning over and supporting himself on the rail, easily make his way to the other end. We’ll get out of this alive yet!”
I caught some of his enthusiasm. Marvin led the way. I followed. I held a dozen matches between my teeth, and lit them at intervals. It was an interminable, horror-filled trip. I doubt if my dreams will ever be entirely free from it. The snakes became frantic at our crawling above their lair. I had heard somewhere in the back woods that rattlers would jump through the air, if they were goaded to anger. T
he intervals between matches grew into small lifetimes of unreasoning panic. My right knee was lacerated from my fall as we opened the trap. Tiny sharp pebbles ground into it excruciatingly as I crawled along. I did not dare feel it, but I knew my riding breeches were torn and my bare flesh was rubbing on the stone. I silently berated myself for bringing such a useless thing as a revolver, and leaving my invaluable heavy flashlight at home. The only weapon which might have been of use to us, my shotgun, was leaning against a bush above us, unless our captor had carried it away.
I was secretly fuming at Marvin’s snail-like progress. Two minutes later I was thanking God for his caution. We were near enough to the other end to see that it also had a ledge. Unlike the one we had left, it extended only half way across the cistern. The match I was holding burned low. Just before it flickered out I caught a gleam of bright red on the platform for which we were heading. Marvin’s voice came back to me then with a timbre which chilled me through.
“Light! Quick, Doc! There’s something right ahead of me! Hurry!”
Like an arrant fool, I tried to answer him, and dropped the two matches left in my mouth. I could only use one hand to get more out of the box in my pocket. I fumbled for them frantically. Countless ages rolled over me before I got three of them together and nursed them to life in my trembling fingers.
Where there had been a single gleam of red before, I now saw four brilliant red rings waving slowly to and fro a few inches off the ledge at the end. Eerily they took shape before my eyes. I was gazing half hypnotized at one of the most beautiful creatures in the world—and one of the most deadly—a coral snake. Then Marvin started beating on the ledge in front of him with his black felt hat. The coils unwound with a flash of color, and silently as a miracle two feet of red, orange, and black rings slipped over the side into the pit below. The matches dropped from my nerveless hand.
Blood on Lake Louisa Page 17
