Strange Doin's in the Pine Hills

by Ardath Mayhar

  WHO STALKS THE STALKER?

  I have helped to butcher chickens, beef calves, armadillos, and pigs. For FOOD, badly needed food. I have no taste for killing animals for other reasons, particularly when one goes out into the woods to find critters that are defenseless. I’ve always wanted to arm the deer....

  Tod Lowe hitched his deer rifle under his elbow and slipped through the bushes, taking care not to make a lot of noise. The deer stand was dead ahead, he thought, beyond the big hickory. This year, for certain, he’d get his buck.

  Last year—he grimaced as he worked his way through a tangle of brier vines—he’d shot four does and had had to leave them to rot in the woods. The law had become very strict about that, and none of the meat locker people would dress out a doe. Worse yet, they’d call the Game Warden on you, if you brought one in.

  Something moved off to his left. He stopped in his tracks and listened. Deer, most likely. If he kept shooting them, he’d sooner or later get that buck. He’d bet Luther Jardin twenty dollars that he’d make it this year, and he intended to collect.

  Another small sound came out of the huckleberry thicket, farther away this time, but still well within range. He snapped off a quick shot, and the heavy rifle boomed in his ears. There was a howl of pain, and a big dog shot away across a clearing, blood dripping from its shoulder, where the slug had creased it.

  Damn! Just a dog. He’d had a bellyful of dogs, since old man Lynch, a couple of years back, sued him and won a potful of money because Tod killed one of his registered hounds. All right, the dog was on Lynch’s property, confined by a mesh fence, but still, did that justify putting a damn animal above a man’s right to hunt?

  He moved forward again, more slowly. If he shot again, he’d scare away every deer in this area. No, he’d better take up his position on the stand and look down. Then he’d hit what he wanted, without frightening something he might want to kill.

  The stand was a rude platform laid across three high branches of a hickory tree. Spikes had been driven into the thick trunk at wide intervals, making an awkward but effective ladder. Tod started up, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

  He hated to work so hard—a man ought to be able to stand flat on the ground and shoot until he got his mark, but the fool Legislature had kept making game laws until it was plumb crazy. Looked as if they cared more for varmints than for taxpayers.

  He hitched his butt onto the platform and set his feet on the branch that angled away just below it, his breath coming hard after the climb. He checked the load of his rifle, took off the safety, and laid the weapon across his knees.

  The wood was a patchwork of brown and gold and gray-tan and purplish shadows below his perch. He could see a big rabbit mooching along, nibbling shoots of grass that had come up since the last rain. A covey of quail chittered in a patch of scrub, barely visible against the mottled leaves. He ought to bring his shotgun, next time, and take home some quail too. But now he waited, his gaze probing every shadow, every movement.

  When the buck came into view, he could hardly believe it. This was a big one, old—he couldn’t count the number of points, but the spread of antlers was impressive. He raised the rifle, took careful aim. From somewhere at a distance, there came a shot, and his own finger clamped down on the trigger.

  Something powerful struck him out of the tree, sending him flailing and flopping into the scrub where the quail scattered in a thunder of wings. What? Tod wondered, in the brief moment before his life winked out.

  * * * * * * *

  Isaiah Lewis ejected the spent cartridge and set the safety. His 1903 Springfield might be old-fashioned and out-of-date, but it could still kill, just like it had done in a couple of World Wars.

  He pocketed the retrieved cartridge casing without disturbing anything around him. He lived in the woods like an Indian, taking what he needed and no more, leaving things so unmarked that nobody looking for a trace of the one who killed that bastard over there would ever know he’d been here at all.

  His feet were shod in moccasins that didn’t leave sharp-edged marks in soft earth. They didn’t even crumble the dead leaves underfoot as he backed easily out of his covert behind a dead snag and moved away, bending and twisting to miss the tangles of thicket and vine and young growth that crowded this cut-over forest.

  Deer went this way. Men didn’t, because they couldn’t walk upright. He had learned through close observation that those who came here to hunt or to cut timber or just to amble through the trees didn’t recognize any path that wasn’t suited to humankind. So he had the freedom of the deer trails, which made an intricate network through this big tract, without fear that any hunter for man or animal would ever look closely at any path he chose.

  More quickly than anyone unfamiliar with the old man’s habits would have believed, he was far from the spot where he had killed the hunter. Now he moved surely over easy country, where scrub was shaded out by huge oaks, sweetgums, ashes, and hickories, with occasional pines lending thick carpets of straw to further conceal any track he might make.

  The sun, even on a clear day, seldom could reach more than a few skinny fingers through the interlaced branches high above, and little vegetation interrupted the carpet of leaf-mold that cushioned his steps. When he returned to his home, he never took exactly the same route twice, understanding that even the softest footfalls could eventually create a trail that a skilled tracker might detect.

  This time he dropped down beside the creek that ran, farther down, into the river that meandered through this wooded country. As he picked his way along the rabbit trails networking the bank, he thought about his victim. He had seen, last winter, the kill he had left to rot. Does all, and pregnant.

  “The man might have had a family,” he murmured, over the babble of a little waterfall. “He might have children.”

  The other Isaiah grunted. “If he wanted to be a good family man, why didn’t he stay home and be one?” he asked himself. “Nobody made him come out here and bloody up the woods. Nobody made him waste all that meat. Damn idiot just felt big, with his high-powered gun and his expensive boots. Had to kill somethin’, whatever it might be. I heard him shoot, and I heard a dog yelp. Careless. Careless. And that can get you killed.”

  He paused and grinned. He recalled, for the first time, the shot he had heard echoing his own. The bastard’s finger was on the trigger—he must have pulled it when the slug hit him. The gun had discharged. He’d fallen from the tree. More than likely the sheriff would find this an accidental shooting. Lots of those happened during deer season.

  * * * * * * *

  When Lee Collins heard about Tod’s death it hit him hard. They’d been boys together at Green Creek School, and though they hadn’t been too close as men, they still shared a love of hunting. This was the week they’d planned to go together to Tod’s special hunting spot, where he bragged about killing a buck every season, though often he didn’t offer any proof of his claims.

  At first, Lee thought he’d skip hunting this Saturday. But then he decided that old Tod wouldn’t want that. What better proof of their long friendship could there be than going out and killing a buck in honor of his dead chum?

  Sally had protested. “It isn’t civilized! Here’s poor Tod not cold in his grave, and you go out and shoot some little animal that never did you any harm. Why not go over and see Nellie, along with me? We can take her a casserole and one of my philodendron plants. After the funeral is when folks tend to forget about the bereaved.”

  Women! Casseroles and flowers were all they could come up with. Men, now, knew what other men valued, and he knew Tod would be with him in spirit while he waited to spot his prey. He had no idea what part of the river bottoms old Tod had claimed as his special place, but Lee had a spot of his own. Down near the post-oak glades was a little ridge from which you could see a long distance. Browsing deer showed up well, and there he intended to shoot his memorial to Tod.

  * * * * * * *

  Isaiah had been
quartering his territory, looking for another invader. He suspected the sheriff must have taken the expected course, for nobody had searched the woods for any sign of another hunter, even. Discharged gun plus dead hunter equaled hunting accident. Case closed.

  He grinned. Back in the days when he taught school, he’d learned to read people accurately. Young’uns were not that much different from men, just didn’t have as much experience at hiding things. Once you knew what to look for, it was easy to spot it in adults as well.

  No, he’d taught Sheriff Joe Higgins a ways back, and he’d scamped everything then too. Copied blurbs off book covers for reports, not to mention copying other things that Isaiah hadn’t been able to nail him with. He’d let this go.

  Sure as hell, the game wardens weren’t going to be paying attention to what went on here along the river. Last fall they’d been shot up by a bunch of illegal net-setters, and they were sticking close to the lake and the national forest, trying to catch them again. With the drastic die-off of deer this year, it was up to Isaiah himself to keep those stupid, beer-guzzling bastards from town from killing the few animals left in the woods.

  So he set off toward the ridge that overlooked the river, knowing it was a favorite spot for town-based hunters. You could see ’em up there, thinking they were hid in the skimpy growth of cut-over pines and post-oaks. They stuck up like the targets in a shooting gallery.

  * * * * * * *

  It had been a wet fall, and Lee’s boots were clogged with mud before he reached his usual stand. He dropped to sit on a rock beneath a post-oak and used a stick to poke at the thick black mud on heels and soles. When he had lightened that load a bit, he climbed slowly and awkwardly up the ladder into the box-like deer stand he’d used for years.

  It was still early, and fog draped itself over the low-lying country flanking the ridge. Ghostly shapes loomed out of the pearly mist, but he knew they were the tops of the huge pines and hardwoods growing along the river. It was too wet and too remote down here for the loggers to be able to work their big trucks in and out.

  After a while the mist began to lift, and he saw a tawny shape, small and fleet, dash across from one patch of fog to another. There they were! He straightened his back, braced himself, and took aim, waiting for another to make the run.

  He didn’t hear the shot. Something hit him in the side and toppled him off the stand, and even as he fell he wondered how he’d managed to shoot himself. Then he knew. Somebody else had potted him, well and truly.

  He could feel blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Something in his chest whistled as he tried to breathe. Then he passed out, and he never came to again.

  MYSTERY KILLER STALKS HUNTERS

  AUTHORITIES ADMIT NO LEADS

  From time to time Isaiah went to town and bought a newspaper. He put it off for a couple of days, just to be on the safe side, before looking into the results of his activities. Those headlines made him chuckle. He knew damn well there were no leads. There wasn’t a woodsman worth the name in the sheriff’s department. Hell, there wasn’t a soul who could track King Kong through a mud puddle! And even if they’d hired somebody who could, there were no tracks, no traces left near the sites of the “accidents” or anyplace else.

  Isaiah Lewis knew the woods. His grandparents had raised him there, and they were both part Cherokee, part Chickasaw. What they didn’t know about the forest life wasn’t worth knowing, and that blood tie had brought him back to the river bottom country, after he’d learned that teaching spoiled children of white men was a losing proposition.

  As long as the white-eyes stayed where they belonged, he had no problem with them. His hut was hidden on a ridge and surrounded by swamp. Nobody who didn’t understand the intricate maze of underwater foot-paths could get there without falling in and either drowning or getting snake-bit.

  Armed with his newspaper and a couple of westerns off the rack, he turned back toward home. Let them stew. He’d get more of the nitwits before he was done. And nobody would ever know he was here at all.

  STALKING-WOMAN

  Funny thing—most men don’t believe it when you tell them never to harm a woman’s children.

  She broke her first knife on the shell of the Turtle-Man she caught relieving himself behind a clump of huckleberry bushes. Squatting as he was, the blade should have slipped neatly between his shoulder blades and into his heart from behind...but the hard stuff that encased his torso snapped the flint, leaving her with a stub.

  If the man had not been entangled with his own clothing, that would not have been enough. As it was, she made a rough job of his jugular before he could do anything about it. The knife, however, was lost. Only the fact that her victim carried one of bright metal, worth any number of hers, comforted her for its loss. She used the new weapon to sever one of the ears, which she strung on the thong she had brought for such a purpose.

  The first of her son’s killers now anchored the string of ears that she hoped to live to lay on the mound covering his burial place. There were now only five more to catch and to kill, in order to complete her tally of vengeance.

  She did not remain in the thicket. The others would come to find their lost companion. She slipped backward through the brush, replacing every disturbed leaf or twig as she went. One of her own kind would be able to see where she had gone, but these blind newcomers would not, she felt certain.

  Moving in a wide arc, she slid through the trees, down a shallow creek to pass the point nearest the campfire where the other Turtle-Men talked in their strange tongue, and around to a thick cluster of sumac on the side opposite that in which the body lay. Only one of these remaining men had taken part in the death of her son, and she waited only to get him apart from his fellows. Then she would leave these survivors to their own devices, and follow the group in which the other three traveled.

  It was some time before one of the men called out for the other. “Capitán! Capitán Escobedo! Cómo está usted?”

  The tallest of the armored figures stood, when there was no reply, and said something to his fellows. When he strode away through the bushes and disappeared behind the trees, Nahadichka flattened herself among the dead leaves and waited.

  In just a moment, there came an exclamation, followed by a cry of “¡Venga! ¡Venga! ¡El es muerto! ¡Aquí!”

  As the other three men rose to their feet, dropping the gear they had been mending while they rested, Nahadichka stared hard at the back of the one they called Ho-an. It had been he who caught her son as he played with the bright metal things he had found in the shelter of the white men. He had beaten the child, for Bear-boy had lived long enough to speak to his mother.

  “The one whose hair burns, he caught me and beat me. And then the others came, and they beat me too. And why? I had not taken those things away. I only wanted to look at them.” His dark eyes had been filled with astonishment, even as he died.

  She had not been able to tell him. She only hoped, as she stalked those who had killed him, that they were as puzzled about the death that tracked after them as her son had been.

  She furrowed her brow, staring, staring at the back of the man whose hair flamed in the firelight. As his companions crashed away toward the call for help, he turned, as if unwillingly, to gaze into the circle of brush about the small clearing.

  “¡Juan! ¡Juan! ¡Aquí!” came the call again, and he shrugged and turned to go.

  She was upon him before he knew what had happened. Her arm locked about his neck from behind, and that sharp steel knife that had belonged to his fellow parted the flesh of his neck smoothly, deliciously. He fell at her feet, and she stared down for an instant before leaning over to sever a circle of scalp, with its bright hair hanging long from it. That joined his ear on her string, once she regained the shelter of the forest that covered East Texas from the Big Water to the Flat Ground.

  She did not wait to see what the three survivors might do. They were no concern of hers. That other group had been going west, and they
now had two days on their road, while she had stalked this group. That much larger number of armored men would be harder to deal with, she was sure, and so she had made certain of this manageable one.

  The deer-things that the Spaniards rode moved fast, and Nahadichka traveled most of the night, pausing only to chew some dried meat and to rest for a very short time. She ran through the trees, making shortcuts when the ancient trail followed by her prey made one of its curves to avoid difficult ground or deep streams. One afoot could go where those awkward beasts could not.

  She felt that those ahead of her could not know that they were pursued. She had seen how they regarded her people, and the women they had scorned as of no account, much to the amusement of the entire tribe. Her people knew all too well that without the work of the women life would have been almost impossible. Men liked to hunt and to fish and to battle among themselves, but they were not at all dependable when it came to farming and preparing hides and making the stores of food that kept the People alive in winter.

  So the Turtle-Men would not expect to be stalked by the mother of the child they had beaten to death. That thought helped her to keep her wearying feet moving at top speed. It woke her from her brief bouts of exhausted sleep, and it bore her up as she crossed the rivers, in which alligators sometimes lay sluggishly, watching as she swam or waded or walked over fallen trees.

  Her people had traveled all the forest country for countless generations. Their trails were many, though that oldest of roads that the Spaniards used was the best marked and easiest. Nahadichka knew others, however, that criss-crossed the forests, linking up bits of other tracks, sometimes faster to travel than that easier road. She used them, making a wide angle southwestward that brought her out of the woodlands in less than two more days.

  When she examined the trail of the Old Ones, there were no tracks of the hooves of the beasts, no droppings in neat piles. She had beaten her prey to this point, and she knew they were still in the forest country. Something inside her relaxed, as she found a spot from which she could see the track without being seen and slept, her ear flat to the ground, for a long while.