Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1952

by Wild Dogs of Drowning Creek (v1. 1)

  “Any trails leading anywhere?” called Jebs after them.

  “There’s one at the back of the old place,” Sam told him. “The Indians use it to visit that lonely blind man I told you about—Mr. Tasman.”

  He hoisted his bulk into the rear of the jeep, dwarfing its proportions. Driscoll started the motor and drove away with his big partner.

  “That lonely blind man.” Jebs repeated Sam’s words. “Randy, what say we go have a peek at him?”

  “Why not?” said Randy at once. “Sam said last night that he lives about a mile away. I’d like to stretch my legs and shake down that dinner before I start kneeling on the roof again.”

  “Suits me.”

  They skirted the edge of the cornfield, moved around the filled-in foundation hole of the razed manor house, and beyond it came to the trail of which the giant had told them. It was no more than the slight indication of a path, roving here and there among the trees on no apparent course, but not hard to follow when once found. The boys trudged past and under loblolly and longleaf pines, past darkskinned gum trees and tall tulip trees. As they trudged they talked, rehearsing the events of the recent night and morning. At last Randy, who was in the lead, stopped and held up his hand for a halt.

  “There’s a clearing just ahead,” he said, dropping his voice.

  They could see into one of those naturally treeless spaces in a forest, and against a close-grown clump of jack oaks and small pines on the far side they could make out a building.

  It was a small cabin, little more than a shack, made of stout whipsawed slabs. Building paper covered its shed-type roof. In size it measured perhaps twelve feet by fifteen, and in the side visible across the clearing the boys saw a half-open door of cleated planks and a single small window, its sash raised and a piece of dark cloth hanging inside like a curtain. There was no garden, no outbuilding, no sign of life or motion except—

  “He’s bound to be at home,” said Jebs. “I see smoke coming out of the chimney.”

  “Who’s there?” someone challenged them.

  The voice came from inside the half-open door. It was a strong, ringing voice, but with a flat quality to its accent.

  Neither Jebs nor Randy replied. Something of mystery and inhospitality seemed to hang about the clearing, the cabin and the unseen dweller.

  After a moment, the door pulled all the way inward. Then a man appeared on the sill.

  He was under medium height and of slender build, and he wore an old faded khaki shirt and trousers. In one hand he held a knotty-looking cane, the point of which he thrust gropingly before him. As he stepped into the open, he raised his face. It was a gaunt, line-bracketed face, with curly gray hair above it. It looked pale, and its expression was of strained attention. The eyes were wide open and stared emptily.

  “Who’s there?” the man repeated. “I can’t see you, I’m blind. Speak up, whoever you are. State your business, if you’ve got any, and then go away. I don’t like visitors.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE DOGS RETURN

  There was another moment of silence. The blind man stood outside his crude door, leaning lightly on the knotty cane. He craned his lean, tense face forward on his slim neck. Then he moved toward the boys.

  His feet shuffled, as though finding their own way, but they were sure and even nimble. The cane lifted a little, and Randy and Jebs saw that it was a stoutlooking piece of wood, and that the hand in which it rested was a sinewy one.

  “Are you Mr. Hobert Tasman?” ventured Randy.

  Again the blind man stood still. His vacant eyes turned toward Randy.

  “If you know my name, you know that I’m blind and want to be left alone,” said Hobert Tasman. “What are you doing here? You sound young—like a boy, still in your ’teens. Haven’t you anything better to do with your time than come poking around where you’re not wanted? I live out here to keep away from people like you.”

  “My name’s Randy Hunter, and I have a friend with me,” said Randy. “He’s Jebs Markum.”

  “Hey, there, Mr. Tasman,” said Jebs diffidently.

  “We don’t want to meddle with your business,” went on Randy. “We’re visiting some friends— Driscoll Jordan and Sam Cohill—and we only thought—”

  “Driscoll Jordan and Sam Cohill,” repeated Hobert Tasman coldly. “When Sam Cohill speaks, his voice comes from nearly a yard above my head. I’ve heard that he’s a monster. He tramped over here once, and I could hear his great big feet shaking the ground. Well, I told him to stay away. I don’t care for giants.”

  Randy looked at Hobert Tasman. The blind man was small, and Randy knew that sometimes small men resented big ones.

  “Sam can’t help being oversize,” argued Randy.

  “He’s really a gentlemanly kind of person. As I started to say, we came over here because he worries about you, all alone as you are, and—”

  Randy broke off, embarrassed.

  “Go on, finish it,” said Hobert Tasman harshly, gripping his cane. “I’m not afraid to be reminded that I can’t see.”

  “We’ll get out if you want us to, Mr. Tasman,” said Jebs. “We just wanted to find out if we could help in any way, that’s all.”

  Tasman relaxed a trifle. “You sound like well- brought-up young fellows,” he said, more gently. “If I were you, I’d go back and help that friend of yours, Cohill. Probably he needs help.” The voice turned harsh again. “Probably he needs to be taught civilized ways. Does he even know how to read and write?”

  Randy and Jebs had turned to go, but Jebs, nettled at the slur on Sam, paused and spoke over his shoulder.

  “You’re figuring Sam all wrong,” he said hotly. “He’s as civilized, pound for pound, as anybody in North Carolina. He doesn’t need to learn how to read, he reads plenty. He’s got about five hundred books on his shelves.”

  “Books?” echoed Hobert Tasman, so quickly that both boys turned to look at him again. “What kind of books?”

  “Why,” said Randy, “I was looking at his shelf last night. He has novels, and things like the poems of Milton and Longfellow.”

  “And natural history books,” added Jebs. “A couple of reference books, and stories by Ernest Thompson Seton, and some—”

  “Ernest Thompson Seton?” repeated Tasman, more sharply than before. “What books by Seton?”

  “Let’s see,” said Jebs. “There was The Biography of a Grizzly, and there was Wild Animal Ways. And —wait a minute—Lives of the Hunted. That’s one I’ve always liked.”

  For the first time the slender, hard-knit form stood easy, and a smile touched the gaunt face. “You like it?” said Tasman softly. “Lives of the Hunted, eh? I never read it.”

  “Maybe you’d like to borrow it,” said Jebs impulsively, then fell awkwardly silent, feeling he had said the wrong thing. But Tasman only shook his gray head, slowly and sadly.

  “You know I couldn’t read it.”

  “Listen,” offered Jebs, eager to make amends.

  “Maybe somebody could read it to you. Maybe I could.”

  “Would you?” said the blind man, and moved a step forward. He looked and sounded hungry. “Would you, boy?”

  “We’d both be glad to,” Randy assured him. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever read Lives of the Hunted, either. So you and I would both be getting that book for the first time.”

  Tasman leaned both hands on his cane. “I’m sorry if I was hasty a moment ago,” he said. “I’ve always been interested in natural history and outdoor life. I used to study it, until I went blind. Well, all right. I accept your offer. Next time you come this way, you might bring that book.”

  “We’ll borrow it from Sam,” promised Jebs, “and bring it over the next time we come.”

  “Good-day, then, both of you. What were your names, now? Randy Hunter and Jeb Markum?”

  “It’s Jebs, not Jeb,” said the owner of that name. “I was baptized James Ewell Brown Stuart Markum, and folks kind of hammer it
down to Jebs.”

  “I see. Jebs Markum. Good-day to you.”

  Thus dismissing them with a touch of his earlier cool reserve, Hobert Tasman started back toward his cabin door. Again his feet seemed to slide along, feeling their way. His stick, questing ahead, touched the door sill. He put his free hand on the jamb, lifted his foot, and stepped inside.

  Randy and Jebs headed back toward New Chimney Pot.

  “Well, that was a genuine, corn-fed brush-off,” commented Jebs. “For two cents I wouldn’t ever go near him again.”

  “I won’t offer you two cents,” replied Randy, “because I’m going back—both of us will go back— carrying the book with us. He needs company. I’ll bet he’s interesting, once he starts to talk. He said he studied natural history.”

  “Then why doesn’t he act more natural?” demanded Jebs. “Maybe that’s acting natural for a hermit, though. Sam Cohill was funny when we first met up with him.”

  “Sam understands a fellow like Mr. Tasman,” said Randy. “Sam had sympathy for him. When he saw the man wanted to be let alone, Sam did just that. Sam knows what it’s like to want no company but your own.”

  Halfway along the home trail, Rebel met them. The white dog did not bound or bark, but showed plainly that he recognized the two boys as guests at his home, and was ready to offer them friendly courtesy. Returning to the yard of New Chimney Pot House, the two consulted.

  “What’ll we do while the jeep’s coming back?” asked Randy. “Work at the dam, or on the shingles?”

  “The shingles are probably worse needed,” said Jebs. “Look at the clouds boiling up, above those trees to the northwest. Maybe it won’t rain tonight, but when it does we’d better have our roof on.”

  Thus agreed, they heaved more bundles of shingles up the ladder and began to nail down new courses. Hours passed at this work. Through the yard below them moved the mule wagon, with Willie Dubbin heading back to the Martin farm.

  “Take care them wild dogs don’t tree you-all up there,” he called to them. “Though I wouldn’t swear but what them dogs might not know how to climb— maybe even fly—”

  The wagon rolled on, and the rest of his words were lost.

  “Hear that?” said Jebs. “About dogs flying? It gives me the creeps.”

  “Don’t get believing Willie Dubbin’s superstitions,” cautioned Randy.

  “I’m trying hard not to,” said Jebs, putting nails in his mouth.

  A large expanse of the tar-paper slope was shingled when the noise of an engine heralded the jeep’s return. Randy and Jebs scrambled down to greet Sam and Driscoll.

  “Look what we brought back,” said Driscoll, as Sam hoisted out a heavy-looking piece of machinery. “That Mr. Lyman Hager understands any kind of an idea and builds any gadget to order, while you wait. Fancy, huh?”

  “Pretty fancy, though I don’t see how it works,” confessed Randy.

  The device of which Driscoll and Sam looked so proud was a straight metal axle, nearly five feet long, with a hub at each end, from which spokes had apparently been chopped or broken. At first glance it seemed that these hubs had once held two wheels of unequal sizes, both of them now crowded in upon the axle so as to rest about a foot inward from the hubs on either side. One wheel was a solid metal pulley, some fifteen inches in diameter, and the other apparently an old disk wheel from a junked automobile, innocent of tire.

  “Your Mr. Hager must be a genius,” commented Jebs. “It’ll take another genius to know how that will work.”

  “Oh, it works,” said Sam. “This is a straight axle from the wreck of a specially made wagon. Each of these hubs is put on with bearings, to allow a fast, easy turn. Mr. Hager clamped and coupled the wheel and the pulley both fast to the axle. We can assemble the wooden framework of a water wheel to the big wheel, and when the stream over the dam sets it turning around, the pulley turns at the same speed. A belt connects it to the power plant, and there you are.”

  “I get it now,” cried Jebs, his mystification changing to enthusiasm as he examined the arrangement. “We can set the hubs in solid supports, and they stand still while the axle turns with the water wheel and the pulley.”

  “And look at the tags of angle iron Mr. Hager screwed on, for our wooden work to bolt to,” added Driscoll, pointing. “Well, you two seem to have shingled away hard while we were gone.”

  “We might have done a right much more if we hadn’t gone calling on your Mr. Hobert Tasman,” said Jebs.

  “Did you do that?” said Driscoll. “I’ll bet he ordered you away from his lair.”

  “You’d win that bet, but he changed his mind when we offered to read to him out of one of Sam’s books,” Randy told them. “Sam, will you let me take Lives of the Hunted over to him tomorrow?”

  “Certainly. Now, where do we start in, next? Jebs, if you want to get back at the dam, I’m with you there. Driscoll’s yearning to nail on more shingles.”

  Work continued until near sundown, when the four assembled in the yard once more. Sam stooped inside the tool shed.

  “Now, before we settle in for the night,” he said as he turned back with a sheaf of traps dangling from his big hand, “I’m going to set these. I used to trap mink and muskrat and raccoon with them. Maybe they won’t hold a very big wild dog if they snap on him, but they’ll pinch his toe. Since that pack drifted in pretty close last night, let’s prepare for another visit.”

  At the main approaches to sty, calf shed and chicken run, they set traps, fastening them to roots of trees or to pegs driven firmly into the ground.

  “I’ll feed the calves and the chickens,” offered Driscoll. “Jebs, let Sam show you and Randy about getting some com to the pigs. Then we’ll eat.”

  Supper was good and plentiful, as breakfast and dinner had been, but it was not quite so cheerful. Finally Driscoll paused in the act of giving a pork chop to Rebel, and looked at Randy.

  “Why the strong, silent pose?” he asked. “You haven’t spoken for a quarter of an hour, and neither has Jebs.”

  “I’m usually a steady talker, but I keep remembering Willie Dubbin and his dog notions,” said Jebs. “They sound silly in the daytime, but when the sun goes down—”

  “And I’m thinking about that blind man, Mr. Tasman,” put in Randy. “I remember how sharp his ears were. He could hear our movements and voices, and he knew right away how old we were, and made fairly good guesses about our way of thinking and doing. Blind folks are apt to hear better than people with good eyes.”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” said Jebs. “He ought to be able to hear those wild dogs at night. But he didn’t seem to worry about ’em. He never even mentioned wild dogs.”

  “He doesn’t have any pigs or chickens to attract them,” suggested Sam. “Maybe they leave him alone.”

  “But Mr. Martin said they might be dangerous to people,” reminded Jebs. “What if they didn’t find any pigs or chickens, but did find someone who was too blind to run or fight?”

  Rebel lifted his head from his plate of scraps and growled, deeply and softly.

  From out in the darkening woods rose a long- drawn, trembling cry to salute the moon.

  “That’s the dog they call Bugler,” muttered Jebs. “Yes, it’s getting dark,” said Sam Cohill. “The wild dogs are coming back.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ATTACK AND DEFENSE

  The dishes washed and stacked, everyone went to the front room. The night seemed chilly for June. Driscoll quickly kindled a fire of small chips and sticks on the big hearth. Sam Cohill lighted the lamp and sat down in his massive chair.

  “Wild dogs seem fantastic,” he said, his great fingers stroking his pointed beard. “If any animal seems tame, it’s a dog. Yet all dogs were wild once. Every # dog you see is descended from a wild ancestor.”

  “Can’t we drop the subject?” Jebs almost groaned. “It’s like Randy says, I’m getting to be like Willie Dubbin.”

  “If we could forget it, I’d be glad to drop
it,” replied Sam. “But even if we don’t talk about wild dogs, we’ll have them in our thoughts.”

  “I agree,” said Randy. “And what Sam says is true. Probably men have had dogs ever since the Stone Age. But in the days before the first dog was tamed, probably they sat around a fire, the way we’re sitting now, and in the night they could hear—”

  He broke off. Bugler’s quavering cry rang again. It sounded nearer. Rebel sat up and growled as before.

  “They could hear that,” finished Randy, trying to keep his voice steady.

  Rebel rose from beside the hearth. He stood stifflegged, and his cropped ears strained forward, his stubby tail cocked itself like a trigger. Once more he rumbled deeply in his throat. Driscoll, too, got to his feet.

  “I have a hunch we’re going to have visitors,” he said softly. “That’s the way Rebel acted last night when the wild dogs zeroed in on you two, out in the front yard.”

  Rising swiftly for his great bulk, Sam Cohill cupped a tremendous hand around the lamp chimney and blew into it. The flame went out.

  Darkness fell, so instantly that it was like diving into a heap of coal. Only a tiny red glow remained on the hearth, where the fire had died almost away. Everyone stood silent, the three boys, their upstanding friend, and the bull terrier. After a moment, Rebel crooned his low warning growl, and they heard his claws rattle on the floor boards. He was moving stealthily toward the kitchen.

  “Whatever it is, it’s coming toward the back yard,” muttered Driscoll tensely.

  “Wait another second or so, and your eyes will get used to the dark,” advised Sam.

  “I can see a little bit already,” said Jebs.

  “All right, let’s head for the kitchen,” Sam directed.

  They followed his towering back, a darker silhouette in the dusky room. Driscoll paused by the fireplace long enough to snatch down his machete and clear it from its sheath. In the kitchen, Sam groped hurriedly in a corner and passed something to Randy.